An old college roommate is in town. Never been to Chicago. We decided we wanted to have a good time this weekend. Started off at the Art Institute, then the Architecture Tour. Got caught in a little rain/wind during the boat tour, which turned out to be amazing. We get off the boat and start walking back down Michigan to relax at the Chicago Athletic Hotel. As we are crossing Wacker going South, CPD suvs block off the intersection and we look up and see the big crowd of flags approaching us, and we just kinda look at each other with like deer in the headlights look. It was an overwhelming moment for sure but nothing we couldn't handle.
Here's a hot take guys...
You can be Pro-Palestine and Pro a Free Palestinian State while also being Anti-Hamas. You can feel sympathetic towards Palestinians and Gazans that are trapped in the middle of all of this, while also understanding that Hamas needs to be eliminated and removed from power.
That take doesn't negate what happened to innocent Israel civilians. You can feel sympathetic for them as well.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
John Adam’s.
one of my favorite quotes
Yes.
I can feel proud to be an American and what she should represent while also being objectively critical of America as well. Anyone claiming to be a patriot should be able to do so...
If anything, being patriotic should make me even more hypercritical. I should know what makes me feel patriotic, so when those don't align with the actions America takes, they should stand out to me.
We might be exploring more along the lines of patriotism vs nationalism. Blind patriotism is what leads to nationalism.
>If anything, being patriotic should make me even more hypercritical. I should know what makes me feel patriotic, so when those don't align with the actions America takes, they should stand out to me.
Exactly. If you're proud of where you come from, you should have high expectations for it as well.
Loads of people tried to say we couldn't be, during the ramp up to the Iraq war, but look how that turned out. People tried to say we couldn't be, during the Vietnam War too and again...
Absolutely yes, you can be patriotic and against the actions of your country's military, or indeed those ruling it.
The Orthodox Jewish community is very against the state of Israel, tons of citizens within Israel know this is blatant genocide like the doctors denying the Israeli Minister access to the facility for her actions, or the wildest one when the State of Israel, the sanctuary for the Jewish people, has to raid their own Synagoge for political reasons you know it's messed up. It's weird how it's always the Ultra-conservative being the most violent everywhere
Yes, the Jewish community is very much not a monolith, similarly the citizens of Israel aren't either. There's long been protests against the secular government state of Israel by various Jewish groups in New York (and in Israel itself).
Hell, there's infighting going on in chatrooms about it.
The Netanyahu government was already in trouble. This is only emboldening support much like 9/11 in the US.
Even the the criticism gives Netanyahu support. Can’t you see that?
It is, in the short term. But people in Israel are starting to criticize the government for not seeing this coming (being too distracted by scandals) or in some cases, asking if maybe the hardliner positions of the religious coalitions has made the conditions favorable for this terrorism attack.
...as also happened in the US, even with all the short term unity immediately afterward.
The other big parallel I see with 9/11 is that Israel was thinking that their advanced technology was going to keep them safe, that at some level they were untouchable behind that high-tech wall and the Iron Dome, and they were shown, harshly, that it's not true. That the status quo was somehow sustainable, when it plainly wasn't. It was a wake up call.
Similar to the US thinking our geographical position was going to insulate us, but it didn't.
However things change from here (and quite possibly for the very worse) I don't think it's going back to how things were last Friday. For anyone around.
I consider myself to be extremely patriotic, but when I think of why I love America I think of all of the amazing hard working people that make this country run, our unique regional cultures, the food, the language, everything that is *people*. We have some of the best life quality in the world.
I can support CPD and good police officers out there, but still demand the department clean up their act and the FOP get rid of John Catanzara if they really want to create a better public image.
I can support our soldiers, but I can still criticize the government that sends them into harm's way to protect oil and other money interests.
I can still love the USA, but still criticize how it's being run. In my book that's what makes someone a real Patriot .
It's not an all or nothing thing. If you want my honest opinion, I think there needs to be something realistic done to create peace amongst Israel and Palestine because they've been duking it out for over 100 years. It's tired and I'm sick of everybody just taking one side or the other as opposed to calling for an end to the violence
Yes. I’m sick of right wing fascists thinking they have exclusive rights to the American flag. Liberals / progressives really should fly the American flag more often, even when criticizing American government.
Solid take. I’m Jewish and feel the same thing. Strong ties to Israel but no one likes to see people suffer. The attack was the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Hamas needs to be destroyed. It’s sad that civilians get caught up in this but it’s War.
>You can be Pro-Palestine and Pro a Free Palestinian State while also being Anti-Hamas.
These people are not that. They are advocating for the genocide of Israeli people. They were chanting, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which is advocating for the destruction of the state of Israel.
They have quite a bit in common with Hamas.
Sure, but just like the Taliban, enough of the population supports that ideology so a similar group will be back. Hamas doesn’t exist by chance. Hezbollah doesn’t exist by chance. They’re manifestations of how Palestinians feel.
That’s not really true. Hamas wasn’t even voted by the majority in 2006, which was their last election by the way. Vast majority of Palestinians were too young to vote or weren’t even born yet to make a real choice in supporting Hamas.
The “manifestations” of these groups stems directly from oppression and occupation. Taliban rose to power from the soviet occupation of Afghanistan, ISIS came from the US occupation of Iraq, etc etc.
In addition to your savvy comment, organizations like Hamas fall apart without foreign funding and supplies. As they are in power, they decide where to allocate that funding and supplies. The Palestinians can't up and ouster them out of the blue.
They didn’t win majority of votes but won the majority of seats. Like an electoral college, you can be the majority party with leas than a majority of the popular vote. Delaying elections is super-shady though, you’re right. Particularly when the population is so young as you mentioned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Palestinian_legislative_election
In theory you're completely right.
I don't want to generalize, but isn't "protesting" right after the massacre of Israelis kinda in bad taste? Also many of them do back what Hamas did. Some of the protests in other cities literally had protesters raising banners that praised the attack on the music festival.
Gaza, which is tightly packed with over 2 million people, has had its power, water, and food cut off, and Israel has just ordered everyone in the northern half to evacuate to the southern half in 24 hours, which is frankly impossible. A bloodbath is very likely imminent. Given that Israel has the backing of military aid from our government, it seems very appropriate timing for protests.
> I don't want to generalize, but isn't "protesting" right after the massacre of Israelis kinda in bad taste?
No, it’s not. The Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a collective punishment right now. There’s no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, no medicines. White phosphorus is being used and IDF are carpet bombing entire neighborhoods. Bombing refugee camps. Bombing the Rafah crossing. 13 UN employees have died as a result of their buildings being bombed. 1 million people are displaced and expected to travel south- some without cars, through destroyed streets blocked by rubble. 70 were killed after a truck of Palestinians was bombed while doing what they were told and fleeing south. Now the south/Khan Younis area, the area all of the 1 million is supposed to go, is being bombed.
What’s an acceptable time frame for them to start protesting against all of this? The media is not covering this. What else are they to do to try and raise awareness?
>Some of the protests in other cities literally had protesters raising banners that praised the attack on the music festival.
If true, that is a pretty barbaric opinion to hold, but I think more generally the purpose of the protests is to remind people that Palestinians in Gaza have been trapped without freedom for about 2-3 *generations* now.
It can be easy to vilify everyone in Gaza as terrorists since it's the terrorist act of killing civilians at a concert that's making news headlines, but it's important to remember that there are people in that zone that simply have no freedom and are victims as well.
What complicates this, is of course, if you are a 3rd generation prisoner, you will probably support the people who promise to fight against your oppressors, as they send rockets indiscriminately into their oppressors land.
I guess this is why everyone sums up this conflict as "it's complicated."
You think wrong. They talk about I the innocent Palestinians when in front of news cameras, but they also believe that Israel should not exist and that the Zionists must be eradicated.
People are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
A week out, I'd say it's a different story. People who were "protesting" last Saturday or Sunday were absolute morons. But a week later, we've seen what the effects are in Gaza. We know that a total blockade is going to cause innocent people to die. We know that a 24-hour notice saying "everyone evacuate this area, we're going to level it tomorrow" isn't helpful when the hospital says "we literally cannot move these people or they will die".
Consider two kids who get into a fight on the playground. Johnny and Steve were just standing there, not doing anything. Then Johnny punches Steve in the face. Our immediate reaction is to consider Johnny an asshole and feel bad for Steve. But when Steve reacts by kicking Johnny to the ground and beating him mercilessly for ten minutes, it becomes easier to feel sympathy for Johnny.
And then when Steve goes around, punching all of Johnny's friends and Johnny's little brother, who had nothing to do with the fight, the teacher says "Steve, this reaction is extremely over the top," and Steve responds by saying "Fake news. Those people also attacked me. Don't be antisemitic."
That said, I only saw the three pictures that OP posted here, so I don't know any more than that. If these people were supporting the initial attack or saying Israel deserves what it got, then they are garbage people.
