news Israel-Palestine Conflict 2023/ 2024 Mega Thread

[Kassi]

 

 

[Communion]

37 minutes ago, Kassi said:

 

 

Even more evidence why electing Joe Biden was the worst thing a progressive could do, moving not only the White House but even America's most progressive senators to the right:

 

 

gives a pretty compelling case for why Biden must not be re-elected and reformist progressive Democrats realize tying themselves to the centrist institution only made their hands covered in blood too. 

[Aethereal]

12 hours ago, FOCK said:

Israel is ISIS.

 

 

 

Don't believe everything that is posted in Twitter. 

[Communion]

17 hours ago, Harrier said:

I am asking valid questions about people's motives for attempting to villainise civiliians, and what the potential goals for doing so might be. I understand emotionally why someone might feel hopeless right now - and perhaps that user does not have any particular goals in mind - but hopelessness is a place where some pretty dark politics can emerge. We have to vigilant against any attempt to dehumanise Palestinians, Israelis or anyone else, because that is how radical movements have justified their violence historically and is certainly how Israelis are justifying the genocide in Gaza.

 

You would have absolutely no problem calling out a Westerner member participating in rhetoric that you deem potentially dangerous - and you do constantly. You've called me a Western chauvinist, an unhinged racist etc etc over my critiques of the online left's behavior during this war. You have recently asked users in the threads about Islam in Europe, what do you support then? What parties would you vote for? Essentially the same line of argumentation I've used here. But in this case, you emotionally identity with that user and so you feel uncomfortable with me challenging their rhetoric, even though I manage to do so without being rude to them. And that isn't really an argument.

The entire issue is that you see it as a "villainization" *despite* the person you're interrogating being themselves a civilian of Israel too!! Let alone someone institutionally discriminated against within the place they call their home! Tell me what you think happens if an Israeli Arab tried to move to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank? Can a Palestinian citizen of Israel marry a fellow Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza and transfer their citizenship to their partner? Would you accept living in these conditions?

 

You are not operating with any sense of the material conditions of people's realities and how your presumptions differ from this reality.

That is largely my issue with liberals who seem to - at best - get close to doing standpoint theory instead of any material analysis. 

 

Your posts show you know xenophobia, nationalism, white supremacy, etc. to be wrong. I genuinely believe you're outraged and upset to being told your pro-Israel arguments contribute to such. But instead of replying with some retort showing why my claims are materially untrue, you instead resort to empty snarl terms or dismissing the criticisms as anti-Americanism (despite no material argument backing up said claims).

 

I criticize those in the imperial core like fellow Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. as being complicit in war crimes because the material reality of not disavowing both economic and military aid from our countries to Israel materially constitutes that. It does not matter how much you say you feel bad for Palestinians or how much you claim to support a 2 state solution; those who prop up the baseless idea that Israel has the right to "defend" itself and who are from countries supplying Israel with the very weapons to carry out these mass murder campaigns are complicit with the genocide of Palestinians.

 

My criticisms of European nationals fanning the flames of xenophobia are rooted in how their claims don't line up to the material reality of migrants' lives in Europe vs what far-right nationalists claim.

 

Me telling a user from Poland that his claims that "migrants are over-flooding [his] homeland to destroy [his] people's culture" are patently untrue and part of a greater institutional movement of white supremacy to demonize non-white migrants in Europe *is not the same* as you telling an Israeli Arab user that their lived experiences under the institutional caste system perpetuated by the Israeli government is them then "villainizing" Israeli Jews. 

[Mezik]

3 hours ago, ClashAndBurn said:

People who wear American flag dresses are embarrassing enough but this is on a whole other level.  

This chick is embarrassing. Can she not read the room? How can she be terrified when she is the oppressor?  

[Communion]

"You're demonizing Israelis and are thus becoming an obstacle to peace"

"You're demonizing the only Jewish state in the world - ask yourself why that is"

 

 

[FOCK]

“More specifically, pampers.” 
 

