#it's called the arab league

[beardedmrbean]

Jon Stewart slammed Arab states for not granting citizenship to the Palestinians.

Stewart said the states were "scared shitless" of all the Islamists they helped foster.

"Look, they're all terrified of Hamas and Hezbollah," Stewart told his guest, Christiane Amanpour

The "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart says the Arab nations have a "dirty little secret" that may explain why they aren't granting Palestinian refugees citizenship in their own countries.

Stewart was interviewing the journalist Christiane Amanpour about the Israel-Hamas war when he ripped Arab states such as Jordan over their passiveness regarding the plight of Palestinians.

"Look, they're all terrified of Hamas and Hezbollah," Stewart told Amanpour on Monday's episode.

"The dirty little secret over there is the Islamists that they helped foster through madrasahs and all those other actions, they're scared shitless of," Stewart said. "They just are."

"Yeah, and they would like to see Hamas get a bloody nose. There's no doubt about it," Amanpour said.

It's not just citizenship. In October, when the fighting first broke out, Arab countries such as Jordan and Egypt said they wouldn't be taking in Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said then that taking in Palestinian refugees would risk turning his country into "a base for attacks on Israel."

This, el-Sisi said, meant Israel could decide to "strike Egyptian territory" to defend itself.

This isn't the first time Stewart has opined on geopolitics in the Middle East. In a previous episode of "The Daily Show" that aired in February, Stewart said he'd thought of a solution to the Gaza conflict — forming a Middle Eastern version of NATO.

"Israel stops bombing. Hamas releases the hostages. The Arab countries who claim Palestine is their top priority come in and form a demilitarized zone between Israel and a free Palestinian state," Stewart said in February.

Stewart's proposal was met with pushback from experts, who told Business Insider the plan would be difficult to realize in practice.

Amanpour also told Stewart on Monday that Israel didn't seem keen on resolving the conflict via plans such as creating a DMZ in the region.

"So there've been certain plans floated," Amanpour said. "At the moment, the Israeli government wants none of it."

"It doesn't want the UN. It doesn't want the Arab countries," she added.

#nunyas news #your mena nato exists already #it's called the arab league #put your money where your mouth is #is wild to see coming from stewart #even more so from Amanpour

[ghurab-alzilal]

Dick: Damian, why do you keep trying to stab people?!

Damian: Umi didn't raise a quitter.

Jason: Damn right, I didn't.

Dick: *rubs his frown *

#Being the older brother is very difficult #Isn't that so Dick? #Based on my hc in which Jason took care of Damian during his time in the League of Assassins #''Umi/أمي'' is ''mommy'' in Arabic according to Google Translator BTW #Damian calls Talia “Mother” and Jason “mama/umi/mommy” #This since due to Talia's multiple occupations was Jason the one who took care of him most of the time #Also because he was abysmally more affectionate than she was #I repeat it's my headcanon #You can disagree with me obviously #damian wayne #damianwayne #damian robin #robin damian #dc robin #robin dc #robin #dick grayson #nightwing #jasontodd #jason todd #redhood #red hood #Jason took care of Damian in the LoA #mama jason #you know #my headcanon

[whalehouse1]

“I can’t believe people talk horribly about them. God they treat them awfully just because of how they look.”

“They’re mass murdering terrorists Rebecca.”

#al ghul family #ra’s al ghul #talia al ghul #nyssa al ghul #mara al ghul #I forgot her father’s name but I think it starts with a D #I want to say this is a joke but seriously #it’s like ppl defending Harley even though she killed a basement of orphans they’re bad people #although I’ll be honest I’m just happy when ppl call them Arabic at this point #a cult leader with the ego of Ra’s would not learn Arabic to talk to followers or to blend into the area #or let anyone with a view that didn’t hold him up as the greatest to be allowed into the league #you can call it whatever you want but the league is by all accounts a cult of personality #and I just pictured him having a meeting with Trump and am terrified

[oceanstide]

Damian doesnt see Dick as a brother cause he sees Dick more as a father. Jason, on the other hand is someone Damian sees more of a brother.

#look #if i dont talk about jason or dick #i'll talk about damian #you can pry my jason and damian are brothers from their days in the league from my COLD DEAD HANDS #jason and damian speaking in arabic 🙏 #pls #damian accidentally calls dick 'father' in arabic and jason had a field day teasing the kid #dick just '?????? i dont get it' #hi yes this is just my headcanon #yori being biased #yeah i only like 3 robins

[thoughtlessarse]

The Arab League has called for a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories as well as an international peace conference at a summit in Bahrain that was dominated by the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. It also called for all Palestinian factions to come together under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) banner. In a concluding statement following a meeting in Manama, the 22-member grouping called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented. It also adopted calls by host Bahrain’s King Hamad and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to “convene an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations, to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution”. The meeting of Arab heads of state and government convened in Bahrain more than seven months into the conflict in Gaza that has shaken the wider region and threatened to spread. Having made headway towards establishing ties with Arab states in the last number of years, Israel has become increasingly isolated in recent months due to the level of death and destruction it has wrought in Gaza, and especially over its plans to invade the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

continue reading

#bahrain #arab league #israeli-occupied palestine #calls for #palestine liberation organisation #un peacekeepers #peace conference

[zvaigzdelasas]

South Africa’s genocide case has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies, notably the United States and Europe, and a group of nations known as the Global South — countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Reactions from the Global North to the ICJ case have been mixed. While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others, particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West, have criticized South Africa’s move.

The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting. The Biden administration has rubbished the claim that Israel is committing genocide as “meritless,” while the UK has refused to back South Africa.[...]

As a nation whose history is rooted in overcoming apartheid, South Africa’s move carries symbolic weight that has resonated with other nations in the developing world, many of whom have faced the burden of oppression and colonialism from Western powers.

Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was a staunch supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990: “We align ourselves with the PLO because, akin to our struggle, they advocate for the right of self-determination.”

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while South Africa’s case is a continuation of its long-standing pro-Palestinian sympathies, the countries that have rallied behind it show deeper frustrations by the Global South.

There is “a clear geopolitical context in which many countries from the Global South have been increasingly critical over what they see as a lack of Western pressure on Israel to prevent such a large-scale loss of life in Gaza and its double standards when it comes to international law,” Lovatt told CNN.

Much of the non-Western world opposes the war in Gaza; China has joined the 22-member Arab League in calling for a ceasefire, while several Latin American nations have expelled Israeli diplomats in protest, and several Asian and African countries have joined Muslim and Arab nations in backing South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.

For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account. [...]

Israel sided with the West against Soviet-backed Arab regimes during the Cold War, and Western countries largely view it “as a fellow member of the liberal democratic club,” he added.[...]

“But the strong support of Western governments is increasingly at odds with the attitudes of Western publics which continue to shift away from Israel,” Lovatt said.

Israel has framed the war in Gaza as a clash of civilizations where it is acting as the guardian of Western values that it says are facing an existential threat.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told MSNBC in December. “It’s a war that is intended – really, truly – to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization.”

So far, no Western countries have supported South Africa’s case against Israel.

Among Western states, Germany has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The German government has said it “expressly rejects” allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it plans to intervene as a third party on its behalf at the ICJ.

An opinion poll by German broadcaster ZDF this week however found that 61% of Germans do not consider Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as justified in light of the civilian casualties. Only 25% voiced support for Israel’s offensive.

But it is in Germany’s former colonial territory, Namibia, that it has attracted the fiercest criticism.

