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@the-library-alcove
New policy: No more arguing with Christianists, especially the ones who think that missionizing is a good thing. Autoblock on sight.
EDIT: Addendum: Antisemitic atheists too.
Less a DNI, and more just an exasperated sigh at this point, yes, I vet new followers for my own safety and I will automatically block missionaries, Christian apologists, antisemitic atheists, antizionists, Nazis (WTAF are you following me in the first place?), and TERFs.
A lot of you guys could be time traveled back in time into Auschwitz to watch Jews being shoved screaming and sobbing into the gas chambers and your only reaction would be to laugh and post on tumblr about their white zio tears.
Iām not even saying that we canāt or shouldnāt discuss aid to Israel - I think there are ways to have that policy discussion and think about the outcomes of stopping aid (which Netanyahu wants, btw, because it means ātaking off the golden handcuffsā) or continuing it (instead of using it for other countries, like Ukraine or other purposes).
But that requires actually discussing it without the lies and distortions that are so endemic to this topic in a way that doesnāt come up the same way for the same people with other countries that I have the same or more qualms and concerns about providing them aid (like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Egypt etc).
That means realizing that much of this kind of aid is basically a voucher to get supplies from US weapons and defense manufacturers, so that the money doesnāt even really leave the US.
I think the US aid system in general needed change prior to November 2024, and now itās fucked to where arms and military equipment are the only aid that can reliably be expected to be funded and provided. Good job to those who didnāt vote for Kamala with that.
Iām also more on the hawkish side of things and so recognize the need for a solid, effective, adaptive national defense. Thereās a lot that can be done to make the defense department as well as DHS and DOJ (and the CIA and NSA etc) more accountable, ethical, responsive and responsible - so it doesnāt mean I think they should continue as they are or even as they were under Obama or Biden.
I admit to not being fully understanding of why it would be cobshdered āgolden handcuffsā
I get that we basically just give defense contractor fun bucks that they then spend on American armaments but I still assume getting a piece of Americaās bloated military industrial complex would be considered beneficial to a far right warmonger, Iām not really sure where the handcuff part comes in since as far as Iām aware we arenāt really capable of demanding exactly how that equipment is used once itās been purchased.
It's because Israeli military systems and equipment (from fighter jets to Iron Dom and so on) are American-made and rely on access to American suppliers and producers. So, we are able to influence how the equipment is used, or if they can get replacement supplies. We saw that when the US *would* hold up disbursements or re-supplying and the pressure and concern from the Israeli government.
These aren't just simple plug-and-play components, but require, generally, the specific ammo or parts, or a close equivalent from the same provider.
There are Israeli contractors and suppliers who could fill the gap, but that would require a transition and a build-up, which takes time and money, neither of which the Israeli government can easily afford due to the choices made by Netanyahu and his coalition.
(With the Massie amendment, any resources or aid for Palestinians would also get cut, and US foreign aid often has requirements for how it is used as authorized by Congress, which is something to keep in mind).
So, cutting aid to Israel would allow Netanyahu and his coalition to do what they want with the equipment they want when they want (presuming that the aid cutting has a phase-out provision, which would seem likely) and would free up their hand to give even less of a fuck about what the US or others say - and which would also encourage them to seek aid and assistance elsewhere, possibly from places we wouldn't want them to.
