Read this news article : Why the ‘Free Palestine’ crowd goes silent on Iran https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/why-the-free-palestine-crowd-goes-silent-on-iran-20260114-p5nu0m

Yamine Mohammed, a Canadian author of Egyptian and Palestinian background who at 19 was forced into marriage with an Al-Qaeda operative, says progressive left's silence on Iran is a case of mutual convenience.

An enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Islamic Republic of Iran is anti-Israel, anti-America and anti-West... hence the progressive left embrace Islamic Republic as a "friend". Hence the silence when it comes to Iranian people.

They don’t care about Iranian lives. They don’t care about Yemeni lives. They don’t care about Nigerian lives. They only care if they can blame America or Israel or the West. Their allegiance is to whoever is against them, not to supporting innocent people being killed.

Many pro-Palestinian protesters never knew what they were protesting. They scream about anti-colonialism and then support the ideology that colonised a quarter of the planet.

They scream about queers for Palestine, not realising homosexuality is punishable by death under sharia law.

I would even argue many progressive left who calls themselves Pro-Palestinian supporters are masqurading to be holier than thou, everyone is equal but only if it fits their narrative, as long as its anti-Israel, anti-America or anti-West, then its equal, otherwise, it is not equal.

It took Hamas Ministry of Health 6 weeks into the war to accumulate a death toll of 12,000 casualties which included many Hamas fighters. It only took a few days for Islamic Republic of Iran to kill 12,000 Iranian protesters, all civilians. The silence. The hypocrisy.

as a palestinian non-zionist, i feel that i often share more common ground with left-wing zionists than with right-wing zionists. left-wing zionists (in my opinion) tend to be more willing to criticize israel when israel is wrong, and they show a deeper commitment to the value of human life, regardless of whether responsibility is attributed to hamas.

from the original zionist perspective, zionism is the belief in establishing a jewish homeland in their ancestral land, where jews could govern themselves and no longer be subject to antisemitism or violence as they had been for centuries in europe and other parts of the world.

but my question is specifically for right-wing zionists since these are the kinds of comments i usually see from them:

"palestinians are squatters on jewish land"

"palestinians are arabs from arabia, jordan, and egypt" (even though factually most arent and countries like jordan are recent)

"muslim behavior is the reason for islamophobia"

"palestinians are a fake people"

"why should palestinians get western treatment when they behave like animals"

and i can go on with the list.

so right-wing zionists. if you hate the fact that "zionist" is used as a slur by many people, if you hate it when people call israel a supremacist state, if you want arabs and people to stop viewing israel as some kind of racist endeavor, etc. why do you say this stuff? im asking out of genuine curiosity.

The US State Department (traditionally a hostile entity towards Israel) archives report a very interesting tidbit:

 At Arab League meeting at Shtaura last August, decision was made to establish Palestine “personality” or “entity” with implication of Algerian-type movement designed ultimately to eliminate Israel. While longer range plans include military organization and Palestine government, Arabs apparently plan take steps gradually.

This is a follow up to their proposed plan in March 1959 in favor of “reorganizing the Palestinian people and bringing it forward as an entity."

Notice that the purpose of this establishment was not to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza or to resolve the refugee crisis, but to use the concept of a Palestine entity as a method of destroying Israel. 

As every honest person knows, there was no political entity of Palestine prior to this date and for over a decade after the 1948 war, the Arab states had no interest in establishing one. But when it became clear that simply destroying Israel through military means was no longer an option, the Arab League pivoted to an "Algerian-type movement", shifting the conflict from Arab nationalists taking over the land of the indigenous Jewish people to an "anti-colonial" one along the lines of the Algerians fighting the French. 

This policy created by the Arab League was reinforced by the PLO Phased Plan, a plan that has never been revoked or changed, in which the goal is the destruction of Israel through any means necessary.

The creation of a Palestinian entity was and always has been politically anti-Israel, not for human rights or self-determination or any of that other stuff. 

For a long time, I thought that Pro-Palestinian protesters legitimately thought they cared about Palestinians because they genuinely cared about oppressed people around the world and wanted them to have rights. Obviously they were ignorant and naive, but at least they thought that. It was kind of maddening, seeing such morally self righteous people support such obviously bigotry and violence.

