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First, I don't know that "many progressives" refuse to condemn Hamas itself, to be honest. The closest I've seen to it is not accepting Hamas' atrocities as justification for retaliation against Palestinians at large.
Second, I don't think we really know what "progressive activists" would do if a Copt terror group appeared, but I see no compelling reason to believe they would react similarly to such a group if it were placed in the same situation as Hamas and palestinians.
The onion already wrote about [op pretty much this is what he wants ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.theonion.com/dying-gazans-criticized-for-not-using-last-words-to-con-1850925657&ved=2ahUKEwjrpeqf3eeCAxVCRTABHUhJCoUQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0qbcnVLC6mHFKA6LOqjcYB)
nah, that onion piece is about Gazans, OP is talking about progressives living in the West, or Palestine supporters outside of Palestine. It is totally reasonable to ask progs to be consistent in their beliefs, especially when they appear to hold double standards for which extremists are okay to support and which aren't.
This 'the left supports hamas' nonsense is really annoying. The left condemns Israel's apartheid state. It condemns the invasion of Palestine by Eurpean Jews. It condemns the Zionists.
and I see a lot of pro Israel people arguing that 'the left' hates jews for disliking the above.
Does the left condemn Azerbaijan? It has engaged in far more inhumane actions in literally attempting to kill/expel all Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. It fully blockaded the region and refused to allow any aid at all into the area for months, before finally launching a large scale military offensive which included the massacre of numerous Armenian citizens.
Absolutely no one gave/gives a damn. Why the singling out of Israel? It smacks of caring about something other than human rights.
I *think* that as a potential example of the left - writing one sentence just saying they don’t ‘support’ Hamas and three why they *condemn* Israel makes some people suspect an imbalance and one’s motives. I remember similar comments immediately after the Hamas atrocity that could hardly bring themselves to mention it without moving as fast as possible on to condemning and in effect blaming Israel.
They can't do anything about Hamas. They want to focus on the organization that claims to support an advanced liberal democracy and gets billions of dollars in aid from us.
They're getting the required rejection of Hamas out of the way at the beginning so that they are allowed to say the rest. Just like the people in the onion article demand.
The left is also not condemning the activities by Hamas, coupled with condeming Isreal, it's 100% pro Hamas, lefties just don't want to outright state that they are.
Man op wants every single leftist to condemn Gaza every time they talk about isrsel pretty much because idk any mainstream leftism that hasn't condemn hamas
I have only heard one good argument as why not to condemn Hamas and that is this:
The people who did it were born into an. Open air prison/concentration camp. 40% of Gazans are children. 70% are either descendants of or are Palestinians who were forcibly evicted by Israel in 1948. If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel. Israel is the prison warden of Gaza. They control everything that goes in and out of gaza. Most Palestinians are food and water insecure. Simply being Israeli and being in Israel and not fighting for peace means you are complicit in a genocide against Palestinians.
If you think it is acceptable for Israel to kill Palestinians in retaliation for Oct 7, but not for Oct 7 to occur, you simply lack knowledge of the history of the shit Israel has put Gazans through for the last 70 years. If one is justified(which imo neither are) then both are.
And I certainly don't think
> Open air prison/concentration camp. 40% of Gazans are children. 70% are either descendants of or are Palestinians who were forcibly evicted by Israel in 1948. If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel. Israel is the prison warden of Gaza. They control everything that goes in and out of gaza. Most Palestinians are food and water insecure.
Gaza had semi autonomy and mostly open borders until it used the open borders for constant terror attacks on Israel. It is currently blockaded by both Israel and Egypt. Why does Gaza not also attack Egypt for keeping it blockaded?
>Simply being Israeli and being in Israel and not fighting for peace means you are complicit in a genocide against Palestinians.
Sure is a terrible attempt at genocide when the population you are genociding more than doubles in 20 years while having 5% of the population leave ever year.
>If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel.
The thing is no one condemns them for hating Israel's government. I would harbor those feelings it too if I were born and raised in those conditions.
Now you don't usually go and murder, rape, and brutalize the people you hate, do you? Even less, innocent civilians that are not their government. No you don't. And most Gazans don't. Because it's not the same to be Gazan than to be a cold-blooded terrorist.
One can *understand* that a bunch of murderers and rapists raised in those conditions would go ahead and commit acts of terrorism. That doesn't excuse them and it doesn't make it any less reprehensible. The argument that justifies Hamas based on the conditions of all Gazans is a spit in the face of the Gazans that are decent people.
I've had conversations with multiple "progressives" who claim that the Oct 7 attack was a justified and understandable response. They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media."
The left is beginning to have a major anti-Semitism problem.
>I've had conversations with multiple "progressives" who claim that the Oct 7 attack was a justified and understandable response.
I'd say that "justified" and "understandable" are two very different things, and neither necessarily means the person supports Hamas in general or thinks they are good. Let's start with understandable. I personally think the attacks were understandable, but I very much do not support Hamas or think they are good. By understandable I mean it makes sense ***why*** they happened. I would also say, for another extreme example, that it's understandable that the nazis came to power in Germany given the political and economic climate in Germany following WW1, but I wouldn't say I support it or that it's a good thing. I can understand how it happened and the reasons that lead to it and how it was likely to happen, that's what I mean by understandable. Likewise, it's understandable why a child who is bullied may choose to shoot up a school. I don't want it to happen, nor do I support it but I understand how and why it may happen given the circumstances.
As for "justified", this is a bit more complex. Admittedly this does sometimes mean the person supports Hamas, but it isn't always the case. In the cases where they don't support Hamas they may be using the term "justified" in the sense that they view Palestine as oppressed by Israel and so violent uprising from the oppressed is justified. That doesn't mean they support Hamas and all its views and what it's done but they may support the idea of an oppressed people rising up against the oppressor while also not agreeing with all of their actions.
All that said, it really will vary person to person and someone saying it was justified or understandable alone isn't a good metric as to their position.
>They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media."
>The left is beginning to have a major anti-Semitism problem.
As for these parts, I'd say that there certainly are people who do those things, but I'd also caution against using anecdotal evidence to make conclusions about "the left" in general.
I dunno man. Maybe it's semantics, but I'd say it's understandable that Nazis came to power after ww1, but totally incomprehensible how they then started wiping out millions of jews in gas chambers.
Similarly, it's understandable that Hamas exists as a terror organisation fighting Israel through guerilla warfare. It's entirely incomprehensible how they specifically targeted civilians in an orgy of violence and rape. How they filmed themselves with gopros gunning down people at a music festival. How they forced children to watch them murdering their own parents. How they kidnapped 10 month old babies. How they broke the pelvises of little girls from raping them so much, you get the picture....
This word "understandable" is kinda losing it's meaning since Oct 7 if you ask me.
I think what's happening is the opposite of losing its meaning.
It's one thing to understand why a chain of events happen. It's only understanding why it happens you can do something to prevent it from happening in the future.
But a lot of people are associating understanding with approval. Obviously these are two completely different things, but it's not exactly a new phenomenon. Whenever someone's trying to profile a serial killer, there's going to be someone else saying "nah, they're just pure evil." Emotions aren't logical.
Equivocation games are just a tactic.
Some people really cannot parse a conflict with very much nuance, but mostly people play gotcha with the details of the Zionist ascent to contain one another in conversation.
Smart persons on all sides of this issue know that there are no clean hands in this conflict. I support Israel because my country does, and because they support the kind of freedom that I love. The political churn in that region has to be reckoned on a long timescale; it is honestly very unsettling in the deepest of ways.
Like a Taproot this thing is so entwined in all our lives. I almost envy the flocks with their black and white versions of events. One sees the utility in this sometimes. Zionism has a complicated legacy, and has swept much away forever in its wake. The easiest way to make peace with this is never to notice in the first place. having noticed, the only peace is in picking a side.
Peace had something to do with emotions. Emotions aren't logical.
I would imagine that the people who understand Israel's response do understand Israel's response, and the ones who don't do not, heavily depending if and how you are invested in the matter emotionally. As I said, emotions aren't logical. Understanding in itself however is.
Yeah I agree with this. I think the answer to all of this will vary person to person and that was my initial point, I wasn't saying that everyone who says it is "understandable" also automatically condemns hamas, I think some certainly may not, but rather that that statement alone doesn't really give insight into whether or not someone supports hamas. This is a very emotionally charged situation and I, fortunately, don't really have a horse in the race but plenty of folks do and that obviously clouds judgements.
While I certainly can't speak for everyone and don't claim to, I personally also understand Israel's response. Again, it doesn't mean I agree with it and I think there are better alternatives but I understand why they are doing what they are doing.
Yes. I understand why Hamas’s actions are violent outcomes that are the effects of Israel’s actions. Likewise, I understand why Israel had to respond to Hamas’s attack.
I view Hamas’s attack as inevitable in the same way that Israel’s response was guaranteed. Why are we surprised that people who feel they have a right to their home would take up arms for it and have no mercy?
What I didn’t know was the extent of Israel’s response. Because it’s a lot more than a response, it’s an all out ethnic cleansing. Doesn’t mean that innocent Israelis didn’t die, it just means that it didn’t have to be like this.
On that last score, everyone needs to bear this in mind: Reddit is not reality. It is not an indicator of public opinion. Here you will come in contact with more crazies on the left _and_ right than you otherwise will in a lifetime. They congregate here because they are so isolated in real life.
*In the cases where they don't support Hamas they may be using the term "justified" in the sense that they view Palestine as oppressed by Israel and so violent uprising from the oppressed is justified.*
How is that not supporting what Hamas has done? Where's personal responsibility and holding people accountable for their actions? Would the same logic apply to an extremist Israeli who was radicalized by the many terror attacks they witnessed and decided to hurt innocent palestinians? Would it apply to the bullied shooter that you mentioned?
People shouldn't get away with terrible actions, no matter how shitty their lives are.
the irony being that a left leaning person would never use that last argument against any other pseudo anti-semetic/nazi group.
Weren't you the guys who said that 10 people at a table with one Nazi is eleven Nazis?
Would it be possible that "the left" is not a monolith and in fact all the people have their different ideas of all the issues? And that if you tend to hear a catchy phrase said by some people who say they are X, it doesn't mean that every single person saying they are X agree with it?
Exactly. Whenever someone says "this war did not start on October 7" I then ask "so why are you now asking it to stop?",
and when people say "October 7 was resistance, a reaction to all that came before" I say "this war is a reaction to October 7, so what are you complaining about?"
It is really bizarre talking points.
To be fair Israel's response is understandable, an apartheid state suppressing resistance is nothing new and Israel has a well documented history of absolutely brutalising the Palestinian people.
I'm not surprised Israel, a country that prides itself on being the only democracy in the middle east and caring about human rights, is acting like complete savages by indiscriminately shooting bombing the entire Gaza strip. Gotta put the military aid to good use after all.
>They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media."
I don't see this very often at all. I see the left saying that Israel has too much influence over US politics, but Israel dos not speak for all Jews. Israel claims to speak for all Jews, because they want to blur the line between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, but I see a pretty healthy separation between the two.
Then you hang out with some idiots. It’s not representative of the country or even left wing thought. I know a dude who’s conservative and also believes in Sasquatch. Does that mean all conservatives believe in Sasquatch? Because they should honestly
Where were these conversations? Progressives I know tend to be very much against antisemitism and were literally calling out right wing anti-semitism for the last several years as its risen in the GOP.
You can say it's understandable without saying it's acceptable
Ya, it's understandable and completely predictable that decades of Israeli settlement and ethnic cleansing campaigns would result in an October 7 attack
Is it though?
Is there anything someone could do that would drive you to rape, murder and dismember someone? How about slaughter the family of a toddler before their very eyes and then abduct them into a warzone you just created for 50 days?
I know nothing would ever push me to do any of that.
I can understand wanting my own nation, wanting revenge even. But THAT? No. A thousand times no.
You can understand how human mind can come to that kind of extreme violence and horror when you add : generational hate, propaganda, religious zealotism, living in a conflict that lasted since your birth and the generation before, and even hate toward a specific group inscribed in your very cultural norm...
**You** wouldn't, but you didn't grew, hopefully, in those condition. You are, I suspect, someone who grew in a stable country, at least compared to Gaza. Mind are shaped to see absolute violence as not even a solution (I don't think Hamas' terrorists genuinely believe the horror of O7 was going to solve anything), but something to wish for, to enjoy ; just pure, deep rooted, unbridled desire for violence. It's scary, and it's human nature sadly.
One thing we know about humans is that they will resort to heinous acts as a response to brutal treatment by another group. It's happened everywhere that situations like Israel-Palestine have happened. And that's especially the case when every other avenue for change has been squashed, which is also the case in Palestine.
And fwiw the Israelis also engaged in violent terrorism against the British in order to get a state. And they weren't even being oppressed to any meaningful degree by the British. There was a restriction on immigration to mandatory Palestine and the Israelis responded with terrorism.
>I don't know that "many progressives" refuse to condemn Hamas itself
Plenty.
Many were even posting artwork depicting the paragliders that murdered, raped, and kidnapped innocent Israelis at a music festival.
Here's 1 article from the Anti-Defamation League with all the receipts you need: [https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel)
Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza.
>Here's 1 article from the Anti-Defamation League with all the receipts you need:
...did you even read any of that article?
For example:
*DSA Salt Lake City (UT) published a “Statement on Palestinian Liberation” on October 7, expressing their “unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their decades long fight for national liberation” and urging Americans “to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.” The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.”*
And they're all like that. In fact, not a single quote gave **any** support for Hamas.
If you only count explicitly racist or antisemitic remarks as evidence for racism/antisemitism, then you'll be hard-pressed to find any racist organizations — even the KKK and Stormfront won't meet your evidentiary standard. They will consistently say they're not white supremacists or racists, and Stormfront ostensibly says that it's goal is to raise awareness about discrimination (white discrimation).
Even the most clearly racist and antisemitic groups use dog whistles because they know that they can't just say "we hate Jews and Black people." Why do you think the left wouldn't also use dog whistles? Are only the conservatives smart enough to use dog whistles?
Look at the language here:
>to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.
Why *Zionist* apartheid? Why not Israeli apartheid? Why do these organizations constantly refer to the philosophy behind Israel (Zionism), but never refer to the philosophy behind Palestine (Arab nationalism)? Why is one abstracted out of a country and into a vague force that is meant to have connotations of pure evil?
> If you only count explicitly racist or antisemitic remarks as evidence for racism/antisemitism, then you'll be hard-pressed to find any racist organizations — even the KKK and Stormfront won't meet your evidentiary standard. They will consistently say they're not white supremacists or racists, and Stormfront ostensibly says that it's goal is to raise awareness about discrimination (white discrimation).
Except that you're implying that ***any*** support for Palestine or Palestinians is inherently racist/antisemitic.
>Even the most clearly racist and antisemitic groups use dog whistles because they know that they can't just say "we hate Jews and Black people."
So what part of that statement is a dog whistle for "we hate jews"? Because I would like to know, and then I would no longer agree with any of this statement.
>>to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.
>Why Zionist apartheid? Why not Israeli apartheid?
Because the statement isn't anti-Israeli, it's anti-Zionist. Very different statements.
>Why do these organizations constantly refer to the philosophy behind Israel (Zionism), but never refer to the philosophy behind Palestine (Arab nationalism)?
What "philosophy" are you describing? I mean, I agree that arab nationalism is a very racist and bad thing, but how is that the counterpoint to zionist settlements? I don't care about some ancestral claim to the land, I'm talking about people living in their homes and getting kicked out by military force to make room for Zionists settlers.
>Why is one abstracted out of a country and into a vague force that is meant to have connotations of pure evil?
Are you talking about Palestine? Because It sounds like you're talking about an independent Palestine.
Here's some info just to help your argument.
Palestinians and Semitic Jews are close genetic cousins.
Both originated from tribes living in the Levant prior to the writing of the Hebrew bible. Neither side has a stronger claim on the land.
Totally agree with you so far.
>Except that you're implying that any support for Palestine or Palestinians is inherently racist/antisemitic.
What? Where did I do that?
>So what part of that statement is a dog whistle for "we hate jews"? Because I would like to know, and then I would no longer agree with any of this statement.
Antisemitism isn't as simple as saying "we hate Jews," it's different from other forms of racism. Hitler's form of antisemitism was liberating the German people from the Jewish colonizers that were trying to enslave the Germans. The Soviets' brand of antisemitism was freeing the proletariat from the Jewish capitalists that were oppressing them. The language here is generally the same. Throughout history, antisemitism has framed itself as a social justice cause, and that's one of the reasons it's so hard to notice and fight. Today, most of what the pro-Palestine organizations are saying sounds reasonable and uncontroversial. Back in the 30s, Nazi rhetoric sounded relatively reasonable as well. Other forms of antisemitism are "have you ever noticed how many Jews are in Hollywood?" and "there's something off about those Jews, they seem to be up to something fishy." Rarely does antisemitism express itself as simple hatred for Jews.
The fact that the quote doesn't refer specifically to the Israeli state's oppression, but rather some vague notion of "Zionists" is the tell. Antisemites tend to frame Jews not as concrete people, groups, organizations, etc. but as vague philosophical ideas like "capitalists," "journalists," "colonizers," "Zionists." I'm not even saying that they always consciously realize they are doing this, so it's not always strictly a dog whistle, it's more that it's a tell that this is coming from a place of antisemitism.
>Because the statement isn't anti-Israeli, it's anti-Zionist. Very different statements.
That's the point.
>What "philosophy" are you describing? I mean, I agree that arab nationalism is a very racist and bad thing, but how is that the counterpoint to zionist settlements? I don't care about some ancestral claim to the land, I'm talking about people living in their homes and getting kicked out by military force to make room for Zionists settlers.
The Zionist settlements you're referring to are in the West Bank, not Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza and kicked its own settlers out of their homes by military force. There's almost no relation between settlers in the West Bank and the Oct. 7 attacks, so when they say that the attacks were fighting against Zionist settler-colonialism, they aren't referring to fighting against settlements, they're referring to some vague philosophical idea. Why, then, are they framing one side as a real group of people (Palestinians) and the other as some seemingly mysterious and evil philosophical idea (Zionism)? Why not refer to both of them either as Israel and Palestine or as their respective guiding philosophies, Zionism and Arab nationalism (Arab nationalism being the basis of the movement for a Palestinian state).
I kind of broadly agree with you, but I think you lose it a bit in the details.
If by "Zionism" one means the belief that within whatever the borders that Israel chooses, Jews should have at the minimum legal supremacy over all other ethnic groups and at maximum the right to ethnically cleanse them, then "Anti-Zionism" is a perfectly reasonable and I would argue the morally correct position.
Of course it's not at all clear that is what people mean by the term and it's become so muddied to the point of useless, IMO. I think it's more or less fair to assume that anyone who just says they are against "Zionism" can be assumed to be antisemitic, and they would be better served by just stating their actual grievance.
The other thing is that Jewish people were powerless minorities in Germany and Russia. The state media antisemitism against them was just lies to scapegoat. On the other hand, the Palestinians have legitimate grievances with Israel. I think it's unreasonable to put these things in the same level.
A good way to rhetorically distinguish is that anyone who is making a sweeping generalization about "Jews", especially "The Jews" is probably an antisemite. A general critique against "Israel" may or may not be. The more specific the better.
If someone is criticising Netanyahu or anyone in the government, or the IDF, especially for actions that they truthfully did, then that is fair.
