legitimately insane how to some people, "we should wipe out this ethnic group that we've violently constrained to a ghetto because they're just genetically more violent and dangerous" is a reasonable and justifiable statement but it's Nazi Rhetoric to say something like, "it's bad that Israeli civilians are being killed but acknowledging that as tragic includes acknowledging that the almost daily state-sanctioned murder of civilians by the Israeli government is also tragic and unacceptable"

btw guys speaking of Nazi shit - can we check in, alongside what's been done to Palestinians in the last 75 years, what's the Israeli government's take on the Azerbaijani government's newest round of ethnic cleansing of Armenians? oh are the Israeli government's actions maybe not determined by Jewish identity, but by a commitment to colonial supremacy which puts them on the same page as other violently genocidal states like Azerbaijan, the US, and the UK? god can you Even Imagine?

(framing speaking against Israeli war crimes as inherently antisemitic requires understanding the Israeli state as representing all Jewish people, when it doesn't even represent all Israelis.

framing Israeli war crimes as synonymous with Jewish identity is pretty fucked up if we're being honest. I don't think that controlling water and power and movement for a captive population and shooting children dead for throwing stones is an inherent value of Judaism, any more than I think the torture carried out at Guantanamo Bay is an inherent value of Christianity - in both cases they're atrocities carried out by a far right genocidal government using religious identity as a shield.

Calling statements like "Israel is committing genocide against the people it's displaced" inherently antisemitic is doing more to further the idea that all Jewish people are associated with Israel than saying "the Israeli government is doing war crimes," which is a statement of fact about a country that exists and does war crimes. Is criticism of Israel as a nation often used as cover for antisemitism? Absolutely. Does that mean the Israeli government isn't doing literal war crimes repeatedly, on record, while talking publicly about scrubbing an ethnic group off the map? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well in the last 48 hours they've definitely cut off water and power to almost 600,000 civilians and allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians so in an extremely factual and unambiguous way yeah man those are Literal War Crimes whoever does them.)

please stop scrolling and take the time to read this.

i don't think people understand the extent of the horror happening in palestine right now. "death" means nothing to people because of desensitisation so let me just tell you what white phosphorus is. it's being used in israeli munitions and has been and will continue to be fired across gaza and the palestinian borders.

white phosphorus burns when it comes into contact with oxygen (at nearly 800°C or 1500°F. the human body can withstand ~50°C for reference.) the air you breathe in ignites and it is near impossible extinguish. it sticks to clothing and skin and is very difficult to remove because it will continue to ignite in air. it burns flesh up to the bone and even past the bone because it penetrates tissue and is absorbed VERY easily. if you inhale it it'll destroy your respiratory tract and lungs. it can cause failure in multiple organs including the liver, kidneys and heart. it is being released in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

the only way to treat someone exposed to white phosphorus is to submerge them in saline or water and to pick out the substance with forceps, and when you undress a wound the substance can re-ignite. this is just ONE weapon that is being used to kill palestinian people right now. palestine does not have access to medical care, humanitarian aid, power, or internet. their hospitals are being bombed. gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world with over 50% of the population being children. many children are the sole survivors of their families. there are videos of children experiencing panic attacks and symptoms of ptsd. the fact that israel has committed war crimes in plain sight means that we can only imagine what will happen to the palestinians in complete darkness.

israel has and will continue to deny this. your interests and fandom will still be here, you will wake up tomorrow morning and see your friends and family, but an entire nation of people are being wiped off the map. being silent is being complacent. reblog, spread information, tell people in real life, attend protests, sign petitions, call your government offices, at the very least be angry and upset and horrified because once you become numb and indifferent and hopeless the oppressors will have already won.

what's happening right now is more than a genocide and once it becomes a part of history we'll wonder how the world let this happen. genocides have been part of all nations. just because it is far away does not mean you don't have to be concerned. the fact that YOUR governments and YOUR idols and the people around YOU are supporting the mass eradication of an entire group of people should scare you. it shouldn't make you feel anything less than sick and angry and disgusted. DO something about it, no matter how small you feel your voice is, because palestinians no longer have one.

[edit] links to some helpful reblogs: one & two

post on how you can help palestine

learn about palestine with this masterlist of info

+ a further reblog of mine

[edit 2] about palestinians "not having a voice" at the time i wrote this post internet connection was cut off entirely and even journalists weren't able to report for a period of time — that is all i meant by that. they of course have a voice and i never meant to undermine how people are risking their lives in gaza to get information out there and i apologise if thats what people took from it, it was not my intention but it is entirely my bad. please continue to spread information and updates from gaza as they come.

the thing is that like. queer rights shouldnt even be the hot topic that they are in any of these discussions, because they are rarely ever relevant in the context they are brought up in. as far as social issues go we all live in glass houses no matter which culture we're from. not a single one of our societies, that any of us live in, has solved the issue of homophobia, or sexism, or any discrimination. none. none of us get to tell the other 'your society is worse than mine' and have that be anything but condescending posturing. absolutely none.

and no, there is not a single person who deserves death or is culpable for the crimes of their society just by virtue of being born in it. i should hope that goes without saying but the past month and a half have proven otherwise. every single innocent person deserves to be free of the horrible cycle of violence we're caught in. no state crimes, no amount of human rights violations, make the death of unrelated innocents justifiable, in any context, and i mean in any context.

but do you know why this gets brought up. because of you fucking westerners who keep projecting this idea that israel embodies every single colonialist evil you can think of, but it's the colonialist evils of your countries and your societies that you have guilt about, that you are familiar with personally. and you project every single social cause that you personally are invested in onto the palestinian cause instead of listening to them, instead of actually trying to understand what work is required to actually help them and what they actually need, because you project this idea of the socialist queer liberators that you want to be onto every single movement that is remotely anti-western or anti-american. and it's honestly really embarrassing but also shows your ignorance about those societies.

and i frankly think that bringing up homophobia in either gaza or the west bank (for purposes that aren't raising awareness, which, it usually isn't) as a gotcha is both extremely tasteless and totally irrelevant most of the time and just serves to delay the conversation and also, again, is not a judgement any of us from the outside get to make, and doesn't make their deaths any less tragic or any more deserved. and i would say the same about the homophobia in israeli society that i am well familiar with, as a queer person who lives here and is stuck in the more conservative parts of the country. but it gets brought up as a counter to the false narrative coming from westerners and constantly spread around- this narrative that this is a fight between one society that's a perfect haven of queer liberation and one society that is nothing but homophobic evils, and that the society that's full of homophobic evils has no innocents in it. because it is not true. not for any of us.

we are not a cartoon bad kingdom and a cartoon good kingdom. we are two equally complex, versatile societies with their own complex histories and things to work through, and your dichotomic thinking simply cannot seem to process this idea. that's why the arguments on queer rights in either of these countries get drawn in. to point out what what you are presenting simply is not factually true and is a simplification of a much more complex reality, which is kind of the pattern in this discourse in general.

i just don't think it's an argument worth having because it's besides the point in the first place, and the point is that none of us deserve violence, none of us deserve to die, and none of us are culpable for the governments playing power games between each other at our expense.

I am not one to put myself into discourse but I really need to explain something to you,

As a Palestinian you need to understand that Hamas aren't killing babies, those 40 Israeli babies were made up, this had been confirmed over and over again. Palestine is older then Israel, Isreal only started existing after WW2, Palestinian's welcomed them but we're faced with Starvation,genocide, rape and bombing in return.

It is currently Ramadan, a time of fasting from sunrise till sundown, yet they have no food nor water to have before this period.

