Israel to World: "Suck It."

Right, Fetchboy? Right?

My longer post above is probably true of a whole lot of people who also are aghast and CARE but feel hesitant to step into this discussion in a public way - the people who seemingly "are going about their business like it's any day or any week".

A billionaire private equity firm CEO is calling on the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania to resign and for donors to "close their checkbooks" to the school over what he says is their failure to sufficiently condemn antisemitic events on campus prior to Hamas’ terror attack on Israel.

Rowan took issue with a Palestinian literature festival held on UPenn’s campus Sept. 22-24 and featured several alleged antisemitic speakers, writing: "It took less than two weeks to go from the Palestine Writes literary festival on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus to the barbaric slaughter and kidnapping of Israelis.

War makes reporting very hard, but we were talking upthread about asking for verification. The account that posted that also reposted Hamas propaganda about how nicely Hamas is treating the Israeli babies and small children they took hostage.

xp

Raymond, one can easily get lost in "a retaliation for an attack that was in retaliation for an attack that was in retaliation for an attack that was in retaliation for an attack."

I would love to live in a world that was less about "who started it?" And more about "who'll stop it," but that isn't the world we inhabit.

Also, I'd like to request that when criticizing the actions of Hamas or the Israeli government we refer to them as such and not as "the Palestinians" or "the Israelis"

My mind spins out of control any time I try to work through the history and implications of the conflict, but it's not hard to think that targeting civilians can't possibly good, period. And if anyone says "well nothing else works!" I would say "If this is 'working' maybe we should go back to things not working."

Man alive otm

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” pic.twitter.com/aI6Y0o1YuP

— Hammam Farah (@therapisthammam) October 13, 2023

I'm just shocked that the West is standing with a call for 1.1M people to move out because of their ethnicity. Even the UN is still stuck on "but humanitarian crisis". Where are these people going to go? Egypt ? Jordania ? Lebanese border ? Refugee camps ? Europe ?

Always suspected the TikTok bass-kick-synth-arpeggio would be the musical signature for end-times dystopia, but it's still a grim exclamation point every time

Also, I'd like to request that when criticizing the actions of Hamas or the Israeli government we refer to them as such and not as "the Palestinians" or "the Israelis"

otm, I make a point to separate out Hamas and Likud from the rest of the population when I can, but I haven't seen anyone on my feed doing that, and it's been most disturbing by a few individuals who posted at length why we should support Israel while never referring to Palestinians or Hamas by name, only referring to inhuman monsters who have "sworn destruction of the Jewish people," etc., and I want to ask "are you referring to Hamas or all Palestinians" but I don't think the resulting social media shouting match would be constructive. In light of Isaac Herzog's comments, I got a bad feeling they're on the same page.

I'm just shocked that the West is standing with a call for 1.1M people to move out because of their ethnicity. Even the UN is still stuck on "but humanitarian crisis". Where are these people going to go? Egypt ? Jordania ? Lebanese border ? Refugee camps ? Europe ?

This really is turning into the American right's mental invasion of Iraq that was speciously justified by 9/11, with the same lop-sided reprisal.

Egypt is reportedly not opening their borders to refugees

Surely the argument that all Palestinians are responsible for teh actions of Hamas must extend to all Israelis are responsible for the shelling and whatever other activity has been aimed at teh Palestinians. Which is surely a circular set up. & needs to berecognised and somehow stepped back from.

Though think that the blinkered perspective is going to -prevent the Israelis from seeing how if taht was seen to apply equally one could surely only have one conclusion. THough doesn't excuse anything.

JKust been running through my head the old story about onee side killing members of the other just lead to further recruitment with an eye on revenge . Which I think I've heard said about recruitment to IRA and several other long term feud sewt ups.

It wasn't so long ago there were people from all over the world signing up with Isis because they were out there killing people

israel bombs the convoys it told to head south to safety https://t.co/OU75MHN4Nn pic.twitter.com/N7yYHBRFYw

— Tate James 📵 (@tatejamesdotcom) October 13, 2023

Also, I'd like to request that when criticizing the actions of Hamas or the Israeli government we refer to them as such and not as "the Palestinians" or "the Israelis"

― Chyiv Kyiv (Fetchboy), Friday, 13 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

The Israeli state is committing genocide and there will might be significantly smaller number of Palestinians in a few weeks.

My apologies if I don't mind my language now and then.

