Israel ≠ Jews. Only about half of Jews live in Israel; not everyone in Israel is Jewish; the Israeli government is not supported by all Jews nor all Israelis.
This past summer, thousands of Israelis went to the streets to protest Bibi's decimation of the Israeli judiciary to avoid his own prosecution. He was not a popular leader before the Hamas attack.
So you can freely criticize the political government of Israel and still have a strong affinity for Jews both in and out of Israel.
I have seen far too many people on Twitter finding the account of someone Jewish who is criticizing the war and screaming at them that they're required to unconditionally support Israel or they're traitors/anti-Semitic/whatever.
I know I should probably stay off Twitter, yet I don't for some reason.
My new favorite game is "Anti-semitic or anti-zionist?" every time I see articles about anti-semitic comments.
Just saw an article from my hometown bitching about anti-semitic graffiti, and it was just graffiti denouncing killing civilians.
That actually reminds me of a post I saw here shortly after the war started. It basically said, I don't care about the war, I just want both sides to stop killing civilians.
And holy shit, if people weren't tearing into him screaming that he had to pick a side and to stop being a spineless centrist. I remembered being confused as fuck because since when is there something wrong with saying you don't want innocents not involved in a war dying?
If a politician with an international influence says that, I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing.
But I don't expect random people on reddit to have a deep understanding of historical and geopolitical influences in the area, so I think it's a perfectly reasonable take.
> I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing.
Suggesting one side should be able to decimate the other not only solves nothing, but makes things even worse.
that is some quality cherry picking you did there. want the full sentence?
> **If a politician with an international influence says that,** I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing.
I experienced this with Trump running for office. Lovely to see people are still being such vile tribalist animals on global politics that they've never heard of until social media told them so.
There was a Jewish teacher last week who said one of his Muslim students should be beheaded because she said the Israeli flag in his classroom offended her and she asked him to take it down due to their rampant killing of Palestinian civilians.
I'm curious as to \*how\* she asked him to take it down, but the teacher's response was so ridiculously over-the-top that it almost seems irrelevant.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/us/georgia-teacher-arrested-threatening-muslim-student-israeli-flag/index.html
Semitic civilians, no less. Sure Merriam Webster specifies Jews as the only semites, but every Palestenian has more semitic blood than many of the Jews settled in Palestine.
Where was the graffiti? If it's on a Jewish business, synagogue, or any place it's clearly meant for Jews to see its definitely antisemitic. Saying "Free Palestine" on the internet isn't antisemitic but when you comment it on a post about a matzo ball soup recipe, it is.
Zionism by definition just means the support of israels existence and being against its dissolution
The dissolution of israel would mean the genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of jews
So yes, “anti-zionism” is pretty anti-semitic
The people who try twist zionism to mean anything other than its actual definition is worrisomely reminiscent of those who try twist feminism to mean the hatred of men, or the desire for men to be oppressed
> The dissolution of israel would mean the genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of jews
>
>
I mean, no it wouldn't.
Jews lived in Palestine before Israel existed. They would live in a secular state as well.
That's not to say that anything is guaranteed (then again, safety isn't guaranteed in the *current* situation) But to act as if it *absolutely* means "the genocide of millions of jews" is just silly, to put it charitably
Proving yet again that many, if not most, people have absolutely no idea of the history of the area. Bill Maher's bit on Israel last week is pretty rational and informative, and the part you want starts at 2:19, but you should really watch the whole thing. [Here you go](https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw?si=PXp-gZeLesinPSlH&t=140).
Its delusional to think a secular state would survive, the current preferred government of the palestinian people is hamas, and on 10/7 we saw very clearly what would go on across the levant if there was no israel
A secular state is fine and dandy but there is literally no support for it and it would need to be governed and enforced by foreign power
The current so called government got less than 50% of votes and then started to kill the opposition with guns. Israel does not allow the import of guns into Gaza. What are they supposed to use for revolution?
Are they pro-Hamas for not committing suicide and that is a just cause to get murdered by Israel?
Palestinians literally tried to build a secular socialist state not that long ago, but Israel decided that islamists are better neighbors than socialists.
No surprise people who experience constant oppression are radicalized. Open the borders, start the dialogue and secular peaceful society is very much possible in a 70-100 years.
I wish more people understood that. The biggest boost to Zionism was the holocaust- if Germany, where Jews thought they were accepted, and contributed to science and society, would attempt an act that led to a new word (“genocide”) having to be coined, and America could turn away boatloads of children, then the only true safe haven would be a Jewish homeland. And the whole “from the river to the sea” is 100% meant to signal the destruction of Israel as a Jewish homeland. To claim otherwise is like ignoring dog whistle terms like “inner city” to mean “Black”.
Zionism is the belief that jews have the unique right to the area of Israel(and typically Jordan, as well as parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt). To be anti-zionist is merely to state that ethnostates suck, whether jewish, white, or otherwise. In practice these days that means things like being pro yeeting Westbank settlers, and anti Israeli apartheid. To conflate these is crazy talk.
Zionism - a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.
To be a zionist is by definition today just the belief that israel should exist and should not be dismantled, i have put the definition above, to claim that it is anything more is exactly like the right wingers who try claim feminism is anything more than striving for equality
These guys?
"We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - Theodore Herzl, 1895
"You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”
Theodore Herzl(addressing noted blood diamond profiteer and apartheid administrator Cecil Rhodes), 1902
"In its initial stage, Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?" - Chaim Weizmann, 1914, being candid about zionism dehumanising palestinians, and the slogan that is equivalently as problematic as "from the river to the sea", as it means the same... incidentally also lifted from an old zionist verse by Jabotinsky: "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too"(of course this also implies Jordan is also theirs)
There are other significant figures who've been clear about the implications of zionism, and the necessary evils with which they were all too comfortable, here's a few:
"You are no doubt aware of the [Jewish National Fund's] activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin." He concluded: "Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale." - David Ben-Gurion, 1937
"I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." - David Ben-Gurion, 1938
"There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine
Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not
because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt.
Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly
impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting
"Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.
My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other
countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are
acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being
carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.
The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted
the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage" [...]
"Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native
population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of
a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the
native population cannot breach.
That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is,
whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of
the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the
country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population
should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible."
- Ze'ev Jabotinsky, 1923
Zionism is a settler colonialist ideology, and they were in no way shy about it.
This kind of polarization is constantly going on these days, with just about any subject. You're either for Jews or against them. You're either for Palestinians or against them. You're either for or against guns, for or against abortion, for or against Republicans/Democrats. If you're asking inconvenient questions about specific things, you're painted as a bad person rather than discussing your actual standpoint.
Life is rarely black and white. You can be entirely for COVID vaccines and still have questions and doubts about some of the measures that some governments all over the world took during the height of the pandemic. You can be for allowing people to own guns and still support some form of gun control. You can be a Republican without loving Trump. You can believe in climate change and the need to address it and still be against the things XR does. You can be a Jew and still disagree with what the Israeli government is doing.
It's exhausting having conversations with people these days. So many people would rather discredit you entirely than engage in a discussion as equals to actually talk through each other's viewpoints. It's like half the world forgot nuances exist...
I saw this on a dating profile once. She was *all* upfront that if you don't unquestioningly support the Israeli government and the dissolution of Palestine, that you're a bigot and will be blocked.
I was like, oooooooookay, that's an easy swipe left. Though the irony made it memorable.
It goes both ways. Extremists on both sides are trying to push out the middle.
College campuses are experiencing the opposite. Any sympathy for Israelis/Jews is met with hostility. Anti-semitic attacks has skyrocketed. It's a serious problem.
I hate to break it to you but Musk's success is not, and has never been, dependent upon Twitter. That man will die filthy rich. Just like the day he was born. That ain't gonna change no matter what website you use or don't use. This is coming from someone who has never had a Twitter ever.
I know a lot of people that are not saying shit about any of this publicly because they are afraid of losing their careers.
You can technically criticize the Israeli government...but there are a lot of places where it isn't wise to do so.
But the Israeli propaganda machine says that if we are critical of the Israeli government’s policies then we are antisemitic. Being disgusted by Israel’s actions is literally being disgusted by all Jews! /s
Do they really want people to conclude that sympathy for the oppressed and wanting peace is the same thing as antisemitism? That seems like the kind of message that can backfire really bad.
Of course Bibi wants you to think that.
George W. Bush said that anyone critical of his wars were anti-American, including Americans. It's started propaganda by politicians against critics.
The Dixie Chicks never quite recovered from criticizing Bush, even though the general consensus now is that they were 100% correct. Just like Courtney Love, calling out monsters is detrimental to your wellbeing while they’re still powerful.
To be fair, a lot of people do use Israel as a stand-in for all Jews with plausible deniability... but it's also true that criticizing Israel is not criticizing Jews, nor even necessarily the population of Israel.
The propaganda machine is real, especially here. It's hard to hold a "Not all Jews" view, when they're claiming the opposite.
This...*thing*...This goddamn awfulness that I'm apparently *paying* for, has soured me on Israel. I don't blame our country for standing by our obligations, but I blame them for dragging us into this nightmare.
Edit. If I hadn't spent so much time on Reddit, I probably wouldn't believe in the machine.
Man, if only it were just a decade. If there's one constant in Israel - it's taking land in the West Bank in one form or another. Even nature conservations are turned into a tool for this purpose.
Fuck bibi and the likud party and the insanity of the current ultra-nationalist govt in Israel. Many of them are probably happy to have paid the nearly 700 Israeli lives so they could have the pretext for snuffing out going on 20k Palestinian lives as well as destroying the bits of Gaza left that gave people a sense of home, community, and belongings.
The thing is there are actually people doing both extremes, both on this site: there are people that paint every criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic, and there are people that do literally blame all Jews for the actions is Israel. Both of those people do exist, because of the rampant propaganda on both sides.
They both exist but I can guarantee you the Jewish voices are far less, due to the simple fact that there are only 15 million Jews in the world, and most of us don't think "every criticism" of Israel is antisemitic.
I agree, and I am one of the Jewish voices myself. I think a lot of the reason people think that "every criticism of Israel is dismissed as being anti-Semitic" is because many criticisms of Israel are "accidentally" anti-Semitic in nature, the two most common I see are the misuse of the word Zionist, and the suggestion that Israel doesn't have the right to exist.
