Comment by Scubabear68

I feel like this a great point. As an American, I’m not labeled as any particular religion. I honestly wish there were no labels at all. I would much rather look at things as right and wrong based on the specific situation.

The goal, in my opinion, is division. Without it, they have nothing.

Peace above all!

> But saying all criticism of Israel is antisemitic deflects legitimate criticism

Who is saying this? All I've heard are people on one side insisting that people are saying this, sounds like a straw man

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I get your point, but at the same time dragging anti-semetism into the argument weakens the voices of those who really are not anti-Semitic at all, but genuinely question the Israeli government response to the Hamas attacks.

Which is, I suspect, the point - to weaken those viewpoints.

And to address others in this thread around US actions around the world, I am critical of the U.S. war on Afghanistan and the second Iraq war as well as the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

One can be critical of a government without despising it.

That is my observation as well. In Germany many right wing groups who have deep seated antisemitic prejudices („they control the world, they want to exchange our white population“, etc) now fully express their hate against arabs / migrants hiding / excusing their behaviour with philo-semitism or support for Israel. They apparently do not have a iota of compassion for the dying civilians in Gaza.

> For me what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have.

Really? Israel routinely turns off Gaza's electricity (to the entire country) for days. It has also turned off all fresh water for similar durations.

I think we have different definitions of "bare minimum". That comes across looking a lot more "punitive".

In this conflict it told Gazan civilians to move to Southern Gaza because of the extensive bombing in Northern Gaza. Then it began increasing bombing in Southern Gaza.

There is a lot of Gazan support for Hamas. But Hamas also makes up a very small minority of Gazans (I believe 40,000 in a country of 2.3 million). Hamas is also the people who are armed (thanks to both Israeli blockades, oh, and when Israel found it politically expedient to encourage Hamas' militancy because a more moderate Palestinian Authority would make the far right Israeli government look worse by being more willing to compromise).

I'm not sure if Israel killing 14-16x the amount of citizens that Hamas did qualifies as a bare 'minimum'

Their response should be to leave the occupied territories, which aren't theirs to begin with, and to recognize a Palestinian state. Israel has held millions of Palestinians under military occupation for more than half a century, and it's way past time that that ended.

Your comment is entirely regurgitated Israeli propaganda that has been repeatedly debunked.

I'll be as polite as I can about this, and take it one step at a time.

> Okay - then what should be Israel's response?

The world has been clear about this. Stop killing civilians and treat Palestinians as humans with rights.

> what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have.

That's not remotely true. Human rights groups and genocide experts around the world are screaming at world leaders to take action. Schools and refugee camps and humanitarian corridors and civil infrastructure and entire residential blocks are being vaporized without warning.

> Hamas is Gaza's government

The last election was in 2006, so this talking point is real stale.

> Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure.

The only proof that has been offered of that has been incredibly shoddily made, as if daring people to believe it.

> Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas.

That doesn't excuse war crimes, and it's highly fucked up to think that it does somehow.

> And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven.

The only evidence of organized rape that I've seen presented turned out to be a 10 year old photo of Kurdish women [0]. Torture? No evidence. By atrocities, do you mean the debunked beheaded babies? Or the debunked babies in oven claim? The debunked pregnant women cut open claim?

What Hamas did was atrocious, killing civilians and kidnapping people. So why embellish so devilishly? Only to excuse genocide, and grab land.

> Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with.

Again with the claims of "livestreamed torture and rape", which no one has actually seen.

You know who can be documented to have tortured and raped people in the last couple decades? Israel and the US. On many, many occasions. But in your view, at least they're smart enough not to livestream it - they only took photos.

0 - https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502

>Okay - then what should be Israel's response?

The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure.

And I'm not joking.

I feel bad for Israelis who have let their government doom them to a generation of government mismanagement and expensive, arduous military adventure. My single-payer health insurance and my friends' free college education went into a couple Patriot missiles, and I do wonder what they're going to have to give up.

they let it happen

The free flow of information and lack of government control over access to that information. Much of the early Iraq war and even, to an extent, conflicts with ISIS and Yemen had the benefit of those citizens not having access to the internet. So any information many American citizens were getting was filtered through what the military allowed to be known, then further filtered by the news.

With Palestine and Israel, we were able to see it with our own eyes. I remember specifically watching TikToks of a teenage girl in Gaza posting about the evacuations, hearing the bombs in the background, etc. It felt "real" to us, which is a terrible way to put it, but I believe that is why the protests are much larger than other conflicts.

" The question is, what is so special about the Israeli/Palestine conflict that leads to these outsized protests? "

- Jerusalem (and more globally Israel and Palestine) is holly for Jews, Muslims and Christians ; more than half of the word population and more than 90% of US population

- Israel is a key ally of the USA, and this is a topic important in US politics for long time - including for some evangelical voters for religious question

- Westerners have colonized (or inflicted violence to) most of the non western countries on this planet in "recent" history... Israel is seen by some as a Western country colonizing just another developing country, with support of other western countries... echoing recent history for many. It is as such a symbol for a long time.

- USA, France... have had some big Islamist attack, what happened in Israel echoed to this for some people... and echoes to the clash of civilization western word vs Muslim which is central in the ideology of a growing number of westerners

- It is easier to understand, more divisive, with more people or causes we can identify with, than in Syria (everybody hates ISIS) or Yemen (arabs fighting arabs fighting other arabs in a desert ?)... And we have more images

I certainly remember similar sized, if not larger, protests against the Iraq war.