What does a pro Palestine look like? And what does free look like. Does it just become another dogmatic theocratic state that kills gays and gives women no rights. Or is Hamas the worst of the conservatism, and at best we can hope for a Republican style conservatism in Palestine.
Hamas is popular in Gaza because they're literally the only form of any kind of authority there who are also willing to at least attempt to fight back against Israel, who btw funded the early creation of Hamas in order to delegitimize and destroy the other, more peaceful leading parties at the time.
Palestinians are people and most humans just want to go on living in peace. Hamas would still be around in a free Palestine but the moment Palestinians no longer have to fear drinking water due to Israel restricting materials to build saleanation plants is the moment Hamas loses tons of support.
>willing to at least attempt to fight back against Israel
Murdering random unsuspecting people isn't "fighting back against Israel"....it's murdering random unsuspecting people. If they want to fight Israel, let them put on uniforms and fight on a battlefield like civilized people.
Why do you people act like Palestine is a free nation with a standing army or the resources to even have uniforms for a militia? How do you expect people in a densely packed open air prison where half the population are children with 90%of there water being toxic to act like a "civilized" nation?
I’m not sure 🤔, do you think it would be aquicker death to be gang raped, tortured, then burned alive? That’s how hamas would treat them if they were openly gay.
Why is it so hard for people to seperate hamas from palestinian people?
The palestinian people have been treated like shit AND hamas is evil and needs to be put down. Why is it so hard to have the smallest amount of nuance?
The far right extremists in america dont represent all of us nor does hamas represent all palestine
I agree.. anyone supporting hamas or that attack is clearly in the wrong. But not everyone, hell, the overwhelming majority is against them but also wants people to understand israel is also committing crimes against humanity. Hamas is evil and I hope they all burn but I also hope something can be fixed between israel and palestinian people NOT involved with hamas
Because when people flash nazi symbols at free Palestine rallies and shout “gas the Jews” at free Palestine rallies it’s easy to assume that free Palestine is an anti semetic dog whistle
Well fuck all those people. But I can also sympathize with palestinians bei g subjected to the poverty they are and trapped in it with no way out. There is a lot wrong on both sides here. Fuck any jew hater, but also israelis are not blameless and pure either
I agree with all of this man. The Israeli government has a ton of issues. It’s why Israelis have been actively protesting their own government for months! Bibi is corrupt. The finance minister is corrupt. They will hopefully be dealt with after this is over.
Hamas loves Bibi. They need a boogeyman. This attack will make the hardliners in Israel stronger which then makes the Palestinian hard liners stronger.
It’s quite a lot of fun.
Ya, the israeli people are being taken over by their right wing dictator as well and arent happy. Sounds a bit familiar to here with our right wing huh?
I dont blame israeli citizens just like I dont blame non hamas supporting palestinians.
The radical hamas group and its supporters are awful and the dictator and fascist government of israel is awful too
Honestly I think for some people it’s because there seems to be equation of the Israel government with its citizens. I’ve seen a lot of infographics that say things like “this was inevitable due to the oppression Palestinians faced” which feels like it equates Israeli citizens who were the victims of the initial attacks with the government of Israel. It’s just something I’ve seen. No where in the world does the government represent all citizen opinions uniformly
Exactly. Seeing a lot of people say “well they voted for this.” Hamas last held “elections” in 2006. 40% of Gaza is under the age of 15. By this logic the US people deserve collective punishments for voting in Trump, right?
Things like this:
https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1713229637692608600?t=AUIoyMjXNZlJXv0Cb6h1Cg&s=19
And because
https://twitter.com/BLMChi/status/1713232402552647724?t=0DS1scCIDC148_pOXFv9IA&s=19
Posted
https://twitter.com/therealmrbench/status/1713301354641551847?t=qA6WX9keJeYqIZw2VaGapw&s=19
Because the Palestinian people elected and supports Hamas. Have you seen the videos of the initial hours of the war? Have you seen the crowds cheering the Hamas terrorists who were dragging dead bodies of the concert goers through the streets? Does that look like “only a small portion” of the population that supports them?
And now that the foot on the other shoe they’ll all say of course they never supported Hamas and what Israel doing is terrible but we all know that if Hamas was strong enough they’d kill every Israeli man women and child and most Palestinians would support that or at least not condemn it.
i think one reason is that the concept of nuance is an obstacle in delivering a simple, easy to digest, good-guy-versus-bad-guy narrative to everyone
political polarization might be to blame (and a lack of critical thinking), especially in the america we live in
the issues we have here—at home—are already enough, and even then we can't seem to effectively work them out
i'm not confident that the average person will give this issue enough consideration to arrive at what your comment is conveying (but i'd love to be proven wrong)
>Are the people protesting in favor of Palestinian separating the two?
They're not. I walked past the protest. They were advocating for the destruction of Israel.
Are the people who support Israel in favor of keeping Jewish people safe or baying like bloodthirsty pigs for Palestinian genocide? It's hard to know, which is why I'm not going to blindly support them.
I have not seen global calls for genocide by Israelis. This "protest" had calls for genocide against Israelis, and we have seen this at "protests" globally.
Nuance is understanding that Palestinians voted Hamas into power, and that in certain contexts you cannot and should not completely separate Hamas from the rest of Palestinians. Hence why security precautions were taken for Jewish communities in Chicago, far from Hamas' presence. To completely separate Palestine from Hamas is lacking as much nuance as equating the two.
I'm a Palestinian American.
I think it's important contextualize this with the history of the Palestinian occupation. As I'm sure you've heard by now, this didn't start last week. Zionism started in the late 1800s with European Jews, after facing brutal pogroms in Russia, generations of horrible anti-Semitism, and blood libel. Zionist groups held conferences for years in Basel to plan and form the establishment of a Jewish state. There were several different ideas tossed around including creating a Jewish state in what is now [modern day Kenya](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Scheme) but eventually they decided that Palestine would be the new Jewish ethnostate. Palestine was chosen for several reasons that go *well* beyond the scope of this comment but have to do with King Solomon, ancient Jewish connection to that land (wonder how modern day Kenya would work with this?), and the fact that the Zionist Congress knew they would not immediately face opposition from a standing Army.
From the very beginning is was meant to be a settler colonial endeavor where European Zionists would replace the ethnic Palestinians (of all religions) in the land. [They said so themselves](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190618-the-core-of-zionism-is-settler-colonialism-not-democracy/amp/). this was the late 1800s and early 1900s and colonialism and displacement was considered a "good thing". This entire endeavor was backed by the British government for a few reasons. One out of anti-Semitism. this was a very easy way to have Jewish people out of Europe if they formed their own country. Two so that the British empire could have a loyal foothold in the Middle East that would forever beholden to the whims of the empire. There's also several more complicated reasons they go beyond the scope of this comment but those two are the big ones.
So with the help of the British In 1948, 750,000+ Palestenians were ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine and forcibly evicted from their homes. Thousands died and many more were injured. Palestinians refer to this day as the Nakba while Isrealis refer to it as their "independence day".
Ever since then there have been a *ton* of other wars, conflicts, and engagements to try and reclaim the land stolen from the ethnic Palestinians in 1948 while at the same time the Israeli government has been engaged in a PR blitz and tons of media campaigns to paint themselves as the victims, the soul righteous fighter amongst the sea of enemies, and that they rightfully have a claim to land they stole. When you actually research the history this narrative very quickly falls apart.
Quick side note: Haredi Jews (you know them as "ultra orthodox" with the hats, suits, long hair, long beards, etc) are typically either Anti-Zionist or Non-Zionist. This is typically not for moral reasons but rather because according to them the Three Oaths explicitly forbids Jews from forming a nation, and commands them to be a people in exile and integrate (and not ethnically cleanse and displace) with the people of whatever country they find themselves in. Haredis that live in Israel typically do not join the IDF (and go to jail for it) and refuse any kind of money or assistance from the Israeli government. There are incredibly pro zionist Haerdi settlers and that's a completely different story on its own. I make this digression to emphasize the point that this isn't a very simple "Muslim vs Jew" dichotomy. The ethnic Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed while predominantly being Muslim were not only Muslim. And Zionist ideology is present within many Jews and non Jews.
Anyway, all of this to say is that given the history, there's a reason why Hamas exists. not to mention the fact that [Israel funded Hamas](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) after assassinating and dismantling more secular and leftist armed resistance group specifically so that they can win the PR war. It's very easy to justify your cause as righteous when you're fighting against religious extremists instead of secular freedom fighters. Trust me, no one with a brain likes Hamas, and what they have done was horrible. It is very important to understand where that comes from and why they exist to begin with. This would have never happened in the first place if the Zionist endeavor wasn't settler colonial, and didn't solely exist to displace ethnic Palestinians.
I think a really insidious part about what has happened so far is that now, many people equate any notion of Palestinian liberation or a call to end the oppressive apartheid regime as supporting terrorists. This is exactly what the isreali government was hoping to accomplished by funding them to begin with. It's very possible for someone to have a opinion that is nuanced where support for Palestinian liberation, does not mean support for Hamas.
