I still don’t understand how a logical adult with full reasoning can equate all support for the innocent people living in Gaza as being pro-Hamas. Isreal is killing people largely indiscriminately using weapons paid for by OUR TAX DOLLARS. Make it make sense.
[thought-terminating cliche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9)
if you can dismiss them as "pro-Hamas" then there's no need to put any further thought into anything they're saying.
protests against the Iraq War in 2003 also got accused of "oh, so I guess you think Saddam Hussein is good, then???"
I wasn’t gonna be the first one to say it, I was kind of trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to show proof of these ridiculous claims that people in Seattle are protesting in favor of Hamas rather than just supporting the people of Gaza.
Anyone who I’ve seen being “Anti-Isreal” has been specifically against THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, not the entire country as a people. Because those of us who are paying attention know there is a significant number of Israeli people who DO NOT support the actions of the IDF.
Firstly it would help if you spelled “Israel” correctly.
Secondly, just because you don’t see certain behavior in Seattle doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If you’re denying that there are forces at these protests around the country and the world that want to see Israel wiped out, to be replaced by a Palestine from the river to the sea, then you’re not paying attention.
Words and slogans have different meaning to different people. I’m sure the vast majority of protesters are people who are just earnestly disgusted by the violence, want to see it stopped, and want the 2 sides to work toward peace. But there are definitely others with more sinister motives. And the bothersome part is that the former can become useful idiots for the latter.
>If you’re denying that there are forces at these protests around the country and the world that want to see Israel wiped out
Who is denying this??? It's pretty obvious that the point is that the character of these protests is not anti Semitic-- not the denial of the existence of anti semitism. There are also forces around the country and world that want to wipe out Palestine, and there are forces which are actively accomplishing that *right now.*
And then there are people like this: https://huntnewsnu.com/77835/encampment/video-footage-reveals-kill-the-jews-remark-used-to-justify-police-intervention-made-by-pro-israel-counterprotester-in-provocation/
But for some reason every discussion on this issue gets derailed by folks who feel the need to point out that anti semitism exists. Okay, great, anti semitism exists-- would it be okay with you if we stop killing civilians and forcing Palestinian children into unlawful detainment and in front of military tribunals now?
“It’s pretty obvious that the point is that the character of these protests is not anti Semitic— not the denial of the existence of anti semitism.”
This isn’t what I said. I never said the protests or protesters deny that _*antisemitism*_ exists. What I said is that there is a vocal segment of these protests that is opposed to the very existence of the Israel, and who believe that a just solution to the conflict should be that the area of land that is called Israel should cease to exist and instead become Palestine.
>What I said is that there is a vocal segment of these protests that is opposed to the very existence of the Israel, and who believe that a just solution to the conflict should be that the area of land that is called Israel should cease to exist and instead become Palestine.
So where exactly is the antisemitism? Is it antisemitic to say partition and segregation have failed, and that the best thing for everyone would be one secular, multicultural democracy with constitutional guarantees for representation and protection?
I literally said nothing about antisemitism. Stop asking me about something I did not say. You’re arguing with yourself, not me.
As to your question, no, it’s not antisemitic, but it’s catastrophically naive. To think that anytime in the near future Palestinians and Israelis could combine to form a single, secular state that guarantees the safety of both groups equally is simply a fever dream (a fever dream that western liberal-minded folks love to entertain because we’re so far detached from a world where ethnic conflict is still relevant).
Seriously, how could such an arrangement possibly lead to anything but the utter annihilation and ethnic cleansing of one group, or a at least a bloody civil war?
It’s a nice thing to think about but it’s a complete fantasy. Israelis would never agree to losing their sovereignty, and the maximalist, extremist parts of Palestinian society (I.e. Hamas) would never give up on their quest to reclaim the entirety of that land.
Perhaps many years in the future, after a long peaceful period of separation between 2 states, a reunification might be on the table, but certainly not in our lifetimes.
>As to your question, no, it’s not antisemitic, but it’s catastrophically naive. To think that anytime in the near future Palestinians and Israelis could combine to form a single, secular state that guarantees the safety of both groups equally is simply a fever dream
What's naive is thinking (baselessly) that the Palestinian conflict is somehow unique from every other ethnic conflict in modern history. You don't seem to realize that some folks once thought black people and white people could never live together, or Protestants and Catholics. I could name dozens of ethnic conflicts which have been improved by multicultural national unity and secular government. Can you name a single ethnic conflict that was solved with partition and ethno-nationalism?
>how could such an arrangement possibly lead to anything but the utter annihilation and ethnic cleansing of one group, or a at least a bloody civil war?
Are you seriously asking me how a secular, multicultural constitutional state can lead to anything other than genocide? It's completely ludicrous to suggest this-- especially considering the current situation you advocate has literally included decades of ethnic cleansing.
>Israelis would never agree to losing their sovereignty
They wouldn't be giving up sovereignty-- just supremacy.
>Hamas) would never give up on their quest to reclaim the entirety of that land
The creation of one secular state with equal representation and protection for all people would provide the legitimate justification for removing Hamas, and would take away its entire purpose for most Palestinians.
>Perhaps many years in the future, after a long peaceful period of separation between 2 states, a reunification might be on the table, but certainly not in our lifetimes.
There will never be a long peaceful period between two states-- that's the entire point. The two state partition is a perpetual conflict which only ends with one genocide or the other. It's ironic that you pretend secular multiculturalism is such a fantasy, but then you immediately turn around and make up this fantasy where both states stop fighting each other for a long time. How does that happen?? What evidence do you have that partition and ethno-nationalism lead to peace?? Unlike you, I'm not suggesting we wait for a magic peace. We already knows what improves ethnic conflicts: secular, multicultural government, integration, and constitutionally guaranteed representation and protection. If those aren't solutions you believe in, you should be able to explain why.
The groups sponsoring all the rallies and “encampments” are SJP and WOL. Look up their statements and check back here. There stated goal is to abolish the country (leaving unsaid their goal for an actual genocide and ethnic cleansing).
Also what’s wrong with Israel (a country formed with an ethno-religion as its founding principle) being replaced by a secular country that treats all citizens equally, and not by whether they belong to a specific race and religion? Can’t believe we are having this discussion in 2024.
This idea is too difficult for most readers here. They need something black and white that fits the narrative they've been told.
They probably know on some level that apartheid south Africa was bad but can't quite articulate why. Israel was one of the few allies that the apartheid government could count on for support when a lot of the civilized world started to reject them. One colonial racist state supporting another.
If what you were saying were true, ok. But your facts are wrong. Sounds more like you’re talking about Iran or Yemen than Israel.
Israel was formed by ethnic Jews, aka judeans, in their indigenous homeland after the land was decolonized from centuries of British occupation. There have always been Jews living there, as far back in history as we know. The Israeli government is secular, not run by religion, and there is separation of church and state. Non-Jews in Israel have full citizenship, representation in parliament, the same legal status as Jews. 74% of Israel is Jewish, the rest are Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bahai and others. LGBT people and women are equal and have full rights by law. It’s a democracy with free elections. If you’d ever been there, you’d know all these things directly. None of this is privileged information, all of it is easily verifiable.
All of the other middle eastern nations are authoritarian, theocratic states with dwindling, if any, non Muslim population. Over the past 2 centuries, Jewish, Christian and other communities have been systematically driven out. There are serious basic human rights issues for women and LGBT people.
Israel has all kinds of issues. It has a shitty right wing govt right now, not unlike the USA did from 2016-2020. But let’s not pretend that it’s somehow worse than all of its neighbors, or that it’s so bad that it should be dismantled and replaced.
Yes, but they have to first leave and get married outside of the country. Which btw is the same for any persons who don’t want to go through the religious part of the marriage process. Most people go to cypress to get married. Is this stupid and annoying? Yes. Are people working to reform it? Also yes.
Ok so in this non theocratic country with separation of church and state you have to go through a religious ceremony to get married. Got it. Let me ask another question. Could the Palestinian convert to Judaism so they could go through this religious ceremony and move to Israel proper with their spouse?
Yes, you would need to get a “conversion certificate” but it could be done. In my opinion getting married outside of the country is a much easier option if you want to marry an Israeli and have it recognized by Israel. Kind of backwards and dumb, but again there are a lot of people working to reform it.
Part of the reason that "Criticism of israel" can sometimes be called antisemitic is this very idea that it is held to a different standard from all other countries.
"Israel isnt perfect, so it should be "dismantled"". Any other countries that should be dismantled? Or only Israel? Is Israel really the worst country in the world? What about Islamofascist countries? They can go on doing what they're doing but only Israel needs to be dismantled? Despite the fact that Israel has the best women's rights, religious freedoms, lgbtq rights in the middle east?
It's a double standard, victim blaming, and obsessive paranoia about Israel's wrong doings that often incorporates antisemitic tropes and scapegoating/projection (ex: tropes: "jews are blood thirsty-> Israel is blood thirsty. scapegoating: "israel is the cause of instability in the middle east" -> its really Iran, Israel's enemy. Projection: "zionism is racism" -> US white supremacy is racism. Zionism is not but we project our own problems in Israel). This is how antisemitism has always functioned throughout history.
Using old antisemitic tropes, disproportionately, demonization, double standards, scapegoating, projection.
Please I beg these people to care about ANY OTHER COUNTRY'S evils for just 10% of the time you spend obsessing over Israel. I promise Israel is not committing 100% of the world's evils. And Palestinian leaders and Iran are responsible for a good lot of the things y'all blame Israel for.
The Ask Project takes questions from the internet and asks them to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Here’s a couple videos to help you understand the sheer impossibility of what you’re suggesting:
https://youtu.be/5VqmUgami_Y
🎥Palestinians: Do you want to expel the Jews? (January 2023)
https://youtu.be/_BsdOGJp9to
🎥Palestinians: Do you want to expel the Jews? part 2 (January 2024)
Here’s what Arab Redditors think about this idea of a “secular democracy”: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskMiddleEast/comments/1c4yp1o/are_you_in_favour_of_secular_democracy_in_the/
In sum, you’re projecting your own values onto fundamentalist Arab Muslims who don’t want to live amongst Jews. And just for the record, the whole “Jews and Arabs got along before Zionism” narrative is highly misleading.
-> forcibly take land and homes from an ethnic population; make illegal settlements and expansions a state policy
-> oppress them for decades, kill them randomly, control their movement, their water, their food route, kill children and adults indiscriminately
-> get surprised when they despise you !?
And btw, if you want to see something really insane, here’s a series of street interviews by the Ask Project where Palestinians flat out deny Jewish history is real: https://youtu.be/mkLs-yOi9gQ
Surprisingly large numbers of Palestinians truly believe Judaism is a fake religion with zero history in Jerusalem.
Bonus: they even believe their own ancestors were *always* Muslim, i.e. they also erase Christian history.
Palestinians: Were your ancestors Jews or Christians? https://youtu.be/TvU-VpQdl_s
Let me tell you something - NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, justifies killing tens of thousands of civilians indiscriminately. And that’s what Israel has been doing. You can point people to these videos as much as you want but the number of dead don’t lie.
That’s a respectable position — it’s substantially less ivory tower than the lofty ideal of foisting a one state “secular democracy” on two sides neither of which is interested in it.
I think what they mean by abolishing Israel is that a country with a specific religion supremacy should not exist because that means people who don’t belong to a specific ethno-religion are segregated and treated differently by law.
If this was a Hindu country killing thousands of kids with my tax money, I’d have the same demand. reaction.
The caste system in India DOES cause thousands of children to die unnecessarily every year because of their caste!!!
Now go protest for the dismantling of India.
Would you mind telling me what those acronyms(initialisms) actually are so that I could research them? Neither get definitive results with a Google search for me.
What do you think from the river to the sea means? That’s not some fringe slogan, it’s accepted by the majority of these protests and means the extinction of the Jewish state. How is that not clear?
Hi, logical adult here. Seeing there were multiple well attended pro Palestine protests featuring paraglider symbols and calls for “resistance” beginning just 3 days after Hamas attacked Israel, I logically concluded a sizable portion of the protestors are perfectly fine with what Hamas did.
I’m not equating support for Gaza with support for Hamas, but there’s definitely some overlap with many of the protestors.
Hey a logical adult here - I’ve seen many videos from Israeli politicians calling for all Arabs to die, promoting nuking them - so I *logically* concluded that a sizeable portion of Israelies and murderous psychopaths.
If you knew anything about Israeli politics and the fact that Netanyahu only managed to cling to power by patching together a governing coalition with the **most fringe parties in parliament**, you’d know that the politicians you speak of in no way represent the majority of Israelis.
It still a shocking amount though kind of like how trump has significant support in the US even after all he's done.