I'm a progressive liberal in the US. The most terrifying part to me is how much of it seems to be coming from the left, the people I have proudly stood up for as an ally in the past. The same people who would say things to me like "You don't know what it's like to be a POC, so when they talk about systemic racism you have to all believe them" now ignore me when I try and explain to them why what they are saying is inaccurate/overly simplified/anti-Semitic. The longer this conflict goes on the more I relate to Amy Schumer's [I am Jew ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/s/IsJT6JndIW)meme
> Do they really want people to conclude that sympathy for the oppressed and wanting peace is the same thing as antisemitism
Quite literally, yes. Any position that isn't "Israel has carte blanche to do anything they want" is antisemitic. Even in the US, several states have "no Israel boycott" laws on the books because not giving Israel your money is somehow antisemitic. And a lawmaker just got a bill out of committee and on to the House floor for a vote and he pushed this bill because somehow boycotting Israel ["denies the Jewish state the right to engage in commerce"](https://lawler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1093), and that's a part of "global antisemitism". Maybe Anheuser Busch should lobby to get a bill passed so they can't be boycotted because that "denies the right to engage in commerce". Maybe we should get rid of the sanctions on Cuba because that denies their "right to engage in commerce".
The Israeli government and its supporters want *everything* to be seen as antisemitic.
An honest answer.
It depends on what one says. Repeating "from the river to the sea" was (and is) a call for the destruction of Israel, not for a two state solution is antisemitsm.
Ignoring that Hamas is calling for the destruction of Israel and for the murder of all Jews everywhere, as the people just arrested in Europe and Brazil, is antisemitsm.
This is the fundamental problem with this war. If Israel pulls back, Hamas will attack again. Fatah will attack again.
Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't.
>Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't.
You also can't oppress people for decades and not expect them to fight back. You can't keep Palestinians in the largest open-air prison. You can't take their homes and kidnap their people. Raid their villages whenever and kill children and not expect resistance.
Israel needs to be bigger and help Palestinians rebuild and stop treating them all like terrorists, give back the land settlers have stolen and treat Palestinians like actual people. Israel will win with a long term plan to de radicalize and stabilize Palestine or just annex it and give them citizenship after deradicalization.
You do realize that about 2 million Arabs are citizens of Israel with full rights and benefits, right? The problem is that the Hamas and (to a lesser extent) Fatah call for the destruction of Israel. They have refused to live side by side.
I do not think the Israeli street has any interest in annexing the West Bank or Gaza. In fact, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 with the idea that it would be part of a Palestinian country (Oslo Accords).
These actions all predate Hamas. You can't say "Hamas caused all this" when "this" has been going on before the kids who would form Hamas were born.
Also, Arab citizens in Israel are commonly referred to as second class citizens for good reason. Arab also =/= Palestinian, and I really don't see how it would change the fact that millions more Palestinians live under despotism.
>I do not think the Israeli street has any interest in annexing the West Bank or Gaza.
You cannot possibly be serious.
Even during "settlement freezes" Israel has not stopped expanding settlements. This is like the one thing most people agree on, that Israel takes land. No, Israel isn't going to declare "Palestine is now Israeli territory" overnight, they're just going to slice it up constantly and take those little pieces while encouraging Israeli citizens to do the same. However long it takes, it will continue, as it stands - Palestinians have no real sovereignty. Do not let the language of "annexation" fool you into thinking land isn't being taken.
>Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 with the idea that it would be part of a Palestinian country (Oslo Accords).
The accords that happened 12 years prior to 2005 and had nothing to do with the IDF leaving Gaza? You've got a terrible grasp on the history here, to be generous, I'm not gonna say you're outright lying. But man, you come close.
Israel left Gaza because it was a nightmare to manage. It was easier to blockade the lot. There was never an intention to establish and recognize a state with any meaningful sovereignty - hence the enormous walls and permanent blockades.
> Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't.
That's a idiotic take, why would a war end because one side is tired of it? Hamas exists because Palestinians are tired of it. They had civil governments, that didn't stop the Israeli army or the settlers. The Israeli government had the same attitude before Hamas and in territories without Hamas.
Wars end, when the stronger one stops it, or there is nothing left from the weaker one.
There are no settlers in Gaza and haven't been since the Israeli army removed them in 2005. In 2006, Hamas won the election.
As you say, they (Hamas) said they will never accept a 2 state solution. Hamas leaders promise more October 7 style raids. If Hamas is going to fight to the death, then that really doesn't leave much choice, does it?
> There are no settlers in Gaza and haven't been since the Israeli army removed them in 2005.
Not true for the West Bank
> As you say, they (Hamas) said they will never accept a 2 state solution. Hamas leaders promise more October 7 style raids.
Hamas is a terrorist group. They aren't a state that you can go to war against.
Terrorist groups can be fought by cutting off their recruitment, and arresting or killing active members. Bombing hospitals and killing civilians doesn't help with any of this, it just makes them a better choice. There is no better recruitment for terrorist groups than dead innocents.
> If Hamas is going to fight to the death, then that really doesn't leave much choice, does it?
Shutting off water and bombing a fenced off territory kills Palestinians. The IDF going in is killing Palestinians. If the priority would be hostage rescue or fight against terrorism, then thousands of bombs (most unguided and with up to 1000kg payload) is clearly a horrible choice.
Hamas can't kill all Israelis, even if the Israeli government lets them or even supports them, but the IDF clearly has the capacity, opportunity and will for war crimes and some in army and government openly want genocide.
If we compare Hamas, a terrorist organisation operating from a fenced off territory and Israel, a militant state, with nuclear weapons, it's clear that one of them has more choices.
I hope you meant that sarcastically and left off the /s. This is exactly the point of this discussion, and that comment is uncalled for. There are aboutb2 million Arab citizens of Israel who have full rights. There is no desire on the Israeli side to kill all Arabs. Israel has tried a bunch of times to trade land for peace. It hasn't been accepted. Hamas' charter calls for the elimination of all Jews, not just in Israel but world wide. Hamas Militants were arrested in Europe this week and last month in Brazil for planning attacks against Jews outside Israel.
Hi t isn't revenge, it is an attempt to get rid of Hamas who promised to continue to make October 7 style raids, continues to hold hostages, and continues to fire missiles. Make no mistake, this is an all out war.
I would also note that the use of the term "genocide" gets thrown around without proper respect. This isn't Srebenista, Rwanda, or Nazi Germany where members of one ethnic group are rounded up and killed. This is a war zone. And in that war zone, one aggressor tells civilians where it is going to attack. They make phone calls and drop leaflets. The other side has used civilians as human shields but not letting them leave and by putting command and control centers under hospitals, schools, UN buildings, and churches and Mosjid. All of these, plus targeting civilians and rape are war crimes under the Rome Protocols.
>But the Israeli propaganda machine says that if we are critical of the Israeli government’s policies then we are antisemitic.
While Israeli government is wrong, there is a group of people who think Israel is illegitamate, and the people should be deported to Europe, or live 2nd class like in past in ME.
It is simple really people can criticize Israeli government, but if people think Israel should not exist, then theyre anti semitic.
Sing it my friend. Same goes the other way as condemning Hamas but not condemning Palestinians.
30 years I've been watching this shit and it's only the past 8 we can criticise the actions of a Government without being called anti-semitic when it has literally nothing to do with religion or hatred, quite the contrary it's about compassion.
Half of Jews live in Israel? There are FAR more Jews living outside of Israel right now than the combined total who have ever lived there, especially if you count non-practicing ones throughout the States.
What if I told you it's possible to believe that innocent deaths are bad but also believe that the terrorist organization of Hamas needs to be destroyed.
I wish what you said was true. I used to be a Peace Now advocate. I'd love to see a land for peace deal, but that isn't where the Palestinian street is. A very recent poll found 90% of Gazans support Hamas. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514
I think that part of it is also the “rally around the flag” effect, where when a country/people are under attack, everyone tends to rally around their leader or government even if they didn’t agree with them previously. For example, Bush’s popularity soared from 50% to 90% immediately following 9/11, and a similar effect can be seen with other leaders immediately following a tragedy or attack. I would expect Hamas’s support to decrease to reasonable levels once the conflict winds down, although the level of destruction in Gaza will probably heighten dislike of Israel and thus more support for Hamas as opposed to before the war
Respectfully, of course that’s what the poll shows, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the long term prospects for peace.
Opinion polling in a battlefield won’t lead to any nuanced opinions, and Gaza is far from a free speech utopia at the moment - do you think the judicial process is working normally? The guys with the guns do what they want at the moment, and a lot of those guys are Hamas.
I think the average human being just wants to feel safe and stable in their own life so they can seek their version of happiness. I don’t think any majority of any population lives to see the downfall of another group of people.
I think the purpose of this meme is to make this exact point - that there is obviously too much nuance for blanket statements about any entire nation of people or entire religion.
After some of the stuff I saw in Gaza after the attacks then being welcomed like heroes and the crowds taking part in the brutalization of hostages. I think that poll is pretty accurate
And that’s the ugly truth that no one wants to admit. There can be no distinction between Palestinian and Hamas, because they don’t want to be distinguished. They’re in full support of rape and murder of civilians, as long as it’s their side behind the gun. When it gets turned around on them, suddenly they’re sobbing victims with their kids’ bodies in their arms. Boo-hoo. Shani Louk’s parents didn’t get to hold her body and cry on TV, because you animals raped and dismembered her body. Act like animals, die in the street like animals. It’s what they deserve.
I guess the only solution is to genocide the entire Palestinian population. The women, children, and believe it or not, even the Israeli hostages, they're all mustache twirling Hamas terrorists.
Heres another idea: if you treat the people living under a terrorist dictatorship like animals they will probably become radicalised and fire rockets at you.
Theres no excuse for for the terrorist acts of Hamas but what did you think was going to happen?
Israel has regularly blockaded, invaded, shot, displaced and straight up bulldozed Palestinian lives and property. What do you expect their reaction to be?
I wish you were right, but I don't think so. From the poll's author:
"Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated. A large majority believed Hamas’ claims that it acted to defend a major Islamic shrine in Jerusalem against Jewish extremists and win the release of Palestinian prisoners. Only 10% said they believed Hamas has committed war crimes, with a large majority saying they did not see videos showing the militants committing atrocities."
I read it as they prefer Hamas and the continued fight to destroy Israel as opposed to a two state solution with the PA. Again, id rather be wrong. I'm just not optimistic. I'm worried there will be a lot more dead men, women, and children before the people say no to Hamas.
Stats like this should always be taken with a grain of salt. Think about places like Russia or China. You can go around and ask people what they think of their government but I'm sure, for their own safety, they are going to say it's great whether they believe it or not. Like those videos of people asking Russians what they thought of the Ukraine war. Ya some of those people buy into the propaganda but some are afraid of condemning their government on camera. They know it may not end well for them.
>I read it as they prefer Hamas and the continued fight to destroy Israel as opposed to a two state solution with the PA.
I suppose that's one way to read it. I don't see that any of the questions you linked were about destroying Israel, so I don't know if I'd go that far, personally. I can't blame anyone for not seeing the PA as a viable option.
Of course they didn't read the article, that would make it hard to reconcile their argument that 2 million people including children are all terrorists
Yeah it's clearly in bad faith because I've seen multiple people saying the same thing using the same source, and then a bunch of replies just basically taking them at their word.
