Thanks for linking to this! I’m so excited to see this happening and that my city is one of those where organization is happening.
Sadly, I can’t get away from my job to take part. So I reached out to the chapter for my city to find out how I can donate to a legal fund for protesters who get taken by police. I encourage everyone who cares about this issue to do the same. Even better if you can get out there and make our voices heard. The genocide in Palestine must be stopped.
You’re clearly very naive and cannot see the world as more than black and white.Now the Israeli state are the bad guys and the Palestinians are the good guys. So now it is OK to boycott jews again, shout about the eradication of the Jewish state and its people (“from the river to the sea”) and talk about a one-directional genocide since “75 years and 182 days”. This is either really really stupid or blatantly antisemitic. There is no excuse for what the Israeli government is doing atm. And I agree that there shouldn’t be any nations or borders in the world at all. But making this into the mostly Jewish population as a group of occupiers is just wrong. It’s actually not too different from what the Israeli government is saying when they identify basically all Palestinian civilians as hamas. Like I said, only black and white thinking :/Edit: Reading this again, I can see why I upset OP and others. This was unnecessarily harsh. Sorry. I guess it’s my own frustration that the internet is full of one-sided debate upon this conflict. I’m still not comfortable with the rhetoric of this post but want to apologize for being so rude!
nobody’s talking about eradicating Jews except you.
You sure about that? “From the river to the sea” is open to interpretation, but many (including Hamas) use it with a genocidal meaning. Everyone that uses this phrase should know about this meaning and know what it signals to others. So yes, people are talking about a genocide of Israeli people, i.e. Jews.
no, we’re not. it’s just you, and it’s disgusting.
Well, seems very obvious now that you don’t want to see this conflict as more than black and white.
seems obvious you want to paint Israel as a victim and intentionally misunderstand what you’re being told.
Where did I paint Israel as the victim? They are obviously responsible for mass destruction and reckless killing of thousands of people. What I say is that you don’t get the complexity of the conflict, that you just focus on one side of it and that calling for the destruction for the Israeli state is very problematic. There seem to be so many people that try to ignore either side of the conflict. “Oh, the Palestinians are all Hamas and we are just defending us” vs “Oh, the Israelis are all genocidal colonialists and we have to destroy them”. Neither of both is true and we would benefit from trying to move away from a Palestine vs Israel narrative and try to rather organize against the Israeli government as well as Hamas.
Where did I paint Israel as the victim
when you parroted the propaganda that these anarchists are anitsemitic genocide enablers
you don’t get the complexity of the conflict
you don’t know what I “get”
how did you find this community?!
the Israelis are all genocidal colonialists
couching this as though it’s untrue betrays that you aren’t opposed to genocidal colonialism
Many Jewish people are against Israel and boycott Israeli companies. Yes, we can shout about the destruction of the Israeli state because that is different than eradicating people. In some situations it is black and white, the Israeli state’s goal is the death of Palestine, both the people and the nation. Numerous officials and policies have made this clear.
Yeah, you see the problem there? Hamas is also trying to kill all the Jews. And other Arab States also want to see them dead. They’ve made this very clear as well. Instead of favor one side we should try to moderate the conflict and help the voices of people who are in favor of a peaceful solution and not one where either side gets killed. We shouldn’t let the most hateful parts of each side get so much power. Palestinians as well as Jews (and everyone else living there) should have a right to exist peacefully. You won’t solve this by either giving the land to the Palestinians or the Israelis. Destroying the Israeli state would obviously lead to a genocide of Jews. You need to be very naive to think it wouldn’t come to that once the Israeli military and polixe were to be dissolved. The Israeli government however should definitely be targeted. We need to find a way to take away the power the Likud and the Hamas currently hold.
You’d be surprised to learn there is more than Hamas in Palestine, and the majority of people there just want their families to be able to return and have their land back that was stolen by western imperial powers, and then further taken by Israel over time. Getting rid of the Israeli state wouldn’t have to mean kicking out everyone or a genocide of the Jews there. I don’t disagree there is a lot of antisemitism in the Arab world and everywhere, it’s possible to protect the lives of Jews and Arabs in the region though.
