Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

I have been seeing the odd report of AS attacks across Europe now, like this one.

A Moldovan couple arrested for allegedly spray-painting Stars of David on a Paris school last week reportedly told investigators they were acting on orders from an “individual in Russia.”https://t.co/VvJOmmoCAh

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 2, 2023

in the larger world, the anti-semitism is probably largely being driven by people who care less about the plight of the Palestinian people and care more about being anti-semitic, and seeing an opportunity for an opening to be a bit more free with their bigotry.

"zionist jews" now trending on twitter, that's that shit i don't like

Caitlyn Jenner's dead name is also trending there today, which says it all

sorry meant to post on the "is this anti-semitism?" thread

I thought this was pretty good:

You are criticizing Israel wrong. Here’s how to do it correctly. pic.twitter.com/DiwBTJOuiG

— Matt Lieb?? (@mattlieb) October 28, 2023

nice to finally see a video of Van Horn Street

in the larger world, the anti-semitism is probably largely being driven by people who care less about the plight of the Palestinian people and care more about being anti-semitic, and seeing an opportunity for an opening to be a bit more free with their bigotry.

― omar little, Thursday, November 2, 2023 12:29 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is upsetting me a lot right now. I know it sounds naïve but I was genuinely surprised at how fast people seized the opportunity to be flat out anti-Semitic. I grew up spending 1/2 the year in a mostly Jewish community in NY where I as a gentile was often the odd one out. 3 of my 5 lifelong close friends are Jewish. I said to one of them yesterday that I think I grew up in this little bubble were I didn't realize how much anti-semitism there still was out there and he was like yeah no shit you're from NY. Anyway - there are a million upsetting things (upsetting isn't anywhere near strong enough) happening right now but I have been thinking a lot about exactly this, OL. :/

it's not good. i have a friend who was indulging in some "deep thoughts" about judaism around the time kanye was on one about jewish people, and i had an instagram convo w/him re: a couple of his posts. i don't know that i reached him, but i tried. another friend (no longer a friend) started to get very alt-right and was an associate of ow3n b3njamin for awhile, a podcast comedian type guy who started to get into some anti-semitic and racist stuff a few years ago. that particular friend is long gone. he was at my wedding. he probably helped hold me up high in my chair during the hora. he just wound up being a particularly "bad actor" in life. and a pernicious influence on others.

i live in a bubble in Los Angeles obv, but shit does happen here. threats against synagogues, anti-semitic graffiti on a famous local deli last night, etc...

the Poetry Foundation shelved a 3500-word review of a poetry book that discusses the book's criticisms of Israel...the poet author of the book is, of course, Jewish, and so is the reviewer.

The donor pocketbook is where artistic freedom hits a wall

This is where stuff like "It would be insensitive to publish this book about Soviet dissidents at this time" leads to.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

yeah that is obviously ridiculous

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive)

Reflexive censorship of art always seems to crop up when wars begin and wartime propaganda cranks up the red hot rhetoric. Even as recently as the invasion of Ukraine there were ridiculous people calling for cancellation of symphonies by Russian composers as a sign of solidarity with Ukrainians.

O rly

If a HAMAS sympathizer or a HAMAS-adjacent amateur lone wolf carries out a gun attack in the USA killing more than 10 people in the name is Palestine … this poll will flip like a flapjack. https://t.co/NkWdyaliV7

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) November 2, 2023

and if my granny had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. I like the specificity of ten or more people, it shows a vigorous imagination.

Reflexive censorship of art always seems to crop up when wars begin and wartime propaganda cranks up the red hot rhetoric. Even as recently as the invasion of Ukraine there were ridiculous people calling for cancellation of symphonies by Russian composers as a sign of solidarity with Ukrainians.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, November 2, 2023 1:41 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
My kid’s teacher canceled their Russia unit. Like I really don’t think it matters to Ukrainian lives whether our kids are learning about faberge eggs and Baryshnikov

re: that poll.. I'm not really sure that Israel needs much military support anyway... they're a major arms manufacturer/exporter, inventors of the Uzi submachine gun. And they seemed to have no issues selling arms to South Africa's white minority government

and yet the House just approved 14.5 billion in aide to Israel for some reason

$4 billion for the Iron Dome, which kind of seems like locking the gate after the dog gets out.

