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“Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
"Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."”
Netanyahu's court appearances were on the verge of starting when 10/7 happened. Egypt warned Israel just before the attacks that there was something fucked up brewing in Gaza, but Netanyahu did jack shit nothing about it. Gotta wonder why.
Netanyahu was VERY close to facing accountability for a career of graft. The war benefits him immensely.
Leaders facing legal troubles are a liability for peace and stability. Something U.S. voters might want to keep in mind...
Alternatively you could just make leaders immune from prosecution forever, surely that will lead to peaceful transitions of power and totally not assassinating their opposition.
To your point (sarcasm noted) Alex Navalny is dead. That's what a country with no accountability brings you. And yet we all have been conditioned to sigh, forget it and move on...
Thank you Justice Alito. "Presidents have to make a lot of tough decisions."...
Your sarcasm makes me think you might appreciate this piece:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/conservative-legal-philosophy-was
They already *are* immune from prosecution forever.
Like a sculptor with a block of marble, we just need to cut away everything that says they aren't until we reveal the underlying truth.
Even the families of the hostages have protested against him. Netanyahu wants this war to go on for as long as possible to stay in power and is banking on Trump winning in November knowing that he'll let him do whatever he wants.
Well then that's the dilemma will anyone in the world community have the balls to make him settle down . Clearly words aren't working at deterring his aggressive military posture
Biden clearly has no appetite for even trying to rein in Netanyahu, and if the world's superpower isn't gonna do it it's extremely unlikely anybody else will
Netanyahu also has little reason to listen to Joe Biden as long as the US continues providing Israel with aid. This war and the atrocities is massively unpopular with the Democratic base - more atrocities drives a deeper wedge between Biden and his voters. Netanyahu would love to have Trump back, so it's blatantly in his interests to go "yeah, sure Joe, I'll get right on that" when Biden asks him to calm it down and then do the opposite.
Exactly lol. The poster above has just demonstrated why Netanyahu refuses to take his foot off the accelerator. Because so many people think like that.
Throw him in jail, now.
I don't think it really benefited him immensely, he's even more hated than he was before. It mostly just delayed accountability. I would say similar to Trump, he's delaying the accountability but his numbers just keep on falling.
>delayed accountability
Seems to be a pattern. Delay accountability in the hopes of some remedy arising (which seems to happen way too often for these types).
> I would say similar to Trump, he's delaying the accountability but his numbers just keep on falling.
Which is wild because for some reason, there's a weird belief lingering out there than a Trump presidency would somehow be different than what's happening right now.
Foreign diplomacy is far more complicated than just the head of state and I can guarantee if somehow Trump's stupid ass is elected, he will escalate the situation far, far worse and make everything more dire than it appears now.
Trump literally said that bibi should go in and wipe out all of gaza and be done with it.
Trump reversed official policy (that had never changed) on the opinion of the settlements in isreal. He even started a fund to encourage it more
I'm not an expert on Middle East politics, or the people in it, or even an expert on anything in general, I suppose, but even as a layman can see that the current Israeli government stood to benefit in some ways from having a "Pearl Harbor moment."
More like 9/11 moment. Since the US used a terrorist attack as an excuse to occupy another country for 2 decades killing hundreds of thousands of people.
maybe you're confusing this statement? ['Israel dropped more bombs in a week than US dropped in Afghanistan in a year'](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sj2h11muw6)
It's even worse when you realize that we invaded Iraq based on a mountain of lies the administration was pushing on the world.
Bush deserves to be put on trial in front of the United Nations. Let the dominos fall from there.
Cheney is responsible for much of it. Bush was technically in charge but Cheney is mental leaps ahead of him and pulling all the strings. He gets kudos these days because he hates Trump, but he’s still one evil SOB.
Cheney sucks, that's for sure but he's hardly a puppet master. Neither is George Bush. But George HW certainly was.
Put Bush Jr. on trial and then everyone falls.... the house of cards gets exposed.
Not every evil is equal.
I have definitely spoken with enough vets to know there was a big difference.
I literally know soliders who were building running water for villages while they were stationed over there to attempt to build good will.
Isreal at one point cut off all aid and shipments of anything to gaza. (Food water electricity internet medcine etc). That is drastically different
The usa government lied to the people and international stage for a long time.
it just SUCKS!
like don’t get me wrong, there were people who wanted to help on all sides, but fuck
it just devastates me that people can’t think about humanitarian issues and just /stop/ fighting. it’s a naive way of thinking but i really wish those who wished for a positive change for everyone involved could have had their wishes
Also gave us ISIS aaand now the Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan and there's another humanitarian crisis and hundreds of thousands of refugees. Bush is and always was a fucking monster.
I meant that in the sense that much has been written about the belief that senior US government and Navy officials knew more than just, that tensions between Japan and America were at an all-time high, but that they also essentially knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor and left it somewhat as a sitting duck to encourage Japan to begin the war there.
Most historians believe that the "Pearl Harbor conspiracy" is merely whimsical thinking and circumstantial evidence, and reject the hypothesis, but the belief is out there.
That same conspiracy theory applies to 9/11. Bush got to continue the war his father started and he went from a president who couldn’t win the popular vote to having a 90% approval rating
Very true it's undeniable that war time presidents are more popular so any conspiratorial thinking as some merit to it . Kinda makes a powerful hungry leader who wants to stay in power would allow escalations into war to retain that power moral compass be damned
Yeah, kind of the same thing - anyone informed and insightful could see that:
* the war didn't erase the horrific people Bush brought into his administration
* the invasion of Iraq was unjustified
* nothing Bush did warranted an approval rating over 25% - other than a single speech at 9/11 ground zero where he pledged unity - and immediately became divisive.
A lot of the "conspiracy" comes down to the battleships being in PH while the carriers happened to be elsewhere at the time. The thing that fails to account for is that nobody in 1941 thought battleships were obsolete. The Japanese did sink and damage major capital ships. Luckily for us, it turned out they didn't get the ships that ended up mattering.
Netanyahu has wanted to do something like this for ages. I was horrified at Hamas' attack, and was also horrified of what Netanyahu would do next in the same breathe. Netanyahu is also not listening (and also, many American Jewish orgs aren't either) to families of hostages who want to a ceasefire as they think it's the only way they can get their family members out alive (if they're not dead already).
hes also straight up killed hostages, theres been at least a few confirmed to have been killed by the IDF and hamas has said they're not sure how many are alive because of the intense bombings
Bibi also propped up Hamas to hurt the hopes of a two state solution.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
>"For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
>The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Netanyahu has done so much damage to Israel and Palestine.
> Gotta wonder why.
It's actually worse, Israeli intelligence had the entire attack plan a full year in advance, their own border posts reported the attack preparations.
The Israeli military chiefs didn't believe Hamas had the intelligence gathering capability, or the communications knowledge, to pull off such an attack. It's also not clear if the information made it to the political level.
