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The pro-Israel information war

jackpoulson.substack.com

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Re: The pro-Israel information war

#761

Post by IMTDb »

abusada wrote: post #361
EvgeniyZh wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticizing the actions of Israel is not anti-semitic, and many Israelis and Jews are critical of the Israeli government and its actions (even more than usual during the ongoing political crisis). Many of the critics I see lack nuance (basically, "rooting for the underdog"), but that's a different problem. The problem is complicated, and there is no simple solution (some kind of two-state may work after many years).…

Hello there, a Palestinian from the west bank here speaking, let me tell you something, our resistance has nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state, if my brother stole my house and killed my children i will fight him just the same, and you would too and everyone else (I assume). jewish, muslim, christian, vegan.. doesn't matter. Now Hamas does play on the string of religion to get to people, and so does Israel…

> but the main goal is to free the people from the oppressive occupation!

The Hamas charter that was used during the last elections in Palestine explicitly calls for the total destruction of Israel. To reach that goal, unrestricted jihad is necessary. Negotiated resolution are considered unacceptable. Hamas won those elections.

Hamas has since revised that charter in 2017; but retained the goal of completely eliminating Israel - it is till a constitutive element of their political beliefs.

> we chant "From the river to the sea" we don't mean to kill anyone! if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!

You might have a personal interpretation, but make no mistake about the intentions of the elected representatives of the Palestinian population when they chant that.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#762

Post by underlipton »

deepfriedchokes wrote: post #506
underlipton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure. And I'm not joking. I feel bad for Israeli…

I think a lot of people get “turn the other cheek” wrong, much like “a few bad apples”, and “blood is thicker than water”. Here’s the passage from Matthew 5:38-39 KJV: “38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” What Jesus is advocating is nonviolent…

>I think a lot of people get “turn the other cheek” wrong

Good thing I'm not one of them. The point is that the way to resist effectively is to not let yourself be drawn into a quagmire or an opportunity to show the world your ass (which is what Israel and the US have done). Responding with the intent to do good works (which you will admittedly fall short of, because you're human, landing you somewhere at least justifiable) is better than responding with the intent to wipe out the opposition, indiscriminately and by any means necessary, and accidentally committing a form of genocide. (Note: we (Americans) did that too. The fire next time, and I hate it.)

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#763

Post by aprilthird2021 »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #743

Most of the top comments here are against Israel, the country that is defending itself against Hamas-ISIS. I think the bias in this discussion is a direct illustration of Sam Altmans tweet from yesterday: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1732925866836210151 "for a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed. i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong. i…

Why does only Israel have the right to defend itself and not Palestine? When Israeli settlers steal Palestine day by day why does Palestine not have a right to exist and only Israel does?

When Israel imprisons Palestinians for years without charging them with crimes and there is documented proof of them raping and torturing them [1] why doesn't Palestine have the right to defeat Israel to make sure that never happens again?

Why isn't everything Israel wants also allowed for Palestinians?

[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-resigned-us-state...

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#764

Post by underlipton »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #628
underlipton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure. And I'm not joking. I feel bad for Israeli…

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Re: The pro-Israel information war

#765

Post by Georgelemental »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #641
goalonetwo wrote: post #465

Coming from Europe and living in the US for the last couple of years, I'm shocked at how society here is clearly pro-israel. It is very clear that in the US the life of an israel citizen is valued way above the one of a palestinian. It is sad to lose that level of humanity. all of the discourse also conveniently ignores that Israel created a large-scale open-air prison in Gaza and removed any hope left for people liv…

I think a lot of Americans either consciously or subconciosuly see the similarity between Israel's situation and the US's with regards to the natives. If there was a native independence movement that resorted to terrorism the us would flatten every reservation in the country.

There's definitely a similarity, but no, modern US would not behave like modern Israel is behaving. Our response to the 2020 riots was extremely hands-off relative to the level of violence of the rioters (who, in one instance, took cobtrol by force of a section of a major US city, declared secession, and held the area for several days [0]).

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protes...

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#766

Post by underlipton »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #420
underlipton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure. And I'm not joking. I feel bad for Israeli…

Under your plan, how many instances of oct 7 do you think Israel should tolerate before they rethink things?