Wake Forest professor resigns after backlash due to tweet

https://journalnow.com/news/local/wake-professor-resigns-following-backlash-of-social-media-post-on-israeli-hamas-war/article_4e1022a4-78ea-11ee-a828-ffa8e334019a.html

(She’s a really good poet, fwiw!)

14.5 billion in aide to Israel for some reason

er, mm, by long tradition all those billions can only be spent on armaments produced by US-based death merchants military-industrial complex manufacturers.

And lots of defence contracting

Protests are being planned for Armistice Day. Looks like the match will be lit on the tiniest pretence

"They died for your freedom, but don't you dare think about exercising it." https://t.co/xyCICKV35j

— James B (@piercepenniless) November 3, 2023

Clare Hymer
@ClareHymer
HAPPENING NOW: Another peaceful sit-in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, this time at Kings Cross Station.

the only additional freedoms that came because of GB participation in the world wars was the bankrupting and partial destruction of an evil global empire and the resultant decline arguably sped up the process of decolonisation that followed. "Protect our freedoms" my fucking arsehole, it was a warfare state that forced conscripts onto the battlefield, which is the absolute opposite of freedom.

David Adler
@davidrkadler
New bill in the French 🇫🇷 Senate : 'An insult committed against the State of Israel is punishable by two years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.'

I don't even want to paste in what Germany are doing, just utterly disgusting

Belgian transport workers saved the lives of thousands of Jews in the 1940s by unlocking the doors of trains headed for the extermination camps. Now, they're refusing to load weapons onto ships headed to Israel. This is a meaningful & timeless solidarity with humanity. pic.twitter.com/kvcUMcnJd7

— Amro Ali (@_amroali) November 3, 2023

Wokeness run amok

Scoop: Blinken told Israeli war cabinet humanitarian pause will buy Israel time for Gaza operation. My story on @axioshttps://t.co/PkpZ8vrk5H

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) November 4, 2023

Sorry, I blocked the Nazi social media website but it seems as if somebody is accusing Biden in being “complicit” in Palestinian massacre? What a concept

Quite an interesting set of remarks by this father (terrible headline), on his daughter's who have torn up those Israeli hostage fliers.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/03/news/father-of-aya-and-dana-bakaret-who-tore-israeli-posters-insists-they-are-good-girls/

“What happened in Manhattan with my daughters, I believe them. The lady provoke them, stole from their hand a picture of the baby and told her ‘this is going to keep happening to you as long as you support these people.’”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/04/nyt-jazmine-hughes-resigns/

Central London blocked. Charing Cross station occupied.

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Georgie Robertson
@_GeorgieBlaise
·
2h
🚨 HAPPENING NOW: huge sit in at Charring Cross station. Police have closed every entrance so hundreds more outside can’t join us. #CeasefireForGazaNOW #FreePalestine

The New York Times
@nytimes
Jazmine Hughes, an award-winning New York Times Magazine staff writer, resigned from the publication on Friday after she signed a letter that voiced support for Palestinians and protested Israel’s siege in Gaza.

These new twitter links are hella annoying

psa for all you can paste x links into ilx and then just erase the x in the url and type in twitter and the tweet will embed like the old days

There are issues with tweets embeds as outlined here.

Is this anti-semitism?

While that's to do with threads and not individual tweets I am trying to just link tweets as it makes some people mad that I am just linking to twitter at all (I am not going to stop, though I am having a go at defusing the issue).

