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girlactionfigure · 4 months

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I had to backup quite a ways, because understanding the Arab Israeli conflict without the wider context of the Cold War makes no sense.

Yeah, so, after World War 2, the former big swinging dick countries of the world were too stressed out to manage any of their colonies. So they threw up their hands and walked away. Power hating a vacuum, the US was prevailed upon to take over, though having an empire seemed like a lot of bother to us. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was sucking countries close to them into their stupid-ass idea that if we all pool our resources and sing Kum-By-Ya, everyone will get rich. This idea was invented by a Joo, Karl Marx, number one crime of the Joos of all time.

I could go on for a bit about how stupid this idea was, but let's just throw out the tidbit that they didn't have any weekends for 11 years.

One of the things the British "owned" was this area formerly "owned" by the Ottoman empire, that had about 17 different names. Because the British Foreign office was a hot-bed of the flavor of anti-semitism that believes Joos were secretly running the world, they felt if they proposed this area as a "homeland" for the Joos, the secret masters, the Joos would favor them. (See The Peace to End All Peace, a boring ass book, but explains a lot of why the Middle East is all screwed up.)

So after WW2, there were a bunch of Joos and some Arabs living in this area.

In the meantime, the Arab nations in the Area, annoyed at the presence of these Joos on their doorstep, looked at their own Joos and said "See Ya, oh and leave all your shit behind, so we can give it to some of the Arabs after we take our cut". Some more Joos came from Europe, but not as much as you might think. They said See Ya to some of their own Arabs too, but the Arabs got to keep their stuff, and got some of the Joos stuff (I'm a little fuzzy on where the Palestinians came from exactly, but it seems like everyone is.) It was sort of the reverse of Exodus where the Joos are leaving Egypt and the Egyptians give them a bunch of stuff to get them to leave faster, except this time it was the Joos giving stuff to the Arabs.

The Joos and the Arabs didn't like the British being in charge, so they started doing shitty things to each other, and the British. The British had at that point decided that "owning" this particular patch of dirt wasn't worth it, it was a bunch of desert with no resources, except this one spot that had a magic rock that someone touched, but you had to leave the magic rock there.

So they went to the UN, the newly formed revision of the League of Nations, and said "Hey, get us out of here". So the UN came up with a plan that gave most of the Arabs in the area most of the land. The Arabs in the area didn't like the deal, because they figured they could kill all the Joos when no one was looking. Except at this point, the local Joos were pretty stubborn and pissed off at being robbed by Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabic, etc., and they had an influx of Joos from Europe, so you can imagine that "pissed off Joos, willing to die where they stood" versus a bunch of spoiled Arabs who had been told "Just go over there, and we'll give you free stuff", didn't go so well for the Arabs.

So the British leave, the Joos take over after killing a few Arabs, and they declare independence. The US got on the Israel side early, because we're suckers for folks that say "Hey, we want to be a democracy like you, you're our hero.". Israel gets invaded by all the Arab nations around her, and fights them back, because they're all pretty grumpy, and they feel cornered.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, they want to get people on their side. They don't really care about truth, because if they cared about truth, they'd have to admit this idea of Karl Marx, the Joo, wasn't working out so well. Turns out when everyone pools their resources, well, who decides how to divide it up? Also, they didn't believe in God, so they were obviously not very observant.

So the Soviets want the Arab nations on their side, so they went up to the Arab nations and said "Hey, the US is on Israel's side, we want you to be on our side, we'll sell you weapons and stuff, those US folks are colonialist, they just want more colonies." This sounded good to the Arabs, not realizing that as hard core atheists, the Soviets had no shame about lying. So the Soviet Union traded some obsolete weapons to the Arabs, told them they were the best weapons ever, and got the Arabs to give them cash.

Ironically, in the meantime, Israel starts transforming large swatches of the desert into usable land, by organizing farms around a system very similar to that Joo Karl Marx's idea, but it was local, tied to a single extended family, and didn't extend to the whole country, just one farm. The Joos from Europe who went to the US instead of Israel send them money, which helps, though that's strictly voluntary and unofficial. But American's like people who work hard so they even get some money from non-Joos in America.

The Arabs get some money too, from the other Arabs, but mostly their leaders steal it.

Time passed, eventually the Arabs got bored or something and decided to invade Israel again. Or maybe, the Soviet Union encouraged them? I dunno, never made much sense to me. I was a baby, don't remember.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had recruited a prominent Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, living among the Arabs in Israel. Having a real sense of history would be too confusing to get the Israeli Arabs to rally behind, so the KGB, past masters of making shit up, came up with this whole imaginary history for the Palestinians so that Arafat, despited being from Egypt, could claim history in Israel, and so the Palestinians could whine about how mistreated they were.

The Arabs learned the hard way "buy American" when their fighter planes wouldn't work because the planes the Russians had sold them actually needed a part they stole from America, because they couldn't make it themselves. So after 6-days, the second war was over.

The imaginary history the KGB had written stuck around, even though Arafat eventually died as we all must someday. It's taught to Palestinians so they can feel properly victimized and oppressed. Though its easily disproved if you browse around Wikipedia for a bit, with a skeptical mind.

Did that help?

#Israel #KGB #palestine #History

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rahabs · 3 months

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the fact that you would defend the israeli government after they’ve murdered 30,000 innocents in the largest bombing campaign in modern history is literally despicable and borderline evil. if a genocide documented ad nauseam cannot make you cognizant of israel’s colonial and deeply racist regime, then literally nothing can and you are beyond reasoning with. actually incredible how multiple history degrees have clearly taught you nothing about how a genocide works — or perhaps more concerningly, they have, and you simply don’t care because the victims are palestinian. the fact that you would use those very history degrees to excuse israel’s genocide of palestinians is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within western academia. history will exonerate the indigenous palestinians, and it will be unkind to those like you who defended and cheered on their annihilation.

It‘s so amazing to me that you actually believe this, and that you‘ve so wholeheartedly swallowed the propaganda Hamas (known for using their own civilians as human shields, known for paying their citizens extra for killing Jews) has been peddling. So I am going to paste here some points others have already made that I‘ve saved over the course of information-gathering, though I doubt you‘ll bother to read or learn, judging from your asinine little comments here.

1) Palestine Gaza is a genocidal nation. The goal of the Palestinian government in Gaza is literally to destroy and commit genocide against Israel and kill every Jew by every means possible. This is literally written in their founding charter. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.

2) Palestine is an apartheid nation that has ethnically cleansed 100% of their Jews and stole their territory after 1948. There used to be tens of thousands of Jews living in the areas of Judea and Samaria, which was renamed to the West Bank by Jordan. However they've all been ethnically after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and 0 Jews are allowed to live in Palestine today. 3) Palestine is an authoritarian dictatorship both in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas won majority of the votes during an election in 2006, but the Palestinian president simply refused to recognize the results of the election and refused to hand power over to them. This resulted in Hamas siezing power in Gaza, executing hundreds of their political rivals, and they never held another election. Likewise, the leadership in the West Bank also refused to hold any elections and still continue to illegitimately cling to power. Abbas, the president of Palestine had a 4 year term which was supposed to end in 2009. He's still the leader today and has continued to postpone election after election. 4) Palestine supports the outright open murder of innocent civilians. I've already mentioned the charter of the Palestinian government in Gaza above where their goal is to eradicate Israel and genocide Israelis, but the Palestinian government in West Bank is just as horrible. There's the Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commmit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far. The Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel.

5) Palestine is horribly corrupt oligarchy. Palestine receives billions from the USA and Europe in aid every single year. Whatever money isn't spent on paying literal terrorists, or on rockets to shoot at Israel ends up going to corrupt Palestinian leaders. Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian leader, died a billionaire. Abbas the current President is worth $100 million. The Palestinian leaders in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal have an estimated combined wealth of over $10 billion. Meanwhile the combined GDP of Gaza is only about $2.5 billion, meaning these 3 leaders wealth is equal to 4 years of Gaza's GDP. 6) Palestinians have caused wars and instability in every country that they've sought refuge in. In Jordan, Palestinains assasinated the Jordanian king in 1951, then attempted a coup of a the country in 1970. After they failed, they were expelled to Lebanon where they started a civil war with the Christian Maronites. This war lasted 15 years and killed several times more people than the entire Israel-Palestine war (150k died in Lebanon civil war vs 25k in Palestinian-Israeli wars). In Kuwait, the Palestinians supported Saddam as Iraq invaded Kuwait. In Egypt, they've been hit by several bombings by Palestinians. 7) There is no freedom of speech or equality in Palestine Gaza. No equality of sexes, no equality of races, and definitely no queer rights in the entirety of Palestine where you could be killed for the crime of being openly queer. [If you identify as a liberal, there is literally] no reason to support a country where majority of [your] friends would either have severely restricted rights, be treated like objects, or be thrown off a building just for existing.

Let me reiterate: Jews are indigenous to Israel. Jews have existed and lived in what we now call the Israel-Palestine region for thousands of years before the foundation of Islam, and even before the foundation of Christianity. In the game of “which Abrahamic religion came first?” Islam ranks dead last.

Israel as an identity as a people has existed for thousands of years and has been recorded as far back as the Iron Age on:

i) The Mesha Stele;

ii) The Tel Dan Stele;

iii) The Kurkh Monoliths; and (potentially)

iv) The Merneptah Stele.

While scholars have argued over the translations on the Merneptah Stele, the general consensus among historians, classicists, archaeologist, etc, is that it refers to the existence of Israel at the very least as a collective identity that existed at the time, and was called Israel.

They were eventually repeatedly forced out by other powers such as the Romans and many others, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jews had a continuous existence in Israel before being forced out by what people like you would normally call “colonising powers” were it not so contrary to your own ill-supported arguments. It also doesn’t change the fact that Jews, and Israel, existed before both Christianity and Islam, and long, long before Palestine.

So if your entire argument boils down to "who was here first" and the ideas of "colonialism" and "anti-colonialism" and "decolonisation", then I am telling you, Jews were there first. You could argue Canaanite groups like Moabites and Ammonites were there too, but Moabites and Ammonites don't exist as a continuous group anymore. No matter how you look at it, you are wrong, so let me parrot your horrible argument right back at you:

The fact that you would defend Hamas, a known organisation whose founding Charter literally calls for the annihilation of Jews, who have systematically purged Jews for years, who launched multiple attacks against innocent Jewish people (the music festival, the babies and the woman and the children slaughtered), the fact that there's a Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far; the fact that you defend the existence of the Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs which pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel, etc... that you would defend this is "literally despicable" and not only outright evil, but ignorant to the nth degree.

If the continuous genocidal nature of Hamas against Israel cannot make you cognizant of Hamas' deeply racist, violence, and terrorist regime (to the point where none of the Muslim countries around them will take Palestinians in; even their fellow Muslim countries want nothing to do with them), then I'm not sure what to tell you. You say I am beyond reasoning, but from where I'm standing, your head is so far up your own ass that I don't even know if you're aware of anything that isn't the smell of your own shit.

