“Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025.”
Can we finally stop pretending that Israel is an “ally.” I consider the state of Israel to be an enemy to the general American public.
The general American public just voted in favor of this. The alliance will only be strengthend under Trump.
That doesn’t change my opinion. That alliance is to the U.S. government, not to the U.S. people. I consider them to be a hostile entity.
Okay, but they can’t be an enemy of the american public if that same public votes for a president that supports Israel and its genocide.
Don’t know what to tell you. I’m expressing my opinion on how I personally see them, which is an entity that is openly hostile to the American public.
People voting for them doesn’t negate this. It only means that people vote against their own self-interests, which is nothing new as we’ve seen time and time again.
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Silver lining we’ll soon get to know if the Scriptures are right about that second coming of Christ. If all the believer could just fuck off to heaven, the heathens might get some peace.
please please please please please please please please
“Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025.”
For the American voters to make sure it sinks in.
It’s more the non-voters that it needed to sink in with but it’s too late for that.
Do you understand who is president right now?
I’m not american, and I don’t know anything about this topic. May I ask for ELI5, please?
Trump is at least as far right as Netanyahu. He supports the full destruction of Palestine and Palestinians. His election has dropped all Israeli pretense in their propaganda. They can now do what they want with impunity since Trump’s administration will provide all the international cover that they need and Trump’s admin will happily brag about the genocide they helped to perpetrate.
They’re already doing what they want with impunity as evidenced by this being planned out, at this moment, while Joe Biden is president.
Yeah, he could at any time issue consequences while we can still impose them. Lets see what he does.
I see an angry phone call coming in someone’s future. Perhaps even some coarse language like “bullshit” or “bastard” might be included if Biden really means business.
I agree, but the pretense of metering and diplomacy, no matter how fleeting, is gone.
It means Israel is using the current conflict in Gaza to expand into another Palestinian territory, the West Bank. They are already illegally occupying it. This is their move to “legitimize” the occupation.
Hey, Arab American Trump voters:
WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO. YOU FUCKING IMBECILES.
Is this the first time you have this bombardment of nonsense on social media prior to the ellections? My read abput this idiots is that they were just trolls… we have so much of this in my country that some politicians even started publickly admiting that they were running troll farms, everybody does here apparently.
bUt iT DoEsN’T mAtTEr tHey ArE BoTh EqUalLy BaD On pALeStiNe
I mean, aren’t they? The only real difference I can see between Kamala and Trump on Palestine is that Kamala prefers a more respectable version of genocide. She supports genocide, but she just wants it to be done slowly and quietly. Trump is on board with a fast and overt genocide. Their policies lead to the same outcome; Trump is just a lot more honest about it.
Harris promised to do everything in her power to end the war in Gaza.
“This year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, it is devastating. And as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realise their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination,” Harris said to applause during a rally in East Lansing city of Michigan, home to 200,000 Arab Americans.
I can’t even begin to fathom the brain rot required to believe this… I can’t tell if it’s unfettered ignorance, or just propaganda.
Narrowing down the options to apartheid/genocide and the abolition of the Jewish character of Israel. In other words killing off the last vestiges of a non-fascist version of Zionism that a “small Israel” could allow.
So, liberal Zionists: which side are you on?
Dude I gave up the moment I heard on the radio that the fucker killed Rabin. If you want to live in Zion move to New York.
…also, to the rest of the thread: If you think the US election was decided on Israel, please go outside and touch grass. Talk to people. You know, those flesh-and blood things usually found within metal containers on rubber circles that you rarely interact with. Ask them. Practically nobody in the US gives a fuck, and especially not enough of a fuck for it to be the #1 cause of things.
If you want to live in Zion move to New York.
I am absolutely not a Zionist, but this is kind of a shitty thing to say.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/jew-york_n?tl=true
The answer to “if you want to live in Zion” is “too bad.”
New York is host to the second most populous Jewish community, after Tel Aviv, before Jerusalem. That’s a fact, not some antisemitic conspiracy theory.
And now you stand here, introducing a derogatory term because… noone said it? What’s your intention? Make it more popular? Imply that the sentiment against Jewish New York would be any worse than existing sentiment against Israel? One has quaint strings up power poles and plenty of bagels, the other a genocidal maniac and convicted terrorist as minister of national security, I don’t think there’s a competition to be had, there.
The answer to “if you want to live in Zion” is “too bad.”
…or is it that you don’t want any more Jews in NYC?
I didn’t say that it was a conspiracy theory. I said suggesting that New York is “Zion” just because of its Jewish population is a bad thing to say and I showed you the reason why.
…or is it that you don’t want any more Jews in NYC?
I’m a Jew. I’m a even mod of c/Jewish.
Nice try though.
I said suggesting that New York is “Zion” just because of its Jewish population is a bad thing to say and I showed you the reason why.
