On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over comments she made advocating for Palestinians to be free.
So here’s my honest question, why are the Jewish people relatively singled out as excluded from being allowed to desire a state/homeland? Is there an argument that the Jewish people did not originate from that area of the world, and if so, where is the actual Jewish homeland? Did the Jewish people spring forth fully developed from Zeus’s forehead? The argument seems to be that all indigenous peoples should have at least parts of their lands and autonomy restored to them all over the world; except for the Jews, because fuck them they don’t deserve a country for non-antisemetic reasons and they should have integrated into a new Arabic country of Palestine instead of splitting the land.
Ignoring the history of Jewish treatment in other countries around the globe for centuries, I don’t understand how, for a land that is the historical birthplace of several peoples, it is considered good for one of those peoples to fight for it and bad for another of those peoples to do the same. It all seems to come down to where anyone’s specific biases fall, while everyone claims to not have any biases.
You’re premise is nonsense, there are anti-apartheid movements whereever apartheid states exist. There was an anti-apartheid movement in South Africa way before now.
The premise that the Jewish people might deserve a country is nonsense? If it is, I am asking why do they not deserve one while other ethnicities do? Obviously an individuals views on whether Israel is running an apartheid state fall under the biases I mentioned, because some people do not recognize it as such, and I was not addressing the anti-apartheid movement. That definitely deserves its own discussion, but is layers above my question. South Africa is also different in that the apartheid government was formed from outside colonial settlers who had zero historic roots in the area. Israel/Palestine is closer to the bloody formations of India and Pakistan or the many other African wars caused by departing colonial powers arbitrarily redrawing maps on their way out, than South Africa’s white apartheid government in underpinning if not human cost.
I am asking what the people calling for Israel to cease existing and be replaced in it’s entirety by Palestine believe the Jewish people should do? If the region should be Palestine because of Palestinian genealogical roots, why do the Jews not get any claim in the region for the same reason? Is it because they were conquered and removed from the region in the past and the Palestinians weren’t? Mainly, if a two state solution isn’t desirable, it seems to be either because the Jewish people have insufficient or lacking genealogical claim in the region, or because they don’t deserve the same “rights” as the Palestinians for a myriad of other reasons.
On that we are agreed. Should your statement be taken as the Jews being settler colonizers though? I would argue that an ethnicity cannot truly be a colonizer on the land they originated from. For that to be true, we have to acknowledge an absolute right of conquest for territory after a certain amount of time has elapsed. I believe a peaceful and fully autonomous two state solution is the most logically fair outcome, but am not holding my breath for that.
If the argument is that they are colonizers now, would the same be true in the extremely unlikely hypothetical that the United States was forced to return a state to the native tribes that were originally there? Would we call the returning native tribes settler colonizers if the current inhabitants had to leave the new tribal lands? The land has belonged to the current inhabitants for over 200 years after all, and if not, how long is the cutoff?
This mostly boils down to the question: if you can’t have a permanent loss of claim to a historical homeland through conquest, then why would there be an exception to this rule for the Jewish ethnicity? And if you can lose claim to a historical homeland if conquered well enough, why would there be any substance to return native lands anywhere else?
You’re wishing death upon Israel. What group of people predominantly live in Israel? Jews. Semites. Thus, antisemitic.
And if your solution is for Israel’s government to just disappear, you’ll be surprised to find that Hamas will treat the
Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists and pagans
no better. Don’t act like Hamas is offering the pinnacle of freedom from religious persecution. Let’s not forget that this is the same Hamas that has endorsed jihad against Jews.
You do realize a state can dissolve without literally everyone dying right? When East Germany and West Germany reunified the entire population of both countries didn’t die. When apartheid collapsed in South Africa all the settlers didn’t die.
How exactly do you read “death to Israel” as “the peaceful dissolution of the Israeli government and end of its apartheid conditions”?
When North Korea says “death to America,” surely they just mean a peaceful change of power, right?
And again, let’s not ignore that the power vacuum would quickly be filled by… Hamas, a terrorist group with a violent track record. Your Germany and South Africa examples are not like Israel.
“death to america” does refer to an end to the US empire- not the American people. I’ve talked with a fair number of Iranians who dislike their own government and Americas reign of terror around the world.