 

 

[Harrier]

5 hours ago, Communion said:

The entire issue is that you see it as a "villainization" *despite* the person you're interrogating being themselves a civilian of Israel too!! Let alone someone institutionally discriminated against within the place they call their home! Tell me what you think happens if an Israeli Arab tried to move to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank? Can a Palestinian citizen of Israel marry a fellow Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza and transfer their citizenship to their partner? Would you accept living in these conditions?

 

You are not operating with any sense of the material conditions of people's realities and how your presumptions differ from this reality.

That is largely my issue with liberals who seem to - at best - get close to doing standpoint theory instead of any material analysis. 

 

Your posts show you know xenophobia, nationalism, white supremacy, etc. to be wrong. I genuinely believe you're outraged and upset to being told your pro-Israel arguments contribute to such. But instead of replying with some retort showing why my claims are materially untrue, you instead resort to empty snarl terms or dismissing the criticisms as anti-Americanism (despite no material argument backing up said claims).

 

I criticize those in the imperial core like fellow Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. as being complicit in war crimes because the material reality of not disavowing both economic and military aid from our countries to Israel materially constitutes that. It does not matter how much you say you feel bad for Palestinians or how much you claim to support a 2 state solution; those who prop up the baseless idea that Israel has the right to "defend" itself and who are from countries supplying Israel with the very weapons to carry out these mass murder campaigns are complicit with the genocide of Palestinians.

 

My criticisms of European nationals fanning the flames of xenophobia are rooted in how their claims don't line up to the material reality of migrants' lives in Europe vs what far-right nationalists claim.

 

Me telling a user from Poland that his claims that "migrants are over-flooding [his] homeland to destroy [his] people's culture" are patently untrue and part of a greater institutional movement of white supremacy to demonize non-white migrants in Europe *is not the same* as you telling an Israeli Arab user that their lived experiences under the institutional caste system perpetuated by the Israeli government is them then "villainizing" Israeli Jews. 

But the thing is, what that user was posting was not "their lived experience", it was messages in group chats from a tweet. Nevermind the fact that I had no idea the user is an Israeli Arab as I don't use this site socially, their arguments are no different to the arguments being posted by many other, non-Israeli Arab users - would it be somehow less problematic for me to challenge those users with the same line of argument? An argument is an argument, and I wouldn't change what I said regardless of who I was telling to stop villainising an entire group of 7 million people.

 

I don't think anything you said here actually undermines the very clear parellel between my argument and the one you made in the other thread. It is simply the Western\non Western difference, which you attempt to explain away using leftist jargon (material conditions !!!). But to me, this doesn't speak to the entire reality of political movements and is instead a way to explain why some people's bad behaviour is okay, while other's isn't. I think about politics as emotions, identification, culture, momentum - as well as being about materiall conditions. As cliche as it sounds, we are all human, and therefore poor people from the global south are in no way immune to the political impulses we might malign in the global north, to pick one example. This is the fundamental error of the simplistic, black and white narratives of the online left, where every possible situation is analysed through the lens of power and global systems: sometimes, it's just not about that. We're supposed to pick a "side" based on whichever group that analysis deems as oppressed, sometimes completely irregardless of their actions, and should be prepared to ignore what to less ideaological people are straightforward, obvious observations. This is where the majority of our disagreements come from.

[ClashAndBurn]

There’s a reason his supporters have moved on from this failed garbage fire of a politician.

[Mean Trees]

32 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

There’s a reason his supporters have moved on from this failed garbage fire of a politician.

He was over since he announced his 2020 run and completely changed his strategy but ultimately this is who Bernie is. He had to be shouted down by his constituents in 2014 about his stance on Israel-Palestine.

[family.guy123]

8 hours ago, Aristotle said:

Don't believe everything that is posted in Twitter. 

anything***

[Communion]

3 hours ago, Harrier said:

But the thing is, what that user was posting was not "their lived experience", it was messages in group chats from a tweet. Nevermind the fact that I had no idea the user is an Israeli Arab as I don't use this site socially, their arguments are no different to the arguments being posted by many other, non-Israeli Arab users - would it be somehow less problematic for me to challenge those users with the same line of argument? An argument is an argument, and I wouldn't change what I said regardless of who I was telling to stop villainising an entire group of 7 million people.