The Namibian President Hage Geingob in a statement on Saturday chided Berlin’s decision to reject the ICJ case, accusing it of committing “the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” The statement added that the German government had not yet fully atoned for the killings.

Bangladesh, where up to three million people were killed during the country’s war of independence from Pakistan in the 1970s, has gone a step further to file a declaration of intervention in the ICJ case to back South Africa’s claims, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

A declaration of intervention allows a state that is not party to the proceedings to present its observations to the court.

“With Germany siding with Israel, and Bangladesh and Namibia backing South Africa at the ICJ, the geopolitical divide between the Global South and the West appears to be deepening,” Lovatt said.

Traditionally, the West has wielded significant influence in international affairs, but South Africa’s move signals a growing assertiveness among Global South nations that threatens the status quo, says Adekoya.

“One clear pattern emerging is that the old Western-dominated order is increasingly being challenged, a situation likely to only further intensify as the West loses its once unassailably dominant economic position,” Adekoya said.

19 Jan 24

[starry-bi-sky]

Danielle and Danyal's meeting... very, very quickly goes very sour from, basically, the moment Danny steps into his room and finds Ellie sitting on his bed (strike one) and reading the comic books Tucker introduced him to (strike two). By the time she's looked up to address him, Danny has the door locked, and a hand hovering near the knife hidden under his shirt.

She gets her third strike when Danny, in a voice that could make the mountains tremble, demands to know how she got into his room, and she lies (with uncertainty of her decision growing in her chest) that Jazz let her in. Danny's hand shifts closer to his weapon, and he turns towards her fully, and says that Jazz would never let someone he didn’t know into his room, and who was she.

(Vlad Masters had underprepared Danielle for her meeting with Danny -- not out of any completely direct malicious intent, but he failed to mention just how... 'touchy' Daniel could be -- he failed to mention the scars littering up his arms, unhidden by the hoodie tee he meets Ellie in. He failed to mention that along with those scars, that Danny was visibly lean, capable of doing very real damage without the use of his powers.)

(He tells Ellie that he’s adopted, and that he is observant and clever, but ungrateful and has a bad attitude.)

Her final strike occurs when Ellie, trying to keep her facade of cheeriness, tells him that she’s his third cousin once removed. Immediately, Danny has his dagger pulled out, and Ellie finds herself with the cold metal of a blade pressing against her throat.

Danyal 'A.G' Fenton hasn’t killed since he arrived in Amity Park. At first it was because mother told him to keep a low profile, and killing would do the opposite of that. But, he's been slowly learning from his sister and friends over the years the value of human life. So it's become a combination of keeping his head down, and also that life has value to it.

But. That doesn’t mean he can’t kill, nor is he opposed to doing it if the situation calls for it. It just means that he doesn't do it. And ‘Danielle’ is an unknown in his room, claiming to be family to him, and appearing uncannily similar to him and his family. Either someone hired her and she was trying to pass herself off as a relative to him because that someone realized Danny was the biggest threat, or, his false death has been compromised, his mother was unable to tell him, and the league was aware he was alive.

No matter how he looks at it, this Danielle was a threat to him, his sister, his friends, to Damian, and to the Drs. Fenton. Danyal Fenton doesn't kill, but he has no problems doing so.

(Ellie, pinned under Danny’s knee and the blade to her neck, is too terrified to think of phasing out of his hold. Not that it would help, he would just chase after her.)

“You have broken into my home, dared to lie to my face, and when I demanded to know the truth, you dared lie to me again." Danny's scowl could cower even Skulker, his glacier blue eyes burning. "Your continual breath has been a favor from me, that I have graciously allowed, from the moment you entered my room, dahkil."

"So I will ask one more time," he hisses, "who. are. you."

Danielle, only a few months old, unprepared for the ice storm that is "Daniel" Fenton, and his clone in only flesh and blood, and not memories, immediately breaks. And tells him that she was his clone, that Vlad sent her to come capture him, and to please not kill her.

Danny's face twists with anger, Ellie thinks he's going to kill her anyways. Instead, he withdraws his knife and gets off her, stringing out curses in Arabic as he sheathes his weapon back into its hiding place faster than Ellie can blink.

He switches to English as she is collecting her bearings (and contemplating fleeing), and Danny paces the room like a tiger in a cage. "--of course that wretched, arrogant, peacocking little ingrate would do something so infuriating. I should have driven my sword into the shrivel of his heart when I had the chance--"

Ellie, for a moment, thinks of leaving while he is distracted. And starts to slowly creep away. But Danny notices instantly, and whirls on her. His too-bright eyes bore into her head: "Where do you think you're going."

"...I'm leaving."

And Danny scoffs at her, "Why? So you can fly back to Masters and tell him that you failed to capture me, and that I know that he cloned me?" He says, and Ellie remains silent -- that's exactly what she was going to do. "He will destroy you within seconds."

Of course, Ellie rears back in offense, and she finds the footing to glare at him. "He would not! He's my dad, he loves me!"

Danny gets in her face, glowering back with an equal intensity. "He does not." He snaps, "Vlad Masters has not a soul in his body nor a heart in his chest. He would sooner cut off the hand that helps him stand, than to take it along with him."

"If you're really made of my blood, then I will teach you only this: we bow not our heads nor our hearts to anyone." Danny's too-blue eyes narrow, and his voice dips into a hiss, "Especially not to a conniving snake like Masters. Your heart: cut it off, or cut it out. He will sooner leave you to bleed."

Then, he unlocks the door and drags her out before she has much time to act. And as he drags her down the hall he shoots Sam and Tucker a text, and they meet up at Nasty Burger. Ellie is a spitfire, but Danny has her too intimidated to leave.

"This is Danielle," he tells them bluntly as he corners her into the booth, "she's my clone. Masters created her."

Ellie is with them for a week, and somehow throughout that time, Danny manages to actually get her to like him throughout that time. He's callous, blunt, and full of sharp edges that you can cut yourself on. But when he's not spitting venom, he's fretting.

When he drags her back to the house after being with Sam and Tucker, he pulls her to Jazz's room and opens the door to tell her the same thing. "This is Danielle." He says upon abruptly opening the door, interrupting Jazz's studying as he pulls Ellie inside. "She is my clone, Masters created her. She needs clothes."

Then he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Ellie, in that moment, thinks that now's her chance to flee. But Jazz then squeals, and she is trapped in new arms, shaken around by Jazz Fenton, excited for a sister.

(Ellie finds herself complaining to Jazz that night, shoved into old pajamas. She's in utter disbelief that Jazz could care about a jerk like Danny.)

("He's rough around the edges, but Danny does care." Jazz tells her, combing through her hair with her fingers. "We've been working on it ever since he joined the family, but Danny warms up slowly. He's usually less stoney; I think your arrival spooked him.")

("Spooked him?" Ellie repeats, she doesn't believe it at all. "He has a funny way of showing it, he threatened to kill me!" And she turns around just in time to see Jazz's press her lips into a line.)

("He's... very protective. He'll deny if you ask him, but he worries a lot." Jazz's fingers find her hair again. "What I do know for certain though, is that he wouldn't have kept you here if he wasn't worried about you at least a little bit.")

(Ellie doubts it.)

But Ellie is indeed there for a week, and the day after her initially rocky introduction with Danny, he is a little bit kinder to her. Still kinda a bitch, but he's less harsh to her, if... almost uncomfortable around her. Flighty, kinda.

Whenever she gets mouthy at him though, he looks oddly smug about it and, infuriatingly enough, praises her attitude. He is very, very annoying. And still kinda terrifying. But hearing him shout insults via puns at someone during a ghost fight that happens that week lessens the intimidating factor,,, a little bit.

