“Half of the Israeli public is no longer in favor of the war,” one friend told me Saturday night as we witnessed thousands of Israelis take to the streets to protest the Israeli government under the slogan, “Elections Now.” “Yes, but the other half is all-in, and REALLY in favor,” responded his wife. “And they are the more powerful group.”
She, of course, is right. For months, reports of torture and rape have emerged from Israel’s military base turned torture camp, Sde Teiman, where Israel has imprisoned thousands of Palestinians without charge. I wrote about it in a previous diary earlier this month. Palestinians who have emerged from this torture camp refer to it as the “slaughterhouse” with horrendous tales of torture, rape, abuse, and sleep deprivation being meted out by Israeli prison guards. Nearly 30 Palestinians have died while in Sde Teiman and other prisons, according to the information provided to date.
And while the precise chain of events is unclear, what we do know is that the Israeli military advocate general decided to dispatch the military police to question nine Israeli soldiers on suspicion of gang-raping and sodomizing a Palestinian man from Gaza at Sde Teiman. The man was rushed to the hospital where he exhibited signs of rape, including a ruptured bowel and broken ribs. It would be a mistake to simply think that Israel’s actions in prisons like Sde Teiman came only after October. Since becoming Israel’s national security minister in 2022, ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir has made prisons his target, with him authorizing abuse against Palestinians. He has also called for the death penalty to solve problems of overcrowding.
My tax dollars can’t be used to provide universal health care here in America, but they will go to support this, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
That’s depressing.
There is something we can do, but it takes unity, courage, willingness/resolve to suffer the consequences, regardless of the results. The first and last components are the hardest to muster, but they can be mustered. Time will tell.
Protesting against Israel in the USA quickly gets you pepper sprayed and beaten. This isn’t some theoretical.
And? People died to give us a 40 hour work week and voting rights, for some of us. The 40 hour week is gone and voting rights are shrinking. And neither major party is doing anything but moving miles right, economically. Socially left seems to be throwing a bone, while so many of us are overworked, underpaid, and still couch surfing, living rough and sick or dying. We have hard choices to make.
okay got it now what
What is your question?
i have unity, courage, and willingness/resolve to suffer the consequences. what action do i take now, or is the answer supposed to reveal itself?
Find like-minded individuals in your area. Direct action, mutual aid.
thankfully as a well-networkef furry and socialist i have also done this pretty well! now can i end the genocide?
Do you have a big and important enough network to shut down the economy and/or key infrastructure with a general strike? Because that’s the most effective non-violent way.
holy shit you’re right
the furries have the power to shut off the Internet…
Perhaps you and your friends can devise a plan for… Wait for it… Direct action and mutual aid.
And Kamala is poised to choose one of the biggest zionists in the democratic party as her running mate…
Kamala isn’t a Zionist. Did you watch her speech she made recently after meeting Netanyahu? And Israel is pissed about what she said! That tells you all you need to know
Edit: no really, watch it. I can tell you haven’t 😚
Respectfully, what matters more to you: a politician’s words or their deeds?
I’d wager my life savings that Kamala, once elected, will go back on her word and support funding for Israel, just as every president has done even as Israel has become more and more of an apartheid.
It’s the best chance we’ve ever had. It would be foolish to punish her for stepping forward on this issue. It would just reinforce the status quo. If she goes back on it we’re just in the same situation. But it’s also possible that she actually holds Netanyahu accountable. She’s the only choice that’s even talked about doing that.
It’s possible, but given how presidents have ruled over the last 40 years, exceedingly unlikely. POTUS candidates on the campaign trail make a lot of promises they have no intention of keeping.
Yeah. But one way to move the ball ideologically is to
ejectelect people saying the right things. Eventually they have to actually do something and not just say something.If we give up or even try to vote for some 5d genius move where they said A so they mean B then all we ever get is the same old crap.
Edit- Damn Google… That’s straight up evil.
Exactly right.
All you can do for yourself in this system is invest as much of your money as you can in the stock market, because that is going to be the primary focus of the person we elect, and the only way you’ll get any real measure of representation.
