On Friday, protesters fired flares in the air and demanded Netanyahu step down. Mounted police and trucks blocked their way. Demonstrators blame the prime minister for the security failures leading to the Hamas attack on Israeli communities on Oct. 7 — when authorities here say militants killed 1,200 people — as well his handling of the war in Gaza and the hostages since.
“Netanyahu has to leave or we’ll never get the hostages home,” said Karen Beltz, a Tel Aviv film producer. She said the protests were beginning to swell, but were still not as large or angry as the anti-government demonstrations that rocked Israel for months last year.
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@Fimbulwinter personally I’m very interested in human rights for everyone.
I wish for example the Rohingya, the Tigrayans, the Oromians, the West Papuans, the Saharawi, the Armenians, the Sudanese, and the Uighur were all getting this much air-time.
Unfortunately Israel is the US’s pet financial project (with a significant US expat population, too) and dominates US-led media cycles.
I find that whenever I am able to educate people on these other genocides and ethnic cleansing attempts, they come to have strong opinions on these as well.
Because unlike all the others you mention, this genocide is actively funded by “us”. This is the one that is done by “us” as the west. This is done by people who are supposed to be like us. It’s the horrible feeling that we are responsible and we can’t do anything except for point out that the Israeli government is a genocidal bunch of assholes and hope that our governments will finally get their heads out of Bibi’s ass.
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Before I start: what Israel is doing in Gaza is criminal, the far right government of Israel is horrible, what the IDF is doing is disproportionate and needs to stop, and Palestinians deserve to have their own country.
Politics.
Israel is a US ally and receives a lot of aid, which means criticising Israel is politically useful for Chinese, Russian, Iranian and allied propagandists and the useful idiots who uncritically spread their propaganda. It’s no coincidence that the same people who often spend all day discussing Israel online, are far more likely to deny what’s happened in Xinjiang, be opposed to western support for Ukraine, and/or ignore Russian involvement in Syria and Sudan.
Even more unfortunately, these useful idiots then uncritically parrot propaganda which is often very anti-semitic. For example, you’ll often see people unironically claim that ‘’‘Zionists’‘’ control all western media or even on occassion go on about how cunning the ‘’‘Zionist’‘’ is. It’s icky.
Unfortunately these are people who like to think of themselves as good, so they’re unable to be self-critical. Vanity, it’s the Devil’s favourite sin. Few people admit their biases even if they’re aware of them. It doesn’t help that the Israeli right often labels any criticism of Israel as anti-semitic, which offers anti-semites and those who spread anti-semitic propaganda cover. “Zionists say any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. I’m just being critical!”
Once again: this doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be critical of what Israel’s doing in Gaza.
This comment is overly long, the debate is deeply polarised, people have come to their view on the matter through emotion so no rational argument will sway them, and I will convince exactly no one to moderate their behaviour or be more critical and/or nuanced.
The fact that you think I have to “like” Palestine in order to not support oppressing and genociding them says everything.
I feel the same way about them as I do about other targeted minorities like Armenians, Rohingya, Uighurs etc. No one deserves to be treated like they’re subhuman no matter how much I dislike certain aspects of their culture. And every culture has its good and bad aspects.
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You can oppose multiple genocides you mouth breather.
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