news Israel-Palestine Conflict 2023/ 2024 Mega Thread

[airplane]

 

[Nova_23]

41 minutes ago, Gaia said:

I say this genuinely, who would you support then? Because the right are the most extreme Islamophobic people I’ve met in the US. 
 

Im from the suburbs of Georgia and can tell you voting Republican would be the complete opposite of your interests as well. 
 

for the past decade the elections have seemed to be “voting lesser of the evils” and not necessarily voting for the candidate that you genuinely liked. 
 

Would you sit out the next election? Vote trump? Vote independent? 

I would sit it out. Or maybe vote independent. 

[Nova_23]

24 minutes ago, airplane said:

 

Israel already occupies Gaza. The words he should be using are invades. 

[Communion]

9 minutes ago, Nova_23 said:

Israel already occupies Gaza. The words he should be using are invades. 

His interview on 60 Minutes was a mess, basically:

 

[brazil]

4 hours ago, Scars said:

Brazil's discourse on Israel-Palestine is currently a mess because evangelicals, which make up over 31% of our population, wholeheartedly believe that the entire region was promised by God to Jewish people as The Holy Land for eternity, some of them are so passionate about Israel that they'll go as far as remove Jews out of the discourse and center themselves. Any horror committed by Israel will be justified by christian talking points. On top of that, our mainstream neoliberal media align themselves with the US as much as possible.

 

Under this scenario, voicing opposing views can be challenging as we both know, but I do think some of our most influential progressive figures and independent media are doing a really good job at spreading the word about the Palestinian struggle and Israel genocidal occupation. Support for Palestine seems to be at an all-time high within left-leaning circles these past few years.

 

Your post reminded me of the huge difference between The Intercept US and The Intercept Brasil report on latest events:

 

The Intercept Brazil: Israel-Palestine - 11 distortions about Gaza and Hamas in the media

 

Link to the article: https://www.intercept.com.br/2023/10/11/maior-jornal-de-israel-culpa-benjamin-netanyahu-por-violencia-nao-hamas/

 

The Intercept US: Hamas Is Dragging Israel Toward the Abyss

 

Link to the article: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/13/israel-ground-invasion-gaza-hamas/

 

 

No wonder they're a much more relevant independent media outlet in Brazil than in the US. 

Very well put. It is a shame that with all the domestic issues we already have, we're now having to deal with the increase of fundamentalist Evangelicals importing a lot of conservative stance from Evangicals in the US (whether it is the recent move to ban same-sex marriage or blind support towards Israel).

[sillycilla]

Israel is really a dystopian government. The amount of PR and propaganda that’s spewed day in and day out is mind blowing. The country, not state office or department, the COUNTRY, has a twitter and Instagram???? Like wtf

 

Anyways, I’m increasingly more concerned  that they will succeed with this genocide. The silence from today makes me think that they have had to reset and re strategize the PR. The electricity is out and they bombed most of the pipes so how exactly did they get water? No one ever challenges what the government says or asks follow up questions. I am hoping for any leader with yielding power (clearly not Biden), anyone with sway to speak up and it’s deafening silence. 
 

And why doesn’t anyone point out Palestine doesn’t have an army so it isn’t a war!!!!!  

Edited October 16, 2023 by sillycilla

[Nova_23]

The official IG account of Israel is going after Gigi Hadid in their stories. Acting like a parody account while committing a genocide 

 

The “we see you” is very sinister though. Almost like a threat. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Nova_23

[GhostBox]

biden stating again what he has said before that Hamas (terrorists)doesn’t represent all Palestinians. Unlike what some here have posted and liked. 💀

 

also I see nothing wrong with saying  Hamas should be entirely eliminated. Even most Palestinians would agree with that. 
 

unfortunately that’s just not all Israel is targeting. Which is why we are seeing the administration start to adjust their tone in the situation. 

I did read how BIBI was warned something like this situation would occur but ignored the intel. Probably on purpose thinking this all would help him politically. If so he thought wrong. 

