Israel to World: "Suck It."

VHS - fuck a Palestinian flag I'm begging you

which suggests people who are disagreeing with him are 'falling in line'

Or, more simply, suggests that their opinions align with one another.

I think table raises a very important point upthread. the idea that palestinians would only feel ire at the IDF is a very weird one. any attempt to understand the situation of palestinians makes it abundantly clear that the ways in which they are victimised, attacked and humiliated every day are not just by the actions of the IDF but by the israeli courts, media, politicians and citizens who participate in the occupation of illegal settlements. The daily and excruciatingly long experience of occupation, and the murderous effects of dispossession and blockading and their combined effects on food and medical provisions, are for some reason never considered as 'the first stone.' we talk a lot about the targetting or collateral of civilians and civilian infrastructure in these assymetric campaigns of violence but this is only part of a picture in which civilians are targetted every day by israeli institutions in a way that cannot be understood to have equivalence. this is literally what apartheid means. While i condemn or whatever any violence that targets civilians, this condemnation cannot just be for IDF shooting palestinians or Hamas rockets but for the murderous effects of occupation that kills and oppresses palestinians every day. so little of the 'both sides' stuff (im not having a go at anyone here) includes this within its frame, for reasons that are predictable and obvious but are worth restating again and again.

which suggests people who are disagreeing with him are 'falling in line'

Or, more simply, suggests that their opinions align with one another.

― What's It All About, Althea? (Aimless), Saturday, 22 May 2021 17:41 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

have a look at what the 'normal,' 'mainstream,' 'acceptable' opinion to have about this is. the answer may shock you!

extremely otm x2

people who have taken issue with VHS's approach here have had disagreements between themselves, on this thread, at the same time! if it looks like groupthink you're not paying attention

you seem to come as a pair

Odd to say we almost never participate in the same threads.

itt I am mainly seeing VHS bullied, belittled, mocked, and villified, not because he has attempted in any way to defend the Israeli attacks on Gaza, but simply because his views on the dynamics of the endless ongoing subjection of the Palestinians include the idea that, as the governing party of Gaza, the policies of Hamas do a disservice to the Palestinians whose lives and fate they rule.

This may not be the most correct view, but the few posts that try to act as a corrective generally also add some attack on his character, his motives, and his intelligence. More often the corrective is missing and the attack is the whole substance of the post. I'm never going to stand by and approve of bullying and all of you who constantly and reflexively fall back on that tactic can go fuck themselves.

otoh it's fine to heavily imply people are ok with the genocide of jews as long as you're polite about it

xp

no again, this is a highly normative view which is why I would be minded to push back against it as it rehearses a set of platitudes I am quite familiar with (can't speak for others)

no again, this is a highly normative view

no to what? which view are you defining as normative? it's clear you have a full framework of normative discourse mapped in your head within which this discussion falls, but I lack that map and you are not providing many clues. I'm not demanding you backfill me in on your whole worldview, but merely stating that your response is not detailed enough for me to understand.

I'm never going to stand by and approve of bullying and all of you who constantly and reflexively fall back on that tactic can go fuck themselves.

― What's It All About, Althea? (Aimless), Saturday, 22 May 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Profiles in courage.

and has been pointed out upthread, hamas has in this instance at the very least managed to prompt some discussion of the relative merits of rounding up a whole population, trapping them in a large open air prison and targeting civilians with advanced precision weapons with the general approval of the international community. considering the response that simply asking people not to buy soda streams has had, i'm not surprised that those being targeted by a genocidal campaign might be desperate to do anything that might prompt this discussion. I'm fully prepared to accept that VHS is arguing in total good faith and that he is motivated to do so by an abhorrence of violence but this line of reasoning is a familiar one and it has long accompanied the inexorable erosion of credibility regarding israel's commitment to any kind of peace agreement or commitment by allies to hold it to any standard at all with respect of international law.

no again, this is a highly normative view

no to what? which view are you defining as normative? it's clear you have a full framework of normative discourse mapped in your head within which this discussion falls, but I lack that map and you are not providing many clues. I'm not demanding you backfill me in on your whole worldview, but merely stating that your response is not detailed enough for me to understand.

― What's It All About, Althea? (Aimless), Saturday, 22 May 2021 18:11 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

are you then saying you have no understanding of the ways in which israel and palestine is discussed in mainstream media and politics in the US and internationally? The worldview I am alluding to is not mine but the litany of commonplaces and cliches that pepper every mainstream conversation about israel and palestine. I do feel that if you lack even this most basic of knowledge it is very difficult to have any kind of discussion with you and I'm not sure that I reasonably fill you in on this in any more comprehensive way than, idk, reading a newspaper.

