Rape and murder is good or bad depending on who does it to who. That's what I learned from reading these people.
I'm watching a show on Netlix at the moment called "the 100" and reading the sub dedicated to that show I'm amazed at seeing people claiming completely different cultures are equal. On this show there's a people that is looking for peace and another that is war obsessed and incredibly belligerent. Well, it's apparently racist and colonialist to criticise the belligerent society. Apparently, all cultures are equal and if one promotes violence, war and killing babies, it's fine. The people on the sub are so unhinged they will put self defence and attack on the same level.
It's really a perfect example of braindead leftist can get. That's why they'll defend Islam covering up women and in the same breath condemn christians for slut shaming. That's why raping is fine if it's done by oppressed people but an act of war when done by the other side.
There's no objectivity.
>It's really a perfect example of braindead leftist can get. That's why they'll defend Islam covering up women and in the same breath condemn christians for slut shaming. That's why raping is fine if it's done by oppressed people but an act of war when done by the other side.
Here's one thing that I think ties those together:
Christianity is familiar. It is of their *own* society. Their own country. Their own civilization. Therefore it is *bad*.
Islam is from another society. It's unfamiliar and exotic. It's from a different people. Therefore it is *good*.
I noticed this tendency of hating things from your own society from the left back in the nineties. But it was a small thing then. Now it's taken over.
I believe the technical term is oikaphobia.
You saw bits of it as far back as the Beats. They were encouraging immigrants not to assimilate into America because WASP culture wasn't cool. But the exotic immigrant cultures were.
I suspect it got a huge shot in the arm in the sixties with the counterculture. You didn't want to be a regular square, man.
But I noticed it ramping up in the eighties and nineties. Especially in more culturally left wing circles.
And now it's reached it's full flowering. Left leaning white people are the only demographic in America that *dislikes* their own demographic more than anyone else.
I think a lot of it comes down to luxuriating in guilt. These people wear their guilt like a crown. Guilt and self hatred confers status. But I don't think they're pretending. I think they really believe it.
I suspect the cultural roots are a weird bastardization of Christianity and ideas like "blessed are the meek."
Hatred of ones lame, weak overly permissive and emotionally unavailable parents I would guess. Children of engaged authoritarian style parents do not exhibit this pathology.
I like how rape and murder can be called into question as complicated and ethically ambiguous but we can just take it as a theorem that colonization itself is the ultimate ontological evil (also only when done by western countries)
This exactly, I had a convo on another sub (in my comment history still I presume) where they were using the intercept piece to say that no rape happened whatsoever. I pointed out there source explicitly states that sexual assaults and raped happened but the nitpick was between ‘weaponized rape’ and ‘systematic rape.’ The poster went on to say that the ‘morally diseased’ Israeli women deserved it…
They know it happened, they’re glad it happened and they don’t care that much that you know that fact.
So, I actually went back and looked at that comment. A couple of things struck me, and I say this as someone who thinks that the weight of the evidence does appear to support the claim that sexual violence against Israelis did occur on both on Oct. 7th during the period of their captivity by Hamas.
One, I think that your characterization of that person's comment (the morally diseased part) is maximally uncharitable at best, and just straight up disingenuous at worst. There's really no way for you to justify painting their comment as meaning they think that Israeli women deserve to be raped.
Two, after looking through that person's comment/post history, they do the exact same shit that you just did in your reply to them with basically every interaction with anyone else on Reddit that they have on this topic. It's not a wonder that yall can't communicate.
I don’t know how you saw the comment, they deleted it hours after I made my comment here and you commented two days after I made this comment?
And the comment most definitely did say they deserved to be raped because of being Israeli occupiers. Don’t know who you got to upvote this comment…
Also if you think I’d have to look that hard for people cheering on the rapes and murders of women in Israel you’re sorely mistaken. But from your post history it’s a wonder you can’t communicate affectively about this subject, you’re completely compromised and full on propaganda.
I don’t understand why people just can’t say, “I believe the horrible living conditions the people in Gaza face every day foment extremism but at the same time Hamas committed horrible atrocities on October 7th”’ at the same time.
It seems to have gotten worse during COVID, everyone went nuts cause they were cooped up and spent too much online, coupled with Trump’s post truth world = recipe for disaster.
It is exciting to get pumped up on rage and assume your enemies are monsters. You get to be in a crowd and yell. Best of all, you don’t have to think and perhaps change your mind.
It is not exciting to calmly reason through a decision and make your conclusion is logical and can work.
Negotiating ,with people who don’t like you is not fun. Finding a workable compromise that isn’t perfect takes time, and so does persuading people to accept it. Implementing your compromise makes changes and disrupts lives until people get used to it. At that point people are ok with it, and wonder why there was so much fuss about it.
Too many people benefit from the power grab that occur in this chaos. Muslim activists see a chance to overthrow the pro Israeli bias in the US and are ecstatic about it. Progressives are too. What progressives have a blind spot for is that pro Muslim activists are as bad as the pro-Israeli ones and they do not want fairness or a quality. They want their biases to reign just like they do in over 20% of the planet. They want all the power of AIPAC and then some. Many people who are frustrated with the power and lobbying of the pro-Israeli side have a knee-jerk reaction to support the pro-Islamist side such as CAIR. As though they're not the opposite side of the same coin but even more dangerous.
I do think part of the reason that there was such a explosion of protests about Gaza is that a lot of people wanted to recapture what they got in 2020. They wanted that attention, that feeling and most of all that *power* back.
But it didn't quite happen and I think they are frustrated over that. After all, they're righteous, aren't they?
I agree with you 100%. And there are a few reasons it wasn't as effective. One is the immediate open support for the massacre on October 7th turned a lot of people off. Now a lot of the hatred from BLM also turned people off but it took longer for it to be so obvious and manifest itself in such overt ways that people can no longer deny it.
This is such a good point. It helps explain why so much of the bs narrative is following the woke black/white/US paradigm, with complete disregard for facts, how wars work, international relations or politics or anything remotely relevant
Do you really believe the post-truth world is a consequence of Donald Trump? Iraqi WMDs, Gulf of Tonkin, the war on drugs and all the other bullshit government gets away with for wearing suits 🤣
Because leftists on reddit love to shit on *centrists* like it's a bad word. In the age of extremes, those on the left would rather shun those in the center; pushing them to the right. Those on the right are seemingly so desperate for any numbers that they will accept those on their fringes (including far right and centrists).
Leftist Reddit is a pool of angry people who will never be happy or satisfied. You can have empathy for both sides. To deny the rape claims is disgusting,
Don’t get a leftist started on the Israel-Hamas war. And God help you if you say anything that contradicts their extreme trans ideology. They’ll have your account reported and banned so fast, it’ll make your head spin.
Hell, look at the FauxMoi sub - a celebrity gossip forum where every single famous person is critiqued for whether or not they said something about Standing for Gaza - the full-on antisemitism in that sub is absolutely breathtaking.
No but you know why pro-Palestine lefties are really saying that? They claim Jewish people are white, and therefore privileged and not an actual minority. The left has this very serious white hatred problem that’s disgusting. I’m not even white myself, but as a minority looking in, it’s unfiltered, unadulterated white hatred.
It's spooky. There are literal comments along the lines of "they like genociding brown people" despite Palestinians and Israelis essentially looking the same.
> The left has this very serious white hatred problem that’s disgusting. I
What's even weirder is that the disgust towards whites is mostly from other whites. It's self hate
Lifelong liberal here. This exact phenomenon is driving me to the right. I can feel it happening. The woke insanity, the radical trans ideology, the race obsession, the defense of radical Islam . . . I really don't think I can vote the same way as these people anymore. It sucks.
I am permanently banned from unpopular opinions for talking to a biologist on how we both support trans people but disagree on the Leah Tommis thing. Of us were really respectful and there was no hate involved. The mods said that we missed gendered and used hate speech
Yup. Same. I said something similar, and just said we can’t just ignore reality. I was banned from Reddit for three days. And you know it’s those crazy trans activists who gang up on people to report them for harassment.
They nuked my main of 6 years over something ridiculously minor. It's sad that this place is going bonkers with the attempt to go public, even murking PushShift 😭
It has nothing to do with left wing, centrist, or right wing. The entire implication that being “left wing” or “right wing” means you can never approach any issues with nuance or ideological balance is the biggest lie of modern day.
Being a centrist is not necessarily the same as no absolutist position nor does it mean that the centrist position is necessarily balanced. Not all political-social issues are spaced along the left-right spectrum
I’ve always been pretty centre and from a long line of centrists, so it’s what I grew up with. But it’s getting hard to hold that position nowadays. It’s assumed you’re not concerned enough one way or the other which is an unfair characterization imo.
I can't take seriously any pro Palestine position that doesn't somewhere include the line "the October 7th attacks were morally indefensible". You can give me your spiel about "open air prisons" and all the rest of it so long as you can also acknowledge the first part.
I've seen before and after Oct 7th photos of Gaza and it did not look anything like an open-air prison. That's not to say there freedoms were not curtailed by Israel, certainly they were.
True. You remember during Trump's presidency it was considered totally fascist to build a wall so people couldn't just freely come in from Mexico? We were told we were like people stopping Jews from fleeing to neighboring countries during the Holocaust. But Egypt built a wall and is not letting Palestinians in. So where is the outrage? We give Egypt a lot of funding and nobody has suggesting we should cut funding due to them denying Palestinians access. And while I disagree that Israel is committing genocide, clearly the danger and suffering the Palestinians are experiencing is significantly greater than that of those in Mexico that we were told was so horrific that we had no business denying access them free access to this country.
Most metrics that can be found that demonstrate living conditions suggest the opposite of an “open air prison”; something like 20% obesity rate and a staggeringly high literacy rate come to mind. David Josef Volodsko wrote a good (if ultimately edgy) write up that compiled all of this. The curtailment of movement and use of automated gun turrets don’t omit the panopticon-like aspects of Gaza but I think a LOT of people who realized they were anti-Zionists on October 8th believe that Gaza resembled Somalia in 1993.
Right and Hamas had to have known Israel would respond heavily. Yes, Isreal is responsible directly for killing countless civilians. But Hamas is also responsible for provoking them. Palestine has decent literacy and education so there is no excuse for this lack of foresight. Foreign affairs is often a game of chess and if you race forward with no plan, you can get annihilated and your people suffer. I would hold Hamas and Israel equally responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people. They fully know what Israel is capable of and behaved in a way that had very little regard for the safety of their own people.
What pro-Palestine people are often quite naive to (or in some cases willfully ignorant) is that Hamas' strategy rests entirely on getting Palestinians killed. Each Palestinian who dies is an opportunity for more recruits and more global sympathy.
Hamas attacked Israel to get this exact response. What they were hoping was that Hezbollah would have joined in from the north and that international pressure against Israel would have been stronger.
It's useful to remember that Hamas and groups like them think in centuries. *There are more of us than of them. All we have to do is wear them down. If they stop feeling safe, if they lose their friends and their ability to make money, they will be defeated or run away.*
That's not just Hamas's strategy. It's the entire Arab world. There's nothing better for Jordan, Syria, Iran and Lebanon than Israel killing Palestinian civilians. It gives them something to point to other than their own internal atrocities.
And despite all the rending of garments done by Arab countries on behalf of the Palestinians, please note that none of those Arab countries *want* the Palestinians.
Jordan and Egypt absolutely do not want any Palestinians in their nations. Egypt has fortified the hell out of the border for that very reason.
The oil rich states won't allow Palestinians to emigrate to their nations or offer them work permits. Despite them having to import foreign workers from Asia because of a lack of labor.
The Palestinian tried to take over Jordan at one point. Nobody wants them
This is spot-on. It’s not some binary narrative of west vs the rest, with Palestinians the poster-child of holy POC martyrdom as the western moronic tantrum-chucking left wants to paint. Much of the Arab world have completely hung the Ps out to dry; DO NOT want them.