…no you didn’t? You showed that there was a disparaging name for the Jewish community in New York. From that I infer your argument to be “NYC can’t be Zion because there exist at least some people that don’t like Jews to be there”, but, and you won’t believe this: There’s not a single place in the world where that’s not the case. Found a colony on Mars, it’d still be the case. It’s not a suitable way to judge a place’s suitability to be Zion. Few people being miffed at its existence, sure, but none? That’s just an impossible standard.
Okay, well I’m sorry I wasn’t clear, but the point is that suggesting New York is Zion for Jews when Christians exponentially outnumber them plays into conspiracy theory nonsense whether or not you intended it that way.
Maybe you don’t care you were saying something that could be taken as offensive by Jewish people, but it could.
…and different ethnicities outnumber Jews pretty much everywhere? Or is this about Wall Street? To that I have to say that I’m simply not antisemitic enough to even think about connecting the two, had to wreck my brain for a bit what you might be trying to get at. Certainly more (ethnically) Christian bankers there than Jewish ones.
(And just so you know where I’m coming from: German, grandpa was prosecuted as “half-Jew” (barely enough “German blood” to not end up in a camp, also, Lutheran, great-grandparents not so lucky), I have family in Israel. Long story short: Taking the lessons from my ancestry together, there can be no non-anti-fascist Zionism because fascism is a tragedy also for the perpetrators. There’d never be peace. hevenu_shalom_aleichem.opus)
Bruh, fuck isreal and all but let’s not get antisemitic here.
Legit. Fuck Israel. Fuck Zionism. Fuck apartheid. Fuck the genocide of Palestinians. But also fuck antisemitism.
It really is interesting to see how quickly seemingly normal folk fall into anti semitism the moment a group of Jewish folk do something terrible. It’s like they think that because we are shutting on a state that claims to be a Jewish ethno state that it’s valid to shit talk the entire race and religion.
Insidious really.
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you’re right. it was decided on fear of immigrants, economic ignorance and selfish individualism.
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Didn’t forget the comments complaining about the comments!
You got a point, but still, comment-commplaining-ception… and yes, my vomment just adds to the chain
$hill Stein voters will never admit they were duped. All those protests centered on Biden or Harris but NEVER on Republicans. Also it’s Congress that establishes foreign aid, but whatever. It must have felt so good to be entertained by your own anger.
The genocide happened during Biden. I expect as much protests once Trump takes power
Congress establishes foreign aid, not the president. And there won’t be much protesting about Gaza anymore because the purpose of the protests has already proved successful, to disenfranchise Democrats for a Trump win.
And who constitute the Congress? Oh yeah it’s Republicans and Democrats which both voted for the 10 years deal with Israel. Even if the president can’t do anything in action, he can still condemn and criticize the Congress decision.
Bingo. These morons only care during election cycles
What does pointing your anger at and blaming other voters accomplish? They did the right thing. Republicans want minorities dead and Democrats are holding them hostage. I’m glad Trump won. Now white Americans can feel a fraction of the suffering Palestinians are going through. That’ll make them care. That’ll make them fight.
If any civilian should be blamed, it’s you for accepting this lesser evil bullshit over and over and over again to the point that got the world here. If the only thing that comes out of your mouth is shit, then don’t talk.
Yeah, entertained by your own anger and the hubris to never be wrong… Gaza is fucked now, and apparently the West Bank, too. The lesser of two evils is all there is in this world, and you sit there celebrating that evil won (at the behest of quite a few minorities).
So how would you describe Gaza during the past 6 months? Everything in rubbles, hospitals barely functioning or not at all. People starving to death while the US still supplies the bomb to murder them more actively…
Especially the past month that Israel is just straight up ethnically cleansing northern Gaza withour any pretense left, murdering American citizens, attacking UN troops…
There is absolutely no indication that Harris would have turned things around. Because the points to turn things around kept passing and passing and she made a point instead to declare here steadfast support for Israel.
The (infuriating, I absolutely agree) choice was “Gaza in rubble”, or “Gaza AND the West Bank AND wherever else Israel feels like annexing (probably a good chunk of Lebanon) in rubble, and the possibility of open war with Iran”.
Glad you got what you thought you wanted, I guess.
Blah blah blah Democrats… Tell us how awesome things will be in Gaza under Trump and a Republican controlled Congress…
There is no lesser of two evil in supporting a genocide
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Wow, they are really going to do it, aren’t they?
they’ve been self-defensing their way towards the total elimination and annexation of Palestine from the 1940s to now.
this whole thing really should not surprise anyone that knows even a simplified history of god’s special country. they have been slowly and steadily inching towards their goal. they’re not really shy about it.
hear it from Israel’s first prime minister
“You are no doubt aware of the JNF’s activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin.” He added: “Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.”