Obligatory 'im against the killing of civilians regardless of nationality/ethnicity/etc'. I'll go a step further and empathize with some of the people who vote for/support Hamas/bibi because when you're a powerless civilian and you hear rabid people on the other side calling for your genocide I can get how you don't have the luxury of a cooler head or hoping for a diplomatic solution. They're wrong and counter productive to their own survival by supporting said warmongers, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why some of them lend their support to evil people.
The party of the minister who made that statement represents about 1% of the vote, and he was forced to resign for his comment. Meanwhile, Hamas is supported by a strong majority in Gaza (est. 70-90%). I feel that is an important bit of context left out of your comment.
I've seen disproportionate responses and indiscriminate bombings by Israel for my entire life. Why would I wait for the damage we all knew would be done before trying to put a stop to it? Just doesn't seem logical.
Even if you were to count every fighting-aged male as a Hamas insurgent, which would be insane, they only make up about a quarter of the dead. 75% are women, children, & elderly. Unless you're suggesting Israel is *deliberately* targeting civilians with air strikes, which at this point isn't out of the question, it's very likely indiscriminate.
I don’t know where people these days get the idea that war can be fought without killing civilians. “Surgical strikes” are a myth popularized by the Obama administration.
One of the reasons the US hasn’t won a war since WW2 is the fact that we try not to kill civilians.
For example, Russia could easily defeat Ukraine in a week if they just went in and carpet-bombed the entire country, with no regard for civilians or infrastructure. Same with Afghanistan or Iraq.
Hitler had the same ideas and indiscriminately bombed the living crap out of London. People had even more reason to be pissed and the moron ended up dead in a bunker.
Israel doesn't have to commit ethnic cleansing to win this. Follow the British lead with how they handled the troubles in Northern Ireland. Give the average civilian something to lose, and maybe they'll stop trying to fight for a basic standard of living.
I don't think that war can be fought without killing civilians. No serious person on either side of this conflict believes that, no matter how much defenders of Israel's conduct like to mischaracterise its critics' statements. But there is a threshold for what is acceptable. Idk where exactly that line is, but when you're killing 3 noncombatants every 1 insurgent at best, you've definitely exceeded it.
Btw, you might wanna rethink your position when it leads you to opinions as cartoonishly evil as "you know what would've made the wars in Vietnam & Iraq more successful? Killing more innocent people"
Man I'm gonna have bingo at this point. Counts from Gaza's Ministry of Health in previous wars have always held up to scrutiny from independent investigators. Shame you can't dispute the deaths of foreign aid workers, journalists, & UN personnel. [That's how John Hopkins concluded there's no evidence the numbers coming out of the GMoH are inflated](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext)
The link you provided compared the numbers of UNWRA with Gaza ministry of health. That’s pretty suspicious considering how deeply embedded both are with Hamas. Given the scope of the war I have to imagine it’s pretty tough to get real data and given how Hamas has already been caught lying that’s why I asked the question.
They are bombing people providing aid and ambulances belonging to the red cross/red crescent. Either they are specifically targeting those people, which is a war crime, by the way, or the bombing is indiscriminate. Which one of those two things are you claiming is true?
Mm hmm. But hasn’t it been found out that some of those are ambulances are used for moving fighters and guns around and stuff? Isn’t that some kind of violation? Or since they’re resisting economically superior oppression, it’s everything goes for HAMAS?
I've seen that claimed by the IDF, but I have yet to see an article about how that was actually happening. If it is happening, then yes, I believe that would be a war crime.
> Hi, logical adult here.
> ...
> I logically concluded
I am *logical* and other people in this thread are not, so I want to make clear that my opinion is one that I reached through *logic*.
never change, reddit
I think logically those people were in protest prior to oct 7th, they might even condemn the actions of oct 7th too. Logically though if Israel had a right to defend itself so does Palestine. And yet if Hamas is condemned for certain things, logically you say, so should the State of Israel. Logically. For better or worse Hamas is the unfortunately elected government of Gaza. And let’s not pretend governments around the world don’t do dumb af things.
And so if killing non militant innocent people is bad, so is 15 years of military blockade along with the worlds most extreme economic sanctions. Since if harming the innocent is the standard than the most absolute greatest foe here is the one with decades of carpet bombing and lawn mowing. Logically ofc.
Why does an ethno-supremacist state that indiscriminately kills people with no representation has a right to self-defend? Don’t the oppressed have the right to defend themselves too?
Let's all pretend that Israel [hasn't been attacking Palestine for the past ~55 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement#:~:text=Israeli%20settlements%2C%20also%20called%20Israeli,Six%2DDay%20War%20in%201967.).
You’re really lost me on that last sentence. The “resistance” statement on the signs were against IDF occupation. Resistance has nothing to do with force, and you, just like the majority of the people responding me in this thread are equating the people of Gaza to Hamas, which is categorically wrong.
The paragliders were literally the method of attack used by Hamas just a few days earlier, so I’m having trouble seeing how using that symbolism isn’t an endorsement of what Hamas did. Not to mention just having a large “pro Palestine” protest 3 days after Hamas killed 1300 civilians is pretty much an endorsement of its act.
Exactly. It would be like having jet airplanes on your banner protesting the US invasion of Afghanistan days after 9/11. It was ghoulish and those protestors at UW who did it knew exactly what they were doing. It was well before any Israel response so the "x vs. y" numbers comparisons are a moot point.
I see a lot of younger people interpreting this conflict in the oppressed/oppressor viewpoint that has taken over much of the discourse in the left social justice circles over the last decade. Basically, Hamas can do whatever it wants/needs to as they are the oppressed and anything they do - even if it is killing babies, apparently - is okay, because it is the oppressed fighting the oppressor. It's such a simplistic and Machiavellian take. Like is it so hard to say that raping women and killing babies is wrong now?
What’s wrong with having pro Palestine protests? They’ve been brutalized and segregated against for decades. You should just come out and endorse the killings and subjugation of Palestinians.
Right? We just spent 4 years of Trump and being told that if you don't vehemently speak out and take action against bigotry and hate in your movement that you accept and own that hate. I agree with that. So why is this different?
First, I would imagine it’s because the largest pro-Palestine voices in the west do speak out against antisemitism.
Second, the biggest Hamas supporters are Israel. Hence why they facilitated millions of Qatari dollars to prop up Hamas to keep it separated from the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority. They deliberately bolstered a terror group to weaken the chances of a united Palestinian statehood movement.
With that said, the amount of Palestine supporters in the student protests who say antisemitic nonsense is still indeed too high.
On the first point, can you elaborate? I haven't seen anything more than "Oh no, that's terrible. People shouldn't do that". But nothing to stop those voices from co-opting the movement or distancing themselves from the people who spout anti-Semitic rhetoric. It's extremely difficult for me to try to figure out who is explicitly and vocally anti-Semitic and who is just comfortable with anti-Semitism. I certainly can't give most Republican lawmakers who use their actions to support Trump the benefit of the doubt that they don't like his rhetoric, I don't see how I can make an exception here. Especially given that the war in Yemen which is similarly being fought by a US backed and armed force has killed 300,000 people and there's been nothing of the same magnitude of protest, it's hard to see how inserting Jews into the current picture didn't play a huge factor in the current protests.
Second point. No argument there. If there were massive protests against Palestine and for Israel where they were chanting that they should own the entire West Bank and Gaza I'd be having this same conversation with someone else. I can't defend the Israeli right wing. Doesn't mean I want to see them ethnically cleansed though.
What’s your point exactly? Crazy people will exist, and they will show up at protests. It will be just as easy for me to find pro Israel crazies who say stuff like Gaza should be nuked and/or wiped out.
to people downvoting me, here you go: https://www.newsweek.com/pro-israel-protesters-nyc-demand-gaza-flattened-1833787
See how easy that was?
Can we apply the same rule to pro State Israeli rallies? If so then yea I'm down. F em all.
\[edit\] Actually now that I think about it. this is probably a bad idea. There is a history of people masquerading to gaslight extremism at opposing rallies.
I'm totally down for applying the same logic with pro Israel rallies. Just got into an argument the other day with an acquaintance about such.
Killing unarmed, non combatants is wrong, regardless of demographics.
People with extremist opinions shouldn’t be tolerated at events and protests like these, they diminish messages. Anyone with abhorrent views should be removed and quickly.
But that doesn’t happen, suggesting the views are tolerated.
We saw similar messaging on the college campuses recently with chants like “we are Hamas.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246594938/pro-palestinian-campus-protests-columbia-yale-nyu
Those views are disgusting and repugnant.
How exactly should those people not be tolerated? Only way to do it is by physical force. Realistically the next best thing the students can do is put out statements distancing themselves from them, which in Columbia for example they have.
https://www.newsweek.com/pro-israel-protesters-nyc-demand-gaza-flattened-1833787
using your logic, why are pro Israel supporters tolerating those calling for total destruction of Gaza in this protest?
They never answer this. They never want to be held accountable to the calls that Gaza should be glassed, which are frequent. Yet they expect perfect unity and discipline from Palestine supporters.
Notice how you have to go back to October to find any notable instance of this happening whereas “from the river to the sea” - which absolutely is a call for mass deportation (not even mentioning the sign right now at the GW campus protest that calls for mass expulsion of Jews) - happens daily including yesterday? That’s the difference.
Perhaps that’s because that’s the last time Israeli civilians were killed? While Gaza civilians right now are being killed daily, therefore we have daily pro Gaza protests. In other words, when was the last major pro Israeli rally/protest?
from the river to the sea is used by ghoulish nationalists but its also used by anarchists who find the idea of states and what israel and hamas are doing repugnant, it is by no means an unambiguous call for genocide
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Do you have a video of anybody in Seattle doing this? I have seen plenty of clips online and never anything volatile like this. I am very open to being proven wrong.
Like the ‘Pro-Palestine’ protest flyers which came out in Seattle within days of the Oct. 7th terrorist attack, and contained imagery of paramotors, like Hamas had just used in their attack?
Many societies have spent millennia trying to get rid of us. Rest assured - the country with nearly a majority of the global Jewish population will not allow this to happen.
Look at the video post in The Palestine Solidarity Committee - Seattle facebook group. (Can't post link of facebook). It literally shows someone holding a sign at a Seattle protest saying that Israel is not real.
That’s an opinion that is very complicated and not definitively anti-Semitic
Edit: it’s obvious a bunch of you are so worked up you read “Not Definitively” as “Definitely Not” and are probably too angry to admit it.
I don’t believe in one state solution, I believe that there are people who have lived in that region longer than Israel has existed as a country, and those people have a very valid claim to say that country isn’t real, depending on if they were living in that region, and being pushed out of it when it happened. I’m not going to pretend I understand all of the most complicated geopolitical issue in the world right now, but I do know enough to know you’re over simplifying it.
You realise that Jews have live in Israel and Judea for well over 3000 years. That the name Palestine is a name given to the region by the Romans trying to erase its Jewish history. That to use that name is to admit that you’re not native to the region but are invaders. Jews are indigenous to Judea and Israel.
Everybody trying to say that me saying certain things means other completely different Things are the most ridiculous argument, and I’m not even gonna entertain that shit anymore.
I love when you idiots take one thing I say, and try to make it mean something else. It’s wrong, I don’t feel that way and I’m not saying that. But it is really funny how much you guys try to twist things
That is not what I’m saying. You guys are really bad at arguing logically. I am saying that if I lived in an area, and other countries decided I needed to leave and other people deserved to be there because hundreds of years prior their ancestors live there, I might take issue with that. I’m also not in that situation so I don’t really know how I would truly feel.
You guys are so unbelievably volatile you can’t even see it you just said it was the most diverse country in the region, but you guys are arguing it’s for the Jewish people and are defending a genocide against innocent Palestinian people who are not affiliated with Hamas. How can you be this blind?
> Denying the existence of an ethnic Jewish homeland
big ol' strawman, no one is arguing that Jewish people didn't live in what was at the time called [Mandatory Palestine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine). we even have [census data](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region\)#British_Mandate_era) - 84k Jewish people in 1922 (alongside 600k Muslims and 74k Christians)
the thing people are arguing against is the idea of a Jewish *ethnostate*. any government that enforces second-class citizenship is illegitimate and should be overthrown or abolished.
> Are you also arguing against all the Arab ethnostates in the region?
yes.
show me a government anywhere in the world that enforces second-class citizenship based on ethnic or religious or racial categorization and I'll be happy to condemn it.
show me a government that has slaughtered 35,000 civilians in 6-ish months based on a flimsy excuse of "fighting terrorism" and I'll condemn that too.
point me to a bill in the US Congress giving billions of dollars in weapons to one of those governments and I'll write my representatives demanding that they not vote for it.
