The comment section for this type of posts is always such a shit show.
This is essentially saying 2 things:
1 - It’s insane that some here seem to think that to remain “independent” of politics you can abstain or vote third party to show your discontent for how slowly the Dems deal with Natenyahu’s BS. Your abstain or 3rd party vote does nothing to “move the Dems to the left” when in reality you are removing them from power to give it to Trump, who has already promised to triple down on helping Netanyahu achieve whatever he wants.
The election is happening right now. There’s no time and space to negotiate new candidates or parties. It’s either the disappointing Dems, or the christo-fascist GOP. The time for standing on principle was 3 years ago, or next year at the start of the new cycle. Today is about pragmatism - how close we can get to the desired outcome, and which of these parties is more interested in listening to your position moving forward. It should be abundantly clear that Harris is by a huge margin the better choice for your desired outcomes.
2 - The Israel operation in Gaza, that we all want to stop, is not something that can be just ended with the click of a button. A bunch of actors in that region are hell bent on killing each other, like when Hamas did genocide on Israel last year, and now we have multiple state actors moving armies against each other. The brain-dead premise that somehow Democrats “want genocide” makes it impossible to have a serious conversation.
If you don’t vote for Harris over a mess in the Middle East that we didn’t directly create and are not directly responsible for, and that the Biden administration is trying to solve even if it’s too slow for your taste; and instead you act in favor of helping Trump who will absolutely empower Netanyahu to do whatever he wants, then not only are you directly voting against your own interests, but you are engaging in a level of dumb-fuckery of supreme proportions. And fucking all of us over hard while at it.
In short: By opposing Harris right at the finish line of the election cycle, you are going to inflict Trump’s dictator regime and the runaway christo-fascist GOP on the entire planet, because you are dissatisfied with how mediocre Dems have been at trying to stop Israel. You think this makes you virtuous. It does not.
I mostly agree with you, especially point (1), but what are you talking about with “Hamas did genocide on Isreal last year”? They did a terror attack for sure, but that’s not genocide. Wiping out significant percentage of a population because of their ethnicity or culture is genocide (see what Isreal is doing in Gaza) and it takes months to years.
Assuming it’s a difference in scale argument, but it’s hard to take the power dynamics out of the equation when rating “genocide”.
Only one faction currently has the means to actually perform an extermination. I don’t know if the “genocide of Israelis” sotuation would occur if the power dynamics were flipped, but that’s getting to hypotheticals and ignoring other circumstances of their unlawful occupation of Palestinian lands.
I don’t know if the “genocide of Israelis” sotuation would occur if the power dynamics were flipped
“Death to the Jews” doesn’t give you a clue?
There’s no good guys in this conflict except the civilians caught in the middle.
Very disingenuous, Palestinians are fighting against Zionism, not Judaism, which are two very different things. Israel has always been the obstacle for peace, because it is a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate founded on, and ever continuing, ethnic cleansing.
Settlements
Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
One or Two State Solution
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
- Avi Shlaim
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
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
Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Source
During the current war, Hamas officials have said that the group does not want to return to ruling Gaza and that it advocates for forming a government of technocrats to be agreed upon by the various Palestinian factions. That government would then prepare for elections in Gaza and the West Bank, with the intention of forming a unified government.
Hamas officials should be held accountable for all war crimes committed, same as all Israeli officials. That said, there are many parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Gaza.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai, an Israeli, has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
What the hell is so hard to understand about “Death to the Jews”? It’s a pretty blunt statement. Doesn’t need context or whatever red herrings you’re throwing out.
There are a few reasons. Most importantly, that kind of conflation of Judaism and Zionism needs to be called out, regardless of who says it. That includes any members of Hamas or any Israelis who conflate them, intentional or not.
Secondly, trying to attribute a quote like that to an entire people, as an attempt to contextualize the Settler Colonialist violence of Israel towards Palestinians, is a terrible and disingenuous thing to do. It’s attempting to imply that Palestinians are fighting back out of some inherent Antisemitism, which is completely untrue, instead of fighting back against ethnic cleansing for their livelyhood.
Third, it’s important to recognize where this conflation is coming from. Israel intentionally does this conflation to deflect any criticism as simply antisemitism, which comes at the expense of a rise of genuine antisemitism as they then point to the actions of Israel as representing all Jewish people. Which is obviously untrue. When the IDF destroys your house and kills your family, and then says it’s in the name of all Jewish people, it becomes harder for those people to got their house destroyed to make that distinction between Judaism and Zionism. So it is equally important to condemn the conflation and understand the context behind it.
The 1988 Charter, which is unreasonable for wanting Sharia Law and belief in the antisemitic conspiracy theory of the Elder Protocols of Zion, does not call for the extermination of all Jewish People. Which is what I’m guessing you are trying to reference.
Hamas wants an end to Israel as an Apartheid State, not an extermination of all Israelis. Under Ahmed Yassin in the 1990’s, truces were offered in exchange for Israeli to withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank to the 1967 borders. The 2017 Charter explicitly accepts a Two-State Solution of the 1967 Borders. Check Article 7 and 13 of the 1988 Charter to see yourself, compare it to Article 20 and 24-26 in the revised charter.