It's actually incredible to me how you can ignore what multiple historians and scholars are saying because you want to cling to your idea that Hamas are just a bunch of "poor innocent brown people" who need help from the "evil white Israeli regime". Or perhaps, more "concerningly," that is just it: you hate Israel because you erroneously perceive them as white, and so therefore they must be evil. I don't know, but that is what a lot of anti-Israel sentiment seems to boil down to in the world of people like you.

The fact that you would excuse and ignore Hamas' outright horrific acts and ignore history is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within the west, but particularly within western circles that claim to be "progressive", "liberal", and "leftist."

Hamas has said no to every ceasefire. Hamas has said no to every compromise Israel has offered even before October. If Hamas stops fighting, the war ends. If Israel stops, then Israel is annihilated.

History has already shown that Palestinians are not indigenous if we are playing the "who was there first" game with Israel and Palestine, you're just so ignorant that you will refuse to see the evidence right in front of you. You are the one cheering for the annihilation of an indigenous group, and the one history will frown upon is you.

#antisemitism #Sorry for everyone on my dash who had to read this long reply.#I have sat on this for a month wondering whether to release it. Seriously grappling with everything. But.#Here we go. Will I delete it later? I am not sure. But.#There are too few people willing to speak up on this because they're scared of militant Palestinian supporters.#And truthfully I am scared of them! Militant Palestinian supporters are terrifying and my country has MANY #But this is my line in the sand. I so rarely draw them with political conflicts but this is it for me.#If you support Hamas you are DISGUSTING.#And you cannot divorce the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians have supported and do support Hamas.#People literally cheer for Hamas in the streets here and call for the annihilation of Israel.#Universities defend this shit too (see: the scandal with Penn State and Harvard)#I am so open politically I neither identify as right or left I so rarely truly put my foot down and say #'if you believe this you are disgusting'#But? Yeah.#And maybe I will have a mas exodus of followers now but whatever.#ancient Israel

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gavisuntiedboot · 5 months

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I read your take on one state solution. The reason for the creation of Israel is for a Jewish state and where jews are the majority. It makes no sense to allow Palestinians that left during the nakba. Although I don't support israel I think a one state solution is delusional cuz you can see that they r gonna elect a fundamentalist Islamic government. They slogan "from river to sea" is literally a call for genocide eventhough u r gonna deny it. You have to look at the context. This was used by both Palestinian and Israeli government in the past. I believe that west Bank should be free and other Palestinians in Israel should be given equal rights. We all wanna think that we wanna do something about this. But if there was really a solution we would've done it a long time ago. Also I'm sympathetic to the jews from middle east . They were ethnically cleansed from their countries. The Jewish presence in Mena has been very low. They have been migrating there since the ottoman empire. There were already jewish settlements in west Bank. The only problems here is the control of Jerusalem. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason the other countries care about these people. Everybody wants Jerusalem and that's the only reason ,there is no humanitarian reasons if you observe. This was the only reason from the beginning. Hope the israeli government stops killing people. They don't even have a stable government. They have these elections once in every 3 months. Whatever bibi is doing is the epitome of evil. He has a cult following. Both the leadership are the worst. We instead of calling for deaths for revenge must think rationally about the one state solution. Ik u r Palestinian but I don't think that what u r thinking is not what majority people think. I don't want the problem to end up in a genocide for both the sides. These r people that don't trust each other. Asking them to live together is calling for genocide. U r having wishful thinking that both of these people r not gonna elect right wing nut jobs. How many of these countries are secular in the middle east. What if Israel lost any of its wars. I'm sure it would've been a genocide either way. I just hope for a 2 state solution with Jerusalem bring independent which will never happen. One thing I would like to say is I don't put my energy on these things because the war will only stop if the leaderships decide to. Nothing will stop by rising awareness. It just takes away your energy. Most of the world doesn't give a shit about anything other than their problems. We think we have power to change things. It's just an illusion. Sorry for ranting . It's not organized at all.

I read through this twice and have come to the same conclusion both times: your reason for disagreeing that Palestinians should be in control of the land that is theirs is because you think they’re going to elect a right wing gov based on… just vibes. Because you believe white peoples when they interpret a slogan that was made by Palestinians, who have said thousands of times it’s not a call for genocide. Because you believe middle eastern people to be incapable of making ��good decisions”. You’re literally so intrenched in racism there is no point discussing anything with you. “Palestinians are also bad because they’re Muslim!!” That’s your whole point. I am not wasting energy by fighting for my land and my people. By the way, I do exist as a real sentient person outside of this website. This is only one facet of my activism. What would be a waste of energy is spending any time arguing with you when the internet is free, and you can read about what PALESTINIANS IN PALESTINE say they would propose for a solution. Not two states. One Palestine. Free from occupation. From the river to the sea. You Islamophobic fuck.

#gavisuntiedboot #gavisuntiedbootasks #gubtalksaboutpali

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continuations · 6 months

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Israel/Gaza

I have not personally commented in public on the Israel/Gaza conflict until now (USV signed on to a statement). The suffering has been heartbreaking and the conflict is far from over. Beyond the carnage on the ground, the dialog online and in the street has been dominated by shouting. That makes it hard to want to speak up individually.

My own hesitation was driven by unacknowledged emotions: Guilt that I had not spoken out about the suffering of ordinary Palestinians in the past, despite having visited the West Bank. Fear that support for one side or the other would be construed as agreeing with all its past and current policies. And finally, shame that my thoughts on the matter appeared to me as muddled, inconsistent and possibly deeply wrong. I am grateful to everyone who engaged with me in personal conversations and critiqued some of what I was writing to wrestle down my thoughts over the last few weeks, especially my Jewish and Muslim friends, for whom this required additional emotional labor in an already difficult time.

Why speak out at all? Because the position I have arrived at represents a path that will be unpopular with some on both sides of this conflict. If people with views like mine don’t speak, then the dialog will be dominated by those with extremely one-sided views contributing to further polarization. So this is my attempt to help grow the space for discussion. If you don’t care about my opinion on this conflict, you don’t have to read it.

The following represents my current thinking on a possible path forward. As always that means it is subject to change despite being intentionally strongly worded.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. I am basing this assessment not only on the most recent attack against Israel but also on its history of violent suppression of Palestinian opposition. Hamas must be dismantled.

Israel’s current military operation has already resulted in excessive civilian casualties and must be replaced with a strategy that minimizes further Palestinian civilian casualties, even if that entails increased risk to Israeli troops (there is at least one proposal for how to do this being floated now). If there were a ceasefire-based approach to dismantling Hamas that would be even better and we should all figure out how that might work.

Immediate massive humanitarian relief is needed in southern Gaza. This must be explicitly temporary. The permanent displacement of Palestinians is not acceptable.

Israel must commit to clear territorial lines for both Gaza and the Westbank and stop its expansionist approach to the latter. This will require relocating some settlements to establish sensible borders. Governments need clear borders to operate with credibility, which applies also to any Palestinian government (and yes I would love to see humanity eventually transcend the concept of borders but that will take a lot of time).

A Marshall Plan-level commitment to a full reconstruction of Gaza must be made now. All nations should be called upon to join this effort. Reconstruction and constitution of a government should be supervised by a coalition that must include moderate Islamic countries. If none can be convinced to join such an effort, that would be good to know now for anyone genuinely wanting to achieve durable peace in the region.

I believe that an approach along these lines could end the current conflict and create the preconditions for lasting peace. Importantly it does not preclude democratically elected governments from eventually choosing to merge into a single state.

All of this may sound overly ambitious and unachievable. It certainly will be if we don’t try and instead choose more muddling through. It will require strong leadership and moral clarity here in the US. That is a tall order on which we have a long way to go. But here are two important starting points.

We must not tolerate antisemitism. As a German from Nürnberg I know all too well the dark places to which antisemitism has led time and time again. The threat of extinction for Jews is not hypothetical but historical. And it breaks my heart that my Jewish friends are removing mezuzahs from their doors. There is one important confusion we should get past if we genuinely want to make progress in the region. Israel is a democracy and deserves to be treated as such. Criticizing Israeli government policies isn’t antisemitic, just like criticizing the Biden administration isn’t anti-Christian, or criticizing the Modi government isn’t anti-Hindu. And yes, I believe that many of Israel’s historic policies towards Gaza and the Westbank were both cruel and ineffective. Some will argue that Israel is an ethnocracy and/or a colonizer. One can discuss potential implications of this for policy. But if what people really mean is that Israel should cease to exist then they should come out and say that and own it. I strongly disagree.

We must not tolerate islamophobia. We also have to protect citizens who want to practice Islam. We must not treat them as potential terrorists or as terrorist supporters on the basis of their religion. How can we ask people to call out Hamas as a terrorist organization when we readily accept mass casualties among Muslims (not just in the region but also in other places, such as the Iraq war) while also not pushing back on people depicting Islam as an inherently hateful religion? And for those loudly claiming the second amendment, how about also supporting the first, including for Muslims? I have heard from several Muslim friends that they frequently feel treated as subhuman. And that too breaks my heart.

This post will likely upset some people on both sides of the conflict. There is nothing of substance that can be said that will make everyone happy. I am sure I am wrong about some things and there may be better approaches. If you have read something that you found particularly insightful, please point me to it. I am always open to learning and plan to engage with anyone who wants to have a good faith conversation aimed at achieving peace in the region.

#israel #gaza

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cletusthurstonbeauregard · 2 months

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Trump breaks silence on Israel's military campaign in Gaza: 'Finish the problem'

Story by Vaughn Hillyard and Allan Smith

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former President Donald Trump declared Tuesday that Israel must “finish the problem” in its war against Hamas, his most definitive position on the conflict since the terror group killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages on Oct. 7.

“You’ve got to finish the problem,” Trump said on Fox News on Tuesday when asked about the war. “You had a horrible invasion that took place that would have never happened if I was president.”

When asked on the program whether he supported a cease-fire in Gaza, Trump demurred, avoiding an explicit position on Israel’s military effort that has now also left more than 30,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The likely 2024 Republican nominee has not provided his own position on U.S. or Israel's strategy throughout the five months of the war.

Though a stalwart defender of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration during his presidency, Trump has also attempted to strike an anti-war posture on the campaign trail in the last year, attempting to contrast himself from President Joe Biden and his remaining Republican rival, Nikki Haley.

“Frankly, they got soft,” Trump said on Tuesday about the Biden administration, claiming that the aggression by foreign adversaries would not have happened if he were still president.

“That should never have happened. Likewise, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine," he said.

While Tuesday’s comments offered the strongest signal yet from Trump of what direction Israel should take, he has yet to offer specific thoughts or proposals on how much the U.S. should be involved financially, how hostage negotiations should be handled, the plight of Gaza’s civilian population or whether leaders should pursue a one- or two-state solution to the conflict.