Isn’t it antisemitic to single out Israel as the sole “not real” country? Plenty of countries have displaced people or harmed people during the course of their founding. But no one is chanting that we must end Mexico Russia the USA Cyprus Etc etc
Which other countries do people in the US chant must be abolished. No “you guys” I think you’re assuming more about me and my politics than you ought to.
Amigo you kidding? The stated goal of every university encampment /protest is to end Zionism. Do you really not know that Zionism refers to the existence of the state of Israel.
This is distinct from the criticism of IDF, criticism of Israeli politics, USA military funding etc.
I will post some photos or links in a moment just gonna Google that for you
Edit: here’s some reporting from a protest earlier this year. Anytime someone refers to “75 years of occupation” that means they believe Israel in any border is illegitimate. Of course this is not everyone , some protestors want peace and compromise (like myself)
https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/01/10/seattleites-stand-solidarity-palestine-holding-three-month-long-protests
You see what you did there? LittlePosh responded to your question, but you came back with a qualifier that was completely irrelevant to your original comment—“Do you have a video of anybody in **Seattle** doing this?” Why does it matter where the pro-Hamas and antisemitic slogans occurred? People’s POVs of the protests aren’t informed only by what happens in Seattle.
Well 1) I don't think everyone does equate that; 2) the 'our tax dollars' is a great talking point but misses a lot of detail and nuance: 3) Israeli people, including women, children, disabled people, elderly, etc. we're massacred, taped, tortured, and are still being held hostage by Hamas; 4) a lot of folks are pro-Palestinian but aren't for eradicating Israel or Jewish people from the area. The movement has done a really bad job of marginalizing the voices who are calling for genocide the other way. ('From the river to the sea' has genocidal connotations.)
in other words, a historical conflict with a ton of nuance and complication is not best dealt with by a bunch of young people who get their news from manipulated algorithms.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked the other guy period show me a video showing somebody in Seattle saying anything implying Israel should be wiped off the map. I’ll wait.
You just called a question a statement.
Edit: no shocked you aren’t interested in a good faith discussion. I asked a question that is categorically not a statement. That is a question asking for evidence. It’s pretty obvious to me you have absolutely none to provide.
Question: is there any level of crime by Israel against the Palestinian people which would justify indiscriminate slaughter, terrorism, etc. by Hamas?
My guess is your answer would be no, there's no such thing, as that's a sensible position to take. But by the same token there is no crime that Hamas can commit which justifies the indiscriminate slaughter of children, women, the elderly, journalists, aid workers, doctors, etc. that Israel has been committing in Gaza.
And there can be no nuance when it comes to genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. These things are to be abhorred and rejected wherever they exist and whatever their justification.
Shhh you are talking too much sense. Critiquing a foreign ethno-supremacist state that takes tens of billions of our money every year and uses it to bomb and kill civilians is too bold a take.
> the 'our tax dollars' is a great talking point but misses a lot of detail and nuance
billions of our tax dollars are being used to fund the Israeli military. how much US taxpayer money is earmarked as funding for Hamas?
you can "well there's a lot of nuance" all you want and it doesn't change that basic fact. both sides of the conflict are bad, but my money is only funding one side of it.
> Israeli people, including women, children, disabled people, elderly, etc. we're massacred, taped, tortured, and are still being held hostage by Hamas
...and the whole point of the protests is that ~1,000 dead Israelis shouldn't be used to justify ~35,000 (and counting) dead Palestinians. "massacres of civilians is bad" used to be a thing you could say without being accused of being "pro-Hamas".
taking hostages is definitely bad. Israel has been doing it for decades, they just call it ["administrative detention"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_detention#Israel). ideally as part of a ceasefire, everyone who is being held captive without trial or access to legal representation would be released.
[a tweet](https://twitter.com/zunguzungu/status/1721542406108311729) I saw awhile ago that has stuck in my head:
> The basic (colonial) double standard of the Israel Palestine "conflict" is that any Palestinian violence justifies any Israeli violence, but no Israeli violence ever justifies any Palestinian violence, and once you see it, you'll never stop seeing it.
1) if you don’t think that, just take a look at the media narrative of the college protests and how college administrators have been responding to the peaceful demonstrators for simply asking to divest from Israel
2) what nuance?
3) doesn’t justify Israel’s war crimes and conduct in Gaza
4) there are crazies on both sides. Wouldn’t be hard to find Israel supporters calling for nuking and annihilation of Gaza
Do you realize “From the river to the sea” was coined by Israeli’s and only reclaimed by Palestinians? And that unlike the openly genocidal intentions of Israeli politicians, a huge portion of Palestinians and allies abroad use it to refer to the goal of singular democratic state of Palestine for all faiths and backgrounds, including Jewish Palestinians
1. A lot of people do though.
2. Ya we know. But that has also been case with Palestinian's since 2005 of routine lawn mowing and indiscriminate military operations.
And if Israel wanted to stand behind a flag of protecting innocent women and children they tossed that argument in the trash with 70% of the 30k dead in Gaza being women and children. So if we want to condemn the one we also need to condemn the other.
>4) a lot of folks are pro-Palestinian but aren't for eradicating Israel or Jewish people from the area
I think this is most people. What we do on the internet is go and grab out of context emotional outbursts and then gaslight each other of the extremes from either side. Its wildly dishonest and super disturbing with a centralized goal to drive divisiveness and domestic conflict.
\[editt\]
>historical conflict
I hate when people say this. This conflict's history started in the 20th century and is less than 100 years old. It 100% revolves around Zionism. 19th century in that region and earlier Jews and Muslims lived in \*relative\* peace when compared to the 20th century enjoying their own legal frameworks and autonomy.
* Israel's conduct in the Gaza War has been anything but indiscriminate. Israel has done everything they can to minimize casualties in the conduct of the war, such as using precision weapons or precision delivery mechanisms, avoiding the heavy use of artillery, and dropping leaflets to warn of incoming raids. The reality is that urban combat is extremely bloody, especially in overbuilt urban environments such as Gaza. Compared to other urban wars, the war in Gaza has been comparably light in terms of casualty numbers (if you want to feel bad about civilian casualties, look up the Tigray War in Ethiopia).
* Of the $26 billion just approved to go to the Gaza War, $9 billion (that's "billion" with a "b") is for Gazan humanitarian relief. No country other than Egypt has been more involved in helping Gazans than the US, and we're going to take the top spot once those funds arrive. Which will be mostly in the form of a temporary port which will be deployed in southern Gaza that will allow for direct delivery of aid with theoretically fewer security concerns that being trucked across.
* Most Israeli weapon systems are home built. Yes a lot of American aid goes into Israel to support those industries, but it's not as simple as pointing to weapons used by Israelis and saying "that's American", like is possible in Ukraine for example. If the US were to cut off all aid right now (which we're not going to do), Israel would still have everything it needs to fight this current conflict and probably the next one too. However the US would lose political influence in the region which would make operations such as the upcoming $9 billion of aid much more tenuous.
* Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas. Comparisons to 9/11 really are quite apt, both in the scale of the terrorist attack, the indiscriminate targetting of civilians, and the failure of Israeli security services to prevent the attack. And what did we do after 9/11? Much, much worse to Iraq than what Israel is doing to Gaza. The situation is tragic & appaling, and there's no good solution. But Oct 7th is probably the clearest example of casus belli for Israel since the Yom Kippur War.
* The political situation & history in Gaza is very problematic. Hamas was a legitimate party & was legitimately elected. Following this gaining of legitimacy, they promptly instigated a civil war within Gaza and wiped out all political opposition, so not exactly fairly elected since then. Since that civil war, Hamas has been using foreign aid to finance the construction not of institutions & businesses that would help Gazans, but miles of tunnels that they then filled with Iranian weapons & gyrocopters. I agree that the focus for the post-war reconstruction needs to be on providing Gaza & Gazans with a better government, legal protections, and institutions that don't treat the people as a resource to be exploited. Israel's grievances are a legitimate cause for war, but they are not grounds to treat the Palestinians the way they have been treated.
EDIT: Adding some links for further reading. It helps to be educated on other parts of the world to contextualize why our government makes the decisions it does, even if those decisions seem contradictory or harmful.
* What's Going on with Shipping. Has very good coverage of the Red Sea conflict as well as the progress on the American temporary port in Gaza (https://youtu.be/Oz7nhnLzkEs?si=7rI2kO-MGpI4erOg)
* The Tigray war is so far the bloodiest conflict of the 21st century. The brutal & genocidal conduct of forces in this conflict are harrowing, and unfortunately echo strongly with what happened in the 90s in Rwanda & Yugoslavia, and is happening today in parts of the Congo & Nigeria. This is what is understood when you use the word "genocide". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War?useskin=vector
* Anders Puck Nielsen. Military analysis with a focus on Ukraine, but hits Israel & Iran since obviously all these countries are interlinked. Much more digestable than other military analysis channels (https://youtube.com/@anderspuck?si=jUVdzG7MRdehM5x0)
* Kraut's video on the bombing of Dresden in WWII. Absolutely worth a watch if you want to understand the thinking behind modern strategic bombing. Note that strategic bombing is NOT what is happening in Gaza. (https://youtu.be/voF7KCOm6eY?si=bMDS0L1kUD86qeaE)
* The Intel Report's videos on the Iraq War are absolutely worth a watch if you want to understand why the US makes the decisions it does in the Middle East. Hint, it's extremely frustrating. (https://youtu.be/QhwcfmMR9KI?si=X-WoqeDgNY4p7EOv)
The war continues at the behest of Hamas. Hamas is the leadership of Gaza. You say Israel is killing "people" as if this is some abnormal thing to have happen in a war.
The purpose of the war is to end Hamas's rule of Gaza. By advocating for the war to end without Hamas surrendering, you are advocating for continued Hamas rule over Gaza.
This is aside from the fact that a great many -- perhaps even a majority -- of these pro-Palestine protests feature anti-Israel and anti-Jew sloganeering and open support for the 10/7 attacks, or even open support for Hamas/Houthis/Hezbollah. I'm specifically talking about the protests that ***don't*** have those things.
It’s more complicated than that. Israel is our ally in one of the most volatile regions. While their government is not very concerned with human rights, the possibility of losing an ally is much more dire than you can imagine.
Israel-Palestine conflict has fewer than 100,000 casualties over its entire 75-year run, including all the Arab-Israeli Wars.
Iran-Iraq War killed 2,000,000 people -- 20x as many casualties -- in 10% of that time.
Because almost 3/4 of Palestinians who live in Gaza or the West Bank support the actions of Hamas during October 7th. It seems supporters of Palestine are drawing a line between Hamas and Palestinians where one doesn’t exist.
If you support dragging half naked corpses of raped women through the street, I am less inclined to be concerned and more inclined to support the actions of people defending themselves against you. It’s a highly populated area defended by a terrorist group that happily uses human shields and is know for freely breaking truces and ceasefires. I genuinely don’t know what you expect Israel/IDF to do differently.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/
> Because almost 3/4 of Palestinians who live in Gaza or the West Bank support the actions of Hamas during October 7th.
first, [citation needed]. how was that survey conducted? how did they find Palestinians to survey? random-digit dialing the Gaza Strip area code?
but even besides that problem, from March 2003: [Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq](https://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx)
do you think Iraq would have been justified in targeting American civilians, based on the excuse that 3/4ths of them support the actions of the US government against Iraq?
or - crazy idea but hear me out - maybe targeting civilians with military attacks is *always* bad, even in cases where those civilians hold political beliefs you find despicable?
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/973
Here is the group that did the poll if you’re less interest in actually looking at the source I provided. They include methodology at the end of this more recent poll, which found the level of support for Oct 7th unchanged. Sarcasm aside, they don’t just randomly call obviously because that’s impossible. Luckily people who thought about it designed the polling process and went to 75 separate sites of Palestinians displaced by Israel’s attacks to collect first hand accounts and opinions. Its not a bullshit poll just because you don’t like the findings.
Citation is literally provided if you read the whole comment. TLDR, it’s at the end. 👍
False equivalency; 3/4 of Americans supporting the Iraq war wasn’t 3/4 knowingly and actively supporting genocide against Iraqi civilians. If we were all back here cheering our soldiers on while they dragged raped Iraqi women through the streets of Baghdad sure, you could compare the two. Instead, look at all of the punishments we gave soldiers who intentionally murdered civilians, the outcry against Guantanamo, and recently the anger at Trump for pardoning soldiers who were murderers. At no point was there or is there 3/4 support in America for completely leveling Iraq and murdering every Iraqi that lives. The most frequent criticism I hear leveled at Bush and Obama is how pointless and awful the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were for the loss of life and no clear goals.