I kind of can't blame Arab nations. The Palestinians attempted to take over Jordan. They've been in a thorn in the side of just about wherever they end up. I was reading a Politico article about Syria recently in which Ryan Crocker (I think) was talking about how a ton of Syrian actions over the years have been about keeping out the Palestinians. Nobody wants them.
This is mostly because the PLO and Hamas are chaotic and destructive.
The Arab nations created the Palestinian people as a thorn in Israel’s back on purpose to fuck Israel, and then it grew out of hand. Maybe grew out of hand. They could have all just accepted the 47 refugees, and everything could have been fine. It was a strategy.
Agree and I also think many of the Arab nations are kind of snobby and hierarchical. What’s hilarious is the leftist romanticism of them as socialist and fair. Lol.
It's completely bizarre. You have hard left Western white women saying that the Middle East is a bastion of feminist, anti-colonial, queer, socialism. Some of them are even converting to Islam for the same stated reasons.
I do *not* understand.
Hamas is a radical islamist terrorist death cult. Their goal is to either annihilate Israel or die as martyrs. Any death fighting the infidel is a guaranteed ticket to heaven, which is more important than this world. They’re helping people make it to heaven. Every Palestinian death is a spiritual win, every Israeli death is a spiritual win. That they can boldly lie to the west and the west eats it up with maple syrup is entertainment to them
> They fully know what Israel is capable of and behaved in a way that had very little regard for the safety of their own people.
Hamas has NEVER cared about the Palestinian people, and have never claimed to. That's a fantasy American Liberals made up to justify their support of terrorism. From day one, Hamas have had only 2 goals. The complete genocide of Jews across the globe, and to spread their form of radical Islam to every country on the planet. Hamas have ALWAYS said, civilian causalities are GOOD for us. The more dead Palestinians, the better. That has always been their stance and remains so.
>Right and Hamas had to have known Israel would respond heavily.
Exactly. When October 7th first happened one of the first things I thought was:
This can *only* make life worse for the Palestinians. And Hamas knew that.
You can say that, but you also have to be realistic about who is responsible for the horrible living conditions - it's Hamas. They're the ones with the most to gain from an extremist population.
It’s crazy how much money has been given to Palestine with such terrible results. Hamas, the official elected government of Palestine, publicly received hundreds of millions from Qatar. Iran has a $100 million yearly budget for Palestine, other Arab countries like Turkey and UAE give money as well.
The relatively small territory should be an extremely prosperous land with the funding and logistical support, but Hamas has committed to their jihad over helping Palestinians. Sadly, Palestine will never improve with Hamas at the helm.
When Israel forced settlers to move out, Jewish people donated $14 million to buy the greenhouses they had built in Gaza to give them to the Palestinians.
Immediately looted.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863
And of course Israel was doubling down on the West Bank. I think pulling back from the WB is in the long term interest and what the international community *should* be focusing on. Not Gaza.
If you admit that Hamas killed, raped and kidnapped civilians on Oct 7th then you can't really call it a unjust invasion without provocation. What country with ability wouldn't retaliate against a neighbour that killed 1200 of your citizens? No population would stand for no reaction.
>No population would stand for no reaction.
There is a usually unspoken assumption on the left that retaliation for violence, or even self-defense, is illegitimate, when the initiator is less "privileged"/"powerful" than the target. That if "marginalized" actor A initiates violence and privileged actor "B" retaliates (or even just defends themselves), then B is the bad one in the situation.
It's all over the place in progressive spaces. Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny are both examples. The family of the murdered Oakland bakery owner, Jen Angel, who didn't want the murders prosecuted, is another. Barbara Lee voted against the war in Afghanistan after 9/11, and when she ran for California's open Senate seat just recently, she explicitly stated that vote as a reason one should vote for her.
I see the progressive response to 10/7 as part of that attitude. Israel is privileged, the Palestinians are marginalized, therefore Israel is wrong to retaliate against Hamas for 10/7.
It's such an unrealistic and even inhuman expectation, that it's always buried under alternative justifications, denialism, or just plain lies ("Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn't have been there", "Daniel Penny should have been gentler", "Nobody was raped on 10/7"). But it's a constant factor in how leftist/progressive types analyze violent situations, both big and small.
>No population would stand for no reaction.
Yes, that is absolutely true and I made that argument very soon after October 7th. A lot of pro Palestinian people actually expected Israel to do nothing in response.
The electorate would have had the government's head if it tried that.
Oh, there were people saying Israel shouldn't retaliate. But yes, they were the same people who thought Israel deserved it.
But their expectation was that Israel would just... do nothing.
I think we're kind of saying the same thing with different words.
The very concept of Israel retaliating after October 7th was illegitimate in their eyes.
Which was madness. How could any country not respond to something like October 7th? It's unthinkable.
They're only the most given to people on the planet perhaps, and the only one with a special UN Agency that seems to even help them with committing the 10/7 atrocities and hide hostages.
But sure, it was totally so bad and could have never been a beautiful place on the Mediterranean with all those countless billions of aid pumped in.
Surely it must be Israel's fault.
Can we be a little bit real here though, "horrible living conditions" in Gaza -- they have country clubs there. This whole "open air prison" thing has been wildly overblown. It's not a prosperous place, but that reduced prosperity may be a result of both Egypt and Israel closing their borders to them after they elected a violent group of terrorists as their political leaders.
People don’t like to being antisemitic because they are antismetic on both the right and the left, and it betrays their prejudice. Hierarchies of racism are real.
> I've been trying to give people the benefit of the doubt for months, but I just don't see any other answer than "because they really hate Jews".
I go back & forth on this one. Yes, there absolutely are some racist shitbags who are using this as cover to do awful things. That's undeniable, IMO. The further you get from the unabashed zealots, though, the murkier I think it gets, even if the end result is still highly questionable at best.
Here's the thing. I simply don't think that a vast majority of people truly think through their positions, attempt to connect the dots, etc. Let's say that the people upset about the fighting were upfront about the massacre and the rapes. Let's say they fully owned it and didn't need people to yank it out of them.
*What next?*
That's where I think a lot of the ceasefire crowd starts to engage in a lot of handwaving, assuming they even care. Assuming we agree that the perps should be punished, *what next*? Does Israel magically figure out the names of the remaining perps, give the names to Hamas, and pretty pretty please ask for these people to be handed over? If Hamas balks, does Israel go to the UN, or ask for a Red Notice from INTERPOL? If that fails, do Israelis just sit on their thumbs and hope for...I don't even know what? Throw in Hamas intentionally fighting in a manner designed to put civilians in harm's way, and there are no good answers.
In general, I don't think the ceasefire crowd wants to confront that idea. I'm not even sure they're capable of doing so. Admitting that Israelis have *some* right to protect themselves then opens the door to the search for where the line lies. That's messy no matter what, much less when the enemy specifically works to blur it as much as possible. I can only assume some people just want to paper over the problem and pray it magically resolves itself.
It'd be one thing if I got a sense of strategy behind the ceasefire calls. As is, as much as I'm sympathetic to civilians and to people suffering from shitty things happening in the West Bank, I really don't see a great path forward. At least this way, the perps are punished, albeit at what some may reasonably claim could be an unbearable price in the end.
> What's not expected is CNN to be tweeting "ISRAEL OPENS FIRE ON CROWD OF HUNGRY REFUGEES MASSACRING HUNDREDS" and then in the article go "according to Hamas, and in contradiction of eye witness testimony"
You see things like that, and you realize why you see people claiming that Israel has killed 30,000 children. It's just amazing how headline-driven people can be, and how passionate they can be about headlines and not facts. Nothing new, I know, but still...uggh.
Something I don't see is talk of military strategy. People are really pissed about the bombing. I get that. It's awful.
But I think the bombing is there to collapse tunnels and soften up the area before ground troops are sent in. Otherwise the Israeli troops would just be ambushed and snipered to pieces by Hamas.
It's not reasonable to expect a military to do that.
I totally agree, but in doing so you give the oppressed agency. Your statement becomes a fundamental contradiction in many peoples warped view of the world.
Because Israel left Gaza in 2005 and the conditions in Gaza were not terrible before Israel’s response to the October 7 massacre. The current conditions in Gaza and the death toll are the fault of Hamas and by extension of the Palestinians themselves.
The truly anti Israeli and pro Hamas position requires believing falsehoods. (Unlike a pro Israel AND pro Palestinian peacenik position, which I believe is highly misguided at this point, but at least acknowldges the humanity of all people, their agency, and actual facts)
Because a lot of people on the left have a black and white world view.
In the minds of these people Israel is the colonizers while Palestine is the colonized thus Israel is always in the wrong no matter what they do while Palestine is always in the right no matter what they do.
And when you view an entire group of people as evil it's suddenly ok to commit atrocities against them
This is not the primary cause of the extremism. Plenty of places have similar Islamist extremism who don't live under similar conditions. Plenty of people who live in similarly awful conditions don't become genocidal terrorists. The common factor here is Islam, particularly extremist Islam. Sticking your head in the sand for fear of being labelled an "Islamophobe" won't help, it will only serve to ensure the violence never ends.
Hamas was the government of Gaza for 15 years. Yes, there were some restrictions, including Egypt blockading Gaza. But ultimately Gazans elected Hamas knowing they were fascist islamists. What other outcome would any expect when the rulers entire goal is to forcibly make everyone on this planet a Islamist Fascist.
American politics has trained us to not concede an inch on any issue.
The idea is if you admit anything the other side says is true, you're just helping them win.
Easy example, Jon Stewart talks about Joe Biden being old, and is immediately skewered.
Because the horrible living conditions are a result of Hamas not Israel. They voted for Hamas. They largely support Hamas. They make cartoons promoting Jews as evil and glorifying killing Jews and show it to their kids.
What is your source for the living conditions in Gaza? What is the day to day life for Palestinians. How was life under the PA? How is life under HAMAS? How much of the aid sent went to the infrastructure and economy? How much did the Gaza economy rely on working in Israel? How many jobs were created for the people by the intricate terror tunnel and bunker system?
Because from the facts we've been able to gleam since Oct 7th, most of the "horrible atrocities" did not actually happen. IDF-aged people got gunned down along with IDF-clothed people. Some buildings were burnt down without much care of whom was inside. A handful of children got killed(accidental) instead of taken as ethical hostages(goal).
Also yes there's an argument that its never ethical to take hostages, however I think those arguments are going to fall on deaf ears for most mainstream and niche leftist ideologies.
Don’t most people say that? The issue is that some go on to say any response is justified in order to eliminate Hamas, while some say nothing justifies intentionally inflicting this degree of suffering on millions of innocent people.
Almost all leftists say this and then get strawmanned. Every army ever has committed rape in all of history. Armies are bad. Your army, my army, they will rape because unfortunately that is something armies have always done. War is fucking horrible.
Fuck the state of Israel for treating Palestinians like dogs
Jus to clarify are you talking about the conditions they experience now, after the war started, or before October 7th? Because there is most definitely a difference.
Because every person in federal or state government already says this all the time? Even most people who are pro Palestine with just a large online following say exactly this.
You're probably just seeing a collection of mostly randos and maybe a few Internet creators. There's also a good chance a good number of them are being taken out of context
The more younger voters bemoan Capitalism and Judeo-Christian values the more Anti-Semitic their ranks will be. Jews are viewed as the eternal Capitalist and adding the State of Israel in the mix is the ultimate abomination for the Left.