 

I don't think anything you said here actually undermines the very clear parellel between my argument and the one you made in the other thread. It is simply the Western\non Western difference, which you attempt to explain away using leftist jargon (material conditions !!!). But to me, this doesn't speak to the entire reality of political movements and is instead a way to explain why some people's bad behaviour is okay, while other's isn't. I think about politics as emotions, identification, culture, momentum - as well as being about materiall conditions. As dumb as it sounds, we are all human, and therefore poor people from the global south are in no way immune to the political impulses we might malign in the global north, to pick one example. This is the fundamental error of the simplistic, black and white narratives of the online left, where every possible situation is analysed through the lens of power and global systems: sometimes, it's just not about that. We're supposed to pick a "side" based on whichever group that analysis deems as oppressed, sometimes completely irregardless of their actions, and should be prepared to ignore what to less ideaological people are straightforward, obvious observations. This is where the majority of our disagreements come from.

Again, you keep thinking I am doing identity politics. Having a historical, material understanding of how societies work is not "jargon". 

 

Their reality is important given their posts in this thread detailing their own experiences over the last 2 months of having to censor their own social media and be afraid for their own safety for how Jewish Israeli friends and co-workers were speaking of not just Palestinians in Gaza but Arab citizens of Israel. Let alone my discomfort was with your tone, explicitly mentioning to you where the user you were quoting is from.

 

You've convinced me you don't get *why* white supremacy or nationalism is harmful. You feel hatred is bad and that critical analysis of something denotes a hatred of it, and snicker at this "online left" you've imagined. You've dug your heels into some paternalistic attitude and pigeon-hole everyone critical of *systems* in your mind as "inherently good" as self-hating Westerners or identity fetishists, but you're the only one seeing *identity*.

 

None of my views you've referenced have anything to do with adorning someone for having a "global south identity". Why would I make 99% of my interest in politics on here be about *working class Americans* as a *white working class American* if I thought the way you claim I do? 

 

My criticisms of Europeans scapegoating Muslim migrants comes from the *material* suffering these migrants at large in Europe face, be it from living in poverty, atomization, work place discrimination, police harassment, or ghettoization. None of this is "identity". It is the material conditions we speak of. And how the delusions of white supremacist who claim MIGRANTS pose an existential threat to their lives are directly at odds with material reality. That it is not the Moroccan health aide who lives in poverty next door for why their own lives are collapsing under capitalism but their own elites orchestrating their suffering. The same cannot be said for Palestinians who fear the Israeli desire for their destruction.

 

The person you scolded lives in a system where non-Jews essentially exist as second class citizens - let alone that inequality within Israel being a *step up* from the *APARTHEID SYSTEM* that those on the other side of the border wall must face.

 

We're not talking about "feelings". We're talking about people being denied access to water, shelter, food, and more by a system that rains down constant death. That the Israeli state institutes a blockade to restrict how many calories a Gazan can consume. Why avoid addressing things like Israeli law dictating Arab citizens cannot marry non-citizens? The restriction on movement? This is not "oppression" in the "abstract" like some point system. It is the literal material conditions that those you've scolded as "Islamists" must live within *explicitly* due to the legal framework of Israel.

 

"It's not about who is oppressed" sounds like a way to avoid addressing that the existence of Israel as a nation state causes the subjugation of Palestinians and thus anyone who wants to end the subjugation of Palestinians must commit also to the end of Israel.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Communion

[Ash12345]

Maybe the Burlington shooter was mentally ill after all.

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/driven-by-hate-man-charged-in-burlington-shooting-was-a-volunteer-with-a-troubled-personal-life-39673363

[Pendulum]

European Broadcasting Union does not want to disqualify Israel from this year's Eurovision, despite their national broadcaster's rampant propaganda in the past two months and citing the non-political nature of the contest.  The double standards and the moral bankruptcy of the West are mindboggling. 