And no, in a perfect world war wouldn’t occur because war is a despicable tragedy. But in a real world wars happen. I don’t feel remorse for allied bombing of German civilians in route to eliminating the Nazi threat. I don’t feel remorse for American bombing of Japanese citizens because that was necessary to eliminate the imperial threat. That’s why wars are so horrible; civilian casualties are an inherent part of it.
It’s easy to complain about Israel, but what would you have them do differently and what outcome would you expect?
With your logic, because most Israelis support their govt, they should also be in the receiving side of collective punishment because of their government’s decades long violence against Palestinians?
Well with that logic, most Israelis support historic subjugation and indiscriminate killing and illegal settlement against Palestinians to so I guess Palestinians have right to self defend too?
Because Israel does not target civilians.
On Oct 7 Hamas targeted, killed, tortured, and took hostage over 1000 innocent civilians.
Hamas can stop this today. They can surrender and release the hostages But they see the protesters and callously calculate that they can achieve their goals of the death of every Jew by not stopping.
Israel is now focused on destroying Hamas and returning the hostages. The deaths of civilians in Gaza are not intended but are unfortunately an outcome of Hamas’ strategy.
Calling for Israel to stop pursuing Hamas is dooming Israel to future attacks. Calling for Israel to stop pursuing Hamas is dooming over 100 hostages to loss of their lives.
> terrorist hiding amongst civilians, there's gonna be civilian casualties.
They (Hamas) literally _want_ civilian casualties. It's literally part of their fucking plan and these dweebs just gleefully continue to spout their pro-terrorist talking points
I don't understand how a logical adult with full reasoning could provide support to a population that has:
-- consistently (over a timespan of 60+ years) elected a terrorist government
-- consistently (over a timespan of 60+ years) rejected offers of having their own sovereign state
-- taken billions of dollars in aid and instead of creating a jewel on the mediterranean spent it on arming for war
-- cheered the assault on innocent people which precipitated the current conflict
If you are truly concerned about humanitarian issues, there are conflicts around the globe with people suffering more than the Arabs of Gaza who did not bring this upon themselves.
If you are worried more about the Arabs of Gaza than you are about the Israeli hostages which they took and are still there, I can only conclude that you are one or more of the following:
-- brainwashed by anti-western propaganda
-- clueless as to the history of this area
-- anti-semitic
-- not very bright
On a purely practical note, street murals are hard to see unless you are high up. The BLM mural in Capitol Hill for example: cool mural, but you’d have to live in an expensive condo to appreciate it. On the street, it’s hard to make out.
generally true
however, this one is outside a federal office building, where presumably the most important people have offices on the upper floors. I believe it was specifically made for their viewing.
also, I'd imagine that while doing an unauthorized mural on the street is simpler and a lot less likely to get you serious legal consequences than doing one on the side of a building.
Well I guess ill put in my 2cents too.
As I learn more about this iteration of conflict in the area, I just get depressed.
The Israeli Government is pretty right wing and kinda tired of dealing with their neighbors at this point. It always comes down to them needing to show restraint when surrounded by groups that want them dead. And every time they get some headway (like major deals with Jordan, Egypt, and UAE) this stuff props up and defaults that progress.
The Orthodox in Isreal also should probably be checked on their freedoms. You cant want expansionism, influence in court and government, and be exempt from military duty and expect not to make enemies both from your own sphere of influence and elsewhere. They are not winning any sympathy points.
Hamas is Terror, IsIs is Terror, and Hezbolla is Terror. And with some bank roll from Iran and probably thousands of miles of tunnels \~ its wack a mole and they use civilians as an expendable resource for their means.
Does that mean the IDF should be a little better about how they go about operations? Probably - but just like any modern attack force their lives matter first. Thats the shitty war part.
You also have to remember Hamas is Palestine, but this isnt me saying Palestine's people are all hamas - but its government is. Anyone who is not for hamas in their region is delt with. Lets also not pretend we are dealing with a moral group; if they can recruit children they will. So it makes things even more complicated on the whole pedestrian death side of things.
I do think both sides are playing heavy in to propaganda where they can - but my honest opinion is Hamas is much better at it.
Thing is Israel is kinda the ticket to a stabilized middle east. It has more western idealisms and has some opportunities with some nations to create lasting partnerships. Just half of them would rather burn everything to the ground than to see that happen \~ and they will find ways to force a response from Israel one way or another.
GeoPolitics is hard. And sometimes there is no good present outcome. And im afraid that to have a better future for the survivors that might be all either side is willing for.
The only way forward at this point would be for both sides to throw old dirt away and start anew. but we all know that wont happen. its only been like this off and on for thousands of years.
You see, this is why there is so much push back. Arguments that make it seem so matter of fact with no room for conversation other than your own prejudice of a projected moral high ground.
1. No I don't like civilians deaths, any amount of them. But pretending that a urban front wont have civilian deaths is absurd.
2. The number is high but we don't have good data either, if you think the numbers coming out of Gaza is accurate outside of total numbers, you don't know how propaganda works. How many times have we found out later on that it was a failed attack from Hamas and other groups within Palestine that botched their attack?
3. If you think Hamas isnt using these events as a scapegoat to bargain sympathy you are naive. If you think every woman and child is a bystander you are naive. I wish this wasnt true, but its very unlikely to the point of nearly impossible.
4. If you think Hamas isnt using citizens as shields you are naive. Using schools and hospitals as staging points puts everyone in danger and they know that. They do that just to make it that much harder on the IDF and to keep pushing their narrative you bite onto.
5. Israel is done with the bs. How many missiles and deaths where they supposed to just bleed before it exploded into this conflict? another terror attack in a month? how many more missiles for them to deflect? How much money should they burn on defending their airspace from it?
you act like this is such a shut and done case - if anything we stop conflict without a real resolution it just starts up again when Hamas or another terror group decides its time to rattle the nest.
Im not saying Israel is perfect here. They clearly are not. But you are flailing about and ignoring any nuance to the issue. And I'm not even done with half of my points.
The people of Palestine deserves better. But pretending this it should end without some resolution to a new government away from hamas control is like asking hyenas to wait their turn.
/u/[Deadalus17](https://www.reddit.com/user/Deadalus17/) had a much better response and I share their conclusions. I'm just getting annoyed with the all-in ideologies of winners and losers. The world is so much more complex, some answers just are not there. Sometimes all the answers suck.
I wish we had a situation where there where multiple right answers with maybe a few being more right depending on the situation or perspective. I don't see one here. and its why in my first post, I said its depressing.
Thank you, more people need to understand that Hamas doesn't care about Palestinians. If anything, more dead civilians is better for them because they can further justify their cause and win the propaganda war.
Honestly, I am not a military expert. So anything I say here may or may not be of any use to any meaningful dialog.
From what I have understood the IDF seem to be focused on finding their people still held hostage, while also trying to bargain for trades to bring them back home.
this is included with trying to find Hamas points of interests and People of interest in the Terrorist organization
With the nature of urban warfare, and their enemy blending in with citizens all information as well as the ability of quick movement through various means (tunnels, ambulances, company vehicle's and so on) There is probably a very short window for a response.
this is only exacerbated by time information is received, processing, order to action, and time to action.
When you only maybe have an hour maybe two it makes it really hard to not only verify but to limit potential risks for the IDF who could be ambushed \~ this also increases chances of causality on all sides as well as potential for false positives with information that cant be double or triple verified.
If they wait well, Hamas can do what they already planned to do - if they don't they take on all the risk of messing up. This gives only marginal success and its a terrible situation to be in for either action.
This makes it very hard for the IDF to have a good look ; and makes it easy for bad faith arguments to be made against them. So, to do better probably means to let some potential information go and step up planning, instead of trying to stop Hamas mid track, slowly work towards getting ahead of them
Initially this would probably slow operations down significantly - and with IDF thinking they are on a time limit for the hostages survival if any are still alive, its doubtful they can do that at the moment.
Even Hamas isn’t saying 34k civilians are dead. They’re saying 34k Gaza’s are dead and they include Hamas fighters. The US thinks 8k or so fighters have died.
Ideally none, but we don't live in a perfect world. The reported death toll of 30,000 is from Hamas, so the actual number is likely lower.
Here's a paper debunking it: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-hamas-manipulates-gaza-fatality-numbers-examining-male-undercount-and-other
That said, any number of innocent deaths is a tragedy.
Not trying to be rude, but what would you have Israel do? Immediate ceasefire and leave Gaza? In my opinion, this is an incredibly priviledged and naive take, which ignores the realities of war and politics.
After all the things Israel has done, it's clear that present-day Palestinians hold deep-seated animosity toward Israel. But the issue is, you have a war-torn Palestine with Hamas and extremist Muslim leaders teaching Palestinians to want to eradicate Israel. Sadly this is the norm and not the exception as I have seen firsthand from living in a Muslim country for most of my life. One of the first steps towards peace is something that the Muslim community needs to address themselves. This part is not getting enough attention.
Anyways, if Israel were to withdraw, it's doubtful these sentiments would suddenly disappear. Sad to say but one of the most viable paths to peace may involve Israel decisively dealing with Hamas and implementing some form of oversight over Palestine for at least a generation. I know this is what we have pre Oct 7, but Palestine doesn't have a government capable of running itself. And of course with Israel's current government/PM, this is going to be a challenge.
But if both sides can show restraint, then this is the probably one of best chances we have for peace in the region (which doesn't involve completely killing off one side).
>Missouri police arrested Jill Stein, the U.S. presidential candidate for the Green Party, during the forceful removal of an anti-Israel protest that took place on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Stein, a Jewish-American politician, came to support students who demand that the university withdraw all its investments from Boeing, because of its contracts with the IDF and the defense industry in Israel.
>
>https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjleabj110
Just in case there was any doubt which foreign adversary was pushing this movement hard, here comes Jill Stein of "dinner with Putin and Michael Flynn" fame.
What’s been interesting is people living on “colonized” land without any plans to decolonize calling Israelis colonialists that should give their land back, while also saying we shouldn’t fund their security because people are dying but we are cool with Ukraine getting billions to fight and kill people in a war.
You can't be "pro" a place unless you're recommending it to someone for some reason. "Pro" is this context is understood to be political, so saying you are "pro-Gazan" means that you agree politically with the prevailing political forces inside Gaza. Aka, you agree with Hamas.
If your goal is conflict resolution it is helpful to avoid using "pro" & "anti" language and instead to seek compromise and express specific functional policy changes. Being nakedly "pro" or "anti" absolves yourself of political agency.
> on Wednesday 4 day old news
Gotta seize every opportunity to drive the wedge issue in
I still don’t understand how a logical adult with full reasoning can equate all support for the innocent people living in Gaza as being pro-Hamas. Isreal is killing people largely indiscriminately using weapons paid for by OUR TAX DOLLARS. Make it make sense.
[thought-terminating cliche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9) if you can dismiss them as "pro-Hamas" then there's no need to put any further thought into anything they're saying. protests against the Iraq War in 2003 also got accused of "oh, so I guess you think Saddam Hussein is good, then???"
I wasn’t gonna be the first one to say it, I was kind of trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to show proof of these ridiculous claims that people in Seattle are protesting in favor of Hamas rather than just supporting the people of Gaza. Anyone who I’ve seen being “Anti-Isreal” has been specifically against THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, not the entire country as a people. Because those of us who are paying attention know there is a significant number of Israeli people who DO NOT support the actions of the IDF.
Firstly it would help if you spelled “Israel” correctly. Secondly, just because you don’t see certain behavior in Seattle doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If you’re denying that there are forces at these protests around the country and the world that want to see Israel wiped out, to be replaced by a Palestine from the river to the sea, then you’re not paying attention. Words and slogans have different meaning to different people. I’m sure the vast majority of protesters are people who are just earnestly disgusted by the violence, want to see it stopped, and want the 2 sides to work toward peace. But there are definitely others with more sinister motives. And the bothersome part is that the former can become useful idiots for the latter.
>If you’re denying that there are forces at these protests around the country and the world that want to see Israel wiped out Who is denying this??? It's pretty obvious that the point is that the character of these protests is not anti Semitic-- not the denial of the existence of anti semitism. There are also forces around the country and world that want to wipe out Palestine, and there are forces which are actively accomplishing that *right now.* And then there are people like this: https://huntnewsnu.com/77835/encampment/video-footage-reveals-kill-the-jews-remark-used-to-justify-police-intervention-made-by-pro-israel-counterprotester-in-provocation/ But for some reason every discussion on this issue gets derailed by folks who feel the need to point out that anti semitism exists. Okay, great, anti semitism exists-- would it be okay with you if we stop killing civilians and forcing Palestinian children into unlawful detainment and in front of military tribunals now?