[sillycilla]

IDK I’ve always been a don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good type of person when it comes to voting. I always tell people you don’t have to agree with everything. However I am starting to feel like morally, genocide is something I can’t stand by and in good faith vote for Dems who were in lock step with making that happen. I was to young for Iraq but even this feels different. I don’t blame any Muslim American on how they choose to vote should things get much  worse. :(

Edited October 16, 2023 by sillycilla

[sillycilla]

10 minutes ago, GhostBox said:

biden stating again what he has said before that Hamas (terrorists)doesn’t represent all Palestinians. Unlike what some here have posted and liked. 💀

 

also I see nothing wrong with saying  Hamas should be entirely eliminated. Even most Palestinians would agree with that. 
 

unfortunately that’s just not all Israel is targeting. Which is why we are seeing the administration start to adjust their tone in the situation. 

I did read how BIBI was warned something like this situation would occur but ignored the intel. Probably on purpose thinking this all would help him politically. If so he thought wrong. 

Yes Egypt warned him and I personally think he intentionally ignored it . Israelis blame him for the attack.

 

What Biden said is the bare minimum. Hamas was funded by Israel and pushed to combat a strong yasir Arafat, they were nervous about him. Hamas is also the last resort of a desperate and destitute Palestinian people. If Biden isn’t saying anything about freeing Palestine from Israel’s oppressive regime then all of this is just a show. What happens after they wipe out Hamas which is literally impossible without killing thousands of innocent people??

 

 

We should have known voting for a guy who supported and pushed the Iraq war would lead us to this. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by sillycilla

[futurenostalgic]

 

 

[TeemoR]

It's great how more and more people are turning against the Israeli government. Even Joe Biden is (slowly) backtracking. I kinda doubt Israel will invade Gaza as that would create so much more controversy, but I guess we will see. It's hard to predict how this is going to turn out.

 

Also YAS at Kehlani (had no idea who the hell this is before this whole situation), Gigi Hadid, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and of course Motaz Azaiza.

 

Any other popular people/public figures openly supporting Palestine?

[GhostBox]

44 minutes ago, sillycilla said:

If Biden isn’t saying anything about freeing Palestine from Israel’s oppressive regime then all of this is just a show. 

 

I don’t think you’ll ever see any president ever say anything exactly like this. The fact he is even starting to change the tone slightly he did have is surprising. And we will probably see it more as the days go on. 
also the US president didn’t lead us into anything when it comes to this. This was sadly inevitable. It was just a matter of when not if. 
 

Also nothing that is happening between Israel and Palestine is gonna have any affect on the 2024 elections 💀  by this time next year the American voters will be consumed by something else. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by GhostBox

[Communion]

2 hours ago, wastedpotential said:

Again, I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable to think about, but stating that the majority of Democrats (and the vast majority of Republicans; and thus the overall vast majority of Americans writ large) are incredibly Zionist. They are the majority of the population who supported the creation of and funding for USAID and have consistently voted in governments who are "strong" on NatSec. There are portions of the Democratic Party (mainly the Muslim minority or the strong anti-colonial factions) that are pro-Palestine, but they don't have the numbers or power as an electoral base to have much meaningful impact in Washington beyond sparking discourse and protests (and those protests will remain inneffective until and unless they grow to include a majority; if they grow violent all that will achieve is the further pro-Zionism-ization of the leadership) and at the end of the day, are still strongly out-numbered by pro-Zionism Democrats (as it stands now, there are more Jews in the US than there are Muslims, and those Jews are also strongly in the Democrat faction and generally do wield an outsized degree of political power and influence, even when discounting anti-Zionism Jews). It has very gruesome outcomes in this conflict, but that's literally just the fact of the matter in the US political space today. 

 

