r/JewsOfConscience • u/Sweaty_Perspective_5 • Apr 08 '24
History Devil in disguise
These are old videos of Netanyahu speaking in interview and speaking to US Congress. Notice how US did regime change in all of these nation which were a potential threat to Israel. in Iraq they never found WMD's, in Libya they killed a good leader Gaddafi(Libya abandoned their nuclear program decades ago innexchange for peace)and they can't touch iran because iran actually has WMD's program unlike Iraq & Libya.
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u/YugoCommie89 Apr 08 '24
It's interesting watching Bibi try to link another Palestinian resistance organisation that isn't "Khaaamas" to "terrorism.
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u/jonawesome Apr 08 '24
I mean the PLO definitely did do terrorism, though they basically stopped and renounced the use of violence in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords.
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u/Gotcha2500 Palestinian Apr 08 '24
And that’s when Bibi funded Hamas, god forbid Palestinians actually negotiate their way to a state. Gotta keep the violence wheel churning .
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u/baesag Apr 08 '24
He’s trying very hard to be the actual embodiment and enactment of the worst conspiracy theories against jews
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u/unnatural_rights Jewish Apr 08 '24
potentially hot take: I would personally appreciate that we not, in a Jewish subreddit, indulge in language comparing any Jews to "the Devil", "Shaytan", "Satan" (again), "the spawn of Satan", "Moloch", and so forth, as is frequently present in this post and its comments, including from folks identified as non-Jewish allies.
Non-Jewish allies should, as allies, recognize the dangerous and ugly history of making such comparisons. However, even leaving that history aside, it's simply unnecessary. Netanyahu isn't a uniquely horrifying, inhuman, supernaturally evil creature; he's just a dude, a bad fucking dude, who believes and does bad fucking things, offends Jewish ethics and morals, and is actively harming Jews and non-Jews alike. Not only does exaggerating Netanyahu's beliefs and identity in this fashion indulge in over-the-top rhetoric - it suggests that the problem is Bibi specifically, rather than what Bibi's doing and how he's doing it.
Part of what we ought to be doing here on the Jewish left is orienting our work in a recognition of the fundamental humanity of everyone involved. That means recognizing that Palestinians are ordinary people being massacred in our name, and that our fellow Jews are ordinary people committing those massacres. Netanyahu doesn't need to be the villain in a fucking slasher movie to be viewed as reprehensible, and - if I'm being honest - the "Satan" and "Moloch" language smacks of a goyishe lens that is not appropriate in this space. If anything, I think it's worse that he's just some fucking putz who dragged his leftover room-temp ethnonationalism from the ash heap of history it was dumped in decades ago.
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Apr 08 '24
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u/unnatural_rights Jewish Apr 08 '24 edited Apr 08 '24
that's definitely part of it; however, I think most of the negativity that gets directed our way from other Jewish subs comes from the recognition that many of us here are earnest, "genuine", believing and/or cultural and/or "real" Jews, who nevertheless don't toe the line on Israel or Zionism. We're harder to dismiss for that exact reason; we inconveniently complicate the narrative that all Jews support Israel and that Israel stands for all Jews.
I also want to be clear that this shouldn't be an exclusively Jewish space. I think having non-Jews and non-Jewish voices here enriches our conversations and our work and helps to refine our critical lens. I want non-Jews to be welcome here. I just also want the non-Jews among us to remember the space that they're in, and remember what certain ways of talking, including and especially about Jews, have meant for Jews historically, and to reconsider whether calling Netanyahu (or anyone else) "Satan" etc actually reflects what they believe, what they want to manifest in their support for Palestinians, or what they think is most effective at uplifting Palestinian dignity.
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u/Additional-Smile5645 Apr 09 '24
Netanyahu has forfeited his status as a jew technically hes more of a nazi
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u/unnatural_rights Jewish Apr 09 '24 edited Apr 09 '24
respectfully - do you seriously think your comment can be taken in good faith in response to mine? we do not get to declare that Netanyahu has "forfeited" his Jewishness; he is as Jewish as we are, which is precisely why his actions are so alarming to us. it's grotesque and offensive when right-wing Jews declare that progressive or leftist Jews aren't really Jews anymore, and it's not any less offensive for us to do it back to them. "no true Scotsman" is a fallacy, not a guidebook.
ETA: I want to emphasize that I think your response to my comments here embodies exactly the kind of extraordinary - as in, beyond the ordinary - exaggeration and dehumanization we should be rejecting in our work. I don't think it's a correct or accurate way to describe Netanyahu, but more importantly I think it's also counterproductive with respect to the cause of liberation for both Palestinians and Jews.
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Apr 09 '24
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u/unnatural_rights Jewish Apr 09 '24
Yep. It feels like a logical / rhetorical cousin to arguments that Jews aren't "real" Semites, thus simultaneously misunderstanding why the term "Semite" was ever applied to Jews in the first place, clouding the argument over "indigeneity" or being "native" even further (in which most folks are already talking past one another anyway), AND way overstepping their ostensible points right into denial of basic historical and scientific facts.
It's all about avoiding inconvenient reality. That's all. Jews who are inconvenient to other Jews (because they're either Zionist, or not Zionist), Jews being inconvenient to arguments about Palestinian rights to the land (because Jews do have ethnocultural and historical origins there), Palestinians being inconvenient to Zionist arguments generally (because they were already there), etc. Which means it's also just lazy, on top of being offensive, never mind exhausting.
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u/Anarchasm_10 jewish anarchist Apr 08 '24
I also think the use of “supernatural language” desensitizes people to fascism. People need to understand fascism isn’t this devilish construct but a construct made by humans and sometimes not even arising artificially(though there is an argument to be made that when the state and states loyalists, the bourgeois are threatened, fascism is a response) but arising from a deep and internalized response to the material, socioeconomic, and overall hierarchical conditions in place.