I’m well aware that many if not most Palestinians are not on board with Hamas. Same goes for the Israeli people who also mostly disagree with their own government and the mass killings as far as I’m aware. But you can see how little of an argument this is right now in Gaza. The Israeli state is killing people without sense although their own citizen don’t want this. I could see the same happen if the Israeli state would get dissolved. How would you stop Hamas and other militant antisemites from killing Jews then? You’ve seen what they did on October 7th, imagine what they’d do if no one would stop them. I would also wish for a peaceful solution where everyone could just get along. But there has been so much hate and trauma for generations on both sides that it will probably be a really slow process. And there needs to be some sort of instance that keeps both sides from killing each other. I don’t see how dissolving the Israeli state could actually work here.
The conditions that led to them attacking on the 7th are very different than what they would be if Palestine had proper self-determination. But true, it will take a while to heal divisions.
People don’t want endless violence, there have been many periods where Jewish and Arab people lived together peacefully. I agree though, a process like this would probably need third-party peacekeepers, an independent coalition could form to help protect people in the region and prevent terrorism, like the groups of states in the region that have come together to fight ISIS.
Yes, I agree :)
The issue people are having with your comment here is that you are misrepresenting the OPs post. The only thing they are calling for here is an economic boycott of Israel to pressure the Israeli government to end their attacks on Gaza. Meanwhile you are rolling that up in strawman argument that says that’s basically the same thing as wanting the obliteration of all Israelis. Don’t be so quick to make bad faith assumptions. While left wing antisemitism is a real issue, as is antisemitism in the middle east, OP hasn’t given you any cause to make that accusation here. I’d suggest editing your post to clarify that you were (I assume?) talking more generally about the topic rather than about the OP in particular.
Hm, I see what you mean. But the post is calling for an “end to Zionism” (in the video) and sees the whole Israeli state as non other than a genocide project (for the entirety of its existence, in the description). One of the top comments is the antisemitic slogan “From the river to the sea PALESTINE will be free”. All in all, I don’t feel comfortable with this at all. I mean, please organize against what the Israeli state is doing. But don’t just adopt antisemitic rhetoric and paint this whole conflict as this one-dimensional.
Maybe it’s my own bias, because as a German I’m much more sensible to the topic of antisemitism and especially in German leftwing politics, organizations like e.g. BDS have been identified as antisemitic for a very long time. Leftists from other countries often have a very different understanding of the same conflict. Not sure what to make of it though.
I am also sensitive to antisemitism, and share your concerns about some of the content on the posted link. But OP can’t control what other people write on that site. Just because some antisemitic people/groups also support an economic boycot of Israel, doesn’t imply that anyone who supports a boycott is antisemitic. It’s a non-violent means to put pressure on the Israeli government. It doesn’t look like they will stop the killing without additional external pressure, so if this helps to add some pressure then I can’t do anything but support the boycott.
My concern is that we will let us drag into this conflict by one side and regard the other side as the enemy. This happens very frequently at the moment that people will either sway hard towards pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. I think we should try to be able to differentiate a bit more. The linked video is very partial in this regard. Hence my concern.
Yes, just because some antisemites want the same things doesn’t make these things antisemitic. And I agree that some action is necessary to make Israel stop the killing.
Thank you for editing your post and taking my feedback on board.
How is BDS antisemitic? Maybe there is antisemitism associated with it’s movement in Germany but that hasn’t been my experience in the US. Though any pro-Palestine group here is constantly called antisemitic by Americans that support Israel.
Well, there is this official text on BDS by the German federal ministry for political education (unfortunately in German). I did not mean that the German branch of BDS is considered antisemitic, but the whole of BDS.
TL;DR of this text is basically that BDS is outwardly and on first glance pretty progressive. When I look at their website I can agree with most stuff I see. The article in German above now claims that BDS fails the 3-Dimension test of antisemitism. That is, they demonize Israel, use double standards and want to delegitimize its existence. The article then describes the history of BDS where it claims that BDS campaign calls the state of Israel a colonialist and that they therefore try to further delegitimize it. The problem the article sees with that is that BDS leaves open which land they want to return to Palestinians exactly and what they plan to do with the Jewish population inhabitating it right now. Same goes for plans for all Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Again, this would probably mean large displacement of the Jewish population and the destruction of the Israeli state. The article then describes how a frequent rhetoric of the BDS campaign and associated people is to compare the Nazi Regime with Israel. In context of how many survivors and their descendants of the Shoah founded the state of Israel and still live there, the article sees this as the “ultimate demonization”. This demonization is contrasted in the article with all of the Palestinian refugees living in neighboring Arab countries who are also discriminated against and who have to endure violence and oppression as well. Also, many examples of clearly antisemitic public figures associated with the BDS are named.