Leaving aside things like value for money of tech sharing and intel sharing (Worth way more than the War Fun Bucks) and Iron Dome supply, which allows Israel to not retaliate every time an Iranian proxy gets a bug up their ass or orders from Daddy/Vladdy and is explicitly an area defense for civilians (Which everyone SHOULD be ok with but which Ocasio-Cortez was screamed at for tearfully voting 'present' on before she could go fully mask off... JUST focusing on the precision weapons of it all... The US is a premier manufacture of precision munitions that mostly work as intended (Hi Russia, you actually genocidal fucks) to look at what an actually genocidal conflict would look like with non-precision weapons of the types that RU/Iran have, look at Ukraine, or any target Iran tries to hit. The accuracy of those weapons (Shahed Terror drones and ballistic missiles) are 'Minute of City.' Dumb bombs from an aircraft are 'Dumb' because you cannot precision guide them. The casualties on display everywhere because people are obsessed with Jews are the result of precision munitions being deployed against terrorist militias that do not wear uniforms and operate from concentrated urban areas (Hamas). Hez and the Houthis are slightly different in their methodologies so you're seeing less focused stories about those. This is not me saying "This is a good thing and the IDF did a super great job" by the way. This is me specifically saying that without access to precision munitions the civilian casualty counts would be drastically higher in what is already an ugly stupid war of choice. (That Iran and its imperial satraps chose) Take away the precision munitions and the layers of ABM, and the restraining US hand and Israel doesn't throw in the towel. It looks for other regional allies and it hits back really fucking hard. This idea that 'Oh israel has healthcare becuz we give them money (Daddy Warbucks Fun Bux) and Israel will dissolve without american weapons because.. (they have no arms industry and only america is real?) Bla bla metropole bla bla ways of being" is a Columbia University Crackbrained one. Like. Whoever insists on it smoked crack, and probably went to Columbia and never grew the fuck up. Everything is leverage, everything is strength projection and in the current multipolar world overeducated commie fucks claim to want... Diplomacy is/was/will be a fucking protection racket. Not the star trek federation of good intentions. And right now? Democrats and their dipshit staffers are relying on what they think things 'should be' on the advice of dumbfucks like ben rhodes and matt duss instead of dealing with what they are, and they're obsessing over israel because it's easy, instead of actually dealing with shit closer to home. Oh, and because a whole shitload of people hate Jews so focusing on this and getting real fucking conspiratorial is rewarding to anyone who does it. Especially if they phrase it in amorphous academic terms or simplistic activist lingo.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez penned a letter to her constituents Friday explaining her emotional reaction to voting āpresentā on a bill fun
To OPās point, Indigenous Bridges put this statement on Instagram in late 2023:
#i feel like a lot of folks think that by saying Palestinians are native to the area known as the Levant#they are saying that Palestinians have a right to do literally anything they want there to other people who are there#and that is why they push so hard to make Jews NOT native to that land- because if Jews ARE native?#then by their own logic they are allowed to do whatever they want#of course this doesn't actually hold up and I promise you that if any native tribe here in the USA gained the power to have a state-#a full state on their land of origin#the leftists would turn on them in a fucking heartbeat#it's like... like to me#this is why leftists are the way they are about the fucking Holocaust and trying to claim it for everyone BUT the Jews#because they cannot stand that the Jews- who they HATE. HAVE something in their eyes#to be native is to be oppressed which is to have social capital to them and to be more valid#to have experienced genocide and pain is to be oppressed and is to have again that social capital and validity#and the PROBLEM they have with jews having those things is that if we ARE indeed marginalized oppressed people...#then the left is going to be forced to listen when we tell them all how fucking antisemitic and racist they are and they DON'T WANT TO HEAR
@hazel2468, your tags pass peer review.
I've had three separate propals get mad at my pinned because, according to them, if Palestinians aren't indigenous to Israel, then they have no human rights.
Note: not civil rights. HUMAN RIGHTS. As in "if you're not indigenous, you have no right to be alive."
Further note: my pinned explicitly notes that not being indigenous doesn't mean Palestinians shouldn't have the right to dignity and safety.
They are literally defining humanity by some weird "your culture must be this noble savage" metric.
"Noble savage" racism is a beast. Native erasure is a beast. Antisemitism (no matter what noble veneer it hides under) is a beast. At the mo I'm side-eyeing a whole lotta people who practice all three and never bothered to unpack any of it.
My paternal great-grandfather was half-Native, the family legend goes, although most people who see me tend to erase that bit because I'm fair-skinned. My mother's family are all Jewish, and because I can read as anything but I get a carload of shocked Pikachu faces any time I bring it up. It makes me happy to see Native and Jewish solidarity; goyische (and white) leftists can stay mad about it.
