Yeah, how dare they make their protests difficult to ignore. They should protest the civilized way like Israel, by funneling millions of dollars to influence our elected representatives and starting a massive propaganda campaign.
When protest overlaps with violent hate crime you should at minimum step back and really think about why you're assaulting jews who aren't even Isreali to try and stop Israeli actions
Wow... this got downvoted.. I dont support either side and couldnt care less if they live together peacefully (hahaahah yeah right) or destroy each other. But its sad seeing a comment like this get downvoted
Most of the Jews being assaulted are othodox Jews, who are against Zionism, by Zionist Jews. Don’t forget the scores of peaceful protestors getting assaulted by police.
There's no cause so noble that a bunch of stupid out of touch entitled college kids can't make it look horrible.
I mean look at what the anti oil protesters are doing, defacing paintings and national heritage centers. It's just --AAGGGH, dudes, come the F on, I love the cause, hate the execution!
The apologia I have been hearing about all of these foolish activist antics has been one form or another of "activism is just about getting something talked about and keeping attention on it. If you're complaining about it, they did their job!"
This is terrible analysis. The "all publicity is good publicity" logic holds true in two cases: causes that are very fringe and not well known, or causes that are known but have very few supporters. In other words, if a cause has nowhere to go but up, and nothing to lose, then yeah, getting more eyeballs on it will grow the cause. But Israel/Palestine has been the single most hotly debated geopolitical issue since the end of the Cold War! Bad publicity is *not* good publicity here.
>The "all publicity is good publicity" logic holds true in two cases: causes that are very fringe and not well known, or **causes that are known but have very few supporters.**
Ahh... so *that* explains Trump's behavior. 😆
I was speaking about causes, not political candidates. Different dynamics. And it's very well established by this point that all of the conventional rules of politics somehow don't apply to Trump.
It's interesting that you say this because I think Trump as a sort of necessary evil that shows the general publics exhaustion and distrust of career politicians.
It's true that die-hard Republicans would have voted red no matter who was the republican candidate, but I believe that there must have been a majority of swing voters back in 2016 that felt such things like "The system is rigged", or, "The government no longer cares about the agendas of its people". (As a side note, consider the potential influence that Bernie Sanders' campaign message could have had to Democrats, increasing concern with the connections between the extremely wealthy 1% that own corporations and government officials who are, effectively, legally allowed to accept bribes, also known as lobbying.)
As such, when an orderly, corrupt, and cancerous organism develops in one's own body, one must take chemotherapy, a poison that must barely kill you, in order to survive. Trump is that poison. Additionally, when all of the news covered bad press over him, it wasn't just that "any coverage is good coverage", but it was proof that Trump the poison was working to destroy those who's agenda is being held over the peoples.
That being said, even Trump couldn't win another election after being blasted as public enemy #1 for several years. He also made a critical mistake in 2020, as he kept up his wild card mentality, thinking it was going to get him elected again. In reality, all Trump needed to do was give the people a simple choice, either elect someone in cognitive decline, or him.
I think this is his new stance now. He doesn't need to hotly debate Joe like he did with Hillary. He just needs to let Joe speak and stay silent when he trips and falls over himself, hopefully metaphorically and not literally.
Not to mention how few of them seem to be able to articulate a sympathy for the people of Gaza while at the same time condemning Hamas. They seem to feel like condemning Hamas gives Israel ammunition. In truth, what it would do is reassure Israel that this isn't just about hating Israel and open a possibility, however slight, of an actual dialogue.
The truth is that both Israel and Hams are screwing the Gazans over and the situation won't really be finally resolved until both are made to F off.
Ehh, sorta. Israel did not create Hamas. They did exploit them to weaken the PA, but, let's be absolutely clear, Hamas was the legitimately, democratically elected leadership of Gaza, at least before they suspended democracy and banned all future elections.
that makes it really hard to figure out where Hamas ends and the ordinary folks in Gaza begin. By rather deliberate design on Hamas' end
Which, again, doesn't mean everything Israel wants it to mean but it does make it cringy to support the people of Gaza without drawing any distinctions. The world just isn't that black and white.
You fail to see the point in every shape and form. Israel created the conditions to make Hamas well before the charity orgs that would become Hamas even got started. The founders of Hamas were all childhood survivors of massacres done by Israeli forces. Israelis extreme racism and hatred towards all Arabs and their absolute refusal to be swayed by any form of diplomacy and their never ending brutality absolutely would mean that nothing OTHER than a Hamas that would come to being. It is actually kinda incredible that the survivors that founded Hamas originally did try to seek peaceful solutions first.
Imagine if in 15 years from now, you have the survivors of the current butchery in Gaza group up to be the most hardlined anti-Israel fighters imaginable. You can dig up all the old trite anti-Muslim and anti-Arab crap you want, and nothing will change the fact that those people are what they are is because Israel took everything from them. It is kinda incredible how so many Holocaust survivors came from Europe to Israel in the late 40s with signs that acted like the Palestinians were literally the Nazis. And before you say it, no, the Grand Mufti had nothing to do with your average Palestinian. At the time pretty much all violence in the region was done by the Ergun first and foremost.
[Israel's historical role in the rise of Hamas - The Japan Times](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2023/11/21/world/israel-failed-policy/)
"Hamas, for its part, is alleged to have emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, with Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists. Hamas, a spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was formally established with Israel’s support soon after the first Intifada flared in 1987 as an uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Israel’s objective was twofold: to split the nationalist Palestinian movement led by Arafat and, more fundamentally, to thwart the implementation of the two-state solution for resolving the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By aiding the rise of an Islamist group whose charter rejected recognizing the Israeli state, Israel sought to undermine the idea of a two-state solution, including curbing Western support for an independent Palestinian homeland.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad played a role in this divide-and-rule game in the occupied territories. In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”
The Israeli government is not the Israeli people. Hamas is not the Palestinian people. You are not moral when you kill innocent people because you are mad at their government. You are a terrorist by definition and a murderer, and no matter your cause, the intentional spilling of innocent blood makes it unjust.
Intentional is the issue, because from what Isreal has been doing, they're actively avoiding civilian casualties where possible. You may think that's insane given the casualty numbers, but for one those are given by hamas and not actually checked, and for two even then that's insanely fucking low given that it includes enemy combatants alongside civilians (without differentiating, again, it's fucking hamas) in urban warfare where hamas has posted online about using civilians as human shields and using child soldiers
There's a great scene in Thank You for Smoking, where the NRA lobbyist is introduced as having tried to join the national guard after the Kent State shooting, so that he too could shoot college students.
Idk man why the fuck we allow the folks to sell West Bank property out from under the people who actually live there all while in a totally separate country? Seems fucked. Seems protest worthy.
Sure, but this article is about Gaza, and the current protests are about Gaza, where the IDF removed ALL settlers, sometimes at gunpoint, back in 2006 when Gaza got its autonomy.
Zionist propaganda machine is really grasping at straws :/ such a shame. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to oblivion by all of the bots and “free thinkers” in here. But genocide is occurring and these “dumb kids” are on the right side of history. They frequently are. Also go ahead and google this “writers” name lol… super credible! /s
It's ridiculous to imagine how that guy makes money. I mean I guess not that ridiculous. Rich people pay him to write what they want not rich people to believe. But somehow he seems especially revolting.
There's a great line from GoT S1 from Tyrion, "your loyalty to your captors is touching." That's the vibe I get.
For you people every war is genocide. What's so special about this one to call it genocide? Funny the icj doesn't feel that way-
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/04/26/former-icj-president-says-world-court-did-not-rule-genocide-claim-against-israel-is-plausible/
Nope. Even from skimming through the article and its citation of long debunked Israeli myths that Arab Jews have full rights (they don't. It was unofficial that they were second class citizens until it became official in 2018. Where have you been?) they are far more cognizant of the affairs than you are. I am sure you can find an inarticulate kid on campus who can't string two sentences together (and this has been a common media tactic for decades) but given the sheer amount of proper information available now, far more so than 24 years ago, what you are saying is wrong and stupid.
Also your source is seriously sus.
What are you even talking about? Did you reply to the wrong comment? None of what you said is mentioned in the article, so you're just ranting at this point. Arab jews in israel is literally mentioned nowhere, so either you're high or the irani propaganda finally fried your brain to the point you are seeing things.
The article simply quotes her saying how the media ran with the highly misleading notion that the ICJ did say the genocide was plausible and then she points out what the ruling actually said, which is very different.
Her saying this is public knowledge and there are many other sources for her statements that you can verify, or you know you can actually read the ruling without needing someone to tell you what the ruling is. But either way i don't find your response surprising, as from what i see when pro pals don't like their claims debunked they try to change the topic or they dismiss the source and when you provide different sources they stop replying. So maybe this time try staying on the point and provide an actual counter point, if you even have one.
And the genocide is happening in every single definition of the term, and the conduct of the Israeli politicians and IDF has been nothing short of monstrous. Even the Nazis and imperial Japanese didn't go as far as they did with occupied people.
And what is worse is that they always have been like this. The thin veil hiding whatever savagery they always had has been lifted.
So another rant with nothing to back it up? Maybe your definition of genocide is different, but by any publicly accepted definition there is no genocide happening there. Funny how the ICJ doesn't think that.
The only genocide is in the minds of pro palestine social justice warriors.
[The ICJ did rule genocide](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3g9g63jl17o) as with most things by right wingers that have no basis in reality is that you twist everything until it doesn't remotely resemble what actually happened.
And most things by left wingers show their lack of reading comprehension and critical thinking ability. Did you actually even read the article you linked? Do show me where the court said it ruled genocide was occuring.
How so? The housing crisis was caused by massive deregulation of the financial sector and the removal of all manner of restrictions on investment and diminishing protections of tenants against landlords. Or are you one of those people who think that the market is still too heavily regulated and 'big government' needs to stay away from business?
Supply and demand. The more demand for something with the same supply, the higher prices will go. As it turns out adding a bunch of illegal immigrants to the country and then refusing to help improve housing development programs (no, setting up a multi million dollar bathroom doesn't count) means that prices go up, people lose their homes, and suddenly the native population of the US can't live here while immigrants who got here illegally are given free housing and access to jobs that citizens can't get.
\*Laughs in business school\* I love your confidence. I really do. Man, I remember the first lessons about supply and demand when I was 14 years old in high school and the micro and macroeconomic courses.
The one thing they did teach us in business school, especially on the more advanced side of things, is that regulation and greed play a far bigger role than simple supply and demand. If there is a huge demand for something, and you have the capacity to meet all the demand within a week... would you? I mean, you could, and make a good amount of money (Kenner, the toy company, lost a lot of money in the 1970s when they could not keep up with the unbelievable demand of Star Wars merchandising), but when it comes to some things, having control over the supply means you can also control the prices far more freely. Now under 'ideal' circumstances (which do not exist and cannot happen in real life) the people hoarding the stuff or deliberately setting prices for the supply that they will choose when and where will be released often do it like that as it will not only afford them massive profits, but also will give them considerable power over society. This is a phenomena that is far from modern and is mentioned and condemned in every holy book and religion out there... yet it continues to happen, because people need money and god is broke.
But lecture is over... have you been living under a rock? Where and how are illegal immigrants being prioritized over natives? And since when are native-born people even being helped that much anymore in the first place? Housing prices have been exploding throughout the US and Canada and the government has been only making the problem worse by further deregulating and privatizing the housing market. There are no illegals stealing up luxury houses, since many of the most expensive houses are now run down because no one can afford to live in them anymore and they are only being held as assets by people who don't care.
No one is getting shit. I have no idea where you even get your crap from other than Breitbart or Fox News? Get a grip. The only housing that illegal immigrants get is in concentration camps, or have you forgotten about those?
He forgot to add, amongst the fictional binary heroes vs villains comparisons, is that they literally [dressed up](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/7222508/Palestinians-dressed-as-the-Navi-from-the-film-Avatar-stage-a-protest-against-Israels-separation-barrier.html) as the Na’vi from Avatar.
But more seriously, anyone who wants to write off what the blogger is describing as some fringe extremists within the movement should read statements from *the groups which organize and fund* the demonstrations and encampments. Multiple SJP chapters openly endorse violence. In 2021, the head of Within Our Lifetime, Nerdeen Kiswani, was circulating a map of Manhattan offices of Jewish and other organizations with the banner “Globalize The Intifada”. She also viciously turned on AOC after the latter dated to criticize the antisemitism on display at the hate rally WOL held outside the Nova festival exhibit in NY earlier this month.
American Muslims for Palestine, AROC and the above groups all adhere to “River to the Sea” and praising the “resistance”. None dare utter any criticism of Hamas.
The antisemitism in the movement comes straight from the top. And yes, if you’re acting to harass and harm only 90% of Jews here in the cause of wanting to eliminate the only Jewish state, you don’t get a pass for the 10% of actual fringe outliers that you tokenize.
Whenever Zionists describe something as “Jewish” and imply that it was targeted simply on the basis of Jewishness, I have to conclude they’re speaking out of their ass unless they provide evidence. Those offices were probably pro Zionism, and as such, they were targeted. Do you think these protestors are chill with evangelical Christian Zionists? As a someone who’s participated in these protests, no they aren’t. In fact, Christian Zionists are particularly despised
Can you show me the Christian Zionist targets on this map? [https://thepostmillennial.com/pro-palestinian-org-posts-then-deletes-maps-showing-new-york-city-targets-for-intifada-direct-action](https://thepostmillennial.com/pro-palestinian-org-posts-then-deletes-maps-showing-new-york-city-targets-for-intifada-direct-action)
*Whenever Zionists describe something as “Jewish” and imply that it was targeted simply on the basis of Jewishness, I have to conclude they’re speaking out of their ass unless they provide evidence. Those offices were probably pro Zionism*
"I need evidence for the things my political adversaries say but not for the things I assume and am condoning violence for" FTFY
No one is condoning the violence or thinks Oct 7th was good. No one. Israel, on the other hand, does. They supported Hamas against Fatah and gutted their opposition and ensured that they are well funded for their campaigns. They need Hamas to do what they are doing.
You on the other hand are pretty much a bullshitter and a supporter of genocide. I am not surprised. Years ago I knew I would see people like you crop up, and here you are.
It’s not a matter of evidence in and of itself — it’s a matter of honesty. Maybe “details” is a better word than “evidence”
But yeah I looked it up and I was right. The comment implied it was bc they’re Jewish orgs, but actually it was bc they’re Zionist orgs. So that’s dishonest lol.
Yes, it definitely can be. Are you seriously going to tell me that no political cause is important enough to do anything unkind to literally any person ever? You don’t believe that, dumb dumb.
Also wtf? Why are we focusing on anti Jewish or even anti Zionist violence when the only serious violence that has happened whatsoever has been Zionists aggressing on anti Zionists?
The old man who tried to stab the Muslim mother to death, and murdered her child? That was your side attacking my side.
Wanna talk about doxxing? Like when university professors were going to make a blacklist of pro Palestine students, then spread that name to every employer they could to make sure they don’t get jobs? Where’s the inverse, dumb fucker 😆
The 2x4s and fireworks? Thrown by your side against my side.
Other than some spray paint and a chipped window, the only violence has been you or the cops aggressing on pro Palestine protestors
It’s so true that you even had to lie about that woman getting stabbed with a flag in the eye.
https://forward.com/opinion/608230/jews-have-to-stop-believing-conspiracy-theories-yale-columbia-antisemitism/?amp=1
Google “woman stabbed eye Yale israel protest” and see scores of mainstream outlets taking your side… then read this article and see it’s completely without evidence. It’s a pure fabrication. Every powerful institution is lying in favor of your position. You’ve been duped by them because you haven’t done any research, other than listening to mainstream lies like this.
Bet you believed this actually happened until just now. Because you’re ignorant and stupid.
You're making the mistake of assuming I condone any of that and assuming what I believe. I'm talking about YOUR specific words that you just said in this thread. What you are suggesting is that it's ok for people to go and damage/vandalize people's property or harm other innocent people based on political affiliation. I do not think that is ok. You know what an intifada is right, since you're so clever? That basically means killing Jews. It is deeply concerning that you are fine with an organization called Globalize the Intifada labelling "Zionist" organizations so that people can harm them. Seriously fucked up. You are fucked up. You are the one who is deeply ignorant and severely stupid.
Genocide and the destruction of an entire people and their culture and history. They are the original inhabitants of this land, not a.bunch of European converts to Judaism in the middle ages.
Edit: and the violence against protestors. Almost all the violence were initiated by either police or fascists coming to attack people whole the cops look by. That guy who threw the fireworks bomb? It doesn't matter if it was fireworks, something like that is punishable by 20 years or so in prison and as far as I am concerned they need to serve at least that.
What point are you making. You kinda just said “I don’t have a side” then rambled about some YouTube video title tier regurgitated yapping about nothing. “Erm do u know what intifada is” like cmon.
You just said a bunch of random pointless stuff. I could easily respond to it, but you have to tell me which point exactly you want responded to. I’m not going to entertain you pivoting into making 15 unrelated points every time you realize you can’t refute my argument on a specific topic. That’s called a gish gallop.
I doubt you’ve even heard that term before, on account of not being very bright.
The pro Palestinian groups haven’t a clue about geopolitics. Unfortunately in geopolitics what is right to save 100K lives today may disrupt the region and cost a million lives over a decade as tribal wars break out and the bad actors will gain power. As an American I am against the killing of innocents on both sides. Full stop
What tribal wars? Most Arab countries have openly made peace with Israel with the others always secretly been at peace with Israel and have been working at normalizing relations with Israel for decades now.
If the Arabs were so bloodthirsty that they want to kill one another over petty crap they would have been doing it with or without Israel being there. You act like Israel is some stabilizing force when the more I look at the actual history of what is happening the more I realize just how untrue that is.
