Israel to World: "Suck It."

so glad we spend untold millions having our cops trained by IDF

Israeli media is reporting that police launched operation Law & Order to “settle the score” with Palestinian citizen who participated in uprisings during the two weeks of the war in Gaza by conducting mass arrests. The goal is 500 arrestee. Among the charges, “online incitement.” https://t.co/uMUPbSkO3e pic.twitter.com/O9YvpaLhQJ

— Abraham Gutman 🔥 (@abgutman) May 24, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/world/middleeast/palestinians-unrest-israel.html

"In interviews, many Palestinians in the West Bank said Hamas had done more to further their cause over the past 11 days of violence than the Palestinian Authority had for years.

“Hamas has once again proven to its people that it is the only political party that will stand up and fight the Israeli occupation,” said Mutaz Khalil, 30, who took part in a demonstration in Ramallah’s Al-Manar Square on Friday that Israeli soldiers later dispersed with live rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets.

Though the Palestinians’ grievances with Israel remained unsolved by the war, there had still been one crucial result, he said: Around the world, people on social media and in the streets had rallied to the Palestinian cause, forcing a small but meaningful shift in, among other places, the political debate over Israel and the occupied territories among Democrats in the United States.

“I believe that this war has reintroduced our conflict to the world,” Mr. Khalil said, “and has once again illustrated our struggle.”"

― plax (ico), Sunday, 23 May 2021 10:41 (yesterday) link

This is exactly what I was trying to say upthread, that concern trolling claims that Hamas "doesn't really have the best interests of Palestinians at heart" are DOA, because Palestinians basically have the option of taking it and being ignored or taking it and fighting back in their lopsided way that isn't "effective" in any direct sense but garners world attention. Because, as I said above, before we weren't talking about it and now we are.

In that sense, I believe Israel's approach is not only cruel but stupid in the long run, although it is a stupidity that gets papered over by a massive structural advantage.

the pessimistic side of me things that they're actually very much winning and that wannabe oppressive forces in the u.s., notably the ones in power now, are taking note. they wouldn't be above doing this shit to the underclasses here.

in fact, are doing it, in a much softer, slower, quieter, more broadly distributed way.

yeah I was about to make a very boring and obvious post!

israel didn't invent any of this of course

i tend towards pessimism in general and in this case it's v easy especially given the complicity of basically everything where most/all of us live... but there is *so much* international solidarity with palestine (largely unaffiliated with or in spite of the familiar institutions of The Left as recognised in this part of the world, for all that they like to take credit after the fact...) which isn't going away in spite of all the intensifying repression and censorship, and for everything I see there is so much more going on that's invisible to me and people like me, so many people who have been through hell still have hope for liberation so why shouldn't I(/we)? and fatalism about the inevitability of the worst can so easily become a sort of justification for it as we've seen over and over on so many issues

that's a nice thing to read, ty.

Thanks for your posts in this thread, plax, was camping for the weekend, but many OTM posts.

since we're doing patronising map-making prescriptions though, if anyone is interested this is a very good resource by Forensic Architecture showing the history of israel palestines changing 'borders' since 1967. Eyal Weizman who founded forensic architecture is israeli and his book 'hollow land' is a brilliant discussion of this topic.

https://conquer-and-divide.btselem.org/map-en.html

― plax (ico), Monday, 17 May 2021 06:59 (one week ago) link

The above is from way upthread now but i just want to thank plax so much for posting this.

This weekend I gathered my family and read the entire presentation to them word for word, scrolling down and watching the maps reveal, onion-like, the layers upon layers of unremitting and comprehensive dismemberment of Palestinian space.

The effect was profound... especially on my daughter's boyfriend, whose first cousins are settlers.

Oh and I went ahead and ordered Hollow Land.

Amazing book, I join the recommendations upthread.

Basma Ghalayini, editor of Palestine+100: Stories From a Century After the Nakba, had this to say in an NYT Guest Essay titled "A Gazan’s View on Hamas: It’s Not Complicated," two days ago:

If any party other than Hamas were in power in Gaza right now, it might have tried to lobby for international support for the Palestinians of East Jerusalem a few days or weeks longer before launching rockets on Israel. But seeing its fellow countrymen and women made homeless, time and time again, would ultimately have forced the hand of even a non-Hamas government in Gaza, either drawing it into the fight or making it so unpopular for not getting involved that it’d be forced out of power. That’s why to focus on Hamas is to miss the point, and to reinforce the myth that the conflict is, in some fundamental manner, about the group. The conflict is about the Israeli occupation.

For those able to breach the paywall, here's the link

It shouldn't be like this:

A birthday party among the ruins in Gaza - Palestine pic.twitter.com/DVWP7KYqTq

— Aseel Mustafa (@AseelMustafa_) May 26, 2021

https://shtpost.substack.com/p/when-they-fartlow-we-farthigh

Oh cool bullying apologism.

even Rachel Riley and David Baddiel have kept up a dignified silence on this one

Oh cool bullying apologism.