I've encountered this weird extremist idea too. It's like... often it's Americans, who live in America, and think both Israel and America should be destroyed. But they don't want to do it themselves; they just want to feel like good people for calling for that. Because the rest of the time, they just feel bad about living on stolen land.
The specific call for destroying-Israel-and-America is a huge red flag for propaganda from the dictatorship of Iran. Like, I promise you there are not two (2) lone deeply evil countries on earth that should be nuked from orbit.
But there's definitely one (1) deeply evil dictatorship on earth that specifically and routinely calls for that.
There are many (many) countries on earth with extremely complicated histories full of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and genocide.
(Many of them way more recent than the U.S.'s practices of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and genocide. Myanmar just ethnically cleansed the Rohingya Muslims a few years ago, and nobody would suggest we should wipe Myanmar off the planet.)
Sometime in late 2023, I was beefing my way through some instagram comments, and a nonbinary Ethnic Studies professor genuinely told me that someday, trans women of color would do to the U.S. what Hamas had done to Israel.
I honestly don't know what leads someone to go, "aha! this is the one specific demographic that actually deserves to be here, and to torture, mutilate, and burn its way across the country in order to claim it." (And the demographic isn't even "people indigenous to this land.")
I do assume this person was unaware of exactly how fucking brutal Hamas's attack was.
But the idea that trans women of color, as a group, are like, "Wow, I really wish we could slaughter and conquer America, including cis indigenous people, transmascs, an unknown number of enbies, cis people with disabilities, cis Black people, white trans women," and so on, is just fucking mind-blowing to me.
Like, I absolutely understand that we all feel this level of rage at our oppressors sometimes. But most of us recognize that it only works as an angry fantasy, and in real life would be like trying to rebuild from an apocalypse.
I don't even think this person counted themself among trans women of color. I think they were just making a really impassioned statement without thinking any of it through.
I also don't remember who it was that said, somewhere in the weeds of tumblr discourse, that we should destroy Japan too. They wanted to destroy Israel because they thought it was an ethnostate. The response was that there are many countries whose populations are basically one ethnic group, like Japan (which is not what an ethnostate is, but it's what most people seem to THINK it is); and they immediately and enthusiastically included Japan on the list, to the absolute bafflement of everyone else.
I think there are a lot of people who are very scared and angry, and don't really care about anybody or anything; they just want to lash out and imagine their problems could be solved through violence.
And also, a non-zero number of those people have unknowingly absorbed the concept of scapegoating Jews.
I'm reading the bible for the first time and the song of songs has me baffled, why is it part of the bible?
because love is holy
something my rabbi has said a few times that I find super fascinating is that one way to read the relationship between the Jewish people and Hashem is as a relationship between lovers (kind of along the same lines as how on Shabbat we frame Shabbat as a bride and the Jewish people collectively as the groom).
other groups of people have relationships with Hashem, but the relationship between Jews and Hashem is unique and is one we and Hashem both chose
one reason that we actively choose to follow the commandments in the Torah is because we're aligning our interests with Hashem's, and sometimes that means doing things that look irrational to people outside the relationship but that make sense to us
sometimes a relationship between lovers is erotic! in that light it makes complete sense to include the Shir Hashirim in the Tanakh
take this with a slight grain of salt because I'm paraphrasing verbal conversations that I had probably a few weeks ago, but regardless of this post's exact accuracy the idea is really fun to throw back and forth with a rabbi!
It never fails to gobsmack me the things some of y'all believe Jews believe. I remember someone confidently saying that Jews believe they all go to the Christian version of Heaven, regardless of whether they were good people or not, because they're "chosen" and in Heaven they get a segregated all-Jews section. Like, y'all are just making shit up at this point. And you could just, idk, ask Jews, but even when a Jewish person tells you "um that's not what we believe" you think they're lying.