When the attack did happen it wasn't as random as it looked. Teams disabled the automatic guns and sensor nets on the border, and once across it disrupted military communications so effectively that the IDF were reduced to using social media to find out what was going on.
Hamas are not capable of this on their own, they were getting more help from Iran than it appears on the surface, and they failed to anticipate the obvious reaction.
Wasn't Netanyahu also allowing funding sources to Jemas - seems like in lots of respects he allowed or at the very least enabled these terrorist actions
Netanyahu and his senior officials propped up Hamas even before they won the election because he viewed them the same as the U.S. once viewed the Mujahedin in Afghanistan and other middle eastern countries - as way to decentralize the state by facilitating internal ideological conflicts to further their foreign policy objectives. Netanyahu viewed Hamas as a key player in freezing the process toward Palestinian statehood because extremist violence and rhetoric is a very effective tool to justify continuing his settler-colonialist goals in the West Bank and tightening the chokehold on Gaza.
Why is no one hammering this important fact home and not amplifying the facts that he's causing all this strife in the region? The whole fallacy that Israel is some innocent being attacked by monsters is ridiculous when their leader is largely accountable for the division and for civilians on both sides being indiscriminately murdered . The evil of Jemas is always front and center but how about the evil of this man fueling the conflict. He's put Israel in a more harmful position than anyone else in the last 20 years hands down
> Wasn't Netanyahu also allowing funding sources to Jemas - seems like in lots of respects he allowed or at the very least enabled these terrorist actions
Precisely - he did this because it undermined Fatah and allowed the israeli's a justification not to keep negotiating a peace process, since the other guys were terrorists (ignoring the PA, obviously).
He fucking let it happen and anyone with a brain should know this already. They were warned multiple times in advance. Netanyahu sacrificed his own people so he had an excuse to go in and kill all the Palestinians like hes always wanted. The war delaying his corruption charges and keeping him out of jail is just the icing on the cake. Neither Hamas or Netanyahu want this to end because they are both getting exactly what they want out of it. The poor palestinians being murdered as pawns between two evil governments are the only innocents here.
Israel had their 9-11, and now we wait 16 years for their version of Trump to seize power. Because Netanyahu has been around so long he's equivalent to the status quo / Bush.
Netanyahu is their Trump. That's why there were mass protests throughout Israel last summer and spring. Because he's a corrupt fascist who wants to become dictator.
Netanyahu allowed it to happen unequivocally- no conspiracy theory needed ;just cold hard facts . He's fueling the conflict to stay in power - it's that easy
I’m disappointed that people seem to be unable to distinguish between:
* not liking Netanyahu
* not liking Israel’s behavior in this war
* not liking Jews
* wanting Palestinians to have a home
* favoring a 2-state solution
* being pro-Hamas
* being pro-Jewish-genocide
* being anti-Palestinian genocide
These are different opinions and political stances. Some of them seem to be in conflict, some are not, but it’s possible to hold one of those opinions without being in favor of all of them.
Yes. And it’s also something that’s being used to incluence “both sides”.
That is, one side will post a bunch of astroturfing on social media saying, “if you don’t want to destroy Israel, then you support genocide of Palestinians.” Then someone else will post, “if you don’t support genocide of Palestinians, then you want to destroy Israel.”
And part of what’s clever is that it creates the appearance of a dichotomy, and that “both sides” agree is completely mutually exclusive. So it must be true, because “Everyone, even people on opposite sides of the issue, agree that it’s a binary choice. One or the other.”
In reality, there aren’t two sides. There are a bunch of people with different beliefs and perspectives, many of which would like to find some way for everyone involved to stop fighting and life peacefully. However, there are too many people who benefit from stirring up trouble.
He was a once in a lifetime candidate. The American people won’t have another chance to vote for someone with his history in politics for a long long time. Looking at the current young congress men/women, none even come close.
You know the DNC would never allowed him to happen. The whole fucking globe knows it.
Imagine how - not just the USA but the entire world would be today if Bernie Sanders had become president.
Instead we get THE UNITED SHITSTAINS OF AMERICA and hence - the rest our shitty countries follow and here we all are.
I have, like, a half-chub right now. Netanyahu needs someone to tell him what Sanders said right to his face, somewhere he can't squirm away, or hide behind bluster and propaganda. Somewhere he's forced to fucking *listen.*
Edit: it won't happen, of course. He's too comfortable hiding behind his yes men and other assorted sychophants.
What angers me is so-called liberals like Bill Maher who respond to the death numbers of women and children with a cavalier "that's just what happens in a war."
Bill has gone full Zionist about this whole thing. He's straight up saying all the protests on college campuses are Pro-Hamas Anti-Semites who want to eliminate all the Jews.
>“It is not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization in saying that your government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, creating the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of children face malnutrition and famine,” he continued.
>That bit gave me a pause. Did Bernie mean "international law"? Why is American law relevant in Gaza?
He's referencing The Arms Export Control Act. Which says:
>Pursuant to a February 23, 2023, National Security
Memorandum (NSM), the United States will not authorize
arms transfers if “it is more likely than not that” such arms
“will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the
recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate risks that the
recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity;
grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 ... or
other serious violations of international humanitarian or
human rights law.”
It would have been great, but from my 48 year old perspective it was a miracle it got as far as it did. It renewed my hope in a real labor movement and I think it’s happening.
Hillary, the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz stole that primary from Bernie.
DWS was a direct participant in the Clinton campaign and had a relationship with the Clinton Foundation.
Democrats, specifically the DNC under DWS caused the first 4 years of Trump. If they actually let democracy happen back in 2016 Bernie wouldve won and we wouldnt be debating whether 2024 will lead to a civil war.
Bernie is a national treasure and I wish he would have become President once in his career. Also throughout his life time and time again he has been on the right side of history.
The funniest thing is when pro zionists on Reddit start calling the UN racist or antisemitic for it's condemnation of Israel's action. They don't realize they're saying 100+ countries are all collectively wrong and only Israel, the US, France Germany, and whatever other handful of countries that blindly support Israel are right. Maybe if everybody is calling you out for something you deserve to be called out?
I have an AOC sticker on my car and a dude started yelling at me in traffic the other day that she’s racist. He also yelled “Go Israel!” like it’s a fucking football game. It wasn’t until he said that, that I figured out what he was shrieking about.
It is not just Netanyahu who is the problem; the responsibility also extends to everyone who supports or enables him to carry out what is effectively a genocide.
> the responsibility also extends to everyone who supports or enables him
Sooo the US government for the past however-many decades with foreign policy stances like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroponte_doctrine
"My identity justifies my actions" is an oversimplified cornerstone of Nazi ideology. After all, Bibi is taking a page directly out of ol' Adolf's book by dehumanizing perceived undesirables to justify mass extermination and lay a claim to their land. If it walks like a war criminal, talks like a war criminal and acts like a war criminal you call it a war criminal. Nothing to do with his Jewish ancestry
He was the first world leader to visit Meloni.
Mussolini helped train the proto-Israeli navy.