“With compulsory transfer we have a vast area… I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
Here’s another guy, a director of the JNF, Joseph Weitz
“There is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, and to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. And only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution.”
I just didn’t think they would do it formally (de jure).
games like EU4 simulate it pretty well
when you first take a territory, it requires infamy. other countries look at you with sideways. you can’t extract the full value out of the land yet. but after a long period of time (upwards of 50 years) it slowly starts to become legitimized. especially as you import settlers and built population centers. after a long enough time, it’s both de facto and de jure yours and if you hold it long enough people will recognize it as yours.
so look what happened with West Bank. when Israel took control of WB in 1967, it was majority Palestinian.
what did they do? first, you import settlers. you give incentives for people to come and populate the area with Jews. you also tacitly endorse the ideology of the settlers, so they do it even without you actively supporting it (so you have some semblance plausible deniability when people call you out)
then, you take the native peoples and you herd them into smaller and smaller pieces of land. you restrict movement (like through their “jewish only roads” and the many checkpoints through the WB) (edit: sound similar to what Americans did to another native peoples by chance? almost like it was a blueprint)
fast forward to today, and now 63% of the land area of West Bank is majority Jewish. The Palestinian population is still higher, but they are forced into smaller and smaller pieces of low-value land. In about 50 years or so they’ve managed to turn a majority Arab area into a majority Jewish.
this gives them legitimacy. there’s no way some future government, even if they wanted to be more generous, would ever give up majority Jewish land.
I’d say the entire process is gonna take ~75 years or so. we’re almost to its conclusion. they’re gonna replicate their WB strategy in Gaza, but since Gaza is much smaller and they’re being much more brutal about it, it’ll go much faster
I think the best way to become more resistant to propaganda is to read and understand history. If you only pay attention to this conflict since Oct 7th and you are getting your entire media diet from certain dubious sources, you don’t stand a chance.
but if you deep dive and actually look at the history. look at the beginning of the state of Israel, look at the early leaders, what they were saying, what they believed. look at the process of occupation, what the policies have been (
ethnic cleansingspopulation transfers, restriction of movement, blockade of gaza, destruction of airports, killing of journalists, etc)then you will have a more cynical eye when certain people try to twist and bend the truth. and you will be more accurate in predicting where the ball will land.
They’ve already BEEN doing it. And this was the critical failure of all those who argued that Trump would be better for Palestine than Harris. I voted for Harris, but I am not at all surprised this cost her the election.
Israel doesn’t need to do ANYTHING differently to complete its genocide of Gaza and the West Bank. It is already on that road, actively engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. And the Biden/Harris team have, through their inaction, fully endorsed this genocide.
Kamala was so comically bad on Palestine that the only hair-brained thing they could come up with to defend her stance was, “well…well…Trump will let the Israelis do a genocide EVEN FASTER!”
Kamala’s campaign slogan was, “a vote for Mussolini is better than a vote for Hitler!”
And then she was surprised when enough liberal voters in swing states stayed home to cost her the election. It turns out, there are plenty of people who will NOT turn out to vote for Mussolini just because Hitler is also on the ballot. They won’t vote for either of them; they’ll just say “a pox on both your houses!” and stay home.
Is a vote for Mussolini better than a vote for Hitler? Objectively, probably yes. Hitler objectively did a lot worse harm than Mussolini. But you also can’t be shocked when people refuse to hold their noses and vote for Mussolini, just because Hitler might be objectively worse. Ultimately, it’s your fucking fault for expecting people to vote for Mussolini.
I can’t speak for the nuances w.r.t Harris, Trump and US foreign policy in Israel/Palestine.
I can with full confidence say that not voting is definitely not going to achieve anything. The only justified case would be an attempt to highlight the illegitimacy of the voting process if there are no options at all. It’s relatively common for people to vote tactically on a consistent basis, although of course it’s understandable when people lose motivation to vote when they feel there are no good options.
You are ignoring how people actually think and live. You view voting as a utilitarian choice. Utilitarianism is not the only ethical system in existence. In fact, utilitarianism is exactly how histories worst autocrats justified their atrocities. Hitler himself ran on a platform of doing painful things that, he at least claimed, simply had to be done. The Holocaust itself was justified entirely from a “lesser of two evils” perspective. Hitler just had to convince the broader German populace that killing all the Jews was a necessary evil. Kill all the Jews or have the world taken over by godless Communists. That was Hitler’s central “lesser of two evils” message.
This is the fatal flaw of appeals to the lesser of two evils approaches. Yes, you “achieve more” by picking the lesser evil. But from many ethical perspectives, if both choices are objectively evil, and you can’t stop either, your only ethical choice is to not support either side. You’re still supporting evil, even if it’s the lesser evil.