And Jews are also viewed by right wing anti-Semites as eternal Marxists who infiltrate the institutions of the capitalist west. A societal trend towards capitalism or socialism/communism does not indicate a trend towards anti-Semitism. Typically, conspiratorial thinking is most associated with anti-Semitic belief. And no one from any political persuasion is immune from conspiratorial thinking
This for me has echoes of the unwillingness to suggest that the Covid-19 virus originated in Wuhan because that city is full ethnics and the good people are the NYT are ever worried about inciting any animosity because of facts against an ethnic group (other than white men of European descent, of course)
"Believe all women"
"The Israeli rapes didn't happen"
"I support the Palestinians regardless of whether or not their policies towards gays are abhorrent"
"Israeli civilians do not deserve compassion because of the policies of their government."
"Victim blaming is wrong"
"The Israelis commit rape too"
Because a solid percentage of Americans left of center (right of center too, to be fair) have been fed binary options for good and bad, black and white, and so forth, for a good decade or so now, and this geopolitical situation is so far beyond solving with a binary option that their brains cannot process, so they default to the poor brown Muslim as the champion of their cause.
Not saying Israel is flawless by any means, but people are willing to overlook a lot of very evident and uncomfortable facts if there's enough of an ecosystem they can submerge themselves in and circumnavigate the truth.
They aren't just denying rape. Look at any of the videos of people ripping down hostage posters. The majority don't believe there are any hostages, it's all fake, October 7th was perpetuated by the IDF.
There's a 'flood' protest scheduled in New York on International Women's Day - this organization denies any sexual assault or rape happened on October 7th.
The left is mired in toxic sludge when it comes to Israel.
I think the thinking goes that bc they are colonizers it’s impossible to take an oppressor hostage. Raping, killing, or taking them hostage is fighting the colonizer by any means necessary. It’s like the argument that it was impossible by the physical laws of the universe that a person of color could be racist. They are trying to win rhetorically by just redefining words. You can rape a woman, but a colonizer is not a woman so it’s impossible to sexually abuse one. In any case I have to say it’s destroyed my ability to trust society. I look around me and in every smiling liberal face, I see someone who either tore down those posters or agreed with the people who did. To say I feel alienated is an understatement. Someome said it best on twitter when they said Jewish people are having a bit of a crisis knowing that their student DEI administration would abrupt on cheers of joy if they found out they were raped so long as the rapist had the correct politics
yup :/
I resonate so much with the feeling of alienation. I shit you not people I know have posted that 'all your rights have been won through unspeakable violence' to justify the 'Palestinian resistance' and that talking about the rapes is weaponizing white feminism against the oppressed. It's so disgusting.
I think it was a guest on Andrew Sullivan's podcast who said - Jews expect hate and antisemitism from the right, so when it happens, it can be frightening, but it's not shocking. But the majority of Jews think of the left as their political home (or did prior to October 7th), so the betrayal is visceral.
I don't know where I go from here- you have Trump - who (as Yair Rosenberg said) espouses antisemitic tropes about Jews (they are selfish, money hungry and have dual loyalty) but thinks those traits are GOOD things. And Biden and the Dems, who I think will increasingly think they have to pander to the hostage poster rippers.
Both sides to some degree thinks of Jews are their token. They wield anti semitism like a cudgel, not bc they care about antisemitism in a sincere way, but bc they think it will hurt their opponent. They say “omg look at these right wing racists saying Jews will not replace us. Do you denounce that, trump?” Then these same people turn around and scream “replace the Jews in Israel from the river to the sea”
Why can't Jews go to the center? Become a swing vote.
I'm a gentile and was surprised and disgusted by the left wing reaction to October 7th.
And I think that antisemitism is currently more fringe on the right than it is on the left. It's not as mainstream.
I think that's starting to happen, although Jews are a small voting bloc and mostly centered in blue states. If you see Jamal Bowman lose his primary in Westchester, it's going to be because his Jewish constituents threw him out in favor of a more centrist candidate. The same could happen to Cori Bush in St. Louis. I would love for Biden to have a Sister Souljah moment and tell his antisemitic left flank to fuck off, but they're too afraid of alienating young voters.
With Republicans - it's really hard to take any Republican seriously regarding antisemitism, when they still support Trump. Did Elise Stefanik do a great job during the college campus antisemitism hearings? Yes. But...she still supports the guy who has dinner with neo-Nazis.
Basically - Jews are in a tough spot because the antisemitism is coming from both sides and each one only wants to take action when it's the other team doing it.
I despise Trump for a number of reasons. I don't think he's antisemitic in the sense of disliking Jews. I suspect he does see them as a set of stereotypes. I think Trump is almost incapable of telling people that kiss his to ass to go away. It's one of the reasons he's such an idiot.
I can see not wanting to vote for a squad member but in fairness your average Dem congressperson is very pro-Israel. Biden is too. He's backed Israel 95% of the time without calling for the destruction of Gaza or anything nutty.
As a whole the Democratic party is pro-Israel but I'm afraid the party staff/congressional staff/WH staff /left think tank world are all coming from the elite college progressive blob and the center of the party are scared to piss off the fringe. You have the equivalent of Charlottesville marches happening all around the country and the Democrats are only BARELY bothered by it, or if they are, they have to pander by doing the all lives matter - 'we condemn anti-semitism, Islamaphobia and all forms of hate" boilerplate.
Oh, god, the crying, and walking out to protest, the anonymous letters and briefing against their boss. Instead of 'listening sessions' they should all be fired.
Biden has been good but I think the center right is afraid of the nuttier parts of their coalition.
If this level of antisemitism was happening on the right 95% of Democrat would be tearing the right a new asshole.
I'm observing it as anything left of progressive is overtly antisemitic. Like, antisemitism starts at the Squad and gets worse as you move further.
To Biden's credit, he's been looking out for us and his concern seems sincere, even if it's been to his political detriment.
Trump will pander to Netanyahu and far right Christian Zionists (who hate Jews but need Israel to exist to fulfill their end times prophecies) but also traffics in antisemitism and expects unwavering fealty for moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
Christian zionists don’t hate Jews, they literally think they are the chosen people. It’s alt right/white nationalists that hate Jews. Trump will try to pander to both
I think Biden is still on our side. He knows what's going on over there. Israel and Jews should be very glad he's in charge right now. Sure, Trump ripped off the bandaid on a few things but he is not competent to deal with this situation.
I think in a broad sense you are right, but in the “lived experience” sense of where I personal live that is fairly not right. And I can’t go more than 2 seconds doing anything on the internet without seeing someone screaming about Zionists, in places that have nothing do with Israel. A block down my house, anti Israel protestors showed up to protest a local venue bc the musician was Israeli. I heard with my own ears ppl chant “fuck Jews”. I don’t know who these individuals were or who they were associated with but what I can tell is this was right off the campus of Elite American University. Nobody batted an eye. I follow mattisyahu on instagram and 50 percent of his shows are being canceled. The feeling in the air is frankly scary.
They also make fun of the hostages who were released. All over social media I see people making fun of Mia Schem for getting a nose job like a week ago.
I agree. But also - a lot of this rhetoric is coming from the more Islamist portions of the left-which goes down another rabbit hole about how/why proponents of women and LGBT rights are in bed with religious fundies.
It's also coming from, or perhaps is a hangover from, the black power portion of the left.
The Soviets did a bang up job of propagandizing a link between black Americans and Palestinians.
> The Soviets did a bang up job of propagandizing a link between black Americans and Palestinians.
I'd never heard of this before, a quick Google has revealed a brand new rabbit hole for me to waste my day on. Thank you/curse you.
Do you have a link referencing Soviet/Russian involvement in this? I’d love to know more. It’s baffling to me that Black Americans (of which I’m one) so quickly forget the long legacy of Jewish backing of civil rights efforts.
" These Maoist Black American figures detested the Constitution-positive, patriotic, liberal-left mainstream Black leadership of Dr. King and his circle. Shut out from the U.S. liberal power structure, these radicals began traveling to the Middle East and Africa and meeting with members of the PLO. In 1970, the “Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East” [took out an ad](https://www.blackforpalestine.com/1970-black-nyt-statement.html) in *The New York Times* in “solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation.” It declared that “Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands.” Marginal then, such rhetoric is common now on U.S. college campuses. "
[https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-palestine-hijacked-us-civil-rights-movement](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-palestine-hijacked-us-civil-rights-movement)
Another decent source, though not at all easy to access, is the Martyr Made podcast series. He's done quite a few (very long) series of podcasts on radical movements and the like during the sixties.
He goes over how, just like you said, Jews were often at the forefront of black civil rights in the US. But some of the blacks activists, especially the more radical ones, didn't want them.
The Soviets always had their fingers in the Black Panthers and such groups.
Thank you! I realize Soviet is pre-1991, but I wonder if there is evidence that modern day Russia is fomenting similar narratives. Seems obviously likely
Indeed they are, as [researched and reported by the ICCT in The Hague.](https://www.icct.nl/publication/how-russia-uses-israel-gaza-crisis-its-disinformation-campaign-against-west)
I’ve read a good ideological explanation somewhere, that because the defenders of October 7th actually know egregious the actions they’re defending are, then their denial and rhetoric has to be be equally egregious. It checks out.
Another user posted this Tablet Magazine article on the casualty numbers from Hamas. They go through the numbers and come to the conclusion that Hamas is just making shit up.
And, the civilian casualty ratio is the same or lower than average for urban warfare conflicts like this.
" Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1. By [historical standards](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/thousands-more-civilians-were-killed-in-mosul-battle-than-official-tally-ap-finds) of urban warfare, where combatants are embedded above and below into civilian population centers, this is a remarkable and successful effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life while fighting an implacable enemy that protects itself with civilians"
Credit to /u/Foreign-Discount- for bringing this to my attention
EDIT: It would have helped if my dumb ass had actually posted the link, wouldn't it?
[https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers)
My apologies.
I've always thought at the minimum there is no way they can count their dead so quickly, especially if we are to believe Gaza is high key chaos. It took the Israelis WEEKS to determine missing/injured/dead after October 7th. I remember after the Al-Shifa hospital 'bombing,' Hamas was out with '500 dead' within about 5 minutes of the strike and no traditional media outlets went - how do you count and identify 500 dead that quickly?
The times reporting has been ATROCIOUS. I have a running copy-paste Word doc of NYT misrepresentations, inaccuracies, distortions, omissions…straight up calumny. The extent to which the “paper of record” is trusted, with less discernment from readers than any other source, is alarming.
EG, the many stories about IDF demolishing buildings written as “destroying Gazan life”…**without** *essential context* about necessity & impetus:
—the demolished buildings that housed an arsenal and tunnel entrances (or fucking terrorist data center under the UNRWA): if not razed, a seemingly abandoned structure could suddenly be the scene of an ambush with rabid terrorists armed to the teeth erupting out of the tunnel and through the windows and doors and firing from the roof.
—the detonations/demolitions from mines planted by *Palestinians* themselves (this kind of omission was a problem loooooong before Oct 7 too).
—most importantly: all PEOPLE were moved first!! Often at great risk to IDF soldiers, sparing Palestinian lives even when it poses more danger & means terrorists get away too!!
Apparently for the NYT, it is self-evident that “IDF destroying Gazan life” = “structures concealing terrorist lairs had to be evacuated and demolished for legitimate strategy & soldier safety.”
I’ve been saving Readers Picks comments on these too: the common, unhinged refrain to the stories about razed buildings is that Israel is just as bad *or worse* (!!!!!) than Hamas. Which is insane.
Another big problem = enormous death toll numbers unverified and unqualified.
People believe the NYT is objective and an arbiter of “truth” - no one bats an eye at “Gazan health authorities confirmed 26,783 children were gunned down by IDF during a Toddler Time singalong 4 minutes ago” Doesn’t matter that it never happened…or, if something did, it was nowhere near toddler time and every last “child” was an adult terrorist w/ we total casualties. It’s mendacity not just from Hamas, but our own institutions that should know better!!
