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956 Worldwide

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Everything posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. “Nothing I ever do is anti-Semitic. Not even my pig with a Star of David painted on it. My dad fought in World War II.” The constant apologetics and downplaying of obvious anti-semitism makes people non-credible when they whine about how being pro—Palestine tars them as as anti-semites. Ok, so maybe don’t downplay Charlottesville and make excuses for Roger Waters (who has also said that October 7 is fake). Maybe don’t get pissy when your news source is revealed as bullshit Kremlin juche?
  2. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/05/1210734100/israel-says-its-goal-is-to-remove-hamas-from-power-what-comes-next-is-unclear
  3. ISIS no longer controls any territory and after four years of combat is back in hiding and issuing propaganda. AQ is seriously degraded and Americans no longe think much about Islamic terror. There is a level of violence you can apply to these problems. There are still a few unrepentant Nazis around, too.
  4. This is pretty much All Lives Matter— but from the Left, so it’s OK. You’re allowed to care about gay people without minimizing anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is like the philosopher’s stone of bigotry once you leave the Pacific Rim. No matter what asshole you’re bumping up against- Nazis, fundamentalist Christians, Islamic extremists, Opus Dei, Nation of Islam, right-wangers, Slavophiles, conspiracy nuts, tankies and pinkos, John Mearsheimer— you better buckle up because you’re gonna hear some weird shit about the Jews and Israel. Every. Gotdamn. Time.
  5. You are conflating anti-Israel with anti-Israeli government. Similar to conflating anti-Hamas with anti-Palestine.
  6. To this I would add— if you’re upset at the Israeli government, ok. That’s fair, and you don’t deserve to be called anti-Semitic for that. But if you tandem that criticism with “these actual, real-life, Nazi-flag waving assholes screaming about Jews are NBD. Shootings at Jewish places of worship and other centers, eh. If anything this is all worse for non-Jews.” Then you need to have some awareness that it doesn’t lend people to trust that you’re speaking in good faith on the former.
  7. “Stupid, easily manipulated people who don’t understand Jews are being manipulated into waving Nazi flags and yelling about Jews” is not a supporting argument to the the thesis “anti-Semisoms isn’t a real issue,” my man.
  8. I mean, I’m not going to argue that they are not morons but it sounds pretty willfully oblivious to say that waving Nazi shit and chanting “Jews will not replace us” means it’s not about Jew hatred.
  9. Hundreds of millions of Americans hated the Trump administration, me included, and I would never in a million years say “I’m against America.” Neither would most of the others who worked like hell to get him out. A good test of whether it’s legitimate criticism or just bigoted conspiracy theory is to sub in entirely different political actors and see if the point changes or likely line of attack changes at all. Such it is with the extremely bigoted accusation that 9/11 was an inside job or that Israel allowed 10/7 to happen to themselves.
  10. Dude, I don’t know what to tell you. When you go overseas and hear people say “9/11 was an inside job,” don’t make the incredibly stupid assumption that they are just anti-Bush or anti-Republican or something. They’re anti-Americans, full stop. “October 7 was provoked or an inside job or is fake” is not legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and you’re being willfully ignorant to pretend like it is.
  11. If an Israel-Palestine thread prompts you to say that the neo-Nazi torch wavers who sparked a deadly riot aren’t that big of a deal, actually, again—— time for an inventory.
  12. Parsing down whether each individual deployment of a historical anti-semitic trope has anti-semetic intent behind it is not a productive path. This is basically “you can’t know what’s in their heart.” Ok? All I can say is that when people start saying that the Jews or an entity closely affiliated with Jews are faking or fomenting atrocities because they have a secret sinister motive to advance— it sounds pretty fucking anti-Semitic and the people who say it should know better. Similar vibes:
  13. There was an interesting article a while back that I can’t find which dove into how the IDF is using a framework similar to the ones NATO uses/used in anti-ISIS and the Iraq War to balance military value against likely civilian impact before authorizing an air strike. It is likely similar but not identical and the key is that the “acceptable” ratio varies: We are more aggressive than the UK which is more aggressive than most Euros and the IDF is surely more aggressive than us. But there is a framework there. That museum is OK, it’s interesting but the best museum is the New National Museum’s 20th century history wing. It’s great but not as well-marketed to visitors.