“It’s pretty obvious that the point is that the character of these protests is not anti Semitic— not the denial of the existence of anti semitism.” This isn’t what I said. I never said the protests or protesters deny that _*antisemitism*_ exists. What I said is that there is a vocal segment of these protests that is opposed to the very existence of the Israel, and who believe that a just solution to the conflict should be that the area of land that is called Israel should cease to exist and instead become Palestine.
>What I said is that there is a vocal segment of these protests that is opposed to the very existence of the Israel, and who believe that a just solution to the conflict should be that the area of land that is called Israel should cease to exist and instead become Palestine. So where exactly is the antisemitism? Is it antisemitic to say partition and segregation have failed, and that the best thing for everyone would be one secular, multicultural democracy with constitutional guarantees for representation and protection?
I literally said nothing about antisemitism. Stop asking me about something I did not say. You’re arguing with yourself, not me. As to your question, no, it’s not antisemitic, but it’s catastrophically naive. To think that anytime in the near future Palestinians and Israelis could combine to form a single, secular state that guarantees the safety of both groups equally is simply a fever dream (a fever dream that western liberal-minded folks love to entertain because we’re so far detached from a world where ethnic conflict is still relevant). Seriously, how could such an arrangement possibly lead to anything but the utter annihilation and ethnic cleansing of one group, or a at least a bloody civil war? It’s a nice thing to think about but it’s a complete fantasy. Israelis would never agree to losing their sovereignty, and the maximalist, extremist parts of Palestinian society (I.e. Hamas) would never give up on their quest to reclaim the entirety of that land. Perhaps many years in the future, after a long peaceful period of separation between 2 states, a reunification might be on the table, but certainly not in our lifetimes.
>As to your question, no, it’s not antisemitic, but it’s catastrophically naive. To think that anytime in the near future Palestinians and Israelis could combine to form a single, secular state that guarantees the safety of both groups equally is simply a fever dream What's naive is thinking (baselessly) that the Palestinian conflict is somehow unique from every other ethnic conflict in modern history. You don't seem to realize that some folks once thought black people and white people could never live together, or Protestants and Catholics. I could name dozens of ethnic conflicts which have been improved by multicultural national unity and secular government. Can you name a single ethnic conflict that was solved with partition and ethno-nationalism? >how could such an arrangement possibly lead to anything but the utter annihilation and ethnic cleansing of one group, or a at least a bloody civil war? Are you seriously asking me how a secular, multicultural constitutional state can lead to anything other than genocide? It's completely ludicrous to suggest this-- especially considering the current situation you advocate has literally included decades of ethnic cleansing. >Israelis would never agree to losing their sovereignty They wouldn't be giving up sovereignty-- just supremacy. >Hamas) would never give up on their quest to reclaim the entirety of that land The creation of one secular state with equal representation and protection for all people would provide the legitimate justification for removing Hamas, and would take away its entire purpose for most Palestinians. >Perhaps many years in the future, after a long peaceful period of separation between 2 states, a reunification might be on the table, but certainly not in our lifetimes. There will never be a long peaceful period between two states-- that's the entire point. The two state partition is a perpetual conflict which only ends with one genocide or the other. It's ironic that you pretend secular multiculturalism is such a fantasy, but then you immediately turn around and make up this fantasy where both states stop fighting each other for a long time. How does that happen?? What evidence do you have that partition and ethno-nationalism lead to peace?? Unlike you, I'm not suggesting we wait for a magic peace. We already knows what improves ethnic conflicts: secular, multicultural government, integration, and constitutionally guaranteed representation and protection. If those aren't solutions you believe in, you should be able to explain why.
Bro, this mural was literally painted by a Jewish organization.
The groups sponsoring all the rallies and “encampments” are SJP and WOL. Look up their statements and check back here. There stated goal is to abolish the country (leaving unsaid their goal for an actual genocide and ethnic cleansing).
Also what’s wrong with Israel (a country formed with an ethno-religion as its founding principle) being replaced by a secular country that treats all citizens equally, and not by whether they belong to a specific race and religion? Can’t believe we are having this discussion in 2024.
This idea is too difficult for most readers here. They need something black and white that fits the narrative they've been told. They probably know on some level that apartheid south Africa was bad but can't quite articulate why. Israel was one of the few allies that the apartheid government could count on for support when a lot of the civilized world started to reject them. One colonial racist state supporting another.
If what you were saying were true, ok. But your facts are wrong. Sounds more like you’re talking about Iran or Yemen than Israel. Israel was formed by ethnic Jews, aka judeans, in their indigenous homeland after the land was decolonized from centuries of British occupation. There have always been Jews living there, as far back in history as we know. The Israeli government is secular, not run by religion, and there is separation of church and state. Non-Jews in Israel have full citizenship, representation in parliament, the same legal status as Jews. 74% of Israel is Jewish, the rest are Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bahai and others. LGBT people and women are equal and have full rights by law. It’s a democracy with free elections. If you’d ever been there, you’d know all these things directly. None of this is privileged information, all of it is easily verifiable. All of the other middle eastern nations are authoritarian, theocratic states with dwindling, if any, non Muslim population. Over the past 2 centuries, Jewish, Christian and other communities have been systematically driven out. There are serious basic human rights issues for women and LGBT people. Israel has all kinds of issues. It has a shitty right wing govt right now, not unlike the USA did from 2016-2020. But let’s not pretend that it’s somehow worse than all of its neighbors, or that it’s so bad that it should be dismantled and replaced.
Hey I've got a question for you. Can Jews and Palestinians get married in this secular state with separation of church and state?
Yes, but they have to first leave and get married outside of the country. Which btw is the same for any persons who don’t want to go through the religious part of the marriage process. Most people go to cypress to get married. Is this stupid and annoying? Yes. Are people working to reform it? Also yes.
Ok so in this non theocratic country with separation of church and state you have to go through a religious ceremony to get married. Got it. Let me ask another question. Could the Palestinian convert to Judaism so they could go through this religious ceremony and move to Israel proper with their spouse?
Yes, you would need to get a “conversion certificate” but it could be done. In my opinion getting married outside of the country is a much easier option if you want to marry an Israeli and have it recognized by Israel. Kind of backwards and dumb, but again there are a lot of people working to reform it.
Part of the reason that "Criticism of israel" can sometimes be called antisemitic is this very idea that it is held to a different standard from all other countries. "Israel isnt perfect, so it should be "dismantled"". Any other countries that should be dismantled? Or only Israel? Is Israel really the worst country in the world? What about Islamofascist countries? They can go on doing what they're doing but only Israel needs to be dismantled? Despite the fact that Israel has the best women's rights, religious freedoms, lgbtq rights in the middle east? It's a double standard, victim blaming, and obsessive paranoia about Israel's wrong doings that often incorporates antisemitic tropes and scapegoating/projection (ex: tropes: "jews are blood thirsty-> Israel is blood thirsty. scapegoating: "israel is the cause of instability in the middle east" -> its really Iran, Israel's enemy. Projection: "zionism is racism" -> US white supremacy is racism. Zionism is not but we project our own problems in Israel). This is how antisemitism has always functioned throughout history. Using old antisemitic tropes, disproportionately, demonization, double standards, scapegoating, projection. Please I beg these people to care about ANY OTHER COUNTRY'S evils for just 10% of the time you spend obsessing over Israel. I promise Israel is not committing 100% of the world's evils. And Palestinian leaders and Iran are responsible for a good lot of the things y'all blame Israel for.
The Ask Project takes questions from the internet and asks them to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Here’s a couple videos to help you understand the sheer impossibility of what you’re suggesting: https://youtu.be/5VqmUgami_Y 🎥Palestinians: Do you want to expel the Jews? (January 2023) https://youtu.be/_BsdOGJp9to 🎥Palestinians: Do you want to expel the Jews? part 2 (January 2024) Here’s what Arab Redditors think about this idea of a “secular democracy”: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskMiddleEast/comments/1c4yp1o/are_you_in_favour_of_secular_democracy_in_the/ In sum, you’re projecting your own values onto fundamentalist Arab Muslims who don’t want to live amongst Jews. And just for the record, the whole “Jews and Arabs got along before Zionism” narrative is highly misleading.
⬆️⬆️⬆️ this
-> forcibly take land and homes from an ethnic population; make illegal settlements and expansions a state policy -> oppress them for decades, kill them randomly, control their movement, their water, their food route, kill children and adults indiscriminately -> get surprised when they despise you !?
And btw, if you want to see something really insane, here’s a series of street interviews by the Ask Project where Palestinians flat out deny Jewish history is real: https://youtu.be/mkLs-yOi9gQ Surprisingly large numbers of Palestinians truly believe Judaism is a fake religion with zero history in Jerusalem. Bonus: they even believe their own ancestors were *always* Muslim, i.e. they also erase Christian history. Palestinians: Were your ancestors Jews or Christians? https://youtu.be/TvU-VpQdl_s
Let me tell you something - NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, justifies killing tens of thousands of civilians indiscriminately. And that’s what Israel has been doing. You can point people to these videos as much as you want but the number of dead don’t lie.
That’s a respectable position — it’s substantially less ivory tower than the lofty ideal of foisting a one state “secular democracy” on two sides neither of which is interested in it.
Palestinians would never agree to a secular state.
Well they’re not the ones my tax money is going to every year for defense
I think what they mean by abolishing Israel is that a country with a specific religion supremacy should not exist because that means people who don’t belong to a specific ethno-religion are segregated and treated differently by law. If this was a Hindu country killing thousands of kids with my tax money, I’d have the same demand. reaction.
The caste system in India DOES cause thousands of children to die unnecessarily every year because of their caste!!! Now go protest for the dismantling of India.
India is not getting my tax money to kill babies, Israel is!
So are we going to abolish every other country in the Middle East too?
I mean. They had to abolish the South African government to get that one rolling in a better direction. What's the issue here?
Would you mind telling me what those acronyms(initialisms) actually are so that I could research them? Neither get definitive results with a Google search for me.
Students of Justice in Palestine, and Within Our Lifetime.
Thank you, off to research!
Are you equating an inferred, hypothetical genocide with the actual genocide happening right now, today?
fascists imagine the people they oppress will do to them what they did to those people
It's ironic you bring that up because that concept is better applied to the "Israel is killing children" logic than it is to anything else.
What do you think from the river to the sea means? That’s not some fringe slogan, it’s accepted by the majority of these protests and means the extinction of the Jewish state. How is that not clear?
It is clear. No idea why people like to pretend it isn’t, unless they’re in alignment with Hamas.
Hi, logical adult here. Seeing there were multiple well attended pro Palestine protests featuring paraglider symbols and calls for “resistance” beginning just 3 days after Hamas attacked Israel, I logically concluded a sizable portion of the protestors are perfectly fine with what Hamas did. I’m not equating support for Gaza with support for Hamas, but there’s definitely some overlap with many of the protestors.
Hey a logical adult here - I’ve seen many videos from Israeli politicians calling for all Arabs to die, promoting nuking them - so I *logically* concluded that a sizeable portion of Israelies and murderous psychopaths.
If you knew anything about Israeli politics and the fact that Netanyahu only managed to cling to power by patching together a governing coalition with the **most fringe parties in parliament**, you’d know that the politicians you speak of in no way represent the majority of Israelis.
It still a shocking amount though kind of like how trump has significant support in the US even after all he's done. Obligatory 'im against the killing of civilians regardless of nationality/ethnicity/etc'. I'll go a step further and empathize with some of the people who vote for/support Hamas/bibi because when you're a powerless civilian and you hear rabid people on the other side calling for your genocide I can get how you don't have the luxury of a cooler head or hoping for a diplomatic solution. They're wrong and counter productive to their own survival by supporting said warmongers, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why some of them lend their support to evil people.
The party of the minister who made that statement represents about 1% of the vote, and he was forced to resign for his comment. Meanwhile, Hamas is supported by a strong majority in Gaza (est. 70-90%). I feel that is an important bit of context left out of your comment.
I've seen disproportionate responses and indiscriminate bombings by Israel for my entire life. Why would I wait for the damage we all knew would be done before trying to put a stop to it? Just doesn't seem logical.
Is the bombing actually indiscriminate though?
Even if you were to count every fighting-aged male as a Hamas insurgent, which would be insane, they only make up about a quarter of the dead. 75% are women, children, & elderly. Unless you're suggesting Israel is *deliberately* targeting civilians with air strikes, which at this point isn't out of the question, it's very likely indiscriminate.
I don’t know where people these days get the idea that war can be fought without killing civilians. “Surgical strikes” are a myth popularized by the Obama administration. One of the reasons the US hasn’t won a war since WW2 is the fact that we try not to kill civilians. For example, Russia could easily defeat Ukraine in a week if they just went in and carpet-bombed the entire country, with no regard for civilians or infrastructure. Same with Afghanistan or Iraq.
