If I don’t clickbait the title people don’t click.
With the recent events happening in Gaza, I decided to first tackle this line of argument in my essay Zionism is antisemitism, and Palestine.
People were quick to say “yes Israel is bad, but Hamas…” (kidnapped 200 people, killed 1000, take your pick).
When you’re saying this, you’re actually saying that one israeli is worth 7 Palestinians. Read that again if you need to; it’s an ethnosupremacist position.
What is the logical conclusion of this argument? What is it supposed to achieve except convey empty platitudes and declaring to the world that you just don’t care enough to have any valuable input?
It’s fine not to care. I’m not your dad, I’m not going to try and change you.
But don’t declare it publicly. Don’t proudly say “well actually both sides are bad”. You don’t look smarter or wiser than anyone else who is taking a clear stance. You’re not taking the “middle ground”. Everyone who has taken sides and is trying to be productive about this (and not just the Gaza genocide, but really any situation where you can apply “both sides”) really doesn’t have time for this holier-than-thou bullshit.
Gaza “kidnapped” 200 settlers and that’s a war crime apparently. It’s not really, but whatever. Let’s say it is. Israel has killed 7000+ Palestinians in retaliation, now likely more than 10k as they cut off communications in Gaza last night.
Both sidesers: what’s your solution to this. If you say anything other than “I should not get involved” then you don’t actually believe both sides are bad and you are picking a side. It’s time you realize where you stand.
Thank you for the essay. I learned (or perhaps unlearned) a lot from it, and have more than enough links for further reading.
However…
I hope that you will eventually find Hamas’ line on the issue of state secularity, because “Hamas not secular!!!” honestly has been my biggest, like, liberal brainworm wrt the Palestinian liberation conflict, and the essay didn’t manage to fully excise it from my noggin.
So my take on the war basically has been, “Support the PFLP and other explicitly secular leftist/anti-Zionist groups in the region; support the flight of Israeli refugees and their welcoming back to their true homelands around the world; support aid for Palestine, food, medical supplies, psychological support, so forth; support sabotage of Israeli infrastructure and economy; support strikes/resignations and sabotage at foreign weapons and munitions factories supplying Israel; agitate against Zionism; support Jewish and Palestinian communities around the world; etc.” — so basically, every way to support the Palestinian cause except direct support for Hamas (which I guess is really just, like, indirect support for Hamas, anyways…)
I have seen comparisons between Palestine now and China under its occupation. Essentially the type of stuff that Lenin wrote about in A Caricature of Marxism & Imperialist Economism, which I recently listened to S4A’s audiobook of. That the struggle for national liberation must be fought first before a socialist revolution can take place, and so all groups fighting for national liberation must be supported, including those which are not socialist or secular — that this lays fertile ground for socialist revolution later on. This is how things played out in China: the CPC and KMT fought alongside each other against Japan, and then the CPC fought against the KMT and pushed it to Taiwan.
This feels like a lot to gamble on, though — essentially that after the liberation conflict, there will be another conflict where the folks who we uncritically support will very definitely and certainly win — although… a free Palestine, even under a (“)reactionary(”) leadership, is still going to be better and more humane than the settler-colonial regime, so… What point am I even trying to make here?
…Honestly, I don’t know.
Some final notes:
- Some non-leftists seem to be under the impression that non-Jewish Palestinians want to expel Jews from Palestine, and I do not understand this. Aside from the fact that Palestinians are just not bloodthirsty savages, and that Palestine has always had Jews, and all that… Once the colonial system has been torn down, its last vestige would just be millions of highly skilled and educated immigrants, which is pretty useful to have after a liberation war, right?
- The current war, I’ve heard, has allowed for more “parallel governance” or however you call it to emerge in the region. That as infrastructure is destroyed and the Israeli government focuses on the war effort, that common people are replacing government services with their own popular ones. I don’t know much about this but it was mentioned in connection with anarchism.
I’m also curious about the history of Labor Zionism and of religious and ethnic minorities in the region, in particular Circassians. Can you point me to any good resources about these topics?
I should be able to find the Hamas charter and then comb through it eventually.
Some things to consider is that there are Christians in Gaza and they “even” have churches.
I think most people, some in good faith and some in bad faith, think that being non-secular means being intolerant. But secularism only means there is no promoted religion, there’s the separation of church and state. Hamas has been clear that they they want a multireligious state of Palestine where Jews and Christians will be welcomed.
Indonesia is not secular for example and while as a tourist you should follow the laws (as in all countries), it’s also a huge tourist spot where millions of Europeans and Americans go every year without any issues.
