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

I hope it goes no further than just being a horrific editorial - it is evidence that the protests are genuinely undermining their propaganda efforts which is something

― Left, Thursday, November 9, 2023 12:59 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there are a lot of people in the israeli government very interested in adjudicating who exactly is jewish. small example below

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/ultra-orthodox-mk-compares-reform-jews-to-pigs-672296

also waht is a person who is "visibly jewish" they see them at protests

I think there are still a lot of liberal American Jews, especially older ones, who don't realize that the Israeli right wing is also against them. It's easy to not get it if you just go hang out in Tel Aviv, see the Wailing Wall, and come home.

even the wailing wall isn't safe, the kind of thing described in the below article happens fairly regularly

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-clash-with-reform-worshipers-at-western-wall/

https://newrepublic.com/article/176781/open-letter-why-leaving-democratic-socialists-america

In the face of the wanton slaughter of innocents by Hamas, the calculated and depraved cruelty of its premeditated murder and kidnapping of the defenseless, including children and the elderly, several DSA locals—including its flagship New York City chapter—and the DSA International Committee promoted cheerleading demonstrations in support of Hamas’s actions. Given the well-known history of the organizations with which the NYC local and the International Committee partnered, it was predictable that the NYC demonstration would feature speeches that callously mocked the victims of Hamas and provided a venue for open expressions of antisemitism.

Not a single person I know who is a DSA member in NY— and all of them are Jewish!— agrees with that article, fwiw. It’s been making the rounds.

well, that's why they had to quit I guess

Good thread on the Indian "export" of up to 10k construction workers to replace Palestinians. As the thread notes they will face shitty conditions and racism.

Like they do in much of the middle- east. Not really sure what unions can do.
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Ayushi Nayak ଆୟୂଷୀ ନାୟକ
@ayushi_nayak
Trade unions in India have noted their decision to oppose this, and I really hope the different groups can come together to protect the rights and safety of all Indian workers which will undoubtedly be put at risk if they are “exported” to Israel right now 1

There is a close relationship between Netanyahu and Modi.

I think there are still a lot of liberal American Jews, especially older ones, who don't realize that the Israeli right wing is also against them.

Liberal American Jews fully realize this, which is why they have always been anti-Netanyahu, especially now that Netanhayu has welcomed the true psychos, once consensus pariahs, into the government.

One of the DSA quitters wrote a “why I’m quitting the DSA” piece two years ago.

I wonder how often you can do the “I’m a lifelong supporter of blah, but now I’m voting the other way” as a grift. Maybe do some compensated cable channel appearances. One such guy was documented doing this twice in the last year on twitter!

The key is flip-flopping. "I was a lifelong Democrat but" "I became a born again Christian Republican but" into infinity.

i have always been of opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative

There is a close relationship between Netanyahu and Modi.

Yes, they both hate Muslims.

What a joke.

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Eylon Levy
@EylonALevy
If Hamas is holding your relatives as human shields in Gaza City, please ask them to call the
@IDF
’s Human Shield Hotline.

It could save a life

Workers for a Free Palestine
@Workers4Pal
BREAKING: 400+ trade unionists are blockading multiple entrances to an arms factory in Kent which provides weapons for the Israeli military.

We demand an immediate #CEASEFIRENOW to halt the killing of civilians in Palestine & an end to British complicity in Israeli war crimes!

Not read this yet. In the latest LRB you have this piece on the arms industry and it's exports to Israel.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n22/james-butler/up-in-arms

_There is a close relationship between Netanyahu and Modi._

Yes, they both hate Muslims.

... and they both hate Muslims and prefer them dead.

yes

There is a close relationship between Netanyahu and Modi.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, November 9, 2023 5:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hating muslims really brings people together

lol sorry i'm the 70th person to say that but narendra modi is my bete noir

Indian elections next year, not sure how he is doing with the polling (or what the BJP are doing to get the system to work for them, e.g. cheat).

I haven't been following Indian politics as much lately, but thus far the problem with ejecting Modi has been the lack of credible opposition. Would love to have missed something on that front though

Same, don't think Congress are up to scratch but like to be wrong.

Modi is more popular than ever afaict.

the thing is, in a multi-ethnic or multi-religious state where there's a supremacist majority...it's hard to vote in tolerance! Indian Hindus, particularly upper-caste Hindus, are like, he makes the trains run on time!

xp not quite, but he is remarkably popular for having been in power for 9 years: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/inflation-hurting-modi-still-likely-win-indias-2024-polls-survey-2023-08-25/

and yes horseshoe otm, he's legitimately popular, though no doubt the BJP cheat frequently as well

and hating Muslims is like popping champagne together on New Year's Eve

xp

Seems like we are seeing more and more of these "coalitions" against popular incumbents. A coalition has won in Poland but iirc lost in Hungary.