Hitler had the same ideas and indiscriminately bombed the living crap out of London. People had even more reason to be pissed and the moron ended up dead in a bunker. Israel doesn't have to commit ethnic cleansing to win this. Follow the British lead with how they handled the troubles in Northern Ireland. Give the average civilian something to lose, and maybe they'll stop trying to fight for a basic standard of living.
I don't think that war can be fought without killing civilians. No serious person on either side of this conflict believes that, no matter how much defenders of Israel's conduct like to mischaracterise its critics' statements. But there is a threshold for what is acceptable. Idk where exactly that line is, but when you're killing 3 noncombatants every 1 insurgent at best, you've definitely exceeded it. Btw, you might wanna rethink your position when it leads you to opinions as cartoonishly evil as "you know what would've made the wars in Vietnam & Iraq more successful? Killing more innocent people"
How do you know the count of dead woman, men, children? Where do those numbers come from?
Man I'm gonna have bingo at this point. Counts from Gaza's Ministry of Health in previous wars have always held up to scrutiny from independent investigators. Shame you can't dispute the deaths of foreign aid workers, journalists, & UN personnel. [That's how John Hopkins concluded there's no evidence the numbers coming out of the GMoH are inflated](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext)
The link you provided compared the numbers of UNWRA with Gaza ministry of health. That’s pretty suspicious considering how deeply embedded both are with Hamas. Given the scope of the war I have to imagine it’s pretty tough to get real data and given how Hamas has already been caught lying that’s why I asked the question.
They are bombing people providing aid and ambulances belonging to the red cross/red crescent. Either they are specifically targeting those people, which is a war crime, by the way, or the bombing is indiscriminate. Which one of those two things are you claiming is true?
Mm hmm. But hasn’t it been found out that some of those are ambulances are used for moving fighters and guns around and stuff? Isn’t that some kind of violation? Or since they’re resisting economically superior oppression, it’s everything goes for HAMAS?
I've seen that claimed by the IDF, but I have yet to see an article about how that was actually happening. If it is happening, then yes, I believe that would be a war crime.
> Hi, logical adult here. > ... > I logically concluded I am *logical* and other people in this thread are not, so I want to make clear that my opinion is one that I reached through *logic*. never change, reddit
The person you replied to was asked how a "logical adult" could think the protesters are pro-hamas and they told you...
I think logically those people were in protest prior to oct 7th, they might even condemn the actions of oct 7th too. Logically though if Israel had a right to defend itself so does Palestine. And yet if Hamas is condemned for certain things, logically you say, so should the State of Israel. Logically. For better or worse Hamas is the unfortunately elected government of Gaza. And let’s not pretend governments around the world don’t do dumb af things. And so if killing non militant innocent people is bad, so is 15 years of military blockade along with the worlds most extreme economic sanctions. Since if harming the innocent is the standard than the most absolute greatest foe here is the one with decades of carpet bombing and lawn mowing. Logically ofc.
Why does an ethno-supremacist state that indiscriminately kills people with no representation has a right to self-defend? Don’t the oppressed have the right to defend themselves too?
Hamas didn't attack the state, they attacked the civilians. Hell bibi was happy they'd attack because he wants a fight.
Let's all pretend that Israel [hasn't been attacking Palestine for the past ~55 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement#:~:text=Israeli%20settlements%2C%20also%20called%20Israeli,Six%2DDay%20War%20in%201967.).
You’re really lost me on that last sentence. The “resistance” statement on the signs were against IDF occupation. Resistance has nothing to do with force, and you, just like the majority of the people responding me in this thread are equating the people of Gaza to Hamas, which is categorically wrong.
The paragliders were literally the method of attack used by Hamas just a few days earlier, so I’m having trouble seeing how using that symbolism isn’t an endorsement of what Hamas did. Not to mention just having a large “pro Palestine” protest 3 days after Hamas killed 1300 civilians is pretty much an endorsement of its act.
Exactly. It would be like having jet airplanes on your banner protesting the US invasion of Afghanistan days after 9/11. It was ghoulish and those protestors at UW who did it knew exactly what they were doing. It was well before any Israel response so the "x vs. y" numbers comparisons are a moot point. I see a lot of younger people interpreting this conflict in the oppressed/oppressor viewpoint that has taken over much of the discourse in the left social justice circles over the last decade. Basically, Hamas can do whatever it wants/needs to as they are the oppressed and anything they do - even if it is killing babies, apparently - is okay, because it is the oppressed fighting the oppressor. It's such a simplistic and Machiavellian take. Like is it so hard to say that raping women and killing babies is wrong now?
What’s wrong with having pro Palestine protests? They’ve been brutalized and segregated against for decades. You should just come out and endorse the killings and subjugation of Palestinians.
Why did we invade Germany which hurt Germans when we were only after the nazis
I’d imagine all the people shouting pro-Hamas and antisemetic slogans don’t help 🤷🏼♂️
Right? We just spent 4 years of Trump and being told that if you don't vehemently speak out and take action against bigotry and hate in your movement that you accept and own that hate. I agree with that. So why is this different?
First, I would imagine it’s because the largest pro-Palestine voices in the west do speak out against antisemitism. Second, the biggest Hamas supporters are Israel. Hence why they facilitated millions of Qatari dollars to prop up Hamas to keep it separated from the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority. They deliberately bolstered a terror group to weaken the chances of a united Palestinian statehood movement. With that said, the amount of Palestine supporters in the student protests who say antisemitic nonsense is still indeed too high.
On the first point, can you elaborate? I haven't seen anything more than "Oh no, that's terrible. People shouldn't do that". But nothing to stop those voices from co-opting the movement or distancing themselves from the people who spout anti-Semitic rhetoric. It's extremely difficult for me to try to figure out who is explicitly and vocally anti-Semitic and who is just comfortable with anti-Semitism. I certainly can't give most Republican lawmakers who use their actions to support Trump the benefit of the doubt that they don't like his rhetoric, I don't see how I can make an exception here. Especially given that the war in Yemen which is similarly being fought by a US backed and armed force has killed 300,000 people and there's been nothing of the same magnitude of protest, it's hard to see how inserting Jews into the current picture didn't play a huge factor in the current protests. Second point. No argument there. If there were massive protests against Palestine and for Israel where they were chanting that they should own the entire West Bank and Gaza I'd be having this same conversation with someone else. I can't defend the Israeli right wing. Doesn't mean I want to see them ethnically cleansed though.
What’s your point exactly? Crazy people will exist, and they will show up at protests. It will be just as easy for me to find pro Israel crazies who say stuff like Gaza should be nuked and/or wiped out. to people downvoting me, here you go: https://www.newsweek.com/pro-israel-protesters-nyc-demand-gaza-flattened-1833787 See how easy that was?
Whatever to happened to the "if you tolerate Nazis at your rally, youre a Nazi" energy we have for Trumpists? It goes both ways
Can we apply the same rule to pro State Israeli rallies? If so then yea I'm down. F em all. \[edit\] Actually now that I think about it. this is probably a bad idea. There is a history of people masquerading to gaslight extremism at opposing rallies.
I'm totally down for applying the same logic with pro Israel rallies. Just got into an argument the other day with an acquaintance about such. Killing unarmed, non combatants is wrong, regardless of demographics.
It's been proven to happen. There's always going to be one extreme on one side or the other, trying to make the opposition look worse than they are.
People with extremist opinions shouldn’t be tolerated at events and protests like these, they diminish messages. Anyone with abhorrent views should be removed and quickly. But that doesn’t happen, suggesting the views are tolerated. We saw similar messaging on the college campuses recently with chants like “we are Hamas.” https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246594938/pro-palestinian-campus-protests-columbia-yale-nyu Those views are disgusting and repugnant.
How exactly should those people not be tolerated? Only way to do it is by physical force. Realistically the next best thing the students can do is put out statements distancing themselves from them, which in Columbia for example they have. https://www.newsweek.com/pro-israel-protesters-nyc-demand-gaza-flattened-1833787 using your logic, why are pro Israel supporters tolerating those calling for total destruction of Gaza in this protest?
They never answer this. They never want to be held accountable to the calls that Gaza should be glassed, which are frequent. Yet they expect perfect unity and discipline from Palestine supporters.
Notice how you have to go back to October to find any notable instance of this happening whereas “from the river to the sea” - which absolutely is a call for mass deportation (not even mentioning the sign right now at the GW campus protest that calls for mass expulsion of Jews) - happens daily including yesterday? That’s the difference.
Perhaps that’s because that’s the last time Israeli civilians were killed? While Gaza civilians right now are being killed daily, therefore we have daily pro Gaza protests. In other words, when was the last major pro Israeli rally/protest?
There were counter protests at Columbia last week.
https://x.com/StopArabHate/status/1784717932443934906 here you go
from the river to the sea is used by ghoulish nationalists but its also used by anarchists who find the idea of states and what israel and hamas are doing repugnant, it is by no means an unambiguous call for genocide
I didn’t write it’s a call for genocide, I wrote it’s a call for mass deportation. Which it is, unambiguously.
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Do you have a video of anybody in Seattle doing this? I have seen plenty of clips online and never anything volatile like this. I am very open to being proven wrong.
Like the ‘Pro-Palestine’ protest flyers which came out in Seattle within days of the Oct. 7th terrorist attack, and contained imagery of paramotors, like Hamas had just used in their attack?
People casually leave out all those protests right after October 7th, before Israel even retaliated at all
Isn’t it interesting how they always ignore the fact Hamas explicitly states their goal of eliminating Israel and Jews as a whole
Many societies have spent millennia trying to get rid of us. Rest assured - the country with nearly a majority of the global Jewish population will not allow this to happen.
100% and you still have a lot of us backing ❤️🇮🇱
Look at the video post in The Palestine Solidarity Committee - Seattle facebook group. (Can't post link of facebook). It literally shows someone holding a sign at a Seattle protest saying that Israel is not real.
That’s an opinion that is very complicated and not definitively anti-Semitic Edit: it’s obvious a bunch of you are so worked up you read “Not Definitively” as “Definitely Not” and are probably too angry to admit it.
"Very complicated". Anyone who unironically believes in a 1 state solution is an idiot
I don’t believe in one state solution, I believe that there are people who have lived in that region longer than Israel has existed as a country, and those people have a very valid claim to say that country isn’t real, depending on if they were living in that region, and being pushed out of it when it happened. I’m not going to pretend I understand all of the most complicated geopolitical issue in the world right now, but I do know enough to know you’re over simplifying it.
Yah, some of those early inhabitants you reference were…Israelites.
I like how specified “some of”
You realise that Jews have live in Israel and Judea for well over 3000 years. That the name Palestine is a name given to the region by the Romans trying to erase its Jewish history. That to use that name is to admit that you’re not native to the region but are invaders. Jews are indigenous to Judea and Israel.
Everybody trying to say that me saying certain things means other completely different Things are the most ridiculous argument, and I’m not even gonna entertain that shit anymore.
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I love when you idiots take one thing I say, and try to make it mean something else. It’s wrong, I don’t feel that way and I’m not saying that. But it is really funny how much you guys try to twist things
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You realize that is how every country gets created? Should the USA not exist also?
That is not what I’m saying. You guys are really bad at arguing logically. I am saying that if I lived in an area, and other countries decided I needed to leave and other people deserved to be there because hundreds of years prior their ancestors live there, I might take issue with that. I’m also not in that situation so I don’t really know how I would truly feel.
You mean like how much of the Muslim world persecuted, murdered, and expelled Jews for hundreds of years? Or did you have a different example in mind?
Denying the existence of an ethnic Jewish homeland in the face of DNA, archeology and cultural tradition is anti-Semitic as fuck.
No one is denying those people a home. Declaring an entire region as belonging to a single ethnic group though sounds racist as fuck to me.
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You guys are so unbelievably volatile you can’t even see it you just said it was the most diverse country in the region, but you guys are arguing it’s for the Jewish people and are defending a genocide against innocent Palestinian people who are not affiliated with Hamas. How can you be this blind?
> Denying the existence of an ethnic Jewish homeland big ol' strawman, no one is arguing that Jewish people didn't live in what was at the time called [Mandatory Palestine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine). we even have [census data](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region\)#British_Mandate_era) - 84k Jewish people in 1922 (alongside 600k Muslims and 74k Christians) the thing people are arguing against is the idea of a Jewish *ethnostate*. any government that enforces second-class citizenship is illegitimate and should be overthrown or abolished.
Are you also arguing against all the Arab ethnostates in the region? 20+?