Things go about,,,, relatively,,,, similar to canon. In the sense that it ends with Ellie defecting from Vlad because she finds out that Danny was right and that Vlad didn't actually care about her. (And that Jazz had been right too; Danny, in his weird, mean way, had been worried about her as well)

Danny looks out of his depth as she talks about how he was right, and he cuts her off with a vaguely uncomfortable clearing of his throat. And gives her the most awkward, but genuine apology he can muster.

"I should've used more tact when telling you about Masters, and I... apologize for threatening you when we met. I was..." he makes a face like he's sucked on a particularly sour lemon, "worried. First about my family, and then later about you."

(Ellie will be damned: Jazz was right)

Before Ellie leaves, Danny puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her: "I wasn't kidding about what I said to you when we first met: you are of my blood, and as such, you do not bow your head nor your heart to anyone."

Ellie looks at him, thinks about the last week, and smiles like she's caught him in a trap. "What about Sam and Tucker then? And Jazz?"

Danny smiles, it's awkward and tilted, like his face isn't used to the gesture. "We bow not our hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't share."

#danny speaks in formal english when he's pissed. he goes full on 'i shall eat his heart in the marketplace' levels of formal #not quite a ficlet not quite a post talking about the idea but a secret third option: its both of these at the same time #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #danyal al ghul au #dc x dp crossover #dc x dp au #dpxdc au #dcdp #dpdc au #dp dc crossover #older brother danny #danny is an asshole with a heart of gold #the writing feels all over the place but since its not a fic i dont feel that self conscious about it lol. very much spitballing here #morally gray danny fenton #poc danny fenton #look ellie MIGHt - and thats a big if - have gotten away with the cousin lie if it weren't for the fact that she's danny's clone #danny who is not white nor remotely white-passing in this au. she might have gotten away if he had been and she claimed she was #from jack's side of the family. but alas. danny is adopted. the fentons are whiter than sunscreen. and danny is not. #dani and danny's meeting in danyal al ghul aus have the potenial of being IMMEDIATE dumpster fires which is very funny to me #on the basis of if danny knows he's adopted or not and if dani claims to be related directly to him or to jack. #dani: im your third cousin once removed :) #danny. is adopted: i kNOW YOU LYING. CUZ YO LIPS ARE MOVING #i got fanart for this au on haunting heroes discord and it kickstarted my thoughts about danyal again. they gave him the BATWING EYEBROWS #ellie has the batwing eyebrows too that was the mind killer thats what fucked her over /j. those are UNIQUELY BRUCE WAYNE BROWS FOLKS #fuck i wish tumblr told us on laptop when we run out of tags because i just lost like 4 of them. good thing i got screenies those were FUNN

[autismserenity]

Someone on Reddit made the mistake of saying, "Teach me how this conflict came about" where I could see it.

Let me teach you too.

The common perception is that Jews came out of nowhere, stole Palestinian homes and kicked Palestinians out of them, and then bombed them for 75 years, until they finally rebelled in the form of Hamas invading Israel and massacring 22 towns in one day.

The historical reality is that Jews have lived there continuously for at least 3500 years.

There are areas, like Meggido iirc, with archeological evidence of continuous habitation for 7,000 years, but Jewish culture as we recognize it today didn't develop until probably halfway through that.

Ethnic Jews are the indigenous people of this area.

Indigeneity means a group was originally there, before any colonization happened, and that it has retained a cultural connection to the land. History plus culture.

That's what Jews have: even when the diaspora became larger than the number of Jews in Israel, the yearning to return to that homeland was a daily part of Jewish prayer and ritual.

The Jewish community in Israel was crushed pretty violently by the Roman Empire in 135 CE, but it was still substantial, sometimes even the majority population there, for almost a thousand years.

The 600s CE brought the advent of Islam and the Arab Empire, expanding out from Saudi Arabia into Israel and beyond. It was largely a region where Jews were second-class citizens. But it was still WAY better than the way Christian Europe treated Jews.

From the 700s-900s, the area saw repeated civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes.

Then the Crusades came, with waves of Christians making "pilgrimages to the Holy Land" and trying to conquer it from Muslims and Jews, who they slaughtered and enslaved.

Israel became pretty well depopulated after all that. It was a very rough time to live there. (And for the curious, I'm calling it Israel because that's what it had been for centuries, until the Romans erased the name and the country.)

By the 1800s, the TOTAL population of what's now Israel and Palestine had varied from 150,000 - 275,000 for centuries. It was very rural, very sparsely populated, on top of being mostly desert.

In the 1880s, Jews started buying land and moving back to their indigenous homeland. As tends to happen, immigration brought new projects and opportunities, which led to more immigration - not only from Jews, but from the Arab world as well.

Unfortunately, there was an antisemitic minority spearheaded by Amin al-Husseini. Who was very well-connected, rich, and from a politically powerful family.

Al-Husseini had enthusiastically participated in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Then the Empire fell in World War One, and the League of Nations had to figure out what to do with its land.

Mostly, if an area was essentially operating as a country (e.g. Turkey), the League of Nations let it be one. In areas that weren't ready for self-rule, it appointed France or Britain to help them get there.

In recognition of the increased Jewish population in their traditional, indigenous homeland, it declared that that homeland would again become Israel.

As in, the region was casually called Palestine because that was the lay term for "the Holy Land." It had not been a country since Israel was stamped out; only a region of a series of different empires. And the Mandate For Palestine said it was establishing "a national home of the Jewish people" there, in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

Britain was appointed to help the Arab and Jewish communities there develop systems of self-government, and then to work together to govern the region overall.

At least, that was the plan.

Al-Husseini, who was deeply antisemitic, did not like this plan.

And, extra-unfortunately, the British response to al-Husseini inciting violent anti-Jewish riots was to put him in a leadership role over Arab Palestine.

They thought it would calm him down and perhaps satisfy him.

They were very wrong.

He went on to become a huge Hitler fanboy, and then a Nazi war criminal. He co-created the Muslim Brotherhood - which Hamas is part of - with fellow fascist fanboy Hassan al-Banna.

He got Nazi Party funding for armed Muslim Brotherhood militias to attack Jews and the Brits in the late 30s, convincing Britain to agree to limit Jewish immigration at the time when it was most desperately needed.

He started using the militias again in 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the mandated land into a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian one.

Al-Husseini wouldn't stand for a two-state solution. He was determined to tolerate no more than the subdued, small Jewish minority of second-class citizens that he remembered from his childhood.

As armed militias increasingly ran riot, the Arab middle and upper classes increasingly left. About 100,000 left the country before May 1948, when Britain was to pull out, leaving Israel and Palestine to declare their independence.

The surrounding nations didn't want war. They largely accepted the two-state solution.

But al-Husseini lobbied HARD. And by mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood to provide "destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation," he got the Arab League nations to agree to invade, en masse, as soon as Britain left.

About 600,000 Arabs fled to those countries during the ensuing war.

Jews couldn't seek refuge there; in fact, most of those countries either exiled their Jews directly, confiscating their property first, or else made Jewish life unlivable and exploited them for underpaid or slave labor for years first.

By the time the smoke cleared and a peace treaty was signed, most of the Arab Palestinian community had fled; there was no Arab Palestinian leadership; many of the refugees' homes and businesses had left had been destroyed in the war; and Israel had been flooded with nearly a million refugees from the Arab League countries and the Holocaust - even more people than had fled the war.