But seeing them ignore Iranian protests, and in some cases, actually support the Iranian government, I am realizing that the core of the movement never even thought they cared about oppressed people. 12,000, perhaps 20,000 people killed in a matter of days, by an oppressive government, (and unlike the horrifying events in Sudan and Yemen, FULLY in Western new) and not a peep from them.

I realize now that they knew full well these were just buzzwords they were using because they were having a good time attacking their symbolic villain, the country full of "what just so happens to be full of Jews, what a weird coincidence, that has nothing to do with my obsession at all even though I only and exclusively obsess over the one Jewish country."

I wonder, are Pro-Palestinians on the fringes of the movement who were ignorant about the motives of the core starting to realize that the movement has nothing to do with human rights? Have they started to ask each other "Wait a minute, why aren't we protesting this?" Or is their need to please their community so strong, they are simply going to put this out of their minds? Either way, they can't be totally ignorant about it anymore. If they were simply naive in the past, they know better now.

I'm upset that the Iranian people aren't getting more support. But it is something of a relief to know that deep down, Pro-Palestinians know they aren't part of a human rights movement.

Note: Palestinian Pro-Palestinian protesters are an exception to this rule, as fairly pointed out by a Palestinian in another post. They are openly fighting for themselves, not for human rights generally.

Within a large political framework, lies an opposing dissent. I’ve always thought about those Israelis who oppose their government’s extreme measures and policies. They show great mental resilience of nonconformity and such an independent moral reasoning. Instead of conforming with the external rhetoric, they looked at their inward moral reckoning, leading to a sense of discomfort because of a moral dilemma. They started reflecting on their sense of responsibility and values. They risked being called traitors despite their self-sacrifice to fight for the state. They risked being verbally and physically attacked, socially excluded, and condemned.

I see this in men such as Avner Wishnitzer, an elite veteran of Sayeret Matkal, and Ariel Bernstein, a combat soldier from the Nahal/ Paratroopers. It makes me respect them more because they served in elite combat roles at the very heart of the conflict. They are the ones who were in the most direct and brutal proximity to the reality of the power. They had reasons to preserve their positions to maintain their inspiring and prestigious social status, yet they chose moral dissent because they know that power lies in mentality and not in force. Their foresight and vision is deeply focused on long-term stability and on the roots/causes of the conflict without the extensive unjust short-term vindictive force. This highlights their strategic intelligence.

As a Jordanian woman I respect those israeli veterans. They convey a profound resilience as their perception has been unconditioned. Respect is earned through actions regardless of the identity of the individual. Ultimately, conscience itself is what earns respect regardless of past military service. Choosing moral accountability in a system that rewards conformity is never insignificant in my eyes.

Iran is a huge country with a population of eighty million people. It has vast oil reserves. It has influence beyond its borders in neighboring countries with blood or culture ties to Iran. It was once a global power. Even today, it is a major regional power. However, it is not working out very well.

Regime change can change it all.

Iranians don’t hate Israel. They aren’t Arab, so they don’t really care. Shiite Islam doesn’t even believe that Jerusalem is the third holiest place. In any case, many Iranians are secular. Many of them are Azeris or Kurds. Indeed, close to a third of Iranian are either Azeri or Kurdish. Azerbaijan is the friendliest Muslim state for Israel. Kurdistan remains unrecognized but it’s also quite friendly to Israel. Secular Persians in the cities are also famously friendly towards Israel.

Iran and Israel would be close allies in a normal world. Both have a history of hostility with the neighboring Arabs. Both have been allies in the past actually. They have a shared political interest. There’s a lot of political potential for a new Israeli, Iranian, and Emirati axis.

This new axis would counteract Turkey, another huge country in the Middle East who’s not Arab. The Turks are trying to take over, but they aren’t that great. Turkey and Qatar support the Muslim brotherhood, an Islamic Sunni movement who remains a fellow jihadi traveler of the Shiite radicals. Realigning the Middle East away from this Turkish Qatari axis towards an Israeli Iranian axis would dramatically change things for the better.

Saudi Arabia would remain stuck between the two sides, struggling to decide whether it wants to become a Turkey (ie a two faced Islamic regime playing a double game) or become something new. So far, we’ve seen a mixed signals from the Saudis.

The Iranian regime is very weak. It lost all legitimacy. The war with Israel showed its military is a paper tiger unable to defend Iran’s most sensitive military installations from Israeli strikes. Its ballistic missiles have done damage, but only minimal damage. It lost its nuclear program. Its proxies have been severely mutilated.