That’s still supporting an abusive system. That’s possibly the brain of the abuser. We can not discard with one hand while clutching, with the other. To leave the abuser means making hard sacrifices, including any “benefits” that keep us bound to the abuser, because this benefits allow the abuser control.
We’re not getting out without suffering. It’s a matter of making the decision and having the grit to deal with the unpleasant, but intermediate, consequences. Anything else is lying to ourselves.
Until it all collapses right before millennials need it because we gave up working to change anything.
So, $0 because my body is too broken to be commodified. Can’t buy anyone’s vote. Sad.
To be kind of honest, I’d say that’s still optimistic - I say they are going to raise the level of support to unprecedented levels. Of course, it would be the exact same thing if Trump won… the only difference being that (so-called) “progressives” wouldn’t be falling over themselves to make all kinds of excuses for it.
You’re probably right.
We have bipartisanship for the absolute worst things.
It’s so sad you have given up on optimism. I haven’t
I was optimistic in 2008 and even voted for Obama.
We saw how that turned out, and with respect to Kamala, I expect the reboot to even worse than original, given the state of things in this country.
It just sounds like you would have made this exact comment and line of attack no matter who the Democrats chose, meaning it has nothing to do with Kamala
These days, absolutely.
I don’t think the Democratic or Republican candidates are anything more than useful idiots for the billionaire class, and I think the vast majority of their promises are outright lies.
We saw a great example of that over the last 2-3 years, with partisans defending very public cognitive breaks on the part of President Biden, who I personally think should be 25’d out. If he hadn’t had that exceedingly embarrassing incident at the debate, the Democrats and Democratic voters would still be defending him.
The Obama and Trump presidencies killed any optimism I have for our country and system of government. Obama was reelected AFTER making sure the big banks suffered no ill effects of willfully destroying our economy for profit. Trump spent more than a year of his presidency (cumulatively) on vacation, and even sold the Oval Office for ad space. (And that was BEFORE he led a literal insurrection on the Capitol.)
It’s difficult for me to understand anyone being optimistic, if you’re looking at the last 44 years (and in particular, 16 years) with an objective eye.
Hot take: 90% of their promises fallen short are because of Republican representatives stonewalling them to make them look incompetent (because their voters don’t follow logic). Vote the Republicans out, and they can get free reign to make real progress.
It’s either Harris or fascism, and it sounds like you’ve already made your choice. Have fun being miserable! #KamalaHarris #BlueWave #NotGoingBack
You mean when she said she will defend israel and uncontionally support israel after israel bombed Lebanon two days ago?
Vote for her! she will stop the genocide, trust me bro
You mean like her advocating for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of Israel’s military from Gaza entirely, and opening advocating for a two state solution? Which royally pissed off Israel? Remember that?
No I don’t remember that can you link that first claim to me?
https://youtu.be/cN7B-7dCZHQ?si=gueE-oQy6BlJgoud
Oh wow she starts by lying about the start of the Genocide, the death count on oct 7 and then spreads more debunked rape hoax propaganda to justify the Genocide
Where’s the part where she mentions witholding weapons to israel to achieve a ceasefire? I hoped you had more than the same finger-wagging we’ve seen from Genocide Joe for the past 9 months. Even the 2state thing is absolutely nothing new. Biden had always pretended to support it while giving israel more weapons to prevent it from happening.
Okay, sure 👍😂💙🌊
I saw her release condeming protestors and calling them Hamas supporters.
Try watching her entire statement on that. You might learn something
I learned that she isnt aware burning the flag is protected as free speech.
If she picks Shapiro as a runningmate she’s signaling that she actually is a zionist.
She is going to choose Josh Shipiro as her running mate. He is a massive Zionist who brought a anti-BDS lawsuit against Ben and Jerry’s for refusing to sell their ice cream in Israel’s illegal settlements.
Remind yourself about this conversation when you watch Harris redouble US support for that genocidal little white supremacist regime after November.
We’re going to need a new nickname if she’s elected. Maybe Killmonger Kamala?
yeah but we can wait till after the election