That was the Nakba. The one that gets portrayed as "750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled!" in the hope that you'll assume they were expelled en masse, their beautiful intact homes all stolen.

Egypt had taken what's now the Gaza Strip in that war, and Jordan took what's now the West Bank - expelling or killing all the Jews in it first.

(Ironically, Jordan was originally supposed to be part of Israel. Britain, inexplicably, cut off what would have been 75% of its land to create Jordan.

Even more inexplicably, nobody ever talks about it. I've never seen anyone complain that Jordan was stolen from Palestinians. Possibly because Jordan is also the only country that gave Palestinian refugees full citizenship, and it's about half Palestinian now.

Israel is nearly 25% Arab Palestinians with full citizenship and equal rights, so it's not all that different -- but the fundamental difference of living in a country where the majority is Jewish, not Muslim, probably runs pretty deep.)

Anyway: that's why Palestine is Gaza and the West Bank, rather than being some contiguous chunk of land. Or being the land set aside by the U.N. in 1947.

Because Arab countries took that land in 1948, and treated them as essentially separate for 20 years.

Israel got them back, along with the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, in the next war: 1967, when Egypt committed an act of war by taking control of the waterways and barring Israel from them. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

Israel tried to give back the Gaza Strip at the same time. Egypt refused.

Palestine finally declared independence in 1988.

But Hamas formed at about the same time. Probably in response, in fact. Hamas is fundamentally opposed to peace negotiations with Israel.

Again: Hamas is part of a group founded by Nazis.

Hamas has its own charter. It explains that Jews are "the enemy," because they control the drug trade, have been behind every major war, control the media, control the United Nations, etc. Basic Nazi rhetoric.

It has gotten adept at masking that rhetoric for the West. But to friendlier audiences, its leaders have consistently said things like, "People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels.  Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels."

(Palestinians were outraged by this speech. Palestinians, by and large, absolutely loathe Hamas.

It's just that it's not the same to say that to locals, as it is to say it where major global powers who oppose this crap can hear you.)

Hamas has stated from the beginning that its mission is to violently destroy Israel and take over the land.

It has received $100M in military funding annually, from Iran, for several years. Because Iran has been building a network of fascist, antisemitic groups across the Middle East, in a blatant attempt to control more and more of it: Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen.

Iran has been run by a very far-right, deeply antisemitic dictatorship for decades now, which pretty openly wants to take down both Israel and the U.S.

Last year, Iran increased Hamas's funding to $350M.

The "proof of concept" invasion of Israel that Hamas pulled off on October 7th more than justifies a much bigger investment.

Hamas has publicly stated its intention to attack "again and again and again," until Israel has been violently destroyed.

That is how this conflict came about.

A Nazi group seized power in Gaza in 2007 by violently kicking the Palestinian government out, and began running it as a dictatorship, using it to build money and power in preparations for exactly this.

And people find it shockingly easy to believe its own hype about being "the Palestinian resistance."

As well as its propaganda that Israel is not actually targeting Hamas: it's just using a literal Nazi invasion and massacre as an excuse to randomly commit genocide of the fraction of Palestine it physically left 20 years ago.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting HAMAS throughout the war.

#free palestine #free gaza from hamas #free everyone from hamas it's awful #we want to live movement #free gazans group #center the people directly affected #Ironically it's almost exclusively zionists who know about and support the actual activists in Palestine #because Zionism is a real Jewish term for self-determination not something you can redefine to demonize us #and the pro-hamas movement is inherently both antisemitic and anti-Palestinian #wall of words #jumblr #jewish history #palestinian history

[bet-on-me-13]

Misunderstandings really really suck Pt.2

Edit: Part 1 link since it took me all day to find it again

Damian had a Rival.

Scratch that, Damian had a Nemesis in the form of a girl in his class by the name of Danielle Nightingale. Although she insisted she be called "Ellie" instead.

The trouble started on the first day of classes. Damain had just arrived at the Manor recently, and unfortunately his father had decided that he needed to go to School in order to keep up a Civilian charade. So, he had been sent to Gotham Metro Academy, a rather prestigious school that he could not give less of a fuck about. Why would he willingly subject himself to the borderline preschool teachings of a Civilian school when the League had taught him everything he needed to know years ago? Of course, that was his attitude before he met her.

Danielle was in the seat right next to him for most of his classes, and at first they had not interacted all that much. She had attempted a friendly greeting at first, but Damian had quickly shut her down in a rather rude way.

It wasn't until the next time they took a Science Test together that they really regarded one another. It was supposed to be a test to see where their education level was, but Damian had decided he would Ace the test and move onto some more interesting stuff.

He finished his test within a few minutes and got up to turn it in, at the same time Danielle did. He looked over at her and saw that she was just as surprised to see him getting up. Later on, they learned that they were the top 2 scorers in the class by a wide margin. Danielle had gotten a 100%, while Damian had gotten a 99%. She gave him a smug Smirk, and that was when he decided that he would best her no matter the cost.

From there they made every class a contest. Always on opposite sides for PE, always competing for the best scores on Tests, they even made getting to the cafeteria a race.

Damain found that he genuinely enjoyed competing with her, since she was the only one who could keep up. And they could never decide on a good winner. Danielle always beat him in Science Classes, but Damian was the better in the Math Classes, and somehow they always tied in PE no matter the sport they played.

And after a while, they began to talk with eachother about stuff aside from their little contests. He learned that she was going to the school on a Scholarship, which was why she always tried her best to excel in exams. He learned that her older brother owned a small Shop a few blocks from Park Row, which he used to provide for the both of them to live comfortably. He also learned that he enjoyed his conversations with her as much as he enjoyed competing with her, it was genuinely fun to just sit down and talk to her once in a while.

He finally decided that they had grown from Rivalry to full on Friendship about halfway through their first year of school together. He had found her backed into a corner by some snobby rich kids who didn't like that a "street rat" was getting better grades than them so often. To her credit, she was holding back her emotions much better than he would have.

When he tried to help her, they turned on him. They began mocking his status as a bastard child, calling his mother many horrible names, and even began to make racist remarks about his Arabic heritage. He didn't even get the chance to retort before one of the kids was on his back clutching his broken nose, Ellie standing next to him with her arm extended. The other one soon followed, this time by Damian's hand.

Of course the incident got them both detention, but from then on he knew she was his friend.

...

Damian began noticing something was off about Ellie about 1 year after meeting her. Her 12th birthday had just passed, and the new school year was just beginning, and for some reason she was much competitive than usual. She didn't seem to think he had noticed, but she hadn't tried this hard to beat him since they had first met. She wasn't talking to him as much, distancing her self more and more as the weeks went on.

It finally came to ahead during a game of Dodgeball in their PE class. She had been competing with him relentlessly, but even then she wasn't preforming up to her usual level. He could see she was tired, exhausted even, from such a simple exercise, sweat pouring from her skin in buckets. Which didn't make any sense, since he had seen her do much more intense things without breaking a sweat.

He also knew that she was a Metahuman, and therefore had more stamina than a normal person. (She had told him over the summer, after deciding that she trusted him with her biggest secret)

Before the game had even ended, he was asking her to just tell him what was wrong. She denied that anything was wrong, right up until she collapsed in the middle of the game, unconscious.

He had immediately rushed her to the Nurses Office, where she finally opened up about what had been disturbing her so much recently.

She was dying.

She had a genetic disease, linked back to her Meta-Human abilities, that was slowly killing her. And they were running out of the medication needed to treat it.

