Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

FWIW (and with respect!) I don't like that "mainstream Jewish reaction", feels reductive to me, a mainstream Jew who doesn't think that way

Got it— I could have been more specific, in that what I meant was “the reaction of Jewish people as portrayed in the mainstream press.” Apologies for that.

That this reductive portrayal in the mainstream media speaks to what Lily and others have been saying— that these narratives are harmful and
antisemitic— is pretty clear! Obviously, I’m not trying to parrot them, as both irl and on here, I have many many Jewish friends who are against the occupation and ongoing state violence.

Right now, in Gaza, the situation is horrific and catastrophic.
Those hospitals and clinics that have not been evacuated are overwhelmed and are barely functioning. No electricity, no medical supplies. Surgeons in Al-Shifa hospital are now operating without painkillers.

— Christos Christou (@DrChristou) October 16, 2023

the serious position i encounter most commonly on the left (and support myself) is for a one-state solution - a single, secular democratic state, with civil rights for all, right of return for palestinian refugees and some form of reparations. a two-state solution may be nice in theory but most on the left would tend to agree it's a dead prospect these days - israel has done everything it can with the settlements to make it logistically impossible, and the prospect of a lasting peace from it seems like it would be even less likely. "jews should just clear out" is just more ethnic cleansing, it is not a serious or just position.

― ufo, Tuesday, 17 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Yes. This seems to tie a little bit with the Land back movement which goes on with the odd, small success.

I think the question is working it through to a one state solution and what to do with people who aren't prepared to accept it. People who think it was theirs all along.

In the meantime more displacement, and right this minute, is the order of the day.

This has got to be stopped.

settlers and the idf have killed 55 palestinians in the west bank and wounded 1100 since saturday. https://t.co/FBNOx9nhTi

— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) October 17, 2023

By the standards of how much support Israel usually polls at this is a total public relations collapse. Don’t know if I’ve ever seen them with minority support in polling before. https://t.co/rVsWkq3C1p

— ettingermentum (@ettingermentum) October 17, 2023

The President of the University of Pennsylvania has released her 3rd or 4th public statement apologizing for letting a Palestinian writers conference take place last month

Following up on this: UPenn's Palestinian students staged a walkout yesterday and held a 7 hour demonstration on campus.

Ben Gvir is such a goon. What he's doing is both murderous and idiotic.

“I’m Israeli Jewish, American as well. My partner is Palestinian. And I can do things that he can’t do.”@saribashi describes how Israel’s apartheid system affects everyday life in Israel and Palestine. pic.twitter.com/WevhmhMofJ

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) October 17, 2023

Obviously, I’m not trying to parrot them, as both irl and on here, I have many many Jewish friends who are against the occupation and ongoing state violence.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Tuesday, October 17, 2023 5:39 AM bookmarkflaglink

Eh... this may seem a petty point to pick up in this moment, but this is not obvious at all. Can we please get away from the idea that having Jewish friends somehow insulates a person from (intentionally or unintentionally) broadcasting harmful antisemitic ideas or tropes? I assure you that both things can be true at once.

I know you don’t like me, felicity, but perhaps you could not try to smear me at any chance you get.

BREAKING: Reports now of a massive massacre in Gaza after an Israeli strike hits a hospital in Gaza where hundreds were sheltered. Initial reports fear the worst.

— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) October 17, 2023

god this is so awful :(

would like to mention that i was on a small group zoom the other morning with some Israeli families who are understandably shaken up by all the events, all of whom were (surprising to me) sympathetic to Palestinians (while also understandably not feeling very generous towards Hamas), so there is some nuance in the feelings over there. I don't doubt all of those we spoke to want peace, they were not expressing hate or anger or feelings of vengeance, they were just expressing fear and sadness. and much like us in the United States when our country goes off on military adventures/interventions/insertions/overthrows, we're not all the same opinion.