― Van Horn Street, Friday, May 28, 2021 6:25 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is as disingenuous as Eve Fartlow's accusations of a "digital pogrom" being perpetrated against her. Guess what? In the real world, if you hold shitty opinions and voice them publicly, people have the right to mercilessly make fun of you for being a shitty person and an absolute fool. If that's what constitutes a "pogrom," then I wonder what Fartlow knows of actual pogroms throughout history. Not much, evidently.

when someone tells VHS to "go and jump in the fucking lake" he says this is despicable, these internet bullies are making a coordinated effort to actually drown me!

This is as disingenuous as Eve Fartlow's accusations of a "digital pogrom" being perpetrated against her. Guess what? In the real world, if you hold shitty opinions and voice them publicly, people have the right to mercilessly make fun of you for being a shitty person and an absolute fool. If that's what constitutes a "pogrom," then I wonder what Fartlow knows of actual pogroms throughout history. Not much, evidently.

― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Friday, May 28, 2021 11:32 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t agree with Bartlow at all, and my disagreement doesn’t make her a shitty person. Mainly, I just don’t agree that society is better when you mercilessly make fun of people you disagree with. Obviously (to me), it doesn’t constitute a pogrom, but mob mentality bullying really doesn’t build any sort of positive outcome for anyone involved.

Calzino, I have asked time and again to leave me alone, you should think about what harassing me online says about yourself.

Any person who tweets about the trauma of seeing “free Palestine” instead of “free parking” should be mercilessly cyberbullied until they delete Twitter forever.

she is a ridiculous person not worth defending, not even on some anti-bullying trip

It's 2021. Being a journalist or opinion writer on twitter means people are going to yell at you. If you don't realize this by now you have no business writing anything.

For real. My last name rhymes with "bunt" so I tread lightly on twitter

I think when you are going to use "pogrom" and just empty it of all meaning "Fartlow" is the v least as a comeback, some of her tweets are pure quadrupling down on horrible positions for clicks.

Charitably I'd say she isn't well, someone should stop her from posting.

Someone should stop all of us from posting

Or perhaps, you know, maybe you don’t need to engage with her at all.

I will never log off.

xp people aren't going to do that when you are mis-using words like pogrom to talk about online drama. Most aren't going to stand it so maybe you should reflect and not post at all.

Obviously (to me), it doesn’t constitute a pogrom, but

as she has no doubt noted herself, ignoring trolls does not work, especially when said trolls have a professional journalism gig to help spread their hate

Why not engage with her?

btw she retweeted this, so calling her Fartlow feels kind to me

pic.twitter.com/3WYoapYbfH

— Imshin #StandWithIsraellyCool (@imshin) May 26, 2021

what the fuck is that hashtag

Why not engage with her?

― rob, Friday, May 28, 2021 12:46 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It gave her her largest platform yet? What good did it bring except the satisfaction of a funny ‘dunk’ ? I mean engaging with her could be in the form of good arguments and whatnot but calling her ‘Fartlow’ really does not provide anything. It’s just hatred, and she gains from it, and will double down, and then cyberbullies will go one step further and etc.

There is a logic of hatred at hand and it keeps growing and participating in that fuels the hatred, apologising for cyberbullying fuels that hatred, it is a stupid zero sum game.

Guys we’re getting lessons on how to deal with trolls from.... Van Horn Street

The calls are coming from inside the house!

Disagreements happen all the time in society and are not trolling.

but when they happen here on the internet, one must always land a zinger for the "Guys"

She’s not a troll, imo, she sincerely believes that the West is at risk of falling to radical Islamists who are gearing up for pogroms and people on the internet making fun of her are, in the analogy she uses, like the punks in Independence Day welcoming the alien invaders and getting vapourised for their naïveté. When Douglas Murray makes that argument, it’s because he’s a cynical fascist who knows it’ll further his political and financial aims. I get the impression when she makes it, she’s genuinely scared. idk how people are meant to respond to it in a useful way but the journalists and politicians who have been signal boosting her for the last eighteen months as a ‘critic of the left’ should be ashamed of themselves.

actual pogroms took place in Israel a couple weeks ago and instead of acknowledging that, she'd rather complain about fart jokes

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/technology/israeli-clashes-pro-violence-groups-whatsapp.html

fwiw, troll used to mean someone who parachuted into a forum and deliberately pushed people's hot buttons just for the sake of their own private amusement. The original trolls competed to create the longest series of baffled or outraged responses, based on the fewest posts of their own. it seems a shame it now means nothing more than 'someone I find disagreeable'.

I think it's less trolling these days than grifting (for clicks/substack or gofundme bucks/sympathy) from right wingers at least

gotta love this analogy from an article she tweeted:

https://spectator.us/topic/seth-rogen-jewish-problem-zionism-eve-barlow/

Those fortunate enough to be spared a daily bath in the sewers of Twitter may need to be filled in. Seth Rogen is to comedy as Chapo Trap House is to Henry Kissinger: a kind of stoned, dirtbag antidote to adulthood. He specializes in depicting that saddest of American male specimens, the pot-smoking, pot-bellied, moob-stricken man-child.

Hate to be a pot smoker with the wrong kind of body, when I could be...Henry Kissinger

very confusing analogy

this person is paid to write?

Starting to think "Fartlow" was being too kind.

how dare she slander "so not gonna happen" guy in that way

she didn't write that