"call me crazy wednesday, but you keep giving me these signals"
the signals in question:
๐Just a reminder to be super normal about people being visibly Jewish at Pride events (or anywhere, actually). You cannot tell anything about their views on the war just by knowing that they're Jewish.
Most Jews I know are feeling extremely unsafe right now, even if they are very vocal supporters of Palestine, and if you care about inclusion, diversity, justice, and peace then it is in the interest of your own values to make them feel safe and welcomed right now too.
And before people go feral in the comments- you can both care about Palestine AND take tangible actions to make Jews know feel safe in your community. You do not have to think those sufferings are equal to address both. Frankly, Im willing to say that the stance of "But Palestine has it worse therefore Im justified in not caring about/perpetuating fear for Jews" is actually someone who is excited about what they see as a free pass to be antisemitic and you SHOULD call them out. ๐
Zionism is not an insult, and anyone who uses the term in this way is antisemitic and part of the problem. Zionism means that Jews have a jewish state. This state exists and is called Israel.
If "liberating Palestine" to you means wiping out Israel, murdering all Israelis and turning it into an Islamic caliphate state, you are no better than the Nazis under National Socialism.
What was that again about "punching a Nazi"?
I recently had a conversation with a friend and colleague about stuff they shared regarding the rescue operation of the four hostages. They had posted the tweet from the Deeja account that said in all capital letters that Israel used an aid truck. I reached out because 1) I know this person to be reasonable and evidence based, and 2) I knew they were coming from a place of genuine concern that was being manipulated. For context, this friend is a brilliant geneticist that I have know for nearly 2 decades as we did our undergrad together and have stayed in touch ever since. They're a kindhearted person and their work has led to some breakthroughs that highlight this trait as they've worked on certain types of genes that can have detrimental mutations when expressed. As I've said before, a lot of people are empathetic and sympathetic individuals to the plight of others, and those behaviors are being manipulated for nefarious reasons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Me: Hey G, that thing you shared about the aid truck? Yeah, that's not the complete story or accurate.
G: What?! What do you mean?
Me: It wasn't an aid truck that they used. In fact, only that tweet and Al Jazeera were reporting that initially. All the other sites, including pro-Israel and anti-Israel, were reporting a civilian truck of some sort. Most said a moving/furniture truck.
G: Wait. Hold on. So it was a moving truck then?
Me: Well...we now know it was a soap truck.
G: Why the fuck are people saying it was an aid truck then?
Me: You know the reason.
G: Yeah...okay, admittedly I am not well informed on all this. Thank you for reaching out and correcting me. Do you have any suggestions on how to stay informed? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Now this is where it gets interesting because at this point they say something that I knew was a thing on some level, but hadn't really put the pieces together.)
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Me: Well, I wouldn't share anything from Al Jazeera. All they do is spout Hamas propaganda. I'd also avoid accounts that share from them as well, unless you're really interested in what the propaganda is itself. I'd avoid JVP since they're the Autism Speaks of Jewish groups. And also avoid SJP groups, many of them openly support terrorist groups and have been recently endorsing domestic terrorism. G: Wait, wait, wait. AJ is bad? I've been following them since we were in undergrad.
Me: Since undergrad?
G: Yeah, they were the only ones covering news in a Lefty manner. Like, remember when Occupy Wallstreet broke out during grad school? They were the one of the few news sites that covered it in a left leaning manner.
Me: Ah fuck...that makes sense. Okay. So. AJ is the state media of Qatar, think of it like RT or Sputnik. Qatar has literally hosted the leaders of Hamas for years and they live there in multi-million dollar homes. AJ pretty much acts as the propaganda mouthpiece for Hamas through Qatar.
G: But what does that have to do with how they covered stuff when we were younger?
Me: Well, there was a meeting in 1993 in Philly of Hamas members that was wiretapped. Those wiretaps were submitted as evidence during some trials in the 00s and they revealed that Hamas had planned at that meeting to use the language of progressive Westerners to garner support for their cause and manipulate them.
G: oh
G: Oh, fuck!
G: So you're saying they purposefully set themselves up to be more sympathetic to Leftists and manipulate them through using their jargon and it's on tape?!
Me: Yep. Here's the link (https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/2023-10/the-hamas-network-in-america.pdf)
Me: Now there's a lot more to that doc. It goes over how they planned to set up research groups to influence academia, political groups for politics, and charity groups to raise money. The latter of which is what the 00s trials were about.
G: Fuck...that's well planned out. I can't believe it's on tape.
Me: Mhm, it's right there. I'm surprised it's been allowed to go on this long though. I think after all the dust settles we might see some Bush Era Patriot Act shenanigans go on.
G: I wouldn't be surprised.
G: Thank you for reaching out and letting me know. I can't believe I fell for that.
Me: It's totally okay, and understandable. If you have questions about anything please feel free to reach out.
G: Again, thank you so much. I will.
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What G said about Al Jazeera though and how they'd been following it for years stood out to me. I remember when Occupy Wallstreet happened and AJ was reporting on it. I remember so many American news sites denigrating the movement and AJ was one of the few that was actually covering those protests in an objective manner. We didn't have a lot of the Left news sites that currently exist today. It was a wasteland of center and right wing sources as far as the eye could see. But that makes sense for the time period and why AJ is still so prevalent in Left spaces.
As I told G, the 93 meeting documents Hamas members talking about using the language of Westerners against them and infiltrating their spaces to garner support. With AJ being the mouth piece of Hamas and having been one of the few "Left" leaning news source since Occupy...well, they've been grandfathered in to Leftist spaces as "trusted". That's why so many of these Western activists will accept an AJ article with no question or critical analysis, it's one of the go to sources and has been for a long time.
I'm a little mad at myself that I didn't remember the coverage of Occupy and other events in the USA by AJ and how they were framed until G brought it up. I'm second guessing all the times I read articles back then and my reactions. G admitted they're now doing the same. To think that many of us older Lefties have been manipulated for years because we had some friendly coverage of our opinions is disheartening. But then again, how many of us actually knew what AJ was, who was running it, and what the agenda is/was? I mean, hell, I'm a forensic consultant and consider myself well versed on big cases, but I didn't know about the HLF stuff until Vidino's report came out (the doc mentioned and linked above).
The internet has come such a long way since then. I'm hoping that when this is over that many of these news sites, Leftist and otherwise, will reconsider how they interact with AJ and other such groups. It's quite clear that we've been in a long con, and something has to change.
#relatable
I was today years old when i found out that i was allowed time off to vote. Something no boss has ever told me.
ive already made a post sorta about this but if you reblogged something about boycotting Hogwarts Legacy or JKR because of the goblins but you haven't reblogged anything about the Nazi chants and salutes at the Olympics
You're a fucking awful ally to Jewish people and the antisemite is in the room
https://yuval-idan.medium.com/to-my-western-leftist-friends-from-your-leftist-israeli-friend-c1356c1976a1
Hex Maniac | Coffee Addict | Elder Millennial
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