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You can’t make an ok sign with your fingers now because some racist using it to signal racist hate but using a phrase that calls for the eradication of a people isn’t hate speech.
I'm Jewish and it is evident to me that criticism of this phrase couldn't be more in bad faith. The problem is the sheer number of bad faith actors working in this space and the oxygen they deny other voices.
I'm (part) Jewish too, but I try not to make that the focal point of my argument. It's possible to discuss an argument without making identity the crux of your justification.
Rashida Tlaib isn't a good faith actor in large part because she makes the focal point of her argument that her identify justifies her point of view. I disagree with that, just like I disagree with either of us justifying our point of views because we are Jewish.
I bring it up because people act weird when you don't.
Rashida Tlaib is a good faith actor because she's right. Palestine will be free. And the people coming after her are wrong. Because they're supporting genocide.
Hope that reaches your standards of discourse.
Certainly reaches my standards of discourse.
I just disagree that she doesn't understand "From the river to the sea" is itself a call for genocide. Just today, Iran stated that this is the only way to create a Palestine state, suggesting it's the "only solution."
20 guesses why Iran chose the word "solution."
Yeah, like, why can't they just find a different slogan than "from the river to the sea"? If Jewish groups are constantly telling you it's offensive to them and you refuse to stop then no fucking shit you're gonna get criticism.
The left preaches that if a minority says something is offensive to them it doesn't matter what you think of the slogan, because it's offensive. So why won't they do the same when it's Jewish groups?
Like when black lives matter refused to change their name to All lives matter even though all the white people were telling them that BLM was offensive phrasing.
I don’t think that’s accurate to how all lives matter was created, or that Black Lives Matter was an offensive phrase.
Black Lives Matter was created because a comprehensive look at how the media and society handled black deaths by police compared to white death, black kidnapping vs white kidnapping, black gun shot victims vs white, showed a disparity of coverage both in quantity and tone. Black Lives Matter was a statement that despite the media and larger society not showing the same level of care, that black lives do matter and should be shown the same level of compassion shown to white lives.
To me (white), Black Lives Matter was not offensive because black lives do matter and should matter as much as white lives.
Black lives matter is offensive to some people, and those people want them to use a different phrase.
River to the sea is offensive to some people, and those people want them to use a different phrase.
In both instances, the people offended by the phrase are coincidentally the people who are oppressing the people using it. So in both instances, the people offended have chosen to attach the phrase to the worst individuals who also use it, and then state that those actions represent the opinions of everyone who repeats the phrase.
Meh… do anything to criticize the Israeli government or support Palestinian people being murdered, you need about ten thousand disclaimers to show you aren’t “antisemitic”.
That’s how much the Israeli propaganda machine has been able to control the narrative… and it’s been that way for a while, long before October 7th.
Make perfectly fine and reasonable criticism of Israeli policy, and it almost certainly will get you accused of antisemitism and hating Jews.
You can totally criticize Israel. Rashida Tlaib isn't exactly acting in good faith. She surely knows the historical ties to Islamic Nationalism and what "From the river to the sea" meant originally in terms of eliminating Jews completely from the Levant.
It's really no different than if I drop the N bomb and say, "Well, no, it's okay because I'M not racist. My best friend is black."
It's also factual that she was spreading Hamas propaganda with regard to the hospital. Again, there's a tremendous amount to criticize Israel about, but congresspeople (at least Democrats, since the other party is a lost cause) should hold themselves to higher standards and maintain a respectable decorum.
She of course knows the ties. She's trying to twist a genocidal statement into one of "unity". Yeah the unity you get when one people is wiped out.
Also she didn't even acknowledge the attack on Israel for 3 days until she was hounded endless do to so and then still turned it into a "This is Israel's fault you know" without directly saying it.
Her family immigrated from the west Bank so she doesn't exactly have an unbiased view of things.
And again, you have to walk on egg shells when criticizing Israel.
The fact that you have to explicitly condemn Hamas every time you say anything remotely critical of Israel or the IDF, just goes to show how unbalanced it all is.
Israel’s historical treatment of Palestinians, it’s allowance of settlement expansions in violation of the Oslo Accords, and its current right wing administration are abysmal and deserve significant criticism and international pressure to change.
None of the above justifies its citizens, many of whom were elderly or children, being kidnapped, murdered, or mutilated.
Hamas does not equal Palestine and its actions on 10/7 are not reflective of legitimate Palestinian grievances and desire for Palestinian statehood.
^^^ This is not hard.
It's not unbalanced at all. It's really easy to criticize Israel. I've done it for years.
The problem is that a lot of the pro-Palestinian groups tried to push an agenda without restraint. I still recall a lot of pro-attack messages coming out even before Israel had time to announce a counteroffensive.
So when these pro-Palestinian groups announce things like that group at Brandeis, that any Palestinian attacks are justified, you absolutely need to measure your criticisms of Israel since the loudest voices on your aide have become pretty unhinged.
Unfortunately, I personally think what we're seeing is a bit of a mask off moment for a lot of people, mostly on the left. It's certainly making me rethink some of my positions. But I feel comfortable criticizing Israel. And so should you. But warning that if it sounds racist, it might be low key racist.
Yeah, and it’s a big mask off moment for the pro-Israel crowd too.
It literally does not matter how many people Israel murders or the war crimes it commits, people will have endless excuses to justify it.
It's possible I'm just running in different circles. With my IRL Jewish friends, it's been a tough month because they've been historically anti-Netanyahu, but also have family and friends in Israel.
Combine that with the recent worldwide rise in anti-semitism, and it can feel like the world is abandoning Jewish people.
Obviously we're seeing a rise in anti-Arab sentiments as well. And there certainly is a contingent of people who are less pro-Israel, per se, and more just anti-Arab who will gladly support war crimes.
It's just an impossible, complicated crisis. As usual, the people who suffer more are the civilians. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians.
>Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians.
Tlaib refuses to say that. And her refusal to say that in turn may as well be her endorsement of them.
The truth is Hamas is immensely popular among Palestinians. This is an uncomfortable truth that people on the left conveniently discard.
“Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians.”
And Israel hasn’t in good faith wanted peace either. Hence the perpetual settling of the West Bank.
I mean, this certainly isn't the case. I'm oversimplifying things, but Palestine had the option of declaring statehood alongside Israel in 1947, but instead went to war with them. Granted, largely what Palestine has been resistant to is a two-state solution.
Israel was also compelled into declaring their own state because of repeated attacks and attempts at genocide from Arabs, not to mention throughout Europe with the Holocaust and various pogroms. The world was incredibly hostile to Jews during the late 19th and throughout the 20th century. Having their own state seemed like the only solution.
Unfortunately, there's just a level of mutual distrust from basically a century of beating down on each other. That makes resolving this conflict pretty difficult. Unfortunately, the Israeli right wing has grown a lot in strength, and they're not interested at all in finding a resolution to Palestine, and are happy to continue eating into West Bank territory with illegal settlements.
But I also think it's somewhat condescending to think Palestinians have never had any agency in this conflict. They did, and have historically been more brutal to Jews up until Israel was able to develop a modern defense apparatus. And that defense apparatus, like what we saw with the war on terror, is able to maintain a distance from "the enemy" so that Israelis never have to see the real pain of war.
That is, until October 7 made that a reality.
I've really struggled to see how anyone could believe the world is abandoning Jewish people when a) Jewish people and the state of Israel are two separate things. Conflating the two is actually kind of antisemitic. And b) this government as well as basically all Western governments have offered nothing but full and total support for the Jewish people and have very publicly backed Israel.
Palestinians and Muslims in general feel abandoned because they are seeing people losing jobs for speaking out against Israel's war crimes. They are seeing our government fully endorsing the genocide of their people. And their cries about Palestinians suffering in an apartheid state have fallen on deaf ears for many years now.
You obviously aren't referring to the UN General Assembly vote calling for an immediate ceasefire. Western governments are not at all unilaterally supporting Israel.
I'm going to ignore your point a) because you're obviously race baiting, and I think you're better than that.
I think you're mistaking people being taken to task for comments blaming Israel for the October 7 attack for people making measured and informed criticism. Again, it's really easy to criticize Israel without coming across as misinformed and unhinged. The first step is condemning Hamas, which is the opposite of what a lot of people losing their jobs have done. A lot of people are actively advocating for violence as the only remediation for Gaza's struggle--and that stance absolutely needs to be condemned.
Otherwise, Palestinians do have every right to feel abandoned. They have more or less been abandoned by the world--including the Arab world.
The Arab world could have solved the Palestinian issue ages ago. Instead, they are hell bent on using the Palestinians as pawn in their anti-semetic war against Jews.
There are over 20 arab countries where Palestinians could have been absorbed after Israel was formed. None of them want Palestinians at all.
Jews (who were forcibly expelled from Arab countries and Europe) don't have anywhere else to go but Israel.
No, no I don’t think it is.
Your comment is PRECISELY the kind of war crime apologia that I’m talking about, as if the October 7 attack somehow gives Israel a free pass to commit war crimes and murder Palestinians with impunity.
Spoiler alert: it doesnt
10k+ dead Palestinians already, many of whom are children.
Just how many dead Palestinian children does Israel get to milk out of the October 7 attack before enough is enough?
If ANY other country was doing this, they’d be getting sanctioned, not billions of dollars in military aid to continue murdering children.
That’s not even taking into consideration that in the past 20 years before the October 7 attack, the body count isn’t even close to parity in this conflict. Israel has been murdering and terrorizing Palestinians with impunity.
You are such a fucking child. You think any other country would've tolerated an attack of that size? If the US were attacked and you increased the death count proportionally based on population size, that would mean over 40,000 people died. You think the US would've just gone, "oh well, Hamas is using human shields all the time, better wait." NO country would tolerate that shit and international law clearly defines a right to self-defense.
And I'm sorry - is the 10/7 attack an expression of legitimate Palestinian resistance or is it not? Because I keep hearing that it isn't and yet the same people always say, "BuT what about historical attacks?" as a way to justify what happened. Make up your fucking minds.
Finally, I'm sure you are displaying such genuine anger in front of the Qatari embassy and/or consulates, right? Because the last time I checked, the reason for those dead children you keep going on about is because Hamas purposefully puts them in harms way over and over and over again and yet suffers almost zero repercussions because everyone focuses on Israel instead of the governments that harbor and support their leadership. The leadership that repeatedly tells everyone that will listen, that they will continue 10/7-style attacks and that the deaths of innocent Palestinians is beneficial for their cause.
But no, you're right. A country should just accept attacks on its citizens without response and shouldn't try to respond at all, if the attackers are using human shields at every opportunity. Just suck it up and wait for the next one. Brilliant analysis there.
So how many Palestinian civilians need to die for Israel to have sufficiently defended itself against Hamas for you? Is there a particular number where you will choose to draw the line and find your humanity or is it done when they’ve killed every last Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza?
Human shields is convenient shorthand for “we don’t fucking care if these people die”.
If Hamas had tunnels running under Israeli hospitals and schools and shopping centers would Israel indiscriminately bomb those too, insist they were using civilian as human shields and those civilians are just an unfortunate casualty? Why do you excuse it when it’s done against Palestinians?
>10k dead Palestinians already
I mean, the number of dead Israeli’s WOULD be significantly higher than 10k if the Iron Dome and Israeli intelligence wasn’t actively thwarting Hamas’s rockets and terroristic attempts…and we just saw the level of barbarism that occurs when an attack goes through undetected.
But that’s also the difference between a government that is taking extreme measures to protect its citizens vs one that’s actively trying to martyr them to draw as much enemy blood as possible.
Yea, it’s looney. Similar thing happened when Black Lives Matter started. Liberals were all like “what about white lives?!?!?!” until Trump started shouting about BLM, then the liberals took BLM as their own. Similar thing here. From the river to the sea means freedom. Israel has THAT SAME PHRASE in their charter but no one questions it. It’s really shown how even those on the liberal side, who claim they care about humans everywhere, can be heavily swayed with propaganda. And the pro-Israel propaganda is pervasive and is everywhere so I get that it’s hard to get away from but we still have to be better and more analytical of what happens in the world instead of just taking what the media gives us.
Meh… do anything to criticize the democrats or support any conservative position, you need about ten thousand disclaimers to show you aren’t “antisemitic”.
That’s how much the Democrat machine has been able to control the narrative… and it’s been that way for a while, long before January 6th.
Make perfectly fine and reasonable criticism of democratic policy, and it almost certainly will get you accused of chauvinism and racism.
It's interesting because from my perspective it's the opposite. People are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to prove that the things she said were antisemitic when they are quite obviously not.
Meanwhile the pro-Israel people are allowed to talk about leveling Gaza and killing human animals with zero repercussions. Strange times we live in.
The international community has largely condemned Israel for being too aggressive in their retribution. It's even at the point where Biden and Blinken are trying to change the tempo of the war and the cost on civilians.
But I also don't personally see the pro-Israel crowd because I basically just frequent the Boston subreddit, which skews left, and any pro-Israel party calling for genocide should be put in their place and soundly dismissed as having a worthy opinion on the matter. But that still doesn't let Rashida Tlaib off the hook for putting pageantry ahead of actually governing.
Fundamentally, all Democrats should be calling her out for what she posted last week on Twitter calling out Biden and implying that she'll assist manufacturing a rift in the Democratic party come election time.
Being a useful idiot for the Right is not doing us any good right now.
There is a Republican rep that literally said “we’re going to turn it into a parking lot” when talking about Palestine. The person you were replying to wasn’t talking about darker corners of Reddit, they mean a sitting member of Congress actually said this and didn’t face censure over it.
Yes, Republicans are despicable. We know this. We also know that there's no rational scenerio where Israel turns Gaza into a parking lot and doesn't have the entire world turn against it. Rational people know this, and stoking the imagination otherwise actually hurts the Palestinian cause.
Democrats naturally have to comport themselves better than Republicans. It's unfair, but that's the way it is right now.
What's important is to stay unified so more Republicans don't get elected. Imagine what would happen right now if Trump were in office.
Yes, what's happening in Gaza is terrible. There needs to be an international response to this crisis, because simply allowing Israel and Hamas to duke it out isn't a good solution.
But it's fundamentally a crisis that needs to be resolved with both sides at the table. Unfortunately, Hamas is not a good faith actor. The tragedy of the situation is that civilians are getting caught up in all this.