But right now I think we're past that, because a lot of the messaging that causes people to link together Israel and The Jews In General is coming direct from Israel and pro-Israel Jewish groups, on purpose, with no concern for how they are setting up Jews around the world for a rise in antisemitism. The corollary to "Israel = The Jews; if you are anti-Israel you are anti-Semitic" is "If Israel does something you have to take a stance against, then you may as well embrace antisemitism in general." And right now Israel is committing atrocities and the world is not going to forgive the Jews for that. It's been 2000 years and people are still saying "The Jews killed Jesus" - how long will "The Jews carried out an ethnic cleansing" be used as a weapon against the world's Jewish population? I was talking to my dad about this, and he pointed out that an explosion in global antisemitism means more Jews seeing Israel as the only safe place to live, which means more settlers, which is what Netanyahu wants, so why would he care about the safety of Jews worldwide?

I don't mean this to suggest that I'm looking at this whole conflict through the lens of "Is this good for the Jews?" My primary concern is for Gaza. But when I do take a moment to look through that lens, it is undoubtedly very bad for the Jews.

― Lily Dale, Sunday, 5 November 2023 17:11 (six hours ago) link

I understand this line of thinking, but will never accept it, it's just excusing antisemitism. No one is saying "well Islamophobia is mainly the fault of Muslim groups that associate Islam with radicalization" Plenty of people are just happy to have an excuse to be antisemitic. Antisemitism quite obviously did not start with the founding of Israel. Whatever Bibi does, it shouldn't change that we don't have to prove we are "one of the good ones" before being afforded basic respect and dignity. I apply the same standard to all groups of people.

Yes, it's sometimes difficult to discuss how it feels to experience this as an American Jewish person without others getting weirdly defensive about the mere suggestion that they may have a slight bias or blind spot.

It feels a bit like being a woman and trying to discuss sexism with someone who gets angry and then mansplains to you how he's one of the good ones.

I find it most discouraging when people try to rationalize by explaining there has always been antisemitism, and surely we need to admit this, as if it's just a natural feature of the landscape that we should just be expected to tolerate.

Luckily, I did not grow up to believe that. I had very idealistic and accepting friends and supportive family. I just tune people out that try to explain my own experience back to me in a negative way. We do not just experience history. We also make it.

man alive, I didn't mean to say that antisemitism was mainly the fault of Israel, or that Israel's messaging is an excuse for antisemitism. I just meant that I think any message that represents Jews as a monolithic group is its own form of antisemitism, and one that I find very dangerous right now.

I think the analogy man alive makes in your previous post is quite a good one. Regardless of whether or not one thinks that all Muslims bear responsibility for the actions of groups who purport that atrocities they commit are in the name of Islam (and, to be clear, this is similarly a horrible and racist idea) it is clear that to do so is common and, based on a quick skim of British newspapers, respectable in many quarters. In this equation I think its pretty clear that there are a range of actors linked by an interest in making Islam and violence synonymous, regardless of the extreme divergence of their motivations. Both are culpable for forging this slanderous connection.

The wholesale commandeering of identities by fringe or conservative elements within them, motivated by deep animus, is common and tends to be enthusiastically embraced by the sensible, measured bigots that populate the opinion columns of the world. I think also of the, often unchallenged, framing of transphobia as the protection of women's or "LGB" rights. The spectacle of swivel-eyed right-wing thugs 'standing up for "LGB" rights' is not a reassuring or comforting development, and I feel a deep but difficult to articulate resonance with the images of the Jewish protesters being arrested in NYC with 'Not in my name' t-shirts. The horror and nauseating feeling of being implicated and used in such a cynical way. It seems especially galling given that apportioning blame for the state of Israel to jewish people everywhere is recognised as a fundamental expression and vector of antisemitism.

Nicholas Courtman
@CourtmanNick
German MP from the liberal party (!) calling for the parliament to eliminate foreigners’ right to organise protests and deny their right to association as a response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, I see

dunno what that ! is about - the liberal party is the FDP, i.e. libertarian cranks, no surprise they'd be into this

Have seen a strong reaction to protests in Germany (and ofc the UK), across the pol class. But yes it's to be seen whether something is ratified in Parliament...just something to keep an eye on.

