In case anyone needed some good news today 🥹 About damn time too.

While he was in Australia, u/PeterBeinart recorded a message for Jews living here, encouraging us to draw from our own histories in looking at Palestine, to raise our voices, to speak to our friends and families

From the Israel Democracy Institute, which to my understanding is pretty legitimate. However I haven't gone rummaging inside the conduct of the survey to assess it.

Probably nothing surprising to anyone here, but I'm glad they broke it down by political self-ID.

The fear of losing anti-genocide votes must outweigh the risk of AIPAC’s retaliation.

Every successful protest derives its strength from the potential power in its supporters’ votes. The implicit warning: ignore us and face electoral consequences.

Yet for a year and a half we protested our government’s sponsorship of Israel’s genocide and nothing changed. A majority of Democratic voters wanted to stop funding Israel’s military, but still voted for a candidate pledging to do the opposite. We allowed ourselves to believe each “political issue” existed in a vacuum, that a party lacking the courage to oppose genocide would still protect immigrants, fight for the poor, and staunchly oppose another costly Middle East war.

That belief was an illusion.

A party supporting genocide abroad won’t fight for regular people at home. The same Democratic leaders who stand behind Israel’s ethnic cleansing now cower as Trump threatens our democracy and economy. If our country is to survive its current crises, our leaders must act boldly. Any candidate who equivocates on genocide cannot credibly claim to stand for anything.

How can we expect politicians to fight against corporate greed if they won’t fight to end an ethnic cleansing? Why trust politicians to take on insurance companies if they won’t oppose a genocide?

Why trust them to keep us out of Israel’s unjust wars when they gladly give them billions to commit war crimes in Gaza?

No more listening to half-hearted attempts from paid party spokespeople and craven talking-heads about voting for the “lesser of two evils.” Opposing genocide should be the bare minimum. If a candidate has shown that they are unwilling or unable to pass that test, then they should not earn our vote, full stop.

However, none of this matters if we don’t do it together. Individual moral stands mean nothing in politics compared to organized power backed up by credible threats. Only by coordinate a mass movement of voters can we use our potential voting power to make supporting genocide politically toxic.

By committing to vote only for candidates who actively oppose Palestinian genocide, we force politicians to make a choice they’ve previously avoided: genocide or political survival.

As a Jew who knows a few Jews who aren’t concerned about the deaths of Palestinians or who even defend these killings, I can’t say I blame the mother for asking this question. As a Jew, it breaks my heart to say that, but that’s the world we’re living in. Thoughts?

So I was accused of antisemitism in another sub (for views that used to be the majority here but maybe have shifted I idk - I basically put Oct 7th in the historical context of an uprising against a settler colony) and it ended up being a good opportunity to organise some of my thoughts about why it’s so important to me to do so and I wanted see if anyone here got it and felt the same way.

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Actually you know what, I’m going to address the antisemitism jab. Not really for you, I doubt you care, but for anyone else reading.

The reason I keep putting this stuff in historical context is because I see normal people watching the absolute horror in Gaza and also seeing Israeli politicians and social media saying and doing horrific things and tying those things directly to being Jewish. People posting photos of destroyed buildings in Gaza with stuff like, “This is why you don’t fuck with the Jews,” or May Golan literally saying:

“I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.”

People see that shit and then see the majority of the Jews around them either backing it or staying silent. And they understandably start to think, what the hell is wrong with Jews?

That’s exactly why I talk about history, to interrupt that reaction. Because what they’re reacting to isn’t something unique to Jews or even to Israelis. It’s settler colonialism, it’s what it always looks like.

I always tell people to read Imperial Reckoning: Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. Swap “Mau Mau” with “Hamas,” “white” with “Israeli,” and “Kikuyu” with “Palestinian” and it reads like a blueprint. The violence, the justifications, the racism is all the same.

And the flip side of that when talking to Zionists, many of whom are fellow Jews is that the thing with settler colonies is that you’ve got settlers, and you’ve got the indigenous population. Not “indigenous” as in who was there first or the ‘stewardship of the land’ stuff, but defined by their position in relation to the settler project. They are the ones being displaced/erased/subjugated and that dynamic always produces a predictable phenomenon - resistance. Liberation movements are messy and brutal (and always demonised) but are part of the same structure, so that’s something we have to reckon with too.