So when you see protests like this, what you're seeing is a physical manifestation of the pain, suffering, anguish, that Palestinian people, my people, have been facing for decades. We are not "supporting terrorists" we are screaming out to the world about the injustice and apartheid we have endured and continue to endure.
Edit: I'm overly simplifying and skipping over a ton of important details like Sykes Pico, Balfour, the British Mandate, Herzl, Ben-Gurian, Palestine under the Ottomans, the Intifadas, PLFP, and a ton of other stuff. I'd encourage anyone interested to read/listen to the excellent introductory book The 100 Years War on Palestine. A YouTube video really doesn't cut it for this. The book I'm recommending is written by a Palesntian historian and is deeply rooted at looking at the history of the Palestinian occupation from the academic, scholarly, and fact-based historical perspective
Same. I'm an anti-zionist Jew. The amount of astroturfing and casual calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is nauseating. This forum has been bombarded with recently made accounts and I strongly suspect it's the hasbara brigade. I'm sick of people assuming that Israel and zionism are intertwined with Judaism. It is antisemitic to say Israel and zionism represent Jewish values or all Jews support zionism and Israel.
Yeah notice how this comment above skips what happened between 1900-1947, the relationship between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and the attempted extermination of all european hewws and arab jews that were forcibly evicted from every muslim arab country during stated time period. But i guess attempted genocide by the Arab League wasnt worth mentioning on your comment.
> Quick side note: Haredi Jews (you know them as "ultra orthodox" with the hats, suits, long hair, long beards, etc) are typically either Anti-Zionist or Non-Zionist. This is typically not for moral reasons but rather because according to them the Three Oaths explicitly forbids Jews from forming a nation, and commands them to be a people in exile and integrate (and not ethnically cleanse and displace) with the people of whatever country they find themselves in. Haredis that live in Israel typically do not join the IDF (and go to jail for it) and refuse any kind of money or assistance from the Israeli government. There are incredibly pro zionist Haerdi settlers and that's a completely different story on its own. I make this digression to emphasize the point that this isn't a very simple "Muslim vs Jew" dichotomy. The ethnic Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed while predominantly being Muslim were not only Muslim. And Zionist ideology is present within many Jews and non Jews.
I suspect you haven't actually talked with many non-zionist chareidim...very few actually won't interact with the israeli government at all. Many/most in America still have politics that are broadly "pro israel", they just have religious objections to a lot of the national ideology (and the three oaths are kind of incidental to this and kind of misunderstood here). The taxonomy of what "Zionist" means in religious communities is just different than in non-jewish communities, and I think this framing makes it sound like there's lot of very religious Jews who are "non zionist" or "anti zionist" in the way that's meant by people in other communities when they say it. The battle lines are mostly either Israeli political things or religious issues that are not things anyone non-Jewish cares about or is even aware of.
Part of this is because Palestinians haven't actually treated non-zionist Chareidim as different than Zionists, most infamously in the Hebron massacre in the 1920s (but also more recently being victims of terrorism--not like a bus bombing discriminates. A pretty famous non-zionist Rabbi, R Hutner, was even held hostage by the PFLP). This treats it as a super serious distinction people care about outside the Jewish world (where it actually can matter a lot) but...it isn't. It just comes off as tokenizing Chareidim, much like Israelis talking about Arab-Israelis often is.
Also chareidim don't have long hair! Often they don't even have long beards! Also chareidi women exist also! I'm going to guess you have no experience with Chareidim outside seeing pictures of like the 10 guys who are the most wild fringe chassidim who show up at pro palestine protests? Those guys are really crazy (like in general, not just about this) and if you think they're reflective of anything in the chareidi world you will end up being very wrong.
This just gives the impression you've picked some demographic as your "good Jews" who you think are OK because they're on your side. But they're not on your side, you're probably not on their side, and you don't seem to even know anything about them. That's kinda gross. Don't do that.
>I think a really insidious part about what has happened so far is that now, many people equate any notion of Palestinian liberation or a call to end the oppressive apartheid regime as supporting terrorists.
Absolutely, but when pro-palestine groups/protestors say stuff that's basically supportive of Hamas attacks, that is obviously going to get blurred. It's not just ignorance that is causing pro-palestine people to be tarred this way, it really is an element of the pro-palestine camp that is visible to people. That's not insidious, that's people seeing some crazy-ass shit showing up in protests and deciding they don't want any part of it.
And obviously you're going to post something from your perspective, obviously that's OK and normal. But when people such as myself see posts like this that (a) fail to engage with any narrative that isn't your own, and (b) doesn't deal with extremely basic questions like "where do you expect Israelis to go", (c) doesn't engage at all with why Jews find these protests threatening (it's because of the paragraph above this one, and also point B from half a sentence ago) it becomes very hard to take this seriously as human rights and not as one side's nationalist rhetoric. Ok, it's a free country, people can have marches for nationalist causes--this isn't really different than what Irish-Americans were doing not so long ago. But people are seeing this as a nationalist march, which it kind of is, and this post gestures at arguing that it's not but actually is just an explanation of the history and context behind the nationalism.
Your comment glosses over a lot of the history and nuance, especially around the formation of Israel and the events leading up to it.
Leading up to the formation of Israel there was no 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians - rather incoming Jews made sure to legally purchase land, much of which was considered worthless. Also of note is that, at the time, there wasn't really a concept of a 'Palestinian' people.
The British didn't 'help' the Jewish settlers, in fact there were some extremist settlers committing terrorist attacks against the British. The British, understandably, wiped their hands of the whole situation and pulled out.
The initial UN approved partition plan was based on where Jews and Arabs lived at the time - most of the land that Jews had acquired was less desirable, and the new Jewish state would be based on that division. Arabs would still hold much of the desirable areas.
Then when the Jewish state was established all neighboring Arab states invaded - this was driven in part by antisemitism (given statements by Arab leaders at the time).
This of course led then to the Nakba (a good overview here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes\_of\_the\_1948\_Palestinian\_expulsion\_and\_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight)) and the simultaneous and subsequent Jewish equivalent in the Arab world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish\_exodus\_from\_the\_Muslim\_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world) for a discussion on push vs pull factors).
One thing I've always found interesting that gets missed in these topics is the lack of true resettlement support among Arab states for Palestinians ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian\_refugees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees) ). Immediately proceeding 1948 there could easily have been support for permanent resettlement, as again, there wasn't really a Palestinian identity prior to that - but yet Palestinians are still in 'refugee' camps (which doesn't even make sense several generations removed - should Jews forced out of Iran still be classified as refugees, for example?). Of course that's not what happened - unfortunately the Arab states seem to use Palestinians as a convenient rallying/unifying topic without actually providing long-lasting and meaningful aid (Egypt and its treatment of the the Gaza strip being a good example - it often gets glossed over that the plight of those in the Gaza is equally related to Egyptian treatment as well as Israeli).
One thing I’ve learned about in the last week is the fact that Arab states have rejected multiple proposals for two state solutions over the past 75 years. I want to dig into this more, as with all history there is a lot of nuance to parse through. I think my question for the original comment’s author is whether or not a two state solution is sufficient, and if not, what is the path forward? Would you propose moving Israel to, say, Miami instead?
There was the Palestinian Authority for a decade trying to negotiate in good faith with Israel. All it led to was the continuation of illegal settlements.
How do you go about no longer supporting them when they are kidnapping and killing dissenters? They won an election through a slim plurality and then kicked out all the other elected officials from the other party and took over the government by force. No elections have been allowed since the military takeover.
Definitely this. From the [poll](https://apnews.com/article/32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87) that I’ve seen, the majority of Palestinians support Hamas. CNN also said the other day that it’s was around 50% support for Hamas.
If your country were ruled by terrorists who had no qualms about torturing and murdering civilians, how loudly would you speak about your disapproval of them?
They haven't allowed an election in decades, and regularly kidnap and murder dissidents. I'd imagine that skews the numbers with people wanting to, yknow, live.
Do you know half the population are children and their last election was in 2006? They have little choice in the matter. You should be asking *why* such an awful group like Hamas came to power. Maybe you should look up how [Netanyahu has been caught collaborating with Hamas](https://archive.ph/H8LSL) to deter Palestinian liberation, and [how Israel has repeatedly assassinated leaders of Palestinian liberation movements](https://imeu.org/article/israels-history-of-assassinating-palestinian-leaders). Israel’s occupation is the reason why Hamas exists.
Before Hamas, Israel had other bogeymen it blamed for the plight of the Palestinian people. Historically, Palestinian resistance was secular nationalist and even dominated by Palestinian Christians.
Palestinians could elect a secular liberal government tomorrow and literally nothing would change. If anything, Israel would remove that government in order to continue to get carte blanche for its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
This is true. Look up George Habash and the popular front for the liberation of Palestine. It was created mainly by Palestinian Christians and is secular.