Dr. Rafael Medoff says editor at Dark Horse Comics demanded book on Nazi genocide include anti-Israel genocide charges
The GOP candidates for governor offered conspiracy theories, unverified heroic stories and a prayer in their only appearance together.
Scott Bottoms being an unhinged antisemite, Victor Marx (the nominee) beingā¦unhinged as a whole. great choices happening in US politics right now. none of these candidates have a chance at winning in Colorado, but the fact that the men here were serious choices in any way is concerning.
Marine veteran Victor Marx, whose wild claims ā including saying he was forced to kill a man at age 7 ā have drawn widespread attention and
Marx, who has gained notice due to a claim he killed a man when he was a child, will advance to the general election against state Attorney
First-time political candidate Victor Marx pulled off a narrow win in the Republican primary for Colorado governor. Hereās a look at the uno
Marjorie Fiterman 102 and Bernie Littman 100 are the world's oldest married couple.
I think itās kind of insane to think that blocking defensive aid like Iron Dome would mean that Israel would be *less incentivized* to engage in military offenses, or be more restrained in what it does.
It's born of a severe lack of understanding of what motivates Israel and Israelis.
They really do believe that if not for the iron dome and bomb shelters Israel would just steamroll all over the Middle East and create the grand judean empireā¦
The only thing that will happen is that more innocents will die and Israel will be incentivised to more aggressively eliminate threats. The iron dome is what allows it to have MORE restraint.
But I guess itās too much to ask AOC to actually understand geopolitics.
The amendment to block military assistance failed, but partisan split cemented the increasingly polarized view of the U.S. ally.
what is our defense secretary occupied with while we're exchanging strikes with iran, you may ask? look no further!
Not my original observation but it does seem like a particular fuck you from the universe to RFKJ that ivermectin is completely useless against cyclospora. Like they really said not only are you getting a parasite outbreak we're not even going to let you use your favorite anti-parasitic for the one thing it's supposed to be used for.
REMEMBER: dogwhistle emojis
š»- red triangle: used to mark jewish targets and to signify support for violence against israelis and jews. Most often used on the left to signify support for hamas.
š§- juice/jews
ā”ļøā”ļø- double lighting bolt used to symbolize nazi SS
š- nose. Stereotype that jews have big noses
š- ballpoint pen. Older and not used as often, used to cast aspersions on Anne Frank's diary and its veracity
š§¼- soap/showers/gas chambers. Also reference to story that the fat of jews was rendered down to make soap in the death camps.
š°- money/moneybags. Greedy jew stereotype
šŗ- old stereotype that jews are evil/of the devil/ working with the devil. Note the long nose.
š- painter/austrian painter/Hitler y"s
Using emojis is a morally neutral act; always note the context in which it is being used.
also šŖ, referencing the conspiracy that gas chambers used wooden doors and could not have been airtight
I donāt have a source for the following, itās just what Iāve heard, and I have no intention of googling neo-Nazi conspiracy theories for my own mental health. Take this with a grain of salt, and if you have/find a source, please do add
From what Iāve heard, no functional gas chambers had wooden doors. Some damaged or destroyed doors were replaced, either by Allies using them as air raid shelters or memorial museums
š¤„ Iāve also seen this one (Pinocchio) used, with the same purpose as the nose, but it also carries the connotation that Jews are liars,
sigh yeah the wooden doors thing is persistent. some of the gas chambers did have less-than-airtight doors, but they were reinforced with strips of felt around the edges to make them airtight, and the felt has either degraded or fallen off or been removed
you also have to remember the Nazis had a program called Sonderaktion 1005 which was literally an order to hide or destroy evidence of the Holocaust so that its full extent could never be known (which involved things like exhuming and cremating bodies and dismantling facilities)
hi @consipring-limabean! I'm sorry that I'm so late to reply. Let's talk.
Ok, so, here's the thing. I don't think they're the same thing. I think they're really close, and I think that, at a certain point, it's reasonable to say that everyone going to the bar the local Nazis recommend (I'm not kidding on that by the way) is probably someone that I should be wary of, as a Jew.