"but I lack that map"

Aimless in name and more lol

A conservative mindset doesn’t believe in a right of return to Palestinians, I have also argued in this thread for the end of the jewish ethno-state and made clear that I believe genocide is on-going, ask Bibi or the Republicans or Biden if that sits well with them. You guys chose to add some narratives on me that are very far from my opinions and belittle me for it, and I suspect a part of it is that you can’t separate larger on-going narratives from actual discussions (what the hell does the both sides thing about antifa has to do with any of my posts?).

ask yourself whether it's worth arguing with these people

xyzzzz__ please just don't interact with me anymore, there's no need for it, telling me to fuck a Palestinian flag is just harassment, you can show yourself you are better than this.

how can we or why should we separate larger ongoing narratives from "actual discussions"

enough with the persecution complex you know which views expressed in this thread are actually getting people fired, expelled, investigated or worse

VHS - thought I'd "bullied" you off the thread. Welcome back!

xps to VHS i think some of your confusion is that people itt are yes at times engaging with larger narratives and not every argument is addressed to you. this is because this is a messageboard and people are interested in engaging an issue which is not defined by your framing and interpretation of it. If this is not to your liking i would suggest a blog?

you know which views expressed in this thread are actually getting people fired, expelled, investigated or worse

which people who have expressed their views in this thread have been fired, expelled, investigated, or worse?

that's some pretty poor reading comprehension crut

come on I said views not people

however, pro-palestinian views have led to some high profile firings as have been reported recently do you need links?

nah i'm good

multi-xps

I'm fully prepared to accept that VHS is arguing in total good faith and that he is motivated to do so by an abhorrence of violence

Among the respondents itt, this is a rarity.

hamas has in this instance at the very least managed to prompt some discussion of the relative merits of rounding up a whole population, trapping them in a large open air prison and targeting civilians with advanced precision weapons with the general approval of the international community.

Whatever the merits of Hamas's decision to respond to the human rights abuses at Al-Aqsa Mosque by firing rockets into Israel, I am sorry to report that here in the USA, arguably the only ally of Israel capable of exerting sufficient pressure to modify their genocidal policies, that discussion has not been particularly effective. May I suggest that it is possible to view the launching of rockets into Israel as yet another status quo component of the 'normative discourse' that has prevailed unchanged in its patterns for two decades, so that rather than sparking a beneficial change in that discourse, it merely reinforces the norm.

The military imbalance between the Israel and the Palestinians is now so enormous that so long as it continues, Israel is not susceptible to military defeat. At this point, I have zero answers to the question of how to shake Israel loose from its present genocidal apartheid policies without profound political changes in Israel and the USA. Those governments see no compelling reason to step outside the normative discourse. The slang term fits: they hold the whip hand.

Asking the Palestinians to break the cycle and discover the path out, when they are progressively more and more the victims of genocide is profoundly unjust. But as a practical political matter, no one else is going to do it. Maybe you are right and this latest round of death was fruitful, not futile.

I freely admit I don't have any great answers, unless it would be to take the huge gamble of complete disarmament, thus nullifying the counter rhetoric used by Israel that they constantly are on the edge of annihilation by a sea of enemies. At least that would be a decisive change in the normative discourse.

So because people are being unjustly fired from their jobs it's okay to bully someone on a message board?

This is insane.

comparing VHS to Marjorie Taylor Greene is certainly a sign of arguing in good faith

what can you do but flag and ignore, maybe killfile

are you then saying you have no understanding of the ways in which israel and palestine is discussed in mainstream media and politics in the US and internationally?

no. I was trying to say that you did not identify which statements I made are identical to the ways in which israel and palestine is discussed in mainstream media. there seem to be some differences to my mind between my statements and those, e.g. calling Israeli policies genocidal and based on apartheid. If that is normal in the newspapers and media you consume, they are not normal in mine.

btw here's the Associated Press's social media policy for employees
https://www.ap.org/assets/documents/social-media-guidelines_tcm28-9832.pdf

because people are being unjustly fired from their jobs it's okay to bully someone on a message board?

yeah

This is insane.

Nah. It's just bog standard human social interaction. We all descend to it at times. It's how cliques form and maintain themselves among adolescents. If the peer group all start hooting and pointing at you, you're expected to retreat to another tree. I wouldn't blame you if you went that route.

this is who is being silenced in britain. I assume similar things are happening elsewhere

Really concerned about how schools are aggressively responding to young (mostly) Muslim students for their solidarity w/ Palestine. This is possible because this is the purpose of Prevent: to quash dissent by EVERY legal means possible.

