Say no to authoritarianism, say yes to socialism. Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Everyone deserves Human Rights
That’s relatively benign when compared the military tech Israel markets and exports abroad after testing on the Palestinian civilian population.
Bad and worth condemning, yes. Nonetheless significantly better than the tech they could have gotten from Israel, who’s tech is far more violent and invasive on the civilian population
The US is breaking the world order that it created for its benefit after WWII, out of fascism and incompetence. The mask is off, this empire will fall and the violence is only ramping up in the meantime
Zionism goes against the actual teachings of Judaism, it’s very revisionist. Jewish opposition to Israel is as old as Zionism itself. Hasidic Jewish people, while small in number, are still the largest Anti-zionist group in Israel. Jewish people have been at the forefront of Anti-zionist activism for a long time, including Jewish Voice for Peace. Palestinians too of course.
Zionism uses Judaism as a shield, deflecting criticism against it’s fascist actions as anti-semitic, which in-turn raises the amount of genuine anti-semitism experienced by Jewish people worldwide, due to that false conflation of Judaism and Zionism. That’s why it’s critical to detangle that false conflation.
Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized by Zionism during its history.
Benny Morris, who considers the Nakba justified. The criticisms are unfounded. Far more reputable Historians agree with Ilan Pappe and recognize his work as highly credible.
But in an astonishing recent Ha’aretz interview, after summarizing his new research, Morris proceeds to argue for the necessity of ethnic cleansing in 1948. He faults David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all Arab Israelis, and hints that it may be necessary to finish the job in the future. Though he calls himself a left-wing Zionist, he invokes and praises the fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky in calling for an “iron wall” solution to the current crisis. Referring to Sharon’s Security Wall, he says, “Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another.” He calls the conflict between Israelis and Arabs a struggle between civilization and barbarism, and suggests an analogy frequently drawn by Palestinians, though from the other side of the Winchester: “Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians.”
Anti-zionism is not Antisemitism. Your conflation of the two is genuinely antisemitic.
Zionism is anti-Semitic at it’s core, it other-izes Jewish people, and justifies the violent settler colonialim of Israel as in the defense of all Jewish people, which only serves to further fuel genuine Antisemitism at the expense of Jewish people globally. Zionism is also an inherently fascist ideology. The ethnic cleansing of the native people of Palestine has always been fundamental since it’s inception as a colonialist movement.
Of course, they also shouldn’t have colonized many parts of Africa like Algeria, Vietnam, Guiana, Lebanon, Syria, and many others. The Colonialist mentality is pervasive in Europe and America, and has never really stopped. Many still hold colonies to this day
Sure, technically only 78 years, since French support for zionism began in 1947. British support goes back much further
Between July 1971 and February 1972, Sharon enjoyed considerable success. During this time, the entire Strip (apart from the Rafah area) was sealed off by a ring of security fences 53 miles in length, with few entrypoints. Today, their effects live on: there are only three points of entry to Gaza—Erez, Nahal Oz, and Rafah.
Perhaps the most dramatic and painful aspect of Sharon’s campaign was the widening of roads in the refugee camps to facilitate military access. Israel built nearly 200 miles of security roads and destroyed thousands of refugee dwellings as part of the widening process.’ In August 1971, for example, the Israeli army destroyed 7,729 rooms (approximately 2,000 houses) in three vola- tile camps, displacing 15,855 refugees: 7,217 from Jabalya, 4,836 from Shati, and 3,802 from Rafah.
Through 1993 Israel imposed a one-way system of tariffs and duties on the importation of goods through its borders; leaving Israel for Gaza, however, no tariffs or other regulations applied. Thus, for Israeli exports to Gaza, the Strip was treated as part of Israel; but for Gazan exports to Israel, the Strip was treated as a foreign entity subject to various “non-tariff barriers.” This placed Israel at a distinct advantage for trading and limited Gaza’s access to Israeli and foreign markets. Gazans had no recourse against such policies, being totally unable to protect themselves with tariffs or exchange rate controls. Thus, they had to pay more for highly protected Israeli products than they would if they had some control over their own economy. Such policies deprived the occupied territories of significant customs revenue, estimated at $118-$176 million in 1986.
In a report released in May 2015, the World Bank revealed that as a result of Israel’s blockade and OPE, Gaza’s manufacturing sector shrank by as much as 60% over eight years while real per capita income is 31 percent lower than it was 20 years ago. The report also stated that the blockade alone is responsible for a 50% decrease in Gaza’s GDP since 2007. Furthermore, OPE (combined with the tunnel closure) exacerbated an already grave situation by reducing Gaza’s economy by an additional $460 million.
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Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
After the ‘disengagement’ in 2007, this turned into a full blockade; where Israel has had control over the airspace, borders, and sea. Under the guise of ‘dual-use’ Israel has restricted food, allocating a minimum supply leading to over half of Gaza being food insecure; construction materials, medical supplies, and other basic necessities have also been restricted.