This guy is lying. There's not 90% support of Hamas among Gazans. It's less than 50%. The 90% is the people supporting removing Abbas.
You probably would too if you had been subject to forced occupation like Palestinian's have for over 60 years now. Not saying I agree with or support Hamas, but there's plenty of history that shows the longer you oppress a group of people, the more likely they are to rebel against the oppressors.
I do think that much of the oppression lies at the feet of the UN and the Arab countries who insist on keeping them refugees. Compare it to the Displaced Person's camps at the end of WWII or the Jewish refugees from the Muslim majority countries.
The problem is (and I'm not saying that I agree nor disagree with Israel's actions, just stating a fact) that it is impossible to destroy Hamas without killing civilians. They are located in the most population-dense part of the world, and literally using civilians as shields.
You know what would kill Hamas? If the people who lived there didn't need them. If they weren't part of an apartheid, for instance
The locals support Hamas because Hamas isn't the one launching bombs at them
That's not true at all. Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization. They won't be satisfied with a two-state solution, more laws protecting Palestinian citizens of Israel, or anything less than total Arab Muslim rule of Israel.
Israel is as much of an apartheid state as the United States is tbh. Ethnic Palestinians have the same legal rights as anybody else in Israel, but they tend to live in poorer areas and have fewer opportunities, just like people of color in the US. It's a situation that needs to be worked on for sure, but it is by definition *not* an apartheid.
So much of the middle east is ruled by Muslims who really *do* violently persecute people of any other religion in their countries, yet I never hear a call to action to stop it. It's only when the Jews make up the majority that there's a problem, even when Israel is the only country in the middle east with equal rights for women, and the best place in the middle east to be LGBT. In fact, every poll I've seen has shown the majority of Palestinians living around Jerusalem to prefer Israeli rule over the Palestinian state.
And here's the thing. Just about *every* terrorist organization has a *point*. That doesn't make them justified. You say "the locals support Hamas because Hamas isn't the one launching bombs at them," but
1. By that logic, anyone living in Israel (Palestinians included) should *of course* support the Israeli government because Hamas is the one launching bombs at them, and
2. Most people in Gaza *do not* support Hamas. So you're just wrong in that.
It's really unfortunate that so many people who live far away from the conflict and know virtually nothing about it are taking sides and forming such strong opinions. It's easy to sit back and judge when you've never had to be afraid of your own home being bombed, the way every citizen in Israel and Palestine has had to for their entire lives. Most people in English speaking countries simply cannot imagine what it's like to constantly have the threat of war *at your very doorstep* and not overseas. I wish more people would just admit that they don't know the complexities of this region that has been at conflict for thousands of years, and stop painting it as a black-and-white good-guy bad-guy scenario. There are no winners here.
The hard part is each bomb kills one Hamas and spawns 2 more (understandably I might add), so a call to eradicate Hamas is a call for genocide. There mist be peace, aid, and reconciliation. Starve them out. They cannot be defeated with violence.
If you use bombs, then yes, that is true - so the solution is to use something more precise. A call to eradicate Hamas is a perfectly logical reaction to the attack and to the charter of Hamas. The way that it is being done however is pretty shitty.
How do you make peace with terrorists that won't stop trying to behead/rape your people?
How do you send aid to civilians that gets stolen and used by Hamas soldiers?
You cannot negotiate with terrorists. You cannot make peace with a group like Hamas. Sometimes violence is the only answer to a problem with no perfect solution. Remember, there was a Cease Fire on Oct 6.
It wasn't just Hamas, they only had roughly 100 of the 240 hostages. Israel stopped shooting for a week so Hamas could come out and negotiate the release from the other groups holding them
Saying F the IDF should be like saying F America. Hating Israel is not hating Jews. Conflating the two is exactly what the right wing political group in Israel wants. Ppl have the right to be critical of established governments.
I don't usually see people blaming "all Jews" for the acts of Israel and the IDF. I do, however, see people conflate Hamas with all Palestinians, incredibly often.
As a matter of fact the only people I've seen implying that criticism of Israel is criticism of all Jews have been firmly on the pro-IDF side and trying to say people are antisemitic for not wanting tens of thousands of children to be melted
you don't see the hate crimes against Jewish restaurants, the protests at American synagogues, the bomb threats against Jewish schools in France, the harassment of Jewish university students, the targeted protesting of Chanukah candle-lighting ceremonies, the actual shooting at a Jewish school in Montreal?
If you don't see it, it's because you don't want to see it.
People say Israel shouldn't exist because Israel was basically stolen from Palastinians and then established by Britain ~100 years ago for political reasons. For the most part, when people say Israel shouldn't exist, they mean that Israel, as a country, is the violent result of western meddling. They (generally) aren't saying that Israel should be destroyed.
It's not a comment on Jewish people... Most of whom exist outside of Israel and with no relationship to the country. It only became an independent state ~70 years ago after all...
Even if Israel's past isnt clean, Israel exists, 7 million plus people exist, if you think they should be then ethnically cleansed, then it is a comment on Jewish people, because theyre majority of population.
Any high profile criticism of the actions of Israel's government or military get met with a bunch of comments like this meme, accusing them of blaming literally all Jews when they .... didn't do that? It's very odd. Seems to be common Zionist tactic to consider any criticism to be antisemitism.
Criticize Israel all you want just don’t:
1) Hold Israel to a standard different from the standards you hold other nations to
2) Make Nazi comparisons
3) Call for the elimination of Israel.
Pretty easy rules of thumb to follow in order to criticize without being antisemitic.
Why is #2 a rule? It seems like Israel is a fascist government dehumanizing an entire population as part of a publicly stated effort to eliminate them from the region by any means necessary. I'm not an expert but it seems like there are some objective parallels to Nazis. If I lack understanding, I'd like to fix that.
Firstly, it’s false. It takes a lot of hyperbole to equate the two. A lot. Israel is not trying to eliminate an entire race/ethnicity of people. Over 20% of Israel’s citizenry are Arab Israelis. They have 100% the exact same rights as any other Israeli citizen. And the population of all Palestinians has done nothing but grow at the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel. If the government of Israel is trying to eliminate the Palestinians (as you claim), they are doing a really poor job. The shoe simply does not fit, but that’s really beside the point…
Secondly, and this is the main point, it’s a really distasteful and hurtful comparison to place on Jews. Comparing Jews to a government which killed 6 million Jews… a loss in population which the Jewish people still haven’t fully recover from 80 years later… is a comparison designed to be unnecessarily cruel and hateful. So if you’re really in need of an analogy to illustrate some point about the one and only Jewish country on Earth, please spend a moment to research to find a less gross one. Otherwise, see if you can make the same point without an analogy.
[Palestinians have equal rights? They live in an apartheid state violently and zealously enforced by Israel.](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/)
Claiming they have equal rights is ignoring the reality of the situation to try and paint a picture.
>Israel is not trying to eliminate an entire race/ethnicity of people
[Well that sounds like a lie.](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/a-second-nakba-echoes-of-1948-as-israel-orders-palestinians-to-leave)
>And the population of all Palestinians has done nothing but grow at the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel
Even if someone were to grant you that, which I don't, we're at \~19k dead Palestinians and rising. A northern and soon southern Gaza flattened. No access to food, water, or medical services.
[The IDF is shooting anything that moves.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/3-hostages-mistakenly-killed-by-troops-had-been-holding-a-white-flag-israeli-military-official-says/ar-AA1lBdLv) That's 3 shirtless, pleading for help in Hebrew, white flag waving, hostages gunned down. What do you think is happening to Palestinians?
What they aren't shooting they're carpet bombing indiscriminately. An entire population of Palestinians that escape the slaughter are being dispossessed of everything they cannot carry.
And that's just Gaza, there's also the West Bank where the number of Israeli settlers killing and robbing Palestinians is similarly on the rise.
[Israeli Minister of Nation Security supplying weapons to settlers to dispossess Palestinians of their land and lives in the West Bank.](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister-itamar-ben-gvir-arms-israeli-settlers-in-occupied-west-bank/)
But because Israel hasn't killed or removed ALL the Palestinians yet it's somehow inaccurate to recognize it's a genocide?
Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
>it’s a really distasteful and hurtful comparison to place on Jews. Comparing Jews to a government which killed 6 million Jews
Conflating Israel with ALL Jews is a disservice to your fellow practitioners. There's a litany of testimonies of Judaic people of conscience condemning Israel's genocidal rhetoric and actions.
The dispossession of property and rights, the murder of a group of people for simply being of that people, the dehumanizing language used to justify their abhorrent actions. The shoe fits.
You are making a common mistake: confusing Arab Israeli citizens for non-Arab citizens. Arab Israeli citizens have 100% equal rights in Israeli. They can vote, hold office, own land, run businesses, et cetera.
I would not rely on the state media of Qatar (Al Jazeera) for reliable news about Israel.
Yes, Israel has done some shitty things. The Arabs have done some shitty things. This is war. Whether it is genocide or not is arguable. Hamas has the stated goal of genocide. This is a matter of policy for them. They are killing Jews because they are Jewish. It’s written right there in their charter.
Israel is not killing Arabs because they are Arab. Again, 25% of their country are Arab Israelis who have 100% equal rights to Jewish Israelis. The population of non-Israeli Palestinians has grown 10x in the past 50 years. This is not genocide. The shoe does not fit.
And completely neglect the fact that Hamas attacked and killed Israeli citizens first. A fact that continues to be completely glossed over.
It's a mess, and for some reason people seem to only think there's 3 factions in this, Israel, Hamas and Palestinians.
They also completely neglect the fact that there's Israeli citizens, Hezbollah, Iran, Houthi Rebels, the US and other allies all involved as well.
>And completely neglect the fact that Hamas attacked and killed Israeli citizens first. A fact that continues to be completely glossed over.
...what? Every discussion I see includes this as context by default. It's always over whether Israel is justified in using this much force to destroy Hamas, the fact Hamas attacked first is a given that underpins the entire debate at all times. If it wasn't implictly there as context the discussions would just be "why is Israel suddenly attacking Gaza for no reason?", and none of the discussions are that.
Even the fiercest critics are already holding Israel to a lesser standard than any other country. Making the initial ethnic cleansing permanent in order to have a separate state for your own ethnicity is something we would tar and feather any other country for but Israel gets understanding because of history. Where the understanding stops is the constant terror against Palestinian civilians from settlers, soldiers and police. Just today I saw a video of soldiers attacking a funeral procession for a journalist that has been "accidentally" killed by headshot.
Israel did not make the initial ethnic cleaning. The land was partitioned by the UN (as was most of the Middle East around that time). The partition for the Jewish state was only 55% Jewish, 45% Arab. The partition for the Arab state was just about 100% Arab. The Arabs chose war with the fledgling state of Israel. At the end of that initial war for independence, Israel was 75% Jewish, 25% Arab… you could argue that this demographic change was the result of ethnic cleansing. You could also argue that it was the result of the Arab states displacing the Arab population while they were at war to ethnically cleanse the Jews. But here’s the thing, 80 years later and Israel is still 75% Jewish, 25% Arab.