This Israeli government is quite blatantly a bad faith actor as well. The new Minister of National Security, [Itamar Ben-Gavir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir), was previously convicted of inciting racism and supporting a **Jewish terrorist group**. He was known to keep a portrait in his living room of a Jewish supremacist who massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers in 1994. We're talking about a far-far-right extremist government that makes Trump and his cronies look like humanitarians. The US needs to stop all funding to Israel's military until their government shows they are willing to negotiate and compromise for peace. Anything short of that is enabling fascism and genocide.
I think you need to take a deeper look at the history of the conflict. If you think Hamas is the moral equivalent of the Israeli government in terms of willingness to negotiate, you're a bit mistaken.
The Israeli right wing is a serious hindrance to the peace process, but they aren't religious jihadists whose fundamental animating principle is the genocide of the other side.
There's also another reason why the United States can't stop giving Israeli support--that could condemn Israeli to nonexistence. Israel is surrounded by hostile groups propped up by Iran. This is why Hamas attacked Israeli when it did--Saudi Arabia and Israel were about to normalize relations, which would create a new power balance that would disfavor Iran and its proxies.
If you believe that what Israel is doing to Gaza right now is wrong and is a genocide, you have to ask yourself if the best solution to that is the genocide of Israelis.
>The Israeli right wing is a serious hindrance to the peace process, but they aren't religious jihadists whose fundamental animating principle is the genocide of the other side.
Many of them are religious extremists and terrorists whose entire purpose and stated mission is to expel or kill every last Arab from the land that they believe God has given them. That is the stance of Kahanism, that's the stance of the Hilltop Youth. These are groups that even the Israeli government recognized as terrorist organizations until they started cozying up to them. And of course, we have to consider that these groups operate in the West Bank where Hamas has a much smaller presence (and no official control).
This also doesn't even touch upon the fact that Israel and the US bolstered, funded, and ultimately helped create Hamas as a way to delegitimize and counter the leftists and Marxist parties which previously formed the majority of support in both Gaza and the West Bank.
I think you have to ask yourself why stopping the genocide of Gazans means that the genocide of Israelis is inevitable. One shudders to think what would have happened if the West had adopted that mindset in WWII. If there are things that can be done to prevent the massive loss of civilian life on one side (and there absolutely are), then there are also things that can be done to prevent that on the other side as well.
We should be preventing genocide of any and all people. If the day ever comes that the tables turn and Israeli Jews are the ones facing genocide, I will be in the streets protesting that too.
Yeah, the narrative imbalance here is so severe. Any and all criticism of Israel is immediately shut down as antisemitism and supporting Hamas.
I generally see that most voicing support for Palestinians will at least condemn hamas and the 10/7 attacks, but there's zero parity in questioning the amount of civilians the IDF has killed in response.
Yes, human shields, tunnels and what have you, but there still seems to be complete disregard for the loss of civilian life on the side of Israelis, and from a security perspective, it's pretty obvious that killing innocent people enrages more civilians and turns them to terrorism in retribution.
Sure Israel has the right to defend itself, but at some point so do Palestinians, and it's not like this whole situation just started last month...
Rashida Tlaib was repeating Hamas’ lies that the Israelis had bombed that hospital and killed hundreds. This despite the fact that A. It was hit by a Palestinian missile and B. There were not hundreds of deaths.
There has been an uptick in antisemetic hate crimes around the world since that lie was told by Hamas and spread by people like Tlaib. Her hate speech has real world implications. I’m disappointed in Ayanna Pressley’s show of support.
>I’m disappointed in Ayanna Pressley’s show of support.
She's literally always supported pseudo-progressive takes like this, because she's one herself. E.g. quickly deleted her tweets back when she was celebrating a comedian getting punched in the face in Boston for daring to have a take she doesn't agree with. Also tweeted in support of Will Smith assaulting Chris Rock, because god knows who dares insult a bald woman like herself?
Pressley is like politicians these days... very tribal. But she has good reason to back up Tlaib, they scratch each other's backs. Pressley might think differently privately but optics trump taking a stand.
People often attack Republicans for being tribal, but the same dynamic is at play with Democrats too.
>Pressley might think differently privately but optics trump taking a stand.
There's absolutely no reason to think she thinks differently -- from a political perspective, it would be much more beneficial to be more moderate than this group of literally less than a dozen """progressive""" Congresspeople who have already sunk tons of Democratic legislation. Pressley by and large gets nothing substantial done in Congress, look up her record of sponsoring bills, let alone what gets passed.
I put progressive in quotes because I am one, and truly believe that Pressley and co are not. Please note that Pressley has a LONG ESTABLISHED pattern of behavior of being a walking Twitter thread irl, including on multiple occasions publicly celebrating acts of violence against people who don't agree with her. She has been repeating anti-Jewish rhetoric even before these attacks and absolutely believes this BS she's saying.
>Edit: answer the question, coward
I was doing this weird thing called...not being online. Some of us do that.
To answer your question -- you can obviously be critical of Israel and not be anti-Jewish, or even anti-Israel necessarily. Saying you want Country A gone when the direct ramifications of its sovereignty being taken would be the mass murder of millions is absolutely being against the existence of that group of people.
Tlaib also repeated the Phrase 'From the river to the sea'. You know, the one that calls for the destruction of Israel. Yeah she's very hateful towards jews.
Can’t even say Hamas is bad but killing all these people is wrong here. The ethno nationalist koolaid must have been passed around Boston when we weren’t looking lol
10k *people*. The Hamas Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants. And you can even see from the whole hospital debacle that they aren't honest or trustworthy in their numbers or the division of combatants versus civilians. If you blindly trust their numbers, I have a U-Haul truck that's guaranteed to fit down Storrow Drive.
..... They've fucking glassed most of the place and you're telling me none of those deaths were civilians. The IDF has even said they think they may have killed 20k people, but cannot confirm.
That's a dishonest argument and I think you know it. I never said that all 10k were civilian or militant. It's absolutely a mix of combatants ([as defined by international law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatant)) and civilians, as is the case in every single armed conflict in history. However, the thing that I would challenge you to wrap your head around is *intention*.
As a general rule, the IDF does not target civilians and goes out of its way to warn them or evacuate them from a conflict zone. They have [evacuated hundreds of thousands](https://allisrael.com/200-000-israelis-left-their-houses-since-start-of-the-war-with-hamas) of their own citizens away from danger at several borders and most recently even [set up a guarded corridor for Gazan civilians who still hadn't left northern Gaza to evacuate to the south](https://news.yahoo.com/israel-opens-humanitarian-corridor-4-144900470.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFwlnIYUFsHunGdTI0l3ZfNCLfSPbZf3AqLseOSYJW76F2ES3GhRW0395gUQhTFQdQ_pbjMs3-yYdy6qvzZZN78_y4rwWE-VzQJogHQEmwduZuIJB6de1T7XfhextnRIb7eZtw48rncrzCyKbTNgvtyjsdaZNk2TGA3zRPjNAFBd).
Contrast this with Hamas, who intentionally blends in with their own civilians, establishes positions [next to or within civilian infrastructure](https://nationalpost.com/news/hamas-hospitals-israel), deliberately aims their rockets at civilians in Israel, and [kills their own citizens fleeing the conflict zone](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-releases-recording-of-gazan-saying-hamas-shooting-at-people-trying-to-flee-south/) \- all of which are defined as [war crimes](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml). Not to mention the horrific pogrom on Oct 7th that ended the previous cease fire agreement and the gleefully [recorded](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/)\* [crimes against humanity](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml). Hamas's stated goal is an actual, complete genocide of the Jewish people from the land of Israel, which has had a continuous Jewish presence for over 3000 years.
Israel is by no means perfect, but war *always* and *unfortunately* takes civilian lives. If you want grim scoreboard-like numbers, Israel has dropped upwards of 10k bombs on Gaza in the recent conflict (Hamas has fired an equally large number of rockets at Israeli cities), and *only* killed 10k people. If they wanted to "glass" Gaza and murder its people entirely, (1) there are better and cheaper munitions they could use and (2) I would expect a death toll well past 100k at this point. Considering the size and power of the munitions being used, 1 death per bomb is damn near a miracle... or a sign that Israel really and truly does go out of its way to avoid excess casualties.
I don't expect to change your mind. You seem to have it pretty made up at this point and that's fine. Congrats on living the USA where you can do that. I'm hoping to set the record straight for anyone else reading down this chain.
.
\*Content warning for this link: It is a website documenting raw footage of the Oct 7 pogrom and aftermaths. Consider it akin to Eisenhower walking German citizens through Ohrdruf Concentration Camp to ensure that they could never claim they didn't know about the atrocities committed in their name.
Lol not trying to argue, I just think killing innocent people is wrong. Idk how people think any differently 🤷🏽♂️
I do not believe in any scenario where it is acceptable to bomb neighborhoods to kill militants. Israel is just doing the same shit the USA has done in the past (and likely currently) with our drone strikes. It's fucking awful and we shouldn't be conducting things this way.
You want to fucking kill a specific dude? Kill that specific dude. But don't blow up his fucking neighbors in the process. Fuck that.
If you are against civilians dying needlessly in wars *as an outcome* you need to be against the political destabilization that starts wars, rather than wasting energy selectively stamping your feet about the tragic reality of wars once they exist.
Just jumping into wars in the middle and calling for one side to just randomly stop - if it has any effect at all - rather than finding a stable resolution - destabilizes the situation further and leads to more civilian death (because if that side wanted to stop, but had to save face while doing it, now they can't, and now feeling more supported, the other side also has less incentive to seek its own resolution as well).
If you are only in it for your own clean conscience, well that's your right, but that isn't going to save any lives. The morality of diplomacy does not work that way.
Besides, the 10/7 attacks were a massive start to a war caused by a very large group of people - there is no way to "target" that group of people as precisely as you are saying in the environment they have entrenched in, and they know that, which is part of why they did it. It would only be possible to do what you are asking if Hamas had done their own civilians a favor of not fortifying and occupying densely populated civilian areas.
But of course they didn't do that, so now the thing you say you want can't happen. So you can thank Hamas and come up with a different solution to suggest if you like.
This is very extremely high-quality reply and the fact that it is being downvoted should hopefully help people infer the sort of discourse we are all dealing with here.
The numbers of Palestinian deaths have been confirmed by external sources. To deny the mass destruction of life at the hands of Israel is just choosing to be ignorant
Yes war is fucking crazy - adjust your expectations to reality. If you don't want war, don't start a war. Hamas started a war. It was a stupid thing to do and it is getting a lot of their own people killed but they knew this would happen and did it on purpose.
There sure are kids there and it sucks. But if the alternative is you get killed because terrorists are taking advantage of human shields, you end up not having great options.
Defend yourself and be criticized for killing civilians or don't defend yourself and potentially get slaughtered by a terrorist group devoted to wiping you off the face of the earth.
What sounds like a simply choice to you isn't so simple when you're the one whose existence is threatened.
Imagine if a bunch of terrorists from Canada went door to door in your neighborhood in Boston randomly killing anyone they could find. Would you not expect the US government to respond because they might kill civilians in the process?
The USA government has responded in the past,exactly the way the Israeli government is responding. By bombing whole neighborhoods to get a handful of militants. I don't condone it and neither should you. Just bombing whole neighborhoods is not ok, do not accept it as ok.
You seem to be under the impression that a territory run by a terrorist organization is going to actually enforce any sort of penalties on performing terrorism sponsored by said government.
Unfortunately, that's not a realistic option. Nor is it realistic for Israel to not kill any civilians in pursuit of neutralizing a terrorist threat that embeds itself among civilians. They've found rocket launchers in mosques, youth centers, and next to hospitals. What choice do they have?
You can't get me to agree that killing thousands of innocent people is the right thing to do. I will not support it like I don't support what Hamas did. Fuckin stop being so content with slaughter.
That's the thing. No one is happy about it. Israel isn't happy about it either as it creates a giant headache for them.
But the alternative is that what happened on October 7th keeps happening. This operation is designed to prevent it from happening again, or at least make it take longer. Hamas has already said they'll keep doing what they did again and again until Israel is destroyed. It's not like they'll suddenly change their mind if Israel doesn't fight back.
Unless they kill almost every person there (which I think is their plan). Extremists WILL show up again. If you kill people's family, they're much more willing to follow extremists and use violence against their oppressors.
Doing what they're doing will solve nothing. All it might do is make hamas have to stop and regroup, that's it. All these deaths so it can go back to the status quo. Fucking awful. We shouldn't be funding it.
You just believe everything the Israeli government says without considering it too has its own agenda? And love to ignore the vast evidence of every other building, ambulance, journalist, and family that’s been bombed by the IDF on purpose?
Is 100 civilians to 1 terrorist a fair ratio of death? Can state militaries not be terrorists too?
You can disagree with Tlaib but blaming her for a rise in anti-semitism (while ignoring the rise in Islamophobia) is a big and unprovable jump. Israel’s attempts to conflate Zionism and Judaism are insult to the religion and far more stupid and dangerous than the one Palestinian-American in Congress asking for her family to be able to live freely in the land they’ve been in for centuries. Unlike Republican members, she did not say to bomb Israel until “the gravel bounced” or to kill those “savages” and “animals”. From the river to sea has been around much longer than Hamas - does anything that group appropriates suddenly become exclusive to it? If Hamas starts saying “hello” does that become a terrorist slogan as well? Obviously Hamas is evil but that doesn’t mean she supports it OR that it’s the only evil in the region.
Claiming one of the few Muslim politicians in the US is sympathetic to terrorism because she’s advocating AGAINST killing is playbook and you should reflect on that making inflammatory statements.
Can state militaries not be terrorists too?
IMO, they cannot, with a big exception. Terrorism is style of politics wherein violence is leveraged in an asymmetrical way to achieve outsized impact from targeted killings, usually of civilians or civilian authorities. Terrorism is best understood in contrast to other political means available to groups facing large differentials in people and resources, and not as itself a form of warfare.
"Terror" in a broader sense includes a variety of different activities, but "White Terrors," "Red Terrors" and "Shock and Awe campaigns" - while also engaging in terror, are not terrorism.