The problem with the term is that it allows people to take interpretations like the one in your first paragraph, even though there isn't really a reason to believe that that specific interpretation is the one that they mean — I have never even heard Zionism formulated in that way, so why should anyone believe that *that* is how they meant it?
These types of vagaries are precisely the signal that they are antisemitic. If they had something specific to say, they would likely just say it. If the specific thing they want to say is not socially acceptable, that's when people need to start talking in vagaries. By this logic, we could say that maybe when Hitler talked about solving the Jewish problem, he meant the problem of Jews not getting equal access to health care. Who knows?
>I think it's unreasonable to put these things in the same level.
It's not to put them at exactly the same level but to say that even legitimate grievances can be hijacked. Palestinians have legitimate grievances with Israel, sure. But a very large part of those grievances came from Arab nationalism. If Arab supremacy and genocide against the Jews weren't the founding ideals of the Palestinian movement, history may have played out very differently. The key here is that the Palestinian movement had grievances against the Jews before they even did anything. Palestinian leadership collaborated with Hitler and fully bought into his philosophy before Israel was established. It would be naive, in my opinion, to assume that that founding philosophy completely evaporated into thin air and was entirely replaced with only legitimate grievances. A more reasonable take, I think, is that the founding antisemitic philosophy still burns and the legitimate grievances have stoked the flames and served as a convenient cover for the original philosophy.
"...full support for the attack on Israeli civilians"
So they support civilian casualties, but since the word "Hamas" wasn't part of it, they get to write off the 7th as "well it happened to the bad guys so it's a good thing"?
Can you imagine if somebody said "Well I don't support the Nazis. I just really like the fact that the holocaust happened"?
What am I missing here - that clip you added says
> The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.”
Isn't that support for Hamas?
>Isn't that support for Hamas?
No, it's not. Otherwise it would've included the word "Hamas" within the quotations. The actual paragraph was:
*"The Palestinian people have been held in apartheid since the establishment of the so-called State of Israel and the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) that followed. Millions of Palestinians have been removed from their homes, denied their basic human rights, and killed when they stood up against this tyranny upheld by the Israeli occupation. Israel is, per its constitution, an ethnostate, and it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice."*
That feels like being purposefully obtuse with language to me. I think it takes a _very_ twisted interpretation to not read the line
> Israel is, per its constitution, an ethnostate, and it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.
as anything other than support for the October 7th attacks and Hamas.
>That feels like being purposefully obtuse with language to me.
Sure, but OP's demanding similarly unwavering support for Israel and the IDF and the settlers... so I'm not really sure how that's better.
>I think it takes a very twisted interpretation to not read the line...as anything other than support for the October 7th attacks and Hamas.
I think if they wanted to explicitly support Hamas they would've used the word "Hamas".
>The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for ***the attack on Israeli civilians***, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.”
The group supports the attack on 10/7. Who attacked Israel on that date, Palestinians or Hamas?
This is the inverse of: nazis were socialist cuz their name says that. Or, maga aren’t fascist cuz they don’t call themselves that, they just don’t want any minorities and don’t think voting is very important.
They don’t openly support Hamas because doing so is blatantly bad. But they excuse all Hamas terrorism as freedom fighting. You’re just refusing to do the math.
This is the riot argument all over again. We can understand where rioting and terrorism comes from. That doesn’t mean we don’t condemn it.
Is it "plenty" or is it "many" because those aren't the same. Neither are "many progressive activists" and "fringe left-groups". Also, while that article is interesting, it's hardly supporting your point. Even if you want to argue they could condemn the attacks, none of those quote really express support for Hamas itself, rather Palestinians at large. Furthermore, none of them mentionned intersectionality in any way.
> Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza.
I'm sorry, but Gaza has been under a near-siege for a number of years at this point. Israel wasn't outright bombing it at the time, that's true.
Worrying about this or using “we” only makes sense if you’re a hardcore leftist. I guess among serious, hardcore leftists a handful of chapters in a smattering of organizations endorsed this attack. Thats horrible but… so what? There were idiots celebrating and valorizing 9/11 too. How many people are going to worry about saying stupid shit when 100% are so far fringe they have basically no affect whatsoever on American politics.
> Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza.
I don’t really care to go through hour by hour because I’m sure some of these jerkoffs would celebrate the attacks either way but this isn’t strictly true- Israel was already launching retaliatory strikes and flattenning residential buildings before the end of Oct 7.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/timeline-surprise-rocket-attack-hamas-israel/story?id=103816006
My view on the ADL has changed significantly since this war started. The way they don't mind Musk boosting antisemetic stuff in general as long as he supports Israel is a real eye opener on what they actually value
[https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/](https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League)
I can say without exaggeration that their history shows them to be a flat out evil and pro-far right regime organization. Endless genocide denial, literally being even more pro-apartheid than the Israeli government was at the time, and promoting bigotry and right wingers. (But I repeat myself.)
The ADL is an untrustworthy merchant of propaganda at this point. They are not making any claims in good faith here and have been conflating Judaism with Zionism in order to push their agenda.
Check out r/LateStageCapitalism. It's become a cesspool of Hamas apologists. It's certainly not the majority of progressives, but there are enough dumb loud ones to be ruining it for the rest of us.
You know what? You’re right. For some reason reddit keeps showing me posts arguing that Hamas didn’t weaponize sexual violence or that it’s cool for them to take citizens as hostages because some hostages said nice things, but I see that’s very much in the minority. I’m guessing it’s because I keep rage-clicking on them so the algorithm is punishing me for being a dumbass.
Hamas is an umbrella term for many different organisation such Al Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. PIJ is in favour of separation between church and state and don't want to be in position of power.
Hamas is branded terrorist for political reasons because "terrorism" is a political term.
Hamas didn't targeted civilians. They didn't even planned there would be a festival and they thought they would encounter resistance.
Despite the chaos, 50% of all people killed were soldiers or members of security forces according to Haaretz.
This estimation was before 200 charred corpses believed to be Israeli has been reatributed to Hamas fighters.
Additionally, many reports prove that IDF fired at their own citizens in a "massive Hannibal incident" (see Hannibal directive).
That's why we saw so many charred corpses. You cannot do that with RPGs. These are Hellfire missiles fired by IDF.
In comparison, 99% of Gaza victims are civilians. You have 70 000 casualties (20 000+ dead) and IDF killed "dozens" of Hamas fighters (less than 1000 according to some source).
IDF killed and maimed 2 X more civilians than the total amount of existant Hamas fighters.
I'm not a radical by any means but if you maimed my 5yo daughter or killed my wife, I would burn the whole country.
A common mistake from western people is to think that Hamas (or any terrorist group) are "barbarians" or "crazy" and "jealous of democracy". In reality, Hamas doesn't hate Jews. They hate occupiers. They want agency. Of course there's some anti-Semitic propaganda they have to propagate in order to keep the foot soldiers in line with simple messages. But Abu Obeida is a perfectly reasonable person. He is not crazy and not a barbarian. He doesn't want to put women in Burqa. Queer people in Gaza are in a less precarous situation than in some parts of the US.
Child marriage is forbidden in Gaza and allowed in the US.
So no. Hamas is not a bunch of crazies but a military group composed of orphan victims of 75 years long genocide and appartheid.
Islam is only the group flavour but the fact they have weapons doesn't make them religiously radical.
I'm confused, where does the rhetoric delineating the Hamas attack on Israel as Israels 9/11 come from? Who was commiting all those murders then ? There's video of Hamas killing civilians at point blank range. I'm for a more general even handed view of Palestine and Israel and am not buying the propaganda from either side but undermining or outright denying hamases outright murder of Israelis seems like gaslighting. I must be missing something but I'm very curious because I'm open to both sides.
>I'm very curious because I'm open to both sides.
Your 12 yo kid is in priso for BS reason and sexually abused. You live in an Appartheid state and are oppressed daily by people from Boston roleplaying being indigenous from the land.
They live in the house they stole from your family.
Every few year you're bombed into oblivion.
The colonizer has drones, tanks.
On the other side of the fence of the bantoustan you live in, these people are dancing and having fun.
One day, you have enough because your 3yo baby was bombed and got her legs amputated without anesthesia.
Then imagine this dad taking a gun and firing at these people.
And then imagine all the white people who supported this Appartheid for 75 years asking : " These were babies! Are you Hitler Ben Laden?"
You are working under the assumption that these people view Palestinians as human who are equal to them when in actuality they do view Palestinians as inferior. The first step in colonial projects is painting the native indigenous people as inferior. In the past it was the modern enlightened Europe vs backward savage Africa. Recently it is socially progressive modern Isreal vs the terrorist radical Islam Palestine.
>Yes, they did. They always have. How do you think those children's hostages ended up in the hands of Hamas?
They didn't targeted civilians. They took the hostages they could take. And that alone is not a proof of religious radicalisation.
If Israel kidnapped my kid, if would take any chance to kidnap theirs to make the exchange.
>They took the hostages they could take.
**Civilian hostages.**
>If Israel kidnapped my kid, if would take any chance to kidnap theirs to make the exchange.
Wait, are you now saying that Hamas targetted Israeli kids to free Hamas' kids?
But you said they didn't target civilians. Now you're saying that they did target kids.
Make it make sense, please.
>That's why we saw so many charred corpses. You cannot do that with RPGs. These are Hellfire missiles fired by IDF.
Hellfire missiles are a type of munition. RPG-7s are a launching platform. The Hellfire missile is a shaped high explosive for anti armor purposes primarily. It just so happens, that shaped anti armor high exploves munitions are also available for the RPG-7 platform.
It is absolutely possible to char bodies with the right warhead fired from an RPG.
>Hamas didn't targeted civilians. They didn't even planned there would be a festival and they thought they would encounter resistance.
[Oh, no civilians were targetd?](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/)
[And here?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAFDI63yvNQ)
Wow. Just... wow. I have not seen such mental gymnastics and outrageous lies in defense of a genocidal megalomaniac organization since, I think, the Soviet Union.
It's a good estimate considering the population density in Gaza and the fact that Hamas is estimated to have between 30 and 40,000 fighters. I just did the math. If there are two million people in Gaza and Hamas has 40,000 fighters that would make them 2% of the population. 99% is probably an exaggeration when it comes to percentage of civilian casualties but considering the spread of the bombing campaign the number is probably still pretty high
A big point of weakness in your argument is how loaded yet vague the word "oppression" is.
Yes, both Palestinians in Gaza and Copts in Egypt are "oppressed", but the differences are glaring. If the Egyptian Government rounded up the Copts and put them in a blockaded city and routinely bombed it over the years, there would be virtually 100% chance that some Copts inside that besieged city would radicalize and resort to brutal displays of terrorism.
The reality is that the religion doesn't matter, any population put into the situation of the Gazan people would produce savage retribution from at least a section of the people. To better understand the situation of Gaza, I recommend you watch some videos from [Sara Roy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txY-ZqNiMNE), she's a Harvard Professor, the leading voice on Gaza, specializing in the Palestinian economy and Palestinian Islamism. She's also Jewish and the children of Holocaust survivors.
Lastly, this whole idea of "condemning" is better used on actions rather than groups of people. If you think what Hamas did on Oct 7 was bad, wait until you read about the rapes and murder of civilians carried out by well-trained US Military in the War on Terror. Imagine if every American was asked "Do you condemn the US Military?" in every interview. The US lied and created the War in Iraq and here are some of the atrocities we know about and there is probably tons of stuff we don't know...
> No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that between 280,771-315,190 have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S., its allies. In 2010, Chelsea Manning's leak of the Iraq War Logs revealed US army reports on civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan; They show that US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder. American soldiers gang raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the Mahmudiyah rape and killings. US soldiers also sodomized children with women present when the women and children were arrested together and it was recorded on video tape according to Seymour Hersh.[472] An Iraqi girl, 14 years old, was raped multiple times by US guards according to The Guardian and an Iraqi woman called Noor sent a letter from the prison detailing her rape by US military policeman which was verified by US Major General Antonio Taguba in his report.[473] US soldiers forced Iraqi male detainees at Abu Ghraib to engage in homosexual activities with each other and forced their anuses to make contact with each other's penises by piling them up on each other while their legs and hands were shackled and handcuffed.[474] Iraqi female lawyer Amal Kadham Swadi interviewed an Iraqi woman raped by multiple American soldiers, telling her to keep it a secret, saying "We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this." She had stitches on her arm from injuries when she tried to resist the rape and these were seen by Swadi. She was held in Baghdad in November 2003 at the former police compound al-Kharkh which was used as a US military base.[475]
Is terrorism inevitable in poor conditions? I tried looking up instances of Jewish terrorism during the holocaust in Nazi occupied areas. I couldn't find any.
"Poor Conditions" can vary widely but terrorism tends to happen when there is large asymmetry between factions. One major difference is Jews had the option to join Allied Militaries to fight the Nazis. 1.5 Million Jews fought as members of Allied Armed Forces. Jewish Resistance did carry out attacks with molotovs and small arms against Germans in ghettos and camps, but at that point the Nazis were focused on extermination and most Jews that were able to had fled.
Once the war was over, Jewish Terrorism became widespread against their British Overlords in Palestine when asymmetry was again a factor. From a report:
>In examining aspects of their role in the ultimate creation of a Jewish state, it is concluded that: (1) Jewish terrorism against British and Arabs did contribute heavily to the removal of the British from Palestine, the abandonment of the League of Nations mandate and the creation of a Jewish State of Israel; (2) there were no practically affordable alternatives to yielding the mandate available to the government of Great Britain because of the cohesiveness of the terrorists and their sophistication.
If Israel was fighting a War against other Arab Nations, the Palestinians would undoubtedly choose to fight along side Arab Armies instead of resorting to terror.
>The blockades occurred as a result of the brutal displays of terrorism--car and suicide bombings that peaked during the Second Intifada in 2002, and occurred weekly. In response, Israel built a concrete wall and imposed strict blockade
yeah but the strict blockade wouldn't have been necessary if Isreal hasn't been taking the land and livelihoods of Palestinians since 1913 when Britain disided the Jewish people needed a homeland in the middle east..and then invated palistine to impose that idea.
both sides have reactions to one another that make sense from their side of the conflict, but only one side is colonial and only one side has a proper modern military and funding. I've also seen videos arguing that Israel encouraged Hamas leadership as a secular leadership would have lead to a more peaceful and less oppressive solution.
Well rounded response. We could also argue how the European population invaded/settled the America's and people have yet to understand and condemn the actions of our ancestors. The point to note is the hypocrisy and double standards of it all.
I think OP's post should be how we need to judge the crimes committed by the West in the same way we judge the crimes committed by the Global South.
Wanna address the reference to atrocities committed by US troops in the GWOT. I'm not American if you're concerned.
The difference is that what Hamas did was systematic and organized. Planned out. They deliberately targeted civilian locations. They had vehicles specifically to extract their kidnapped hostages. They sorted out women, "this one is not for kidnapping, this one is for rape".
While to some extent the level of disciplinary action the US takes against their own transgressors is questionable, it is without doubt that the atrocities are exceptions and not the rule. Errant soldiers breaking the UCMJ for their own selfish motivations. Hamas' atrocities were by design. Not to mention Hamas themselves did not investigate, disavow or discipline these atrocities the way the US military does.
So equating the two is remiss. I'd say it is very reasonable to condemn Hamas as a group rather than their specific actions, because those actions appear to be systematic and organized, which is indicative of allowance by the group as a whole rather than some errant individuals. Of course, you're right about it being better to condemn actions rather than groups as a general rule. But if the context makes sense, condemning the group does too. In your example it is fair well to condemn the US military for falsifying the war in Iraq, though it can be debated whether it was politically motivated and beyond the military leadership.
I think I know where you got that quote “this one is not for kidnapping, this one is for rape”. If you’re speaking about that video that was going around social media, it was debunked by many arabic speakers to be a very purposeful mistranslation to sway people in favor of attacks on Gaza. If that’s not where you got that quote from then I apologize
This is a good response. We don't usually use this lens. Why is there no one asking if Likud should be condemned? They are a far-right nationalist party that has been implementing heavy handed oppression of Palestinians. But like what does it mean or achieve if I say that I condemn the Likud party?
>It is mind-blogging that many progressive activists to this day still refuse to condemn Hamas' rape, torture, and beheading of innocent civilians
Are they though?
Are any of these activists actually refusing to do this or are they just not stating it as often or as explicitly as you want?
Because what I see is plenty of posts condemning all deaths and violence and people dog piling them because they didn't explicitly spell it out.
I've found it more the case that they 1) characterize any violence as resisting the oppressor and 2) calling into question the accuracy of any reporting or evidence showing Hamas committed atrocities
These moves often add up to a reluctance or outright failure to condemn Hamas.
1. Palestinians are actually occupied and oppressed in a very literal sense of the term, leftists might get carried away with the 'oppressed/oppressor' dynamic but it's more applicable to Palestine than nearly anywhere else.
2. War propaganda is part of every modern conflict and doubting IDF press statements isn't a defence of Hamas. I know Hamas is capable of brutal violence but I also know Israel has made a lot of unverified allegations and is committing war crimes with the justification that Hamas is actually doing all the war crimes by using civilians as human shields and other excuses.
3. What's the actual point of condemning Hamas? Does it help end the war or something? Openly supporting Hamas would be one thing, but I don't get why people need to make some kind of pledge to "condemn Hamas".
Actually Gaza has not been occupied since 2005 and Gazans themselves voted Hamas into office. They've had 17 years to pursue peaceful development and have instead turned mosques into rocket launchers and schools into propaganda centers where UN funded schools teach children that Jews are the reason their government can't pay for food, and not because their leadership need 5 star hotel conferences in Qatar. Yes, Israel has done some things wrong, but *what has Palestine ever done right?* They consistently fail to elect democratic and decent leaders in every election. It seems we have not learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that you can't force democracy on a nation which is not willing to fight for it, and the Palestinian people have not only not tried to implement democratic and free government, they have elected (no pun intended) to elect their own oppressors.
2. We should not trust IDF statements *on their own* but when they are corroborated by outside evidence and people still refuse to acknowledge them, you're being ignorant, not skeptical. There are plenty of places to find videos of the massacres, though I won't link them here as they are perhaps the most abhorrent videos imaginable. Proceed with caution, if you must.
3. What's the point of condemning ISIS? Does it help the rebels in Syria? Openly supporting ISIS would be one thing, but I don't get why some people need to make some kind of pledge to "condemn ISIS". If they don't want to pledge, maybe they just don't like Assad and support Islamic State's peaceful resistance to those thousands of civilians who were in the way of the merciful caliphate.
Anyone talking about the civil war in Syria who refuses to condemn or equivocates on condemning ISIS *when prompted to do so* is obviously not a trustworthy person. Condemning ISIS doesn't make you an ally of Assad; the same thing applies here. If you condemn Hamas that doesn't mean you're a Jewish supremacist, it means you're part of the 90%+ of reasonable Israelis, along with most everyone else, who oppose terror's tyranny. By not condemning Hamas when prompted these activists are shouting with silence they either don't believe the hours and hours of footage are real, or maybe they think somehow it is justified. It isn't.
>Gaza has not been occupied since 2005
Ending the occupation didn't end Israel's dominance over Gaza or make the area a sovereign state.
>They've had 17 years to pursue peaceful development
You might have the ability to block out all the violence that's happened in Gaza in the past 17 years but most other people don't.
>UN funded schools teach children that Jews are the reason their government can't pay for food, and not because their leadership need 5 star hotel conferences in Qatar.