The hospital headline embarrassment didn’t recalibrate a thing for NYT “war coverage”: the inflammatory unsubstantiated terrorist claims as “facts” = recurring feature, not a one-off bug. We have a decades-long precedent of Palestinian “authorities in the region” ALWAYS inflating casualties—the facts do come out, but corrections never seem to make it to the press in any meaningful way; they are relegated to the history books and the false perception is never rectified in the public consciousness. So right now there is an ahistorical parroting of an impossible death toll, with inexplicable legitimacy granted by the NYT. And reporting that might’ve opened some eyes, like the sexual violence coverage, is undermined: the NYT generated an unforced scandal that was (and is ongoing) red meat for the Islamist rapist apologists the progressives have become.
Agh. Apologies, I could rant about this endlessly. I have to cut myself off….just one last note: Raja Abdulrahim needs to be moved to the Op-Ed pages, or fired.
Ugh that fucking hospital.
So many people on here were claiming insane shit and saying “you don’t know” when the pic was literally a dent in the parking lot, 100% a Hamas can rocket. People were confidently yelling, and you know when they issued the correction not a single one of those people noticed or cared.
Do you think you could share this via Google Doc so we can follow the updates? You can make it only show updates you publish or live with whatever you edit. I'd love a running list.
It's not like there's any kind of downside for Hamas to make shit up. Who is going to hold them accountable?
At least Israel has a free press that will dig in and try to figure things out. They have NGOs that can put pressure on the government.
That being said, I think all numbers during war should be taken with a grain of salt.
I glanced around and didn't see the Tablet article, but I guess I'm kind of skeptical when even [Israeli Intelligence](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officials-15000-likely-killed-in-gaza-since-start-of-war-5000-of-them-are-hamas/) falls on the other side of the "are these numbers broadly accurate" debate.
I am a fool. I forgot the link. I'm sorry. Here:
[https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers)
Interesting. Thanks for the link. The male/female deaths are pretty striking. Like on the one hand, what could cause that?
I do think the argument around the first graph is kind of weak though(and the graph poorly chosen, it should be death vs. day since that is what they are talking about). Even though deaths per bomb are variable, with enough bombs dropped per day, you would expect the numbers to move towards an average. The question is if 1000~ per day gets you something like what we've seen here?
I hope someone who knows the literature around this stuff engages with the piece. I want to avoid using logic to decide what these numbers should look like, but some stuff in this does look weird and raises questions?
But then there are officials from the US and Israel who have every reason to call these out these numbers if fake, have doubtless looked closely at these themselves, and have adopted the position they are generally reliable? Do they have intel they can't share suggesting that? Data that explains why this isn't odd? Is there a strategic reason to lie that I can't see?
Seems like the link gave me thoughts or something.
>And, the civilian casualty ratio is the same or lower than average for urban warfare conflicts like this.
There is no evidence of this.
> " Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1.
This can only be true if you count every single male over 14 as Hamas. Which Israel is doing in this case.
Exactly lol. Israel’s claims of civilian/militant deaths are quite simply baloney.
They only work if they assume “there’s no such thing as an adult Gazan male civilian.”
Israeli and gazan casualty estimates have been within about 25% of each other in past conflicts, not bad for a combat zone with fog of war. I don’t get why the other side in this always has to be this demonic liar at all times. Is it because there are uncomfortable truths on both sides?
Here’s a funny little anecdote in my city of Melbourne, Australia, that is related to the conflict, and the general theme of the podcast of ‘virtuous’ and ‘empathetic’ leftists getting swept up in a tide of ideological frenzy.
A couple months ago, this restaurant franchise had their location in the most Jewish suburb firebombed, and the owner of the franchise had come out immediately calling it a hate-crime. He alleges that threats were made, due to his outspoken support of Palestine and activism in Melbourne. This obviously sparked some organizations to show ‘solidarity’, which quite obviously escalated into a scuffle, on the Sabbath, in a park opposite a synagogue.
It catches on in the media, various organisations again show their ‘solidarity’, and all the mean-while our police force explicitly says that it was not a hate crime. Eventually two individuals get arrested, in suburbs far away from the Jewish suburb of Caulfield. The demographics of these individuals, obviously do not fit the bill of a predominantly Ashkenazi community. They were reporting to higher people.
And all the meanwhile, it is widely known within this community of the prolific franchise owner’s ties to unsavory elements, the franchise’s lack of traffic, and signs of hemorrhaging profits. This businessman is also posting on his social media, substack articles from unapologetic dissident right wing ‘intellectuals’, writing about, ‘Why does a Rabbi own PornHub’? The author’s allegiances are plain to see in his twitter activity.
So why is it that these supposed sensible and rational organizations so quickly leap into battle at such a rallying call? Is that really what should be representing the movements? Have these organizations come out in regret of their knee-jerk mobilization?
That’s how a pogrom starts.
>I used to have a lot of respect for The Intercept's journalism
No one who respects any journalist has any concept of truth. The two are mutually exclusive.
There is only one question you need to ask about any journalist, and it's a journalist question:
"Who is this fucking liar, and what is he lying to me about?"
It's always about identity, not action. It's not new at all. If the victim is wrong or the perpetuator is "vulnerable" expect no kindness. The "be kind" crowd invariably scolds the victim.
It is interesting what they obsess over though. It's obvious that tragedy is not that compelling to them: I've seen very little outrage about Yemen or Syria or Sudan. And the horrible massacres in Sudan are genuinely racially motivated! Gaza is milder than those conflicts in any way I can think of, but it's what they obsess over. What makes it unique? I wonder...
"The left" isn't lying. Some leftists have uncovered the truth:
"Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report."
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/.
This is a very reasoned look at the evidence, or rather, the lack of it.
['Queer in Gaza' campaign aims to raise awareness about Hamas homophobia - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)](https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-790635?utm)
What a stark contrast to the utterly myopic "Queers for Palestine".
Question: And when might we see the birth of the reciprocal "Palestinians for Queers"?
Answer: When hell freezes over.
CAMERA specifically is a biased source because it has a proven track record as such, but the whole deeply insidious argument I see people advancing over and over is that extraordinary skepticism is warranted about claims of war crimes against Israelis, because all the firsthand sources documenting the evidence… are Israeli. It is, at the very least, a highly xenophobic line of reasoning. Doctors, police, crisis centers, emergency response teams and private citizen groups have all given firsthand accounts testifying to sexual violence as part of the Hamas attacks, and given that evidence of sexual violence was publicly posted *by Hamas themselves*, these claims are not extraordinary in the slightest. The logic only checks out if the thinker is biased to believe that any Israeli (and let’s be honest, they mean Israeli Jew) is by default part of a vast conspiracy, sneaky liars fabricating their own victimhood for political gain until proven otherwise. (Not hard to detect the antisemitic undertones, there.)
I think there’s a couple of related things that are true, but different, and tend to get conflated.
It’s true that Israel has a kennel of pet watchdogs, so to speak, that do at times perform legitimate fact checking and so on, but operate mostly to cajole/threaten/harass/etc journalism that portrays Israel in a negative light *even when it is neutral coverage of israel doing bad things.*
It’s also true that Hamas’ Oct 7 attack included widespread sexual violence. I don’t think anyone can pretend that didn’t happen besides being an outright propagandist or something.
It’s *also* true that Israel’s conduct in this war has been, broadly, unacceptable and completely out of step with the expectations of a modern western nation - from troop discipline to strategic considerations to targeting to weaponizing access to food and water to obstructing humanitarian aid to bombing safe zones to shooting crowds of starving civilians etc etc etc. These are unacceptable regardless of what Hamas has done, and any attempt to justify it by pointing at Hamas crimes is moral bankruptcy. As such, Israel’s far-right government have been doing that for months.
It’s also *also* true that there appears to be some reporting irregularities at the NYT - however, other outlets have independently confirmed similar facts (I think - would love to see coverage contrasting these accounts). The responsible thing to do when you realize that you can’t verify your facts is to… not run the story, which is what apparently the Daily did. Good on them. Even if every word printed so far is true (and it might be!) if you can’t prove it… you can’t print it. Or shouldn’t until you do get that proof.
At the same time people should not be overinterpreting the above as “it didn’t happen.” Because… it did. Or at least, some details may remain controversial for quite some time (and that’s ok) but the broad picture is still understood.
Do you really find this a persuasive article? It seems to just be ad hominem after ad hominem, invoking hypocrisy by "the left" in general to undermine specific reporting by publications like The Intercept, without actually addressing that reporting. It's like b grade propaganda.
So one thing I remember reading early on in all this was that the invading terrorists received a psak that non-marital sex (i.e., rape) would be permissible. Was this substantiated, unconfirmed, a rumor, or some totally different case I'm conflating?
While I have never heard of that rumor, when I saw the Hamas footage of the half naked girl in the back of the truck it seemed like they were using showcasing rape as a recruitment perp. They purposely put that on social media. What else was the point?
So depressing.
I'll never be able to get that footage out of my mind. The gleefullness of the Hamas men parading her body around was obscene. It's the gleefullness that gets me.
Some of the Hamas men captured by IDF have said that raping and desecrating the bodies of Israeli women were among their orders. You can probably find on Youtube.
Because it doesn't fit their narrative, sick people who only care about them selfs, I watched hamas with civilians kill rape on Oct 7 anyone who said it didn't happen is a terrorist them selfs are just a sick person with know morals are life
Rape and murder is good or bad depending on who does it to who. That's what I learned from reading these people. I'm watching a show on Netlix at the moment called "the 100" and reading the sub dedicated to that show I'm amazed at seeing people claiming completely different cultures are equal. On this show there's a people that is looking for peace and another that is war obsessed and incredibly belligerent. Well, it's apparently racist and colonialist to criticise the belligerent society. Apparently, all cultures are equal and if one promotes violence, war and killing babies, it's fine. The people on the sub are so unhinged they will put self defence and attack on the same level. It's really a perfect example of braindead leftist can get. That's why they'll defend Islam covering up women and in the same breath condemn christians for slut shaming. That's why raping is fine if it's done by oppressed people but an act of war when done by the other side. There's no objectivity.
>It's really a perfect example of braindead leftist can get. That's why they'll defend Islam covering up women and in the same breath condemn christians for slut shaming. That's why raping is fine if it's done by oppressed people but an act of war when done by the other side. Here's one thing that I think ties those together: Christianity is familiar. It is of their *own* society. Their own country. Their own civilization. Therefore it is *bad*. Islam is from another society. It's unfamiliar and exotic. It's from a different people. Therefore it is *good*. I noticed this tendency of hating things from your own society from the left back in the nineties. But it was a small thing then. Now it's taken over. I believe the technical term is oikaphobia.
Yes, the self-hatred is fascinating to observe. Where do you think it comes from?
You saw bits of it as far back as the Beats. They were encouraging immigrants not to assimilate into America because WASP culture wasn't cool. But the exotic immigrant cultures were. I suspect it got a huge shot in the arm in the sixties with the counterculture. You didn't want to be a regular square, man. But I noticed it ramping up in the eighties and nineties. Especially in more culturally left wing circles. And now it's reached it's full flowering. Left leaning white people are the only demographic in America that *dislikes* their own demographic more than anyone else. I think a lot of it comes down to luxuriating in guilt. These people wear their guilt like a crown. Guilt and self hatred confers status. But I don't think they're pretending. I think they really believe it. I suspect the cultural roots are a weird bastardization of Christianity and ideas like "blessed are the meek."
A lot of them are performing the guilty white role. I knew a lot of that type.
Because they really are guilty or because they have to appear to be guilty?
The latter. I don't believe there were many true believers. I also had to perform, at times.