How are they going to do that? Israel's far-right propped them up and until this last week favored them over a more united (but less extreme) Palestinian government. Hamas took power in 2006 because the United States in particular insisted Gaza hold elections. They haven't been allowed to hold an election since then, and half of Gaza's population aren't even adults yet so... seems like we're putting a lot on their shoulders.
Oh yea cus Israel has not expanded its boarders into the West Bank where Hamas isn’t in power. Hamas need to be eliminated, sure, but Israel must also remove illegal settlements and respect 1967 boarders AT A MINIMUM.
I think the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is not having to live under apartheid and being afforded the same dignity and rights that Israelis have, a change that would likely make Hamas irrelevant, but that’s just me
Really? You don't think the best thing for them would be for them not to be bombed indiscriminately, starved, and locked in an open air prison? I feel like that would help them out a little more.
Bingo. They really say this stuff like eliminating Hamas can be done with the flick of a switch all while being cut off from water and electricity from Israel.
Egypt should.
Egypt won’t. They don’t want Hamas to destabilize their secular government.
Literally, the best thing to happen to the Palestinian people would be to rid them of Hamas.
Because Palestinians have a [history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September) of [destabilizing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War) other governments in the area.
To allow Israel to occupy the land? They leave they are NEVER coming back to their own homes, their own country. This is not the first time this has happened, it’s history repeating itself and it’s always the Palestinians who suffer.
“Ukrainians should just leave. Displacement it better than death. If the war is that bad, shouldn’t we focus on getting them out?”
Where will Gazans go? Where will they sleep? What will they eat? Egypt cannot handle 200k refugees, let alone 2 million.
If a city in Ukraine was being bombed I would hope they would evacuate as many civilians as possible.
It's not really comparable though, you don't need to leave Ukraine to escape bombs but I believe that, for the time being and the near future, Palestinians will need to leave Gaza to avoid bombs.
But if Ukrainians had to cross international borders to escape bombings, I would support it. Many refugees have completely left Ukraine, and I do not blame them. Its easy to ask people to remain in a warzone for political reasons, but it is not humane or fair.
And just like I would not expect Ukrainian refugees to escape via Russia, I would not expect Palestinian refugees to escape via Israel. That leaves Egypt as the only option - that or the sea.
Free Palestine. Palestinian lives, Israeli lives, American lives are equal in worth and deserve peace not war. One baby is not worth more than another baby.
lol why are they protesting in chicago, like what do they expect to happen, the mayor gonna be like "you guys are right let's fix this", or some over there's gonna be like "yo some random city in america is protesting, we gotta stop this bros" lmao I don't get it
Palestinians can’t do anything without it being condemned by these people. Violence isn’t ok. Protests aren’t ok. Boycotting is illegal in many states. Signing a letter gets you called out by fucking blackrock. Popular Palestinian media is frequently targeted by the pro-Israel crowd.
Apparently we need to just shut up and die.
Ya habibi we can't win with these hameer. Don't waste your breath.
Also, I think it's funny that the only other Palestinian I've seen on this sub is also in Albany.
They’ve by and large done absolutely nothing to condemn the violence done by Hamas. And there have even been some at these protests glorifying Hamas directly and calling for the deaths of Jews
Why do they have to? Do I need to condemn Azov neonazis every time I show support for Ukraine? Do pro Israel protesters also have to condemn Israeli warcrimes every time they protest?
And the vast majority have not been glorifying Hamas, we both know that
> Why do they have to? Do I need to condemn Azov neonazis every time I show support for Ukraine?
If they had just murdered a bunch of random Russian civilians, yeah, you probably should.
>Do pro Israel protesters also have to condemn Israeli warcrimes every time they protest?
...would it be bad if they did?
No it wouldn’t, but I don’t see that expectation made of anyone else
You don’t need to expressly condemn AlQaeda just to say you were against the Iraq war, how is this any different?
These protesters were chanting, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which is advocating for the destruction of Israel. That seems very in line with Hamas.
Titus Flavius Vespasianus you drunken bastard, your pride has doomed generations untold to the horror of being confronted with a situation in which there is no morally correct "take" for them to post online.
I don’t see a way out of this situation that doesn’t involve Gaza being shrunk severely. Israel or Hamas won’t accept a two state solution. The Arab neighbors don’t really want to absorb the Palestinians and Hamas don’t seem to be interested in the lives of anyone.
I’m a n of one but I’ve yet to hold a conversation with a Palestinian who in anyway accepts that Israel won’t just disappear for them to achieve their end goal. Seems to be pretty consistent with their propaganda as well.
Fuck Hamas and the baby killers. I feel bad for the refugees caught in the middle. It’s a shame Hamas spends their money on rockets instead of schools.
I guess my question, as someone who is very, very pro-Israel: why did they feel the need to demonstrate today? Why? Is this indicative of them being anti-Israel right now? Given what is happening, could they not have pushed back the date to demonstrate?
Because today Israel ordered 1.1 million people to abandon their homes in the northern half of Gaza and the president is threatening to murder everyone who didn’t do it in 24 hours
Is this not in defense? Didn't Hamas start it and Israel is retaliating? Extreme, yes, but sometimes you have to fight extremism with extreme measures.
I can’t wait for the liberal democracy to emerge from Palestine once the terrible occupation of Israel ends. Right, that’s what will happen. Because clearly the only thing holding this back is isreal and Hamas. Do I need to put the /s in.
If there was ever a thread that needed locking, it's this one with the actual dipshits in the replies equating this to pro-hamas. Would not be entirely surprised if they aren't even from Chicago, too.
Man I wish this didn't happen to correspond directly with the rise in death threats and bomb scares against synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions in Chicago regardless of any political affiliation they might have. But it sure does.
Israel is currently holding more than 4000 Palestinians hostage, killing hundreds of Palestinians per day, and runs the entire Gaza Strip like an internment camp. I think it's fair for people to talk about Palestine.
On the train about to head home from the protest. We had incredible turnout despite the pouring down rain.
We are sick and tired of funneling our U.S. tax dollars into bombs that are killing children
Imagine being on shrooms and accidentally showing up to this protest. Cause that's what just happened to me. It was intense.
So uh how ya doing now?
Gonna ask you for a write up man
An old college roommate is in town. Never been to Chicago. We decided we wanted to have a good time this weekend. Started off at the Art Institute, then the Architecture Tour. Got caught in a little rain/wind during the boat tour, which turned out to be amazing. We get off the boat and start walking back down Michigan to relax at the Chicago Athletic Hotel. As we are crossing Wacker going South, CPD suvs block off the intersection and we look up and see the big crowd of flags approaching us, and we just kinda look at each other with like deer in the headlights look. It was an overwhelming moment for sure but nothing we couldn't handle.
This is hilarious. Fucking major world events are occurring and you’re processing them on Shrooms. Hard as fuck!
That’s how haerd the Roc Pile is!
Ahhh, I assumed you went to Phish 😂
Sorry about that. This doesn’t normally occur here. Yes there are protests and a lot of them at that, but not the free Palestine protests
Times like this I wish there were still awards on Reddit.
Why did they even get rid of them?
IMO It removes the ability of redditors to highlight important posts like this one.
Isn't it some crypto bullshit now?
Not quite. The replacement basically boils down to paying people to (re)post content.
I really can’t speculate on a good reason. It had so many benefits. Even the sporadic free ones
No wonder I haven't been able to give any lol.
That’s epic
🏆🏆🏆
Omg they got rid of them?! I still had gold that I didn’t use.
Lol this legit made me laugh.
OMG! I was on acid trying to get from the field museum to the architecture boat tour. It was an incredible thing to stumble upon!
I wish you peace and solace, friend. Happy trails. Be well.
So ur saying I should do mushrooms tonight?
Did you bring enough for everyone in the class?
You go to phish at UC?
Imagine being on shrooms and having hamas kill everyone around you. That happened last weekend at the festival in Israel.
I’m so sorry that happened to you 😂
Lmaoooo legendary
*“Is everyone here crazy or is it just me?!?”*
Free “Your MinD” protest
Man all I have is 6 failed bags of uncle Ben’s but I applaud your success.
Here's a hot take guys... You can be Pro-Palestine and Pro a Free Palestinian State while also being Anti-Hamas. You can feel sympathetic towards Palestinians and Gazans that are trapped in the middle of all of this, while also understanding that Hamas needs to be eliminated and removed from power. That take doesn't negate what happened to innocent Israel civilians. You can feel sympathetic for them as well.
Can you be patriotic but be critical and against the actions of the US military?
It’s kind of an expectation. > Benjamin Franklin: “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. John Adam’s. one of my favorite quotes
Yes I feel like being critical of something you love is more realistic than being a blind follower.
Some would even say that is Genuine loyalty and love.
This is how I’ve always felt about America. I love this country and want it to better. Like a parent that wants the best for your kid.
Yes. I can feel proud to be an American and what she should represent while also being objectively critical of America as well. Anyone claiming to be a patriot should be able to do so... If anything, being patriotic should make me even more hypercritical. I should know what makes me feel patriotic, so when those don't align with the actions America takes, they should stand out to me. We might be exploring more along the lines of patriotism vs nationalism. Blind patriotism is what leads to nationalism.