Looks like economics (inflation) will dictate whether Modi wins. Definitely looks like it rn.

Probably under recognised how much the BJP interfered in the last UK election in certain marginal seats.

This article is better actually.

When I clicked the link, there was nothing there.

Sorry that’s my fault, I deleted the amp part of the link but didn’t see the alternative url at the bottom of the article

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/25/uk/bjp-kashmir-tory-uk-election-ge19-intl-gbr/index.html

I don't really have a good sense of how well effective the "anti-hindutva = hinduphobia" line has been playing internationally but it has been pretty infuriating how poorly the british media has covered this development, often just repeating the accusations uncritically because of who the targets are

man arrested in Calgary and charged with a hate crime for chanting....From the river to the sea. Legal scholars appear to be unimpressed

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-protest-arrest-palestinian-chant-1.7024279

Saba Amro, an organizer with Justice for Palestinians, said she was at the meeting before the protest with Cooley, as well as another organizer from her group, a CPS community liaison officer and another officer from CPS.

Amro says her group was told by police before the protest began that the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" was being looked at by the Crown prosecutor as potential hate speech.

"We asked the question directly, would anyone be charged on that particular day, Sunday, Nov. 5, for saying and chanting the phrase … and the answer we received was no," Amro told CBC News in an interview.

Richard Moon, a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Windsor, researches freedom of expression and says the charge of causing a disturbance with hate motivation applied to it is "surprising."

"It seems like a way of trying to bring about charges in a case like this where it seems unlikely that the requirements of the hate speech law could be satisfied," he said in an interview.

"Because the speech does not, clearly or obviously, count as sufficiently extreme to be regarded as hate speech under the Criminal Code, it appears the police may have used this roundabout way to bring charges against this individual."

When asked if the phrase in question meets the definition of hate speech, Moon said, "Certainly not. Its meaning is far too open-ended."

There’s some absolute horrific stuff being published in the UK atm

Can’t believe JC published this antisemitic filth. I had relatives murdered in the camps. It matters not whether their murderers had regrets. Are there worse people than Nazis - no there are not!

We should see resignations at the JC but we won’t. https://t.co/5b2vKu9mhe pic.twitter.com/SXeHk4ffYP

— Alex Sobel MP 🟣 (@alexsobel) November 10, 2023

Oh it's by Douglas Murray, that explains the pro-Nazi tone.

سماح
@samah_fadil
·
13h
a palestinian owned burger joint was burned down in melbourne. the owner has been vocal at pro-palestinian protests. pls check out the gofundme and help if you can

People protesting the slaughter in Gaza are sometimes asked why they don't protest about other atrocities, or why they're protesting here in Britain, far away. Part of the answer is that the UK directly arms Israel. I wrote about it for the new @LRB. https://t.co/p9SsVPJl8d

— James B (@piercepenniless) November 11, 2023

yeah also I feel like if your response to mass slaughter as we speak is whataboutism, you have some self examination to do.

The reality of people killing people in Congo or Sudan doesn’t erase dead Palestinian babies

Whataboutism is the very core of the Israeli government's approach to PR.

The UK is a bigger arms exporter to to Turkiye than to Israel so I don't think thats the reason per se. That being said, perception is more of a factor than actuality, and the UK govts are more vocally supportive of Israel than they are of Turkiye. I don't think there's any single reason behind why some protests are larger than others

🐦[People protesting the slaughter in Gaza are sometimes asked why they don’t protest about other atrocities, or why they’re protesting here in Britain, far away. Part of the answer is that the UK directly arms Israel. I wrote about it for the new @LRB🕸. https://t.co/p9SsVPJl8d🕸
— James B (@piercepenniless) November 11, 2023🕸]🐦

Higgins is more contemplative than angry, however. He has just returned from a state visit to Vietnam and Laos, and as he recounts his trip he remembers an encounter he once had with Henry Kissinger when the old cold war warrior was visiting Trinity College Dublin several years ago. “I remember I asked him if he regretted the illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia (during the Vietnam war). He said: ‘I don’t think, Mr Higgins, I could ever find the regret that you would find sufficient’.”

who has actually heard of Western Sahara, West Papua

I had a realization the other day while I was having this same discussion about caring about one atrocity vs another, and it hit me that *I* care about Palestinians more than Rohingya because I care about and have connections to Israel. I can’t speak to what motivates other people. My views don’t fully square with most of the Free Palestine movement and I can’t pretend to be a part of it. But that’s why I have been spending probably 1/4 of my waking hours for the last month thinking and agonizing and reading and listening about these deaths, and not some other deaths.

For the people who demonstrated for us in London, thank you from Gaza. pic.twitter.com/MhBF4rBwNv

— Muhammad Smiry 🇵🇸 (@MuhammadSmiry) November 11, 2023

*I* care about Palestinians more than Rohingya because I care about and have connections to Israel

this is how I feel too