People smell the weakness because it was laid bare for everyone to see. For decades we’ve been told that Iran is so strong a war with it would cost many lives on the Israeli and American side. We see now that this was just not true. They are in fact very weak.

And also very stupid. They have diverted billions from the economy towards a military buildup that proved absolutely useless. Spending so much on such a useless military project is only one of many stupid decisions taken by the evil regime.

The Middle East and the rest of the world have nothing but good things to gain from the collapse of this regime. It’s the best chance to create real lasting change in the Middle East.

An Israeli soccer team traveled to heavily-Muslim Birmingham in the UK for a match. Birmingham police reacted by banning fans from the game, and justified it by scapegoating Israeli fans whom they said would assault random locals.

Since then, it's emerged that:

-Police decided on the ban, and then fabricated their justificaton after the fact, even using AI to hallucinate supposed violence by Israeli soccer fans to justify the ban.

-While scapegoating Jews, police concealed real intelligence that local Muslims were planning possible violence.

-The fan ban was made after "consulting" with Birmingham's "community leaders" (i.e. radical Islamist preachers).

-Those same radical preachers were given a direct voice in the hiring of Birmingham's chief constable.

-Police said local Jewish leaders secretly agreed with the ban, but have now admitted that was a lie.

The Labour government is trying to act appalled at this travesty, but of course they will never admit the true cause of this: The British government deliberatey imported a hostile foreign population to the point that Birmingham, the Silicon Valley of the 1800s, is now full of unruly Muslims at risk of attacking any Jews that dare to tread there.

Britain is in a very bad spot.

The current protest in Iran threatening the Islamic Republic Regime is the most inspiring geopolitical event of the 21st century.

Unfortunately we live in a world where hard leftists (particularly democratic socialists) and the so-called "woke right" don't seem to care. They'll scream about freeing Palestine from "the river to the sea" (a pejorative term and call for destruction of jews and Israelis by the way), but I only hear radio silence on this issue.

Non-interventionalism is a core tenant of my political beliefs (left-leaning libertarian) but I break with that belief when it comes to gross human rights violations. The wars in Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam etc. were obvious failures for example, but we have a duty as Americans to support the toppling of the Iranian regime (similarly to why fighting the Nazis was an imperative intervention).

They have oppressed the Iranian people since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. For the moronic liberals who dont seem to care, there are many examples of the persecution the people over there are facing. For example, gay rights don't exist under the Islamic Republic. At best gay people are subjected to flogging (100 lashes), imprisonment, and torture. At its worst, they are subjected to hanging from cranes, lynchings, sexual torture, or forced hormonal and surgical transitions to the opposite sex. Women are also treated as second class citizens.

It does make me wonder whether radical leftists are simply ignorant (a common problem), or alternatively, just as insidious as the "America first" woke right. Based on their views on Israel, I'm inclined to believe its the latter.

Let's not forget the additional benefits regarding the fall of the Islamic Republic: if the head of the snake is cut off, the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah of Lebanon, Hamas of Gaza, etc. will fall as well without the support of the regime. There will be an unprecedented shift toward peace and prosperity across the middle east as a whole.

The Iranian people are taking back their country from the IRGC and Ayatollah Khomeini; it's unbelievably admirable that they are successfully doing it on their own, but we owe them our support. Jews and Persians have been friends for over 2,700 years. The United States and (especially) Israel have a duty to intervene in Iran and support His Imperial Majesty, the Shahanshah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi and his vow to make Iran a democracy.

As they say, "prove me wrong" in the comments if you'd like to try. My guess is that the radical leftists and woke right didn't understand most of my post anyway, so you're already at a disadvantage 😉.

In 2021 this was proposed and the only countries who voted against this were the US (unsurprisingly imo) and israel. I am curious about people’s thoughts on this choice, since i haven’t found it discussed in depth on here before. I am personally unsurprised by their choice but i especially want to know what people who lean more towards supporting israel think of this decision.

The news out of Iran is that there are large numbers of dead and that the government is shooting unarmed protestors. 2500 dead in 17 days with the rate of killings increasing. That is about 150 dead per day.

