Israel to World: "Suck It."

FP and move on

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Saturday, 7 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Way ahead of you. Everyone here please do this.

Pretty good thread on 1973 as a read on the present moment.

There are obvious parallels between the current attack and the 1973 war. In both cases, Arab leaders had reached out to Israeli leadership, and were rebuffed. Sadat to Golda's government, and Sinwar to Netanyahu (he even sent him a note in Hebrew)
1/

— Yair Wallach (@YairWallach) October 7, 2023

It's probably best not to be drawn into vacuum of good faith that is Israel's 'objections' to Hama's, given the key role Israel has played in securing Hamas' position in the Palestinian political consensus.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090926212507/http:/online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html

It's extraordinary to me, the extent to which it always seems possible to find an excuse (boycott, peaceful protest, prayer) to justify further escalations of the quotation barbarism visited on the people of Palestine.

I'm horrified by the violence visited on civilian populations in Israel and Palestine but it's obvious who has borne the brunt of this violence and it's also obvious that the only way to end it is to end the relentless and illegal dispossession experienced by the Palestinians. That is, there is a simpler solution readily available to Israel, which is not offering bad faith ultimatums.

otm

US mideast policy is now so firmly bound and chained to Israel and Israel's domestic policy is now so firmly committed to endless land grabs for new settlements, water grabs, violent repression and reprisals, that it feels impossible to envision any peace offers coming from those sources that don't amount to forcing the Palestinians to ratify those genocidal policies in return for essentially nothing but their right to continued existence. But when they resist they are told they are totally justifying those genocidal policies against them.

plaxico otm

This is Bibi’s Gulf of Tonkin moment. He wanted it to happen so he can enact his own Final Solution for Palestinians. An absolute fucking monster

Thanks for that piece Plax

This Gazan analyst (close to Hamas) predicted with 100% accuracy 5 years ago what would happen if Israel doesn't lift its blockade.

Fayez Abu Shamala - Sep 17, 2018 pic.twitter.com/BeuTARZlIu

— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) October 7, 2023

Do we have much of an idea of how (or if) this affects the ongoing normalising/thawing of Saudi/Israel relations (and to a lesser extent relations with Morocco and UAE)?

I've also read this would have taken some degree of external support (no idea if true or not, not read much on it yet much less processed)

VHS-style politics going well over at the other place.

I must confess I perhaps don't possess the breadth of historical knowledge to justify that rather sweeping statement.. but I don't believe it was the armed struggle that defeated apartheid in South Africa..

— Justin Schlosberg (@jrschlosberg) October 7, 2023

Hospital ventilators, heart rate monitors, dialysis machines – thousands of people will die as a result of this power cut. Tell me how this is any different to Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians. https://t.co/La0aSoW4Hm

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) October 7, 2023

she was the one who was saying it was a day to celebrate, right?

Here is the clarification of the tweet:

To those accusing me of condoning rape and other atrocities: obviously I am not. I'm celebrating Palestinian armed resistance. I don't condone every act taken by that resistance, just as I wouldn't every act of eg the Ukrainian military (especially given its neo-Nazi battalions). https://t.co/uHF7VFfKbG

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) October 8, 2023

right. I guess I can't share the optimism that this will advance the struggle for freedom or end Israeli control. hundreds of innocents have died this weekend and a lot more bloodshed is coming.

that community notes "context" is deeply stupid, of course

This will not change the status quo and even will just reinforce it, at the expense (again) of Palestinians.

However, so far Saudi Arabia seems to be more neutral than usual which bodes well if you care for a peaceful two states solution.

hard to understand these actions just when peaceful protest was really getting results

Harry Cole (the political editor of The Sun, also an actual cuckold bc Carrie Symonds left him for her now-husband, Boris Johnson) has been instigating a pile-on against Rivkah, telling people to report her to Prevent (the police’s anti-terror org).

right. I guess I can't share the optimism that this will advance the struggle for freedom or end Israeli control. hundreds of innocents have died this weekend and a lot more bloodshed is coming.

that community notes "context" is deeply stupid, of course

― symsymsym, Sunday, 8 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Didn't get any optimism from Rivkah. And I reckon she knows many Palestinians will die.

There will never be security for Israelis.

We talk about "normalization" with the UAE and now Saudi Arabia, while hoping the world will turn a blind eye to the open-air prison we built in our backyard. Apart from the unfathomable violation of human rights, we've created a massive security liability for our own citizens.

— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) October 8, 2023

Statement from left-wing Israeli Knesset member, @ofercass. pic.twitter.com/c8hASAJ4BD

— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) October 8, 2023

Very good interview on CNN

very surprised that this interview laying out a palestinian view is on @cnn — and almost no pushback. views on israel's occupation are shifting. that's pretty clear. https://t.co/PzzDflXAL3

— Yasha Levine (@yashalevine) October 8, 2023

I really don't want to get into this, but just so silence is not taken as assent, I think a lot of you are really wrong about this, and that what Hamas did yesterday is no more a liberatory strike on behalf of Palestinian freedom than 9/11 was a liberatory strike against US imperialism. (And yes, I know there are people who do see 9/11 that way -- I don't and I don't think many of you do either.) I think Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are right about what happened; that it was a mass murder that ought to be condemned. That's it, I don't want to sit in the thread and fight with a bunch of people, just wanted to say that.