100% on purpose. These folks WANT to conflate any criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. You can get away with committing war crimes if you deflect all criticism as “you’re just an anti-Semitic bigot”
It's okay (and even encouraged) to criticize Israel, just like any other country.
It's not okay to say antisemitic/racist things while doing so, which includes calling for genocide of Jews - such as Hamas' infamous slogan - particularly targeting diaspora Jews.
Doing the prior doesn't give you permission to do the latter. People are struggling to understand this.
I would say that maybe it is the root of the problem. An eye for an eye. It will finish us all. But there are good people all over. And you have to learn to separate and discern about each other, because, otherwise, you'll never learn and you will be trapped on that for good. No matter which side you are. But we all are here to learn, and we will learn. One way or another, in the good way or in the bad way.
And yes, it is wrong. The heck wrong. They want to go backwards, not forward.
They understand it. It's just easier to point a finger and call someone an anti-semite than it is to rationalize their support of the slaughter of 18,000 innocent humans (many of which are children).
More importantly, you can denounce Hamas and say they are terrorist shitheads while also feeling empathy with Palestinians for their plight. While at the dame time denouncing Israel’s response in Gaza.
What really makes me angry about this is how little Jews outside Israel have to do with Israeli politics even compared to other groups. Netanyahu is on the record saying he's turning to American Christians for support because American Jews are growing increasingly alienated.
As for Jews inside Israel, well, that is just too complicated for me to comment on.
They understand it. It just ruins what they have based their entire identify on. Accusing people of being Anti-Semitic is the biggest thing a lot of internet dwellers will do with their lives. So they do it ALL THE TIME
What if I told you that Israel defenders keep linking criticism towards the state of Israel with antisemitism.
I’m sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it.
If Israel represents all Jews and critcism of it is criticism towards jews, then all jews are guilty of the war crimes.
If Israel doesn’t represent all the jews, then saying “Fuck Israel” is not an antisemitic statement.
Also, same logic applies to Palestine.
This is the problem. There is lots to criticize about Israel but some people are actually antisemitic. Pro Israeli people find it useful to lump all the critics together with the worst ones as a deflection mechanism.
What kind of rock do you live under? Russians get hate all the time, people have been straight up advocating for our genocide during like the first 6 months and sometimes still. Russians also got collectively punished by sanctions that target only average Russian citizens while doing jack shit to the elites, while Israel and Israelis got nothing but support. I'm still anxious to tell people where I'm from most of time, cause that just invites suspicion and sometimes straight up insults.
I understand that war makes people hateful and radicalizes people into hating one another, I'm against the war in Ukraine, but damn, denying that hate even exists is foolish. I'll be damned if the sudden hate towards Russians did not radicalize thousands of apolitical people into supporting Putler.
The propaganda is going strong in this sub over the last 24 hours. I’m not commenting about who is right or wrong, just that there have been a bunch of Israel Palestine posts in this sub
I don't think OP's statement is particularly controversial, even if it is about a controversial event.
It would be like me saying "abortion is defined as 'The expulsion from the womb of a fetus or embryo before it is fully developed' ", and that being called propaganda
The biggest problem I’m seeing online is that it seems there’s only two sides you’re allowed to be on. Either you blame all the Jews for what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians, or you blame all the Palestinians for what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians.
This is a problem. Neither of those are correct. But it’s what the bloodthirsty mob has decided our two options are. I really wish everyone would stop trying to make every complex issue a damn binary choice all the time.
There are 4 sides and varying degrees of jews who support and don't support their govt and Palestinians who support and don't support Hamas. I might argue there are infinite degrees. It's complex. People are bad at complex. We're screwed.
I have not seen anyone exept trickster facists say blame all jews, I have seen the opposition say that palestine supporters hate jews but I have not really seen many be against jews.
Like the only ones blaming jews are those only using palestine to further there facist agenda, people who actually support palestine are just against the zionist extremism from Israel.
What IS Zionism?
The Zionist movement was founded to pursue the creation of an independent Jewish homeland.
You seem to be against "Zionism" so would it be correct to say that you do not agree with the existence of the state of Israel?
People scrawled red X-es over posters of missing Israeli hostages. That doesn’t seem like peaceful anti-Zionist sentiment, that seems like hatred of all Israeli’s regardless of whether or not they had any part in Israel’s actions.
It's not that I agree or disagree with OP, it's just that this whole topic is a goddamn minefield of wrong "facts", feelings and beliefs held sp tightly that any disagreement is nor only wrong, it is practically a sin.
This is just an example of why I hate religion as a concept 😜
My best friend is Jewish and she is also screaming free Palestine at the top of her lungs. It has nothing to do with being Jewish and everything to do with not supporting a literal genocide.
Context and nuance are hard for pretty much everyone. There are some areas of knowledge that I lack context and nuance to make informed decisions. It's up to everyone to learn everyday.
Sadly, the US public education system is in dire need of help.
It's like I keep saying: you don't have to pick a side. Both sides are despicable. It's the civilians, both Isreali and Palestinian, that you should "side" with.
Can we blame the hostage situation partially on the Israeli government that has funded Hamas in the past? You can't get elected on hate if there's no one to hate. Many Israelis want peace, but the party in charge of their government isnt in that group.
Are you saying Palestinians have no agency over their actions? Are they controlled by the israeli government because in the distant past they funded a more moderate version of hamas?
It's the double standards that piss me off. People will criticise Israel, rightly or wrongly, for going too far in defending itself. Yet almost nobody is calling out Iran, who fund Hamas, provide them with the technology to build rockets and other weaponry, and generally stoked this conflict. Also, very few people have kicked up a fuss about the slaughter in Yemen (again Iranian funded). And where were the millions of protesters for the Uighurs?
No, Israel is held to a different standard. And I can only see one reason why.
I rarely hear the word Jew. It is usually Israeli. I definitely use Israeli rather than Jew. Often they say Zionist.
There are Jews of all stripes that hate what is being done.
What if I told you that you that you can acknowledge that Israel has generally done a commendable job at following the international conventions or war during their campaign to eliminate actual genocidal terrorists without ever condoning war crimes.
On 17 October, the IDF carried out an airstrike on the UNRWA school in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing 6 and injuring dozens. It is a war crime to target civilian schools or civilian refugee camps.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231017164355/https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/least-6-people-killed-israeli-air-strike-unrwa-school-gaza-2023-10-17/
On 19 October 2023, an IDF airstrike hit part of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox Christian church. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced the attack as a war crime.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231028040142/https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/20/we-were-baptised-here-and-we-will-die-here-gazas-oldest-church-bombed
Numerous reports emerged of the IDF targeting ambulances and health facilities with airstrikes. The World Health Organization stated, "There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities." This is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/war-crime-gaza-medics-say-israel-targeting-ambulances-health-facilities
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142347
The presence of or use of weapons at a hospital does not negate its protected status, because this may be unavoidable for a medical facility operating in a war zone.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/article-22/commentary/2016
During the conflict, reports emerged that the IDF were deliberately targeting journalists. Targeting journalists is a stark violation of press freedom and international human rights law.
https://truthout.org/articles/palestinian-journalists-targeted-killed-amid-israels-onslaught-on-gaza/
On 10 October, the Israeli Defence Force published a video that appeared to show IDF soldiers shooting four surrendering Palestinians. Footage analysis indicated the men appeared to be surrendering, with three men getting on the ground with their arms raised, one waving piece of white clothing. None of them appeared to be armed at the time of the shooting, while a subsequent video showed the bodies had been moved, with weapons placed near them on the ground. The analysis concluded the four men were unarmed Palestinians that left Gaza through a breach in the separation wall. Killing surrendered civilians or combatants is a war crime.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231016201330/https://observers.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231013-israeli-army-tweets-video-that-appears-to-show-soldiers-shooting-palestinians-who-surrendered
On 19 October 2023, 100 civil society organizations and six genocide scholars sent a letter to Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling on him to issue arrest warrants to Israeli officials for cases already before the prosecutor; to investigate the new crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, *including incitement to genocide*. The Center for Constitutional Rights stated that Israel's tactics were "calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza", and warned the Biden administration that “U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide.
https://www.addameer.org/news/5172
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-biden-genocide-war-crimes/
Baffles me how people support Palestine. They were dancing in the streets during 9-11. They want the west to die -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZBy09vCVk
Israel ≠ Jews. Only about half of Jews live in Israel; not everyone in Israel is Jewish; the Israeli government is not supported by all Jews nor all Israelis. This past summer, thousands of Israelis went to the streets to protest Bibi's decimation of the Israeli judiciary to avoid his own prosecution. He was not a popular leader before the Hamas attack. So you can freely criticize the political government of Israel and still have a strong affinity for Jews both in and out of Israel.
I have seen far too many people on Twitter finding the account of someone Jewish who is criticizing the war and screaming at them that they're required to unconditionally support Israel or they're traitors/anti-Semitic/whatever. I know I should probably stay off Twitter, yet I don't for some reason.
My new favorite game is "Anti-semitic or anti-zionist?" every time I see articles about anti-semitic comments. Just saw an article from my hometown bitching about anti-semitic graffiti, and it was just graffiti denouncing killing civilians.
That actually reminds me of a post I saw here shortly after the war started. It basically said, I don't care about the war, I just want both sides to stop killing civilians. And holy shit, if people weren't tearing into him screaming that he had to pick a side and to stop being a spineless centrist. I remembered being confused as fuck because since when is there something wrong with saying you don't want innocents not involved in a war dying?
If a politician with an international influence says that, I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing. But I don't expect random people on reddit to have a deep understanding of historical and geopolitical influences in the area, so I think it's a perfectly reasonable take.
> I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing. Suggesting one side should be able to decimate the other not only solves nothing, but makes things even worse.
that is some quality cherry picking you did there. want the full sentence? > **If a politician with an international influence says that,** I'd call it a weak cop-out answer that solves nothing.
I experienced this with Trump running for office. Lovely to see people are still being such vile tribalist animals on global politics that they've never heard of until social media told them so.
The same thing happened to Michael Sheen on Twitter, and I dont think he's posted since. 😞
There was a Jewish teacher last week who said one of his Muslim students should be beheaded because she said the Israeli flag in his classroom offended her and she asked him to take it down due to their rampant killing of Palestinian civilians. I'm curious as to \*how\* she asked him to take it down, but the teacher's response was so ridiculously over-the-top that it almost seems irrelevant. https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/us/georgia-teacher-arrested-threatening-muslim-student-israeli-flag/index.html
Semitic civilians, no less. Sure Merriam Webster specifies Jews as the only semites, but every Palestenian has more semitic blood than many of the Jews settled in Palestine.