— Fatima Rajina (@DrFatimaRajina) May 22, 2021

btw here's the Associated Press's social media policy for employees
https://www.ap.org/assets/documents/social-media-guidelines_tcm28-9832.pdf

― eisimpleir (crüt), Saturday, May 22, 2021 3:24 PM (thirty-two minutes ago)

Which of her tweets violated this policy? I'm genuinely asking as I haven't heard anyone specify this

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/05/biden-israel-gaza-hamas-ceasefire/618949/

Aimless: here is an article that summarises the recent shift in discussion around israel and palestine that has accompanied this latest campaign which has eluded you despite the fact that it is the very basis of the discussion we are having itt. Briefly, the recent violence has sustained in the news cycle a discussion of israel and palestine in the US media which has contained a shift in focus toward israeli human rights abuses. For eg. the word apartheid has become sayable with respect of this since the HRW report in late April, its sentiments have been amplified by high profile leftist politicians (including the first congressperson of palestinian descent) and there have been rebukes of israeli occupation in parts of the mainstream media which are pretty novel in my lifetime. this for eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVtKKsPs0

One might easily say that this consitutes part of an emergent shift in israeli/us relations. of course this has not happened within a vacuum and there has been decades of organising from grassroots to washington and even then much of this political work has been demonised or outright criminalised so when 'legitimacy' is the currency of imperial powers it is difficult to know what legitimate action palestinians *could* take. However, since we can't have a control group to measure the effect of different elements on historical events, neither you nor I can really say what the effect of hamas has been on this thawing of what had previously seemed determinedly frozen discourse.

Moreover, given the US's recent record in enforcing its decisions on other countries about who it considers their right to elect, one might have thought one might be more circumspect in discussing the legitimacy with which hamas represents the interests of the palestinian people, particularly as has been noted, the resistance offered by hamas comes from such a deep well of frustration and despair that it is impossible to imagine that without hamas it would simply find similar expression through some other group.

here also is one story about opinion polling showing growing support for palestinians in the us: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/05/22/more-americans-back-palestinians-against-conflict-israel/5185821001/

“wouldn’t” i think you mean but booming post per usual plax. xpost

just checking you know that violence is bad though. ok great.

yes wouldnt thanks im bad at grammar and should stick to easier sentence constructions i dont lose track of

very good work itt plax

Thank you, plax(ico). YOur reply was helpful and if the discourse in the USA really is shifting in a significant way, I will be highly grateful to those who helped make it so.

However, I will note here that in the very midst of that powerful commentary by Mr. Velshi that you linked to, while reciting a long littany of Israeli human rights abuses, from explicitly apartheid policies, to the genocidal practices like refusing medical care and supplies into Gaza, he literally states that "Hamas may not be in the long term interests of the Palestinians". If VHS were to have written the same thing in this thread, I might be forgiven for suspecting this statement would be singled out for scorn such as "no one gives a fuck about Hamas" and given as proof of both-sidesism.

yes but VHS doesn't have corporate sponsors i hope

if he did, then saying that would be 'selling out' in his case

dude. plax is moving the conversation forward and you’re speculating on what the haters would say if VHS had written something that he didn’t write? you’re through the looking glass man.

in any case, i am not so interested in VHS account nor do I think it defines the terms of debate in any meaningful way.

Here is another piece on the us Israel relationship:

https://www.vox.com/22440197/us-israel-democrats-alliance-partisanship-gaza

The national movement has understandably given precedence to collective interests, but as a result, basic individual rights—the freedom to think, speak, work, live, move, and prosper—have been relegated to the margins. Palestinian leaders must give much greater consideration to such issues, particularly because the PA’s record has hardly offered a seductive model of good government, better life, or greater freedom. Hamas’s rule in Gaza (Hamas wrested control after violent confrontations with the PA in June 2007) has had even less appeal, bringing further suffering and impoverishment to, and a continuous corrosion of the quality of daily life for, the more than two million Gazans. Palestinians in much of the near diaspora, such as those living in Lebanon and Syria, face increasingly harsh conditions, as well. Whatever Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinians’ plight, the Palestinian leadership must bear its own share of responsibility for its people’s safety and welfare.

From https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2021-02-16/palestinian-reckoning.

Whatever Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinians’ plight

Not a good remark. Passes over a huge swath of Israel's responsibility in silence.

However, I'm about ready to stand back for a while an let the conversation roll on w/o my posting to it.

If anyone wants the whole article feel free to ask me, I'll send it via message. Agha has been one of my sources on the conflict and represents the sort of precision and empathy too often missing from the conflict's coverage.