  14. No I’m not, if you want to say that the Israeli government is doing crimes by facilitating the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, I’ll tell you that you’re right. What I am saying is that the narrative above is a historic anti-Semitic narrative and when it’s deployed agains the world’s only Jewish nation, it’s anti-Semitic. All these old theories and libels are not new, and neither is the substitution of a stand-in for Jew. It was antisemitism back when it was lobbed against “International Cosmopolitanism.” And Jews are a people, not just a religion. The intellectual facile bit comes into play when you willfully ignore the history and context that comes with it. In an American context, it’s similar to admitting that while false cries of rape are always harmful and bad, they carry an extra level of malevolence when levied against Black men. Context matters.
  15. I won’t say that this is automatically anti-Semitic but it’s worth doing an honest self-inventory about which other countries you are “anti” because you believe their creation was a huge mistake. You do know that virtually every single Arab nation expelled their Jews at basically the same time they were created as ethnostates with a privileged position for Muslims, right? If the take is that the Ottomans need to come back I can classify that as eccentric.
  16. Because context matters and there is a long history and dark of accusing Jews of fabricating or fomenting atrocities against themselves in order to further sinister aims. I will again tell folks that taking in the propaganda room at the national holocaust museum is a must for any American.
  17. There is a lot of room for nuanced talk about intent vs. capabilities. Regardless of your take on the current Israeli military action in Gaza, one thing is undeniable: Israel has the capability to be exponentially more cruel and explicitly “genocidal” to Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) if they chose to be. They are clearly following a type of framework on the acceptable level of civilian vice military casualties, the argument is whether that framework is robust enough and proportionate. Hamas, on the other hand, has explicitly genocidal intent, it is stated. Hamas has also demonstrated that if given the chance, they will deploy their full capabilities in pursuit of blatantly genocidal aims. This was clearly demonstrated on October 7, if Israel could clearly treat Gazans worse, Hamas clearly gave Israeli citizens the absolute worst they had to offer. And this element of intent is mostly lost in the leftist neo-Marxist debate where the only moral framework is powerful vs. less powerful which may have some practical application in actually looking for a compromise but far too easily slides in the the morally bankrupt viewpoint of assigning higher or lower moral values to actors simply based on their capabilities.
  18. I’ve criticized Bibi’s government on this thread myself. I did say that the (completely unhinged) theory that the Israeli government “let October 7 happen” is super fucking anti-Semitic, and it is, even if you hide behind that “anti-Israel, not Jewish” fig leaf.
  19. Doubling down on stuff that’s both demonstrably full of untruths and also clearly foreign-origin autocratic agitprop is brainwormy behavior. LOL at Zionist being a slur, I do indeed openly support a Jewish-character independent nation in the Levant.
  20. Holy shit this is wild. This is some serious forward-leaning nuclear signaling: It’s a fairly open secret but almost never acknowledged that we have a nuke-sharing agreement with key Allies. Today the head of Dutch Air Combat Command posted this image of an F-35 armed with practice B-61 nuclear gravity bombs and a challenge coin referencing the deterrence mission. What this tweet really says: The Dutch Air Force is ready to deliver American nukes with their F-35s. This tweet was written for a few dozen people that work for the Russian MoD.
  21. The U.S. has a tremendously outsized impact on consumption and carbon and other non-sustainable practices. If the average American just trims a few percentage points from his or her consumption it has a cumulative impact greater than someone elsewhere cutting thirty percent. That’s why it’s shitty to call people out who are doing something even if it isn’t full Jeremiah Johnson. It’a still doing a lot and making a difference. Like how a small tax cut (or hike) on the wealthiest corporations and people can have a bigger impact on the budget than a comparatively larger increase or cut to the middle class.
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