I could imagine it going through yeah, and it is v scary

wouldn't put it past the german left either tbh

Interesting thread on why the US having no red lines is bad foreign policy.

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Jeet Heer
@HeerJeet
·
1h
1. I want to suggest that Biden shouldn't be guided by domestic politics on this but by what is in the foreign policy interest of the USA. Biden is giving de facto unequivocal support (with a few rhetorical cautions) to a massacre. That is bad for America. Period

the thing about this copy paste technique is that there's no way for us to click to the rest of the thread

“Instead of absolute condemnation, some Israeli far-right leaders have rallied to support the suspects of abuse, which is emblematic of the root causes that enable such abuse to happen in the first place."

That story is from two years ago.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/12/israel-drops-charges-on-soldiers-who-allegedly-raped-palestinian-detainee

Biden and Trump are just as horrible as each other PT. 36371863738

Rep. Sara Jacobs reveals that the Biden administration could have forced the UAE to end the genocide in Sudan, but the US and Israel needed the Emiratis' cooperation in order to continue doing the genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Uo1mIB95Pf

— gato fumante (@KweenInYellow) May 19, 2026

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-flotilla-activists-detained-9.7205666

In a just world, Ben-Gvir will one day be served his children for dinner

Things have gotten so bleak and paranoid at U.S. universities. Literally cannot acknowledge that Palestinian people exist.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/academic-freedom/2026/06/09/professor-leave-case-study-mentions-palestinians

I taught this Salaita article to great effect this past semester:

https://stevesalaita.com/the-free-speech-exception-to-palestine/

Not meant as a retort, but just to say that people are trying to speak out and have conversations with students around these issues, even if admins and fascist Zionist students don’t want them happening

Good! And yeah that’s a good essay. Most Americans are totally ignorant about free speech, from either a legal or philosophical standpoint. The general conception of it extends no farther than “I can say whatever I want.” Which of course has never been true and has always depended a lot on who you are and what you’re saying.

Wow fuck this hoser

Jerry Seinfeld was ambushed by a live streamer who attempted to bait him into saying 'Free Palestine' after a massive comeback New York Knicks win in Game 4 of the NBA Finals...The social media personality asked the star to say 'free Palestine' in the microphone as he left the arena to which Seinfeld chuckled before brutally replying: 'It doesn't exist.'

Schmuck.

What a disgrace.

https://www.declassifieduk.org/palestine-action-activists-will-be-sentenced-as-terrorists/

The real two tier justice system

“special advocate” Judge Johnson (who has represented Mi6 before) seems ever so slightly a biased security state hanging judge for hire. Just fucking bullshit is this, the justice system now is as much of sham as UK democracy is.

ex-Israeli, former footballer Alon Mizrahi:

Israel is a schism in humanity; it lives to divide and conquer; by murdering and forcing us into servitude and complicity is is tearing our very hearts out of our chest.

An ideological force that not only seeks to exterminate a part of humanity, but actively works every day to muzzle the mouths of all witnesses cannot and must not be tolerated; it is a desecration of humanity, and a violation of every part of us -

There is no part of you, no childhood memory, no relationship and no experience and no tendency that are not being contaminated and destroyed by having to bear witness to the mass murder of innocents, and keeping your mouth shut about it.

You are dying, and Israel is killing you.

https://alonmizrahi.substack.com/p/normalize-voicing-the-demand-to-end

Alon Mizrahi otm. I follow him on twitter and didn't even know he was an ex-footballer.

One of the most celebrated Israeli football players of all time, even!!

and yes, he is OTM

He's better at articulating how fascist ethnostates corrode the human spirit and destroy your soul than Eric Cantona ever was!