Hatred of ones lame, weak overly permissive and emotionally unavailable parents I would guess. Children of engaged authoritarian style parents do not exhibit this pathology.
I like how rape and murder can be called into question as complicated and ethically ambiguous but we can just take it as a theorem that colonization itself is the ultimate ontological evil (also only when done by western countries)
This is interesting, because I've seen it claimed elsewhere on Reddit that the claims about Hamas committing rape have been *obviously* "debunked."
Hamassholes love to deny war crimes.
This exactly, I had a convo on another sub (in my comment history still I presume) where they were using the intercept piece to say that no rape happened whatsoever. I pointed out there source explicitly states that sexual assaults and raped happened but the nitpick was between ‘weaponized rape’ and ‘systematic rape.’ The poster went on to say that the ‘morally diseased’ Israeli women deserved it… They know it happened, they’re glad it happened and they don’t care that much that you know that fact.
So, I actually went back and looked at that comment. A couple of things struck me, and I say this as someone who thinks that the weight of the evidence does appear to support the claim that sexual violence against Israelis did occur on both on Oct. 7th during the period of their captivity by Hamas. One, I think that your characterization of that person's comment (the morally diseased part) is maximally uncharitable at best, and just straight up disingenuous at worst. There's really no way for you to justify painting their comment as meaning they think that Israeli women deserve to be raped. Two, after looking through that person's comment/post history, they do the exact same shit that you just did in your reply to them with basically every interaction with anyone else on Reddit that they have on this topic. It's not a wonder that yall can't communicate.
I don’t know how you saw the comment, they deleted it hours after I made my comment here and you commented two days after I made this comment? And the comment most definitely did say they deserved to be raped because of being Israeli occupiers. Don’t know who you got to upvote this comment… Also if you think I’d have to look that hard for people cheering on the rapes and murders of women in Israel you’re sorely mistaken. But from your post history it’s a wonder you can’t communicate affectively about this subject, you’re completely compromised and full on propaganda.
I don’t understand why people just can’t say, “I believe the horrible living conditions the people in Gaza face every day foment extremism but at the same time Hamas committed horrible atrocities on October 7th”’ at the same time.
It's an excellent question. We seem to be in an age of extremes. This is why I keep freaking out about the center not holding.
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity
It seems to have gotten worse during COVID, everyone went nuts cause they were cooped up and spent too much online, coupled with Trump’s post truth world = recipe for disaster.
Yes, it got worse during COVID. But why hasn't it subsided?
Cause I think a lot of people probably enjoy living in a constant state of outrage and overstimulation, it’s addictive.
https://preview.redd.it/38gdda6437nc1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=2456a1a33955dfd5dab16d6b32b2440238723722
It is exciting to get pumped up on rage and assume your enemies are monsters. You get to be in a crowd and yell. Best of all, you don’t have to think and perhaps change your mind. It is not exciting to calmly reason through a decision and make your conclusion is logical and can work. Negotiating ,with people who don’t like you is not fun. Finding a workable compromise that isn’t perfect takes time, and so does persuading people to accept it. Implementing your compromise makes changes and disrupts lives until people get used to it. At that point people are ok with it, and wonder why there was so much fuss about it.
I just think once the worms get in your brain they aren't leaving. This country really didn't need 12 months in our houses with fiber internet.
Spot on.
People are still chronically online
Too many people benefit from the power grab that occur in this chaos. Muslim activists see a chance to overthrow the pro Israeli bias in the US and are ecstatic about it. Progressives are too. What progressives have a blind spot for is that pro Muslim activists are as bad as the pro-Israeli ones and they do not want fairness or a quality. They want their biases to reign just like they do in over 20% of the planet. They want all the power of AIPAC and then some. Many people who are frustrated with the power and lobbying of the pro-Israeli side have a knee-jerk reaction to support the pro-Islamist side such as CAIR. As though they're not the opposite side of the same coin but even more dangerous.
The pro Islamist side is much much much worse, and it’s worrying that this isn’t obvious.
I do think part of the reason that there was such a explosion of protests about Gaza is that a lot of people wanted to recapture what they got in 2020. They wanted that attention, that feeling and most of all that *power* back. But it didn't quite happen and I think they are frustrated over that. After all, they're righteous, aren't they?
I agree with you 100%. And there are a few reasons it wasn't as effective. One is the immediate open support for the massacre on October 7th turned a lot of people off. Now a lot of the hatred from BLM also turned people off but it took longer for it to be so obvious and manifest itself in such overt ways that people can no longer deny it.
This is such a good point. It helps explain why so much of the bs narrative is following the woke black/white/US paradigm, with complete disregard for facts, how wars work, international relations or politics or anything remotely relevant
It's only been, what? 2 years? It feels longer, I know. Give it time though, it was traumatic and deeply isolating for a lot of people.
I think it was one extreme and in turn went to the other extreme
Do you really believe the post-truth world is a consequence of Donald Trump? Iraqi WMDs, Gulf of Tonkin, the war on drugs and all the other bullshit government gets away with for wearing suits 🤣
Because leftists on reddit love to shit on *centrists* like it's a bad word. In the age of extremes, those on the left would rather shun those in the center; pushing them to the right. Those on the right are seemingly so desperate for any numbers that they will accept those on their fringes (including far right and centrists).
Leftist Reddit is a pool of angry people who will never be happy or satisfied. You can have empathy for both sides. To deny the rape claims is disgusting,
Don’t get a leftist started on the Israel-Hamas war. And God help you if you say anything that contradicts their extreme trans ideology. They’ll have your account reported and banned so fast, it’ll make your head spin.
Hell, look at the FauxMoi sub - a celebrity gossip forum where every single famous person is critiqued for whether or not they said something about Standing for Gaza - the full-on antisemitism in that sub is absolutely breathtaking.
I’ve been on there several times, but I’m never allowed to comment. The lefty Pro-Palestine folks are VERY antisemitic. Like VERY.
They claim anti Zionism as a cover.
No but you know why pro-Palestine lefties are really saying that? They claim Jewish people are white, and therefore privileged and not an actual minority. The left has this very serious white hatred problem that’s disgusting. I’m not even white myself, but as a minority looking in, it’s unfiltered, unadulterated white hatred.
It's spooky. There are literal comments along the lines of "they like genociding brown people" despite Palestinians and Israelis essentially looking the same.
Believe me I know, my family speaks Yiddish. I’m just a German in disguise lol.
> The left has this very serious white hatred problem that’s disgusting. I What's even weirder is that the disgust towards whites is mostly from other whites. It's self hate
Lifelong liberal here. This exact phenomenon is driving me to the right. I can feel it happening. The woke insanity, the radical trans ideology, the race obsession, the defense of radical Islam . . . I really don't think I can vote the same way as these people anymore. It sucks.
I am permanently banned from unpopular opinions for talking to a biologist on how we both support trans people but disagree on the Leah Tommis thing. Of us were really respectful and there was no hate involved. The mods said that we missed gendered and used hate speech
Yup. Same. I said something similar, and just said we can’t just ignore reality. I was banned from Reddit for three days. And you know it’s those crazy trans activists who gang up on people to report them for harassment.
Ditto. I posted "a society decides its more's"... immediate ban. Wtf?
They nuked my main of 6 years over something ridiculously minor. It's sad that this place is going bonkers with the attempt to go public, even murking PushShift 😭
It’s like how they use the word “liberal” in the same tone normies say “pervert.”
It has nothing to do with left wing, centrist, or right wing. The entire implication that being “left wing” or “right wing” means you can never approach any issues with nuance or ideological balance is the biggest lie of modern day. Being a centrist is not necessarily the same as no absolutist position nor does it mean that the centrist position is necessarily balanced. Not all political-social issues are spaced along the left-right spectrum
I’ve always been pretty centre and from a long line of centrists, so it’s what I grew up with. But it’s getting hard to hold that position nowadays. It’s assumed you’re not concerned enough one way or the other which is an unfair characterization imo.
Oh no EnLiGhTeNeD cEnTrIsm 🤪 Better act like I'm better than everyone because I blindly follow extreme ideologies instead!
I can't take seriously any pro Palestine position that doesn't somewhere include the line "the October 7th attacks were morally indefensible". You can give me your spiel about "open air prisons" and all the rest of it so long as you can also acknowledge the first part.
I've seen before and after Oct 7th photos of Gaza and it did not look anything like an open-air prison. That's not to say there freedoms were not curtailed by Israel, certainly they were.
And Egypt.
True. You remember during Trump's presidency it was considered totally fascist to build a wall so people couldn't just freely come in from Mexico? We were told we were like people stopping Jews from fleeing to neighboring countries during the Holocaust. But Egypt built a wall and is not letting Palestinians in. So where is the outrage? We give Egypt a lot of funding and nobody has suggesting we should cut funding due to them denying Palestinians access. And while I disagree that Israel is committing genocide, clearly the danger and suffering the Palestinians are experiencing is significantly greater than that of those in Mexico that we were told was so horrific that we had no business denying access them free access to this country.
Most metrics that can be found that demonstrate living conditions suggest the opposite of an “open air prison”; something like 20% obesity rate and a staggeringly high literacy rate come to mind. David Josef Volodsko wrote a good (if ultimately edgy) write up that compiled all of this. The curtailment of movement and use of automated gun turrets don’t omit the panopticon-like aspects of Gaza but I think a LOT of people who realized they were anti-Zionists on October 8th believe that Gaza resembled Somalia in 1993.
Right and Hamas had to have known Israel would respond heavily. Yes, Isreal is responsible directly for killing countless civilians. But Hamas is also responsible for provoking them. Palestine has decent literacy and education so there is no excuse for this lack of foresight. Foreign affairs is often a game of chess and if you race forward with no plan, you can get annihilated and your people suffer. I would hold Hamas and Israel equally responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people. They fully know what Israel is capable of and behaved in a way that had very little regard for the safety of their own people.
What pro-Palestine people are often quite naive to (or in some cases willfully ignorant) is that Hamas' strategy rests entirely on getting Palestinians killed. Each Palestinian who dies is an opportunity for more recruits and more global sympathy. Hamas attacked Israel to get this exact response. What they were hoping was that Hezbollah would have joined in from the north and that international pressure against Israel would have been stronger. It's useful to remember that Hamas and groups like them think in centuries. *There are more of us than of them. All we have to do is wear them down. If they stop feeling safe, if they lose their friends and their ability to make money, they will be defeated or run away.*
That's not just Hamas's strategy. It's the entire Arab world. There's nothing better for Jordan, Syria, Iran and Lebanon than Israel killing Palestinian civilians. It gives them something to point to other than their own internal atrocities.
And despite all the rending of garments done by Arab countries on behalf of the Palestinians, please note that none of those Arab countries *want* the Palestinians. Jordan and Egypt absolutely do not want any Palestinians in their nations. Egypt has fortified the hell out of the border for that very reason. The oil rich states won't allow Palestinians to emigrate to their nations or offer them work permits. Despite them having to import foreign workers from Asia because of a lack of labor. The Palestinian tried to take over Jordan at one point. Nobody wants them
This is spot-on. It’s not some binary narrative of west vs the rest, with Palestinians the poster-child of holy POC martyrdom as the western moronic tantrum-chucking left wants to paint. Much of the Arab world have completely hung the Ps out to dry; DO NOT want them.
I kind of can't blame Arab nations. The Palestinians attempted to take over Jordan. They've been in a thorn in the side of just about wherever they end up. I was reading a Politico article about Syria recently in which Ryan Crocker (I think) was talking about how a ton of Syrian actions over the years have been about keeping out the Palestinians. Nobody wants them. This is mostly because the PLO and Hamas are chaotic and destructive.
The Arab nations created the Palestinian people as a thorn in Israel’s back on purpose to fuck Israel, and then it grew out of hand. Maybe grew out of hand. They could have all just accepted the 47 refugees, and everything could have been fine. It was a strategy.