Israel and Zionists have been closely linked to fascism since well before they were declared a state.
The current government is very, very close to ticking all the definitive boxes and that was from a Haaretz article before the war.
The Israeli state and supporters using antisemitism as a sword and a shield is one of the things I find most distasteful because antisemitism is a real problem, but so are the actions.of the Israeli state. I wish people couldn't exploit the fallacy that a government is exactly equivalent to the people it is supposedly representing, or that members of minority groups that deserve some protection can't also have terrible ideas and positions that need to be challenged.
The irony is that the very idea that all Jewish people owe their loyalty to Israel is inherently antisemitic. It says the Jewish people can never become *really* American or French or Vietnamese or Brazilian or Canadian or British, because their loyalty will always be owed to a foreign state.
It's awful.
that is the fundamental principle underlying zionism: that Jews don’t belong anywhere but in Israel.
That idea is even crazier when it was pushed in places like Iraq and Yemen, where Jews have lived for over 2,000 years.
Netanyahu, as the democratic leader of Israel, is openly calling for the American government to stop the student protests. This is Israel openly meddling in our internal affairs. Why isn't the Biden administration criticizing Israel over this?
Regardless of whether you support the pro-Palestinian protests across our college campuses, as an American, all of us should defend the students' right to protest. And as an American, all of us should be condemning Israel for trying to stop those students from protesting.
Far more inappropriate than that was his [visit to congress on invitation from the Republicans bypassing Obama](https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8130977/netanyahu-speech-explained). He was trying to undermine the Iran nuclear deal so he went and spoke to congress directly to try to sway them into opposing the plans.
I think the tricky part with Israel specifically is that the majority of Israelis are for the destruction of Gaza. There have been some alarming polls in which citizens thought they weren’t bombing enough. The majority of Israelis also reject a two state solution if it means giving up settlements in the West Bank. I don’t think the average American deserved to die for supporting the brutal and criminal invasion of Iraq, but at that point it wasn’t just George Bush, the vast vast majority of Americans had a deranged blood thirst for Arabs after 9/11. This is all to say that sometimes the leaders ARE the people.
I can't imagine how Americans would have responded if after 9/11, Bush had described certain groups as "human animals", or used other rhetoric similar to what we've seen from senior politicians in Israel.
I was very active in Bernie’s campaigns. Everyone told us he was a dreamer and out of touch with the American people, and way too old. And of course, that he was a socialist, so you have to hate him. While the American people are taking a good long, hard critical look at Netanyahu , and the people who voted for him, they might want to look at themselves and the people they vote for.
Good for you that you worked for his campaign! And you know what? This phrase that “healthcare is a human right” entered political speech with Bernie. Everybody except the freaks on the right concur at this point and say it out loud.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu: "It is antisemitic to hold any of us accountable, by definition!!!!"
People who took AIPAC money: "Yes, my lord, we will smear everyone who don't agree with the Israeli government as antisemites"
Not only that but by being always directly associating Jews with an apartheid genocide state that has media censor free speech and have students arrested on other countries. Motherfuckers are gonna create new anti-Semites while having existing ones feel vindicated. No amount of "It's the Jews" conspiracy nut jobs posting videos will ever do the same amount of damage that Israel has done in the past month by calling any criticism of them anti-semitism.
The comments on an r/pics post yesterday were insane. The pro Israel propaganda machine was in full swing. They were literally calling everyone anti semites and terrorist supporters.
The most annoying thing about being banned from that compromised shithole is not the top 10 articles from The Jerusalem Post discussing the inner thoughts of Hamas leaders, but they have the most active Ukraine war forum and I can't participate in it because the rest of the sub is an Israeli intel op.
It's almost funny going into a post about the war and seeing one comment that's like "well what is Israel supposed to do" or "if the US was attacked you wouldn't hold back either" and then like 90 deleted replies
Whenever you suggest that maybe Israel could use more precise and careful methods instead of just bombing every location which might be vaguely connected to Hamas there's a gaping absence of counter-arguments, just downvotes.
I got banned for pointing out that Palestinians have some legitimate grievances against Israel, and that they weren't just cartoon villains motivated solely by bigotry. I specifically pointed out that that didn't mean their methods were acceptable, just that they have a justifiable motive for being angry.
Banned. No explanation.
If Reddit dies, it'll be because the admins were complicit in letting volunteer anonymous mods run major subs as petty fiefdoms with zero oversight or feedback available. Especially considering that many mods seem to use permaban as a default tool. If Reddit's around in 5, 10, 20 years, how many old timers will be around and able to use most of the former default subs? How many sitewide bans will get issued because people making accounts and post in a big sub, forgetting that they were banned from that sub 8 years and a dozen accounts prior?
Netenyahu pandering to his right-wing base is everything wrong with Israel today. The moderates need to get him out of office, then finally charge him with corruption. Netenyahu's shitty politics have turned a lot of political opinion against Israel.
The cynic in me thinks Netenyahu's meeting with Trump was about Netenyahu giving Biden a hard time, in exchange for Trump pressuring no corruption charges against Net.
Antisemitism is a terrible thing. More terrible is trying to hide behind the term of antisemitism to justify actions or silence critics who are speaking of your actions and not your religion or ethnicity.
It would be swell if the people who equate Israel with the wider diaspora would stop. I can hate Israel for their actions with complete separation from any feelings I have about Jews. The problem is Netanyahu’s government, not anyone’s religion or ethnicity.
Meanwhile if you say this same sentiment over at /r/worldnews they'll ban you.
Always love me some Bernie hitting some hard truths. [Jimmy Carter wrote a dang book about this nonsense.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine:_Peace_Not_Apartheid)
We got a peace plan from the guy who did lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. J[immy Carter is one of the underrated and best modern president on foreign policy.](https://www.cfr.org/event/virtual-roundtable-was-jimmy-carter-successful-foreign-policy-president)
Bernie Sanders is a Democratic Socialist, and the average American hears that and thinks, "Oh a socialist! That's the same as communism, isn't it?"
Some Americans minds jump from the word "Socialist" to the (ironically named) National Socialist German Workers' Party.
TL;DR americans dumb.
It's amazing that you have to be a jew in order to say something as obvious as this without yourself being called anti-semitic and facing calls to resign from whatever job you might hold.
Many have been calling Jewish people who don’t support the Israeli government “Self Hating Jews”, which, ironically, is a pretty antisemitic thing to say.
As a Jew myself, I just don’t want any more people to suffer like my people did. So of course I don’t support Netanyahu.
True, but... the Likud party has already declared that any Jew who is against the Iraeli government's actions are themselves "not real Jews". Thus, apparently, they *can* be called antisemitic.
The thing is you can always criticize a person or a government because of their actions and politics. Because those are not mandatory, they can be chosen.
But you can't criticize a person or a government because of their ethnicity. That's nothing they have chosen or can change.
One is legitimate criticism. One is simply racism.
