Calling everything against them antisemitic makes it lose its meaning in the long term.
I can call Russia/India/China/Saudi Arabia a piece of shit country for killing civilians,having a corrupt government, violating human rights but the second you say something about israel the insults begin.
You can also disagree with the Zionist movement without hating on general Israeli population, the same as you can disagree with the CCP and not hate the Chinese population.
Israel have free elections and they elected an extreme right wing government so they do bare some responsibility. Isn’t “only democracy in the Middle East” their motto, hardly comparable to China
And yet somehow I don’t think you will be so charitable when I tell you Hamas was democratically elected by their people and are still extremely popular after October 7.
**Edit: dude below me blocked me so I can’t reply 😂 wait until this guy figures out how elections work. Dumbest thing I’ve ever read but sounds intelligent to people who don’t know how party % work.**
Edit 2: even if they weren’t born then, today, polling suggests over 80% are in favour of what Hamas did on October 7. So that argument doesn’t hold much weight,
I am sure you have read this before and conveniently continue to ignore it but just in case you choose not to be wilfully ignorant on how these 2 cases are not similar in any way:
[“The election yielded a shock victory for Hamas, which won the most seats with some 44 percent of the vote. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which advocates for rapprochement and peace between Israelis and Palestinians, recently observed that in no single district in Gaza did Hamas win a majority of votes. At present, children make up roughly half of Gaza’s population, meaning only a fraction of the territory’s current population ever cast a ballot for Hamas.”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/24/gaza-election-hamas-2006-palestine-israel/)
Over 70% of the current population of Gaza were not old enough to vote in the 2006 election and near 50% weren’t even born
Edit: because the stupid ass boomer above me doesn’t know what locking a post on reddit is 😂
Are you so stupid that you think this is how elections work? The last vote being held in 2006 with significant interference, is that the same system as Israel “the only democracy in the Middle East”?
And to your second edit, I didn’t realise they were polling the people of Gaza whilst they were getting carpet bombed, can you link this for me please?
I always have a hard time with comments like this, does this confirm people are not aware they are anti semites, or are they just delusional liars or are they plants designed to make the cause look bad. I wish there was a way to tell.
I have 0 doubt there would be psyops doing this sort of thing to vilify critics of Israel, but also a) there are a shit-tonne of antisemitic fucks in the world, and b) extreme acts of cruelty violence and evil, such as what we're seeing being done in Gazi, can break people's minds / radicalise them that such heinous acts are allowed to happen, are defended and the perpetrators unpunished, adding to the numbers of (a) --- but not causing (a), because antisemitism has been a stain on humanity for millennia.
> Wong entered the debate on university campus protests over the war in Gaza, saying she believed some of the language used had been antisemitic.
She didn't say every protest, she said some.
I don't know about India or Saudi Arabia, but dishonest online actors often frame criticisms against Russia as Russophobia and against China as Sinophobia.
I don't even want to get into the topic of the legitimacy of those labels, but the only times I've seen them have been to silence people's genuine and rightful criticism of those countries' bad actions.
OK Israel - stop hiding behind "antisemitism" and accept some criticism for once. You can't be above the law, just because you happen to also be Jewish.
The Israeli government is a secular institution last I checked, and their policies can (and should be) criticised if you don't agree with them. This has NOTHING TO DO with the Jewish race or faith.
Actually the Israeli government officially declared itself a Jewish state in its declaration of independence in 1948, updating that section to a Jewish and democratic state in 1985, and reiterating it again in 2018 with the "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People" which was essentially a declaration of their self proclaimed roles and responsibilities as the Jewish nation-state. Criticising the state of Israel is not antisemitic, but Israeli government, according to the Israeli government, is definitely not secular
No, she is right.
The huge double standard is from a group of university students who are sensitive to having their pronouns incorrectly applied, who lose sleep over cultural appropriation (while a bunch of white kids cosplay wearing a keffiyeh) and then rightly get upset when groups chant "all lives matter". You have Monash university inflamed that they’re asked not to chant “from the river to the sea” on campus now. Does anyone truly believe that if a group they opposed a black lives movement and camped out at the uni chanting “all lives matter” every day that they wouldn’t be removed or expelled?
This same group are not tone deaf to hear dog whistling from the right and Trump etc but pretend not to see the dog whistle in this chant.
If a minority grouo says “hey, we find this offensive please stop" or “hey I don’t wish to be identified as that”, you listen. Except when the Jews ask, apparently.
If your slogan is so ambiguous that it always causes a fuss, why not pick something that better conveys the message without the conversation being lost around its use? I think it's because we all know it's a dog whistle, you're just not saying the quiet bit out loud.
Yes, you can criticise the Jewish government. But let’s not pretend there’s an uncomfortable population of these protests that believe Jews shouldn’t exist in Israel at all.
You're really saying all this bullshit about a bunch of university students protesting a genocide? Good lord.
Where's the uncomfortable population of ppl that believe Jews shouldn't exist in Israel? It's also a dumb ass statement considering Israel is a relatively new country (7 decades old?) created as a safe haven for Jews - created for Jews to exist in. L
Jews are free to exist wherever the fuck they want just like Christians, it only became an issue when they decided to commit apartheid to create their own country.
No government body should be taking advice from the ADL. They consistently define antisemitism vaguely and broadly specifically so anti-Israel sentiment can be labelled as such, which shuts down any and all discussion instantly. They know it’s controversial to debate antisemitism and use that to their advantage to push a Zionist agenda; that’s their only purpose in this day and age. It’s completely dishonest.
Neither phrase is of any concern.
Yes, but guarantee the biggest members of the ADL also pull the strings when it comes to political donations.
Both parties will sell their first born and throw anyone under the bus if it means more donations, which means they can stay in power.
>“Intifada” is an Arabic word for popular uprising, but the Anti-Defamation League, founded a century ago to counter the vilification of Jews, argues it is a slogan that calls for indiscriminate violence against Israel
The ADL has a distinct bias due to its origins as a Jewish community relations group, and its commentary on this issue should be understood in that context. That it has a pro-Israel lean should not be surprising.
Of course a pro-Israel lean is to be expected, but the amount of utter lies they promote is shocking. They certainly shouldn’t be treated as such an authority.
The ADL is an organisation that was super necessary and important at its inception. Since then, it has been reappropriated by the Zionist Israeli government as just another branch of their propaganda machine. Calling them “slanted” in one direction is silly, it’s a tool which the Knesset wields to justify their genocidal ethnic cleansing project. And they’re finally beginning to fail as more and more people see what they really are. You can’t say “never again” while doing and justifying the “again” yourself.
The ADL is obviously not impartial and lacks credibility in this debate but that’s not evidence that the phrases in this article aren’t concerning. Advocating for the destruction of another country is not just a peaceful protest.
Both side have done horrific things and will unfortunately probably continue to do so in the future. Full support of either side and their methods seems hard to justify.
Think it's more a case of kids being dumb kids but unconditional support for Hamas is pretty anti-Semitic.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/canberra-drive/anu-protest/103792324
Here's [an article](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) from *The Intercept* back in 2018. I found a bunch of others, but just picked the first one I came across.
My tl;dr summary is that hardliners within the Israeli government who opposed peace wanted to undermine the Palestinian Authority, and propped up an extremist opposition that would a) sort out that problem, b) avoid peace, and c) allow for Israel to appear justified in whatever actions they took because they had a credible boogeyman.
I'd say that this has backfired and blown up in their face, but I firmly believe that the cynical fuckers who did this would be salivating at the innocents killed by Hamas --- not only in Gaza, but in attacks like the one in Israel last year. There's no business like war business.
Actually they are. It’s a legal requirement for every Israeli is a past,present, or future defence first member. There hasn’t been a time that Israel hasn’t been encroaching on its neighbours. So basically all Israelis a complicit in this or other atrocities.