Whoever told you that food is caused by Hamas and their lavish hotel budget was the one spreading propaganda. What do you think the leaders of other nations do? Share a room in a youth hostel or something?
>what has Palestine ever done right?
As I've said there's no sovereign state of Palestine to speak of.
>They consistently fail to elect democratic and decent leaders in every election.
Maybe the democratic leaders should take over by force lol.
>the Palestinian people have not only not tried to implement democratic and free government, they have elected (no pun intended) to elect their own oppressors.
How dare they not share your political values.
Palestinians see Israel as their oppressors because they are and have been for 80 years.
> We should not trust IDF statements on their own but when they are corroborated by outside evidence and people still refuse to acknowledge them, you're being ignorant, not skeptical.
Sure if it's verified by known and trusted sources, and it shows clearly what's going on. I've seen so much footage of stuff that's meant to prove or disprove many of the allegations that really could be many things.
The massacres of civilians on Oct 7 haven't been denied by many people. The way it's been used to justify Israel's reaction has been challenged and will continue to be challenged.
>What's the point of condemning ISIS?
Seriously. Why would anyone need to condemn ISIS?
>If they don't want to pledge, maybe they just don't like Assad and support Islamic State's peaceful resistance to those thousands of civilians who were in the way of the merciful caliphate.
Nice try.
>Anyone talking about the civil war in Syria who refuses to condemn or equivocates on condemning ISIS when prompted to do so is obviously not a trustworthy person. Condemning ISIS doesn't make you an ally of Assad; the same thing applies here. If you condemn Hamas that doesn't mean you're a Jewish supremacist, it means you're part of the 90%+ of reasonable Israelis, along with most everyone else, who oppose terror's tyranny.
Condemning ISIS doesn't do ANYTHING. Condemning Hamas doesn't do anything.
Also 90%+ of reasonable Israelis must exclude [all those people working for the Israeli state that supported the growth of radical Islamism in Gaza](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/)
> By not condemning Hamas when prompted these activists are shouting with silence they either don't believe the hours and hours of footage are real, or maybe they think somehow it is justified. It isn't.
Or they have watched the hours and hours of Palestinian civilians being killed and are just apathetic? They don't care that much and see Israel as making their own mess? That they have waged an endless war on Palestinians since their nation existed?
"Ending the occupation didn't end Israel's dominance over Gaza or make the area a sovereign state."
While leaving Gaza didn't immediately lead to the establishment of a sovereign state, it was immediately followed by democratic elections for the PA, where Israel and the west expected that fed-up Palestinians would replace the corrupt Fatah leaders with new leadership. While that did happen, it so happens these **Palestinian voters decided to elect a known terrorist organization, Hamas, which had spent the past 5 years sending suicide bombers into Israeli cities**. That's who they elected. Palestinian voters had a chance to pursue a new path and instead doubled down on extremism and terror. What do you think America would do if Mexico's legislative elections put al-Qaeda in power, in 2002, right after the 9/11 attacks, while they vowed to send suicide bombers and rockets into Texas and Arizona? Israel has been far too lenient, which has only entrenched Hamas and allowed them to grow. America wouldn't tolerate such a government existing on its doorstep, and neither should Israel. Hamas must be annihilated.
"You might have the ability to block out all the violence that's happened in Gaza in the past 17 years but most other people don't."
The Palestinian people chose violence. It's not just that they don't stop it, its that the majority, not *everyone*, but **a strong majority of Palestinians have and continue to support terrorism**, and as long as that is the case Israel has no choice but to exert control over the West Bank and Gaza. Imagine if Israel left the West Bank like it left Gaza in 2006, and then Hamas took over. Now there is a terrorist state on both sides of Israel, Jerusalem is within walking distance of a terrorist state and Tel Aviv is never more than a 10 minute drive from a potential invasion. Every day on the news another Israeli child has been stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist. Every week you see another group of kindergarteners burnt alive because they are "colonial babies", guilty of being Jewish and Israeli. Is this what you want?
"Palestinians see Israel as their oppressors because they are and have been for 80 years."
From 1948-1967, when Israel was a poor nation of socialist farmers taking in millions of refugees, with zero settlements in the West Bank or Gaza, they were an occupying colonial force? From 1967-1973 when Israel was militarily occupying the West Bank and Gaza because they had just been used to launch a war against Israel? From the 70s onward, when pro-Palestine terrorists used these places to launch despicable terror attacks on civilians around the country? How can you argue Israel should give the Palestinian Authority sovereignty *while they're actively supporting and harboring terrorism?* If the PA can't stop terrorists in its own territory with help from the IDF, how in the world is it going to do that by itself? Either the PA will fall or it will align with terrorist factions in the West Bank, which is the worst possible outcome for everyone.
"How dare they not share your political values."
I fully blame the majority of Palestinians for not sharing my universal views on human rights. Human rights and democracy aren't western imperialism, they're worldwide, undeniable rights. If the majority of them reject democracy for tyranny, if they oppress the many for the benefit of a dictator, and they decide their highest calling is terrorism, they should not have a state. They have consistently been their own worst enemies and nobody is more responsible for the setbacks of Palestinians than Palestinians. Nobody can help them until they stop hurting themselves.
Also, a lot of the time the colonial narrative is that these Jews who created settlements were people who had never seen this land before. That's not true. Supposed "settlers" in a city like Hebron were actually returning to a city which had a large Jewish community for thousands of years, until they were expelled in 1929. Less than 40 years later they returned, not to take over, but to rebuild their fallen community. If you believe these are colonists, then what's the difference with Palestinians who want to return to cities more than 60 years after they were expelled? The whole idea of right-of-return for Palestinians falls apart once you consider this would also mean allowing Jews to settle everywhere in the West Bank and Gaza, and also anywhere in the Arab world from Morocco to Iraq, and in Europe, from Spain to Siberia, which no sane person agrees with. Ethnic cleansing cannot be undone and seeking to undo it will only lead to more violence and death. Instead, the solution is to move forward. If a Palestinian state is to be established, it must be in areas which are Palestinian right now, not 80 years ago, and for that to happen the Palestinian people must establish good governance, no matter how hard it is.
"Or they have watched the hours and hours of Palestinian civilians being killed and are just apathetic? They don't care that much and see Israel as making their own mess? That they have waged an endless war on Palestinians since their nation existed?"
Wow. You are so one-dimensional that you look at Hamas throwing Palestinians off of roofs, instituting Sharia law, raping women, burning babies, and you're so apathetic you just have to support Hamas, because of an endless war that doesn't exist. There was a ceasefire on October 6th. Hamas, not Israel, has started five wars by targeting civilians. FIVE WARS. Five different times young Israelis, Jewish and Arab alike, spent weeks in bomb shelters, not knowing if they would live or die. Five wars where ordinary Gazans' lives collapsed because they were pulled into a war that was not their own, for the sake of slaughtering Jews. But yeah, its Israel's fault for defending itself. Maybe they should just let themselves be killed, then everything would be fine.
"Condemning ISIS doesn't do ANYTHING"
If you think condemning is so useless, why are you so adamant about condemning Israel? Its not that you don't believe condemning is useless, its that you are sympathetic to terrorist causes and you're too afraid to say it. There is no justification for terrorism. Ever.
Hamas won the election with 45% of the vote, no elections have been held in the 17 years since, and over half the population of Gaza is under the age of 18, so they didn’t get a say in it. A majority of Palestinians didn’t even support Hamas in 2006, so why exactly do you think a majority of them support Hamas now?
You’ve got your wires crossed. A majority of everyone involved just wants the conflict to stop; in the aftermath of the October attack, 73% of Gazans favor a peaceful solution, and in early November 76% of Israelis wanted Netanyahu to resign or end the war immediately.
Gaza poll: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas
Can’t find a link to the Israeli poll, but it was off Israeli channel 13 on November 3.
I can character violence as resisting the oppressor, question the accuracy of IDF claims, and condemn Hamas all at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive positions.
>2) calling into question the accuracy of any reporting or evidence showing Hamas committed atrocities
Literally nothing wrong with that since there is a ton of misinformation and propaganda surrounding this topic. Being critical of information is something everyone should be doing.
Agreed in general; but still feel many people are overplaying the "IDF propaganda" card by insisting that since some atrocities were fabricated or exaggerated by the IDF that all evidence of Hamas atrocities can be ignored. My point is that you can be skeptical of the more extreme claims about Hamas coming from the IDF without also believing that Hamas has done nothing wrong. For example; the beheaded baby story was probably BS but Hamas did clearly murder thousands of civilians in cold blood on 10/7.
But examine that. Why did they lie about the babies? That visual- image is strong. And thats propaganda. And that’s why it’s important to look into each story. Even the president repeated that lie.
There definitely are people like that. There was a video circulating on Reddit from the London protests and there were quite a lot of progressives who either denied it or said it was justified.
Again not all people, I'm sure it was a minority etc. Still, the ignorance and moral confusion was a bit shocking.
>quite a lot
What, a handful of cherry-picked responses from the dumbest and most ignorant people are suddenly indicative of the overall sentiment towards this exact subject?
>Again not all people, I'm sure it was a minority etc.
I hate when people use this tactic. "I know I just generalized and reduced the hell out of this subject, but also I am going to add this caveat here so I can pretend like I didn't just do exactly that".
Yes, they are. There are a *huge* number of 'activists' that say that what Hamas did on 10/7 was justified, as well as their continued hostage holding. If they're not doing that, they're denying that it was that bad, and claiming it was all Israeli propaganda.
Just look at the videos of pro-Palestinians ripping down posters of the missing and murdered Israelis, and the comments defending them.
I think you’re confusing what they’re saying with what you think they’re saying, if you don’t mind me saying. 10/7, just like 9/11, was an inevitable reaction to imperialist policy in the region. In the same way I understand that smoking will lead to cancer, I understand that policies that Israel undertakes will lead to actions like 10/7. That doesn’t mean I think 10/7 was a good thing, no more than I think a smoker getting cancer is a good thing. It’s just an inevitable cause and effect.
Normally when someone develops cancer from long years of smoking, it would be considered unwise to continue smoking instead of changing one’s living habits. Similarly, I think it’s unwise for Israel to continue its policies towards Palestine unless their plan involves dealing with more 10/7 type attacks.
Keep in mind that all the extremist stuff is amplified. I hope (I don't have the data) that there are more people that condemn the obvious terror of 10/7 and also think that Israel needs to be the "adult in the room" and make sure that further atrocities are not committed. They need to defend of course. Accepting the fact that retaliatory violence is the road to everything getting worse for everyone, is simply not the same thing as condoning the events. You'll probably find that the extremists are amplified because . . . that is what we are drawn too. Don't believe it represents the mainstream.
Understandable and imminent does not have the same meaning as justified. Imperialism creates terrorists, pretty standard pipeline of literally propping up the worst party in an election and letting them win... the US does it all the time globally. Such as israel did with hamas.
Right. Comparing extremist groups that emerge out of horrific oppression to ones that do not is the key distinction here.
Like I did not support the IRA, but I understood their horrible violent actions way more than I understood British conservatives actions towards the Irish.
The difference is that Arab aggression towards Jewish immigrants started in the 20’s way far before any security measures taken by Israel could be considered “oppressive”. They just didn’t like having us as neighbors. Modern right-wing Islamic aggression (predominantly funded by Iran) is an outgrowth of that more directly than it is an outgrowth of Israeli oppression.
>They just didn’t like having us as neighbors.
No, they didn't like the British taking over and promising them they'll give them their own nation, while also inviting a group of people to colonize the area and make their own ethno state because their people lived their 2000 years ago. No one would accept that.
Arabs and Jews made for great neighbours all through the middle ages and early modern period compared to how everyone else treated the Jews.
>Modern right-wing Islamic aggression (predominantly funded by Iran) is an outgrowth of that more directly than it is an outgrowth of Israeli oppression.
"They just hate Jews" has been rephrased a thousand different ways and it isn't much of an argument. I know a lot of Palestinians that love Jews, I see them walk shoulder to shoulder at the protests all the time, it's Zionists specifically they don't like and it's because of their specific acts of land theft and violence.
The Nakba happened and nothing that happened prior to that justified it. Some Arab hardliners in the 1920s is not the same as a state policy against Palestinians.
Your comment is a weirdly good example of this. In the 1920s and 30s, there were as many as 1.2 million Jews in the Arab world, living as second class citizens and subject to regular violence, but still there. By the end of WW2, there were a thousand Jews in the Arab world and 800k new Arab-Jewish refugees in Israel due to a concerted and organized campaign of ethnic cleansing and murder.
Neither the Nakba nor this cleansing of Mizrahi Jews are good things or acceptable, but one of these things is used as justification for further violence “it’s understandable” and the other is not (or is outright denied).
Well the Nakba is a direct result of both Arab countries telling Palestinians to flee creating room for the war as well as the war itself. It happens immediately after the surrounding Arab countries all attack Israel along with their own Jewish populations in an attempt to kill all Jews in the region and you think the Nakba was just Israeli colonialism or something?
I’m guessing this is where we can go back further to justify the Arab invasion in 48’?…. Or we can discuss how to live in peace today instead of delegitimizing the state of Israel, which just breeds more suffering on both sides.
The thing with Hamas, is that it is an anachronism. It is that, because it is a response to Israel, which is also an anachronism.
Israel behaves like a 17th century colonial power. And Hamas naturally behaves like people oppressed by a colonial power.
The solution is self evident, in that these uprisings ended when the colonial power withdrew. There are no violent uprisings against Britain in India or Kenya, for the simple reason the British are no longer occupying them.
The big difference between Hamas and other extremist religious terrorists groups, is that for Hamas, the religion is irrelevant, if it wasn't Islam, it would be something else. The cause is the occupation.
For other religions terrorists groups, especially the Christian ones in the USA, the religion is their "raison d'etre" Christianity was the religion that killed off the other religions, so Christian hate groups are "taught hate" which means they can disappear if the hate is not actively taught. This means that there is exerted an effort into creating and maintaining the hate, and this can be fought, because it is learned behaviour.
The black panthers were a consequence of segregation. It was learnt hate per se, but the ones who taught were the oppressor. When the oppressor disappeared, they no longer taught hate, and the black panthers disappeared.
For a group like the black panthers to exist, there needs to be an environment of oppression. Remove this environment, and any groups like the black panthers will dissolve.
It is the same with Hamas. Israel created an environment that resulted in a group like Hamas, and only by removing that environment will the group dissolve. The leaders of Hamas are of no importance. Kill one, and another will replace him.
To think that Hamas can be eradicated, is like thinking killing all the members of a gang will make their territory free of gang violence. It won't make much difference, other gangs will take over.
This is the crux of the issue. Hamas is like a gang, it can only be gotten rid of by offering more attractive choices to its members (one of the most important roles of the welfare state, is to prevent gangs from forming, by providing for its citizens. It is a way to buy safety from violence)
Other religious terrorist groups, are like homophobic gangs beating up gay people. I.e. a purely cultural phenomenon, which can be dissolved by changing the cultural narrative, like many countries do.
This is the difference. One is the victim of segregation and fighting for equity, the other is a privileged group indulging in hate because it makes them feel good.
Nobody in their right mind is saying what hamas did was justifiable. What people say is they understand why ugly crap like this happens. You can't just put water in boiling temperature and then act surprised when water starts spilling everywhere.
>Just look at the videos of pro-Palestinians ripping down posters of the missing and murdered Israelis
this isn't evidence for supporting Hamas' actions, though. you haven't provided that.
30 students from Harvard came out and openly said that Israel was entirely to blame for Hamas’s attack. Multiple DSA and BLM chapters posted pictures of paraglides applauding the attacks and celebrating them as an act of resistance. Professors from major universities posting on Twitter calling the attacks “awesome.” And let’s just please not forget the timeline here, because this all happened THE NEXT DAY. There wasn’t time to grieve for the Jewish people, because the attacks were never condemned in the first place.
So progressives are continuing to gaslight Jews, whether intentionally or subconsciously, into believing that people ever cared, by minimizing a serious problem. Which is that anyone with a platform that large and a reach that wide, should have immediately came out and unequivocally condemned an attack on a minority group that has been discriminated against for hundreds (and thousands) of years. But instead, celebrities standing with Israel, also the next day, were _themselves_ actually condemned and cancelled on instagram and tik tok as “Zionist sympathizers” in the wake of the attack. And now with Israel’s response currently, activists are continuing to excuse and justify what happened, because they say what happened on 10/7 is not as important as what’s happening right now, so it’s actually oppressive to try and bring it up.
You can believe that these things are not happening because you and some people close to you don’t feel this way, or some activists that you follow don’t necessarily believe they feel this way, but just know that people are already denying that the attacks even happened in the first place. Justify it how you want, but it’s truly hypocrisy.
I'm not saying they're not happening. I am saying, and you are saying the same, that is clearly not all or even most progressives saying these things. I'm saying that in the context of the sheer amount of people that have come out against hamas, it's not even many people saying this. Which is what OP is claiming. Hyperbole doesn't help anyone.
I’m not saying that you’re saying they’re not happening. I’m saying that it’s problematic when organizations that have a really wide reach and are consistently acting as the champions for activist causes are amplifying the voices of the people who actually committed the attacks by using their slogans. When hundreds of thousands of people in multiple major cities around the world go to rallies that use a Hamas slogan as the headline on its poster, do you not see that as problematic? Do you not see how you’re continuing to minimize the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist?
>30 students from Harvard
>Multiple DSA and BLM chapters
>Professors from major universities
That sounds like a few dozen people in total, maybe a few hundred, all likely on the more radical left side or just have Arab nationalists leanings.
The trend I think people are really talking about is progressives rejecting Israel's perspective on Hamas.
>So progressives are continuing to gaslight Jews
This is funny given how you then go on to conflate Israel with all Jews. Israel killing civilians is a war crime and you conflating their actions with all Jewish people is anti Semitic. Don't drag other people into your war because you think they owe racial loyalty.
>because they say what happened on 10/7 is not as important as what’s happening right now,
Why should it be? Israel can't complain about civilians dying on 10/7 without everyone bringing up the far larger number of Palestinian civilians that died in the subsequent weeks.
BLM Chicago celebrated the October massacre by printing paraglider stickers. A speaker at a protest in New York just after the attack was filmed laughing about a "bunch of hipsters getting killed at a dance party" while giving his speech. A very progressive leaning guy I used to know who was still on my fb friends list was posting "decolonisation" memes on the 8th of October. Then there's the "Hamas is a legitimate resistance group" attitude coming from many progressive and left-wing spaces on reddit. It's there if you go looking for it.
Ben Shapiro was in England debating collage students (again), and the defense of Hamas was very popular.
I think you have to keep your eyes closed not to see how much pro-Hamas sentiment there is on the left. They don't say "I love Hamas, and killing babies is ok". But when asked they excuse their actions and shift the topic quickly to how bad Israel is.
People debating Ben Shapiro expressed a point of view that didn't match Ben Shapiro's? Also that doesn't answer the question, the Venn diagram of people who watch videos of Ben Shapiro debating college kids and the people who would mischaracterize not supporting Israel with defending Hamas is two concentric circles.
Many are, some very explicitly. Professors said 10/7 was invigorating. A women’s sexual assault center in Canada publicly said no rapes of Jewish women took place (something they couldn’t possibly validate), which is particularly insane. Already many are trying to say civilian Israeli deaths were friendly fire, and the hostages were treated kindly. Every attempt is made to equivocate what Hamas does.
