scalding hot take here but maybe bombing and massacring more civilians isn't going to get rid of the resistant fighters radicalised by watching civilians and loved ones be bombed and massacred

Last anon here -- I'm sorry for sending that message through. I don't know what is and isn't true anymore.

I deleted what I presume was your first ask (the one accusing me of not condemning the Gaza genocide and calling me a "DNC shill and a liar") because it was rude, uncalled for, and I couldn't see any good to come of engaging with it. However, because you've returned and apologized and sent this followup, I am willing to answer it, because I am aware that we can all do stupid things (especially on the internet) that we regret. So there is that.

Once again: I have strictly limited my posts/reblogs on this topic because it is so inflammatory, there are reams of people willing to attack you on every side, and none of it is actually constructive (this is the blue hellsite where we have two whole jokes about Ea-Nasir and color theory in children's hospitals. We are not doing important social justice work here and expecting this to be the main/only forum in which we post the Correct Opinions is not going to work out for anyone). But I would like, for the record, to point out that I have condemned the situation in Gaza and explicitly called it a genocide and Netanyahu and co. war criminals. Often and repeatedly:

Ask from October 28, 2023:

What’s happening to the Gazans right now is no qualification or equivocation, a genocide. It should rightfully be opposed and called what it is. But unfortunately, I have spent too much time around Western Online Leftists to believe they actually care a whit about stopping genocide as a fundamental principle, and only want to be seen to loudly care about what their Ideology has told them to care about. [...] To put it bluntly, those genocides are being committed by nation-states that Online Leftists like for being “anti-Western,” and therefore their activities are actually fine and should even need to be defended.

Another post from December 2023 explicitly calling out Netanyahu and his cabinet, while also pointing out that Tumblr's response now mostly consisted of antisemitic dogwhistles and rampant political misinformation:

[...] the way Netanyahu is personally a genocidal maniac with a far-right cabinet of war criminals and is bent on continuing the war in order to escape his own criminal prosecutions (and yes, he is HIGHLY affiliated with Trump and Putin) but this somehow still does not remotely justify or excuse the rampant frothingly mindless and generalized anti-Semitism seen everywhere on leftist spaces these days [....]

An ask from January 10th, 2024 (worth probably reading in full) where I once more say that nobody wants this to be happening, but that once again, the criticism in Western leftist forums (particularly Tumblr/Twitter) is not made equally or in good faith :

Nobody of basic good sense and decency wants to see Gaza leveled while the Israeli state continues to apply a number of violently cruel collective punishments even outside the actual daily bombing of civilians. But for the love of god, let’s get rid of the idea that the continued mindless violence doesn’t benefit Hamas (because it does; unsurprisingly, sympathy for their cause has soared in Gaza) as much as it does Israel, or that Hamas is some kind of benevolent peacemaker that is being thwarted by the cruel imperialist US/West.

This post, also from January 2024, explains why the kind of stunt-trick "pro Palestinian" activism that just relies on publicly hassling Jews is a) antisemitic and b) actively harming the people of Gaza, while once again pointing out whose fault this whole mess actually is:

If these people actually wanted to advocate constructively for Palestine in a good-faith way and not just punish random Jews or people who might have once met a Jew (which they don’t), they would take a look at that, go “hmm, this isn’t really getting the right result” and listen to the people who are telling them that by generating this bad publicity, they are doing far more harm to the cause than good. They are going to make the cause look foolish, they will drive away anyone who isn’t already radicalized, they will shut down any possibility of discussion and dialogue, and their efforts will be picked up in the Israeli nationalist right-wing media/Netanyahu and his war criminal advisors to insist to left-wing or anti-zionist Jews that (one of the, you know, big fucking reasons Israel was founded in the first place) they aren’t safe in any other country in the world, and they need to support the Israeli government’s actions, no matter how heinous.

A follow-up from January 31, 2024, discussing (again) the problems with insisting that Biden personally/the American power apparatus is just giving Israel a blank check and therefore Biden Iz Bad And This is All His Fault:

Once again: I strongly disagree with the idea of just giving Israel/Netanyahu a blank check to keep committing atrocities, but I also need to repeatedly point out that Biden isn’t doing that. His initial unconditional support of Israel after October 7 (which at the time was the correct response) has shifted to a much more measured and conditional approach where he has muted the overtly pro-Israel statements and started talking about a two-state solution and the need to protect the lives of civilians and trying to keep a lid on what could become a REALLY bad situation with all kinds of war-hungry powers eager to jump into the Middle East and blow it completely to hell.

I am a historian. This does not mean that I always know The Greatest Things Ever, but it does mean that I default toward long, cautious, and qualified responses where I try to consider multiple perspectives and nuances, rather than just posting pithy soundbites or black-and-white statements. (Yes, I know; I am doomed on social media.) Thus when I do discuss the situation, I tend toward trying to put it in broader context, to push back sharply against the idea that being "pro Palestine" is just being wildly antisemitic on social media and nothing else, and to call out those bad actors who are using this situation to continue to imperil American democracy and deliberately try to get Trump (who openly hankers to be a genocidal fascist dictator for everyone, not just Israel/Palestine) back into office.

I know that this is a situation which provokes (to say the least) strong emotions from everyone. I know that it's infuriating to feel totally helpless and just to have to watch it from afar. I know that we all wish we could stop it and that leads us to create meaning or assign importance to our own actions where there actually is none. But that does not mean that people have total liberty to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, wild political misinformation, narratives designed whether unwittingly or deliberately to help Trump and other far-right fascists, and otherwise anonymously dogpile on people who haven't Posted The Correct Opinion on Tumblr (once again, Tumblr, where we get our news via Destiel meme). So I hope this has helped you, if this is what you wanted to get out of contacting me today, and hope also that you'll continue to think about what to do and how to act. It's hard, I know, and you have my sympathy. But so it is for us all.