• alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      By only condemning human rights violations by Hamas and tacitly approving bigger war crimes by Israel, our American and European leaders are choosing sides in a very obvious and hypocritical manner.

      We are unnecessarily antagonizing a billion Muslims and making ourselves a target for terrorism by blindly supporting an unjust apartheid state.

      I don’t want to on the side of Hamas, but I also don’t want to be on the side of Israel.

      Why drag us into this?

      • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        USA and rest of the Western world has enabled Israel for the last 70 years while the Palestinians have been systematically disenfranchised and radicalized. No one put in geniune effort to de-escalate this situation and now shit has hit the fan.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        Most western countries feel and are guilty because they repeatedly killed and exiled Jews and promised them land as retribution that didn’t belong to them in the first place.

        • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          About 1/3 of the people living in Palestine were jewish at the time of the partition. Are you saying the entirety of land should have been given to the muslims?

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            11 months ago

            No. I think there is no fair solution as long as both groups demand it all should belong to them. They will both feel wronged. I am also pretty sure that pressure on the Jewish population would have increased there when Israel would not have been formed.

            • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Ok, but then where does this lead us? Are the jews more wrong than the muslims in trying to kill the other one? Is anyone supporting either side more wrong than the other? Us on the sidelines can condemn the cruelty but at the core there’s no clear cut right and wrong like when Native Americans were wiped out by colonists…

              In a better world maybe the UN would have enforced the partitition and after several generations shit would have cooled down. But that’s something that was impossible in '48

              • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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                11 months ago

                I hope you aren’t really asking me that lol. I have no idea. Apart from suggesting they should all just love each other and shake hands I don’t know what else could work.

                But historically I think there is no example where a division of a country has worked out. Korea, Vietnam, Germany,… It was always a disaster.

                And how would you even fairly split Jerusalem, for example?

                • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  Chechoslowakia?

                  Jerusalem was not to be split in the UN plan, but given a special status

    • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      A refreshing take for sure, and even though Bernie is Jewish he sees this cruel regime for what it really is. There are no excuses for harming innocent civilians, ever!

      • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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        11 months ago

        A lot of jewish actually call this out as a genocide, its just the world leader playing their politics while the people are getting murdered on the ground.

        • TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          11 months ago

          Every time the Israeli-Palastine conflict heats up, this is one of the most personally challenging parts. Israel ties itself so strongly to Judaism and tries to make its own political motivations inseparable from it. It makes it a very bizarre time to be a Jew, as you watch horrors unfold against oppressed peoples and civilians and some monster tells the world “This is for YOU! For YOUR benefit!”

          It’s sickening. Very literally, physically so it is gut-wrenching. There comes some relief in seeing a similar reaction among many other community members. The older generation definitely has more ardent Zionists, but at least the youth and younger adults seem to be turning away from this and seeing the horrors for what they are.

          Another oddity is that non-Jews turn to you as if you have some unique input on this. As if Israel sends out a poll to Jews across the globe on how it should act then follows those recommendations. I have less input on Israeli action than I do American politics as a US citizen. As if my disgust with political violence is something special because of my religion. How utterly bizarre it is to see someone say “Well Bernie saying this means something extra because he’s a Jew.” This kind of thinking is permitting Israeli propaganda to define Judaism and it’s vile.

          It’s understood as bigotry when this is done to Muslim representatives in Congress, but not when Israel commits horrors.

          It’s all just wildly taxing.

        • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yes I’m aware. I also know many Israeli citizens condemn the actions of their government. I just think that as an American Jewish politician, Bernie has an incentive not to criticize the Israeli government but he still does, and that takes some courage.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Problem is, at least where I live, the majority of the Jewish community fervently supports Israel.

      • TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        Bernie Sanders being a Jew doesn’t impact his ability to call out cruelty and horror and saying otherwise plays into some really gross mentalities that have been lobbied against Jews for a long long time.