She took out what looked like an Epi-Pen and injected herself with the medication inside. Damain could instantly see the color come back to her skin, her muscles got less tense, and her breath became more steady.

"That was one of our remaining Doses", she explained, "This dose will last me about a month. We have enough left to last until December, but after that there won't be anymore left. It was only ever produced by a single pair of scientists out of state, and they died in a car accident a few years ago."

Damian is extremely worried, his best friend is dying and he doesn't know how to help. He tried to offer his dad's help, but she refuses.

"I'm a Metahuman, if a person as high profile as your dad stepped in to help, it would draw attention to me. And Gotham is way to dangerous for a known Metahuman to live, especially a 12 yr old one." She says, "And besides, my brother says he's working on replicating it. I trust him, and he's been researching it relentlessly."

It takes a while, but Damian agrees to let her take care of this.

Over the next few months, Damian and Ellie act as if everything is normal. From time to time they will talk about it, but they largely try to ignore it for the most part.

Sometimes Ellie will joke about it though.

"At my Funeral, make sure they don't lie. I was a fucking Goddess of Chaos and I won't have them defiling my name by spouting out that whole 'heaven has another angel' bullcrap."

"In my Will, I'm gonna set up a whole Indiana Jones Style Quest for you to follow before you can claim anything of mine. You gotta work for it."

"Don't worry, I won't haunt you after I die. I'll be too busy conquering the Afterlife to manage anything like that!"

"At my Funeral, I want you to make a speech that's just 'this is so sad. Alexa play despacito'. Nothing else, just that."

It goes on like this for months, and both of them have mostly accepted that their time together has a potential time limit, so they try to make the most out of it.

Damian even forces her to formally introduce her brother, an older guy named Danny, who is very enthusiastic to meet him. Apparently Ellie had trouble making friends in her last school, and he was just so happy she had found such a good friend in the last year.

They even invited him to visit whenever he wanted. Sometimes he would even stay the night, sleeping in Danny's room while Danny took the couch.

He even found the Lab, or makeshift lab, that Danny had made to try and find a way to replicate the Medicine for Ellie. Damian had to admit, Danny was a certified Genius, and he had Hope that Danny would find a way to save Ellie soon.

He asks for an explanation on the Medicine, and Danny explains it as "Ellie's powers draw on a type energy called Ecto, which helps keep her body stable. Unfortunately, she has a birth defect that means she can't absorb it faster than she uses it up naturally. What the Medicine does is bolster the amount she already has in her system to make it more potent and last longer."

He even shows Damian his notes, and at his insisting he begins teaching Damian about Ectoplasm and the science behind it all.

Damian begins coming over on the weekends to hang out with Ellie and check up on the progress of the Medicine. He tells the rest of his family that he just wants to get a little more comfortable in his Civilian Life, and is indulging in his urge to actually be a kid. (They still don't know about Ellie's situation, cause she asked him not to tell anyone.)

...

A few months later, Jason comes back from patrol and informs the rest of the team that he just found a Scienist creating a Super Soldier Serum in the middle of Gotham.

Unfortunately, Damian was staying over at Ellie's house for the weekend, and didn't get the memo.

#Dp x dc #Dpxdc #Danny Phantom #DC #Dcu #Danny own a Store #Danny in Gotham #Mad Scientist Danny #Angst #Damian and Ellie are best friends #Their relationship beyond that is up to you #Ellie goes to Gotham Academy #Ecto Dejecto #Misunderstandings #The Bat Family are about to mess up big time #If only Damian had been there #But alas he was having a sleepover with his best friend #Jon is kinda jealous #But also excited for Damian #Idk if they would bring him along for the sleep over #Potentially Angsty Ending #So many options #Dead Fenton Parents #Kind of a last minute decision

[dostoyevsky-official]

People who support the attacks on Gaza seem free to say the most depraved and racist things possible about Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians without facing any consequences whatsoever. [...] The proliferation of dehumanizing language about Muslims and Palestinians has had violent consequences: there has been a rise in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes across the US, including reported offenses on college campuses. There has also been a rise in antisemitism: a very real problem that shouldn’t be minimized or tolerated. What also shouldn’t be tolerated are the dangerous attempts by pro-Israel extremists to label any remotely pro-Palestinian speech, or any criticism of Israel’s actions, as automatically antisemitic. Conflating the actions of the Israeli state with the Jewish people is dangerous and wrong, and yet this is precisely what many pro-Israel voices are doing in an attempt to suppress any support of Palestine. And this strategy is working. In the current climate, a US politician can call for Gaza to be “nuked” without being censured. Dare to do so much as wear a keffiyeh (a traditional Palestinian scarf) on a college campus, however, and pro-Israel voices will go on primetime television and accuse you of being a Nazi. Jonathan Greenblatt, the executive director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), recently told Morning Joe (and faced no pushback from the hosts) that wearing a keffiyeh was the same as wearing a swastika. [...] What’s left out of these nonstop discussions of campus safety is this: there isn’t a single safe campus left in Gaza. Israel, with the unconditional aid of the US, has destroyed almost every kindergarten, school, and university in Gaza. It has killed at least 100 Palestinian academics. It has decimated every cultural institution. There are over 13,000 dead children in Gaza who will never have the opportunity of an education. You should not be able to talk about campus safety without mentioning the fact that, thanks to US-backed Israeli air strikes, every campus in Gaza is now a graveyard.

(x)

[capybaracorn]

Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war

Some have been jailed for refusing to serve in the armed forces while others face threats and harassment from right-wing groups.

An antiwar protest in Tel Aviv during municipal elections [Mat Nashed/Al Jazeera]

(9 Mar 2024)

Tel Aviv/West Jerusalem – In 2015, Maya, a Jewish Israeli, travelled to Greece to help Syrian refugees. At the time, she was an exchange student in Germany and she had been deeply moved by the pictures she saw of desperate people arriving there in small boats.

That was where she met Palestinians who had been born in Syria after their parents and grandparents fled there during the founding of her own country in 1948.

They told her about the Nakba – or “catastrophe” – in which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the newly established Israel. Maya, 33, who had been taught that her country was born through “an independence war” against hostile Arab neighbours, decided that she needed to “unlearn” what she had learned.

“I never heard about the right of return, or Palestinian refugees,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I had to get out of Israel to start learning about Israel. It was the only way I could puncture holes in what I was taught.”

Maya, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of reprisals, is one of a small number of Israeli Jewish activists who identify as “anti-Zionists” or “non-Zionists”.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israeli group with a stated mission of fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in the United States, Zionism means supporting a Jewish state established for the protection of Jews worldwide.

However, many anti-Zionists like Maya and the people she works with view Zionism as a Jewish supremacist movement which has ethnically cleansed most of historic Palestine and systematically discriminates against the Palestinians who remain, either as citizens of Israel or residents of the occupied territories.

But since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and nearly 250 taken captive, Israeli anti-Zionists have been accused of treason for speaking about Palestinian human rights.

Many have called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to stop what they view as collective punishment and genocide of the Palestinian people.

“I think [anti-Zionists] always claim that Jewish supremacy is not the answer and it is not the answer to the [October 7] killings,” Maya said.

“Israelis don’t understand how the Palestinian story is all about the Nakba, refugees and the right of return. If we are not able to deal with that then we are not going anywhere.”

Perceived as ‘traitors’

Since October 7, Israeli anti-Zionists have described living in a hostile political and social environment. Many say the police have violently cracked down on anti-war protests, while others have received threats from far-right-wing Israelis.