More children have been killed in Gaza than Ukraine. One child every 15 minutes.

tabes, I think posters are responding to you because this was your first post and you haven't ceded an inch:

I’m just going to say that I am not in-between on this issue, but that should be obvious by now.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, October 16, 2023 1:31 PM

Indeed. It would be nice to have a thread where people could be assumed to feel horror at horrific things. Banning VHS was a good first step, and generally given the horrific events unfolding this thread has been full of thoughtful and well considered posts for the most part. Knock it off.

table I don't dislike you. I don't even know you. As far as I know you've apologized to me at least twice. I do not want to escalate this again to the point where you get upset and then say sorry only to repeat the cycle in a few days, months or years.

A lot of people are upset. Can we make peace just between you and me?

Holy shit that hospital strike is fucking awful

We are seeing unconfirmed reports from Hamas that Israeli warplanes have struck the Baptist Hospital in central Gaza.

A health spokesman is quoted estimating that hundreds of people were killed.

immediate ceasefire based on this

i do like table, but I agree that statement was a little to close to 'some of my best friends are jewish' for my liking.

I don't have a lot of constructive thoughts to offer up wrt the current crisis, but I would respectfully ask that we don't go down the path of questioning how much of a connection this or that Jewish person has to their ancestors, their history, the diaspora, the holocaust, etc or how much the Israeli occupation is or isn't like the holocaust. There are plenty of ways to talk about this stuff without indulging in those lines of thinking.

Israeli air strikes have hit Al Ahli hospital in Gaza. More than 500 people - patients, doctors & those sheltering - have been killed.

What unspeakable horror. We will mourn their loss forever.

Our leaders could have spoken up for peace. They chose to cheer on war instead.…

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) October 17, 2023

BREAKING: the number of Palestinians killed in the hospital bombing have now risen to 1,000.

First aiders say they can’t find any injured survivors. Only burnt body parts. https://t.co/CLrV5XO5QX

— Marwa Fatafta مروة فطافطة (@marwasf) October 17, 2023

I gotta wonder at what point will the Israeli opposition parties deeply regret taking part in the current "national unity" government while Bibi is still running the whole show and doing shit like this?

Moodles, for what it’s worth, I was paraphrasing a friend in the post you mention, but obviously won’t continue down that line of thinking itt because it seems fraught.

Alfred and others, I believe that most people in Israel-Palestine, regardless of religion or ethnicity, want peace within their communities and also with those outside their communities. Hamas and the State of Israel’s violence make this peace impossible, and the occupation makes this peace impossible. It’s an awful situation.

I mostly post about Palestine and the plight of those in the occupied territories because what has been going on there is a horror, tho that horror certainly would never justify horrors of terrorism committed by Hamas or other organizations. Given the lopsided, racist, and antisemitic coverage given by western media outlets, I simply feel it’s necessary to continue supporting the plight of Palestinian people as fully as possible.

Those tweets are to say the number isn't certain just yet xxp

So what's the game here? Is Biden expected to rubber stamp this massacre tomorrow?

Israel claiming that the explosion was due to a failed hamas rocket launch

occam's razor makes mincemeat of that cover story

the hospital attack is difficult to even think about; this is also harrowing:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/17/fears-grow-people-are-dehydrating-to-death-in-gaza-as-clean-water-runs-out

xxp BBC is unambiguous that it was an Israeli strike

Al Ahli hospital is funded by the Anglican Church, and Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College – one of the church's top figures in Jerusalem – has posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the hospital in Gaza took “a direct hit from an Israeli missile”.

Just feel sick right now. Can't even really organize my thoughts.

Here we go:

One hour ago: we know nothing about the hospital being bombed
30 minutes ago: sounds like it was a misfired Hamas rocket
10 minutes ago: well we told them to evacuate https://t.co/ovP96WXXCW

— πατέρας raver (@mathaiaus) October 17, 2023

People in hospitals are often in no shape to evacuate, jfc

horrifying, disgusting, shameful

and this is less important, obviously, but it's fucking stupid too! how does proving that you are exactly what hamas says you are hurt their cause, exactly?