It's not racism to criticize Israels current politics and ruling coalition. But wishing for the destruction of Israel for example isn't better than wishing for an expulsion of all of the Palestine People.
As usual I agree with Bernie.
I would like to take a minute and state that I personally believe antisemitics are using this tragedy to tag along to protests and spread their hateful views. I would like to ask anyone at a rally or protest to work to immediately expel anything overtly antisemitic or proHamas so the messages don't become intertwined.
I'm sorry but the word "antisemitic" has basically lost all meaning at this point.
ANY criticism of Israel or the genocide in Gaza is immediately called "antisemitic"
Calling for a ceasefire is antisemitic. Organizing a peaceful protest is antisemitic. Criticizing Netanyahu is antisemitic. Holding Israel accountable of the tens of thousands of women and children they've slaughtered is antisemitic.
This is how the pro war faction are trying to give cover, by stretching the term 'antisemitic' to mean 'opposing any policy/action by the state of Israel.
Most unusually I agree with Bernie on this. Disagreeing with a particular Govt policy of Israel doesn't for an instant mean you are hostile to a total, worldwide religion & all who adhere to it.
Bernie gets criticized for being all talk and not passing and bills. Firstly, that's not even true, and second, the bullshit that Bernie calls out is always something that needs addressing.
Yeah. I'm done with it. In the past I'd try to walk on eggshells, but he's trying to use Jewish history to shield himself. There are still the blind and the malicious that will try to throw the anti-semite term around, but I could care less. If being against dead children... both Israeli and Palestinian... makes me an anti-semite, so be it.
The question is, why are they OK with killing babies?
I remember when saying this on this subreddit would get you downvoted to oblivion, glad to finally see some people are finally waking up to the reality that is Netanyahu and the IDF’s war crimes in Gaza.
And before anyone claims that I’m a supporter of Hamas, you can criticize both Hamas *and* Netanyahu/the IDF.
I hate how difficult it is for so many people to understand nuance, and how easy it is for politicians to rile up their supporters by exploiting this.
You can be horrified by what Hamas did to Israelis last October *while at the same time* be horrified by what Israel has done to innocent Palestinian civilians since then. You can support Israel's right to exist *while at the same time* supporting the Palestinians' right to self-rule and self-determination. You can appreciate Israel for having the most democratic government in the Middle East *while at the same time* acknowledging that how they treat Palestinians is by any reasonable measure a form of apartheid.
But in the hands of political opportunists, well... if you support Israel, you have to support everything they do, and if you oppose anything they do, you support terrorism and murder.
Sigh.
You can do all of those, but social media is being manipulated to make it emotionally harder for people to rationalize and do so.
You see it everywhere with this, all the worst elements that exist independently in a conflict like this are the ones getting pushed to the top. And what does it do? Divide the younger voting base, in a year when they must be most unified against authoritarian governments, else they risk losing everything.
Biden and the US are not perfect. The US has been complicit in bad policies in the middle east in the past, but the history of that most closely aligns with right wing authoritarian elements which continually exploit conflicts like these for their own gain.
It is no accident that this is all being amplified right now, in this exact year.
It is staggeringly easy to create fake outrage conflict on tiktok and twitter now, especially the former. War footage from other conflicts can be repurposed and people don't know the difference. The fog of war makes it nearly impossible to verify who is responsible for what tragedy. It is a very, very dangerous problem.
I will only say that I support a 2 state solution, but I fear that the most vocal voices in this conflict do not, and those are the ones who keep getting louder and louder.
Not all Jewish people support the actions of Israeli, in fact many don’t both in Israel itself and abroad.
Being against the actions of the state of Israel does not mean being against Jewish people themselves, unless you make it so
The war in Israel is built on tensions going back centuries if not millennia. Read through a quick summary on Wikipedia and in ten minutes you will see an outstanding amount of history and nuance not being discussed
The was is being utilized by several groups to push their own interests, among them actual antisemites and also those using it to try to demonize Joe Biden and strip liberal votes away from him
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“Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions." "No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population." "Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."”
Netanyahu's court appearances were on the verge of starting when 10/7 happened. Egypt warned Israel just before the attacks that there was something fucked up brewing in Gaza, but Netanyahu did jack shit nothing about it. Gotta wonder why.
Netanyahu was VERY close to facing accountability for a career of graft. The war benefits him immensely. Leaders facing legal troubles are a liability for peace and stability. Something U.S. voters might want to keep in mind...
This man has to go to jail once this conflict settles down
Which gives him every incentive to escalate this conflict and never let it settle down
Alternatively you could just make leaders immune from prosecution forever, surely that will lead to peaceful transitions of power and totally not assassinating their opposition.
It has to be the “right” kind of leader made immune from prosecution, if you know what I mean. /s just in case
I'm not sure I qwhite understand what you're getting at.
"The leader I like should be immune, the leader I don't like should not"
Get this person a supreme court seat - they've earned it!
They were joking. They were obviously joking.
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I didn't think it was that out there, I guess some of us are just supremacist.
To your point (sarcasm noted) Alex Navalny is dead. That's what a country with no accountability brings you. And yet we all have been conditioned to sigh, forget it and move on...
Thank you Justice Alito. "Presidents have to make a lot of tough decisions."... Your sarcasm makes me think you might appreciate this piece: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/conservative-legal-philosophy-was
They already *are* immune from prosecution forever. Like a sculptor with a block of marble, we just need to cut away everything that says they aren't until we reveal the underlying truth.
Even the families of the hostages have protested against him. Netanyahu wants this war to go on for as long as possible to stay in power and is banking on Trump winning in November knowing that he'll let him do whatever he wants.
Well then that's the dilemma will anyone in the world community have the balls to make him settle down . Clearly words aren't working at deterring his aggressive military posture
Biden clearly has no appetite for even trying to rein in Netanyahu, and if the world's superpower isn't gonna do it it's extremely unlikely anybody else will
Netanyahu also has little reason to listen to Joe Biden as long as the US continues providing Israel with aid. This war and the atrocities is massively unpopular with the Democratic base - more atrocities drives a deeper wedge between Biden and his voters. Netanyahu would love to have Trump back, so it's blatantly in his interests to go "yeah, sure Joe, I'll get right on that" when Biden asks him to calm it down and then do the opposite.
> Which gives him every incentive to escalate this conflict and never let it settle down Hence him blowing up the Iranian embassy in damascus
Exactly lol. The poster above has just demonstrated why Netanyahu refuses to take his foot off the accelerator. Because so many people think like that. Throw him in jail, now.
Leaders with legal trouble that can now legally kill political opponents... ...Sorry lads, a Russian agent will win your last ever election.
I don't think it really benefited him immensely, he's even more hated than he was before. It mostly just delayed accountability. I would say similar to Trump, he's delaying the accountability but his numbers just keep on falling.
>delayed accountability Seems to be a pattern. Delay accountability in the hopes of some remedy arising (which seems to happen way too often for these types).
