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Yeah I just can't get there based on reading tea-leaves of diplomacy over a response to 10/7 and the subsequent war crimes. I know Biden's Catholic and there's a strong Evangelical -> Zionist link but even that isn't really clear because Catholics aren't (Protestant) Evangelicals. And anyway, the second-coming-prophecies with the red calf and all that garbage are pretty out there for a guy who is more known for being a Senator (obviously in the future this will make less and less sense because of the Qanuts.)
Let's just agree that the genocide should never be supported and go with that until we get direct evidence of how Biden was supportive of the IDFs activities. I see how it could be (mis?)construed that way, I don't see how it is that way.
That's all fair. Just for clarity, I want to firmly distinguish that I don't think Joe Biden's zionism is at all the same as Pat Robertson's zionism. What you're talking about, I think is the evangelical messianic cult belief that a holy war in the middle east will usher in the second coming of Christ. I've heard that the president of France thought that George W. Bush was in that camp a bit.
Biden, from all that I've read, simply shares the zionism of liberal Jews. It's the same kind of Zionism I grew up with. It's a belief that the return of Jews to Israel is a triumphant story of 20th century humanist values making the tragedy of the Holocaust and the second World War into an inflection point at which we as a global civilization broadly turned away from barbarism and colonialism and racism in favor of enlightened future of international law and justice. It was predicated on the notion that Jews had been mistreated for millennia, and finally were receiving reparations. And our victory (as Jews) was the symbolic case that would define the future of political and economic liberalism that was the birthright of humans around the world.
As long as you don't ever think about the Palestinians, it's a powerful, uplifting narrative. That's what Biden is on. But the reason that Bibi has sat on the thrown for so long is because unlike folks like Biden, he knows how the gefilite fish is made, and he's not squeamish about making it.
Do you know where the term "scapegoat" comes from? It's biblical. We used to transfer our sins onto goats and then sacrifice them. We made them dirty with our sins so we could claim to be clean. That's what Bibi has always been. His job has always been to do the things that that liberal zionists have always wanted done but cannot bear to soil their own souls doing.
If that zionism is "Israel has a right to exist" then, okay I'd agree he shares that belief.
I mean, that's where I'm not with you. If someone "wants [that] done" they're not a liberal zionist in my opinion. (Sorry, I don't know which definition of liberal you're using or which one means the Jews who want to peacefully coexist and which ones want to take land and support genocide.)
If you're telling me that all the Jewish people I know who hate what Israel is doing but want Israel to exist are secretly loving what Israel is doing, I just don't believe that. I don't believe that Biden is one of them.
Again, I totally understand. I have been down the road that your friends are on.
This question you're asking has been a point of debate since the start of the zionist project a century ago.
The concept of some form of peaceful coexistance used to be the default position of liberal zionists, which in this context means supporters of universal human rights who believe in the establishment of a sovereign Jewish national homeland. The counterweight to this that has emerged -- particularly since the conquest and occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in 1967 -- has been secular Jewish Supremacy and Religious Zionism. These are technically distinct, but ultimately both are far-right ethnonationalist/ethnosupremacist groups that advocate for a maximalist approach. Both believe in the complete conquest and ethnic cleansing of historic mandate Palestine.
The problem is that following the Oslo Accords, the far-right recognized that momentum was slowly shifting their way, and the liberal zionists never fought it. They liked the idea of rights and justice, but they didn't really have the stomach to advocate for the agency of Palestinians. Many are scared of Palestinians. Many recognize how utterly inconvenient their continued existence is. It was assumed that after a generation, they'd give up and their culture would've dissolved, but it didn't happen. Media shifted to the right along with the center of power in Israel, and US government -- historically a bulwark against the Israeli far right -- kept moving with them.
Most of your friends were probably raised much as I was. They probably got a tree planted in Israel for their b'nai mitzvah. They may have gone on a Birthright trip. And as they got older, they got more uncomfortable with the the side of Israel they saw during the Second Intifada and Operation Cast Lead, but accepted the universal pacifier: "It's complicated."