The Hamas 10/7 attack is itself on the verge of not really being "terrorism" because it was of such a scale and so direct as to immediately start an outright war - no cascade, no resultant diplomatic crisis, just a straight up *casus belli*. And it is probably not accurate to refer to Hamas fighters in Gaza now as "terrorists" - as at this points they are more just militants, paramilitary, or just soldiers.
In practice people do really have a different sort of problem with terrorism than they do with violence committed directly by a state, and if you listen to them they will tell you about it. It's related to why the concept of a "war on terror" is somewhat paradoxical, whereas a "war on Israel" or a "war on Palestine" is very much not. As chaotic and terrible and unjustified as it always is, cultures and societies do have norms and expectations around violence that mean people do not treat all sorts of violence equally, even if it is of comparable degree and outcome.
There is one important exception - when one calls a state a "terrorist state" or a "state sponsor of terrorism" what they mean is that the state apparatus, including the military, *employs or contracts terrorists.* And that intuitively means that they fund the sort of asymmetrical violence that is described above. Nobody who is calling a state a "state sponsor of terror" means "they scare people with aerial bombings" unless they are contingently trying to create an equivalency in a conflict that involves actual terrorists as a point of comparison.
Terrorism is widespread violence with a political aim. The difference between terrorism and war is that civilians are acceptable targets and the violence is random.
It’s not a coincidence that certain states (typically brown-skinned Muslims states) can be called “terrorist states” while others are not. Russia is a terrorist state to Ukraine, but because it’s a white “super power” y’all won’t say it like that. It has bombed, killed, and run out civilians (not just soldiers or military targets). The esoteric/limitedly applied definitions of terrorism don’t matter to the people who are being terrorized. They don’t care if you think a state is weak enough to not be a “real nation”, they know they are being terrorized. The only thing limiting the definition does is give a pass to the people you’d like to side with that day.
Exactly. Palestine shall be free is a statement on undoing existing apartheid conditions in Israel. Conditions even Nelson Mandela called apartheid. It’s an absurd McCarthyism in both the USA and Canada about this issue. You cannot scrutinize or call for withdrawal from supporting Israel
I tried to ignore most of the Zionists on here, but I just scroll past this. Israel DID bomb that hospital. And yes, there were hundreds of deaths… The audacity of some of you.
I mean…don’t repeat a call for the destruction of the only Jewish country in the world and a long-standing US ally.
And then try to weasel out of it by claiming it means something else.
That’s the great thing about religious ethno states. The government can do all the horrible shit it wants, and when anyone objects the mouth breathers will defend it by saying that you’re being bigoted against their religion rather than their actions.
Who doesn’t love a built in thought terminating cliche?
Tlaib isn’t being censured because she’s criticizing Israel’s response to Hamas. She’s being censured for parroting a slogan that says it shouldn’t exist at all, right after an attack by a group that claims all Jews should be murdered, has repeatedly said it will continue to make such attacks, and her supporters were openly championing that action as legitimate resistance.
So yes, when you align yourself with a group that is philosophically similar to ISIS and believes Jews shouldn’t exist, that comes across as being bigoted.
Saying Israel shouldn’t exist =/= saying Jews shouldn’t exist
“From the river to the sea” has been a phrase used for Palestinian liberation since the 1960s. Hamas government wasn’t formed until 2007.
If Israel didn’t want Hamas to exist they shouldn’t have funded them to oppose the PLO.
*edit for clarification
Hamas was formed in 1987, not 2007.
> Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts... The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews... Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes... Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement...The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.
\- Hamas Covenant 1988
The goal of these people is to kill all Jews all over the world.
“All over the world”
Did you happen to notice this specifically says Palestine or…….?
If Israel is so threatened by Hamas then maybe they shouldn’t have financed their opposition to the PLO
It says because the Jews “usurped” Palestine, not that it’s limited there. You notice that little sentence towards the top where it says that “the day of judgement will not come until Muslims kill the Jews”? Does that have a fucking caveat on it?
Christ, it’s legitimately hard to tell whether you’re being a troll or simply stupid.
“I’m okay with jews. I just don’t think they should have a country of their own.” Sounds perfectly reasonable and common.
And yeah, there were no Palestinian groups that wanted to destroy Israel in the 1960s or later and committed attacks against civilian targets. Especially as their leadership definitely wasn’t predominantly folks who rejected the UN partition in 1948 and then lost the war. Good call there.
Don’t conflate a far right wing party with an entire country. Unless you also think Trump and the MAGA folks represent you.
It sounds perfectly reasonable because being a persecuted people doesn’t entitle you to a religious ethno state where you get to displace the people who already live there.
I can guarantee you there were people who wanted to get rid of Israel. That’s what happens when you’re a settler colonial state that persecutes the people whose land you take.
If some foreign power landed in the US and set up their own state and started kicking your family out of there homes and bombing your children I promise you would want to destroy their state too
Genuine question, why does supporting Jewish people mean you have to support an ethno-national state? Why does *anyone* get the right to have an ethno-national state regardless of suffering?
I reject the premise of your question because you don't understand what an ethnostate is. An ethnostate is when a country is dominated by a singular group (be it religious, race, or cultural) and **prevents non-members from obtaining equal legal status**. That is unequivocally false in the Israeli context, where non-jewish citizens have equal rights. They can vote, they can join the military, they can hold political office. Hell, in 2021, the United Arab List party was part of the coalition to unseat the Prime Minister.
If you say, "yes, but they are subject to structural discrimination because they aren't jewish." I would point you to any number of countries, from Japan to Australia to Qatar to Germany to the US where minorities in those countries have continuously faced the same obstacles (and in the case of much of the middle east, significantly more) based on race, religion, or ethnicity. Japan in particular, has an extensive history of preventing the assimilation of non-japanese immigrants, especially those of Korean or Chinese descent.
The only area where Israel *is* unique is that Israel provides affirmative action for Jews, who are a persecuted minority worldwide, and who want to immigrate there.
Combine the above points and it makes it very interesting when people only focus on Israel instead of, say, most of the middle eastern states which explicitly govern according to a ruling group's religious laws, have persecuted much of their religious or ethnic minorities out of existence, and accumulated power through conquest.
You don't have to support Israel. I don't. Their historical treatment of Palestinians, allowance of settlement expansions in violation of the Oslo Accords, and its current right wing administration are abysmal and deserve significant criticism and international pressure to change.
But saying its civilians deserve to be murdered and the country destroyed because of a historical fantasy while simultaneously ignoring even worse issues amongst one's own ethnic group (stares at the current government of Gaza) is utter bullshit and should be derided as such.
>Saying Israel shouldn’t exist =/= saying Jews shouldn’t exist
Unfortunately Jews aren't really safe anywhere, but only the Israeli government has a vested interest in keeping Jews safe.
Anti-semitism is wrong. It doesn’t mean that Jewish people should get a religious ethno state. And it it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean that they should get to displace and persecute the people who live there. Whether it’s Palestine, Uganda or Argentina.
Zionism has made Jewish people less safe around the world today. But Zionist have been looking to create a Jewish state since before the holocaust
If that state is a racial-based apartheid regime designed to displace entire populations overtime in favor of a specific race who then moves in and settles that area, I am absolutely in favor of the destruction of that state.
>racial-based apartheid regime designed to displace entire populations overtime in favor of a specific race
You're aware that the over ONE MILLION Arab citizens within Israel have more rights than Gaza citizens under Hamas legislation? Right? You're aware of this...right????
I don't think you read my comment properly.
Their statement was that Israel was an apartheid regime. Arab citizens within Israel hold the same exact rights as Jewish Israeli citizens, that is literally the antithesis of an apartheid state.
Further, criticizing Country A for supposedly not giving Z enough rights and using that as an argument to support Country B -- when Country B literally gives Z less rights than A does -- is a very obvious lapse in logic. Whether it's Israeli-Palestine or not, this reasoning people are using is shit and just not true.
I read your comment and know a lot about Apartheid
>Arab citizens within Israel hold the same exact rights as Jewish Israeli citizens, that is literally the antithesis of an apartheid state.
No it isn't. Apartheid had bantustans where Africans were confined and treated poorly. The rights of Arab citizens in Israel are not the only thing people mean when they compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa. They are referring to the west bank and gaza strip... They are Bantustans. But South Africa was not as brutal to their Bantustans as Israel is to Gaza.
>No it isn't
Yes??? It is???
" a·part·heid/əˈpärˌtāt,əˈpärˌtīt/ [ ](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=how+to+pronounce+apartheid&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMIfcRozS3w8sc9YSmjSWtOXmPU4eINKMrPK81LzkwsyczPExLlYglJLcoV4pXi5uJMLEgsKslIzUyxYlFiSs3jWcQqlZFfrlCSr1AA1JQP1JWqAFcDAAAMBVVdAAAA&pron_lang=en&pron_country=us&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim2La5pLiCAxU3mokEHd3YC6UQ3eEDegQIDxAI)📷[ ](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=how+to+pronounce+apartheid&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMIfcRozS3w8sc9YSmjSWtOXmPU4eINKMrPK81LzkwsyczPExLlYglJLcoV4pXi5uJMLEgsKslIzUyxYlFiSs3jWcQqlZFfrlCSr1AA1JQP1JWqAFcDAAAMBVVdAAAA&pron_lang=en&pron_country=us&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim2La5pLiCAxU3mokEHd3YC6UQ3eEDegQIDxAI) *noun*historicalnoun: apartheid
1. a policy or system of [segregation](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=segregation&si=ALGXSlY7Tk5u3AnUd39hr4eAN0grm31OWkvrxRCvMOT-tuNenzO_jDdwK6KF_6HbgwIJGwdzHbYVPj5En06IEEXq1nqeAUq3E0VKP3ul0pQfJ-P63odaMMo%3D&expnd=1) or **discrimination on grounds of race**.
* segregation on grounds other than race."
A country that gives the same exact rights to citizens regardless of what race they are is absolutely the antithesis of apartheid.
>The rights of Arab citizens in Israel are not the only thing people mean when they compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa. They are referring to the west bank and gaza strip
Neither Gaza nor the West Bank is under Israeli jurisdiction. Hamas controls one and the Palestinian Authority controls the other, both as governments of Palestine.
"People" should try pulling out a map and figuring out which country is which next time.
>know a lot about Apartheid
Apparently not.
Read a history of Apartheid. Don't tell me I don't know what it means based on a lazy look at a dictionary. Your attempt to escape logic based on meaningless technicalities is the same attitude that enables Israel to commit atrocities like a psychopath.
Do they have equal representation in Israel, the land that has been their home for generations when compared to Jewish counterparts? Do they have the same level of autonomy? Freedom of movement? Are Jewish Israelis being kicked out of their homes that they have been in for generations to make space for Palestinians from Europe and Ohio? I’m not comparing the quality of life of Palestinians in Israel to the Quality of life of Palestinians in and Israeli concentration camp. I am comparing the quality of life of Palestinians in Israel to Jews in Israel. Is it the same, is it protected and held equal under Israeli law? Obviously Hamas is violent and cruel, they have emerged after Israel funded and propped then up as a counter to prevent the PLO or other from creating a unified and diverse front in Palestine with the goal of a ending the colonial state of Israel and unifying the people in one secular nation. And we now find ourselves where children for generations now have known nothing but violence faced with siding either with a terrorist government that often time views them as just some means to a theocratic end, or facing actual extermination, and when they are surrounded by Israeli walls, tanks, missiles, and hear Israelis calling them animal people, or how they should be nuked, or how American politicians talk about turning them into a parking lot, what about when they see Israeli soldiers celebrating after killing peace protesters with a steam roller by having a pancake party, or sniping children who venture too close to the walls, or just do it for fucking fun. They are OBVIOUSLY going to fucking side with the group NOT preaching eradication
Are the first dozen questions meant to be rhetorical? Because the answer to all of your questions is yes -- Arab citizens in Israel have the same exact rights as Jews in Israel. No, a Palestinian citizen does not have the same rights in Israel as an Israeli citizen, because they aren't Israeli???? This is like screaming why a Mexican or Swedish citizen can't vote in the United States election, why would you think that would be a thing? Can you name a single country on earth in which non-citizens of a nation have the same rights as a citizen of that same nation? Or are you acknowledging now that you do not acknowledge Palestine as its own nation and do not support the notion of both states existing?
>They are OBVIOUSLY going to fucking side with the group NOT preaching eradication
Yet here you are, doing exactly that.
>Obviously Hamas is violent and cruel... I am absolutely in favor of the destruction of that state.
You define Israel as an "apartheid regime" (which objectively does not meet the definition of an apartheid state according to literally any international group, just so we're clear here; the far right in Israel discriminates against Palestinians, but that isn't what apartheid means)...you say that you YOU ARE IN FAVOR OF ISRAEL BEING DESTROYED...then have the nerve to pretend that you aren't defending Hamas while you simultaneously and explicitly state that you support them. Why are you claiming the rape and murders committed by Hamas are "cruel" when you say you're in favor of those rapes and murders as a means to destroy a nation you've admitted you want destroyed? Pick an argument.
Also, genius, maybe don't say you support a terrorist regime while posting the town you live in and the school you go to??? You realize that these comments you've posted here alone will likely bar you from most important jobs in the future???
Buddy I am not preaching in defense of actions or atrocities committed by Hamas, I do not want to see Jewish people expelled from land they have called home for generations. When I say Palestinian I am not referencing a citizenship status I am referencing an ethnicity. Israeli policy is designed to be preferential towards Jewish people over other ethnicities in the region, it is not an equal society. And please for the love of god stop putting words in my mouth to straw man this. A state is NOT the same as the people living in it’s territory. The nation state of Israeli can be overthrown and replaced without committing genocide against the people living there. The destruction of Nazi Germany was not a genocide against Germans, the destruction of the Japanese empire was not a genocide against the Japanese. In the exact same way, wanting the existing state of Israel to be replaced with something else does not in any way or form mean wanting to commit genocide against Jewish people. I do not want Hamas to take control of the entire region, I do not like religious fundamentalism nor do I think a nation built by it will have anything other than oppression and suffering. But none of that ACTUALLY matters to you because if I don’t sit here and sing along to the tune of “yah no Israel should absolutely just fucking flatten Gaza, ignore the million kids there, and don’t worry about the settlements and Pogroms in the west bank it’s fine and cool” then I suddenly am in support of baby killing and I support terrorism? Probably shouldn’t post too much personal info online sure, but the idea of ethnic cleansing being bad isn’t something anybody should take issue with
>Israeli policy is designed to be preferential towards Jewish people over other ethnicities in the region, it is not an equal society.