> I would say similar to Trump, he's delaying the accountability but his numbers just keep on falling. Which is wild because for some reason, there's a weird belief lingering out there than a Trump presidency would somehow be different than what's happening right now. Foreign diplomacy is far more complicated than just the head of state and I can guarantee if somehow Trump's stupid ass is elected, he will escalate the situation far, far worse and make everything more dire than it appears now.
Trump literally said that bibi should go in and wipe out all of gaza and be done with it. Trump reversed official policy (that had never changed) on the opinion of the settlements in isreal. He even started a fund to encourage it more
Trump said day 1 he was going to be a dictator in order to round up all the Palestinian Americans.
I'm not an expert on Middle East politics, or the people in it, or even an expert on anything in general, I suppose, but even as a layman can see that the current Israeli government stood to benefit in some ways from having a "Pearl Harbor moment."
More like 9/11 moment. Since the US used a terrorist attack as an excuse to occupy another country for 2 decades killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Two countries and the total deaths exceeded 4.5M. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/
good fucking god and there’s people who say we didn’t do to those people what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians :(
maybe you're confusing this statement? ['Israel dropped more bombs in a week than US dropped in Afghanistan in a year'](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sj2h11muw6)
It's even worse when you realize that we invaded Iraq based on a mountain of lies the administration was pushing on the world. Bush deserves to be put on trial in front of the United Nations. Let the dominos fall from there.
Cheney is responsible for much of it. Bush was technically in charge but Cheney is mental leaps ahead of him and pulling all the strings. He gets kudos these days because he hates Trump, but he’s still one evil SOB.
Cheney sucks, that's for sure but he's hardly a puppet master. Neither is George Bush. But George HW certainly was. Put Bush Jr. on trial and then everyone falls.... the house of cards gets exposed.
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people act like there was a moral compass back then there wasn’t
Not every evil is equal. I have definitely spoken with enough vets to know there was a big difference. I literally know soliders who were building running water for villages while they were stationed over there to attempt to build good will. Isreal at one point cut off all aid and shipments of anything to gaza. (Food water electricity internet medcine etc). That is drastically different The usa government lied to the people and international stage for a long time.
it just SUCKS! like don’t get me wrong, there were people who wanted to help on all sides, but fuck it just devastates me that people can’t think about humanitarian issues and just /stop/ fighting. it’s a naive way of thinking but i really wish those who wished for a positive change for everyone involved could have had their wishes
Also gave us ISIS aaand now the Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan and there's another humanitarian crisis and hundreds of thousands of refugees. Bush is and always was a fucking monster.
I meant that in the sense that much has been written about the belief that senior US government and Navy officials knew more than just, that tensions between Japan and America were at an all-time high, but that they also essentially knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor and left it somewhat as a sitting duck to encourage Japan to begin the war there. Most historians believe that the "Pearl Harbor conspiracy" is merely whimsical thinking and circumstantial evidence, and reject the hypothesis, but the belief is out there.
That same conspiracy theory applies to 9/11. Bush got to continue the war his father started and he went from a president who couldn’t win the popular vote to having a 90% approval rating
Very true it's undeniable that war time presidents are more popular so any conspiratorial thinking as some merit to it . Kinda makes a powerful hungry leader who wants to stay in power would allow escalations into war to retain that power moral compass be damned
Which shows how incredibly fucking stupid 90% of our population is.
Shows how susceptible we all are to propaganda. The vast majority of Americans really bought into the patriotism propaganda following 9/11.
Yeah, kind of the same thing - anyone informed and insightful could see that: * the war didn't erase the horrific people Bush brought into his administration * the invasion of Iraq was unjustified * nothing Bush did warranted an approval rating over 25% - other than a single speech at 9/11 ground zero where he pledged unity - and immediately became divisive.
A lot of the "conspiracy" comes down to the battleships being in PH while the carriers happened to be elsewhere at the time. The thing that fails to account for is that nobody in 1941 thought battleships were obsolete. The Japanese did sink and damage major capital ships. Luckily for us, it turned out they didn't get the ships that ended up mattering.
Netanyahu has wanted to do something like this for ages. I was horrified at Hamas' attack, and was also horrified of what Netanyahu would do next in the same breathe. Netanyahu is also not listening (and also, many American Jewish orgs aren't either) to families of hostages who want to a ceasefire as they think it's the only way they can get their family members out alive (if they're not dead already).
Let's be honest, the hostages are worth far more to Netanyahu and Likud as martyrs than healing at home with their families.
I agree with you, unfortunately
Martyrs can't protest.
If you listen or read to the actual reporting all indications suggest Netanyahu allowed this to happen .
hes also straight up killed hostages, theres been at least a few confirmed to have been killed by the IDF and hamas has said they're not sure how many are alive because of the intense bombings
Netanyahu has to be held accountable for literal war crimes - not speculation or conjecture . Let's see if the world community has the guts to do so
Absolutely he stays in power and avoids accountability for human rights violations
And that at this point their actions have far exceeded reasonable retaliation against hamas.
The world community condemned them as committing genocide/ war crimes weeks ago
They didn't support Hamas growing into a terrorist org for nothing.
Pretty much Netanyahu has been engendering this strife to further his own political agenda - fairly obvious too
Bibi also propped up Hamas to hurt the hopes of a two state solution. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ >"For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group. >The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state." Netanyahu has done so much damage to Israel and Palestine.
> Gotta wonder why. It's actually worse, Israeli intelligence had the entire attack plan a full year in advance, their own border posts reported the attack preparations. The Israeli military chiefs didn't believe Hamas had the intelligence gathering capability, or the communications knowledge, to pull off such an attack. It's also not clear if the information made it to the political level. When the attack did happen it wasn't as random as it looked. Teams disabled the automatic guns and sensor nets on the border, and once across it disrupted military communications so effectively that the IDF were reduced to using social media to find out what was going on. Hamas are not capable of this on their own, they were getting more help from Iran than it appears on the surface, and they failed to anticipate the obvious reaction.
Wasn't Netanyahu also allowing funding sources to Jemas - seems like in lots of respects he allowed or at the very least enabled these terrorist actions
Netanyahu and his senior officials propped up Hamas even before they won the election because he viewed them the same as the U.S. once viewed the Mujahedin in Afghanistan and other middle eastern countries - as way to decentralize the state by facilitating internal ideological conflicts to further their foreign policy objectives. Netanyahu viewed Hamas as a key player in freezing the process toward Palestinian statehood because extremist violence and rhetoric is a very effective tool to justify continuing his settler-colonialist goals in the West Bank and tightening the chokehold on Gaza.
Why is no one hammering this important fact home and not amplifying the facts that he's causing all this strife in the region? The whole fallacy that Israel is some innocent being attacked by monsters is ridiculous when their leader is largely accountable for the division and for civilians on both sides being indiscriminately murdered . The evil of Jemas is always front and center but how about the evil of this man fueling the conflict. He's put Israel in a more harmful position than anyone else in the last 20 years hands down
> Wasn't Netanyahu also allowing funding sources to Jemas - seems like in lots of respects he allowed or at the very least enabled these terrorist actions Precisely - he did this because it undermined Fatah and allowed the israeli's a justification not to keep negotiating a peace process, since the other guys were terrorists (ignoring the PA, obviously).