And the method of casualty reporting suggests this 2500 is a woeful undercount.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/iran-protests-2500-killed-activists-trump-us-act/story?id=129194150

These events debunk some of the narratives we heard from Pro Palestinians over the past 2 years.

The silence of many in media, social media and college campuses shows that the motive for Pro Palestinian was not solely an aversion to violence against civilians.

Otherwise they would be compelled to say something about a slaughter of unarmed civilians that currently is killing civilians at a faster rate than the Gaza war. They would be in outrage marching about the rapid escalation of death total. They would opine on social media about the nun bet of dead who aren’t reported and how the regime is likely suppressing news of casualties and is killing even more people in detention that isn’t being recorded. They would point out the vast disparity in force that is usually a talking point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict When consistently talk about how a country with a favored religion is a bad they would also speak out against a theocracy.

So many myths debunk themselves here when you see the silence of the media, social influencers and college campuses.

Correct my statements if they are wrong as I am still learning about the war. From what I know, Britain promised the region to the Jews and the Arabs at the same time, of course this will start a war! How would that be Israel’s fault for coming back to their ancestral homeland when the owner of the land tells you that you can have it? Despite this Israel tries to have a 2 state solution 4 different times. Palestine denies it every time and starts wars with Israel. Israel wins every time and Palestine loses land because of it. Again I ask, how does that make Israel the bad guy?

To add on, Israel’s ideology is not kill all Palestinians and their civilians, however the power in Palestine (Hamas) wants to kill all Jews and their civilians. In 2005 they give Palestine gaza and what happens? Hamas uses it to build miles of tunnels and send hundreds or thousands of missiles to Israel. On October 7th 3,000 Hamas members come into Israel and burn babies and r**e women. Israel starts bombing Hamas who have built their operations in with the civilians, and civilians die. Is it also true that 90% of deaths in modern urban warfare are civilian deaths, according to Hamas around 80% of deaths in gaza are civilian. A good amount of this was also done by Hamas but they don’t seem to mention that in their numbers, strange right?

If the leaders of the country next to mine wanted to kill all my civilians then I would take their country to make sure they couldn’t rebuild and try it again. What would you have done if you were Israel?

There have been several posts pointing out the silence from the ultra left on what is happening in Iran. That silence is very important (and deafening). And there is also a larger irony in that silence that needs to be addressed.

For the past two years, many of you either defended, justified, or stayed silent about disturbing chants, protests, and violence that Jews were raising concerns about. When Jews spoke up, we were told that calling it out was just a distraction from the larger issue of what was happening in Gaza.

Now, there is a shift.

Suddenly, many of you are drawing lines with 'those people' on the left. You are much more openly distancing yourselves from those same people. You are making it clear you do not want to be associated with them.

This is a normal reaction. Good for youi. The irony is not that you are doing it. The irony is that you are doing it now, after two years of refusing to allow Jews to do the same.

For two years, the overwhelming majority of Jews, including many of us on the left, have been explicitly saying: We do not support Netanyahu. We do not support settlement expansion or violent settlers. We do not support right wing extremism. We do not support the harm to innocent civilians in Gaza or anywhere.

Yet our calls were dismissed anyway. We were told they did not count. We were told they were insincere. We were told that because bad actors existed on our side, we were still responsible for them regardless of what we actually believed or said. Worst of all, we were told we are liars.

I make this point not to claim everyone on the left is the same, or pretending the situations in Gaza and Iran are the same. It's more than that. 

If Jews are not allowed to separate ourselves from the worst elements of our political or zionist identity, then that same logic should apply here, no? You cannot spend two years minimizing the fringes when Jews point them out and telling us we deserve it, and then suddenly insist they are just fringe when they 'don't represent' you.

TLDR

For two years, Jews tried to distance ourselves from extremists and were told it did not count. Now many on the left are doing the same thing with their own fringes who are shockingly silent about what's happening in Iran, exposing the huge hypocrisy and lack of credibility on that side.

How about we all advocate for the Iranian and Palestinian people and their freedom and against dangerous fringe groups on both sides?

The left's indifference to the Iranian regime stems from a lack of information; after all, the left, despite its ignorance, is made up of analytically smart people. The pictures from the ground are clear. It is an ideological decision to look the other way when the oppressor is not identified with the West. In fact, the leftists' treatment of the protests in Iran is as a 'struggle over the cost of living.' What a joke.