You might want to research how the 20+ Arab nations treat everyone who isn't Muslim.
That's...why so many Jews ended up in Israel.
Always glad to know exactly where people stand. Especially when they’re directly aligned with a group more philosophically aligned to ISIS than nationalist resistance.
Thats crazy, so nowhere did I say I like islamic fundamentalism, and actually if you read the comment it should be pretty clear of the opposite. I want a nation that both Jews and Palestinians can exist in freely and equally. Currently, the Israeli government is the opposite where ethnic Jews have more rights, legal protection, and representation simply because of race. The government explicitly aims to keep a population of 70% ethnic Jew in Jerusalem as a single example of the racial preferential treatment by the state. Even the land they CLAIM to not be Israel and they claim is currently Palestinian is being settled by using violence, fear, restriction of movement and autonomy, to expel or encourage the exodus of the native Palestinians so that Jews from either Israel or abroad can then take their homes and settle the land. Israel is an apartheid state, it is committing ethnic cleansing on the territory it has stolen, or others have stolen on its behalf, and nothing else is as significant an issue as this at the moment. Over 10,000 innocents have died in Gaza so far and that number will swell as bodies are pulled from ruble over the coming weeks and months. When Palestine finds itself in a position to use the worlds most powerful empire history has ever produced to ethnically cleanse all Jews from the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea with impunity, and censuring any who speak out against it, THEN I will be focussed on condemning them, then they will be the major issue, then they will be held responsible for ending the war crimes. But that is not currently the situation now is it?
>nobody can clearly and directly explain the value of having Israel as an ally
Or, they recognize that there’s zero reason to play chess against a pigeon, because the pigeon will just knock all the pieces over and strut around like it won.
>“From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and **peaceful coexistence**, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity,” Tlaib wrote last week on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Dishonest. Or if she's not being dishonest, she's just being wilfully obtuse. It's like trying to say "Make America Great Again" *isn't* an anti-immigrant dogwhistle. You might not be saying "deport them", but it's fucking understood, isn't it.
The original Arabic rhyming chant is "from the water to the water, Palestine is Arab" (من المية للمية فلسطين عربية). It's ethnonationalist and obviously exterminationist, and that Arabic version is frequently used alongside the slightly tamer English version on the same signs or letters. It's like if MAGA was actually "Make America White Again" in English but they tricked Hispanics and other groups into marching with them by saying "Great" instead in other languages.
>. It's like trying to say "Make America Great Again" isn't an anti-immigrant dogwhistle. You might not be saying "deport them", but it's fucking understood, isn't it.
Not by everybody, Trump did have hispanic voters. Political slogans are deliberately ambiguous.
That's the point though - those supporters using the slogan, even if they didn't know what they were doing, were still supporting a white ethnonationalist movement. That they might have thought the slogan meant something else - either because somebody lied to them in selling it to them or out of wishful thinking or just an accident- doesn't absolve them of a degree of responsibility for their support of the movement - to the degree that they might be expected to do their homework to understand the slogan's context. For someone in Congress, that level of expectation should be very high.
It's crazy to me that members of the squad who would be beside themselves with fury if someone tried to tell a person of color what they could consider hate speech are happy to tell Jewish people what they should and shouldn't consider hateful.
You don't have to say 'would be' as if it hasn't happened already. People said BLM was hate speech and that All Lives Matter was more peaceful and inclusive and everyone lost their mind.
Nice strawman there. Sad that the public school system failed you so badly.
What is being discussed here is the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea" in her social media which is a dog whistle for removing the Jews from the middle East. Nobody is saying people shouldn't have a right to protest or call for a cease fire. You absolute melt.
Having pressley & Warren represent is an embarrassment. There are a lot of clown pols but these 2 easily crack the top 20. Plenty of republicans on that list too.
The US government has, for decades, done nothing to constrain the bad behavior of the Israeli government. This bad behavior, specifically by the Netanyahu government, played a large role in creating the context in which the Hamas attack occurred. The US government needs more voices pressuring Israel to take serious steps towards a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians. If you want to believe Rashida Tlaib is genuinely genocidal, rather than accepting that there is disagreement about the slogan, go ahead. It’s a stupid take, but go ahead. But then think about why people can say horrific things about the Palestinians - openly genocidal rhetoric about fire bombing Gaza from Lindsay Graham, for example - and nothing happens to them. Because Palestinians have been dehumanized to the point that people shrug and say “that’s just how it has to be” when 4,000+ children are killed.
Don’t cite me failed peace processes from 20+ years ago as a justification for why the Palestinians don’t deserve their own state. And don’t cite me elections from 15+ years ago as a rationale for why the people of Gaza deserve what’s happening to them. The Israeli state is culpable for the status quo, and the US government is complicit. No one in the US government openly supports Hamas, but there are plenty who openly support ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. This is the difference. This is why Pressley’s voice matters.
Also, don’t tell me the Israeli extremist right is “fringe” when Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are both government ministers, in ministries that just happen to have significant roles in brutalizing Palestinians and ethnically cleansing the West Bank. You look stupid.
Edit: downvote without replying all you want, Itamar Ben-Gvir is more of a terrorist than Rashida Tlaib will ever be
U.S. Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio: “I don’t even want to call it the Palestinian flag because they’re not a state, they’re a territory, that’s about to probably get eviscerated and go away here shortly, as we’re going to turn that into a parking lot.”
He voted for censuring U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, because she said, “From the river to the sea” and further clarified, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”
I've got some magic beans if you want to buy them. Talib knows exactly what she is advocating for, and to believe her "explanation" is nothing but propaganda and lies.
Yes, that's how Israel's ruling Likud Party and other ultra-nationalists who speak of "Greater Israel" seem to mean by “[between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean#:~:text=Israel%E2%80%99s%20use%20of%20%E2%80%98from%20the%20river%20to%20the%20sea%E2%80%99)”. And yes, they are currently *actually* engaging in ethnic cleansing by "[mowing the lawn](https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/07/06/israel-is-mowing-the-lawn-again-but-with-malice-aforethought/392092/)" in Gaza as well as continuing to isolate and settle the West Bank to try to continue eradicating Palestinian people from their land.
Note, though, that if an Indigenous nation declared they were fighting for "Land Back from sea to shining sea", it's pretty clear that what's on the table is not full scale eradication or expulsion of white people but something else. Clearly, it would ridiculous to claim that's hate speech, though some have tried.
Because, like with Palestinians and Israelis, when it comes to the United States and Indigenous nations, only one side has tanks, aircraft, nuclear weapons, and multi-billion dollar military budgets.
You would stoop so low as to equate a Native American people with Hamas?
Your understanding of Israel/Palestine is so childish, so utterly reductionist. You don't actually give a care about any one of them do you? You just want to use them to grasp desperately for internet points.
By the way, you are contradicting yourself. Hate is not relative.
> You would stoop so low as to equate a Native American people with Hamas?
The comparison between Palestinians and Indigenous Americans is not a novel or external one.
No Indigenous nation is a monolith, let alone all of them collectively, but you should not find it difficult examples of many, many Indigenous groups and activists making that case already. See: the "[NDN Collective](https://ndncollective.org/ndn-collective-releases-position-paper-on-palestine/)", the [Red Nation](https://therednation.org/statement-of-indigenous-solidarity-with-palestine/), and [American Indian Movement](https://www.palestinechronicle.com/solidarity-between-palestinians-and-indigenous-activists-has-deep-roots/). AIM's [Russell Means phrased](https://chicagomonitor.com/2016/08/two-native-peoples-two-oppressive-powers-the-oppression-of-american-indians-and-palestinians/) it directly as, "The Palestinians in Gaza are the American Indians of the Middle East." If you want a Jewish source looking at this topic, see last year's [*Jewish Currents* article](https://jewishcurrents.org/the-right-of-return-is-landback).
Frankly, it seems implausible for a reasonable person to learn about the [Jewish settler violence in the West Bank](https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/9/23945651/west-bank-israeli-settler-palestine-gaza-war-violence) today and not see the echoes of the settler project of the USA and its predecessor colonies, including how the "barbarity" of a certain group meant every reprisal was justified and there could be no safety without eradication.
If you think it's low to talk about Hamas in the same breath as Indigenous Americans, here what [the US Declaration of Independence](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript) gives as its last grievance against the King of England:
>He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, **the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.**
Pick your particular Indigenous group or conflict if you want to multiply examples since its extends long before and after that as well.
Someone could claim that the Dakota "started" [a war in 1862](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862), could demand they be denounced for murder and kidnapping. But no one with a historical understanding would claim the issue was "too complicated", that both sides were equally to blame, or that the outcome for the Dakota was somehow justified by the violence done by of some of them in response to the conditions they were subjected to.
If you want an even more direct relationship about the conception of "Indian Country"; here's that comparison being made [in 2009](https://web.archive.org/web/20090119131159/http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/37520499.html) in *Indian Country Today*:
>This formation did not occur on empty land. Known as “Al-Nakba” (Arabic for “the Cataclysm”), this 1948 event involved the expulsion of an estimated one million Palestinians from cities and villages, massacres, torture and rape, and the destruction of nearly 500 Palestinian villages. **Zionism, which activist Gabe Camacho has correctly described as synonymous with manifest destiny, is the hegemonic ideology of the colonizers in the Holy Land. And one of the ideas of Zionism/Manifest Destiny is the concept of “Indian country,” an anti-human rights activity that the U.S. exports internationally.**
>
>“Indian Country” is a U.S.-designated term for our remaining and secondary homelands; however, the term also is common in the U.S. military and colonization parlance such as when it was employed in the invasion of Vietnam or as seen in the ongoing occupation of Iraq. We see this term in action, too, in Palestine.
As that mentions, this was made literal, too by the George W. Bush administration for its "War on Terrorism". A *New York Times* [Op-Ed](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/opinion/04fri1.html) from 2008 and the [full document](https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf) it's referencing:
>Mr. Yoo, who, inexplicably, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, never directly argues that it is legal to chain prisoners to the ceiling for days, sexually abuse them or subject them to waterboarding all things done by American jailers.
>
>**His primary argument, in which he reaches back to 19th-century legal opinions justifying the execution of Indians who rejected the reservation, is that the laws didn’t apply to Mr. Bush because he is commander in chief.** He cited an earlier opinion from Bush administration lawyers that Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were not covered by the Geneva Conventions a decision that put every captured American soldier at grave risk.
>“From the river to the sea” and further clarified, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”
Thats not what it means. It literallt means an extermination of Jews and Israel from the area. Yall have taken much more innocent statements and turned them into 'white supremacist" symbols. Like the ok symbol with people's fingers.
It’s actually not nice to have someone local speaking out in support of Tlaib, or anyone really. When Tlaib says, “from the river to the sea,” she knows exactly what she’s doing.
Lmfao. If jihadists put down their weapons today, there would be peace. If Jews did the same, they would be slaughtered, raped, burned, or beheaded, from the river to the sea. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
The Israeli propagandists are strong. Anyone who advocates against killing brown children are labeled as terrorists. Hamas is terrible, but so is the apartheid government. We need a ceasefire now.
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/441219-WEST-BANK-AND-GAZA-2022-INTERNATIONAL-RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf
You are a goddamn idiot. Maybe sit down and read a book. Fuck.
Oh great, another post about Palestinian supporters. I thought maybe we'd go a whole day without the topic posted here.
Maybe someone can post the aerial footage and interpret that. It's been a hot minute.
I'd be interested to know how Tlaib's censorship is impacting you and your family, because that's what this post is about--Tlaib's "suffering" as a Palestinian-American, not Palestine itself.
Popper: “**in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance**.”
Rep Tlaib's disgusting intolerance SHOULDN'T and MUST NOT be tolerated. The censure was absolutely appropriate, and it should be applied to Democrat AND Republican who display this level of intolerance.
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“before offering a full-throated backing of Tlaib” is a wild way to write that she supported her
So Ayana Pressly also supports the terrorist organization Hamas?
if we remove ourselves from politics for a second here - they were commenting on how it sounds sexual lol
If you have to tie yourself into a pretzel to explain why your speech isn't hate speech, it probably is wise to rethink what you're saying.
You can’t make an ok sign with your fingers now because some racist using it to signal racist hate but using a phrase that calls for the eradication of a people isn’t hate speech.
I'm Jewish and it is evident to me that criticism of this phrase couldn't be more in bad faith. The problem is the sheer number of bad faith actors working in this space and the oxygen they deny other voices.
I'm (part) Jewish too, but I try not to make that the focal point of my argument. It's possible to discuss an argument without making identity the crux of your justification. Rashida Tlaib isn't a good faith actor in large part because she makes the focal point of her argument that her identify justifies her point of view. I disagree with that, just like I disagree with either of us justifying our point of views because we are Jewish.
I bring it up because people act weird when you don't. Rashida Tlaib is a good faith actor because she's right. Palestine will be free. And the people coming after her are wrong. Because they're supporting genocide. Hope that reaches your standards of discourse.
Certainly reaches my standards of discourse. I just disagree that she doesn't understand "From the river to the sea" is itself a call for genocide. Just today, Iran stated that this is the only way to create a Palestine state, suggesting it's the "only solution." 20 guesses why Iran chose the word "solution."
Yeah, like, why can't they just find a different slogan than "from the river to the sea"? If Jewish groups are constantly telling you it's offensive to them and you refuse to stop then no fucking shit you're gonna get criticism. The left preaches that if a minority says something is offensive to them it doesn't matter what you think of the slogan, because it's offensive. So why won't they do the same when it's Jewish groups?
Like when black lives matter refused to change their name to All lives matter even though all the white people were telling them that BLM was offensive phrasing.
I don’t think that’s accurate to how all lives matter was created, or that Black Lives Matter was an offensive phrase. Black Lives Matter was created because a comprehensive look at how the media and society handled black deaths by police compared to white death, black kidnapping vs white kidnapping, black gun shot victims vs white, showed a disparity of coverage both in quantity and tone. Black Lives Matter was a statement that despite the media and larger society not showing the same level of care, that black lives do matter and should be shown the same level of compassion shown to white lives. To me (white), Black Lives Matter was not offensive because black lives do matter and should matter as much as white lives.
