Israel to World: "Suck It."

I believe there's an emotional aspect in being singled out that should not be underrated, there's a feeling of victimhood considering the coverage of the P/I conflict has long overshadowed other conflicts despite its relative small proportion in size, so it works very well just for any politician to just shout outrage in order to get votes and I don't think any of this will have a direct impact in changing policies in Israel. I honestly do think it would have been more effective it if stopped selling ice creams throughout the whole country and not just the OT and yeah, as long as we are arm-chairing here, and yeah, I do believe they if they really cared for anything but their bottom line they would be a little less timid to boycott other deserving nations.

plaxico OTM

what current canadian policy do you believe a ben and jerry's boycott would be attempting to end?

xp

I wonder if any company in the 80s who announced South Africa boycotts met the same avalanche of what-abouts

I wonder if any company in the 80s who announced South Africa boycotts met the same avalanche of what-abouts

Palestinians in power, today and for the many centuries prior

lol come on

(xp) They didn't need US states do that with Thatcher in power in the UK.

I wonder if any company in the 80s who announced South Africa boycotts met the same avalanche of what-abouts

Yet another part of conservative dogma was that a liberal double standard was being practiced against South Africa. "Gorbachev can kill as many Afghans as he likes," complained National Review on July 18, 1986, "by a factor of perhaps 500 to 1 over deaths in South Africa, and no House vote imposes 'sanctions' on him. Let's kick the midget." The August 2, 1985, Wall Street Journal opined that "the nuclear-freeze movement having vanished from the headlines, bashing the Boers has suddenly become the approved outlet for demonstrating your own morality." Dinesh D'Souza, writing in the August 20, 1985, New York Times, stated that liberals were "preoccupied more with ideology than with people" in their call for sanctions. He claimed that if liberals were consistent, they would apply the same arguments to South Africa that they applied to the Soviet Union: "the South African people are not monsters, as they are often portrayed, but 'people just like us.' " Of course, D'Souza failed to realize that this is exactly what conservatives were saying about South Africa.

The most sustained charge of hypocrisy was developed by Adam Wolfson in the organ of the Heritage Foundation, Policy Review, in the fall of 1985. Wolfson began by making the rather obvious point that South Africa was scarcely the only country in Africa systematically to violate human rights. Ethiopia, Burundi, Angola, and Zaire were also grievous offenders. "Americans," wrote Wolfson, "who call for freedom and democratization in South Africa (should) think about the best ways of achieving these goals in the rest of the continent as well." Wolfson granted that the "suppression of blacks in South Africa is in some ways more systematic than in most other African countries" but also contended that "in other respects, South Africa is freer than most African countries." In essence, the charge of hypocrisy was a recipe for inaction. The fact that other countries were violating human rights was something many liberal activists may have preferred to ignore, but conservatives were never particularly exercised about those human rights violations except in the context of defending South Africa.

Lot of depressing continuity there

thank you for the excerpt Yellow Kid!

charge of hypocrisy is a recipe for inaction huh

the oblivious (if that’s the right word) racism of this:

”*the South African people* are not monsters, as they are often portrayed, but 'people just like us.' "

But these are the same people who respond to Communist totalitarianism - which, unlike South Africa's system, deprives all of its citizens of human rights

if HALF the people are free ALL of the time, isn’t that better than NONE of the people being free ANY of the time?? LOGICK!1!11!!

charge of hypocrisy is a recipe for inaction huh

― symsymsym, Thursday, 22 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

That's how VHS likes it

Patrolling West Bank Just Not Same Without Big Cone Of Chunky Monkey In Hand https://t.co/6vhK0VtvLU pic.twitter.com/ZLGacOFjaY

— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 23, 2021

do they not have the money to pay for their own Dome of Iron?

or it's just the easiest way to funnel money to the USA contractors that bribes the politicians?

At this point I think it’s more the latter, as I don’t think Israel is really as dependent on US aid as it once was.

My neighbor used the neighborhood WhatsApp group to ask people to support iron dome which really annoyed me. It’s supposed to just be for help with flooded basements and giveaway stuff and events. Everyone seems to have ignored it though.

maybe his basement is flooded with US defense contractors and lobbyists

"Aw, jeez honey, Raytheon's coming through the floors again!"