Reached for comment by NBC News, the Trump campaign promoted the former president’s record on Israel and blamed Biden for the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.

“President Trump did more for Israel than any American President in history, and he took historic action in the Middle East that created unprecedented peace,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary, said in a statement, adding, "When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”

Just days after Hamas attacked Israel, Trump, in a video posted from his Mar-a-Lago estate here, declared: “I kept Israel safe. Nobody else will. Nobody else can. And I know all of the players — they can’t do it.”

Trump did lay out a few markers in the three weeks that followed the Hamas attack. He said on Oct. 11 that a future Trump administration would “fully support Israel defeating, dismantling, and permanently destroying the terrorist group Hamas,” while telling the Republican Jewish Coalition later that month that Hamas fighters “will burn forever in the eternal pit of hell." That month, his campaign also said that, if elected again, he would bar Gaza residents from entering the U.S. as part of an expanded travel ban.

In the four months since, however, the former president’s once-ardent public backing of Israel has gone mostly quiet.

That silence has run parallel to Biden increasingly coming under fire from left-wing and Muslim American voters for his support of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack. A coalition of voters is campaigning for Democratic primary voters to vote “uncommitted” or for similar ballot choices, as some backed in Michigan, where the “uncommitted” vote earned more than 13% in last week’s Democratic presidential primary there — a small uptick from the nearly 11% who voted “uncommitted” in the 2012 primary, when then-President Barack Obama ran unopposed.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has increased its criticism of Israel but has stopped short of cutting off military aid. Biden is currently pushing for a six-week cease-fire deal that includes the release of dozens of hostages still held by Hamas.

The Biden campaign declined a request for comment from NBC News.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, Trump expressed his ire at Netanyahu, who congratulated Biden after his 2020 election win, saying the Israeli prime minister had “let us down” by allegedly backing out of what Trump said was supposed to be a joint U.S.-Israel operation to launch the airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Days later, Trump posted to his Truth Social platform that he stood with the Israeli premier after pushback from some GOP rivals.

Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor of a Dallas megachurch and a close Trump ally who led the prayer during the dedication of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018, told NBC News last month that he was not “concerned about his [Trump’s] position waning on” Israel.

The prominent pastor, who leads a congregation of more than 10,000 in Dallas, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February and discussed the support of evangelicals.

“We would love to hear from President Trump what he’s been saying for the last nine years and that is his unconditional support for the right of Israel to exist,” he said.

Maureen Maldonado, an author and a Christian radio host, said she understood why Trump wasn’t as vocal on Israel as some supporters might expect.

“He’s a friend of Israel,” she said. “It’s all political, and he needs to get into office before anything. He’s got to play the game.”

#palestine #free palestine #trump #always side with the authoritarians

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alittlequirkygirl2 · 6 months

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Thank you for openly admitting that the real life genocide that's actually happening right now to living humans is less important to you than the imaginary one that you've envisioned might affect you personally. Most Democrat voters won't admit this, so I'm proud you could come out and say it directly.

Hi there!

I think it'll be easier to converse if you came off anonymous. It's okay if you don't want to, though.

To make myself abundantly clear: I have at no point intended to condone Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people nor the support of the Democratic party for that genocide. I think it's incredibly important that people are informed of exactly what atrocities are being committed here and why. The only thing I'm interested in is preventing an even worse situation. I think I know which post you might be coming here from the notes of. If that's the case, you'll find that I've done my best to convey that message and I do appreciate the constructive criticism I've received.

It seems to me like you don't think that there is a genocide of trans people being perpetrated by the Republican Party in the US right now. I think it's important that we're on the same page if we're going to converse. There are different stages to genocide. I'd be happy to send you some of my resources on how what's happening in the US is in fact the earlier stages of genocide.

Trans people are of course not the only people at risk of Republican politics. Their bigotry and hatred extends to practically all non-white, non-Christian, non-cishet, and disabled people. They are actively and constantly proposing bills that seek to directly harm all of these people. The Democrats are capitalist, zionist, bigoted pigs. The Republicans are all of that and so much more willing to cause so much more harm. If voting for the Republican party did stop the genocide in Palestine I would encourage it. It won't. Republicans have just as much capitalist interest in the genocide as the Democrats. They also directly want to harm many more groups both in and outside America. Recognising that risk and trying to mitigate it while simultaneously working for the dismantling of a system that allows either party to commit atrocities like these is not condoning genocide. It's survival.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is never fun. In a better world it would never be necessary. Unfortunately, I believe it is. I don't need to imagine the horrors that would follow if the Republican Party had full majority in all levels of the American system. We've seen that before. We're seeing it now in Palestine.

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nataliesnews · 1 year

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So many things happening at once 10.2.2023

I feel that my letters are so disorganized but that is the way it is. Every day something changes. The government proposes a law or there is a threat to pass a law...as has happened with Shas demanding that any woman for example holding a Torah scroll be arrested and the next moment it is shot down. Attached the PDF and I suggest women especially read it. Every time there is a new threat to our freedom and I feel that the net of darkness if closing on us and we are striking out wildly to keep our balance.

We were out on a shift. I had had a very bad night with my leg and woke up really dopey. Last night I went to the demonstration here in Jerusalem which was quiet but in Tel Aviv two women who held signs with a small Palestinian flag on it were told that they would be arrested even though there is no law against it. More and more soldiers and police and even security guards are acting as if they now have all the power in their might to stop anyone acting in a way of which THEY do not approve. If I did not have to walk with the sticks I would dafke make such a sign. Today, also coming back from a shift a thoroughly nasty piece of work stopped Kamal, our Arab driver, as we were going through a checkpoint. Kamal says the creep knows him and that he has a blue ID but he always delays him and tries to make problems.So today he stopped in, peered into the car and very rudely said to Kamal...."Who are they?" I wanted to say to him did we look like terrorists but it would only have caused him to make Kamal more problems when he goes through and when he is not with us. Anat shot back at him Machsomwatch and he evidently realized who he was dealing with and let us through. He evidently hoped that Kamal was taking Palestinian women through and that he could delay him by demanding their documents

Last week I went to a documentary...."Two Kids a day" and you can actually see it on this link. Look at the beginning....see how small some of the children are whom they are arresting. And how they handle them. And go to the end to hear what some people say. That by breaking youths, they break the villages. You really need to watch this.

https://www.gumfilms.com/projects/two-kids-day

Has your news told you that El Al pilots refused to fly the unroyal family to France? And do you know how many big firms are leaving Israel?

Have you any idea how many companies are withdrawing from Israel.

Have you any idea of how many Israelis who have money are thinking of opening accounts overseas.

Netanyahu said to call global credit rating firms amid concern over judicial shakeup

Premier reportedly appeals directly to international ranking companies, banks to convince them government proposals won't damage economy, don't justify downgrade

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-to-call-global-credit-rating-firms-amid-concern-over-judicial-shakeup/

And a three day march is moving towards Jerusalem. I will join them at the Knesset (or is it the High Court). There is so much going on. I think there is an expression catch the leopand by the tail and that is what Netanyahu has done. There is also to be an enormous strike throughout Israel on Monday next. Many employers are giving their workers the day off but better that they should simply close down.

IDF vets start 3-day march to Jerusalem to protest judicial overhaul plans

Dozens of ex-Armored Corps generals pen letter warning legislation will harm military draft, 'willingness of reserves to mobilize'

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-vets-hold-3-day-march-to-jerusalem-to-protest-judicial-overhaul-plans/

I am also sending you an article by Robyn of the Bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families. More and more doors are being closed to anyone considered not a "loyal" citizen. Yesterday after a demonstration in Jerusalem in which reserve soldiers took part after a three day march to Jerusalem. As soon as there is something on the agenda of which the right does not agree everyone and every organization bends the knee to them. Last night people coming from the demonstration were stopped at the train station because of the anti-government shirts they were wearing. I do not know how this ended but it is not the first time. I have suggested that a whole group of us go to the train station with our various shirts on and see what will happen.

#So many things happening at once 10.2.2023

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sylvielauffeydottir · 3 years

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Hi I just saw your post about Israel and Palestinian. I don't know if you're the person to ask or if this is a dumb question but I was wondering if anyone has considered starting a second Jewish state? I was wondering because there's a bunch of Christian countries so why not multiple Jewish ones.

Sorry if I'm bothering you and Thanks for your time.

That’s actually a pretty interesting question. I am going to apologize right now, because I essentially can’t give a short answer to save my life.

I’m not a ‘Jewish Scholar,’ so while I can speak with some authority about the history of Zionism, I definitely couldn’t speak about it with as much authority as others. I mentioned in at least one of the posts I have written about the history of plans for a ‘Jewish state’ when Zionism was originally being proposed, and I can kinda of track the history of Zionist thinking for you if you are interested, though essentially it’s just about arguing where to go. But there are better scholars for this than me, so I would recommend Rebecca Kobrin, Deborah Lipstadt, Walter Laqueur … idk. Maybe just read some Theodor Herzl, honestly. With all of that said, I can speak with some authority about the post-war history of this in the Middle East. So let’s go.

In post-war times, there has really only been one serious discussion of an alternative Jewish state, as far as I know. And actually, this is part of why I find it so ironic that people are campaigning so hard to be “anti-Zionist” and to express views like “anti-Zionism” in their activism, because the Jews in Israel who are most anti-Zionist are actually the settlers of Palestinian territories, who want to secede and form a “Gaza-State” called Judeah. There's a great book about this called The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill, if anyone is interested. Anyway, most of those people, who are largely Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, though some of those settlers are semi Orthodox), have essentially been waging a “culture war” about what it means to have a Jewish state and what the identity of that Jewish state should look like basically since the 1980s.

There is a really good article about this that you can find right here written by Peter Lintl, who is a researcher at the Institution of Political Science for the Friedrich-Alexander Universitat. I’ll summarize it for the lazy people, though, because it’s like 40 pages. Just know that this paragraph won’t be super source heavy, because it is basically the same source. Essentially, the Haredim community has tripled in size from 4% to 12% of the total Israeli population since 1980, and it is probably going to be about 20% by 2040. They only accept the Torah and religious laws as the basis for Jewish life and Jewish identity and they are critical of democratic principles. To them, a societal structure should be hierarchical, patriarchal, and have rabbis at the apex, and they basically believe that Israel isn’t a legitimate state. This is primarily because Israel is (at least technically, so no one come at me in the comments about Palestinian citizens of Israel, so I’ll make a little ** and address this there) a ‘liberal’ democracy. Rights of Israeli citizens include, according to Freedom House, free and fair elections (they rank higher on that criteria here than the United States, by the way), political choice, political rights and electoral opportunities for women, a free and independent media, and academic freedom. It is also, I should add (as a lesbian), the only country in the Middle East that has anything close to LGBT+ rights.