But China are the repressive regime.

what even is the point of book publishing pic.twitter.com/VVXfR9aFM1

— miri (@miri_yam_) October 13, 2023

Just been running through my head the old story about one side killing members of the other just lead to further recruitment with an eye on revenge

One of my frustrations with the peace process is that even if a deal is ever reached, it'll take at least a generation of peace or at least consistent actions towards that end to convince people that everyone can co-exist and that the violence and bigotry indoctrinated into anyone can be seeped out with generational change. Imagine if by some miracle that happened with a different Israeli government 16 years ago or if Rabin hadn't been assassinated - instead, if you were a child in 2007 who just went through 16 years of apartheid, think of the anger or resentment that produces, and how many people that probably fucks up psychologically.

Gaza residents organise dozens of protests refusing to evacuate chanting “we prefer to die and not to be humiliated” #Gaza pic.twitter.com/2x2hcJCJqG

— Sameh Habeeb (@Samehahabeeb) October 13, 2023

This really is turning into the American right's mental invasion of Iraq that was speciously justified by 9/11, with the same lop-sided reprisal.

― birdistheword, Friday, 13 October 2023 18:06 (two hours ago) link

I don't really think this is an apt comparison. Iraq literally had nothing to do with 9/11. Hamas actually killed over 1200 people and kidnapped another 150 including children and babies.

Yeah, my mistake - I was thinking of the rationale for inflicting far more harm in retaliation, but it's a poor comparison when those details aren't similar.

Here's Jonathan M. Katz's write-up where he makes this sobering observation:

"...half of Gaza’s population is under 18, and nearly 40 percent is under 15. What happens now will shape the next decades of life in Gaza, Israel, and beyond; how many grow up in both places believing, as Netanyahu does, that the only path to survival and freedom is through violence, casting new iron walls of their own."

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/10/13/breaking-news/thai-and-filipino-workers-get-caught-up-in-israel-hamas-war/

The number of Thais affected by the tragedy stood out in lists of non-Israeli nationals affected by the violence: Thailand’s foreign ministry Thursday said 21 Thais are believed dead and 14 wounded. Sixteen were believed to have been taken hostage.

Survivor Chatree Chasri left his home in northeastern Thailand in 2019 to work in Israel as an agricultural laborer to pay off debts and provide for his wife and two children back home in Nakhon Phanom. Foreign work is a common path for Thais from the country’s economically disadvantaged rural areas, especially the northeast.

Working under a government-to-government agreement, the 38-year-old has been farming tomatoes and cauliflower for the past four years in the southern Israeli town of Mivtahim, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from Israel’s border with Gaza.

Despite the occasional shelling and rocket attacks that sent him running for cover, his life at the farm had been OK until Saturday, he said from Israel in a phone interview with The Associated Press. Now he says he wants to come home, and never go back to Israel.

Chatree was shot several times in his hip shortly after Hamas launched its rocket attacks and shock ground offensive into southern Israel, killing hundreds of people and capturing more than 100 who were hauled back to Gaza as hostages.

Chatree was using a toilet at the farm where he works with other foreign laborers when he suddenly heard gunshots.

“The sounds came closer and bullets went through the wall of the toilet,” he said, recalling the moment he was hit. He then saw two gunmen making their way into the workers’ living quarters and open fire, so the workers fled outside to hide.

Vibhavadi Vannachai, a Thai expatriate who has lived in Israel for nearly two decades and is coordinating with Israeli authorities to help the Thai workers, fears the number of victims may rise.

Vibhavadi, originally from Nong Bua Lamphu province in Thailand’s northeast, works as an interpreter in a legal office whose cases mostly involve resolving disputes between Thai workers and their employers.

She said abuse and violations of their rights are common, with many bound by years-long contracts but cheated of their wages. Many are forced to work long hours and are beaten if they refuse. Some have to live in “quarters that are not fit for human beings,” she said.

Vibhavadi helped find temporary accommodations for Chatree and Padoong Bootmo, a 26-year-old Thai worker shot on Saturday who said the potato and yam farm where he works in Yesha was raided twice by gunmen and then burned down.

Padoong said in a phone interview he had been able to send 40,000 baht ($1,100) home each month. He might under the best of circumstances make less than half that doing the same job in Thailand, but he said he doesn’t want to stay in Israel anymore.

Almost laughed.

Berlin now banned a Jewish protest against the escalation in Palestine, saying there is a big risk of antisemitism (!) https://t.co/ksJ0Zcpzfq

— s 🦦 (@unitas_spiritus) October 13, 2023

tbf they've got a lot of experience with antisemitism over there

can’t even say who killed their own staff member https://t.co/mqPAuATzv7

— Nihal | نهال (@nihalist___) October 13, 2023

tbf they've got a lot of experience with antisemitism over there

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.), Friday, 13 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Very true.