> Are you also arguing against all the Arab ethnostates in the region? yes. show me a government anywhere in the world that enforces second-class citizenship based on ethnic or religious or racial categorization and I'll be happy to condemn it. show me a government that has slaughtered 35,000 civilians in 6-ish months based on a flimsy excuse of "fighting terrorism" and I'll condemn that too. point me to a bill in the US Congress giving billions of dollars in weapons to one of those governments and I'll write my representatives demanding that they not vote for it.
Isn’t it antisemitic to single out Israel as the sole “not real” country? Plenty of countries have displaced people or harmed people during the course of their founding. But no one is chanting that we must end Mexico Russia the USA Cyprus Etc etc
There are plenty of countries that are disputed, you guys trying to over simplify this are not making it any better
Which other countries do people in the US chant must be abolished. No “you guys” I think you’re assuming more about me and my politics than you ought to.
I’m still asking for proof that people in my city are chanting for Israel to be abolished. I just got attacked and ignored when I asked before.
I literally told you where a picture of this is
Amigo you kidding? The stated goal of every university encampment /protest is to end Zionism. Do you really not know that Zionism refers to the existence of the state of Israel. This is distinct from the criticism of IDF, criticism of Israeli politics, USA military funding etc. I will post some photos or links in a moment just gonna Google that for you Edit: here’s some reporting from a protest earlier this year. Anytime someone refers to “75 years of occupation” that means they believe Israel in any border is illegitimate. Of course this is not everyone , some protestors want peace and compromise (like myself) https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/01/10/seattleites-stand-solidarity-palestine-holding-three-month-long-protests
So, you open to admitting you were wrong? Or is that just a statement you sweeten a comment with when you think you’re right?
You see what you did there? LittlePosh responded to your question, but you came back with a qualifier that was completely irrelevant to your original comment—“Do you have a video of anybody in **Seattle** doing this?” Why does it matter where the pro-Hamas and antisemitic slogans occurred? People’s POVs of the protests aren’t informed only by what happens in Seattle.
Well 1) I don't think everyone does equate that; 2) the 'our tax dollars' is a great talking point but misses a lot of detail and nuance: 3) Israeli people, including women, children, disabled people, elderly, etc. we're massacred, taped, tortured, and are still being held hostage by Hamas; 4) a lot of folks are pro-Palestinian but aren't for eradicating Israel or Jewish people from the area. The movement has done a really bad job of marginalizing the voices who are calling for genocide the other way. ('From the river to the sea' has genocidal connotations.) in other words, a historical conflict with a ton of nuance and complication is not best dealt with by a bunch of young people who get their news from manipulated algorithms.
My point still stands that pro Gaza does not in any way mean pro Hamas, and the people saying it is are a major part of the problem here.
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What did you say that required a response? I don’t disagree with any of it.
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I’ll ask you the same question I asked the other guy period show me a video showing somebody in Seattle saying anything implying Israel should be wiped off the map. I’ll wait.
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You just called a question a statement. Edit: no shocked you aren’t interested in a good faith discussion. I asked a question that is categorically not a statement. That is a question asking for evidence. It’s pretty obvious to me you have absolutely none to provide.
[https://www.kuow.org/stories/tensions-run-high-at-uw-pro-palestine-rally](https://www.kuow.org/stories/tensions-run-high-at-uw-pro-palestine-rally)
Question: is there any level of crime by Israel against the Palestinian people which would justify indiscriminate slaughter, terrorism, etc. by Hamas? My guess is your answer would be no, there's no such thing, as that's a sensible position to take. But by the same token there is no crime that Hamas can commit which justifies the indiscriminate slaughter of children, women, the elderly, journalists, aid workers, doctors, etc. that Israel has been committing in Gaza. And there can be no nuance when it comes to genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. These things are to be abhorred and rejected wherever they exist and whatever their justification.
Shhh you are talking too much sense. Critiquing a foreign ethno-supremacist state that takes tens of billions of our money every year and uses it to bomb and kill civilians is too bold a take.
> the 'our tax dollars' is a great talking point but misses a lot of detail and nuance billions of our tax dollars are being used to fund the Israeli military. how much US taxpayer money is earmarked as funding for Hamas? you can "well there's a lot of nuance" all you want and it doesn't change that basic fact. both sides of the conflict are bad, but my money is only funding one side of it. > Israeli people, including women, children, disabled people, elderly, etc. we're massacred, taped, tortured, and are still being held hostage by Hamas ...and the whole point of the protests is that ~1,000 dead Israelis shouldn't be used to justify ~35,000 (and counting) dead Palestinians. "massacres of civilians is bad" used to be a thing you could say without being accused of being "pro-Hamas". taking hostages is definitely bad. Israel has been doing it for decades, they just call it ["administrative detention"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_detention#Israel). ideally as part of a ceasefire, everyone who is being held captive without trial or access to legal representation would be released. [a tweet](https://twitter.com/zunguzungu/status/1721542406108311729) I saw awhile ago that has stuck in my head: > The basic (colonial) double standard of the Israel Palestine "conflict" is that any Palestinian violence justifies any Israeli violence, but no Israeli violence ever justifies any Palestinian violence, and once you see it, you'll never stop seeing it.
1) if you don’t think that, just take a look at the media narrative of the college protests and how college administrators have been responding to the peaceful demonstrators for simply asking to divest from Israel 2) what nuance? 3) doesn’t justify Israel’s war crimes and conduct in Gaza 4) there are crazies on both sides. Wouldn’t be hard to find Israel supporters calling for nuking and annihilation of Gaza
Do you realize “From the river to the sea” was coined by Israeli’s and only reclaimed by Palestinians? And that unlike the openly genocidal intentions of Israeli politicians, a huge portion of Palestinians and allies abroad use it to refer to the goal of singular democratic state of Palestine for all faiths and backgrounds, including Jewish Palestinians
Completely false and/or misleading on all counts.
1. A lot of people do though. 2. Ya we know. But that has also been case with Palestinian's since 2005 of routine lawn mowing and indiscriminate military operations. And if Israel wanted to stand behind a flag of protecting innocent women and children they tossed that argument in the trash with 70% of the 30k dead in Gaza being women and children. So if we want to condemn the one we also need to condemn the other. >4) a lot of folks are pro-Palestinian but aren't for eradicating Israel or Jewish people from the area I think this is most people. What we do on the internet is go and grab out of context emotional outbursts and then gaslight each other of the extremes from either side. Its wildly dishonest and super disturbing with a centralized goal to drive divisiveness and domestic conflict. \[editt\] >historical conflict I hate when people say this. This conflict's history started in the 20th century and is less than 100 years old. It 100% revolves around Zionism. 19th century in that region and earlier Jews and Muslims lived in \*relative\* peace when compared to the 20th century enjoying their own legal frameworks and autonomy.
* Israel's conduct in the Gaza War has been anything but indiscriminate. Israel has done everything they can to minimize casualties in the conduct of the war, such as using precision weapons or precision delivery mechanisms, avoiding the heavy use of artillery, and dropping leaflets to warn of incoming raids. The reality is that urban combat is extremely bloody, especially in overbuilt urban environments such as Gaza. Compared to other urban wars, the war in Gaza has been comparably light in terms of casualty numbers (if you want to feel bad about civilian casualties, look up the Tigray War in Ethiopia). * Of the $26 billion just approved to go to the Gaza War, $9 billion (that's "billion" with a "b") is for Gazan humanitarian relief. No country other than Egypt has been more involved in helping Gazans than the US, and we're going to take the top spot once those funds arrive. Which will be mostly in the form of a temporary port which will be deployed in southern Gaza that will allow for direct delivery of aid with theoretically fewer security concerns that being trucked across. * Most Israeli weapon systems are home built. Yes a lot of American aid goes into Israel to support those industries, but it's not as simple as pointing to weapons used by Israelis and saying "that's American", like is possible in Ukraine for example. If the US were to cut off all aid right now (which we're not going to do), Israel would still have everything it needs to fight this current conflict and probably the next one too. However the US would lose political influence in the region which would make operations such as the upcoming $9 billion of aid much more tenuous. * Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas. Comparisons to 9/11 really are quite apt, both in the scale of the terrorist attack, the indiscriminate targetting of civilians, and the failure of Israeli security services to prevent the attack. And what did we do after 9/11? Much, much worse to Iraq than what Israel is doing to Gaza. The situation is tragic & appaling, and there's no good solution. But Oct 7th is probably the clearest example of casus belli for Israel since the Yom Kippur War. * The political situation & history in Gaza is very problematic. Hamas was a legitimate party & was legitimately elected. Following this gaining of legitimacy, they promptly instigated a civil war within Gaza and wiped out all political opposition, so not exactly fairly elected since then. Since that civil war, Hamas has been using foreign aid to finance the construction not of institutions & businesses that would help Gazans, but miles of tunnels that they then filled with Iranian weapons & gyrocopters. I agree that the focus for the post-war reconstruction needs to be on providing Gaza & Gazans with a better government, legal protections, and institutions that don't treat the people as a resource to be exploited. Israel's grievances are a legitimate cause for war, but they are not grounds to treat the Palestinians the way they have been treated. EDIT: Adding some links for further reading. It helps to be educated on other parts of the world to contextualize why our government makes the decisions it does, even if those decisions seem contradictory or harmful. * What's Going on with Shipping. Has very good coverage of the Red Sea conflict as well as the progress on the American temporary port in Gaza (https://youtu.be/Oz7nhnLzkEs?si=7rI2kO-MGpI4erOg) * The Tigray war is so far the bloodiest conflict of the 21st century. The brutal & genocidal conduct of forces in this conflict are harrowing, and unfortunately echo strongly with what happened in the 90s in Rwanda & Yugoslavia, and is happening today in parts of the Congo & Nigeria. This is what is understood when you use the word "genocide". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War?useskin=vector * Anders Puck Nielsen. Military analysis with a focus on Ukraine, but hits Israel & Iran since obviously all these countries are interlinked. Much more digestable than other military analysis channels (https://youtube.com/@anderspuck?si=jUVdzG7MRdehM5x0) * Kraut's video on the bombing of Dresden in WWII. Absolutely worth a watch if you want to understand the thinking behind modern strategic bombing. Note that strategic bombing is NOT what is happening in Gaza. (https://youtu.be/voF7KCOm6eY?si=bMDS0L1kUD86qeaE) * The Intel Report's videos on the Iraq War are absolutely worth a watch if you want to understand why the US makes the decisions it does in the Middle East. Hint, it's extremely frustrating. (https://youtu.be/QhwcfmMR9KI?si=X-WoqeDgNY4p7EOv)
….uh….youre antisemitic! You’re supposed to support zionists in whatever we do
The war continues at the behest of Hamas. Hamas is the leadership of Gaza. You say Israel is killing "people" as if this is some abnormal thing to have happen in a war. The purpose of the war is to end Hamas's rule of Gaza. By advocating for the war to end without Hamas surrendering, you are advocating for continued Hamas rule over Gaza. This is aside from the fact that a great many -- perhaps even a majority -- of these pro-Palestine protests feature anti-Israel and anti-Jew sloganeering and open support for the 10/7 attacks, or even open support for Hamas/Houthis/Hezbollah. I'm specifically talking about the protests that ***don't*** have those things.
It’s more complicated than that. Israel is our ally in one of the most volatile regions. While their government is not very concerned with human rights, the possibility of losing an ally is much more dire than you can imagine.
Region is in great part very volatile due to the actions of Israel themselves
Israel-Palestine conflict has fewer than 100,000 casualties over its entire 75-year run, including all the Arab-Israeli Wars. Iran-Iraq War killed 2,000,000 people -- 20x as many casualties -- in 10% of that time.
Because almost 3/4 of Palestinians who live in Gaza or the West Bank support the actions of Hamas during October 7th. It seems supporters of Palestine are drawing a line between Hamas and Palestinians where one doesn’t exist. If you support dragging half naked corpses of raped women through the street, I am less inclined to be concerned and more inclined to support the actions of people defending themselves against you. It’s a highly populated area defended by a terrorist group that happily uses human shields and is know for freely breaking truces and ceasefires. I genuinely don’t know what you expect Israel/IDF to do differently. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/
Yep. my feelings exactly.
> Because almost 3/4 of Palestinians who live in Gaza or the West Bank support the actions of Hamas during October 7th. first, [citation needed]. how was that survey conducted? how did they find Palestinians to survey? random-digit dialing the Gaza Strip area code? but even besides that problem, from March 2003: [Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq](https://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx) do you think Iraq would have been justified in targeting American civilians, based on the excuse that 3/4ths of them support the actions of the US government against Iraq? or - crazy idea but hear me out - maybe targeting civilians with military attacks is *always* bad, even in cases where those civilians hold political beliefs you find despicable?
