I didn’t want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I’m right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
If you were in power in Israel, and care for its citizens, what would your steps be as reaction to what happened? Please imagine both short and long term consequences.
and care for its citizens,
If the Israeli government cared about the people it (supposedly) represents it wouldn’t be turning them into violent colonialist goons to do the west’s bidding in the middle-east, would it?
You might just as well ask how to fix the Apartheid-regime without upsetting white people or fix the Nazi regime without discomforting Nazis.
Ending the illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank would be a good start
I feel that taking one side over the other without allowing for any nuance in that complicated clusterfuck over there is disingenuous. I feel very sorry for all civilians caught between the many murderous assholes in that region, but I can’t fully support one group while completely condemning the other. Acting like it’s a black and white issue is so very wrong and not helpful.
Which side is committing genocide? That’s the side to oppose in any fight.
But our government did pick a side. So what is our obligation, then?
Not good. All I can do is vote. Until they take that away.
Do you feel represented by one of the political parties you may have in your country? Would they act in a general agreement with your own convictions?
I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I’m an American who’s been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
This is why I started to support rank choice voting like they have in many countries in Europe. It’s not perfect but a nice step forward from what we have.
I’m assuming you meant ranked choice, but the mental image of your typo is quite entertaining.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions.
Well this shows that not everything about the US is bad.
Germany is bound to support them no matter what. I understand why but there should be some conditions. It’s a sensitive subject here.
Beyond that I don’t really understand this conflict enough to have an objective opinion.
I fell like most people have very little idea whats going on. The conflict is extremely complicated.
Israel is retaliating against civilians for an attack carried out by Hamas. This is what America did in Afghanistan after the attack on the world trade center in 2001. It was dumb and it’s dumb now.
I’d call it “retaliating” against civilians. Actual retaliation would mean hitting the set of people who attacked Israel.
IMO a big source of the problem is that we’re conflating four groups for two groups.
Government A, People A, Government B, People B.
Any time Government A attacks People B, Government B “retaliates” against People A, and vice versa. It’s not actual retaliation it’s forwarding the violence to someone new.
There are tenuous connections between these governments and these peoples, but it’s not like slapping the guy who just slapped you. It’s like slapping his kid.
That’s my emotional understanding of the current situation. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan whole-heartedly the night it happened, but I was a child then. 9/11 was upsetting and rockets are exciting. Now, with maturity and hindsight, that invasion was a cruel mistake. I believe this current invasion is also a mistake.
What I see critical about it is that they don’t realy give a fuck about civilians. They don’t target them, but if there a chance to hurt Hamas they don’t realy care that much. Still I realy don’t like the people who are just screaming at you everything bad. I don’t feel remotely qualified to talk specifics about that topic and most people I hear talking about it, especially in the internet are deffenetly not qualified either.
I think most people are qualified to say that killing is bad regardless of the reasons or intent. If the goal of Israel is to put a stop to Hamas attacks then they certainly aren’t going to get there by killing random Palestinians regardless. That is only going to create more people who hate Israel in the long run.
The conflict is extremely complicated.
It really isn’t. It’s just pro-Israeli propaganda pretending it’s complicated.
In the US, speaking the truth about the Israel-Palestine ::cough::Palestinian genocide::cough:: war will get you cancelled by AIPAC astroturfers and useful idiots who just cancel who they’re told to cancel. That’s how they (the AIPAC, the military industrial complex, and AIPAC-run film industry…if you don’t believe me, why was Harvey Weinstein so friendly with ex-Mossad agents that he was able to use them against his opponents?) manufacture consent among normal people these days.
Additionally, 35 US states have anti-bds laws on the books punishing US citizens that choose not to buy products from Israel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws In many of those US states you can be fired from government jobs for refusing to buy Israeli products in your own personal life.
Sometimes I feel like people forget that Israel was actually attacked.
Still doesn’t justify commiting a genocide
Call your congressperson and senators. They might not listen to just you but the more people call the more their positions can be moved.
Depends on the genocide. For Isreal I’m fine with it because I think anyone would do the same in their position.
Depends on the genocide.
No it literally fucking doesn’t. Doesn’t matter what happened before or what happens after. Genocide is never justified. Fire hot. Water wet.
I don’t mean to derail the conversation, but it pains me to say that Europeans have been financing the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh by buying Azerbaijani oil with almost no repercussion.
I love genocide. I just wish there was some way I could actually vote for it. Instead I’m stuck voting for the closest option which does none of what I want but fortunately both sides support Israel killing Muslims in mass.
I’ll put this here because people are dumb as hell /s
Also please remember that Europe purchased nearly the entirety of products produced by slaves in the Americas.
If there were no European market there would have been little incentive for American slavery.
I guess the slave free northern states also purchased their fair share, but nothing compared to Europe.
Oh yeah, and you know the justification for indigenous peoples being granted their land back because their ancestors used to live there, and they were removed?
That’s the exact same situation for Israel. The Jews used to live in Israel until they were kicked out.
Let that complicate your morality.
It’s never just been the US - Israel doesn’t just have a whole bunch of enablers… said enablers also back the very idea of a modern-day Israel.
France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Apartheid-era South Africa all played their part in helping with all this - I guess the fact that it’s all countries with histories that are deeply entwined with white supremacism, antisemitism and colonialism is purely coincidence, eh?
Did I read this correctly? You just tried to say that Israel’s supporters are antisemitic? How’d you connect those two dots?
You just tried to say that Israel’s supporters are antisemitic?
No. I never tried to say it.
I just plain said it - the countries that enable Israel is as antisemitic and white supremacist as they have always been. They’ve been hiding it since WW2 - but, as the resurgence of mask-off far-right ideology in the US and Europe proves, it’s still the same old west.
The west’s support for Israel has always been antisemitic - dumping European Jewish people in Palestine was literally one the Nazi’s potential solutions to the “Jewish Question”. It’s no secret - just mundane history that westerners doesn’t like talking about.
Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism - the whole reason these white supremacist and antisemitic societies fantasized about a modern-day “Israel” was simply because they did not believe Jewish people belonged in their precious “white” societies.
You don’t have to think about it for very long to see it for yourself - who were the people that made it so difficult for Jewish people to “belong” in western societies? If the US was so friendly and welcoming to Jewish people as the US wants to pretend it is (prominent Jewish people like Steven Spielberg and Noam Chomsky will happily tell you about US-style antisemitism), why would Jewish people need a “homeland” in the middle-east?
No. I never tried to say it. I just plain said it…
I’d like to point out to folks that whatever your stance on the issue may be, this statement (taken by itself) is pretty funny.
Please excuse the interruption and continue.
I mean, if you’ve purchased chocolate in the last century, you’re supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It’s nice that you’re now thinking about it though.
I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn’t start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who’s behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don’t represent us, governments do.
Defeated and hopeless mostly. Almost the same as I felt funding the war in the middle east after looking at the casualties and reading testimonies from US soldiers. It’s long weighed heavily on me that half of every dollar I’m required to pay to the government is used to kill people who have nothing to do with me, especially as someone whose worked since he was 16. The war in the middle east was met with the largest protests in US history at the time and nothing changed. We then elected a democrat who was given a noble peace prize, he kept the war going and killed many civilians with drone strikes. I don’t even own a house and the rate at which my savings are stacking up, there’s not much I can even afford to do. Welcome to the machine.