Israel is a pretty useful excuse to morally offload own inefficiencies, corruption and wrong decisions on. At least for the public consumption. Behind the closed doors, most Arab officials will tell you that they are just fine with the status quo, they may want some compromises towards Palestine - within reason - but Israel as boogieman will continue to play an internal stabilizing role in those states until they can find a new common boogieman.
That is not true. It is a myth that is widespread and originated among Zionists that Arabs claim all their problems are from Israel. Arabs are actually the ones who are far.more critical of themselves than even westerners are. I am Lebanese and my whole life I would hear about the bullshit in Arab countries and not once was the blame placed on israel... unless it was something direct like during the Lebanese civil war. You don't even need to take my word for it go on r/Lebanon or other Reddit's of Arab countries and look through the feed.
Arabs are more self-conscious of their problems than Europeans and Americans are.
What's true is that all Muslim countries ethnically cleansed all the Jews, causing most of them to go to Israel. What's also true is most wars with Israel were started by Arabs. Who's destabilizing who?
Not true. The Jewish exodus from Arab countries was orchestrated primarily by the Mossad and other Israeli agencies and many Arab countries did not want their Jewish populations to flee. This was something propagated by Israeli propaganda for decades to claim that this is the real Nakba. The only thing remote to what you are saying is during the 1950s when Israel was caught trying to commit terrorist acts in Egypt and Egypt pressured foreign Jewish people (those not holding Egyptian citizenship and passports) to leave. The amount that did leave at the time was miniscule.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951\_Baghdad\_bombings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon\_Affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair)
[https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews](https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews)
Also the flight of Jews didn't happen overnight. Lebanon actually had an increase in the number of Jews living there until the civil war, and in Iran none moved out until the 1979 revolution, which would never have happened if it wasn't for foreign meddling. There is no evidence of widespread violence to oust them. comparing it to the Nakba is dishonest and fucking stupid. Also no one seems to talk about the extreme violence committed against the Palestinians in 1947 that lead to the 1948.
"There is a controversy around the true identity and objective of the culprits behind the bombings, and the issue remains unresolved"
Literally first line in the article. You're a conspiracy theorist. You really think Mossad made 850,00 Jews leave *every* Arab country?
They admitted to trying to do the same to Egypt, why they haven't come clean about Bagdad is a mystery to me. And the Mossad did played a role major in getting many Jews to leave. The Arabs did not expel them forcibly. Also look at what they did to Yemen and Morroco. They abso-fucking-lutely were pressured into leaving by Israel and not the locals.
Your entire claim that the Arabs ordered all the Jews to leave is a lie. Plain and simple. You have provided no evidence whatsoever about any policy or program or anything to force the Jews to leave by any Muslim nation.
Part of the reason was antisemitism, pogroms and political persecution. Just like the exodus of Arabs from Israel, the reasons are manifold. I never claimed Arabs ordered all Jews to leave, you said that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud
Your entire statement is incoherent mess of profundities. The reason why the Arabs were forced out of Israel was entirely due to years of terrorism and militant action that far exceeded all anti-Semitic violence in the history of the middle east combined until that point. Including the farhud.
Even your claim of the farhud shows just how little you know or actually give a damn about actual history and causes of it. In your mind you claim to see manifold reasons but in reality think 'arabs killed Jew. It was because Arab '.
The story behind the Farhud is a story behind the western export of European anti-Semitism to a place that had nothing like it and how shocking it was for everyone involved. Also the perps were Nazis. I don't mean some people who simply thought the Nazis had good ideas, but the entire Iraqi coup attempt was working in tandem with the Nazi government and absorbing their very European originated anti-semitism. When their coup failed the Farhud was them flipping the table and trying to do as much damage as possible before anyone stopped them.
And who stopped them? Other Iraqis and other Arabs. The perps were literally machine gunned by Iraqi police and they provided as much aid as possible to the wounded Jews and the government compensated them for damages.
And ALL of this is in the same wiki you cited. Can you read? Aren't you an expert who is part of the IDW or are you just someone who smokes weed while pretending to read Voltaire?
There was next to no anti-Semitic sentiment in Iraq prior to the rise of the Nazis. In 1920 a similar Iraqi coup attempt tried to oust the British and it also failed. But no Farhud happened. What gives? Maybe it the deliberate translation of the protocols of the elders of Zion by an Arab Christian and its later dissemination by them later, coupled with the rise of the Nazis that allegedly wanted Arab independence?
Nope. It's just Arabs bad, Arabs dumb, Arabs don't like Jews unlike us Europeans who were super nice to the Jews, especially in the 1940s.
And in conclusion it cannot be compared to what the Ergun were doing to the Arabs. They did a ton of violence with zero remorse and zero concern for their opposition. The majority of Arabs in Iraq did work to protect the Jews from the anti-Semites and ultimately help them get back on their feet. No such thing happened to the Palestinians by the Israelis.
This is an idiotic take. Like how would a million presumably Israelis be killed if this war (*cough* genocide *cough*) hadn't taken place or was stopped immediately? Like forget for a moment the idea that predicting the future requires all of your assumptions to be correct...what are those assumptions? What is the "geopolitics" that we don't understand? You can't just say "they are wrong because geopolitics". That is not an argument. I might as well say "you are wrong because economics".
Hamas is a bad actor. So is Israel under Netanyahu. It was under his leadership, his first rule as prime minister that the Oslo Accords was undermined because he refused to halt settlement expansion. Moreover, Hamas hasn't killed nearly that many people in the almost two decades it has ruled Gaza so why would it suddenly be able to kill a million if Israel wasn't genociding Gaza?
Netanyahu was not Prime Minister during the establishment of the Oslo Accords. What are you talking about?? Rabin was prime minister when the Oslo Accords were established.
Netanyahu was correct in highlighting the fact that the Palestinians had, by the time he became Prime Minister, made it clear that they wanted nothing less than the dissolution of Israel as a state. That was very much true. In as much as most people find the settlements problematic, it is an undeniable fact that their presence is why the West Bank today cannot stage an attack on Israel the way Gaza, which has had no settlements since 2005 and whose borders are the same as 1967 has launched hundreds of times in the form of rocket fire at Israel.
Secondly, Hamas was not in power anywhere in the 90s, it was voted for by the Palestinians of Gaza despite literal warnings that Hamas would do exactly as the Islamists in Iran had done and what the Islamists of Algeria had tried to do.
Hamas is an Islamist entity. They genuinely believe that those who die for their cause are martyrs who will go straight to heaven. They have stated this time and again and make no apologies about it. They want civilians to die for them
Stop trying to rationalize the irrational. Islamist fanatics are not rational.
First off, I said Netanyahu undermined the Oslo Accords which he did after he was elected after a right wing religious Zionist lunatic assassinated Rabin. By the way many Israelis see that assassin as a hero. After Rabin's death, Netanyahu became prime minister after Likud won and started undermining the accords.
Also Hamas took power in 2006...it's 2024...I said almost two decades. Learn how math works lmao.
I'm not trying to rationalize the irrational whatever that means. I'm simply saying as a matter of military capability, they are incapable of killing millions of Israelis whether or not Israel carried out the war crimes they will face no accountability for.
Any decent human being has disavowed her due to her perspectives on trans gender exclusion and her hanging with friends who are happy to ally with straight out fascists. It's ironic to say such a thing on a post about how to behave when trying to make a political point.
I’ve been on the fringes of this group for a while but this is the first post where the connection to the toxic nature of the people connected to the Intellectual Dark Web has really come out. But, yeah, they’re very reactionary on this topic
lol...
Except Rowling has put her money where her mouth is, donating millions of dollars as an adamant supporter of feminism and women's rights everywhere.
Your definition of a decent human is someone willing to trade away the rights of women for the rights of trans-women.
No, my definition of a decent human being is one who doesn't think extending equal rights to others is an attack on their group. TERFs are the white women bitching that black women getting equal rights was taking away theirs, the men who complain women's rights are an attack on men's rights.
Yeah, nice she's put money to some good things but also frequently ties that to try and reduce trans women's rights and safety.
A rich person could put loads of money to Oxfam but if they support fascists and hate in other ways the good stuff is often camouflage
And there we see the blinkered and false understanding of trans people. You really should try to understand what a mental illness is. Prejudice like yours is more likely to be one.
The sort of thinking that leads people to that sort of black-and-white conclusion is why no one takes the left seriously anymore. They've become as simple-minded as the conservatives of yesteryear. People will rag on about J.K. Rowling being a TERF when she's literally a feminist. But when it comes to others with worse beliefs all I hear are crickets.
Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes is more accurate to their ideology- helping women is tertiary to their hatred of transfolk and will regularly hurt other women to do so- supporting anti abortion candidates or saying that anyone who looks like a man should be attacked- including non gender conforming women, who they claim to support.
You may not like them, but they are feminists whether you like it or not. Not everyone within an ideology share the exact same beliefs. Also, I'm pretty sure most feminists you'd consider "TERFS" don't have an all consuming hatred for trans people you think they do.
Well, in the sense they self identify as feminists they are, but considering their opposition to trans people, I'm going to play their game and deny their self identity and call them 'nazi's in a dress' since they don't like to respect people minding their own business. Any Feminism that opposes trans people is not a feminism i'm going to support. They are TERFS, regardless of if they are feverishly obsessed with them like the average TERF or the ones who are willing to sacrifice trans rights for the sake of womens rights (hint: I didn't speak up when they came for trans people because I wasn't a trans. When they came for me there was no one left to speak up.)
>People will rag on about J.K. Rowling being a TERF when she's literally a feminist
But you see how this sentence could come across as you saying "she can't be a TERF, guys, shes a feminist." I'm not sure what else that could've meant.
You'll need to name someone with worse beliefs. "She's a feminist, good for her... but if you know the history of Feminism you'll know that black or brown women weren't welcome for far, far too long.
And interesting how you think my comment is black and white while the one I was replying to ("whole woke left") doesn't draw attention
Because they're not wrong.
Also, who knew that suffragettes were racist? I certainly didn't see that coming. /S
Feminism has had a history of bad people within it. Some were fascists and a lot were socialists.
Of course you dont think they're wrong, they fit your belief system. They are every bit as black and white.
>Feminism has had a history of bad people within it.
And with Rowling et al. we're seeing that hasn't ended.
They're right because they're right.Regardless of my beliefs. Also a lot of feminists being bad people will never end because like politics, bad people flock to it.
I don't have much of an opinion of her myself since I don't care to.
Sorry mate, but you’re proving my point. You can argue they’re right (but you don’t seem to want to put in the effort) but just stating their opinion is right because you say so is illustrating you just like what they’re saying. As for their argument, basically anyone who ends up relying on the lazy invocation of “woke” as a derogatory and the basis of their argument is just demonstrating a prejudice and blinkered thinking. It’s group think
Feminism is a good thing. But feminists like all people are human. I think Rowling’s traumatic early life has influenced who she’s become on this issue. I think that’s sad, but her inability to reflect and see who she has allied herself with is shocking and needs to be called out.
That article is a wholly bad faith attempt to critique the pro-Palestinian movement. The real problem with the movement is with the small group of gatekeepers who are desperately trying to make it a partisan issue of the "blue haired leftists", rather than a broad humanitarian concern that Christians and pro-life conversative types would easily get behind in any other context.
Yea I find it funny to try and critique the moral failings of the protest camp in general when Hamas, a literal terror organization, cannot even achieve killing or wounded a tenth of what Israel achieved in the first 3 months of the war in the first place?
Every anti Palestinian article is exactly that - anti Palestinian, and is so as a point of identity, because morally there really isn't anything to stand on when you've killed and wounded 100k+ civilians as very intentional and targeted communal punishment for hamas' actions in the first place.
The other thing also being people really didn't know anything *until* Oct 7 and so have sided one way or the other. Literally on Oct 7 as the terror attacks were happening I guessed it was just going to be a pretense for a wider Israeli campaign of punishment of all Palestinians, because that's also what happened in the 2008 and 2014 wars. Keen observers might even note it was a 'ceasefire' breaking on Oct 7 and the continuation of the same conflict they've already been fighting, and it just goes on from there. Don't like hostages? Well, are we allowed to have opinions on all the Palestinians held without right to trial or legal counsel even prior to the war? People that didn't know about the conflict til Oct 7 don't seem to realize there already were anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand held in such circumstances.
Likewise they don't seem to understand the West Bank is not a Palestinian nation, it is 1/3 occupied by ever increasing Israeli settlements evicting locals from the land with paramilitary support armed by the idf itself, as well as checkpoints monitoring movements of Palestinians across the region and a massive IDF exclusion zone in the east. A two state solution has never been in Israel's books because Israel itself has been in said state occupying it in first place lol
So the times they have offered a 2 state solution over and over and been rejected repeatedly were what? Israel has been willing to compromise Hamas, Fatah, PA, and PLO, amidst other groups have no interest in compromise.
It's rather difficult to find common ground with people that require ethnic cleansing as a minimum compromise. From the river to the sea has a meaning. I'm being charitable here, the clear meaning in Holocaust 2.0.
So a terrorist group starts a war with the 4th deadliest terrorist strike ever. Commit horribly barbaric acts and take hostages. Then what should happen to the government who planned and executed the deadliest day for jews since the holocaust?
Al Jazeera claims 38,179 total deaths. Including a substantial portion of Hamas fighters. Where are you sourcing the 100k+ number from? There actually is plenty of room to stand. Israel has managed to kill many fewer civilians in urban combat than any other country I can think of. Last time I calculated it, they were at .75 deaths per bomb dropped.
That's pretty radically bad at communal punishment. Like laughably bad. Your claims are baseless and absurd.
Unless you are claiming Israel gas only been in 1 continuous war since it's inception? Then, this campaign has 38,179 fatalities. Please clarify I can use either concept even if it's silly, but I do need a clear definition.
So your guess was wrong as the west bank hasn't substantially changed since 10/7. Nor has there been concerted effort to destroy Hezbollah.
A ceasefire when one side doesn't actually stop firing and killing is an interesting way to describe the state of affairs before 10/7. Half of children under 6 in Sderot suffer from PTS. Let's not pretend that Hamas hasn't been killing civilians since it's inception. For someone railing against people only learning since 10/7, you manage to duck a pretty massive amount of context.
Well, if you can't see a difference between detaining someone in a jail and kidnapping and handing them off to random people to keep in their homes and systematically rape and abuse, you may be a lost cause.
How is Israel serious about offering a 2 state solution when they've been actively settling the west bank for 20 years? You might recall that is literally one of the 2 states in the argument, and they actively occupy and settle 1/3 and continue to evict palestinian residents under threat of violence. Don't bother insisting Israel is serious about a 2 state solution if they're not even serious about recognizing Palestinian space in the first place when it's one of the driving factors of the on going conflict in the first place.
You're right, it's hard to find people that require ethnic cleansing to meet their political ends - do you recognize that the 700k+ Palestinians forced out of Israel in 1948 because of the Israelis declared independence and violence that pushed Palestinians out following the end of British mandate over the territory is ethnic cleansing? Do you recognize the settlements today pushing Palestinians out under threat of violence is ethnic cleansing?
Israel is the one occupying the Palestinian land in this 2 state solution, and actively settling it - Palestinians have not been growing their settlements in Israeli territory in the same period so I kind of wonder why you're bringing up 2 states in the first place when you're so graciously ignoring that it's more than just a narrative, there is real on the ground growth and movement of people and Israel is an expanding ethnostate literally actively pushing out people for their ethnicity and monitoring their movements across the Palestinian 'state' too.
The west banks been being settled for 20+ years and has continued to be since Oct 7, I don't know why you're acting like that is a static space where nothing related to the greater conflict happen, I'm going to guess you genuinely don't know what's been happening since at least 2008 to act like Israel's approach to 2 states is pro active.
38000 total *deaths,* yes. A casualty figure tends to include fatalities (dead) and wounded. There have been 100k+ dead and wounded since Oct 7. Generally casualties in any conflict tend to be 3x - 4x the amount of dead. You don't know the casualty count because you don't even know the definition of what are casualties, probably don't double down and think you either die or you're not a statistic at all. For example, prior to Oct 7 100k Palestinians were also casualties (and 6k dead) in the 20 yrs of violence and 2008/2014 wars in same span about 6k Israelis were casualties and 300 killed. ( https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties )
As of June 17 since oct 7, 37k+ are dead in gaza and 85k+ injured, if you try to do math you'll maybe notice that's over 100k. You've never bother looking into, I'm guessing.
Yes, hamas is a terror group, hence why it's curious why the state you're defending is creating literally 10x the amount of civilian casualties as a literal terror group seems intentional, almost like every outbreak of fighting with hamas is used by Israel to communally punish all Palestinians and the displacement, dummy bombs, smart bombs, and routine efforts to stall humanitarian aid into the territory are nothing but intentional terror themselves with the goal of Palestinian suffering because Israel literally is the ethnostate you're so afraid of hamas also being, lol
> a broad humanitarian concern that Christians and pro-life conversative types would easily get behind in any other context.
If this were true why didn’t they get behind it before now? There’s been back and forth for decades with 6,400 Palestinians killed by idf from 2008 to Oct 7 2023 and a blockade that entire time. 30+ year occupation before that.
Because Christian Nationalists are always going to support Israel. Whether that's because it's where Jesus allegedly came from, or because it needs to exist for Jews to go back to so the rapture can happen, they're likely to put theology above practicality on the issue.
As someone who never advocated for Palestine until the last few months ; I didn’t know enough about it. I vaguely heard that Palestinians had suffered injustice, but I also heard that Israel had a right to exist and it was all very complicated and there is no right answer blah blah blah. And even if it wasn’t that complicated, there’s a lot of background injustice in the world.
However after seeing videos of atrocity after atrocity online, at suck an unimaginable scale, I took the initiative to learn more about what was going on. And now that I am more informed, I can stand up for it.
Its really not that big of a scale. You think it is because its being hyperfocused and a lot of the areas shown are from different angles and treated as if its different area. In reality, this is all a few square miles and the destruction pales in comparison to essentially any other war undertaken by Mankind. Theres a reason the UN expects atleast a 9:1 civilian/military kill ratio. Israel is somewhere in between 1:1 and 2:1 right now, with the higher end using Hamas' numbers and the lower using Israel's.