I think these are two different people with the same name: https://alonmizrahi.substack.com/about

oops-/ they look amazingly similar

it would have been an amazing story

Far from being opposites, intelligence and stupidity are intimately bound. The most elaborately intelligent performance can be the most structurally vacant, mobilising all the resources of thought in the service of erasure. The European intellectual who produces a meticulous, footnoted, beautifully reasoned case for Israeli complexity exhibits a stupidity that has learned to speak the language of thought so fluently that it can no longer be distinguished from it. No one sees themselves as shutting down the question; they believe they have thought deeply and arrived, responsibly, at a difficult position.

Moral stupidity in the face of Palestine is therefore both symptom and defence. As a symptom, it marks the site of recognition that has been refused – the negative footprint of what is already known, the psychological distortion signalling an unbearable truth nearby. As a defence, it is the elaborate institutional architecture by which that discomfort is managed: the demand for Palestinian composure, the sudden discovery of complexity.

All of this is designed to prevent a single, shattering realisation: that to truly hear Palestine is to hear a total indictment of Israel, but also of the global order that sustains it. This is a system built on the foundational myth of a “rules-based” liberal internationalism, which is underpinned by the flow of Western capital and weapons, and dependent on a selective and racialised definition of humanity. Moral stupidity is essential to the perpetuation of this order.

https://www.equator.org/articles/moral-stupidity-gaza-palestine-abdaljawad-omar

Two days ago I witnessed a curious case of Zionist karening at the Thames. A group of activists was walking through Southbank protesting Israeli death penalties for Palestinian prisoners. They had some people dressed as blindfolded and bound prisoners and others as Israeli guards carrying nooses.

A woman watching them started yelling and crying. I thought it might be part of the performance, but no, she stumbled over to where my son was playing on climbing rocks and started saying “They want to hang the Jews. They want to hang me.” Eventually someone called a paramedic and she was taken away in an ambulance.

Talk about missing the point.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/july/don-t-extradite-him

Edy Cohen: "There is no occupation that lasts" pic.twitter.com/hB1U51vs9d

— Olive 🌿 (Tired & Busy) (@oliveegirl) July 31, 2026

https://inthesetimes.com/article/dockworkers-six-countries-announce-port-strikes-october-30

Dockworkers unions in France, Greece, Basque Country, Turkey, Morocco, and Italy are calling an international day of action ​“against war and militarization” on October 30. They are demanding an end to ​“the genocide of the Palestinian people” and the ​“US-Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East and against Iran.”

“Each union will decide the most appropriate form of mobilization according to its national circumstances, starting from strike action and from a shared commitment to prevent the loading of death and destruction,” reads a joint statement from the unions, which was sent to Workday Magazine and In These Times on July 31.

Together, the unions represent workers at 40 ports in Europe and the Mediterranean, according to the statement. Their call for an escalation emerged from a meeting of the port workers unions held in Istanbul in May. The announcement also expresses ​“full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan,” and declares that ​“ports must not be used for the transport of arms, ammunition, military equipment or troops destined for war zones.”

“No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarization of ports and strategic infrastructure from [the] EU,” the unions assert in their statement. ​“Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.” Signatories include CGT FNPD in France, ENEDEP in Greece, LAB in Basque Country, LIMAN-IS in Turkey, ODT in Morocco, and ORSA Porti and USB in Italy.

https://www.equator.org/articles/moral-stupidity-gaza-palestine-abdaljawad-omar

― out of the cradle endlessly party rocking (the table is the table), Tuesday, 21 July 2026

It’s not simply that intellectuals talk while others fight, or that fighters distrust words. The real crisis unfolds when speaking and acting finally meet. When the intellectual takes the logic of their own analysis seriously enough to act on it, they encounter the full weight of the abandonment that the words had been circling around all along.

I suppose this can go here. Absolutely devastating, rage stroke-inducing read from Citations Needed’s Adam Johnson. Obv there can’t ever be any real accountability, just another plank on the pyre of legacy media fully in their farce era.

https://www.plutobooks.com/product/how-to-sell-a-genocide/