        For what it’s worth, I really really doubt it’s your intent to suggest some kind of Jewish dual loyalty exists, you’re clearly celebrating someone speaking out against incredible injustice, but sometimes I think we repeat sentiments and ideas that we hear often without critically examining them for what they can imply. And this kind of sentiment is unfortunately common in media and discussions around Israel.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          11 months ago

          Moreover, the idea that Israel somehow represents Jewish people as a whole is simply Israeli propaganda that promotes Israel’s interests at the expense of non-Israeli Jews.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          I think it’s more pointing out how many politicians (and people in general), especially Republicans, who won’t criticize them, and even say criticizing them is anti-semitic. Him being Jewish means he has more cultural connection to them than they do, yet he still points it out. He also can’t reliably be called anti-semitic because he is a semite (at least the modern meaning of the word. I’m not sure if he speaks Hebrew or other Semitic languages).

          • TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            11 months ago

            This “cultural connection” remark is literally what I’m talking about.

            Bernie Sanders has zero impact on Israeli policymaking and being Jewish “connecting” him to Israel is nonsense. Would Ilhan Omar decrying Hamas hold more weight simply because she is Sunni? Of course not, it would be bigoted to think so. Why is this different for Bernie Sanders?

            And while Sanders certainly isn’t exhibiting any antisemitism in his remarks, he’s not incapable of antisemitism simply because he is a Jew. I’m sure you can come up with your own analogies here that show the absurdity of that kind of thinking.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              11 months ago

              It’s different because it’s Israel and Israel has a stranglehold over US politics.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Religion has not done a lot of good in the world lately. Turns out the “my way or the highway” approach creates nothing but death and violence.

      • deft@ttrpg.network
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        11 months ago

        The Roman empire’s spawn. Western imperialism and christianity/islam.

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        As a Brit I’m always shocked people focus on us so much. Like yeah we fucked up a lot of places and did awful things, but basically every country in Europe has committed atrocities that are as bad if not worse, like the French in Vietnam or Belgium in Africa, or mother fucking Spain basically wiping put the entire south American continent.

        • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Most of the current day border conflicts are related to the past century’s British policy, both due to the extent of the British Empire and its little interest in preventing trouble in their way out. You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news. Border conflicts in old Spanish colonies mostly took place during the 19th century, and they’ve been independent for long enough for their current issues not to have as much to do with Spain anymore. In contrast, there are British people alive today who were kicking around when the victors of WWII decided to split Palestine in half without asking Palestinians for their opinion, and afterwards chose to ignore the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians.

          In any case, you shouldn’t take of this personally, unless you actually hold any position of relative power.

          • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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            11 months ago

            You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news.

            Or people aren’t as aware of them. E.g. notably their mandates in Syria and Lebanon after World War 1 where they intentionally stirred divisions on the basis of a theory of wanting to keep it so France as a mediator was needed in order to keep them stable. And then they fucked off and left chaos behind.

            • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              Fair enough. Also, English speaking people will be relatively less exposed to conversations in French, which should be more oriented towards French colonies than English colonies.

          • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…

            There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.

            • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…

              Do you have a source for this?

              There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.

              Fair enough. Spain had an UN mandate that ordered them to oversee the process of decolonization, and instead they just gave it up to Morocco against the wishes of the Saharawi people themselves. The contemporary attitude of both the US and Spain is disgusting in this issue.

              • gmtom@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                If he’s referring to what I’m thinking about it was the Arab league that was asked. They said “no” and the UN said “we don’t care”

                • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  I replied to a post that claimed they weren’t asked for their opinion. Instead of working with the UN to decide on how the territory should be split they just said “we don’t care”. It’s like refusing to go to your divorce or custody hearing because you think it’ll be unfair

                  Their plan was to get the neighbouring countries to invade and capture the entire territory

                • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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                  11 months ago

                  So the majority of Palestinians just flat out refused to discuss splitting their country apart, just like it would happen everywhere. The way in which you presented facts is disturbingly misleading.

        • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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          11 months ago

          Three things: Scale, recency and contrition or perceived lack thereof.

