Israel to World: "Suck It."

What about Left's definition?

what definition. fuck this abstract bs I'm sorry to have participated

This isn’t an Israeli war in Gaza. This is an Israeli-US-UK-French-German war on the Palestinian people. The West is a full partner in this, just as they have been full partners in the Saudi-UAE war on the Yemeni people.

— asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل (@asadabukhalil) May 15, 2021

fuck this abstract bs

fair enogh. if it is bs to discuss it now, then it was bs from the start. nb: here was the start:

can we not with the fucking "jihadism" and "terrorism" please this the language of empire

so, maybe can we not with the fucking quibbles about the words we use and address the facts on the ground again

eh Left and ShariVari are right about “jihadism”

facts on the ground

Israeli analysts have explained, mostly in Hebrew because they don't want this understood in the West, the strategy behind destroying large residential buildings is they believe the Palestinians living there are better off than most and making them homeless might pressure Hamas.

— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) May 15, 2021

Leicester City's Hamza Choudhury and Wesley Fofana wave the Palestinian flag after their FA Cup Final win over Chelsea pic.twitter.com/xYJiVvJiDb

— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) May 15, 2021

Thousands standing in solidarity with Palestine. Newcastle. pic.twitter.com/ql3B27mOf8

— Daniel Kebede (@DanielKebedeNEU) May 15, 2021

If deliberately making people homeless isn’t legally considered a form of genocide, the UN definition needs to be reworked.

Also, if one wants to see how much american media cares about the people of Gaza, compare the coverage of the destruction of the AP offices and... people getting killed.

facts on the ground

Israeli analysts have explained, mostly in Hebrew because they don't want this understood in the West, the strategy behind destroying large residential buildings is they believe the Palestinians living there are better off than most and making them homeless might pressure Hamas.
— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) May 15, 2021
― Free Palestine (Left), Saturday, 15 May 2021 17:54 (yesterday) link

I tried to follow the thread of this, and the only source I could find was an Israeli left journalist speculating that this might be the motive. Which is very different from the claim that Israeli analysts are explaining some secret motive in Hebrew because they don't want it understood in the West. Also, wouldn't the primary motive for an Israeli analyst to speak Hebrew be that they primarily speak Hebrew, as their native language?

There is not a single hebrew speaker in the west that could translate those comments.

ok good points. i don't know how accurate any given source is on what things especially since I don't speak hebrew or arabic and english language media is useless

Fuck Macron

Incredible! Massive march in Paris in support of #Palestine despite Macron’s recent ban of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. pic.twitter.com/hnGUrdnYDg

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) May 15, 2021

Fuck Macron always, but a ban might not be the right word, there is no law to prevent pro-palestinian gatherings and protest, I would argue it’s even worse: in that it’s sort of an executive order that can renewed on the whim each time the conflict flares up. It’s president ordering the police on the phone.

The stupid “logic” after the burning and looting of jewish businesses and attacks on places of worship in 2014 is that pro-palestinian groups need to gain the benefit of the doubt, but really what it does is that now the peaceful pro-palestinians protestors don’t have an avenue to show that yes, they can be just as peaceful as anyone of course, and they can’t show they seperated themselves from more extemist elements of the larger group.

Also this is just in Paris, no such things interdiction exists outside of Paris afaik.

"but really what it does is that now the peaceful pro-palestinians protestors don’t have an avenue to show that yes, they can be just as peaceful as anyone of course, and they can’t show they seperated themselves from more extemist elements of the larger group."

The last few days have seen protests in cities across the world, they don't need to show you or anybody that they are different from extremists.

As always with this conflict, I am left wondering what the Israeli right really imagines as a long-term answer. There are 5 million people in the Palestinian territories, most of them are not going to leave no matter how miserable conditions become because most of them don't have any obvious place to go. They can't absorb them and give them citizenship and still maintain a Jewish state; they can't absorb them and NOT give them citizenship, because that would make the apartheid comparisons undeniable; they can't kill them all, or at least I hope not; if they refuse them their own state and a path to get there ... what do they imagine is going to happen?

And for the U.S. (for its own totally bad reasons) to be just gently going along with periodic tut-tuts about settlements is also unconscionable of course.

The last few days have seen protests in cities across the world, they don't need to show you or anybody that they are different from extremists.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, May 16, 2021 11:47 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m talking specifically about Paris. I have no doubts the protests in my city were peaceful, despite a few anti-semitic messages here and there.

They can't absorb them and give them citizenship and still maintain a Jewish state.

This is the one thing I will forever disagree with. A jewish state can be multicultural* and multireligious. Succesive governements have made the choice that it wouldn’t be, but that doesn’t mean that other paths were or are impossible.

*It already is, in many ways.

what would a Jewish state mean with a Muslim majority that had full citizenship (and presumably more political control)? is this a 2 state thing

(which seems impossible and is unpopular with everyone)

I think about this a lot too. I can’t imagine ethnic cleansing can ever be “complete” at this kind of slow burn pace (“natural expansion” of existing settlements and storming of hilltops here and there). It would probably take hundreds of years for Jewish settlers to take over all of the West Bank like this. Does Israel just intend to sustain this indefinitely? I guess it’s possible for there not to be an “end goal,” just an endless attempt to balance tensions.