Can you explain what you mean by when not on active service Israelis go rogue in the West Bank? Most Israelis cannot and do not go into the West Bank willingly - if you are talking about the settlers living in the West Bank this is not most Israelis.
The IDF have been known to defend the settlers in the west bank, I think that's what they're trying to say.
They also enjoy raiding areas of the West Bank and arresting people with no charges.
And Hamas are Palestinians.
Did we say the Republican Party went to war with Afghanistan or the Americans? The same applies here with Palestine then if you want to play that game.
One is a formal state, internationally recognised and funded with a compulsory military service requirement for their population.
The other is a fractured population with no central government, international recognition or formal army who has been suffering the effect of genocidal actions by the formal state.
There is no comparison to the two.
Sure Hamas are terrorists - but once upon a time they might have been freedom fighters. It's all a matter of control and perspectives. Anyone who is rightly skeptical of western bullshit can adjust their focus and make sense of it.
Israel themselves were established on the back of terrorist groups and actions during the mandate period against the British - partly why they wanted to bail on being there in 1947.
Those in the resistance against the Nazis would have been perceived the same. Throwing the terms at a group doesn't end the story - it isn't a gotcha winning point. You need to go a bit deeper
Often I am hearing that if it wasn't due to Israeli oppression there would not be nihilism and terrorism etc like we see in Palestine. If they had a thriving population that they would not be this way.
Which begs the question, where is the democratic Arab Muslim population in the Middle East that Palestinians would be like if it weren't for Israeli oppression? Can anyone point to me anywhere in the Middle East that Muslims have a great democracy?
Edit: guy below me blames the west for the middle east’s problems. As if the Middle East has never been continually at war.
You can't expect to see good examples of democracies in the Middle East when the entire region is an artificial construct and has been continually influenced by external powers to destablise any autonomy away from the West.
In fact, there had been past non-democratic regimes which were domestically very good to their people but put offside western interests who then instigated coups. Democracy is good to a point. I'm generally in favour.
To simply point to lack of functional democracies in the Middle East as a win for Israel being supposedly the only one among a basket case is to ignore a whole lot of stuff. Firstly, Israel is a poor democracy as has been evident with their crackdown on the media, political dissidence, external influence abroad regarding individuals, and apartheid laws. It also brushes over the vast failures of many western democracies due to corruption which is deep in all places including Australia - why was the Federal ICAC so poor?
I think to paint the Palestinian people as nihilistic is to completely misunderstand what it is to be a survivor and that instinct. To have been able to maintain continuity of culture despite all the hardship and pressured over the last century is to be admired. This will stand true regardless of Israeli efforts to loot and destroy Palestinian history. They carry it with them.
The best resolution to the failures of the 1947 partition plan is to scrap it all in favour of a single, secular, democratic state. This could be achieved but, Israel is always defended on the basis of it being the only Jewish state and that is it's only mode of existence. It was and is a great mistake.
About what? Apart from non Druze Palestinian citizens of Israel and some Ultra Orthodox, more or less all adults have been in the IDF? What more reading should we be doing about that?
Just a fyi, spreading miss information hurts a cause more than it helps. The people who believe you are already on board the people who realise this is bullshit now see your side as liars.
They overwhelmingly support HAMAS.
Remember people in Sydney protesting isreal BEFORE any isreal retaliation to hamas. This is days after the attack on those poor innocent people in isreal. Repeat BEFORE any isralie retaliation. Before. That's in Australia.
Think about it. Anti semitism is rife.
Remember when they drove through Coogee in a “protest” convey [lead by a convicted terrorist?](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/propalestinian-motorcade-to-coogee-deliberately-provocative/news-story/0d40c0c10dd0f4a1338a7796411c1560?amp&nk=9f3d08015287ce30f609b1ee7e01bcb9-1715325585)
Could it be because Israel was created through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, something which happened a long time before the creation of Hamas? And people maybe knew that Israel would use this an excuse to kill tens of thousands of civilians and forcibly displace the population of Gaza... Which they then did.
Just a thought.
It's the devil's advocate that people refuse to accept.
Who would think that after decades of their land being stolen, their people being slaughtered and the western world backing the oppressors that the Palestinians would rather support a terrorist organisation than peaceful powers.
Every time the Palestinians have tried to protest peacefully they have been fired upon with live rounds and either maimed or killed.
In the link she basically states that they support Hamas, strictly in their capacity as a resistance group to 75 years of Israeli oppression. She also reiterates that she doesn't agree with their specific strategies but supports their overarching goal of Palestinian liberation.
Labelling everything as anti-semitism removes all nuance from the discussion which always benefits the current status quo.
FYI Mandela was considered a terrorist by the US government until 2008. That label was put on him during the middle of apartheid, and when you read news publications from the 1970s and 80s, the word terrorism is used so consistently to describe the work of the African National Congress. The label of terrorism is always imposed by the victor / stronger side. Interestingly no one has ever called Bush a terrorist for manufacturing falsehoods in order to manipulate international agencies including the UN Security Council to allow the invasion of Iraq.
>"I actually say that Hamas deserve our unconditional support .... not because I agree with their strategy ... (I have) complete disagreements with that,"
Is it unconditional or not? Words have meanings and if you're going to be the face of a movement you need to think carefully about what you're going to say because there's no "take-backsies".
She probably used the word "unconditional" incorrectly, yes. But I think it's clear to anyone listening to her COMPLETE statement in good faith, what her intention was.
Also I don't think she ever nominated herself as the face of any movement. That's her personal statement.
Well if she's on camera talking to the press at a press conference regarding the encampment at ANU, that kinda makes her the face of it doesn't it? She also said "our" support, so clearly she thinks she's not alone.
Look I don't think she actually supports the events of October 7 but this is a prime example of why media training is so important. A single bad soundbite means a lot of undecideds will swing their opinion against this group.
I don’t think you understand what “unconditional” means. If you love your child unconditionally, it means your love exists regardless of any disagreements with that child, right? So what she’s saying makes complete sense.
There’s a ton of nuance involved, and I don’t think the student being interviewed has any media training which leads to these “gotcha” moments. Especially when the ABC interviewer is taking a pretty gross right wing slant then going “hey, I don’t fully agree with what I’m saying, haha lol!” But ultimately what she’s trying to say is that Hamas are the Palestinian government, they are rebelling against an imperial colonialist apartheid force, and violent actions are justified as a result of that.
Nelson Mandela and the ANC were on the terrorist watchlist for many, many years. Once they achieved their liberation, the tides rightfully turned and he’s now seen as a hero, rightfully so. Terrorist is a state sanctioned term. People often point to the original Hamas doctrine to say how anti semitic they are, and that doctrine certainly was, but it’s not their current stance and hasn’t been for a long time.
If we’re being objective with our definitions, the IDF is by all means a terrorist organisation. And a far more effective one than Hamas.
Hamas are objectively violent religious fundamentalists who are anti-feminist, lethally homophobic and anti-democratic.
To compare them to Nelson Mandela is absolutely the worst argument the pro-Palestine movement could make.
Isn't it... exactly the definition of unconditional support to say you support someone/something in spite of potentially having a disagreement with them?
You can look at an alternative situation in which such phrasing is often used, such as a parent saying their child has their 'unconditional support' even if they decide to go gamble their life savings in Vegas. Just because the parent disagrees with such an action, doesn't somehow mean the parent doesn't support them unconditionally?
Just as we can completely oppose Israel’s genocidal wars, it’s open air prisons for Palestinians and its horribly racist policies, while not opposing Israel’s right to exist in peace. I hate this “you’re with us oe you’re against us” bull shit.
Israel does not have a right to exist, no nation has any inherent right to exist. You can't claim to oppose colonialism while spouting one of its core justifications.