The difference between the German discourse vs the international one on BDS is probably how you view the right of Israel to exist. There is the argument that the Jewish religion is highly persecuted and that especially after the Shoah Jews need their own state to be able to live free from antisemitism and persecution. Internationally (apparently including many Jewish voices) this is viewed differently and a framing of Israel as a colonial state that should be dissolved may therefore be more easily thought of. From the former perspective, this already is a antisemitic argument because it delegitimizes the existence of a safe space for Jews.
In my own opinion, I see the BDS campaign as pretty problematic because it tries to simplify this whole conflict into “Israel bad / Palestine good” and how it tries to onesidedly moralize it. Sure, there are pro-Israel campaigns that try to do the same. But neither will lead us anywhere. BDS is in my opinion not a campaign that is interested in solving this conflict constructively or with everyone in mind. But we desperately need campaigns who are interested in Palestinian and Jewish people alike. I may be perceived here as derailing the protests against the Israeli government. My concern though is that we let ourselves be derailed by groups like BDS.
I agree we need to be careful that we don’t enable the sort of mass murder of Jews that has happened throughout history, being from Germany I’m sure you are especially careful to ensure something like the Holocaust doesn’t happen again.
I don’t agree that calling Israel a colony is antisemitic, it was formed as and still operates as a settler-colony. This conflict isn’t black and white, but in war there is nearly always an aggressor against the other, the culpability is rarely even. Israel, the aggressor, with support from untouchably powerful militaries, and the victim, Palestine, whose homeland was forcibly taken by said militaries.
I don’t see the de-legitimization of the state of Israel as antisemitic because the state is not legitimate by any recognized standard, and continues seizing territory in opposition to international treaties, annexing Palestinian land even in the last few weeks. I’m sure antisemitic people could use the BDS movement to mask their true views but I haven’t seen that connection in the US. There are plenty of Jewish people in the US who call for boycotting Israel and giving Palestine full self-determination.
From the former perspective, this already is a antisemitic argument because it delegitimizes the existence of a safe space for Jews.
I thought more about this idea, and I agree that Jewish people are historically extremely persecuted such that they probably should have an independent nation as a safe space. But why does it have to be at the cost of so many lives and peoples homes? Massacre and displacement of Arab people is not a good way to create a safe haven for Jewish people, and having it continue for decades certainly increases antisemitism, in turn making Jewish people less safe.
I 100% agree and isn’t this the underlying struggle really? The British decided to put the Jewish state there and then left everyone kill each other. Now there are millions of people living in a small place all with their own reasons to live there. I can see why a Jewish state has its legitimacy, but not how this would legitimize Palestinian from being displaced. On the other hand, Palestinians have the same right to live there, but that doesn’t legitimize them from displacing Jews. Now everyone has their reasons to stay on the same land and fights over it without recognising the other side. This whole conflict is build on a really bad decision and history. But we are where we are right now and while it’s a fucked up situation, we cannot really do much but try to find a reasonable compromise for everyone.
And regarding what you said in your other comment: yes, this is a very asymmetric conflict and Israel obviously has much more military power, which it abuses all the time. And meanwhile the settlers continue violently displacing Palestinians all the time as well. This needs to be stopped! My point is just that, while we try to stop these atrocities from happening, we should never forget that in its core the Israeli state does have legitimacy and that there are Jews that do have a right to live there (obviously not the settlers where they settle).
And maybe a small anecdote: a really close friend to me was Palestinian, born in Yarmouk Camp in Damascus. He told me how he has lived his whole live there and how much at home he felt in this refugee camp. Just imagine, a refugee camp that went on existing over 60 years with its inhabitants not having a chance to be proper Syrians and being discriminated against constantly. Over a 100K people lived there. But then came the war in Syria and what the Syrian government instantly did was to destroy this camp. My point being, even other Arab countries (except Jordan really) around Israel give a shit about Palestinians. They treat them like outsiders to this day, don’t give them a chance of having basic rights and let them rot in camps just as well. Just look at Lebanon, same story there! And Egypt doesn’t care about them either. If we want to tell the whole story about Palestinians, we shouldn’t concentrate on Israel as the one evil. Again, this does not excuse anything the Israeli state is doing right now. But it stops us from demonizing Israel in the first place.
We are ready. And more campaigns will appear when the blockade is successful.