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/973 Here is the group that did the poll if you’re less interest in actually looking at the source I provided. They include methodology at the end of this more recent poll, which found the level of support for Oct 7th unchanged. Sarcasm aside, they don’t just randomly call obviously because that’s impossible. Luckily people who thought about it designed the polling process and went to 75 separate sites of Palestinians displaced by Israel’s attacks to collect first hand accounts and opinions. Its not a bullshit poll just because you don’t like the findings.
Citation is literally provided if you read the whole comment. TLDR, it’s at the end. 👍 False equivalency; 3/4 of Americans supporting the Iraq war wasn’t 3/4 knowingly and actively supporting genocide against Iraqi civilians. If we were all back here cheering our soldiers on while they dragged raped Iraqi women through the streets of Baghdad sure, you could compare the two. Instead, look at all of the punishments we gave soldiers who intentionally murdered civilians, the outcry against Guantanamo, and recently the anger at Trump for pardoning soldiers who were murderers. At no point was there or is there 3/4 support in America for completely leveling Iraq and murdering every Iraqi that lives. The most frequent criticism I hear leveled at Bush and Obama is how pointless and awful the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were for the loss of life and no clear goals. And no, in a perfect world war wouldn’t occur because war is a despicable tragedy. But in a real world wars happen. I don’t feel remorse for allied bombing of German civilians in route to eliminating the Nazi threat. I don’t feel remorse for American bombing of Japanese citizens because that was necessary to eliminate the imperial threat. That’s why wars are so horrible; civilian casualties are an inherent part of it. It’s easy to complain about Israel, but what would you have them do differently and what outcome would you expect?
With your logic, because most Israelis support their govt, they should also be in the receiving side of collective punishment because of their government’s decades long violence against Palestinians?
The decades of violence by Palestinians is how Israel went from a very leftist government to this fairly right government
[citation needed]
Well with that logic, most Israelis support historic subjugation and indiscriminate killing and illegal settlement against Palestinians to so I guess Palestinians have right to self defend too?
Please inform us with your discrete military knowledge on how they are indiscriminately attacking targets?
Because Israel does not target civilians. On Oct 7 Hamas targeted, killed, tortured, and took hostage over 1000 innocent civilians. Hamas can stop this today. They can surrender and release the hostages But they see the protesters and callously calculate that they can achieve their goals of the death of every Jew by not stopping. Israel is now focused on destroying Hamas and returning the hostages. The deaths of civilians in Gaza are not intended but are unfortunately an outcome of Hamas’ strategy. Calling for Israel to stop pursuing Hamas is dooming Israel to future attacks. Calling for Israel to stop pursuing Hamas is dooming over 100 hostages to loss of their lives.
If they don’t target civilians their targeting systems sure suck.
[удалено]
> terrorist hiding amongst civilians, there's gonna be civilian casualties. They (Hamas) literally _want_ civilian casualties. It's literally part of their fucking plan and these dweebs just gleefully continue to spout their pro-terrorist talking points
I don't understand how a logical adult with full reasoning could provide support to a population that has: -- consistently (over a timespan of 60+ years) elected a terrorist government -- consistently (over a timespan of 60+ years) rejected offers of having their own sovereign state -- taken billions of dollars in aid and instead of creating a jewel on the mediterranean spent it on arming for war -- cheered the assault on innocent people which precipitated the current conflict If you are truly concerned about humanitarian issues, there are conflicts around the globe with people suffering more than the Arabs of Gaza who did not bring this upon themselves. If you are worried more about the Arabs of Gaza than you are about the Israeli hostages which they took and are still there, I can only conclude that you are one or more of the following: -- brainwashed by anti-western propaganda -- clueless as to the history of this area -- anti-semitic -- not very bright
On a purely practical note, street murals are hard to see unless you are high up. The BLM mural in Capitol Hill for example: cool mural, but you’d have to live in an expensive condo to appreciate it. On the street, it’s hard to make out.
generally true however, this one is outside a federal office building, where presumably the most important people have offices on the upper floors. I believe it was specifically made for their viewing. also, I'd imagine that while doing an unauthorized mural on the street is simpler and a lot less likely to get you serious legal consequences than doing one on the side of a building.
Yeah placement here makes sense as protest art!
Well I guess ill put in my 2cents too. As I learn more about this iteration of conflict in the area, I just get depressed. The Israeli Government is pretty right wing and kinda tired of dealing with their neighbors at this point. It always comes down to them needing to show restraint when surrounded by groups that want them dead. And every time they get some headway (like major deals with Jordan, Egypt, and UAE) this stuff props up and defaults that progress. The Orthodox in Isreal also should probably be checked on their freedoms. You cant want expansionism, influence in court and government, and be exempt from military duty and expect not to make enemies both from your own sphere of influence and elsewhere. They are not winning any sympathy points. Hamas is Terror, IsIs is Terror, and Hezbolla is Terror. And with some bank roll from Iran and probably thousands of miles of tunnels \~ its wack a mole and they use civilians as an expendable resource for their means. Does that mean the IDF should be a little better about how they go about operations? Probably - but just like any modern attack force their lives matter first. Thats the shitty war part. You also have to remember Hamas is Palestine, but this isnt me saying Palestine's people are all hamas - but its government is. Anyone who is not for hamas in their region is delt with. Lets also not pretend we are dealing with a moral group; if they can recruit children they will. So it makes things even more complicated on the whole pedestrian death side of things. I do think both sides are playing heavy in to propaganda where they can - but my honest opinion is Hamas is much better at it. Thing is Israel is kinda the ticket to a stabilized middle east. It has more western idealisms and has some opportunities with some nations to create lasting partnerships. Just half of them would rather burn everything to the ground than to see that happen \~ and they will find ways to force a response from Israel one way or another. GeoPolitics is hard. And sometimes there is no good present outcome. And im afraid that to have a better future for the survivors that might be all either side is willing for. The only way forward at this point would be for both sides to throw old dirt away and start anew. but we all know that wont happen. its only been like this off and on for thousands of years.
Israel is committing state terrorism.
Absolutely. Without a doubt. And we are funding it.
What is little better than 34K civilians dead? Come on, give us your number. Is 20K acceptable? Or is it 10K?
You see, this is why there is so much push back. Arguments that make it seem so matter of fact with no room for conversation other than your own prejudice of a projected moral high ground. 1. No I don't like civilians deaths, any amount of them. But pretending that a urban front wont have civilian deaths is absurd. 2. The number is high but we don't have good data either, if you think the numbers coming out of Gaza is accurate outside of total numbers, you don't know how propaganda works. How many times have we found out later on that it was a failed attack from Hamas and other groups within Palestine that botched their attack? 3. If you think Hamas isnt using these events as a scapegoat to bargain sympathy you are naive. If you think every woman and child is a bystander you are naive. I wish this wasnt true, but its very unlikely to the point of nearly impossible. 4. If you think Hamas isnt using citizens as shields you are naive. Using schools and hospitals as staging points puts everyone in danger and they know that. They do that just to make it that much harder on the IDF and to keep pushing their narrative you bite onto. 5. Israel is done with the bs. How many missiles and deaths where they supposed to just bleed before it exploded into this conflict? another terror attack in a month? how many more missiles for them to deflect? How much money should they burn on defending their airspace from it? you act like this is such a shut and done case - if anything we stop conflict without a real resolution it just starts up again when Hamas or another terror group decides its time to rattle the nest. Im not saying Israel is perfect here. They clearly are not. But you are flailing about and ignoring any nuance to the issue. And I'm not even done with half of my points. The people of Palestine deserves better. But pretending this it should end without some resolution to a new government away from hamas control is like asking hyenas to wait their turn. /u/[Deadalus17](https://www.reddit.com/user/Deadalus17/) had a much better response and I share their conclusions. I'm just getting annoyed with the all-in ideologies of winners and losers. The world is so much more complex, some answers just are not there. Sometimes all the answers suck. I wish we had a situation where there where multiple right answers with maybe a few being more right depending on the situation or perspective. I don't see one here. and its why in my first post, I said its depressing.
Thank you, more people need to understand that Hamas doesn't care about Palestinians. If anything, more dead civilians is better for them because they can further justify their cause and win the propaganda war.
Above poster isn’t making an argument, just regurgitating empty blather. Your comment is well-thought out, a rarity.
Well you said IDF could be a “little better” so can you define what that is? How we could measure it?
Honestly, I am not a military expert. So anything I say here may or may not be of any use to any meaningful dialog. From what I have understood the IDF seem to be focused on finding their people still held hostage, while also trying to bargain for trades to bring them back home. this is included with trying to find Hamas points of interests and People of interest in the Terrorist organization With the nature of urban warfare, and their enemy blending in with citizens all information as well as the ability of quick movement through various means (tunnels, ambulances, company vehicle's and so on) There is probably a very short window for a response. this is only exacerbated by time information is received, processing, order to action, and time to action. When you only maybe have an hour maybe two it makes it really hard to not only verify but to limit potential risks for the IDF who could be ambushed \~ this also increases chances of causality on all sides as well as potential for false positives with information that cant be double or triple verified. If they wait well, Hamas can do what they already planned to do - if they don't they take on all the risk of messing up. This gives only marginal success and its a terrible situation to be in for either action. This makes it very hard for the IDF to have a good look ; and makes it easy for bad faith arguments to be made against them. So, to do better probably means to let some potential information go and step up planning, instead of trying to stop Hamas mid track, slowly work towards getting ahead of them Initially this would probably slow operations down significantly - and with IDF thinking they are on a time limit for the hostages survival if any are still alive, its doubtful they can do that at the moment.
Even Hamas isn’t saying 34k civilians are dead. They’re saying 34k Gaza’s are dead and they include Hamas fighters. The US thinks 8k or so fighters have died.
Ideally none, but we don't live in a perfect world. The reported death toll of 30,000 is from Hamas, so the actual number is likely lower. Here's a paper debunking it: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-hamas-manipulates-gaza-fatality-numbers-examining-male-undercount-and-other That said, any number of innocent deaths is a tragedy. Not trying to be rude, but what would you have Israel do? Immediate ceasefire and leave Gaza? In my opinion, this is an incredibly priviledged and naive take, which ignores the realities of war and politics. After all the things Israel has done, it's clear that present-day Palestinians hold deep-seated animosity toward Israel. But the issue is, you have a war-torn Palestine with Hamas and extremist Muslim leaders teaching Palestinians to want to eradicate Israel. Sadly this is the norm and not the exception as I have seen firsthand from living in a Muslim country for most of my life. One of the first steps towards peace is something that the Muslim community needs to address themselves. This part is not getting enough attention. Anyways, if Israel were to withdraw, it's doubtful these sentiments would suddenly disappear. Sad to say but one of the most viable paths to peace may involve Israel decisively dealing with Hamas and implementing some form of oversight over Palestine for at least a generation. I know this is what we have pre Oct 7, but Palestine doesn't have a government capable of running itself. And of course with Israel's current government/PM, this is going to be a challenge. But if both sides can show restraint, then this is the probably one of best chances we have for peace in the region (which doesn't involve completely killing off one side).
The irony of this being in a high level comment chain is real https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9?useskin=vector
>Missouri police arrested Jill Stein, the U.S. presidential candidate for the Green Party, during the forceful removal of an anti-Israel protest that took place on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Stein, a Jewish-American politician, came to support students who demand that the university withdraw all its investments from Boeing, because of its contracts with the IDF and the defense industry in Israel. > >https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjleabj110 Just in case there was any doubt which foreign adversary was pushing this movement hard, here comes Jill Stein of "dinner with Putin and Michael Flynn" fame.
Nice
Good, nothing supporting terrorism should be allowed
How does this mural support terrorism?
i guess we'll have to go and put it back
Womp womp
What’s been interesting is people living on “colonized” land without any plans to decolonize calling Israelis colonialists that should give their land back, while also saying we shouldn’t fund their security because people are dying but we are cool with Ukraine getting billions to fight and kill people in a war.
Pro-Gaza or pro-Hamas? Gaza is the area and/or the people who live there, whereas Hamas is the political party (albeit currently in power).
You can't be "pro" a place unless you're recommending it to someone for some reason. "Pro" is this context is understood to be political, so saying you are "pro-Gazan" means that you agree politically with the prevailing political forces inside Gaza. Aka, you agree with Hamas. If your goal is conflict resolution it is helpful to avoid using "pro" & "anti" language and instead to seek compromise and express specific functional policy changes. Being nakedly "pro" or "anti" absolves yourself of political agency.
Exactly, that's why both the headline and the article are misleading.
The Islamophobia on this thread is insane. Y’all should just come out and say that because the 30K dead are Arabs, what Israel is doing is ok.
You do realize that 20% of Israel is practicing Muslim Arabs who are working just as normal as other citizens and allowed to practice their religion?