 

Reminder that Russia was swiftly kicked out of the 2022 edition when they invaded Ukraine. 

 

[Jjang]

I love how Israel’s slogan now is “there is no left or right we are all one!” (in the context of this war)

 

And I’m here like… yeah, I was saying the exact same thing here for years and getting called anti semitic for it. 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Jjang

[Harrier]

8 hours ago, Communion said:

Again, you keep thinking I am doing identity politics. Having a historical, material understanding of how societies work is not "jargon". 

 

Their reality is important given their posts in this thread detailing their own experiences over the last 2 months of having to censor their own social media and be afraid for their own safety for how Jewish Israeli friends and co-workers were speaking of not just Palestinians in Gaza but Arab citizens of Israel. Let alone my discomfort was with your tone, explicitly mentioning to you where the user you were quoting is from.

 

You've convinced me you don't get *why* white supremacy or nationalism is harmful. You feel hatred is bad and that critical analysis of something denotes a hatred of it, and snicker at this "online left" you've imagined. You've dug your heels into some paternalistic attitude and pigeon-hole everyone critical of *systems* in your mind as "inherently good" as self-hating Westerners or identity fetishists, but you're the only one seeing *identity*.

 

None of my views you've referenced have anything to do with adorning someone for having a "global south identity". Why would I make 99% of my interest in politics on here be about *working class Americans* as a *white working class American* if I thought the way you claim I do? 

 

My criticisms of Europeans scapegoating Muslim migrants comes from the *material* suffering these migrants at large in Europe face, be it from living in poverty, atomization, work place discrimination, police harassment, or ghettoization. None of this is "identity". It is the material conditions we speak of. And how the delusions of white supremacist who claim MIGRANTS pose an existential threat to their lives are directly at odds with material reality. That it is not the Moroccan health aide who lives in poverty next door for why their own lives are collapsing under capitalism but their own elites orchestrating their suffering. The same cannot be said for Palestinians who fear the Israeli desire for their destruction.

 

The person you scolded lives in a system where non-Jews essentially exist as second class citizens - let alone that inequality within Israel being a *step up* from the *APARTHEID SYSTEM* that those on the other side of the border wall must face.

 

We're not talking about "feelings". We're talking about people being denied access to water, shelter, food, and more by a system that rains down constant death. That the Israeli state institutes a blockade to restrict how many calories a Gazan can consume. Why avoid addressing things like Israeli law dictating Arab citizens cannot marry non-citizens? The restriction on movement? This is not "oppression" in the "abstract" like some point system. It is the literal material conditions that those you've scolded as "Islamists" must live within *explicitly* due to the legal framework of Israel.

 

"It's not about who is oppressed" sounds like a way to avoid addressing that the existence of Israel as a nation state causes the subjugation of Palestinians and thus anyone who wants to end the subjugation of Palestinians must commit also to the end of Israel.

I'm not necessarily accusing you of doing identity politics - I never even used the word identity - rather, I was questioning the relevance of solely using leftist material/power analysis to colour your view of every possible situation, including on this issue of whether it is a good idea to villainise entire civillian groups. it doesn't matter to me what a user's background is, I'm going to challenge their arguments anyway.

 

We are talking about feelings because your first statement was that is was uncomfortable for me to challenge a user because of their situation. You then bring in all this other content and make it about people being denied access to water, when that's in no way what we were talking about. Again - it was about whether it's a dark path to start talking about a whole population of people being bloodthirsty, pro-genocide radicals.

 

There's no point to our back and forth, because in the end I am not a leftist and I vehemently disagree with your worldview, especially when it comes to international issues. I won't respond more - peace girl.

 

[Jjang]

37 minutes ago, Harrier said:

Again - it was about whether it's a dark path to start talking about a whole population of people being bloodthirsty, pro-genocide radicals.

So you're more concerned about a few ATRLers calling Israelis genocidal out of fear of dehumanizing them than about the actual genocide taking place right now as we speak? 