From “the river to the sea” means an end to the apartheid government in occupied Palestine. It’s projection from the murderous settlers that a unified non-apartheid state would mean their own extermination- because that’s what they do to the undesirables in their unified state.
Even if it is an Iranian cultural phrase that’s lost in translation into English, it lacks context. You’ve given the Iranian cultural context, but you’re completely ignoring the global context: the Holocaust of 6 million Jews and the recent terror attack that killed and took hostages of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Hamas has, quite literally, brought “death to Israel.”
If something needs context and explanation to not be antisemitic, it’s probably best to not say that thing rather than risk being antisemitic. Otherwise, you’re just demonstrating that you don’t care if you’re sounding antisemitic.
For the same reason that it was Islamaphobic for the US to invade Iraq, it is antisemitic for you to say “death to Israel” while Hamas is killing Israeli civilians and saying “death to Israel.” We cannot ignore the context of racial/religious tensions and the fact that these nations have racial/religious majorities.
Comparing the hamas attack to the holocaust is like comparing an indigenous people’s raid of settler encampments to the holocaust. It is wildly inappropriate and ignores the difference in power between Jewish people under the nazis and Jewish people in a White Jewish ethnostate
Oh of fucking course it is going to be violent, unless the settler state caves. That is how anticolonial movements always go. But it is a lesser violence vs the continued violence its existence is predicated on.
Please pick up wretched of the earth by Fanon at your local library, it is a very necessary read for westerners.
It is antisemitic to equate calling for violence against Jewish settlers partaking in genocide to calling for violence against all Jews on the basis of being Jewish.
You’re being antisemitic. And if you aren’t Jewish, you need to shut the fuck up now. If you are, I’d be happy to explain why your position harms us as a whole.
Who said anything about antisemitic? The fact that multiple people replied to me about antisemitism is telling that YOU think it is antisemitic and need to defend yourself.
You’re talking about the original phrase that had Rashida accused of antisemitism, and given the context it seems like you think “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m just very tired of dealing with zionist antisemites and may have jumped the gun.
telling that YOU think it is antisemitic and need to defend yourself.
The one thing you know about me is that I’ve said the Jewish side of my family was directly affected by the holocaust. Do you think this is appropriate to say to me? If this was a real life interaction, would you say this outloud?
There was no “literal pre mandatory Palestine border.” Under the Ottomans it was multiple sanjaks under the vilayet of Damascus.
What you call “from the river to the sea” did not exist as an administrative boundary until Winston Churchill created it in 1922 by splitting Mandate Palestine into Transjordan and a new, smaller Mandate Palestine.
Yes there was, it was administered under the same borders as before the ottoman invaded just subdivided to three sub states because that’s how the ottoman maintained control.
Three states that make up the same border and we’re referenced to as a whole as Palestine, you’re not making the point you think you’re making. The United States is quite a bit more than 3 states, are you implying the US doesn’t exist?
That’s like saying if the US collapsed that the existence of former states of Washington, Oregon and half of a state called California proves that there is now a country called “Washoregfornia” even though nobody ever called themselves Washoregfornians when the US existed and nobody governed themselves according to those borders. You’re inverting your logic.
Not at all, Palestine existed and had the same borders prior to ottoman rule, during ottoman rule, and during mandatory Palestine.
Your example state never existed and even if it did it would have been a territory.
Do you have a problem with the elimination of a genocidal fascist state? If you’re not conflating Jews and Israel then I don’t see why you’d have an issue with the words “death to Israel” unless you support their fascism or their genocide.
So tell me, what do you call the bombardment, forced displacement, limiting of Water, removal of communication for everyone in the area, bombing of refugee came, hospitals, ambulances sent by red cross, etc etc Israel has been doing in Gaza?
…not genocide? Go, read the legal definition of genocide, and show me the mens rea element. Compare it to the Armenian genocide. Compare it to the Holocaust. Compare it to what China is doing to the Uyghurs. People screaming genocide only make themselves look foolish right now.
Does that look like targeted bombings to you? To me it like like they’re bombing anything and everything. And with the missiles they have you know they could pick out exact targets if they wanted to. (like that ambulance red cross told them was transporting critically injured before they bombed it)
Please tell me how them purposefully leveling a city is not a deliberate killing of a large group of people of a particular Nation. Or bombing the injured, cutting off their communication THEN telling them they have 24 hours to leave before soldiers march in and treat everyone there as Hamas members. Do you really not see genocidal intent?