13,000 innocent children have died. Over 300+ not even making it to their first birthday. Girls and woman are experiencing periods and pregnancy without proper supplies. Isreal is not struggling, they have received over 300+ billion dollars in support from the U.S.A alone. You're ignorance isn't some "I'm better and different" stunt. You are actively supporting the death of entire bloodlines and families.

Don't you dare pull "Well, what if their Hamas" Isreal has proved they can bomb a specific room to kill them. This isn't about Hamas, Isreal is wiping out entire families, lives, homes, etc.

They're killing innocent animals too.

To put this in your shoes, imagine if you were bombed, raped and tortured, not knowing if you were going to make it to the next day, you're being starved. Whilst media is actively supporting your nightmare, funding it, even.

Before you pull the Hamas card on me, I have been raised with Western media and in America. I find myself lucky for this even though my people are struggling.

Please, scroll through pro-Palestine tags without bringing your opinion into the matter to see what is going on. I beg.

No, honey, actually it wasn't disproven. The people who tried said "yeah, babies were beheaded, but it wasn't 40 of them." XD

Palestine is not older than Israel. There are references to Israel in the Torah, which is older than Islam. And no, the Palestinians did not "welcome Israel". XD that is blatantly false.

And really? So tell me, why do they know for sure these 13k kids have died but can't name how many of their hostages are alive? Please explain that to me. How is that possible?

Okay? Israel not struggling doesn't mean anything. XD Being weak and having your government steal the billions in foreign aid to make themselves rich does not make a war against you a genocide.

I'm not supporting the deaths of anybody, and It is 100% about Hamas, Israel literally sends warnings in an effort to avoid civilian casualties. Even if Hamas isn't lying (incredibly unlikely) they have killed less than most wars have in the modern era.

Even if I was in their shoes, honey, I wouldn't want people siding with my oppressors because westerners decided the terrorists who'd murder me for speaking against them and consider everyone I know and love to be martyrs they're happy to sacrifice are resistance fighters. And hell, there are Palestinians who hold this very stance, who knows that Hamas is the fucking problem not Israel, westerners like you just ignore them.

You were raised in America and with western media? Cool. Doesn't change that you're falling for propaganda. XD being raised in the West does not make you immune to propaganda.

And no, I will not let idiots spread misinformation, and I will not let them villainize the Jews because Israel is actually defending itself when terrorists attack them and kidnap their people instead of laying down and dying.

I have paid plenty of attention to what's happening, including from the Pro-Pal side, I just happen to know terrorists aren't the good guys just cuz they play to people's sympathy and use their own people as human shields to make Israel look like the villain.

Just cuz it didn't lead me to agree with you doesn't mean I haven't been exposing myself to Pro-Pal talking points and "evidence."

Hi, apologies in advance if this is something you've already discussed or addressed, but I was wondering about whether there is any kind of correlation between autism and increased sensitivity to tragic global events? Maybe I'm just burnt out, but the past couple weeks of turmoil and tragedy in Israel/Palestine has me completely immobilized with anxiety and despair. I don't have any profound connections to the region, Israeli citizens, or the Palestinian people, but my heart aches from it all, especially with the ongoing devastation in Gaza.

I had a similar experience in 2017 from Hurricane Maria, but I had lived for a year on the island where it first made landfall in PR, so I was personally invested and it was a place with which I was familiar. Asking other autistic friends if there's a higher chance of being hyperfixated on or extra sensitive to coverage of international tragedy, I was told my own personal history with trauma and violence/tragedy may just make me more empathetic to others' suffering.

How, as an autistic person, do you find ways to pull yourself out of despair for the state of the world and the suffering of others?

Many people find it compelling to draw a link between Autism and heightened empathy or sensitivity to matters of injustice, for understandable reasons, but the reality is far more complex.

In research, we see that Autistic people are more morally consistent than other people -- we are more likely to sacrifice resources or social standing in order to stand up for the things in which we believe. Because of masking pressures, many of us become highly attuned to the emotions of others -- or what we presume those emotions to be, because of course no person is a mind-reader. We can appear stubborn, to others, in holding steadfastly to our beliefs even when doing so is risky. We are also highly traumatized and thus suffer from hyper-vigilance, trauma triggers, and many other symptoms that may register as us taking emotional blows particularly hard.

It would be comforting to tell ourselves that such traits make us more connected to global events, or actually more morally or ethically invested. But that isn't necessarily the case. Having a strong moral consistency doesn't mean that a person's morals are the correct ones, being willing to make a sacrifice for a cause doesn't mean it was the right cause, and being highly sensitive to the plights of others doesn't mean we actually understand them or are feeling their feelings at all.

For myself, being Autistic is associated with being far less emotionally impacted by such global events than other people. I have very limited empathy, and in situations like these what empathy I do have is entirely cognitively mediated. Global catastrophes and massive injustices don't really emotionally affect me the way that I see them affecting other people -- I don't cry about such things or feel devastated by them, I just think about them a lot in a relatively dispassionate way, and many of the gestures people find moving surrounding such issues do nothing for me.

It doesn't mean I don't care. I actively make the choice to care because of my belief system and values. I have to decide intentionally to dwell on the emotional reality of what is happening. I have to force myself to imagine what others might be feeling, and what others are going through, in order to understand it. Otherwise, to me it is more of an intellectual abstraction, and my focus immediately goes toward what I think the logical solution or means of response might be.

This doesn't make my conclusions any better than anyone else's, mind you. Just because I'm thinking analytically doesn't mean I have the correct information or frame of reference -- in fact, in such matters it often leads me to be oblivious to what others need or what others would consider the morally right thing to do. There's a whole spectrum of human experience I can't access, and while I used to think it made me evil, it's doesn't. It just makes me different.

My friends and loved ones who are more emotionally open-hearted are the ones that remind me to pause, to honor people's grief, to make sense of the emotional and social needs of the moment as well as the ones that strike my numb self as more supposedly practical. My knee-jerk reaction to such situations is to try and jump into problem-solving mode, and I have had to learn from experience that I need to slow down, humble myself, and make space for the enormity of people's feelings and the horror of the things are happening that my body just cannot touch. Very emotionally obvious things, by the standards of other people, completely fly past me.

Still, I am also often frustrated and confused by the reactions other people have to crises -- as a very general rule, humanity tends to reach for means of addressing such events that are symbolic and emotionally satisfying but might not align with their professed ideologies or any kind of articulated strategy. The safety pin thing after Trump was elected, for example, or the blackout squares at the height of BLM. These movements felt good, I guess, to people who were in a state of genuine panic, but they actually did more harm than good.

It's difficult to be what often feels like the sole voice asking whether what the collective is doing really makes any sense. If often makes me seem like I am heartless, which I guess I am, but I am still highly invested in the side I believe to be just winning, and in my annoying fault-finding I'm simply trying to aid in that.

There's benefits and drawbacks to both approaches, is what I'm saying, and there are many routes to caring about an issue and many ways in which caring isn't the same thing as being helpful.

All of this is a bit ancillary to your question. Is it an Autism thing to be sensitive to global genocide? I think that's quite a human thing. Many Autistic people take such matters very very seriously, but some of us do so in ways that aren't as emotional as what you describe. Others are incredibly emotionally impacted by such matters, like you are -- and so are many non-Autistic people. It hardly matters whether it's normal or not though -- this is what is happening for you, and it matters, and you certainly aren't alone in it.