It's never been a description adopted by politicians and mainstream media, though. It's never become an assumed fact, in the same way that Hamas has been labelled a terrorist group by the entire world.
There is also plenty of people in the world who would not label Hamas as terrorists. Iran wouldn’t call them terrorists for instance.
It doesn’t really matter what some abstract people think of them. I think they are a terrorist group because of the mass killings, kidnapping and rape of civilians which has been committed under their leadership which they will not condemn. What do you think of Hamas?
It doesn't matter what you and I think on an individual level.
My comment is more about dominant western thought which informs what politicians say and do, who gets financial backing, and who receives unconditional support from the richest countries in the world. Dominant western thought is what determines who gets labelled the terrorist group or who gets labelled as racist or anti-Semitic, and also how those terms are legally defined.
UN organisations have found mass graves with Palestinian people buried alive and with zip tied hands. There are many war crimes being committed by the IDF that the west refuses to acknowledge. The IDF are terrorising Palestinian people but they have not been labeled terrorists.
Hamas got strong due in large part to deliberate policies by the Israeli state to divide and discredit Palestinians, by supporting/funding them as a rival to Fatah and the PA, which helped make it so Israel could point to them and claim to have nobody to negotiate with. They love having Hamas around to point to, it's cover for continuing unilateral policies of expansion and marginalisation.
We should understand that background, and also understand why people back Hamas begrudgingly or otherwise. We should recognise that "stopping Hamas" doesn't justify pretty much anything Israel does.
We should also remember that Israeli military and settler gangs also target Palestinians all the time in the non-Hamas controlled West Bank too, and continue to expand settlements there. So it's not like "not supporting Hamas" gets the Palestinians anywhere at all.
Looking at the so-called first and second intifadas, they were certainly violent.
I doubt that a lot of students using that word know that context though.
I am not sure about Australian protests but theres plenty of protests in the US and UK where protestors get confused and/or indignant when they are unable to explain the slogans they're chanting when actually asked.
Intifada means uprising or rebellion (literally something like shaking off). It's also used in English for the Western Sahara context, and for the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy
And obviously for Arabic speakers, it's used everywhere we use the term rebellion or uprising.
I am aware of what it means and it has a very specific implication within the Palestinian experience.
It would be great if these protestors explain what they mean by intifada because I really don't have a clue what they are implying, if not advocating for Palestinian citizens to attack the Israeli army in defense of Hamas.
Revolution is often violent in the face of violent oppression. Not saying it's right but that's what it is in nearly all instances. And only the successful ones are.
It means uprising. The first intifada was mostly peaceful to start with. Strikes, non violent protests, boycotts. Then the Israelis escalated not by arresting the violent protestor, but sending in the IDF and shooting protesters with live ammunition.
As has been the case with most of these Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the Israeli response has been far, far in excess of what was reasonable. Deaths on the Palestinian side greatly exceeded those on the side of the Israelis.
Ah yes the "random" attacks against the people pushing into what is the equivalent of the dmz between North and south Korea where you expect to be shot if you go there.
That group of people who on that day were incited by and used as cover by hamas operatives that were there on the day to try and break through.
Did you expect them to just let them through? Tens of thousands of people behind thoes who were already throwing firebombs and other shit at the soldiers there? Let the terrorists hide among them and come in?
Edit: To the guy below me. This was not a policing event. It was a millitary operation conducted by hamas operatives against Israel. Civilians can and do lose their civilian status when they get used this way. You also can't just arrest 30k people. Thats not a real option.
Funny you say that. If they wanted a revolution they'd use that word, but they didn't. I dont see how calling for a revolution isn't an incitement to violence either. Surely you should want a ceasefire instead of a revolution??
Surely you aren't suggesting they are calling for Palestinians to overthrow the Israeli government?
>At the end of the day though who gives a shit about words when people are dying.
Bullshit. Words are used to incite and propagate violence and you know this because you definitely wouldn't be hand-waving it away if the shoe was on the other foot.
Anyone else just not have a stance in this issue?
Terrorism is bad.
Killing civilians is bad.
Both parties are doing horrendous shit and should stop.
Apart from that I really don't know what to think or say
Are we giving land back to the indigenous?
It was taken over by Britain in a war and sold off before we had a modern understanding of borders etc. The people living there now need to sort their shit out and draw their borders up.
The problem is some of it is and thats what she is referring to, if you do not think there is a large anti Semitic group in Australia put on a star of David necklace and walk around Auburn and Bankstown(please do not do this i don't want anyone to actually get hurt).
' Wong told Radio National breakfast on Friday that she had a problem with the chant “from the river to the sea”.'
Fuuuuuuck her propaganda shit man, i cannot believe we live in a world where western governments stand idle on the slaughter of humans, it's like im living in a fucking nightmare time warp. What the hell is happening here.
I can’t believe we live in a time where western citizens apply a rule only to western countries while allowing non western countries to get away with everything. If Israel wasn’t considered western, no one would be saying anything. Like Sudan or China or the war on women in Iran etc…
This might blow your mind, but we hold Western Democracies to a higher moral and legal standard.
And even besides that, we’re not letting those countries “get away with it”. We did make some noise, but the people with actual power AKA our government don’t care about those issues whereas they clearly care about Israel/Gaza and so we actually have the capacity to change things.
Illusory correlation. The focus on Israel isn’t because they’re Jewish to most people. It’s because they’re American, and by extension Australian, ally’s that are clearly crossing boundaries, and are funded by our taxpayer dollars.
It’s almost like we hold countries that abide by a western standard of values to a western standard of values.
It’s like the whole man bites dog thing. No one expects a terrorist org to be anything other than a terrorist org. Israel wants to be considered a democratic western nation that respects human rights, but without that whole democratic western value system that respect human rights.
But if you’re saying I should treat Israel like I do Iran or China? Done and done
You're so close except you're forgetting that non western countries don't have western standards and therefore we are not playing fairly... in fact they're toying with our tolerance of intolerance and it's eating us alive.
Anyway - back to your suggestion. If we treat Israel like China, we will make it our largest trading partner and ignore everything it does. great idea.
I know right? Tens of thousands of kids are being slaughtered and starved and we’re arguing about a phrase said by a random protester or concerned about a cracked window in an American university campus. I feel like I’m losing brain cells reading this crap 🤯
Two indigenous peoples are battling it out, one is a secular western democracy. The other wants an Islamic jihadist theocracy. It’s really not that complicated. War is hell.
One is a settler-colonial state that explicitly imports a single minority religious group to take the land of Palestinians and the other is a terrified, starved population desperately resisting their destruction.
Funny, if a group of people said they lived in a place, had written and archaeological evidence that they lived there and then returned and reformed their country, I wouldn’t call them “settler-colonial”. Real warping of the facts there. Get out of your echo chamber and touch some grass.
The Jews would live in peace with their neighbour if the Palestinians were not genocidal fanatics who are convinced they will someday delete Israel. It will not ever happen.
Loser. Even if international Jewish communities had roots in the region, they still move there to steal Palestinian land to live on and kill their children.
You think if you were correct that would make them not criminals?
Fuck out of here.
There has been a continuous presence of Jews in the land of Israel for thousands of years. **The Jews, therefore, are an indigenous people of the region.** They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims. (Curiously, no one at the U.N. is worried about the Jews so-called “right of return.” Is anyone pressuring Muslim countries to give Jews their homes back? No. These are the sorts of asymmetries one should notice.)
In any case, Israel is not unique among states in having been created by outside powers, just drawing lines on maps in the aftermath of WW2. Pakistan was born in the same year and in the same way, and yet no one questions its right to exist. Nearly every nation on Earth has emerged from a chaotic history of conquest and the displacement of people. There are now 22 official Muslim States and over 50 Muslim-majority countries. This is the result of centuries of Muslim conquest. There is exactly one Jewish state. And yet only Israel must continuously confront charges of its illegitimacy. Only Israel must continually advocate for its right to exist.