All this goes to show is that, at least to the minds of Biden's team of political analysts and pollsters, the American populace is far more anti-Hamas than it is anti-Zionism. Apart from being tools of propaganda, the reason the mainstream media in the US is covering this issue the way that they are is because they also think it's what's popular with the consumers of the news. I can't speak to the specific comments of any other user on this website, but if I'm understanding your comment correctly, then their rationale would be along the lines of "well, Biden is the only person on the planet with a reasonable chance of being able to stop Netanyahu from committing genocide, and Biden has clearly stated that he is not going to do that, and millions of Palestinians being moved to a refugee camp in Egypt (probably permanently, yes), is a better outcome than millions of Palestinians being killed", which I don't necessarily think is a wrong way to look at the issue in a practical way. Both options are entirely reprehensible, but if those truly are the only two options (which, to my perspective, seems to be likely given how the US is not backing down from its rhetoric and how the IDF is moving right now), is it not the lesser of the two evils for the Palestinians to at least be alive? I'm sure you'll crucify me for that comment, but I would like for you to present an actionable third path forward that has a chance of actually playing out given the circumstances. I am not advocating for or endorsing either genocide or ethnic cleansing (and find it deeply upsetting and disgusting that we have reached this point), but the Biden Administration has given the Israeli government carte blanche here, and those are the two options they are likely to pursue, and I literally cannot think of any other viable outcome or way to exert any influence over the issue. Please, if you have a viable suggestion, I would love to hear it. 

 

Except in democracies, electoralism is the single driving force behind government action. In the US, I don't think any Democrat who isn't running in Michigan (and probably some districts in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, or Minnesota), such as Gretchen Whitmer, are particularly concerned about alienating Muslims given their relatively small population. I can certainly see it being a bigger issue for the UK, but even if the UK did make a hard turn and pulled all support from Israel, that still wouldn't have much impact on the path of Israel going forward, as the UK does not have nearly the same degree of sway over Israel (though, for what it's worth, I think Labour would be a lot more pro-Palestine if they weren't trying to attract back some of the wider support Jeremy Corbyn lost). The only way to circumvent the power the electorate wields over the government would be to de-democratize and move in a very autocratic direction. I cannot imagine a hypothetical autocratic-US that is pro-Palestine at all (given the prevailing ideology amongst the military and the gun owners of this country [ie those who would have the means to overthrow the current government]), and such a move would only provide the government greater means to silence the opposition (who would very probably be the pro-Palestinian faction). Electoralism, at least in the US system, is messy because it allows the majority of voters on any given issue to run over any minority who stands in their way, and in the US today, pro-Palestine and anti-Zionism arguments are firmly in the minority. 

 

I can definitely understand your argument here, and to a degree I can agree with the underlying logic (that it would be best for everyone but the US military-industrial complex and big oil companies for the US to pull back from its role as "global policeman" or whatever and focus more on internal issues), but things have developed the way that they have, and the current "rules-based" order where the powerful political actors within major players have no real sympathy for the Palestinian cause right now, so I don't exactly know how I should respond to this. There is literally no one with the means to "punish" Biden or Sunak or whoever for trying to push Gazans into Egyptian refugee camps. I'm not sure if you've made the connection, but war crimes tribunals are only ever set up to go after the losers of wars, and there's literally zero chance of the US (and by extension Israel) actually "losing" this war. Crimes against Humanity charges are only enforceable if the US wants them to be (I mean, if someone tried to put Netanyahu before the ICC I am positive that the US congress would invoke the The Hague Invasion Act and get him out before he could be thrown into a US funded prison). Yeah, it is incredibly unfortunate, but there's literally nothing we can do about it but ***** in this thread. 

 

Again, no one country or individual has to respect or follow the western world order to the degree that they might not want to (see North Korea, Iran, or Russia), but the western world order holds a great deal of coercive power to entice people and countries into following (and the methods to discourage actively going against the western world order; again, see North Korea, Iran, or Russia). It is, for whatever reason, not in the current interests of western leaders with influence to care about what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians (it's great to see the Colombian government starting to take a stand, but what real impact will that have?), the Palestinians do not have the mechanisms to change the interests of western leaders, and the members of the population in the west who disagree with their governments will probably never wield the power to change things (the current political interests are too firmly entrenched), what feasible way forward is there where this ends with a Palestinian "victory" in any real form beyond survival (even after an ethnic cleansing)? Short of a mass movement of Robespierre-style guillotining or a Bolshevik-style revolution in the US, and a complete reorganization of the political elite (which is practically impossible given the repressive powers of that elite), there is no real way forward that does not end with thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Palestinian deaths; such a solution would instead probably sacrifice a few thousand Americans to a bloody revolution instead. Perhaps I'm incredibly nihilistic in my thinking, but I'm very much a big picture thinker, and the big picture, real world factors all stack firmly against Palestine. The only people with the potential ability to possibly influence the political thinking of the only person with the coercive ability to stop Israel from committing atrocities are the average American voter (because the fringes on both sides will not appeal to Biden or the congressional leadership [though, if Jim Jordan gets through, then he may have an ear for the pro-fascism, anti-semitic factions of the far right]), and the average American voter is either apathetic, sorry for both sides, or staunchly pro-Israel. The current protests on the streets are not nearly big enough in scale to change things, and if they turn violent, all it will do is alienate the rest of the electorate from the cause. 