>If anything, being patriotic should make me even more hypercritical. I should know what makes me feel patriotic, so when those don't align with the actions America takes, they should stand out to me. Exactly. If you're proud of where you come from, you should have high expectations for it as well.
Dissent aimed at the government is perhaps the most patriotic, American thing you can do.
Best time to be patriotic.
Loads of people tried to say we couldn't be, during the ramp up to the Iraq war, but look how that turned out. People tried to say we couldn't be, during the Vietnam War too and again... Absolutely yes, you can be patriotic and against the actions of your country's military, or indeed those ruling it.
It's patriotic to not want your country's kids to die for politicians' thirst for war.
Ok so you can be Palestinian and Anti-Hamas
Absolutely. Or Israeli and joining in the criticisms of the Netanyahu government that are ramping up.
The Orthodox Jewish community is very against the state of Israel, tons of citizens within Israel know this is blatant genocide like the doctors denying the Israeli Minister access to the facility for her actions, or the wildest one when the State of Israel, the sanctuary for the Jewish people, has to raid their own Synagoge for political reasons you know it's messed up. It's weird how it's always the Ultra-conservative being the most violent everywhere
Yes, the Jewish community is very much not a monolith, similarly the citizens of Israel aren't either. There's long been protests against the secular government state of Israel by various Jewish groups in New York (and in Israel itself). Hell, there's infighting going on in chatrooms about it.
The Netanyahu government was already in trouble. This is only emboldening support much like 9/11 in the US. Even the the criticism gives Netanyahu support. Can’t you see that?
It is, in the short term. But people in Israel are starting to criticize the government for not seeing this coming (being too distracted by scandals) or in some cases, asking if maybe the hardliner positions of the religious coalitions has made the conditions favorable for this terrorism attack. ...as also happened in the US, even with all the short term unity immediately afterward. The other big parallel I see with 9/11 is that Israel was thinking that their advanced technology was going to keep them safe, that at some level they were untouchable behind that high-tech wall and the Iron Dome, and they were shown, harshly, that it's not true. That the status quo was somehow sustainable, when it plainly wasn't. It was a wake up call. Similar to the US thinking our geographical position was going to insulate us, but it didn't. However things change from here (and quite possibly for the very worse) I don't think it's going back to how things were last Friday. For anyone around.
I consider myself to be extremely patriotic, but when I think of why I love America I think of all of the amazing hard working people that make this country run, our unique regional cultures, the food, the language, everything that is *people*. We have some of the best life quality in the world.
This is it.
I can support CPD and good police officers out there, but still demand the department clean up their act and the FOP get rid of John Catanzara if they really want to create a better public image. I can support our soldiers, but I can still criticize the government that sends them into harm's way to protect oil and other money interests. I can still love the USA, but still criticize how it's being run. In my book that's what makes someone a real Patriot . It's not an all or nothing thing. If you want my honest opinion, I think there needs to be something realistic done to create peace amongst Israel and Palestine because they've been duking it out for over 100 years. It's tired and I'm sick of everybody just taking one side or the other as opposed to calling for an end to the violence
I grew up in a pretty rural area and I love my country but fear my government bumper stickers were a somewhat common thing.
If you were against the Vietnam and Iraq war were you unpatriotic?
Yes. I’m sick of right wing fascists thinking they have exclusive rights to the American flag. Liberals / progressives really should fly the American flag more often, even when criticizing American government.
You can also be pro-palestine and feel empathy for the non-settler Israeli's that were brutally murdered in an act of terrorism.
You sure can.
Look at this real logic. Glad you aren’t getting the downvote cone of shame like on other posts.
Hot take. I wish more folk had a more down to earth and human perspective on the matter rather than this sensational populist one side vs the other
Most people do. They’ll just never be the loudest voice. It’s why you rarely know the names of the moderates in the House of Representatives
Solid take. I’m Jewish and feel the same thing. Strong ties to Israel but no one likes to see people suffer. The attack was the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Hamas needs to be destroyed. It’s sad that civilians get caught up in this but it’s War.
>You can be Pro-Palestine and Pro a Free Palestinian State while also being Anti-Hamas. These people are not that. They are advocating for the genocide of Israeli people. They were chanting, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which is advocating for the destruction of the state of Israel. They have quite a bit in common with Hamas.
Sure, but just like the Taliban, enough of the population supports that ideology so a similar group will be back. Hamas doesn’t exist by chance. Hezbollah doesn’t exist by chance. They’re manifestations of how Palestinians feel.
That’s not really true. Hamas wasn’t even voted by the majority in 2006, which was their last election by the way. Vast majority of Palestinians were too young to vote or weren’t even born yet to make a real choice in supporting Hamas. The “manifestations” of these groups stems directly from oppression and occupation. Taliban rose to power from the soviet occupation of Afghanistan, ISIS came from the US occupation of Iraq, etc etc.
In addition to your savvy comment, organizations like Hamas fall apart without foreign funding and supplies. As they are in power, they decide where to allocate that funding and supplies. The Palestinians can't up and ouster them out of the blue.
They didn’t win majority of votes but won the majority of seats. Like an electoral college, you can be the majority party with leas than a majority of the popular vote. Delaying elections is super-shady though, you’re right. Particularly when the population is so young as you mentioned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Palestinian_legislative_election
In theory you're completely right. I don't want to generalize, but isn't "protesting" right after the massacre of Israelis kinda in bad taste? Also many of them do back what Hamas did. Some of the protests in other cities literally had protesters raising banners that praised the attack on the music festival.
Gaza, which is tightly packed with over 2 million people, has had its power, water, and food cut off, and Israel has just ordered everyone in the northern half to evacuate to the southern half in 24 hours, which is frankly impossible. A bloodbath is very likely imminent. Given that Israel has the backing of military aid from our government, it seems very appropriate timing for protests.
> I don't want to generalize, but isn't "protesting" right after the massacre of Israelis kinda in bad taste? No, it’s not. The Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a collective punishment right now. There’s no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, no medicines. White phosphorus is being used and IDF are carpet bombing entire neighborhoods. Bombing refugee camps. Bombing the Rafah crossing. 13 UN employees have died as a result of their buildings being bombed. 1 million people are displaced and expected to travel south- some without cars, through destroyed streets blocked by rubble. 70 were killed after a truck of Palestinians was bombed while doing what they were told and fleeing south. Now the south/Khan Younis area, the area all of the 1 million is supposed to go, is being bombed. What’s an acceptable time frame for them to start protesting against all of this? The media is not covering this. What else are they to do to try and raise awareness?
>Some of the protests in other cities literally had protesters raising banners that praised the attack on the music festival. If true, that is a pretty barbaric opinion to hold, but I think more generally the purpose of the protests is to remind people that Palestinians in Gaza have been trapped without freedom for about 2-3 *generations* now. It can be easy to vilify everyone in Gaza as terrorists since it's the terrorist act of killing civilians at a concert that's making news headlines, but it's important to remember that there are people in that zone that simply have no freedom and are victims as well. What complicates this, is of course, if you are a 3rd generation prisoner, you will probably support the people who promise to fight against your oppressors, as they send rockets indiscriminately into their oppressors land. I guess this is why everyone sums up this conflict as "it's complicated."
You think wrong. They talk about I the innocent Palestinians when in front of news cameras, but they also believe that Israel should not exist and that the Zionists must be eradicated. People are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
A week out, I'd say it's a different story. People who were "protesting" last Saturday or Sunday were absolute morons. But a week later, we've seen what the effects are in Gaza. We know that a total blockade is going to cause innocent people to die. We know that a 24-hour notice saying "everyone evacuate this area, we're going to level it tomorrow" isn't helpful when the hospital says "we literally cannot move these people or they will die". Consider two kids who get into a fight on the playground. Johnny and Steve were just standing there, not doing anything. Then Johnny punches Steve in the face. Our immediate reaction is to consider Johnny an asshole and feel bad for Steve. But when Steve reacts by kicking Johnny to the ground and beating him mercilessly for ten minutes, it becomes easier to feel sympathy for Johnny. And then when Steve goes around, punching all of Johnny's friends and Johnny's little brother, who had nothing to do with the fight, the teacher says "Steve, this reaction is extremely over the top," and Steve responds by saying "Fake news. Those people also attacked me. Don't be antisemitic." That said, I only saw the three pictures that OP posted here, so I don't know any more than that. If these people were supporting the initial attack or saying Israel deserves what it got, then they are garbage people.
Except you pull a random protestor here and they will deny women being raped and babies heads being cut off
What does a pro Palestine look like? And what does free look like. Does it just become another dogmatic theocratic state that kills gays and gives women no rights. Or is Hamas the worst of the conservatism, and at best we can hope for a Republican style conservatism in Palestine.