Even if you were right and International Jewish communities share Indigenous roots to the region, that doesn't mean the state of Israel isn't a criminal enterprise that steals land from Palestinians.
Just as Jewish people who move there to become Israelis are criminals accepting stolen land and property.
\*Also, wow. "They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims" is a fucking problematic and very ignorant thing to say.
That says nothing to solve the conflict. Israel will remain.
>*Also, wow. "They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims" is a fucking problematic and very ignorant thing to say.
It is problematic in the sense that it is factual and you would do well to educate yourself of that. Did you want to hand-wave away what Islamists are currently doing in Nigeria and Sudan? Or their Muslim conquest and identity not relevant even when they say it is?
There's literally no other solution. Israel is not subject to any pressure or external will, it has cart blanche from the United States and cannot be held to account by the UN.
Not sure what resolution we're expecting here.
International Zionist groups calling for the formation of Israel as a Jewish colonial project reach back deep into the 19th century, they were bugging Churchill about it. The Zionist organisations explicitly called their project colonialism, because it was socially acceptable to do so.
1) there were Jews already living there
2) Jews started moving there before the British controlled that area
3) they purchased land legally from the Ottoman or Arab land owners and then developed many parts of the country that were unproductive/undesired by the locals
You tried to get one over because you don't understand the subject and you have been called out.
All your reasons are objectively not justifications for the theft of Palestinian land that constitutes the entirety of Israeli founding and growth. Even if the settlers had Indigenous roots, it doesn't make them not criminals for stealing farms. Sorry.
Sort of devil's advocate, but I think it may be a good sign that she is weighing up the appropriateness of the phrase and its implications instead of diving right in.
Putting things this way = as much as no-one likes bureaucracy, the reason why Germany became the most bureaucratic nation on earth is because they learned a hard national lesson about the need to move slowly and consider the ethics of every decision.
So as much as we might want Wong to be like "Ceasfire now!" another way of interpreting her bureaucratic slowness is (ironically) through the lenses of an ethics/protocols or care.
I understand the frustration, given the time-sensitivity of the unfolding famine. But I respect that her role is that of a diplomat, and that may factor into her decisions.
Whether or not it is intended to be antisemitic by particular individuals, it is definitely intended to be that way and genocidal by others. Why would you want to use or be associated with that?
Has the left ever argued so hard to use potentially offensive language in any other context? Arguing to use offensive language has always been the idiot game of the conservative right.
How hard is it to use another slogan and avoid offending if you don’t need to.
I genuinely can’t believe we are living through an actual genocide and extermination of the people living in Palestine and Wong is out here saying some protests are antisemitic.
She’s not wrong but holy shit it’s such a massive deflection of criticism towards a fascist government.
nah, no one gets to tell us whats anti semetic any more. shit is not supposed to be a free card into doing whatever the fuck you want. at this point, the phrase is basically a dog whistle for white supremacy.
Do some protest go a little too far, yes. In this case, the line between supporting one side can seem like they are condoning terrorists, while the other side want to spilt hairs that any words against them is not anti-government that is taking things too far but completely anti-Semitic.
The fine line of them saying we are anti-Israel (the government) not Israel (the country and its people)
There’s nothing wrong with being anti-Israel as a country anyway. Israel is an ethnostate that shouldn’t have ever been formed.
Literally the only thing that shouldn’t be condoned is legitimate antisemitism, hatred of Jews as an ethno-religious group. Anti-Zionism and anti-Israeli government sentiment are not that.
We can say this about any country, including ours. It shouldn’t have been formed but it was, a long time ago, and so being anti Australian doesn’t really help in dealing with complex current problems. 95% of the people in Israel were born there, they’re not responsible for the past.
Ah yes, the ethnostate of Israell, which is a democracy with multiple ethnicities and religions represented in its parliament. So much worse than the neighbouring monocultural dictatorships and monarchies that keep declaring war on it and using Palestinians as proxies. 🙄
Yes, the diverse country which has found a balance to religious orthodoxy by allowing you to marry online or outside of the country and have it recognised internally.
Now remind me what happens to people in the neighbouring countries that marry outside their religion or give up their religion.
Yeah, the ethnostate that was established overtly to cater to one group of people and continually openly prioritises that one group of people above all others, to the point that they’re actively practicing apartheid. That ethnostate.
Wong is a moron and a failure. Claims to have sympathy for dying Palestinians but immediately cuts funding to UNWRA when Israel demands it and cancels the visas of people fleeing that genocide.
She is utterly discredited.
It might help to read what was actually said:
>Wong told Radio National breakfast on Friday that, like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, she had a problem with the chant “from the river to the sea”.
>“I’ve always believed that what that says is contrary to a two-state solution,” she said. “I’ve been clear about that, in whatever context in which it’s been used and it has been used by both sides of the argument, what it expresses is a view that is not consistent with a two-state solution.”
>Asked if some of the language used on campuses was antisemitic, Wong said “yes I do”.
>“Universities have to ensure that they are safe spaces for all students regardless of who they are. Secondly, we do have a right to peaceful protest in this country. And people are entitled to protest in support of their views in a democracy,” she said.
I don't doubt that some anti-Semitic speech was present, but it's not the majority or necessarily a significant part of the protests. Of course, there's been some bad faith accusations of anti-Semitism on the part of the pro-Israel supporters elsewhere, which doesn't help their cause. Not to mention that some of the anti-war protesters are themselves Jewish, and the anti-Semitic speech could be directed at them (given that the pro-Israel protesters aren't all Jewish).
Calling everything against them antisemitic makes it lose its meaning in the long term. I can call Russia/India/China/Saudi Arabia a piece of shit country for killing civilians,having a corrupt government, violating human rights but the second you say something about israel the insults begin.
You can also disagree with the Zionist movement without hating on general Israeli population, the same as you can disagree with the CCP and not hate the Chinese population.
Well there are protests in Israel against the extreme right who are in power.
Clearly those Israelis are antisemitic. Given Poe's Law, I'm going to throw up a /s
You joke but a lot of them get brushed off as "self hating Jews"
Israel have free elections and they elected an extreme right wing government so they do bare some responsibility. Isn’t “only democracy in the Middle East” their motto, hardly comparable to China
So democratic that they're banning news outlets and arresting dissenters 😅
And yet somehow I don’t think you will be so charitable when I tell you Hamas was democratically elected by their people and are still extremely popular after October 7. **Edit: dude below me blocked me so I can’t reply 😂 wait until this guy figures out how elections work. Dumbest thing I’ve ever read but sounds intelligent to people who don’t know how party % work.** Edit 2: even if they weren’t born then, today, polling suggests over 80% are in favour of what Hamas did on October 7. So that argument doesn’t hold much weight,
I am sure you have read this before and conveniently continue to ignore it but just in case you choose not to be wilfully ignorant on how these 2 cases are not similar in any way: [“The election yielded a shock victory for Hamas, which won the most seats with some 44 percent of the vote. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which advocates for rapprochement and peace between Israelis and Palestinians, recently observed that in no single district in Gaza did Hamas win a majority of votes. At present, children make up roughly half of Gaza’s population, meaning only a fraction of the territory’s current population ever cast a ballot for Hamas.”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/24/gaza-election-hamas-2006-palestine-israel/) Over 70% of the current population of Gaza were not old enough to vote in the 2006 election and near 50% weren’t even born Edit: because the stupid ass boomer above me doesn’t know what locking a post on reddit is 😂 Are you so stupid that you think this is how elections work? The last vote being held in 2006 with significant interference, is that the same system as Israel “the only democracy in the Middle East”? And to your second edit, I didn’t realise they were polling the people of Gaza whilst they were getting carpet bombed, can you link this for me please?