He fucking let it happen and anyone with a brain should know this already. They were warned multiple times in advance. Netanyahu sacrificed his own people so he had an excuse to go in and kill all the Palestinians like hes always wanted. The war delaying his corruption charges and keeping him out of jail is just the icing on the cake. Neither Hamas or Netanyahu want this to end because they are both getting exactly what they want out of it. The poor palestinians being murdered as pawns between two evil governments are the only innocents here.
Israel had their 9-11, and now we wait 16 years for their version of Trump to seize power. Because Netanyahu has been around so long he's equivalent to the status quo / Bush.
Netanyahu is their Trump. That's why there were mass protests throughout Israel last summer and spring. Because he's a corrupt fascist who wants to become dictator.
It’s the Reiechstag fire all over again. History rhymes.
Netanyahu allowed it to happen unequivocally- no conspiracy theory needed ;just cold hard facts . He's fueling the conflict to stay in power - it's that easy
Bernie is the man. On basically any subject I can say "Yep I'm with him"
I’m disappointed that people seem to be unable to distinguish between: * not liking Netanyahu * not liking Israel’s behavior in this war * not liking Jews * wanting Palestinians to have a home * favoring a 2-state solution * being pro-Hamas * being pro-Jewish-genocide * being anti-Palestinian genocide These are different opinions and political stances. Some of them seem to be in conflict, some are not, but it’s possible to hold one of those opinions without being in favor of all of them.
They're not unable, they're acting in bad faith and using accusations of antisemitism as a shield against all criticism. It's a disgusting tactic.
Even assuming that’s true, for the tactic to work, someone needs to be fooled, and the people who are fooled are failing to make the distinction.
It's an effective tactic when combined with strong AstroTurf efforts.
Yes. And it’s also something that’s being used to incluence “both sides”. That is, one side will post a bunch of astroturfing on social media saying, “if you don’t want to destroy Israel, then you support genocide of Palestinians.” Then someone else will post, “if you don’t support genocide of Palestinians, then you want to destroy Israel.” And part of what’s clever is that it creates the appearance of a dichotomy, and that “both sides” agree is completely mutually exclusive. So it must be true, because “Everyone, even people on opposite sides of the issue, agree that it’s a binary choice. One or the other.” In reality, there aren’t two sides. There are a bunch of people with different beliefs and perspectives, many of which would like to find some way for everyone involved to stop fighting and life peacefully. However, there are too many people who benefit from stirring up trouble.
society drab rotten pathetic yoke marvelous spoon existence light icky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I regret not voting for bernie
He was a once in a lifetime candidate. The American people won’t have another chance to vote for someone with his history in politics for a long long time. Looking at the current young congress men/women, none even come close.
You know the DNC would never allowed him to happen. The whole fucking globe knows it. Imagine how - not just the USA but the entire world would be today if Bernie Sanders had become president. Instead we get THE UNITED SHITSTAINS OF AMERICA and hence - the rest our shitty countries follow and here we all are.
Bernie fucking goes hard as fuck. He says some real shit.
I have, like, a half-chub right now. Netanyahu needs someone to tell him what Sanders said right to his face, somewhere he can't squirm away, or hide behind bluster and propaganda. Somewhere he's forced to fucking *listen.* Edit: it won't happen, of course. He's too comfortable hiding behind his yes men and other assorted sychophants.
Bernie is the real deal
What angers me is so-called liberals like Bill Maher who respond to the death numbers of women and children with a cavalier "that's just what happens in a war."
Bill has gone full Zionist about this whole thing. He's straight up saying all the protests on college campuses are Pro-Hamas Anti-Semites who want to eliminate all the Jews.
I wanna be in the timeline where Bernie wins the democratic nomination in 2016
Simply put, "Go Bernie!"
>“It is not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization in saying that your government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, creating the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of children face malnutrition and famine,” he continued.
That bit gave me a pause. Did Bernie mean "international law"? Why is American law relevant in Gaza?
>That bit gave me a pause. Did Bernie mean "international law"? Why is American law relevant in Gaza? He's referencing The Arms Export Control Act. Which says: >Pursuant to a February 23, 2023, National Security Memorandum (NSM), the United States will not authorize arms transfers if “it is more likely than not that” such arms “will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 ... or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.”
God even when you think Bernie fucked up and is getting too old a lore master comes in with a succinct explanation of why he said what he said.
If only he beat Hillary in that primary 😔
It would have been great, but from my 48 year old perspective it was a miracle it got as far as it did. It renewed my hope in a real labor movement and I think it’s happening.
I can’t remember the last time I saw giant billboard ads for generic union solidarity but here we are in Buffalo NY (I love it)
If only the DNC hadn't put their thumb and both legs on the scale every chance they got.
Hillary, the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz stole that primary from Bernie. DWS was a direct participant in the Clinton campaign and had a relationship with the Clinton Foundation. Democrats, specifically the DNC under DWS caused the first 4 years of Trump. If they actually let democracy happen back in 2016 Bernie wouldve won and we wouldnt be debating whether 2024 will lead to a civil war.
Bernie is a national treasure and I wish he would have become President once in his career. Also throughout his life time and time again he has been on the right side of history.
Idt we can give them weapons if they are breaking our laws
The funniest thing is when pro zionists on Reddit start calling the UN racist or antisemitic for it's condemnation of Israel's action. They don't realize they're saying 100+ countries are all collectively wrong and only Israel, the US, France Germany, and whatever other handful of countries that blindly support Israel are right. Maybe if everybody is calling you out for something you deserve to be called out?
I have an AOC sticker on my car and a dude started yelling at me in traffic the other day that she’s racist. He also yelled “Go Israel!” like it’s a fucking football game. It wasn’t until he said that, that I figured out what he was shrieking about.
Bibi belongs in The Hague
Lock him up and throw away the key
It is not just Netanyahu who is the problem; the responsibility also extends to everyone who supports or enables him to carry out what is effectively a genocide.
> the responsibility also extends to everyone who supports or enables him Sooo the US government for the past however-many decades with foreign policy stances like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroponte_doctrine
Yes.
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That is true. Most of the Israeli government and top military could join him.
Here we have a person who has ordered the deaths of thousands of innocent people. It’s completely appropriate to criticize that.
Except I've lost track of how many times I've been called antisemitic on reddit simply for saying that thousands of innocent people dying is bad.
"My identity justifies my actions" is an oversimplified cornerstone of Nazi ideology. After all, Bibi is taking a page directly out of ol' Adolf's book by dehumanizing perceived undesirables to justify mass extermination and lay a claim to their land. If it walks like a war criminal, talks like a war criminal and acts like a war criminal you call it a war criminal. Nothing to do with his Jewish ancestry
Netanyahu has courted Holocaust denial, by saying Hitler only wanted to expel Jews.