I wish I had advice that came from personal experience, but my experience is somewhat of the mirror image to yours. I find that when people care deeply about an issue, whether it's intellectually or emotionally, they compulsively consume information and upsetting imagery about the issue to a degree they find debilitating. I do this, and you probably do it as well, even if what happens to me is analysis paralysis and fault-finding and what happens to you is probably more like horror and despair.

I believe limiting one's intake is necessary. I believe humility is too. We are not the stars of this story, and we are not so important in the world as to expect ourselves to be experts or saviors. I find that stepping back and gaining historical knowledge places things in perspective. I have learned much by studying the political movements of the past. I have had to develop a true understanding of how the social change I desire really works -- thanks to historical reading, discussion with people I respect, and by consuming leftist theory.

I think it is vitally important to be able to disagree with people, at least in the privacy of your own mind and in your own conduct, so that even if someone is ringing an alarm bell and saying that a certain action is necessary, you have the power to determine if you actually agree. I think it's important to not constantly consume information. We have to learn to know which voices to completely disregard, by asking ourselves what belief system drives a person's claims, and whether they are positioning themselves as an expert for their own self-enrichment and betterment rather than for a just cause.

I think we can't just be moved by the emotional panic of the situation, because we are very easily manipulated, drained of energy, and led astray, and disempowered if we are. But I also think we can't be detached from the human emotional reality of the moment either -- no matter what I think is the rational course of action, the only way humans are ever going to organize and take that action is by speaking with one another, crying with one another, eating together, laughing together, and believing in something better together.

I don't know how to do any of that stuff. I only know tactics and history and theory and fault-finding. There is a place for me in the struggle. There is a place for you in it too. But we are small, and we have to make peace with our smallness and flaws and build a movement that accounts for them, and for a wide variety of gifts and perspectives.

It's honestly sickening how easily you justify the murder of civilians. The loss of life on 10/7 was a tragedy, but how many more lives have been lost by Israel murdering civilians? What do you stand for? If you can rightfully be enraged by the loss of life on 10/7 and condemn Hamas for it, why can you not condemn Israel for this? What does Israel stand for if they can be outraged by the loss of life of their civilians but see tens of thousands of more deaths as nothing? What do you stand for? Because it's not that the loss of human life is a tragedy if you can condemn Hamas but not Israel. Why are the lives of Palestinians so worthless to you? What do you stand for? If one group kills less than 2,000, and the other kills tens of thousands, what do you stand for?

Peace, in the very TLDR version, I stand for peace. We clearly have different views about how to achieve that, but maybe its good for you to consider that people who disagree with you are as human as you are.

Where do I begin?

As bizarre as it seems, war is a human means of communication. Policy by other means, as the saying goes, where conflicts move from ideas and words to deeds, where emphasis is added with explosions, where commitments are made with life and limb and we argue through this kinetic medium until we reach some compromise, or at least a one-sided silence.

This almost sounds reasonable, until you consider that the ideal outcome of war, from any individual point of view, is to risk as little as possible and force your opponent to sacrifice as much as possible. The inevitable discrepancies in power mean that the poor, the weak, the dependent, ill, elderly, women and children inevitably make up much of those sacrifices. Men, with broad freedoms to loot, rape and kill among 'the enemy', will tell themselves that the ordinary rules of society don't matter here and feed their darkest desires to punctuate their own moments of fear and terror.

So, while I view conflict as inevitable between people and societies, I am opposed to war. I stand for peace. I would like to see peace in the Levant.

I support:

the self-determination of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

the recognition and declaration of an independent Palestinian state, or perhaps 2 states since they are not contiguous.

Israel's removal of its settlements from the occupied territories of the West Bank

the end of UNWRA and all claims of 'right of return'

normalization of relations between Gaza, Egypt and Israel and the West Bank and its neighbors.

That's a baseline. In more ideal terms I want to see:

free and fair elections for all people in every nation.

a Human Rights code established in all Levant states

lifting people out of poverty by finally focusing on economic development instead of decades of dependence on foreign aid

puppies and rainbows while I'm at it

Hamas started this particular war on October 7th, their 3rd try since Israel ended their occupation of Gaza in 2005 and Hamas defeated the PLA on its bloody path to power. Hamas' actions were a series of territorial incursions and war crimes targeting civilians and taking hostages. That sent a pointed message to Israel - we will kill your people wherever we find you, we will destroy you and we have no regard for the conventions of war.

That's not a one-time communique though. Hostages are still being held and Hamas' cruelty and indifference to life has turned to its own people - there are no air raid sirens, no shelters, no civilian-only zones where Hamas fighters separate themselves from civilians, Hamas fighters wear no uniforms to identify who's a combatant so civilians are safer. Multiple countries are sending humanitarian aid and Hamas not only fails to distribute it but instead captures it and sells it to fund their war, so the poorest and most vulnerable people are left to starve. That also sends a message I think too many in the West ignore - Palestinian life has no value to Hamas.

A nationalist Arab movement emerged in the Palestine region in the 1920s, just as Zionism swelled among Jews in the same era. It was the end of the 500 year old Ottoman empire and as it collapsed, new opportunities emerged. However, older ideas also surged including the desire to rebuild the Caliphate.

This was the vast settler-colonial Empire built from the start of Islam, under the prophet/warrior king Muhammad, until it peaked here. The caliphs is like a king, the Supreme court and the Pope all rolled into one - his right to rule came directly from Allah and his Prophet, and was head of both state and church where regional or secular laws were abolished and obedience to Allah, Muhammad as his prophet, and the Caliph as his heir was absolute. Differing claims about legitimacy led to splintering into multiple factions, which were then vulnerable to the Mongol, Byzantine and eventually the Ottoman Empires that would itself claim the title of caliph to shore up its own legitimacy.

Islamists are radical Muslims who have fundamentally colonial aspirations, first in this region and ultimately across the globe. Most of the conflict in the MENA area result from factions within this broader movement - Shia versus Sunni, Persian versus Arab, the Kurds Khorason and Wahhabists are all competing dynasties and sects who vie for control.

To Islamists who are inspired by this history and wants to recreate its colonial glory before moving on to conquer the world, it's clear that you can't have a Jewish state right smack in the middle of your beautiful Empire. They are super pissed that European colonial powers ruined their own Arabian colonial plans, so they've adapted their arguments. Those forces have found it convenient to continue the 'Palestinian cause' as a stepping stone to wiping out Israel and establishing an Islamic state by framing it as a struggle of national self-determination. Thus, it can appeal to the West and the U.N. as a nationalist struggle while continuing to pursue imperialist goals. The PLO was violent and somewhat deluded, but I at least believed that Arafat actually thought he would lead an actual Palestinian state and I supported their goal to remove Israel from the occupied territories.

Hamas' goals in the conflict are shared with all Islamist factions. Yes, even when Islamists are fighting each other, they are still all trying to establish the caliphate, they only disagree on who should be in charge of it. This ideology is already at war with the West but the West is blissfully ignorant of this colonizing and intensely violent movement, because Islamist energies are currently consumed with attacking each other, competing for followers, and punishing Muslim populations who are insufficiently enthusiastic about their rise to power.

Currently, radical Islamist regimes have already seized power in enough of the middle east that conflict is limited to proxy wars and destroying Israel (unless you're in Syria where 5 different proxies are in a multi-sided conflict) and the most intense insurgent fighting is now happening across Africa in a dozen different countries.