Also legal definitions aren’t the end-all be-all. Legally a man could not rape his wife until the 90s. He force himself on her as much as he wanted and it was not rape. Does that mean wives were never raped? Think past laws and look at the situation, look at what Israel is doing, the words they’re using to justify it and how those words dehumanizing words are the same ones used by other groups before/during their genocides. They intend on killing Palestinians and are doing it en masse as the world stands by. They are committing a genocide and just because worse things have happened to other groups doesn’t mean the bad shit isn’t happening to this group.
Is a woman who was coerced into sex while drunk any less of a rape victim than the woman who was beaten an inch away from death during her rape? What about the wife who was raped by her husband in 1980 when the law didn’t recognize it?
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
“With intent to destroy” is the key part here. Throwing around “genocide” using a dictionary term is meaningless. Genocide is a legal concept. Use the legal definition.
To be 100% clear, I am now quoting from the UN:
The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:
A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” […]
The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.
Because “Death to Israel” doesn’t rhyme.
“Death to Israel” isn’t antisemitic. A racist genocidal state must die for everyone in Palestine [Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists and pagans] to be free. https://www.threads.net/@torahjudaism/post/CzbmCTzuYRt/
I never said anything was antisemitic. I said that what you are saying is “Death to Israel”. And it seems that you agree.
Yes, death to Israel
So here’s my honest question, why are the Jewish people relatively singled out as excluded from being allowed to desire a state/homeland? Is there an argument that the Jewish people did not originate from that area of the world, and if so, where is the actual Jewish homeland? Did the Jewish people spring forth fully developed from Zeus’s forehead? The argument seems to be that all indigenous peoples should have at least parts of their lands and autonomy restored to them all over the world; except for the Jews, because fuck them they don’t deserve a country for non-antisemetic reasons and they should have integrated into a new Arabic country of Palestine instead of splitting the land.
Ignoring the history of Jewish treatment in other countries around the globe for centuries, I don’t understand how, for a land that is the historical birthplace of several peoples, it is considered good for one of those peoples to fight for it and bad for another of those peoples to do the same. It all seems to come down to where anyone’s specific biases fall, while everyone claims to not have any biases.
You’re premise is nonsense, there are anti-apartheid movements whereever apartheid states exist. There was an anti-apartheid movement in South Africa way before now.
The premise that the Jewish people might deserve a country is nonsense? If it is, I am asking why do they not deserve one while other ethnicities do? Obviously an individuals views on whether Israel is running an apartheid state fall under the biases I mentioned, because some people do not recognize it as such, and I was not addressing the anti-apartheid movement. That definitely deserves its own discussion, but is layers above my question. South Africa is also different in that the apartheid government was formed from outside colonial settlers who had zero historic roots in the area. Israel/Palestine is closer to the bloody formations of India and Pakistan or the many other African wars caused by departing colonial powers arbitrarily redrawing maps on their way out, than South Africa’s white apartheid government in underpinning if not human cost.
I am asking what the people calling for Israel to cease existing and be replaced in it’s entirety by Palestine believe the Jewish people should do? If the region should be Palestine because of Palestinian genealogical roots, why do the Jews not get any claim in the region for the same reason? Is it because they were conquered and removed from the region in the past and the Palestinians weren’t? Mainly, if a two state solution isn’t desirable, it seems to be either because the Jewish people have insufficient or lacking genealogical claim in the region, or because they don’t deserve the same “rights” as the Palestinians for a myriad of other reasons.
Literally no ethnicities deserve settler colonial apartheid states.
On that we are agreed. Should your statement be taken as the Jews being settler colonizers though? I would argue that an ethnicity cannot truly be a colonizer on the land they originated from. For that to be true, we have to acknowledge an absolute right of conquest for territory after a certain amount of time has elapsed. I believe a peaceful and fully autonomous two state solution is the most logically fair outcome, but am not holding my breath for that.
If the argument is that they are colonizers now, would the same be true in the extremely unlikely hypothetical that the United States was forced to return a state to the native tribes that were originally there? Would we call the returning native tribes settler colonizers if the current inhabitants had to leave the new tribal lands? The land has belonged to the current inhabitants for over 200 years after all, and if not, how long is the cutoff?