          The British Empire is the largest empire there has ever been. At its greatest extent, in 1920, it covered about 1/4 of the entire world, long after having lost many holdings like the US. The second largest, the Mongol Empire, reached almost the same size, but hundreds of years earlier.

          In the same time period as the British, the Russian empire covered <20% in 1895, but its proportion of colonial lands to their own was much smaller than for the British Empire and the proportion of the current world population living in those areas is also much smaller. The French colonial empire covered less than 1/10th of the world at its peak in 1920, and was by far the other largest recent holding of colonies geographically and culturally outside of the immediate sphere of the holding country.

          Spain is rarely brought up, I think, in large part because the Spanish empire reached its peak in the early 1800’s and so is “history”. Belgium doesn’t get discussed at much because 98% of their colonial holdings was Leopold II’s personal ownership of the Congo Free State. And then we get to the last bit: Contritition.

          Nobody goes around saying the massive scale of gross abuse that happened under Leopold II’s rule of the Congo Free State was a good thing. Few people I’ve met ever defend France’s atrocities in Vietnam. Even the defence of their ownership of Algeria, which was special enough to trigger an attempted coup against Charles de Gaulle when he wanted to let it have independence because many saw it as part of France itself, is relatively muted.

          But there’s still mainstream support for the British Empire in the UK. There are still people who insist the British Empire was awesome for the colonies that were exploited because they got English and rails and British legal systems and that somehow outweighs the mass murder and brutal exploitation and erasure of local cultures.

          E.g. this survey from 2019, where 32% were proud of the British Empire, 37% were neutral, and only 19% considered it “more something to be ashamed of”. 32% were proud of their country’s history of colonialism and oppression. Critically this was significantly higher than for other colonial powers other than the Dutch. At the same time 33% thought it left the colonies better off vs. only 17% who thought they were worse off.

          I’m not British, but I’ve lived in the UK for 23 years, and I’ve experienced this attitude firsthand from even relatively young British people (ok, so all of them have been Tories) - a refusal to accept that the fact that a substantial number of these former colonies had to take up arms to get rid of British rule might perhaps be a little bit of a hint that the colonial rule was resented and wrong.

          No other modern empire has left behind such a substantial proportion of the world population living in countries that have either a historical identity tied up to rebelling against British rule, and/or have relatively recently rebelled against British rule, and/or still have substantial reminders, such as Commonwealth membership or the British monarch as their monarch. When a proportion of the British population then keeps insisting this was great, actually, there you have a big part of it.

        • jhulten@infosec.pub
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          11 months ago

          We aren’t giving the others a pass, but this shitshow has a certain Etonian stench. It’s like the British Empire looked at Zionist and saw a shared colonial heart…

        • ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub
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          11 months ago

          I think the general focus comes from the particular reach of the British empire controlling ~ a quarter of the world, but I agree every major power has done it

          That said, in this particular conflict, it’s more about how right after WWII , around the time when the United nations was founded. The world powers knew they basically owned the world at this point with nuclear tech, but justified it by arguing they should use this power to preserve countries borders.

          Around the same time when the world powers are saying this, land that Britain colonized in Palestine was given to create Israel. Which is hypocritical.

          I can understand machiavellianism in the context of pre 1950 geopolitics, but there will never be peace because of the decision making of Western powers doing something they have acknowledged is unethical

          • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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            11 months ago

            1/4 yes, but also worth mentioning that today far more than 1/4 of the present-day population live in that quarter of the world that has a history of being under British rule in recent history.

            Couple that with the UK population being far more likely to be proud of the empire, wish Britain still had an empire, and insist the colonies wee left better off for having been oppressed, the British Empire has a certain stench about it many of the others haven’t, or haven’t anymore because of either age, a greater willingness to admit it was a bad thing, or lack of scale.

            • gmtom@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Not to be an imperial apologist, but there was one colony that was actually better off under British rule and that was Hong Kong.

              • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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                11 months ago

                I think Hong Kong is the rare exception that’s at least possible to reasonably argue, since the alternative was never independence but being ruled by someone granting even fewer freedoms.