Roee, who, like Maya, did not give his last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli society or authorities, is also a Jewish Israeli activist. In October last year, he attended a small demonstration of a couple of dozen people a few days after Israel began bombing Gaza. The demonstrators were calling on Hamas to free all Israeli captives and on Israel to stop the war.

“The police pushed all of us [out] violently in just two minutes,” Roee, 28, told Al Jazeera at a cafe in West Jerusalem.

Weeks later, Roee and his friend, Noa, who also did not want her full name to be revealed, attended another silent demonstration outside a police station in Jerusalem. They put tape over their mouths to denounce the sweeping arrests of Palestinian citizens of Israel who had also called for an end to the war on Gaza.

But again, police chased down the Israeli protesters and beat them with batons.

“I think it is very clear that the police recognise us. It doesn’t matter the signs we hold. They know us. They know we are leftists and that we are ‘traitors’ or whatever they call us,” Noa told Al Jazeera.

Many Israeli antiwar activists have also been smeared or “doxxed” – a term given to people whose identities and addresses are made known on social media by those hoping to intimidate them into silence.

Maya said that a right-wing activist had accused her romantic partner of cooperating with Hamas by informing them of the whereabouts of Israeli positions in Gaza. The activist published photos of her partner on Instagram with captions detailing the fabricated accusations.

“We were afraid that our address would be exposed, but luckily it wasn’t. Even before October 7, [these groups of extreme right-wing people] tried to obtain addresses of people to ‘dox’ them and taunt them. Some of our friends had to leave their apartments. That was our main worry,” Maya said.

Conscientious objectors

While most Israelis are required to enlist in the army after high school, antiwar activists have refused to take part in their country’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, where raids and arrests have been intensified since October, or in the war on Gaza. Two young Israelis who publicly refused to join the army are now serving short sentences in military prison.

Einat Gerlitz, a “non-Zionist” and a member of Mesarvot, a non-profit organisation providing social and legal support to Israeli conscientious objectors, said that more people may have refused military service since the war on Gaza began, because not everyone goes public.

“The army does not release the numbers … because the army’s interest is to make sure [refusing service] is not a topic spoken about in the public sphere. The government and army work really hard to glorify army service, so they want minimal attention on conscientious objectors,” the 20-year-old said.

Einat Gerlitz is a 20-year-old peace activist and a conscientious objector. She spoke about her peace activism in a cafe in Tel Aviv [Al Jazeera/Mat Nashed]

Gerlitz added that the October 7 attack did not make her reconsider her peace activism, but she is very concerned for friends and peers who were quickly deployed to Gaza.

“I was worried for them, but I was also worried about some of the commands that they may need to fulfil,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to her worries that soldiers may be ordered to commit atrocities or violate international law.

Over the past five months, Israeli soldiers have razed entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, bombed universities, hospitals and places of worship, and shot at crowds of starving Palestinians lining up for food aid.

Rights groups say that these attacks amount to war crimes and may collectively amount to a campaign of genocide.

‘We need greater empathy’

Many anti-Zionist Israelis say that their aim is to make fellow Israelis recognise the humanity of the Palestinians.

However, they say it has been difficult to counter the messaging of Israeli politicians, some of whom have called Palestinians in Gaza “animals”, “subhuman” or “barbarians” in order to rally support for the war. Some of these statements were singled out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which issued an emergency order in January on the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa.

Israeli society also expresses little empathy for Palestinians in Gaza, several Israeli activists told Al Jazeera. They explained they believe this is partly due to Israeli media rarely reporting on the army’s probable war crimes, nor on the catastrophic humanitarian crisis brought on by Israel’s war.

Maya recalls going to a demonstration in Tel Aviv to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in late October. About 50 people attended, with many holding up photos of children killed by the Israeli army. But when Israeli children saw the photos, they claimed they were fake.

“[Young Israeli kids] pointed at a photo of a father holding a dead baby in Gaza and said, ‘How can you believe this? It’s not real. He is acting’,” Maya said.

“[Another child] pointed to a different dead baby and said, ‘This is a doll’.”

Addam, an anti-Zionist Israeli and a graffiti artist, who did not disclose his full name, was also at the protest. He said that an Israeli woman called the demonstrators “traitors” and said that her own brother had died fighting for Israel in Gaza.

While Addam was heartbroken to hear about her loss, he said he believes that the government is weaponising Israeli grief to commit atrocities in Gaza. He added that he tries to humanise Palestinians through his art and spoke about one project where he photographed the physical scars that Palestinians and Israelis bore from past conflicts.

“Once there is empathy, it creates an entirely different foundation to begin engaging in reality,” he told Al Jazeera. “It should be a given that people in Gaza are human beings with families, dreams and jobs.

“But, for many factors, there is this ongoing process [in Israel] of dehumanising Palestinians.”

#israel #conscientious objector #anti zionisim #palestine #free palestine #save palestine #save gaza #free gaza #gaza #world news #current events #israeli apartheid #israel palestine conflict #war on gaza #gaza strip #gaza genocide #gazaunderattack #palestine genocide #genocide #palestinian genocide #stop the genocide #idf #israeli politics

[stil-lindigo]

Hey, I just wanted to share something with you, as someone who's so invested in the Palestine conflict, I hope it might inspire hope, even a little.

I was born and live in Egypt, a very conservative and religious country. These days I deleted my Tiktok and rarely ever use Twitter, as I'm in my senior year, and seeing the constant deaths and torture was getting into me so much that I couldn't even eat or drink properly, nevertheless properly study. I honestly am not proud of myself for doing so, but there's comfort in the fact Egypt is so Pro-Palestine. There's a lot to be done, and even for people like me, we can help.

My school has been donating food, clothes and blankets to Palestine. The McDonald's in here have been trying to distance themselves, claiming they're "100% Egyptian", only to get mocked and insulted. I go by the local McDonald's, there's a lot of schools where I am, around 5 in two blocks, and where before they were constantly so full, these days they're so empty. I can only see maybe 3, 4 people in there. A lot of people in my school are on a complete strike, against every American product. We've resorted to buying and getting local products instead. Egypt is doing very poorly economically at the moment, but there's still a lot of effort into knocking out American products, even if not by the companies, by the youth and the children. I can't go a single class without one of my teachers openly supporting Palestine. My Arabic teacher constantly uses the people in Gaza to teach me grammar, calling them brave and courageous. My geography teacher denies Isreal, and has been in league with others to get more donations and aid. Egyptians believe so truly that Palestine will be free that it's hard not to think so too. I've had classmates openly agree that if they could, they'd join the army to help fight for Palestine, I've seen more people than ever mocking the current regime, I've seen more people than ever falling out of the American illusion and seeing it for what it is. I've spent a lot of religion classes being taught Arabic brotherhood and chivalry, when previously, the lessons were stereotypically conservative in nature and I used to despise them for it.

Yes, the government sucks like every other, but there's an air of open support in here. No one is losing their jobs for stating the truth, homes and shops are waving the Palestinian flag. Even the antisemitism, which was rampant, has seen a noticeable decline. People in here stand for Palestine.

I want to also let you know you've been an inspiration for people, or at least, to me. I want to be able to participate more, and I see your reposts and reblogs and I want to do even more than what I did at the start, which was retweeting and reposting and sharing what I can to my friends. Unfortunately due to my current living situation and my terrible memory, I missed being able to donate to the school, but they have stated to open up donations again soon, and I'm preparing in advance for that one. I was not raised Zionist, but I was raised warned against participating in political affairs, saying I'd be put in more trouble, and even could be killed. But I see you and I see so many Americans losing their jobs and being branded criminals and as moral failures for speaking out, and I find it harder and harder in me not to also speak out. And even if I'm not constantly retweeting and reposting, there is something I can do. You helped me realize that, and I'd like to thank you.