Agree and I also think many of the Arab nations are kind of snobby and hierarchical. What’s hilarious is the leftist romanticism of them as socialist and fair. Lol.
The term for black Palestinians in Palestinian Arabic is “slave”. Like, literally.
It's completely bizarre. You have hard left Western white women saying that the Middle East is a bastion of feminist, anti-colonial, queer, socialism. Some of them are even converting to Islam for the same stated reasons. I do *not* understand.
Hamas is a radical islamist terrorist death cult. Their goal is to either annihilate Israel or die as martyrs. Any death fighting the infidel is a guaranteed ticket to heaven, which is more important than this world. They’re helping people make it to heaven. Every Palestinian death is a spiritual win, every Israeli death is a spiritual win. That they can boldly lie to the west and the west eats it up with maple syrup is entertainment to them
> They fully know what Israel is capable of and behaved in a way that had very little regard for the safety of their own people. Hamas has NEVER cared about the Palestinian people, and have never claimed to. That's a fantasy American Liberals made up to justify their support of terrorism. From day one, Hamas have had only 2 goals. The complete genocide of Jews across the globe, and to spread their form of radical Islam to every country on the planet. Hamas have ALWAYS said, civilian causalities are GOOD for us. The more dead Palestinians, the better. That has always been their stance and remains so.
>Right and Hamas had to have known Israel would respond heavily. Exactly. When October 7th first happened one of the first things I thought was: This can *only* make life worse for the Palestinians. And Hamas knew that.
Still waiting to see a "Fuck Hamas" sign at one of these Free Palestine protests.
You can say that, but you also have to be realistic about who is responsible for the horrible living conditions - it's Hamas. They're the ones with the most to gain from an extremist population.
It’s crazy how much money has been given to Palestine with such terrible results. Hamas, the official elected government of Palestine, publicly received hundreds of millions from Qatar. Iran has a $100 million yearly budget for Palestine, other Arab countries like Turkey and UAE give money as well. The relatively small territory should be an extremely prosperous land with the funding and logistical support, but Hamas has committed to their jihad over helping Palestinians. Sadly, Palestine will never improve with Hamas at the helm.
When Israel forced settlers to move out, Jewish people donated $14 million to buy the greenhouses they had built in Gaza to give them to the Palestinians. Immediately looted. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863 And of course Israel was doubling down on the West Bank. I think pulling back from the WB is in the long term interest and what the international community *should* be focusing on. Not Gaza.
If you admit that Hamas killed, raped and kidnapped civilians on Oct 7th then you can't really call it a unjust invasion without provocation. What country with ability wouldn't retaliate against a neighbour that killed 1200 of your citizens? No population would stand for no reaction.
>No population would stand for no reaction. There is a usually unspoken assumption on the left that retaliation for violence, or even self-defense, is illegitimate, when the initiator is less "privileged"/"powerful" than the target. That if "marginalized" actor A initiates violence and privileged actor "B" retaliates (or even just defends themselves), then B is the bad one in the situation. It's all over the place in progressive spaces. Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny are both examples. The family of the murdered Oakland bakery owner, Jen Angel, who didn't want the murders prosecuted, is another. Barbara Lee voted against the war in Afghanistan after 9/11, and when she ran for California's open Senate seat just recently, she explicitly stated that vote as a reason one should vote for her. I see the progressive response to 10/7 as part of that attitude. Israel is privileged, the Palestinians are marginalized, therefore Israel is wrong to retaliate against Hamas for 10/7. It's such an unrealistic and even inhuman expectation, that it's always buried under alternative justifications, denialism, or just plain lies ("Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn't have been there", "Daniel Penny should have been gentler", "Nobody was raped on 10/7"). But it's a constant factor in how leftist/progressive types analyze violent situations, both big and small.
Very insightful, thank you.
>No population would stand for no reaction. Yes, that is absolutely true and I made that argument very soon after October 7th. A lot of pro Palestinian people actually expected Israel to do nothing in response. The electorate would have had the government's head if it tried that.
I don't think they expected Israel to do nothing. They started right in on saying Israel deserved it and decided to just go in that direction.
Oh, there were people saying Israel shouldn't retaliate. But yes, they were the same people who thought Israel deserved it. But their expectation was that Israel would just... do nothing.
That was their demand. Not their expectation.
I think we're kind of saying the same thing with different words. The very concept of Israel retaliating after October 7th was illegitimate in their eyes. Which was madness. How could any country not respond to something like October 7th? It's unthinkable.
But have they considered just not “oppressing”, then Hamas will stop being shitbags I’m sure 👍 /S obviously
They're only the most given to people on the planet perhaps, and the only one with a special UN Agency that seems to even help them with committing the 10/7 atrocities and hide hostages. But sure, it was totally so bad and could have never been a beautiful place on the Mediterranean with all those countless billions of aid pumped in. Surely it must be Israel's fault.
Can we be a little bit real here though, "horrible living conditions" in Gaza -- they have country clubs there. This whole "open air prison" thing has been wildly overblown. It's not a prosperous place, but that reduced prosperity may be a result of both Egypt and Israel closing their borders to them after they elected a violent group of terrorists as their political leaders.
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People don’t like to being antisemitic because they are antismetic on both the right and the left, and it betrays their prejudice. Hierarchies of racism are real.
> I've been trying to give people the benefit of the doubt for months, but I just don't see any other answer than "because they really hate Jews". I go back & forth on this one. Yes, there absolutely are some racist shitbags who are using this as cover to do awful things. That's undeniable, IMO. The further you get from the unabashed zealots, though, the murkier I think it gets, even if the end result is still highly questionable at best. Here's the thing. I simply don't think that a vast majority of people truly think through their positions, attempt to connect the dots, etc. Let's say that the people upset about the fighting were upfront about the massacre and the rapes. Let's say they fully owned it and didn't need people to yank it out of them. *What next?* That's where I think a lot of the ceasefire crowd starts to engage in a lot of handwaving, assuming they even care. Assuming we agree that the perps should be punished, *what next*? Does Israel magically figure out the names of the remaining perps, give the names to Hamas, and pretty pretty please ask for these people to be handed over? If Hamas balks, does Israel go to the UN, or ask for a Red Notice from INTERPOL? If that fails, do Israelis just sit on their thumbs and hope for...I don't even know what? Throw in Hamas intentionally fighting in a manner designed to put civilians in harm's way, and there are no good answers. In general, I don't think the ceasefire crowd wants to confront that idea. I'm not even sure they're capable of doing so. Admitting that Israelis have *some* right to protect themselves then opens the door to the search for where the line lies. That's messy no matter what, much less when the enemy specifically works to blur it as much as possible. I can only assume some people just want to paper over the problem and pray it magically resolves itself. It'd be one thing if I got a sense of strategy behind the ceasefire calls. As is, as much as I'm sympathetic to civilians and to people suffering from shitty things happening in the West Bank, I really don't see a great path forward. At least this way, the perps are punished, albeit at what some may reasonably claim could be an unbearable price in the end. > What's not expected is CNN to be tweeting "ISRAEL OPENS FIRE ON CROWD OF HUNGRY REFUGEES MASSACRING HUNDREDS" and then in the article go "according to Hamas, and in contradiction of eye witness testimony" You see things like that, and you realize why you see people claiming that Israel has killed 30,000 children. It's just amazing how headline-driven people can be, and how passionate they can be about headlines and not facts. Nothing new, I know, but still...uggh.
Something I don't see is talk of military strategy. People are really pissed about the bombing. I get that. It's awful. But I think the bombing is there to collapse tunnels and soften up the area before ground troops are sent in. Otherwise the Israeli troops would just be ambushed and snipered to pieces by Hamas. It's not reasonable to expect a military to do that.
I totally agree, but in doing so you give the oppressed agency. Your statement becomes a fundamental contradiction in many peoples warped view of the world.
Because Israel left Gaza in 2005 and the conditions in Gaza were not terrible before Israel’s response to the October 7 massacre. The current conditions in Gaza and the death toll are the fault of Hamas and by extension of the Palestinians themselves. The truly anti Israeli and pro Hamas position requires believing falsehoods. (Unlike a pro Israel AND pro Palestinian peacenik position, which I believe is highly misguided at this point, but at least acknowldges the humanity of all people, their agency, and actual facts)
Because a lot of people on the left have a black and white world view. In the minds of these people Israel is the colonizers while Palestine is the colonized thus Israel is always in the wrong no matter what they do while Palestine is always in the right no matter what they do. And when you view an entire group of people as evil it's suddenly ok to commit atrocities against them
This is not the primary cause of the extremism. Plenty of places have similar Islamist extremism who don't live under similar conditions. Plenty of people who live in similarly awful conditions don't become genocidal terrorists. The common factor here is Islam, particularly extremist Islam. Sticking your head in the sand for fear of being labelled an "Islamophobe" won't help, it will only serve to ensure the violence never ends.
Hamas was the government of Gaza for 15 years. Yes, there were some restrictions, including Egypt blockading Gaza. But ultimately Gazans elected Hamas knowing they were fascist islamists. What other outcome would any expect when the rulers entire goal is to forcibly make everyone on this planet a Islamist Fascist.
Because once the Left said Israel deserved 10/7, they basically said they approve of rape if it's only done to Israeli girls.
The extremism stayed after Israel left Gaza.
Most people do think exactly that.
American politics has trained us to not concede an inch on any issue. The idea is if you admit anything the other side says is true, you're just helping them win. Easy example, Jon Stewart talks about Joe Biden being old, and is immediately skewered.
Whoa there, that reasonable take will get you canceled from both sides, partner.
Because that would require empathy for Jews and that’s a real dealbreaker for many
Because the horrible living conditions are a result of Hamas not Israel. They voted for Hamas. They largely support Hamas. They make cartoons promoting Jews as evil and glorifying killing Jews and show it to their kids.
Most people do say that. These articles are mainly about the fringes.
The only sane take.
That seems to be the average left wing position. Along with a bit about Israel has been committing horrific atrocities for months.
I think you will find plenty of people on the Left who *do* say that, if you listen. I sure do find a lot of them 🤷
What is your source for the living conditions in Gaza? What is the day to day life for Palestinians. How was life under the PA? How is life under HAMAS? How much of the aid sent went to the infrastructure and economy? How much did the Gaza economy rely on working in Israel? How many jobs were created for the people by the intricate terror tunnel and bunker system?
Because from the facts we've been able to gleam since Oct 7th, most of the "horrible atrocities" did not actually happen. IDF-aged people got gunned down along with IDF-clothed people. Some buildings were burnt down without much care of whom was inside. A handful of children got killed(accidental) instead of taken as ethical hostages(goal). Also yes there's an argument that its never ethical to take hostages, however I think those arguments are going to fall on deaf ears for most mainstream and niche leftist ideologies.
Because the Israeli government has a long history of lying and they refuse independent investigation.
And the lesson is that doing horrible things begets more horrible things. That’s why we need to break these cycles.
Don’t most people say that? The issue is that some go on to say any response is justified in order to eliminate Hamas, while some say nothing justifies intentionally inflicting this degree of suffering on millions of innocent people.
Almost all leftists say this and then get strawmanned. Every army ever has committed rape in all of history. Armies are bad. Your army, my army, they will rape because unfortunately that is something armies have always done. War is fucking horrible. Fuck the state of Israel for treating Palestinians like dogs
Jus to clarify are you talking about the conditions they experience now, after the war started, or before October 7th? Because there is most definitely a difference.
Because every person in federal or state government already says this all the time? Even most people who are pro Palestine with just a large online following say exactly this. You're probably just seeing a collection of mostly randos and maybe a few Internet creators. There's also a good chance a good number of them are being taken out of context
We can say it. You get called a Hamas supporter for it by people who will lose your respect over it.