Strangely, the West barely acknowledges, much less compiles, this new threat of Empire. This wikipedia entry looks long, but it's only documenting the wars of the IS. That's just one group. Overall, Islamists are involved in the overwhelming majority of current conflicts, coups and insurgencies, and the West - with its ideals on nationalism, religious freedom, democracy and its own more material interests, doesn't have a good handle on what to do. I don't want to see a return to Cold War approach where the U.S. would back any dictator who said he hated communists. And, since there are internal struggles, we're already backing Islamists like the Saudis even though they supported Al Quaeda, ISIS etc. (who now think the Saudis are apostates who are too friendly with the West) or the Syrian dictator. These extremist, woman-hating, slave-fueled regimes are horrifying, and the less we have to do with them, the better.

I think we have to hold to our ideals but also accept that you can't bring peace to people who don't want it, and sometimes there is no 'good guy' to back in a fight, just less worse actions that both sides can be encouraged to take.

So these are the things I read and care about, and then I read your opinions about Gaza. So many deaths, you say, while Arab Islamists kill 300,000 Africans in the Sudan without a peep of concern from you, and you ask me what do I stand for? The Muslim Rohingya in northern Myanmar tried and failed to create a separatist Islamic state, and are now being expelled en masse - their population of 1.2 million destroyed as 900,000 fled (mostly to neighboring Bangladesh) and most of those who remain are confined to refugee camps. But I'm a terrible person who supports genocide, and you're a good person who cares about genocide... but only when white people involved in some way? Islamists have perfectly targeted white guilt and ignorance to gain your inaction in global conflicts and shift it to Gaza.

Personally, I find religious zealots hazardous to my health and, philosophically, I do believe in the ideals of liberal democracy and would like them to continue. I also believe that, under the rhetoric and extremism, many people living in the Levant area also want to be free from these regimes. I believe there are Palestinians who would like self-government and, like many violent regimes, Hamas is a parasite on the people.

Anyway, I don't blame Israel for this war because what alternative does it have? Allow its people to be raided, raped, murdered and kidnapped? Even if it somehow ignored October 7th - and the families of hostages are making it difficult enough as things stand now - Israel has no incentive to return to another ceasefire situation where they wait for the next raid.

I have many, many critiques of Israel and actions I would like it to undertake, and I think undertaking this entire campaign has been a mistake, but they have a goal to remove Hamas and I think that's a good goal. I also think Israel will fail in that goal to remove Hamas from power, just as Hamas has failed to destroy Israel.

I don't think a ceasefire will help Palestinians, whether it comes sooner or later, they're in for more of the same as long as Hamas remains. But the over-arching conflict of Islamism and its goals won't change in Gaza unless the bigger picture changes.

So I'll ask you the same question - what do you stand for? Isn't this war just one step of a bold, revolutionary vision to overthrow Israel, drive out the Jews and link up with the glories of the new Caliphate? Aren't these deaths worthwhile to support that vision? There was a ceasefire in place before October 7th, what was so wrong with that situation that this war was needed? A ceasefire now would hardly return Palestinians to better conditions, so the next war will be just as justifiable as the last one. That's what Hamas stands for, what about you?

I've been trying to put into words this frustration of mine for a while, and I think I've finally got it figured out:

So! Israel is built on genocide! And that's certainly not a good thing. You can try to argue about whether or not Jewish people are indigenous to the land (though I won't get into that whole argument here), but there's no denying the fact this country was built on blood. Lives were lost and people were banished. Therefore, us Israelis are deemed colonizers for living here. Is it false? No, not necessarily. Is colonialism okay or justifiable? Of course not! However, the way people have used this as an excuse to dehumanise us Israelis is absolutely disgusting.

Western leftists have this mindset that we should either be sent "back to where we came from" (and by that they mean countries we have never been to in our lives and just so happen to have ancestral ties to), or that we should be eradicated. Because it's easy to see these groups of people you don't know as simply blank NPCs, or a hivemind. I've had an online friend of mine tell me that there's this level of dissociation when you aren't the one going through it, and that a lot of times it takes having someone you know suffer that fate to go "oh shit, REAL PEOPLE are going through that", and I think the problem stems from the fact so many of the people who insist on being involved in this conflict don't actually have Israeli (or Palestinian, for that matter) friends to tell them what it's like to be living through this nightmare. We're faceless and nameless, which leads to dehumanisation and demonization.

It is a universal fact that no human is the same, everyone's life is valuable and unique. Everyone has something to bring to the table, and something like the country you were born in is inconsequential to how good or bad of a person you are. Unless, of course, you're an Israeli. That means you're nothing more than a filthy colonizer. That means you're a part of an evil hivemind being led by an evil government (yes, Israel's government is horrible WHICH IS WHY WE'VE BEEN PROTESTING AGAINST IT FOR MONTHS NOW). That means you've done wrong merely by existing.

I'm certainly going to offend some people with this comparison, but in my opinion telling an Israeli to simply deport is not much unlike telling a queer person to go to conversion therapy. It's obviously not the same thing, but just like you aren't able to get rid of someone's gender or sexuality, you aren't able to get rid of someone's heritage. Simply sending us away won't magically make everything better, believe it or not (I won't get into it in this post, but know that there will be no Palestinian utopia under Hamas rule, as Hamas actively harms the people of Palestine too). We won't just forget about Israel and keep living like nothing happened. We have lives here. We have friends and family we'd be separated from. Most of us won't simply be able to adjust to a new country we don't even know the language of. And if you think the solution is to kill us all... I don't even know what to say to you at this point. Is being attached to the place you were born in truly such a horrible crime? You can argue we deserve it for being colonizers, but it's not like we chose to be born here. Which leads to my next point:

The global left is used to everything wrong being a mindset. Homophobes, racists, sexists; all of those are not something people are born as, rather something they've been lead to believe. Something that can be fixed by teaching them better and having them unlearn their ways. So when faced with the fact that being an Israeli isn't something which can be reversed, leftists don't know how to process it. They cope by seeing us as something inherently evil and violent. Something inherently unworthy of living. Something that automatically deserves whatever bad things happen to it. Something less than human. Something that must be erased, one way or another. It doesn't matter that we're people with feelings and minds, we're all just filthy colonizers! Get rid of us pesky Israelis and everything will be better! Just burn it all down!

It's human nature to want to get rid of something you don't like. Whether it's a bug in your kitchen, a shitty friend, a mindset you don't like, whatever. It's when "something I don't like" translates to millions of people that you start to get under my skin. It's when you celebrate a brutal massacre and root for a terrorist organisation that I deem you a disgusting human being.

Like it or not, new life has been created here. And no matter how many chant "death to colonizers", you won't be getting rid of it. You won't be getting rid of us.