Which brings us to today. The illusion of any chance of agency or self-determination for Palestinians -- in both the occupied territories as well as Palestinian citizens living in Israel's formal UN boundaries -- has been rendered an obvious farce. Which means that everyone is really forced into largely three paths:
Biden is has been in camp 3 his whole career. As I mentioned, he justified violence against civilians in a private meeting during the Reagan administration. He's always had an appetite for breaking a few eggs.
I'm in camp 2. I want a one-state solution. It can be binational states or whatever, but I want everyone to have free movement across the territory, full rights, and for everyone to get access to the same national budget for schools and hospitals.
Your friends are probably demoralized and don't know what to feel. But if you don't take any action, the default option is 3. I hope they'll join me in 2. I'm furious that my son won't enjoy the privileges I did. Jewish safety and our reputation around the world are the prices that are being paid for a bunch of real estate.
I'm sorry this is all so long. I don't know if you'll read this, but as you can tell, I've got a lot bottled up. I bet your friends do to. Give them my love and support.
Well I just want to say it's been an interesting conversation and I appreciate the measured tone you've taken and your efforts to explain your position. I really do.
I think you're right that my friends are probably in the 2nd group you outlined. I think Carter, Clinton, Obabma, (and yes, Biden) all fall into that category of working towards a two-state solution that allows everyone to live peaceably. Certainly that's the dominant message I've ever recieved from the Democrats.
But as for this part: The problem is that following the Oslo Accords, the far-right recognized that momentum was slowly shifting their way, and the liberal zionists never fought it. They liked the idea of rights and justice, but they didn't really have the stomach to advocate for the agency of Palestinians.
Wasn't that the whole issue about Yitzhak Rabin? As per Wikipedia:
So the way I saw it, was that his assassination was a coup for the far right as represented by Bibi and the Likud is the equivalent of the MAGATs here - that is to say, utterly reprehensible people who do not represent what most people want.
But you're making the case that in fact most people DO want what Likud is selling they just don't have the courage to express it? If that's the case, how do you know this? I mean is it strictly anecdotal or do you know of some other data that suggests that? I admit I'm only going by what I have heard and my assumptions from reading the news, so that's why I'm asking.
And, more than that, that Biden somehow falls into the category of supporting a two-state solution but secretly (?) wanting to eliminate all Palestinians?
At a certain point I worry that this gets to be more philosophy than deduction, but I would say that my reasoning is largely under-girded by two things.
First, I'm a realist, a materialist, and a consequentialist: if someone repeatedly does things that produce a consistent outcome, eventually I conclude -- regardless of what they may say -- that clearly that is the outcome they prefer.
Second, my impressions regarding anyone based the same thing as anyone's: observing what people and groups say and do by following the news and testing how well various mental models predict and explain observed behavior.
Here's an example: from reading Jewish Currents, 972 Magazine, Mondoweiss, The Intercept, The Forward, etc. I'm aware that the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, has been a controversial figure even among his ideological peer group. Even within the ADL and like-minded organizations such as J Street critics have complained that Greenblatt demonstrates a bias against criticism of Israel and zionism that seems to routinely impede the overall mission of the ADL.
And now we're at a point where the ADL has become wholly deferential to Elon Musk. They are not just passive toward him, they actively defend a man who has flatly stated that he believes Jews engage in media manipulation and act to enrich themselves even at the expense of any national allegiance. But: he's also made clear that he's prepared to support a Jewish ethnostate without reservation as long as he feels that the Jews refrain from challenging his own power and priorities.
This is just a case study. Greenblatt is not a uniquely important case. The point is that I look at this, and I have a mental model of Jonathan Greenblatt. I think about what I was raised to believe, and I understand how a man like Greenblatt can lie to himself all the way to quietly accepting the richest man on Earth unapologetically performing a sieg hiel salute in public. But going back to my point about being a realist and a consequentialist, it does not matter how convincingly one may insist that circumstances forced their hand, and that they made the best hard choice among bad options. It doesn't matter how hard one insists that they're a conflicted defender of human rights. If every time a group further yokes the rights and dignity of another group you say 'Well... I'll let it slide just this once', then forgive me if I use the same mental model to predict your actions as I'd use for an embarrassed fascist. If you don't like it, behave in a way that doesn't conform so well to that ideological framework.