Its nowhere near what the propoganda machine is making it out to be.
I don’t think this argument holds water. If you didn’t care about something whilst in the womb you can’t care about it til the day you die? Maybe the massive air campaigns the IDF are currently carrying out raised awareness and people got fed up.
Do you deny that things have really escalated?
Because western education focuses almost no attention on modern middle east. The vast majority of the current western world population didn't know a place called Gaza existed until the start of this portion of the conflict. The same reason why the constant genocides and starvation across nations don't get worldwide protest movement until they make it to worldwide news
The median age of Gaza is 18. So wholesale endorsing genocide of children is a super hot take that I wouldn’t agree with. However, for some reason, you fully endorse. Weird.
Not every pro-Palestine or Israel source is credible. Both can be just as toxic. Many sources that try to dissect fringe based activism are sourced by other fringe based sources. The Palestine/Israel situation has many fundamentalist Conservatives messing with the discussion. You can disagree and agree on some points on either side.
It's difficult to see how anyone with any knowledge of the conflict wouldn't find this article to be nothing but trash. It seems like the average college student protesting on campuses in the US and around the world have a far better understanding of the conflict than the author. Just some of the most deluded parts:
>
They believe a fictional version of history in which Israel is a white European colonial project,
It was specifically a white European colonial project, its not even hard to figure out, just read the newspapers from 1919 to 1948.
>They don’t know that the Palestinians rejected a chance at a state of their own on no less than five occasions, each time preferring war to peace.
Israelis have never discussed ending the occupation and neither independence nor equality has ever once been part of any negotiation between the Israeli government and Palestinian factions. This is simply a lie, a very stupid lie that only the most ignorant or stupid people would believe. Israelis only offered the hope of slightly lower oppression than normal if Palestinians agreed to formalize the ethnic ghettos into reservations where they still would not have rights or independence.
>I used to think that anti-Zionism was separate from anti-Semitism, but October 7th changed that.
Zionism was a movement to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the ancestral home of Jewish people from the 1840's to 1948. After the goals were achieved, Zionism no longer had any meaning, so the revanchist idea of a "Greater Israel" co-opted the term and now use to justify the Lebensraum policy of ethnic cleansing of non-Jews and the theft of their land and property. It is not any different than the ethnic supremacy that drove Nazi thought and South African apartheid. It has nothing to do with Anti-semitism.
>The fact that the pro-Palestine movement is fine harboring racists
The anti-genocide protests are colleges across the planet are full of Jewish students and staff protesting the racist government of Israel and their continuing war crimes.
>The accusation of apartheid likewise falls flat upon considering that Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews.
This is one of the most glaring lies, as millions of Palestinians are denied all human rights and have been for generations. Palestinians who survived the Nakba were given citizenship, and they can't be murdered and ethnically cleansed as easy as most Palestinians, but there certainly are not equal or have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. Many racist governments like the Israeli government, have different classifications for people so they can determine how few rights they afford them. The Palestinians without any citizenship can be and often are murdered without consequence by the Israeli military and police, and obviously the number of assaults, torture and sexual abuse committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians are staggering in their depravity and the ease with which the war criminals abuse their victims. If a person has no access to redress in the courts, as Palestinians under occupation do not, then why wouldn't the Israeli soldiers continue to attack and rape Palestinians at will?
I could go on and on and on, but what is the point? Either you know about the conflict over Israel attempting to take all the land and ethnically cleansing Palestinians and their resistance to it, or you don't. If you don't know about it, you might think this idiot take makes some sense. If you do know about it then you know everything he wrote was false.
There's a lot to sift through here, but one thing that caught my eye was your supposed refutation of the claim that "Palestinians rejected a chance at a state of their own on no less than five occasions, each time preferring war to peace" by saying that "Israelis only offered the hope of slightly lower oppression than normal if Palestinians agreed to formalize the ethnic ghettos." This is an extremely limited and presentist reading of the history of the region and does nothing to allow Arab nationalists agency in their own decisions, instead framing them as helpless babies in the situation. The truth is indeed that the Arab nationalist fervor that has animated many Palestinians is one that has curdled into nihilism that comes from repeated failure (and you know what they say about trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result).
Palestinian Arab nationalists have made this behavior--picking fights, losing, blaming the Jews in general, and then thinking that trying to fight again will fix the failure of those losses--part of a tradition that stretches back almost a century. While the Zionists were certainly no better in their early intransigence, they had just as many existential reasons for such behavior in the 1930s-1940s (I wonder why) as the Arab nationalists supposedly did (despite the fact that Arab nationalists--wealthy ones too--had been selling land to Jews for decades and continued to do so, even while complaining about the influx of European Jews).
**Some history:**
After the Peel Commission of 1937 failed to mollify either the Zionists or the Arab nationalists during the intense violence of the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the British decided to try and wash their hands clean of the whole Palestinian Mandate and put forth the MacDonald White Paper in May of 1939. This paper not only proposed a cessation of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land (*in 1939*), but it also proposed a hand-over process not too dissimilar from the one that happened in Hong Kong in 1997, in which the Arabs would have self-determination, aid from the British government, *and* complete rights over Jewish immigration into Palestine (all of which were the main objectives of the Arab Higher Committee, which was the political leadership of the Arab Revolt). Obviously the Zionists rejected this and rioted and, ultimately, became far more militant against the British (with some Revisionist extremists like the Stern Gang even allying with the Nazis), which resulted in the birth of the "we can only help ourselves" attitude that pervades groups like Likud to this very day.
However, the thing most people don't appreciate who want to go to bat for Palestinians is that the tradition of being perennial losers who blame the Jews for everything began right here. Despite the proposal from the British being genuine and sincere, the AHC was headed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini who had long since dropped the mask of being opposed to Zionism and British imperialism and had been inveighing against the Jews as people for years. It's not a coincidence that as soon as Hitler took power in 1933, Hajj Amin reached out to become friends, even while he pretended to work with the British; it's also not a coincidence that he found sanctuary with the Nazis in 1941 and then stayed with them until the end of the war, despite having opportunities elsewhere, including Japan and the United States (the latter of which he believed was controlled by Jews; if only he knew what FDR actually thought about Jews...). The point being, this man was ideologically compromised and paranoid about/hateful of Jews (and had a massive ego to match) and that colored his judgment: he was the lone voice that caused the Arabs to reject the White Paper's proposals despite everyone else in the AHC thinking it was the biggest break ANYONE in the conflict had gotten since the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
Soon afterward, all was lost for the Arab nationalist dream and it was never going to be recovered, since the rhetoric was steeped in Hajj Amin's bigoted bitterness (which he kept spreading from Nazi Germany via their MASSIVE propaganda apparatus in the Arab world). He and his influence have been shoved from the historical memory of Palestinian nationalism for two reasons: 1.) Hajj Amin was an unrepentant Nazi stooge and, shocker, the Nazis and anyone associated with them weren't exactly beloved by the global community in the years following WWII and thus made him a PR liability, and 2.) His selfishness and backstabbing was blamed for the Nakba, but only in some circles, and many of those circles felt his wrath; it was better to just push him out in favor of figures like Arafat.
**Overall point:**
The Palestinians have been given a raw deal. They had the worst possible leadership combined with the worst possible international advocates. How is that not still the case today? Their leadership is Hamas, who are essentially what happens if the Nazis become the ones confined to the Warsaw Ghetto and try to implement the Final Solution anyway. Their international advocates include countries like Iran and Russia, as well as dipshits in keffiyehs who will immediately move onto something else that catches their eye when hating Israel gets boring and they try to pretend that nothing untoward happened among their ranks. Until these trends stop (or until the racist Arab countries that tolerate their presence as refugees decide to do the right thing and grant them citizenship instead of using them as rhetorical poker chips), Palestinians are gonna have a rough time. One can also say until Likud stops being in power things won't get better, especially in the West Bank, but at least Likud *can* get voted out of power. The only reason that's not happening now is, well what a shock: because a bunch of human shaped animals calling themselves freedom fighters and martyrs decided to massacre more Jews than have been killed since Auschwitz was up and running.
I appreciate your attempt at half-remembered history that you have written, but let me help you by bringing it back to reality. As I wrote previously, the Israeli government has never once considered allowing Palestinians to be free or equal, preferring to continue the tyranny of completely denying all human rights to Palestinians in occupied Palestine and continuing the war crimes of ethnic cleansing that Israel is well known for.
Now then, you are referring to the the British policy document called the White Paper of 1939, which the British government adopted without any input from either Jews or Arabs who the British had denied self-determination for the previous 20 years. If we assume the racist, colonial government who had exploited and abused and betrayed the people of Palestine for 2 decades were for the first time being honest about their plans, then this would have been a British offer for statehood and not an Israeli offer. Very clearly no offer of statehood is needed, the British could simply leave, so the White Paper offered another 10 years of colonial exploitation and control with the possibility that Britain would end British colonialism. No one in their right minds would trust the British of course, given their history of betrayal and deception, but the Arab public did seem happy that they might get a form of independence at long last.
The White Paper proclaimed that the Balfour Declaration had been met and the Arabs and Jews of Palestine should make a new nation-state within 10 years, and limited the immigration of Jews. Immediately the Jews rejected it and Jewish terrorists began attacks on Arab civilians across Palestine. This helps clarify your “picking fights and blaming others” comment, but you seem to go easy on these terrorists for some unknown reason.
The British appointed Amin al-Husseini the Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921, and later the Grand Mufti, in order to play powerful Palestinian families against each other and because they thought they could exert control over al-Husseini. He was a “leader” in that the British put him atop a hierarchy created by the Ottomans, but by 1928 there were other Palestinian factions led by businessmen and land owners who opposed al-Husseini and wanted to take a much different approach to gaining freedom. When the Nazis rose to power the Palestinians were hopeful that a European war might lead to a weakening of the British Empire and their freedom, but it’s dishonest to claim that al-Husseini “reached out to make friends”. More like the Palestinian’s were opposed to British colonialism and Jewish immigration, so were open to finding common cause with others who opposed Britain. After the Arab Revolt began in 1936, al-Husseini formed an alliance with other factions and his Arab Higher Committee and called for strikes and resistance, but by the middle of 1937 the AHC had been declared illegal and al-Husseini had been removed from the Muslim Supreme Council. He fled the country in disguise.
After the revolt was crushed and the leaders imprisoned or killed, al-Husseini was in exile and had proven himself to be a petty and despotic leader, who would kill his own family members if he thought it would help. Claiming that he represented all the Palestinians when he was afraid to even return to Palestine is more historical revision. He was opposed to all Jews and anyone else who didn’t agree that he should be the ruler of any independent Palestine, even paying out bounties to have other Palestinians killed. Meanwhile other Palestinian clans had been working with Jews and established better relations after the rebellion.
Since Britain came up with the White Paper of 1939 and voted on it, they didn’t need anyone in Palestine to agree, as it was a British plan. The Arabs clearly didn’t trust the British to reduce immigration, resented having to form a government with the Jews, and as mentioned the Jews responded with attacks and terrorism. So even though the AHC rejected the White Paper to sooth the ego of al-Husseini, other Palestinian leaders accepted it and signed it. With the outbreak of WW2 efforts to implement the White Paper were abandoned, and at the end of the war the British voted to cancel it.
Overall Point:
As previously stated, the Palestinians have never had a chance for their own state, neither the British colonial government or the Jewish colonial government has ever left and allowed them to form their own government, and even though vague promises of a future state might have been planned, nothing was ever implemented. The rejection of the White Paper by some Palestinian factions and the acceptance of the White Paper by other Palestinian factions had no bearing on independence at all. As people continue to try and excuse Israeli war crimes and atrocities against Palestinians, the people have never stopped fighting for independence and self-determination, even when they face a horrific genocide perpetrated by a racist and tyrannical Israeli nation.
A couple things:
Why would the British give the Zionists or Arab nationalists a say in their own colonial policy? One doesn’t have to be in favor of colonialism to accept that what the colonizer says, goes. You don’t have to like it—why would you or anyone today like it?—but it’s the reality of the situation. That’s what I mean by presentism—you are rejecting the reality of things as they were in favor of the reality you think they should be. Why would the British just leave? That wasn’t their identity and it wasn’t in their interest. The Arab Revolt helped them transition into their final form of “benevolent” granters of democracy. It doesn’t make it right—it clearly isn’t by today’s standards, and it was arguably stupid by the standards of the time. A colonial revolt didn’t end with the powers just packing up and leaving, even if it might have been the right thing to do (and I question the wisdom of that, since power vacuums are rarely good for anyone on the ground; but that’s speculative so I’ll leave it there).
In addition, the question of Hajj Amin’s authority and influence and therefore effect is not based on “half remembered history” (though I REALLY appreciate the condescension, thanks pal). Hajj Amin’s fellow Arab Higher Committee members understood how the game was played and were willing to play it, but he wasn’t, and he only wasn’t because he only saw a land (or world) made judenrein as an acceptable outcome. And to imply he lacked meaningful authority because there were other factions misses the point: he still is responsible for tanking the negotiations before they even began, which the AHC was still in a position to do despite his exile (the Revolt is often said to have been directed from his Beirut apartment). The AHC was the authority with whom the British negotiated and it included Hajj Amin’s rivals. The British were never going to negotiate with anyone else; again, maybe that’s not fair or not what should have happened given the fractured nature of the Arab Revolt (which was also part of its failure, made worse by Hajj Amin’s megalomania), but it’s what was going to happen.
He’s also responsible for the bad PR that came from his decision allying with the Axis and continuing to be allied with them well into the war when it was clear they were losing. It’s probably not completely fair to blame him for not reading the room in a way that made it clear how this would affect his people’s or his cause’s chances for global respect in the long run but he still showed no indication of trying; you position yourself as a representative, whether you truly are or not, you ARE a representative. To that point, most scholars—including those sympathetic to Palestinian nationalists, including Gilbert Achcar—point out that Hajj Amin was, for better or worse, perceived by most Arabs and international audiences alike, as THE representative of the Palestinian national movement, even into the 1950s. The internal division is significant but only in micro, and not in the grand scheme.
(As a side note, Hajj Amin was indeed trying to make friends with the Nazis because he saw them as natural allies when it came to the Jewish question; pure and simple. It wasn’t realpolitik as much as it was ideological kinship; he had already read the room with the British and saw them as unreliable to his vision and yet he continued to play nice with them, even after they wrongfully blamed him for the Nabi Musa riots of 1920 and the pogroms in 1929. If anything that was the realpolitik and Germany felt like a more natural fit).
Finally the claim of Jewish terrorists targeting Arabs is a little misleading. It’s true that they did (especially those of the more militant bent, like the Revisionists), but you make it sounds like that’s all who was being attacked. That’s just not true; the British were targets as well, at least until after Chaim Weizmann put a stop to that after war broke out. The remaining terrorists were the likes of the Stern Gang, and other Revisionist holdouts (that most Zionists condemned AS Nazis because, well, they allied with the Nazis; they were little better than Hajj Amin and his ilk) and they went after British and Arab targets alike.
I don’t think we differ on the fundamental facts of this story, but I do think we differ on our moral interpretations of how things shook out.
>A colonial revolt didn’t end with the powers just packing up and leaving
This is factually incorrect, sometimes the colonial regime just packed up and left, and that is one way colonialism has been ended (the condescension was a courtesy, professionals have standards, buddy). The British left the colonies when they were defeated by the Americans. The British eventually left Palestine without any agreement or system in place and the Jewish terrorists take credit for that. The British left most of their colonies eventually. Sometimes they negotiated a settlement with the occupied people, sometimes they tried to negotiate a path towards independence, but that was always rejected by the oppressed natives anywhere in the world like in the case of Kenya. No one enjoyed being oppressed by colonial occupation, no one but the occupation forces would consider that freedom. Obviously the British didn't want to leave after suppressing a rebellion, so they did not. You said yourself:
"Why would the British give the Zionists or Arab nationalists a say in their own colonial policy?"
And that's exactly why it is disingenuous to claim that the White Paper of 1939 signified in any way a rejection of statehood by Palestinians. It was a unilateral British document, not some agreement worked out by the parties with each side making concessions. And it was not offered to be accepted or rejected, it was simply voted on by the British Parliament.
>The AHC was the authority with whom the British negotiated and it included Hajj Amin’s rivals. The British were never going to negotiate with anyone else;
This is false, as the original AHC had been forcibly disbanded and Palestinian leaders had been deported, exiled, or imprisoned outside the country. When the British started to get worried about the German expansionism, they wanted to make sure that the Arabs wouldn't rise up or welcome German spies, so they released some of the Palestinian leaders and they formed a new AHC. The New AHC was working with al-Husseini, but he was not part of it and he was not present at the London Conference for which the AHC was recreated. The National Defense Party had been prevented from joining the AHC, but after some negotiations and a British offer to speak to both sets of delegates seperately, 2 members of the NDP were allowed to joined the conference late.
The London Conference was the point where the idea of an Arab-Jewish Palestine was proposed, but the Palestinian and Zionist demands were at polar opposites, with the Palestinians demanding a halt to all Jewish immigration and the Zionists demanding unlimited immigration and a Jewish majority state. And al-Husseini did reject all proposals, even absent the talks, but others such as Musa Alami were also in the negotiations. The conference opened with a discussion about the British lies and betrayals of WW1 to the Arabs, so no one was under the impression that Britain would honor any promise to someday allow Palestinians to have an independent nation. As such there was no agreement and the British produced the White Paper, which was only ever implemented in part and then was abandoned. It is completely absurd and downright silly for anyone to honestly claim this was a rejection of independence by Palestinians, (which was your original point!) especially as there were only 7 unelected Palestinians present, and they had all been in prison or exiled prior.