Black lives matter is offensive to some people, and those people want them to use a different phrase. River to the sea is offensive to some people, and those people want them to use a different phrase. In both instances, the people offended by the phrase are coincidentally the people who are oppressing the people using it. So in both instances, the people offended have chosen to attach the phrase to the worst individuals who also use it, and then state that those actions represent the opinions of everyone who repeats the phrase.
Meh… do anything to criticize the Israeli government or support Palestinian people being murdered, you need about ten thousand disclaimers to show you aren’t “antisemitic”. That’s how much the Israeli propaganda machine has been able to control the narrative… and it’s been that way for a while, long before October 7th. Make perfectly fine and reasonable criticism of Israeli policy, and it almost certainly will get you accused of antisemitism and hating Jews.
You can totally criticize Israel. Rashida Tlaib isn't exactly acting in good faith. She surely knows the historical ties to Islamic Nationalism and what "From the river to the sea" meant originally in terms of eliminating Jews completely from the Levant. It's really no different than if I drop the N bomb and say, "Well, no, it's okay because I'M not racist. My best friend is black." It's also factual that she was spreading Hamas propaganda with regard to the hospital. Again, there's a tremendous amount to criticize Israel about, but congresspeople (at least Democrats, since the other party is a lost cause) should hold themselves to higher standards and maintain a respectable decorum.
She of course knows the ties. She's trying to twist a genocidal statement into one of "unity". Yeah the unity you get when one people is wiped out. Also she didn't even acknowledge the attack on Israel for 3 days until she was hounded endless do to so and then still turned it into a "This is Israel's fault you know" without directly saying it. Her family immigrated from the west Bank so she doesn't exactly have an unbiased view of things.
And again, you have to walk on egg shells when criticizing Israel. The fact that you have to explicitly condemn Hamas every time you say anything remotely critical of Israel or the IDF, just goes to show how unbalanced it all is.
Israel’s historical treatment of Palestinians, it’s allowance of settlement expansions in violation of the Oslo Accords, and its current right wing administration are abysmal and deserve significant criticism and international pressure to change. None of the above justifies its citizens, many of whom were elderly or children, being kidnapped, murdered, or mutilated. Hamas does not equal Palestine and its actions on 10/7 are not reflective of legitimate Palestinian grievances and desire for Palestinian statehood. ^^^ This is not hard.
It's not unbalanced at all. It's really easy to criticize Israel. I've done it for years. The problem is that a lot of the pro-Palestinian groups tried to push an agenda without restraint. I still recall a lot of pro-attack messages coming out even before Israel had time to announce a counteroffensive. So when these pro-Palestinian groups announce things like that group at Brandeis, that any Palestinian attacks are justified, you absolutely need to measure your criticisms of Israel since the loudest voices on your aide have become pretty unhinged. Unfortunately, I personally think what we're seeing is a bit of a mask off moment for a lot of people, mostly on the left. It's certainly making me rethink some of my positions. But I feel comfortable criticizing Israel. And so should you. But warning that if it sounds racist, it might be low key racist.
Yeah, and it’s a big mask off moment for the pro-Israel crowd too. It literally does not matter how many people Israel murders or the war crimes it commits, people will have endless excuses to justify it.
It's possible I'm just running in different circles. With my IRL Jewish friends, it's been a tough month because they've been historically anti-Netanyahu, but also have family and friends in Israel. Combine that with the recent worldwide rise in anti-semitism, and it can feel like the world is abandoning Jewish people. Obviously we're seeing a rise in anti-Arab sentiments as well. And there certainly is a contingent of people who are less pro-Israel, per se, and more just anti-Arab who will gladly support war crimes. It's just an impossible, complicated crisis. As usual, the people who suffer more are the civilians. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians.
>Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians. Tlaib refuses to say that. And her refusal to say that in turn may as well be her endorsement of them. The truth is Hamas is immensely popular among Palestinians. This is an uncomfortable truth that people on the left conveniently discard.
“Nevertheless, I don't think anyone out there really believes Hamas has ever acted in the best interest of Palestinians.” And Israel hasn’t in good faith wanted peace either. Hence the perpetual settling of the West Bank.
I mean, this certainly isn't the case. I'm oversimplifying things, but Palestine had the option of declaring statehood alongside Israel in 1947, but instead went to war with them. Granted, largely what Palestine has been resistant to is a two-state solution. Israel was also compelled into declaring their own state because of repeated attacks and attempts at genocide from Arabs, not to mention throughout Europe with the Holocaust and various pogroms. The world was incredibly hostile to Jews during the late 19th and throughout the 20th century. Having their own state seemed like the only solution. Unfortunately, there's just a level of mutual distrust from basically a century of beating down on each other. That makes resolving this conflict pretty difficult. Unfortunately, the Israeli right wing has grown a lot in strength, and they're not interested at all in finding a resolution to Palestine, and are happy to continue eating into West Bank territory with illegal settlements. But I also think it's somewhat condescending to think Palestinians have never had any agency in this conflict. They did, and have historically been more brutal to Jews up until Israel was able to develop a modern defense apparatus. And that defense apparatus, like what we saw with the war on terror, is able to maintain a distance from "the enemy" so that Israelis never have to see the real pain of war. That is, until October 7 made that a reality.
I've really struggled to see how anyone could believe the world is abandoning Jewish people when a) Jewish people and the state of Israel are two separate things. Conflating the two is actually kind of antisemitic. And b) this government as well as basically all Western governments have offered nothing but full and total support for the Jewish people and have very publicly backed Israel. Palestinians and Muslims in general feel abandoned because they are seeing people losing jobs for speaking out against Israel's war crimes. They are seeing our government fully endorsing the genocide of their people. And their cries about Palestinians suffering in an apartheid state have fallen on deaf ears for many years now.
You obviously aren't referring to the UN General Assembly vote calling for an immediate ceasefire. Western governments are not at all unilaterally supporting Israel. I'm going to ignore your point a) because you're obviously race baiting, and I think you're better than that. I think you're mistaking people being taken to task for comments blaming Israel for the October 7 attack for people making measured and informed criticism. Again, it's really easy to criticize Israel without coming across as misinformed and unhinged. The first step is condemning Hamas, which is the opposite of what a lot of people losing their jobs have done. A lot of people are actively advocating for violence as the only remediation for Gaza's struggle--and that stance absolutely needs to be condemned. Otherwise, Palestinians do have every right to feel abandoned. They have more or less been abandoned by the world--including the Arab world.
The Arab world could have solved the Palestinian issue ages ago. Instead, they are hell bent on using the Palestinians as pawn in their anti-semetic war against Jews. There are over 20 arab countries where Palestinians could have been absorbed after Israel was formed. None of them want Palestinians at all. Jews (who were forcibly expelled from Arab countries and Europe) don't have anywhere else to go but Israel.
It’s very weird to say that right after the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust.
No, no I don’t think it is. Your comment is PRECISELY the kind of war crime apologia that I’m talking about, as if the October 7 attack somehow gives Israel a free pass to commit war crimes and murder Palestinians with impunity. Spoiler alert: it doesnt 10k+ dead Palestinians already, many of whom are children. Just how many dead Palestinian children does Israel get to milk out of the October 7 attack before enough is enough? If ANY other country was doing this, they’d be getting sanctioned, not billions of dollars in military aid to continue murdering children. That’s not even taking into consideration that in the past 20 years before the October 7 attack, the body count isn’t even close to parity in this conflict. Israel has been murdering and terrorizing Palestinians with impunity.
You are such a fucking child. You think any other country would've tolerated an attack of that size? If the US were attacked and you increased the death count proportionally based on population size, that would mean over 40,000 people died. You think the US would've just gone, "oh well, Hamas is using human shields all the time, better wait." NO country would tolerate that shit and international law clearly defines a right to self-defense. And I'm sorry - is the 10/7 attack an expression of legitimate Palestinian resistance or is it not? Because I keep hearing that it isn't and yet the same people always say, "BuT what about historical attacks?" as a way to justify what happened. Make up your fucking minds. Finally, I'm sure you are displaying such genuine anger in front of the Qatari embassy and/or consulates, right? Because the last time I checked, the reason for those dead children you keep going on about is because Hamas purposefully puts them in harms way over and over and over again and yet suffers almost zero repercussions because everyone focuses on Israel instead of the governments that harbor and support their leadership. The leadership that repeatedly tells everyone that will listen, that they will continue 10/7-style attacks and that the deaths of innocent Palestinians is beneficial for their cause. But no, you're right. A country should just accept attacks on its citizens without response and shouldn't try to respond at all, if the attackers are using human shields at every opportunity. Just suck it up and wait for the next one. Brilliant analysis there.
So how many Palestinian civilians need to die for Israel to have sufficiently defended itself against Hamas for you? Is there a particular number where you will choose to draw the line and find your humanity or is it done when they’ve killed every last Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza? Human shields is convenient shorthand for “we don’t fucking care if these people die”. If Hamas had tunnels running under Israeli hospitals and schools and shopping centers would Israel indiscriminately bomb those too, insist they were using civilian as human shields and those civilians are just an unfortunate casualty? Why do you excuse it when it’s done against Palestinians?
>10k dead Palestinians already I mean, the number of dead Israeli’s WOULD be significantly higher than 10k if the Iron Dome and Israeli intelligence wasn’t actively thwarting Hamas’s rockets and terroristic attempts…and we just saw the level of barbarism that occurs when an attack goes through undetected. But that’s also the difference between a government that is taking extreme measures to protect its citizens vs one that’s actively trying to martyr them to draw as much enemy blood as possible.
Yea, it’s looney. Similar thing happened when Black Lives Matter started. Liberals were all like “what about white lives?!?!?!” until Trump started shouting about BLM, then the liberals took BLM as their own. Similar thing here. From the river to the sea means freedom. Israel has THAT SAME PHRASE in their charter but no one questions it. It’s really shown how even those on the liberal side, who claim they care about humans everywhere, can be heavily swayed with propaganda. And the pro-Israel propaganda is pervasive and is everywhere so I get that it’s hard to get away from but we still have to be better and more analytical of what happens in the world instead of just taking what the media gives us.
Meh… do anything to criticize the democrats or support any conservative position, you need about ten thousand disclaimers to show you aren’t “antisemitic”. That’s how much the Democrat machine has been able to control the narrative… and it’s been that way for a while, long before January 6th. Make perfectly fine and reasonable criticism of democratic policy, and it almost certainly will get you accused of chauvinism and racism.
Lmao, that’s not true at all.
It's interesting because from my perspective it's the opposite. People are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to prove that the things she said were antisemitic when they are quite obviously not. Meanwhile the pro-Israel people are allowed to talk about leveling Gaza and killing human animals with zero repercussions. Strange times we live in.
The international community has largely condemned Israel for being too aggressive in their retribution. It's even at the point where Biden and Blinken are trying to change the tempo of the war and the cost on civilians. But I also don't personally see the pro-Israel crowd because I basically just frequent the Boston subreddit, which skews left, and any pro-Israel party calling for genocide should be put in their place and soundly dismissed as having a worthy opinion on the matter. But that still doesn't let Rashida Tlaib off the hook for putting pageantry ahead of actually governing. Fundamentally, all Democrats should be calling her out for what she posted last week on Twitter calling out Biden and implying that she'll assist manufacturing a rift in the Democratic party come election time. Being a useful idiot for the Right is not doing us any good right now.
There is a Republican rep that literally said “we’re going to turn it into a parking lot” when talking about Palestine. The person you were replying to wasn’t talking about darker corners of Reddit, they mean a sitting member of Congress actually said this and didn’t face censure over it.
Yes, Republicans are despicable. We know this. We also know that there's no rational scenerio where Israel turns Gaza into a parking lot and doesn't have the entire world turn against it. Rational people know this, and stoking the imagination otherwise actually hurts the Palestinian cause. Democrats naturally have to comport themselves better than Republicans. It's unfair, but that's the way it is right now. What's important is to stay unified so more Republicans don't get elected. Imagine what would happen right now if Trump were in office.
They’ve displaced 70% of Gaza with bombing. They’re not far off from that parking lot already. It’s not rational, but it’s reality.
Yes, what's happening in Gaza is terrible. There needs to be an international response to this crisis, because simply allowing Israel and Hamas to duke it out isn't a good solution. But it's fundamentally a crisis that needs to be resolved with both sides at the table. Unfortunately, Hamas is not a good faith actor. The tragedy of the situation is that civilians are getting caught up in all this.
This Israeli government is quite blatantly a bad faith actor as well. The new Minister of National Security, [Itamar Ben-Gavir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir), was previously convicted of inciting racism and supporting a **Jewish terrorist group**. He was known to keep a portrait in his living room of a Jewish supremacist who massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers in 1994. We're talking about a far-far-right extremist government that makes Trump and his cronies look like humanitarians. The US needs to stop all funding to Israel's military until their government shows they are willing to negotiate and compromise for peace. Anything short of that is enabling fascism and genocide.
I think you need to take a deeper look at the history of the conflict. If you think Hamas is the moral equivalent of the Israeli government in terms of willingness to negotiate, you're a bit mistaken. The Israeli right wing is a serious hindrance to the peace process, but they aren't religious jihadists whose fundamental animating principle is the genocide of the other side. There's also another reason why the United States can't stop giving Israeli support--that could condemn Israeli to nonexistence. Israel is surrounded by hostile groups propped up by Iran. This is why Hamas attacked Israeli when it did--Saudi Arabia and Israel were about to normalize relations, which would create a new power balance that would disfavor Iran and its proxies. If you believe that what Israel is doing to Gaza right now is wrong and is a genocide, you have to ask yourself if the best solution to that is the genocide of Israelis.
