The only people who are suffering are the civilians who don’t give a shit about this holy-land-grab-war, and are dying because two insane factions are being sold weapons.
”The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. “It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” He gave a shrug. "They never are.”
I wish this were true - that most people don't care about this and just want peace - but I think evidence is continuing to show that the reality is a bit messier. Here's some recent polling data from Gaza and the West Bank (though it should be strongly noted that polling in these places is very hard)
the majority of (59%) strongly supported or (16%) supported to some extent the October 7 attacks carried by the Hamas-led factions, while 16% supported to some extent [sic]. 11% reported that they neither supported nor opposed the attack, while 13% expressed opposition to the attacks. Strong support for the attacks was notably higher among Palestinians in the West Bank (68%) as compared to Gaza (47%).
The most positively appraised of all actors were the Al Qassam Brigades, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Brigades, and Hamas.
It does feel disturbing to me that such a small number of Palestinians looked at the October 7th massacres and felt that they were wrong. It's tempting to believe that most people abhor violence and support non-violent paths towards peace, but I don't think the evidence really shows that.
I don't know what polling looks like in Israel, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's equally depressing. I think the main takeaway is that no one is really interested in moving towards peace.
If the two countries had parity and equality, that polling would suggest that the Palestinian citizens are awful.
But I’m our reality where Palestine is an open air person where the majority of people are children because the life expectancy is so poor, that kinda changes things, doesn’t it?
I'd personally say no. Perhaps this is a privileged mindset, but I don't think there are any circumstances that justify the intentional murder, torture, and rape of random civilians.
I can certainly understand how that mindset would evolve given the circumstances - living your whole life oppressed by a foreign government with no real opportunities could easily lead you to dehumanize anyone associated with that nation - but it doesn't excuse it. I'm sure plenty of Jews after the Holocaust wanted to murder every German they saw, and again, while I would understand that mindset, it wouldn't excuse the behavior.
And even on a pragmatic level, devolving down into our baser instincts just means that whoever has the most guns wins, and that certainly isn't the Palestinians. Whether it's just or not - and I'd generally say it's not - there exists no path of violent resistance that leads to an independent thriving Palestine, no matter or fair or unfair one might think that is.
And over 17000 Palestinians were murdered as a result. What’s your point? And mind you the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is rather grim, if not clearly horrific, with their homes turned into rubles not having access to food, water, electricity, not functioning health care system, living in makeshift tents with no sanitary conditions. Can you put yourself in their shoes? How would you feel and what your opinion would be towards the reason of all this suffering.
Perhaps people in Gaza are truly desperate, and you can’t really expect much common sense from desperate people who are pushed to a corner.
The only way to fight terrorism is to give those people hope, a better future, fair treatment. Slaughtering them and dehumanizing them is like trying to put out a fire with fuel.
And it is a bit naive to think that the goal of Israel is only to get rid of Hamas. By now it is pretty obvious that Israel cares very little about the human suffering of those people. The goal is to turn the whole of Gaza into an inhabitable desert.
Thanks for that. Looking again, there's one interesting stat there that I missed the first time, that only 14% support a Hamas-led government after the war, while most support a coalition with the Palestinian Authority. The PA is largely useless, but what they are not is terrorists, so that's a small hopeful sign.
The whole rape narrative is just a way to push local politicians into unquestioning support of Israel. A way to dehumanize Palestinians by painting with a broad brush. Ironically these “left leaning” outlets pushing this narrative are doing EXACTLY what Trump did by calling Mexicans murderers and rapists.
By itself it is a weird thing to say, like I thought the usual strategy (and apparently the Israelis’) is to publicly assume good behavior so they have something to lose.
You can say this situation is different, but still the only use for that kind of speculation is to emotionally load support for Israel (which is already high), and it may certainly further endanger the hostages, regardless of gender.
this is going to be locked for a variety of reasons:
this is essentially propaganda/an extremely biased opinion piece
it uncritically adopts the framing of Elise Stefanik when she is neither a good faith actor generally, nor asking questions about “calling for the genocide of the Jews” in good faith. it’s very clear she just means “pro-Palestinian demonstrators” when she talks about people “calling for genocide” and that’s stupid.
it’s just not a good article, generally. there are plenty of other, better articles that can be used as a vessel to talk about Israel-Palestine (including ones that have a pro-Israeli voice)
What a garbage article, like, start to finish manipulative attempt to build a stupid narrative. Like, antisemitism is a real thing but this kind of nonsense discredits real attempts to call it out.
