Pro-Palestinian does not equal anti-Semitism; your thoughts?

[Jwb]

@Lucem Ferre

If you want to say the fact they still held a protest means they weren't blackpilled, then they're still not blackpilled.  We're playing with semantics here.  My point was not that every single last Palestinian gave up on protesting, but that it increasingly became seen as an infective method and thus an increased emphasis was placed on violent resistance.

And sure, Netanyahu enabled Qatari money to prop up Hamas. That's a valid criticism of Netanyahu, but it's not the source of Hamas' support. Hamas benefited more than anything from 1) blowback directed at Israel and 2) the pervasive reputation of the PA being corrupt and ineffectual.  It's true that they never won a majority, only a plurality in the one election they had.  That's true of many groups that come to power. My only basic point was that we saw a shift in emphasis to more radical solutions over the last couple decades.  Do you disagree with that?

As for what they should do... at this point, i don't think there's anything that can truly be done from the Palestinian side.  I don't even know what's left of Hamas. It's now up to the "international community" to decide if they are going to stop a genocide or not.

But prior to Oct 7th, I guess my line of thinking would be that if you're going to launch an attack, you should do what you can to distinguish between civilians and combatants. If you just go on a brutal rampage for a day, then the very predictable outcome of that is you are basically creating the perfect propaganda conditions for Israel to inflict the maximum punishment on your population in response.

Maybe if they actually stuck to killing and abducting soldiers for the most part they would have gotten the benefit of drawing attention to the issue, disrupting the Abraham accords, and using the captives for an attempted prisoner swap. 

I'm not saying there's some clear cut answer.  I'm just very clearly pointing to something that not only didn't work, but lead to literal hell on earth.

[Lucem Ferre]

Yes, Palestine did become more violent with resistance when the more violent organization violently took over their government. I don't disagree with that.

I disagree that they became black pilled and gave up on peace.


From what I understand, October 7th was a plan to do exactly that but they had no idea there would be a music festival.

Regardless, I don't know if it would make a difference for public opinion & the fact that you have higher expectations from the victims than the perpetrators here is why. In every situation Israel out does Hamas in extreme cruelty and it still is not enough to convince the international community.

If a child throws a tantrum and spits in somebody's face & the adult's response is to hack them to pieces nobody is going to say "Well, maybe the kid shouldn't have spit in their face." And in this case the adult is Larry Nassar.

Maybe if they stuck to military targets the response wouldn't be as severe, but we don't know. It would still be bad. Israel has blatantly proven they don't care about the hostages and it never changed public opinion. I disagree with October 7th but I can't blame Hamas for Israel's genocide when they had the same kind of response to peaceful protesting.

[Jwb]

Yes, Palestine did become more violent with resistance when the more violent organization violently took over their government. I don't disagree with that.

Careful, they took over the government of Gaza.  Not Palestine.  Sentiments toward these things aren't actually worlds apart in the West Bank vs Gaza. The will for violent resistance intensifies 1) in response to people losing confidence in the prospect of them ever getting a state through non violence 2) in response to Israeli violence.

I disagree that they became black pilled and gave up on peace.

maybe you take issue with the wording, but I've spelled out that it's not that absolute. Peaceful protest and violence always happen simultaneously.  It's the ratio that changes.  But a part of the incentive for violence is a growing lack of confidence in non violent tactics.

From what I understand, October 7th was a plan to do exactly that but they had no idea there would be a music festival.

It was supposedly intended along those lines, as well as to bring attention to the topic since the Arab world was seen to be normalizing ties with Israel.  So we have yet another example of violence that is used presumably because they didn't see a non violent alternative.

Regardless, I don't know if it would make a difference for public opinion & the fact that you have higher expectations from the victims than the perpetrators here is why. In every situation Israel out does Hamas in extreme cruelty and it still is not enough to convince the international community.

I don't have higher expectations. Keep in mind you asked me what they should do.  So I specifically tried to think of what they could do. 

Also keep in mind, I thought I was actually being fairly charitable in my response, since I didn't even question the premise of launching Oct 7th. I just gave a very basic suggestion about not engaging in wanton slaughter and brutality.

I think that's a fair criticism, and tbh I saw you say earlier something to the effect of that since you're white and from the west you don't want to really judge because you don't know what you would do.  Here's the problem with that logic. Hamas aren't  just some rag tag group of freedom fighters.  They are (were?) responsible for 2 million residents that live under their jurisdiction. They simply cannot be let off the hook for that. 

I saw a documentary recently where a man from Gaza made this very point.  And the documentary is obviously centered around Israel and what they were doing, but at one point toward the beginning he says "Hamas decided to go on a suicide mission and they took us all with them." Sounds about accurate.

If a child throws a tantrum and spits in somebody's face & the adult's response is to hack them to pieces nobody is going to say "Well, maybe the kid shouldn't have spit in their face." And in this case the adult is Larry Nassar.

Maybe if they stuck to military targets the response wouldn't be as severe, but we don't know. It would still be bad. Israel has blatantly proven they don't care about the hostages and it never changed public opinion. I disagree with October 7th but I can't blame Hamas for Israel's genocide when they had the same kind of response to peaceful protesting.