[**to the point about Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel: I have a few things to say. First, I have recommended this book twice now and it is Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, which absolutely fantastically talks about the ways in which the entire structure of the Palestinian ‘citizenship’ movement, Palestinian rights, and who was responsible for governing Palestinians changed after the Six Days War. If you are at all interested in the modern Middle East or modern Middle East politics, I highly recommend you read this, because a huge tenant of this book is that it was 1967, not 1947, that caused huge parts of our current situation (and that, surprisingly, a huge issue that quote-on-quote “started it” was actually water, but that’s sort of the primary secondary issue, not the Actual Issue at play here). Anyway, I’ve talked about the fact that Israel hugely abuses its authority in the West Bank and Gaza and that there are going to be current members of the Israeli Government who face action at the ICC, so please don’t litigate this again with me. I also should add that the 2018 law which said it was only Jews who had the natural-born right to “self-determine” in Israel was passed by the Lekkud Government, and I really hate them anyway. I know they’re bad. It’s not the point I’m making. I’m making a broader point about the Constitution vis-a-vis what the Haredim are proposing, which is way worse].

To get back to the Haredim, basically there is this entire movement of actual settlers in territories that have been determined to belong to the Palestinian people as of, you know, the modern founding of Israel (and not the pre-Israel ‘colonial settler’ narrative you’ll see on instagram in direct conflict with the history of centuries of aliyah) who want to secede and form a separate Jewish state. They aren’t like, the only settlers, but I point this out because they are basically ‘anti-Zionist’ in the sense that they think that modern Zionism isn’t adhering to the laws of Judaism — that the state of Israel is too free, too radical, too open. And scarily enough, these are the sort of the people from whom Netanyahu draws a huge part of his political support. Which is true of the right wing in general. Netanyahu can’t actually govern without a coalition government. Like I have said, the Knesset is huge, often with 11-13 political parties at once, and so to ‘govern’ Netanyahu often needs to recruit increasingly right wing, conservative, basically insane political parties to maintain his coalition. It’s why he has been so supportive of the settlements, particularly in the last five years (since he is, as I have also said, facing corruption charges, and he really can’t leave office). It would really suck for him if a huge chunk of his voters seceded, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, that is the only ‘second Jewish State’ I know about, and I don’t think that is necessarily much of a solution. I really don’t have the solutions to the Middle East crisis. I am just a girl with some history degrees and some time on her hands to devote to tumblr, and I want people to learn more so they can form their own opinions. With that said, I think there are two more things worth saying and then I will close out for the night.

First, Judaism is an ethno-religion. Our ethnicities have become mixed with the places that we have inhabited over the years in diaspora, which is how you have gotten Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and even Ethiopian Jews. But if you do actual DNA testing on almost all of the Jews in diaspora, the testing shows that we come from the same place: the Levant. No matter how pale or dark, Jews are still fundamentally one people, something we should never forget (and anyone who tries to put racial hierarchy into paleness of Jews: legit, screw you. One people). Anyway, unlike other religious communities, we have an indigenous homeland because we have an ethnic homeland. It’s small, and there are many Jews in diaspora who choose not to return to it, like myself. But that homeland is ours (just as much as it is rightfully Palestinians, because we are both indigenous to the region. For everyone who hasn’t read my other posts on the issue, I’m not explaining this again. Just see: one, two, and three, the post that prompted this ask). This is different from Christians, for example, who basically just conquered all of Europe and whose religion is not dependent on your race or background. You can be a lapsed Christian and you are still white, latinx, black, etc right? I am a lapsed Jew, religiously speaking, and will still never escape that I am ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish.

Second, I think you raise a really good point about other religious states. There are many other religious majority states in the world (all of these countries have an official state religion), and a lot of them are committing a lot of atrocities right now (don't even get me started on Saudi Arabia). I have seen other posts and other authors write about this better than I ever could, but I am going to do my best to articulate why, because of this, criticism of Israel as a state, versus criticism of the Israeli Government, is about ... 9 times out of 10 inherently antisemitic.

We should all be able to criticize governments. That is a healthy part of the democratic process and it is a healthy part of being part of the world community. But there are 140 dictatorships in the world, and the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 45 times since 2013. Since the creation of the UN Human Rights Council, it has has received more resolutions concerning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. This is compared to like … 1 for Myanmar, 1 for South Sudan, and 1 for North Korea.

Israel is the world’s only Jewish majority state. You want to talk about “ethnic cleansing” and “repressive governments”? I can give you about five other governments and world situations right now, off the top of my head, that are very stark, very brutal, very (in some cases) simple examples of either or both. If a person is ‘using their platform’ to Israel-bash, but they are not currently speaking about the atrocities in Myanmar, Kashmir, Azerbaijan, South Sudan, or even, dare I say, the ethnonationalism of the Hindu Nationalist Party in India, then, at the very least, their activism is a little bit performative. They are chasing the most recent ‘hot button’ issue they saw in an instagraphic, and they probably want to be woke and maybe want to do the right thing. And no one come at me and say it is because you don’t “know anything about Myanmar.” Most people know next to nothing about the Middle East crisis as well. At best, people are inconsistent, they may be a hypocrite, and, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, they are either unintentionally or intentionally buying into antisemitic narratives. They might even be an antisemite.

I like to think (hope, maybe) that most people don’t hate Jews. If anything, they just follow what they’ve been told, and they tend to digest what everyone is taking about. But there is a reason this is the global narrative that has gained traction, and I guarantee it has at least something to do with the star on the Israeli flag.

I know that was a very long answer to your question, but I hope that gave you some insight.

As a sidenote: I keep recommending books, so I am going to just put a master list of every book I have ever recommended at the bottom of anything I do now, because the list keeps growing. So, let’s go in author alphabetical order from now on.

One Country by Ali Abunimah Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust: A Memoir by Noam Chayut If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State by Daniel Gordis Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman

#ask #jew tag

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illumiru · 3 years

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the philippine government’s complicity with israel and us imperialism

I talked about it on twitter but there’s an excellent essay I read in how the Philippine government is complicit in legitimizing Israel’s settler-colonialism, largely influenced by the US government. It’s time to learn some history.

A year after the Philippines gained independence from the US, in 1947, Resolution 181 was proposed by the United Nations General Assembly. It called for a plan to partition Palestine. The Philippines was the only Asian country to vote in favor of the resolution, but it wasn’t without pressure.

Initially, the Philippines was opposed to it. The Philippine UN Delegate at the time, Gen. Carlos P. Romulo said, “We hold the issue is primarily moral. The issue is whether the United Nations should accept responsibility for the enforcement of a policy which is clearly repugnant to the valid nationalist aspirations of the people of Palestine. The Philippine government holds [that] the United Nations ought not to accept such a responsibility.”

Seeing that the plan was failing to reach the majority, the US put pressure on the Philippine government, which while independent, was still largely dependent on US military aide. The government folded and Gen. Romulo was recalled. He was replaced by another representative who cast the vote in favor for the Partition plan. You can read more in depth here and why the US was motivated to back this proposal here.

The partition plan is non-binding though. The United Nations don’t have the right to distribute land they don’t own. But since then, Zionists have used this resolution to legitimize their atrocities in seizing land from Palestinians in an ethnic cleansing. As country that also relied on the US Military, the Philippine government has been a complicit ally through this. They even established diplomatic relations with each other in 1957.

In more recent years, besides contributing to their trade economy, the Philippines has been buying military weapons from Israel. In 2018, Duterte visited Israel to talk about arms and their plans to cooperate on counter-terrorism. You can see here, here, here and here.

Not going to lie, I’m not sure what we’re buying military weapons for because the current President refuses to defend Philippine territory against the Chinese government. Like what? Are we seriously buying military-grade weapons from a fascist state to terrorize farmers and Filipino activists instead? Look at what you’d rather do: here and here and here

I think my fellow Filipinos know that the government doesn’t listen to its people at all here especially since speaking out against the government can get you red-tagged or deemed a terrorist. But I think it’s important for us to understand how the government has become complicit with Israel’s actions in Palestine and try and challenge that complicity of the Philippine government. As a country that has a brutal colonial history, we should stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine instead.

It begins with standing against US Imperialism and their role in funding and facilitating these brutal wars. And, joining local organizations in standing against Israel.

Here are some resources you can use to help:

Sign petitions! Like this.

Donate to any of these organizations:

BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)

Addameer (Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association

Project Rozana (Health Organization)

Adalah Justice Project (Palestinian Advocacy Group)

MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians)

PCRF (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund)

Al Shabaka (The Palestinian Policy Network

Al Haq (Defending Human Rights)

You can also donate to the patreon of the organizers of the Decolonize Palestine website here.

#this is more coherent than my fucking twitter thread #where more filipinos can actually see it aaaa #history #philippines #palestine #israel #signal boost

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whyshedisappeared · 3 years

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do you see the difference between 188 casualties and 10? the difference between a defense worth billions of dollars and one worth nothing? a dome that stops 90% of rockets vs absolutely nothing to stop airstrikes? between having bomb shelters and a place to go vs being completely trapped in territory that israel controls the borders to? and (this particular instance) started because of israel evicting palestians from their homes in east jerusalem! a territory that israel illegally occupies

ok, i don’t know if you want a genuine answer or just looking to start a fight, so i’ll answer this seriously and if you have more questions DM me and if you wanna start a fight lmk who you are so I can block you.

first, you got some facts mixed so lets get to that before we talk casualties.

so, i’m not going to get into the state of the country through all the wars, we’ll just talk what was proposed to be the land in proposition 181 of the UN, which the UN accepting it cause the Independence war, and we’ll go over the way the country is divided rn.

So, the day the war started (Nov. 30th 1946) the country was divided the way you see in the first map. there weren’t a lot of Jews here until 1881 when the first wave of aliya happened, then the 2nd one started in 1904 when Hertzel died. the British mandate the ruled here favored the Palestinians over the Jews, because they were the majority when we first came here in waves, so they obviously had more land, and it was strategically smarter to side with them.

The previous day, the partition plan that is shown in the 2nd map was voted on and was passed with a majority. That plan is called proposition 181, or the partition plan. Israelis weren’t that thrilled about it because geographically the Israeli land wasn’t connected and Jerusalem was inside the Palestinian land while being under international jurisdiction, but it was better than nothing so we took it. Palestinians disapproved of it, and that started the war, which ended in 1949, a year after we got our independence on May 14th, 1948.

between ‘49 and 2000 the boarders moved a lot the wars, we took land, some we gave back during cease fire agreements and peace treaties and some we still have, but the last picture is the way it still is. The west bank is a bit tricky so let me explain it to you, it isn’t officially Israeli territory, we took over the area during one of the wars and the government refused to give it back during the cease fire so we ended up with this very weird and precarious solution, yes it isn’t legal but the government refused to relinquish control over it because they didn’t want whatever terror organization that was there at the time to be really close to the other boarder, they refused complete control because we took that land in a war, so here we are. The Jewish settlements there are part of area C, which is in full Israeli government and military control. You have area B, with Palestinian cities and villages (apart from Hevron that has both Jews and Palestinians), which is in Israeli military control and Palestinian Authority (PA) led. and area A which is fully controlled by PA and also only has Palestinians in it.