The chanting, I think, calling for intifada, global revolution, [is] very disturbing,” Magill said during questioning. “I believe at minimum that is hateful speech that has been and should be condemned.
Intifada means “resistance.” Every occupied people has a right to resist. Except, apparently, Palestinians.
… grilled Gay on Harvard’s Middle East Studies courses, which she claimed included “false accusations that Israel is a racist, settler colonialist, apartheid state
Well, it is. No amount of trying to conflate support for human rights with antisemitism is going to change that.
If this is what they mean by “hate” nobody should be surprised that lots of people aren’t buying it.
As the university presidents were trying to explain to Clown Shoes, sorry, I mean Elise Stefanik: Harassment is conduct that is severe or pervasive enough to create an environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive. A one-time generalized statement calling for genocide not targeted at a specific individual would not usually rise to the level of harassment per se, but can certainly be part of a pattern of harassment. Similarly, actual bullying is a pattern of abusive behavior and cannot be defined by any single act as it is often used colloquially.
That's the game Stefanik is playing: She knows these universities' policies are bound by the actual, legal definitions of "harassment" and "bullying" but she's counting on her ignorant audience not knowing those definitions and instead thinking the words are defined as what they use them for in their own lives: someone being mean.
It’s especially disappointing given the mission statement of beehaw. You know, the one they require every user to read when signing up and write a statement about?
… we grew increasingly upset with modern social media. Modern social media has become a breeding ground for hate speech, for trolls, and for bad behavior. We don’t want to recreate that environment. We want to explicitly make a nice little corner of the internet where we can hide from racist, sexist, ableist, colonialist, homophobic, transphobic, and other forms of hateful speech.
They are bombing Hamas terrorists, their enemy, not refugees. You must remember that Hamas fighters and civilians look exactly the same, and they deliberately lurk among the civilians. This is obviously not genocide.
I’ll give you a hint in form of a question that may lead you towards the truth: What happens to the amount of population in a genocide?
I’m guessing you’re gonna say that there is no genocide if not all or most of the people are killed, because then their people have survived. But, genocide also incorporates cultural genocide. Today the day definitions are one and the same. Destroying someone’s culture and history also qualities, like during slavery.
The methods employed in genocide includes the methods of colonialism, persecution, subversion and the destructions of farms, Mosques, churches, hospitals, libraries, monuments, etc. Anything to persecute, harass and destroy someone.
Take for instance “the gypsies”. A people in diaspora from a nation state that doesn’t exist, roaming Europe forever, with no land to call their own.
That’s the fate the Israeli state wants for Palestine. It is still technically genocide.
I’m guessing you’re gonna say that there is no genocide if not all or most of the people are killed, because then their people have survived. But, genocide also incorporates cultural genocide.
No, I’m saying that population doesn’t grow during a genocide.
That’s the fate the Israeli state wants for Palestine. It is still technically genocide.
But… Palestinian Arabs are >20% of the population of Israel. You’re making absolutely no sense.
Living under the tyranny of those who took your land, destroyed your cultural heritage and then swept your suffering and the death of your loved ones under the rug, using terrorism as some sort of justification? This is something you’ll have to clear with the native Americans and Inuits, even some other nomadic people.
Like again, I alluded to the Roma people (or Gypsy’s) for a reason. A broken folk, subjected under Romania (even though it has nothing to do with Roma folk), the “gypsies” lost their land in the North of India. Ever since, they’ve wandered as a people without ancestral lands, and that is a huge problem for not only the psyche, but also the culture has been subverted, destroyed and is but a husk of it’s former self.
This is why the technical definition of genocide has moved beyond body count.
I know in one case this is a bs slant. The person said its abhorrant but measures would only be taken if action was taken. IE the speech will not be silenced by the university but actually violence will not be allowed.
Zionists call anything short of unconditional support for Israel and it’s far right government an anti-semetic call for genocide of Jews. It’s propaganda.
So in other words they understood that they were being called on to condemn antisemitism in order to help reinforce the narrative that these college rallies were antisemitic protests, when in fact they were pro-Palestinian ones.
Good on them for choosing to side with their students rather than give the anti-Palestinian camp their manufactured “professors condemn antisemitic student rallies” soundbites.
Refuse to engage with their genocide-backing rhetoric that tries to tie being pro-Palestinian to being antisemitic.
I feel like there’s some weird context here. Why does Stefanik want to get that “yes” and why are they reluctant to say it? Would it be a declaration of some university policy that would lead to suppressing the demonstrations or what?
timesofisrael.com
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