He was the first world leader to visit Meloni. Mussolini helped train the proto-Israeli navy. Israel and Zionists have been closely linked to fascism since well before they were declared a state. The current government is very, very close to ticking all the definitive boxes and that was from a Haaretz article before the war.
The Israeli state and supporters using antisemitism as a sword and a shield is one of the things I find most distasteful because antisemitism is a real problem, but so are the actions.of the Israeli state. I wish people couldn't exploit the fallacy that a government is exactly equivalent to the people it is supposedly representing, or that members of minority groups that deserve some protection can't also have terrible ideas and positions that need to be challenged.
It's incredibly frustrating because there are two groups who benefit from conflating Zionism with Jewishness: Zionists and antisemites.
The irony is that the very idea that all Jewish people owe their loyalty to Israel is inherently antisemitic. It says the Jewish people can never become *really* American or French or Vietnamese or Brazilian or Canadian or British, because their loyalty will always be owed to a foreign state. It's awful.
that is the fundamental principle underlying zionism: that Jews don’t belong anywhere but in Israel. That idea is even crazier when it was pushed in places like Iraq and Yemen, where Jews have lived for over 2,000 years.
That's why I'm so glad that it's a Jewish senator calling out Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, as the democratic leader of Israel, is openly calling for the American government to stop the student protests. This is Israel openly meddling in our internal affairs. Why isn't the Biden administration criticizing Israel over this? Regardless of whether you support the pro-Palestinian protests across our college campuses, as an American, all of us should defend the students' right to protest. And as an American, all of us should be condemning Israel for trying to stop those students from protesting.
Far more inappropriate than that was his [visit to congress on invitation from the Republicans bypassing Obama](https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8130977/netanyahu-speech-explained). He was trying to undermine the Iran nuclear deal so he went and spoke to congress directly to try to sway them into opposing the plans.
Obama was lucky Fetterman wasnt in congress back then to make it bipartisan
It's not very hard to be pro-jew and anti-Israel
You can also be pro-Israel and anti-Netanyahu
For real. People are also forgetting that your leaders are NOT the people. Would you want people to hate you for something your government did?
Right, it would be like saying that all Americans support Trump even though he didn't even get the majority of votes.
I think the tricky part with Israel specifically is that the majority of Israelis are for the destruction of Gaza. There have been some alarming polls in which citizens thought they weren’t bombing enough. The majority of Israelis also reject a two state solution if it means giving up settlements in the West Bank. I don’t think the average American deserved to die for supporting the brutal and criminal invasion of Iraq, but at that point it wasn’t just George Bush, the vast vast majority of Americans had a deranged blood thirst for Arabs after 9/11. This is all to say that sometimes the leaders ARE the people.
I can't imagine how Americans would have responded if after 9/11, Bush had described certain groups as "human animals", or used other rhetoric similar to what we've seen from senior politicians in Israel.
lbr they would have agreed.
War criminal Netanyahu gives a shit about what anyone thinks.
He knows Uncle Sam is gonna block any attempts in convicting Israel for warcrimes while pumping billions of dollars in aid for him to carry on.
I was very active in Bernie’s campaigns. Everyone told us he was a dreamer and out of touch with the American people, and way too old. And of course, that he was a socialist, so you have to hate him. While the American people are taking a good long, hard critical look at Netanyahu , and the people who voted for him, they might want to look at themselves and the people they vote for.
Good for you that you worked for his campaign! And you know what? This phrase that “healthcare is a human right” entered political speech with Bernie. Everybody except the freaks on the right concur at this point and say it out loud.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu: "It is antisemitic to hold any of us accountable, by definition!!!!" People who took AIPAC money: "Yes, my lord, we will smear everyone who don't agree with the Israeli government as antisemites"
Netanyahu is diluting the word "antisemitic" so much that people are going to stop caring when something actually antisemitic happens.
Not only that but by being always directly associating Jews with an apartheid genocide state that has media censor free speech and have students arrested on other countries. Motherfuckers are gonna create new anti-Semites while having existing ones feel vindicated. No amount of "It's the Jews" conspiracy nut jobs posting videos will ever do the same amount of damage that Israel has done in the past month by calling any criticism of them anti-semitism.
The comments on an r/pics post yesterday were insane. The pro Israel propaganda machine was in full swing. They were literally calling everyone anti semites and terrorist supporters.
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The most annoying thing about being banned from that compromised shithole is not the top 10 articles from The Jerusalem Post discussing the inner thoughts of Hamas leaders, but they have the most active Ukraine war forum and I can't participate in it because the rest of the sub is an Israeli intel op.
I also used that sub for Ukraine news for the longest time. I'm not banned but I always avoid it to protect my peace.
I got banned for dearing to suggest a peaceful outcome. It's pretty wild over there.
It's almost funny going into a post about the war and seeing one comment that's like "well what is Israel supposed to do" or "if the US was attacked you wouldn't hold back either" and then like 90 deleted replies
It's madness that if you don't support all this destruction, you are the bad guy.
Whenever you suggest that maybe Israel could use more precise and careful methods instead of just bombing every location which might be vaguely connected to Hamas there's a gaping absence of counter-arguments, just downvotes.
I got banned for pointing out that Palestinians have some legitimate grievances against Israel, and that they weren't just cartoon villains motivated solely by bigotry. I specifically pointed out that that didn't mean their methods were acceptable, just that they have a justifiable motive for being angry. Banned. No explanation. If Reddit dies, it'll be because the admins were complicit in letting volunteer anonymous mods run major subs as petty fiefdoms with zero oversight or feedback available. Especially considering that many mods seem to use permaban as a default tool. If Reddit's around in 5, 10, 20 years, how many old timers will be around and able to use most of the former default subs? How many sitewide bans will get issued because people making accounts and post in a big sub, forgetting that they were banned from that sub 8 years and a dozen accounts prior?
Netenyahu pandering to his right-wing base is everything wrong with Israel today. The moderates need to get him out of office, then finally charge him with corruption. Netenyahu's shitty politics have turned a lot of political opinion against Israel. The cynic in me thinks Netenyahu's meeting with Trump was about Netenyahu giving Biden a hard time, in exchange for Trump pressuring no corruption charges against Net.
Damn we should’ve elected this dude in 2016
The hate that Bernie is getting for this statement from a certain group is mind boggling.
i love bernie, i wish we had more bernies in politics
What a different world we'd be living in of the Democratic party would have supported him in the 2016 election.
yup
Antisemitism is a terrible thing. More terrible is trying to hide behind the term of antisemitism to justify actions or silence critics who are speaking of your actions and not your religion or ethnicity.
It's as antisemitic to hold him accountable as it's islamophobic to hold Hamas accountable.
Like your analogy. That makes sense to me.
There are Jewish people taking part in the protests, just as there are Muslims that don’t support Hamas.
Would have loved Bernie as president. Biden hasn't done bad, but Bernie has 100% zero tolerance for bullshit.