Under my plan, reconciliation and shared prosperity makes more instances of oct 7 terminally unworkable for any who would attempt them. There haven't been too many Pearl Harbor reduxes, if I'm not mistaken.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#767

Post by botanical »

Israel is an Apartheid State long before killing 20 000 people in the past 2 months. Israel will never get the peace they seek with the oppression they inflict.

* Illegal Settlers living in Palestine can vote in Israel but not Palestinians; Israeli settlers all the rights of being a citizen of Apartheid Israel while the Palestinian neighbour doesn't have any. Apartheid South Africa did the same, they put the people in their own "country" and so couldn't vote. Israel doesn't want 2 states as that would mean millions more voting.

* There were 5,248,185 Palestinian refugees neighbouring countries in 2020; that's equal to half the population of Israel. Israel is committing genocide in trying to ethnically cleanse the land.

* Israel has ethnically cleansed and fragmented areas into [isolated cantons divided by Israeli settlements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_enclaves), and implemented [lebensraum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum) tactics. This was called [Bantustans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan) in South Africa.

* The Apartheid Separation wall - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/73/81/d07381fffef632350bcb...

* The settlers killing in the West Bank, and burning homes to get rid of people and destroying olive tree groves.

* They control the water completely - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...

* They get 12 hours of electricity a day - https://www.ochaopt.org/page/gaza-strip-electricity-supply

* Palestinians didn't have 3G until 2018, their access is also spied on and restricted.

* Segregated road system - https://s3.amazonaws.com/VP2/visuals/en/4db97391fe7cb2462249...

* 50% of Palestinians are children.

As someone from South Africa, I've seen ethnic cleansing and Israel is doing worse. Israel is absolutely an Apartheid state. Various human rights organisations have already stated this.

Not to mention the Israeli government's rhetoric of calling Palestinians rats and that their lives are less important than an Israeli's. Hamas wouldn't exist if not for Apartheid Israel's actions, in the same way uMkhonto we Sizwe doesn't exist now that Apartheid has been disbanded in South Africa.

And it seems in the comments here and elsewhere on the interent, Zionism is conflated with antisemitism. Zionism is extreme nationalism (at the expense of innocent Palestinians), not anti-Jew.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#768

Post by jjtheblunt »

rjzzleep wrote: post #637
mhalberstram wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a good point about the symbiotic relationship with the Israeli right. This reminds me of a recent interesting discussion on the Skeptics StackExchange: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/56315/did-netan...

The crazy thing is that the pro war machine talking heads keeps trying to make this about Iran, when it's really Qatar and Turkey financing Hamas, in part using illegal Oil sales from Syria. Nikki Haley was talking about "finishing them". It's also worth remembering that Hamas actively fought AGAINST Syria and it's allies(Iran) with the other Islamist rebels The US has huge military presences in both countries, and i…

> The US has huge military presences in both countries, and if they really wanted to shut down funding to those institutions they could do it tomorrow.

How?

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#769

Post by Aunche »

woodruffw wrote: post #542
A1kmm wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental assumption of the analysis that there are two mutually exclusive groups, 'pro-Israel' and 'pro-Palestine' is flawed. It is possible to simultaneously support the interests of Palestinian and Israeli civilians (and support a peaceful Israel within the 1967 boundaries), while condemning the massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties) and Hamas. I think it is cur…

I have nothing to add here, other than to thank you for expressing this so cogently. It’s not always “right” to measure just action in terms of lives saved or lost, but it’s hard for me (and so many other American Jews) to see anything right or just about 10 dead Palestinians for every dead Israeli.

There has never been a war in history where one side stops because they killed enough people. War ends when the enemy surrenders.

The Japanese killed a few dozen civilians in Pearl Harbor. America killed 10,000x as many during their bombings of Japan. Had they not surrendered, they likely would have killed an order of magnitude more. The only alternative would have been for the US to completely blockade Japan indefinitely to prevent them from rebuilding their military. Actually, they wouldn't be able to do that either because that would make Japan an "open air prison."

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#770

Post by Georgelemental »

dubcanada wrote: post #242
dontlaugh wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamas will only end along with the Zionist occupation.

How does this work out? Let's say Israel admits defeat and gives Hamas everything it wants. How does this remove Hamas from power?

> Israel admits defeat and gives Hamas everything it wants. How does this remove Hamas from power?

Obviously it does not. There is a difference, however, between giving Hamas everything they want and giving Palestinians absolutely nothing, ever. Pulling back settlements and occupation from the Fatah-dominated West Bank would be a start.

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