cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15001340

“Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba,” the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said recently. “After 200 days of horrific genocidal acts in Gaza, the real objectives of the attack are the continuation of the 76-year-long ongoing Nakba and the erasure and genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel is laying the groundwork to fulfill its settler-colonial plan of colonizing Gaza.”

Human rights defenders have warned that Israel may ultimately seek to ethnically cleanse as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza.

  • athos77
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    16816 days ago

    Israel would "move people out of Rafah, the main humanitarian hub in the enclave, to al-Mawasi

    Yeah, that’s not their plan. There’s 1.42 million people in Rafah right now, which is 25 square miles. That gives it a population density of 56,800 per square mile, making it the 25th most densely populated city in the world - and with intact infrastructure enough for only a tiny fraction of that number.

    So, Israel supposedly wants to move all these people to al-Mawasi. Now, al-Mawasi is barren, with; the last official count I could find said there were about 1500 people living there in a small Bedouin town. It’s also only about six square miles total.

    Let’s say that Hamas is 10% of the population - I don’t think it is, but let’s use that number. That means there’s 1,278,000 innocent civilians they want to move to al-Mawasi. That would mean a population density of 213,000 per square mile. That would be twice the population density of Manila. And there is no infrastructure. They’re just taking a million people and throwing them into a barren desert next to the sea and saying, “Not our problem.” There’s no food, no water, no toilets, no shelter, no medical facilities, no electricity, no shelter from the heat - and no way to quickly make any of these things appear in enough quantity to matter.

    The Palestinians are already on the verge of famine. This will make things worse, and disease is absolutely going to decimate the population. And then they’ll decide that al-Mawasi is hiding Hamas, and they’ll go after that as well.

    Fuck Israel.

    • acargitz
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      Let’s say that Hamas is 10% of the population - I don’t think it is, but let’s use that number.

      The Palestinians are already on the verge of famine. This will make things worse, and disease is absolutely going to decimate the population.

      Decimation was the Roman practice of killing 1 out of every 10 mutinous/deserter (i.e., guilty of something) soldiers to punish an entire legion while still keeping it operational as a combat unit. Here we have the opposite. It is killing 9 innocents to get to also kill 1 additional (very hypothetically) guilty person.

      This is the saddest “um ackchyually” I have ever written.

      • @[email protected]
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        -1015 days ago

        “Famine is imminent” since November.

        More aid enters Gaza every day. The situation has been improving for months and there is zero reason to think it will not continue to improve. Daily death totals have been dropping since what, the second or third week of the war?

        Tell Hamas to surrender and come out. Watch the daily deaths drop to zero.

    • @[email protected]
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      1215 days ago

      Okay hear me out… what if Israel checked every person and put a tattoo on their arm if they were not Hamas. Do you think they’ll catch the irony?

    • @[email protected]
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      14 days ago

      I Just wanted to add that Northern Gaza, where the IDF physically controls all entrances, is officially in famine. Southern Gaza is fed by the entrance in Rafah.

      The motive for taking Rafah could not be more clear. They intend to destroy the international aid supply line for southern Gaza. Moving so many people to a purposefully mismanaged IDP camp is just the cherry on top.

  • Flying SquidM
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    9316 days ago

    “Go to Rafah and you’ll be safe. Also, fuck you and get out of Rafah or we’ll kill you.”

  • @[email protected]
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    15 days ago

    Common Dreams can be a little much some times. Here’s Politico’s take which is a bit more dry.

    Some important notes though. Aid groups absolutely dispute that there’s an ability to fit everyone in the designated area; feed the people that can fit; and that Israel will allow everyone who wants to evacuate to do so in good faith.

    So there are very good objections to this plan. If the IDF let people pass without mass arrests or randomly deciding to shoot at the people crossing their lines then that would be good. But it has not been the norm. Which brings us to the next problem. The IDF has behaved so criminally, the people of Gaza do not trust their announcements of where to go for safety.

    At this point the only correct answer is an immediate ceasefire. The removal of all IDF troops from Gaza. And an international war crimes tribunal.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 days ago

      Only correct answer is an multi-national subjugation force to kill the IDF forces in Gaza, then push into Israel and take the current government into custody to be put on Nuremberg-style trials while setting up an interim government in Israel.

      • @[email protected]
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        414 days ago

        Yeah, I’m not a fan of Netanyahu’s war crimes, but that’s something that’s never going to happen. Far more likely is evidence continues to go to the ICC and arrest warrants rain from the skies. Then there’s a bunch of conservative Israelis who are stuck in Israel or Russia/China aligned countries. And they have to live with the knowledge that they are the new low hanging political piñata for every American president who needs a polling bump.