"what is so special about the Israeli/Palestine conflict that leads to these outsized protests?"

Good question. 75 years of history those other two conflicts lack

One answer is these media efforts. Isreal works hard to draw attention to its conflicts, and to try to turn that attention into support.

I'd note the Ukranians worked very hard to draw attention to their war as well, and they were quite successful at that.

My slightly-informed opinion? Two cooperating factors.

1. The extraordinary effective Hamas organization. Hamas has set itself up to benefit from atrocities committed upon the people of Gaza. Every civilian death is a point for Hamas, the more so the better publicized it is. A point for Hamas is obviously not a point for regular people in Gaza. And Hamas provoked Israel as much as it could manage, and continues to provoke Israel by engaging in military operations from civilian sites, leading to:

2. Israel doesn’t understand this, and is entirely willing to play right into Hamas’ hands, in the name of its own security. And it looks really, really bad.

Actions of Western democracies are usually subject to greater scrutiny. Indeed, the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism allowed for this: it says that it is antisemitism to hold Israel to a higher standard than other democracies - not than other nations altogether.

Religion, hundreds of millions of people feel spiritually invested in that part of the world.

There is something particularly grating about how Israel acts with impunity on the world stage yet continues to receive unfaltering support from the US government.

They secretly introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East and refused to sign any of the treaties which are responsible for humanities current existence.

According to Snowden the NSA provides them with whatever data they'd like, even that on Americans, without any filtering whatsoever.

Bibi clowned all over Obama for years and yet he still had to agree with nearly every policy he pushed. Biden has been practically begging them to cut back on West Bank settlements. They won't even meet us there and still we send over money for them to do whatever they please.

As an American it's embarrassing.

It went viral on social media, the other conflicts didn't. That's really it. Many people's awareness of the world and the moral weight of what happens there comes directly from social media.

A lot of people were upset about China and the Uyghurs as well, for a while, but not until after it became a thing influencers talked about. And then they stopped caring after social media moved on. Even on HN, where anti-China sentiment is rampant, people no longer seem to mention it.

It's because on the surface it's an interracial conflict (it's not really, I guess, but that is the perception for most), and lots of people are obsessed over racial dynamics and analyzing history through that lens.

There are so many other conflicts going on with many more dead, but if it's not interracial then somehow it is not talked about.

“If you have no skin in the game, don’t comment”.

I’m sorry, people who aren’t Jewish or Palestinians are not allowed to have opinions on this?

I’m sorry, but Israel can’t just pull out their “anti-Semite” card at will and do what they want without the world reacting.

The Israeli government - like any government - can make mistakes. And can be criticized. Criticizing the government is in no way anti-Semitic. To believe otherwise would be to believe the Israeli government is divinely chosen and can do no wrong, like the Pharohs of old. Sorry, but they are people and people can make mistakes.

Which again does not excuse Hamas.

But Israel cannot wage unlimited war on the people of Gaza at will forever.

I’m not holding them to a higher standard.

Imagine if you will someone going to start large scale bombing NYC. Or London. Or Rome.

The Hamas attack was unprecedented and horrific. I don’t know that it justifies declaring all out war on and entire city.

I can say that without being anti-Semitic.

Criticising current Israeli government policy doesn't hold Israel to a higher standard than that of other countries.

Also Israel critics also tend to be _much more likely_ to condemn the actions of other states (e.g. Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Indonensia in Papaua, etc). The issue is that the press is less interested in this and the general American public is much more interested in Israel than they are in Saudi Arabia.

Then what is holding Israel to a lower standard to other nations a sign of?

I've heard this claim, but what is your personal reasoning? It's an oddly narrow condition. Isn't 'prejudice against Israel' more general and effective? Enumerating prejudice in every possible form seems impossible and impractical.

FWIW, it's included in a definition from the last ~20 years that is favored by pro-Israel groups.

Possibly, it's just rhetorical and diversionary, putting critics on the defensive to carefully defend and establish all speech as non-anti-Jewish, which diverts time and attention.

I think those tactics work for Israel when the issues aren't so stark and prominent, and so few people see the critique of the critics (i.e., few see the accusation that the speech is antisemitic). With everyone watching closely, the apparent rhetorical tactics become noticeable.

Which other nation is allowed to literally colonize land than even itself doesn't consider to be part of their country? What other nation can get away with military enforcement of said colonies?

If anything, Israel is given more slack in the west than any other nation. More civilians died in Gaza than in Ukraine yet clearly, only one nation has been condemned officially by western states and that's not Israel

Not all other nations - just Palestine. Because Israel is in position of power.

So I have to have been involved in protesting a non-Israel conflict to have an opinion on this one?

My friend, not conflating groups is literally one of the standards for public discourse in 2023.

It's the same standard the entire world held the US to after 9/11. A response to the attacks by Al-Qaeda was justified, the 20 year "Crusade" across the Middle East was not. A response by Israel against Hamas terrorism is justified - a campaign of extermination and genocide is not.

It isn't even a high standard, "don't commit genocide" has been the bare minimum requirement for any modern country, much less democracy, for nearly a century. It would be antisemitic to believe that Israel is uniquely incapable of meeting that minimum standard.