Palestinians
Fuck off with your conflation of Hamas and Palestinians. I specifically separated them into two groups.
Hamas wants an end to Israel as an Apartheid State, not an extermination of all Israelis.
I do not believe that and no reasonable person does. Any more than they believe Israel is acting purely in self defense. There are pleasant noises a government must make in the international political community no matter how horrific its true goals are.
Make no mistake, if somehow magically Hamas came out on top, there would be a genocide happening in Israel right now.
Holy shit these comments…
Guys, I think you have over-saturated your target forum. Too many on the same site, you gotta tell the higher ups to spread it around more so it’s not so obvious.
Edit: Just for folks who may not understand: Harris has to walk a fine rhetorical line before the election. The reality is, if she comes out strongly about Israel/Palestine in any way whatsoever, she will lose. People here can’t seem to grasp this fact. Maybe they don’t live in the US and understand the political/social climate here? Or perhaps they’re just too young?
She will lose, and Trump will give Netanyahu carte blanche to expand his ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
I wish I knew how Harris actually feels about the situation, and I believe her reticence to support Israel in the way Biden has is a good sign. But no, I wish I knew what she’s going to do; all I know is that it’s far better than the only other possible alternative. Anyone who’s gonna say ‘der how you know that,’ is disingenuous as fuck. You know why. I’m not going to explain that shit again.
I understand your point and I agree that harris is in a tough situation figuring biden supports the genocide. However I actually think your take on her needing to walk the line is wrong. Polling actually shows a shift even with dems messaging against Palestine and pretending it all started on Oct 7th. Additionally, if she argued for stopping weapons transfers of offensive weapons, this would also be popular among Americans, a plurality of which support a ceasefire. Just adding context to say that Harris is not pro-palestinian and them banning Palestinians from the DNC has highlighted this. To specify, I will support harris this selection, but just because Trump is a fascist, not because she supports any solution to the conflict.
A plurality of Americans maybe, but I’m not sure about voting Democrats. There are a lot of people on the right who are against Israel for very different reasons and they are not going to vote for Harris. There are a lot of voting Democrats that would choose to sit out if she showed support for Palestine in any way. It’s a sad reality, but it is true.
Oh yes. This will surely win over those far left voters.
I know Lemmy isn’t the place to speak badly of anyone far to the left, but honestly?
If they aren’t going to be persuaded to vote Harris by the other side of the ticket, I’m not optimistic they’ll be persuaded by people on the Internet being sweet and polite to them.
So imo, who gives a shit about insulting them? It’s pretty clear OP wasn’t intending a post like this to win hearts and minds.
Depends on the instance. Lemmy.world loves to punch leftists.
I’d prefer to punch fascists, but you keep getting in the way.
Brilliant! Loved this!
Drag is far left and drag likes this meme. Maybe you aren’t enough of a leftist to appreciate it.
This is extremely misleading. Fuck Trump 10000 times and kamala is the only sane choice, but stop trying to paint over reality to try and make her look like she’s not just a lesser evil.
She didn’t just “not promise to solve 1000 year conflict” (which the genocide has been going on for the last 75 years),
she did promise to continue funding genocide with American taxpayer dollars. (Of which the US has been giving and average of $5 billion in tax dollars and weapons to Isreal per year for the last 75 years, since they first invaded Palestine).
We are voting for her because she is the lesser evil. We don’t have to be happy about it or stop criticizing her on her bad policies.
Basically: Vote for Harris, but also fuck her for vowing to continue funding genocide. Trump would also keep funding genocide, and he’d also destroy what’s left of the west, on top of every other obvious reason he should never be in power again (and never should have been).
vote third party IMHO
fuck the two party regime that got us cornered here. vote for either party is providing genocide legitimacy.
And voting third party is saying “I don’t care whether we get a bit of genocide or a lot of genocide,” which itself is legitimizing genocide.
“Harm reduction” is not in the vocabulary of these internet addicted “intellectuals”.
Genocide is binary.
Anything that furthers genocide is not capable of being harm reduction.
Gotcha, better to not vote for a “genocider” so you can wash your hands of the unbridled rape and murder of Palestine when trump ends up president in 2025.
Versus the unbridled rape and murder of Palestine now?
I agree, we should just not vote to stick it to the DNC. When red voters show up to the polls and blue voters don’t and Trump wins, I’m sure all the transgender people in America whose lives are now in danger will sleep much better at night knowing that the blood of all those Palestinians who are still dying because Trump is funneling bombs to Israel faster than Biden was isn’t on your hands, because you didn’t help put him in office.
Nor are things like “strategic voting.” It’s really unfortunate
No people know what it means to pick the less disgusting turd out of the bowl. They’re just tired of eating shit for “strategic reasons”.
Sounds good on paper or if not on battleground state. I remember people pissed at DNC in 2016 got us Trump the first time.
Technically running the least popular candidate in history while simultaneously pied pipering the most dangerous candidate in history was not perpetrated by “people pissed at DNC”.
Blame the voters for consistently snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a core tenet of Dem strategy, and of liberalism for that matter.