        • @[email protected]
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          314 days ago

          yeah, the ICC doing anything/being able to hold anyone accountable is just as likely as a multinational subjugation force.

            • @[email protected]
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              114 days ago

              against people where the biggest western powers are bending over backwards to do everything to protect them?

              and actually had proper, punishing sentences?

              • @[email protected]
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                314 days ago

                Oh no there are definitely novel parts to this. That’s what makes it so interesting. And it’s still way more likely than a multi national coalition going there without the UN.

      • @kent_eh
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        12 days ago

        If there is some sort of cease fire, the UN needs to bring in a Cyprus style peace keeping force to physically stand between Israel and Palestine for a generation (or probably more).

        Anything less will just lead to the same repeated outbursts of violence that we’ve seen for the past 70 years.

      • @[email protected]
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        114 days ago

        I agree. Nobody should be getting forced to go anywhere. In a “normal” war humanitarian routes would be established along with Internally Displaced People camps run to the UN standards. Those routes would be inviolate except for checkpoints to search people, and every stray round impacting near them would result in a full investigation. Aid would be flooding these camps and the entire zone behind the front lines. People would be encouraged but not required to leave within a distinct timeline.

        The IDF has not done that. They’ve basically done the opposite of that. They want to force people to leave the area with the aid, into a camp that mathematically cannot meet UN standards. They’ve already said they’re going to detain all men attempting to leave the area. And they routinely fire into their own humanitarian corridors. This entire operation is a war crime from the top down to the sergeants.

    • @[email protected]
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      -115 days ago

      Gaza has like at least five years of martial law in its future during reconstruction.

      Hamas is charge of the time table.

      • @[email protected]
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        414 days ago

        So more illegal occupation? You might get Hamas. You might.

        But you are ensuring another organization rises to replace them.

        • @[email protected]
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          -514 days ago

          Fine. Let them be replaced in due course by a legitimate form of government that is fairly elected. Sounds great to me.

          You know I don’t see Gaza as an illegal occupation. I did before October 7th. I find the settlements in the West Bank to be still illegal.

          In my learned opinion though, after October 7, Israel has good and just cause to go to war to eliminate Hamas, the de facto government-in-hiding of Gaza, and its tunnel network. Hamas is not a legitimate government and can simply no longer remain in charge, dead or alive. I don’t see anything illegal about occupation, the goal of which is to achieve that end, because n so far as Gaza ever was a state under Hamas, it is now a collapsed state with no effective government, legitimate or otherwise. It’s a rump state. Irredeemable territory. And, in that case, it’s the neighbor’s duty to step in, establish law and order, and govern temporarily, legitimately and equitably.

          Martial law is a legitimate form of interim government during a transition from hot war to reconstruction, before a provisional government of local stakeholders can decide how to form and choose a new government. No government run by the whims of a few religious people will ever be legitimate.

          • @[email protected]
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            214 days ago

            Hamas was fairly elected. Israel and the US were the ones that interfered because they didn’t like Hamas trying to go legitimate.

            And no, just no. This is not Just War Theory. In Just War Theory you don’t carpet bomb residential areas. You don’t make the Hospitals main targets and you certainly don’t repeatedly attack and kill plainly marked journalists standing in the open. You cannot commit war crimes and then claim it falls under Just War Theory. That’s the complete opposite of that theory.

            And it’s a collapsed state because Israel ensured that, by preventing the legitimate winners of the election from taking power peacefully, by blockading them when the people who voted for them rightfully put them in power anyways, and by repeatedly attacking them over the last couple decades, claiming any government official was a terrorist including civil servants running the basic infrastructure of the region. You cannot punch your neighbor in the face, and then move into his home on the theory that he’s in the hospital now and call it a moral argument.

            • @[email protected]
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              14 days ago

              What a joke. Hamas was elected, after telling people not to participate in the elections. They die take power and immediately used it to cancel all future elections.

              They collapsed as their own state. Hamas corrupted everything it touched. They turned every institutiom into instrumentalities of international terrorism. They robbed the country of its whatever resources and wealth it had and used the money to launch suicide bombings and rocket attacks and to dig the tunnels which they use to smuggle fighters and rocket launching systems. Hamas big wigs are hiding under ground or living in Qatar with lavish wealth while their families are in Gaza starving.

              All they had to do was reject violent extremism at any turn, and they couldn’t do it. These are deranged fucking worthless people and nobody is going to miss Hamas. Anyone that does should join them.

