I really want to do the Birthright Israel trip but I feel like I'll basically need to go undercover in order to do it lol

@patchuun why ☹️👎

@scathach yea for sure you're not totally clockable as a rootless >|<ND cosmopolite

@ink I'll need to figure out how to pass as someone who was a) raised Jewish and b) doesn't want to nuke Tel Aviv

@scathach you couldn't pay me to go on the zionist genocide propaganda trip. even if it's free it isn't worth your soul

@scathach i am half certain abrahamism was a scam to sell that god forsaken sand pit, there is nothing there but expensive perfume hockers and Chi salesmen

@ink Cool archeology

@patchuun @scathach you know you can resist propaganda right? besides exploiting Birthright Israel for a free trip to Palestine seems like a pretty solid grift.

@patchuun I'm interested in it because it's a free vacation and I think trying to stay sane while being bombarded with Zionist propaganda for 10 days would be an interesting experience, psychologically speaking

@scathach @ink you can learn to read hebrew rather easily. thats what the average jew knows

@georgia @ink I can read the Hebrew alphabet but the language itself seems pretty difficult

@scathach @ink most jews dont know it all you need is the aleph bet

@georgia @scathach *tet, also the first word in torah is BEAR SHIT

@rowb1t @scathach even if you resist the propaganda, youre still actively signing up to benefit from apartheid, unless you actively use the trip to empower anticolonial efforts and prioritize that over just having fun, even at your own risk. the kind of fun that is had on a trip like that is not benign or morally neutral, it's inherently at the expense of the colonized

@ink @scathach this is true!

@georgia @scathach i am antisemitic in the sense that its a phallic religion, you're basically telling me your grandad cut your dad's dick for millenia, ok dude now please take your hat off indoors

@patchuun @scathach dawg your entire existence as an amerikkkan is at the expense of the colonized. that plane's making the flight to Tel Aviv regardless of whether your seat is taken up by you, a supporter of the Palestinian people, or some rando zionist.

@ink @scathach pretty sure I'm too old for birthright. im sympathetic to some "zionist propaganda" (ie the age-old account of the jewish national story and our dispossession and desire to retvrn) as long as theres "Arab propaganda" with it (that palestinians are descended mostly from natives and were themselves dispossessed by us) and there isnt, AND were currently trying to defeat their national aspirations with a genocidal war, so I'm not interested in giving israel more money than I already do by having my particular birth control pill. scathach however doesnt even believe jews are a real people though so I doubt shell be rid of her desire to see tel aviv burn.

@scathach @patchuun I'm ngl I grew up with people who went to the Calvary Chapel Christian schools and they all reserved their baptisms for the trip to Israel to get baptized in the dead sea. Pretty cringe and pretty fucked up at the same time.

I didn't understand it or Zionism like that back then (only that Christians are obsessed with Israel) but even then one of my roommates at the time who went her senior year, was put in extremely dangerous situations because of it. Iirc she was basically almost trafficked by some random in the streets who was dragging her who knows where before soneone intervened. And this was before Oct 7th so just keep that in mind.

@ink @scathach let's be real almost all religions are phallic religions. with abrahamics its circumcision and church steeples, with hindus is the lingam. with pagans its priapus. you can't avoid the penis except through extreme terfery.

@subnetter @scathach @patchuun what's Zionism? Just nazism for Jewish people?

@georgia@netzsphaere.xyz @ink@social.xenofem.me @scathach@stereophonic.space It's almost like nature is intrinsically gendered and you need balance o algo

@Ree @subnetter @patchuun Yes, basically

@Ree @subnetter @patchuun @scathach some would say so, I'm a post-zionist so I actually have a nuanced take on it.

@georgia @scathach a tentacle is not determinate singular The Phallus, a tentacle alone is just a dicklike tail mouth, real tentacle is always tentacles

@georgia @subnetter @patchuun @scathach I'm just anti isreal

@georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach wait what does that even mean 😭 respectfully

Because I grew up seeing multiple sides of it, from the perspective of Judaism and from the perspective of Christians.

@georgia@netzsphaere.xyz @ink@social.xenofem.me @scathach@stereophonic.space The phallic elements in Judeo-Christianity are especially funny because there is a LOT of implied cuckoldry in the Old Testament. Yahweh gives Zeus a run for his money. The Christians would be quite disturbed to find out there have been like 20 hypostatic unions.

