• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Hamas Flag

      Palestinian Flag

      Any questions?

      You’re barking up the wrong tree. I understand Hamas as a resistance organization to nearly a century of military occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. All for the purpose of some 16th century colonialist idea of racial superiority.

      But America ain’t there yet. So flying the colors of Hamas, spray painting their name, and wearing the red triangle are all things that force politicians to respond in a specific way. And unless someone figures out they were infiltrators or the photos were photoshopped then the organizers screwed up. When I marched with pro Palestinian groups earlier this year the organizers were on top of preventing that.

      The biggest thing we can do going forward isn’t to lament a boiler plate statement, it’s to educate people on why Hamas exists in the first place.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Okay, so when I searched before I didn’t find any Hamas flags in the protest. Google is fucking garbage these days.

        Mea culpa.

        That said, she didn’t have to condemn everyone. She’s running against Donald “very fine people on both sides” Trump. He knows he needs to speak to the extremes in his base to win, it’s why he got even more votes in 2020 than in 2016, and she needs to speak to her own base too. Instead, she threw the baby out with the bathwater.

        Whatever. Maybe she’s just a coward and not willing to take a stand that would get attacked in the media. There’s a reason she won’t use the words “genocide” or “apartheid” or “settler-colonialism” or “war criminal”…

        Let’s see who her VP is, because if it’s Josh “volunteered for the IDF” Shapiro then it’s clear as day she’s pro-genocide

        (As an aside, flying Hamas’s colors does help to educate people about anticolonial resistance - it’s provocative, not wrong)

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Trump got that name trying to split that hair. And yeah I get the difference between the groups. But the entire point here is the American electorate at large doesn’t.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            And the American electorate never will get the difference if politicians are too cowardly to make a stand.

            But Trump got more votes after trying to split that hair. It worked. It’s not even a bad strategic move.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              It’s never been the big politicians who lead movements in the US, unless they came into office because of a movement. Even JFK didn’t do civil rights until the movement was big enough.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Yes, because US politicians are always opposed to change until it is forced upon them.

                Yet in other countries political figures can, in fact, lead political movements. Why is the US different?

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          That said, she didn’t have to condemn everyone.

          Then it’s a good thing she didn’t, and specifically singled out pro-Hamas sentiment.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            She did not come out in support for any of the protesters, she condemned them all equally.

            But, like I said, let’s see if she chooses Josh Shapiro. That’ll tell us what we need to know.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Read her statement. She condemns and condemns and condemns, and doesn’t say anything about support for any of the protesters. She merely came out in support of protest as a general concept, but you can hardly read that as her supporting the right to protest against Israel or Netanyahu.

                • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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                  5 months ago

                  This is a convoluted uncharitable interpretation. She specifically condemns support of pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric. It’s disingenuous to read that as blanket condemnation of all pro-Palestinian protesters.

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    5 months ago

                    No where in her statement does she clarify that any of the people protesting Netanyahu were in the right. She didn’t go that extra step to show any solidarity with any of the protesters, and maybe that’s because she’s a coward and didn’t want to appear pro-Hamas. Yet, Trump wouldn’t do that to his base. He’d condemn violence in general and then say there were very fine people on both sides, and by doing so he became even more popular. Harris missed an opportunity to make her position more clear.

                    In fact, she has been frustratingly vague about this entire situation! A ceasefire, but how long? Hostage release, but does that include the Palestinian hostages held by Israel? What about the ICC and ICJ decisions? What about UNRWA? Crickets…

                    She needs to make her position clear, and I think her VP pick will clarify it for a lot of people.