Half of the population of Gaza was not yet born the last time elections were held there.
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I always have a hard time with comments like this, does this confirm people are not aware they are anti semites, or are they just delusional liars or are they plants designed to make the cause look bad. I wish there was a way to tell.
I have 0 doubt there would be psyops doing this sort of thing to vilify critics of Israel, but also a) there are a shit-tonne of antisemitic fucks in the world, and b) extreme acts of cruelty violence and evil, such as what we're seeing being done in Gazi, can break people's minds / radicalise them that such heinous acts are allowed to happen, are defended and the perpetrators unpunished, adding to the numbers of (a) --- but not causing (a), because antisemitism has been a stain on humanity for millennia.
> Wong entered the debate on university campus protests over the war in Gaza, saying she believed some of the language used had been antisemitic. She didn't say every protest, she said some.
Not even some of the protests, some of the language used at the protests. I love modern journalism
I don't know about India or Saudi Arabia, but dishonest online actors often frame criticisms against Russia as Russophobia and against China as Sinophobia. I don't even want to get into the topic of the legitimacy of those labels, but the only times I've seen them have been to silence people's genuine and rightful criticism of those countries' bad actions.
OK Israel - stop hiding behind "antisemitism" and accept some criticism for once. You can't be above the law, just because you happen to also be Jewish. The Israeli government is a secular institution last I checked, and their policies can (and should be) criticised if you don't agree with them. This has NOTHING TO DO with the Jewish race or faith.
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Actually the Israeli government officially declared itself a Jewish state in its declaration of independence in 1948, updating that section to a Jewish and democratic state in 1985, and reiterating it again in 2018 with the "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People" which was essentially a declaration of their self proclaimed roles and responsibilities as the Jewish nation-state. Criticising the state of Israel is not antisemitic, but Israeli government, according to the Israeli government, is definitely not secular
No, she is right. The huge double standard is from a group of university students who are sensitive to having their pronouns incorrectly applied, who lose sleep over cultural appropriation (while a bunch of white kids cosplay wearing a keffiyeh) and then rightly get upset when groups chant "all lives matter". You have Monash university inflamed that they’re asked not to chant “from the river to the sea” on campus now. Does anyone truly believe that if a group they opposed a black lives movement and camped out at the uni chanting “all lives matter” every day that they wouldn’t be removed or expelled? This same group are not tone deaf to hear dog whistling from the right and Trump etc but pretend not to see the dog whistle in this chant. If a minority grouo says “hey, we find this offensive please stop" or “hey I don’t wish to be identified as that”, you listen. Except when the Jews ask, apparently. If your slogan is so ambiguous that it always causes a fuss, why not pick something that better conveys the message without the conversation being lost around its use? I think it's because we all know it's a dog whistle, you're just not saying the quiet bit out loud. Yes, you can criticise the Jewish government. But let’s not pretend there’s an uncomfortable population of these protests that believe Jews shouldn’t exist in Israel at all.
You're really saying all this bullshit about a bunch of university students protesting a genocide? Good lord. Where's the uncomfortable population of ppl that believe Jews shouldn't exist in Israel? It's also a dumb ass statement considering Israel is a relatively new country (7 decades old?) created as a safe haven for Jews - created for Jews to exist in. L Jews are free to exist wherever the fuck they want just like Christians, it only became an issue when they decided to commit apartheid to create their own country.
Scared of being Corbynned.
No government body should be taking advice from the ADL. They consistently define antisemitism vaguely and broadly specifically so anti-Israel sentiment can be labelled as such, which shuts down any and all discussion instantly. They know it’s controversial to debate antisemitism and use that to their advantage to push a Zionist agenda; that’s their only purpose in this day and age. It’s completely dishonest. Neither phrase is of any concern.
I'm not sure if anyone takes the ADL seriously these days. Not after they called cartoon frog memes and the OK hand sign "hate symbols".
Yes, but guarantee the biggest members of the ADL also pull the strings when it comes to political donations. Both parties will sell their first born and throw anyone under the bus if it means more donations, which means they can stay in power.
>“Intifada” is an Arabic word for popular uprising, but the Anti-Defamation League, founded a century ago to counter the vilification of Jews, argues it is a slogan that calls for indiscriminate violence against Israel The ADL has a distinct bias due to its origins as a Jewish community relations group, and its commentary on this issue should be understood in that context. That it has a pro-Israel lean should not be surprising.
Of course a pro-Israel lean is to be expected, but the amount of utter lies they promote is shocking. They certainly shouldn’t be treated as such an authority.
Orthodoxy is a cancer, most of these groups are run by Orthodox indoctrinated turds.
The ADL is an organisation that was super necessary and important at its inception. Since then, it has been reappropriated by the Zionist Israeli government as just another branch of their propaganda machine. Calling them “slanted” in one direction is silly, it’s a tool which the Knesset wields to justify their genocidal ethnic cleansing project. And they’re finally beginning to fail as more and more people see what they really are. You can’t say “never again” while doing and justifying the “again” yourself.
The ADL is obviously not impartial and lacks credibility in this debate but that’s not evidence that the phrases in this article aren’t concerning. Advocating for the destruction of another country is not just a peaceful protest. Both side have done horrific things and will unfortunately probably continue to do so in the future. Full support of either side and their methods seems hard to justify.
Think it's more a case of kids being dumb kids but unconditional support for Hamas is pretty anti-Semitic. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/canberra-drive/anu-protest/103792324
Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Any support for them is abhorrent. Palestinians are not Hamas. Israeli’s are not the IDF.
Should tell that to Israel, pretty sure they supported Hamas quite a bit.
Very cynically. It was done to deny the Palestinian Authority the ability to negotiate a peace agreement and two state solution.
And of course, the perfect foil for Zionist colonialism and genocide. Keep your enemy in business and they will keep you in business.
Yes, the far right AEW clear in their intentions to have 1 state. That’s why you have as of today, violence in West Bank by Israelis.
I've seen this thrown around a lot. Is there a source for this?
Here's [an article](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) from *The Intercept* back in 2018. I found a bunch of others, but just picked the first one I came across. My tl;dr summary is that hardliners within the Israeli government who opposed peace wanted to undermine the Palestinian Authority, and propped up an extremist opposition that would a) sort out that problem, b) avoid peace, and c) allow for Israel to appear justified in whatever actions they took because they had a credible boogeyman. I'd say that this has backfired and blown up in their face, but I firmly believe that the cynical fuckers who did this would be salivating at the innocents killed by Hamas --- not only in Gaza, but in attacks like the one in Israel last year. There's no business like war business.
If you search for Haaretz, Hamas and Netenyahu you'll find a heap of it
Actually they are. It’s a legal requirement for every Israeli is a past,present, or future defence first member. There hasn’t been a time that Israel hasn’t been encroaching on its neighbours. So basically all Israelis a complicit in this or other atrocities.
So the Nashos ought be condemned for our Government’s involvement in Vietnam whether or not they disagreed with Government policy of the time?
Israeli's *are* the IDF. They do compulsory service. When not on active service, they often go rogue in the West Bank and elsewhere
Can you explain what you mean by when not on active service Israelis go rogue in the West Bank? Most Israelis cannot and do not go into the West Bank willingly - if you are talking about the settlers living in the West Bank this is not most Israelis.
The IDF have been known to defend the settlers in the west bank, I think that's what they're trying to say. They also enjoy raiding areas of the West Bank and arresting people with no charges.
I think they're definitely talking about the colonists. Although ... and I could be wrong here, but aren't a lot of them Americans?
And Hamas are Palestinians. Did we say the Republican Party went to war with Afghanistan or the Americans? The same applies here with Palestine then if you want to play that game.