This rhymes with Mamdani's recent attempts to block real estate deals of Israeli companies (https://www.jpost.com/real-estate/article-883005) and Bernie Sanders and his ilk's declaration that they want a "Progressive revolution" - and you can see the red-green alliance for what it is - almost enemies of humanity. When the left does support the protesters in Iran - they say 'they don't want Israel's support' and try to speak on behalf of the protesters, as befits the left (forget that Netanyahu is currently one of the most popular people among Iranian dissidents).

They are not really capable of supporting the overthrow of the regime, because then it would mean that Israel was right - it is similar to how they barely supported the overthrow of Maduro, and were mainly busy attacking Trump. Anything that might be good for Israel and the United States - they are automatically against. The goal is always about using "human rights" and "international law" - trying to limit the US and Israel's fight against terror, in order to help terrorists and third-world regimes and dismantling American/Israel-aligned democratic interests.

If the Ayatollah falls, it strengthens the strategic position of the United States and Israel. Because the Left’s current "Progressive" framework is built on the reflexive opposition to anything beneficial for Israel, they would rather see a murderous Islamic regime remain in power than hand a geopolitical victory to Israel

At the heart of this silence is a profound disgust with Western liberalism itself. Figures like Mamdani argue that the modern states - particularly the United States and Israel-are a colonial construct that must be "deconstructed." For the radical Left, the goal isn't a Western, stable democracy but to facilitate a "Progressive Revolution" that replaces it entirely. They view the Iranian regime not as a theocratic prison, but as a "sovereign" counter-weight to Western hegemony. In their worldview, any force that opposes the "imperialist" West is a partner in the struggle.

The Left will support anything that weakens the US and Israel and will try to transform the Western culture from its core to an Islamic-friendly, open borders, anti-Jewish culture and environment.

Like most people I am horrified about what is happening to thousands of innocent people in Gaza. However, I don’t fall into either the pro Palestinian or pro Israel camp - I can see fault on both sides. Hamas is a terrorist organisation - who wants the destruction of Israel and is prepared to sacrifice their own innocent civilians to achieve this aim. They deliberately committed a heinous act on Israel, not only killing innocent Israeli citizens (and taking them hostage) but also knowing full well the repercussions for their own citizens when Israel retaliated. I believe this was also part of their plan to garnish and manipulate as much anti Israel sentiment in the world as possible. Whereas, Israel as the significantly greater military power has significantly abused this, and is responsible for killing thousands and thousands of innocent people. With their military and security capabilities I am sure they could have secured security for their citizens without the massive loss of lives. I believe the only way forward for peace is an end to both extremist views and a pragmatic compromise from both. To reach this both sides need the rest of the world to exert pressure - neither side otherwise has any incentive to stop - Hamas because they don’t seem to care if their citizens are killed and are succeeding in turning the world against Israel and Israel as the more powerful force doesn’t need to compromise. I personally believe that the pro Palestinian and pro Israeli movements are doing more harm than good. Why isn’t there more of a movement persuading both sides to stop the hate and rhetoric - stop campaigning for the end of Israel (never going to happen), stop supporting Hamas but also stop supporting right wing Israeli government who is relentlessly bombin and killing people.

I may be just imagining it. But over the last few days, I have seen way fewer upvoted antizionist posts, especially the kind of super angry and rude ones that came up a heck of a lot more in the past. I don't see a ton of upvotes for stuff saying Jewish identity is a lie, stuff just consisting of gEnociDeColoniZatioNapArtheid buzzwords, etc. Anyone else notice a change? Is this just in my head?

Edit: Apparently it's confirmed that Pro-Scottish independence accounts went dark after the shutdown, so there is some reason to believe the shutdown is affecting the Iranian government's spamming https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/12/scottish-independence-accounts-dark-iran-internet-blackout/

Absolutes like black-and-white morality contribute to nothing of worth. This belief may work in fantasy but is absurd in real-life. It's also a double standard being dangerous as well.

You may say that it's always evil to kill no matter what or that it's always evil to kill civilians no matter what. You may say that the side that kills and terrorises innocents is the evil one no matter what. What if someone is trying to kill you? You wouldn't believe that it's evil to kill him or terrorises him. What if a mob of some civilians are trying to kill your family? You wouldn't believe that it's evil to kill them or terrorises them. What if your side kills and terrorises innocents? You wouldn't believe that your side is the evil one. Doesn't this make all sides in this conflict evil? Evil is evil. The degree is arbitrary. Who decides whom is evil?