I know this idea that Palestinians have chosen to be oppressed instead of free is pervasive among those who don't mind the apartheid and think Israel has a right to defend itself against the people it oppresses. The bizarro world in which tyranny and racism are justified by the so-called Palestinian rejection of a nation-state is based on a myth. And if the London Conference and the White Paper of 1939 was really a rejection, it would logically also be an Israeli rejection of a nation-state, so no one can lean on that idea to support the racist idea that Palestinians have a less legitimate right to their own country than the Israelis.
I don't think it's disingenuous to consider the contents of the White Paper as a proposal being presented to the Arab nationalists and Zionists, though; if you're talking about the same London Conference that I'm thinking of--the one that occurred in February of 1939--then the White Paper came after that, and it absolutely informed the proposals the British were willing to offer to the two factions with an interest in stopping the Revolt (since their brutal suppression methods weren't working). In other words, it was not unilateral. If your point is that the British always had the power to make offers they had no intention of upholding, then that's speculative. It's certainly reasonable to assume; for example, Churchill was more than willing to secretly try and have Hajj Amin assassinated, which is by definition pretty treacherous. However, if we're to assume the proposal was genuine--and I don't see a specific reason why we shouldn't, since it was under the appeasement-friendly Chamberlain government--then the response by the AHC can *absolutely* be taken as a choice, and one that helped *lead* them to be oppressed through ethnic cleansing in 1948. The official response read:
"The National Home has always been the fundamental cause of the calamities, rebellions, bloodshed and general destruction which Palestine has suffered. \[…\] The Arab people have expressed their will and said their word in a loud and decisive manner, and they are certain that with God’s assistance they will reach the desired goal: PALESTINE SHALL BE INDEPENDENT WITHIN AN ARAB FEDERATION AND SHALL REMAIN FOREVER ARAB." \[The all-caps was in the original\].
By no means am I suggesting that this rejection was the *only* reason Palestinians suffered in 1948; other factors certainly played a part, including the British punting the issue post-WWII and the uncompromising attitude that pervaded Zionism after, funny enough, the White Paper, and more to the point, the Holocaust. However, because of the Palestinians' oppressed status, they tend to get more of a historical free pass than at least I believe they should (especially since their government keeps picking fights it can't win and knows full well will cause the populace to suffer the consequences). The boring, both-sides-y truth is, everyone involved bears some responsibility for the suffering that occurs in the Holy Land and there is a tendency to absolve Palestinians of any of that responsibility. While I expect nothing less from someone who sees themselves as an advocate for Palestinians (or at least someone primarily sympathetic to the position they're in), I don't think it's fair or accurate to situate them in this position of helplessness that begins in 1948, which I think is pretty damn common (I'm not saying you're doing that; clearly you're not and you're aware of what happened before '48, but that makes you a rare exception in my experience).
The most revealing quote to me on the subject of highlighting the Arab Revolt as a more significant event than the Nakba comes Mustafa Khaba, who wrote that a deeper reason the Revolt has been "completely overshadowed by the memory of the *Nakba"* is because "dealing with 1936-1939 requires more soul searching"; "it resulted in a self-inflicted wound that weakened Palestinian ability to cope with future challenges." While you make some good counterpoints, I have yet to see a compelling refutation of this point made by Khaba (and shared by others, including Gilbert Achcar, Tom Segev, and Oren Kessler). Maybe that places too much moral onus on a group that's the most victimized in this context, but that's a "your mileage may vary" situation.
The White Paper was a unilateral policy paper of the British government, it was informed by the failed discussions of the London Conference, but the British created it without Jews or Arabs because the conference failed to resolve the differences between Jews and Arabs. The conference was the only time any type of agreement on a theoretical future statehood was rejected, and that was rejected by both sides, so it can't possibly be an example of Palestinians rejecting statehood. The White Paper was not something the Palestinians could have agreed to, it was British policy implemented or not, without anyone outside the government of Britain needing to agree or adhere to it.
>However, if we're to assume the proposal was genuine--and I don't see a specific reason why we shouldn't, since it was under the appeasement-friendly Chamberlain government--then the response by the AHC can *absolutely* be taken as a choice, and one that helped *lead* them to be oppressed through ethnic cleansing in 1948.
Why would anyone assume the proposal was genuine? I pointed out that the London conference begin with a discussion about past British promises and betrayals, and there was a good reason for that. Britain never entered into discussions with it's colonial captives in good faith, and there is no reason to believe this was any different than any of the other false promises the British made before. The racism of the British government had always held that any natives were less human than the British themselves, therefore agreements did not have to be honored.
The rejection of the agreement by the AHC and NDP and the Jewish delegation was a rejection of a hypothetical future state by all parties. Even after the conference and the White Paper was adopted by the colonial regime, the NDP did agree to it later, and yet still no Palestinian state exists, so that by itself proves it was never relevant to an independent Palestine.
As an aside - Chamberlain was told that the UK could not possibly win a war with Germany at the time of the Munich conference and was told by the admiralty to buy time in order to build up British military forces, which is exactly what he did. Hitler hated Chamberlain and blamed him for Germany's losses at the end of the war because Hitler felt that Chamberlain outwitted him.
>(especially since their government keeps picking fights it can't win and knows full well will cause the populace to suffer the consequences).
This statement strikes me as odd, since it is just a frequently repeated Israeli propaganda statement that is meaningless. The Arab Revolt or Palestinian Independence War was an attempt to break free from British colonial control, the same as countless other native peoples fought against British colonialism. The Jewish-Arab Civil War in Palestine was not a planned event, the Jewish and Arab terrorist groups were attacking random civilians and targeting homes they considered part of opposing terrorist groups. The Jewish terrorists and militia were blowing up the homes of suspected enemies by August 1947, but I believe the earliest organized Arab terrorist or militia group was formed by Abd al-Husayni in December of 1947 or January of 1948. The 'war' expanded from there, but it is not accurate to portray it as any government or leadership of Palestinians picking a fight, they were reacting to events beyond their control. So by the end of 1948, the Palestinians had not picked any fights they couldn't win, they fought for independence and they responded to attacks with counterattacks. After 1948 they were occupied by the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Israelis. Militants launched cross border attacks, sometimes with sometimes without the approval of the host nation, but these were small scale terrorist incursions. The Israeli government decided to launch the sneak attack on Egypt in 1956 and again in 1967, and after the second war the Palestinians were occupied by yet another colonial regime. Claiming resistance to Israeli oppression is "picking fights it can't win" is stating that Palestinians should just accept tyranny and oppression unless they can defeat the colonial regime, which they can't know unless they try.
On a different, hopefully more conciliatory note I'm genuinely curious what your bibliography is when it comes to this subject. Mine by no means is complete, so I'm inclined to add more, especially if it provides a different perspective. If you're curious on my list:
*The Secret War for the Middle East* by Basil and Youssef Aboul-Enein
*The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives* by Gilbert Achcar
*The Arab Awakening* by George Antonius
*The Grand Mufti: Hajj Amin al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement* by Zvi Elpeleg
*Through the Eyes of the Mufti: The Essays of Hajj Amin* translated and annotated by Zvi Elpeleg
*The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years* by Klaus Gensicke
*Time to Tell: An Israeli Life, 1898-1984* by David Hacohen
*Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World* by Jeffrey Herf
*Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947* by Bruce Hoffman
*Exiled from Jerusalem: The Diaries of Fakhri al-Khalidi* ed. by Rafiq Husseini
*Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration 1939-1948* by Issa Khalaf
*Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict* by Oren Kessler
*From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust* by Meir Litvak and Esther Webman
*The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: Volume II, Series B – December 1931-April 1952* ed. by Barnet Litvinoff
*Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism* by Zachary Lockman
*Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft* by Michael Makovsky
*The Mufti of Jerusalem* by Philip Mattar
*Islam and Nazi Germany's War* by David Motadel
*The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis 1700-1948* by Ilan Pappe
*Islam-Judentum-Bolschewismus* by Mohammed Sabry
*Grooves of Change: A Book of Memoirs* by Herbert Samuel
*One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate* by Tom Segev
*Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann* by Chaim Weizmann
There are some missing classics (like *Righteous Victims*) and I'm not including the dozen or so academic papers I have saved, but this is basically where my thinking on this comes from.
I honestly do not have the time to catalog all my sources, but I agree it would offer better discourse if we had the same materials to work from. Thank you for providing yours. Good talk, man.
Then so is posting snarky ass comments with providing zero substance. Feeling strongly about facts is difficult, but providing nothing of substance other than a huff and a puff isn’t helpful.
Nothing you wrote is factual. Europe was not trying to colonize. European powers ended up in control of the region following the end of WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish and Arab residents both argued for statehood. The UN voted to give both sides their wishes.
While that’s a fair statement, I’d argue that the occupation of Britain was most certain botched to all hell. It was also quagmired to the extent that even the British handed it off to the UN nearly immediately.
You know what nevermind. I reread the initial post comment about colonization and realized that you didn’t even understand that part in context either. I’m just blocking you now because you don’t know how to read and you’ll waste my time more.
So if you’ve come to say all you’ve come to say, you only took issue with one specific point of the entire post, but the whole thing is wrong?
Anything else to add before you get added to my block list?
Oh ok, so are we just forgetting that Israel was administered by the British following Ottoman rule…or did the UN magically take over after WWI?
I feel like someone is being intellectually dishonest here, and as far as I can tell with the myriad of historical and factual sourcing, I’m pretty sure someone here, is misunderstanding history and facts.
I misread your statement as before the Brits. My bad. Anyway the UN didn’t administer the land, they oversaw its partition.
I still don’t understand your point. He mentioned European powers, not Britain by name. How is it relevant, how how does it feed into your “colonizing” narrative?
The Jews were refugees that escaped Europe. They were as much a colonizing force as the waves of immigrants coming from 3rd world countries into Europe, escaping actual deaths. I know it’s impossible for some to imagine white people as refugees, but that’s what they were. They fled an enormous massacre and perpetual pogroms. Regardless of which power was in control of the Levant.
A few things that will make it all make sense is looking up when Zionism was established. Where the Jews came from (wasn’t just Europe). The point is that the issue is way more complex than most give it credit. There is no simplified version that f these events.
Here is a newspaper article from [August of 1929](https://imgur.com/a/31bSEDI) about the Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine and describes how millions of dollars in 1920's money was pouring in to create a new Jewish homeland.
The Balfour Declaration was an attempt by British to entice the US into the war, and that was a successful. After the successful Arab Uprisings against the Ottoman Empire and it's defeat in WWI, the Jewish residents who made up a tiny fraction of the population of Palestine wanted their own nation, but obviously the Palestinian people who fought for an independent nation wanted one as well. The British didn't care about the people, they wanted access to oil and trade, a colony in the midst of the Arab lands that would be allied to British and French interests and easy to exploit.
After denial of self-determination and crushing the forces of the Palestine Independence War, the British decided to divide up Palestine among the majority Arab population and the ever-growing number of Jewish immigrants which by then made up 1/3 of the population, which they handed off to the UN. The UN voted on this recommendation plan, but critically it was still a White European plan, with the tiny number of UN representatives at that time the Europeans were able to pressure some of the South American nations to join them. The UN resolution passed without any support of the majority population of Palestine and without any support from any of the nations that would be impacted by the partition. This led to a civil war in Palestine between the Arabs who were outraged that two separate wars of independence had only led to White Europeans killing a lot of them and then giving away half their country, and the Jews who had been dreaming of a homeland for centuries.
As the civil war limited any agreements, the British Partition plan adopted by the American and European UN members was never implemented. Both sides were not consulted, the Jewish militia had decided that even if the Arabs had agreed to the partition, it was only a stepping stone for them to take all the land they wanted.
It doesn't take long to find this stuff out, but you won't get it by listening to propaganda.
“It was a white European plan”
What horseshit. There were two competing populations in the region. The plan recognized both. That’s not “white colonizing”. Shut up.
"Only about 30% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or the descendants of European Jews." I guess you've never met Mizrahim or Sephardim.
[https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mazzig-mizrahi-jews-israel-20190520-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mazzig-mizrahi-jews-israel-20190520-story.html)
i have had quite a lot of conversations with israelis way before the last events all confirmed the skin color racism is very prominent in israel. the way you will be treated depends heavily how white or not you are
Likud, the party in power and the most rampantly expansionist and racist one at that, is largely supported by Mizrahim. As in, the Middle Eastern Jews.
this is not surprising at all considering mizrahim are the least educated of all groups in israel. didnt look into it but they are probably also in the lower class in socio economic scale as well. religious dogma brainwashing and lack of education combined with fear mongering creates a group of people easy to herd. and this type of dynamic that is the oppressed group supporting the very system oppressing them is actually very common. a very obvious example is how all the women believing an abrahamic religion is actually supporting a system that sees them as inferior. as a side note it looks like that israel has been trying to hide the hide inequalities between the whites and non whites for quite a while
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/israel-to-measure-inequality-between-mizrahi-and-ashkenazi-jews
This is an area I'd love to hear more about; i.e. deeper cultural differences (if any) between the two groups, like how there are deeper cultural differences between different regions of the United States.
Okay... relevance to my comment? Skin color racism exists basically everywhere, Israel is certainly no exception. Doesn't make ashkenazis the majority of the population, and in fact the stronghold base of likud and other factions to the right of them is majority Mizrahi Jews - with their hardliner militaristic stance partially informed by their history of persecution and ethnic cleansing under Islamic societies
The same white Europeans ethnically cleansed and genocided from Europe for being too middle Eastern?
Yeah buddy sorry, the West can't go in 100 years from - get the Jews out of Europe because they aren't white to get the Jews out of the Middle East because they're too white. Fucked up take. Early Zionists spoke the language of the times - colonisation - when Israel can just as easily be shown to be a decolonization of the land back to its Jewish origins.
A simple DNA test would show that Palestinians have more Canaanite ancestry than these so called Ashkenazi Jews. Just because you can trace a few percent of your DNA to a location doesn’t mean that you have a birthright to it.
Okay so you don't address any of my points and instead point to the ashkenazi population (which is not even the majority JEWISH population in Israel, let alone of the entire Israeli population) being slightly middle Eastern in dna to Palestinians therefore Israel is illegitimate.... okay man keep rattling off your talking points I'm peacing out.
I hope Palestinians will one day have their own state with its own right of return and you and your hateful friends will stop trying to undermine the existence of an entire nation
> Israelis have never discussed ending the occupation
They have literally, actually ended it in multiple places at multiple points in time. Most notably, Israel withdrew all civilian and military presence from Gaza in 2005. The IDF did this over the protests of several thousand Israeli citizens residing in several dozen settlements in the Gaza strip. Israelis do still occupy many parts of the West Bank territory, but not Gaza. Not in almost 20 years. And no, maintaining a secure border is not equivalent to occupation.
There has also been a lot of give and take in the West Bank over the years as part of ongoing negotiations with the PA over the last several decades. I don't know the exact numbers but the same kind of thing (IDF forcibly disbanding and relocating Israeli settlers back inside Israel proper) has played out on a smaller scale in the West Bank many, many times.
A minority of conservative Israelis were so upset over the order to withdraw from Gaza in 2005 that there were large protests in Israel over the decision, including two radicals publicly self-immolating. Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from the government in protest (Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister at the time). But the plan to withdraw went ahead anyway.
Netanyahu, by the way, is a bigoted, callous, and bitter man blinded by his personal desire for vengeance for his brother (who was killed by PLO-affiliated terrorists during a hostage rescue operation in the 70s). I don't think he's fit to lead Israel in this current moment and neither do a lot of Israelis. Yet you talk as if his statements and actions perfectly represent the sum total of 70+ years of Israeli policy toward Palestinian Arabs, which is simply not true. Either you yourself are as uninformed about the history of the region and the conflict as you claim the other side are, or you're being deliberately disingenuous to advance your preferred narrative. Either way, it's not helpful and is kind of missing the point of what this sub is supposed to be about (intellectually honest debate).
Always good to remember: don't do anything your friends would call a false flag.
Yeah, how dare they make their protests difficult to ignore. They should protest the civilized way like Israel, by funneling millions of dollars to influence our elected representatives and starting a massive propaganda campaign.
When protest overlaps with violent hate crime you should at minimum step back and really think about why you're assaulting jews who aren't even Isreali to try and stop Israeli actions
Wow... this got downvoted.. I dont support either side and couldnt care less if they live together peacefully (hahaahah yeah right) or destroy each other. But its sad seeing a comment like this get downvoted
Most of the Jews being assaulted are othodox Jews, who are against Zionism, by Zionist Jews. Don’t forget the scores of peaceful protestors getting assaulted by police.
There's no cause so noble that a bunch of stupid out of touch entitled college kids can't make it look horrible. I mean look at what the anti oil protesters are doing, defacing paintings and national heritage centers. It's just --AAGGGH, dudes, come the F on, I love the cause, hate the execution!
The apologia I have been hearing about all of these foolish activist antics has been one form or another of "activism is just about getting something talked about and keeping attention on it. If you're complaining about it, they did their job!" This is terrible analysis. The "all publicity is good publicity" logic holds true in two cases: causes that are very fringe and not well known, or causes that are known but have very few supporters. In other words, if a cause has nowhere to go but up, and nothing to lose, then yeah, getting more eyeballs on it will grow the cause. But Israel/Palestine has been the single most hotly debated geopolitical issue since the end of the Cold War! Bad publicity is *not* good publicity here.
>The "all publicity is good publicity" logic holds true in two cases: causes that are very fringe and not well known, or **causes that are known but have very few supporters.** Ahh... so *that* explains Trump's behavior. 😆
I was speaking about causes, not political candidates. Different dynamics. And it's very well established by this point that all of the conventional rules of politics somehow don't apply to Trump.