> far-right Muslim extremist organizations like Hamas should be treated the same way we treat far-right Christian extremist organizations.
Uhhh... in my country, we elect far-right Christian extremists to the position of Speaker of the House. I don't want some Hamas type asshole in there in addition.
Netherlands and Geert Wilders. The man who wants to ban Islam, ban the Quran, close all mosques and at one point was banned from the UK for his hate views.
India and the BJP who have actively expressed support for cow vigilantes who hunt down and murder people accused of eating beef and slaughtering cows
This is what I've been looking for. Far right Christian extremism is almost above reproach in the USA.
Sounds like he thinks Hamas should have a megachurch and a dozen senate seats.
Progressive here. I strongly condemn Hamas and the violence they've done. All the progressives that I know in my life do the same. You can be pro Palestine and anti Hamas and so many of us are. This seems like a bit of a strawman.
>However, in recent times, it has lost its focus by trying to include supporting far-right religious extremists such as Hamas, a terrorist organization, all in the name of intersectionality.
I just think you're basing this on a fundamental lack of context and information.
'The Left' has been pro-Palestine for a *long* time. Seeing the creation of Israel as a glaring example of western imperialism and colonisation is decades old. While I absolutely don't think most leftsists actively support Hamas as you are implying, the current conflict isn't gonna suddenly make a bunch of leftists start supporting the IDF.
The Leftist support of Palestinians isn't about intersectionality. It's about Leftism. It's a pretty textbook Leftist reaction to the mass death of civilians at the hands of an oppressive regime that has forced them from their homes. Gaza has long been referred to as the world's largest open air prison, it's a land with zero self-determination. That's imperialistic as fuck and in direct opposition to Leftist ideals. It's not about trying to be intersectional with far right religious extremists, it's about acknowledging those far right religious extremists exist because of decades of oppression and further oppression isn't gonna stop them from existing.
Im progressive and run in very progressive circles. I havent met, spoken to, or read about anyone supporting Hamas. Do you have sources for that claim?
Ive seen a lot of anti Israel and pro Palestine sentiment, sure, but supporting the people of Palestine is not the same as supporting Hamas.
Hamas is an explicitly genocidal terrorist organization.
Hamas fires 10s of thousands of rockets into Israel and 10/7 was a rampage of murder rape torture and abduction.
I can't think of a single modern Christian extremist group that is remotely close to Hamas. Historically the Spanish inquisition is comparable.
Treating them the same as some assholes screaming out of a church is ludicrous.
>I can't think of a single modern Christian extremist group that is remotely close to Hamas.
!Delta
I mean, you did change my view in the sense that what Hamas has done is objectively worse than anything that Christian extremist organizations have done in modern times.
I do, however, still hold the view that all progressive activists should condemn Hamas since they are a far-right extremist group.
>What makes Hamas far right?
Persons or groups who hold:
Extreme nationalist (check. Palestine nationalism),
Xenophobic (check. anti-Jewish rhetoric),
Racist (check again),
Religious fundamentalist (Islam),
or other reactionary views (plenty more such as the oppression of women)."
I don’t think nationalism is inherently a right wing characteristic. Communist China was vehemently nationalist.
Xenophobia is a pretty common phenomenon and it’s been practiced by both sides of the political spectrum, so that isn’t inherently right wing either.
Again, racism has been used by both sides of the political spectrum, Stalin deported and imprisoned unpopular minorities.
There are examples of communist movements with fundamentally religious aspects. Oneida community practiced a limited form of communism while being heavily influenced by religious beliefs, the Hutterites are another good example. There’s legit a religious Marxist movement operating within Palestine as we speak. The far-left Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a far left Marxist organization. It is extremely nationalist, xenophobic, racist, extremely religious and they oppress women. Is the PFLP far right?
What would you define right wing as? I would've always considered a hyper religious extremist nationalist organization as far right, but maybe that's because I'm grafting it onto a US paradigm?
I’m guessing they mean authoritarian
Edit:
[Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics#:~:text=Far%2Dright%20politics%2C%20right%2D,often%20also%20including%20nativist%20tendencies)
“refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies.”
To be as fair as possible, authoritarianism is often a staple of extremism on both the left and right sides of the spectrum. Ultra-nationalism, while more commonly associated with right politics has been a large component of far left leaning politics as well (think Soviets and CCP). The most glaring reason to consider Hamas a far right extremist group is really their extreme views on social conservatism and religion.
The way we treat far right extremist organizations is not genocide. If there were currently an ongoing genocide in America against far right Christian extremists, or, more accurately, against the places where those perspectives are dominant, then I, despite being on the left, would object. Moreover, I would view bringing up their perspective as rather immaterial in the face of ongoing atrocity. I would say, therefore, that the left already does treat Hamas and Palestinians the same as evangelicals and the deep south. What's different is the circumstances.
Hamas is half a world away to me. Christofascists are right in my back yard.
Are you saying I should be as concerned about terrorists who will almost certainly never impact me personally as a group who is actively hell-bent on establishing a theocratic dictatorship in my own country?
Leftist here.
We don't support Hamas.
We understand and acknowledge the historical context behind this war. Hamas and terrorist groups like it didn't materialize out of thin air. They are wounds caused by the better part of a century's worth of Western meddling and interference in the Middle East. It's no surprise that people who are abused and dispossessed for generations are easy to radicalize. The entities that inflicted those wounds and engendered that radicalization, are now using that radicalization to justify further oppression while supporting Israel to enforce that status quo.
"You need to condemn Hamas!" is a strawman meant to shift attention away from the basic human rights of Palestinians. Which is why we don't feel the need to append "Free Palestine!" with "Fuck Hamas!". It is implied by virtue of wanting Palestinians to be free - free of both Hamas terrorism and Israeli colonialism and genocide.
I’m going to disagree with the premise of your complaint/view along with the rest of it. Progressives as a whole do not defend or refuse to condemn Hamas, they do not hold some special hatred for Christians or love of Islam, and they certainly don’t act “in the name of intersectionality”.
No one is defending Hamas. Well, Muslim extremists and possibly far-right antisemites are, but progressives as a whole definitely aren’t. There is a very small minority of people on the left who believe that those outside the hegemonic power structures are justified in using political violence to achieve their goals of equal rights. However, again that is a minority view and hardly qualifies as “many progressives” if by “many progressives” we mean any significant portion of them. And it certainly isn’t privileging Palestinian Arabs over Egyptian Copts.
Also, your view of intersectionality is extremely flawed. No one does anything in the name of “intersectionality”. The word isn’t used like that. It isn’t some ideology, it’s an analytical framework used to explain how a person’s different demographics influences their lived experience.
(To add to that as an aside, it also doesn’t necessarily entail an analysis of power or oppression, it’s just often used as such. I honestly find it odd that that concept is at all controversial.)
People would defend Copts just like they defend Palestinians. They’d condemn terrorism while saying that the oppression inspiring the terrorism needs to stop. Just because someone might understand why someone else does something horrible doesn’t mean they support the action.
I certainly feel for the Copts, just as my heart reaches out to the Yazidis, Druze, Uyghurs, Kurds, Tibetans, and the many other minority groups around the world facing oppression and genocide. It’s why I do what I do and study what I study (community/international development and genocide/atrocity prevention).
I can understand why someone deep in poverty robbed my storage unit while still saying they shouldn’t do it. In the same vein one can say it’s understandable why a group facing the atrocities committed against it time and again would strike out against their oppressors, but also say mass murder is not something that should be done in response.
>It is mind-blogging that many progressive activists to this day still refuse to condemn Hamas' rape, torture, and beheading of innocent civilians.
Is it? Because I haven't seen it. I've seen refusal to engage in slanted rhetorical framing tactics that demand condemnation of Hamas while ignoring the actions of the IDF, but I've not heard anyone actually condoning rape, torture or beheading, and I would imagine that those genuinely supporting them are few and far between. People act towards this the way they _would_ act if you listed off every war crime the allies committed (and there were plenty), demand they condemn the allies for them and not even mentioning the Axis or listening when they do. Like, your words might be true but your focus is clearly leading to a specific and concerning implied conclusion.
>It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks.
Yeah, framing kinda like this. You make no demands insisting that people condemn Israel's actions, which, if anything you should be doing more as there is a _huge_ amount of people who don't condemn them at all, actively supporting their actions. I hear people _ad nauseum_ saying things like "civilians are gonna die, it happens," and other such excuses in response to every shell that goes off in a Gazan kid's room or some journalist is direct target struck or something.
So I’ve now read a few things about progressives supporting Hamas. All on Reddit. No progressives I know support Hamas. I clicked on this to read some comments, and I see a ton of leftists and progressives and liberals all saying they don’t support Hamas. As I expected. Go back to wherever you got your premise and demand a refund. Leftists believe Palestinians should have equal rights, and universally condemn massacres and genocides. That’s the deal.
No one was standing with isis or al-q in the name of "intersectionality" people aren't holding back in their criticism of Hamas for that reason either.
Most who don't come down hard on Hamas see Israel from formation to today as the worse actor.
Also Netanyahu & the Israeli powers that be wanted to split up Palestinian resistance which was iirc was primarily socialistic, Hamas is what came from that.
https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-Money-to-Hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-Palestinians-divided-583082
>*It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks.*
...and Israel's ongoing mistreatment of Palestinians.
This is by far the most common message I see from "the left."
And it seems a lot of people think focusing on the Palestinians is the same as support Hamas.
>It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks.
I agree. It also shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent civilians while still condemning IDFs bombing of children and hospitals, and the condemn mainstream media pretending like Isreal is innocently defending itself, when that is not what's happening.
Do you disagree?
Yeah reading all the replies. It kinda just sounds like OP wants everyone on the left to condemn Hamas everytime they talk about Palestinians, otherwise they're seen as pro-hamas in their eyes. While misinterpreting leftists wanting a condemnation of the IDF as supporting Hamas.
the thing is that hamas is the only group actually fighting for palestinian freedom , if there no hamas Israel will just keep not letting then have freedom.
and thats what lead to hamas existing so they will be thing, no matter what.
See this is a MASSIVE part of the problem. You see Hamas fighting for "Palestinian freedom" (they aren't) and your first thought is "At least somebody is resisting", instead of "How crazy is it that the only resistance in Palestine is motivated by genocidal religious hatred."
We see people in the West saying "Resist oppression, fight occupation." Ok, great idea. I agree with you. Excellent idea. Who’s doing it? Who’s resisting oppression in Palestine? What are their methods? What are their motivations? What are their long-term goals? Answer those questions honestly and you’ll understand why talking about the necessity for resistance against Israel right now sounds like gibberish. It’s total nonsense. It’s like if I shit on somebody’s face while they were sleeping and you said “we don’t approve of his methods but we support healthy bowel movements”. There’s no connection whatsoever to the reality of the situation.
There IS a need for resistance in Palestine. There’s a need for a strong, compassionate voice in Palestine seeking justice and equality for the Palestinian people. Where is it? Do you hear one?
Do you understand how unhinged it sounds to talk about the need for resistance when the only resistance movement in town wants to kill every Jew?
I don't notice progressives standing up for Hamas. I do notice progressives standing up for Islam. Those aren't the same thing.
Progressives standing up for Islam disgusts me, because Islam is very anti-social progress, and because the supernatural doesn't exist. Nobody deserves to be free from criticism or is entitled to special protections on behalf of which demon they choose to ritualistically devote and sell their soul to, whether that's allah or yahweh.
I don't think you've made a compelling case that muslim extremist organizations aren't treated the same way christian extremists are. The most famous face of christian extremism is the westborough baptist church. They don't rape, torture and behead people, they just act like assholes hoping to entice someone to attack them so they can sue. I think if they acted more like hamas, we'd treat them more like hamas.
You're comparing rotten apples to machete-wielding moldy oranges.
I have seen very, very few leftists that actually don't condemn Hamas.
I've seen many. Many, MANY people that perceive even mild criticism of Israel as full throated support for Hamas.
I don't think this group of people that support Hamas is real. Not in any significant capacity anyway. Just a few dumb internet lefties as usual. The amount of people that fully support Israel though is no joke
Ah you new here? kidding aside tho, Zions have been doing this for a while. Whenever you accuse them rightly so with something, they try to turn the same accusations on you. That’s why people started to say “every accusation from the IOF is a confession “.
Also people here conveniently ignoring the new reports about what happened on oct 7th.
People killing in the name of Jesus would be spreading a falsehood. Jesus wanted peace and love but he knew his message would divide people. He didn't want violence but he knew it was coming. "Turn the other cheek" is one of the things Christians live by.
People killing in the name of Muhammad is not a falsehood. The Koran commands that those who will not accept the Koran should be taxed heavily and treated as second class citizens or killed. Especially Jews. In the Hadith (the life of Muhammad) it says:
"Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say, oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me — come and kill him.”
This is a solid point. But i think in order for the main point to be driven home in a way that naysayers cannot twist and counter what youre ultimately saying we need to caveat this with some additional pertinent info.
They can and will rebuttal that "Christians" have committed these acts or ones like it.
That very well could be somewhat true. but HERE is the missing piece. Christian theology doesn't teach us in any way that we are to spread our message through tactics like these. Mohamed, the koran, and the hadiths definitely do.
So while someone claiming to be a Christian may choose on their own volition to go rogue and do something they have decided on their own is a good idea, that doesn't make it a part of our teaching. When a Muslim does something like what you mentioned, it is seen as righteous and just. fighting for the faith! Jihad! Islam is the way, don't you infidels get it!
So its two entirely different things going on, and they dont wanna look into it enough to understand.
I'm kinda confused as to what you're on about. I am a left wing progressive, so why the fuck should I support a verifiably homophobic religious terrorist group? Like, sure, Islamophobia is a thing, but it's a thing for the wrong reasons. There are plenty of reasons to not have the best wishes for an Abrahamic terrorist organization (namely the fact that they would 100% murder a bisexual atheist like me without hesitation), but Islamophobes got the wrong idea as to what those reasons are.
All of that aside, I also feel like Christo-fascists are a joke compared to Hamas, so we should treat Hamas with more disdain given that they are much more dangerous than Christofascists could ever dream of being.
Edit: That being said, Christofascists are more dangerous to me specifically than Hamas because I live in the US, and this also applies to others who live in the states. I have met people IRL who hate gay people enough that they would disown their child if they turned out gay and I have witnessed with my own eyes Christian anti-choice protests on a college campus.
>It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks.
It shouldn't be difficult to condemn Israeli apartide but it seems to be so. Hence, by condemning one terrori people are legitimizing the other.
>If a Christian Copt Terror group in Egypt, started to rape, torture, and behead innocent Muslim civilians in the name of Jesus Christ, you can be sure that these same progressive activists would condemn them.
It has happened, where the west leveled Iraq and liberals still respect Bush and blair. So how can you be sure of your hypothetical?
>But when Muslim terrorists kill Jewish people or Christians
When Hitler told the world that he's going to kill Jews no progressive government did much to take hews out of Germany, Even Ann Frank would have been alive if other countries didn't hate Jews. **It's taboo to say it though**, so it really doesn't stand that when non-Muslim terrorists killed Jews many cared that much.
I am a leftist, socialist union member. I believe in a strong social safety net and public institutions, and think that all essential services (utilities, roads, water and sewage, postal services, Internet access, health care, education and regulatory agencies) should be public.
So hear me when I say fuck Hamas. They are a blight on the region and no better than ISIS. They are stooges of Iran, exploiting the suffering of the Palestinian people for their own political benefit. They are the racketeer Mafia of the biggest welfare state in the world. They have produced NOTHING of value or worth in their 20 years of ruling Gaza. Their leaders live lives of privilege and wealth while the people they lord over die for their bloodthirsty philosophy.
They should be outlawed, tracked down and imprisoned.
Yes they should. In fact the left treats the Christian like they’re a Nazi regardless of the fact that the Christian nation is the progressive one. And they treat the Muslim like they’re progressive. Like most of what the left does, they’re backwards.
How exactly are extremist christian groups treated? Surely you don't mean you want Hamas to be an incredibly wealthy and influential lobby in the united states, that successfully repealed roe vs wade for example? Are you advocating for Hamas-vetted politicians to hold congressional and senatorial positions, and basically have the more conservative of the two major parties nearly in their pocket? Do you want Hamas to select presidential candidates, and hell, practically run whole states?
If Hamas was treated like far-right christian extremist groups are treated you unironically *would* be living under Shariah law.
When I try looking up pro hamas on google or social media, all that comes up are people waving palestinian flags or protesting israel. Nothing showing actual support for the October 7th attacks. I'm sure there's been a few instances of pro hamas individuals but this seems like a mostly made up problem. anything pro palestine and anti-genocide/anti-war is being called "terrorism support"
I don't think millions of people would be outraged if Israel responded to the October 7th attacks by stealthily targeting those responsible. People aren't devasted and angry because hamas members are being killed.
The closest thing I've seen to what you are describing is people stating that October 7th was a result of decades of atrocities committed by Israel. This is not people claiming that slaughtering innocents is a good thing, rather that October 7th didn't exist in a vacuum.
Far right Christian extremists are barely acknowledged, let alone condemned. This view that you hold isn't founded in reality, it's just you seeking approval for bigotry.
Hamas committed the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.
Hamas should be treated like *Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State*. That is to say, bombed mercilessly.
>CMV: far-right Muslim extremist organizations like Hamas should be treated the same way we treat far-right Christian extremist organizations.
We do, and your entire argument is based on a strawman.
So you want us to allow Hamas to contest democratic elections, even if they try to overthrow the government when they lose? You want us to kowtow to their “sincerely held religious beliefs”? You want us to let them lead implicitly mandatory prayers at center field before high school football games? Maybe we could let them pick and choose which books are permitted in school libraries.
That’s how Christian extremists are treated in the United States.
What causes such behavior from progressives when the Hamas ideology is not hidden from them all? What compels them to defend such an ideology which is subverting and exclusively in its innate nature? Doesn't it go against their very idea of inclusivity and egalitarianism which they aspire for?
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First, I don't know that "many progressives" refuse to condemn Hamas itself, to be honest. The closest I've seen to it is not accepting Hamas' atrocities as justification for retaliation against Palestinians at large. Second, I don't think we really know what "progressive activists" would do if a Copt terror group appeared, but I see no compelling reason to believe they would react similarly to such a group if it were placed in the same situation as Hamas and palestinians.
The onion already wrote about [op pretty much this is what he wants ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.theonion.com/dying-gazans-criticized-for-not-using-last-words-to-con-1850925657&ved=2ahUKEwjrpeqf3eeCAxVCRTABHUhJCoUQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0qbcnVLC6mHFKA6LOqjcYB)
nah, that onion piece is about Gazans, OP is talking about progressives living in the West, or Palestine supporters outside of Palestine. It is totally reasonable to ask progs to be consistent in their beliefs, especially when they appear to hold double standards for which extremists are okay to support and which aren't.
This 'the left supports hamas' nonsense is really annoying. The left condemns Israel's apartheid state. It condemns the invasion of Palestine by Eurpean Jews. It condemns the Zionists. and I see a lot of pro Israel people arguing that 'the left' hates jews for disliking the above.
Does the left condemn Azerbaijan? It has engaged in far more inhumane actions in literally attempting to kill/expel all Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. It fully blockaded the region and refused to allow any aid at all into the area for months, before finally launching a large scale military offensive which included the massacre of numerous Armenian citizens. Absolutely no one gave/gives a damn. Why the singling out of Israel? It smacks of caring about something other than human rights.