I also think a lot about what a binational state could look like. There aren’t tons in the world. Arguably the US is (ironically) one of the most successful multiethnic states in the world, meaning the bar is low. Not sure how many states are specifically made up of two near similar sized groups though. Guyana?

Turns out that countries have to be multireligious and multicultural by necessity, and in a region in which multiple peoples have legitimate claims, it seems to me the only solution that doesn’t involve the destruction or subjugation of the other.

I mean VHS is right that on some level Israel is already a “multiethnic” state due to the Arab Israeli citizen population, but clearly there is a problem created by the need to maintain it as a Jewish state - were Arabs ever the majority and truly equal politically, they would understandably democratically end many policies that make Israel a Jewish state.

israel and palestine are both multicultural but the plurality of faiths and ethnicities in both populations has been reified in the imagination into simplistic binary and this is a consequence of conflict (or rather domination/subjugation) rather than the inherent makeup of the social and cultural landscape. it is hard to imagine what a peace and reconciliation process would look like in israel palestine but its something that needs to be imagined with great urgency and my sense is this process will also need to recapture this spectrum of diversity.

The residents (or their descendants) that were kicked out in 1948 should be allowed to return. It's unrealistic as of today, but to see many people across the world who at least say no to these crimes committed by Israel this past week at least gives you some hope.

(which seems impossible and is unpopular with everyone)

― Left, Sunday, May 16, 2021 11:36 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's impossible in part because the government of Israel has been seized by forces that don't want it to be possible. I grew up with the understanding that two states, two REAL states, is is the only eventual outcome that's remotely moral. I get the pessimism, here's some more.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/14/this-is-what-the-death-of-the-two-state-solution-looks-like/

I've had this conversation before about where do they expect the Palestinians to go and the answer is, or used to be, Jordan.

It's a conversation I've avoided for a long time though.

two “real” states seems very unlikely because it would require one side to surrender claims to jerusalem—not gonna happen.

y’all should read peter beinart’s article on why he believes a bi-national country is the only moral way forward: https://jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish-case-for-equality-in-israel-palestine/

the article has been criticized as being so optimistic that it’s practically utopian, but since we’re very very far from an actual solution, why not try to think of an equitable one?

'there's no room' seems a weirdly underwhelming excuse for the utopic modernist vision of zionism but it does signal the huge task of infrastructure building etc that would also be necessary to a post-apartheid settlement. however its very hard to imagine the US giving $4bn a year to sponsor infrastructure building and continued peace in israel palestine

israel was able to settle 500k immigrants from former soviet countries in the 90s, welcoming back descendants of palestinians would be difficult but doable. logistically, anyway

the desirability and achievability of the nation state as a project should be challenged everywhere not only in israel/palestine. it's such a new concept and literally every national project is constantly being contested but people still talk about it like it's an inevitable reality that has actually been achieved in many cases and will always be necessary (meaning there will always have to be borders and second-class citizens and dispossessed/stateless people and wars and ethnic cleansing and all the rest)

but if one state is practically utopian i don't know what that makes none

i think thats probably 'true' but doing away with the nation state doesn't undermine that people will have a desire to self-determination and i think a right to pursue that desire and the nation state is currently the criterion by which that becomes legible. I think its quite reasonable to bracket the question of dismantling the state with regard israel palestine for now.

i basically agree & palestinians in particular don't need british opinions on nationalism-in-general rn

no one needs british opinions

also true

israel was able to settle 500k immigrants from former soviet countries in the 90s, welcoming back descendants of palestinians would be difficult but doable. logistically, anyway

― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Sunday, May 16, 2021 2:04 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

100%. There are no financial or logistical excuses, only bad faith and lack of imagination. And not only from Israel, but from all involved states (US, Iran, Arab neighbors etc).

If you can build Tel-Avid and the Iron Dome, you can ensure the peaceful right of return to victims of the Nakba.

i basically agree & palestinians in particular don't need british opinions on nationalism-in-general rn

― Left, Sunday, 16 May 2021 18:35 (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

What nationality are you, ilxor user left

And how do you know the nationalities of the posters you type at

I am german-english. with all the baggage & neurotic complexes of identification & projection that entails. give me all the shit in the world for that

I don't know what you're getting at with the other thing, I don't know everyone's nationality unless they've made it clear. I know you're not british for example

It seemed to me, and its possible ive mistaken yr intent, that yr post to plax was a dismissal of their british opinion

german english tho, oof

the intended target was myself i have no idea of plax's nationality & their post was a necessary corrective

i hate it too

My misreading so, apologies

Thought plaxs post was good, they usually are

np

I want to push back on the idea of legitimate claims being bandied about on some posts...

The area was a multi-religious and multi-ethnic area pre-48, and so in that sense, many parties hold legitimate claims to being there.

Creating an apartheid state after ethnically cleansing and displacing a huge population does not a legitimate claim make. From its inception, Israel has been explicitly about exclusion, death, and utilizing a racialized Other as method of statecraft and control.

That Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other groups have the right to be there is obvious, but the right of one of the best-funded militaries in the world to exact pain, suffering, and systems of exclusion on an Otherized population is so manifestly not legitimate that it's painful to read both sides arguments.