          • TanakaAsuka@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            No, it’s because you can trace at least some of this specific problem directly back to British imperial rule in the middle east.

            • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Yes, they intentionally drew national boarders to split ethnic populations and ensure infighting amongst country.

              The aim was to keep the region destabalized and unable to strike at their former oppressors.

      • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing.

        More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I don’t think that is new. It’s true that it helps. But religions have always been involved in war. Up until 200 years ago the Pope was the most powerful person on the planet for at least 1000 years.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I’m ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.

        A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I’m jealous. I’m as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don’t agree with their religion, but they’re practicing it right as far as I’m concerned.

        Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.

        • PLAVAT🧿S@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Agreed, it’s mostly community as far as personal benefits. We had a friend group through it that fell apart recently and my wife wants to go back to church only for the community.

          Outreach is mostly a guise in my opinion, a show that’s put on to make the congregation think their money is being used wisely. I have a lot of disdain for organized religion though, having grown up in it and painfully “deconstructing” a couple years ago. I can’t step foot in a church ever again (minus a wedding).

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Yeah, for sure there’s some scummy stuff churches can do with money. Again, that’s not EVERY church, and the bigger it gets, the more likely the preacher has a supercar. Some have actual accountability, and actually spend the money helping congregation, but it can take some looking to find them, and unfortunately they’re overshadowed by the Joel Olstein style mega churches.

      • TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        Religion can give a framework of morality when people lack one. There’s, of course, secular justifications for morality, but in times of hardship and despair, some could find it incredibly difficult to see a humanist perspective as justified, e.g. it’s other people who create hardships for people, so why should I be good to others when they won’t be good to me?

        Religion can fill in that gap. The assumption of a benevolent omnipotence can inspire people to help others when it seems pointless and ineffective to do so. There’s a quote attributed to Rabbi Tarfon in the Pirkei Avot, “It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.” that has personally helped me a great deal to remember to work hard to do good and help others, even in a small way, when it seems I can have no effect on a great injustice.

        Religion can also give structure and guidance to life when things fall apart. Jewish tradition, ritual, and holidays in particular can be quite grounding in hard times. To give another example, during the pandemic, many people lost their daily, weekly, monthly, routines. I, personally, found it very grounding and calming to observe the rituals of my ancestors, if for nothing else to mark the passage of time, but also as a reminder to take time in your life to slow down and refocus yourself.

        Another poster mentioned the benefit of community religion can provide, so I won’t.

        The danger comes in when ritual, tradition and faith turn into ardent dogmatic following, zealotry. When people use these tools for finding morality and peace in our lives and with others as justification for horror and malice, they lose sight of these benefits and worsen the world around us at great harm to our fellow humans and ourselves. Something capable of doing great good is twisted and weaponized for political purposes and the darkest of human desires.

        Religion works best when we separate doctrine from strict action and reflect on the intent of tradition and law and use them to inspire us to make the world a better place for all people.

        What’s going on now feels very much an example of this horrendous zealotry. I cannot see how these actions help us be better stewards of the planet, how they help heal the world or accomplish anything we should aspire to. It’s heartwrenching to see demagogues pervert faith into casus beli for political and military victory.

        Religion isn’t unique in the way it gets twisted for vile actions, there are many, many secular ideologies that this happens with, as well, in blatant and subtle ways. But I understand how it can feel especially bitter when something rhetorically benevolent gets used so horrendously.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      Religion is a plague. It’s the reason we’re going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.

      • protovack@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        the communist elite in china don’t give AF about climate change and they’re nothing close to “right wing” or religious. you’re just cherry picking to make a (very weak) point.

        • kboy101222@lemm.ee
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          It’s not religion, but it is strict adherence to an ideology and refusing to acknowledge facts that contradict the ideology or make it inconvenient

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Religion or not, it sure would be nice if we could not killing civilians and not genocide.

    • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      I (a non-US) watched Hillary in a documentary about her saying Bernie has never worked (in corporate/professional settings) all his life. If that’s true, I don’t think it matters to him.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s a joke. They are saying Bernie will never be a paid off tool of the corporations. Which he would never want to be anyway. And that’s why he lost the nomination.

      • endhits@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Hillary is a very transparent corporate goon. She’s never done anything out of the currently accepted status quo. She’s entirely interested in what benefits her political career.

    • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I mean, Bernie Sanders always had that. That’s a good part of why people liked him.

      See him arguing against various wars where he stood among few against the many and was so far right on these takes:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_om-x323Em0

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZo97nFS9GU

      One of the comments under the videos puts it well:

      For every wrong move america has made in the last 40 years, there is a video of Bernie arguing against it.

    • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      I’m glad to hear him break back away from the Dem establishment orthodoxy. He’s been mostly toeing the corporatist establishment line since Biden secured the nomination.

      Though, maybe that means I need to get defederated now.

        • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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          11 months ago

          To a lesser degree, the leaders of Hamas.

          I guess, if they believe they’ll be in their theory of heaven soon…

      • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Israel’s existence has been enough justification for the US to be involved in the affairs middle east for the last 80 years.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Who benefits from this crisis?

        Russia. It gives them breath and cover at a time where the US is stymied against supporting Ukraine. Creates another thing for the media to “do” that isn’t covering Ukraine.

        • Rendh@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          Then holocaust deniers can’t read stats. As it took the Jewish population in Germany until 2018 to grow back to 1/5 of what it was in 1933.

          Is the Israeli government being dickheads about Gaza? Definitely. But calling it a genocide seems melodramatic seeing as there’s now 5 times the amount of people there was 60 years ago.

          And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?

          • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?

            And get targeted by USrael?

            • Rendh@feddit.de
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              11 months ago

              Because they seemed to care about that during any of the wars they fought against Israel.

              The real reason (according to everything I found) Egypt keeps the border closed is because they don’t seem to want to deal with Hamas and not because Israel is telling them to.

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        In case you are just uneducated and not a troll:

        UN definition of genocide.

        Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

        So, yes, what Israel is doing is genocide.

        • Rendh@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          It’s a very bad physical destruction when there’s now 5 times more than 60 years ago. When I destroy something whole or in part there’s usually less afterwards. See Jewish population in Europe before and after ww2.

          • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            So the medieval-style siege (only done 'in retaliation" ofc, as is tradition for Israel) does not intent to destroy the population in the Gaza Strip just because the bad sand people didn’t die yet? The definition clearly states that it’s about intent.

            In any case, 45% of the population in Gaza is 14 years or younger, so the mental harm bit of the genocide definition also applies. What Israel is doing and did in the past centuries is horrific and that constant backup they get from the West has to stop.

            For clarity, I’m not arguing that Hamas are the good guys, everyone knows they are jihadists that like to pretend they fight for their people but in reality only use them as shields. I argue that Israel is a nationalist, ultra-right state led by an insane nutcase that openly admits to be a proponent of zionism and unironically thinks Hitler got the idea for the Holocaust from a Palestinian Grand Mufti. Israel is not worthy of getting military support.

            • Rendh@feddit.de
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              11 months ago

              I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic. They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.

              Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians. Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time. You want intent? The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception. Both sides are bad and the Israeli government is far from innocent. But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed. And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.

              • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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                11 months ago

                I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic.

                It’s not melodrama, it fits the UN definition of a genocide, but if you think “ethnic cleansing” is more appropriate, I’m willing to compromise.

                They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.

                Palestinians support Hamas not because of their ideals, but because they are the only one’s that pretend to fight for them. Israel’s kill count is orders of magnitude higher than Hamas’. How many Palestinians would vote for Hamas if there were fair, anonymous elections in Palestine is impossible to tell. You are extrapolating Hamas’ extremism to the general population and basing it on surveys from a prison camp.

                Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time.

                True, because their Holy Scripture tells them it’s their land which is ironically the same reasoning Israel uses to stake a claim on the region.

                The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception.