Biden: It's also a priority for me to urgently address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza… We can't lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and the appalling attacks pic.twitter.com/oHybsZBvC7

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 13, 2023

Thank you Joe

This, on the uses of grief, is stirring and clear. https://t.co/7O94v03ftC

— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) October 13, 2023

'addressing the crisis' is such a vague and bloodless bit of diplomatic language. what's that supposed to mean in real terms?

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-joshua-leifer/

I don’t have a ton to say about this situation in general, but I appreciate that there are thoughtful people like gabriel winant out there

that is a very good piece

as for Germany there's nothing that country finds more threatening than Jewish people who question the civic religion or are insufficiently impressed by remembrance culture - anti-(or not pro- enough)zionist Jews are persecuted with a unique fervour compared to "ethnic Germans" with the same views - it's repulsive

Biden is such a disgusting coward, but same with the EU and the UK leadership responses, the UK is barely even a serious country these days. Talking about deporting foreign students with a Palestine flag on their social media. Just sick deranged people, cowardly people in positions where you need people who have the desire to prevent planned humanitarian catastrophes.

“You can’t cure killed babies with more dead babies. We need peace.”

The son of a missing Israeli peace activist says that his mother would be mortified by the situation in Gaza, and that vengeance is not a strategy. pic.twitter.com/soKJ76nfGc

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 13, 2023

the son of Vivian Silver, the Canadian peace activist taken hostage

Chris Hayes is trying, he’s really trying, to reframe the narrative within the cramped confines of prime time corporate media, and a personality (his own l)that doesn’t exactly relish confrontation (see his persistent-if-gentle pushback at Cory Booker’s frothing-at-the-mouth hawkishness yesterday for example). Daniel Levy was interviewed on the show tonight and in one fell swoop cut through a week’s worth of CNN-MSNBC mostly parroting the Netanyahu framing of the conflict. I could be wrong , but I felt as though Hayes had him on to say what he can’t quite bring himself to say.

I am on a train & the people in seats close to me have been talking incessantly for 30 minutes about their holiday plans all over the world, the latest expensive skin treatments they’ve had & the musicals they’re going to — George Habash’s words from 1970 are ringing in my ears: pic.twitter.com/SXNqodPU9u

— Louis Allday (@Louis_Allday) October 14, 2023

on the train on a saturday morning. going to work I can only presume

The work.

march in London about to begin. thousands here demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza and an end to the occupation. pic.twitter.com/7p9kA3bLw8

— michael richmond (@Sisyphusa) October 14, 2023

If Israeli flags start flying over village greens in Northumberland and in shop windows in Derby like the Ukraine flag is, then I'd say the public would be on board with unconditional support. This feels politician led, I don't see UK public following with any fervour

But who knows, if the public gets politicised over it enough that campism kicks in, then maybe. I don't think things are necessarily as easy as all that

Agree, I don't see that happening... well, maybe at Ibrox Park.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-scotlands-fiercest-soccer-rivalry-features-israeli-vs-palestinian-flags/

That was meant for the Labour thread not this one

xp some prime campism there at Ibrox

Judith Butler in the LRB

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n20/judith-butler/the-compass-of-mourningl

Von der Leyen getting pretty sharply criticised by the Irish Times, a paper about as right wing and pro EU as they come, almost surprising to me.

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/13/as-von-der-leyen-visits-israel-is-the-commission-overstretching-its-powers/

Her approach has caused deepening unease within European institutions and in national capitals as Israel undertakes what the Taoiseach has described as “collective punishment” against the people of Gaza, cutting off water, food and electricity, and now ordering over a million people to evacuate in 24 hours to the alarm of the United Nations.

i've seen a few pieces, maybe upthread, maybe elsewhere, that are stressing the historic meaning of Irish neutrality and that seems to be a big factor in emphasizing the distance from von der Leyen's bullshit

That’s not it (I haven’t seen those pieces though). Irish people have historically sympathised with Palestinians. Varadkar is very right wing but is also descended from colonised people on both sides, I was honestly shocked he said that tbh.

fair point, i know about the sympathies of northern irish catholics especially. maybe the writers playing up neutrality are old tories trying to justify not jumping on team colonialism at the moment

id not call IT nor varadkar anything further than centre right- about where starmer labour is? but ofc who knows if these measures even mean anything in current environments

but was very pleasantly surprised by his comments, yes

as much perhaps about fending off the shadow of SF on EU neutrality and palestine as anything else i suspect (im not sure varadkar has individual moral positions tbh) but welcome and id say definitely much more representative of the public position than the other EU leaders ive seen

anyone have non-paywalled butler ?

https://archive.ph/NJppT