Because we, as human beings, don't deserve to be gotten rid of.

hello i am SO fucking sorry to jump into your inbox like this out of the blue but as a fellow chinese american and non jew i really really appreciate you talking about and acknowledging antisemitism.

i live near san francisco, so i have a plethora of asian american friends who all self identify as liberals, but after i unbrainwashed myself from antisemitism thanks to some hard conversations, i’ve had an incredibly tough time digesting the antisemitism absolutely baked into so much of what these friends say and how unwilling they are to see israelis as human, much less listen to them.

as always, i have to add a disclaimer here that i firmly call for accountability for the IDF and israeli govt since they’re acting with impunity, and i pray to see a palestinian state in my lifetime. but it hurts knowing how much of a fringe position it is among my peers to fully believe that israel doesn’t actually deserve to be demolished, because there is no way in hell the descendants of refugees expelled from MENA countries will be “just fine when they go back to where they came from.” if anything i suspect their certain deaths would be celebrated even more greatly because they’re israeli and the evil is defeated!!!

i just.. i don’t understand how fellow asian americans could have understood the importance of not speaking over black americans, and instead elevating their voices and amplifying solidarity during 2020, yet so wholeheartedly throw themselves into calling for israel’s dissolution. i don’t know if it’s that they’re ignorant of the fact that israel wasn’t created just for funsies or that they wholeheartedly believe israelis are an object to peace for palestinians. and yet they all have the gall to say “punch a nazi uwu!!!” or “i’m not antisemitic” and then unironically retweet something saying that what’s happening in gaza is the holocaust. everything is just so fucking backwards and upside down.

again, i’m sorry for basically venting this whole essay into your inbox, but i see you and i stand with you and our jewish and palestinian siblings, and i pray for peace in our lifetime. thank you again for your voice. may it never waver.

oh my gosh, no need to apologize!! i really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and i firmly believe that it's really important to let jewish people know we exist, even if it's on anon.

i agree with everything you've said here, really. i am a pacifist at heart - the death of so many palestinians is heartbreaking, full stop. but so many people advocating for palestinians are using terrifyingly violent rhetoric towards jews (especially israelis), and it's awful.

regarding your point about not understanding how others in our community are doing this... i don't know. i think it's people's internalized antisemitism. i think it's the social media's tendency toward groupthink and people not doing their own research. i think it's the human desire to create a black and white "good vs evil" narrative - particularly one that casts the US in the role of "evil". i think it's a lack of education about the holocaust, and lack of teaching of critical thinking skills, and so many other things.

but ultimately it all comes out in the wash. it's all antisemitism, and it all hurts jewish people. no matter how much people say that they're against antisemitism. it means nothing if they follow it up by doing an antisemitism.

anyway. i could say so much more, but i'm just going to reiterate what i said at the beginning: i'm glad to hear from you. i share your hopes for peace. keep working to support jews, who need allies more than ever, whatever that looks like for you.

When it comes to antisemitism among western gentile antizionists (and I'm making it very clear i'm not talking about palestinians themselves here. I'm not demanding scholarship from people who are actively being bombed. I don't feel the same about those of you who are fine and safe and simply not willing to acknowledge your own bigotry) there is a common throughline in the belief in the myth that israelis are all just wealthy americans/europeans/have dual citizenship and can leave anytime, and the vehement opposition to both the idea that jewish people are in some way indigenous to the Levant, and that a non insignificant of people genuinely fled antisemitism and would have died if they hadn't left for Israel.

And I think these things come from the same root. Which is the desire for a narrative where there's foreign bad guys colonizing a land, who could leave anytime and have no reason whatsoever to be there.

And underneath that narrative is a silent assumption, one that confuses me greatly. Namely, that if some portion of israelis did have a good reason to want to go to Israel, both because of a longstanding cultural and historical connection to the land and because they were escaping antisemitism elsewhere, that would somehow make the act of mass murder and supression of palestinians... less bad? As if the existence of jewish people living in the region of palestine, and the state of israel carpet bombing gaza are inevitably connected, and the first can't happen without the second, and therefore, if the first is in some way justified, the second must also be. Except it very clearly isn't justified. It's an active genocide, and for that to be true israelis must have no reason for living in israel at all. The problem becomes not the ongoing mass murder of palestinians, but the presence of israelis, because these two are now one and the same.

Now, it has to be said, a big driving factor of this sentiment is because this narrative, that jewish presence in the middle east recquires that mass murder of palestinians, is one the Israeli government has pushed itself for decades. It justifies its horrific violence by saying that this is absolutely necessary for jewish people to exist safely in the middle east. Or in fact anywhere in the world, because it's also a core zionist idea that jewish people will never be safe anywhere but in a jewish state. This conflation of two seperate things wasn't invented by antizionists.

It is, however, not true. when the israeli state says this, they're lying. And just because antizionists didn't invent the idea doesn't mean we don't need to unlearn it. Acknowledging that jewish people are connected to israel doesn't make what is happening to palestinians not genocide. Nuance doesn't mean "well I guess now it's a little bit okay to bomb refugee camps and cut an entire region off from water, electricity, and the internet" Genocide is bad. Always. Unambiguously so. No matter who's doing it.

"jewish peope are indigenous to israel" also, in fact, doesn't make it inaccurate to call what is happening in palestine "settler-colonialism" because it is. A lot of people- understandably, considering history- have a purely racial view of colonialism. The idea is that there is an ethnic group of people who is indigenous, and therefore has rights to the land, and another ethnic group who isn't, and therefore is an invader who has no right to the land. What this ignores is that what defines colonialism is the material and political reality of one group being pushed out by another. What is happening in israel is settler-colonialism because the state of Israel is, in fact, trying to permanty replace palestinian society with an Israeli one. That's what settler-colonialism is. Their ancestors living on that land centurie and millenia back doesn't change that.

This answer by user starlightomantic explains it better than I ever could. "they locate the crime not in the invasion but in the foreignness" is basically what I was trying to say a few paragraphs ago but way better. But basically, under this purely racial framework of colonialism "jewish people are indigenous to israel" sounds like "the land rightfully belongs to jews (and therefore pushing palestinians out is fine)"

And once again, of course, "jews are indigenous to israel" IS also being used by zionists and the israeli state to justify the ethnic cleansing of palestinians. And they're wrong. But part of antizionism is countering this kind of propaganda and in this case the part that's wrong isn't "jews have a special historical connection to israel" or "a lot of people came to israel because they were facing life threatening antisemitism elsewhere" but "jews being indigenous to israel/facing antisemitism makes the displacement, oppression, and mass murder of palestinians okay"

You don't have to try and prove that jewish people don't have a connection to israel. Because it doesn't change the fact that a genocide is happening and it needs to stop. Trying to argue these points does nothing for palestinian liberation and only helps to fuel the propaganda that all antizionism is antisemitim, or that the ultimate goal of antizionism is to drive all jews out of the middle east.

Stop wasting time falling for repackaged conspiracy theories and continue boycotting, protesting, and speaking out for palestinians. The genocide HAS to end.

After writing this post about why I'm an antizionist, I got an ask arguing that we're more indigenous than Palestinians. That they were forcibly brought here from Europe. I blocked that person because they're known to harass Jews on tumblr and I just don't take anything they say as a good faith argument. I'm sure I'll have to block them again, they always make new accounts.

Anyway. I'm not a fan of the Khazar myth when it targets Jews, and I'm not going to replicate it onto Palestinians. And I could go and write about how they're genetically related to the area so obviously they're from here, because that's true, but I'll be honest. I don't particularly care. There's a reason I called the whole thing a distraction.

Why are these sorts of technicalities even worth bringing up? Do they suddenly cancel out the deaths? I described how I watched a building of 80 apartments in Gaza collapse from Israeli bombs, and you go "actually these people have European ancestry" as if that lie would make the blood we spilled mean less to me?

I'm not trying to say that it doesn't matter if they're indigenous. It does. It matters that the homes and lands they've had for generations were taken from them. It's important because our connection to this land can't cancel out theirs.

I still call the whole argument a distraction, because of the way I see it used. We have no right to uproot, displace and kill them to create ourselves a shelter. We want safety, but it shouldn't be at their expense. They deserve to be safe too. And saying "this is our ancestral homeland" can't change that.

What I'm trying to express is that every time someone argues with me in favor of Israel and zionism, it boils down to "here's why you shouldn't care so much about Palestinian lives and human rights." That's been my experience from the moment I started talking about this.