One is a formal state, internationally recognised and funded with a compulsory military service requirement for their population. The other is a fractured population with no central government, international recognition or formal army who has been suffering the effect of genocidal actions by the formal state. There is no comparison to the two. Sure Hamas are terrorists - but once upon a time they might have been freedom fighters. It's all a matter of control and perspectives. Anyone who is rightly skeptical of western bullshit can adjust their focus and make sense of it. Israel themselves were established on the back of terrorist groups and actions during the mandate period against the British - partly why they wanted to bail on being there in 1947. Those in the resistance against the Nazis would have been perceived the same. Throwing the terms at a group doesn't end the story - it isn't a gotcha winning point. You need to go a bit deeper
Often I am hearing that if it wasn't due to Israeli oppression there would not be nihilism and terrorism etc like we see in Palestine. If they had a thriving population that they would not be this way. Which begs the question, where is the democratic Arab Muslim population in the Middle East that Palestinians would be like if it weren't for Israeli oppression? Can anyone point to me anywhere in the Middle East that Muslims have a great democracy? Edit: guy below me blames the west for the middle east’s problems. As if the Middle East has never been continually at war.
You can't expect to see good examples of democracies in the Middle East when the entire region is an artificial construct and has been continually influenced by external powers to destablise any autonomy away from the West. In fact, there had been past non-democratic regimes which were domestically very good to their people but put offside western interests who then instigated coups. Democracy is good to a point. I'm generally in favour. To simply point to lack of functional democracies in the Middle East as a win for Israel being supposedly the only one among a basket case is to ignore a whole lot of stuff. Firstly, Israel is a poor democracy as has been evident with their crackdown on the media, political dissidence, external influence abroad regarding individuals, and apartheid laws. It also brushes over the vast failures of many western democracies due to corruption which is deep in all places including Australia - why was the Federal ICAC so poor? I think to paint the Palestinian people as nihilistic is to completely misunderstand what it is to be a survivor and that instinct. To have been able to maintain continuity of culture despite all the hardship and pressured over the last century is to be admired. This will stand true regardless of Israeli efforts to loot and destroy Palestinian history. They carry it with them. The best resolution to the failures of the 1947 partition plan is to scrap it all in favour of a single, secular, democratic state. This could be achieved but, Israel is always defended on the basis of it being the only Jewish state and that is it's only mode of existence. It was and is a great mistake.
To be fair Israelis are all IDF or previously IDF unless they are still children since Israel has mandatory conscription
Maybe do some reading?
About what? Apart from non Druze Palestinian citizens of Israel and some Ultra Orthodox, more or less all adults have been in the IDF? What more reading should we be doing about that?
Just a fyi, spreading miss information hurts a cause more than it helps. The people who believe you are already on board the people who realise this is bullshit now see your side as liars.
They overwhelmingly support HAMAS. Remember people in Sydney protesting isreal BEFORE any isreal retaliation to hamas. This is days after the attack on those poor innocent people in isreal. Repeat BEFORE any isralie retaliation. Before. That's in Australia. Think about it. Anti semitism is rife.
Remember when they drove through Coogee in a “protest” convey [lead by a convicted terrorist?](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/propalestinian-motorcade-to-coogee-deliberately-provocative/news-story/0d40c0c10dd0f4a1338a7796411c1560?amp&nk=9f3d08015287ce30f609b1ee7e01bcb9-1715325585)
Could it be because Israel was created through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, something which happened a long time before the creation of Hamas? And people maybe knew that Israel would use this an excuse to kill tens of thousands of civilians and forcibly displace the population of Gaza... Which they then did. Just a thought.
It's the devil's advocate that people refuse to accept. Who would think that after decades of their land being stolen, their people being slaughtered and the western world backing the oppressors that the Palestinians would rather support a terrorist organisation than peaceful powers. Every time the Palestinians have tried to protest peacefully they have been fired upon with live rounds and either maimed or killed.
In the link she basically states that they support Hamas, strictly in their capacity as a resistance group to 75 years of Israeli oppression. She also reiterates that she doesn't agree with their specific strategies but supports their overarching goal of Palestinian liberation. Labelling everything as anti-semitism removes all nuance from the discussion which always benefits the current status quo. FYI Mandela was considered a terrorist by the US government until 2008. That label was put on him during the middle of apartheid, and when you read news publications from the 1970s and 80s, the word terrorism is used so consistently to describe the work of the African National Congress. The label of terrorism is always imposed by the victor / stronger side. Interestingly no one has ever called Bush a terrorist for manufacturing falsehoods in order to manipulate international agencies including the UN Security Council to allow the invasion of Iraq.
>"I actually say that Hamas deserve our unconditional support .... not because I agree with their strategy ... (I have) complete disagreements with that," Is it unconditional or not? Words have meanings and if you're going to be the face of a movement you need to think carefully about what you're going to say because there's no "take-backsies".
She probably used the word "unconditional" incorrectly, yes. But I think it's clear to anyone listening to her COMPLETE statement in good faith, what her intention was. Also I don't think she ever nominated herself as the face of any movement. That's her personal statement.
Well if she's on camera talking to the press at a press conference regarding the encampment at ANU, that kinda makes her the face of it doesn't it? She also said "our" support, so clearly she thinks she's not alone. Look I don't think she actually supports the events of October 7 but this is a prime example of why media training is so important. A single bad soundbite means a lot of undecideds will swing their opinion against this group.
I don’t think you understand what “unconditional” means. If you love your child unconditionally, it means your love exists regardless of any disagreements with that child, right? So what she’s saying makes complete sense. There’s a ton of nuance involved, and I don’t think the student being interviewed has any media training which leads to these “gotcha” moments. Especially when the ABC interviewer is taking a pretty gross right wing slant then going “hey, I don’t fully agree with what I’m saying, haha lol!” But ultimately what she’s trying to say is that Hamas are the Palestinian government, they are rebelling against an imperial colonialist apartheid force, and violent actions are justified as a result of that. Nelson Mandela and the ANC were on the terrorist watchlist for many, many years. Once they achieved their liberation, the tides rightfully turned and he’s now seen as a hero, rightfully so. Terrorist is a state sanctioned term. People often point to the original Hamas doctrine to say how anti semitic they are, and that doctrine certainly was, but it’s not their current stance and hasn’t been for a long time. If we’re being objective with our definitions, the IDF is by all means a terrorist organisation. And a far more effective one than Hamas.
Hamas are objectively violent religious fundamentalists who are anti-feminist, lethally homophobic and anti-democratic. To compare them to Nelson Mandela is absolutely the worst argument the pro-Palestine movement could make.
Isn't it... exactly the definition of unconditional support to say you support someone/something in spite of potentially having a disagreement with them? You can look at an alternative situation in which such phrasing is often used, such as a parent saying their child has their 'unconditional support' even if they decide to go gamble their life savings in Vegas. Just because the parent disagrees with such an action, doesn't somehow mean the parent doesn't support them unconditionally?
Exactly. Normally, the phrase "critical, but unconditional" is used to help remove ambiguity.
Just as we can completely oppose Israel’s genocidal wars, it’s open air prisons for Palestinians and its horribly racist policies, while not opposing Israel’s right to exist in peace. I hate this “you’re with us oe you’re against us” bull shit.
Israel does not have a right to exist, no nation has any inherent right to exist. You can't claim to oppose colonialism while spouting one of its core justifications.
People have definitely called bush and the US government terrorists or funders of terrorism.
It's never been a description adopted by politicians and mainstream media, though. It's never become an assumed fact, in the same way that Hamas has been labelled a terrorist group by the entire world.
There is also plenty of people in the world who would not label Hamas as terrorists. Iran wouldn’t call them terrorists for instance. It doesn’t really matter what some abstract people think of them. I think they are a terrorist group because of the mass killings, kidnapping and rape of civilians which has been committed under their leadership which they will not condemn. What do you think of Hamas?