I am going to tell you something, because I think you are genuinely in good faith. Jews are terrified. We are terrified and disappointed and many of us are making plans to flee. (Typically to Israel, because it's mandated to take us in, which is why it exists, to take in Jews fleeing two thousand years of hate because until non-Jews get their act together the simplest solution to antisemitism is to minimize dependence on non-Jews, but that's not the point.)
And a big part of the reason we're so scared is because of people who claim to be pro-Palestinian. And I know I shouldn't be, logically. I know that I shouldn't speed up slightly when I go past the house with a FREE PALESTINE STOP GENOCIDE sign in the yard, when I go by the place with a dangling Palestinian flag. I know I shouldn't be. I know the woman at one of the groups I participate in with the FREE PALESTINE thing on her backpack is probably not antisemitic. I hope she's not, anyway.
I know that. I know that they're not the same, and I try my very best to remember. But it's really, really, hard to, given the movement. Given the rhetoric. Given what it does.
Here's some data. I don't expect you to read all the surveys. But I expect you to look at a few, and consider it.
A quick note -- I'm going to use "anti-Israel" and "pro-Palestinian" interchangeably here, because the mainstream pro-Palestinian movement seems to view them as such. I'm perfectly aware they're not; a fair number of Jews on Tumblr fall into "pro-Palestinian" but not anti-Israel. But they're not welcome in those spaces.
So.
I'm going to quote me from the past here:
HaveĀ multipleĀ (2009)Ā peer-reviewedĀ (2006)Ā studiesĀ (see study 2; 2022)Ā shownĀ (2015)Ā thatĀ (2007)Ā antisemitismĀ (2012)Ā andĀ (2020)Ā anti-Israelism/antizionismĀ [āIn fact, anti-Israel attitudes are the strongest sole determinant of antisemitism when compared with political preferences, religion, place of birth, age, education and violent tendencies.ā; 2020] (which are not the same thing)Ā areĀ (2024)Ā closelyĀ (2016)Ā associatedĀ (2012)? Also yes. Did Daniel Allington and David Hirsh write that āSo many experimental and survey-based studies have found a correlation between negative attitudes towards Jews and negative attitudes towards Israel that this may be considered one of the most solidly established facts of political psychologyā (The AzAs (Antizionist Antisemitism) Scale: Measuring Antisemitism as Expressed in Relation to Israel and Its Supporters, 2019)? Yes. Did I not cite that in my links above? Yeah.
Unfortunately for this argument, I got bored and found some more, so may I present to you in addition: 2025 Norway (Antizionism), 2026 Sweden [anti-Israel] ("As expected, antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes were positively correlated (r = .492, p < .001), indicating that the two sets of attitudes are closely related."), Unknown location but probably the US 2026 [anti-Israel] ("Antisemitism and hostility toward Israel reliably co-occur...These studies confirm that the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility is reliable, predictive, and substantial"), twelve countries 2024 [seems to have mostly been done/use data before October 7, anti-Israel] ("Controlling for a range of covariates, a one-percentage-point increase in the share of a countryās population with an unfavorable opinion of Israel is associated with a 0.8-percentage-point higher probability of antisemitic victimization"), Romania post October 7 but in reverse from the usual ("The main findings show that people holding antisemitic attitudes are more inclined to develop negative attitudes towards Israel.")
Now, going back to something more personal, because unfortunately, data doesn't change people's minds usually.
About a month ago, someone said roughly the same argument you're making. That antisemitism isn't tolerated in pro-Palestinian spaces. You can read my response here, but the short version is that they followed someone who is an avowed antisemite. And when I say that, I don't mean "they said bad things about Israel" -- although they do -- I mean that "when they say 'Zionists are the Nazis of Palestine' I wonder if they mean it in a complimentary way" (they don't):
That's not ostracization. (I'd do this for you, but you don't make the list of people you follow public. I'm not judging you; I don't either. But I can't.) That's the opposite of ostracization.