The blockade and Israel’s repeated military offensives have had a heavy toll on Gaza’s essential infrastructure and further debilitated its health system and economy, leaving the area in a state of perpetual humanitarian crisis. Indeed, Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, the majority of whom are children, has created conditions inimical to human life due to shortages of housing, potable water and electricity, and lack of access to essential medicines and medical care, food, educational equipment and building materials.
Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
Hamas:
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Israel:
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Adi Callai has written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
France was too busy arming Israel 80 years ago
For the first two decades after independence, Israel’s primary foreign ally was France, which supplied almost all of its major weapons including planes, tanks and ships as well as building the nuclear plant from which it developed atomic weapons.
Zionism has always been a fascist ideology.
Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.
The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.
An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.
The “ten myths” that Pappe explores reinforce the regional status quo. He explores the claim that Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration, as well as the formation of Zionism and its role in the early decades of nation building. He asks whether the Palestinians voluntarily left their homeland in 1948, and whether June 1967 was a war of “no choice.” Turning to the myths surrounding the failures of the Camp David Accords and the official reasons for the attacks on Gaza, he explains why the two state solution, in his view, is no longer viable.
Ilan Pappe: We are in a state that one can define as neo-Zionist. The old values of Zionism are now more extreme, [in] far more aggressive form than they were before, trying to achieve in a short time what the previous generation of Zionists were trying to achieve in [a] much longer, more, incremental, gradual way.
This is an attempt by a new leadership of Zionism to complete the work that they started in 1948, namely of taking over officially the whole of historical Palestine and getting rid of as many Palestinians as possible and in the same process, and [this is] something new, creating a new Israeli empire that is either feared or respected by its neighbours – and therefore can even expand territorially beyond the borders of mandatory or historical Palestine.
Ethnic Cleansing prior to 1948:
Planned occupation and the beginnings of systemic apartheid:
Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations practiced in the occupied territories after 1967
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
Adi Callai has done a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized by Zionism during its history
That’s true, Zionism is explicitly about the ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians and settler colonialism. There has always been Jewish and Christian Palestinians in historic Palestine
The Palestinians did repeatedly advocate for a unitary secular solution that would give equal rights to everyone. Ben Gurion and the zionist project instead chose partition to setup a causi belli to begin the nakba (Expulsions of Palestinians started in the 1920s, not with the nakba) and establish Israel as a settler Colonialist state.
I would love to see this with Carl wearing a maga hat
Let’s not pretend that Trump’s plan to forcibly remove all Palestinians from Gaza isn’t a revival of the same plan put forth by Biden behind closed doors.
But in a statement Thursday, the Egyptian government rejected efforts to move Palestinians from Gaza as a “blatant violation” of international law that could undercut ceasefire talks and threaten Middle East relations.
A Western diplomat in Cairo, also speaking anonymously because the discussions have not been made public, confirmed receiving Egypt’s message of its strong opposition through multiple channels. The diplomat said Egypt was very serious and viewed the plan as a threat to its national security.
The diplomat said Egypt rejected similar proposals from the Biden administration and European countries early in the war, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. The earlier proposals were broached privately, while Trump announced his plan at a White House press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The only obligation the US has, under the Leahy Law and International Law, is to cease weapons transfers to Israel for violating human rights and perpetrating crimes against humanity.
Biden is a self proclaimed Zionist, he absolutely supported this genocide, both materially, diplomatically, and ideologically.
That could work, it looks like it was a lot of features like reacts and video calls. How easy it is to setup and ‘plug-and-play’ will determine whether I’ll be able to convince people to use it
Is there a better alternative? I don’t see anything conclusive in the link on that front
I think addiction is a key aspect. Like with gambling there is of course that aspect of responsibility, but regulation to minimize harm is also important.
All the major social media apps being designed to exploit that dopamine response is kind of like junk foods being the most common due to being subsidized; of course people just shouldn’t eat junk food, but we should make healthy options the most prevalent and common instead.
Of course that would require a government that would actually force corporations to implement harm reductive measures, instead of one bought by and working for corporations…
FOSS alternatives like Lemmy, Pixelfed, and Loops should be much healthier due to no algorithm working to maximize engagement. I also think social isolation is a big part of the addiction aspect, at least in America
So you say
Interesting way to start, considering I linked three articles.
The history of the phrase has no bearing on the current use of the phrase. Kind of like when Biden said “I am a zionist.” It meant something totally different when he was coming up than it does today.
The articles covered both historical and modern usage. Zionism is the same ideology as when it started, in fact that has become only more obvious since this genocide started.
I’ll quote from each article, including the two you linked, as they all support the reality that it is an emancipatory slogan.
Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center Washington D.C., has written extensively about the meaning of the slogan before and since Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, which led to Israel’s current bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
“It’s an expression of Palestinian nationalism and it’s an expression of a demand for Palestinian freedom or self-determination,” said Waxman. “I think Palestinian self-determination need not come at the expense of Jewish self-determination. Nor do I think Palestinian freedom has to be considered a threat to Jewish rights.”