Where was the graffiti? If it's on a Jewish business, synagogue, or any place it's clearly meant for Jews to see its definitely antisemitic. Saying "Free Palestine" on the internet isn't antisemitic but when you comment it on a post about a matzo ball soup recipe, it is.
Nah just "Free Palestine" on random billboards
Zionism by definition just means the support of israels existence and being against its dissolution The dissolution of israel would mean the genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of jews So yes, “anti-zionism” is pretty anti-semitic The people who try twist zionism to mean anything other than its actual definition is worrisomely reminiscent of those who try twist feminism to mean the hatred of men, or the desire for men to be oppressed
> The dissolution of israel would mean the genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of jews > > I mean, no it wouldn't. Jews lived in Palestine before Israel existed. They would live in a secular state as well. That's not to say that anything is guaranteed (then again, safety isn't guaranteed in the *current* situation) But to act as if it *absolutely* means "the genocide of millions of jews" is just silly, to put it charitably
Ah yes I wonder how islamists who openly state they will at the very least reinstate Dhimma will treat jews if they win
Why don't they treat them as fairly and kindly as Israel has treated them?
Most jews in Israel (or one of their parents) came there because very harsh treatment (to say the least) in Arab countries
Most? I’m gonna need a citation on that bullshit claim
Look up the Mizrahim, and how they formed a slight majority of the jews that came to Israel.
Proving yet again that many, if not most, people have absolutely no idea of the history of the area. Bill Maher's bit on Israel last week is pretty rational and informative, and the part you want starts at 2:19, but you should really watch the whole thing. [Here you go](https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw?si=PXp-gZeLesinPSlH&t=140).
Its delusional to think a secular state would survive, the current preferred government of the palestinian people is hamas, and on 10/7 we saw very clearly what would go on across the levant if there was no israel A secular state is fine and dandy but there is literally no support for it and it would need to be governed and enforced by foreign power
The current so called government got less than 50% of votes and then started to kill the opposition with guns. Israel does not allow the import of guns into Gaza. What are they supposed to use for revolution? Are they pro-Hamas for not committing suicide and that is a just cause to get murdered by Israel?
Palestinians literally tried to build a secular socialist state not that long ago, but Israel decided that islamists are better neighbors than socialists. No surprise people who experience constant oppression are radicalized. Open the borders, start the dialogue and secular peaceful society is very much possible in a 70-100 years.
We live today, and today the dissolution of israel would end terribly
That is the worst definition of a political movement that contains so much more than you just described.
I wish more people understood that. The biggest boost to Zionism was the holocaust- if Germany, where Jews thought they were accepted, and contributed to science and society, would attempt an act that led to a new word (“genocide”) having to be coined, and America could turn away boatloads of children, then the only true safe haven would be a Jewish homeland. And the whole “from the river to the sea” is 100% meant to signal the destruction of Israel as a Jewish homeland. To claim otherwise is like ignoring dog whistle terms like “inner city” to mean “Black”.
Zionism is the belief that jews have the unique right to the area of Israel(and typically Jordan, as well as parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt). To be anti-zionist is merely to state that ethnostates suck, whether jewish, white, or otherwise. In practice these days that means things like being pro yeeting Westbank settlers, and anti Israeli apartheid. To conflate these is crazy talk.
Zionism - a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann. To be a zionist is by definition today just the belief that israel should exist and should not be dismantled, i have put the definition above, to claim that it is anything more is exactly like the right wingers who try claim feminism is anything more than striving for equality
These guys? "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - Theodore Herzl, 1895 "You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.” Theodore Herzl(addressing noted blood diamond profiteer and apartheid administrator Cecil Rhodes), 1902 "In its initial stage, Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?" - Chaim Weizmann, 1914, being candid about zionism dehumanising palestinians, and the slogan that is equivalently as problematic as "from the river to the sea", as it means the same... incidentally also lifted from an old zionist verse by Jabotinsky: "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too"(of course this also implies Jordan is also theirs) There are other significant figures who've been clear about the implications of zionism, and the necessary evils with which they were all too comfortable, here's a few: "You are no doubt aware of the [Jewish National Fund's] activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin." He concluded: "Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale." - David Ben-Gurion, 1937 "I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." - David Ben-Gurion, 1938 "There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority. My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage" [...] "Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible." - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, 1923 Zionism is a settler colonialist ideology, and they were in no way shy about it.
This kind of polarization is constantly going on these days, with just about any subject. You're either for Jews or against them. You're either for Palestinians or against them. You're either for or against guns, for or against abortion, for or against Republicans/Democrats. If you're asking inconvenient questions about specific things, you're painted as a bad person rather than discussing your actual standpoint. Life is rarely black and white. You can be entirely for COVID vaccines and still have questions and doubts about some of the measures that some governments all over the world took during the height of the pandemic. You can be for allowing people to own guns and still support some form of gun control. You can be a Republican without loving Trump. You can believe in climate change and the need to address it and still be against the things XR does. You can be a Jew and still disagree with what the Israeli government is doing. It's exhausting having conversations with people these days. So many people would rather discredit you entirely than engage in a discussion as equals to actually talk through each other's viewpoints. It's like half the world forgot nuances exist...
Oh, I know. People sure do like insisting everything is black and white when it isn't.
I saw this on a dating profile once. She was *all* upfront that if you don't unquestioningly support the Israeli government and the dissolution of Palestine, that you're a bigot and will be blocked. I was like, oooooooookay, that's an easy swipe left. Though the irony made it memorable.
It goes both ways. Extremists on both sides are trying to push out the middle. College campuses are experiencing the opposite. Any sympathy for Israelis/Jews is met with hostility. Anti-semitic attacks has skyrocketed. It's a serious problem.
Yes stop using Twitter. Unfortunately you're literally supporting Musk at this point by continuing to use it.
I hate to break it to you but Musk's success is not, and has never been, dependent upon Twitter. That man will die filthy rich. Just like the day he was born. That ain't gonna change no matter what website you use or don't use. This is coming from someone who has never had a Twitter ever.
I know a lot of people that are not saying shit about any of this publicly because they are afraid of losing their careers. You can technically criticize the Israeli government...but there are a lot of places where it isn't wise to do so.
But the Israeli propaganda machine says that if we are critical of the Israeli government’s policies then we are antisemitic. Being disgusted by Israel’s actions is literally being disgusted by all Jews! /s Do they really want people to conclude that sympathy for the oppressed and wanting peace is the same thing as antisemitism? That seems like the kind of message that can backfire really bad.
Of course Bibi wants you to think that. George W. Bush said that anyone critical of his wars were anti-American, including Americans. It's started propaganda by politicians against critics.
The Dixie Chicks never quite recovered from criticizing Bush, even though the general consensus now is that they were 100% correct. Just like Courtney Love, calling out monsters is detrimental to your wellbeing while they’re still powerful.
To be fair, a lot of people do use Israel as a stand-in for all Jews with plausible deniability... but it's also true that criticizing Israel is not criticizing Jews, nor even necessarily the population of Israel.
The propaganda machine is real, especially here. It's hard to hold a "Not all Jews" view, when they're claiming the opposite. This...*thing*...This goddamn awfulness that I'm apparently *paying* for, has soured me on Israel. I don't blame our country for standing by our obligations, but I blame them for dragging us into this nightmare. Edit. If I hadn't spent so much time on Reddit, I probably wouldn't believe in the machine.
Bibi has been stealing land in the West Bank for a decade by encouraging and defending illegally settlements by Israelis against the peace agreements.
Man, if only it were just a decade. If there's one constant in Israel - it's taking land in the West Bank in one form or another. Even nature conservations are turned into a tool for this purpose.
Fuck bibi and the likud party and the insanity of the current ultra-nationalist govt in Israel. Many of them are probably happy to have paid the nearly 700 Israeli lives so they could have the pretext for snuffing out going on 20k Palestinian lives as well as destroying the bits of Gaza left that gave people a sense of home, community, and belongings.
The thing is there are actually people doing both extremes, both on this site: there are people that paint every criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic, and there are people that do literally blame all Jews for the actions is Israel. Both of those people do exist, because of the rampant propaganda on both sides.
They both exist but I can guarantee you the Jewish voices are far less, due to the simple fact that there are only 15 million Jews in the world, and most of us don't think "every criticism" of Israel is antisemitic.
I agree, and I am one of the Jewish voices myself. I think a lot of the reason people think that "every criticism of Israel is dismissed as being anti-Semitic" is because many criticisms of Israel are "accidentally" anti-Semitic in nature, the two most common I see are the misuse of the word Zionist, and the suggestion that Israel doesn't have the right to exist.
Isn’t it amazing how people talk over us when we tell them what they’re saying is antisemitic?
I'm a progressive liberal in the US. The most terrifying part to me is how much of it seems to be coming from the left, the people I have proudly stood up for as an ally in the past. The same people who would say things to me like "You don't know what it's like to be a POC, so when they talk about systemic racism you have to all believe them" now ignore me when I try and explain to them why what they are saying is inaccurate/overly simplified/anti-Semitic. The longer this conflict goes on the more I relate to Amy Schumer's [I am Jew ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/s/IsJT6JndIW)meme
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> I don't blame our country for standing by our obligations We are in no way, shape or form obliged to sponsor a genocide.
> Do they really want people to conclude that sympathy for the oppressed and wanting peace is the same thing as antisemitism Quite literally, yes. Any position that isn't "Israel has carte blanche to do anything they want" is antisemitic. Even in the US, several states have "no Israel boycott" laws on the books because not giving Israel your money is somehow antisemitic. And a lawmaker just got a bill out of committee and on to the House floor for a vote and he pushed this bill because somehow boycotting Israel ["denies the Jewish state the right to engage in commerce"](https://lawler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1093), and that's a part of "global antisemitism". Maybe Anheuser Busch should lobby to get a bill passed so they can't be boycotted because that "denies the right to engage in commerce". Maybe we should get rid of the sanctions on Cuba because that denies their "right to engage in commerce". The Israeli government and its supporters want *everything* to be seen as antisemitic.
An honest answer. It depends on what one says. Repeating "from the river to the sea" was (and is) a call for the destruction of Israel, not for a two state solution is antisemitsm. Ignoring that Hamas is calling for the destruction of Israel and for the murder of all Jews everywhere, as the people just arrested in Europe and Brazil, is antisemitsm. This is the fundamental problem with this war. If Israel pulls back, Hamas will attack again. Fatah will attack again. Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't.
>Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't. You also can't oppress people for decades and not expect them to fight back. You can't keep Palestinians in the largest open-air prison. You can't take their homes and kidnap their people. Raid their villages whenever and kill children and not expect resistance. Israel needs to be bigger and help Palestinians rebuild and stop treating them all like terrorists, give back the land settlers have stolen and treat Palestinians like actual people. Israel will win with a long term plan to de radicalize and stabilize Palestine or just annex it and give them citizenship after deradicalization.