I don't think the pro-Palestinian movement is full of Nazis, because that term has meaning.
But. Please. Please trust us that we're not lying for some Evil Jew Purpose. Please trust us when we say we're scared, that the pro-Palestinian movement has a huge problem. Please don't prove the point of Zionism.
While I recognize the irony in opening with the statement that that this is not a fully-thought-through idea, there's a concept that's been chewing at the edges of my brain and I'm going to try to write it out to help formalize it. And if anyone wants to "Yes, and..." or "no, that's not it" to help refine it, please jump in.
The concept that's been going in my head is that "Right and Left" isn't really an effective mechanism to map the current political landscape, not anymore.
Instead, what I'm observing is a large scale movement of various flavors of authoritarian autocrats and their supporters, engaged in alliances of convenience and mutual benefit, whose worldviews are not "reality-based"--they're fundamentally founded on vibes/propaganda/ideology. But they recognize each other as fellow authoritarians, and while they're certainly willing to fight each other, they're more concerned with squashing "centrist liberals"--principled democratic technocrats who are concerned with such things as "facts", "rule of law", and "consistent ideological principles".
The autocrats come in a variety of flavors--Kleptocrats like Trump and Putin, Islamist theocrats like the IRGC and associated, Strasserites and Stalinists like Western Leftists and the DSA, or just good old-fashioned absolute monarchists like Crown Prince Suliman in Saudi Arabia or the leaders of Qatar and the UAE. They all have more in common with each other when it comes to their authoritarianism and rejection of factual reality, and it's why you get things like DSA members in the US finding it easier to engage with people like Trump than centrists (yes, I'm singling out Mamdani for his interactions with the Orange One here).
And from my perspective, it's terrifying just how many of those groups specifically blame The Jews in one form or another for everything wrong in the world.
you know it really is quite evil to go onto a post about Jewish grief over Oct 7th and make a reply saying something along the lines of āfree Palestine you genocidal freaksā. Thatās not a strawman either, thatās something i just read before blocking the poster.
I used to consider myself a leftist. I no longer do.
"What made you change?"
Nothing. I still hold the same beliefs, the same values, the same morals. I'm still the same person I was when I attended Pride, when I volunteered, when I was loudly fighting racism, sexism, and inequality.Ā
But at some point you found a dusty old sign in your grandfather's attic. You gave it a lick of paint and proudly placed it on the front door.
"NO ZIONISTS ALLOWED"
it reads. "Don't worry" you told me. "We like you. We just mean the racists, the fascists, the evil ones. We don't mean you. You're one of the good ones."
But the thing is, I'm not stupid. And you didn't do a very good job. The paint has already begun to peel, and the original words are peeking through.
"NO JEWS ALLOWED"
But its JUST antizionsim, right guys? It's JUST antizionism.
Yeah, no. This is an example of people in the comments on this post (and no, I won't blur their names or cut them out. They're down there saying this shit with their whole fucking chest). This is what EVERY SINGLE SO-CALLED 'ANTIZIONIST' TOLERATES.
You allowed this shit into your movement. Because, let's be real. The reason so many of you assholes are complaining about "But but but you're making this up!" is because you know the OP is right. You know that the functional result of "antizionism", whether you admit to yourself that it is antisemitic or you're still coping by denying it, is that Jews are not allowed. Because you vet us all. You treat us all like enemies trying to sneak into leftist spaces (gee, where the fuck have I heard that about Jews before?).
Antizionism is antisemitic. Antizionists demand that Jews turn out our pockets and present ourselves for your fucking judgment, so you can decide which of us are "good ones" and which of us deserve to be harassed, to be assaulted, to die for the crime of not assimilating to your bullshit colonizer mindset of "We know your history and desires and culture and people more than you do."
I will never be one of your good ones. We will outlive you. Am Yisrael Chai.
The text "risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building" between Christians and Jews says Chief Rabbi