If this is your bottom line when you try to argue with me, you're not going to change my mind. I can't stop caring. Lives are lives. They're human beings that exist here, under a regime that harms them regularly and controls so many aspects of their lives, suffering ethnic cleansing for the sake of an ethnostate.

Palestinians deserve to be free from our oppression because they're people. It's that simple to me.

I just gotta get this off my chest

I'm not going to sit here and defend Biden or his administration, or his party. Nearly the whole of the US government (if not the whole of it) is complicit and accessory to the willful genocide of Palestinians, and are directly and openly supporting a fascist, genocidal colonial state. My country has been a long standing pillar of Zionist ideology if not one of the cornerstones of it. Notable Zionist figures (Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said "People have to understand that the backbone of Israel's support in the United States is the Evangelical Christians") have declared that American Evangelicals are one of Zionism's greatest allies, and I'm not going to deny that either.

Secondly, I completely understand and agree with those that have become disillusioned with the Democratic party, especially since the current situation with the genocide in Gaza. I have no intention of voting for a majority of the Democrats I voted for before over the matter, such as Raphael Warnock, who my roommate reached out to about demanding a ceasefire, only to be met with Zionist rhetoric and a promise to "take it into consideration". (Warnock also worked on the committe that drafted KOSA, and also intends to vote in favor of it once it's out of committee.)

And I'm sure many of you across the globe are well aware of the absolute shit hole our political arena is. Specifically, in this case, how our party system works. There's no law preventing more than two parties, but the parties we have rigged the game in such a way that it is near impossible to have a viable party outside of them. Which brings me to my supposed point.

Telling voters to "just vote third party" isn't really the answer you might think it is. I WISH it was that simple. I LIVE for the day when it's that simple. But it isn't, and unless a GREAT MANY THINGS happen between now and the next election, this will not chang this election cycle. Political movements can take years/decades to build, and in the US your opposition WILL create every obstacle they can -although money is usually all they need to accomplish that end, and the monetary corruption in US politics is insane. We would need an actual miracle to have a viable third party before we have to elect a new president.

With that being said, I would also like to point out that the answer also isnt to vote Republican. Most of the US evangelicals espouse the Republican party, and a Republican president would be doing exactly the same thing Biden is doing now, if not worse. Because Zionism isn't a party issue, it's baked into the whole system. Which is going to make voting Anti-Zionist exceptionally difficult.

The Republicans have shown us time and again who they are. They've been saying all the quiet parts out loud for years now and we need to believe them. Voting Republican is not the answer.

As much as I would love to make a massive shift away from Zionism and genocide, I have to reconcile with the fact that this will take decades, and we have issues right now that need addressing here at home. There are lines that are tenuously being held and we need to keep holding them.

Until there is a viable third party, the best we can start with is harm reduction. That also means voting for candidates that are far less from ideal. I am going to assume Biden will be nominated for reelection, but I sure as hell am not voting for him to be. Unfortunately, if he is, I will, because Republicans have been crowing about their hate boners for the poor, disabled, LGBTQ+, children, POC, women's rights, education, social programs, etc etc, and so on. I don't want to vote for Genocide Joe, but I WILL NOT vote for a Republican and I will not piss away my vote on what are currently functionally non existent third parties.

I am going to actively vote against the party that has shown their hand at wanting me and my loved ones dead or disenfranchised, and I'm going to vote against the presidential candidate this is most likely to let them get away with it. But I am also putting the other party on notice; I will not blindly vote for them just because "they're not the other guy". I am going to work to snatch your seat if you prove to be more harmful than you're worth.

While there may be obvious solutions to these situations, there is nothing fast or easy about these solutions. Change is a long game and we need to start playing it now. And, by the same token, holding the lines we've been able to cross since last election is equally important.

Yes, it is I again, coming at you with an Israel/Palestine post.

I know y'all are probably sick of hearing about it but I'm suck of dealing with the repercussions of people's blatant antisemitism almost daily.

I've already been over (many times) the fact that antizionism is infact antisemitism. I've already been over the fact that being a zionist does not mean you don't support the rights and self determination of Palestinians. I've already been over the fact that no matter what we as jews can say, the people who can't stand to be wrong will gaslight us and others about how we don't know what we're talking about.

Let's get some facts straight:

The war/conflict has gone on for generations, and mainly began about eighty years ago when Israel achieved statehood. Mind you, it was not just a random choice to settle a bunch of humans there, it was a calculated effort to try and keep jews from being murdered again... you know, by the millions.

"Well, Palestinians had claim to that land! It isn't fair that they had to leave and make room for white Europeans!"

Jews have been in diaspora since the dawn of antisemitism. Not as we see it tofay, or even in the times of WW2. I mean the actual beginning of it, about three thousand years ago. Jew hatred is not new, guys. It is not something that just goes away over time. Only, with time, the hatred and violence against jews has tended to get worse, more vile and personal. People tend to not even realize the internal prejudice they hold against jews based on stereotypes/things they've heard from others. It's why we can't seem to live in one place safely without our lives being threatened or our autonomy being treated as though it is less than others. Israel was not "a fake jewish state" that just appeared one day. It's a place we were once bullied out of and forced to live elsewhere until our race/ethnicity now varies in how we look. We aren't just "white Europeans" who are trying to steal land from others we think we're superior to. We are still culturally and descendantly jews, and our origins are in Judea (modern day Israel).

"Jews don't need an ethnostate! They are perfectly safe where they're at."

Project Aliyah has been going on for many years. In short, it's a Jew's return to their ancestral homeland from all over the world, but mostly because of persecution. Over the years, more than 50,000 jews from Yemen alone have gone to live in Israel. They aren't white and they certainly were not safe where they were at. Yemen's government has quite literally passed a law that makes it legal to murder a jewish person or family without being prosecuted. Not only that, but the last known and self proclaimed jew in Yemen was forced to celebrate Yom Kippur in an Islamic prison.

"Israel should be wiped off the map, Palestine will be free!"

And when Israel ceases to exist, and millions of jews are again killed, the remaining will be forced to scatter amongst the world, again. The cycle of jew hatred never ends. Goyim tend to be just fine with our displacement and our suffering as long as it doesn't inconvenience them or their beliefs. Palestinians are living through hell right now given the stupidity of the current Israeli prime minister and his idiot battalions of soldiers... do you really think their lives would be any better, if Hamas, the current government in Gaza were to take over the land? Do you really think that the men in power that started this entire war at the expense of their own people are going to be the ones that rule over them justly and fairly? They literally made it so no one else could be elected. Sounds a lot like a dictatorship, but the hell do I know?

Hamas opresses and abuses women and children, yet feminist movements are cheering them on. They rebuke lgbtqia+ peoples rights and kill them when they can, and somehow the lgbt in america is gung ho for their "rebellion." They have quite literally filmed themselves proudly killing and raping jews, and to my (unsurprised at this point) knowledge, the majority of humanitarian organizations of the world are right there in with them.

At this point, the jews of the world will jave to completely assimilate, or just be completely dead before y'all wake up. Goyim did not wake up when the arabian conquest stole Judea and Samaria from us, Goyim did not wake up when we were forced to assimilate to hide our culture, Goyim did not wake up when millions of us were being brutally murdered, and now you won't wake up when clearly you have the ability to.

You can say "Palestinians deserve heir own self determination and statehood." But instead you say "Wipe 'Israhell' off the face of the earth."

You could most definitely say "There needs to be an immediate double ceasefire and all the hostages need to be released." But instead you say. "Israel needs to ceasefire, Hamas is the rebellion!"