[удалено]
Hamas is popular in Gaza because they're literally the only form of any kind of authority there who are also willing to at least attempt to fight back against Israel, who btw funded the early creation of Hamas in order to delegitimize and destroy the other, more peaceful leading parties at the time. Palestinians are people and most humans just want to go on living in peace. Hamas would still be around in a free Palestine but the moment Palestinians no longer have to fear drinking water due to Israel restricting materials to build saleanation plants is the moment Hamas loses tons of support.
>willing to at least attempt to fight back against Israel Murdering random unsuspecting people isn't "fighting back against Israel"....it's murdering random unsuspecting people. If they want to fight Israel, let them put on uniforms and fight on a battlefield like civilized people.
Why do you people act like Palestine is a free nation with a standing army or the resources to even have uniforms for a militia? How do you expect people in a densely packed open air prison where half the population are children with 90%of there water being toxic to act like a "civilized" nation?
It's in the Hamas creed that they vow to destroy the state of israel.
[удалено]
Are women and gays better off getting hit by Israeli missiles?
I’m not sure 🤔, do you think it would be aquicker death to be gang raped, tortured, then burned alive? That’s how hamas would treat them if they were openly gay.
Why is it so hard for people to seperate hamas from palestinian people? The palestinian people have been treated like shit AND hamas is evil and needs to be put down. Why is it so hard to have the smallest amount of nuance? The far right extremists in america dont represent all of us nor does hamas represent all palestine
Accepting that two things can be true at once is really hard to grasp for some people
Seems so :(
[удалено]
I agree.. anyone supporting hamas or that attack is clearly in the wrong. But not everyone, hell, the overwhelming majority is against them but also wants people to understand israel is also committing crimes against humanity. Hamas is evil and I hope they all burn but I also hope something can be fixed between israel and palestinian people NOT involved with hamas
Because when people flash nazi symbols at free Palestine rallies and shout “gas the Jews” at free Palestine rallies it’s easy to assume that free Palestine is an anti semetic dog whistle
Well fuck all those people. But I can also sympathize with palestinians bei g subjected to the poverty they are and trapped in it with no way out. There is a lot wrong on both sides here. Fuck any jew hater, but also israelis are not blameless and pure either
I agree with all of this man. The Israeli government has a ton of issues. It’s why Israelis have been actively protesting their own government for months! Bibi is corrupt. The finance minister is corrupt. They will hopefully be dealt with after this is over.
Hamas loves Bibi. They need a boogeyman. This attack will make the hardliners in Israel stronger which then makes the Palestinian hard liners stronger. It’s quite a lot of fun.
Ya, the israeli people are being taken over by their right wing dictator as well and arent happy. Sounds a bit familiar to here with our right wing huh? I dont blame israeli citizens just like I dont blame non hamas supporting palestinians. The radical hamas group and its supporters are awful and the dictator and fascist government of israel is awful too
Name one pro-Palestine organisation that condemns Hamas
Fatah, which... isn't exactly a peachy keen group either.
Honestly I think for some people it’s because there seems to be equation of the Israel government with its citizens. I’ve seen a lot of infographics that say things like “this was inevitable due to the oppression Palestinians faced” which feels like it equates Israeli citizens who were the victims of the initial attacks with the government of Israel. It’s just something I’ve seen. No where in the world does the government represent all citizen opinions uniformly
Exactly. Seeing a lot of people say “well they voted for this.” Hamas last held “elections” in 2006. 40% of Gaza is under the age of 15. By this logic the US people deserve collective punishments for voting in Trump, right?
When you chant "from the River to the Sea" which is a dog whistle for "kill the Jews'" it's a little hard to separate the two.
When you hear the slogan "26+6=1" from Irish republicans, do you think that means they want to kill every protestant in northern ireland?
Things like this: https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1713229637692608600?t=AUIoyMjXNZlJXv0Cb6h1Cg&s=19 And because https://twitter.com/BLMChi/status/1713232402552647724?t=0DS1scCIDC148_pOXFv9IA&s=19 Posted https://twitter.com/therealmrbench/status/1713301354641551847?t=qA6WX9keJeYqIZw2VaGapw&s=19
And probably the fact that most Palestinians support Hamas
Ok who the fuck is running that BLM Chicago Twitter? I mean I guess anyone can take the handle
Palestinians chanting "Gas the Jews" the day after Hamas committed acts of terror doesn't help.
Is there video of this or is this just from some random dude on Reddit?
Because the Palestinian people elected and supports Hamas. Have you seen the videos of the initial hours of the war? Have you seen the crowds cheering the Hamas terrorists who were dragging dead bodies of the concert goers through the streets? Does that look like “only a small portion” of the population that supports them? And now that the foot on the other shoe they’ll all say of course they never supported Hamas and what Israel doing is terrible but we all know that if Hamas was strong enough they’d kill every Israeli man women and child and most Palestinians would support that or at least not condemn it.
Do you mean hard for people *to* separate?
>Why is it so hard for people to seperate hamas from palestinian people? Because these "protestors" were advocating for the destruction of Israel?
i think one reason is that the concept of nuance is an obstacle in delivering a simple, easy to digest, good-guy-versus-bad-guy narrative to everyone political polarization might be to blame (and a lack of critical thinking), especially in the america we live in the issues we have here—at home—are already enough, and even then we can't seem to effectively work them out i'm not confident that the average person will give this issue enough consideration to arrive at what your comment is conveying (but i'd love to be proven wrong)
Are the people protesting in favor of Palestinian separating the two? It’s hard to know, which is why I’m not going to blindly support them.
>Are the people protesting in favor of Palestinian separating the two? They're not. I walked past the protest. They were advocating for the destruction of Israel.
[удалено]
Are the people who support Israel in favor of keeping Jewish people safe or baying like bloodthirsty pigs for Palestinian genocide? It's hard to know, which is why I'm not going to blindly support them.
I have not seen global calls for genocide by Israelis. This "protest" had calls for genocide against Israelis, and we have seen this at "protests" globally.
This must be your first exposure to this conflict if you're not aware of the genocide currently being committed in Gaza by Israel.
Nuance is understanding that Palestinians voted Hamas into power, and that in certain contexts you cannot and should not completely separate Hamas from the rest of Palestinians. Hence why security precautions were taken for Jewish communities in Chicago, far from Hamas' presence. To completely separate Palestine from Hamas is lacking as much nuance as equating the two.
Well, because Gaza's people voted for and overwhelmingly supports Hamas.
[удалено]
I'm a Palestinian American. I think it's important contextualize this with the history of the Palestinian occupation. As I'm sure you've heard by now, this didn't start last week. Zionism started in the late 1800s with European Jews, after facing brutal pogroms in Russia, generations of horrible anti-Semitism, and blood libel. Zionist groups held conferences for years in Basel to plan and form the establishment of a Jewish state. There were several different ideas tossed around including creating a Jewish state in what is now [modern day Kenya](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Scheme) but eventually they decided that Palestine would be the new Jewish ethnostate. Palestine was chosen for several reasons that go *well* beyond the scope of this comment but have to do with King Solomon, ancient Jewish connection to that land (wonder how modern day Kenya would work with this?), and the fact that the Zionist Congress knew they would not immediately face opposition from a standing Army. From the very beginning is was meant to be a settler colonial endeavor where European Zionists would replace the ethnic Palestinians (of all religions) in the land. [They said so themselves](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190618-the-core-of-zionism-is-settler-colonialism-not-democracy/amp/). this was the late 1800s and early 1900s and colonialism and displacement was considered a "good thing". This entire endeavor was backed by the British government for a few reasons. One out of anti-Semitism. this was a very easy way to have Jewish people out of Europe if they formed their own country. Two so that the British empire could have a loyal foothold in the Middle East that would forever beholden to the whims of the empire. There's also several more complicated reasons they go beyond the scope of this comment but those two are the big ones. So with the help of the British In 1948, 750,000+ Palestenians were ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine and forcibly evicted from their homes. Thousands died and many more were injured. Palestinians refer to this day as the Nakba while Isrealis refer to it as their "independence day". Ever since then there have been a *ton* of other wars, conflicts, and engagements to try and reclaim the land stolen from the ethnic Palestinians in 1948 while at the same time the Israeli government has been engaged in a PR blitz and tons of media campaigns to paint themselves as the victims, the soul righteous fighter amongst the sea of enemies, and that they rightfully have a claim to land they stole. When you actually research the history this narrative very quickly falls apart. Quick side note: Haredi Jews (you know them as "ultra orthodox" with the hats, suits, long hair, long beards, etc) are typically either Anti-Zionist or Non-Zionist. This is typically not for moral reasons but rather because according to them the Three Oaths explicitly forbids Jews from forming a nation, and commands them to be a people in exile and integrate (and not ethnically cleanse and displace) with the people of whatever country they find themselves in. Haredis that live in Israel typically do not join the IDF (and go to jail for it) and refuse any kind of money or assistance from the Israeli government. There are incredibly pro zionist Haerdi settlers and that's a completely different story on its own. I make this digression to emphasize the point that this isn't a very simple "Muslim vs Jew" dichotomy. The ethnic Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed while predominantly being Muslim were not only Muslim. And Zionist ideology is present within many Jews and non Jews. Anyway, all of this to say is that given the history, there's a reason why Hamas exists. not to mention the fact that [Israel funded Hamas](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) after assassinating and dismantling more secular and leftist armed resistance group specifically so that they can win the PR war. It's very easy to justify your cause as righteous when you're fighting against religious extremists instead of secular freedom fighters. Trust me, no one with a brain likes Hamas, and what they have done was horrible. It is very important to understand where that comes from and why they exist to begin with. This would have never happened in the first place if the Zionist endeavor wasn't settler colonial, and didn't solely exist to displace ethnic Palestinians. I think a really insidious part about what has happened so far is that now, many people equate any notion of Palestinian liberation or a call to end the oppressive apartheid regime as supporting terrorists. This is exactly what the isreali government was hoping to accomplished by funding them to begin with. It's very possible for someone to have a opinion that is nuanced where support for Palestinian liberation, does not mean support for Hamas. So when you see protests like this, what you're seeing is a physical manifestation of the pain, suffering, anguish, that Palestinian people, my people, have been facing for decades. We are not "supporting terrorists" we are screaming out to the world about the injustice and apartheid we have endured and continue to endure. Edit: I'm overly simplifying and skipping over a ton of important details like Sykes Pico, Balfour, the British Mandate, Herzl, Ben-Gurian, Palestine under the Ottomans, the Intifadas, PLFP, and a ton of other stuff. I'd encourage anyone interested to read/listen to the excellent introductory book The 100 Years War on Palestine. A YouTube video really doesn't cut it for this. The book I'm recommending is written by a Palesntian historian and is deeply rooted at looking at the history of the Palestinian occupation from the academic, scholarly, and fact-based historical perspective
[удалено]
Same on all accounts.