I consume credible journalism and analysis and follow where it leads. A great example is this analysis of the Sde Teiman riot. "A riot for impunity shows Israel’s proud embrace of its crimes" [+972 Magazine]. There are a lot of people like the ones described here who have dropped any pretense of opposing genocide. And it's reasonable to conclude that the people who knowingly support them do to. And we can say the same about the people who knowingly support them. And when you apply this to the settlement of the West Bank and destruction of homes in East Jerusalem over the last decade, you're left with a bewildering but unavoidable conclusion. Obama certainly criticized Netanyahu for subsidizing the obvious ethnic cleansing he was doing. But he never stopped sending crucial supplies and vetoing UN resolutions about it. The companies that build factories that rely on the labor of an oppressed class living under apartheid cannot claim not to know that they're benefiting from and working to uphold ethnic exploitation. They know well enough that they seek to censor people who try to bring awareness to it. In other words, what do words of support for a two-state solution mean in the face of actively collaborating in the primary strategy that was employed to curtail any possibility of a two-state solution? It's kind of a "2+2=4" situation.
But here's where I think we can wrap up: Biden is retired. He lives in history now. I'm not interested in shaming anyone, I just want to help people figure out what is right and do it. And right now, that is (1) opposing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid and (2) recognizing attempts to justify or deflect from these practices and then calling these out for what they are. That's what I'd encourage everyone to do. If you have a brain, use it; and if you have a mouth, use it too.
So where do the aforementioned liberal Jews go? What do they do? The simple existence of a homeland, a space where they will never be chased out and destroyed is what they're looking for. They disagree 100% with what is going on, and have never supported it.
I think we're throwing some of the babies out with the bathwater is another way of asking that I guess.
I think Jews in Israel should continue to live in Israel while accepting full citizenship for Palestinians under a constitution that guarantees safety and equal rights for all.
I think settlements in the West Bank should be governed by a provincial government like Canadian provinces. And that government should afford those settlements infrastructure no greater than that of Palestinian villages, along with a robust and accountable justice system that strictly forbids terrorism and hate crimes, and offers Palestinians displaced by settler terrorism the right to return and rebuild their destroyed villages, financed by taxes on settlements that were illegally constructed until those villages are rebuilt.
None of this is any more preposterous than the American Reconstruction, end of Apartheid in South Africa, or Irish Independence. However as in those examples, this will absolutely need to be forced upon controlling interests against their protests. It is unfortunate but how emancipation works.
There is also a very unlikely precedent in zionism itself!
Before 1948, zionism was a fringe (almost utopian) project no less audacious than the abolition of slavery or end of colonial rule anywhere. And an Israel that included the existing residents of the land was widely claimed to be a goal. So I often point this out: if the heroes of zionism could boldly envision founding a state and living in peace when the first half was considered utterly impossible and then they got so far as to complete the first half of that, then what on god's green earth kind of excuse do any zionists today have to justify condemning part 2 as impossible?
It was in the same decade that genocide was inflicted on Jews that the dream of a homeland was realized. So how can it be suggested as farfetched for us to simply declare that we all must now afford the same thing to Palestinians? I can say it no better than the grandfather of zionism himself, Theodor Herzl: "If you will it: it is no dream."
Absolutely but I mean, aren't those people there now wanting that? Why do they have to secretly love what the IDF and Likud are doing? That is to say, I don't think they do.
That's my hang up with the premise - I know OF people who fit the Likud profile, and I know of "liberal Jews" who fit the profile we've established here, but I don't know of liberal Jews who are secretly happy with Likud. Not that there can't be any, I just have never seen it.
And, for the record, if I do see it, I don't count them in the "liberal Jewish" category because they've expressed a preference for war crimes. I put them in the same category as the Jews-for-trump; very wrong.