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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • “I swear to God I saw people burning in front of me. By god, no one could do anything. The man, the woman and the little girl burning in front of me, I swear to God. In front of me they burned, in front of me. Their souls left in front of me, in front of us, in front of all our eyes,” said Saleh Al-Jafarawi, an independent Palestinian journalist who filmed the massacre. “No one was able to do anything, no one was able to advance and get them. We tried, but we couldn’t, the fire was so strong that no one was able to advance and pull them out of the fire. They were burned alive. Their bodies were charred. This is a crime that we have never seen and no one has seen like it,” he added in a video posted on his Instagram account. “I swear to God the scenes that will remain in our memories, will remain in our hearts forever. We will never forget the scene that I witnessed today: The scene of the child and he is burning in the heart of the fire and no one was able to help him.”

    This is what American tax dollars are funding. And neither of the election candidates proposes to stop it.


















  • “I can totally understand why people have a problem with Jews because of the behavior of some extremist right wing Jews.” You might want to take a step back and think about that.

    You yourself admit that worldwide antisemitism is a problem. These people are not thinking subtly. I can understand why people do all kinds of horrible things, but it doesn’t mean I’m sympathetic or defending them.

    Holding all Jews responsible for what happens in Israel, let alone what a particular Israeli government does, is antisemitic.

    I’m saying that a particular group of extreme right wing Jews is encouraging people the world over to make that antisemitic conflation. They do so because in the short term it serves their interests, but in the bigger picture it causes damage.

    And no, it’s not our fault. It’s the fault of the antisemites.

    It’s the fault of antisemites and those that egg them on.

    See the pattern here?

    Of course. Vile antisemitism has a long history.

    The upside to Israel’s actions over the past year is sending a clear message that the Jewish state isn’t going anywhere, and if you try to kill us you will suffer greatly.

    In the process it sends a message to the world that Israel is brutal, racist and hateful. It may end up damaging Israel’s interests more than helping. Netanyahu does what’s best for Netanyahu, not for Israel or for Jews.




  • floofloof@lemmy.catoCanada@lemmy.caConservatives Are Meaner. I Have Proof
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    6 days ago

    I always thought it was a distortion even to put the two on a level as right and left wings, as if they’re equally valid alternative views that balance each other. One starts with an understanding of the basic truth that we share this world and must support each other, and tries to work out, with intelligence and care, how to arrange things so that everyone can thrive. The other is a roiling mess of ignorance, hatred, narrow-mindedness, greed, and personality disorders. To frame it as if there’s an ongoing debate of left vs right is no more valid than to say there’s an ongoing debate between astrophysicists and flat-earthers, medical researchers and antivaxers, or climate scientists and climate change deniers. Funnily enough, all the absurdly ignorant, time-wasting positions on the right-hand side of those pairs are actually popular among the right wing. Conservatism is a personal limitation (even when it’s also a grift), not a real political philosophy.







  • The attempt by Netanyahu and his far-right allies to get us all to conflate a dislike of them and their actions with a dislike of Jews is one of the most antisemitic messages around. They are the ones who are trying to taint people’s understanding of Jewishness itself by associating it with being a belligerent, murderous asshole, and they do it with utter disrespect for Jewish identity, for Jews who disagree with them, and for the damage this could do to Jewish people’s lives and other people’s understanding of Jews. If you want to resist antisemitism, resist the cynical, self-serving and short-sighted messaging of Netanyahu and his friends.

    If there’s one upside of Israel’s actions in the last year, it’s that this gap between attitudes to Israel and attitudes to Jewishness, and the distortion Israel’s government attempts by painting its critics as antisemites, have become much clearer to people around the world. They have been so heavy-handed about it that people are now less likely to conflate these things.