Thank you for your thoughts on israel, your stance is a refreshing one. My family is extremely supportive and uncritical of israel and get very upset if I show the slightest bit of criticism, it's nice to see someone with the same thoughts on it as me I feel understood
It's been a while since i got this ask, I've been thinking about it, and not sure if I wanted to stir up shit or get 'cancelled' or whatever. I guess I'm bored today.
I'd say it's a generational thing, but I'm old as fuck myself, lol.
...For me, as a Jewish person. I almost feel like, tying Jewish identity with state identity, national identity. Is damaging to, like. The soul. Or whatever. I've long considered myself broadly atheistic, but. Seeing the shit that's been happening lately has. I dunno. Lessened that. "Self-determination" is the term that gets thrown about the most, and to me, self-determination should be democracy and secularism and equal rights, not. Ethnostates. And, granted, maybe its privileged of me to think that, and maybe for example a Palestinian state would allow the Palestinian people to be safer from Israel's aggressions. But then, who would protect the palestinian people from the Palestinian state?
I consider myself a Leftist, a Progressive, a Marxist, a Socialist, Communist, whatever. In the sense that I've read the Theory, and my Ideal World is a lot like the way a lot of people with those political views would also imagine it. No class distinctions, to each according to their need, no states, no capital ownership, no private property, workers control the means of production of their own labor.
And like, obviously race, ethnicity, Jewish identity, and any other kind of cultural identity would still exist, but if everyone has equal footing, hopefully people will be better at being at peace with each other. I hope that's not too unrealistic to imagine or want.
Where I seemingly tend to differ most often with certainly online Leftists is. How to achieve the Ideal World. While revolution, if successful, would be fine. If incremental, democratic "liberal" methods can work, can achieve something, anything. It's worth trying. If only to prevent or delay fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, state capitalism. Make some small change to improve something. For someone. Food, shelter, sanitation, health.
In the ideal world, there won't be States, definitely not States based on any racial or ethnic identity, and, yes, that includes Jewish identity, so that includes Israel.
But, like, it's easy to say that Israel shouldn't have been founded and was always a bad idea, it's impossible to do anything about that without a time machine. And if anyone could go back to the 1940s but the only thing they changed was the formation of modern Israel and not, y'know, all the shit that directly lead to Israel's creation during that decade, I would question their priorities. A lot.
So, the question that actually matters is, what happens now.
...I am genuinely asking, I have no fucking idea.
Like, I would, in fact, be opposed to an external military or a group like Hamas or the governments of Iran or Egypt using martial power to abolish Israel, by invading or bombing and destroying it completely, because there are, in fact, innocent civilians there, and the actions of the Israeli government don't represent them.
But, that's also a fairly remote hypothetical, without much bearing on real world events, at present. Israel has the most advanced military and technology in the region, many of the missiles that hostile governments launch (and, as an aside, I do want to point out that Israel doesn't seem like a very safe place for Jewish people to live if people are launching rockets at it all the time, the rockets might get lucky) usually can't even reach Israel, while the ones Israel sends are very accurate, but often indiscriminate in their targets. They, by which I mean Israel's government and military, certainly have done tangible harm to innocent civilians, for actions those civilians had nothing to do with. And, that needs to be stopped.
...But, I'm not sure how, or if stopping is even possible. Trump isn't going to, and Biden didn't do enough to stop it not until too late, after the election, when it was clear from his rhetoric that Trump would start it again.
And, with all due respect to the concept of armed resistance, and to any of the resistance movements, like Fatah or Hamas, and to attempts to form a government like the Palestinian Authority, or the attempts by other governments like Lebanon or Iran to intervene, supposedly on the behalf of the Palestinian people. I'm not completely sure that they're capable of stopping Israel? Like, they've tried, but. I don't think there's been a lot of success, so far?
In practical terms, I don't think the attack on October 7th, for instance, actually did anything to weaken Israel's state power. Like, genuinely, what did "the resistance" actually accomplish? Like, even if you support armed, violent resistance, rebellion, revolution. And, I mean. I actually, broadly, do. Like, I don't think it's too much to ask that resistance be. I dunno. Competent? Engage in acts of revolution that actually. Weaken the state that is being revolted against?
Generally speaking, that would be military and, I will even reluctantly grant, allowing for the possibility of a case for terrorism, major economic targets, if such exist. Like, going after civilian institutions like farms and markets is an act of Total War, illegal in the Geneva conventions, and a war crime, but. I mean, before the Geneva conventions, armies did it. They burned farms so the enemy couldn't feed themselves. Destroyed infrastructure. Killed enough civilians to make the rest scared, cause unrest. Y'know, achieved goals that benefited them militarily.
I'm personally not in favor of any of it ethically, and, because the Geneva conventions do exist, I think it's reasonable for even resistance groups to abide by them, but. I also think, even if they aren't abided by. Resistance can still be judged by how effective they are at resisting.
Is Gaza better off today than it was before October 7th? Are the people of Gaza better off? Is Israel's military any weaker? Is it likely to weaken in the future? Is Israel less capable of oppressing and harming Gaza and the West Bank and Palestine as a whole? These are questions that I think are. Worth asking. Worth considering.
Again, to be clear, I don't support Israel's actions, in the least. I think Israel shouldn't exist, but I think making it not exist would have to be done, you know, in a way that wouldn't kill millions of Jews.
Israel's government is willing to beat and imprison its own citizens, even ones that are Jewish, and even ones who are also American citizens, when they dare to speak up and protest and oppose Israel's actions, and the United States won't even consider doing or even saying anything about it. The United States is one of the only powers that actually has enough military power as well as political and economic power that it could actually do anything to Israel. And it won't.
The more shit Israel does, the worse Jews in the diaspora get treated, and the more Jewish people in Israel will get hurt when Hamas or Iran or anyone else tries to retaliate. And then Israel will escalate things further, and the cycle repeats.
Fundamentally. Israel, as a state, is not interested in and isn't capable of protecting Jewish people. The only thing the state of Israel will ever protect is the state of Israel. That's true of all states.
And, I will say, to its credit, that it has thus far been very effective at doing that. But to misunderstand that fact is to misunderstand what a state is.
To bring back my point about effectiveness, that's been demonstrated, I think, because of the fact that, for all that Israel and the U.S. talk about the hostages taken on October 7th. Israel can talk about hostages all it likes, but their military actions, which involve bombing civilian residences, or hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, do not make it seem like recovering hostages is an actual primary objective. Bombs are, broadly speaking, a terrible tool to bring back people alive. Or even dead, given how hard it becomes to identify bodies.
I think a tactical, or strategic (I forget which is which) analysis of Israel would show that, recovering hostages, preserving the lives of those Israeli citizens. Was not the biggest concern. The state that, supposedly, was meant to protect Jewish people. Was far more concerned with hurting Palestine.
And, I mean, I think the same sort of case can be made about Hamas and most other acts of terrorism, when the targets are things like festivals. Though, granted, the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank do, genuinely, make the line between who is and isn't a civilian blurrier. Lots of people not formally in the Israeli military who have guns.
...And, again, I don't have a solution. Sorry, anonymous asker. The only things I know to do are donate, to Palestinian families and to humanitarian aid groups, spread news about what's happening, (while checking sources and confirming accuracy) speak up against and resist antisemitism and islamophobia, and racism and xenophobia of all kinds, and pray.
But I sadly don't see a realistic pathway for things to improve in the foreseeable future.
I sorta assume we're all fucked.