              Pan Islamist terrorists don’t get to “go legit” and have their own state. Never going to happen.

              • @[email protected]
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                313 days ago

                Okay. I’ll just repeat myself too.

                And it’s a collapsed state because Israel ensured that, by preventing the legitimate winners of the election from taking power peacefully, by blockading them when the people who voted for them rightfully put them in power anyways, and by repeatedly attacking them over the last couple decades, claiming any government official was a terrorist including civil servants running the basic infrastructure of the region. You cannot punch your neighbor in the face, and then move into his home on the theory that he’s in the hospital now and call it a moral argument.

  • InfiniteGlitch
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    16 days ago

    How trustable is this source? Just curious because never knew about the site.

    EDIT: you can downvote, that’s okay. But I would appreciate an actual answer as well.

    • @[email protected]
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      -215 days ago

      Look, if we don’t let biden let netanyahu firebomb Rafah, then trump will let netanyahu firebomb Rafah, and we don’t want that

        • Cris
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          615 days ago

          Right, being crass on Twitter is why people don’t like him. Has nothing to do with being a fascist who wants to dismantle the democracy of the US and become a dictator

          • @[email protected]
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            -815 days ago

            Yes, correct, that is why you don’t like him. Like if you actually step back and look at him from a perspective that isn’t obsessed with decorum and norms, he is a standard, moderate Republican. Which, yeah, is still evil; but he’s legitimately the least evil Republican president since Eisenhower, and you all talk about him like he’s a cross between Tywin Lannister and Voldemort.

            • @[email protected]
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              715 days ago

              Trump is the only US President to ever plot to overthrow the US government.

              There is no argument here. You are simping for a fat rich sack of shit who tried to end US democracy.

            • @[email protected]
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              -214 days ago

              Trump literally floated using the US military as a mercenary force, among a giant swathe of other fundamentally terrible policies he furthered, not to mention the broad and very obvious corruption under his administration just a few years ago. What in the fuck are you even talking about?

  • @[email protected]
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    1315 days ago

    Ghettos of WW2 are making a comeback, who’s forcing people into those ghettos will SHOCK you!

  • Adderbox76
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    916 days ago

    I don’t doubt for one second that Israel is likely planning something like this. But let’s be careful about using sources that are just as biased as the ones that the other side uses.

    If you’re reporting on news from some far-left website while at the same time decrying right-wing bias like Fox News and it’s ilk, then you lose the moral high ground.

    There’s plenty of regular journalism that documents Israel’s bullshit without having to resort to non-credible sources. Stick to that or there’s no point in fighting because we’ve already lost.

    • @[email protected]
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      2316 days ago

      You might not agree with their left wing bias but you can’t realistically argue that Common Dreams is not a credible source.

      • @[email protected]
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        116 days ago

        You could if the title does not match the article.

        • Israel may forcibly displace 1.2 million prior to ground invasion. Gives Hamas deadline for cease fire.

        • oxfam warns a ground invasion could be catastrophic for those in the city.

        • experts believe it may pave the way for eventually ethnic cleansing by Israel.

        Make no mistake, a shit load of worrying information here. No where in this article does it say “here is the plan for ethnic cleansing” like stated in the title.

        • @[email protected]
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          16 days ago

          They’re not quoting the IDF’s plans for what they called an “ethnic cleansing.” They’re quoting someone who characterized the plans as an ethnic cleansing. I think it’s foolish to assume they meant to imply the IDF was waving around plans for something titled “the ethnic cleansing of Arabs in Rafah.”

          Commondreams is a good outlet. Yes, they may editorialize and are not shy about their left-leaning positions, but that doesn’t inherently make an outlet untrustworthy. Fox calling themselves “fair and balanced” and using charged language in their chyrons—for example, I was at the gym and I saw them referring to the Campus sit-ins as “riots” and the participants as “antisemites.” (If I’m remembering those correctly, but it was insanely loaded language of their own creation)—is what leads them to be a problematic outlet. They skew facts, obscure the truth, and heavily edit out anything that doesn’t rile up their viewership.

          Commondreams has a mission to give good information that may cater to the left, but they’re a non-profit outlet. And there is an inherent difference between left-bias and right-bias. Right bias has to alter reality to fit their narrative. The established left-leaning outlets like Commondreams aren’t altering and obscuring. They’re highlighting what they see as important information that, yes, adheres to a more left-leaning worldview, but what does that mean in this context? They’re willfully calling out Israel when “center” and right-leaning outlets are beholden to them. They’ll investigate issues that are important to civil rights, privacy, etc. But that doesn’t mean their worldview warps the reality of the topics they cover. They’re just more relevant to progressives/leftists.