You should be saying "Jews are indigenous, and Palestinians are, too." But instead you say "Israel is an ethnostate of evil jewish zionists that think they can colonize arab land!."

I can't possibly use anymore words to try and convey this. People will either learn, or they will choose to be closeminded. I've done my part and I can only hope that in time, people will wake up and see that this was never about Israel (becauseif it were about israel as a state, then jordan would be included as well. Jordan 'occupies' more than half of british mandated palestine). It's about jews.

at least 3 or 5 people close to me have said that I need to "take a break from gaza" because of how emotional it makes me

what I don't understand is the idea that a strong emotional response is less useful or productive than some kind of, I don't know, logic-based takedown. emotion, and specifically empathy, are not a distraction. I think they're the most useful way to understand. we are in a void of empathy right now. how can you see these videos and not cry. how how how how. how can you see it and not be haunted. how can you not feel, that's me, we're the same, the "human animals" not deserving of life are me. the way israeli soldiers can slaughter people and not bat an eye israeli officials can send them to do this and the US can bankroll this is because they just do not have this understanding. I'm not even just talking about the limbs blown off, or the destroyed hospitals, government buildings, and universities, or the children under rubble, or the starvation, or the targeting of journalists, or the torture, the cruelty towards those with disabilities, the little girl saying I wish I'd died with my mother, you know, those things that REALLY haunt you, that really make your blood boil, but it's the olive trees, the video of bisan encountering a cat in the rubble, the little details, the old woman and her birds, the looting of jewelry from corpses, the mocking death chants, the destruction of homes, kitchens, bakeries, the poisoning of the sea, the sullying of green, fertile land. the abusive language. the laughter. the footage of gaza before. I'm thinking of what it would be like for your home to be destroyed. like the physical house. just as 1 thing. how much that alone would devastate me. how devastating it would be to lose even 1 friend or family member. I'm thinking of the palestinian girl I know on twitter who says every day, I don't know how I'm supposed to talk about other things anymore.

anger is one thing but the ability to feel fear and sadness is so important I can't articulate it to you. the way americans can see the horror and stick to their pathetic justifications is because this ability is just as completely, pathetically underdeveloped in us as any soldier of the IOF. we do not know how to be humans anymore.

because of my distress, many have been encouraging me to adopt a "balanced" relationship to what they call "the news," where you choose how much or what you want to see. I hate that we have to know about each other's suffering and it's just "the news." I understand that this attitude is preferable for one's mental health, but I can't get rid of this feeling that when we say mental health in this situation, we really just mean peace of mind. well the thing is this is not about me. or probably most of you. following the journalists is probably what has made the most difference. every day I wake up and see the reports of individuals who possess bravery I cannot imagine fighting for their lives to show us the truth about what's happening, a truth that the largest powers in the world rely on you not knowing. the most crucial thing right now is not falling victim to the propaganda. not being led astray by the cesspool of talking points with these slimy little tricks they use to try and keep your heart hard and distant. well, that power doesn't work when you know how to look at a human and know that's you. you can't just read about it, you have to watch and understand. you have to hear human voices.

. I am an American -- a white westerner -- and unfortunately, that means our voices are usually heard much louder than those of others. it is imperative right now not to deprive our fellow humans of the power our voices -- AND OUR EMOTIONS -- have.

this is one of the situations where changing the narrative really matters. well my fucking narrative comes from empathy. I am just that way. you can start with an ideological position or you can start with a relationship to what's happening in another person's heart. a narrative starting with ideology and logic, from either side, leads to a situation where Palestinians can be stripped of humanity and we can be ok with it. a large percentage of people are capable of watching a video of pure, actual human suffering and feeling nothing. sorry that that's not me.

we're witnessing one of the most horrible crimes against humanity that's going to happen in our lifetimes. in a situation THIS awful, how is a burning hole in your heart a less reasonable response than the alternative? how is it not useful? how is the tactic of sharing pain of the people they want you to believe are human animals not one of the most useful tools we could have right now? how different would the world look if we understood that your humanity is not contained to your own body?

One of the thousands of frustrating things about this Israel v. Palestine thing is how brainwashed Zionists are. Cuz that's what it is. Brainwashing. If they lived in Israel they were given the same indoctrination spiel that every American had up until very recently. If they were raised anywhere else and then traveled to Israel they were also hit with brainwashing about why it's so important and vital that Jews have Israel, why all the meanies surrounding them just want to see the extinction of the Jewish people, why it's necessary and right to have a military as brutal as it is. It's predicated on this fear of extinction that was very much a real threat 80 years ago with the Holocaust, but it wasn't Muslims who organized the whole thing, it was Christians. Christians have probably been the most prolific threat to Jewish existence over the centuries.

And what is so fucking frustrating is that the arguments and beliefs that Zionists have are the exact, exact, exact same beliefs that Europeans had when colonizing and terrorizing indigenous peoples. "They're not using the land right." "It's in God's plan." "This land was destined for us." It does not fucking matter that you were once persecuted to the point of genocide, it does not matter if the people you are targeting are lobbing shit back at you, and it doesn't matter even IF they supposedly also plan to exterminate you. You don't get to commit genocide, no one does, not for any reason or with any historical argument or in any context. And no, just because you experienced one of the most extreme forms of genocide does not mean that you can turn around and say that anything less than the Holocaust is 'not a genocide'. That logic is how genocides go unchecked and manifest in the future. And by the by, the word "genocide" was coined in 1944 by the Jewish Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe the horrific crimes committed during the Nazi occupation of Poland against both Jews and non-Jews, so using the genocide of Jews as the sterling example of genocide feels like a deliberate overshadowing and monopolization of trauma, terror, and destruction that vulnerable underprivileged groups have faced and continue to face by a State. Genocides happen because one group has the power to destroy another people and thus do it. It does not matter if the group doing it is doing it out of "self-defense".

All this does is remind me of how Whites in the South were terrified of black slave uprisings because 1) They constituted a sizeable population in the region, and 2) Despite all the religion and pseudoscience and economic justifications for slavery, Whites knew exactly what they'd done to slaves and were terrified of what retribution would look like from those who had been mistreated for so long.

That is the position that the Zionist Israeli government is in. Even if they believe Palestinians to be inferior, even if they believe Palestinians to be a thorn in their side that should vamoose, they know that all of their policies are, from the most emotionally intelligent perspective, more than enough to inspire terrorism. But the enduring issue, and the heart of this genocide, is that they don't recognize Palestinians as innately possessing the full faculties that they would otherwise recognize in other human beings. Because they are Palestinian, they are not fully people in part because of what they represent (a people that existed before Israel's founding), and the only way to fully solidify Israel's sense of self is to erase all traces of "Before the Nation". That's what it is at the end of the day. It's just European-derived genocidal state-making right AFTER a genocide had just occurred on another continent. The Jews that helped found Israel deliberately copied the Western blueprints for colonization because they were inundated with European ideas to "re-transplant" themselves into a land that has been dealing with Western incursion for centuries to fast-track them into creating a nation state that then turned around and labelled Palestinians as non-citizens, or people that were not to receive full rights because that's how the state functions, as a purveyor of violence through legal bullshit. The Jews that founded Israel took the pain and suffering they experienced and decided that their desire for a new nation outweighed the pain and suffering that other people would experience because of it, because borders are always stained with blood.

But oh we can't say that because for some reason being victims of a genocide means you're given carte blanche to inflict similar pain onto other people so long as the numbers aren't too high and you have the "anti-semitism!" card to pull out whenever someone criticizes your policies. Policies which are apartheid in nature at best.