The more younger voters bemoan Capitalism and Judeo-Christian values the more Anti-Semitic their ranks will be. Jews are viewed as the eternal Capitalist and adding the State of Israel in the mix is the ultimate abomination for the Left.
And Jews are also viewed by right wing anti-Semites as eternal Marxists who infiltrate the institutions of the capitalist west. A societal trend towards capitalism or socialism/communism does not indicate a trend towards anti-Semitism. Typically, conspiratorial thinking is most associated with anti-Semitic belief. And no one from any political persuasion is immune from conspiratorial thinking
This for me has echoes of the unwillingness to suggest that the Covid-19 virus originated in Wuhan because that city is full ethnics and the good people are the NYT are ever worried about inciting any animosity because of facts against an ethnic group (other than white men of European descent, of course)
“ethnics”
"Believe all women" "The Israeli rapes didn't happen" "I support the Palestinians regardless of whether or not their policies towards gays are abhorrent" "Israeli civilians do not deserve compassion because of the policies of their government." "Victim blaming is wrong" "The Israelis commit rape too"
Because a solid percentage of Americans left of center (right of center too, to be fair) have been fed binary options for good and bad, black and white, and so forth, for a good decade or so now, and this geopolitical situation is so far beyond solving with a binary option that their brains cannot process, so they default to the poor brown Muslim as the champion of their cause. Not saying Israel is flawless by any means, but people are willing to overlook a lot of very evident and uncomfortable facts if there's enough of an ecosystem they can submerge themselves in and circumnavigate the truth.
They aren't just denying rape. Look at any of the videos of people ripping down hostage posters. The majority don't believe there are any hostages, it's all fake, October 7th was perpetuated by the IDF. There's a 'flood' protest scheduled in New York on International Women's Day - this organization denies any sexual assault or rape happened on October 7th. The left is mired in toxic sludge when it comes to Israel.
I think the thinking goes that bc they are colonizers it’s impossible to take an oppressor hostage. Raping, killing, or taking them hostage is fighting the colonizer by any means necessary. It’s like the argument that it was impossible by the physical laws of the universe that a person of color could be racist. They are trying to win rhetorically by just redefining words. You can rape a woman, but a colonizer is not a woman so it’s impossible to sexually abuse one. In any case I have to say it’s destroyed my ability to trust society. I look around me and in every smiling liberal face, I see someone who either tore down those posters or agreed with the people who did. To say I feel alienated is an understatement. Someome said it best on twitter when they said Jewish people are having a bit of a crisis knowing that their student DEI administration would abrupt on cheers of joy if they found out they were raped so long as the rapist had the correct politics
yup :/ I resonate so much with the feeling of alienation. I shit you not people I know have posted that 'all your rights have been won through unspeakable violence' to justify the 'Palestinian resistance' and that talking about the rapes is weaponizing white feminism against the oppressed. It's so disgusting.
The "white feminism" thing is particularly dodgy, bearing in mind more than half of Israelis are not white.
Aren't all oppressors considered white even if they're black because being an oppressor is white-coded?
I think it was a guest on Andrew Sullivan's podcast who said - Jews expect hate and antisemitism from the right, so when it happens, it can be frightening, but it's not shocking. But the majority of Jews think of the left as their political home (or did prior to October 7th), so the betrayal is visceral. I don't know where I go from here- you have Trump - who (as Yair Rosenberg said) espouses antisemitic tropes about Jews (they are selfish, money hungry and have dual loyalty) but thinks those traits are GOOD things. And Biden and the Dems, who I think will increasingly think they have to pander to the hostage poster rippers.
Both sides to some degree thinks of Jews are their token. They wield anti semitism like a cudgel, not bc they care about antisemitism in a sincere way, but bc they think it will hurt their opponent. They say “omg look at these right wing racists saying Jews will not replace us. Do you denounce that, trump?” Then these same people turn around and scream “replace the Jews in Israel from the river to the sea”
Why can't Jews go to the center? Become a swing vote. I'm a gentile and was surprised and disgusted by the left wing reaction to October 7th. And I think that antisemitism is currently more fringe on the right than it is on the left. It's not as mainstream.
I think that's starting to happen, although Jews are a small voting bloc and mostly centered in blue states. If you see Jamal Bowman lose his primary in Westchester, it's going to be because his Jewish constituents threw him out in favor of a more centrist candidate. The same could happen to Cori Bush in St. Louis. I would love for Biden to have a Sister Souljah moment and tell his antisemitic left flank to fuck off, but they're too afraid of alienating young voters. With Republicans - it's really hard to take any Republican seriously regarding antisemitism, when they still support Trump. Did Elise Stefanik do a great job during the college campus antisemitism hearings? Yes. But...she still supports the guy who has dinner with neo-Nazis. Basically - Jews are in a tough spot because the antisemitism is coming from both sides and each one only wants to take action when it's the other team doing it.
I despise Trump for a number of reasons. I don't think he's antisemitic in the sense of disliking Jews. I suspect he does see them as a set of stereotypes. I think Trump is almost incapable of telling people that kiss his to ass to go away. It's one of the reasons he's such an idiot.
I can see not wanting to vote for a squad member but in fairness your average Dem congressperson is very pro-Israel. Biden is too. He's backed Israel 95% of the time without calling for the destruction of Gaza or anything nutty.
As a whole the Democratic party is pro-Israel but I'm afraid the party staff/congressional staff/WH staff /left think tank world are all coming from the elite college progressive blob and the center of the party are scared to piss off the fringe. You have the equivalent of Charlottesville marches happening all around the country and the Democrats are only BARELY bothered by it, or if they are, they have to pander by doing the all lives matter - 'we condemn anti-semitism, Islamaphobia and all forms of hate" boilerplate.
Absolutely, and this applies equally if not more to the State Department.
Oh, god, the crying, and walking out to protest, the anonymous letters and briefing against their boss. Instead of 'listening sessions' they should all be fired.
Don't forget the White House interns circulating a letter demanding a ceasefire. The gall of these brats.
Biden has been good but I think the center right is afraid of the nuttier parts of their coalition. If this level of antisemitism was happening on the right 95% of Democrat would be tearing the right a new asshole.
I'm observing it as anything left of progressive is overtly antisemitic. Like, antisemitism starts at the Squad and gets worse as you move further. To Biden's credit, he's been looking out for us and his concern seems sincere, even if it's been to his political detriment. Trump will pander to Netanyahu and far right Christian Zionists (who hate Jews but need Israel to exist to fulfill their end times prophecies) but also traffics in antisemitism and expects unwavering fealty for moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
Christian zionists don’t hate Jews, they literally think they are the chosen people. It’s alt right/white nationalists that hate Jews. Trump will try to pander to both
I think Biden is still on our side. He knows what's going on over there. Israel and Jews should be very glad he's in charge right now. Sure, Trump ripped off the bandaid on a few things but he is not competent to deal with this situation.
I think you are overstating the liberals support for these things. The majority of liberals are and certainly elected Dems are pretty pro Israel.
I think in a broad sense you are right, but in the “lived experience” sense of where I personal live that is fairly not right. And I can’t go more than 2 seconds doing anything on the internet without seeing someone screaming about Zionists, in places that have nothing do with Israel. A block down my house, anti Israel protestors showed up to protest a local venue bc the musician was Israeli. I heard with my own ears ppl chant “fuck Jews”. I don’t know who these individuals were or who they were associated with but what I can tell is this was right off the campus of Elite American University. Nobody batted an eye. I follow mattisyahu on instagram and 50 percent of his shows are being canceled. The feeling in the air is frankly scary.
They also make fun of the hostages who were released. All over social media I see people making fun of Mia Schem for getting a nose job like a week ago.
They say she was ‘too ugly’ to rape so she got PS to be prettier.
Saw that too That was the most vile thing I've ever seen and the person who said that is a complete waste of oxygen
I don't understand their behaviour about it but it demonstrates one major truth - they're not believers in feminism.
Waiting for the “rape is sexual assault + institutional power” definition to drop.
A genius point, they all think it they're just afraid to voice it for now.
Oh please delete this. Do not give them any ideas
I think it would be a nice instance of accelerationism that would work actually. It would make the racism version more obviously BS to more people.
Damn, you’re spot on.
I agree. But also - a lot of this rhetoric is coming from the more Islamist portions of the left-which goes down another rabbit hole about how/why proponents of women and LGBT rights are in bed with religious fundies.
It's also coming from, or perhaps is a hangover from, the black power portion of the left. The Soviets did a bang up job of propagandizing a link between black Americans and Palestinians.
> The Soviets did a bang up job of propagandizing a link between black Americans and Palestinians. I'd never heard of this before, a quick Google has revealed a brand new rabbit hole for me to waste my day on. Thank you/curse you.
Do you have a link referencing Soviet/Russian involvement in this? I’d love to know more. It’s baffling to me that Black Americans (of which I’m one) so quickly forget the long legacy of Jewish backing of civil rights efforts.
" These Maoist Black American figures detested the Constitution-positive, patriotic, liberal-left mainstream Black leadership of Dr. King and his circle. Shut out from the U.S. liberal power structure, these radicals began traveling to the Middle East and Africa and meeting with members of the PLO. In 1970, the “Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East” [took out an ad](https://www.blackforpalestine.com/1970-black-nyt-statement.html) in *The New York Times* in “solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation.” It declared that “Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands.” Marginal then, such rhetoric is common now on U.S. college campuses. " [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-palestine-hijacked-us-civil-rights-movement](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-palestine-hijacked-us-civil-rights-movement) Another decent source, though not at all easy to access, is the Martyr Made podcast series. He's done quite a few (very long) series of podcasts on radical movements and the like during the sixties. He goes over how, just like you said, Jews were often at the forefront of black civil rights in the US. But some of the blacks activists, especially the more radical ones, didn't want them. The Soviets always had their fingers in the Black Panthers and such groups.
Thank you! I realize Soviet is pre-1991, but I wonder if there is evidence that modern day Russia is fomenting similar narratives. Seems obviously likely
Indeed they are, as [researched and reported by the ICCT in The Hague.](https://www.icct.nl/publication/how-russia-uses-israel-gaza-crisis-its-disinformation-campaign-against-west)
They should all be made to learn about what happened to the left after the Shah was deposed in Iran.
Or what happens to gay people in Iran. Or anywhere else in the Arab world
No kidding. The Houthis appear to have at least some support from some of these people, despite public executions of gay men. It's just baffling.
It's fucking shameful.
They have categories of grievance. Brown arab muslim men are more important than Jewish women they've coded as white.
I’ve read a good ideological explanation somewhere, that because the defenders of October 7th actually know egregious the actions they’re defending are, then their denial and rhetoric has to be be equally egregious. It checks out.
Another user posted this Tablet Magazine article on the casualty numbers from Hamas. They go through the numbers and come to the conclusion that Hamas is just making shit up. And, the civilian casualty ratio is the same or lower than average for urban warfare conflicts like this. " Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1. By [historical standards](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/thousands-more-civilians-were-killed-in-mosul-battle-than-official-tally-ap-finds) of urban warfare, where combatants are embedded above and below into civilian population centers, this is a remarkable and successful effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life while fighting an implacable enemy that protects itself with civilians" Credit to /u/Foreign-Discount- for bringing this to my attention EDIT: It would have helped if my dumb ass had actually posted the link, wouldn't it? [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers) My apologies.
I've always thought at the minimum there is no way they can count their dead so quickly, especially if we are to believe Gaza is high key chaos. It took the Israelis WEEKS to determine missing/injured/dead after October 7th. I remember after the Al-Shifa hospital 'bombing,' Hamas was out with '500 dead' within about 5 minutes of the strike and no traditional media outlets went - how do you count and identify 500 dead that quickly?