One of these days this conflict is going to breakout of the proxy war with Iran through Hamas into Israel going to war with Iran itself and then the sh1t is really going to hit the fan.

exactly. I believe almost all Palestinians are pawns in this and Gaza is being sacrificed.

I don't want to wander into conspiracy-land here, and I'm not well versed enough in this to know if I were to do so, but why did Israel intelligence not appear to know about this, and why were military forces recently relocated away from Gaza? (if that is true)

I know to attribute to incompetence and all that but they don't normally seem to be incompetent (or do they?). Hearing conflicting talk on whether this all helps Netanyahu or not also.

I really don't want to get into this, but just so silence is not taken as assent, I think a lot of you are really wrong about this, and that what Hamas did yesterday is no more a liberatory strike on behalf of Palestinian freedom than 9/11 was a liberatory strike against US imperialism. (And yes, I know there are people who do see 9/11 that way -- I don't and I don't think many of you do either.) I think Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are right about what happened; that it was a mass murder that ought to be condemned. That's it, I don't want to sit in the thread and fight with a bunch of people, just wanted to say that.

Netanyahu engineered this to basically enshrine his leadership for life and engage in all-out ethnic cleansing. Israel is Nazi Germany, and we told you this would happen

did the jews also do 9/11?

To echo everyone else here, ^ fuck off, VHS

the Universo Paralello goa trance festival (20 km from Gaza) where 260+ bodies were found & dozens (?) were taken away from by Hamas seems to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time - this year's Israeli lineup included Uk's trance musician Man With No Name and the original festival is in Bahia, Brazil, which explains the Portuguese name.

I would assume incompetence over conspiracy - using the military and intelligence apparatus for domestic repression seems likely to make it worse at doing its usual job.

Slaughtering 260+ civilians at a music festival is a horrendous crime but whose bright idea was it to have a music festival right next to the concentration camp that is the Gaza Strip?

Why are musicians still making tour stops in Israel in the first place, beyond money and the lack of conscience?

^ ^ ^

You can apply the same logic to touring America. Playing for a people in a nation doesn't necessarily entail supporting the government of that nation

In protest of apartheid, an international boycott by performers continued for years, although some, such as the Beach Boys,[3] Linda Ronstadt,[3] Cher,[3] Millie Jackson,[3] Liza Minnelli,[3] Frank Sinatra (1981),[4] Paul Anka,[4] Status Quo,[5] Rod Stewart (July 1983),[4][5] Elton John (October 1983),[4] and Queen, ignored it.

And Black Sabbath in 1987 ffs

Mookie how many concerts from international artists did you go to while the US were invading Iraq? Funding Israel? Treating native americans, trans teenagers and black people as second class citizens? Having the largest incarcerated population in the world?

Two

I think VHS just gave everyone a free pass to go on vacation in Russia.

Now that VHS has endorsed the position of my post, I would like to retract it. Touring musicians in Israel seems a pretty minor point to bring up at this point. But yes, otm that a musical festival right next to the Gaza Strip is a braindead choice

A brain dead choice shouldn’t lead to a massacre of the sort.

I don’t know the exact location of the festival but the news says Re’im which is miles from the Gaza border.

Around 3 miles, by the looks of it from Google Maps. That's pretty close!

Mookie how many concerts from international artists did you go to while the US were invading Iraq?

i'm guessing pj harvey, whatever gedge was calling his band at the time, and getatchew mekuriya? but if they'd boycotted, i'd have totally respected it

but i would posit that the USA, for all its innumerable problems -- and really a whole bunch of other countries -- is not fundamentally based on herding the 'wrong' ethnic groups into enclaves and depriving them of . . . almost everything. the USA did that to its natives for sure, and still in many ways does it to black people and immigrants. but unlike, say, israel and the south africa of yore, it is not literally defined as a homeland for . . . certain people

whataboutism isn't a trump card

It's probably not helpful playing the analogy game on this front (and I apologise for it). There is no functional equivalence between the countries. I do think overall, the US has been a far greater force of evil in the world, but proportionate to its stature? Israel is obviously a completely different beast. otm about the homeland differentiation

Some countries are not in the strong cultural position the US is in. If Tibet would become a country it would be to benefit Tibetans first and foremost and no one would bat an eyelash, same for the Kurds really. Bengalis did that, and so did a few balkans countries. If Palestine were to exist, which we will all hope it will, do you think it will be anything other than a homeland for the Palestinian people?

Also half the political spectrum of american politics is very much defining itself as homeland for certain people at the expense of others, and historically it has been a dominant way of thinking, which eventually led to the cultural position the US is in. It’s not whatabboutism, 99% of us come from countries doing evil shit, I still think we can go to concerts and enjoy our lives, why not Israelis?

It’s not whatabboutism, 99% of us come from countries doing evil shit, I still think we can go to concerts and enjoy our lives, why not Israelis?

sure, why even bother wishing anything were better

The difference is that in the US, in theory, everyone has the right to vote and everyone is under the same law and enjoys the same rights regardless of ethnicity. IN THEORY. That's not the case in the West Bank, where there's one law for the Israeli settlers and a different one for Palestinians, where Israeli settlers can vote in Israeli elections but Palestinians can't, where Israelis have a road system that Palestinians aren't allowed to use, where there are restrictions on movement for Palestinians but not for Israelis, etc etc etc.