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

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

I prefer it

I know, it's responding to something else so the embed would be an issue here.

People who are on twitter can seek it out.

People who hate the platform can ignore it.

xp

8. What you have right now is a State Dept filled with people who know the policies they are executing are bad for America and for the world, in addition to being morally revolting. The domestic politics of this seem secondary to me compared to that.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 6, 2023

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-wanted-to-fire-far-right-minister-caved-under-ben-gvirs-opposition-tv/

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to fire Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu for saying one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas is to nuke Gaza, but buckled following opposition from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Channel 12 news reports.

Ben Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, of which Eliyahu is a member, told Netanyahu he would not cooperate with the effort, saying the government should be focusing on destroying Hamas, not “educating ministers,” according to the network. Netanyahu then folded."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/humber-student-boycott-israeli-apartheid-1.7020897

kicked out of school for a "boycott Israeli apartheid" sticker...

The Former Guy

The book jacket for "A Problem From Hell" says:

"Samantha Power poses a question that haunts our nation's past: Why do American leaders who vow 'never again' repeatedly fail to marshal the will and the might to stop genocide?"

Right now she's firing people for reports on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/QWVJSjgZqk

— ☀️ Jon Schwarz ☀️ (@schwarz) May 30, 2024

People grow and change

Sorry for jumping down your throat omar.

I personally don’t feel the need to see that kind of hasbara stuff, because there’s so much of it to go around. That’s just me tho, and I understand why you brought it in. I was so repulsed I overreacted.

It's okay, I mean I have not seen a whole lot of that stuff because I've been studiously avoiding much of the discourse for my own sanity, that one just showed up right in my feed this morning and it was immediately appalling to me. The tone of the couple other ones I've seen are all so similar, these slick influencer vids designed for the fog of war.

This action was in Vancouver on Friday, when we blocked trains for over three hours all the way into Seattle.

For those inconvenienced by actions to end genocide, fight to end genocide.

Because our resolve is stronger. From Salish Sea to Palestine, may all people live free. https://t.co/R0H2MIk182

— Harsha Walia (@HarshaWalia) June 2, 2024

Harsha is the best.

It's interesting to note that @BBCNews regards the murder of seven people in the Ukraine to be a bloodbath... But 45 Palestinians dead in Rafah is dismissed as a "limited operation" pic.twitter.com/KvhyFN1Pdx

— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) May 28, 2024

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7zB-KANAae/?igsh=aTFqdjl6eXVhbjh1

Wtf happened to Piers Morgan?

He likes to do a turn every now and then to show he's "open minded". He'll doubtless be back to right wing talking points soon enough but for the moment I'll take it.

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War

My friend went to the funeral for ‘our’ hostage yesterday. Orión was a dual national so both nations’ embassies sent floral tributes, but not a single blossom or acknowledgement from the Israelis.

that’s awful, suzy.

regarding my previous article post, safe to say that if almost any other country did what Israel did, it would be a huge scandal.

There’s so much I want to say about what happened and how various state actors behaved between 7 October and today, but a) some of the incidents were very odd indeed b) the families have been put through the wringer and c) I am peripheral to this so feel it would not be my place to speak (apart from the things I have said).

Wtf happened to Piers Morgan?

Yeah, he's been pretty outspoken about this. (I saw something where he compares Netanyahu's actions and reasoning unfavorably to the way the UK handled the IRA.) I've only caught clips of him that get reported on or go viral - never watched his show - but he's like Bill Maher where he's just really outspoken about personal opinions that range all over the place from good to terrible and he knows how to leverage his platforms so that everyone knows about them. So yeah, wait a while and I'm sure he'll do something shitty again, etc.

BREAKING: Spain has said it will join South Africa’s case before the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip https://t.co/YMNXYWyafJ pic.twitter.com/I1KRvqxzcY

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 6, 2024

nobody expects the spanish…

sorry

Interesting argument that anti-Palestinian racism is a linked but separate phenomenon from Islamophobia, and that it must be addressed differently as a result.

https://www.vox.com/policy/352663/anti-palestinian-racism-islamophobia-antisemitism

Sorry if link has already been posted here. Really thorough piece in the LRB from a month ago. It starts on the Hamas rape allegations, but it goes on to cover a lot of the ground we have here, plus a lot of the discourse, with detours into the history of sexual violence in the conflict and others throughout the world.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/azadeh-moaveni/what-they-did-to-our-women

BREAKING

UN investigation concludes that Israel is committing the crime of EXTERMINATION in Gaza.

The truth is out.pic.twitter.com/oVDMFfL4y4

— sarah (@sahouraxo) June 12, 2024

Good to see.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/14/barclays-suspends-sponsorship-from-download-latitude-and-isle-of-wight-festivals

she couldn’t catch a train directly between two parts (!). I think my main concern for functioning in such a state might be both under and overestimated: how do you live together in peace after that?

I realized later your friend might have been referring to the fact city buses don't go to Lukavica or Istocno, but turn around just before so you have to walk the last 15 minutes if you want the "other" bus station for Podgorica or Belgrade.

With the wider point about segregation, its difficult to answer. The segregation is between 3 groups not 2, and while it is very pronounced its not absolute. There are mixed towns with different sides like Mostar, but then other towns that are intermingled but have things like the "two schools under one roof" system, where Bosniak kids and Croatian kids are taught in the same building but under different systems due to the "different languages". But this isn't necessarily popular with people and is a lot to do with unintended consequences of Dayton rather than the conflict itself, which incentivised and entrenched corruption by the way it organised power along ethnic lines (Jews, Albanians, and others are barred from various forms of office)

The HDZ has long been upset with Komsic because although he is Croatian he has popularity with non-Croatians as well as Croatians, which makes him insufficiently nationalist for the HDZ, which is an example of how the major parties are anti-integrationist for pragmatic/cynical reasons, so there's a top down element to all this.

The current situation is very safe, low levels of crime and violence but high corruption, and high emigration, as the country is gridlocked by the consequences of Dayton itself (although I'm not saying it was wrong per se given the circumstances at the time).

As to what lies below the surface, I don't know. Its worth pointing out that up to a third of all marriages were mixed in the 1960-1980s and yet what happened still happened. Thats a topic all of its own, but I wanted to say that the solution to the conflict is itself has had a lot of unforeseen consequences (or foreseen but viewed as acceptable tradeoff)