Now, this is all a very long way to explain to you, that while there are Muslims, Christians, Jews and other religious minorities in Jerusalem, excluding east Jerusalem, where it is under no official authority which is part of the problem, it is still under Israeli control and outside of the West Bank, just on the edge of it, but not in it. It doesn’t let the government permission to evacuate civilians out of their homes, by no means, but east Jerusalem is a problem area. Here’s a closer look at the map:

As I mentioned earlier, the fact that the Israeli government has jurisdiction somewhere doesn’t give it the right to evacuate civilians from their homes. I think it was unnecessary and uncalled for and never should have happened.

Ok, now let’s talk casualties. first, you need to remember that Israel gives Gaza (well, more like Hamas) money. However, instead of using it for the civilians’ advantage and to take care of them, Hamas uses it to buy weapons to arm itself and for anti-Israel propaganda. Yes, the Palestinians in Gaza has it bad, but that’s not because Hamas doesn’t have money, trust me they get more than enough. It’s because Hamas doesn’t care about the civilians in Gaza.

Israel invests some of the defense budget to create better, more advanced means to protect ourselves and the people living in the country, that’s why since 2004 we have the “Tzeva Adom” (literally translates to Red Color) alerts, which are the rocket sirens alarms that lets us know to take shelter. The government invests in having bomb safe rooms. We have Iron Dome since 2014 (that summer protective edge happened and the system was put in use during it) for that same reason. We invest in our protection, and therefore our casualty numbers are lower.

Also, I would like to point out that a solid percentage of the rockets Hamas fires at us never even cross the boarder and land inside Gaza, which kills people.

When the IDF plans to have an airstrike on a building, because Hamas puts the rocket launchers inside homes, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, etc. the IDF calls every single person in the building hours before to let them know to evacuate. Hamas prevents them from evacuating. Which is how they end up with the high death toll.

But, and that is very important, just because our death toll is at 10, doesn’t make it ok. Those 10 people, one of them a 6 year old kid, should never have died. Those 188 people should never have died. The only acceptable death toll is 0.

Now, to your last point, that Palestinians are not allowed to cross the boarder. They are. Both in the West Bank and Gaza. In order to be allowed into the country the IDF first makes sure the individual has no ties to a terror organization or carrying explosives by going through metal detectors, but they are allowed into the country. However, if an Israeli Jew were to cross the boarder they would be killed. Either on the spot or tortured and then killed.

I would like to reiterate, I do not support, by any means, the evacuations of Palestinians in east Jerusalem. I think it was uncalled for and never should have happened. It was the direct cause to this escalation. I do, however, support Israel’s right to defend itself.

To put this simply, if Hamas were to lay down their weapons, there would be peace and the violence would stop. If Israel were to stop fighting, we would be wiped off the map. However, it isn’t as simple as that. and the narrative changes depends on where you start to tell the facts, which means, like I previously mentioned, there is no right side and wrong side. There is no clear cut good and evil.

However, you must understand that us Israelis, both Jews and Muslims, suffer from the actions of the Israeli government and Hamas. It isn’t us that are fighting, it is the leading bodies on each side of the boarder and the civilians suffer as a consequence of that.

Please make sure that when you talk about what we’re living through right now, you don’t blame Israel/Israelis, or Palestine/Palestinians. Make sure you blame those responsible, the Israeli government and Hamas.

#personal #ask #anonymous

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theculturedmarxist · 3 years

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The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has run a fascinating long report this week offering a disturbing snapshot of the political climate rapidly emerging across Europe on the issue of antisemitism. The article documents a kind of cultural, political and intellectual reign of terror in Germany since the parliament passed a resolution last year equating support for non-violent boycotts of Israel – in solidarity with Palestinians oppressed by Israel – with antisemitism.

The article concerns Germany but anyone reading it will see very strong parallels with what is happening in other European countries, especially the UK and France.

The same European leaders who a few years ago marched in Paris shouting “Je suis Charlie” – upholding the inalienable free speech rights of white Europeans to offend Muslims by insulting and ridiculing their Prophet – are now queuing up to outlaw free speech when it is directed against Israel, a state that refuses to end its belligerent occupation of Palestinian land. European leaders have repeatedly shown they are all too ready to crush the free speech of Palestinians, and those in solidarity with them, to avoid offending sections of the Jewish community.

The situation reduces to this: European Muslims have no right to take offence at insults about a religion they identify with, but European Jews have every right to take offence at criticism of an aggressive Middle Eastern state they identify with. Seen another way, the perverse secular priorities of European mainstream culture now place the sanctity of a militarised state, Israel, above the sanctity of a religion with a billion followers.

Guilt by association

This isn’t even a double standard. I can’t find a word in the dictionary that conveys the scale and degree of hypocrisy and bad faith involved.

If the American Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote a follow-up to his impassioned book The Holocaust Industry – on the cynical use of the Holocaust to enrich and empower a Jewish organisational establishment at the expense of the Holocaust’s actual survivors – he might be tempted to title it The Antisemitism Industry.

In the current climate in Europe, one that rejects any critical thinking in relation to broad areas of public life, that observation alone would enough to have one denounced as an antisemite. Which is why the Haaretz article – far braver than anything you will read in a UK or US newspaper – makes no bones about what is happening in Germany. It calls it a “witch-hunt”. That is Haaretz’s way of saying that antisemitism has been politicised and weaponised – a self-evident conclusion that will currently get you expelled from the British Labour party, even if you are Jewish.

The Haaretz story highlights two important developments in the way antisemitism has been, in the words of intellectuals and cultural leaders cited by the newspaper, “instrumentalised” in Germany.

Jewish organisations and their allies in Germany, as Haaretz reports, are openly weaponising antisemitism not only to damage the reputation of Israel’s harsher critics, but also to force out of the public and cultural domain – through a kind of “antisemitism guilt by association” – anyone who dares to entertain criticism of Israel.

Cultural associations, festivals, universities, Jewish research centres, political think-tanks, museums and libraries are being forced to scrutinise the past of those they wish to invite in case some minor transgression against Israel can be exploited by local Jewish organisations. That has created a toxic, politically paranoid atmosphere that inevitably kills trust and creativity.

But the psychosis runs deeper still. Israel, and anything related to it, has become such a combustible subject – one that can ruin careers in an instant – that most political, academic and cultural figures in Germany now choose to avoid it entirely. Israel, as its supporters intended, is rapidly becoming untouchable.

A case study noted by Haaretz is Peter Schäfer, a respected professor of ancient Judaism and Christianity studies who was forced to resign as director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum last year. Schäfer’s crime, in the eyes of Germany’s Jewish establishment, was that he staged an exhibition on Jerusalem that recognised the city’s three religious traditions, including a Muslim one.

He was immediately accused of promoting “historical distortions” and denounced as “anti-Israel”. A reporter for Israel’s rightwing Jerusalem Post, which has been actively colluding with the Israeli government to smear critics of Israel, contacted Schäfer with a series of inciteful emails. The questions included “Did you learn the wrong lesson from the Holocaust?” and “Israeli experts told me you disseminate antisemitism – is that true?”

Schäfer observes:

The accusation of antisemitism is a club that allows one to deal a death blow, and political elements who have an interest in this are using it, without a doubt… The museum staff gradually entered a state of panic. Then of course we also started to do background checks. Increasingly it poisoned the atmosphere and our work.

Another prominent victim of these Jewish organisations tells Haaretz:

Sometimes one thinks, “To go to that conference?”, “To invite this colleague?” Afterward it means that for three weeks, I’ll have to cope with a shitstorm, whereas I need the time for other things that I get paid for as a lecturer. There is a type of “anticipatory obedience” or “prior self-censorship”.

Ringing off the hook

There is nothing unusual about what is happening in Germany. Jewish organisations are stirring up these “shitstorms” – designed to paralyse political and cultural life for anyone who engages in even the mildest criticism of Israel – at the highest levels of government. Don’t believe me? Here is Barack Obama explaining in his recent autobiography his efforts as US president to curb Israel’s expansion of its illegal settlements. Early on, he was warned to back off or face the wrath of the Israel lobby:

Members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as “anti-Israel” (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.

Corbyn, it seems, has found an unlikely ally in former US President Obama. In his new autobiography, he writes of the Israel lobby's power: 'Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as "anti-Israel" (and possibly anti-Semitic)' https://t.co/tKmy8q3Cws

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 26, 2020

When Obama went ahead anyway in 2009 and proposed a modest freeze on Israel’s illegal settlements:

The White House phones started ringing off the hook, as members of my national security team fielded calls from reporters, leaders of American Jewish organizations, prominent supporters, and members of Congress, all wondering why we were picking on Israel … this sort of pressure continued for much of 2009.

He observes further:

The noise orchestrated by Netanyahu had the intended effect of gobbling up our time, putting us on the defensive, and reminding me that normal policy differences with an Israeli prime minister – even one who presided over a fragile coalition government – exacted a political cost that didn’t exist when I dealt with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, or any of our other closest allies.

Doubtless, Obama dare not put down in writing his full thoughts about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the US lobbyists who worked on his behalf. But Obama’s remarks do show that, even a US president, supposedly the single most powerful person on the planet, ended up blanching in the face of this kind of relentless assault. For lesser mortals, the price is likely to be far graver.

No free speech on Israel

It was this same mobilisation of Jewish organisational pressure – orchestrated, as Obama notes, by Israel and its partisans in the US and Europe – that ended up dominating Jeremy Corbyn’s five years as the leader of Britain’s leftwing Labour party, recasting a well-known anti-racism activist almost overnight as an antisemite.

It is the reason why his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, has outsourced part of Labour’s organisational oversight on Jewish and Israel-related matters to the very conservative Board of Deputies of British Jews, as given expression in Starmer’s signing up to the Board’s “10 Pledges”.

It is part of the reason why Starmer recently suspended Corbyn from the party, and then defied the membership’s demands that he be properly reinstated, after Corbyn expressed concerns about the way antisemitism allegations had been “overstated for political reasons” to damage him and Labour. (The rightwing Starmer, it should be noted, was also happy to use antisemitism as a pretext to eradicate the socialist agenda Corbyn had tried to revive in Labour.) It is why Starmer has imposed a blanket ban on constituency parties discussing Corbyn’s suspension. And it is why Labour’s shadow education secretary has joined the ruling Conservative party in threatening to strip universities of their funding if they allow free speech about Israel on campus.

Disturbing to learn from this article that Labour backs threatening funding to universities to bully them into adopting the IHRA re-definition of antisemitism – a definition that protects Israel from criticism and would ban most forms of solidarity with Palestinians on campus

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 8, 2020

Two types of Jews

But the Haaretz article raises another issue critical to understanding how Israel and the Jewish establishment in Europe are politicising antisemitism to protect Israel from criticism. The potential Achilles’ heel of their campaign are Jewish dissidents, those who break with the supposed “Jewish community” line and create a space for others – whether Palestinians or other non-Jews – to criticise Israel. These Jewish dissenters risk serving as a reminder that trenchant criticism of Israel should not result in one being tarred an antisemite.