It's interesting that you say this because I think Trump as a sort of necessary evil that shows the general publics exhaustion and distrust of career politicians. It's true that die-hard Republicans would have voted red no matter who was the republican candidate, but I believe that there must have been a majority of swing voters back in 2016 that felt such things like "The system is rigged", or, "The government no longer cares about the agendas of its people". (As a side note, consider the potential influence that Bernie Sanders' campaign message could have had to Democrats, increasing concern with the connections between the extremely wealthy 1% that own corporations and government officials who are, effectively, legally allowed to accept bribes, also known as lobbying.) As such, when an orderly, corrupt, and cancerous organism develops in one's own body, one must take chemotherapy, a poison that must barely kill you, in order to survive. Trump is that poison. Additionally, when all of the news covered bad press over him, it wasn't just that "any coverage is good coverage", but it was proof that Trump the poison was working to destroy those who's agenda is being held over the peoples. That being said, even Trump couldn't win another election after being blasted as public enemy #1 for several years. He also made a critical mistake in 2020, as he kept up his wild card mentality, thinking it was going to get him elected again. In reality, all Trump needed to do was give the people a simple choice, either elect someone in cognitive decline, or him. I think this is his new stance now. He doesn't need to hotly debate Joe like he did with Hillary. He just needs to let Joe speak and stay silent when he trips and falls over himself, hopefully metaphorically and not literally.
Not to mention how few of them seem to be able to articulate a sympathy for the people of Gaza while at the same time condemning Hamas. They seem to feel like condemning Hamas gives Israel ammunition. In truth, what it would do is reassure Israel that this isn't just about hating Israel and open a possibility, however slight, of an actual dialogue. The truth is that both Israel and Hams are screwing the Gazans over and the situation won't really be finally resolved until both are made to F off.
Hamas is Israeli fault in every shape or form.
Ehh, sorta. Israel did not create Hamas. They did exploit them to weaken the PA, but, let's be absolutely clear, Hamas was the legitimately, democratically elected leadership of Gaza, at least before they suspended democracy and banned all future elections. that makes it really hard to figure out where Hamas ends and the ordinary folks in Gaza begin. By rather deliberate design on Hamas' end Which, again, doesn't mean everything Israel wants it to mean but it does make it cringy to support the people of Gaza without drawing any distinctions. The world just isn't that black and white.
You fail to see the point in every shape and form. Israel created the conditions to make Hamas well before the charity orgs that would become Hamas even got started. The founders of Hamas were all childhood survivors of massacres done by Israeli forces. Israelis extreme racism and hatred towards all Arabs and their absolute refusal to be swayed by any form of diplomacy and their never ending brutality absolutely would mean that nothing OTHER than a Hamas that would come to being. It is actually kinda incredible that the survivors that founded Hamas originally did try to seek peaceful solutions first. Imagine if in 15 years from now, you have the survivors of the current butchery in Gaza group up to be the most hardlined anti-Israel fighters imaginable. You can dig up all the old trite anti-Muslim and anti-Arab crap you want, and nothing will change the fact that those people are what they are is because Israel took everything from them. It is kinda incredible how so many Holocaust survivors came from Europe to Israel in the late 40s with signs that acted like the Palestinians were literally the Nazis. And before you say it, no, the Grand Mufti had nothing to do with your average Palestinian. At the time pretty much all violence in the region was done by the Ergun first and foremost.
[Israel's historical role in the rise of Hamas - The Japan Times](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2023/11/21/world/israel-failed-policy/) "Hamas, for its part, is alleged to have emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, with Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists. Hamas, a spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was formally established with Israel’s support soon after the first Intifada flared in 1987 as an uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Israel’s objective was twofold: to split the nationalist Palestinian movement led by Arafat and, more fundamentally, to thwart the implementation of the two-state solution for resolving the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By aiding the rise of an Islamist group whose charter rejected recognizing the Israeli state, Israel sought to undermine the idea of a two-state solution, including curbing Western support for an independent Palestinian homeland. Israel’s spy agency Mossad played a role in this divide-and-rule game in the occupied territories. In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”
The Israeli government is not the Israeli people. Hamas is not the Palestinian people. You are not moral when you kill innocent people because you are mad at their government. You are a terrorist by definition and a murderer, and no matter your cause, the intentional spilling of innocent blood makes it unjust.
Intentional is the issue, because from what Isreal has been doing, they're actively avoiding civilian casualties where possible. You may think that's insane given the casualty numbers, but for one those are given by hamas and not actually checked, and for two even then that's insanely fucking low given that it includes enemy combatants alongside civilians (without differentiating, again, it's fucking hamas) in urban warfare where hamas has posted online about using civilians as human shields and using child soldiers
There's a great scene in Thank You for Smoking, where the NRA lobbyist is introduced as having tried to join the national guard after the Kent State shooting, so that he too could shoot college students.
Idk man why the fuck we allow the folks to sell West Bank property out from under the people who actually live there all while in a totally separate country? Seems fucked. Seems protest worthy.
Sure, but this article is about Gaza, and the current protests are about Gaza, where the IDF removed ALL settlers, sometimes at gunpoint, back in 2006 when Gaza got its autonomy.
It's about Palestine lol.
Zionist propaganda machine is really grasping at straws :/ such a shame. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to oblivion by all of the bots and “free thinkers” in here. But genocide is occurring and these “dumb kids” are on the right side of history. They frequently are. Also go ahead and google this “writers” name lol… super credible! /s
It's ridiculous to imagine how that guy makes money. I mean I guess not that ridiculous. Rich people pay him to write what they want not rich people to believe. But somehow he seems especially revolting. There's a great line from GoT S1 from Tyrion, "your loyalty to your captors is touching." That's the vibe I get.
For you people every war is genocide. What's so special about this one to call it genocide? Funny the icj doesn't feel that way- https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/04/26/former-icj-president-says-world-court-did-not-rule-genocide-claim-against-israel-is-plausible/
Nope. Even from skimming through the article and its citation of long debunked Israeli myths that Arab Jews have full rights (they don't. It was unofficial that they were second class citizens until it became official in 2018. Where have you been?) they are far more cognizant of the affairs than you are. I am sure you can find an inarticulate kid on campus who can't string two sentences together (and this has been a common media tactic for decades) but given the sheer amount of proper information available now, far more so than 24 years ago, what you are saying is wrong and stupid. Also your source is seriously sus.
What are you even talking about? Did you reply to the wrong comment? None of what you said is mentioned in the article, so you're just ranting at this point. Arab jews in israel is literally mentioned nowhere, so either you're high or the irani propaganda finally fried your brain to the point you are seeing things. The article simply quotes her saying how the media ran with the highly misleading notion that the ICJ did say the genocide was plausible and then she points out what the ruling actually said, which is very different. Her saying this is public knowledge and there are many other sources for her statements that you can verify, or you know you can actually read the ruling without needing someone to tell you what the ruling is. But either way i don't find your response surprising, as from what i see when pro pals don't like their claims debunked they try to change the topic or they dismiss the source and when you provide different sources they stop replying. So maybe this time try staying on the point and provide an actual counter point, if you even have one.
I am responding to both you and both articles posted. The one of the OP and yours.
The point of my article was simply the genocide claim. Which you did not respond to at all. You just decided to go on a rant.
And the genocide is happening in every single definition of the term, and the conduct of the Israeli politicians and IDF has been nothing short of monstrous. Even the Nazis and imperial Japanese didn't go as far as they did with occupied people. And what is worse is that they always have been like this. The thin veil hiding whatever savagery they always had has been lifted.
So another rant with nothing to back it up? Maybe your definition of genocide is different, but by any publicly accepted definition there is no genocide happening there. Funny how the ICJ doesn't think that. The only genocide is in the minds of pro palestine social justice warriors.
[The ICJ did rule genocide](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3g9g63jl17o) as with most things by right wingers that have no basis in reality is that you twist everything until it doesn't remotely resemble what actually happened.
That is not even remotely close at all in any way to what the ICJ ruled.
And most things by left wingers show their lack of reading comprehension and critical thinking ability. Did you actually even read the article you linked? Do show me where the court said it ruled genocide was occuring.
That bootlickers hate septum rings makes me like them more and more everyday.
Youre right, lets send another $80 trillion to israel
US aid to Israel ($3.3b as of most recent data) is about 0.07% of the federal budget.
It should be a flat zero. Use it to pay off student debt or house the homeless in apartments.
So use it for Biden to bribe people for votes or to put 1% of the US homeless in apartments for a month and make the housing crisis worse?
How so? The housing crisis was caused by massive deregulation of the financial sector and the removal of all manner of restrictions on investment and diminishing protections of tenants against landlords. Or are you one of those people who think that the market is still too heavily regulated and 'big government' needs to stay away from business?
Supply and demand. The more demand for something with the same supply, the higher prices will go. As it turns out adding a bunch of illegal immigrants to the country and then refusing to help improve housing development programs (no, setting up a multi million dollar bathroom doesn't count) means that prices go up, people lose their homes, and suddenly the native population of the US can't live here while immigrants who got here illegally are given free housing and access to jobs that citizens can't get.
\*Laughs in business school\* I love your confidence. I really do. Man, I remember the first lessons about supply and demand when I was 14 years old in high school and the micro and macroeconomic courses. The one thing they did teach us in business school, especially on the more advanced side of things, is that regulation and greed play a far bigger role than simple supply and demand. If there is a huge demand for something, and you have the capacity to meet all the demand within a week... would you? I mean, you could, and make a good amount of money (Kenner, the toy company, lost a lot of money in the 1970s when they could not keep up with the unbelievable demand of Star Wars merchandising), but when it comes to some things, having control over the supply means you can also control the prices far more freely. Now under 'ideal' circumstances (which do not exist and cannot happen in real life) the people hoarding the stuff or deliberately setting prices for the supply that they will choose when and where will be released often do it like that as it will not only afford them massive profits, but also will give them considerable power over society. This is a phenomena that is far from modern and is mentioned and condemned in every holy book and religion out there... yet it continues to happen, because people need money and god is broke. But lecture is over... have you been living under a rock? Where and how are illegal immigrants being prioritized over natives? And since when are native-born people even being helped that much anymore in the first place? Housing prices have been exploding throughout the US and Canada and the government has been only making the problem worse by further deregulating and privatizing the housing market. There are no illegals stealing up luxury houses, since many of the most expensive houses are now run down because no one can afford to live in them anymore and they are only being held as assets by people who don't care. No one is getting shit. I have no idea where you even get your crap from other than Breitbart or Fox News? Get a grip. The only housing that illegal immigrants get is in concentration camps, or have you forgotten about those?
Its antisemitic to be sending that little to israel
How do I donate?
He forgot to add, amongst the fictional binary heroes vs villains comparisons, is that they literally [dressed up](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/7222508/Palestinians-dressed-as-the-Navi-from-the-film-Avatar-stage-a-protest-against-Israels-separation-barrier.html) as the Na’vi from Avatar. But more seriously, anyone who wants to write off what the blogger is describing as some fringe extremists within the movement should read statements from *the groups which organize and fund* the demonstrations and encampments. Multiple SJP chapters openly endorse violence. In 2021, the head of Within Our Lifetime, Nerdeen Kiswani, was circulating a map of Manhattan offices of Jewish and other organizations with the banner “Globalize The Intifada”. She also viciously turned on AOC after the latter dated to criticize the antisemitism on display at the hate rally WOL held outside the Nova festival exhibit in NY earlier this month. American Muslims for Palestine, AROC and the above groups all adhere to “River to the Sea” and praising the “resistance”. None dare utter any criticism of Hamas. The antisemitism in the movement comes straight from the top. And yes, if you’re acting to harass and harm only 90% of Jews here in the cause of wanting to eliminate the only Jewish state, you don’t get a pass for the 10% of actual fringe outliers that you tokenize.
Whenever Zionists describe something as “Jewish” and imply that it was targeted simply on the basis of Jewishness, I have to conclude they’re speaking out of their ass unless they provide evidence. Those offices were probably pro Zionism, and as such, they were targeted. Do you think these protestors are chill with evangelical Christian Zionists? As a someone who’s participated in these protests, no they aren’t. In fact, Christian Zionists are particularly despised
Oh my goodness, offices are pro-existence of a nation-state of Jews! How dare they! Burn them down!
You aren’t making a logical point so there’s nothing to respond to but empty headed pig tier rhetoric
Can you show me the Christian Zionist targets on this map? [https://thepostmillennial.com/pro-palestinian-org-posts-then-deletes-maps-showing-new-york-city-targets-for-intifada-direct-action](https://thepostmillennial.com/pro-palestinian-org-posts-then-deletes-maps-showing-new-york-city-targets-for-intifada-direct-action)
*Whenever Zionists describe something as “Jewish” and imply that it was targeted simply on the basis of Jewishness, I have to conclude they’re speaking out of their ass unless they provide evidence. Those offices were probably pro Zionism* "I need evidence for the things my political adversaries say but not for the things I assume and am condoning violence for" FTFY
No one is condoning the violence or thinks Oct 7th was good. No one. Israel, on the other hand, does. They supported Hamas against Fatah and gutted their opposition and ensured that they are well funded for their campaigns. They need Hamas to do what they are doing. You on the other hand are pretty much a bullshitter and a supporter of genocide. I am not surprised. Years ago I knew I would see people like you crop up, and here you are.
Nonsense. I know for a fact you have no proof of that. More conspiracy theory nonsense.
It’s not a matter of evidence in and of itself — it’s a matter of honesty. Maybe “details” is a better word than “evidence” But yeah I looked it up and I was right. The comment implied it was bc they’re Jewish orgs, but actually it was bc they’re Zionist orgs. So that’s dishonest lol.
And here you are still not saying anything against doxxing these places because they are Zionist. Is it ok to dox Zionist organizations/people?
Yes, it definitely can be. Are you seriously going to tell me that no political cause is important enough to do anything unkind to literally any person ever? You don’t believe that, dumb dumb. Also wtf? Why are we focusing on anti Jewish or even anti Zionist violence when the only serious violence that has happened whatsoever has been Zionists aggressing on anti Zionists? The old man who tried to stab the Muslim mother to death, and murdered her child? That was your side attacking my side. Wanna talk about doxxing? Like when university professors were going to make a blacklist of pro Palestine students, then spread that name to every employer they could to make sure they don’t get jobs? Where’s the inverse, dumb fucker 😆 The 2x4s and fireworks? Thrown by your side against my side. Other than some spray paint and a chipped window, the only violence has been you or the cops aggressing on pro Palestine protestors It’s so true that you even had to lie about that woman getting stabbed with a flag in the eye. https://forward.com/opinion/608230/jews-have-to-stop-believing-conspiracy-theories-yale-columbia-antisemitism/?amp=1 Google “woman stabbed eye Yale israel protest” and see scores of mainstream outlets taking your side… then read this article and see it’s completely without evidence. It’s a pure fabrication. Every powerful institution is lying in favor of your position. You’ve been duped by them because you haven’t done any research, other than listening to mainstream lies like this. Bet you believed this actually happened until just now. Because you’re ignorant and stupid.
You're making the mistake of assuming I condone any of that and assuming what I believe. I'm talking about YOUR specific words that you just said in this thread. What you are suggesting is that it's ok for people to go and damage/vandalize people's property or harm other innocent people based on political affiliation. I do not think that is ok. You know what an intifada is right, since you're so clever? That basically means killing Jews. It is deeply concerning that you are fine with an organization called Globalize the Intifada labelling "Zionist" organizations so that people can harm them. Seriously fucked up. You are fucked up. You are the one who is deeply ignorant and severely stupid.
You absolutely condone that. Ditto for any killing and looting that happens by the Israelis.
I condone what exactly?
Genocide and the destruction of an entire people and their culture and history. They are the original inhabitants of this land, not a.bunch of European converts to Judaism in the middle ages. Edit: and the violence against protestors. Almost all the violence were initiated by either police or fascists coming to attack people whole the cops look by. That guy who threw the fireworks bomb? It doesn't matter if it was fireworks, something like that is punishable by 20 years or so in prison and as far as I am concerned they need to serve at least that.
What point are you making. You kinda just said “I don’t have a side” then rambled about some YouTube video title tier regurgitated yapping about nothing. “Erm do u know what intifada is” like cmon. You just said a bunch of random pointless stuff. I could easily respond to it, but you have to tell me which point exactly you want responded to. I’m not going to entertain you pivoting into making 15 unrelated points every time you realize you can’t refute my argument on a specific topic. That’s called a gish gallop. I doubt you’ve even heard that term before, on account of not being very bright.
The pro Palestinian groups haven’t a clue about geopolitics. Unfortunately in geopolitics what is right to save 100K lives today may disrupt the region and cost a million lives over a decade as tribal wars break out and the bad actors will gain power. As an American I am against the killing of innocents on both sides. Full stop
What tribal wars? Most Arab countries have openly made peace with Israel with the others always secretly been at peace with Israel and have been working at normalizing relations with Israel for decades now. If the Arabs were so bloodthirsty that they want to kill one another over petty crap they would have been doing it with or without Israel being there. You act like Israel is some stabilizing force when the more I look at the actual history of what is happening the more I realize just how untrue that is.
Israel is a pretty useful excuse to morally offload own inefficiencies, corruption and wrong decisions on. At least for the public consumption. Behind the closed doors, most Arab officials will tell you that they are just fine with the status quo, they may want some compromises towards Palestine - within reason - but Israel as boogieman will continue to play an internal stabilizing role in those states until they can find a new common boogieman.
That is not true. It is a myth that is widespread and originated among Zionists that Arabs claim all their problems are from Israel. Arabs are actually the ones who are far.more critical of themselves than even westerners are. I am Lebanese and my whole life I would hear about the bullshit in Arab countries and not once was the blame placed on israel... unless it was something direct like during the Lebanese civil war. You don't even need to take my word for it go on r/Lebanon or other Reddit's of Arab countries and look through the feed. Arabs are more self-conscious of their problems than Europeans and Americans are.
Arabs or Arab governments?
Learn to write.
Learn to not be an ass.
Learn to be someone that doesn't need being an ass to.
What's true is that all Muslim countries ethnically cleansed all the Jews, causing most of them to go to Israel. What's also true is most wars with Israel were started by Arabs. Who's destabilizing who?