          Now, there are definitely a lot of terrible, probably non-journalist run outlets that really cropped up around 2016 like those “blue news” Wordpress sites or whatever that used to fly around Reddit. There is a way to be untrustworthy and left/liberal-biased. Definitely not saying it’s impossible. But it’s a different beast when discussing long-established, trustworthy left-leaning sources.

          You know how it’s been said “reality has a left-leaning bias?” Well, that’s pretty relevant here. To be left-biased, you still report on facts that speak to leftist people. To be right-biased, it means you’re singling out minority groups, catering to big business in disingenuous ways (because that’s how they operate. They can basically run propaganda as private institutions, and the right-biased outlets unquestioningly run with it.) Left-biased outlets are critical, right-leaning uncritical. That’s a huge difference.

          • @[email protected]
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            415 days ago

            Well said. Like Democracy Now there’s bias in the choices of what stories to report on but the reporting itself is accurate.

            • @[email protected]
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              15 days ago

              DN! Is a great example. They’ll report on the pipeline protests, the genocide in Gaza…they’ll cover things an outlet that’s trying to gain more viewership by catering to “fairness” like NYT, WaPo, CNN, etc. wouldn’t dare touch—or would go out of their way to not take a position on. You’d never catch Amy Goodman bringing on a fossil fue exec to hear their opinions on the pipeline protesters and how they should all go back to work or whatever.

              Catering to “fairness,” (the best way I’ve ever heard this problem described) is, assuming the republicans adopted flat eartherism, NYT would run an article saying “democrats and republicans can’t agree on shape of earth.”

              That’s ignoring basic facts to cater to a larger audience and not “appear biased.” But one of those positions is inherently wrong. The factionalism of the US political system doesn’t change that fact. Although it does immediately cut your audience in half if you can’t appear to treat the absurd point s somehow equal.

              Treating climate change scientists and the spokespeople for Exxon as having two differing points on a debatable topic is catering to fairness. To the point that it turns your reporting into complete fucking trash.

            • @[email protected]
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              15 days ago

              Just making sure I understand this correctly.

              What you are saying is its ok for a news organization to push one side of a story, report only stories that support their views, use language that makes it seem more urgent and serious than it actually is, and this is a reputable organization that should be listed to?

              And what the other poster is saying is that this is especially acceptable as its the side they agree with?

              And this is ok?

              • @[email protected]
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                15 days ago

                What you are saying is its ok for a news organization to push one side of a story, report only stories that support their views, use language that makes it seem more urgent and serious than it actually is, and this is a reputable organization that should be listed to?

                To a greater or lesser degree, all news orgs do this.

                • @[email protected]
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                  115 days ago

                  Yes, most organizations lean one way or another.

                  The issue I’ve got is that this discussion seems to be saying that it should be celebrated as the be all and end all of this conflict, that you should only be looking at organizations that support your view, and that you shouldn’t look into what bias your organizations is pushing without further analysis and understanding.

                  Effectively, that it’s more important your views are confirmed than you are informed and accurate.

    • @[email protected]
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      16 days ago

      You’re right. It’s still to early to call if israel is planning to kill all Palestinians and commit Ethnic Cleansing. Who knows, can you even call Genocide a Genocide? Let’s ask the israeli government about this

      Israeli finance minister calls for ‘utter destruction’ of Gaza’s Rafah, end to truce talks

      “No half jobs. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, total and utter destruction,” Smotrich said, referring to the two cities in Gaza and the Nuseirat refugee camp.

      • Adderbox76
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        -116 days ago

        I never said it was “too early to tell”.

        I said, and I’ll repeat, there is plenty of evidence and reports to share without having to resort to unaccredited media sources.

        That’s what THEY do. We can, and NEED to be better.

    • @[email protected]
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      1215 days ago

      This description given by CommonDreams is by far the most accurate one.

      To call this unbalanced is to pretend that israel is not committing Genocide or Ethnic cleansing.

      When every shitty propaganda outlet shills for israel killing “dying” people we’re supposed to look the other way. But when a NEWSpaper goes “israel is doing Genocide” everyone loses their jimmies. The hypocrisy is astounding.

      • @[email protected]
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        -114 days ago

        Reporting should not include commentary. I don’t disagree that this is genocide and ethnic cleansing. But editorializing belongs in editorials and opinion pieces. I want facts. The headline here suggests that Israel is calling it ethnic cleansing themselves, which is not the case.

        This is why I’m often critical of CommonDreams as a publication. Their headlines are misleading and they mix opinion with reporting.