                Yes, and the clear intent of Israel is to exterminate every single Palestinian. That’s why they are huddled up in Gaza and the West Bank, guarded by the IDF. They are not allowed to enter Israel and Egypt refuses to let them enter their territory as well.

                And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.

                The only group I see thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough is the West by continuing to give military support to Israel so they can continue with theirs.

                Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians.

                But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed

                I’m gonna address this last because those are loaded points, but they seem very important for your opinion on the conflict.

                Palestinians live in a world, devoid of any hope or future. They have no way of sustaining themselves, they have no way to escape, they have no way to fulfill what they think is their destiny (living under their God in Palestine). Israel on the other hand got their destiny with wide support from predominantly the US and the UK, but also the Western world as a whole.

                I understand and empathize with the desperation of the Palestinian civilians and cheering on the deaths of your obvious enemy is not something exclusive to them, I’ve seen that happening many times, even from more privileged positions. What I mean by this is that US citizens cheer for their military successes, so do their opponent. People even do that by proxy in conflicts they have no personal interest in. At this point, I would just call it a human trait when being confronted with a shit situation, the deep end of the human soul so to speak.

                • Rendh@feddit.de
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                  11 months ago

                  The extermination of Palestinians clearly isn’t their goal. Allowing the population of Palestinians to grow from 1 million to 5 million would otherwise look pretty foolish.

                  But why is Egypt refusing to let them in? Maybe because they don’t want to deal with Hamas either?

                  A population growing to 5 times the size it was before clearly does not fit the definition of genocide. Am I agreeing with how Palestinians are treated? No. But calling it a genocide when the population has been growing and growing is ridiculous.

                  The comment about the west I’ll ignore because it makes you look like a tanky.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    If a law carries no punishment, is it even a law?

    Seems like more a set of guidelines that people are free to ignore whenever it suits them.

  • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    Even when international powers would force the place into two countries the fighting will never stop. Because both don’t have a country and want one and both ground their claim on religion. The religions are incompatible. Hamas consider Jews as the enemy of Allah quite literally.

    Jews were pushed out of countries and killed and therefore promised land. So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn’t protect itself. Palestinians are also pushed out of countries and killed and want their land back. The Brits just left them with this conflict because they couldn’t handle it. And now probably no one will be able to stop Israel anymore because they were given the better hand in terms of weapons.

    Asking either side to stop won’t work. Ban religion instead. They could both live there.

    • bemenaker@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Before 1943, both Muslims and Jews lived in Palestine in peace, but as immigration increased, so did tension. It wasn’t about religion, it was about land.

      https://www.cjpme.org/fs_007

      There were plenty of Jewish leagues, sports, ect, called the Palestinian Jewish (league name).

      • VoilaChihuahua@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Didn’t immigration to Israel increase due to persecution of Jewish people? So if there was no Christ / bible leading to Judaism separating from Christianity, we wouldn’t have the resulting anti-semitism that caused Jewish people to return to their biblical homeland and displace the indigenous Palestinians. Honest inquiry.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          I think so, too. With no religion, anti-Semitism could probably not exist. Although, it isn’t purely a religious group but also an ethnicity.

          Jewish people are native to the place Palestine/Israel as well, btw. Even when you leave out the religious claim going back to Abraham, there are multiple archeological and genetic findings that confirm Jewish people have lived there already thousands of years ago.

          • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            The only reason being jewish has an ethnic component is, of course, religious. Who else cares which parti-fucking-ticular tribe their ancestors belonged to 2.500 years ago

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        Jews lived in Arab and Muslim countries as second-class citizens at best. There are also many Palestines in Israel living there, doing sports, allowed to vote, etc. But somehow in that case it’s not okay.

        Almost as if it’s okay to treat Jewish people as lesser, but not Muslims.

        The whole fights and anger about the city Jerusalem is driven by religion, as well.

        Even when Palestinians could live in Israel as first class citizens they reject it because they are anti-zionist. Which is a religious standpoint, even when Zionism itself is of course also a religious standpoint.