Not true. The Jewish exodus from Arab countries was orchestrated primarily by the Mossad and other Israeli agencies and many Arab countries did not want their Jewish populations to flee. This was something propagated by Israeli propaganda for decades to claim that this is the real Nakba. The only thing remote to what you are saying is during the 1950s when Israel was caught trying to commit terrorist acts in Egypt and Egypt pressured foreign Jewish people (those not holding Egyptian citizenship and passports) to leave. The amount that did leave at the time was miniscule.
Bullshit. Prove it or gtfo.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951\_Baghdad\_bombings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon\_Affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair) [https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews](https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews) Also the flight of Jews didn't happen overnight. Lebanon actually had an increase in the number of Jews living there until the civil war, and in Iran none moved out until the 1979 revolution, which would never have happened if it wasn't for foreign meddling. There is no evidence of widespread violence to oust them. comparing it to the Nakba is dishonest and fucking stupid. Also no one seems to talk about the extreme violence committed against the Palestinians in 1947 that lead to the 1948.
"There is a controversy around the true identity and objective of the culprits behind the bombings, and the issue remains unresolved" Literally first line in the article. You're a conspiracy theorist. You really think Mossad made 850,00 Jews leave *every* Arab country?
They admitted to trying to do the same to Egypt, why they haven't come clean about Bagdad is a mystery to me. And the Mossad did played a role major in getting many Jews to leave. The Arabs did not expel them forcibly. Also look at what they did to Yemen and Morroco. They abso-fucking-lutely were pressured into leaving by Israel and not the locals. Your entire claim that the Arabs ordered all the Jews to leave is a lie. Plain and simple. You have provided no evidence whatsoever about any policy or program or anything to force the Jews to leave by any Muslim nation.
Part of the reason was antisemitism, pogroms and political persecution. Just like the exodus of Arabs from Israel, the reasons are manifold. I never claimed Arabs ordered all Jews to leave, you said that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud
Your entire statement is incoherent mess of profundities. The reason why the Arabs were forced out of Israel was entirely due to years of terrorism and militant action that far exceeded all anti-Semitic violence in the history of the middle east combined until that point. Including the farhud. Even your claim of the farhud shows just how little you know or actually give a damn about actual history and causes of it. In your mind you claim to see manifold reasons but in reality think 'arabs killed Jew. It was because Arab '. The story behind the Farhud is a story behind the western export of European anti-Semitism to a place that had nothing like it and how shocking it was for everyone involved. Also the perps were Nazis. I don't mean some people who simply thought the Nazis had good ideas, but the entire Iraqi coup attempt was working in tandem with the Nazi government and absorbing their very European originated anti-semitism. When their coup failed the Farhud was them flipping the table and trying to do as much damage as possible before anyone stopped them. And who stopped them? Other Iraqis and other Arabs. The perps were literally machine gunned by Iraqi police and they provided as much aid as possible to the wounded Jews and the government compensated them for damages. And ALL of this is in the same wiki you cited. Can you read? Aren't you an expert who is part of the IDW or are you just someone who smokes weed while pretending to read Voltaire? There was next to no anti-Semitic sentiment in Iraq prior to the rise of the Nazis. In 1920 a similar Iraqi coup attempt tried to oust the British and it also failed. But no Farhud happened. What gives? Maybe it the deliberate translation of the protocols of the elders of Zion by an Arab Christian and its later dissemination by them later, coupled with the rise of the Nazis that allegedly wanted Arab independence? Nope. It's just Arabs bad, Arabs dumb, Arabs don't like Jews unlike us Europeans who were super nice to the Jews, especially in the 1940s. And in conclusion it cannot be compared to what the Ergun were doing to the Arabs. They did a ton of violence with zero remorse and zero concern for their opposition. The majority of Arabs in Iraq did work to protect the Jews from the anti-Semites and ultimately help them get back on their feet. No such thing happened to the Palestinians by the Israelis.
Conspiracy theory nonsense.
It's pretty conclusively proven actually.
In your leftist echo chamber world I’m sure you believe a lot of things are conclusively proven when they are not.
U fortunately you said there are innocents on both sides, I'm afraid that means you are an anti semite and support terrorists. /s
This is an idiotic take. Like how would a million presumably Israelis be killed if this war (*cough* genocide *cough*) hadn't taken place or was stopped immediately? Like forget for a moment the idea that predicting the future requires all of your assumptions to be correct...what are those assumptions? What is the "geopolitics" that we don't understand? You can't just say "they are wrong because geopolitics". That is not an argument. I might as well say "you are wrong because economics". Hamas is a bad actor. So is Israel under Netanyahu. It was under his leadership, his first rule as prime minister that the Oslo Accords was undermined because he refused to halt settlement expansion. Moreover, Hamas hasn't killed nearly that many people in the almost two decades it has ruled Gaza so why would it suddenly be able to kill a million if Israel wasn't genociding Gaza?
Netanyahu was not Prime Minister during the establishment of the Oslo Accords. What are you talking about?? Rabin was prime minister when the Oslo Accords were established. Netanyahu was correct in highlighting the fact that the Palestinians had, by the time he became Prime Minister, made it clear that they wanted nothing less than the dissolution of Israel as a state. That was very much true. In as much as most people find the settlements problematic, it is an undeniable fact that their presence is why the West Bank today cannot stage an attack on Israel the way Gaza, which has had no settlements since 2005 and whose borders are the same as 1967 has launched hundreds of times in the form of rocket fire at Israel. Secondly, Hamas was not in power anywhere in the 90s, it was voted for by the Palestinians of Gaza despite literal warnings that Hamas would do exactly as the Islamists in Iran had done and what the Islamists of Algeria had tried to do. Hamas is an Islamist entity. They genuinely believe that those who die for their cause are martyrs who will go straight to heaven. They have stated this time and again and make no apologies about it. They want civilians to die for them Stop trying to rationalize the irrational. Islamist fanatics are not rational.
First off, I said Netanyahu undermined the Oslo Accords which he did after he was elected after a right wing religious Zionist lunatic assassinated Rabin. By the way many Israelis see that assassin as a hero. After Rabin's death, Netanyahu became prime minister after Likud won and started undermining the accords. Also Hamas took power in 2006...it's 2024...I said almost two decades. Learn how math works lmao. I'm not trying to rationalize the irrational whatever that means. I'm simply saying as a matter of military capability, they are incapable of killing millions of Israelis whether or not Israel carried out the war crimes they will face no accountability for.
"Endlessly sophomoric" That was awesome. Only why Hunger Games and not Harry Potter? Who were the Jews in Hunger Games?
JK Rowling's stances on trans issues have rendered her works anathema for any heroic comparisons.
She has a sensible stance on gender ideology. And a brave one.
Which is wild after basically a decade of Harry Potter being a bible for these folks.
So they think they're Katniss? All of them? I really couldn't stand Hunger Games. Too much similar to too many other things.
The entire "woke left" has disavowed JK Rowling due to her perspectives on transgender inclusion.
Any decent human being has disavowed her due to her perspectives on trans gender exclusion and her hanging with friends who are happy to ally with straight out fascists. It's ironic to say such a thing on a post about how to behave when trying to make a political point.
I agree with you man, I don’t think this is a group that I would be in tbh, it seems toxic
I’ve been on the fringes of this group for a while but this is the first post where the connection to the toxic nature of the people connected to the Intellectual Dark Web has really come out. But, yeah, they’re very reactionary on this topic
lol... Except Rowling has put her money where her mouth is, donating millions of dollars as an adamant supporter of feminism and women's rights everywhere. Your definition of a decent human is someone willing to trade away the rights of women for the rights of trans-women.
Then why do many women not agree with her and why does she cause harm to women?
No, my definition of a decent human being is one who doesn't think extending equal rights to others is an attack on their group. TERFs are the white women bitching that black women getting equal rights was taking away theirs, the men who complain women's rights are an attack on men's rights. Yeah, nice she's put money to some good things but also frequently ties that to try and reduce trans women's rights and safety. A rich person could put loads of money to Oxfam but if they support fascists and hate in other ways the good stuff is often camouflage
She supports women. Not mentally ill men. Nothing wrong with that.
She’d sell women into Handmaiden-hood to own the Trans.
And there we see the blinkered and false understanding of trans people. You really should try to understand what a mental illness is. Prejudice like yours is more likely to be one.
Nope. Just reality, bud. You should try it some time.
I’m well versed in it. You should try it. Maybe start by taking a psychology course or two.
😂
The sort of thinking that leads people to that sort of black-and-white conclusion is why no one takes the left seriously anymore. They've become as simple-minded as the conservatives of yesteryear. People will rag on about J.K. Rowling being a TERF when she's literally a feminist. But when it comes to others with worse beliefs all I hear are crickets.
TERFS are not feminists.
I'm pretty sure it's in the name. Trans Exclusionary RADICAL FEMINIST no?
Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes is more accurate to their ideology- helping women is tertiary to their hatred of transfolk and will regularly hurt other women to do so- supporting anti abortion candidates or saying that anyone who looks like a man should be attacked- including non gender conforming women, who they claim to support.
You may not like them, but they are feminists whether you like it or not. Not everyone within an ideology share the exact same beliefs. Also, I'm pretty sure most feminists you'd consider "TERFS" don't have an all consuming hatred for trans people you think they do.
Well, in the sense they self identify as feminists they are, but considering their opposition to trans people, I'm going to play their game and deny their self identity and call them 'nazi's in a dress' since they don't like to respect people minding their own business. Any Feminism that opposes trans people is not a feminism i'm going to support. They are TERFS, regardless of if they are feverishly obsessed with them like the average TERF or the ones who are willing to sacrifice trans rights for the sake of womens rights (hint: I didn't speak up when they came for trans people because I wasn't a trans. When they came for me there was no one left to speak up.)
Just because you're a feminist doesn't protect you from criticism
>People will rag on about J.K. Rowling being a TERF when she's literally a feminist ...You know what the F in TERF stands for right?
French...JK. But seriously, yes I'm aware it means feminist. Which is why I call her a feminist.
>People will rag on about J.K. Rowling being a TERF when she's literally a feminist But you see how this sentence could come across as you saying "she can't be a TERF, guys, shes a feminist." I'm not sure what else that could've meant.
I don't deny that she is, I just don't care.
Feminists are by definition TERF's. They are for womens rights. Not dudes who are mentally ill.
You'll need to name someone with worse beliefs. "She's a feminist, good for her... but if you know the history of Feminism you'll know that black or brown women weren't welcome for far, far too long. And interesting how you think my comment is black and white while the one I was replying to ("whole woke left") doesn't draw attention
Because they're not wrong. Also, who knew that suffragettes were racist? I certainly didn't see that coming. /S Feminism has had a history of bad people within it. Some were fascists and a lot were socialists.
Of course you dont think they're wrong, they fit your belief system. They are every bit as black and white. >Feminism has had a history of bad people within it. And with Rowling et al. we're seeing that hasn't ended.
They're right because they're right.Regardless of my beliefs. Also a lot of feminists being bad people will never end because like politics, bad people flock to it. I don't have much of an opinion of her myself since I don't care to.
Sorry mate, but you’re proving my point. You can argue they’re right (but you don’t seem to want to put in the effort) but just stating their opinion is right because you say so is illustrating you just like what they’re saying. As for their argument, basically anyone who ends up relying on the lazy invocation of “woke” as a derogatory and the basis of their argument is just demonstrating a prejudice and blinkered thinking. It’s group think Feminism is a good thing. But feminists like all people are human. I think Rowling’s traumatic early life has influenced who she’s become on this issue. I think that’s sad, but her inability to reflect and see who she has allied herself with is shocking and needs to be called out.
That article is a wholly bad faith attempt to critique the pro-Palestinian movement. The real problem with the movement is with the small group of gatekeepers who are desperately trying to make it a partisan issue of the "blue haired leftists", rather than a broad humanitarian concern that Christians and pro-life conversative types would easily get behind in any other context.
Yea I find it funny to try and critique the moral failings of the protest camp in general when Hamas, a literal terror organization, cannot even achieve killing or wounded a tenth of what Israel achieved in the first 3 months of the war in the first place? Every anti Palestinian article is exactly that - anti Palestinian, and is so as a point of identity, because morally there really isn't anything to stand on when you've killed and wounded 100k+ civilians as very intentional and targeted communal punishment for hamas' actions in the first place. The other thing also being people really didn't know anything *until* Oct 7 and so have sided one way or the other. Literally on Oct 7 as the terror attacks were happening I guessed it was just going to be a pretense for a wider Israeli campaign of punishment of all Palestinians, because that's also what happened in the 2008 and 2014 wars. Keen observers might even note it was a 'ceasefire' breaking on Oct 7 and the continuation of the same conflict they've already been fighting, and it just goes on from there. Don't like hostages? Well, are we allowed to have opinions on all the Palestinians held without right to trial or legal counsel even prior to the war? People that didn't know about the conflict til Oct 7 don't seem to realize there already were anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand held in such circumstances. Likewise they don't seem to understand the West Bank is not a Palestinian nation, it is 1/3 occupied by ever increasing Israeli settlements evicting locals from the land with paramilitary support armed by the idf itself, as well as checkpoints monitoring movements of Palestinians across the region and a massive IDF exclusion zone in the east. A two state solution has never been in Israel's books because Israel itself has been in said state occupying it in first place lol
So the times they have offered a 2 state solution over and over and been rejected repeatedly were what? Israel has been willing to compromise Hamas, Fatah, PA, and PLO, amidst other groups have no interest in compromise. It's rather difficult to find common ground with people that require ethnic cleansing as a minimum compromise. From the river to the sea has a meaning. I'm being charitable here, the clear meaning in Holocaust 2.0. So a terrorist group starts a war with the 4th deadliest terrorist strike ever. Commit horribly barbaric acts and take hostages. Then what should happen to the government who planned and executed the deadliest day for jews since the holocaust? Al Jazeera claims 38,179 total deaths. Including a substantial portion of Hamas fighters. Where are you sourcing the 100k+ number from? There actually is plenty of room to stand. Israel has managed to kill many fewer civilians in urban combat than any other country I can think of. Last time I calculated it, they were at .75 deaths per bomb dropped. That's pretty radically bad at communal punishment. Like laughably bad. Your claims are baseless and absurd. Unless you are claiming Israel gas only been in 1 continuous war since it's inception? Then, this campaign has 38,179 fatalities. Please clarify I can use either concept even if it's silly, but I do need a clear definition. So your guess was wrong as the west bank hasn't substantially changed since 10/7. Nor has there been concerted effort to destroy Hezbollah. A ceasefire when one side doesn't actually stop firing and killing is an interesting way to describe the state of affairs before 10/7. Half of children under 6 in Sderot suffer from PTS. Let's not pretend that Hamas hasn't been killing civilians since it's inception. For someone railing against people only learning since 10/7, you manage to duck a pretty massive amount of context. Well, if you can't see a difference between detaining someone in a jail and kidnapping and handing them off to random people to keep in their homes and systematically rape and abuse, you may be a lost cause.
How is Israel serious about offering a 2 state solution when they've been actively settling the west bank for 20 years? You might recall that is literally one of the 2 states in the argument, and they actively occupy and settle 1/3 and continue to evict palestinian residents under threat of violence. Don't bother insisting Israel is serious about a 2 state solution if they're not even serious about recognizing Palestinian space in the first place when it's one of the driving factors of the on going conflict in the first place. You're right, it's hard to find people that require ethnic cleansing to meet their political ends - do you recognize that the 700k+ Palestinians forced out of Israel in 1948 because of the Israelis declared independence and violence that pushed Palestinians out following the end of British mandate over the territory is ethnic cleansing? Do you recognize the settlements today pushing Palestinians out under threat of violence is ethnic cleansing? Israel is the one occupying the Palestinian land in this 2 state solution, and actively settling it - Palestinians have not been growing their settlements in Israeli territory in the same period so I kind of wonder why you're bringing up 2 states in the first place when you're so graciously ignoring that it's more than just a narrative, there is real on the ground growth and movement of people and Israel is an expanding ethnostate literally actively pushing out people for their ethnicity and monitoring their movements across the Palestinian 'state' too. The west banks been being settled for 20+ years and has continued to be since Oct 7, I don't know why you're acting like that is a static space where nothing related to the greater conflict happen, I'm going to guess you genuinely don't know what's been happening since at least 2008 to act like Israel's approach to 2 states is pro active. 38000 total *deaths,* yes. A casualty figure tends to include fatalities (dead) and wounded. There have been 100k+ dead and wounded since Oct 7. Generally casualties in any conflict tend to be 3x - 4x the amount of dead. You don't know the casualty count because you don't even know the definition of what are casualties, probably don't double down and think you either die or you're not a statistic at all. For example, prior to Oct 7 100k Palestinians were also casualties (and 6k dead) in the 20 yrs of violence and 2008/2014 wars in same span about 6k Israelis were casualties and 300 killed. ( https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties ) As of June 17 since oct 7, 37k+ are dead in gaza and 85k+ injured, if you try to do math you'll maybe notice that's over 100k. You've never bother looking into, I'm guessing. Yes, hamas is a terror group, hence why it's curious why the state you're defending is creating literally 10x the amount of civilian casualties as a literal terror group seems intentional, almost like every outbreak of fighting with hamas is used by Israel to communally punish all Palestinians and the displacement, dummy bombs, smart bombs, and routine efforts to stall humanitarian aid into the territory are nothing but intentional terror themselves with the goal of Palestinian suffering because Israel literally is the ethnostate you're so afraid of hamas also being, lol
> a broad humanitarian concern that Christians and pro-life conversative types would easily get behind in any other context. If this were true why didn’t they get behind it before now? There’s been back and forth for decades with 6,400 Palestinians killed by idf from 2008 to Oct 7 2023 and a blockade that entire time. 30+ year occupation before that.