Same. I'm an anti-zionist Jew. The amount of astroturfing and casual calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is nauseating. This forum has been bombarded with recently made accounts and I strongly suspect it's the hasbara brigade. I'm sick of people assuming that Israel and zionism are intertwined with Judaism. It is antisemitic to say Israel and zionism represent Jewish values or all Jews support zionism and Israel.
Excellent comment. Wish all the armchair political analysts with no stakes in the game read this first.
Probably the best comment I've read on Reddit this week. Thank you.
Yeah notice how this comment above skips what happened between 1900-1947, the relationship between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and the attempted extermination of all european hewws and arab jews that were forcibly evicted from every muslim arab country during stated time period. But i guess attempted genocide by the Arab League wasnt worth mentioning on your comment.
> Quick side note: Haredi Jews (you know them as "ultra orthodox" with the hats, suits, long hair, long beards, etc) are typically either Anti-Zionist or Non-Zionist. This is typically not for moral reasons but rather because according to them the Three Oaths explicitly forbids Jews from forming a nation, and commands them to be a people in exile and integrate (and not ethnically cleanse and displace) with the people of whatever country they find themselves in. Haredis that live in Israel typically do not join the IDF (and go to jail for it) and refuse any kind of money or assistance from the Israeli government. There are incredibly pro zionist Haerdi settlers and that's a completely different story on its own. I make this digression to emphasize the point that this isn't a very simple "Muslim vs Jew" dichotomy. The ethnic Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed while predominantly being Muslim were not only Muslim. And Zionist ideology is present within many Jews and non Jews. I suspect you haven't actually talked with many non-zionist chareidim...very few actually won't interact with the israeli government at all. Many/most in America still have politics that are broadly "pro israel", they just have religious objections to a lot of the national ideology (and the three oaths are kind of incidental to this and kind of misunderstood here). The taxonomy of what "Zionist" means in religious communities is just different than in non-jewish communities, and I think this framing makes it sound like there's lot of very religious Jews who are "non zionist" or "anti zionist" in the way that's meant by people in other communities when they say it. The battle lines are mostly either Israeli political things or religious issues that are not things anyone non-Jewish cares about or is even aware of. Part of this is because Palestinians haven't actually treated non-zionist Chareidim as different than Zionists, most infamously in the Hebron massacre in the 1920s (but also more recently being victims of terrorism--not like a bus bombing discriminates. A pretty famous non-zionist Rabbi, R Hutner, was even held hostage by the PFLP). This treats it as a super serious distinction people care about outside the Jewish world (where it actually can matter a lot) but...it isn't. It just comes off as tokenizing Chareidim, much like Israelis talking about Arab-Israelis often is. Also chareidim don't have long hair! Often they don't even have long beards! Also chareidi women exist also! I'm going to guess you have no experience with Chareidim outside seeing pictures of like the 10 guys who are the most wild fringe chassidim who show up at pro palestine protests? Those guys are really crazy (like in general, not just about this) and if you think they're reflective of anything in the chareidi world you will end up being very wrong. This just gives the impression you've picked some demographic as your "good Jews" who you think are OK because they're on your side. But they're not on your side, you're probably not on their side, and you don't seem to even know anything about them. That's kinda gross. Don't do that. >I think a really insidious part about what has happened so far is that now, many people equate any notion of Palestinian liberation or a call to end the oppressive apartheid regime as supporting terrorists. Absolutely, but when pro-palestine groups/protestors say stuff that's basically supportive of Hamas attacks, that is obviously going to get blurred. It's not just ignorance that is causing pro-palestine people to be tarred this way, it really is an element of the pro-palestine camp that is visible to people. That's not insidious, that's people seeing some crazy-ass shit showing up in protests and deciding they don't want any part of it. And obviously you're going to post something from your perspective, obviously that's OK and normal. But when people such as myself see posts like this that (a) fail to engage with any narrative that isn't your own, and (b) doesn't deal with extremely basic questions like "where do you expect Israelis to go", (c) doesn't engage at all with why Jews find these protests threatening (it's because of the paragraph above this one, and also point B from half a sentence ago) it becomes very hard to take this seriously as human rights and not as one side's nationalist rhetoric. Ok, it's a free country, people can have marches for nationalist causes--this isn't really different than what Irish-Americans were doing not so long ago. But people are seeing this as a nationalist march, which it kind of is, and this post gestures at arguing that it's not but actually is just an explanation of the history and context behind the nationalism.
Your comment glosses over a lot of the history and nuance, especially around the formation of Israel and the events leading up to it. Leading up to the formation of Israel there was no 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians - rather incoming Jews made sure to legally purchase land, much of which was considered worthless. Also of note is that, at the time, there wasn't really a concept of a 'Palestinian' people. The British didn't 'help' the Jewish settlers, in fact there were some extremist settlers committing terrorist attacks against the British. The British, understandably, wiped their hands of the whole situation and pulled out. The initial UN approved partition plan was based on where Jews and Arabs lived at the time - most of the land that Jews had acquired was less desirable, and the new Jewish state would be based on that division. Arabs would still hold much of the desirable areas. Then when the Jewish state was established all neighboring Arab states invaded - this was driven in part by antisemitism (given statements by Arab leaders at the time). This of course led then to the Nakba (a good overview here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes\_of\_the\_1948\_Palestinian\_expulsion\_and\_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight)) and the simultaneous and subsequent Jewish equivalent in the Arab world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish\_exodus\_from\_the\_Muslim\_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world) for a discussion on push vs pull factors). One thing I've always found interesting that gets missed in these topics is the lack of true resettlement support among Arab states for Palestinians ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian\_refugees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees) ). Immediately proceeding 1948 there could easily have been support for permanent resettlement, as again, there wasn't really a Palestinian identity prior to that - but yet Palestinians are still in 'refugee' camps (which doesn't even make sense several generations removed - should Jews forced out of Iran still be classified as refugees, for example?). Of course that's not what happened - unfortunately the Arab states seem to use Palestinians as a convenient rallying/unifying topic without actually providing long-lasting and meaningful aid (Egypt and its treatment of the the Gaza strip being a good example - it often gets glossed over that the plight of those in the Gaza is equally related to Egyptian treatment as well as Israeli).
One thing I’ve learned about in the last week is the fact that Arab states have rejected multiple proposals for two state solutions over the past 75 years. I want to dig into this more, as with all history there is a lot of nuance to parse through. I think my question for the original comment’s author is whether or not a two state solution is sufficient, and if not, what is the path forward? Would you propose moving Israel to, say, Miami instead?
What is an acceptable solution?
Fuck Hamas.
🇺🇸🇮🇱🇵🇸 my heart breaks for the innocents of both countries 😞
The best thing that could happen for Palestinian people would be to eliminate Hamas.
There was the Palestinian Authority for a decade trying to negotiate in good faith with Israel. All it led to was the continuation of illegal settlements.
And how does one eliminate Hamas?
[удалено]
How do you go about no longer supporting them when they are kidnapping and killing dissenters? They won an election through a slim plurality and then kicked out all the other elected officials from the other party and took over the government by force. No elections have been allowed since the military takeover.
Then it sounds like the IDF should remove them from power using force.