@Ree @georgia @patchuun @scathach it's very similar to how Chicanos try to claim ~Azlátan~

@apollo @georgia @scathach they are just a boozer culture, they get drunk and forget shit so they need a ten trillion page canon to remember anything important whereas the Great Spirit of my people can be summarized in a 1 minute youtube clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

@rowb1t @scathach there's things you have a choice in and things you don't. and I certainly don't think I'm exempt from responsibility as a settler here either. at the end of the day you're probably right that individual participation in something like birthright is of negligible material consequence because there's always gonna be someone else to take your place, but, like...I dunno, what if there wasn't? what if you decided to make a move in the direction of shrinking the pool of people who might take your place? what if you encouraged others who might be in a position to do so, to join you in standing down and declining, and to likewise encourage others around them who feel similarly to do the same? and what if you actually succeeded and made a real tangible difference? sure, you probably won't singlehandedly start a revolution or anything, but you could still start or contribute to starting something real, something that does matter and does strike at the powers that be, and jostle the scales a little. I'm also not saying anyone has to like, go out and martyr themselves or anything. I do like being alive, I do enjoy nice things, I admit to sometimes getting a private taxi for my burrito. But maybe it is good to walk away from omelas sometimes. Maybe it is good to turn down that raytheon offer, to say "no" to blood money

@georgia @ink @scathach i wonder how much of that "arab propaganda" makes things worse by cementing in the evangelicals' brains the identity of the palestinians as the biblical philistines who god commanded the israelites to drive out of the holy land to claim their destiny

@patchuun @rowb1t @scathach the way i thought this was a good defense of antinatalism at first

@patchuun @rowb1t @scathach theres no moral backbone needed to this discussion, the moment you walk into Israel you are a hostage to Israel point blank. youre at risk of not being able to go home if you dont repeat how much you like being there etc. and also...the country is at war you should not go to a war state. also youre not going to be able to pull off any awesome espionage tactics while on the trip.

@patchuun @rowb1t @scathach you gotta just remember that ICE learned most of their playbook from the israeli cops. if you wouldnt tour an ICE facility you shouldn't go to israel. one of those tactics is holding your passport ransom under risk of questioning. they will lock up amerikkkan journalists over there for no reason at all. its an absurdly terrible idea.

@patchuun @rowb1t @scathach what I need people to start realizing is that the reason to be anti-cop, anti-ICE, anti CIA, anti America etc is that it straight up doesnt need to be considered in the ethics committee of your heart. you dont need to not take a job from a defense contractor or work with microsoft because of your morals. you need to avoid them because they are packlions that will STALK and KILL YOU the moment you get out of line. shake hands with the devil and he will shoot you when you are sleeping. you need to be able to distance yourself from your enemies and start doing so more on a fundamental level.

@subnetter @Ree @patchuun @scathach a serious discussion of zionism requires the jewish peoples story, which is a long one. it also requires the palestinian (and if were REALLY being serious, the lebanese, jordanian, and egyptian stories, ancient and modern, and it requires a partial history of europe also) story, which is significantly shorter as a concise historiographical narrative based on national aspirations but longer if you want a history of various civilizations who played a role in the making of the modern Arab of filastin (once inseparably part of al-sham). all those stories also overlap way more than the two peoples admit, or at least than Zionists admit, some palestinian nationalists admit to being descended partly from jews now. but basically my thoughts are it addressed wrongs while creating other wrongs, and those wrongs continue to escalate rapidly and they should stop immediately and be promptly redressed. the jews were a stateless diaspora people and so they themselves cannot be said to be true colonists of any state, but they were settlers and their state could not have happened without the colonialism of the turks and british and without the european ideals of a kind of statehood and of socialism (israel was socialist originally and the kibbutz system was a very successful form of socialism). on the "legal" (how legal are laws written by colonial powers? ofc those were the only laws widely sanctioned then) side of zionism, disregarding major jewish communities in the holy cities which predate zionism, zionists ended up with what is now israel due to a mix of ottoman laws (buying some land from turks and with certain land considered property of the governing power), english laws (one promise to jews, another promise to arabs!), and ultimately international law (the new UN). the native arab people always rejected any jewish sovereignty, even as small as in the peel commissions plan, in what is now palestine israel and jordan, and that is their prerogative. but if they had accepted that of course, then the UN partition plan that established grounds for israeli statehood with 56 percent of the land going to jews, 43 percent of land going to arabs, and Jerusalem as an international zone wouldve never been approved by a majority of member nations (in the wake of the horror of the holocaust). while there was some violence before israel declared statehood (like pogroms that expelled many jews from jerusalem and hebron, often cited by zionists as "why we coudnt live in peace" while ignoring the rising jewish immigration that fueled it), zionism as a matter of jewish conquest and dispossession (not merely buying up a bunch of land or settling new land) begins in earnest with the nakba which destroyed many arab communities and expelled nearly a million from their homes. it was the palestinian national catastrophe that began decades of sufferings in several middle eastern states. of course, at the same time nearly a million jews were also being expelled from middle eastern countries that declared war on the new state of israel, this could be said to be israels fault for declaring independence (though it cant be denied they were dhimmis and christian euro antisemitism had influenced many middle easterners by that time). also the large jewish community in what would become (by jordanian occupation) east jerusalem was also destroyed, which is not often noted except by Zionists. the partition of palestine and ensuing middle eastern war was a lot like the partition of india--another former british colony with mutual religious violence and displacement that created a large current refugee population. except obviously the jews were the more recent arrivals in palestine and the far more successful displacer. now I'm not gonna talk about the wars after this one in 1948 and its ensuing nakba, israel has won all the important ones and thus jordanian and egyptian occupation of palestine ended and now we have the occupation of (and system of settler colonialism and apartheid in) the west bank and the gaza strip (the latter which had all settlements dismantled, but was blockaded and now faces a genocide).
when I say I'm a post-zionist I mean that i believe that Israels purpose was achieved when it became the sole jewish state within the sole place a true jewish state could be and accepted jews with nowhere else to go, and that it should have not gone beyond that purpose by claiming more land and admitting bougie expats who are motivated solely by nationalism, let alone by committing atrocities.