It's a mistake to think that if Hamas are responsible for starting the war, then Isreal somehow loses some of the blame for the Genocide. These things simply don't conflict. Hamas has 100% responsibility for their actions and Israel has 100% responsibility for theirs. 

And when you act like the response doesn't change based on the nature of the attack I just can't take that seriously.  There has never been anything like what is happening right now in the 75 years of conflict. I think you're engaging in motivated reasoning with statements like that.

[Lucem Ferre]

There is no motivated reasoning...

I promise you.

Yes, my problem is just the wording but I think it's important to remember that Palestine as a whole was committed to trying non violence and it failed. And even now they are still the only ones willing to negotiate and cooperate to get peace.


It just feels like you're putting too much of the responsibility of Israel's response on Hamas to me.

I already said I don't agree with their tactics, I think going after strictly military targets would have been better, but I don't think it would have made that much of a difference. Israel still had to exaggerate the attack to gain consent in the public opinion.

And I honestly do not know if they would have gotten any international attention if it weren't for Israel pushing atrocity propaganda.

The reason why I don't feel like I can judge isn't just because I'm in a place where I have never faced even a crumb of that kind of oppression and brutality, but I also don't have answers on what they could do differently.


Edit: If you don't agree I hope you at least understand where I'm coming from.

[Jwb]

@Lucem Ferre

I understand where you are coming from.  Here's what I would say.

In terms of motivated reasoning, the reason I say that is because a lot of your answers seem to erase any distinction between different tactics the Palestinian side could take. That's not to suggest you're doing it intentionally; a lot of motivated reasoning goes undetected by the person who is employing it. I'm not assuming I'm correct about your reasoning, either, but I want to at least articulate how I percieve it.

So what do I mean by erasing distinctions? Well, basically, when presented with dilemmas about what the better choice/ course of action is, you seem to arrive at a conclusion that insists there's no real meaningful difference between the two.  If this is true then you don't really ever have to actually try to wrestle with the logic of the dilemma, you can just sort of sweep it aside by getting lost in obfuscation.

It's a fairly confusing and complex conflict so I'm by no means suggesting there are simple answers, or that this confusion isn't understandable.  But I think if you think it through you will have a hard time actually comparing the response to the Great March of Return to the response to Oct 7th.

Now there's a flip side to that where as you pointed out, without the carnage there wouldn't be nearly as much attention paid to the issue. But that's only true if Israel also didn't respond in the way they did.  Maybe Israel responds the same way anyway.  But if they do,  then not only would it have drawn all of the same attention, but there would be a clear cut case to make that not only is Israel wrong, but Hamas is right. 

Whatever propaganda value the current slaughter might have for the pro-Palestine movement, would have come a lot sooner and would only be amplified if Israel weren't able to deflect and try to always bring the focus back on to big scary Hamas.

And with regard to blaming them for Israel's response... nothing I've said shifts a single bit of blame from Israel. They're responsible for how they respond, I don't know how much clearer I can make that.  But you can certainly pick a dumb fight with a powerful, ruthless enemy and invite destruction on your own people, as we've seen. 

Remember, your question was about what they could have done differently.  They could have not done everything in their power to openly  invite said destruction while filming themselves doing so.  But that's what they did instead.  Call me a western chauvinist all you want, but that's not the right move. They could have literally done nothing and they would be in a better place rn.

I still ultimately hold Israel responsible for the fact that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah exist in the first place.  It's not like ANY of this makes me the slightest bit more sympathetic to Israel's case.  The very reason that Netanyahu saw it as useful to prop up Hamas was because they were discredited in the west and could be framed as terrorists who are not worth negotiating with. I think to the extent that they needlessly feed into that narrative, they're helping his cause to use them as the bogey man that justifies the genocide.

Hopefully that clarifies my perspective.

[Lucem Ferre]

I didn't respond because I didn't think I had anything worth saying to it and I basically agree with a majority of it and understand where you're coming from.


But I do have to clarify that I don't think you are or were being a western chauvinist. I think you're just being pragmatic and I appreciate that kind of perspective when my personal emotions leave blind spots in my reasoning.

[Trollheart]

Our president - admittedly, a figurehead - says it like it is.

"If you criticise Netanyahu's policies you are then described as being anti-Semitic. That is a disgrace and a slander and it has been a slander against Ireland, against individuals, including myself, people who for example who have worked all their lives in relation to human rights activity," President Higgins said.

Speaking at Bord Bia Bloom, President Higgins said a propaganda campaign against Ireland is active in the United States.

"When we are seeking to have meetings with people who are investing in Ireland, they're being contacted in advance with a suggestion saying, 'you must open by asking why is Ireland so against the US position on Israel'?"

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0529/1515707-higgins-gaza/

What they should be asking is, why is the US supporting a deliberate and targeted genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza? Fuckers.

[Buck_Mulligan]

^^^
Looks like he is wearing two suit jackets. He should get himself a hair cut.
When the Israeli lobby campaigns against individual candidates for congress they throw a lot of money into it. From what I've seen Harris seems more vocal on the topic than Martin.

[Trollheart]

Do you mean Higgins?
Oh no, you're talking about Simon Harris aren't you?