just to be completely clear, the amount of military power and political influence Israel has has NOTHING to do with its settlers being Jewish. Israel is a force for American & European interests in the region and they're just doing what America does and allows/encourages its close allies to do.
war crimes aren't considered war crimes when someone America finds useful is doing them. european and american pushback against anyone criticizing Israeli apartheid & genocide is 100% because these crimes are useful to American & European hegemony.
Governments that are deeply antisemitic, like France, aren't suddenly caring about Jewish people. Jewish people, persecuted the world over, don't hold some kind of hegemonic power outside of Israel.
The state of Israel and its attendant brutal treatment of the locals are both incredibly useful to the US, and American hegemony means we're expected to celebrate both.
not bc they're Jewish. this isn't a break in the pattern of western antisemitism and it's not evidence that antisemitism doesn't exist.
it's just like how you could get fired for saying shit against the US war in Afghanistan when i was growing up. it is 100% about US military and political interests (ok slightly western europe too but lbr)
It was never about Jews to begin with. I said it before and I say it again:
Prior to the Holocaust, Hitler "offered" Germany's Jews to Western powers. It was a scam offer, of course; he knew too well nobody would accept approximately 400 000 refugees (which is the estimated count of German Jews in ca 1936). When the West refused, Hitler twisted it into "nobody wants the Jews" rhetorics and used it to justify the horrors of the Holocaust.
Fast forward a decade ahead. It's 1946/47. The ashes of the War are setting in and the West struggles with the population explosion due to millions of Jewish refugees who fled the Nazi terror. Instead of proper war reparation and returning the refugees to their homes if possible, the West heed Hitler's "nobody wants the Jews" motto and follows the Medieval Europe trend of ghettos. So, they create a giant ghetto in Britain occupied Palestine and force the Holocaust survivors and their own Jewish populations there. Note that it's not a land back project, because 99% (if not all) of these survivors are Ashkenazi Jews who have no ties to Palestine. Creation of "Israel" is literally a nod to the justifications of the Holocaust.
Now, fast forward to modern zionism. I will not talk about the fact that zionism per se is against the Torah, you can find the video of a rabbi explaining it on my blog. Modern zionism
1) equates "Israel" to Jews and vice versa, erasing the complete history of Ashkenazis and other non-Palestinian Jewish diasporas,
2) furthermore, by equating "Israel" to Jews, it claims that Jews are these genocidal maniacs. Saying "'Israel' = Jews" is saying "it's Jews who are currently dropping white phosphorus on babies" which is no different from medieval "Jews caused the plague/cholera/typhoid epidemic by poisoning your wells". "Israel" is literally reviving medieval antisemitic tropes.
3) "Israel" is actively silencing the antizionist Jews. Zionism silences Jewish voices to spread it's one-sided bullshit view. If you don't see how antisemitic it is, you're blind.
4) The last weeks gave us Netenyahu and other zionists compare Palestinians to "animals", calling for the utter extermination of Gaza and cheering on children being literally torn apart by the bombs. Zionists at this point are literally copying the behaviour of Nazi Germany in 1940s. I don't have to explain to you how antisemitic it is unless you're a total fuckwit.
Zionism and "Israeli" Nazis are antisemites and if you care about the Jews, you support Palestine and combat the Nazi scum.
Firstly - Yes, it is a necessary part of the struggle against the genocide to engage in protests, boycotts, 'awareness raising' and 'holding accountable', etc. That being said, however, it does absolutely nothing on its own, and far too many people are being far too proud of themselves for an outsized belief in their action.
These things - peaceful protests, boycotts against brands, letters to senators, literally posting - do nothing whatsoever to impact the pace of the genocide being carried out. They have not slowed the advance of Merkava tanks or the flights of F-35s by even a minute. They are effective if and only if they are carried out in conjunction with and support of actual direct action against the war machine. Work stoppages at ports, blockades of weapons manufacturers, these are the bare minimum of actual opposition to the genocide. Further action, like solidarity strikes in the states providing diplomatic and military support for the occupation, general unrest, etc, are sorely needed - and, ultimately, are the only things to be done not premised on appealing to the good conscience of those committing genocide. Your governments do not care what you think of them, they care if you stop working - and they will only stop sending weapons if you physically stop them.
It feels like 2020 taught a lot of people nothing. Massive protests, unthinkable levels of outrage - even met with apparently cowing of the state, overwhelmed with public opposition to their policies. Ultimately, none of the movement's goals survived, and the gestures (which is all that were gotten) faded. Roads were renamed and painted back over. Cops still kill people exactly as much. They know exactly how much you oppose it, they always have. Telling them isn't going to do anything, because it's not news. They don't act this way because they're misguided or have wrong ideas, they do it because it's profitable and in their material interests. The only way to make them act differently is to make them act differently. Either directly, by blocking their actions, or indirectly, by making the endeavour too costly through strikes and other leveraging of the fact that we, as workers, produce all their wealth. Each dollar going to buy IDF missiles ultimately comes from you. You want to stop it? Organise and strike. Physically block weapons movements. Yes, propagandise, talk about it, but for the love of god, don't trick yourself into believing that's the end of it.
The Palestinian resistance isn't limiting themselves to posting and raising awareness. They know that those committing genocide are plenty aware of what they're doing. No, the resistance is taking up arms. They would kill the soldiers of your country if they came across them defending the occupation, and they'd be right to do so. The soldiers of your country would kill you for striking. There is only one war, here.
Where is the International protection the Palestinian people is entitled to when the occupying power violates international law and harms those it is obliged to protect. Aren't Palestinians lives worth saving?
it’s here (nohostageleftbehind.com). in paragraph five, “We urge everyone to not rest until all hostages are released” explicitly calls for israel to continue the genocide committed against palestinians.
eta to clarify: yes, taika waititi’s name is on the list, as stated by op.
Suleiman offers an indictment of these audience members as well.
A young French tourist approaches an Israeli policeman looking for directions. The policeman doesn’t know the way, and so he enlists the help of his Palestinian prisoner from the back of the van. Bound and with a blindfold over his eyes, the Palestinian offers three clear ways for her to get to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There are two ways to read the scene. Both reveal the political anger brewing just below the droll surface of the gag. The first is simply that the Palestinian knows this land so well that he can give you directions while blindfolded. While the Israeli cop has no idea where to go. He is a foreigner here too. He may have political and military authority, but he is not truly of this land, while his prisoner is.
The second interpretation is the indictment of the apolitical audience member. We can visit Israel as tourists (or visit this film as a sort of cinematic tourist) gaze at the wonderful architecture, eat the food, enjoy the beaches and the lovely weather, all while turning a blind eye to the near century of racist exploitation, disenfranchisement, and genocide occurring right in front of us. It'd be all too obvious if we’d bother to simply engage beyond our own immediate pleasure and convenience.
Both of these interpretations are effective. Both are true. But the tourist is the one who allows this continue indefinitely. She witnesses injustice and chooses comfort.
In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.
I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!
From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!
I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.
The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.
(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)
If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.
The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.
insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box
add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box
delete -> self explanatory
on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic
The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.
Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.