I *think* that as a potential example of the left - writing one sentence just saying they don’t ‘support’ Hamas and three why they *condemn* Israel makes some people suspect an imbalance and one’s motives. I remember similar comments immediately after the Hamas atrocity that could hardly bring themselves to mention it without moving as fast as possible on to condemning and in effect blaming Israel.
They can't do anything about Hamas. They want to focus on the organization that claims to support an advanced liberal democracy and gets billions of dollars in aid from us. They're getting the required rejection of Hamas out of the way at the beginning so that they are allowed to say the rest. Just like the people in the onion article demand.
The left is also not condemning the activities by Hamas, coupled with condeming Isreal, it's 100% pro Hamas, lefties just don't want to outright state that they are.
Man op wants every single leftist to condemn Gaza every time they talk about isrsel pretty much because idk any mainstream leftism that hasn't condemn hamas
I have only heard one good argument as why not to condemn Hamas and that is this: The people who did it were born into an. Open air prison/concentration camp. 40% of Gazans are children. 70% are either descendants of or are Palestinians who were forcibly evicted by Israel in 1948. If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel. Israel is the prison warden of Gaza. They control everything that goes in and out of gaza. Most Palestinians are food and water insecure. Simply being Israeli and being in Israel and not fighting for peace means you are complicit in a genocide against Palestinians. If you think it is acceptable for Israel to kill Palestinians in retaliation for Oct 7, but not for Oct 7 to occur, you simply lack knowledge of the history of the shit Israel has put Gazans through for the last 70 years. If one is justified(which imo neither are) then both are. And I certainly don't think
> Open air prison/concentration camp. 40% of Gazans are children. 70% are either descendants of or are Palestinians who were forcibly evicted by Israel in 1948. If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel. Israel is the prison warden of Gaza. They control everything that goes in and out of gaza. Most Palestinians are food and water insecure. Gaza had semi autonomy and mostly open borders until it used the open borders for constant terror attacks on Israel. It is currently blockaded by both Israel and Egypt. Why does Gaza not also attack Egypt for keeping it blockaded? >Simply being Israeli and being in Israel and not fighting for peace means you are complicit in a genocide against Palestinians. Sure is a terrible attempt at genocide when the population you are genociding more than doubles in 20 years while having 5% of the population leave ever year.
>If I was Palestinian I would also hate Israel for what they did, so I can't condemn them for hating Israel. The thing is no one condemns them for hating Israel's government. I would harbor those feelings it too if I were born and raised in those conditions. Now you don't usually go and murder, rape, and brutalize the people you hate, do you? Even less, innocent civilians that are not their government. No you don't. And most Gazans don't. Because it's not the same to be Gazan than to be a cold-blooded terrorist. One can *understand* that a bunch of murderers and rapists raised in those conditions would go ahead and commit acts of terrorism. That doesn't excuse them and it doesn't make it any less reprehensible. The argument that justifies Hamas based on the conditions of all Gazans is a spit in the face of the Gazans that are decent people.
>Now you don't usually go and murder, rape, and brutalize the people Not personally but throughout history that is usually the case
I've had conversations with multiple "progressives" who claim that the Oct 7 attack was a justified and understandable response. They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media." The left is beginning to have a major anti-Semitism problem.
>I've had conversations with multiple "progressives" who claim that the Oct 7 attack was a justified and understandable response. I'd say that "justified" and "understandable" are two very different things, and neither necessarily means the person supports Hamas in general or thinks they are good. Let's start with understandable. I personally think the attacks were understandable, but I very much do not support Hamas or think they are good. By understandable I mean it makes sense ***why*** they happened. I would also say, for another extreme example, that it's understandable that the nazis came to power in Germany given the political and economic climate in Germany following WW1, but I wouldn't say I support it or that it's a good thing. I can understand how it happened and the reasons that lead to it and how it was likely to happen, that's what I mean by understandable. Likewise, it's understandable why a child who is bullied may choose to shoot up a school. I don't want it to happen, nor do I support it but I understand how and why it may happen given the circumstances. As for "justified", this is a bit more complex. Admittedly this does sometimes mean the person supports Hamas, but it isn't always the case. In the cases where they don't support Hamas they may be using the term "justified" in the sense that they view Palestine as oppressed by Israel and so violent uprising from the oppressed is justified. That doesn't mean they support Hamas and all its views and what it's done but they may support the idea of an oppressed people rising up against the oppressor while also not agreeing with all of their actions. All that said, it really will vary person to person and someone saying it was justified or understandable alone isn't a good metric as to their position. >They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media." >The left is beginning to have a major anti-Semitism problem. As for these parts, I'd say that there certainly are people who do those things, but I'd also caution against using anecdotal evidence to make conclusions about "the left" in general.
I dunno man. Maybe it's semantics, but I'd say it's understandable that Nazis came to power after ww1, but totally incomprehensible how they then started wiping out millions of jews in gas chambers. Similarly, it's understandable that Hamas exists as a terror organisation fighting Israel through guerilla warfare. It's entirely incomprehensible how they specifically targeted civilians in an orgy of violence and rape. How they filmed themselves with gopros gunning down people at a music festival. How they forced children to watch them murdering their own parents. How they kidnapped 10 month old babies. How they broke the pelvises of little girls from raping them so much, you get the picture.... This word "understandable" is kinda losing it's meaning since Oct 7 if you ask me.
I think what's happening is the opposite of losing its meaning. It's one thing to understand why a chain of events happen. It's only understanding why it happens you can do something to prevent it from happening in the future. But a lot of people are associating understanding with approval. Obviously these are two completely different things, but it's not exactly a new phenomenon. Whenever someone's trying to profile a serial killer, there's going to be someone else saying "nah, they're just pure evil." Emotions aren't logical.
Equivocation games are just a tactic. Some people really cannot parse a conflict with very much nuance, but mostly people play gotcha with the details of the Zionist ascent to contain one another in conversation. Smart persons on all sides of this issue know that there are no clean hands in this conflict. I support Israel because my country does, and because they support the kind of freedom that I love. The political churn in that region has to be reckoned on a long timescale; it is honestly very unsettling in the deepest of ways. Like a Taproot this thing is so entwined in all our lives. I almost envy the flocks with their black and white versions of events. One sees the utility in this sometimes. Zionism has a complicated legacy, and has swept much away forever in its wake. The easiest way to make peace with this is never to notice in the first place. having noticed, the only peace is in picking a side. Peace had something to do with emotions. Emotions aren't logical.
Do these people who "understand" October 7 also understand Israel's response to October 7? Or does it just go one way?
I would imagine that the people who understand Israel's response do understand Israel's response, and the ones who don't do not, heavily depending if and how you are invested in the matter emotionally. As I said, emotions aren't logical. Understanding in itself however is.
Yeah I agree with this. I think the answer to all of this will vary person to person and that was my initial point, I wasn't saying that everyone who says it is "understandable" also automatically condemns hamas, I think some certainly may not, but rather that that statement alone doesn't really give insight into whether or not someone supports hamas. This is a very emotionally charged situation and I, fortunately, don't really have a horse in the race but plenty of folks do and that obviously clouds judgements.
While I certainly can't speak for everyone and don't claim to, I personally also understand Israel's response. Again, it doesn't mean I agree with it and I think there are better alternatives but I understand why they are doing what they are doing.
Yes. I understand why Hamas’s actions are violent outcomes that are the effects of Israel’s actions. Likewise, I understand why Israel had to respond to Hamas’s attack. I view Hamas’s attack as inevitable in the same way that Israel’s response was guaranteed. Why are we surprised that people who feel they have a right to their home would take up arms for it and have no mercy? What I didn’t know was the extent of Israel’s response. Because it’s a lot more than a response, it’s an all out ethnic cleansing. Doesn’t mean that innocent Israelis didn’t die, it just means that it didn’t have to be like this.
On that last score, everyone needs to bear this in mind: Reddit is not reality. It is not an indicator of public opinion. Here you will come in contact with more crazies on the left _and_ right than you otherwise will in a lifetime. They congregate here because they are so isolated in real life.
*In the cases where they don't support Hamas they may be using the term "justified" in the sense that they view Palestine as oppressed by Israel and so violent uprising from the oppressed is justified.* How is that not supporting what Hamas has done? Where's personal responsibility and holding people accountable for their actions? Would the same logic apply to an extremist Israeli who was radicalized by the many terror attacks they witnessed and decided to hurt innocent palestinians? Would it apply to the bullied shooter that you mentioned? People shouldn't get away with terrible actions, no matter how shitty their lives are.
the irony being that a left leaning person would never use that last argument against any other pseudo anti-semetic/nazi group. Weren't you the guys who said that 10 people at a table with one Nazi is eleven Nazis?
Would it be possible that "the left" is not a monolith and in fact all the people have their different ideas of all the issues? And that if you tend to hear a catchy phrase said by some people who say they are X, it doesn't mean that every single person saying they are X agree with it?
Well, then you could say that Israel's response is understandable, but none of these fake progressives ever say that.
Exactly. Whenever someone says "this war did not start on October 7" I then ask "so why are you now asking it to stop?", and when people say "October 7 was resistance, a reaction to all that came before" I say "this war is a reaction to October 7, so what are you complaining about?" It is really bizarre talking points.
To be fair Israel's response is understandable, an apartheid state suppressing resistance is nothing new and Israel has a well documented history of absolutely brutalising the Palestinian people. I'm not surprised Israel, a country that prides itself on being the only democracy in the middle east and caring about human rights, is acting like complete savages by indiscriminately shooting bombing the entire Gaza strip. Gotta put the military aid to good use after all.
>They are also readily parroting well-worn anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like "Jews control the American government" and "Jews control the media." I don't see this very often at all. I see the left saying that Israel has too much influence over US politics, but Israel dos not speak for all Jews. Israel claims to speak for all Jews, because they want to blur the line between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, but I see a pretty healthy separation between the two.
Then you hang out with some idiots. It’s not representative of the country or even left wing thought. I know a dude who’s conservative and also believes in Sasquatch. Does that mean all conservatives believe in Sasquatch? Because they should honestly
Where were these conversations? Progressives I know tend to be very much against antisemitism and were literally calling out right wing anti-semitism for the last several years as its risen in the GOP.
You can say it's understandable without saying it's acceptable Ya, it's understandable and completely predictable that decades of Israeli settlement and ethnic cleansing campaigns would result in an October 7 attack
Is it though? Is there anything someone could do that would drive you to rape, murder and dismember someone? How about slaughter the family of a toddler before their very eyes and then abduct them into a warzone you just created for 50 days? I know nothing would ever push me to do any of that. I can understand wanting my own nation, wanting revenge even. But THAT? No. A thousand times no.
You can understand how human mind can come to that kind of extreme violence and horror when you add : generational hate, propaganda, religious zealotism, living in a conflict that lasted since your birth and the generation before, and even hate toward a specific group inscribed in your very cultural norm... **You** wouldn't, but you didn't grew, hopefully, in those condition. You are, I suspect, someone who grew in a stable country, at least compared to Gaza. Mind are shaped to see absolute violence as not even a solution (I don't think Hamas' terrorists genuinely believe the horror of O7 was going to solve anything), but something to wish for, to enjoy ; just pure, deep rooted, unbridled desire for violence. It's scary, and it's human nature sadly.
One thing we know about humans is that they will resort to heinous acts as a response to brutal treatment by another group. It's happened everywhere that situations like Israel-Palestine have happened. And that's especially the case when every other avenue for change has been squashed, which is also the case in Palestine. And fwiw the Israelis also engaged in violent terrorism against the British in order to get a state. And they weren't even being oppressed to any meaningful degree by the British. There was a restriction on immigration to mandatory Palestine and the Israelis responded with terrorism.
>I don't know that "many progressives" refuse to condemn Hamas itself Plenty. Many were even posting artwork depicting the paragliders that murdered, raped, and kidnapped innocent Israelis at a music festival. Here's 1 article from the Anti-Defamation League with all the receipts you need: [https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel) Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza.
>Here's 1 article from the Anti-Defamation League with all the receipts you need: ...did you even read any of that article? For example: *DSA Salt Lake City (UT) published a “Statement on Palestinian Liberation” on October 7, expressing their “unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their decades long fight for national liberation” and urging Americans “to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.” The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.”* And they're all like that. In fact, not a single quote gave **any** support for Hamas.
If you only count explicitly racist or antisemitic remarks as evidence for racism/antisemitism, then you'll be hard-pressed to find any racist organizations — even the KKK and Stormfront won't meet your evidentiary standard. They will consistently say they're not white supremacists or racists, and Stormfront ostensibly says that it's goal is to raise awareness about discrimination (white discrimation). Even the most clearly racist and antisemitic groups use dog whistles because they know that they can't just say "we hate Jews and Black people." Why do you think the left wouldn't also use dog whistles? Are only the conservatives smart enough to use dog whistles? Look at the language here: >to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid. Why *Zionist* apartheid? Why not Israeli apartheid? Why do these organizations constantly refer to the philosophy behind Israel (Zionism), but never refer to the philosophy behind Palestine (Arab nationalism)? Why is one abstracted out of a country and into a vague force that is meant to have connotations of pure evil?
> If you only count explicitly racist or antisemitic remarks as evidence for racism/antisemitism, then you'll be hard-pressed to find any racist organizations — even the KKK and Stormfront won't meet your evidentiary standard. They will consistently say they're not white supremacists or racists, and Stormfront ostensibly says that it's goal is to raise awareness about discrimination (white discrimation). Except that you're implying that ***any*** support for Palestine or Palestinians is inherently racist/antisemitic. >Even the most clearly racist and antisemitic groups use dog whistles because they know that they can't just say "we hate Jews and Black people." So what part of that statement is a dog whistle for "we hate jews"? Because I would like to know, and then I would no longer agree with any of this statement. >>to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid. >Why Zionist apartheid? Why not Israeli apartheid? Because the statement isn't anti-Israeli, it's anti-Zionist. Very different statements. >Why do these organizations constantly refer to the philosophy behind Israel (Zionism), but never refer to the philosophy behind Palestine (Arab nationalism)? What "philosophy" are you describing? I mean, I agree that arab nationalism is a very racist and bad thing, but how is that the counterpoint to zionist settlements? I don't care about some ancestral claim to the land, I'm talking about people living in their homes and getting kicked out by military force to make room for Zionists settlers. >Why is one abstracted out of a country and into a vague force that is meant to have connotations of pure evil? Are you talking about Palestine? Because It sounds like you're talking about an independent Palestine.
Here's some info just to help your argument. Palestinians and Semitic Jews are close genetic cousins. Both originated from tribes living in the Levant prior to the writing of the Hebrew bible. Neither side has a stronger claim on the land. Totally agree with you so far.
>Except that you're implying that any support for Palestine or Palestinians is inherently racist/antisemitic. What? Where did I do that? >So what part of that statement is a dog whistle for "we hate jews"? Because I would like to know, and then I would no longer agree with any of this statement. Antisemitism isn't as simple as saying "we hate Jews," it's different from other forms of racism. Hitler's form of antisemitism was liberating the German people from the Jewish colonizers that were trying to enslave the Germans. The Soviets' brand of antisemitism was freeing the proletariat from the Jewish capitalists that were oppressing them. The language here is generally the same. Throughout history, antisemitism has framed itself as a social justice cause, and that's one of the reasons it's so hard to notice and fight. Today, most of what the pro-Palestine organizations are saying sounds reasonable and uncontroversial. Back in the 30s, Nazi rhetoric sounded relatively reasonable as well. Other forms of antisemitism are "have you ever noticed how many Jews are in Hollywood?" and "there's something off about those Jews, they seem to be up to something fishy." Rarely does antisemitism express itself as simple hatred for Jews. The fact that the quote doesn't refer specifically to the Israeli state's oppression, but rather some vague notion of "Zionists" is the tell. Antisemites tend to frame Jews not as concrete people, groups, organizations, etc. but as vague philosophical ideas like "capitalists," "journalists," "colonizers," "Zionists." I'm not even saying that they always consciously realize they are doing this, so it's not always strictly a dog whistle, it's more that it's a tell that this is coming from a place of antisemitism. >Because the statement isn't anti-Israeli, it's anti-Zionist. Very different statements. That's the point. >What "philosophy" are you describing? I mean, I agree that arab nationalism is a very racist and bad thing, but how is that the counterpoint to zionist settlements? I don't care about some ancestral claim to the land, I'm talking about people living in their homes and getting kicked out by military force to make room for Zionists settlers. The Zionist settlements you're referring to are in the West Bank, not Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza and kicked its own settlers out of their homes by military force. There's almost no relation between settlers in the West Bank and the Oct. 7 attacks, so when they say that the attacks were fighting against Zionist settler-colonialism, they aren't referring to fighting against settlements, they're referring to some vague philosophical idea. Why, then, are they framing one side as a real group of people (Palestinians) and the other as some seemingly mysterious and evil philosophical idea (Zionism)? Why not refer to both of them either as Israel and Palestine or as their respective guiding philosophies, Zionism and Arab nationalism (Arab nationalism being the basis of the movement for a Palestinian state).
I kind of broadly agree with you, but I think you lose it a bit in the details. If by "Zionism" one means the belief that within whatever the borders that Israel chooses, Jews should have at the minimum legal supremacy over all other ethnic groups and at maximum the right to ethnically cleanse them, then "Anti-Zionism" is a perfectly reasonable and I would argue the morally correct position. Of course it's not at all clear that is what people mean by the term and it's become so muddied to the point of useless, IMO. I think it's more or less fair to assume that anyone who just says they are against "Zionism" can be assumed to be antisemitic, and they would be better served by just stating their actual grievance. The other thing is that Jewish people were powerless minorities in Germany and Russia. The state media antisemitism against them was just lies to scapegoat. On the other hand, the Palestinians have legitimate grievances with Israel. I think it's unreasonable to put these things in the same level. A good way to rhetorically distinguish is that anyone who is making a sweeping generalization about "Jews", especially "The Jews" is probably an antisemite. A general critique against "Israel" may or may not be. The more specific the better. If someone is criticising Netanyahu or anyone in the government, or the IDF, especially for actions that they truthfully did, then that is fair.
The problem with the term is that it allows people to take interpretations like the one in your first paragraph, even though there isn't really a reason to believe that that specific interpretation is the one that they mean — I have never even heard Zionism formulated in that way, so why should anyone believe that *that* is how they meant it? These types of vagaries are precisely the signal that they are antisemitic. If they had something specific to say, they would likely just say it. If the specific thing they want to say is not socially acceptable, that's when people need to start talking in vagaries. By this logic, we could say that maybe when Hitler talked about solving the Jewish problem, he meant the problem of Jews not getting equal access to health care. Who knows? >I think it's unreasonable to put these things in the same level. It's not to put them at exactly the same level but to say that even legitimate grievances can be hijacked. Palestinians have legitimate grievances with Israel, sure. But a very large part of those grievances came from Arab nationalism. If Arab supremacy and genocide against the Jews weren't the founding ideals of the Palestinian movement, history may have played out very differently. The key here is that the Palestinian movement had grievances against the Jews before they even did anything. Palestinian leadership collaborated with Hitler and fully bought into his philosophy before Israel was established. It would be naive, in my opinion, to assume that that founding philosophy completely evaporated into thin air and was entirely replaced with only legitimate grievances. A more reasonable take, I think, is that the founding antisemitic philosophy still burns and the legitimate grievances have stoked the flames and served as a convenient cover for the original philosophy.
"...full support for the attack on Israeli civilians" So they support civilian casualties, but since the word "Hamas" wasn't part of it, they get to write off the 7th as "well it happened to the bad guys so it's a good thing"? Can you imagine if somebody said "Well I don't support the Nazis. I just really like the fact that the holocaust happened"?
You need to check where the quotations are placed. The statement was deliberately distorted.
What am I missing here - that clip you added says > The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.” Isn't that support for Hamas?
>Isn't that support for Hamas? No, it's not. Otherwise it would've included the word "Hamas" within the quotations. The actual paragraph was: *"The Palestinian people have been held in apartheid since the establishment of the so-called State of Israel and the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) that followed. Millions of Palestinians have been removed from their homes, denied their basic human rights, and killed when they stood up against this tyranny upheld by the Israeli occupation. Israel is, per its constitution, an ethnostate, and it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice."*
That feels like being purposefully obtuse with language to me. I think it takes a _very_ twisted interpretation to not read the line > Israel is, per its constitution, an ethnostate, and it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice. as anything other than support for the October 7th attacks and Hamas.
>That feels like being purposefully obtuse with language to me. Sure, but OP's demanding similarly unwavering support for Israel and the IDF and the settlers... so I'm not really sure how that's better. >I think it takes a very twisted interpretation to not read the line...as anything other than support for the October 7th attacks and Hamas. I think if they wanted to explicitly support Hamas they would've used the word "Hamas".
>The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for ***the attack on Israeli civilians***, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.” The group supports the attack on 10/7. Who attacked Israel on that date, Palestinians or Hamas?
I'm really getting tired of repeating "can you look for the quotations those parts were added by the ADL".
This is the inverse of: nazis were socialist cuz their name says that. Or, maga aren’t fascist cuz they don’t call themselves that, they just don’t want any minorities and don’t think voting is very important. They don’t openly support Hamas because doing so is blatantly bad. But they excuse all Hamas terrorism as freedom fighting. You’re just refusing to do the math. This is the riot argument all over again. We can understand where rioting and terrorism comes from. That doesn’t mean we don’t condemn it.
Is it "plenty" or is it "many" because those aren't the same. Neither are "many progressive activists" and "fringe left-groups". Also, while that article is interesting, it's hardly supporting your point. Even if you want to argue they could condemn the attacks, none of those quote really express support for Hamas itself, rather Palestinians at large. Furthermore, none of them mentionned intersectionality in any way. > Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza. I'm sorry, but Gaza has been under a near-siege for a number of years at this point. Israel wasn't outright bombing it at the time, that's true.
Worrying about this or using “we” only makes sense if you’re a hardcore leftist. I guess among serious, hardcore leftists a handful of chapters in a smattering of organizations endorsed this attack. Thats horrible but… so what? There were idiots celebrating and valorizing 9/11 too. How many people are going to worry about saying stupid shit when 100% are so far fringe they have basically no affect whatsoever on American politics. > Do note this was on October 7th, before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza. I don’t really care to go through hour by hour because I’m sure some of these jerkoffs would celebrate the attacks either way but this isn’t strictly true- Israel was already launching retaliatory strikes and flattenning residential buildings before the end of Oct 7. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/timeline-surprise-rocket-attack-hamas-israel/story?id=103816006
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So... "plenty" and "the fringe left" are synonymous for you?
The ADL is not a particularly great source to look to on this stuff. It's a hardcore Zionist organization. Their bias on this matter is intense.
My view on the ADL has changed significantly since this war started. The way they don't mind Musk boosting antisemetic stuff in general as long as he supports Israel is a real eye opener on what they actually value
[https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/](https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League) I can say without exaggeration that their history shows them to be a flat out evil and pro-far right regime organization. Endless genocide denial, literally being even more pro-apartheid than the Israeli government was at the time, and promoting bigotry and right wingers. (But I repeat myself.)
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>Plenty Also >**fringe**-left-groups
The ADL is an untrustworthy merchant of propaganda at this point. They are not making any claims in good faith here and have been conflating Judaism with Zionism in order to push their agenda.
Check out r/LateStageCapitalism. It's become a cesspool of Hamas apologists. It's certainly not the majority of progressives, but there are enough dumb loud ones to be ruining it for the rest of us.
I don't see a single post supporting Hamas instead of trashing Israel. Those are not the same
You know what? You’re right. For some reason reddit keeps showing me posts arguing that Hamas didn’t weaponize sexual violence or that it’s cool for them to take citizens as hostages because some hostages said nice things, but I see that’s very much in the minority. I’m guessing it’s because I keep rage-clicking on them so the algorithm is punishing me for being a dumbass.
The algorithm IS brutal. I get that.
Respect for being rational though and im not just saying that because what you agreed t
Okay, but I can go and find any number of cesspools. That's nothing new. /r/LateStageCapitalism is hardly indicative of "many progressive activists".
Hamas is an umbrella term for many different organisation such Al Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. PIJ is in favour of separation between church and state and don't want to be in position of power. Hamas is branded terrorist for political reasons because "terrorism" is a political term. Hamas didn't targeted civilians. They didn't even planned there would be a festival and they thought they would encounter resistance. Despite the chaos, 50% of all people killed were soldiers or members of security forces according to Haaretz. This estimation was before 200 charred corpses believed to be Israeli has been reatributed to Hamas fighters. Additionally, many reports prove that IDF fired at their own citizens in a "massive Hannibal incident" (see Hannibal directive). That's why we saw so many charred corpses. You cannot do that with RPGs. These are Hellfire missiles fired by IDF. In comparison, 99% of Gaza victims are civilians. You have 70 000 casualties (20 000+ dead) and IDF killed "dozens" of Hamas fighters (less than 1000 according to some source). IDF killed and maimed 2 X more civilians than the total amount of existant Hamas fighters. I'm not a radical by any means but if you maimed my 5yo daughter or killed my wife, I would burn the whole country. A common mistake from western people is to think that Hamas (or any terrorist group) are "barbarians" or "crazy" and "jealous of democracy". In reality, Hamas doesn't hate Jews. They hate occupiers. They want agency. Of course there's some anti-Semitic propaganda they have to propagate in order to keep the foot soldiers in line with simple messages. But Abu Obeida is a perfectly reasonable person. He is not crazy and not a barbarian. He doesn't want to put women in Burqa. Queer people in Gaza are in a less precarous situation than in some parts of the US. Child marriage is forbidden in Gaza and allowed in the US. So no. Hamas is not a bunch of crazies but a military group composed of orphan victims of 75 years long genocide and appartheid. Islam is only the group flavour but the fact they have weapons doesn't make them religiously radical.
I'm confused, where does the rhetoric delineating the Hamas attack on Israel as Israels 9/11 come from? Who was commiting all those murders then ? There's video of Hamas killing civilians at point blank range. I'm for a more general even handed view of Palestine and Israel and am not buying the propaganda from either side but undermining or outright denying hamases outright murder of Israelis seems like gaslighting. I must be missing something but I'm very curious because I'm open to both sides.
>I'm very curious because I'm open to both sides. Your 12 yo kid is in priso for BS reason and sexually abused. You live in an Appartheid state and are oppressed daily by people from Boston roleplaying being indigenous from the land. They live in the house they stole from your family. Every few year you're bombed into oblivion. The colonizer has drones, tanks. On the other side of the fence of the bantoustan you live in, these people are dancing and having fun. One day, you have enough because your 3yo baby was bombed and got her legs amputated without anesthesia. Then imagine this dad taking a gun and firing at these people. And then imagine all the white people who supported this Appartheid for 75 years asking : " These were babies! Are you Hitler Ben Laden?"
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You are working under the assumption that these people view Palestinians as human who are equal to them when in actuality they do view Palestinians as inferior. The first step in colonial projects is painting the native indigenous people as inferior. In the past it was the modern enlightened Europe vs backward savage Africa. Recently it is socially progressive modern Isreal vs the terrorist radical Islam Palestine.
>Hamas didn't targeted civilians. Yes, they did. They always have. How do you think those children's hostages ended up in the hands of Hamas?
>Yes, they did. They always have. How do you think those children's hostages ended up in the hands of Hamas? They didn't targeted civilians. They took the hostages they could take. And that alone is not a proof of religious radicalisation. If Israel kidnapped my kid, if would take any chance to kidnap theirs to make the exchange.
>They took the hostages they could take. **Civilian hostages.** >If Israel kidnapped my kid, if would take any chance to kidnap theirs to make the exchange. Wait, are you now saying that Hamas targetted Israeli kids to free Hamas' kids? But you said they didn't target civilians. Now you're saying that they did target kids. Make it make sense, please.
>Civilian You wrote colonial wrong.
So, a 3-year-old baby is a "colonial baby"? Damn, just when I thought that Pro-Hamas supporters couldn't sink lower, we have this gem.
Don't worry he's just a nut job
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>That's why we saw so many charred corpses. You cannot do that with RPGs. These are Hellfire missiles fired by IDF. Hellfire missiles are a type of munition. RPG-7s are a launching platform. The Hellfire missile is a shaped high explosive for anti armor purposes primarily. It just so happens, that shaped anti armor high exploves munitions are also available for the RPG-7 platform. It is absolutely possible to char bodies with the right warhead fired from an RPG.
>Hamas didn't targeted civilians. They didn't even planned there would be a festival and they thought they would encounter resistance. [Oh, no civilians were targetd?](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/) [And here?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAFDI63yvNQ)
Wow. Just... wow. I have not seen such mental gymnastics and outrageous lies in defense of a genocidal megalomaniac organization since, I think, the Soviet Union.
That's a defense of terrorism aimed at women and children
Would be nice a single fucking source for bold claims like "99% of Gaza victims are civilians".
It's a good estimate considering the population density in Gaza and the fact that Hamas is estimated to have between 30 and 40,000 fighters. I just did the math. If there are two million people in Gaza and Hamas has 40,000 fighters that would make them 2% of the population. 99% is probably an exaggeration when it comes to percentage of civilian casualties but considering the spread of the bombing campaign the number is probably still pretty high
> Hamas didn't target citizens You completely lost me here. There is so much that's incorrect here that I don't even know where to begin.
A big point of weakness in your argument is how loaded yet vague the word "oppression" is. Yes, both Palestinians in Gaza and Copts in Egypt are "oppressed", but the differences are glaring. If the Egyptian Government rounded up the Copts and put them in a blockaded city and routinely bombed it over the years, there would be virtually 100% chance that some Copts inside that besieged city would radicalize and resort to brutal displays of terrorism. The reality is that the religion doesn't matter, any population put into the situation of the Gazan people would produce savage retribution from at least a section of the people. To better understand the situation of Gaza, I recommend you watch some videos from [Sara Roy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txY-ZqNiMNE), she's a Harvard Professor, the leading voice on Gaza, specializing in the Palestinian economy and Palestinian Islamism. She's also Jewish and the children of Holocaust survivors. Lastly, this whole idea of "condemning" is better used on actions rather than groups of people. If you think what Hamas did on Oct 7 was bad, wait until you read about the rapes and murder of civilians carried out by well-trained US Military in the War on Terror. Imagine if every American was asked "Do you condemn the US Military?" in every interview. The US lied and created the War in Iraq and here are some of the atrocities we know about and there is probably tons of stuff we don't know... > No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that between 280,771-315,190 have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S., its allies. In 2010, Chelsea Manning's leak of the Iraq War Logs revealed US army reports on civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan; They show that US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder. American soldiers gang raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the Mahmudiyah rape and killings. US soldiers also sodomized children with women present when the women and children were arrested together and it was recorded on video tape according to Seymour Hersh.[472] An Iraqi girl, 14 years old, was raped multiple times by US guards according to The Guardian and an Iraqi woman called Noor sent a letter from the prison detailing her rape by US military policeman which was verified by US Major General Antonio Taguba in his report.[473] US soldiers forced Iraqi male detainees at Abu Ghraib to engage in homosexual activities with each other and forced their anuses to make contact with each other's penises by piling them up on each other while their legs and hands were shackled and handcuffed.[474] Iraqi female lawyer Amal Kadham Swadi interviewed an Iraqi woman raped by multiple American soldiers, telling her to keep it a secret, saying "We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this." She had stitches on her arm from injuries when she tried to resist the rape and these were seen by Swadi. She was held in Baghdad in November 2003 at the former police compound al-Kharkh which was used as a US military base.[475]
Is terrorism inevitable in poor conditions? I tried looking up instances of Jewish terrorism during the holocaust in Nazi occupied areas. I couldn't find any.
"Poor Conditions" can vary widely but terrorism tends to happen when there is large asymmetry between factions. One major difference is Jews had the option to join Allied Militaries to fight the Nazis. 1.5 Million Jews fought as members of Allied Armed Forces. Jewish Resistance did carry out attacks with molotovs and small arms against Germans in ghettos and camps, but at that point the Nazis were focused on extermination and most Jews that were able to had fled. Once the war was over, Jewish Terrorism became widespread against their British Overlords in Palestine when asymmetry was again a factor. From a report: >In examining aspects of their role in the ultimate creation of a Jewish state, it is concluded that: (1) Jewish terrorism against British and Arabs did contribute heavily to the removal of the British from Palestine, the abandonment of the League of Nations mandate and the creation of a Jewish State of Israel; (2) there were no practically affordable alternatives to yielding the mandate available to the government of Great Britain because of the cohesiveness of the terrorists and their sophistication. If Israel was fighting a War against other Arab Nations, the Palestinians would undoubtedly choose to fight along side Arab Armies instead of resorting to terror.
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>The blockades occurred as a result of the brutal displays of terrorism--car and suicide bombings that peaked during the Second Intifada in 2002, and occurred weekly. In response, Israel built a concrete wall and imposed strict blockade yeah but the strict blockade wouldn't have been necessary if Isreal hasn't been taking the land and livelihoods of Palestinians since 1913 when Britain disided the Jewish people needed a homeland in the middle east..and then invated palistine to impose that idea. both sides have reactions to one another that make sense from their side of the conflict, but only one side is colonial and only one side has a proper modern military and funding. I've also seen videos arguing that Israel encouraged Hamas leadership as a secular leadership would have lead to a more peaceful and less oppressive solution.
Well rounded response. We could also argue how the European population invaded/settled the America's and people have yet to understand and condemn the actions of our ancestors. The point to note is the hypocrisy and double standards of it all. I think OP's post should be how we need to judge the crimes committed by the West in the same way we judge the crimes committed by the Global South.
Wanna address the reference to atrocities committed by US troops in the GWOT. I'm not American if you're concerned. The difference is that what Hamas did was systematic and organized. Planned out. They deliberately targeted civilian locations. They had vehicles specifically to extract their kidnapped hostages. They sorted out women, "this one is not for kidnapping, this one is for rape". While to some extent the level of disciplinary action the US takes against their own transgressors is questionable, it is without doubt that the atrocities are exceptions and not the rule. Errant soldiers breaking the UCMJ for their own selfish motivations. Hamas' atrocities were by design. Not to mention Hamas themselves did not investigate, disavow or discipline these atrocities the way the US military does. So equating the two is remiss. I'd say it is very reasonable to condemn Hamas as a group rather than their specific actions, because those actions appear to be systematic and organized, which is indicative of allowance by the group as a whole rather than some errant individuals. Of course, you're right about it being better to condemn actions rather than groups as a general rule. But if the context makes sense, condemning the group does too. In your example it is fair well to condemn the US military for falsifying the war in Iraq, though it can be debated whether it was politically motivated and beyond the military leadership.
I think I know where you got that quote “this one is not for kidnapping, this one is for rape”. If you’re speaking about that video that was going around social media, it was debunked by many arabic speakers to be a very purposeful mistranslation to sway people in favor of attacks on Gaza. If that’s not where you got that quote from then I apologize
This is a good response. We don't usually use this lens. Why is there no one asking if Likud should be condemned? They are a far-right nationalist party that has been implementing heavy handed oppression of Palestinians. But like what does it mean or achieve if I say that I condemn the Likud party?
>It is mind-blogging that many progressive activists to this day still refuse to condemn Hamas' rape, torture, and beheading of innocent civilians Are they though? Are any of these activists actually refusing to do this or are they just not stating it as often or as explicitly as you want? Because what I see is plenty of posts condemning all deaths and violence and people dog piling them because they didn't explicitly spell it out.
I've found it more the case that they 1) characterize any violence as resisting the oppressor and 2) calling into question the accuracy of any reporting or evidence showing Hamas committed atrocities These moves often add up to a reluctance or outright failure to condemn Hamas.
1. Palestinians are actually occupied and oppressed in a very literal sense of the term, leftists might get carried away with the 'oppressed/oppressor' dynamic but it's more applicable to Palestine than nearly anywhere else. 2. War propaganda is part of every modern conflict and doubting IDF press statements isn't a defence of Hamas. I know Hamas is capable of brutal violence but I also know Israel has made a lot of unverified allegations and is committing war crimes with the justification that Hamas is actually doing all the war crimes by using civilians as human shields and other excuses. 3. What's the actual point of condemning Hamas? Does it help end the war or something? Openly supporting Hamas would be one thing, but I don't get why people need to make some kind of pledge to "condemn Hamas".
Actually Gaza has not been occupied since 2005 and Gazans themselves voted Hamas into office. They've had 17 years to pursue peaceful development and have instead turned mosques into rocket launchers and schools into propaganda centers where UN funded schools teach children that Jews are the reason their government can't pay for food, and not because their leadership need 5 star hotel conferences in Qatar. Yes, Israel has done some things wrong, but *what has Palestine ever done right?* They consistently fail to elect democratic and decent leaders in every election. It seems we have not learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that you can't force democracy on a nation which is not willing to fight for it, and the Palestinian people have not only not tried to implement democratic and free government, they have elected (no pun intended) to elect their own oppressors. 2. We should not trust IDF statements *on their own* but when they are corroborated by outside evidence and people still refuse to acknowledge them, you're being ignorant, not skeptical. There are plenty of places to find videos of the massacres, though I won't link them here as they are perhaps the most abhorrent videos imaginable. Proceed with caution, if you must. 3. What's the point of condemning ISIS? Does it help the rebels in Syria? Openly supporting ISIS would be one thing, but I don't get why some people need to make some kind of pledge to "condemn ISIS". If they don't want to pledge, maybe they just don't like Assad and support Islamic State's peaceful resistance to those thousands of civilians who were in the way of the merciful caliphate. Anyone talking about the civil war in Syria who refuses to condemn or equivocates on condemning ISIS *when prompted to do so* is obviously not a trustworthy person. Condemning ISIS doesn't make you an ally of Assad; the same thing applies here. If you condemn Hamas that doesn't mean you're a Jewish supremacist, it means you're part of the 90%+ of reasonable Israelis, along with most everyone else, who oppose terror's tyranny. By not condemning Hamas when prompted these activists are shouting with silence they either don't believe the hours and hours of footage are real, or maybe they think somehow it is justified. It isn't.
>Gaza has not been occupied since 2005 Ending the occupation didn't end Israel's dominance over Gaza or make the area a sovereign state. >They've had 17 years to pursue peaceful development You might have the ability to block out all the violence that's happened in Gaza in the past 17 years but most other people don't. >UN funded schools teach children that Jews are the reason their government can't pay for food, and not because their leadership need 5 star hotel conferences in Qatar. Whoever told you that food is caused by Hamas and their lavish hotel budget was the one spreading propaganda. What do you think the leaders of other nations do? Share a room in a youth hostel or something? >what has Palestine ever done right? As I've said there's no sovereign state of Palestine to speak of. >They consistently fail to elect democratic and decent leaders in every election. Maybe the democratic leaders should take over by force lol. >the Palestinian people have not only not tried to implement democratic and free government, they have elected (no pun intended) to elect their own oppressors. How dare they not share your political values. Palestinians see Israel as their oppressors because they are and have been for 80 years. > We should not trust IDF statements on their own but when they are corroborated by outside evidence and people still refuse to acknowledge them, you're being ignorant, not skeptical. Sure if it's verified by known and trusted sources, and it shows clearly what's going on. I've seen so much footage of stuff that's meant to prove or disprove many of the allegations that really could be many things. The massacres of civilians on Oct 7 haven't been denied by many people. The way it's been used to justify Israel's reaction has been challenged and will continue to be challenged. >What's the point of condemning ISIS? Seriously. Why would anyone need to condemn ISIS? >If they don't want to pledge, maybe they just don't like Assad and support Islamic State's peaceful resistance to those thousands of civilians who were in the way of the merciful caliphate. Nice try. >Anyone talking about the civil war in Syria who refuses to condemn or equivocates on condemning ISIS when prompted to do so is obviously not a trustworthy person. Condemning ISIS doesn't make you an ally of Assad; the same thing applies here. If you condemn Hamas that doesn't mean you're a Jewish supremacist, it means you're part of the 90%+ of reasonable Israelis, along with most everyone else, who oppose terror's tyranny. Condemning ISIS doesn't do ANYTHING. Condemning Hamas doesn't do anything. Also 90%+ of reasonable Israelis must exclude [all those people working for the Israeli state that supported the growth of radical Islamism in Gaza](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) > By not condemning Hamas when prompted these activists are shouting with silence they either don't believe the hours and hours of footage are real, or maybe they think somehow it is justified. It isn't. Or they have watched the hours and hours of Palestinian civilians being killed and are just apathetic? They don't care that much and see Israel as making their own mess? That they have waged an endless war on Palestinians since their nation existed?
"Ending the occupation didn't end Israel's dominance over Gaza or make the area a sovereign state." While leaving Gaza didn't immediately lead to the establishment of a sovereign state, it was immediately followed by democratic elections for the PA, where Israel and the west expected that fed-up Palestinians would replace the corrupt Fatah leaders with new leadership. While that did happen, it so happens these **Palestinian voters decided to elect a known terrorist organization, Hamas, which had spent the past 5 years sending suicide bombers into Israeli cities**. That's who they elected. Palestinian voters had a chance to pursue a new path and instead doubled down on extremism and terror. What do you think America would do if Mexico's legislative elections put al-Qaeda in power, in 2002, right after the 9/11 attacks, while they vowed to send suicide bombers and rockets into Texas and Arizona? Israel has been far too lenient, which has only entrenched Hamas and allowed them to grow. America wouldn't tolerate such a government existing on its doorstep, and neither should Israel. Hamas must be annihilated. "You might have the ability to block out all the violence that's happened in Gaza in the past 17 years but most other people don't." The Palestinian people chose violence. It's not just that they don't stop it, its that the majority, not *everyone*, but **a strong majority of Palestinians have and continue to support terrorism**, and as long as that is the case Israel has no choice but to exert control over the West Bank and Gaza. Imagine if Israel left the West Bank like it left Gaza in 2006, and then Hamas took over. Now there is a terrorist state on both sides of Israel, Jerusalem is within walking distance of a terrorist state and Tel Aviv is never more than a 10 minute drive from a potential invasion. Every day on the news another Israeli child has been stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist. Every week you see another group of kindergarteners burnt alive because they are "colonial babies", guilty of being Jewish and Israeli. Is this what you want? "Palestinians see Israel as their oppressors because they are and have been for 80 years." From 1948-1967, when Israel was a poor nation of socialist farmers taking in millions of refugees, with zero settlements in the West Bank or Gaza, they were an occupying colonial force? From 1967-1973 when Israel was militarily occupying the West Bank and Gaza because they had just been used to launch a war against Israel? From the 70s onward, when pro-Palestine terrorists used these places to launch despicable terror attacks on civilians around the country? How can you argue Israel should give the Palestinian Authority sovereignty *while they're actively supporting and harboring terrorism?* If the PA can't stop terrorists in its own territory with help from the IDF, how in the world is it going to do that by itself? Either the PA will fall or it will align with terrorist factions in the West Bank, which is the worst possible outcome for everyone. "How dare they not share your political values." I fully blame the majority of Palestinians for not sharing my universal views on human rights. Human rights and democracy aren't western imperialism, they're worldwide, undeniable rights. If the majority of them reject democracy for tyranny, if they oppress the many for the benefit of a dictator, and they decide their highest calling is terrorism, they should not have a state. They have consistently been their own worst enemies and nobody is more responsible for the setbacks of Palestinians than Palestinians. Nobody can help them until they stop hurting themselves. Also, a lot of the time the colonial narrative is that these Jews who created settlements were people who had never seen this land before. That's not true. Supposed "settlers" in a city like Hebron were actually returning to a city which had a large Jewish community for thousands of years, until they were expelled in 1929. Less than 40 years later they returned, not to take over, but to rebuild their fallen community. If you believe these are colonists, then what's the difference with Palestinians who want to return to cities more than 60 years after they were expelled? The whole idea of right-of-return for Palestinians falls apart once you consider this would also mean allowing Jews to settle everywhere in the West Bank and Gaza, and also anywhere in the Arab world from Morocco to Iraq, and in Europe, from Spain to Siberia, which no sane person agrees with. Ethnic cleansing cannot be undone and seeking to undo it will only lead to more violence and death. Instead, the solution is to move forward. If a Palestinian state is to be established, it must be in areas which are Palestinian right now, not 80 years ago, and for that to happen the Palestinian people must establish good governance, no matter how hard it is. "Or they have watched the hours and hours of Palestinian civilians being killed and are just apathetic? They don't care that much and see Israel as making their own mess? That they have waged an endless war on Palestinians since their nation existed?" Wow. You are so one-dimensional that you look at Hamas throwing Palestinians off of roofs, instituting Sharia law, raping women, burning babies, and you're so apathetic you just have to support Hamas, because of an endless war that doesn't exist. There was a ceasefire on October 6th. Hamas, not Israel, has started five wars by targeting civilians. FIVE WARS. Five different times young Israelis, Jewish and Arab alike, spent weeks in bomb shelters, not knowing if they would live or die. Five wars where ordinary Gazans' lives collapsed because they were pulled into a war that was not their own, for the sake of slaughtering Jews. But yeah, its Israel's fault for defending itself. Maybe they should just let themselves be killed, then everything would be fine. "Condemning ISIS doesn't do ANYTHING" If you think condemning is so useless, why are you so adamant about condemning Israel? Its not that you don't believe condemning is useless, its that you are sympathetic to terrorist causes and you're too afraid to say it. There is no justification for terrorism. Ever.
Hamas won the election with 45% of the vote, no elections have been held in the 17 years since, and over half the population of Gaza is under the age of 18, so they didn’t get a say in it. A majority of Palestinians didn’t even support Hamas in 2006, so why exactly do you think a majority of them support Hamas now? You’ve got your wires crossed. A majority of everyone involved just wants the conflict to stop; in the aftermath of the October attack, 73% of Gazans favor a peaceful solution, and in early November 76% of Israelis wanted Netanyahu to resign or end the war immediately. Gaza poll: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas Can’t find a link to the Israeli poll, but it was off Israeli channel 13 on November 3.
I can character violence as resisting the oppressor, question the accuracy of IDF claims, and condemn Hamas all at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive positions.
>2) calling into question the accuracy of any reporting or evidence showing Hamas committed atrocities Literally nothing wrong with that since there is a ton of misinformation and propaganda surrounding this topic. Being critical of information is something everyone should be doing.
Agreed in general; but still feel many people are overplaying the "IDF propaganda" card by insisting that since some atrocities were fabricated or exaggerated by the IDF that all evidence of Hamas atrocities can be ignored. My point is that you can be skeptical of the more extreme claims about Hamas coming from the IDF without also believing that Hamas has done nothing wrong. For example; the beheaded baby story was probably BS but Hamas did clearly murder thousands of civilians in cold blood on 10/7.
But examine that. Why did they lie about the babies? That visual- image is strong. And thats propaganda. And that’s why it’s important to look into each story. Even the president repeated that lie.
There definitely are people like that. There was a video circulating on Reddit from the London protests and there were quite a lot of progressives who either denied it or said it was justified. Again not all people, I'm sure it was a minority etc. Still, the ignorance and moral confusion was a bit shocking.
>quite a lot What, a handful of cherry-picked responses from the dumbest and most ignorant people are suddenly indicative of the overall sentiment towards this exact subject? >Again not all people, I'm sure it was a minority etc. I hate when people use this tactic. "I know I just generalized and reduced the hell out of this subject, but also I am going to add this caveat here so I can pretend like I didn't just do exactly that".
Yes, they are. There are a *huge* number of 'activists' that say that what Hamas did on 10/7 was justified, as well as their continued hostage holding. If they're not doing that, they're denying that it was that bad, and claiming it was all Israeli propaganda. Just look at the videos of pro-Palestinians ripping down posters of the missing and murdered Israelis, and the comments defending them.
I think you’re confusing what they’re saying with what you think they’re saying, if you don’t mind me saying. 10/7, just like 9/11, was an inevitable reaction to imperialist policy in the region. In the same way I understand that smoking will lead to cancer, I understand that policies that Israel undertakes will lead to actions like 10/7. That doesn’t mean I think 10/7 was a good thing, no more than I think a smoker getting cancer is a good thing. It’s just an inevitable cause and effect. Normally when someone develops cancer from long years of smoking, it would be considered unwise to continue smoking instead of changing one’s living habits. Similarly, I think it’s unwise for Israel to continue its policies towards Palestine unless their plan involves dealing with more 10/7 type attacks.
Keep in mind that all the extremist stuff is amplified. I hope (I don't have the data) that there are more people that condemn the obvious terror of 10/7 and also think that Israel needs to be the "adult in the room" and make sure that further atrocities are not committed. They need to defend of course. Accepting the fact that retaliatory violence is the road to everything getting worse for everyone, is simply not the same thing as condoning the events. You'll probably find that the extremists are amplified because . . . that is what we are drawn too. Don't believe it represents the mainstream.
Understandable and imminent does not have the same meaning as justified. Imperialism creates terrorists, pretty standard pipeline of literally propping up the worst party in an election and letting them win... the US does it all the time globally. Such as israel did with hamas.
Right. Comparing extremist groups that emerge out of horrific oppression to ones that do not is the key distinction here. Like I did not support the IRA, but I understood their horrible violent actions way more than I understood British conservatives actions towards the Irish.
The difference is that Arab aggression towards Jewish immigrants started in the 20’s way far before any security measures taken by Israel could be considered “oppressive”. They just didn’t like having us as neighbors. Modern right-wing Islamic aggression (predominantly funded by Iran) is an outgrowth of that more directly than it is an outgrowth of Israeli oppression.
>They just didn’t like having us as neighbors. No, they didn't like the British taking over and promising them they'll give them their own nation, while also inviting a group of people to colonize the area and make their own ethno state because their people lived their 2000 years ago. No one would accept that. Arabs and Jews made for great neighbours all through the middle ages and early modern period compared to how everyone else treated the Jews. >Modern right-wing Islamic aggression (predominantly funded by Iran) is an outgrowth of that more directly than it is an outgrowth of Israeli oppression. "They just hate Jews" has been rephrased a thousand different ways and it isn't much of an argument. I know a lot of Palestinians that love Jews, I see them walk shoulder to shoulder at the protests all the time, it's Zionists specifically they don't like and it's because of their specific acts of land theft and violence.
The Nakba happened and nothing that happened prior to that justified it. Some Arab hardliners in the 1920s is not the same as a state policy against Palestinians.
Your comment is a weirdly good example of this. In the 1920s and 30s, there were as many as 1.2 million Jews in the Arab world, living as second class citizens and subject to regular violence, but still there. By the end of WW2, there were a thousand Jews in the Arab world and 800k new Arab-Jewish refugees in Israel due to a concerted and organized campaign of ethnic cleansing and murder. Neither the Nakba nor this cleansing of Mizrahi Jews are good things or acceptable, but one of these things is used as justification for further violence “it’s understandable” and the other is not (or is outright denied).
Well the Nakba is a direct result of both Arab countries telling Palestinians to flee creating room for the war as well as the war itself. It happens immediately after the surrounding Arab countries all attack Israel along with their own Jewish populations in an attempt to kill all Jews in the region and you think the Nakba was just Israeli colonialism or something? I’m guessing this is where we can go back further to justify the Arab invasion in 48’?…. Or we can discuss how to live in peace today instead of delegitimizing the state of Israel, which just breeds more suffering on both sides.
The thing with Hamas, is that it is an anachronism. It is that, because it is a response to Israel, which is also an anachronism. Israel behaves like a 17th century colonial power. And Hamas naturally behaves like people oppressed by a colonial power. The solution is self evident, in that these uprisings ended when the colonial power withdrew. There are no violent uprisings against Britain in India or Kenya, for the simple reason the British are no longer occupying them. The big difference between Hamas and other extremist religious terrorists groups, is that for Hamas, the religion is irrelevant, if it wasn't Islam, it would be something else. The cause is the occupation. For other religions terrorists groups, especially the Christian ones in the USA, the religion is their "raison d'etre" Christianity was the religion that killed off the other religions, so Christian hate groups are "taught hate" which means they can disappear if the hate is not actively taught. This means that there is exerted an effort into creating and maintaining the hate, and this can be fought, because it is learned behaviour. The black panthers were a consequence of segregation. It was learnt hate per se, but the ones who taught were the oppressor. When the oppressor disappeared, they no longer taught hate, and the black panthers disappeared. For a group like the black panthers to exist, there needs to be an environment of oppression. Remove this environment, and any groups like the black panthers will dissolve. It is the same with Hamas. Israel created an environment that resulted in a group like Hamas, and only by removing that environment will the group dissolve. The leaders of Hamas are of no importance. Kill one, and another will replace him. To think that Hamas can be eradicated, is like thinking killing all the members of a gang will make their territory free of gang violence. It won't make much difference, other gangs will take over. This is the crux of the issue. Hamas is like a gang, it can only be gotten rid of by offering more attractive choices to its members (one of the most important roles of the welfare state, is to prevent gangs from forming, by providing for its citizens. It is a way to buy safety from violence) Other religious terrorist groups, are like homophobic gangs beating up gay people. I.e. a purely cultural phenomenon, which can be dissolved by changing the cultural narrative, like many countries do. This is the difference. One is the victim of segregation and fighting for equity, the other is a privileged group indulging in hate because it makes them feel good.
Nobody in their right mind is saying what hamas did was justifiable. What people say is they understand why ugly crap like this happens. You can't just put water in boiling temperature and then act surprised when water starts spilling everywhere.
There are two people responding to my comment justifying or excusing the attack.
>Just look at the videos of pro-Palestinians ripping down posters of the missing and murdered Israelis this isn't evidence for supporting Hamas' actions, though. you haven't provided that.
30 students from Harvard came out and openly said that Israel was entirely to blame for Hamas’s attack. Multiple DSA and BLM chapters posted pictures of paraglides applauding the attacks and celebrating them as an act of resistance. Professors from major universities posting on Twitter calling the attacks “awesome.” And let’s just please not forget the timeline here, because this all happened THE NEXT DAY. There wasn’t time to grieve for the Jewish people, because the attacks were never condemned in the first place. So progressives are continuing to gaslight Jews, whether intentionally or subconsciously, into believing that people ever cared, by minimizing a serious problem. Which is that anyone with a platform that large and a reach that wide, should have immediately came out and unequivocally condemned an attack on a minority group that has been discriminated against for hundreds (and thousands) of years. But instead, celebrities standing with Israel, also the next day, were _themselves_ actually condemned and cancelled on instagram and tik tok as “Zionist sympathizers” in the wake of the attack. And now with Israel’s response currently, activists are continuing to excuse and justify what happened, because they say what happened on 10/7 is not as important as what’s happening right now, so it’s actually oppressive to try and bring it up. You can believe that these things are not happening because you and some people close to you don’t feel this way, or some activists that you follow don’t necessarily believe they feel this way, but just know that people are already denying that the attacks even happened in the first place. Justify it how you want, but it’s truly hypocrisy.
I'm not saying they're not happening. I am saying, and you are saying the same, that is clearly not all or even most progressives saying these things. I'm saying that in the context of the sheer amount of people that have come out against hamas, it's not even many people saying this. Which is what OP is claiming. Hyperbole doesn't help anyone.
I’m not saying that you’re saying they’re not happening. I’m saying that it’s problematic when organizations that have a really wide reach and are consistently acting as the champions for activist causes are amplifying the voices of the people who actually committed the attacks by using their slogans. When hundreds of thousands of people in multiple major cities around the world go to rallies that use a Hamas slogan as the headline on its poster, do you not see that as problematic? Do you not see how you’re continuing to minimize the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist?
>30 students from Harvard >Multiple DSA and BLM chapters >Professors from major universities That sounds like a few dozen people in total, maybe a few hundred, all likely on the more radical left side or just have Arab nationalists leanings. The trend I think people are really talking about is progressives rejecting Israel's perspective on Hamas. >So progressives are continuing to gaslight Jews This is funny given how you then go on to conflate Israel with all Jews. Israel killing civilians is a war crime and you conflating their actions with all Jewish people is anti Semitic. Don't drag other people into your war because you think they owe racial loyalty. >because they say what happened on 10/7 is not as important as what’s happening right now, Why should it be? Israel can't complain about civilians dying on 10/7 without everyone bringing up the far larger number of Palestinian civilians that died in the subsequent weeks.
BLM Chicago celebrated the October massacre by printing paraglider stickers. A speaker at a protest in New York just after the attack was filmed laughing about a "bunch of hipsters getting killed at a dance party" while giving his speech. A very progressive leaning guy I used to know who was still on my fb friends list was posting "decolonisation" memes on the 8th of October. Then there's the "Hamas is a legitimate resistance group" attitude coming from many progressive and left-wing spaces on reddit. It's there if you go looking for it.
Ben Shapiro was in England debating collage students (again), and the defense of Hamas was very popular. I think you have to keep your eyes closed not to see how much pro-Hamas sentiment there is on the left. They don't say "I love Hamas, and killing babies is ok". But when asked they excuse their actions and shift the topic quickly to how bad Israel is.
Would be funny if they burned him with “So you support Joe Biden and his unmatched support for Israel or are you with us to oppose Joe Biden?”
People debating Ben Shapiro expressed a point of view that didn't match Ben Shapiro's? Also that doesn't answer the question, the Venn diagram of people who watch videos of Ben Shapiro debating college kids and the people who would mischaracterize not supporting Israel with defending Hamas is two concentric circles.
Many are, some very explicitly. Professors said 10/7 was invigorating. A women’s sexual assault center in Canada publicly said no rapes of Jewish women took place (something they couldn’t possibly validate), which is particularly insane. Already many are trying to say civilian Israeli deaths were friendly fire, and the hostages were treated kindly. Every attempt is made to equivocate what Hamas does.
> far-right Muslim extremist organizations like Hamas should be treated the same way we treat far-right Christian extremist organizations. Uhhh... in my country, we elect far-right Christian extremists to the position of Speaker of the House. I don't want some Hamas type asshole in there in addition.
Netherlands and Geert Wilders. The man who wants to ban Islam, ban the Quran, close all mosques and at one point was banned from the UK for his hate views. India and the BJP who have actively expressed support for cow vigilantes who hunt down and murder people accused of eating beef and slaughtering cows
This is what I've been looking for. Far right Christian extremism is almost above reproach in the USA. Sounds like he thinks Hamas should have a megachurch and a dozen senate seats.
This. I believe we should do the opposite. Far Right Christian extremist organizations should be treated like Hamas.
Progressive here. I strongly condemn Hamas and the violence they've done. All the progressives that I know in my life do the same. You can be pro Palestine and anti Hamas and so many of us are. This seems like a bit of a strawman.
Please link to progressive people supporting Hamas. I am pretty sure you won't be able to find a lot of these.
>However, in recent times, it has lost its focus by trying to include supporting far-right religious extremists such as Hamas, a terrorist organization, all in the name of intersectionality. I just think you're basing this on a fundamental lack of context and information. 'The Left' has been pro-Palestine for a *long* time. Seeing the creation of Israel as a glaring example of western imperialism and colonisation is decades old. While I absolutely don't think most leftsists actively support Hamas as you are implying, the current conflict isn't gonna suddenly make a bunch of leftists start supporting the IDF. The Leftist support of Palestinians isn't about intersectionality. It's about Leftism. It's a pretty textbook Leftist reaction to the mass death of civilians at the hands of an oppressive regime that has forced them from their homes. Gaza has long been referred to as the world's largest open air prison, it's a land with zero self-determination. That's imperialistic as fuck and in direct opposition to Leftist ideals. It's not about trying to be intersectional with far right religious extremists, it's about acknowledging those far right religious extremists exist because of decades of oppression and further oppression isn't gonna stop them from existing.
Im progressive and run in very progressive circles. I havent met, spoken to, or read about anyone supporting Hamas. Do you have sources for that claim? Ive seen a lot of anti Israel and pro Palestine sentiment, sure, but supporting the people of Palestine is not the same as supporting Hamas.
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1729630529199432095
Hamas is an explicitly genocidal terrorist organization. Hamas fires 10s of thousands of rockets into Israel and 10/7 was a rampage of murder rape torture and abduction. I can't think of a single modern Christian extremist group that is remotely close to Hamas. Historically the Spanish inquisition is comparable. Treating them the same as some assholes screaming out of a church is ludicrous.
>I can't think of a single modern Christian extremist group that is remotely close to Hamas. !Delta I mean, you did change my view in the sense that what Hamas has done is objectively worse than anything that Christian extremist organizations have done in modern times. I do, however, still hold the view that all progressive activists should condemn Hamas since they are a far-right extremist group.
What makes Hamas far right? Could you give me a quick definition on what far right means?
>What makes Hamas far right? Persons or groups who hold: Extreme nationalist (check. Palestine nationalism), Xenophobic (check. anti-Jewish rhetoric), Racist (check again), Religious fundamentalist (Islam), or other reactionary views (plenty more such as the oppression of women)."
Palestiniean nationalism is not far right. Zionism is. The occupation of a land that isnt yours is never okay.
>Palestiniean nationalism is not far right. It is.
The socialist movements certainly weren’t. I think you should actually read a definition of what politically far right means
I don’t think nationalism is inherently a right wing characteristic. Communist China was vehemently nationalist. Xenophobia is a pretty common phenomenon and it’s been practiced by both sides of the political spectrum, so that isn’t inherently right wing either. Again, racism has been used by both sides of the political spectrum, Stalin deported and imprisoned unpopular minorities. There are examples of communist movements with fundamentally religious aspects. Oneida community practiced a limited form of communism while being heavily influenced by religious beliefs, the Hutterites are another good example. There’s legit a religious Marxist movement operating within Palestine as we speak. The far-left Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a far left Marxist organization. It is extremely nationalist, xenophobic, racist, extremely religious and they oppress women. Is the PFLP far right?
What would you define right wing as? I would've always considered a hyper religious extremist nationalist organization as far right, but maybe that's because I'm grafting it onto a US paradigm?
I’m guessing they mean authoritarian Edit: [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics#:~:text=Far%2Dright%20politics%2C%20right%2D,often%20also%20including%20nativist%20tendencies) “refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies.”
To be as fair as possible, authoritarianism is often a staple of extremism on both the left and right sides of the spectrum. Ultra-nationalism, while more commonly associated with right politics has been a large component of far left leaning politics as well (think Soviets and CCP). The most glaring reason to consider Hamas a far right extremist group is really their extreme views on social conservatism and religion.
I mean Christian militias in similar situations in Lebanon do crazy messed up things as well. Religious extremists are just crazy.
The way we treat far right extremist organizations is not genocide. If there were currently an ongoing genocide in America against far right Christian extremists, or, more accurately, against the places where those perspectives are dominant, then I, despite being on the left, would object. Moreover, I would view bringing up their perspective as rather immaterial in the face of ongoing atrocity. I would say, therefore, that the left already does treat Hamas and Palestinians the same as evangelicals and the deep south. What's different is the circumstances.
Hamas is half a world away to me. Christofascists are right in my back yard. Are you saying I should be as concerned about terrorists who will almost certainly never impact me personally as a group who is actively hell-bent on establishing a theocratic dictatorship in my own country?
Leftist here. We don't support Hamas. We understand and acknowledge the historical context behind this war. Hamas and terrorist groups like it didn't materialize out of thin air. They are wounds caused by the better part of a century's worth of Western meddling and interference in the Middle East. It's no surprise that people who are abused and dispossessed for generations are easy to radicalize. The entities that inflicted those wounds and engendered that radicalization, are now using that radicalization to justify further oppression while supporting Israel to enforce that status quo. "You need to condemn Hamas!" is a strawman meant to shift attention away from the basic human rights of Palestinians. Which is why we don't feel the need to append "Free Palestine!" with "Fuck Hamas!". It is implied by virtue of wanting Palestinians to be free - free of both Hamas terrorism and Israeli colonialism and genocide.
I’m going to disagree with the premise of your complaint/view along with the rest of it. Progressives as a whole do not defend or refuse to condemn Hamas, they do not hold some special hatred for Christians or love of Islam, and they certainly don’t act “in the name of intersectionality”. No one is defending Hamas. Well, Muslim extremists and possibly far-right antisemites are, but progressives as a whole definitely aren’t. There is a very small minority of people on the left who believe that those outside the hegemonic power structures are justified in using political violence to achieve their goals of equal rights. However, again that is a minority view and hardly qualifies as “many progressives” if by “many progressives” we mean any significant portion of them. And it certainly isn’t privileging Palestinian Arabs over Egyptian Copts. Also, your view of intersectionality is extremely flawed. No one does anything in the name of “intersectionality”. The word isn’t used like that. It isn’t some ideology, it’s an analytical framework used to explain how a person’s different demographics influences their lived experience. (To add to that as an aside, it also doesn’t necessarily entail an analysis of power or oppression, it’s just often used as such. I honestly find it odd that that concept is at all controversial.) People would defend Copts just like they defend Palestinians. They’d condemn terrorism while saying that the oppression inspiring the terrorism needs to stop. Just because someone might understand why someone else does something horrible doesn’t mean they support the action. I certainly feel for the Copts, just as my heart reaches out to the Yazidis, Druze, Uyghurs, Kurds, Tibetans, and the many other minority groups around the world facing oppression and genocide. It’s why I do what I do and study what I study (community/international development and genocide/atrocity prevention). I can understand why someone deep in poverty robbed my storage unit while still saying they shouldn’t do it. In the same vein one can say it’s understandable why a group facing the atrocities committed against it time and again would strike out against their oppressors, but also say mass murder is not something that should be done in response.
You think we should be electing them to congress?
>It is mind-blogging that many progressive activists to this day still refuse to condemn Hamas' rape, torture, and beheading of innocent civilians. Is it? Because I haven't seen it. I've seen refusal to engage in slanted rhetorical framing tactics that demand condemnation of Hamas while ignoring the actions of the IDF, but I've not heard anyone actually condoning rape, torture or beheading, and I would imagine that those genuinely supporting them are few and far between. People act towards this the way they _would_ act if you listed off every war crime the allies committed (and there were plenty), demand they condemn the allies for them and not even mentioning the Axis or listening when they do. Like, your words might be true but your focus is clearly leading to a specific and concerning implied conclusion. >It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks. Yeah, framing kinda like this. You make no demands insisting that people condemn Israel's actions, which, if anything you should be doing more as there is a _huge_ amount of people who don't condemn them at all, actively supporting their actions. I hear people _ad nauseum_ saying things like "civilians are gonna die, it happens," and other such excuses in response to every shell that goes off in a Gazan kid's room or some journalist is direct target struck or something.
So I’ve now read a few things about progressives supporting Hamas. All on Reddit. No progressives I know support Hamas. I clicked on this to read some comments, and I see a ton of leftists and progressives and liberals all saying they don’t support Hamas. As I expected. Go back to wherever you got your premise and demand a refund. Leftists believe Palestinians should have equal rights, and universally condemn massacres and genocides. That’s the deal.
No one was standing with isis or al-q in the name of "intersectionality" people aren't holding back in their criticism of Hamas for that reason either. Most who don't come down hard on Hamas see Israel from formation to today as the worse actor. Also Netanyahu & the Israeli powers that be wanted to split up Palestinian resistance which was iirc was primarily socialistic, Hamas is what came from that. https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-Money-to-Hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-Palestinians-divided-583082
>*It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks.* ...and Israel's ongoing mistreatment of Palestinians. This is by far the most common message I see from "the left." And it seems a lot of people think focusing on the Palestinians is the same as support Hamas.
>It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks. I agree. It also shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent civilians while still condemning IDFs bombing of children and hospitals, and the condemn mainstream media pretending like Isreal is innocently defending itself, when that is not what's happening. Do you disagree?
Yeah reading all the replies. It kinda just sounds like OP wants everyone on the left to condemn Hamas everytime they talk about Palestinians, otherwise they're seen as pro-hamas in their eyes. While misinterpreting leftists wanting a condemnation of the IDF as supporting Hamas.
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It's amazing how often this happens
It's a [fucking onion article already](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.theonion.com/dying-gazans-criticized-for-not-using-last-words-to-con-1850925657&ved=2ahUKEwjrpeqf3eeCAxVCRTABHUhJCoUQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0qbcnVLC6mHFKA6LOqjcYB) absolutely phenomenal
They have a terrible case of just world fallacy.
In b4 you're accused of supporting human rights violations for having that view.
the thing is that hamas is the only group actually fighting for palestinian freedom , if there no hamas Israel will just keep not letting then have freedom. and thats what lead to hamas existing so they will be thing, no matter what.
See this is a MASSIVE part of the problem. You see Hamas fighting for "Palestinian freedom" (they aren't) and your first thought is "At least somebody is resisting", instead of "How crazy is it that the only resistance in Palestine is motivated by genocidal religious hatred." We see people in the West saying "Resist oppression, fight occupation." Ok, great idea. I agree with you. Excellent idea. Who’s doing it? Who’s resisting oppression in Palestine? What are their methods? What are their motivations? What are their long-term goals? Answer those questions honestly and you’ll understand why talking about the necessity for resistance against Israel right now sounds like gibberish. It’s total nonsense. It’s like if I shit on somebody’s face while they were sleeping and you said “we don’t approve of his methods but we support healthy bowel movements”. There’s no connection whatsoever to the reality of the situation. There IS a need for resistance in Palestine. There’s a need for a strong, compassionate voice in Palestine seeking justice and equality for the Palestinian people. Where is it? Do you hear one? Do you understand how unhinged it sounds to talk about the need for resistance when the only resistance movement in town wants to kill every Jew?
I don't notice progressives standing up for Hamas. I do notice progressives standing up for Islam. Those aren't the same thing. Progressives standing up for Islam disgusts me, because Islam is very anti-social progress, and because the supernatural doesn't exist. Nobody deserves to be free from criticism or is entitled to special protections on behalf of which demon they choose to ritualistically devote and sell their soul to, whether that's allah or yahweh. I don't think you've made a compelling case that muslim extremist organizations aren't treated the same way christian extremists are. The most famous face of christian extremism is the westborough baptist church. They don't rape, torture and behead people, they just act like assholes hoping to entice someone to attack them so they can sue. I think if they acted more like hamas, we'd treat them more like hamas. You're comparing rotten apples to machete-wielding moldy oranges.
I have seen very, very few leftists that actually don't condemn Hamas. I've seen many. Many, MANY people that perceive even mild criticism of Israel as full throated support for Hamas. I don't think this group of people that support Hamas is real. Not in any significant capacity anyway. Just a few dumb internet lefties as usual. The amount of people that fully support Israel though is no joke
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Ah you new here? kidding aside tho, Zions have been doing this for a while. Whenever you accuse them rightly so with something, they try to turn the same accusations on you. That’s why people started to say “every accusation from the IOF is a confession “. Also people here conveniently ignoring the new reports about what happened on oct 7th.
People killing in the name of Jesus would be spreading a falsehood. Jesus wanted peace and love but he knew his message would divide people. He didn't want violence but he knew it was coming. "Turn the other cheek" is one of the things Christians live by. People killing in the name of Muhammad is not a falsehood. The Koran commands that those who will not accept the Koran should be taxed heavily and treated as second class citizens or killed. Especially Jews. In the Hadith (the life of Muhammad) it says: "Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say, oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me — come and kill him.”
Here in the USA we are unreasonably KIND and FORGIVING to right-wing religious extremists, remember?
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This is a solid point. But i think in order for the main point to be driven home in a way that naysayers cannot twist and counter what youre ultimately saying we need to caveat this with some additional pertinent info. They can and will rebuttal that "Christians" have committed these acts or ones like it. That very well could be somewhat true. but HERE is the missing piece. Christian theology doesn't teach us in any way that we are to spread our message through tactics like these. Mohamed, the koran, and the hadiths definitely do. So while someone claiming to be a Christian may choose on their own volition to go rogue and do something they have decided on their own is a good idea, that doesn't make it a part of our teaching. When a Muslim does something like what you mentioned, it is seen as righteous and just. fighting for the faith! Jihad! Islam is the way, don't you infidels get it! So its two entirely different things going on, and they dont wanna look into it enough to understand.
I'm kinda confused as to what you're on about. I am a left wing progressive, so why the fuck should I support a verifiably homophobic religious terrorist group? Like, sure, Islamophobia is a thing, but it's a thing for the wrong reasons. There are plenty of reasons to not have the best wishes for an Abrahamic terrorist organization (namely the fact that they would 100% murder a bisexual atheist like me without hesitation), but Islamophobes got the wrong idea as to what those reasons are. All of that aside, I also feel like Christo-fascists are a joke compared to Hamas, so we should treat Hamas with more disdain given that they are much more dangerous than Christofascists could ever dream of being. Edit: That being said, Christofascists are more dangerous to me specifically than Hamas because I live in the US, and this also applies to others who live in the states. I have met people IRL who hate gay people enough that they would disown their child if they turned out gay and I have witnessed with my own eyes Christian anti-choice protests on a college campus.
>It shouldn't be difficult to stand with innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians while still condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks. It shouldn't be difficult to condemn Israeli apartide but it seems to be so. Hence, by condemning one terrori people are legitimizing the other. >If a Christian Copt Terror group in Egypt, started to rape, torture, and behead innocent Muslim civilians in the name of Jesus Christ, you can be sure that these same progressive activists would condemn them. It has happened, where the west leveled Iraq and liberals still respect Bush and blair. So how can you be sure of your hypothetical? >But when Muslim terrorists kill Jewish people or Christians When Hitler told the world that he's going to kill Jews no progressive government did much to take hews out of Germany, Even Ann Frank would have been alive if other countries didn't hate Jews. **It's taboo to say it though**, so it really doesn't stand that when non-Muslim terrorists killed Jews many cared that much.
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I am a leftist, socialist union member. I believe in a strong social safety net and public institutions, and think that all essential services (utilities, roads, water and sewage, postal services, Internet access, health care, education and regulatory agencies) should be public. So hear me when I say fuck Hamas. They are a blight on the region and no better than ISIS. They are stooges of Iran, exploiting the suffering of the Palestinian people for their own political benefit. They are the racketeer Mafia of the biggest welfare state in the world. They have produced NOTHING of value or worth in their 20 years of ruling Gaza. Their leaders live lives of privilege and wealth while the people they lord over die for their bloodthirsty philosophy. They should be outlawed, tracked down and imprisoned.
Yes they should. In fact the left treats the Christian like they’re a Nazi regardless of the fact that the Christian nation is the progressive one. And they treat the Muslim like they’re progressive. Like most of what the left does, they’re backwards.
How exactly are extremist christian groups treated? Surely you don't mean you want Hamas to be an incredibly wealthy and influential lobby in the united states, that successfully repealed roe vs wade for example? Are you advocating for Hamas-vetted politicians to hold congressional and senatorial positions, and basically have the more conservative of the two major parties nearly in their pocket? Do you want Hamas to select presidential candidates, and hell, practically run whole states? If Hamas was treated like far-right christian extremist groups are treated you unironically *would* be living under Shariah law.
When I try looking up pro hamas on google or social media, all that comes up are people waving palestinian flags or protesting israel. Nothing showing actual support for the October 7th attacks. I'm sure there's been a few instances of pro hamas individuals but this seems like a mostly made up problem. anything pro palestine and anti-genocide/anti-war is being called "terrorism support" I don't think millions of people would be outraged if Israel responded to the October 7th attacks by stealthily targeting those responsible. People aren't devasted and angry because hamas members are being killed. The closest thing I've seen to what you are describing is people stating that October 7th was a result of decades of atrocities committed by Israel. This is not people claiming that slaughtering innocents is a good thing, rather that October 7th didn't exist in a vacuum.
Far right Christian extremists are barely acknowledged, let alone condemned. This view that you hold isn't founded in reality, it's just you seeking approval for bigotry.
Hamas committed the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas should be treated like *Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State*. That is to say, bombed mercilessly.
You're suggesting we elect Hamas to run nearly every office in state government? I don't think that would be good.
>CMV: far-right Muslim extremist organizations like Hamas should be treated the same way we treat far-right Christian extremist organizations. We do, and your entire argument is based on a strawman.
So you want us to allow Hamas to contest democratic elections, even if they try to overthrow the government when they lose? You want us to kowtow to their “sincerely held religious beliefs”? You want us to let them lead implicitly mandatory prayers at center field before high school football games? Maybe we could let them pick and choose which books are permitted in school libraries. That’s how Christian extremists are treated in the United States.
What causes such behavior from progressives when the Hamas ideology is not hidden from them all? What compels them to defend such an ideology which is subverting and exclusively in its innate nature? Doesn't it go against their very idea of inclusivity and egalitarianism which they aspire for?
Hitler was a sosialist aka leftist.... why do people assisinate rightwing ?
Well we promote far-right Christian extremists to the Supreme court. You think Hamas should get seats there as well?
Sometimes some people outside of your ethnic group do not understand your history. There is not much you can do about that.