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u/unnatural_rights Jewish Apr 08 '24
100%. Fascism isn't a crime of monsters inflicted upon angels; it's a collective sin perpetrated by normal folks, often against their own neighbors (sometimes the neighbors within their own community, sometimes the neighbors in an adjacent territory, but almost always with at least some physical proximity). It's a profoundly material mentality, given all the "blood and soil" rhetoric and logic, and the material conditions that distort a population's ethos away from cooperation and toward fear and aggression can't be dissociated from why it emerges in the first place.
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u/ionlymemewell Apr 08 '24
Thank you for saying this so eloquently. This is a big problem I see in a lot of Jewish/Jewish-adjacent pro-Palestine subs; our allies just don't realize how deeply ingrained antisemitism is in the ways culture has evolved to describe evil and evil people. Generally, I don't hold it against people when they skew into that territory - because sometimes you just don't know better until you're told - but when it becomes a trend, I start to feel uncomfortable. And I wish more effort was put in on these kinds of subs towards education about how to avoid accidental antisemitism.
FWIW, I'd be glad to contribute to that effort, but as someone in the middle of conversion, I don't think I would be an appropriate primary source.
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u/Alarmed-Eastern Apr 08 '24
He has played the US and it other allies for far too long
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Apr 08 '24
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u/justadubliner Apr 08 '24
The Israeli tail has always wagged the American dog. They boast about it.
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Apr 09 '24
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u/WarofJay Apr 09 '24 edited Apr 09 '24
"The tail wagging the dog" is an expression.
The phrase applies fairly well to several lobbies which have overt control of the US congress with measurable and significant detriment to longterm US/global interests and public welfare, e.g. the NRA, agricultural lobbies, the pharmaceutical and medical insurance lobbies (some of the worst for US citizens), the oil lobby (perhaps the worst for the globe's future), the military-industrial complex (outright global terrorism), and AIPAC.
The US has of course done many, many, many short-sighted, horribly unethical, and terroristic things that don't involve Israel. But simultaneously, the political elite of Israel have for many decades married themselves to the US military-industrial complex (as well of course as egregiously overfeeding their own) and have taken immense advantage of their position as a "close US ally" in arguably the most important theater of global geopolitics (at least from WWII to until the US found its own domestic oil reserves) to engage in unparalleled foreign propaganda warfare on the US public (it's really much more than Russia or China). I've been shocked to see the extent to which this perspective isn't discussed/common knowledge in Israel -- this absence seems to factor prominently into the culture of feeling scared of the world, historical exceptionalism, and a tendency to only value military "solutions".
The fact that this reality in the US has some superficial similarities with classic European antisemitism also really muddies the public discourse in the US and is a big aspect of the "weaponisation of trauma" which is a much more utilized tool when discussing the politics of unconditional US support of Israel versus the politics around other lobbies and topics.
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u/justadubliner Apr 09 '24
It means that Israel dictates US politics, both domestic and foreign, to a degree that is detrimental to the US and to the world.
The bleating sheep of US politicians have demonstrated this continously. Some states even dictate that businesses can't decide for themselves to boycott Israeli companies! They don't dictate that for American companies but they do for that one external country and no other !
This compilation of American presidential candidates in the last election all giving their Zionist talking points by rote is very demonstrative.
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u/skkkkkt Apr 08 '24
Positive for whom? The region? I fucking doubt it, most middle east?hell no, I feel like we never it's the region it's not really the region it's just Isreal
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u/Quarkmire_42 Apr 08 '24
One interesting thing I once heard from John Mearshimer is that the Israeli Lobby in Israel sometimes works against its own interests by supporting lunatic policies of the current Israeli PM.
I think that's so accurate. One reason for all this Pro-Palestinian sentiment is ofc the egregious human cost, but also that the American people are just sick and tired of American intervention of foreign wars, and no amount of propaganda can shield them from the truth.
The days of Netanyahu using this excuse to convince Americans to take out one of Israel's OWN enemies is long over. Because that's what it is, Netanyahu is deathly scared of Iran possessing nukes and does everything to provoke the USA into going into war. This excuse doesn't work anymore.
Imagine if the Israeli Lobby had gone against Netanyahu when he propped up Hamas, or increased settlement expansion, or forcefully imposed a peace process that led to a 2-state / 1 state / Confederation solution. We wouldn't be here at this moment. Instead the Lobby hamstrings US support against Israel's own interests, and predictably now Israel has lost so much more than it needed to.
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u/Just-Expert-4497 Apr 09 '24
All Jews of Conscience must take this man out.
From this world if necessary.
If we Non Jews say this we're Anti semites.
If Jews don't say this 30,000+ people's blood will forever be attributed to them.
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u/Global_Bat_5541 Non-Jewish Ally Apr 10 '24
It's telling that most of the trolls in the comments typing Satan or something similar are non Jewish allies. As allies we're supposed to do a much better job than that. Knock it off.
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u/TitleEfficient786 Apr 08 '24
Lol Sadam got taken out and Iraq became Iran 2.0. This guy is a fucking idiot
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u/Sweaty_Perspective_5 Apr 08 '24
Iraq is not iran 2.0 they're incapable of anything and are not a threat to Israel & US Under saddam they were threat to Israrl and US
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u/justadubliner Apr 08 '24
Has the US started to finally notice that the Israeli tail has aways wagged the American dog?
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u/T-hina Anti-Zionist Apr 08 '24
If we take out Netanyahu...