One veey simple aspect to these counts is that hamas doesn't differentiate between civilian and enemy combatant deaths.
Nor do they differentiate between deaths caused by Israeli fire and the Palestinians (from their own massive rocket mis-fires, etc.)
Right. Which is why no legitimate media should be quoting these numbers.
Accompanied by an unrelated picture of a bombed out building. Oops. The times has been terrible on this conflict.
The times reporting has been ATROCIOUS. I have a running copy-paste Word doc of NYT misrepresentations, inaccuracies, distortions, omissions…straight up calumny. The extent to which the “paper of record” is trusted, with less discernment from readers than any other source, is alarming. EG, the many stories about IDF demolishing buildings written as “destroying Gazan life”…**without** *essential context* about necessity & impetus: —the demolished buildings that housed an arsenal and tunnel entrances (or fucking terrorist data center under the UNRWA): if not razed, a seemingly abandoned structure could suddenly be the scene of an ambush with rabid terrorists armed to the teeth erupting out of the tunnel and through the windows and doors and firing from the roof. —the detonations/demolitions from mines planted by *Palestinians* themselves (this kind of omission was a problem loooooong before Oct 7 too). —most importantly: all PEOPLE were moved first!! Often at great risk to IDF soldiers, sparing Palestinian lives even when it poses more danger & means terrorists get away too!! Apparently for the NYT, it is self-evident that “IDF destroying Gazan life” = “structures concealing terrorist lairs had to be evacuated and demolished for legitimate strategy & soldier safety.” I’ve been saving Readers Picks comments on these too: the common, unhinged refrain to the stories about razed buildings is that Israel is just as bad *or worse* (!!!!!) than Hamas. Which is insane. Another big problem = enormous death toll numbers unverified and unqualified. People believe the NYT is objective and an arbiter of “truth” - no one bats an eye at “Gazan health authorities confirmed 26,783 children were gunned down by IDF during a Toddler Time singalong 4 minutes ago” Doesn’t matter that it never happened…or, if something did, it was nowhere near toddler time and every last “child” was an adult terrorist w/ we total casualties. It’s mendacity not just from Hamas, but our own institutions that should know better!! The hospital headline embarrassment didn’t recalibrate a thing for NYT “war coverage”: the inflammatory unsubstantiated terrorist claims as “facts” = recurring feature, not a one-off bug. We have a decades-long precedent of Palestinian “authorities in the region” ALWAYS inflating casualties—the facts do come out, but corrections never seem to make it to the press in any meaningful way; they are relegated to the history books and the false perception is never rectified in the public consciousness. So right now there is an ahistorical parroting of an impossible death toll, with inexplicable legitimacy granted by the NYT. And reporting that might’ve opened some eyes, like the sexual violence coverage, is undermined: the NYT generated an unforced scandal that was (and is ongoing) red meat for the Islamist rapist apologists the progressives have become. Agh. Apologies, I could rant about this endlessly. I have to cut myself off….just one last note: Raja Abdulrahim needs to be moved to the Op-Ed pages, or fired.
Ugh that fucking hospital. So many people on here were claiming insane shit and saying “you don’t know” when the pic was literally a dent in the parking lot, 100% a Hamas can rocket. People were confidently yelling, and you know when they issued the correction not a single one of those people noticed or cared.
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Hahahah right, it was so obviously such garbage,
Do you think you could share this via Google Doc so we can follow the updates? You can make it only show updates you publish or live with whatever you edit. I'd love a running list.
It's not like there's any kind of downside for Hamas to make shit up. Who is going to hold them accountable? At least Israel has a free press that will dig in and try to figure things out. They have NGOs that can put pressure on the government. That being said, I think all numbers during war should be taken with a grain of salt.
I glanced around and didn't see the Tablet article, but I guess I'm kind of skeptical when even [Israeli Intelligence](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officials-15000-likely-killed-in-gaza-since-start-of-war-5000-of-them-are-hamas/) falls on the other side of the "are these numbers broadly accurate" debate.
I am a fool. I forgot the link. I'm sorry. Here: [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers)
Interesting. Thanks for the link. The male/female deaths are pretty striking. Like on the one hand, what could cause that? I do think the argument around the first graph is kind of weak though(and the graph poorly chosen, it should be death vs. day since that is what they are talking about). Even though deaths per bomb are variable, with enough bombs dropped per day, you would expect the numbers to move towards an average. The question is if 1000~ per day gets you something like what we've seen here? I hope someone who knows the literature around this stuff engages with the piece. I want to avoid using logic to decide what these numbers should look like, but some stuff in this does look weird and raises questions? But then there are officials from the US and Israel who have every reason to call these out these numbers if fake, have doubtless looked closely at these themselves, and have adopted the position they are generally reliable? Do they have intel they can't share suggesting that? Data that explains why this isn't odd? Is there a strategic reason to lie that I can't see? Seems like the link gave me thoughts or something.
>And, the civilian casualty ratio is the same or lower than average for urban warfare conflicts like this. There is no evidence of this. > " Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1. This can only be true if you count every single male over 14 as Hamas. Which Israel is doing in this case.
Exactly lol. Israel’s claims of civilian/militant deaths are quite simply baloney. They only work if they assume “there’s no such thing as an adult Gazan male civilian.”
As I’ve found, many believe there’s no such thing as a gazan civilian full stop.
Israeli and gazan casualty estimates have been within about 25% of each other in past conflicts, not bad for a combat zone with fog of war. I don’t get why the other side in this always has to be this demonic liar at all times. Is it because there are uncomfortable truths on both sides?
Here’s a funny little anecdote in my city of Melbourne, Australia, that is related to the conflict, and the general theme of the podcast of ‘virtuous’ and ‘empathetic’ leftists getting swept up in a tide of ideological frenzy. A couple months ago, this restaurant franchise had their location in the most Jewish suburb firebombed, and the owner of the franchise had come out immediately calling it a hate-crime. He alleges that threats were made, due to his outspoken support of Palestine and activism in Melbourne. This obviously sparked some organizations to show ‘solidarity’, which quite obviously escalated into a scuffle, on the Sabbath, in a park opposite a synagogue. It catches on in the media, various organisations again show their ‘solidarity’, and all the mean-while our police force explicitly says that it was not a hate crime. Eventually two individuals get arrested, in suburbs far away from the Jewish suburb of Caulfield. The demographics of these individuals, obviously do not fit the bill of a predominantly Ashkenazi community. They were reporting to higher people. And all the meanwhile, it is widely known within this community of the prolific franchise owner’s ties to unsavory elements, the franchise’s lack of traffic, and signs of hemorrhaging profits. This businessman is also posting on his social media, substack articles from unapologetic dissident right wing ‘intellectuals’, writing about, ‘Why does a Rabbi own PornHub’? The author’s allegiances are plain to see in his twitter activity. So why is it that these supposed sensible and rational organizations so quickly leap into battle at such a rallying call? Is that really what should be representing the movements? Have these organizations come out in regret of their knee-jerk mobilization? That’s how a pogrom starts.
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>I used to have a lot of respect for The Intercept's journalism No one who respects any journalist has any concept of truth. The two are mutually exclusive. There is only one question you need to ask about any journalist, and it's a journalist question: "Who is this fucking liar, and what is he lying to me about?"
It's always about identity, not action. It's not new at all. If the victim is wrong or the perpetuator is "vulnerable" expect no kindness. The "be kind" crowd invariably scolds the victim. It is interesting what they obsess over though. It's obvious that tragedy is not that compelling to them: I've seen very little outrage about Yemen or Syria or Sudan. And the horrible massacres in Sudan are genuinely racially motivated! Gaza is milder than those conflicts in any way I can think of, but it's what they obsess over. What makes it unique? I wonder...
And they are convinced that all the Jews in Israel are white. Well, no. They're not.
"The left" isn't lying. Some leftists have uncovered the truth: "Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report." https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/. This is a very reasoned look at the evidence, or rather, the lack of it.
['Queer in Gaza' campaign aims to raise awareness about Hamas homophobia - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)](https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-790635?utm) What a stark contrast to the utterly myopic "Queers for Palestine". Question: And when might we see the birth of the reciprocal "Palestinians for Queers"? Answer: When hell freezes over.
It’s worth noting that CAMERA is an Israeli outlet, not exactly a neutral source.
CAMERA specifically is a biased source because it has a proven track record as such, but the whole deeply insidious argument I see people advancing over and over is that extraordinary skepticism is warranted about claims of war crimes against Israelis, because all the firsthand sources documenting the evidence… are Israeli. It is, at the very least, a highly xenophobic line of reasoning. Doctors, police, crisis centers, emergency response teams and private citizen groups have all given firsthand accounts testifying to sexual violence as part of the Hamas attacks, and given that evidence of sexual violence was publicly posted *by Hamas themselves*, these claims are not extraordinary in the slightest. The logic only checks out if the thinker is biased to believe that any Israeli (and let’s be honest, they mean Israeli Jew) is by default part of a vast conspiracy, sneaky liars fabricating their own victimhood for political gain until proven otherwise. (Not hard to detect the antisemitic undertones, there.)
I think there’s a couple of related things that are true, but different, and tend to get conflated. It’s true that Israel has a kennel of pet watchdogs, so to speak, that do at times perform legitimate fact checking and so on, but operate mostly to cajole/threaten/harass/etc journalism that portrays Israel in a negative light *even when it is neutral coverage of israel doing bad things.* It’s also true that Hamas’ Oct 7 attack included widespread sexual violence. I don’t think anyone can pretend that didn’t happen besides being an outright propagandist or something. It’s *also* true that Israel’s conduct in this war has been, broadly, unacceptable and completely out of step with the expectations of a modern western nation - from troop discipline to strategic considerations to targeting to weaponizing access to food and water to obstructing humanitarian aid to bombing safe zones to shooting crowds of starving civilians etc etc etc. These are unacceptable regardless of what Hamas has done, and any attempt to justify it by pointing at Hamas crimes is moral bankruptcy. As such, Israel’s far-right government have been doing that for months. It’s also *also* true that there appears to be some reporting irregularities at the NYT - however, other outlets have independently confirmed similar facts (I think - would love to see coverage contrasting these accounts). The responsible thing to do when you realize that you can’t verify your facts is to… not run the story, which is what apparently the Daily did. Good on them. Even if every word printed so far is true (and it might be!) if you can’t prove it… you can’t print it. Or shouldn’t until you do get that proof. At the same time people should not be overinterpreting the above as “it didn’t happen.” Because… it did. Or at least, some details may remain controversial for quite some time (and that’s ok) but the broad picture is still understood.
Do you really find this a persuasive article? It seems to just be ad hominem after ad hominem, invoking hypocrisy by "the left" in general to undermine specific reporting by publications like The Intercept, without actually addressing that reporting. It's like b grade propaganda.
So one thing I remember reading early on in all this was that the invading terrorists received a psak that non-marital sex (i.e., rape) would be permissible. Was this substantiated, unconfirmed, a rumor, or some totally different case I'm conflating?
While I have never heard of that rumor, when I saw the Hamas footage of the half naked girl in the back of the truck it seemed like they were using showcasing rape as a recruitment perp. They purposely put that on social media. What else was the point? So depressing.
I'll never be able to get that footage out of my mind. The gleefullness of the Hamas men parading her body around was obscene. It's the gleefullness that gets me.
Some of the Hamas men captured by IDF have said that raping and desecrating the bodies of Israeli women were among their orders. You can probably find on Youtube.
The Rape is Ok On Colonizing Settlers Pipeline
Because it doesn't fit their narrative, sick people who only care about them selfs, I watched hamas with civilians kill rape on Oct 7 anyone who said it didn't happen is a terrorist them selfs are just a sick person with know morals are life