        Please read this for example, which I think makes a very good point on how religion drives the conflicts:

        https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/religion-and-israel-palestinian-conflict-cause-consequence-and-cure

    • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn’t protect itself.

      I mostly agree, but ‘taken’ is somewhat reductive, it was more like a forced partition. Jews already lived there and were already emigrating there en masse long before the end of WWII, Zionism ramped up in the late 1800’s, 60 years before the Jewish state. There was already violence in that area through a lot of early Zionism and a civil war in the few years leading up to partition.

      It would be like if the UK decided tomorrow to give 35% of the US to Hispanic Americans despite them only being ~20% of the population, it just a weird way to split up a country that is bound to cause conflict. (Jews were 30% of the population of Israel/Palestine when it was split in half) No one actually expected Israel to survive the wars at the start, as you said they just wanted to push the ‘problem’ onto someone else. If you’re a displaced population what do you do if no one wants to take you and your under threat of death most places you go? It’s important to remember that Jews were pretty much universally hated everywhere in the world prior to WWII, they didn’t have many prospects for peace.

      I suspect however that if partition never happened, there would still be ethnic conflict in that area and it would have just shifted who was the oppressed group. Which really highlights the real problem as you implied, the inability for many religious communities to live side by side. Look at India, Nigeria, Ireland, etc. Whenever you have 2 prominent religions in large enough numbers living closely together their fanaticism often doesn’t allow a shared sense of national unity. Banning religion is a great way to make religion popular again though, not the best way to get rid of it. A secular education is the best way to get rid of religion.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        Thank you, I looked into it and found a lot of interesting research about the people who lived in that area in the past. I agree that both groups of people are native to the place.

        It’s interesting how the narrative of Jews being invaders or even colonizers of the place is prevalent in social media, on biased websites and sometimes even the news.

        I guess people really like that idea because it makes the whole issue more easy black-and-white.

    • samson@aussie.zone
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      11 months ago

      Oh yes of course banning religion is the obvious answer that will lead to harmony. Even in your magical world where religion doesn’t exist this conflict would then be on racial lines.

      • notapantsday@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        Exactly, people use religion to justify acts that would otherwise be seen as irrational and inhumane. But with religion out of the picture, people will still commit the same atrocities and just try to find other ideologies as justification, such as racism.

    • andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Almost like you got this out of Chris Hitchens mouth.

      I don’t like religion either. But, I don’t agree with banning religion. Banning something only give reason for martyrdom. It is too naive, to say that the Israel-Palestina conflict would be gone if both of them turned atheists. Too much bad blood between them. Instead it would need a long process to fight for peace. Short term cease fire, making them to have a long one. Stop giving Israel too much privilege and upperhand by giving them more advanced weapons. Reeducate the people! Honest education is one of the best solution against religion. And we might have a chance to have a peace there in the long future. The conflict wouldn’t be resolved in the next couple of years, I believe it would take decades.

      The western block has to stop giving weapons to Israel and stop supporting Israel blindly. What they did there, has to be condemned also.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        When Israel wouldn’t have weapons, Hamas would kill them an probably other Palestine groups as well because they see Jewish people as the enemy of Allah and do not want to share the land with them, they want to kill or exile all Jews in the area.

      • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I think if you were able to pull the religious component out the conflict would be solved very quickly. Control over religious hotspots? Gone. Scripture telling everyone they are god’s chosen and need to oppose the non-believers? Gone. Outside influence and money supporting ‘their’ extremists? Gone. Israeli settlers thinking it’s their religious job to retake their holy land? Gone.

        This conflict is entirely rooted in religion

    • ???@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      and both ground their claim on religion.

      No. Sorry, but this is bullshit.

      Palestinians lived in Palestine before any Zionists came, and they lived with Palestinian Jews and Christians. They don’t demand the land because of “religion”… they demand their land, country, identity, and dignity back.

      Big fucking difference. And honestly, it reflects poor knowledge about Palestinians and Palestinian history on your part.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        The reason why Palestinian groups like Hamas want the land completely for themselves is religious. They claim that Palestine is only really theirs when it’s “pure Muslim”. You can read this in the charta of the Hamas and also in the quotes of their leaders.