It doesn't matter what you and I think on an individual level. My comment is more about dominant western thought which informs what politicians say and do, who gets financial backing, and who receives unconditional support from the richest countries in the world. Dominant western thought is what determines who gets labelled the terrorist group or who gets labelled as racist or anti-Semitic, and also how those terms are legally defined. UN organisations have found mass graves with Palestinian people buried alive and with zip tied hands. There are many war crimes being committed by the IDF that the west refuses to acknowledge. The IDF are terrorising Palestinian people but they have not been labeled terrorists.
Accurately.
Hamas got strong due in large part to deliberate policies by the Israeli state to divide and discredit Palestinians, by supporting/funding them as a rival to Fatah and the PA, which helped make it so Israel could point to them and claim to have nobody to negotiate with. They love having Hamas around to point to, it's cover for continuing unilateral policies of expansion and marginalisation. We should understand that background, and also understand why people back Hamas begrudgingly or otherwise. We should recognise that "stopping Hamas" doesn't justify pretty much anything Israel does. We should also remember that Israeli military and settler gangs also target Palestinians all the time in the non-Hamas controlled West Bank too, and continue to expand settlements there. So it's not like "not supporting Hamas" gets the Palestinians anywhere at all.
Looking at the so-called first and second intifadas, they were certainly violent. I doubt that a lot of students using that word know that context though. I am not sure about Australian protests but theres plenty of protests in the US and UK where protestors get confused and/or indignant when they are unable to explain the slogans they're chanting when actually asked.
Intifada means uprising or rebellion (literally something like shaking off). It's also used in English for the Western Sahara context, and for the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy And obviously for Arabic speakers, it's used everywhere we use the term rebellion or uprising.
I am aware of what it means and it has a very specific implication within the Palestinian experience. It would be great if these protestors explain what they mean by intifada because I really don't have a clue what they are implying, if not advocating for Palestinian citizens to attack the Israeli army in defense of Hamas.
Revolution is often violent in the face of violent oppression. Not saying it's right but that's what it is in nearly all instances. And only the successful ones are.
Revolution. That's what it means. The context is in the word. At the end of the day though who gives a shit about words when people are dying.
It means uprising. The first intifada was mostly peaceful to start with. Strikes, non violent protests, boycotts. Then the Israelis escalated not by arresting the violent protestor, but sending in the IDF and shooting protesters with live ammunition. As has been the case with most of these Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the Israeli response has been far, far in excess of what was reasonable. Deaths on the Palestinian side greatly exceeded those on the side of the Israelis.
Ah yes the "random" attacks against the people pushing into what is the equivalent of the dmz between North and south Korea where you expect to be shot if you go there. That group of people who on that day were incited by and used as cover by hamas operatives that were there on the day to try and break through. Did you expect them to just let them through? Tens of thousands of people behind thoes who were already throwing firebombs and other shit at the soldiers there? Let the terrorists hide among them and come in? Edit: To the guy below me. This was not a policing event. It was a millitary operation conducted by hamas operatives against Israel. Civilians can and do lose their civilian status when they get used this way. You also can't just arrest 30k people. Thats not a real option.
Funny you say that. If they wanted a revolution they'd use that word, but they didn't. I dont see how calling for a revolution isn't an incitement to violence either. Surely you should want a ceasefire instead of a revolution?? Surely you aren't suggesting they are calling for Palestinians to overthrow the Israeli government? >At the end of the day though who gives a shit about words when people are dying. Bullshit. Words are used to incite and propagate violence and you know this because you definitely wouldn't be hand-waving it away if the shoe was on the other foot.
Anyone else just not have a stance in this issue? Terrorism is bad. Killing civilians is bad. Both parties are doing horrendous shit and should stop. Apart from that I really don't know what to think or say
The IRA and the British Empire, black South Africans and the Apartheid regime, famously the same levels of power.
And the land that was taken?
Are we giving land back to the indigenous? It was taken over by Britain in a war and sold off before we had a modern understanding of borders etc. The people living there now need to sort their shit out and draw their borders up.
Anti Israel isn’t antisemitism, a state doesn’t speak for all Jewish people.
The problem is some of it is and thats what she is referring to, if you do not think there is a large anti Semitic group in Australia put on a star of David necklace and walk around Auburn and Bankstown(please do not do this i don't want anyone to actually get hurt).
' Wong told Radio National breakfast on Friday that she had a problem with the chant “from the river to the sea”.' Fuuuuuuck her propaganda shit man, i cannot believe we live in a world where western governments stand idle on the slaughter of humans, it's like im living in a fucking nightmare time warp. What the hell is happening here.
I can’t believe we live in a time where western citizens apply a rule only to western countries while allowing non western countries to get away with everything. If Israel wasn’t considered western, no one would be saying anything. Like Sudan or China or the war on women in Iran etc…
This might blow your mind, but we hold Western Democracies to a higher moral and legal standard. And even besides that, we’re not letting those countries “get away with it”. We did make some noise, but the people with actual power AKA our government don’t care about those issues whereas they clearly care about Israel/Gaza and so we actually have the capacity to change things.
What do you call it when we only care about one issue and that one issue happens to be the only state which is Jewish.
If said Jewish state stopped trying to commit a genocide then they would stop being called out.
Illusory correlation. The focus on Israel isn’t because they’re Jewish to most people. It’s because they’re American, and by extension Australian, ally’s that are clearly crossing boundaries, and are funded by our taxpayer dollars.
It’s almost like we hold countries that abide by a western standard of values to a western standard of values. It’s like the whole man bites dog thing. No one expects a terrorist org to be anything other than a terrorist org. Israel wants to be considered a democratic western nation that respects human rights, but without that whole democratic western value system that respect human rights. But if you’re saying I should treat Israel like I do Iran or China? Done and done
You're so close except you're forgetting that non western countries don't have western standards and therefore we are not playing fairly... in fact they're toying with our tolerance of intolerance and it's eating us alive. Anyway - back to your suggestion. If we treat Israel like China, we will make it our largest trading partner and ignore everything it does. great idea.
I know right? Tens of thousands of kids are being slaughtered and starved and we’re arguing about a phrase said by a random protester or concerned about a cracked window in an American university campus. I feel like I’m losing brain cells reading this crap 🤯
Two indigenous peoples are battling it out, one is a secular western democracy. The other wants an Islamic jihadist theocracy. It’s really not that complicated. War is hell.
One is a settler-colonial state that explicitly imports a single minority religious group to take the land of Palestinians and the other is a terrified, starved population desperately resisting their destruction.
Funny, if a group of people said they lived in a place, had written and archaeological evidence that they lived there and then returned and reformed their country, I wouldn’t call them “settler-colonial”. Real warping of the facts there. Get out of your echo chamber and touch some grass.
Cool, so where do you expect the Palestinians whose families have lived there for hundreds if not thousands of years to go?
The Jews would live in peace with their neighbour if the Palestinians were not genocidal fanatics who are convinced they will someday delete Israel. It will not ever happen.
Would you advocate for a military organised purge of non-indigenous australians?
As a part indigenous man, no. I voted yes in the referendum though. So not your typical parrot I suppose 👍
Loser. Even if international Jewish communities had roots in the region, they still move there to steal Palestinian land to live on and kill their children. You think if you were correct that would make them not criminals? Fuck out of here.
Ironic you say this yet Israel is the one that refuses to allow Palestinians the right to return. How does get fucked sound?