Leading Palestinians warn: 'The fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalised by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimise the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights' https://t.co/Shu1Z7XYM1

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 1, 2020

Israel and Jewish organisations, however, have made it their task to erode that idea by promoting a distinction – an antisemitic one, at that – between two types of Jews: good Jews (loyal to Israel), and bad Jews (disloyal to Israel).

Haaretz reports that officials in Germany, such as Felix Klein, the country’s antisemitism commissioner, and Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, are being allowed to define not only who is an antisemite, typically using support for Israel as the yardstick, but are also determining who are good Jews – those politically like them – and who are bad Jews – those who disagree with them.

Despite Germany’s horrific recent history of Jew hatred, the German government, local authorities, the media, universities and cultural institutions have been encouraged by figures like Klein and Schuster to hound German Jews, even Israeli Jews living and working in Germany, from the country’s public and cultural space.

When, for example, a group of Israeli Jewish academics in Berlin held a series of online discussions about Zionism last year on the website of their art school, an Israeli reporter soon broke the story of a “scandal” involving boycott supporters receiving funding from the German government. Hours later the art school had pulled down the site, while the German education ministry issued a statement clarifying that it had provided no funding. The Israeli embassy officially declared the discussions held by these Israelis as “antisemitic”, and a German foundation that documents antisemitism added the group to the list of antisemitic incidents it records.

Described as ‘kapos’

So repressive has the cultural and political atmosphere grown in Germany that there has been a small backlash among cultural leaders. Some have dared to publish a letter protesting against the role of Klein, the antisemitism commissioner. Haaretz reports:

The antisemitism czar, the letter charged, is working “in synergy with the Israeli government” in an effort “to discredit and silence opponents of Israel’s policies” and is abetting the “instrumentalization” that undermines the true struggle against antisemitism.

Figures like Klein have been so focused on tackling criticism of Israel from the left, including the Jewish left, that they have barely noted the “acute danger Jews in Germany face due to the surge in far-right antisemitism”, the letter argues.

Again, the same picture can be seen across Europe. In the UK, the opposition Labour party, which should be a safe space for those leading the anti-racism struggle, is purging itself of Jews critical of Israel and using anti-semitism smears against prominent anti-racists, especially from other oppressed minorities.

Extraordinarily, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, one of the founders of Jewish Voice for Labour, which supports Corbyn, recently found herself suspended by Starmer’s Labour. She had just appeared in a moving video in which she explained the ways antisemitism was being used by Jewish organisations to smear Jewish left-wingers like herself as “traitors” and “kapos” – an incendiary term of abuse, as Wimborne-Idrissi points out, that refers to “a Jewish inmate of a concentration camp who collaborated with the [Nazi] authorities, people who collaborated in the annihilation of their own people”.

In suspending her, Starmer effectively endorsed this campaign by the UK’s Jewish establishment of incitement against, and vilification of, leftwing Jews.

The aggressive purge of Jews from the Labour Party under the repressive rule of @Keir_Starmer marches on.

I haven't seen a sustained campaign of overt anti-Semitism quite like the effort of Labour centrists to create lists of Good Jews & Bad Jews and purge the latter. https://t.co/wVwnu47QJP

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2020

Earlier, Marc Wadsworth, a distinguished black anti-racism campaigner, found himself similarly suspended by Labour when he exposed the efforts of Ruth Smeeth, then a Labour MP and a former Jewish official in the Israel lobby group BICOM, to recruit the media to her campaign smearing political opponents on the left as antisemites.

In keeping with the rapid erosion of critical thinking in civil society organisations designed to uphold basic freedoms, Smeeth was recently appointed director of the prestigious free speech organisation Index on Censorship. There she can now work on suppressing criticism of Israel – and attack “bad Jews” – under cover of fighting censorship. In the new, inverted reality, censorship refers not to the smearing and silencing of a “bad Jew” like Wimborne-Idrissi, but to criticism of Israel over its human rights abuses, which supposedly “censors” the identification of “good Jews” with Israel – now often seen as the crime of “causing offence”.

Ok, we've now officially moved from Alice Through the Looking Glass into the Twilight Zone.

Ruth Smeeth, ex-Israel lobbyist for Bicom and a key player in outlawing solidarity for Palestinians in the Labour party, is the new CEO of free speech group Index on Censorship! https://t.co/UmHXbTQETS

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) June 15, 2020

Boy who cried wolf

The Haaretz article helps to contextualise Europe’s current antisemitism “witch-hunt”, which targets anyone who criticises Israel or stands in solidarity with oppressed Palestinians, or associates with such people. It is an expansion of the earlier campaign by the Jewish establishment against “the wrong kind of Jew”, as identified by Finkelstein in The Holocaust Industry. But this time Jewish organisations are playing a much higher-stakes, and more dangerous, political game.

Haaretz rightly fears that the Jewish leadership in Europe is not only silencing ordinary Jews but degrading the meaning – the shock value – of antisemitism through the very act of politicising it. Jewish organisations risk alienating the European left, which has historically stood with them against Jew hatred from the right. European anti-racists suddenly find themselves equated with, and smeared as, fledgling neo-Nazis.

If those who support human rights and demand an end to the oppression of Palestinians find themselves labelled antisemitic, it will become ever harder to distinguish between bogus (weaponised) “antisemitism” on the left and real Jew hatred from the right. The antisemitism smearers – and their fellow travellers like Keir Starmer – are likely to end up suffering their very own “boy who cried wolf” syndrome.

Or as Haaretz notes:

The issue that is bothering the critics of the Bundestag [German parliament] resolution is whether the extension of the concept of antisemitism to encompass criticism of Israel is not actually adversely affecting the battle against antisemitism. The argument is that the ease with which the accusation is leveled could have the effect of eroding the concept itself.

The Antisemitism Industry

It is worth noting the shared features of the new Antisemitism Industry and Finkelstein’s earlier discussions of the Holocaust Industry.

In his book, Finkelstein identifies the “wrong Jews” as people like his mother, who survived a Nazi death camp as the rest of her family perished. These surviving Jews, Finkelstein argues, were valued by the Holocaust Industry only in so far as they served as a promotional tool for the Jewish establishment to accumulate more wealth and cultural and political status. Otherwise, the victims were ignored because the actual Holocaust’s message – in contrast to the Jewish leadership’s representation of it – was universal: that we must oppose and fight all forms of racism because they lead to persecution and genocide.

Instead the Holocaust Industry promoted a particularist, self-interested lesson that the Holocaust proves Jews are uniquely oppressed and that they therefore deserve a unique solution: a state, Israel, that must be given unique leeway by western states to commit crimes in violation of international law. The Holocaust Industry – very much to be distinguished from the real events of the Holocaust – is deeply entwined in, and rationalised by, the perpetuation of the racialist, colonial project of Israel.

In the case of the Antisemitism Industry, the “wrong Jew” surfaces again. This time the witch-hunt targets Jewish leftwingers, Jews critical of Israel, Jews opposed to the occupation, and Jews who support a boycott of the illegal settlements or of Israel itself. Again, the problem with these “bad Jews” is that they allude to a universal lesson, one that says Palestinians have at least as much right to self-determination, to dignity and security, in their historic homeland as Jewish immigrants who fled European persecution.

Keir Starmer needs to listen to the 'proudly pro-Israel' Americans for Peace Now. They reject the IHRA definition for 'weaponising' antisemitism and allowing 'McCarthyite witch hunts' of Israel critics. Only those living in a 'black hole' could support it https://t.co/mNCj0LqCky

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 6, 2020

In contrast to the “bad Jews”, the Antisemitism Industry demands that a particularist conclusion be drawn about Israel – just as a particularist conclusion was earlier drawn by the Holocaust Industry. It says that to deny Jews a state is to leave them defenceless against the eternal virus of antisemitism. In this conception, the Holocaust may be uniquely abhorrent but it is far from unique. Non-Jews, given the right circumstances, are only too capable of carrying out another Holocaust. Jews must therefore always be protected, always on guard, always have their weapons (or in Israel’s case, its nuclear bombs) to hand.

‘Get out of jail’ card

This view, of course, seeks to ignore, or marginalise, other victims of the Holocaust – Romanies, communists, gays – and other kinds of racism. It needs to create a hierarchy of racisms, a competition between them, in which hatred of Jews is at the pinnacle. This is how we arrived at an absurdity: that anti-Zionism – misrepresented as the rejection of a refuge for Jews, rather than the reality that it rejects an ethnic, colonial state oppressing Palestinians – is the same as antisemitism.

Extraordinarily, as the Haaretz article clarifies, German officials are oppressing “bad Jews”, at the instigation of Jewish organisations, to prevent, as they see it, the re-emergence of the far-right and neo-Nazis. The criticisms of Israel made by the “bad Jew” are thereby not just dismissed as ideologically unsound or delusions but become proof that these Jews are colluding with, or at least nourishing, the Jew haters.

In this way, Germany, the UK and much of Europe have come to justify the exclusion of the “wrong Jew” – those who uphold universal principles for the benefit of all – from the public space. Which, of course, is exactly what Israel wants, because, rooted as it is in an ideology of ethnic exclusivity as a “Jewish state”, it necessarily rejects universal ethics.

What we see here is an illustration of a principle at the heart of Israel’s state ideology of Zionism: Israel needs antisemitism. Israel would quite literally have to invent antisemitism if it did not exist.

This is not hyperbole. The idea that the “virus of antisemitism” lies semi-dormant in every non-Jew waiting for a chance to overwhelm its host is the essential rationale for Israel. If the Holocaust was an exceptional historical event, if antisemitism was an ancient racism that in its modern incarnation followed the patterns of prejudice and hatred familiar in all racisms, from anti-black bigotry to Islamophobia, Israel would be not only redundant but an abomination – because it has been set up to dispossess and abuse another group, the Palestinians.

Antisemitism is Israel’s “get out of jail” card. Antisemitism serves to absolve Israel of the racism it structurally embodies and that would be impossible to overlook were Israel deprived of the misdirection weaponised antisemitism provides.

An empty space

The Haaretz article provides a genuine service by not only reminding us that “bad Jews” exist but in coming to their defence – something that European media is no longer willing to do. To defend “bad Jews” like Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is to be contaminated with the same taint of antisemitism that justified the ejection of these Jews from the public space.

Haaretz records the effort of a few brave cultural institutions in Germany to protest, to hold the line, against this new McCarthyism. Their stand may fail. If it does, you may never become aware of it.

The fraudulent 'Labour antisemitism' controversy has empowered the most thuggish elements in the organised British Jewish community.