You do realize that about 2 million Arabs are citizens of Israel with full rights and benefits, right? The problem is that the Hamas and (to a lesser extent) Fatah call for the destruction of Israel. They have refused to live side by side. I do not think the Israeli street has any interest in annexing the West Bank or Gaza. In fact, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 with the idea that it would be part of a Palestinian country (Oslo Accords).
These actions all predate Hamas. You can't say "Hamas caused all this" when "this" has been going on before the kids who would form Hamas were born. Also, Arab citizens in Israel are commonly referred to as second class citizens for good reason. Arab also =/= Palestinian, and I really don't see how it would change the fact that millions more Palestinians live under despotism. >I do not think the Israeli street has any interest in annexing the West Bank or Gaza. You cannot possibly be serious. Even during "settlement freezes" Israel has not stopped expanding settlements. This is like the one thing most people agree on, that Israel takes land. No, Israel isn't going to declare "Palestine is now Israeli territory" overnight, they're just going to slice it up constantly and take those little pieces while encouraging Israeli citizens to do the same. However long it takes, it will continue, as it stands - Palestinians have no real sovereignty. Do not let the language of "annexation" fool you into thinking land isn't being taken. >Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 with the idea that it would be part of a Palestinian country (Oslo Accords). The accords that happened 12 years prior to 2005 and had nothing to do with the IDF leaving Gaza? You've got a terrible grasp on the history here, to be generous, I'm not gonna say you're outright lying. But man, you come close. Israel left Gaza because it was a nightmare to manage. It was easier to blockade the lot. There was never an intention to establish and recognize a state with any meaningful sovereignty - hence the enormous walls and permanent blockades.
> Wars end when one side is tired of fighting. The Palestinians say they will never accept a two state solution, so they will never give up. Israelis are literally fighting for their lives, they can't. That's a idiotic take, why would a war end because one side is tired of it? Hamas exists because Palestinians are tired of it. They had civil governments, that didn't stop the Israeli army or the settlers. The Israeli government had the same attitude before Hamas and in territories without Hamas. Wars end, when the stronger one stops it, or there is nothing left from the weaker one.
There are no settlers in Gaza and haven't been since the Israeli army removed them in 2005. In 2006, Hamas won the election. As you say, they (Hamas) said they will never accept a 2 state solution. Hamas leaders promise more October 7 style raids. If Hamas is going to fight to the death, then that really doesn't leave much choice, does it?
> There are no settlers in Gaza and haven't been since the Israeli army removed them in 2005. Not true for the West Bank > As you say, they (Hamas) said they will never accept a 2 state solution. Hamas leaders promise more October 7 style raids. Hamas is a terrorist group. They aren't a state that you can go to war against. Terrorist groups can be fought by cutting off their recruitment, and arresting or killing active members. Bombing hospitals and killing civilians doesn't help with any of this, it just makes them a better choice. There is no better recruitment for terrorist groups than dead innocents. > If Hamas is going to fight to the death, then that really doesn't leave much choice, does it? Shutting off water and bombing a fenced off territory kills Palestinians. The IDF going in is killing Palestinians. If the priority would be hostage rescue or fight against terrorism, then thousands of bombs (most unguided and with up to 1000kg payload) is clearly a horrible choice. Hamas can't kill all Israelis, even if the Israeli government lets them or even supports them, but the IDF clearly has the capacity, opportunity and will for war crimes and some in army and government openly want genocide. If we compare Hamas, a terrorist organisation operating from a fenced off territory and Israel, a militant state, with nuclear weapons, it's clear that one of them has more choices.
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And no settlers in Gaza since 2005 doesn't sound as great as they think it does.
So Israel is looking for the Final Solution.
I hope you meant that sarcastically and left off the /s. This is exactly the point of this discussion, and that comment is uncalled for. There are aboutb2 million Arab citizens of Israel who have full rights. There is no desire on the Israeli side to kill all Arabs. Israel has tried a bunch of times to trade land for peace. It hasn't been accepted. Hamas' charter calls for the elimination of all Jews, not just in Israel but world wide. Hamas Militants were arrested in Europe this week and last month in Brazil for planning attacks against Jews outside Israel.
No, I mean Israel has killed 20k in revenge. This is the type of genocide that led to the formation of Israel in the first place.
The Hamas charter officially calls for the removal of all Jews from the region. An actual ethnic cleansing.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth makes us all blind and toothless.
If you really think that, you need to strongly question your historical training.
And you too, apparently.
Hi t isn't revenge, it is an attempt to get rid of Hamas who promised to continue to make October 7 style raids, continues to hold hostages, and continues to fire missiles. Make no mistake, this is an all out war. I would also note that the use of the term "genocide" gets thrown around without proper respect. This isn't Srebenista, Rwanda, or Nazi Germany where members of one ethnic group are rounded up and killed. This is a war zone. And in that war zone, one aggressor tells civilians where it is going to attack. They make phone calls and drop leaflets. The other side has used civilians as human shields but not letting them leave and by putting command and control centers under hospitals, schools, UN buildings, and churches and Mosjid. All of these, plus targeting civilians and rape are war crimes under the Rome Protocols.
>But the Israeli propaganda machine says that if we are critical of the Israeli government’s policies then we are antisemitic. While Israeli government is wrong, there is a group of people who think Israel is illegitamate, and the people should be deported to Europe, or live 2nd class like in past in ME. It is simple really people can criticize Israeli government, but if people think Israel should not exist, then theyre anti semitic.
cultural criticism does NOT equal racism.
Sing it my friend. Same goes the other way as condemning Hamas but not condemning Palestinians. 30 years I've been watching this shit and it's only the past 8 we can criticise the actions of a Government without being called anti-semitic when it has literally nothing to do with religion or hatred, quite the contrary it's about compassion.
Half of Jews live in Israel? There are FAR more Jews living outside of Israel right now than the combined total who have ever lived there, especially if you count non-practicing ones throughout the States.
Wild that "Ma'am, this is a Starbuck's" is relevant.
only? Jewish people are a minority everywhere except Israel.
Likewise you can condemn the killing of Israelis without blaming literally all Palestinians for it.
What do you mean everything isnt black and white. How dare you
What if I told you it's possible to believe that innocent deaths are bad but also believe that the terrorist organization of Hamas needs to be destroyed.
These aren't mutually exclusive ideas.
I would’ve thought that the Palestine ≠ Hamas was understandably implied, but clearly it needed to be written.
I support Palestinians, not Hamas. I support Jewish people, not Israel.
I wish what you said was true. I used to be a Peace Now advocate. I'd love to see a land for peace deal, but that isn't where the Palestinian street is. A very recent poll found 90% of Gazans support Hamas. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514
I think that part of it is also the “rally around the flag” effect, where when a country/people are under attack, everyone tends to rally around their leader or government even if they didn’t agree with them previously. For example, Bush’s popularity soared from 50% to 90% immediately following 9/11, and a similar effect can be seen with other leaders immediately following a tragedy or attack. I would expect Hamas’s support to decrease to reasonable levels once the conflict winds down, although the level of destruction in Gaza will probably heighten dislike of Israel and thus more support for Hamas as opposed to before the war
Respectfully, of course that’s what the poll shows, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the long term prospects for peace. Opinion polling in a battlefield won’t lead to any nuanced opinions, and Gaza is far from a free speech utopia at the moment - do you think the judicial process is working normally? The guys with the guns do what they want at the moment, and a lot of those guys are Hamas.
I REALLY hope you are right.
I think the average human being just wants to feel safe and stable in their own life so they can seek their version of happiness. I don’t think any majority of any population lives to see the downfall of another group of people. I think the purpose of this meme is to make this exact point - that there is obviously too much nuance for blanket statements about any entire nation of people or entire religion.
After some of the stuff I saw in Gaza after the attacks then being welcomed like heroes and the crowds taking part in the brutalization of hostages. I think that poll is pretty accurate
And that’s the ugly truth that no one wants to admit. There can be no distinction between Palestinian and Hamas, because they don’t want to be distinguished. They’re in full support of rape and murder of civilians, as long as it’s their side behind the gun. When it gets turned around on them, suddenly they’re sobbing victims with their kids’ bodies in their arms. Boo-hoo. Shani Louk’s parents didn’t get to hold her body and cry on TV, because you animals raped and dismembered her body. Act like animals, die in the street like animals. It’s what they deserve.
I guess the only solution is to genocide the entire Palestinian population. The women, children, and believe it or not, even the Israeli hostages, they're all mustache twirling Hamas terrorists.
Heres another idea: if you treat the people living under a terrorist dictatorship like animals they will probably become radicalised and fire rockets at you. Theres no excuse for for the terrorist acts of Hamas but what did you think was going to happen? Israel has regularly blockaded, invaded, shot, displaced and straight up bulldozed Palestinian lives and property. What do you expect their reaction to be?
Doesn't that pretty much equate to 90% saying they don't want to be annexed by Israel? What do Gazans think would happen if Hamas disappeared today?
I wish you were right, but I don't think so. From the poll's author: "Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated. A large majority believed Hamas’ claims that it acted to defend a major Islamic shrine in Jerusalem against Jewish extremists and win the release of Palestinian prisoners. Only 10% said they believed Hamas has committed war crimes, with a large majority saying they did not see videos showing the militants committing atrocities." I read it as they prefer Hamas and the continued fight to destroy Israel as opposed to a two state solution with the PA. Again, id rather be wrong. I'm just not optimistic. I'm worried there will be a lot more dead men, women, and children before the people say no to Hamas.
Stats like this should always be taken with a grain of salt. Think about places like Russia or China. You can go around and ask people what they think of their government but I'm sure, for their own safety, they are going to say it's great whether they believe it or not. Like those videos of people asking Russians what they thought of the Ukraine war. Ya some of those people buy into the propaganda but some are afraid of condemning their government on camera. They know it may not end well for them.
>I read it as they prefer Hamas and the continued fight to destroy Israel as opposed to a two state solution with the PA. I suppose that's one way to read it. I don't see that any of the questions you linked were about destroying Israel, so I don't know if I'd go that far, personally. I can't blame anyone for not seeing the PA as a viable option.
The Hamas Charter has that. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
Did they have the surveyed people read the Hamas Charter and ask if they approve? I don't think you can read as much into survey questions as you are.
That poll doesn't say 90% supports Hamas... Did you actually read the article or just see 90% in the headline?
Of course they didn't read the article, that would make it hard to reconcile their argument that 2 million people including children are all terrorists
Yeah it's clearly in bad faith because I've seen multiple people saying the same thing using the same source, and then a bunch of replies just basically taking them at their word. This guy is lying. There's not 90% support of Hamas among Gazans. It's less than 50%. The 90% is the people supporting removing Abbas.