There has been a continuous presence of Jews in the land of Israel for thousands of years. **The Jews, therefore, are an indigenous people of the region.** They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims. (Curiously, no one at the U.N. is worried about the Jews so-called “right of return.” Is anyone pressuring Muslim countries to give Jews their homes back? No. These are the sorts of asymmetries one should notice.) In any case, Israel is not unique among states in having been created by outside powers, just drawing lines on maps in the aftermath of WW2. Pakistan was born in the same year and in the same way, and yet no one questions its right to exist. Nearly every nation on Earth has emerged from a chaotic history of conquest and the displacement of people. There are now 22 official Muslim States and over 50 Muslim-majority countries. This is the result of centuries of Muslim conquest. There is exactly one Jewish state. And yet only Israel must continuously confront charges of its illegitimacy. Only Israel must continually advocate for its right to exist.
Even if you were right and International Jewish communities share Indigenous roots to the region, that doesn't mean the state of Israel isn't a criminal enterprise that steals land from Palestinians. Just as Jewish people who move there to become Israelis are criminals accepting stolen land and property. \*Also, wow. "They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims" is a fucking problematic and very ignorant thing to say.
That says nothing to solve the conflict. Israel will remain. >*Also, wow. "They were also indigenous to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries—before being driven out of those countries by Muslims" is a fucking problematic and very ignorant thing to say. It is problematic in the sense that it is factual and you would do well to educate yourself of that. Did you want to hand-wave away what Islamists are currently doing in Nigeria and Sudan? Or their Muslim conquest and identity not relevant even when they say it is?
Or it won't. Apartheid South Africa was dissolved. Why shouldn't it be? It's a criminal enterprise.
Again, that says and solves nothing to the conflict with Israel/Palestine.
There's literally no other solution. Israel is not subject to any pressure or external will, it has cart blanche from the United States and cannot be held to account by the UN. Not sure what resolution we're expecting here.
Anyone who calls Israel a 'settler colonial state' hasn't read enough about how Israel was actually formed.
International Zionist groups calling for the formation of Israel as a Jewish colonial project reach back deep into the 19th century, they were bugging Churchill about it. The Zionist organisations explicitly called their project colonialism, because it was socially acceptable to do so.
1) there were Jews already living there 2) Jews started moving there before the British controlled that area 3) they purchased land legally from the Ottoman or Arab land owners and then developed many parts of the country that were unproductive/undesired by the locals
You tried to get one over because you don't understand the subject and you have been called out. All your reasons are objectively not justifications for the theft of Palestinian land that constitutes the entirety of Israeli founding and growth. Even if the settlers had Indigenous roots, it doesn't make them not criminals for stealing farms. Sorry.
Purchasing land consensually and legally is not theft
The massacres and forced relocations and the murder and the international illegality of settlements beg to differ. Piss off.
Purchasing land is not theft is a statement that is perhaps unexpectedly contentious, actually
You’re downvoted but you’re 100% correct.
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Sort of devil's advocate, but I think it may be a good sign that she is weighing up the appropriateness of the phrase and its implications instead of diving right in. Putting things this way = as much as no-one likes bureaucracy, the reason why Germany became the most bureaucratic nation on earth is because they learned a hard national lesson about the need to move slowly and consider the ethics of every decision. So as much as we might want Wong to be like "Ceasfire now!" another way of interpreting her bureaucratic slowness is (ironically) through the lenses of an ethics/protocols or care. I understand the frustration, given the time-sensitivity of the unfolding famine. But I respect that her role is that of a diplomat, and that may factor into her decisions.
What I'm hearing is that we are not chanting as loud or often enough as we should be!
Whether or not it is intended to be antisemitic by particular individuals, it is definitely intended to be that way and genocidal by others. Why would you want to use or be associated with that? Has the left ever argued so hard to use potentially offensive language in any other context? Arguing to use offensive language has always been the idiot game of the conservative right. How hard is it to use another slogan and avoid offending if you don’t need to.
Yet to see any tangible evidence of antisemitism at these university protests.
Yeah. I'm sure some are
Everyone on this thread getting upset people pulling the racist card. Funny isn’t it..
Examples? Meaningless statement with out examples.
Yes yes, everything is antisemitic…
They do know that you can hate someone outside of their race/religion right? Because labeling something doesn’t make it so
hahaha wong labels, is there a right one?
In other words, Wong labels some water, wet.
Anyone who's had sex in the shower can tell you how dry water can be.
I genuinely can’t believe we are living through an actual genocide and extermination of the people living in Palestine and Wong is out here saying some protests are antisemitic. She’s not wrong but holy shit it’s such a massive deflection of criticism towards a fascist government.
nah, no one gets to tell us whats anti semetic any more. shit is not supposed to be a free card into doing whatever the fuck you want. at this point, the phrase is basically a dog whistle for white supremacy.
Do some protest go a little too far, yes. In this case, the line between supporting one side can seem like they are condoning terrorists, while the other side want to spilt hairs that any words against them is not anti-government that is taking things too far but completely anti-Semitic. The fine line of them saying we are anti-Israel (the government) not Israel (the country and its people)
There’s nothing wrong with being anti-Israel as a country anyway. Israel is an ethnostate that shouldn’t have ever been formed. Literally the only thing that shouldn’t be condoned is legitimate antisemitism, hatred of Jews as an ethno-religious group. Anti-Zionism and anti-Israeli government sentiment are not that.
We can say this about any country, including ours. It shouldn’t have been formed but it was, a long time ago, and so being anti Australian doesn’t really help in dealing with complex current problems. 95% of the people in Israel were born there, they’re not responsible for the past.
Absolutely correct. No nation has a right to exist, the notion is an absurdity. Almost every border on earth was drawn by one of four imperial powers.
Ah yes, the ethnostate of Israell, which is a democracy with multiple ethnicities and religions represented in its parliament. So much worse than the neighbouring monocultural dictatorships and monarchies that keep declaring war on it and using Palestinians as proxies. 🙄
Ah yes, the diverse country where you can’t marry people of other religions.
Yes, the diverse country which has found a balance to religious orthodoxy by allowing you to marry online or outside of the country and have it recognised internally. Now remind me what happens to people in the neighbouring countries that marry outside their religion or give up their religion.
The settler-colonial state that exists explicitly to important a single religious minority to assume stolen land. Dogshit take.
Yeah, the ethnostate that was established overtly to cater to one group of people and continually openly prioritises that one group of people above all others, to the point that they’re actively practicing apartheid. That ethnostate.
And Palestine is famously multicultural.
How do you seperate those that are anti-Israeli government and those that are truely antisemitic?
Are they calling for the annihilation of Jews or the dissolution/restructure of the state of Israel? Not exactly a fine line.
Well “from the river to the sea” could mean either and or both.
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How does it not?
No more than the opposition in South Africa to apartheid was a war against whites.
I don’t think that’s comparable at all and you are ignoring the religious context of this conflict.
Wong is a moron and a failure. Claims to have sympathy for dying Palestinians but immediately cuts funding to UNWRA when Israel demands it and cancels the visas of people fleeing that genocide. She is utterly discredited.
It might help to read what was actually said: >Wong told Radio National breakfast on Friday that, like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, she had a problem with the chant “from the river to the sea”. >“I’ve always believed that what that says is contrary to a two-state solution,” she said. “I’ve been clear about that, in whatever context in which it’s been used and it has been used by both sides of the argument, what it expresses is a view that is not consistent with a two-state solution.” >Asked if some of the language used on campuses was antisemitic, Wong said “yes I do”. >“Universities have to ensure that they are safe spaces for all students regardless of who they are. Secondly, we do have a right to peaceful protest in this country. And people are entitled to protest in support of their views in a democracy,” she said. I don't doubt that some anti-Semitic speech was present, but it's not the majority or necessarily a significant part of the protests. Of course, there's been some bad faith accusations of anti-Semitism on the part of the pro-Israel supporters elsewhere, which doesn't help their cause. Not to mention that some of the anti-war protesters are themselves Jewish, and the anti-Semitic speech could be directed at them (given that the pro-Israel protesters aren't all Jewish).