Case in point: the Campaign Against Antisemitism effectively calls for Professor David Feldman to keep quiet or be sacked. https://t.co/QWvNg84c2E

— JamieSW (@jsternweiner) December 4, 2020

Once, the “bad Jews” have been smeared into silence, as Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them largely have been already; when social media has de-platformed critics of Israel as Jew haters; when the media and political parties enforce this silence so absolutely they no longer need to smear anyone as an antisemite because these “antisemites” have been disappeared; when the Jewish “community” speaks with one voice because its other voices have been eliminated; when the censorship is complete, you will not know it.

There will be no record of what was lost. There will be simply an empty space, a blank slate, where discussions of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians once existed. What you will hear instead is only what Israel and its partisans want you to hear. Your ignorance will be blissfully complete.

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wesleyhill · 3 years

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God’s Blood for All Saints

A homily on Revelation 7:9-17, preached at Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh, on the Feast of All Saints 2020

I would speak to you in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. It’s impossible to open a news site or paper or magazine without seeing words like “division,” “polarization,” and “disagreement.” (Indeed, it’s nearly become a cliché to mention these things.) A columnist for Time magazine named David French recently wrote this: We [Americans] increasingly loathe our political opponents. The United States is in the grip of a phenomenon called “negative polarization.” In plain English this means that a person belongs to their political party not so much because they like their own party but because they hate and fear the other side. Republicans don’t embrace Republican policies so much as they despise Democrats and Democratic policies. Democrats don’t embrace Democratic policies as much as they vote to defend themselves from Republicans. At this point, huge majorities actively dislike their political opponents and significant minorities see them as possessing subhuman characteristics. I think David French is right about our political divisions, but there are so many more instances of division and hostility we could mention. Our country is rife, it seems, with enmity and hatred. Families are fracturing. Churches are splitting. Black lives are being snuffed out with impunity. It’s no wonder that we are hearing worried chatter about the possibility of “civil war.” The Bible is not naïve about these realities we are currently enduring. It is clear-eyed about hostility and violence between individuals and within societal groups. Barely four chapters in, the Bible tells the story of a brother who murders his brother. And only a few chapters after that, it tells the story of humanity’s arrogant attempt to build a stairway to heaven and God’s resulting judgment: “And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth.” Division is God’s judgment. Enmity between people groups is a tragedy and a curse, as the Bible sees it. The main division, though, that we see in the Bible is the division between God’s chosen people Israel and the rest of the nations. In the New Testament, St. Paul describes this division like this: there is “the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” Jews often despised Gentiles as “sinners,” as “dogs,” as the antithesis of everything they were called to be and to do as God’s special people. And Gentiles returned the favor, disdaining Jews and persecuting them, driving them from their homeland, subjecting them to idolatrous demands. There is no human way of breaching such a division between peoples, no way of overcoming the hostility. That is the reason why our reading this morning from the book of Revelation is so breathtaking. Listen to a portion of it again. John, the seer, who writes down his visions, says this about God’s heavenly throne room: “I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” If you know the Bible’s history, its stories of division and hostility and enmity, this is an astonishing passage. Here tribes and people groups that were at war with each other are now joining their voices together to praise God the Father and the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. Here are Jews and Gentiles together in the same choir. Here are Persians and Babylonians, Judeans and Samaritans, Romans and barbarians — and, we might add, Hutus and Tutsis, North Koreans and South Koreans, Israelis and Palestinians. They are all equally robed in fine linen, with no one in a better or worse off position than anyone else. And they are giving thanks to God for rescuing them — that’s what “salvation” means. They are united, they are equally sharers in the same salvation, and they are singing the same song. This is a vision of all the saints of God, the holy ones whom God has redeemed, whom we commemorate on this feast of All Saints. It is a picture of our ultimate destiny. We trust that in the end, by God’s mercy and faithfulness, we will be there among the saints before God and his Christ, and we will spend all eternity adoring God and basking in the light of His life and love. But we need to ask a difficult question here. How is all this talk of togetherness not cheap? How is it not just singing Kumbaya and pronouncing “peace, peace” when there is no peace? How is it not whistling a tune while the world burns? In his latest encyclical, Pope Francis poses the question: “Nowadays, what do certain words like democracy, freedom, justice or unity really mean? They have been bent and shaped to serve as tools for domination, as meaningless tags that can be used to justify any action.” How, then, can we “unbend” a word like unity? How can we make sure it isn’t simply a covert tool to preserve the status quo? One of the striking things about our reading this morning is that it refers to Jesus Christ without using His name. It refers to Him four times as “the Lamb.” And one of those four times is in the longer phrase “the blood of the Lamb.” The saints from every tribe and language who gathered around the throne of God are described as the ones “who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Let’s linger over this image for a moment. It’s a picture drawn from the Old Testament and the story of Israel. On the eve of God’s liberation of his people from their slavery in Egypt, God commands the Israelites to kill a lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts and lintels so that they might be spared the judgment of God in the form of the angel of death. The lamb’s shedding its blood, its yielding up of its life, is what protects Israel and delivers them from destruction. What the seer John’s vision says to us is that our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate and final Passover lamb. Jesus, the Lamb of God, bore the full weight of all the guilt and injustice and sorrow and hatred and immorality that we perpetuate. Jesus is the Lamb of God who shed His blood to bring it all to an end, so that we might be forgiven and set free from sin and death and changed into agents of justice and mercy and healing and virtue. God does not wink at our grievances against one another. God does not tell us all simply to “get along,” sweeping our divisions under the cosmic rug. God does not offer us a cheap “reconciliation” that is built on ignoring the real issues at hand. What God does instead, we might say, is ratchet up the stakes. God tells us through His holy law that the main division, the primary hostility in the world, is not between Jew and Gentile or Black and white or rich and poor or Republican and Democrat. No, the chief division, the tallest and thickest wall of hostility, is between a sinful, angry, rebellious humanity and a righteous, holy, and loving God. St. Paul goes so far as to call us — all of us, every single human being — “God-haters.” We have all turned aside from God’s ways; we have all strayed like lost sheep. And the wonder of God’s good news is this: rather than disown us as hopeless sinners, God agrees to pay Himself the price of our enmity. God endures our hatred and murderous divisions at the cost of His own blood. God overcomes the great division in the universe — the division between God and humanity — at the price of His own death. The great Karl Barth describes this “wondrous exchange” in such powerful terms I feel I must quote him: If we would know what it was that God chose for Himself when He chose fellowship with humanity, then we can answer only that God chose our rejection. He made it His own. He bore it and suffered it with all its most bitter consequences… God chose our suffering (what we as sinners must suffer towards Him and before Him and from Him). God chose it as His own suffering… [God chose] to empty and abase Himself for the sake of [His] chosen ones. Judas who betrays Him He chooses as an apostle. The sentence of Pilate God chooses as a revelation of His judgment on the world. God chooses the cross of Golgotha as His kingly throne. God chooses the tomb in the garden as the scene of His being the living God. That is how God loved the world. That is how from all eternity God’s love was so selfless and genuine… [F]rom all eternity God has determined upon [our] acquittal at His own cost… God has ordained that in [our] place… God Himself should be perishing and abandoned and rejected — the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (translation slightly altered) God Himself has paid the price in His Son Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself. If this greatest and deepest hostility between God and humanity has been overcome, then the lesser divisions between ourselves have also been overcome. We now, whether Jew or Gentile, Black or white, rich or poor, old or young, are called and empowered to live out the unity we have been given in Jesus Christ. The Christian writer Francis Spufford is right when he says, “This is not very comfortable. Here Christianity overspills the separate categories by which we conventionally understand the world now, insisting to an awkward degree on common ground.” Precisely. This is awkward and challenging and costly in all sorts of ways, and it must involve the telling of hard truths about ongoing injustice and the need for repentance, but just this is what we are called to in Christ. We have common ground with each other: we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all broken and in need. And, at the same time, we have been forgiven and declared righteous in God’s sight through the death and resurrection of Christ. In a few moments, all of us here, who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, will come forward to eat and drink the Lamb’s body and blood. “Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, / Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine” (Herbert). The blood of the Lamb that was shed on the cross has become our salvation and sustenance. Hymn #174 in our hymnal is a hymn whose origin dates back to the sixth century. It says much better than I could ever say everything that we are celebrating on this great feast day. As I read its words to you, may they be a preparation and invitation for the feast we are about to share together: At the Lamb’s high feast we sing praise to our victorious King, who has washed us in the tide flowing from his pierced side; praise we him whose love divine gives his sacred blood for wine, gives his body for the feast, Christ the victim, Christ the priest. Where the paschal blood is poured, death’s dark angel sheathes his sword; Israel’s hosts triumphant go through the wave that drowns the foe. Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed, paschal victim, paschal bread; with sincerity and love eat we manna from above. Mighty victim from the sky, Pow’rs of hell beneath thee lie; death is conquered in the fight, thou hast brought us life and light: hymns of glory and of praise, risen Lord, to thee we raise; holy Father, praise to thee, with the Spirit, ever be. Amen.

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ianworthy · 3 years

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Israel vs Palestine

What is really happening? And the bloody solution…

First off, I'm from a small town on the other side of the planet so I don't have any kind of agenda. If you want that B.S. there's lots of options. I realized more than ever over the last year that we are being lied to and manipulated on the daily, which led me down many rabbit holes. I've been "re-educating" myself and started writing in an effort to make some sense of the craziness.

History made shorter…

We should start around when the Ottoman Empire ended for some context, which was in the early 1920s in case you slept through History. If you rely on the ‘news’ you'd think this started a couple of weeks ago. Reality, if you go back far enough no one "owned" anyone, nor the land they occupied or any of the land you’re on right now. Humanity and its entire existence has involved one tribe/country trying to annihilate the other. It never works out, but here we are 200000 years later, give or take 194000 years, depending on whether your belief in Science transcends beyond vaccines and masks. In case you didn't catch that I’m referring to the 6000 year timeline outlined in the Bible. Breaking this down to the core revolves around religion used to create unnecessary animosity, so a relatively small proportion of a population can benefit. Isn't that every war ever?

After the Ottoman collapse, the land that's in dispute aka Israel and Palestine was given to the British. Interesting fact, if you look at all the atrocities and wars currently going on in the world, they are all countries that were "occupied" some way or another by the British or to a lesser extent, the French. Aren't we all curious for Harry's hot take on how he's the product of ruthless colonization of his great grandparents that its impact on global society is ever present? These former colonies are humanitarian disasters enslaved by whichever military coup at the time provides corporations with the most resources. But hey, as long as the Old B of England got the right biscuits to accompany her afternoon Tea that's all that matters, right?

When the British, or most powerful Army at the time called the shots, there was a movement referred to as Zionism that began to gain support from the Jewish people throughout Europe. Zionism basically means the nationalist movement to create a state for the Jews, not the jam by Damien Marley, which is my first exposure to the word Zion. I'm sure this rise was foreshadowing of what was to come. Not to get all conspiracy theory on you but none other than the Rothschilds (wealthiest family in history that created the global money supply that are apparently no longer wealthy) created a proposal that involved divvying up the land for a state in the future, which was after the war. Google the ‘Balfour Declaration’ if you don't believe me. From that point the amount of land occupied by the Palestinians has steadily decreased, according to the last map I checked it was looking pretty bleak. The land was divided not because they are physiologically different but because one group of parents parents parents were raised to believe in Abraham and the other a linkage to Abraham.