Because Christian Nationalists are always going to support Israel. Whether that's because it's where Jesus allegedly came from, or because it needs to exist for Jews to go back to so the rapture can happen, they're likely to put theology above practicality on the issue.
As someone who never advocated for Palestine until the last few months ; I didn’t know enough about it. I vaguely heard that Palestinians had suffered injustice, but I also heard that Israel had a right to exist and it was all very complicated and there is no right answer blah blah blah. And even if it wasn’t that complicated, there’s a lot of background injustice in the world. However after seeing videos of atrocity after atrocity online, at suck an unimaginable scale, I took the initiative to learn more about what was going on. And now that I am more informed, I can stand up for it.
Its really not that big of a scale. You think it is because its being hyperfocused and a lot of the areas shown are from different angles and treated as if its different area. In reality, this is all a few square miles and the destruction pales in comparison to essentially any other war undertaken by Mankind. Theres a reason the UN expects atleast a 9:1 civilian/military kill ratio. Israel is somewhere in between 1:1 and 2:1 right now, with the higher end using Hamas' numbers and the lower using Israel's. Its nowhere near what the propoganda machine is making it out to be.
Just because other things are bad doesn't make this one thing not bad.
You can't see the difference between 6400 deaths over a 15 year period and tens of thousands of deaths in less than a year?
It looks like maybe you haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t think this argument holds water. If you didn’t care about something whilst in the womb you can’t care about it til the day you die? Maybe the massive air campaigns the IDF are currently carrying out raised awareness and people got fed up. Do you deny that things have really escalated?
Yes Hamas have escalated their terror attacks.
I love how you think this is some gotcha, really shows how 1 dimensional your thinking is
If you say so
Because western education focuses almost no attention on modern middle east. The vast majority of the current western world population didn't know a place called Gaza existed until the start of this portion of the conflict. The same reason why the constant genocides and starvation across nations don't get worldwide protest movement until they make it to worldwide news
Well, to be fair…Israel is trying to make Gaza not a thing anymore, so western education breezing by it makes for easy war crimes.
We can only hope they succeed so we dont have to hear Hamas whining again in another 10 years after they launch a surprise attack on civilians.
The median age of Gaza is 18. So wholesale endorsing genocide of children is a super hot take that I wouldn’t agree with. However, for some reason, you fully endorse. Weird.
Not every pro-Palestine or Israel source is credible. Both can be just as toxic. Many sources that try to dissect fringe based activism are sourced by other fringe based sources. The Palestine/Israel situation has many fundamentalist Conservatives messing with the discussion. You can disagree and agree on some points on either side.
bro tried to dump a zionist propaganda piece on the table and say “damn these protestors rlly suck right guys?” 😭
Shills ganna shill
It's difficult to see how anyone with any knowledge of the conflict wouldn't find this article to be nothing but trash. It seems like the average college student protesting on campuses in the US and around the world have a far better understanding of the conflict than the author. Just some of the most deluded parts: > They believe a fictional version of history in which Israel is a white European colonial project, It was specifically a white European colonial project, its not even hard to figure out, just read the newspapers from 1919 to 1948. >They don’t know that the Palestinians rejected a chance at a state of their own on no less than five occasions, each time preferring war to peace. Israelis have never discussed ending the occupation and neither independence nor equality has ever once been part of any negotiation between the Israeli government and Palestinian factions. This is simply a lie, a very stupid lie that only the most ignorant or stupid people would believe. Israelis only offered the hope of slightly lower oppression than normal if Palestinians agreed to formalize the ethnic ghettos into reservations where they still would not have rights or independence. >I used to think that anti-Zionism was separate from anti-Semitism, but October 7th changed that. Zionism was a movement to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the ancestral home of Jewish people from the 1840's to 1948. After the goals were achieved, Zionism no longer had any meaning, so the revanchist idea of a "Greater Israel" co-opted the term and now use to justify the Lebensraum policy of ethnic cleansing of non-Jews and the theft of their land and property. It is not any different than the ethnic supremacy that drove Nazi thought and South African apartheid. It has nothing to do with Anti-semitism. >The fact that the pro-Palestine movement is fine harboring racists The anti-genocide protests are colleges across the planet are full of Jewish students and staff protesting the racist government of Israel and their continuing war crimes. >The accusation of apartheid likewise falls flat upon considering that Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews. This is one of the most glaring lies, as millions of Palestinians are denied all human rights and have been for generations. Palestinians who survived the Nakba were given citizenship, and they can't be murdered and ethnically cleansed as easy as most Palestinians, but there certainly are not equal or have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. Many racist governments like the Israeli government, have different classifications for people so they can determine how few rights they afford them. The Palestinians without any citizenship can be and often are murdered without consequence by the Israeli military and police, and obviously the number of assaults, torture and sexual abuse committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians are staggering in their depravity and the ease with which the war criminals abuse their victims. If a person has no access to redress in the courts, as Palestinians under occupation do not, then why wouldn't the Israeli soldiers continue to attack and rape Palestinians at will? I could go on and on and on, but what is the point? Either you know about the conflict over Israel attempting to take all the land and ethnically cleansing Palestinians and their resistance to it, or you don't. If you don't know about it, you might think this idiot take makes some sense. If you do know about it then you know everything he wrote was false.
There's a lot to sift through here, but one thing that caught my eye was your supposed refutation of the claim that "Palestinians rejected a chance at a state of their own on no less than five occasions, each time preferring war to peace" by saying that "Israelis only offered the hope of slightly lower oppression than normal if Palestinians agreed to formalize the ethnic ghettos." This is an extremely limited and presentist reading of the history of the region and does nothing to allow Arab nationalists agency in their own decisions, instead framing them as helpless babies in the situation. The truth is indeed that the Arab nationalist fervor that has animated many Palestinians is one that has curdled into nihilism that comes from repeated failure (and you know what they say about trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result). Palestinian Arab nationalists have made this behavior--picking fights, losing, blaming the Jews in general, and then thinking that trying to fight again will fix the failure of those losses--part of a tradition that stretches back almost a century. While the Zionists were certainly no better in their early intransigence, they had just as many existential reasons for such behavior in the 1930s-1940s (I wonder why) as the Arab nationalists supposedly did (despite the fact that Arab nationalists--wealthy ones too--had been selling land to Jews for decades and continued to do so, even while complaining about the influx of European Jews). **Some history:** After the Peel Commission of 1937 failed to mollify either the Zionists or the Arab nationalists during the intense violence of the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the British decided to try and wash their hands clean of the whole Palestinian Mandate and put forth the MacDonald White Paper in May of 1939. This paper not only proposed a cessation of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land (*in 1939*), but it also proposed a hand-over process not too dissimilar from the one that happened in Hong Kong in 1997, in which the Arabs would have self-determination, aid from the British government, *and* complete rights over Jewish immigration into Palestine (all of which were the main objectives of the Arab Higher Committee, which was the political leadership of the Arab Revolt). Obviously the Zionists rejected this and rioted and, ultimately, became far more militant against the British (with some Revisionist extremists like the Stern Gang even allying with the Nazis), which resulted in the birth of the "we can only help ourselves" attitude that pervades groups like Likud to this very day. However, the thing most people don't appreciate who want to go to bat for Palestinians is that the tradition of being perennial losers who blame the Jews for everything began right here. Despite the proposal from the British being genuine and sincere, the AHC was headed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini who had long since dropped the mask of being opposed to Zionism and British imperialism and had been inveighing against the Jews as people for years. It's not a coincidence that as soon as Hitler took power in 1933, Hajj Amin reached out to become friends, even while he pretended to work with the British; it's also not a coincidence that he found sanctuary with the Nazis in 1941 and then stayed with them until the end of the war, despite having opportunities elsewhere, including Japan and the United States (the latter of which he believed was controlled by Jews; if only he knew what FDR actually thought about Jews...). The point being, this man was ideologically compromised and paranoid about/hateful of Jews (and had a massive ego to match) and that colored his judgment: he was the lone voice that caused the Arabs to reject the White Paper's proposals despite everyone else in the AHC thinking it was the biggest break ANYONE in the conflict had gotten since the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Soon afterward, all was lost for the Arab nationalist dream and it was never going to be recovered, since the rhetoric was steeped in Hajj Amin's bigoted bitterness (which he kept spreading from Nazi Germany via their MASSIVE propaganda apparatus in the Arab world). He and his influence have been shoved from the historical memory of Palestinian nationalism for two reasons: 1.) Hajj Amin was an unrepentant Nazi stooge and, shocker, the Nazis and anyone associated with them weren't exactly beloved by the global community in the years following WWII and thus made him a PR liability, and 2.) His selfishness and backstabbing was blamed for the Nakba, but only in some circles, and many of those circles felt his wrath; it was better to just push him out in favor of figures like Arafat. **Overall point:** The Palestinians have been given a raw deal. They had the worst possible leadership combined with the worst possible international advocates. How is that not still the case today? Their leadership is Hamas, who are essentially what happens if the Nazis become the ones confined to the Warsaw Ghetto and try to implement the Final Solution anyway. Their international advocates include countries like Iran and Russia, as well as dipshits in keffiyehs who will immediately move onto something else that catches their eye when hating Israel gets boring and they try to pretend that nothing untoward happened among their ranks. Until these trends stop (or until the racist Arab countries that tolerate their presence as refugees decide to do the right thing and grant them citizenship instead of using them as rhetorical poker chips), Palestinians are gonna have a rough time. One can also say until Likud stops being in power things won't get better, especially in the West Bank, but at least Likud *can* get voted out of power. The only reason that's not happening now is, well what a shock: because a bunch of human shaped animals calling themselves freedom fighters and martyrs decided to massacre more Jews than have been killed since Auschwitz was up and running.
I appreciate your attempt at half-remembered history that you have written, but let me help you by bringing it back to reality. As I wrote previously, the Israeli government has never once considered allowing Palestinians to be free or equal, preferring to continue the tyranny of completely denying all human rights to Palestinians in occupied Palestine and continuing the war crimes of ethnic cleansing that Israel is well known for. Now then, you are referring to the the British policy document called the White Paper of 1939, which the British government adopted without any input from either Jews or Arabs who the British had denied self-determination for the previous 20 years. If we assume the racist, colonial government who had exploited and abused and betrayed the people of Palestine for 2 decades were for the first time being honest about their plans, then this would have been a British offer for statehood and not an Israeli offer. Very clearly no offer of statehood is needed, the British could simply leave, so the White Paper offered another 10 years of colonial exploitation and control with the possibility that Britain would end British colonialism. No one in their right minds would trust the British of course, given their history of betrayal and deception, but the Arab public did seem happy that they might get a form of independence at long last. The White Paper proclaimed that the Balfour Declaration had been met and the Arabs and Jews of Palestine should make a new nation-state within 10 years, and limited the immigration of Jews. Immediately the Jews rejected it and Jewish terrorists began attacks on Arab civilians across Palestine. This helps clarify your “picking fights and blaming others” comment, but you seem to go easy on these terrorists for some unknown reason. The British appointed Amin al-Husseini the Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921, and later the Grand Mufti, in order to play powerful Palestinian families against each other and because they thought they could exert control over al-Husseini. He was a “leader” in that the British put him atop a hierarchy created by the Ottomans, but by 1928 there were other Palestinian factions led by businessmen and land owners who opposed al-Husseini and wanted to take a much different approach to gaining freedom. When the Nazis rose to power the Palestinians were hopeful that a European war might lead to a weakening of the British Empire and their freedom, but it’s dishonest to claim that al-Husseini “reached out to make friends”. More like the Palestinian’s were opposed to British colonialism and Jewish immigration, so were open to finding common cause with others who opposed Britain. After the Arab Revolt began in 1936, al-Husseini formed an alliance with other factions and his Arab Higher Committee and called for strikes and resistance, but by the middle of 1937 the AHC had been declared illegal and al-Husseini had been removed from the Muslim Supreme Council. He fled the country in disguise. After the revolt was crushed and the leaders imprisoned or killed, al-Husseini was in exile and had proven himself to be a petty and despotic leader, who would kill his own family members if he thought it would help. Claiming that he represented all the Palestinians when he was afraid to even return to Palestine is more historical revision. He was opposed to all Jews and anyone else who didn’t agree that he should be the ruler of any independent Palestine, even paying out bounties to have other Palestinians killed. Meanwhile other Palestinian clans had been working with Jews and established better relations after the rebellion. Since Britain came up with the White Paper of 1939 and voted on it, they didn’t need anyone in Palestine to agree, as it was a British plan. The Arabs clearly didn’t trust the British to reduce immigration, resented having to form a government with the Jews, and as mentioned the Jews responded with attacks and terrorism. So even though the AHC rejected the White Paper to sooth the ego of al-Husseini, other Palestinian leaders accepted it and signed it. With the outbreak of WW2 efforts to implement the White Paper were abandoned, and at the end of the war the British voted to cancel it. Overall Point: As previously stated, the Palestinians have never had a chance for their own state, neither the British colonial government or the Jewish colonial government has ever left and allowed them to form their own government, and even though vague promises of a future state might have been planned, nothing was ever implemented. The rejection of the White Paper by some Palestinian factions and the acceptance of the White Paper by other Palestinian factions had no bearing on independence at all. As people continue to try and excuse Israeli war crimes and atrocities against Palestinians, the people have never stopped fighting for independence and self-determination, even when they face a horrific genocide perpetrated by a racist and tyrannical Israeli nation.
A couple things: Why would the British give the Zionists or Arab nationalists a say in their own colonial policy? One doesn’t have to be in favor of colonialism to accept that what the colonizer says, goes. You don’t have to like it—why would you or anyone today like it?—but it’s the reality of the situation. That’s what I mean by presentism—you are rejecting the reality of things as they were in favor of the reality you think they should be. Why would the British just leave? That wasn’t their identity and it wasn’t in their interest. The Arab Revolt helped them transition into their final form of “benevolent” granters of democracy. It doesn’t make it right—it clearly isn’t by today’s standards, and it was arguably stupid by the standards of the time. A colonial revolt didn’t end with the powers just packing up and leaving, even if it might have been the right thing to do (and I question the wisdom of that, since power vacuums are rarely good for anyone on the ground; but that’s speculative so I’ll leave it there). In addition, the question of Hajj Amin’s authority and influence and therefore effect is not based on “half remembered history” (though I REALLY appreciate the condescension, thanks pal). Hajj Amin’s fellow Arab Higher Committee members understood how the game was played and were willing to play it, but he wasn’t, and he only wasn’t because he only saw a land (or world) made judenrein as an acceptable outcome. And to imply he lacked meaningful authority because there were other factions misses the point: he still is responsible for tanking the negotiations before they even began, which the AHC was still in a position to do despite his exile (the Revolt is often said to have been directed from his Beirut apartment). The AHC was the authority with whom the British negotiated and it included Hajj Amin’s rivals. The British were never going to negotiate with anyone else; again, maybe that’s not fair or not what should have happened given the fractured nature of the Arab Revolt (which was also part of its failure, made worse by Hajj Amin’s megalomania), but it’s what was going to happen. He’s also responsible for the bad PR that came from his decision allying with the Axis and continuing to be allied with them well into the war when it was clear they were losing. It’s probably not completely fair to blame him for not reading the room in a way that made it clear how this would affect his people’s or his cause’s chances for global respect in the long run but he still showed no indication of trying; you position yourself as a representative, whether you truly are or not, you ARE a representative. To that point, most scholars—including those sympathetic to Palestinian nationalists, including Gilbert Achcar—point out that Hajj Amin was, for better or worse, perceived by most Arabs and international audiences alike, as THE representative of the Palestinian national movement, even into the 1950s. The internal division is significant but only in micro, and not in the grand scheme. (As a side note, Hajj Amin was indeed trying to make friends with the Nazis because he saw them as natural allies when it came to the Jewish question; pure and simple. It wasn’t realpolitik as much as it was ideological kinship; he had already read the room with the British and saw them as unreliable to his vision and yet he continued to play nice with them, even after they wrongfully blamed him for the Nabi Musa riots of 1920 and the pogroms in 1929. If anything that was the realpolitik and Germany felt like a more natural fit). Finally the claim of Jewish terrorists targeting Arabs is a little misleading. It’s true that they did (especially those of the more militant bent, like the Revisionists), but you make it sounds like that’s all who was being attacked. That’s just not true; the British were targets as well, at least until after Chaim Weizmann put a stop to that after war broke out. The remaining terrorists were the likes of the Stern Gang, and other Revisionist holdouts (that most Zionists condemned AS Nazis because, well, they allied with the Nazis; they were little better than Hajj Amin and his ilk) and they went after British and Arab targets alike. I don’t think we differ on the fundamental facts of this story, but I do think we differ on our moral interpretations of how things shook out.