Simply put, the majority of Palestinians who use this phrase do so because they believe that, in 10 short words, it sums up their personal ties, their national rights and their vision for the land they call Palestine. And while attempts to police the slogan’s use may come from a place of genuine concern, there is a risk that tarring the slogan as antisemitic – and therefore beyond the pale – taps into a longer history of attempts to silence Palestinian voices.
The use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” has come under particular scrutiny in the last three months. When Palestinians, or anyone on the left, has used the phrase to demand a free Palestine—as in the popular chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—those on the right have disingenuously argued that it is calling for the death of all Jewish people in Israel.
In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer argued that those who saw genocidal ambition in the phrase, or indeed an unambiguous desire for the destruction of Israel, did so due to their own Islamophobia.
It was instead, he argued, merely a way to express a desire for a state in which “Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them”.
Preventing any possibility of a Palestinian state has always been Israel’s policy, one that the settlement building in the Occupied Territories is meant to ensure. This policy has been intensified under Benjamin Netanyahu, who in January 2024 publicly vowed to resist any attempt to create a Palestinian state and to maintain Israeli control from the river to the sea.
It is often maintained that the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ expresses a genocidal and antisemitic intention. But this is generally not the case. On the contrary, the slogan has historically been used to articulate a wide variety of political strategies for Palestinian liberation
Denying such demands seems as self-evident to most Israeli Jews as the air they breathe. It is this denial that has led to the dehumanization of Palestinians and has culminated in the genocidal mood that is prevailing in Israeli Jewish society today and in the assault taking place now in Gaza. This should be viewed as the real problem and not the legitimate chant of ‘from the river to the sea: Palestine will be free’.
In Israel, Haaretz journalist Ravit Hecht wrote that the slogan is a call ‘for ethnic cleansing, similar to the one that took place in the Gaza ‘envelope’ [on October 7]… It’s not about a return to the 1967 borders or a cessation of the occupation, but the annihilation of the Jewish national home and the expulsion of Jews from this place.’"
Ravit Hecht is a zionist. Having a liberal leaning on a fascist ideology doesn’t make it any less fascist. It’s to the surprise of no one that zionist propaganda is deliberately used to de-legitimize the emancipatory slogan, used by the ones they oppress and ethnically cleanse, and project the mentality of genocide which Zionists are doing as we speak.
From Revit Hecht, among many other racist remarks such as Palestinians being a ‘murderous and barbaric culture’:
Hamas did what it did in the most horrific manner one could imagine. The organization’s defenders preach this, covering it with pseudo-intellectual blather and a specious discourse about human rights. If human rights interested them, they would enthusiastically support Israel’s war against Hamas, an organization that primarily oppresses its own people.
Anyone denying the right of a nation to defend itself after an attack, the cruelty of which can not be expressed in words, with the people who perpetrated it vowing to repeat it at the first opportunity; anyone who fails to distinguish between the way the IDF conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and the way Hamas treated its victims, is collaborating with an antisemitic attack. Sometimes it’s because such a person is himself or herself antisemitic, even if they are Jewish.
the people on the opposite side of that statement hear it very, very differently.
The other side being Zionists, who purposely de-legitimize and project the zionist ideology of ethnic cleansing onto the emancipatory slogan of the people they oppress and ethnically cleanse. You’re only proving the point myself, SmilingSolaris, and everyone down voting your responses.
It’s not, nor are it’s origins. It’s a call for an end to the apartheid and creation of a democratic secular state in its stead, not the genocide of Israelis/Jewish people. Netanyahu’s use, calling for only Israeli sovereignty over historic Palestine, is completely different and a false equivalence.
Israel is the one preventing the hostages from returning, and a permanent ceasefire to take place.
De-development via the Gaza Occupation
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The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy
Blockade, including Aid
Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
After the ‘disengagement’ in 2007, this turned into a full blockade; where Israel has had control over the airspace, borders, and sea. Under the guise of ‘dual-use’ Israel has restricted food, allocating a minimum supply leading to over half of Gaza being food insecure; construction materials, medical supplies, and other basic necessities have also been restricted.
Peace Process and Solution
Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Human Shields
Hamas:
HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009
Agency Demands Full Respect for the Sanctity of Its Premises in Gaza - July 2014
HRW - Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel
Israel:
Israel/OPT: Israeli attacks targeting Hamas and other armed group fighters that killed scores of displaced civilians in Rafah should be investigated as war crimes
HRW - Gaza: Unlawful Israeli Hospital Strikes Worsen Health Crisis
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:
IDF uses Human Shields,
Including Children (2013 Report)
Palestinian children face unrelenting genocide, displacement, and systematic abuse throughout 2024
Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds 2024
Breaking The Silence - Testimonies from IDF Veterans
Deliberate Attacks on Civilians
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Lavender
Where’s Daddy
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Adi Callai has written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video