On Reddit, the bad faith Zionists (when I posted my essay) said that Hamas does not want a multiplural republic because they are not secular. But the two are not opposites, and in fact in history Islam was the most progressive of the three Abrahamic religions when it came to accepting the other two.
When has Hamas said they want to welcome Jewish populations? I thought their charter was pretty vocal about not accepting Judaism: Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. “May the cowards never sleep.”
If Hamas is tolerant of Judaism, why are there no Jewish families in Gaza? Honest question, I’m not an expert on the situation, just trying to make sense of the facts.
Honest question, I’m not an expert on the situation, just trying to make sense of the facts.
Please. You and I both know that’s a lie. Don’t take me for an idiot in your first interaction with me.
You don’t deserve a response, but maybe this will educate other people.
I thought their charter was pretty vocal about not accepting Judaism
Maybe get up to date lmao. Bro is citing something from 1988 as if the world hasn’t changed. Look at their 2017 charter instead.
why are there no Jewish families in Gaza?
Gaza was started as a refugee camp for Palestinians after the Nakba in 1948. Eventually they built a city there to try and get some semblance of normal life back. You’re not gonna bait me into saying there were Zionists living in Gaza until 2005 when Hamas drove the IOF out lmao. Too young, too naive.
I didn’t read your link, but in either case that is the old charter, when Hamas was a fledgling group without popular backing or input from the masses.
Latest charter was released in 2017.
- Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
- Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
Libs downvoting without responding… come on, at least tell us why?
Because OP is scarecrowing a large group of people.
Killing one innocent Israeli is wrong. Killing one innocent Palestinian is wrong. Killing 7 Palestinians for every 1 Israeli is also wrong. Yet OP claims that if you agree with any one of these then you cannot agree with all of the others.
Maybe some people think like the scarecrow OP is criticising - there’s certainly been a fair few Israelis on TV frothing at the mouth and dehumanising Palestinians - but in reality they are a noisy minority, albeit one that those in power are encouraging to garner their support.
It doesn’t matter what “you” (someone who thinks both Hamas and Israel are wrong) think you’re arguing, as you are arguing something beyond what you think you are.
Killing one innocent Israeli is wrong. Killing one innocent Palestinian is wrong. Killing 7 Palestinians for every 1 Israeli is also wrong
These claims cannot be aligned like that together. “Everything is wrong” is the coward’s way out. The first two claims are still saying Killing 7 Palestinians for 1 israeli is acceptable. The resistance was wrong to kill or capture settlers. Israel was wrong to bomb Gaza. Still, objectively, 7000 Palestinians have died (maybe even 10k now) and only 900 Israelis died.
What is your solution then if you believe all three of those claims?
Straight away you jump to a scarecrow argument again. You do not have the authority to say what I’m thinking, and you’re explicitly wrong with your claims of what that is.
Just because I’m saying everything is wrong does not mean I’m saying it’s all equally wrong. They’re all different measures of wrong.
What is your solution then if you believe all three of those claims?
This is a bullshit way to argue, as you’re trying to put all the onus of finding a solution to a problem that no one has solved in over 100 years onto me - as if you have any kind of viable solution. You’re just moaning, you haven’t offered a single productive insight here. Nonetheless, I like trying to solve problems.
The solution might be to take all their toys away, separate the two peoples and put them in time out for a few generations. However, that doesn’t allow war mongers to make war and profits. This is, in my opinion, the root cause of ongoing conflict - people stirring up other people to fight, so that they can be sold weapons.
Your core idea that when a conflict results in a 7-1 death ratio, the side with the least casualties is automatically wrong and the other automatically right, is childish.
Source for death count if someone wants live figures: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker
that noisy minority still occupies the land, destroys buildings indicriminately, slaughters everyone left and right, checks every item in the genocide and war crime longlist.
This kind of functional role of ‘bad settlers’ is well-documented in settler-colonialism, and there are even instances of leaders and government officials in the United States case admitting the necessity of ‘unofficial’ settler violence, from paramilitaries to illegal settlements and more.
Can any comrades with more recent contact with this material than I’ve had help me out with a citation on this, ideally ‘from the horse’s mouth’?
Noisy minority?
In a society where the following is normalised:
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Calling regular bombing of civilian population in Gaza “mowing the lawn”
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Organising large communal picnics atop a hill to watch the “fireworks” of aforementioned bombings for enjoyment
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Crowds loudly cheering and celebrating fire breaking out in Palestine mosque
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Calling restricting food inflow to Gaza to sustenance level “putting Arabs on diet”
Thank you for responding. I hope you don’t mind if we explain ourselves further.