 

I certainly don't blame you (or anyone in this thread) from using this thread as a place of venting, or resource coordination (to whatever degree of impact that may have), or education, or of shutting down pro-genocide shills, but I've personally stayed out of it for so long (despite being a very active reader), because it seems pretty hopeless to me right now, and because much of the discussion has been far too concentrated on the micro-scale and the day-to-day for my knowledge to be relevant or applicable. Again, if you have any positive angles that I'm too cynical to see, please share them. 

 

Sorry for unloading and for being as callous as I have been (I don't want to upset anyone, but I think people are missing the forest for the trees), I'll step off the soap box now. 

 

EDIT: One final thought - every voter in the US who is turned away from Biden by this and casts their ballot for a third-party candidate or just abstains from voting in general is lowering the vote threshold that Trump or any other Republican who may take his place should he be barred from running will need by one. I strongly agree that Biden is handling this situation horribly, but I also know that Trump (or Ramaswamy or DeSantis or Haley or whoever else) would be handling it far worse, and will handle it worse (at least worse than Biden has so far) on January 21st, 2025, should they win. 

Sis, I wanted to just touch on this to kind of cap it off without us getting into some kind of back and forth.

 

I want to clarify that I don’t believe this thread serves as some kind of like.. praxis, like as though it has some kind of or any material contribution to the events in geopolitics unfolding, outside of any resource organization for donations or comforts our tiny little corner of the internet can possibly bring to one another.

 

But part of that is where my discomfort comes from. And for clarity, it was less you and more-so someone like Monster Megamind being like “well! Hopefully Biden keeps this under order to keep those approvals up! 10k dead Gazans would be a reasonably low number to keep this in order!”

 

And that in here of all places, a space that is largely inconsequential to anything in the real world, you still have people with a kind of knee-jerk call-to-action to defend what they perceive as inherently commanding Western institutions and their sanctity inherent to their Western-ness.

 

Like even getting into “well if we really breakdown the demographics, it’s clear that this is just the pro-Israel reality of a majority of Americans, and so for practical incrementalism, the average US poli-“ is.. silly? There’s no explanation that can wash away the objective immorality of America’s investment in Palestinian genocide. And that people who at least post on a virtual space that they care about Palestinians, even if to just comfort themselves, should also reconcile with that if they’re an American.

 

You’re asking me to provide a solution as an alternative to Biden’s solution, but part of my discomfort is people still thinking the West has the authority to give solutions out to people whose deaths they sign. If a Palestinian decides armed resistance is the only way forward against Israeli violence, I just can’t imagine someone in the Western world feeling comfortable enough to be like “Are you sure this is the path you wanna go? :)”

 

Like I’m kinda losing my mind at the absurdity of a Palestinian American user being upset over Biden’s pro-genocide comments and yet that kind of chauvinism still manifesting in people being like “yeah, I 100% get why this is all upsetting for you *hugs* … you’re still going to vote for Joe though right? Don’t forget what they say about the lesser evil..”, while Biden is like “Gazans chose the lesser evil of Hamas over subjugation by Israelis so now we have to make them Egyptians!”. Like doesn't this feel depraved?  The stakes are quite literally life and death for millions and the kind of things progressive politicians claim to be about, and yet some people's only thoughts are like "but what about ensuring the majority of the Senate!?" and just the tone of that is just making me very negatively polarized to... whatever that is.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Communion

[sillycilla]

3 minutes ago, GhostBox said:

I don’t think you’ll ever see any president ever say anything exactly like this. The fact he is even starting to change the tone slightly he did have is surprising. 
also the US president didn’t lead us into anything when it comes to this. This was sadly inevitable. It was just a matter of when not if. 