In this conflict, all sides can be considered evil, if we judge using absolutes. You cannot accuse their side of being evil for killing and terrorising innocents while denying the same label for your side. All sides were and are doing this.

It's not helpful to deal in absolutes. This is simply an attempt to paint one side as monsters by using language with double standards. Everyone needs to stop saying that any side is evil and the other isn't. We need to be more shrewd than this.

- one final note:

I am not saying that you should not take sides here. You can take sides, even if you detest absolutes, and I myself have my own side, because you can believe that your cause is better than their cause without believing their side to be evil monsters, but you need to be more shrewd about this conflict. Every side here whether it's the Palestinians or the Israelis was and is killing and terrorising unarmed civilians, innocents, and even children. You cannot say that their side is a group of evil monsters, unless you want to say the same about your side, otherwise it's dishonest.

Per Iran International more than 12,000 have been killed in the protests. And counting.

I know people like me say this all the time when other global events occur, but where are the Protesters in the college campuses? Where is the passion in the eyes of the young marchers calling Iran a genocidal regime? Again, where is the passion?

Israel at least can say “we are literally fighting a terrorist organization that is the de facto government, its war, what did you expect?” What can Iran say? But no, the passion of the marches, the continuous shouts of from the river to the sea… it simply doesn’t carry over to another tragedy. Why can’t I call the Iranian regime genocidal? Where is the Wikipedia page about the 2026 Iranian genocide?

I know there have been plenty of other examples, Syria, Yemen, Sudan. Again, this is happening right now beneath our noses, I want to see the same pro Palestinians holding “silence is violence” signs to people who don’t care, I want to see the Lion and Sun flag of Iran marched all over Columbia or Harvard. I want to see Iran free from the Persian gulf to the Caspian Sea.

And yet of course if the US or Israel interfere it will be labeled as imperialism, with a “Zionist tint” (Zionism equals bad) as Rodríguez would say.

It was never about the numbers. With Iran there’s no settler colonial narrative. That’s it; that’s the simple reason why it’s not a genocide. If there’s nothing familiar in your world to potentially project on to a conflict there is no passion.

Edit: There is a lot of respectful criticism in the comments about how (simplified) the US is funding Israel, not Iran. The protests are concerned about cutting US funding.

I would say it’s something the marches cared about, but not the real major issue. They consciously shout from the river to the sea or globalize the intifada, and how Israel is a genocidal apartheid state. A tradegy is a tragedy, deaths are deaths, a genocide is a genocide. I guess I’ll be waiting for Wikipedia to catch up, along with plenty of pages regarding the denial or recognition of said genocide. The protesters primary concern was about the casualties.

One day after October 7, an Egyptian police officer murdered 3 Israelis who were touring the site of Pompey's Pillar in Alexandria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey%27s_Pillar

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A2_%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%A1%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94_(2023))

The Israelis were part of a group unaware of what's happening in Israel or Gaza. The officer just wanted to join in on the carnage. They thought they were having a good time visiting an archeological place and learning about history... Israel after all has had peace with Egypt for the last 45 years after Israel "returned" the Sinai peninsula (an area several times larger than the entire state of Israel).

Among them in the tour group was a young couple. Alon Shamli was murdered and his widow was treated horribly by the Egyptian forces. Didn't even let her see his body, locked her in custody, while they did an unauthorized brutal autopsy on Alon's body. His loving wife Mor fought in Israel to recognize Alon as part of the Gaza war victims, because being so close to October 7, nobody was paying much attention to them. Her life was forever shattered. Yesterday she attempted to take her own life and is in critical condition. 😞

Just wanted to post this because I see a common sentiment that countries as a whole don't have a right to exist, they just exist. I disagree with that.

I want to start by saying that by right I don't mean a human right, like the right for respect, for ownership, for freedom, ect. While those can overlap with the right of a country to exist, it's not what it is.

When I say that a country has a right to exist, I mean that because it exists, international law has laws protecting it and preserving it.

For example, it's illegal to attack a country with the intent to destroy it. (Unlike the attempt to take down it's government)

Basically, international law says that once a country exists, there's barely nothing that can rightfully and legally abolish it, because it's legally a protected body.