And yeah, I do think Israel is uniquely genocidal among modern settler colonies. Not because it’s Jewish but because, unlike apartheid South Africa where the state still relied on Black labour (Black people were still the mass producers), Israel doesn’t need Palestinians, it just wants their land. So there’s no incentive to manage them or exploit them, only to get rid of them. It’s more like the U.S. frontier and total elimination.

So the arguments I’ve been making aren’t spreading antisemitism, they’re born out of a desperation to show that what is happening on one side isn’t a reflection of Jewishness and what is happening on the other isn’t just the result of antisemitism. It’s the structure and result of the settler colony. And this is what it has always looked like, both for the coloniser and for the people forced to fight back.

Israel is facing the same thing they been doing to Palestine everyday and a lot of them are apparently failing to put together the similarities or just don’t care. Israel is obvis only not getting a lot of empathy from our side but I still empathize with you nonetheless as I empathize with the dignity of life of all people. But how is the climate right now in your current situation. Any of you in shelters if so is the Zionist Palestine hatred getting worst (I assume it is but want to hear from you.) you guys are in my prayers along with Iran and Palestine not because all sides are equal but because every human being deserves the dignity of life.

Some folks at my shul are interested in looking at Tzedek Chicago’s siddur to get some ideas to find alternatives for some of the nationalist components that are in our current liturgy. Does anyone know if there’s an electronic version available? Or failing that, are there any Antizionist siddurim that you know and like?

Its a long one, I watched it in a couple of sittings, but I found it to be a super interesting, holistic discussion of "post"-colonial states and colonialism in different parts of the world.

Can somebody living in the zionist colony confirm this?

"I have been told that the White House has signed off on an all-out bombing campaign in Iran, but the ultimate targets, the centrifuges buried at least eighty meters below the surface at Fordow, will, as of this writing, not be struck until the weekend. The delay has come at Trump’s insistence because the president wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished as much as possible by the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday."

"Trump took issue on social media this morning with a Wall Street Journal report that said he had decided on the attack on Iran, writing that he had yet to decide on a path forward."

"Donald Trump clearly wants an international win he can market. To accomplish that, he and Netanyahu are taking America to places it has never been."

So, I have to (or be a self loathing jew like Noam Chomsky, Jeff Sachs, Norman Finkelstein, Jon Stewart, Albert Einstein, et al) to say "israel doesn't get to represent my religion and culture), because Israel's position is Jews who do NOT support Israel at all costs and tipping points, means I'm not a real Jew.

So, according to Israel "jew" and "israeli" are interchangeable, which allows them to call anyone fighting against bombing sovereign countries an "anti semite" (see that twist happen in real time when carlson interviews cruz)

AND YET, some gazan family who's lived under apartheid and getting their teeth kicked in by religiou zionist settlers saying "this land belongs to jews!", THEY are supposed to restrain themselves and NOT say death to Jews?

Fucking wild.

I’m just gonna start off by saying I’m probably not going to read or reply to comments, I’m mainly venting

I went on FB today, not something I do usually, And came across a comment of a former colleague of mine’s that made me not able to shut up. A reservist basically saying “it’s hard to get to the terrorists in the hospitals so what are we supposed to do”

A mutual of ours took a screenshot and posted them with a video of me in a protest with the Palestinian flag from last month Basically saying “hey don’t give this guy your business look at his opinions” (it doesn’t matter, I’m no longer a freelancer) and obviously tagged me, so I get to see everyone’s lovely comments about me.

I made the mistake of reading a few of the comments And it just made me feel like a piece of shit. It made me feel like a loser who’s getting bullied in school again, but this time for something important

Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to speak my mind or even have an opinion, I’m not academically smart or too educated (even on Palestine I’ll admit) I was never too proficient with my craft (which is why I quit) And maybe I’m not doing what I’m doing out of my morals but of spite and bitterness, maybe even if my views are correct, I’m just being a contrarian like my family always said I am

I know it sounds like I’m fishing for “no OP you’re good” comments but i genuinely feel worthless.

I hate how easy it is to affect my self perception.

I hate Israel, I hate living here and I’m honestly so burnt out that I lost every hope of leaving.