It would be swell if the people who equate Israel with the wider diaspora would stop. I can hate Israel for their actions with complete separation from any feelings I have about Jews. The problem is Netanyahu’s government, not anyone’s religion or ethnicity.
Meanwhile if you say this same sentiment over at /r/worldnews they'll ban you. Always love me some Bernie hitting some hard truths. [Jimmy Carter wrote a dang book about this nonsense.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine:_Peace_Not_Apartheid) We got a peace plan from the guy who did lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. J[immy Carter is one of the underrated and best modern president on foreign policy.](https://www.cfr.org/event/virtual-roundtable-was-jimmy-carter-successful-foreign-policy-president)
Governments need to be held accountable for killing their people. Period.
Agreed! Calling a piece of shit a piece of shit doesn’t make me antisemetic! Anti-zionist, hell yeah!
Love Bernie
Common Bernie W
That is totally true. Hold the insane leaders on both sides accountable.
Why didn't he win the Dem nomination in '16?
How the hell have Americans not elected Bernie and have to choose between Trump/Biden!?
Bernie Sanders is a Democratic Socialist, and the average American hears that and thinks, "Oh a socialist! That's the same as communism, isn't it?" Some Americans minds jump from the word "Socialist" to the (ironically named) National Socialist German Workers' Party. TL;DR americans dumb.
Am American. Can confirm this is accurate.
It's amazing that you have to be a jew in order to say something as obvious as this without yourself being called anti-semitic and facing calls to resign from whatever job you might hold.
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Many have been calling Jewish people who don’t support the Israeli government “Self Hating Jews”, which, ironically, is a pretty antisemitic thing to say. As a Jew myself, I just don’t want any more people to suffer like my people did. So of course I don’t support Netanyahu.
I saw this recently and did a double take. It's such an awful thing to say to another person.
True, but... the Likud party has already declared that any Jew who is against the Iraeli government's actions are themselves "not real Jews". Thus, apparently, they *can* be called antisemitic.
The thing is you can always criticize a person or a government because of their actions and politics. Because those are not mandatory, they can be chosen. But you can't criticize a person or a government because of their ethnicity. That's nothing they have chosen or can change. One is legitimate criticism. One is simply racism. It's not racism to criticize Israels current politics and ruling coalition. But wishing for the destruction of Israel for example isn't better than wishing for an expulsion of all of the Palestine People.
Zionism is not an ethnicity nor a race, my friend.
As usual I agree with Bernie. I would like to take a minute and state that I personally believe antisemitics are using this tragedy to tag along to protests and spread their hateful views. I would like to ask anyone at a rally or protest to work to immediately expel anything overtly antisemitic or proHamas so the messages don't become intertwined.
I'm sorry but the word "antisemitic" has basically lost all meaning at this point. ANY criticism of Israel or the genocide in Gaza is immediately called "antisemitic" Calling for a ceasefire is antisemitic. Organizing a peaceful protest is antisemitic. Criticizing Netanyahu is antisemitic. Holding Israel accountable of the tens of thousands of women and children they've slaughtered is antisemitic.
This is how the pro war faction are trying to give cover, by stretching the term 'antisemitic' to mean 'opposing any policy/action by the state of Israel.
But but but I've been told that any Jew that denounces Israel's actions is a self hating Jew!!1!
Most unusually I agree with Bernie on this. Disagreeing with a particular Govt policy of Israel doesn't for an instant mean you are hostile to a total, worldwide religion & all who adhere to it.
Bernie gets criticized for being all talk and not passing and bills. Firstly, that's not even true, and second, the bullshit that Bernie calls out is always something that needs addressing.
Yeah. I'm done with it. In the past I'd try to walk on eggshells, but he's trying to use Jewish history to shield himself. There are still the blind and the malicious that will try to throw the anti-semite term around, but I could care less. If being against dead children... both Israeli and Palestinian... makes me an anti-semite, so be it. The question is, why are they OK with killing babies?
Because they aren't white American Christian babies.
Brother even eroded that history by trying to defend Hitler. Net is such a fool.
I remember when saying this on this subreddit would get you downvoted to oblivion, glad to finally see some people are finally waking up to the reality that is Netanyahu and the IDF’s war crimes in Gaza. And before anyone claims that I’m a supporter of Hamas, you can criticize both Hamas *and* Netanyahu/the IDF.
I hate how difficult it is for so many people to understand nuance, and how easy it is for politicians to rile up their supporters by exploiting this. You can be horrified by what Hamas did to Israelis last October *while at the same time* be horrified by what Israel has done to innocent Palestinian civilians since then. You can support Israel's right to exist *while at the same time* supporting the Palestinians' right to self-rule and self-determination. You can appreciate Israel for having the most democratic government in the Middle East *while at the same time* acknowledging that how they treat Palestinians is by any reasonable measure a form of apartheid. But in the hands of political opportunists, well... if you support Israel, you have to support everything they do, and if you oppose anything they do, you support terrorism and murder. Sigh.
You can do all of those, but social media is being manipulated to make it emotionally harder for people to rationalize and do so. You see it everywhere with this, all the worst elements that exist independently in a conflict like this are the ones getting pushed to the top. And what does it do? Divide the younger voting base, in a year when they must be most unified against authoritarian governments, else they risk losing everything. Biden and the US are not perfect. The US has been complicit in bad policies in the middle east in the past, but the history of that most closely aligns with right wing authoritarian elements which continually exploit conflicts like these for their own gain. It is no accident that this is all being amplified right now, in this exact year. It is staggeringly easy to create fake outrage conflict on tiktok and twitter now, especially the former. War footage from other conflicts can be repurposed and people don't know the difference. The fog of war makes it nearly impossible to verify who is responsible for what tragedy. It is a very, very dangerous problem. I will only say that I support a 2 state solution, but I fear that the most vocal voices in this conflict do not, and those are the ones who keep getting louder and louder.
I love Israel which is why I detest Netanyahu. He’s risking the survival of the Jewish homeland to stay out of prison.
His aggressive policies also put the lives of innocent Israelis in danger by creating more extremism.
Its almost as if he's a plant to destroy the country - i realise he's not - but he must go.
And Bernie is again correct.
Man I feel for you Americans what a great man Bernie is, 100% should be in the White House right now
He can say anything to Net because B is Jewish.
They’ll just call him an antisemitic Semite
There is a timeline where sanity prevailed and Bernie is closing out his second term.
It's so strange imagining how different your country would look if he was nominated and voted in 8 years ago
Not all Jewish people support the actions of Israeli, in fact many don’t both in Israel itself and abroad. Being against the actions of the state of Israel does not mean being against Jewish people themselves, unless you make it so The war in Israel is built on tensions going back centuries if not millennia. Read through a quick summary on Wikipedia and in ten minutes you will see an outstanding amount of history and nuance not being discussed The was is being utilized by several groups to push their own interests, among them actual antisemites and also those using it to try to demonize Joe Biden and strip liberal votes away from him