        To be clear, this is not a problem unique to CommonDreams. I’ve lost a lot of respect for the NYT and CNN over Israel and Palestine coverage. The NYT has also put out some polls with terrible methodology lately, and it’s been independent, left wing publications pointing that out. And I’ve liked their coverage, it was just focused on the facts.

        All editorializing in reporting is wrong. CommonDreams is just more blatant about it.

        • @[email protected]
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          214 days ago

          Tell me what is it called when you forcibly displace an entire population from an area?

          If only we had a term for that.

          • @[email protected]
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            114 days ago

            I don’t disagree at all. I think my actual annoyance with this is the quotation marks. That makes it sound like it’s a quote from Israel. If they’re using it as a term, then there shouldn’t be quotations around it.

  • NoLifeGaming
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    915 days ago

    “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

  • @[email protected]
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    516 days ago

    If they really do that the irony of Jews doing ethnic cleansing would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

    • Flying SquidM
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      11616 days ago

      Please don’t call Israel “the Jews.” I am a Jew and I do not stand with Israel. Israel wants you to think all Jews are Israelis and all Israelis are Jews.

      • Flying SquidM
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        2816 days ago

        The fun thing with the people downvoting my above comment is that it’s hard to know if they’re pissed off because I don’t support Israel or don’t like that I’m a Jew.

      • @[email protected]
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        2816 days ago

        Just to add to this; half of the global Jewish population lives in the US. We’re not all Israeli.

        • Flying SquidM
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          Yep, I’ve never even been to Israel. I don’t particularly want to go other than seeing the archaeology. I was born in Indiana. I have far more in common with Christians from Indiana than I do a Jew from Haifa.

      • @[email protected]
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        1316 days ago

        Me too. I’m seriously considering buying a kippah to visually make this point.

        For the sake of completeness, Israel does happen to be Jewish, just like Hamas happens to be Muslim. And yeah, in light of recent history that’s ironic. Hopefully nobody here has forgotten we don’t all agree with our (distant, in my case) relatives.

      • @[email protected]
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        1116 days ago

        I am not a Jew, but I have to recognize that many of the people most fiercely standing up against Israeli human rights violations are Jews.

        In the USA, Bernie Sanders, Robbert Reich and Chuck Schumer are three Jewish politicians that have been very consistent in their messaging.

        • @[email protected]
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          916 days ago

          I’d argue they’re notable because they’re Jewish, and are afforded an odd ‘extra legitimacy’ to criticize Israel because of that - until the ‘self hating Jew’ trope is brought out…

          I am constantly disappointed that society as a whole cannot see through the obvious ploys by the hyper-partisans to hijack and disrupt honest discussion by treating all criticism as anti-Semitic

        • @girlfreddy
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          -2116 days ago

          So 3 out of 341,352,598 Americans then, according to you. And you feel that’s a fair representation.

          Seems to me you forgot to put on your critical thinking cap today.

          • @[email protected]
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            1116 days ago

            If you can’t tell the difference between a limited number of well known examples and a statistical percentage, then perhaps you shouldn’t lecture others on thinking.

            • @girlfreddy
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              -1516 days ago

              If you had provided an analytical statistical source instead of “three well-known individuals” we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

              • NoIWontPickAName
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                1116 days ago

                Really? Fighting just to fight? Be better, you knew that that was only supposed to be an example of well known Jewish people standing up against Israel, not a comprehensive breakdown of the whole population.

                I’ll be your fucking huckleberry though, I can fight about stupid shit just to piss people off all day.

                I find it funny and it keeps you from bothering others.

                Bring it

          • @[email protected]
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            116 days ago

            Are you disagreeing with the thesis of the comment above, or just critiquing the quality of their data?

            If you disagree with the thesis, can you explain what your position is?

      • @[email protected]
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        116 days ago

        There’s a difference between Jews and “the Jews”. Your comment is not at all incorrect but it doesn’t apply to the comment you responded to.

        Some of the Israeli Jews that are commiting genocide right now are decendents of Holocaust survivors, so I would say the irony is definitely there.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 days ago

        Don’t worry, I usually don’t (and I didn’t say “the Jews”, just “Jews” - big difference, since a “the” in front of it would imply that it’s all while without “the” it’s just a part of them).

        It just was needed in this context for the sake of my comment (the irony would be harder to understand otherwise).

        I apologise

        • Flying SquidM
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          315 days ago

          Which denomination are they talking about? Chabad-Lubavitch?

  • Anas
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    -916 days ago

    Didn’t the US give them a choice between Iran and Rafah?