Blame the British! The origin of the fighting in Israel-Palestine is the fault of fucking British Imperialistism exploiting Socialist Zionism to maintain control of the Middle East before packing it up and leaving chaos in their wake. Same deal as the Partition. Same deal as Iraq. Same deal as the Troubles. Revisionist and Religious Zionist definititely picked up the torch. But Socialist/Liberal Zionism is a very complicated subject (speaking as an Anti-Zionist Jew who attended Hebrew school—there was a ton of “Being Jewish Means Supporting Israel” messaging while studying for my bar mitzvah. I read Said when I was 18 and I realized all the lies. But renouncing part of your identity is hard for anyone and I empathize with Liberal Jewish Zionists who find it difficult). The big difference between the Partition and 1948 is that a bunch of surrounding dictatorships didn’t invade India-Pakistan. I can understand how that would be a pretty traumatizing formational experience for the founding generation and make prosecuting all the Zionist terrorists and war criminals difficult. That doesn’t make it right but when terrorists can get away with killing refugees from the Shoah in 1943, how likely is it that a new government is…
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2025-07 My thinking has evolved a lot over the past six years and I don’t think anyone in Israel-Palestine wants a single state solution. Which means the Good Friday Accords is probably the best model. Two states with open borders and everyone is free to identify themselves as Israeli, Palestinian, or both.1 2019-07 One state with full citizenship for all. Right of Return.2 Significant reparations. A Conciliation Committee. A South Africa+ plan basically. Moreover, like the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the whole situation started with British Imperialism attempting to use ethnic tensions to remain in power (functionally they used Socialist Zionism the same way they used tensions between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias in Iraq. Revisionist—aka fascist—Zionism is a whole other ball of wax). And then, after WWII, they just gave up and went home leading to disaster not so different than the Partition. And, thinking along these lines, I believe one way to restart the peace process (after deposing Netanyahu and the other fascists from power) would be to add the UK as a third party who will be responsible for funding reparations and the rebuilding of Palestine. Not only will that make it easier for the Israeli government to…
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I wonder if the people calling out Congresswoman Omar would be as upset if she said that Sheldon Adelson massive donations to Trump played a large part in his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem? Because I don’t remember an uproar about the New York Times leading an article about the move with: Ten days before Donald J. Trump took office, Sheldon G. Adelson went to Trump Tower for a private meeting. Afterward, Mr. Adelson, the casino billionaire and Republican donor, called an old friend, Morton A. Klein, to report that Mr. Trump told him that moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a major priority. While the article also acknowledges the influence of evangelicals, it doesn’t mention them until the fifth paragraph and it clearly stresses Adelson’s money (and AIPAC) as the leading motivation. The anti-Jewish trope is about shadowy Jewish Financiers secretly controlling politics. There’s nothing secret about AIPAC sponsoring congressional trips to Israel or major politicians from both parties making a pilgrimage to speak at their annual conference. Calling criticism of AIPAC anti-Jewish is expanding the trope to any Jewish use of money in politics.
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Here’s the chorus from Puffy’s 1997 hit, It’s All About The Benjamins: It’s all about the Benjamins baby Now, what y’all wanna do? It’s all about the Benjamins baby Wanna be ballers, shot-callers It’s all about the Benjamins baby Brawlers — who be dippin in the Benz wit the spoilers It’s all about the Benjamins baby On the low from the Jake in the Taurus Anyone see any anti-Jewish tropes1 in there? ‘Cause I don’t. Yes, there is one reference to Jews: “You should do what we do, stack chips like Hebrews.” But there are way more references to Italian Mob films. The song is about enjoying the life of the wealthy, not using money for power. ↩
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I often put on this act of a fearless fighter when talking about the mistreatment of my people, but tonight I had a direct one-on-one conversation with someone who actively denies the humanity of Palestinians (one of the apparent majority) that resulted in me crying non-stop for thirty minutes straight. It had me wishing I wasn’t Palestinian because I wished I were part of a group that received some sort of empathy from fellow humans. The truth is that being Palestinian is one of the hardest things I will ever go through and that no matter how much hope I am given from peers and emerging humanitarian organizations (particularly American-Jewish ones), I will constantly live with the fear that our narrative will conclude the way the Native American one has now- with genocide of the majority of our people, theft of ALL of our land, and the complete dehumanization of our people in order to do it quickly. We’re on our way there and I don’t know how much more I can ask for help and allyship. If you somehow don’t condemn the current treatment of Palestinians, delete me from your friends list because we are not friends. My friends…
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I wrote this in a response to my friend Jillian on Facebook, but figured it should be here as well. So, the Senate is considering a bill outlawing supporting any boycott movement against Israel and our senators, Schumer and Gillibrand, are both co-sponsors (plus it has a Democrat sponsor in the first place. Ugh.) Among other things, the bill prohibits US citizens from “supporting any boycott fostered or imposed by an international organization, or requesting imposition of any such boycott, against Israel.” It’s a bit hard to find, but the bill refers to 50 U.S. Code § 1705 for penalties and they include: A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of, an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. Even if you disagree with the BDS movement (which I don’t), I would think this bill would appear monstrous! 20 years in prison for a political act! (And the bill explicitly refers to supporting a boycott as political. One would think they would…
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