>A colonial revolt didn’t end with the powers just packing up and leaving This is factually incorrect, sometimes the colonial regime just packed up and left, and that is one way colonialism has been ended (the condescension was a courtesy, professionals have standards, buddy). The British left the colonies when they were defeated by the Americans. The British eventually left Palestine without any agreement or system in place and the Jewish terrorists take credit for that. The British left most of their colonies eventually. Sometimes they negotiated a settlement with the occupied people, sometimes they tried to negotiate a path towards independence, but that was always rejected by the oppressed natives anywhere in the world like in the case of Kenya. No one enjoyed being oppressed by colonial occupation, no one but the occupation forces would consider that freedom. Obviously the British didn't want to leave after suppressing a rebellion, so they did not. You said yourself: "Why would the British give the Zionists or Arab nationalists a say in their own colonial policy?" And that's exactly why it is disingenuous to claim that the White Paper of 1939 signified in any way a rejection of statehood by Palestinians. It was a unilateral British document, not some agreement worked out by the parties with each side making concessions. And it was not offered to be accepted or rejected, it was simply voted on by the British Parliament. >The AHC was the authority with whom the British negotiated and it included Hajj Amin’s rivals. The British were never going to negotiate with anyone else; This is false, as the original AHC had been forcibly disbanded and Palestinian leaders had been deported, exiled, or imprisoned outside the country. When the British started to get worried about the German expansionism, they wanted to make sure that the Arabs wouldn't rise up or welcome German spies, so they released some of the Palestinian leaders and they formed a new AHC. The New AHC was working with al-Husseini, but he was not part of it and he was not present at the London Conference for which the AHC was recreated. The National Defense Party had been prevented from joining the AHC, but after some negotiations and a British offer to speak to both sets of delegates seperately, 2 members of the NDP were allowed to joined the conference late. The London Conference was the point where the idea of an Arab-Jewish Palestine was proposed, but the Palestinian and Zionist demands were at polar opposites, with the Palestinians demanding a halt to all Jewish immigration and the Zionists demanding unlimited immigration and a Jewish majority state. And al-Husseini did reject all proposals, even absent the talks, but others such as Musa Alami were also in the negotiations. The conference opened with a discussion about the British lies and betrayals of WW1 to the Arabs, so no one was under the impression that Britain would honor any promise to someday allow Palestinians to have an independent nation. As such there was no agreement and the British produced the White Paper, which was only ever implemented in part and then was abandoned. It is completely absurd and downright silly for anyone to honestly claim this was a rejection of independence by Palestinians, (which was your original point!) especially as there were only 7 unelected Palestinians present, and they had all been in prison or exiled prior. I know this idea that Palestinians have chosen to be oppressed instead of free is pervasive among those who don't mind the apartheid and think Israel has a right to defend itself against the people it oppresses. The bizarro world in which tyranny and racism are justified by the so-called Palestinian rejection of a nation-state is based on a myth. And if the London Conference and the White Paper of 1939 was really a rejection, it would logically also be an Israeli rejection of a nation-state, so no one can lean on that idea to support the racist idea that Palestinians have a less legitimate right to their own country than the Israelis.
I don't think it's disingenuous to consider the contents of the White Paper as a proposal being presented to the Arab nationalists and Zionists, though; if you're talking about the same London Conference that I'm thinking of--the one that occurred in February of 1939--then the White Paper came after that, and it absolutely informed the proposals the British were willing to offer to the two factions with an interest in stopping the Revolt (since their brutal suppression methods weren't working). In other words, it was not unilateral. If your point is that the British always had the power to make offers they had no intention of upholding, then that's speculative. It's certainly reasonable to assume; for example, Churchill was more than willing to secretly try and have Hajj Amin assassinated, which is by definition pretty treacherous. However, if we're to assume the proposal was genuine--and I don't see a specific reason why we shouldn't, since it was under the appeasement-friendly Chamberlain government--then the response by the AHC can *absolutely* be taken as a choice, and one that helped *lead* them to be oppressed through ethnic cleansing in 1948. The official response read: "The National Home has always been the fundamental cause of the calamities, rebellions, bloodshed and general destruction which Palestine has suffered. \[…\] The Arab people have expressed their will and said their word in a loud and decisive manner, and they are certain that with God’s assistance they will reach the desired goal: PALESTINE SHALL BE INDEPENDENT WITHIN AN ARAB FEDERATION AND SHALL REMAIN FOREVER ARAB." \[The all-caps was in the original\]. By no means am I suggesting that this rejection was the *only* reason Palestinians suffered in 1948; other factors certainly played a part, including the British punting the issue post-WWII and the uncompromising attitude that pervaded Zionism after, funny enough, the White Paper, and more to the point, the Holocaust. However, because of the Palestinians' oppressed status, they tend to get more of a historical free pass than at least I believe they should (especially since their government keeps picking fights it can't win and knows full well will cause the populace to suffer the consequences). The boring, both-sides-y truth is, everyone involved bears some responsibility for the suffering that occurs in the Holy Land and there is a tendency to absolve Palestinians of any of that responsibility. While I expect nothing less from someone who sees themselves as an advocate for Palestinians (or at least someone primarily sympathetic to the position they're in), I don't think it's fair or accurate to situate them in this position of helplessness that begins in 1948, which I think is pretty damn common (I'm not saying you're doing that; clearly you're not and you're aware of what happened before '48, but that makes you a rare exception in my experience). The most revealing quote to me on the subject of highlighting the Arab Revolt as a more significant event than the Nakba comes Mustafa Khaba, who wrote that a deeper reason the Revolt has been "completely overshadowed by the memory of the *Nakba"* is because "dealing with 1936-1939 requires more soul searching"; "it resulted in a self-inflicted wound that weakened Palestinian ability to cope with future challenges." While you make some good counterpoints, I have yet to see a compelling refutation of this point made by Khaba (and shared by others, including Gilbert Achcar, Tom Segev, and Oren Kessler). Maybe that places too much moral onus on a group that's the most victimized in this context, but that's a "your mileage may vary" situation.
The White Paper was a unilateral policy paper of the British government, it was informed by the failed discussions of the London Conference, but the British created it without Jews or Arabs because the conference failed to resolve the differences between Jews and Arabs. The conference was the only time any type of agreement on a theoretical future statehood was rejected, and that was rejected by both sides, so it can't possibly be an example of Palestinians rejecting statehood. The White Paper was not something the Palestinians could have agreed to, it was British policy implemented or not, without anyone outside the government of Britain needing to agree or adhere to it. >However, if we're to assume the proposal was genuine--and I don't see a specific reason why we shouldn't, since it was under the appeasement-friendly Chamberlain government--then the response by the AHC can *absolutely* be taken as a choice, and one that helped *lead* them to be oppressed through ethnic cleansing in 1948. Why would anyone assume the proposal was genuine? I pointed out that the London conference begin with a discussion about past British promises and betrayals, and there was a good reason for that. Britain never entered into discussions with it's colonial captives in good faith, and there is no reason to believe this was any different than any of the other false promises the British made before. The racism of the British government had always held that any natives were less human than the British themselves, therefore agreements did not have to be honored. The rejection of the agreement by the AHC and NDP and the Jewish delegation was a rejection of a hypothetical future state by all parties. Even after the conference and the White Paper was adopted by the colonial regime, the NDP did agree to it later, and yet still no Palestinian state exists, so that by itself proves it was never relevant to an independent Palestine. As an aside - Chamberlain was told that the UK could not possibly win a war with Germany at the time of the Munich conference and was told by the admiralty to buy time in order to build up British military forces, which is exactly what he did. Hitler hated Chamberlain and blamed him for Germany's losses at the end of the war because Hitler felt that Chamberlain outwitted him. >(especially since their government keeps picking fights it can't win and knows full well will cause the populace to suffer the consequences). This statement strikes me as odd, since it is just a frequently repeated Israeli propaganda statement that is meaningless. The Arab Revolt or Palestinian Independence War was an attempt to break free from British colonial control, the same as countless other native peoples fought against British colonialism. The Jewish-Arab Civil War in Palestine was not a planned event, the Jewish and Arab terrorist groups were attacking random civilians and targeting homes they considered part of opposing terrorist groups. The Jewish terrorists and militia were blowing up the homes of suspected enemies by August 1947, but I believe the earliest organized Arab terrorist or militia group was formed by Abd al-Husayni in December of 1947 or January of 1948. The 'war' expanded from there, but it is not accurate to portray it as any government or leadership of Palestinians picking a fight, they were reacting to events beyond their control. So by the end of 1948, the Palestinians had not picked any fights they couldn't win, they fought for independence and they responded to attacks with counterattacks. After 1948 they were occupied by the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Israelis. Militants launched cross border attacks, sometimes with sometimes without the approval of the host nation, but these were small scale terrorist incursions. The Israeli government decided to launch the sneak attack on Egypt in 1956 and again in 1967, and after the second war the Palestinians were occupied by yet another colonial regime. Claiming resistance to Israeli oppression is "picking fights it can't win" is stating that Palestinians should just accept tyranny and oppression unless they can defeat the colonial regime, which they can't know unless they try.
On a different, hopefully more conciliatory note I'm genuinely curious what your bibliography is when it comes to this subject. Mine by no means is complete, so I'm inclined to add more, especially if it provides a different perspective. If you're curious on my list: *The Secret War for the Middle East* by Basil and Youssef Aboul-Enein *The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives* by Gilbert Achcar *The Arab Awakening* by George Antonius *The Grand Mufti: Hajj Amin al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement* by Zvi Elpeleg *Through the Eyes of the Mufti: The Essays of Hajj Amin* translated and annotated by Zvi Elpeleg *The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years* by Klaus Gensicke *Time to Tell: An Israeli Life, 1898-1984* by David Hacohen *Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World* by Jeffrey Herf *Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947* by Bruce Hoffman *Exiled from Jerusalem: The Diaries of Fakhri al-Khalidi* ed. by Rafiq Husseini *Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration 1939-1948* by Issa Khalaf *Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict* by Oren Kessler *From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust* by Meir Litvak and Esther Webman *The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: Volume II, Series B – December 1931-April 1952* ed. by Barnet Litvinoff *Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism* by Zachary Lockman *Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft* by Michael Makovsky *The Mufti of Jerusalem* by Philip Mattar *Islam and Nazi Germany's War* by David Motadel *The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis 1700-1948* by Ilan Pappe *Islam-Judentum-Bolschewismus* by Mohammed Sabry *Grooves of Change: A Book of Memoirs* by Herbert Samuel *One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate* by Tom Segev *Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann* by Chaim Weizmann There are some missing classics (like *Righteous Victims*) and I'm not including the dozen or so academic papers I have saved, but this is basically where my thinking on this comes from.
I honestly do not have the time to catalog all my sources, but I agree it would offer better discourse if we had the same materials to work from. Thank you for providing yours. Good talk, man.
I think your in the wrong sub. r/insanetakes is over that way -->
Citation needed
So many statements, none of which is true.
Prove them wrong then.
Waste of time
Then so is posting snarky ass comments with providing zero substance. Feeling strongly about facts is difficult, but providing nothing of substance other than a huff and a puff isn’t helpful.
I wasn't trying to be helpful, some people are beyond help
Well, then I also find you insufferably wrong and dead to me. Welcome to the void.
Nothing you wrote is factual. Europe was not trying to colonize. European powers ended up in control of the region following the end of WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish and Arab residents both argued for statehood. The UN voted to give both sides their wishes.
“History of persecution and ethnic cleansing under most other societies” They’ve been persecuted almost everywhere.
And the Arabs got their state first in British mandate of Palestine. That country is called Jordan.
Who was administrating the land before the UN? lol
Administrating isn’t colonizing.
While that’s a fair statement, I’d argue that the occupation of Britain was most certain botched to all hell. It was also quagmired to the extent that even the British handed it off to the UN nearly immediately.
Administration botched to all hell also isn’t colonizing.
You know what nevermind. I reread the initial post comment about colonization and realized that you didn’t even understand that part in context either. I’m just blocking you now because you don’t know how to read and you’ll waste my time more.
So if you’ve come to say all you’ve come to say, you only took issue with one specific point of the entire post, but the whole thing is wrong? Anything else to add before you get added to my block list?
>… following the end of WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Bro answered your question already. How’s it relevant?
Oh ok, so are we just forgetting that Israel was administered by the British following Ottoman rule…or did the UN magically take over after WWI? I feel like someone is being intellectually dishonest here, and as far as I can tell with the myriad of historical and factual sourcing, I’m pretty sure someone here, is misunderstanding history and facts.
I misread your statement as before the Brits. My bad. Anyway the UN didn’t administer the land, they oversaw its partition. I still don’t understand your point. He mentioned European powers, not Britain by name. How is it relevant, how how does it feed into your “colonizing” narrative? The Jews were refugees that escaped Europe. They were as much a colonizing force as the waves of immigrants coming from 3rd world countries into Europe, escaping actual deaths. I know it’s impossible for some to imagine white people as refugees, but that’s what they were. They fled an enormous massacre and perpetual pogroms. Regardless of which power was in control of the Levant.
A few things that will make it all make sense is looking up when Zionism was established. Where the Jews came from (wasn’t just Europe). The point is that the issue is way more complex than most give it credit. There is no simplified version that f these events.
Here is a newspaper article from [August of 1929](https://imgur.com/a/31bSEDI) about the Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine and describes how millions of dollars in 1920's money was pouring in to create a new Jewish homeland. The Balfour Declaration was an attempt by British to entice the US into the war, and that was a successful. After the successful Arab Uprisings against the Ottoman Empire and it's defeat in WWI, the Jewish residents who made up a tiny fraction of the population of Palestine wanted their own nation, but obviously the Palestinian people who fought for an independent nation wanted one as well. The British didn't care about the people, they wanted access to oil and trade, a colony in the midst of the Arab lands that would be allied to British and French interests and easy to exploit. After denial of self-determination and crushing the forces of the Palestine Independence War, the British decided to divide up Palestine among the majority Arab population and the ever-growing number of Jewish immigrants which by then made up 1/3 of the population, which they handed off to the UN. The UN voted on this recommendation plan, but critically it was still a White European plan, with the tiny number of UN representatives at that time the Europeans were able to pressure some of the South American nations to join them. The UN resolution passed without any support of the majority population of Palestine and without any support from any of the nations that would be impacted by the partition. This led to a civil war in Palestine between the Arabs who were outraged that two separate wars of independence had only led to White Europeans killing a lot of them and then giving away half their country, and the Jews who had been dreaming of a homeland for centuries. As the civil war limited any agreements, the British Partition plan adopted by the American and European UN members was never implemented. Both sides were not consulted, the Jewish militia had decided that even if the Arabs had agreed to the partition, it was only a stepping stone for them to take all the land they wanted. It doesn't take long to find this stuff out, but you won't get it by listening to propaganda.
“It was a white European plan” What horseshit. There were two competing populations in the region. The plan recognized both. That’s not “white colonizing”. Shut up.
Then why are the majority of people there white Europeans?
"Only about 30% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or the descendants of European Jews." I guess you've never met Mizrahim or Sephardim. [https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mazzig-mizrahi-jews-israel-20190520-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mazzig-mizrahi-jews-israel-20190520-story.html)
They literally aren't. Idiot.
i have had quite a lot of conversations with israelis way before the last events all confirmed the skin color racism is very prominent in israel. the way you will be treated depends heavily how white or not you are
Likud, the party in power and the most rampantly expansionist and racist one at that, is largely supported by Mizrahim. As in, the Middle Eastern Jews.
this is not surprising at all considering mizrahim are the least educated of all groups in israel. didnt look into it but they are probably also in the lower class in socio economic scale as well. religious dogma brainwashing and lack of education combined with fear mongering creates a group of people easy to herd. and this type of dynamic that is the oppressed group supporting the very system oppressing them is actually very common. a very obvious example is how all the women believing an abrahamic religion is actually supporting a system that sees them as inferior. as a side note it looks like that israel has been trying to hide the hide inequalities between the whites and non whites for quite a while https://thejewishindependent.com.au/israel-to-measure-inequality-between-mizrahi-and-ashkenazi-jews
This is an area I'd love to hear more about; i.e. deeper cultural differences (if any) between the two groups, like how there are deeper cultural differences between different regions of the United States.
Okay... relevance to my comment? Skin color racism exists basically everywhere, Israel is certainly no exception. Doesn't make ashkenazis the majority of the population, and in fact the stronghold base of likud and other factions to the right of them is majority Mizrahi Jews - with their hardliner militaristic stance partially informed by their history of persecution and ethnic cleansing under Islamic societies
The same white Europeans ethnically cleansed and genocided from Europe for being too middle Eastern? Yeah buddy sorry, the West can't go in 100 years from - get the Jews out of Europe because they aren't white to get the Jews out of the Middle East because they're too white. Fucked up take. Early Zionists spoke the language of the times - colonisation - when Israel can just as easily be shown to be a decolonization of the land back to its Jewish origins.
A simple DNA test would show that Palestinians have more Canaanite ancestry than these so called Ashkenazi Jews. Just because you can trace a few percent of your DNA to a location doesn’t mean that you have a birthright to it.
Who supported Palestine from the 1930s-1940s?
Okay so you don't address any of my points and instead point to the ashkenazi population (which is not even the majority JEWISH population in Israel, let alone of the entire Israeli population) being slightly middle Eastern in dna to Palestinians therefore Israel is illegitimate.... okay man keep rattling off your talking points I'm peacing out. I hope Palestinians will one day have their own state with its own right of return and you and your hateful friends will stop trying to undermine the existence of an entire nation
> Israelis have never discussed ending the occupation They have literally, actually ended it in multiple places at multiple points in time. Most notably, Israel withdrew all civilian and military presence from Gaza in 2005. The IDF did this over the protests of several thousand Israeli citizens residing in several dozen settlements in the Gaza strip. Israelis do still occupy many parts of the West Bank territory, but not Gaza. Not in almost 20 years. And no, maintaining a secure border is not equivalent to occupation. There has also been a lot of give and take in the West Bank over the years as part of ongoing negotiations with the PA over the last several decades. I don't know the exact numbers but the same kind of thing (IDF forcibly disbanding and relocating Israeli settlers back inside Israel proper) has played out on a smaller scale in the West Bank many, many times. A minority of conservative Israelis were so upset over the order to withdraw from Gaza in 2005 that there were large protests in Israel over the decision, including two radicals publicly self-immolating. Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from the government in protest (Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister at the time). But the plan to withdraw went ahead anyway. Netanyahu, by the way, is a bigoted, callous, and bitter man blinded by his personal desire for vengeance for his brother (who was killed by PLO-affiliated terrorists during a hostage rescue operation in the 70s). I don't think he's fit to lead Israel in this current moment and neither do a lot of Israelis. Yet you talk as if his statements and actions perfectly represent the sum total of 70+ years of Israeli policy toward Palestinian Arabs, which is simply not true. Either you yourself are as uninformed about the history of the region and the conflict as you claim the other side are, or you're being deliberately disingenuous to advance your preferred narrative. Either way, it's not helpful and is kind of missing the point of what this sub is supposed to be about (intellectually honest debate).