Jimmy Carter did and he wrote a book about it as well. The goal has to be ending the occupation. The change in tone is change in tactic that’s all. Reporters that are on the ground are painting a different picture.  
 

Biden isn’t doing anything but say “Hamas aren’t Palestinians” and “ by golly I sure hope Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza” as if that’s not what they have  already been doing for decades.

[sillycilla]

I’m done 

 

 

[ultraviolence.xx]

STOP THE SCALE

[Cloröx]

1 hour ago, Nova_23 said:

The official IG account of Israel is going after Gigi Hadid in their stories. Acting like a parody account while committing a genocide 

 

The “we see you” is very sinister though. Almost like a threat. 

And the scary thing is it can happen, I mean Mossad has long ass history assassinating people 

[wastedpotential]

1 hour ago, Communion said:

Sis, I wanted to just touch on this to kind of cap it off without us getting into some kind of back and forth.

 

I want to clarify that I don’t believe this thread serves as some kind of like.. praxis, like as though it has some kind of or any material contribution to the events in geopolitics unfolding, outside of any resource organization for donations or comforts our tiny little corner of the internet can possibly bring to one another.

 

But part of that is where my discomfort comes from. And for clarity, it was less you and more-so someone like Monster Megamind being like “well! Hopefully Biden keeps this under order to keep those approvals up! 10k dead Gazans would be a reasonably low number to keep this in order!”

 

And that in here of all places, a space that is largely inconsequential to anything in the real world, you still have people with a kind of knee-jerk call-to-action to defend what they perceive as inherently commanding Western institutions and their sanctity inherent to their Western-ness.

 

I absolutely agree about not wanting to get into a drawn out back and forth debate, this thread and topic really aren't appropriate for that. I gain a lot of insight from your posts (even though we don't always agree - mostly because I've got a pretty traditional academic background in political science and international relations and a lot of the ideas you present are far outside the perspective I've found to be the most logical), and I do have a great amount of respect for your opinions and approach. Honestly, a great deal of my ranting was driven by the sporadic posts in this thread about how this situation is terrible and something should be done, but without any substance as to what something might be. Obviously, this is not a place where substantive and implementable solutions to the crisis will spawn from (as I seriously doubt any member of the US congress spends their spare time perusing ATRL) but seeing this doom-loop cycle between posters on both sides of the issue, and the constant back and forth (at least at the beginning) of "oh, this is terrible for the Israeli citizens" to "No, this is terrible for the Palestinians" and a healthy mix of "it's Hamas' fault" and "I feel bad for the civilians but the IDF and Hamas are both bad" with nothing more to the posts over and over for 75+ pages in a row was driving me insane and the response to your post was just the place where I ended up sticking that rant. I guess it's not fair for me to expect that kind of nuance from the majority of users on a pop girl stan forum, but I digress. 

 

1 hour ago, Communion said:

Like even getting into “well if we really breakdown the demographics, it’s clear that this is just the pro-Israel reality of a majority of Americans, and so for practical incrementalism, the average US poli-“ is.. silly? There’s no explanation that can wash away the objective immorality of America’s investment in Palestinian genocide. And that people who at least post on a virtual space that they care about Palestinians, even if to just comfort themselves, should also reconcile with that if they’re an American.

 

This is something that I do struggle with, because to me as an American looking at this tragedy which (from the perspective of either side), the US government bears at least some degree of responsibility for, what good is any show of support for Palestine?  You or me or anyone else who is pro-Palestine can express feelings of shame or disgust for our government's role in the tragedy and seeming support for its escalation, but if that support is unwavering and our opinions completely irrelevant, does the morality even matter? It is so far out of my control that voicing an opinion doesn't do any good for anyone except to assuage my guilt, and is that even worth the two bytes of server space it takes up? Sharing the link to some petition or the information for some protest feels deeply performative, knowing that it won't change a thing about the reality of the situation. The despondency I feel is worthless because the worst outcome is seemingly inevitable. I find that analyzing the why and how this has happened and the political paths that have led here provide a lesson in what not to allow happen in the lead up to the next time a crisis of this magnitude and with this degree of American involvement rolls around (which I also think is inevitable). Thus, where you see the electoral rationale as trying to explain away something to downplay my own personal responsibility (at least, if I'm understanding you right), I see it as a lesson to take away to potentially lead to a better outcome for the next time. It's a pretty callous outlook on the situation, but I personally find it more productive than just wallowing in misery and shame. I hope that grants you a better understanding of my own reasoning for trying to rationalize the situation away. I do agree that the posts trying to quantify an appropriate number of civilian Palestinian deaths for a response from Biden were incredibly cruel, but that's not at all the angle from which I was approaching this. 