Up to the current point…

I'm sure that Jared Kusher's involvement in recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the Trump peace plan of supplying the middle east with more missiles played a supporting role, but more current, Ramadan. The Israelis like all of the World Leaders during the last year have been flexing too much during the lockdowns of COVID, which carried over to yet another Ramadan and evicted some families for further settlements. In addition to the evictions the Israelis broke up a Mosque gathering on Eid, Antifa style. Eid for Muslims is like Christmas for Christians, but instead of getting toys and gifts from Jesus swap, Santa Claus, you get to eat during daylight after a month of starving yourself. This Mosque is Islam's third holiest site, conveniently Jerusalem is Judaism and Christianity holiest site as well, coincidence? To relate, for Christians, if Jerusalem is the holiest, and the Vatican is the Second then probably a Church like Notre Dame would be third, or up there at least. I feel that the MSM coverage of the Notre Dame burning was little different than the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

In retaliation to the Israeli raids, Hamas, the awful military leadership of Palestine launched missiles that had no real threat of reaching their target, being shot down half way by the Rafael Advanced Defense System (Iron Dome) that the US taxpayer supplied batteries for under Obama. In response to a “potential” desert storm attack from Palestine a bunch of USA made Lockheed Martin F-16s equipped with M61 Vulcans and Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles launched an Airstrike killing a bunch of innocent civilians, including kids. According to the death toll I just looked at, it was 241 dead Palestinians, including 5 top Hamas commanders, the media and a bunch of kids to 12 Israelis, no executives, consultants, shareholders or politicians were killed.

The Solution Is…

Two solid states, and no longer decreasing the amount of land occupied by the Palestinians and increasing of Jewish settlements. Palestinians and Jews both have the right to a home. With the help of the greedy boomers (worst leadership class in history) and the media making the next couple of generations hate each other, the rift is super deep. Every war is sustained by the industrial military complex. Lockheed Martin Raptors or Raytheon Heat Seeking Missiles do not magically appear in the Israeli Air Force. The corporations that run the United States are in the business of making money at all costs, in this case innocent lives mostly Palestinians. Humans need to stop providing the means to commit such acts of horror.

It also seems pretty convenient that Benjamin Netanyahu was recently unable to form a new government and is facing criminal corruption charges. Party leaders are always guilty of something, it’s just a matter of if they follow the most profitable line or not. He's obviously not the right person to run Israel, taking it in the extreme right position that’s trendy right now in politics. Extreme either way is no solution to anything, and the sooner Netanyahu goes the better. His father was an Ivy League Professor active in the Zionist movement, who's father was also a Zionists. Point here is people that grow up entitled with an unwavering ideology and no life experience make for horrible leaders. That applies to a lot of world "leaders", even the countries that don't have nonsensical inbred Royals in charge. Any peaceful long-term resolution involves leadership that recognizes that Jews and Palestinians have a right to a home. There also needs to be more fair coverage. I guess it doesn't help that the people running Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Lionsgate, Universal, NBC, The New York Times, The Tribune, Discovery, CNN, Google and Facebook are all Jewish. In Palestine, the Israeli Air Force blew up one of the main media buildings that housed Al Jazeera News and the Associated Press. No press or opinion vs all the colluding press and opinions.

As for Hamas, or any of these military coups that emerge are the result of instability and no leadership for its people, present more of a challenge. Israel can and hopefully soon, will function just fine with new leadership. My entire adult life, the Industrial Military Complex has been at war with the Middle East. The defense contractors that have been defending America from an “evasion” always seem to find some action. It's purely about Oil(Money) and strategic power, but we can leave that for another time. From the West perspective Hamas is a terrorist organization, which they are, but if you're living in Palestine having dinner with your family and a Raytheon heat seeker comes through the window and blows up your family into pieces. Wouldn’t that be a terrorist act? In order to have any kind of sustainable solutions the counties and corporations that pillage these places killing innocent people need to find a way to structure these de facto coups into a legit military that can serve as a National Army. At the end of the day these kids are just fighting for what they think or are forced to think is right. Given the option, and right identity, kids can redirect their frustration and hatred towards a national unity that respects and values its citizens. Not that I have much faith in non-secular rule, but I think as a starting point a country that can be run more or less by its people is better than this apartheid situation that’s going on now.

The ceasefire has been called, which is the necessary short-term solution, however not going to change much going forward. This game is being played with a zero-sum, and I think that they were premeditated targets that were going to be fired at some point in the future regardless of what the spark was. My position at the end of the day is that a handful of countries produce all the weapons used to blow everyone up, so it should start at the source and those who benefit the most. Which obviously isn't the everyday people of Palestine or Israel. The upside, with the media fighting for relevance the corporate narrative is being challenged. We just haven't figured out the right way. I have some thoughts, subscribe or follow please.

#israel vs palestine #news #tumblr #israel #palestine #war #peace #ramadan #mosque #zion

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katabasiss · 4 years

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Hey you reblogged a post supporting BDS but I've heard they're incredibly antisemitic is that not true?

hello! first, the post in question for anyone interested is this [one] by @eyelidsep. Secondly, sorry for the late response anon, I was researching BDS. I don't know much about the movement, or in fact much about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I'm not in a position to say whether or not a movement is antisemitic or not because I am not Jewish and so cannot dictate that. I urge you as such to go and listen to Jewish voices on the matter. In the original post, op cites a link to [this] article posted on 'Jewish Voice for Peace', which is an organisation run by a number of Jewish activists, and that article in particular focuses on Zionism and Israel. It is a brilliant starting point, especially concerning this issue of BDS and antisemitism, so I'd recommend you read that and other accounts from Jewish voices on whether something such as BDS is antisemitic or not. Now going forward, it’s not an excuse, but I am only 19, I do not and never have studied politics, and I am neither Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, or Jewish. If I am ignorant then please just tell me, and I will do my best to correct myself and my knowledge.

As a summary for those unaware, BDS (according to their own website which you can find [here]) stands for 'The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement' regarding Israel's governmental oppression of Palestinians, with the intent to mirror the anti-apartheid movement in order to challenge Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.

According to the New York Times - which I think based off a simple google search is a Right-Wing Newspaper ?? and so should be noted as bias - (in [this] article in particular written in 2019), "many Israelis say the movement's real goal is the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state" and that the BDS movement is largely criticised because it fails the "three-Ds test" - "Does its criticism delegitimise Israel, apply a double standard or demonize it?". It's then noted that critics argue that BDS does all three, and that it "single[s]" out Israel in the treatment of its Arab citizens "when minorities in some other countries suffer far more". This in turn, is rebuked by BDS leaders arguing that "Palestinians fighting for their own rights should not be expected to give equivalent attention to abused minorities elsewhere". BDS claims to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, however, as noted in the article, the BDS do allow for several groups who are "designated by the United States as terrorist organisations" to "fall under its umbrella" and it is also noted that BDS doesn't actually propose a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I don’t know anything honestly about the New York Times, but as a British person speaking from what I've seen in dominating UK media, I know the right-wing Conservative party are notably vocal against BDS, which I have to admit gives me pause, considering their continuous history of racism and antisemitism themselves. Johnson himself claims to be a "proud Zionist" - of which you can see is backed up via his 2017 statement on the centenary of the Balfour declaration [here], in which he essentially appears to be arguing for partition. The UK Government has also never formally recognised the state of Palestine - something which it has received praise for from both the US and Israeli Government. It is possible that BDS contains antisemitic groups that are affiliated with it, however from what I’ve read, it largely seems more anti-Zionist than antisemitic as a movement. It is important to note that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same thing: something that I know UK politics at the very least, struggles to recognise. As numerous articles and academics state, it is possible to stand with Palestine and criticise the Israeli Government for the actions done against Palestinians in the name of nationalism without being antisemitic. Whether BDS has moved beyond that, and verged into actually being antisemitic, I honestly have to admit just isn’t something that I know and can pinpoint. I’ve read through a few responses to ops post that argue that the movement perpetuates antisemitism, seemingly on US University Campuses in particular. But likewise, I’ve read articles and responses arguing the opposite.

(Regarding the UK, for fellow Brits and others looking to do further research on the UK’s role and responses:

This is the official uk.gov petition calling for the Government to recognise Palestine

This contains a series of speeches, declarations, and articles from the UK Government regarding the conflict, and largely appears to be calling for a Two-State Nation

This is various written verbatim reports from both the House of Commons and House of Lords about the topic )

For more on the topic, because all I can do is urge you to do your own research and listen to both Jewish and Palestinian voices on this matter (again, of which I am neither), here are some further links which hopefully will guide you to that:

This is a carrd looking at Palestine and its history, and also contains information about BDS and where to go for further research

This is a website detailing information on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which it talks about numerous topics such as why the US and Israel are so friendly, and likewise provides places to go for further information to understand both Israeli and Palestinian arguments

This is an Aljazeera article which looks at Johnson and the Conservative 'anti-BDS' law, and provides links on further Aljazeera articles looking at BDS. I don't know about how Aljazeera is received in other countries, but in the UK, it can usually be noted as the most centric form of media we have, although it should be noted that it does have a left-leaning bias (but when compared to papers such as the Guardian or Daily Mail which are both very left and right wing respectively, Aljazeera is notably 'centric')

This is a Guardian article looking at the Balfour Declaration (mentioned above) and the UK Governments role in the conflict (as just said in the point above, the Guardian is a left wing British newspaper and so was written with a bias, but provides a very succinct summary with a multitude of embedded links about the topic)

And to finish with, this is a very good twitter thread providing resources, information and petitions/donation links for Palestine

To conclude anon, I have spent the last few hours researching this topic, I have found more arguing in favour of BDS not being an inherently antisemitic movement in itself. However, this is a very complicated issue, I’m not going to know the ins and outs of it. If it is antisemitic then please feel free to forward research and articles to me about it as i have done to you in kind. However ultimately, to reiterate, you are asking the wrong person. I’m not Jewish. I cannot simply state whether the movement is antisemitic or not. I can neither confirm nor deny based off simple research. There are many antisemitic dogwhistles that I am simply unaware of because I am not Jewish, and for all I know there may be said dogwhistles present in the BDS movement and website that I am ignorant of. That being said, I hope the above helps you conduct further research on your own.

#oof ladies this was looonnggg n it is also now 1:30am so a going to bed 🤡🤡#long post #uk #if i wake up to a flood of anon hate tomorrow imma cry akskskJDJSJDJ #nonetheless anon i hope that helps #akskdkdkdk even tho i do feel a bit confronted and accused about a post i didnt even make JSJSsjdjsJSJSJ but i guess thats tumblr lads

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