Was it wrong for the slaves to fight back against their oppressors in the Haitian Revolution?
Is it wrong for the Palestinians to defend themselves against this onslaught, just as Jews commemorate their own self-defense every year on Purim?
Esther 3:13:
the letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews
Esther 8:11:
the king permitted the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province hostile to them
There has to be a clear distinction between defending against oppression and indiscriminately attacking. Israel claims it is defending itself while it bombs Gaza - this is a ridiculous claim, they are clearly in an attacking posture, launching attacks into foreign territory while indiscriminately hitting civilians. Similarly, it is not right to claim that Hamas’ attack on 7 Oct was them defending themselves or fighting back against their oppressors as they mowed down civilians in the villages they lived in.
Thanks for writing out your thinking on this explicitly, and for inviting discussion in that way.
Public support in Israel for Israeli military operations is typically very high (70% or more, often even above 80%). The only sense in which those supporting massively disproportionate violence and indiscriminate killing of civilians are a minority is in terms of rhetorical style— not the substance of supporting the actual operations that kill people.
Moreover, many of the Israelis on TV ‘frothing at the mouth’ are current or former government officials. To characterize them as a ‘tiny minority’ is extremely misleading about their role in effecting this violence.
Public support in Israel for Israeli military operations is typically over 80%, and often over 90%.
I’d question the nature of that support. I’m sure nearly every Israeli wants the military to step up their game in protecting them, however support for the recent bombings and ground assaults is significantly lower.
Moreover, many of the Israelis on TV ‘frothing at the mouth’ are current or former government officials. To characterize them as a ‘tiny minority’ is extremely misleading about their role in effecting this violence.
Absolutely, I rewrote that last statement a couple of times trying to find a good middle ground, but there are many in Israeli leadership roles behaving that way. It’s hard to say whether they genuinely feel that way themselves or if they’re just encouraging it for their own benefit - Netanyahu is probably the latter, in my opinion, but there have definitely been a few on TV that have clearly drunk the kool aid.
I still think that, over the entire population of Israel, people who think that way are in the minority. Most people in any nation just want peace and prosperity for themselves, rather than the destruction of others to expand political borders.
Even libs on reddit had more of a spine than lemmy libs when it came to trying to debate my essay when I posted it. At least they commented.
Spoiler: they didn’t even make a dent.
I do agree with the liberals that it’s bad when Hamas kills civilians in their fight against Israeli apartheid, which is why I believe Israel must be destroyed and replaced with a non-apartheid Palestinian state where Jews and Arabs can live together, so civilians stop dying.
The hostage thing is a great example of how liberals start from a conclusion and then find evidence to fit that conclusion: Hamas is bad not only because they killed people but also because they took old women and children hostage, the monsters. Meaning that, even if Hamas had not killed anyone, only taken hostages, they would still side with Israel. I have zero doubts that if Hamas had only kidnapped IDF soldiers libs would still be demanding unequivocal condemnations and talking about Israel’s right to defend itself.
Not to mention tiny little detail of Isntreal holding millions of hostages in Gaza.
Two things can be bad at the same time. For example, Isreal stealing land from Palestinians is bad, and Israel doing a genocide on Palestinians is also bad. Those 2 things are bad at the same time!
I listened to the Trueanon episode with Norman Finkelstein and I think he articulated things pretty well. Basically what else were they suppose to do? If they’d broken out of the fence and then threw down their guns and stood waving protest signs there they’d have been massacred and Israel would have claimed they were armed.
If they’d broken out then all ran away, Israel would have launched a massive effort to hunt them down and kill them and it would have been pointless, no liberals would have done anything, it would have been ignored (he brought up how some Palestinians escaped a maximum security prison, got back to Gaza and there was celebration, until within 48 hours the Israelis had murdered all 3 of them).
They tried the whole peaceful approach in the great march of return, they were gunned down, snipers murdered kids, they shot out people’s knee-caps condemning them to joblessness, a life of no prospects and suicide. So what else were they supposed to do? And the only answer that makes sense from liberals who support this is to quietly sit there and die so the liberals can later feel badly about it.
So there’s only one bad side. And it’s the side that hasn’t taken peace or giving the Palestinians a state seriously. It’s the side where western governments ignore horrendous atrocities against children for years, decades, openly documented with video and photo evidence, they don’t pressure Israel to do anything in all that time other than maybe hide it better. It’s the side that ignores settler terrorism.