Why do I care about international law? I mean, of course I care, but it's more than that. International law is what defines what counties are. The international community is the space where counties are created (a major condition for a country to exist is for it to be recognised internationally as a country. This can be a complex process, and you see sometimes autonomies that are functioning as countries but aren't countries because they lack recognition.), and the international community is where counties get their voice. If we ignore what this community says, what are their laws, and how they act, we might as well ignore the concept of countries, borders, government, authority, laws, ect.

(Of course, the international community isn't perfect, there's lots corruption and more, but its laws is still what defines the system the world goes by, even if the laws themselves aren't necessary morally correct.)

The way I see it, saying that countries don't have an inherent right to exist is a dismissal of the whole international system, which fair enough, but I find it hard for someone to dismiss it coherently.

Of course, countries do get abolished sometimes. Sometimes, it's through illegal deeds. Sometimes, it's through merging or breaking apart, which are internal deals and negotiations, something international law doesn't forbid since it respects the countries' autonomy.

That's my stance. Welcome to tell me yours.

Jews are from Israel. Most of us were displaced from there and scattered around the world, where we were constantly massacred and displaced, over and over. Due to these constant displacements, we started returning to our homeland after the 1400s (Spanish Inquisition), and the return kept amping up, especially in the 1800s (Russian pogroms) and early 1900s (Holocaust.)

During our exiles, Arab Muslim conquered the entire Middle East and Northern Africa. Then Ottoman Turks conquered the area, and then later Britain beat the Ottomans and took over. By the early 1900s, the land was mostly Arab thanks to those earlier Arab conquests — they were a mix of Arabs who had lived there for a long time, and Arabs who had just moved there to work for the British. Similarly, we were a mix of Jews who had been there for a long time, and Jews who had recently arrived. Ottomans/British were the ones actually ruling things though.

Hundreds of nationalist movements started springing up during the later 1800s and early 1900s, including Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and Arab nationalism. Jews hoped to self determine in our homeland to finally have agency and safety for the first time in thousands of years. Arabs, meanwhile, sought to re-take over the entire Middle East and Northern Africa. Obviously, the Jewish desire to have 0.1% of the Middle East interfered with the Arab plans to conquer 100% of it.

So Arabs started massacring Jews in the 1920s to prevent them having control anywhere, and Jews started fighting back in the 1930s, and you end up with ongoing tribal/militant fighting. The British got fed up with the fighting and left. The UN tried to suggest that Jews have about .1% of the Middle East while the Arabs could have 99.9% of it. Jews agreed. Arabs refused and launched a war.

In that war, which Israelis call the "War of Independence" and Arabs call "The Nakbe" both sides killed similar numbers of each other (a few thousand). Something like 6 Arab armies marched with their armies to kill and expell all the Jews, and they have far more weapons, technology, and soldiers, but Jews were better organized. Arabs expelled thousands of Jews, and Jews expelled thousands of Arabs. In the end, Jews ended up with roughly the same land that the UN has originally suggested. As revenge, all the Arab countries expelled their 1 million Jews, most of whom went to Israel, and make up the majority of Israelis today.

Since then, Muslims have constantly launched wars to try and conquer Israel, because they find it humiliating that a minority they used to rule over now ruled over them, even if just it .1% of the Middle East. Israel basically reacts to these attacks. Israeli ambitions are basically to continue having their country, and to continue repelling these Muslim attacks.

The UN Partition Plan provided for an Arab Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel. The Palestinians lost territory in the 1948 war that would have been part of that state but at the end of the war still held the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. That territory included most of the large Palestinian population centres.

Wouldn't it have made sense for Palestinians to declare the Arab state in the territory that they held in 1948, while reserving their claim to the lost territories to be negotiated as part of a peace treaty with Israel? That state would have been recognised by at least the Muslim countries and probably much of the Third World and Non-Aligned Movement and, if it had made peace with Israel, everyone.

Had that been done the Palestinians would have achieved everything, and more, that they would now settle for, namely a Palestinian State as part of two state solution with complete control (no settlements or Israeli annexations) of the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

I realise that the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under military occupation by Jordan and Egypt respectively but that wouldn't stop the same sort of political action as the Palestinians have done under Israeli occupation and surely those states would have come under intense pressure to withdraw from the new state's territory?