This mostly boils down to the question: if you can’t have a permanent loss of claim to a historical homeland through conquest, then why would there be an exception to this rule for the Jewish ethnicity? And if you can lose claim to a historical homeland if conquered well enough, why would there be any substance to return native lands anywhere else?
Even if
is true, it doesn’t make this true:
You’re wishing death upon Israel. What group of people predominantly live in Israel? Jews. Semites. Thus, antisemitic.
And if your solution is for Israel’s government to just disappear, you’ll be surprised to find that Hamas will treat the
no better. Don’t act like Hamas is offering the pinnacle of freedom from religious persecution. Let’s not forget that this is the same Hamas that has endorsed jihad against Jews.
You do realize a state can dissolve without literally everyone dying right? When East Germany and West Germany reunified the entire population of both countries didn’t die. When apartheid collapsed in South Africa all the settlers didn’t die.
How exactly do you read “death to Israel” as “the peaceful dissolution of the Israeli government and end of its apartheid conditions”?
When North Korea says “death to America,” surely they just mean a peaceful change of power, right?
And again, let’s not ignore that the power vacuum would quickly be filled by… Hamas, a terrorist group with a violent track record. Your Germany and South Africa examples are not like Israel.
“death to america” does refer to an end to the US empire- not the American people. I’ve talked with a fair number of Iranians who dislike their own government and Americas reign of terror around the world.
From “the river to the sea” means an end to the apartheid government in occupied Palestine. It’s projection from the murderous settlers that a unified non-apartheid state would mean their own extermination- because that’s what they do to the undesirables in their unified state.
The government isn’t the people.
Marg bar Amrika
Reach.
Even if it is an Iranian cultural phrase that’s lost in translation into English, it lacks context. You’ve given the Iranian cultural context, but you’re completely ignoring the global context: the Holocaust of 6 million Jews and the recent terror attack that killed and took hostages of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Hamas has, quite literally, brought “death to Israel.”
If something needs context and explanation to not be antisemitic, it’s probably best to not say that thing rather than risk being antisemitic. Otherwise, you’re just demonstrating that you don’t care if you’re sounding antisemitic.
Peace be with you.
Israel isn’t all Jews, doesn’t represent all Jews, and it’s legit antisemitic to say that it is.
You are the one sounding antisemitic.
For the same reason that it was Islamaphobic for the US to invade Iraq, it is antisemitic for you to say “death to Israel” while Hamas is killing Israeli civilians and saying “death to Israel.” We cannot ignore the context of racial/religious tensions and the fact that these nations have racial/religious majorities.
Comparing the hamas attack to the holocaust is like comparing an indigenous people’s raid of settler encampments to the holocaust. It is wildly inappropriate and ignores the difference in power between Jewish people under the nazis and Jewish people in a White Jewish ethnostate
I did not compare these two events.
Oh of fucking course it is going to be violent, unless the settler state caves. That is how anticolonial movements always go. But it is a lesser violence vs the continued violence its existence is predicated on.
Please pick up wretched of the earth by Fanon at your local library, it is a very necessary read for westerners.
Okay so you are saying that:
Thus, “death to Israel” is calling for violence upon Jews. Antisemitic. Case closed.
It is antisemitic to equate calling for violence against Jewish settlers partaking in genocide to calling for violence against all Jews on the basis of being Jewish.
You’re being antisemitic. And if you aren’t Jewish, you need to shut the fuck up now. If you are, I’d be happy to explain why your position harms us as a whole.
Bu-but the non-jewish allies have very strong feelings about protecting the european settler state!!
Living in a place is not a reason to be killed. Being born in a place is not a reason to be killed.
Whenever a flag does genocide it’s time for that flag to go.
RIP American flag
Rest in piss
That literally isn’t antisemitic, conflating antizionism and antisemitism is antisemitic
-someone who’s Jewish side of the family was directly affected by the holocaust
Who said anything about antisemitic? The fact that multiple people replied to me about antisemitism is telling that YOU think it is antisemitic and need to defend yourself.
You’re talking about the original phrase that had Rashida accused of antisemitism, and given the context it seems like you think “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m just very tired of dealing with zionist antisemites and may have jumped the gun.