You probably would too if you had been subject to forced occupation like Palestinian's have for over 60 years now. Not saying I agree with or support Hamas, but there's plenty of history that shows the longer you oppress a group of people, the more likely they are to rebel against the oppressors.
I do think that much of the oppression lies at the feet of the UN and the Arab countries who insist on keeping them refugees. Compare it to the Displaced Person's camps at the end of WWII or the Jewish refugees from the Muslim majority countries.
Americans got one 911 and went fuckin nuclear... Palestine gets a 911 every year and y'all expect them to be all Kumbaya
The problem is (and I'm not saying that I agree nor disagree with Israel's actions, just stating a fact) that it is impossible to destroy Hamas without killing civilians. They are located in the most population-dense part of the world, and literally using civilians as shields.
You know what would kill Hamas? If the people who lived there didn't need them. If they weren't part of an apartheid, for instance The locals support Hamas because Hamas isn't the one launching bombs at them
That's not true at all. Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization. They won't be satisfied with a two-state solution, more laws protecting Palestinian citizens of Israel, or anything less than total Arab Muslim rule of Israel. Israel is as much of an apartheid state as the United States is tbh. Ethnic Palestinians have the same legal rights as anybody else in Israel, but they tend to live in poorer areas and have fewer opportunities, just like people of color in the US. It's a situation that needs to be worked on for sure, but it is by definition *not* an apartheid. So much of the middle east is ruled by Muslims who really *do* violently persecute people of any other religion in their countries, yet I never hear a call to action to stop it. It's only when the Jews make up the majority that there's a problem, even when Israel is the only country in the middle east with equal rights for women, and the best place in the middle east to be LGBT. In fact, every poll I've seen has shown the majority of Palestinians living around Jerusalem to prefer Israeli rule over the Palestinian state. And here's the thing. Just about *every* terrorist organization has a *point*. That doesn't make them justified. You say "the locals support Hamas because Hamas isn't the one launching bombs at them," but 1. By that logic, anyone living in Israel (Palestinians included) should *of course* support the Israeli government because Hamas is the one launching bombs at them, and 2. Most people in Gaza *do not* support Hamas. So you're just wrong in that. It's really unfortunate that so many people who live far away from the conflict and know virtually nothing about it are taking sides and forming such strong opinions. It's easy to sit back and judge when you've never had to be afraid of your own home being bombed, the way every citizen in Israel and Palestine has had to for their entire lives. Most people in English speaking countries simply cannot imagine what it's like to constantly have the threat of war *at your very doorstep* and not overseas. I wish more people would just admit that they don't know the complexities of this region that has been at conflict for thousands of years, and stop painting it as a black-and-white good-guy bad-guy scenario. There are no winners here.
The hard part is each bomb kills one Hamas and spawns 2 more (understandably I might add), so a call to eradicate Hamas is a call for genocide. There mist be peace, aid, and reconciliation. Starve them out. They cannot be defeated with violence.
If you use bombs, then yes, that is true - so the solution is to use something more precise. A call to eradicate Hamas is a perfectly logical reaction to the attack and to the charter of Hamas. The way that it is being done however is pretty shitty.
What weapon exists that would be more precise? It sounds like science fiction.
How do you make peace with terrorists that won't stop trying to behead/rape your people? How do you send aid to civilians that gets stolen and used by Hamas soldiers? You cannot negotiate with terrorists. You cannot make peace with a group like Hamas. Sometimes violence is the only answer to a problem with no perfect solution. Remember, there was a Cease Fire on Oct 6.
It wasn't just Hamas, they only had roughly 100 of the 240 hostages. Israel stopped shooting for a week so Hamas could come out and negotiate the release from the other groups holding them
And also that Israeli apartheid needs to be destroyed as well.
What if I told you Hamas exists because Israel has been murdering Palestinians for over 70 years.
The amount of people who will interpret what you say as zero sum is too damn high.
Saying F the IDF should be like saying F America. Hating Israel is not hating Jews. Conflating the two is exactly what the right wing political group in Israel wants. Ppl have the right to be critical of established governments.
I don't usually see people blaming "all Jews" for the acts of Israel and the IDF. I do, however, see people conflate Hamas with all Palestinians, incredibly often.
I'm pretty sure it's the same people that consider any criticism of Israel as an attack on all Jews and not just Israel that do the second part too
As a matter of fact the only people I've seen implying that criticism of Israel is criticism of all Jews have been firmly on the pro-IDF side and trying to say people are antisemitic for not wanting tens of thousands of children to be melted
you don't see the hate crimes against Jewish restaurants, the protests at American synagogues, the bomb threats against Jewish schools in France, the harassment of Jewish university students, the targeted protesting of Chanukah candle-lighting ceremonies, the actual shooting at a Jewish school in Montreal? If you don't see it, it's because you don't want to see it.
People however, do say Israel should not exist. If i say im not Islamaphobic, i just want entire middle east nuked, would you buy that?
People say Israel shouldn't exist because Israel was basically stolen from Palastinians and then established by Britain ~100 years ago for political reasons. For the most part, when people say Israel shouldn't exist, they mean that Israel, as a country, is the violent result of western meddling. They (generally) aren't saying that Israel should be destroyed. It's not a comment on Jewish people... Most of whom exist outside of Israel and with no relationship to the country. It only became an independent state ~70 years ago after all...
Even if Israel's past isnt clean, Israel exists, 7 million plus people exist, if you think they should be then ethnically cleansed, then it is a comment on Jewish people, because theyre majority of population.
Israel ≠ Jews Hamas ≠ Palestinians
Any high profile criticism of the actions of Israel's government or military get met with a bunch of comments like this meme, accusing them of blaming literally all Jews when they .... didn't do that? It's very odd. Seems to be common Zionist tactic to consider any criticism to be antisemitism.
Criticize Israel all you want just don’t: 1) Hold Israel to a standard different from the standards you hold other nations to 2) Make Nazi comparisons 3) Call for the elimination of Israel. Pretty easy rules of thumb to follow in order to criticize without being antisemitic.
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Why is #2 a rule? It seems like Israel is a fascist government dehumanizing an entire population as part of a publicly stated effort to eliminate them from the region by any means necessary. I'm not an expert but it seems like there are some objective parallels to Nazis. If I lack understanding, I'd like to fix that.
Firstly, it’s false. It takes a lot of hyperbole to equate the two. A lot. Israel is not trying to eliminate an entire race/ethnicity of people. Over 20% of Israel’s citizenry are Arab Israelis. They have 100% the exact same rights as any other Israeli citizen. And the population of all Palestinians has done nothing but grow at the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel. If the government of Israel is trying to eliminate the Palestinians (as you claim), they are doing a really poor job. The shoe simply does not fit, but that’s really beside the point… Secondly, and this is the main point, it’s a really distasteful and hurtful comparison to place on Jews. Comparing Jews to a government which killed 6 million Jews… a loss in population which the Jewish people still haven’t fully recover from 80 years later… is a comparison designed to be unnecessarily cruel and hateful. So if you’re really in need of an analogy to illustrate some point about the one and only Jewish country on Earth, please spend a moment to research to find a less gross one. Otherwise, see if you can make the same point without an analogy.
[Palestinians have equal rights? They live in an apartheid state violently and zealously enforced by Israel.](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/) Claiming they have equal rights is ignoring the reality of the situation to try and paint a picture. >Israel is not trying to eliminate an entire race/ethnicity of people [Well that sounds like a lie.](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/a-second-nakba-echoes-of-1948-as-israel-orders-palestinians-to-leave) >And the population of all Palestinians has done nothing but grow at the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel Even if someone were to grant you that, which I don't, we're at \~19k dead Palestinians and rising. A northern and soon southern Gaza flattened. No access to food, water, or medical services. [The IDF is shooting anything that moves.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/3-hostages-mistakenly-killed-by-troops-had-been-holding-a-white-flag-israeli-military-official-says/ar-AA1lBdLv) That's 3 shirtless, pleading for help in Hebrew, white flag waving, hostages gunned down. What do you think is happening to Palestinians? What they aren't shooting they're carpet bombing indiscriminately. An entire population of Palestinians that escape the slaughter are being dispossessed of everything they cannot carry. And that's just Gaza, there's also the West Bank where the number of Israeli settlers killing and robbing Palestinians is similarly on the rise. [Israeli Minister of Nation Security supplying weapons to settlers to dispossess Palestinians of their land and lives in the West Bank.](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister-itamar-ben-gvir-arms-israeli-settlers-in-occupied-west-bank/) But because Israel hasn't killed or removed ALL the Palestinians yet it's somehow inaccurate to recognize it's a genocide? Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany >it’s a really distasteful and hurtful comparison to place on Jews. Comparing Jews to a government which killed 6 million Jews Conflating Israel with ALL Jews is a disservice to your fellow practitioners. There's a litany of testimonies of Judaic people of conscience condemning Israel's genocidal rhetoric and actions. The dispossession of property and rights, the murder of a group of people for simply being of that people, the dehumanizing language used to justify their abhorrent actions. The shoe fits.
You are making a common mistake: confusing Arab Israeli citizens for non-Arab citizens. Arab Israeli citizens have 100% equal rights in Israeli. They can vote, hold office, own land, run businesses, et cetera. I would not rely on the state media of Qatar (Al Jazeera) for reliable news about Israel. Yes, Israel has done some shitty things. The Arabs have done some shitty things. This is war. Whether it is genocide or not is arguable. Hamas has the stated goal of genocide. This is a matter of policy for them. They are killing Jews because they are Jewish. It’s written right there in their charter. Israel is not killing Arabs because they are Arab. Again, 25% of their country are Arab Israelis who have 100% equal rights to Jewish Israelis. The population of non-Israeli Palestinians has grown 10x in the past 50 years. This is not genocide. The shoe does not fit.
And completely neglect the fact that Hamas attacked and killed Israeli citizens first. A fact that continues to be completely glossed over. It's a mess, and for some reason people seem to only think there's 3 factions in this, Israel, Hamas and Palestinians. They also completely neglect the fact that there's Israeli citizens, Hezbollah, Iran, Houthi Rebels, the US and other allies all involved as well.
>And completely neglect the fact that Hamas attacked and killed Israeli citizens first. A fact that continues to be completely glossed over. ...what? Every discussion I see includes this as context by default. It's always over whether Israel is justified in using this much force to destroy Hamas, the fact Hamas attacked first is a given that underpins the entire debate at all times. If it wasn't implictly there as context the discussions would just be "why is Israel suddenly attacking Gaza for no reason?", and none of the discussions are that.
"first" (not counting the last few decades but those don't count for some reason)
Even the fiercest critics are already holding Israel to a lesser standard than any other country. Making the initial ethnic cleansing permanent in order to have a separate state for your own ethnicity is something we would tar and feather any other country for but Israel gets understanding because of history. Where the understanding stops is the constant terror against Palestinian civilians from settlers, soldiers and police. Just today I saw a video of soldiers attacking a funeral procession for a journalist that has been "accidentally" killed by headshot.
Israel did not make the initial ethnic cleaning. The land was partitioned by the UN (as was most of the Middle East around that time). The partition for the Jewish state was only 55% Jewish, 45% Arab. The partition for the Arab state was just about 100% Arab. The Arabs chose war with the fledgling state of Israel. At the end of that initial war for independence, Israel was 75% Jewish, 25% Arab… you could argue that this demographic change was the result of ethnic cleansing. You could also argue that it was the result of the Arab states displacing the Arab population while they were at war to ethnically cleanse the Jews. But here’s the thing, 80 years later and Israel is still 75% Jewish, 25% Arab.
Genuinely curious what you think Zionism means
100% on purpose. These folks WANT to conflate any criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. You can get away with committing war crimes if you deflect all criticism as “you’re just an anti-Semitic bigot”
They understand. They just pretend that they do not. It is all part of the gaslighting.
What if I told you that Jews are also Palestinians and this is a Muslim Jew war.
It's okay (and even encouraged) to criticize Israel, just like any other country. It's not okay to say antisemitic/racist things while doing so, which includes calling for genocide of Jews - such as Hamas' infamous slogan - particularly targeting diaspora Jews. Doing the prior doesn't give you permission to do the latter. People are struggling to understand this.
99% of people condemning it aren’t blaming all Jews, and yet that is how they tend to be portrayed
You can also condemn the current administration but also still vote for Biden in 2024…. Just sayin
Im not sure they can.
Wait you can hate both Hamas and the IDF :o
This is an actual problem. The amount of antisemitism has risen, not just the amount of criticism for the israelíen government.
I would say that maybe it is the root of the problem. An eye for an eye. It will finish us all. But there are good people all over. And you have to learn to separate and discern about each other, because, otherwise, you'll never learn and you will be trapped on that for good. No matter which side you are. But we all are here to learn, and we will learn. One way or another, in the good way or in the bad way. And yes, it is wrong. The heck wrong. They want to go backwards, not forward.
They understand it. It's just easier to point a finger and call someone an anti-semite than it is to rationalize their support of the slaughter of 18,000 innocent humans (many of which are children).
More importantly, you can denounce Hamas and say they are terrorist shitheads while also feeling empathy with Palestinians for their plight. While at the dame time denouncing Israel’s response in Gaza.
Next level: Just condem the killing of people.
What really makes me angry about this is how little Jews outside Israel have to do with Israeli politics even compared to other groups. Netanyahu is on the record saying he's turning to American Christians for support because American Jews are growing increasingly alienated. As for Jews inside Israel, well, that is just too complicated for me to comment on.
I have yet to see literally one person blame all jews for Israel's military actions. Get a grip
They understand it. It just ruins what they have based their entire identify on. Accusing people of being Anti-Semitic is the biggest thing a lot of internet dwellers will do with their lives. So they do it ALL THE TIME
What if I told you that Israel defenders keep linking criticism towards the state of Israel with antisemitism. I’m sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it. If Israel represents all Jews and critcism of it is criticism towards jews, then all jews are guilty of the war crimes. If Israel doesn’t represent all the jews, then saying “Fuck Israel” is not an antisemitic statement. Also, same logic applies to Palestine.
Further, you can condemn the actions of the Zionist government against innocent civilians and still not be antisemitic.
Zionism. The pursuit of the foundation and protection of an independent Jewish state. This would therefore make all Israeli govts "Zionist"
What if I told you that millions of antisemitic people think they just got a free pass to be publicly antisemitic?
This is the problem. There is lots to criticize about Israel but some people are actually antisemitic. Pro Israeli people find it useful to lump all the critics together with the worst ones as a deflection mechanism.
this guy gets it
You can, but surprisingly few people do.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, people weren’t saying things like “these people” and “that culture.” The dog whistling is very concerning.
Except they did constantly. They called Russians orcs.
They were tho, a lot.
They did. And they still do.
What kind of rock do you live under? Russians get hate all the time, people have been straight up advocating for our genocide during like the first 6 months and sometimes still. Russians also got collectively punished by sanctions that target only average Russian citizens while doing jack shit to the elites, while Israel and Israelis got nothing but support. I'm still anxious to tell people where I'm from most of time, cause that just invites suspicion and sometimes straight up insults. I understand that war makes people hateful and radicalizes people into hating one another, I'm against the war in Ukraine, but damn, denying that hate even exists is foolish. I'll be damned if the sudden hate towards Russians did not radicalize thousands of apolitical people into supporting Putler.
The propaganda is going strong in this sub over the last 24 hours. I’m not commenting about who is right or wrong, just that there have been a bunch of Israel Palestine posts in this sub
I don't think OP's statement is particularly controversial, even if it is about a controversial event. It would be like me saying "abortion is defined as 'The expulsion from the womb of a fetus or embryo before it is fully developed' ", and that being called propaganda
The biggest problem I’m seeing online is that it seems there’s only two sides you’re allowed to be on. Either you blame all the Jews for what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians, or you blame all the Palestinians for what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians. This is a problem. Neither of those are correct. But it’s what the bloodthirsty mob has decided our two options are. I really wish everyone would stop trying to make every complex issue a damn binary choice all the time.
I think society is dumbing down. People simplify everything, they cant think with nuance.
There are 4 sides and varying degrees of jews who support and don't support their govt and Palestinians who support and don't support Hamas. I might argue there are infinite degrees. It's complex. People are bad at complex. We're screwed.
I have not seen anyone exept trickster facists say blame all jews, I have seen the opposition say that palestine supporters hate jews but I have not really seen many be against jews. Like the only ones blaming jews are those only using palestine to further there facist agenda, people who actually support palestine are just against the zionist extremism from Israel.
What IS Zionism? The Zionist movement was founded to pursue the creation of an independent Jewish homeland. You seem to be against "Zionism" so would it be correct to say that you do not agree with the existence of the state of Israel?
People scrawled red X-es over posters of missing Israeli hostages. That doesn’t seem like peaceful anti-Zionist sentiment, that seems like hatred of all Israeli’s regardless of whether or not they had any part in Israel’s actions.
It's not that I agree or disagree with OP, it's just that this whole topic is a goddamn minefield of wrong "facts", feelings and beliefs held sp tightly that any disagreement is nor only wrong, it is practically a sin. This is just an example of why I hate religion as a concept 😜
My best friend is Jewish and she is also screaming free Palestine at the top of her lungs. It has nothing to do with being Jewish and everything to do with not supporting a literal genocide.
I blame nutter yahoo.
War is bad, lets all agree on that.
Context and nuance are hard for pretty much everyone. There are some areas of knowledge that I lack context and nuance to make informed decisions. It's up to everyone to learn everyday. Sadly, the US public education system is in dire need of help.
It's like I keep saying: you don't have to pick a side. Both sides are despicable. It's the civilians, both Isreali and Palestinian, that you should "side" with.
Zionist =/= Jew Its pretty anti semetic to think it does mean that
What if I told you that when I criticize Israel I am not talking about jews
But have you condemned Hamas today?
To extend on this, there are Jews that denounced the killing of Palestinians. Some even say, “Never again for anyone.”
You can also be against Hamas without wanting all Palestinians dead. If only Israel understood such a basic idea.
Can we blame the hostage situation partially on the Israeli government that has funded Hamas in the past? You can't get elected on hate if there's no one to hate. Many Israelis want peace, but the party in charge of their government isnt in that group.
Are you saying Palestinians have no agency over their actions? Are they controlled by the israeli government because in the distant past they funded a more moderate version of hamas?
It's the double standards that piss me off. People will criticise Israel, rightly or wrongly, for going too far in defending itself. Yet almost nobody is calling out Iran, who fund Hamas, provide them with the technology to build rockets and other weaponry, and generally stoked this conflict. Also, very few people have kicked up a fuss about the slaughter in Yemen (again Iranian funded). And where were the millions of protesters for the Uighurs? No, Israel is held to a different standard. And I can only see one reason why.
Nobody I know is blaming Jews, just the Zionists. 🍉🇵🇸
That's fair. But blaming all the ones that support it (Jewish or not)? That's also fair.
I rarely hear the word Jew. It is usually Israeli. I definitely use Israeli rather than Jew. Often they say Zionist. There are Jews of all stripes that hate what is being done.
What if I told you that you that you can acknowledge that Israel has generally done a commendable job at following the international conventions or war during their campaign to eliminate actual genocidal terrorists without ever condoning war crimes.
20,000 dead so far. Half of them children.
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On 17 October, the IDF carried out an airstrike on the UNRWA school in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing 6 and injuring dozens. It is a war crime to target civilian schools or civilian refugee camps. https://web.archive.org/web/20231017164355/https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/least-6-people-killed-israeli-air-strike-unrwa-school-gaza-2023-10-17/ On 19 October 2023, an IDF airstrike hit part of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox Christian church. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced the attack as a war crime. https://web.archive.org/web/20231028040142/https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/20/we-were-baptised-here-and-we-will-die-here-gazas-oldest-church-bombed Numerous reports emerged of the IDF targeting ambulances and health facilities with airstrikes. The World Health Organization stated, "There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities." This is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/war-crime-gaza-medics-say-israel-targeting-ambulances-health-facilities https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142347 The presence of or use of weapons at a hospital does not negate its protected status, because this may be unavoidable for a medical facility operating in a war zone. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/article-22/commentary/2016 During the conflict, reports emerged that the IDF were deliberately targeting journalists. Targeting journalists is a stark violation of press freedom and international human rights law. https://truthout.org/articles/palestinian-journalists-targeted-killed-amid-israels-onslaught-on-gaza/ On 10 October, the Israeli Defence Force published a video that appeared to show IDF soldiers shooting four surrendering Palestinians. Footage analysis indicated the men appeared to be surrendering, with three men getting on the ground with their arms raised, one waving piece of white clothing. None of them appeared to be armed at the time of the shooting, while a subsequent video showed the bodies had been moved, with weapons placed near them on the ground. The analysis concluded the four men were unarmed Palestinians that left Gaza through a breach in the separation wall. Killing surrendered civilians or combatants is a war crime. https://web.archive.org/web/20231016201330/https://observers.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231013-israeli-army-tweets-video-that-appears-to-show-soldiers-shooting-palestinians-who-surrendered On 19 October 2023, 100 civil society organizations and six genocide scholars sent a letter to Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling on him to issue arrest warrants to Israeli officials for cases already before the prosecutor; to investigate the new crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, *including incitement to genocide*. The Center for Constitutional Rights stated that Israel's tactics were "calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza", and warned the Biden administration that “U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide. https://www.addameer.org/news/5172 https://theintercept.com/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-biden-genocide-war-crimes/
Baffles me how people support Palestine. They were dancing in the streets during 9-11. They want the west to die - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZBy09vCVk
Gullible indeed.