        How is that not based on religion? Jews were living there before as well and many Palestines want them completely gone because they are Jews.

        • ???@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I am talking about Palestinians not Hamas. My words were clear up there.

          This equating of Hamas and Palestinians is pretty lame imo.

              • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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                11 months ago

                This is a quote from you:

                Israel has killed full Palestinian families in Gaza. This isn’t people “caught in the crossfire”. This is Israel bringing the crossfire to their beds and homes. This is Israel’s continuing ethnic cleansing.

                • ???@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  I will ask you again which part in this is the one where I equate the Israeli government with Israeli civilians.

                  Thanks.

                • ???@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  I am still waiting for the part where I equated Israelis with the Israeli govt and forces… How much longer do I need to wait until you read that paragraph again and realize you were wrong?

                • samson@aussie.zone
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                  11 months ago

                  Israel is a country and the state has killed full families. Reading comprehension is a good skill to have, maybe brush up.

  • btaf45@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?

    https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-day-that-bush-took-gaza/

    The Day That Bush Took Gaza

    April 25, 2004

    President Bush’s embrace of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip is going to turn out to be more than a mere gesture. Sharon’s radical initiative would evacuate all Israeli settlements and military positions, unilaterally, within the next 18 months…de facto responsibility for what happens in Gaza once Israel withdraws will fall to the United States. That’s the hidden meaning in the president’s letter of assurance to Sharon saying that the United States will lead an international effort to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism and prevent the areas from which Israel withdraws from posing a threat.

    One wonders whether Bush really appreciates what he is getting himself and the United States into. Having trumpeted his support for an independent Palestinian state, he is now taking on responsibility for ensuring that the Gaza mini-state created by Israel’s withdrawal does not turn into a failed terrorist state.

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I don’t agree with this guy’s hot take on things. He’s arguing that because Bush supported the Israeli Prime Minister’s idea of pulling out of Gaza, Bush is somehow taking full responsibility for Palestine and has all the blame for Hamas winning the majority vote in Gaza in 2007.

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        11 months ago

        Sharon was going to let the Palestinian Authority (who rules the west bank) run Gaza. Bush is the guy who pushed for democratic elections. That’s why he’s the one who is most responsible. Of course the Gaza residents over 40 who voted for Hamas (perhaps around 20% of the current population) also share the blame. This is also something the news media doesn’t talk about. The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?

      Maybe because it’s a bit of a stretch

      • btaf45@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s not a stretch. It was Bush’s idea to hold democratic elections in Gaza, instead of turning Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority. Yes it was a noble idea, but it showed how Bush was incompetent on foreign matters. Bush also let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora when he refused to order the thousands of nearby US soldiers to go get him.

        This all goes to show how incredibly important it is to have a US president who is competent. Bush would probably argue that he was just trying to do the right thing in pushing for democracy. And I’m not saying Bush is the only person responsible. But every time another building in Gaza is destroyed by bombing, that happened because Bush made the wrong call while he was in charge.

        • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Do you have visions of Bin Laden legging it from Tora Bora when you see a building in Gaza being leveled?

    • x86x87@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      Gaza was fucked way backed in 1948 by the UN and especially the UK. What follows were 75 years of genocide/terrorism.

  • Don Escobar@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s too on the nose when religions claim they are coming in the name of peace yet they continue to leave a bloody trail. Yes, I condemn Hamas just as much as I condemn the killing of innocent Palestinians in the name of religion.

    • ???@lemmy.world
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      Innocent Palestinians are being killed by an ethno state so let’s make sure we call it what it is. It’s colonial sentiments and Jewish supremacy that are behind this.

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    Watch out Bibi, the international police are going to come and arrest you! Blah blah blah.

    • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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      Well, he already literally removed the ability for Israel’s Supreme Court to stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants. Regardless of how anyone feels about Israel, their political system is in shambles.