I just saw a thing with Max Blumenthal where he was claiming Iron Dome was "actually an offensive weapon," the logic being that arms parity normally leads to detente but Iron Dome prevents there being any kind of parity and prevents Israel from having to face consequences from its aggression, and tbh this logic strikes me as dumb as shit. There would be no arms parity with or without Iron Dome, for one thing, and if you didn't have Iron Dome you'd just have more rockets falling on and killing or maiming Israeli civilians, which would in turn mean greater demands from the populace for retaliation against Gaza.

this logic strikes me as dumb as shit.

Israel passes a budget. This government has certainly been more effective at, you know, actually governing the country than I would have imagined.

I feel like in the US the current coalition is more popular in the US with Democrats than with Republicans because He's Not Netanyahu and I feel like the fact that Bennett is in fact extremely right-wing is not very widely grasped. It's a different story if Lapid becomes PM but will this thing really last until August 2023?

It didn't. Sort of astonishing to me how little attention is being paid to the fact that there's ANOTHER election in Israel and it could very well bring an extremely fucked-up group of people into positions of real power -- like, Netanyahu but dependent for the survival of his government on people three levels more fucked up than Netanyahu.

what would you have attention-payers do about it?

Nothing. We can do v little, it's a discussion board?

But yes I read this report on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/israel-election-far-right-itamar-ben-gvir

Didn't expect Bennett to apparently quit politics completely.

It’s not really surprising that this guy is doing well given the way politics has been going over there for quite a while.

🧵1/5 Today, as Israelis go to vote in the Zionist regime’s general elections remember that all the Israeli political parties support the continued oppression of Palestinians & despite what some will have you believe “centrist” Lapid is not better than Netanyahu.

— Dr. Yara Hawari د. يارا هواري (@yarahawari) November 1, 2022

Despite what some will have you believe, Lapid is better than Netanyahu

In what way?

better hair

in light of their current hard right reactionary politics, it's v depressing to recall that Israel has a stockpile of nuclear bombs, whose reality they consistently deny so that, among other things, they don't have to make public statements about their policy concerning when they'd use them.

this is gonna get really fucked up

Netanyahu, Kahanist ally agree to nix Knesset ban on parties inciting racism https://t.co/OqoIiwehlu

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) December 22, 2022

this is all very bad!

What what is so racist that it’s banned from the Knesset?

Despite what some will have you believe, Lapid is better than Netanyahu

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, November 1, 2022 1:50 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

In what way?

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, November 1, 2022 3:54 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sadly we're all going to find out and this sucks really hard for Israel and Zionism.

And obviously sucks for everybody else in the region, too, I should have said.

I wish this weren't happening.

Lapid/Gantz and their ilk are all committed to preserving the terrible status quo for the occupied territories. But Ben Gvir can still make everything way more fucked up, particularly for Arab citizens of Israel and any remaining Israelis that oppose this slide into fascism. It's almost worse that this is happening because Netanyahu needed to shield himself from legal consequences for his corruption.

When you've lost Marty Peretz.....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/02/wieseltier-peretz-berman-walzer-israel-netanyahu/

Government of Israel to Israel: "Suck It."

The attack on Huwara is so disgusting. And half the government actively cheering it on

https://www.972mag.com/huwara-pogrom-settlers-elimination/

Just fantastic timing on this rollout, 10/10

News: Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last night that he is launching an organization called Progressives for Israel.

“I am going to call the question for Democrats,” he said. “Do you stand with Israel or do you stand against Israel, because silence is not an option.” pic.twitter.com/SiZCz45syb

— Matthew Kassel (@matthewkassel) March 14, 2023

Do you stand near Israel, or do you rub yourself against Israel?

I get why Cuomo's trying to rehab himself, but how on earth would anyone else think having him on your side is a good thing?

noted progressive Andrew Cuomo

Seems a very weird time to demand a binary answer -- are the hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching in the streets waving Israeli flags and denouncing the government of Israel "standing with Israel" or "standing against Israel"?

yeah this whole 'valid critique of Israel's state policies = antisemitism' is getting really old