I hope this cheers you up even a little, I've noticed your posts these days expressing how much this has been upsetting you. It's been upsetting to all of us, and I want you to know that it's not fruitless, no matter how many western countries and how many bootlickers make you feel otherwise. This ordeal has taught me the world is a brotherhood, politics and money are never a reason for why we should not stand together, and why we shouldn't speak for those having their voice silenced.

Please excuse me if something comes off wrong or unnatural. Like I said, I was born and I live in Egypt, English is not my first language and I still have issues communicating my personal thoughts in it. Please never don't stand for Palestine. Please never lose hope for it, like the Egyptians never have and never will. Please never let people make you feel hopeless and insane.

Thank you for listening to me, thank you for caring about Palestine when it would've been easy not to. Thank you for using your platform, and if you found it in you to read this thing, thank you for giving time to a brown Arab, when the world so strongly encourages you not to. Please continue to inspire justice, and I hope the world one day continues to inspire hope for you.

😭 anon, I cant explain how much I appreciate you sending this message. I know there is hope for Palestinian liberation, I know that we will see freedom for Palestine. But god do I need the reminder sometimes that we aren’t all just shouting into the void. My country of Australia shamefully takes a cowardly stance on Palestine, always deferring to the US to guide our foreign policy, and yet always claims moral superiority over other countries such as yours. Thank you, really thank you so much for sending this message. I feel so so honoured to have earned an audience that includes you. I believe an audience does reflect an artist, and to know I have done you proud in any way makes me feel full.

And please don’t ever feel ashamed of your English, you are eloquent and have a wonderful, compassionate voice, and you have inspired hope in me for yet another day.

#free palestine #askbox #I need to save this one. to look at when all seems bleak and hopeless #thank you anon I needed to read this today

[matan4il]

"That means that if the UN correctly represents the global population, about 1 in every 4 of its members, is antisemitic" i...hadn't actually considered that. a representative body of a world that hates jews isn't going to be fair to jews now is it

Hi Nonnie!

Absolutely it would not be.

I'm glad I can point that out. Just to repeat, a global survey by the ADL found that 26% of adults worldwide (slightly more than 1 in every 4 adult humans) responded in the affirmative to at least 6 out of 11 antisemitic statements. TBH, I think it's very possible that this is an underestimate (it's easy to only respond affirmatively to the more "socially acceptable" statements, like "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country" and stay below the minimal 6 out of 11 statements required on this survey to be labeled an antisemite), but it's still the best measure we have, and it's probably very telling that it could be that easy to be antisemitic, but not be defined as such in this poll, yet 26% of all people surveyed were still classified that way.

Regarding the UN, we can talk about the fact that it has never excluded Iran, a country that officially denies the Holocaust, and has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, the biggest Jewish community in the world today.

We can talk about its long history of treating anything in which Israel is involved, as if it causes much graver harm than any other global crime, which means it belittles countless atrocities, ignores crimes committed against Israelis, while also blowing out of proportion anything that can be weaponized against the one Jewish state. This pattern of discrimination against the only Jewish state in the world, in a way that's inconsistent with how every other country is treated, reveals an antisemitic bias. In fact, even some of the UN's heads have acknowledged that Israel was treated unfairly there.

We could talk about the UN's 1975 resolution that "Zionism is racism" (UNGA resolution 3379, which was eventually canceled in 1991 by UNGA resolution 46/86). Because the term 'Zionism' has been distorted by so many Israel and Jew haters, let's be clear: Zionism simply means accepting the Jewish right to self determination, meaning that Jews, just like every other nation out there, have the right to self rule in the Jewish ancestral homeland. From 1975 until 1991, for 16 full years, the UN actually said out loud that it's not racist for the Irish to want an independent Irish state, it's not racist for the Germans to want an independent German state, it's not racist for the Japanese to want an independent Japanese state, it's not racist for the Sudanese to want an independent Sudanese state, it's not racist for the Kurds to want an independent Kurdish state, it's not racist for the Indians to want an independent Indian state, but it is racist for the Jews to want an independent Jewish state. This resolution, denying the Jews their right to self determination, coming from an institute that supports and recognizes the universal right to self determination for every other nation, is discriminatory against Jews. It is antisemitic. Let that sink in, that the UN did not hesitate in passing an openly antisemitic resolution, and it took them no less than 16 years to wipe this stain from the UN's record.

BTW, resolution 3379 was sponsored by the members of the Arab League and several Muslim majority countries (25 sponsor countries in total). So, the starting point was a ratio of 25 Israel hating countries to 1 Jewish state. It was then further supported by countries that were aligned with the Soviet Bloc (most of which were dictatorships with no human rights, and not caring at all about fighting racism of any kind), because during the years of the cold war, Israel was a part of the democratic west, while the USSR supported the Arab League. This anti-west, anti-democracy axis still exists to a great degree (with some changes regarding which country is aligned with which side), and is probably even more relevant today than 12 years ago, as recent events in the Middle East show. Lastly, the resolution was supported by additional anti-democracy countries. What chance do the Jews have at the UN? We are outnumbered at this organization, that applies no penalties or limitations for non-democratic or antisemitic countries. It's an example of how treating anti-democratic countries democratically is just a reward for the enemies of democracy.

And in continuation to all that, the UN has also repeatedly created bodies dedicated solely to Palestinians, their needs and rights. Again, it implies they must be treated worse than every other nation, if they get special treatment. But you're not gonna find the Palestinians on any list of the deadliest conflicts in history, or even just since WWII, or even just currently active...

Even if we were to accept every grievance the Palestinians make at face value (maybe other than Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' antisemitic and Holocaust distorting statement that "Israel has committed 50 Holocausts"), then it's still nowhere near many other atrocities. So WHY are the Palestinians being treated differently? There's only one thing that stands out about their grievances, and that is that they can be used to harm the only Jewish state in the world, which protects all Jews, and is home to the biggest Jewish community we have today. To use a Hebrew phrase, it's not done out of the love of Haman, it's done out of the hatred of Mordecai.

I hope this expansion on the way the UN's structure makes it inherently prone to antisemitic abuse of Israel helped a bit. I also hope you're well! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#resources #israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #ask #anon ask

[devine-fem]

knowing what i know about damian, he spend most of his life speaking arabic with his mother, at least his young ages when he was still in the league. he probably mostly spoke that as his main tongue, with nicknames with parents at that age, whatever feels most comfortable will stick. it doesn’t make the most sense to me that damian would call his mom the english words for mother.

wouldn’t he call her something in arabic instead? something he grew up calling her?

the cutesy arabic word for mom is “ummi” which slips off the tongue and sounds adorable, why don’t we try using that instead? or perhaps something else that would be better? again i’m not entirely sure but does anyone else agree?

