Israel to World: "Suck It."

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.

And yet the US actually funds Israel and its apartheid regime in the WB itself. Do you need the entire list of awful regime change and support the US has done?

So why are musicians still making tour stops in the US in the first place, beyond money and the lack of conscience?

I don't think there's really a moral binary here, it's possible to believe that Israel's abandonment of even the pretense of a two-state solution and its sad slide into becoming just another brutal right-wing fundamentalist state in a region already full of them is the single greatest contributor to the ongoing crisis AND that murdering and kidnapping people because of the actions of their government is terrible.

There aren't any good guys here imo, just a lot of victims who may have varying levels of what we might consider "innocence" but regardless of that mostly just want to live their lives and don't "deserve" to be killed. Anyway, I have no doubt that before this particular round is over, Israel will see to it that the civilian casualty count is as lopsided as it always is in this unbelievably stupid, destructive and avoidable conflict.

America and Israel are both rogue terrorist states that the world is ultimately better off without. There.

the key issue is that there is a palestinian-led boycott movement with the aim of ending the occupation, quite directly comparable to the anti-apartheid movement.

“Violent resistance is immoral, you should only act non-violently.”

“No, not like that!”

Violent resistance against an army and killing and raping civilians are two different things, Hamas does both, if you think the latter it’s justifiable you are as psychopathic as Irgun soldiers.

You have to be a psychopath to support caging and segregating Palestinians. Israelis treat them like subhumans, and it’s little wonder they’ve revolted. You can only poke a hornet’s nest before you get stung, asshole

Listen, I am not even against killing IDF soldiers or bombing military targets.

I do not support the occupation nor the blockade and I believe in a peaceful two states solution. It is not exactly a controversial position.

Whereas you seem to be this freaking close of justifying the killing and raping of innocent civilians.

Think about it for two minutes.

And if you believe that killing hundreds of civilians is going to help Palestinians gain any sympathy throughout the world and from ~the major partners in the peace process, you are wrong.

who are you talking to?

You cared more about fucking greenhouses than civilians at the start of this. Fuck off xp

And I wouldn't moralise unless you've been in a concentration camp for 20 years.

Though I imagine many of you would happily be a pawn of Hamas and he called a terrorist if you had the chance to tear a fence down that kept you from your home for decades.

"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.)"

Even with that caveat the comparison with 9/11 is absolutely vile. That attack was solely aimed at civilian targets. This was not.

Please don't reply to this. Keep your mouth firmly shut.

Please don't reply to this. Keep your mouth firmly shut.

You are justifying the killing of 700 civilians, even knowing full well the consequence of this mass murder will be an even higher death toll for palestinians.

This is how much you hate jews.

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.

I know it normally makes sense to assume incompetence, but a state that spends as much of its budget on military and intelligence as Israel does, and takes it as seriously as Israel does, to move military personnel in such a way that a large scale operation coincided with comparatively minimal defence seems out of character (the fact it also occurred as a music festival was in such an odd location feels more like a mix of coincidence and opportunity, doesn't exactly help, what a truly bizarre location to put a festival)

Anyway, not saying I think its one thing or another, I have no idea. I'm mainly looking for someone credible to cover the hows and whys of this particular operation. I'm not particularly familiar with good analysts on this

(xp) I've kept my mouth shut so far but you are an absolutely vile cunt who should just fuck off and go and troll away somewhere a long long way from here.

You cared more about fucking greenhouses than civilians at the start of this. Fuck off xp

― xyzzzz__, Monday, October 9, 2023 3:04 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It’s a point of contention for Gazans in their protests against Hamas as recently as a few months ago so yes it freaking matters, 3000 greenhouses matters when there is a food security issue you idiot.

By the way I don't see how this "benefits" Netanyahu one iota. One of the main reason - if not the main reason - Netanyahu has been electorally so successful is the idea that he's strong on defence, so even Israelis who don't like him have voted for him on the past. Now he's presided over the biggest security and intelligence disaster on Israel's history, having spent the last few months attacking Israeli democracy and alienating vast numbers of Israeli citizens, reservists and the security forces