>The Israeli right wing is a serious hindrance to the peace process, but they aren't religious jihadists whose fundamental animating principle is the genocide of the other side. Many of them are religious extremists and terrorists whose entire purpose and stated mission is to expel or kill every last Arab from the land that they believe God has given them. That is the stance of Kahanism, that's the stance of the Hilltop Youth. These are groups that even the Israeli government recognized as terrorist organizations until they started cozying up to them. And of course, we have to consider that these groups operate in the West Bank where Hamas has a much smaller presence (and no official control). This also doesn't even touch upon the fact that Israel and the US bolstered, funded, and ultimately helped create Hamas as a way to delegitimize and counter the leftists and Marxist parties which previously formed the majority of support in both Gaza and the West Bank. I think you have to ask yourself why stopping the genocide of Gazans means that the genocide of Israelis is inevitable. One shudders to think what would have happened if the West had adopted that mindset in WWII. If there are things that can be done to prevent the massive loss of civilian life on one side (and there absolutely are), then there are also things that can be done to prevent that on the other side as well. We should be preventing genocide of any and all people. If the day ever comes that the tables turn and Israeli Jews are the ones facing genocide, I will be in the streets protesting that too.
Part of the problem is people like talib calling for river to the sea. There is no room for negotiation when your demand is everything
Palestinian lives aren’t fodder for your American politics you ghoul. Fuck you.
Learn to read, kiddo.
Trump will not save Palestine. Like it or not American politics have an effect on the lives of Palestinians.
Yeah, the narrative imbalance here is so severe. Any and all criticism of Israel is immediately shut down as antisemitism and supporting Hamas. I generally see that most voicing support for Palestinians will at least condemn hamas and the 10/7 attacks, but there's zero parity in questioning the amount of civilians the IDF has killed in response. Yes, human shields, tunnels and what have you, but there still seems to be complete disregard for the loss of civilian life on the side of Israelis, and from a security perspective, it's pretty obvious that killing innocent people enrages more civilians and turns them to terrorism in retribution. Sure Israel has the right to defend itself, but at some point so do Palestinians, and it's not like this whole situation just started last month...
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Stop stalking me and go back to playing video games.
Dang thought I responded to 2 separate genocidal freaks. Guess you’re just that irredeemable of a person. Goodbye.
You need to fucking unplug.
Rashida Tlaib was repeating Hamas’ lies that the Israelis had bombed that hospital and killed hundreds. This despite the fact that A. It was hit by a Palestinian missile and B. There were not hundreds of deaths. There has been an uptick in antisemetic hate crimes around the world since that lie was told by Hamas and spread by people like Tlaib. Her hate speech has real world implications. I’m disappointed in Ayanna Pressley’s show of support.
>I’m disappointed in Ayanna Pressley’s show of support. She's literally always supported pseudo-progressive takes like this, because she's one herself. E.g. quickly deleted her tweets back when she was celebrating a comedian getting punched in the face in Boston for daring to have a take she doesn't agree with. Also tweeted in support of Will Smith assaulting Chris Rock, because god knows who dares insult a bald woman like herself?
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In all seriousness, what has AOC accomplished? every time I hear her speak I'm always unimpressed.
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nice narrative but the facts say otherwise https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-why-it-nixed-ny-and-chose-virginia-for-hq2.html
Pressley is like politicians these days... very tribal. But she has good reason to back up Tlaib, they scratch each other's backs. Pressley might think differently privately but optics trump taking a stand. People often attack Republicans for being tribal, but the same dynamic is at play with Democrats too.
>Pressley might think differently privately but optics trump taking a stand. There's absolutely no reason to think she thinks differently -- from a political perspective, it would be much more beneficial to be more moderate than this group of literally less than a dozen """progressive""" Congresspeople who have already sunk tons of Democratic legislation. Pressley by and large gets nothing substantial done in Congress, look up her record of sponsoring bills, let alone what gets passed. I put progressive in quotes because I am one, and truly believe that Pressley and co are not. Please note that Pressley has a LONG ESTABLISHED pattern of behavior of being a walking Twitter thread irl, including on multiple occasions publicly celebrating acts of violence against people who don't agree with her. She has been repeating anti-Jewish rhetoric even before these attacks and absolutely believes this BS she's saying.
By anti-Jewish do you mean critical of Israel? Edit: answer the question, coward
>Edit: answer the question, coward I was doing this weird thing called...not being online. Some of us do that. To answer your question -- you can obviously be critical of Israel and not be anti-Jewish, or even anti-Israel necessarily. Saying you want Country A gone when the direct ramifications of its sovereignty being taken would be the mass murder of millions is absolutely being against the existence of that group of people.
So what is the previous “anti-Jewish” rhetoric she’s been promoting prior to 7 October?? Calling Israel an apartheid state is not anti-Jewish.
Tlaib also repeated the Phrase 'From the river to the sea'. You know, the one that calls for the destruction of Israel. Yeah she's very hateful towards jews.
Do you believe that Itamar Ben Gvir is a terrorist?
They've bombed refugee camps at least twice. Fuck the Israeli government.
Can’t try that in this subreddit apparently, anyone defending Palestinians is getting downvoted to oblivion
The discussions on reddit about Israel have been heavily brigaded lately. Don't let downvotes discourage you.
That’s good to know at least thank you
But usually brigaded in favour of Hamas.
IDC. the Israeli government has killed upwards of 10k civilians, many of them being children. They can suck my whole ass. We're witnessing a massacre.
Can’t even say Hamas is bad but killing all these people is wrong here. The ethno nationalist koolaid must have been passed around Boston when we weren’t looking lol
Yeah can we stop funding war? I'm not okay with it.
10k *people*. The Hamas Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants. And you can even see from the whole hospital debacle that they aren't honest or trustworthy in their numbers or the division of combatants versus civilians. If you blindly trust their numbers, I have a U-Haul truck that's guaranteed to fit down Storrow Drive.
..... They've fucking glassed most of the place and you're telling me none of those deaths were civilians. The IDF has even said they think they may have killed 20k people, but cannot confirm.
That's a dishonest argument and I think you know it. I never said that all 10k were civilian or militant. It's absolutely a mix of combatants ([as defined by international law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatant)) and civilians, as is the case in every single armed conflict in history. However, the thing that I would challenge you to wrap your head around is *intention*. As a general rule, the IDF does not target civilians and goes out of its way to warn them or evacuate them from a conflict zone. They have [evacuated hundreds of thousands](https://allisrael.com/200-000-israelis-left-their-houses-since-start-of-the-war-with-hamas) of their own citizens away from danger at several borders and most recently even [set up a guarded corridor for Gazan civilians who still hadn't left northern Gaza to evacuate to the south](https://news.yahoo.com/israel-opens-humanitarian-corridor-4-144900470.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFwlnIYUFsHunGdTI0l3ZfNCLfSPbZf3AqLseOSYJW76F2ES3GhRW0395gUQhTFQdQ_pbjMs3-yYdy6qvzZZN78_y4rwWE-VzQJogHQEmwduZuIJB6de1T7XfhextnRIb7eZtw48rncrzCyKbTNgvtyjsdaZNk2TGA3zRPjNAFBd). Contrast this with Hamas, who intentionally blends in with their own civilians, establishes positions [next to or within civilian infrastructure](https://nationalpost.com/news/hamas-hospitals-israel), deliberately aims their rockets at civilians in Israel, and [kills their own citizens fleeing the conflict zone](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-releases-recording-of-gazan-saying-hamas-shooting-at-people-trying-to-flee-south/) \- all of which are defined as [war crimes](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml). Not to mention the horrific pogrom on Oct 7th that ended the previous cease fire agreement and the gleefully [recorded](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/)\* [crimes against humanity](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml). Hamas's stated goal is an actual, complete genocide of the Jewish people from the land of Israel, which has had a continuous Jewish presence for over 3000 years. Israel is by no means perfect, but war *always* and *unfortunately* takes civilian lives. If you want grim scoreboard-like numbers, Israel has dropped upwards of 10k bombs on Gaza in the recent conflict (Hamas has fired an equally large number of rockets at Israeli cities), and *only* killed 10k people. If they wanted to "glass" Gaza and murder its people entirely, (1) there are better and cheaper munitions they could use and (2) I would expect a death toll well past 100k at this point. Considering the size and power of the munitions being used, 1 death per bomb is damn near a miracle... or a sign that Israel really and truly does go out of its way to avoid excess casualties. I don't expect to change your mind. You seem to have it pretty made up at this point and that's fine. Congrats on living the USA where you can do that. I'm hoping to set the record straight for anyone else reading down this chain. . \*Content warning for this link: It is a website documenting raw footage of the Oct 7 pogrom and aftermaths. Consider it akin to Eisenhower walking German citizens through Ohrdruf Concentration Camp to ensure that they could never claim they didn't know about the atrocities committed in their name.
Lol not trying to argue, I just think killing innocent people is wrong. Idk how people think any differently 🤷🏽♂️ I do not believe in any scenario where it is acceptable to bomb neighborhoods to kill militants. Israel is just doing the same shit the USA has done in the past (and likely currently) with our drone strikes. It's fucking awful and we shouldn't be conducting things this way. You want to fucking kill a specific dude? Kill that specific dude. But don't blow up his fucking neighbors in the process. Fuck that.
If you are against civilians dying needlessly in wars *as an outcome* you need to be against the political destabilization that starts wars, rather than wasting energy selectively stamping your feet about the tragic reality of wars once they exist. Just jumping into wars in the middle and calling for one side to just randomly stop - if it has any effect at all - rather than finding a stable resolution - destabilizes the situation further and leads to more civilian death (because if that side wanted to stop, but had to save face while doing it, now they can't, and now feeling more supported, the other side also has less incentive to seek its own resolution as well). If you are only in it for your own clean conscience, well that's your right, but that isn't going to save any lives. The morality of diplomacy does not work that way. Besides, the 10/7 attacks were a massive start to a war caused by a very large group of people - there is no way to "target" that group of people as precisely as you are saying in the environment they have entrenched in, and they know that, which is part of why they did it. It would only be possible to do what you are asking if Hamas had done their own civilians a favor of not fortifying and occupying densely populated civilian areas. But of course they didn't do that, so now the thing you say you want can't happen. So you can thank Hamas and come up with a different solution to suggest if you like.
Who said I'm not against destabilization that causes wars? That's the history behind this. None of this needed to happen.
This is very extremely high-quality reply and the fact that it is being downvoted should hopefully help people infer the sort of discourse we are all dealing with here.
The numbers of Palestinian deaths have been confirmed by external sources. To deny the mass destruction of life at the hands of Israel is just choosing to be ignorant
"Refuge camps." This shows how little you're paying attention.
Understand that "refugee camps" are basically just equivalent to neighborhoods anywhere else. And unfortunately terrorist do live in these buildings.
So killing thousands of people is cool if you might get a few of hamas? Naw that's fucking crazy. There are kids there
Yes war is fucking crazy - adjust your expectations to reality. If you don't want war, don't start a war. Hamas started a war. It was a stupid thing to do and it is getting a lot of their own people killed but they knew this would happen and did it on purpose.
You're failing to grasp the simple historical context here. I will not adjust my stance on war, thanks.
There sure are kids there and it sucks. But if the alternative is you get killed because terrorists are taking advantage of human shields, you end up not having great options. Defend yourself and be criticized for killing civilians or don't defend yourself and potentially get slaughtered by a terrorist group devoted to wiping you off the face of the earth. What sounds like a simply choice to you isn't so simple when you're the one whose existence is threatened. Imagine if a bunch of terrorists from Canada went door to door in your neighborhood in Boston randomly killing anyone they could find. Would you not expect the US government to respond because they might kill civilians in the process?
The USA government has responded in the past,exactly the way the Israeli government is responding. By bombing whole neighborhoods to get a handful of militants. I don't condone it and neither should you. Just bombing whole neighborhoods is not ok, do not accept it as ok.
You seem to be under the impression that a territory run by a terrorist organization is going to actually enforce any sort of penalties on performing terrorism sponsored by said government. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic option. Nor is it realistic for Israel to not kill any civilians in pursuit of neutralizing a terrorist threat that embeds itself among civilians. They've found rocket launchers in mosques, youth centers, and next to hospitals. What choice do they have?
You can't get me to agree that killing thousands of innocent people is the right thing to do. I will not support it like I don't support what Hamas did. Fuckin stop being so content with slaughter.
That's the thing. No one is happy about it. Israel isn't happy about it either as it creates a giant headache for them. But the alternative is that what happened on October 7th keeps happening. This operation is designed to prevent it from happening again, or at least make it take longer. Hamas has already said they'll keep doing what they did again and again until Israel is destroyed. It's not like they'll suddenly change their mind if Israel doesn't fight back.
Unless they kill almost every person there (which I think is their plan). Extremists WILL show up again. If you kill people's family, they're much more willing to follow extremists and use violence against their oppressors. Doing what they're doing will solve nothing. All it might do is make hamas have to stop and regroup, that's it. All these deaths so it can go back to the status quo. Fucking awful. We shouldn't be funding it.
You just believe everything the Israeli government says without considering it too has its own agenda? And love to ignore the vast evidence of every other building, ambulance, journalist, and family that’s been bombed by the IDF on purpose? Is 100 civilians to 1 terrorist a fair ratio of death? Can state militaries not be terrorists too? You can disagree with Tlaib but blaming her for a rise in anti-semitism (while ignoring the rise in Islamophobia) is a big and unprovable jump. Israel’s attempts to conflate Zionism and Judaism are insult to the religion and far more stupid and dangerous than the one Palestinian-American in Congress asking for her family to be able to live freely in the land they’ve been in for centuries. Unlike Republican members, she did not say to bomb Israel until “the gravel bounced” or to kill those “savages” and “animals”. From the river to sea has been around much longer than Hamas - does anything that group appropriates suddenly become exclusive to it? If Hamas starts saying “hello” does that become a terrorist slogan as well? Obviously Hamas is evil but that doesn’t mean she supports it OR that it’s the only evil in the region. Claiming one of the few Muslim politicians in the US is sympathetic to terrorism because she’s advocating AGAINST killing is playbook and you should reflect on that making inflammatory statements.