 

1 hour ago, Communion said:

You’re asking me to provide a solution as an alternative to Biden’s solution, but part of my discomfort is people still thinking the West has the authority to give solutions out to people whose deaths they sign. If a Palestinian decides armed resistance is the only way forward against Israeli violence, I just can’t imagine someone in the Western world feeling comfortable enough to be like “Are you sure this is the path you wanna go? :)”

 

Like I’m kinda losing my mind at the absurdity of a Palestinian American user being upset over Biden’s pro-genocide comments and yet that kind of chauvinism still manifesting in people being like “yeah, I 100% get why this is all upsetting for you *hugs* … you’re still going to vote for Joe though right? Don’t forget what they say about the lesser evil..”, while Biden is like “Gazans chose the lesser evil of Hamas over subjugation by Israelis so now we have to make them Egyptians!”. Like doesn't this feel depraved?  The stakes are quite literally life and death for millions and the kind of things progressive politicians claim to be about, and yet some people's only thoughts are like "but what about ensuring the majority of the Senate!?" and just the tone of that is just making me very negatively polarized to... whatever that is.

I think this stems just from our vast ideological differences. I personally have a hard time imagining a political actor not from the western world to be the one to provide the solution. Of course, that comes from my view that the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian civilians is almost inevitable at this point and that the US will eventually step in to help Israel clean up the mess. The near entirety of the Israeli political spectrum is in support, as is the US, the UK, and the EU. The Chinese aren't interested in intervening in a conflict that doesn't concern their interests (and that their economic partners are taking opposing sides of), the Saudi's and Egyptians want to crush Hamas in any way possible given their fears of a Muslim Brotherhood associated actor influencing their own populations, the Iranians are happy to use the innocent Palestinian people as a political prop to destroy the Israeli-Saudi normalization deal, the Russians have only come down on the side of the Palestinians because they're trying to keep good relations with the Iranians to provide them with drones for the war in Ukraine (though I did see a compelling point made that Putin may also personally be trying to shore up his support with his own Muslim minority), and the Indian populace (and very likely Modi's BJP) are just happy to see the deaths of more Muslims. No political entity with even the slightest chance of intervening on behalf of the Palestinians is remotely interested in doing so, and those who might be interested are not capable. Thus, the Israeli's will be able to do what they want (probably up to and including chemical or nuclear weapons on pockets of particularly strong resistance), and then the Americans will step in when the opinion of the public changes drastically enough (probably regarding the chemical or nuclear weapons use), pay off the Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, or whoever else to host the remaining refugees, and that will be that. If Hezbollah (possible) or Iran (unlikely) get involved, then the Gerald R. Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower are right there with their combined hundreds of fighters and thousands of missiles to reduce those movements to rubble (because the American public seems to be in favor of an action like that for now). That's Biden's solution, and I just cannot fathom any other outcome. I don't think the US has any real interest in pulling "rank" over its allies and forcing a solution at the expense of any Palestinian resistance - I don't think the Palestinian resistance has the chance to do anything but delay the inevitable in the first place. 