Israel have also bombed a school earlier today.

This is what it's leaders say:

this is the kind of shit you say after bombing a hospital full well knowing you're backed to the hilt by the US and britain: https://t.co/N18qhQ66bH pic.twitter.com/PcGGrPLicO

— pez (@periuspb) October 17, 2023

“this tweet has been deleted” hall of fame submission pic.twitter.com/2fWWE2LrW1

— canha girl (@thefouchoe) October 17, 2023

Israel is a killing machine.

Protests happening now across the West Bank. People are outraged at the bombing of the hospital in Gaza. A general strike and three days of mourning have already been announced.

— Yumna (@yumna_patel) October 17, 2023

And our biggest most beautiful aircraft carrier is there to oversee the slaughter.

Sarcasm feels ugly and wrong right now . My apologies

Abbas cancels tomorrow's meeting with Biden in protest over the hospital strike

And our biggest most beautiful aircraft carrier is there to oversee the slaughter.

Apparently one of my wife's cousins is stationed on that aircraft carrier...

levelling a hospital is up there with the vilest, most unforgivable of all war crimes. Whoever made this call should be should be put on trial, with death penalty on the the table.

I imagine there's a chance that this was an especially rogue fighter pilot who made an executive decision, perhaps one of personal vengeance... but I don't think their 'we warned them' shit is gonna fly this time

"They hide in hospitals"

Never forget our government gave the green light to these war crimes, and the opposition agreed. pic.twitter.com/XXPt8woKE7

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) October 17, 2023

Interesting piece about the notion of the civilian:
https://www.madamasr.com/en/2023/10/14/opinion/politics/to-say-and-think-a-life-beyond-what-settler-colonialism-has-made/

There, behind the green line, Israel has conducted the “conflict.” The more settler-military violence there is in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the more civilian normalcy there is in Israel, and the more the notion of civilian normalcy can be weaponized to justify more violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the purifying and normalizing operations of the green line did not always go unchallenged. Palestinians have always understood that the condition of possibility for this civilian normalcy, inside the green line, was the destruction of Palestinian existence on the land and the ban on their return to the land. Hence, there have always been breaches of the enclosure and operations to undo the frontier: what Palestinians call “return.”

Meanwhile, a Palestinian claim for civilian status or civilian normalcy has met many challenges. Palestinian society was destroyed in 1948. The territories occupied in 1967 have been purposefully fragmented, disconnected, and separated by settlements. There is no state form, standing military, depth of territory, or civilian posture. Instead, there are many refugee camps, dispossessed families, and subjects-in-struggle. Everything that could cultivate civilian normalcy is already targeted by the Israeli Occupation, from homes and schools to NGOs, cultural centers, and universities. When compared to the other side of the green line, life in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the containers of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, cannot manifest civilian normalcy.

But there is more. The civilian ethos, as a matter of liberal sensibility, requires innocence, political passivity, lack of movement, and fixity. In the eyes of the liberal, civilized West, the civilian must be pacified, passive, and blameless and must reject rebellion. The Palestinians, as refugees, as politically engaged resistant subjects, as subjects who look in the direction of the land from which they were expelled and aspire to move in its direction, and as persons who wish not to settle in an enclosure, do not pass the test of this ethos. Their just refusal of confinement, steadfast rejection of enclosure, and non-despairing hope to return to the land from which they were expelled violates this liberal ethos. Their dreams and aspirations render them, in the eyes of those who value civilian normalcy despite its heavy toll on others, obliterable. Therefore, no emotion can be allowed to arise in the face of their extermination. Quite to the contrary. In the name of civilian normalcy, the a-civilian must be obliterated.

Israel claiming that the explosion was due to a failed hamas rocket launch

Islamic Jihad rather than Hamas. I'm listening to Mark Regev on Sky claiming it's all Hamas propaganda but that you can't believe any casualty figures from Hamas anyway, how many of the dead were Hamas combatants etc.

Anyway, Sleepy Joe will be there tomorrow to make it all better.