 

Israelis don't have to be cartoonishly evil and have Disney villain cackles for them to be rightfully judged as being a genocidal society. They don't have to put a Palestinian baby in their egg mixer every morning for them to be cast as people who the majority of their society believes in militarized state values and are, indeed, pro-genocide. 

 

And the thing is, if it were a theoretical thing, maybe I'd let this argument flow around... but when we say they're pro-genocide we are talking about a genocide that is taking place right now. It's not some metaphorical genocide they believe in, they believe in an active genocide taking place literally 10 miles away from them. 

 

So if your big argument revelation is that "we're all human" then I'd urge you to use that sentiment to condemn others (meaning Israeli society) who don't believe in that fundamental human-ness in real-time instead of using these times to play devil's advocate. 

 

These are times of emergency. I don't respect anyone trying to make these times about themselves and their boring useless arguments.

 

100,000+ have been either murdered or wounded due to direct Israeli aggression. These figures do not include people who are dying from a lack of medicine, food, or water due to Israel's blockade. 

2,000,000+ have been indefinitely displaced from their homes with nowhere to go. 

 

 

in. two. months. only.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Jjang

[Jjang]

Israel is now kidnapping tons of Palestinians. A source on the ground tells me that one of those kidnapped is a professor at Gaza University (who happens to be the source's friend). 

 

The situation in Gaza is more catastrophic than we can imagine. People are killing each other for bread.  

[Communion]

2 hours ago, Harrier said:

I'm not necessarily accusing you of doing identity politics - I never even used the word identity - rather, I was questioning the relevance of solely using leftist material/power analysis to colour your view of every possible situation, including on this issue of whether it is a good idea to villainise entire civillian groups. it doesn't matter to me what a user's background is, I'm going to challenge their arguments anyway.

 

We are talking about feelings because your first statement was that is was uncomfortable for me to challenge a user because of their situation. You then bring in all this other content and make it about people being denied access to water, when that's in no way what we were talking about. Again - it was about whether it's a dark path to start talking about a whole population of people being bloodthirsty, pro-genocide radicals.

 

There's no point to our back and forth, because in the end I am not a leftist and I vehemently disagree with your worldview, especially when it comes to international issues. I won't respond more - peace girl.

 

The genocidal feelings of your average Israeli is important to address given that they have both the material means and systematic power to see this genocide to fruition, and thus if you also feel that extremist Palestinians must reform their religious views and this be a conditoon for peace, then the dismantling of the genocidal state apparatus of Israel and the collective re-education of the Israeli people is also a necessary condition for peace. 

[DAP]

 

[ClashAndBurn]

2 hours ago, Harrier said:

Again - it was about whether it's a dark path to start talking about a whole population of people being bloodthirsty, pro-genocide radicals.

Less than 2% of Israelis think the IDF has gone too far in their reprisal campaign. The vast majority think they haven’t been brutal enough. Exactly what else could that possibly mean to you?

[GhostBox]

30 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Less than 2% of Israelis think the IDF has gone too far in their reprisal campaign. The vast majority think they haven’t been brutal enough. Exactly what else could that possibly mean to you?

This could literally be said for the Palestinians and their support of Hamas murderous actions too 💀

[ClashAndBurn]

1 minute ago, GhostBox said:

This could literally be said for the Palestinians and their support of Hamas murderous actions too 💀

Imagine being surprised that occupied peoples no longer want to be under a brutal occupation where they can casually get killed with a sniper shot through the forehead just for breathing wrong.

 

Close to 20x more Palestinians have died in the last two months. The rest have been corralled into dense spaces with no shelter in order to avoid getting bombed where the IDF are still shelling them anyway.

[ZeroSuitBritney]

#StrikeForGaza today!

[Aethereal]

Sanders opposed to sending $10B to ‘extremist Netanyahu government’ in Israel    

 

Quote

“I do not think we should be appropriating $10.1 billion for the right-wing, extremist Netanyahu government to continue its current military approach. What the Netanyahu government is doing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the United States should not be complicit in those actions,” Sanders argued on the Senate floor.

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4342060-sanders-netanyahu-government-israel/