 

That being said, I think there is a fine line to walk in commenting on the potential voting preferences of Palestinian or Arab Americans (or really just many progressive Americans) in 2024. There are several obvious reasons for a Palestinian or Arab American to not want to support Joe Biden, and disregarding that in some cold political calculus is heartless and demeaning. That being said, every single abstention or third party vote from an otherwise-Democrat literally makes it slightly easier from the even more strongly pro-Zionism and Islamophobic party to win, so voting for someone who isn't Joe Biden is objectively not in their best interests. People do vote against their self-interest all the time for a variety of reasons, but this crisis seems so existential, and it doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to wonder about how a Trump administration would be handling this tragedy (I think we can all agree that such handling would be far crueler than Biden has proven to be so far). This is a deeply challenging balance that can quickly be upended, and I know that my comments on the matter were in the vein of responding to users who didn't seem to appreciate the nuance in their comments. I guess I feel comfortable wading into the terrible dynamics of Senate control on an issue like this, for instance, because the most progressive Republican Senator on this issue is probably Susan Collins, whose comments regarding the issue I find deeply concerning. Finally, because I've become so desensitized to the issue, and because I feel comfortable leaning into the vile political calculus that may be made for the sake of fully rationalizing my fears,

 

Spoiler

I think it's well within the realm of possibility for the Democrat establishment (aside from those in Michigan, and certain Congressional districts in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota) to choose to forever write off Muslim Americans as such an inconsequential portion of the electorate (they are at the last national poll I could find, about 0.8% of the total population and are one of the poorer religious groups in the US) in favor of a continued unwavering support for Israel, which is widely popular with most practicing Evangelical Christians (~25% of the population when considering Black and Hispanic congregations) due to their interpretation of the Biblical book of Revelations and is still broadly popular with American Mainline Protestants and Catholics (another 35% of the electorate), not to mention the 1.4% of the population who are Jewish (who are the wealthiest religious group). Hell, an outsized proportion of the mainstream Democrat establishment is Jewish (18% of Democrat senators and 12% of Congressmen).

 This math is far too easy for me to make in the way that I have than it ought to be, but I think that pushing these facts under the rug now because it feels depraved seems short-sighted when a statistically relevant possible outcome of the 2024 election is a far-right government that tries to replicate the ethnic cleansing of Muslims seen in Israel here in the US. It may be unsympathetic to say, but is it not possible (or even likely) that the outcome of a mass boycott of the Biden campaign in 2024 from Muslim and progressive voters will be significantly worse than what we're seeing now, and probably much closer to home? And is such an outcome not worth publicly considering, at least to try and prevent it? 

 

I'm sorry for ranting again, I really didn't mean to turn this into another rebuttal to your post, but I am earnestly quite interested in what your thoughts on some of my worries are, if you're so inclined. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by wastedpotential

[Cloröx]

This is so crazy 

 

 

[DAP]

8 hours ago, FOCK said:

 

 

[Robert]

2 hours ago, Cloröx said:

This is so crazy 

 

 

Wtf how is this even legal?

[Carter]

1947:

December 30:
Haifa, Palestine - 39 dead

Irgun: a Zionist terrorist organization, threw bombs at a group of 100 Palestinian Arab refinery workers

 

December 31:
Haifa, Palestine - 71 dead
Haganah: a Zionist paramilitary organization, attacked residents of the Balad al-Shaykh village while being alseep

 

 

1948:

 

April 9:
Dar Yassin - 200+ dead
both Irgun & Lehi attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem

 

 

May 23:
Tantura, Occupied Palestine - 200+ dead
IDF attacked the village of Tantura and massacred up to 200 of its Palestinian arab inhabitants. 

 

July 11:
Lydda, Occupied Palestine - 400+ deaths 
Over 150 Palestinian Arab civilians were massacred after an IDF soldier dug a hole in the wall of the mosque and shot an anti-tank shell through it.

 

now that hamas is using their tactic and strategy and how they occupied the land to begin with one named a terrorist organization and the other one celebrated and cheered by most world leaders?

 

what not to get here? 

when i get reported for supporting hamas by just being Pro-Palestine or called antisemitic 

 

remember you’re the one who’s siding with a terrorist state and condoning it. 

 

HAMAS has the right to invade Israel more than the right for Israel to invade gaza. 

[SmittenCake]

What are your opinions on the potential outcomes if Saudi Arabia and Iran become embroiled in a conflict? Do you think Saudi Arabia might consider disrupting gas supplies, while Iran could employ its own weaponry?

[Carter]

3 minutes ago, SmittenCake said:

Do you think Saudi Arabia might consider disrupting gas supplies

i think that’s why biden started backtracking after the Washington-Crown Prince Meeting regarding gaza yesterday.