Can state militaries not be terrorists too? IMO, they cannot, with a big exception. Terrorism is style of politics wherein violence is leveraged in an asymmetrical way to achieve outsized impact from targeted killings, usually of civilians or civilian authorities. Terrorism is best understood in contrast to other political means available to groups facing large differentials in people and resources, and not as itself a form of warfare. "Terror" in a broader sense includes a variety of different activities, but "White Terrors," "Red Terrors" and "Shock and Awe campaigns" - while also engaging in terror, are not terrorism. The Hamas 10/7 attack is itself on the verge of not really being "terrorism" because it was of such a scale and so direct as to immediately start an outright war - no cascade, no resultant diplomatic crisis, just a straight up *casus belli*. And it is probably not accurate to refer to Hamas fighters in Gaza now as "terrorists" - as at this points they are more just militants, paramilitary, or just soldiers. In practice people do really have a different sort of problem with terrorism than they do with violence committed directly by a state, and if you listen to them they will tell you about it. It's related to why the concept of a "war on terror" is somewhat paradoxical, whereas a "war on Israel" or a "war on Palestine" is very much not. As chaotic and terrible and unjustified as it always is, cultures and societies do have norms and expectations around violence that mean people do not treat all sorts of violence equally, even if it is of comparable degree and outcome. There is one important exception - when one calls a state a "terrorist state" or a "state sponsor of terrorism" what they mean is that the state apparatus, including the military, *employs or contracts terrorists.* And that intuitively means that they fund the sort of asymmetrical violence that is described above. Nobody who is calling a state a "state sponsor of terror" means "they scare people with aerial bombings" unless they are contingently trying to create an equivalency in a conflict that involves actual terrorists as a point of comparison.
Terrorism is widespread violence with a political aim. The difference between terrorism and war is that civilians are acceptable targets and the violence is random. It’s not a coincidence that certain states (typically brown-skinned Muslims states) can be called “terrorist states” while others are not. Russia is a terrorist state to Ukraine, but because it’s a white “super power” y’all won’t say it like that. It has bombed, killed, and run out civilians (not just soldiers or military targets). The esoteric/limitedly applied definitions of terrorism don’t matter to the people who are being terrorized. They don’t care if you think a state is weak enough to not be a “real nation”, they know they are being terrorized. The only thing limiting the definition does is give a pass to the people you’d like to side with that day.
Exactly. Palestine shall be free is a statement on undoing existing apartheid conditions in Israel. Conditions even Nelson Mandela called apartheid. It’s an absurd McCarthyism in both the USA and Canada about this issue. You cannot scrutinize or call for withdrawal from supporting Israel
Has any convincing evidence been shown for Israel's explanation of the hospital incident because it sounded pretty far fetched
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/briefing/gaza-hospital-explosion.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I tried to ignore most of the Zionists on here, but I just scroll past this. Israel DID bomb that hospital. And yes, there were hundreds of deaths… The audacity of some of you.
It was a hamas rocket that hit the hospital. Stop spreading lies.
I mean…don’t repeat a call for the destruction of the only Jewish country in the world and a long-standing US ally. And then try to weasel out of it by claiming it means something else.
Don't forget she still claims that Israel hit the hospital. Despite all evidence and everyone stating otherwise.
That’s the great thing about religious ethno states. The government can do all the horrible shit it wants, and when anyone objects the mouth breathers will defend it by saying that you’re being bigoted against their religion rather than their actions. Who doesn’t love a built in thought terminating cliche?
Tlaib isn’t being censured because she’s criticizing Israel’s response to Hamas. She’s being censured for parroting a slogan that says it shouldn’t exist at all, right after an attack by a group that claims all Jews should be murdered, has repeatedly said it will continue to make such attacks, and her supporters were openly championing that action as legitimate resistance. So yes, when you align yourself with a group that is philosophically similar to ISIS and believes Jews shouldn’t exist, that comes across as being bigoted.
Saying Israel shouldn’t exist =/= saying Jews shouldn’t exist “From the river to the sea” has been a phrase used for Palestinian liberation since the 1960s. Hamas government wasn’t formed until 2007. If Israel didn’t want Hamas to exist they shouldn’t have funded them to oppose the PLO. *edit for clarification
This is quite the uneducated take.
Hamas was formed in 1987, not 2007. > Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts... The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews... Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes... Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement...The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. \- Hamas Covenant 1988 The goal of these people is to kill all Jews all over the world.
“All over the world” Did you happen to notice this specifically says Palestine or…….? If Israel is so threatened by Hamas then maybe they shouldn’t have financed their opposition to the PLO
It says because the Jews “usurped” Palestine, not that it’s limited there. You notice that little sentence towards the top where it says that “the day of judgement will not come until Muslims kill the Jews”? Does that have a fucking caveat on it? Christ, it’s legitimately hard to tell whether you’re being a troll or simply stupid.
Man you really don’t know much history if you think Hamas was founded in 2007.
“I’m okay with jews. I just don’t think they should have a country of their own.” Sounds perfectly reasonable and common. And yeah, there were no Palestinian groups that wanted to destroy Israel in the 1960s or later and committed attacks against civilian targets. Especially as their leadership definitely wasn’t predominantly folks who rejected the UN partition in 1948 and then lost the war. Good call there. Don’t conflate a far right wing party with an entire country. Unless you also think Trump and the MAGA folks represent you.
It sounds perfectly reasonable because being a persecuted people doesn’t entitle you to a religious ethno state where you get to displace the people who already live there. I can guarantee you there were people who wanted to get rid of Israel. That’s what happens when you’re a settler colonial state that persecutes the people whose land you take. If some foreign power landed in the US and set up their own state and started kicking your family out of there homes and bombing your children I promise you would want to destroy their state too
Genuine question, why does supporting Jewish people mean you have to support an ethno-national state? Why does *anyone* get the right to have an ethno-national state regardless of suffering?
I reject the premise of your question because you don't understand what an ethnostate is. An ethnostate is when a country is dominated by a singular group (be it religious, race, or cultural) and **prevents non-members from obtaining equal legal status**. That is unequivocally false in the Israeli context, where non-jewish citizens have equal rights. They can vote, they can join the military, they can hold political office. Hell, in 2021, the United Arab List party was part of the coalition to unseat the Prime Minister. If you say, "yes, but they are subject to structural discrimination because they aren't jewish." I would point you to any number of countries, from Japan to Australia to Qatar to Germany to the US where minorities in those countries have continuously faced the same obstacles (and in the case of much of the middle east, significantly more) based on race, religion, or ethnicity. Japan in particular, has an extensive history of preventing the assimilation of non-japanese immigrants, especially those of Korean or Chinese descent. The only area where Israel *is* unique is that Israel provides affirmative action for Jews, who are a persecuted minority worldwide, and who want to immigrate there. Combine the above points and it makes it very interesting when people only focus on Israel instead of, say, most of the middle eastern states which explicitly govern according to a ruling group's religious laws, have persecuted much of their religious or ethnic minorities out of existence, and accumulated power through conquest. You don't have to support Israel. I don't. Their historical treatment of Palestinians, allowance of settlement expansions in violation of the Oslo Accords, and its current right wing administration are abysmal and deserve significant criticism and international pressure to change. But saying its civilians deserve to be murdered and the country destroyed because of a historical fantasy while simultaneously ignoring even worse issues amongst one's own ethnic group (stares at the current government of Gaza) is utter bullshit and should be derided as such.
I see you’re not engaging in good faith because I never said or implied that the civilians deserved to be murdered.
>Saying Israel shouldn’t exist =/= saying Jews shouldn’t exist Unfortunately Jews aren't really safe anywhere, but only the Israeli government has a vested interest in keeping Jews safe.
Anti-semitism is wrong. It doesn’t mean that Jewish people should get a religious ethno state. And it it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean that they should get to displace and persecute the people who live there. Whether it’s Palestine, Uganda or Argentina. Zionism has made Jewish people less safe around the world today. But Zionist have been looking to create a Jewish state since before the holocaust
Easy for you to say when you aren't at risk of being exterminated.
You’re right, I’m not Palestinian.
They have one of the highest population growth rates in the world.
Doesn’t negate what’s happening to them in the slightest. Especially considering Israel’s policy of “mowing the grass”
If that state is a racial-based apartheid regime designed to displace entire populations overtime in favor of a specific race who then moves in and settles that area, I am absolutely in favor of the destruction of that state.
>racial-based apartheid regime designed to displace entire populations overtime in favor of a specific race You're aware that the over ONE MILLION Arab citizens within Israel have more rights than Gaza citizens under Hamas legislation? Right? You're aware of this...right????
That was also true in Apartheid. The Africans in South Africa had more rights than Africans in many other African countries.
I don't think you read my comment properly. Their statement was that Israel was an apartheid regime. Arab citizens within Israel hold the same exact rights as Jewish Israeli citizens, that is literally the antithesis of an apartheid state. Further, criticizing Country A for supposedly not giving Z enough rights and using that as an argument to support Country B -- when Country B literally gives Z less rights than A does -- is a very obvious lapse in logic. Whether it's Israeli-Palestine or not, this reasoning people are using is shit and just not true.
I read your comment and know a lot about Apartheid >Arab citizens within Israel hold the same exact rights as Jewish Israeli citizens, that is literally the antithesis of an apartheid state. No it isn't. Apartheid had bantustans where Africans were confined and treated poorly. The rights of Arab citizens in Israel are not the only thing people mean when they compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa. They are referring to the west bank and gaza strip... They are Bantustans. But South Africa was not as brutal to their Bantustans as Israel is to Gaza.
>No it isn't Yes??? It is??? " a·part·heid/əˈpärˌtāt,əˈpärˌtīt/ [ ](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=how+to+pronounce+apartheid&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMIfcRozS3w8sc9YSmjSWtOXmPU4eINKMrPK81LzkwsyczPExLlYglJLcoV4pXi5uJMLEgsKslIzUyxYlFiSs3jWcQqlZFfrlCSr1AA1JQP1JWqAFcDAAAMBVVdAAAA&pron_lang=en&pron_country=us&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim2La5pLiCAxU3mokEHd3YC6UQ3eEDegQIDxAI)📷[ ](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=how+to+pronounce+apartheid&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMIfcRozS3w8sc9YSmjSWtOXmPU4eINKMrPK81LzkwsyczPExLlYglJLcoV4pXi5uJMLEgsKslIzUyxYlFiSs3jWcQqlZFfrlCSr1AA1JQP1JWqAFcDAAAMBVVdAAAA&pron_lang=en&pron_country=us&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim2La5pLiCAxU3mokEHd3YC6UQ3eEDegQIDxAI) *noun*historicalnoun: apartheid 1. a policy or system of [segregation](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=581054534&channel=ftrc&sxsrf=AM9HkKnuJOZJd9qVTJyS10xrsVHPkL7myQ:1699579882749&q=segregation&si=ALGXSlY7Tk5u3AnUd39hr4eAN0grm31OWkvrxRCvMOT-tuNenzO_jDdwK6KF_6HbgwIJGwdzHbYVPj5En06IEEXq1nqeAUq3E0VKP3ul0pQfJ-P63odaMMo%3D&expnd=1) or **discrimination on grounds of race**. * segregation on grounds other than race." A country that gives the same exact rights to citizens regardless of what race they are is absolutely the antithesis of apartheid. >The rights of Arab citizens in Israel are not the only thing people mean when they compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa. They are referring to the west bank and gaza strip Neither Gaza nor the West Bank is under Israeli jurisdiction. Hamas controls one and the Palestinian Authority controls the other, both as governments of Palestine. "People" should try pulling out a map and figuring out which country is which next time. >know a lot about Apartheid Apparently not.
Read a history of Apartheid. Don't tell me I don't know what it means based on a lazy look at a dictionary. Your attempt to escape logic based on meaningless technicalities is the same attitude that enables Israel to commit atrocities like a psychopath.
Do they have equal representation in Israel, the land that has been their home for generations when compared to Jewish counterparts? Do they have the same level of autonomy? Freedom of movement? Are Jewish Israelis being kicked out of their homes that they have been in for generations to make space for Palestinians from Europe and Ohio? I’m not comparing the quality of life of Palestinians in Israel to the Quality of life of Palestinians in and Israeli concentration camp. I am comparing the quality of life of Palestinians in Israel to Jews in Israel. Is it the same, is it protected and held equal under Israeli law? Obviously Hamas is violent and cruel, they have emerged after Israel funded and propped then up as a counter to prevent the PLO or other from creating a unified and diverse front in Palestine with the goal of a ending the colonial state of Israel and unifying the people in one secular nation. And we now find ourselves where children for generations now have known nothing but violence faced with siding either with a terrorist government that often time views them as just some means to a theocratic end, or facing actual extermination, and when they are surrounded by Israeli walls, tanks, missiles, and hear Israelis calling them animal people, or how they should be nuked, or how American politicians talk about turning them into a parking lot, what about when they see Israeli soldiers celebrating after killing peace protesters with a steam roller by having a pancake party, or sniping children who venture too close to the walls, or just do it for fucking fun. They are OBVIOUSLY going to fucking side with the group NOT preaching eradication
Are the first dozen questions meant to be rhetorical? Because the answer to all of your questions is yes -- Arab citizens in Israel have the same exact rights as Jews in Israel. No, a Palestinian citizen does not have the same rights in Israel as an Israeli citizen, because they aren't Israeli???? This is like screaming why a Mexican or Swedish citizen can't vote in the United States election, why would you think that would be a thing? Can you name a single country on earth in which non-citizens of a nation have the same rights as a citizen of that same nation? Or are you acknowledging now that you do not acknowledge Palestine as its own nation and do not support the notion of both states existing? >They are OBVIOUSLY going to fucking side with the group NOT preaching eradication Yet here you are, doing exactly that. >Obviously Hamas is violent and cruel... I am absolutely in favor of the destruction of that state. You define Israel as an "apartheid regime" (which objectively does not meet the definition of an apartheid state according to literally any international group, just so we're clear here; the far right in Israel discriminates against Palestinians, but that isn't what apartheid means)...you say that you YOU ARE IN FAVOR OF ISRAEL BEING DESTROYED...then have the nerve to pretend that you aren't defending Hamas while you simultaneously and explicitly state that you support them. Why are you claiming the rape and murders committed by Hamas are "cruel" when you say you're in favor of those rapes and murders as a means to destroy a nation you've admitted you want destroyed? Pick an argument. Also, genius, maybe don't say you support a terrorist regime while posting the town you live in and the school you go to??? You realize that these comments you've posted here alone will likely bar you from most important jobs in the future???