Zionist Jews are no different from the Manifest Destiny Christians of yore, who now exist in the more palatable and marketable guise of missionaries. Gag me with this 'oh it's different this time because X, Y, Z" bullshit. It's the same song played in a different time signature, that's all it fucking is.

Palestine has no airforce, no tanks, no navy, no armoured vehicles and is going up against a military that’s funded to the tune of billions by the US. Israel has advanced weapons, an airforce, air defence and has nuclear weapons. It’s not an even fight, never has been.

it's SETTLER COLONIALISM AT ITS FINEST AND MOST BLATANT. how can we deem ourselves educated civilized members of a so called advanced society if we allow israel to carry on with the ethnic cleansing and undiscriminated apartheid of an entire people? how can western media have it all backwards when it comes to telling the whole story? do they not feel the least shame when they apply such blatantly outrageous double standards to the narrative of a very disproportionate conflict where one side is evidently attacking and the other is barely hanging in there without the basic means to live with dignity? then when palestine actually fights back the colonial occupation of their land, they're the ruthless child-beheading (another fake news) terrorists?? it's fun bc israel violates god knows how many UN resolutions like it's nothing and it's still ok, like, nobody will mind or call israel back to order. nothing israel does can ever threaten to taint the legitimacy of their cause in the eyes of the UN, no matter how gruesome and sadistically cruel they get with the continuous endless torture, victimisation and apartheid of harmless palestinians. but god forbid palestine detonates ONE (1) bomb on their ass, israel will be crying for days and summon the entire world to action, as if they're the true victims here.

I'll tell you what. europe and usa don't give a shit about anti-colonialism, human rights and lives, the children's safety, etc... like, at all. they couldn't care less, in fact. only thing they care about is securing a white christian outpost in the all-islamic middle east. israel is supposed to be an enclave of whiteness and western values/culture in the midst of islamic local majorities aka the so called "barbarians". of course the logistics and geopolitics aspects of the matter are more complex but ultimately that's all it boils down to imo. this is the only sensible explanation i can give myself. otherwise i cannot find a reason as to why the international community will choose to unanimously side with ukraine against russia's invasion, but won't do the same when it's an islamic country that gets invaded by a foreign much bigger and more powerful military force. it must be all about securing the sphere of influence of the west over the east, like in the cold war or something. therefore the international community needs israel to stay right where it is. they have no interest in putting an end to the war. they will withdraw their political and financial support to israel only once the entirety of palestine is under israeli control and the palestinians are either dead or relocated as refugees elsewhere. preferably the former rather than the latter. it's absolutely beastly and it's all happening right before our eyes. the media is feeding us all sorts of misinformation and zionist propaganda and we're gulping it all down like it's our last meal on earth

heyy i saw your post about how americans and europeans have distinctive different views on the whole israel-palestine conflict can you elaborate? i'm just curious since i don't know too much about the subject so i didn't rlly notice any differences

Hey! Yes, of course! Please keep in mind, I’m a Christian German and by no means an expert on this topic. I’ve also never been to Israel or Palestine, just as the vast majority of Americans who reblog those takes. Although I’m not a practicing Christian, it means I was socialized in a society with inherent antisemitism and a people’s past of being colonizers (namely Namibia), although not to the extent of Great Britain or France for example, so I can’t say too much or anything on the topic of how Israel seems to be seen as colonizers in distinctive American takes on the conflict. What I will say in response to this argument is this: This argument reeks of antisemitism, but especially of antisemitism that’s different from German/nazi antisemitism and also from muslim antisemitism.

That’s the basics to my person, so you know what perspective I’m talking from.

Now to what I know/understand of the history of the region I’m talking about. Just the region, not countries. That region, including the Levant, has the strongest ties to what happened according to the writings of Judaism and Christianity and Islam. There also is one indigenous tribe on the soil of nowadays Ethopia who claim to be the oldest Jewish community in the world, but that’s a different topic.

Judaism is different from Christianity and Islam as in the fact that Judaism is also an ethno-religion. That’s one of the reasons why Jews long for their own state, their own country and land. Then comes the diaspora that started way before our time and goes back to ancient times.

Fast forward to modern times in the meaning of historical science (1800 to now). Great Britain colonized part of the Levant, where, at that time, Christian Palestinians lived. Jews were still in diaspora.

Now a smaller fast forward to what the Germans did. The specific German antisemitism that resulted in several pogroms of Jewish communities in the Middle Ages against the Ashkenazi Jews and the German antisemitism that got a big boost during the reformation with Martin Luther at the helm.

All that resulted in the genocide that the vast majority of people (not only Germans but other nationalities as well) call “Holocaust” which translates to “burn victim”. Jews call it “Shoa”, which translates to “Shame”.

That made it abudantly clear, even in the eyes of the world, that Jews needed their own state. That was in the mid to late 1940s. This times, just these five years, have several important things happening during that time:

British Colonies strived (and sometimes got) their indepency.

The UN were founded, as a response to what the Germans did and what the world got liberated from.

While there were six million Jews less than before, the diaspora is still very much happening.

People remember which parts of the world have the closest ties to the Jewish texts.

Jews now have an argument as to why they need their own state that’s so strong, there’s no stronger argument that also cannot be refuted, unless you’re araging antisemite.

(Yes, I know the last point sounds cynical. It is, but that doesn’t make it less true.)

All this culminates in Jews getting their state where it is today. Still, they get their state in a region where they’re surrounded by states who don’t recognize the right to existence of the state of Israel. So, Israel constantly feels threatened. If that’s always by everyone the case is another topic, but Israel as a state (not Jews, there’s a difference between Israelis and Jews) feels threatened. That’s also why the conflict is not entirely just about religion but also about land. And by that, existence.

That’s the basics of the situation. Now for the distinct German-Israeli situation.

Germany, because of its history, feels a special connection to Israel and especially Jewish Israelis which results in Germany (as a state) wants Israel to exist but at the same time recognizes the difference between Israel, the state, and Jews living there.

At the same time, Germany is not hostile to Palestine or their want for their own state. That’s why Germany favors a two-state-solution. What Germany is hostile to, however, is the Hamas. The Hamas rules over Palestine and is considered a terrorist organization. There also haven’t been elections held in 15 years in Palestine. Israel, at the moment (and for the last two years) has/had trouble to form a functioning government.

All of the above are the basics when Germans discuss the Israel Palestine Conflict.

And now for the actual answer:

In all the American takes, I almost never see the Hamas being mentioned. Not by name, not by “terrorist organization”, nothing. Never. They almost always only mention the civilian populace which ignores the part of Palestinians who gives the orders to attack Israel. At the same time, I almost always see the Israeli populace (no matter if they Christian, Jewish or Arabian Israelis) lumped in with the acting right wing government on Benjamin Netanjahu (acting, not legitimized), which in consequence makes every Israeli an Israeli who attacks Palestine.

Both aren’t true and are most likely furthering aversions against each other and a black and white thinking pattern.

In the German takes, the Hamas is mentioned. There’s a line drawn between the Hamas and the Palestinian populace. The Israeli government is mentioned with all its quarrels and why it feels it has to do what they do (same with the Hamas). The Israeli populace is mentioned as being different from their government.

All four parties (Hamas, Israeli government, Palestine populace, Israeli populace) are given space in news reports, etc to state their perspective.

During all this, Germany still wants a two state solution as the long term goal and the right to existence of Israel to remain and Israel to be safe.