You’re still supporting evil, even if it’s the lesser evil.
this is rather why i like the quote from ZIzek i heard in an interview recently
“if i were an American, I would obviously vote for Kamala. No question. But before I go into the booth, I would make the Christian Catholic cross with my hands and beg God for forgiveness”
i voted for Kamala but I did it with an awful taste in my mouth. Of course, just like all humans are guilty of Eden’s original sin… I think all of us Americans are guilty of benefiting from imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and the spoils of genocide.
No, I am basing this on real life experience. I.e. How I and many people vote and voted in my country, as well as other European countries that I follow.
This is a very practical matter. You feel like voting, you pick either your candidate or the best option that works. You’re not happy with that, don’t vote; but then you take responsibility for your (lack of) action. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t know where you are going with the utilitarianism and Hitler example. This is a massive stretch bordering on being rather insulting.
That is how YOU vote. A lot of people do not view it as a practical matter. They view their vote as an endorsement.
I don’t know where you are going with the utilitarianism and Hitler example. This is a massive stretch bordering on being rather insulting.
It really isn’t when we’re discussing fascists coming to power in the US. Godwin’s Law is dead. It is not a stretch when the reason Kamala lost is for literally supporting a genocide.
Kamala’s message was, “yes, I support a genocide overseas. But, my opponent supports it even more, and he will support crimes against humanity at home, while I will only support them overseas.”
Not just me. This is common in other countries. People most definitely do not treat their vote as an endorsement. You can believe me or not or say I am bad, but this is a matter of fact.
I was refering to your claim that tactical/pragmatic voting is somehow related to a deep philosophical commitment to utilitarianism which in turns is how you get Hitler. People don’t vote tactically out of some deep commitment to utilitarianism. Utilitarianism of course has its own set of problems, the stuff about Hitler in context of tactical voting is a ridiculous stretch; very condescending as well.
I don’t deny the possibility of US turning into a essentially a non-democratic oligarch state. If anything, research suggests authoritarians who come to power via somewhat democratic means, tend to solidify their rule in their second term if there is no pushback from society. So in a sense I agree with you.
Where I don’t agree with you are your justifications for not voting. As I said originally, I think the only fair reasoning is if there is nationwide protest to highlight the illegitimacy of an election/regime. Otherwise, there is no point in not voting.
Not just me. This is common in other countries. People most definitely do not treat their vote as an endorsement. You can believe me or not or say I am bad, but this is a matter of fact.
Being from an “other” country, having lived in another 3 of said “other” countries, an even having been involved in politics in 2 of them, what you wrote is complete total bullshit.
Plenty of people do indeed have an utilitarian view of their vote, but lots of people, maybe even most, treat their vote as an endorsement.
In fact from my own experience in various countries the utilitarian view is more common in countries with less Democratic voting systems with few actually electable choices, similar to the US (so, for example, Britain) whilst the endorsement view is more common in countries with highly Democratic voting systems with lots of choices (such as The Netherlands, which has Proportional Vote).
I’m sorry but whilst you having an utilitarian posture is perfectly valid, your idea that it’s the only valid posture and other people don’t have different postures is complete total mindless self-centred bollocks.
Are you surprised?
They’ve been signaling it for more than a year now.
What does annexation actually mean? Do all the Palestinians get Israel citizenship and voting rights? Or is this officially implementing apartheid or expulsion/death?
I’m no diplomat but having the government officially annex it sure seems like an escalation. Many (most?) of those settlements are illegal even under Israeli law* so the way to legitimize them is to annex the territory, because “it doesn’t have a government now”.
* According to Wikipedia, Israel’s Supreme court has said repeatedly (until 2012 at least) that the settlements are illegal, apparently against the word of the Executive branch of the government. And then last year, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform
Israel is literally a “Nation for Jews” in its constitution were it says roughly that all Jews and only Jews are entitled to Israeli nationality, hence why any Jewish person can just land at Tel-Aviv, ask to get Israeli nationality and get it.
That said, Israel, pretty much uniquelly in the World, separates Citizenship from Nationality and assigns different rights to both, so non-Jews can get Israeli Citizenship but not Israeli Nationality.
Limitations on the rights that people get from having Israeli Citizenship without the Nationality include, for example, limits to where they can live.
Appartheid in Israel is already officially implement, since the very beginning, so even if the Palestinians were given Israeli Citizenship (highly unlikely given Israel’s track record on this: for example tens of thousands of Arab residents in Jerusalem have for decades been refused Israeli Citizienship even though they were born there and lived there their whole lives), they would still have less rights than Israeli Jews or in fact any Jew in the world if they came to Israel.
It’s already annexed unofficially
“B Biden Seım!”
spoiler
“But Biden Same!”
Biden is the president, no?
Why are they waiting for Trump before enacting the plan?
Probably because they’re still razing Gaza and Lebanon currently along with fighting in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and soon Iran. They don’t want to stretch our US resources too thin.