#damian wayne #batfam #talia al ghul #al ghul family

[allthegothihopgirls]

*holds out my probably canon headcanon like a toddler showing you a cool frog*

hey what do you think abt damian calling his dad baba and his siblings various nicknames in arabic that range from zameel or jalees when he’s particularly annoyed with them to akhi (brother)/ukhti (sister) when hes rlly happy

I LOOOOOVEEEEEE IT!!!!!

anything that keeps damian in touch with his heritage is a huge yes for me. big fan of him slipping arabic words into his sentences, or repeating phrases he grew up around when he can't think of an adequate english equivalent. etc etc

similar to how people who are learning english as a second language tend to mix their native tongue into english sentences. although with damian i don't think he would do it because he isn't confident with the language (because he most definitely is), i think it's just something that's familar to him, and comfortable to slip into his english speech. + sometimes he can just articulate himself better in arabic.

as for the familial names, although he doesn't use them in canon, he very much does seek comfort from things culturally familiar to him, in gotham. such as in teen titans (2016) special #1, when he's implied to often visit a middle-eastern restaurant 'tarbooshes' which reminds him of his home in the league and his mother.

so although the nicknames aren't something shown in the comics, i don't think it'd be unlikely. he's definitely 'in touch' with his culture, and it's far from an out there idea.

as for the specific names, such as calling bruce 'baba', i'm typically all for that. though apparently in arabic that word in particular translates more to 'dad' than it does 'father'. obviously damian's very formal with his speech, so it is a question as to whether or not that would be the nickname he uses for bruce, or whether he'd use more formal titles. (this post gives some alternatives + explains it more).

usually when i see the use of 'baba' in fics, it's very fitting. i'm very partial to the 'sleepy/hurt damian letting his guard down' trope, and i thoroughly enjoy it when the writer lets him slip a "baba" to bruce. one fic that did this really well was 'repeat your favourite mistakes and love them all over again' by watchingthestars13 on ao3, in which damian (although not the focus of the story) is aged down to 2 years old by magic, and coordinates life as a toddler with bruce, rather than with the league. he's very hesitant to affection at first, so when the writer lets an 'about to fall asleep' damian, call bruce his 'baba', it's always just right.

i'm also fond of him having personal nicknames for his siblings beyond 'brother' or 'sister' in arabic. this post talks about how in arab culture it's common for people to refer to loved ones as their organs. i think it's a fun idea for damian, especially because it's something only he would understand. i think he'd be most likely to do this for dick, although maybe he has a generic one that he uses for other siblings when he's suuuuper happy with them.

but he also takes advantage of being the only arab in the house, and one huuuuundred percent switches up the nicknames he uses depending on how he feels about that sibling at a particular time. he is not above throwing flavourful remarks when he's annoyed, in a language no one else understands (whether that be arabic or not), or calling people the nastiest names he can think of.

#THANK YOU for the askkkkk <33333 #i love hearing people's headcanons. send me them alwayssss #damian wayne #damian al ghul #dc batman #batfam #bruce wayne #batman #dc comics #dcu #dc #batboys #the robins #robin #asks #anon #gothihop speaks

[fursasaida]

Emma Saltzberg: Your book chronicles a longstanding struggle over public opinion in the American Jewish world. What are the top-level conclusions you draw from this history?

Geoffrey Levin: The first big takeaway is that this history of American Jewish concern for Palestinian rights isn’t something that started yesterday, or even in the ’60s or ’70s. It goes back to 1948. As long as there has been a Palestinian refugee issue, there has been American Jewish concern for Palestinians, especially coming from Jews who spent a lot of time in the region and were deeply exposed to Israel and to the Palestinians. The second is that this American Jewish engagement with Palestinian rights was frequently influenced by state actors. Sometimes it was the Arab League [an organization of Arab states formed in 1945 to advance their shared interests], sometimes it was the CIA—but most often it was the Israeli government. I uncover this long record of Israeli diplomats trying to manage American Jewish discourse. And the last key point is that American Jewish groups were having nuanced and complicated debates in this period, as early as the ’30s, about the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. A lot of the groups that are arguing today that there’s a strong overlap between those two things, like the AJC and the Reform movement, didn’t hold that position 70 years ago.

[...]

ES: You also write about some Jewish figures whose anti-nationalist position led them to maintain their opposition to Israel’s creation even after 1948.

GL: A more extreme version of the AJC’s position emerged through the American Council for Judaism, which was an anti-Zionist group originally formed by Reform Jewish thinkers. Before and after ’48, they were against the creation of a Jewish state, but they were not focused on the Palestinian question initially. They opposed Israel because of their anti-nationalism, thinking the state would be bad for Jews. These anti-Zionists were focused on keeping Zionism and Israeli and Hebrew culture from dominating American Jewish life. They were concerned that doing so diverted American Jewish loyalties. Yet ultimately, some within the American Council for Judaism, mostly leaders like Rabbi Elmer Berger who had a lot of exposure to Palestinians themselves, did become strong advocates of Palestinian rights. And then they got kind of nudged out of the organization.

ES: You tell the story of Breira, an anti-occupation Zionist group founded in 1973 that tried to advocate for Palestinian rights in this context of increased Jewish nationalism. What happened to them?

GL: Breira was the first national American Jewish group arguing for what we now call the two-state solution. The leaders had gone to Israel and heard from Israeli leftists and had become convinced that Palestinians couldn’t be ignored forever. They framed themselves as nice Jewish boys and girls—people who wanted what’s best for Israel and for Jewish politics. And every chance they could, they highlighted Israeli voices. But they still ended up getting eviscerated as “Jews for Fatah”—Fatah being the leading PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] faction—after just a couple of members met with a few moderate members of the PLO. It was an early example of how no matter how much American Jews who want to recognize Palestinian rights try to burnish their Jewish and even Israeli credentials, people will push against that and question their Jewish identity. And that hurt people a lot. A lot of those figures in Breira could have contributed a lot more to the future of the American Jewish community, but they felt really burned.

ES: As you note in the book, some analysts today describe American Jews’ increased criticism of Israel and Zionism as a product of distancing from Israel. But, as the Breira story shows, this stance is often a product of very close engagement with Israel.

GL: I think this is crucial. Millennial and Gen Z Jews who are involved in the Jewish community are far more likely to have gone to Israel than people of older generations, because of all these newer subsidized programs, like Birthright. They are far more likely to have met Israeli shlichim [young adult “emissaries” from Israel] through camp or through campus Hillel, and far more likely to watch Israeli stuff on YouTube and enjoy Israeli cuisine. Younger Jews are far more likely to know Palestinians as well. In contrast, many in earlier generations may have had more positive views toward Israel, but less deep engagement with the actual place and the people living there, both Israelis and Palestinians.

In my book, those from the earlier generations who engaged with Palestinian rights did spend a lot of time over there. They knew Hebrew. When they were advocating for Palestinian rights, whether that meant self-determination, or civil rights for minorities in Israel, or a different approach toward Palestinian refugees, they often came to those conclusions from going there and talking to Israelis and talking to Palestinians.

ES: Why is it important to know this history, as we contemplate different American Jewish responses to Israel’s onslaught on Gaza today?

GL: The characters in this story are people that a lot of experts haven’t heard of before. By unearthing these stories, I show how seriously people were thinking through some of these same questions 70 years ago. I think that one of the most important chapters is this one where I am able to use the archives to put a Palestinian voice at the forefront. Fayez Sayegh was struggling to find a way that was acceptable in American public discourse to talk about Palestinian issues and Arab issues. I think it’s important to write these people back into history, because they were so eager to change the discourse.

These people all kind of failed; they were pushed out. The critical American Jews were fired. I think a lot of American Jews thought the problems would just go away. And I can’t tell you that we would have had peace if the dissenting voices had succeeded. But I do think if they had been successful in getting a more open discourse within the Jewish community 70 years ago, that we would probably be in a healthier place right now, both in terms of the American Jewish community and American discourse more broadly.

#USA #israel #palestine #zionism #jewish antizionism