The one thing you know about me is that I’ve said the Jewish side of my family was directly affected by the holocaust. Do you think this is appropriate to say to me? If this was a real life interaction, would you say this outloud?
We all know what they meant, they can hedge if they’d like but I don’t think anyone is buying what they’re selling.
It’s the literal pre mandatory Palestine border.
There was no “literal pre mandatory Palestine border.” Under the Ottomans it was multiple sanjaks under the vilayet of Damascus.
What you call “from the river to the sea” did not exist as an administrative boundary until Winston Churchill created it in 1922 by splitting Mandate Palestine into Transjordan and a new, smaller Mandate Palestine.
Does nobody study history before spouting off?
Yes there was, it was administered under the same borders as before the ottoman invaded just subdivided to three sub states because that’s how the ottoman maintained control.
Do they indeed.
“Just subdivided into three states”.
Thank you. Like I said, those administrative borders never existed. It’s a British colonial construct.
Three states that make up the same border and we’re referenced to as a whole as Palestine, you’re not making the point you think you’re making. The United States is quite a bit more than 3 states, are you implying the US doesn’t exist?
That’s like saying if the US collapsed that the existence of former states of Washington, Oregon and half of a state called California proves that there is now a country called “Washoregfornia” even though nobody ever called themselves Washoregfornians when the US existed and nobody governed themselves according to those borders. You’re inverting your logic.
Not at all, Palestine existed and had the same borders prior to ottoman rule, during ottoman rule, and during mandatory Palestine. Your example state never existed and even if it did it would have been a territory.
Please show a map that shows your point.
Conflating Israel with Jewish people is anti-semetic
You’re just too deep in the sauce to realize that, anti-semite.
Where did I conflate Jews and Israel? Where did I say anything about antisemitism?
Nice strawman, bro.
Do you have a problem with the elimination of a genocidal fascist state? If you’re not conflating Jews and Israel then I don’t see why you’d have an issue with the words “death to Israel” unless you support their fascism or their genocide.
lol. “Genocidal”. I’ve been loving reading all the international law analysis from people who couldn’t even get into law school.
So tell me, what do you call the bombardment, forced displacement, limiting of Water, removal of communication for everyone in the area, bombing of refugee came, hospitals, ambulances sent by red cross, etc etc Israel has been doing in Gaza?
…not genocide? Go, read the legal definition of genocide, and show me the mens rea element. Compare it to the Armenian genocide. Compare it to the Holocaust. Compare it to what China is doing to the Uyghurs. People screaming genocide only make themselves look foolish right now.
War crimes? Possibly. Genocide?! No.
Definition of Genocide from Oxford:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/middleeast/satellite-images-gaza-destruction/index.html
Does that look like targeted bombings to you? To me it like like they’re bombing anything and everything. And with the missiles they have you know they could pick out exact targets if they wanted to. (like that ambulance red cross told them was transporting critically injured before they bombed it)
Please tell me how them purposefully leveling a city is not a deliberate killing of a large group of people of a particular Nation. Or bombing the injured, cutting off their communication THEN telling them they have 24 hours to leave before soldiers march in and treat everyone there as Hamas members. Do you really not see genocidal intent?
Also legal definitions aren’t the end-all be-all. Legally a man could not rape his wife until the 90s. He force himself on her as much as he wanted and it was not rape. Does that mean wives were never raped? Think past laws and look at the situation, look at what Israel is doing, the words they’re using to justify it and how those words dehumanizing words are the same ones used by other groups before/during their genocides. They intend on killing Palestinians and are doing it en masse as the world stands by. They are committing a genocide and just because worse things have happened to other groups doesn’t mean the bad shit isn’t happening to this group.
Is a woman who was coerced into sex while drunk any less of a rape victim than the woman who was beaten an inch away from death during her rape? What about the wife who was raped by her husband in 1980 when the law didn’t recognize it?
They’re all rape
It’s all genocide
It’s all wrong
Wrong.
From the Geneva Convention:
“With intent to destroy” is the key part here. Throwing around “genocide” using a dictionary term is meaningless. Genocide is a legal concept. Use the legal definition.
To be 100% clear, I am now quoting from the UN:
Source: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention