[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 10 points 11 months ago

Feels like a bit of a bad faith critique, given that this is an extremely short clip with no context.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Is this from the same poll?

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago

What we call "terrorism" is the only means provided to the Palestinians to have a voice. They literally are in a concentration camp.

One point that I think is worth emphasizing with some audiences is that if we are horrified by an alleged atrocity committed by the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement, the only thing that can make such resistance and the excesses that may sometimes come with it unnecessary is a range of other options that are actually effective.

So if you want non-violence, do effective non-violence and prove that that it can work. Be the other half of the anti-apartheid movement that makes it possible to some day wind down the violent struggles against apartheid.

Scolding Palestinians about fighting back by the only means left to them doesn't give them any other options. An end to military aid for Israel and a powerful, growing BDS movement potentially could. When the Palestinian resistance has more leverage and power, parties like Hamas and others will recognize that and come to the negotiating table as fighters of national liberation struggles have done in many other countries. But they have to have leverage and non-violent forms of resistance have to be viable and proven, in order for deescalation to be possible.

The insane propaganda we're seeing on this Israeli genocide paralells what we saw after 9-11.

This is possibly an inroad for understanding among people of older generations who understand what historic crimes were committed in the US response to 9/11. Because anyone who was around and old enough then can recognize the similarities in the sound of the imperialist wardrums.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. It's a fortunate thing that nowadays we have a greater capacity than ever to break through the propaganda and access that empathy, and hopefully turn it into widespread international pressure that can strengthen the Palestinian liberation struggle.

If you can convince friends and family members to examine the facts with you, you can make progress towards that end— occasionally even in unexpected places.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've been off of mainstream social media for all of this, so my view is limited. But all of the people I've been talking to regularly IRL, I've been educating or conversing with about this conflict as I educate myself. And so far, across 3 generations, everyone has been pretty receptive to the history and facts, and some are even open to reading a couple books on Palestinian history with me. All of them see the basic justness of the Palestinian cause.

I think there are at least some people within every generation who are still ignorant but could yet receive the truth.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 49 points 1 year ago

This, exactly. Do I endorse Hamas' entire political program and orientation? I don't know Hamas intimately, or their current internal debates, or whatever, but it's still safe to say no. I'm a secularist, an egalitarian, a socialist, etc., etc. But I recognize— as do the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine, for example— that Hamas currently plays a leading role in the armed resistance to the Israeli settler-colonial project in general and the occupation of Gaza in particular, as well as running all of the basic civil services (such as they exist) in Gaza.

183

original title: 'An Insane Number of Gen Zers Support Hamas's Slaughter of Innocent Israelis'

31
Against Innocence (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bestagoner@hexbear.net to c/palestine@lemmygrad.ml

We should stop and discourage using the word 'innocent' in these discussions.

The wrongness of killing an unarmed person, or bombing someone's home, or rape, or ethnic cleansing, or racist discrimination, or dehumanizing discourse, is not conditioned upon the 'innocence' of the victims.

At the same time, true 'innocence', or even 'civilianity' (to paraphrase one infamous ghoul), is in extremely short supply in Israel.

If we feel horror at the most brutal moments of the Palestinian armed resistance, it cannot be because those killed, injured, or otherwise hurt or frightened are innocent. It has to be because overwhelming brutality is horrifying no matter who it targets. But if we take that seriously, it's undeniable that the Israeli patterns and policies of massively disproportionate response and collective punishment— never mind the founding crimes of the Israeli state— are horrors of a much, much greater magnitude than individual, particularly brutal incidents of Palestinian vengeance.

In this context, the concept of innocence serves, on the one hand:

  • to paper over the unique and extreme military orientation of Israeli society, the absolutely overwhelming participation in the military in Israeli society, the outsized presence of the military-industrial complex in the whole Israeli civilian economy, and the violence of continued, illegal extraterritorial settlement in Israel; and on the other,
  • to put conditions on which Palestinians deserve safety, and treat Israel's disproportionate response as just by default— what Israel is doing is right except for how it affects 'innocent Palestinians'.

Under such framing, the primary aggressor and oppressor in an asymmetric conflict becomes the innocent, passive victim. At the same time, framing 'innocent Palestinians' as collateral damage transforms the primary effect of bombing an apartment building into something secondary, a mere side effect.

The concept of 'innocence' serves only to obscure the moral and political realities here. So reject it and correct it when it comes up in discussion of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and Palestinian resistance to occupation and ethnic cleansing.

[Thoughts have been brewing for a while, but making a post was inspired by this thread on Hexbear, in which moral uprightness or goodness is deployed to similar effect as the concept of innocence.]

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

I work for a large, global staffing agency and let me assure you, you are already a faceless spreadsheet cell among many, and AI is already a factor in your ability to advance or get noticed at multiple stages in the pipeline

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

Most parties have at least some meetings, and certainly many events, which are open to the general public. Just attend some, and join the org which is doing the work you most want to be involved in. As for the dangers of cult-like microsects and burnout, maybe why you shouldn't join any, check out this podcast by a bunch of former members of such a party.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Based on these victims' ages and the fact that they weren't in prison, can't we infer that they were in the IDF?

They probably couldn't have been Greta's friends then

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

He's on a half-informed anti-idpol/politically incorrect kick for the past few years, and combined with his tendency to really stick it to people and actions that he feels lack integrity, it sometimes leads him to engage in insults and boomerisms that ultimately undermine his valid points. It's a real shame because he still has a lot of value to say and he's getting in his own way when he does that.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

I love how the questioner in that clip just smiles, nods and walks away instead of further replying, like 'damn, you got me'. He doesn't seem mad about it either— he looks like maybe it's really given him something to think about.

[-] bestagoner@hexbear.net 50 points 1 year ago

A little bit to my surprise, ol' Norman Finkelstein, in his media appearances since this latest development in the occupation, has refused to condemn Hamas. In his interview with Chris Hedges yesterday, he explained this decision with reference to slave revolts in the US, John Brown, and the Haitian revolution. I think it's a sound comparison.

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