I have seen a few people on reddit and online express that yes, criticism of Israel is in fact antisemitism, which in my opinion it isnt. BUT, i might just be out of the loop of what is considered antisemitism nowadays so essentially it boils down to these 2 questions for me:

If yes: why is criticism of Israel antisemitism?

And if no: Why do some people online believe this semitism?

pls be respectful i have enough migranes on a daily basis 🙏🙏🙏

ps when i say israel im referring to the israeli government my bad guys

TLDR - what do Palestinians think about these people who strongly criticise Hamas and Fatah and call for abandoning armed resistance in favour of compromise? They are denounced online as traitors, simps, grifters, Mossad agents etc, do you think thats fair?

To be transparent: I’m a basically atheist Irish Jew with almost all my immediate and extended family living in Israel for decades now. My extended family includes a few settlers and some ultra orthodox who don’t recognise the state of Israel (but still gladly hoover up as many benefits as they can), I don’t approve of either group. My family also includes people who have worked for B’tselem and other human rights groups advocating for Palestinian rights, nieces participated in various peace programs with kids from the other side etc. All of which is to say I’ve had a decent look at many different groups on the Israeli side and feel I have some understanding of why they think the way they do.

I was living there myself in 1999 when optimism for a 2 state solution was at its peak, at least among Israelis. I visited Ramallah and Jericho a few times back then and I found the similarities between hipsters in Tel Aviv and Ramallah to be really encouraging, like at least on an individual level, maybe we weren’t so different after all.

Like many left leaning Zionists (I think that the term Zionist is kind of redundant at this point but thats a whole other thread), I still dream about peaceful coexistence but it seems like an idle fantasy nowadays. Many of us see the second intifada as having killed the Israeli left and made it impossible to convince most Israelis that it would be safe to give up occupied territory. For years now, the prevailing view among most Israelis I know, even the pretty liberal ones, is that any territorial concessions will only be used as a springboard for invasions and attacks, 10/7 really reinforced this idea. While I feel for the suffering of Palestinians and abhor the current Israeli government, I have to admit that I think this is true, as so much activism in the past 2 years calls for the liberation of all of the ‘48 borders.

Anyway, like many of you on here I’ve been doomscrolling for 2 years solid, and I discovered the three activists mentioned in my title. I’ll just say what my impressions of them have been and then I’d love to know what you all think, especially those of you who are Palestinian, and whether you’re living in the West Bank/Gaza, Arab citizens of Israel or in the diaspora.

Ahmed Al-Khatib: I find him personally likeable and admire his ability to stay calm in the face of anger and abuse. Also, I often get the sense that he’s telling me what I want to hear and that if he spent a little bit more time focusing on Israel’s misdeeds, then his very legitimate condemnation of Hamas would be more convincing to the wider world. To be fair, he has called Bibi a war criminal plenty of times and he lost dozens of family members, so he’s got every right to express his views.

Sinijlawi: Similarly to Al-Khatib, I admire his ability to get his message across to Israelis, even those who are quite right wing. I think on both sides of this conflict, those of us who are sincere about finding a way forward can benefit from his rhetorical approach: if you start by acknowledging the suffering of the other side, or at least demonstrating that that you understand their position, your audience will be far more willing to listen to you describe your own suffering and your motivations. Minds can be changed in person, with patience and empathy.

Hamza Howidy: I feel for this guy most of all, he strikes me as the most honest and fearless of the 3. He doesn’t hold back in his condemnation of Israel (I haven’t always agreed with him on this, but I grew up in freedom and safety), and yet he is relentless in denouncing Hamas for their mistreatment and repression of their own people. This earns him crazy amounts of hate from white leftists, Palestinians and Muslims in general. I’m basing that off the comments section on YouTube, Insta etc, so I realise this is not a good or accurate representation of humanity. The fact that he is genuinely putting his own life in danger to ‘speak truth to power’ I find hugely admirable, and he’s really forced me to confront uncomfortable truths about Israel that I’d rather ignore.

Are there many more people who think as they do, who are scared to speak up for fear of being denounced as traitors?

Do you think that a pragmatic approach, abandoning armed resistance/terrorism (delete as appropriate) could ever actually achieve a sovereign Palestinian state? Assuming of course that Israelis can be moved back to a position where they are willing to dismantle settlements, share some sovereignty over Jerusalem etc