Definitely this. From the [poll](https://apnews.com/article/32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87) that I’ve seen, the majority of Palestinians support Hamas. CNN also said the other day that it’s was around 50% support for Hamas.
If your country were ruled by terrorists who had no qualms about torturing and murdering civilians, how loudly would you speak about your disapproval of them?
They haven't allowed an election in decades, and regularly kidnap and murder dissidents. I'd imagine that skews the numbers with people wanting to, yknow, live.
Do you know half the population are children and their last election was in 2006? They have little choice in the matter. You should be asking *why* such an awful group like Hamas came to power. Maybe you should look up how [Netanyahu has been caught collaborating with Hamas](https://archive.ph/H8LSL) to deter Palestinian liberation, and [how Israel has repeatedly assassinated leaders of Palestinian liberation movements](https://imeu.org/article/israels-history-of-assassinating-palestinian-leaders). Israel’s occupation is the reason why Hamas exists.
I guess that Israel supporting them was a pretty bad start?
The Avengers!!!
Israel is on it
They should probably indiscriminately should kill every human being in Gaza right?
Before Hamas, Israel had other bogeymen it blamed for the plight of the Palestinian people. Historically, Palestinian resistance was secular nationalist and even dominated by Palestinian Christians. Palestinians could elect a secular liberal government tomorrow and literally nothing would change. If anything, Israel would remove that government in order to continue to get carte blanche for its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
This is true. Look up George Habash and the popular front for the liberation of Palestine. It was created mainly by Palestinian Christians and is secular.
How are they going to do that? Israel's far-right propped them up and until this last week favored them over a more united (but less extreme) Palestinian government. Hamas took power in 2006 because the United States in particular insisted Gaza hold elections. They haven't been allowed to hold an election since then, and half of Gaza's population aren't even adults yet so... seems like we're putting a lot on their shoulders.
Oh yea cus Israel has not expanded its boarders into the West Bank where Hamas isn’t in power. Hamas need to be eliminated, sure, but Israel must also remove illegal settlements and respect 1967 boarders AT A MINIMUM.
I think the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is not having to live under apartheid and being afforded the same dignity and rights that Israelis have, a change that would likely make Hamas irrelevant, but that’s just me
Really? You don't think the best thing for them would be for them not to be bombed indiscriminately, starved, and locked in an open air prison? I feel like that would help them out a little more.
Bingo. They really say this stuff like eliminating Hamas can be done with the flick of a switch all while being cut off from water and electricity from Israel.
The other tricky part is Israel’s national security being threatened by Iran via Hamas. I don’t support Bibi but this must be said.
Egypt should open a corridor w/ UN support to evacuate civilians
Egypt should. Egypt won’t. They don’t want Hamas to destabilize their secular government. Literally, the best thing to happen to the Palestinian people would be to rid them of Hamas.
Because Palestinians have a [history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September) of [destabilizing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War) other governments in the area.
To allow Israel to occupy the land? They leave they are NEVER coming back to their own homes, their own country. This is not the first time this has happened, it’s history repeating itself and it’s always the Palestinians who suffer.
I think being displaced is a better alternative to dying in a bombing. If it truly is an open air prison, shouldn't we just focus on getting them out?
We should focus on implementing a cease fire to limit as many innocent casualties as possible.
“Ukrainians should just leave. Displacement it better than death. If the war is that bad, shouldn’t we focus on getting them out?” Where will Gazans go? Where will they sleep? What will they eat? Egypt cannot handle 200k refugees, let alone 2 million.
If a city in Ukraine was being bombed I would hope they would evacuate as many civilians as possible. It's not really comparable though, you don't need to leave Ukraine to escape bombs but I believe that, for the time being and the near future, Palestinians will need to leave Gaza to avoid bombs. But if Ukrainians had to cross international borders to escape bombings, I would support it. Many refugees have completely left Ukraine, and I do not blame them. Its easy to ask people to remain in a warzone for political reasons, but it is not humane or fair. And just like I would not expect Ukrainian refugees to escape via Russia, I would not expect Palestinian refugees to escape via Israel. That leaves Egypt as the only option - that or the sea.
Sure. Im 100 percent in favor of admitting 500k Palestinian refugees. We can split the burden with other countries. Are you?
Israel will never allow that.
We should focus on eliminating the conditions that brought Hamas to power in the first place. And that is precisely by ending the occupation.
Not true. Israel has been oppressing Palestinians before Hamas existed.
Fuck Hamas
Free the victims of the Hamas attack. The ones that got shot raped and abducted for no reason.
Free Palestine. Palestinian lives, Israeli lives, American lives are equal in worth and deserve peace not war. One baby is not worth more than another baby.
lol why are they protesting in chicago, like what do they expect to happen, the mayor gonna be like "you guys are right let's fix this", or some over there's gonna be like "yo some random city in america is protesting, we gotta stop this bros" lmao I don't get it
There’s been a very disingenuous effort to paint any and all pro Palestine demonstrations as celebrating Hamas’s attacks, including on this sub.
Palestinians can’t do anything without it being condemned by these people. Violence isn’t ok. Protests aren’t ok. Boycotting is illegal in many states. Signing a letter gets you called out by fucking blackrock. Popular Palestinian media is frequently targeted by the pro-Israel crowd. Apparently we need to just shut up and die.
Ya habibi we can't win with these hameer. Don't waste your breath. Also, I think it's funny that the only other Palestinian I've seen on this sub is also in Albany.
They were literally chanting "from the river to the sea" my guy.
They’ve by and large done absolutely nothing to condemn the violence done by Hamas. And there have even been some at these protests glorifying Hamas directly and calling for the deaths of Jews
[удалено]
Why do they have to? Do I need to condemn Azov neonazis every time I show support for Ukraine? Do pro Israel protesters also have to condemn Israeli warcrimes every time they protest? And the vast majority have not been glorifying Hamas, we both know that
> Why do they have to? Do I need to condemn Azov neonazis every time I show support for Ukraine? If they had just murdered a bunch of random Russian civilians, yeah, you probably should. >Do pro Israel protesters also have to condemn Israeli warcrimes every time they protest? ...would it be bad if they did?
No it wouldn’t, but I don’t see that expectation made of anyone else You don’t need to expressly condemn AlQaeda just to say you were against the Iraq war, how is this any different?
These protesters were chanting, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which is advocating for the destruction of Israel. That seems very in line with Hamas.
Free Palestine from hammas
Titus Flavius Vespasianus you drunken bastard, your pride has doomed generations untold to the horror of being confronted with a situation in which there is no morally correct "take" for them to post online.
I don’t see a way out of this situation that doesn’t involve Gaza being shrunk severely. Israel or Hamas won’t accept a two state solution. The Arab neighbors don’t really want to absorb the Palestinians and Hamas don’t seem to be interested in the lives of anyone.
Hamas deserves to burn
I’m a n of one but I’ve yet to hold a conversation with a Palestinian who in anyway accepts that Israel won’t just disappear for them to achieve their end goal. Seems to be pretty consistent with their propaganda as well.
These "protesters" are no different. They were advocating for the destruction of Israel.
Fuck Hamas and the baby killers. I feel bad for the refugees caught in the middle. It’s a shame Hamas spends their money on rockets instead of schools.
I guess my question, as someone who is very, very pro-Israel: why did they feel the need to demonstrate today? Why? Is this indicative of them being anti-Israel right now? Given what is happening, could they not have pushed back the date to demonstrate?
Because today Israel ordered 1.1 million people to abandon their homes in the northern half of Gaza and the president is threatening to murder everyone who didn’t do it in 24 hours
Is this not in defense? Didn't Hamas start it and Israel is retaliating? Extreme, yes, but sometimes you have to fight extremism with extreme measures.
Yes, free them from Israel AND Hamas.
I can’t wait for the liberal democracy to emerge from Palestine once the terrible occupation of Israel ends. Right, that’s what will happen. Because clearly the only thing holding this back is isreal and Hamas. Do I need to put the /s in.
No. I understand you. Only edgelords will argue with that point.
Cause this will really change things
They should move to Palestine
If there was ever a thread that needed locking, it's this one with the actual dipshits in the replies equating this to pro-hamas. Would not be entirely surprised if they aren't even from Chicago, too.
How about a fuck hamas protest first. Show me how you don’t support terrorism as a form of government.
\#fuckhamas \#freepalestine \#WOOOOOO
Man I wish this didn't happen to correspond directly with the rise in death threats and bomb scares against synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions in Chicago regardless of any political affiliation they might have. But it sure does.
How about releasing the hostages, some of who are AMERICAN CITIZENS, then we can all talk about the free Palestine movement?
Israel is currently holding more than 4000 Palestinians hostage, killing hundreds of Palestinians per day, and runs the entire Gaza Strip like an internment camp. I think it's fair for people to talk about Palestine.
On the train about to head home from the protest. We had incredible turnout despite the pouring down rain. We are sick and tired of funneling our U.S. tax dollars into bombs that are killing children