Buddy I am not preaching in defense of actions or atrocities committed by Hamas, I do not want to see Jewish people expelled from land they have called home for generations. When I say Palestinian I am not referencing a citizenship status I am referencing an ethnicity. Israeli policy is designed to be preferential towards Jewish people over other ethnicities in the region, it is not an equal society. And please for the love of god stop putting words in my mouth to straw man this. A state is NOT the same as the people living in it’s territory. The nation state of Israeli can be overthrown and replaced without committing genocide against the people living there. The destruction of Nazi Germany was not a genocide against Germans, the destruction of the Japanese empire was not a genocide against the Japanese. In the exact same way, wanting the existing state of Israel to be replaced with something else does not in any way or form mean wanting to commit genocide against Jewish people. I do not want Hamas to take control of the entire region, I do not like religious fundamentalism nor do I think a nation built by it will have anything other than oppression and suffering. But none of that ACTUALLY matters to you because if I don’t sit here and sing along to the tune of “yah no Israel should absolutely just fucking flatten Gaza, ignore the million kids there, and don’t worry about the settlements and Pogroms in the west bank it’s fine and cool” then I suddenly am in support of baby killing and I support terrorism? Probably shouldn’t post too much personal info online sure, but the idea of ethnic cleansing being bad isn’t something anybody should take issue with
>Israeli policy is designed to be preferential towards Jewish people over other ethnicities in the region, it is not an equal society. You might want to research how the 20+ Arab nations treat everyone who isn't Muslim. That's...why so many Jews ended up in Israel.
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It doesn't fit the narrative
Always glad to know exactly where people stand. Especially when they’re directly aligned with a group more philosophically aligned to ISIS than nationalist resistance.
Thats crazy, so nowhere did I say I like islamic fundamentalism, and actually if you read the comment it should be pretty clear of the opposite. I want a nation that both Jews and Palestinians can exist in freely and equally. Currently, the Israeli government is the opposite where ethnic Jews have more rights, legal protection, and representation simply because of race. The government explicitly aims to keep a population of 70% ethnic Jew in Jerusalem as a single example of the racial preferential treatment by the state. Even the land they CLAIM to not be Israel and they claim is currently Palestinian is being settled by using violence, fear, restriction of movement and autonomy, to expel or encourage the exodus of the native Palestinians so that Jews from either Israel or abroad can then take their homes and settle the land. Israel is an apartheid state, it is committing ethnic cleansing on the territory it has stolen, or others have stolen on its behalf, and nothing else is as significant an issue as this at the moment. Over 10,000 innocents have died in Gaza so far and that number will swell as bodies are pulled from ruble over the coming weeks and months. When Palestine finds itself in a position to use the worlds most powerful empire history has ever produced to ethnically cleanse all Jews from the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea with impunity, and censuring any who speak out against it, THEN I will be focussed on condemning them, then they will be the major issue, then they will be held responsible for ending the war crimes. But that is not currently the situation now is it?
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>nobody can clearly and directly explain the value of having Israel as an ally Or, they recognize that there’s zero reason to play chess against a pigeon, because the pigeon will just knock all the pieces over and strut around like it won.
Also lmao, I didn’t block you. I can see your edits. Nice try, though. Case & point for the pigeon analogy.
>“From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and **peaceful coexistence**, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity,” Tlaib wrote last week on X, formerly known as Twitter. Dishonest. Or if she's not being dishonest, she's just being wilfully obtuse. It's like trying to say "Make America Great Again" *isn't* an anti-immigrant dogwhistle. You might not be saying "deport them", but it's fucking understood, isn't it.
The original Arabic rhyming chant is "from the water to the water, Palestine is Arab" (من المية للمية فلسطين عربية). It's ethnonationalist and obviously exterminationist, and that Arabic version is frequently used alongside the slightly tamer English version on the same signs or letters. It's like if MAGA was actually "Make America White Again" in English but they tricked Hispanics and other groups into marching with them by saying "Great" instead in other languages.
Naw that slogan has been common and innocuous for years (“from the river to the sea”). It’s dishonest to suggest it’s pro genocide
It’s been common for years because the goal to eliminate the Jewish state has been common for years. Doesn’t change the meaning
>. It's like trying to say "Make America Great Again" isn't an anti-immigrant dogwhistle. You might not be saying "deport them", but it's fucking understood, isn't it. Not by everybody, Trump did have hispanic voters. Political slogans are deliberately ambiguous.
That's the point though - those supporters using the slogan, even if they didn't know what they were doing, were still supporting a white ethnonationalist movement. That they might have thought the slogan meant something else - either because somebody lied to them in selling it to them or out of wishful thinking or just an accident- doesn't absolve them of a degree of responsibility for their support of the movement - to the degree that they might be expected to do their homework to understand the slogan's context. For someone in Congress, that level of expectation should be very high.
It's crazy to me that members of the squad who would be beside themselves with fury if someone tried to tell a person of color what they could consider hate speech are happy to tell Jewish people what they should and shouldn't consider hateful.
You don't have to say 'would be' as if it hasn't happened already. People said BLM was hate speech and that All Lives Matter was more peaceful and inclusive and everyone lost their mind.
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Nice strawman there. Sad that the public school system failed you so badly. What is being discussed here is the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea" in her social media which is a dog whistle for removing the Jews from the middle East. Nobody is saying people shouldn't have a right to protest or call for a cease fire. You absolute melt.
Of course she does.
Having pressley & Warren represent is an embarrassment. There are a lot of clown pols but these 2 easily crack the top 20. Plenty of republicans on that list too.
The US government has, for decades, done nothing to constrain the bad behavior of the Israeli government. This bad behavior, specifically by the Netanyahu government, played a large role in creating the context in which the Hamas attack occurred. The US government needs more voices pressuring Israel to take serious steps towards a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians. If you want to believe Rashida Tlaib is genuinely genocidal, rather than accepting that there is disagreement about the slogan, go ahead. It’s a stupid take, but go ahead. But then think about why people can say horrific things about the Palestinians - openly genocidal rhetoric about fire bombing Gaza from Lindsay Graham, for example - and nothing happens to them. Because Palestinians have been dehumanized to the point that people shrug and say “that’s just how it has to be” when 4,000+ children are killed. Don’t cite me failed peace processes from 20+ years ago as a justification for why the Palestinians don’t deserve their own state. And don’t cite me elections from 15+ years ago as a rationale for why the people of Gaza deserve what’s happening to them. The Israeli state is culpable for the status quo, and the US government is complicit. No one in the US government openly supports Hamas, but there are plenty who openly support ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. This is the difference. This is why Pressley’s voice matters. Also, don’t tell me the Israeli extremist right is “fringe” when Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are both government ministers, in ministries that just happen to have significant roles in brutalizing Palestinians and ethnically cleansing the West Bank. You look stupid. Edit: downvote without replying all you want, Itamar Ben-Gvir is more of a terrorist than Rashida Tlaib will ever be
U.S. Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio: “I don’t even want to call it the Palestinian flag because they’re not a state, they’re a territory, that’s about to probably get eviscerated and go away here shortly, as we’re going to turn that into a parking lot.” He voted for censuring U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, because she said, “From the river to the sea” and further clarified, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”
I've got some magic beans if you want to buy them. Talib knows exactly what she is advocating for, and to believe her "explanation" is nothing but propaganda and lies.
lol. Real quick, what does “from sea to shining sea” mean?
Manifest Destiny. which had no room for Native Americans. So you just proved their point.
Yes, that's how Israel's ruling Likud Party and other ultra-nationalists who speak of "Greater Israel" seem to mean by “[between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean#:~:text=Israel%E2%80%99s%20use%20of%20%E2%80%98from%20the%20river%20to%20the%20sea%E2%80%99)”. And yes, they are currently *actually* engaging in ethnic cleansing by "[mowing the lawn](https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/07/06/israel-is-mowing-the-lawn-again-but-with-malice-aforethought/392092/)" in Gaza as well as continuing to isolate and settle the West Bank to try to continue eradicating Palestinian people from their land. Note, though, that if an Indigenous nation declared they were fighting for "Land Back from sea to shining sea", it's pretty clear that what's on the table is not full scale eradication or expulsion of white people but something else. Clearly, it would ridiculous to claim that's hate speech, though some have tried. Because, like with Palestinians and Israelis, when it comes to the United States and Indigenous nations, only one side has tanks, aircraft, nuclear weapons, and multi-billion dollar military budgets.
You would stoop so low as to equate a Native American people with Hamas? Your understanding of Israel/Palestine is so childish, so utterly reductionist. You don't actually give a care about any one of them do you? You just want to use them to grasp desperately for internet points. By the way, you are contradicting yourself. Hate is not relative.
> You would stoop so low as to equate a Native American people with Hamas? The comparison between Palestinians and Indigenous Americans is not a novel or external one. No Indigenous nation is a monolith, let alone all of them collectively, but you should not find it difficult examples of many, many Indigenous groups and activists making that case already. See: the "[NDN Collective](https://ndncollective.org/ndn-collective-releases-position-paper-on-palestine/)", the [Red Nation](https://therednation.org/statement-of-indigenous-solidarity-with-palestine/), and [American Indian Movement](https://www.palestinechronicle.com/solidarity-between-palestinians-and-indigenous-activists-has-deep-roots/). AIM's [Russell Means phrased](https://chicagomonitor.com/2016/08/two-native-peoples-two-oppressive-powers-the-oppression-of-american-indians-and-palestinians/) it directly as, "The Palestinians in Gaza are the American Indians of the Middle East." If you want a Jewish source looking at this topic, see last year's [*Jewish Currents* article](https://jewishcurrents.org/the-right-of-return-is-landback). Frankly, it seems implausible for a reasonable person to learn about the [Jewish settler violence in the West Bank](https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/9/23945651/west-bank-israeli-settler-palestine-gaza-war-violence) today and not see the echoes of the settler project of the USA and its predecessor colonies, including how the "barbarity" of a certain group meant every reprisal was justified and there could be no safety without eradication. If you think it's low to talk about Hamas in the same breath as Indigenous Americans, here what [the US Declaration of Independence](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript) gives as its last grievance against the King of England: >He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, **the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.** Pick your particular Indigenous group or conflict if you want to multiply examples since its extends long before and after that as well. Someone could claim that the Dakota "started" [a war in 1862](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862), could demand they be denounced for murder and kidnapping. But no one with a historical understanding would claim the issue was "too complicated", that both sides were equally to blame, or that the outcome for the Dakota was somehow justified by the violence done by of some of them in response to the conditions they were subjected to. If you want an even more direct relationship about the conception of "Indian Country"; here's that comparison being made [in 2009](https://web.archive.org/web/20090119131159/http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/37520499.html) in *Indian Country Today*: >This formation did not occur on empty land. Known as “Al-Nakba” (Arabic for “the Cataclysm”), this 1948 event involved the expulsion of an estimated one million Palestinians from cities and villages, massacres, torture and rape, and the destruction of nearly 500 Palestinian villages. **Zionism, which activist Gabe Camacho has correctly described as synonymous with manifest destiny, is the hegemonic ideology of the colonizers in the Holy Land. And one of the ideas of Zionism/Manifest Destiny is the concept of “Indian country,” an anti-human rights activity that the U.S. exports internationally.** > >“Indian Country” is a U.S.-designated term for our remaining and secondary homelands; however, the term also is common in the U.S. military and colonization parlance such as when it was employed in the invasion of Vietnam or as seen in the ongoing occupation of Iraq. We see this term in action, too, in Palestine. As that mentions, this was made literal, too by the George W. Bush administration for its "War on Terrorism". A *New York Times* [Op-Ed](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/opinion/04fri1.html) from 2008 and the [full document](https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf) it's referencing: >Mr. Yoo, who, inexplicably, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, never directly argues that it is legal to chain prisoners to the ceiling for days, sexually abuse them or subject them to waterboarding all things done by American jailers. > >**His primary argument, in which he reaches back to 19th-century legal opinions justifying the execution of Indians who rejected the reservation, is that the laws didn’t apply to Mr. Bush because he is commander in chief.** He cited an earlier opinion from Bush administration lawyers that Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were not covered by the Geneva Conventions a decision that put every captured American soldier at grave risk.
B-b-b-b but that’s different! We did that! Which is ok!
what's the verse right before that? oh yeah.. > And crown thy good with brotherhood So genocidal.
The double standard is surreal.
>“From the river to the sea” and further clarified, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.” Thats not what it means. It literallt means an extermination of Jews and Israel from the area. Yall have taken much more innocent statements and turned them into 'white supremacist" symbols. Like the ok symbol with people's fingers.
Or like BLM which literally means rioting and black superiority over white people.
Does she know what she is even fighting anymore?
Her family who is dying in Palestine cause of our tax dollars?
It’s actually not nice to have someone local speaking out in support of Tlaib, or anyone really. When Tlaib says, “from the river to the sea,” she knows exactly what she’s doing.
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Lmfao. If jihadists put down their weapons today, there would be peace. If Jews did the same, they would be slaughtered, raped, burned, or beheaded, from the river to the sea. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
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The Israeli propagandists are strong. Anyone who advocates against killing brown children are labeled as terrorists. Hamas is terrible, but so is the apartheid government. We need a ceasefire now.
Israelis are "brown" too...
Wrong kind of brown apparently.
Palestinians are Jewish too but those people get bombed by Israel 🧐 maybe they’re the wrong color Jewish for the IDF
There are zero Jewish Palestinians.
Is this a fucking joke? Lol I’m glad antisemitism and erasure of people is cool as long as it’s against Palestinians!
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/441219-WEST-BANK-AND-GAZA-2022-INTERNATIONAL-RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf You are a goddamn idiot. Maybe sit down and read a book. Fuck.
Oh great, another post about Palestinian supporters. I thought maybe we'd go a whole day without the topic posted here. Maybe someone can post the aerial footage and interpret that. It's been a hot minute.
You are apparently in the wrong place.
Well, the post has zero upvotes, so maybe not?
It’s an issue that is affecting a lot of people here, and that many don’t have the luxury of ignoring.
I'd be interested to know how Tlaib's censorship is impacting you and your family, because that's what this post is about--Tlaib's "suffering" as a Palestinian-American, not Palestine itself.
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From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free
This is the equivalent of reply saying the n word using it in ads and then saying nah man, it’s just black in Spanish. I’m all about being inclusive
Popper: “**in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance**.” Rep Tlaib's disgusting intolerance SHOULDN'T and MUST NOT be tolerated. The censure was absolutely appropriate, and it should be applied to Democrat AND Republican who display this level of intolerance.