zionism is either really great or pure evil depending on who you'd ask. Id say it could be a good thing if it played real nice with arabs but turned out to have a lot of evil in it due to sheer rapaciousness, pride and complacence.
is zionism nazism? I'd say no, I'd say this comparison is disgusting and victim blaming, but we have a genocide going, so I'd say at its worst it can be somewhat like it.
is zionism racist? once a majority of the west and a majority of americas important civil rights leaders found this to be a trivialization of racism and a demonization of age-old jewish aspirations, but zionism as its currently enforced through settlement and apartheid IS racist.
is zionism an indigenous rights/national liberation movement, as Zionists say? it was undeniably (unless you deny the jews are a people) the national liberation movement of a stateless people, but it tramples on the rights of the palestinians who are native to palestine despite their culture being arabized, so it can't be called an indigenous rights movement without making a mockery of such.

dont really wanna say much more this post took too long and dwelling on the crimes of my people once known more as victim than as criminal makes me big sad

@georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach

when I say I'm a post-zionist I mean that i believe that Israels purpose was achieved when it became the sole jewish state within the sole place a true jewish state could be and accepted jews with nowhere else to go, and that it should have not gone beyond that purpose by claiming more land

Claiming it in the first place was/is colonialism. Imagine if Romani people just decided to pick somewhere to call a state and then proceed to ethnically cleanse the land they live on. Some living holocaust victims have also made the comparison to Nazism themselves. It's really not far fetched, considering that Nazism was inspired by American atrocities like what led to the Mexican Bath Riots. And hey, that's their greatest ally.

@subnetter @Ree @patchuun @scathach you neglect an important fact. the Roma are originally an indian people and if they chose a place to live in india and didnt displace anyone I would support their desire for statehood. the jews are a canaanite people who also preserved the canaanite language and religion and likewise if zionists hadnt displaced anyone in canaan I'd support them.

@georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach what you're saying implies that there weren't Jews living in harmony with Muslims and Christians prior to claiming Palestine.

You seem to be aware that Zionism is colonialism but you seem to justify it because of the holocaust.

Zionism isn't just colonialism, it's settler colonialism, which involves genocide as a key component. I am not comparing the Brits and India, moreso like the Native American holocaust.

@subnetter @Ree @patchuun @scathach
when I said I have a nuanced view, I was setting myself apart from those mostly influenced by the cold war dipole between zionist-american historiography and soviet-arab historiography (and the many leftist westerners who became sympathetic to the latter such). both sides are very biased towards their certain set of facts, and you seem to be latter. thats okay, because youre not irrational.
for instance, you dont deny jews are descended from canaanites when pressed, hm???
I'll address your points now.

the "jews living in harmony with christians and muslims" is a popular idea in palestinian historiography, to the extent they called jews established in palestine before 1947 "palestinians" (even though they overwhelmingly identify as jews and Israelis, and include and are no different from ashkenazi, sephardic, and mizrahi jews). the fact is that the jewish population in palestine has fluctuated a great deal after the roman expulsions and since the christian and islamic conquests. while the christians and the crusaders expelled the jews from jerusalem, under Islamic rule those jews were tolerated as dhimmis. they were a minority who acted like it and who didnt seek representation in the form of statehood. once their sizes grew enough though, the pogroms and boycotts of jewish businesses began. and it wasnt violence they were protesting, at this point most violence was pogroms against jews (for jews were outnumbered). it was the jewish immigration they protested, which I would definitely call settlement but not colonialism. to explain why, i disagree with calling it colonialism from the beginning because the jews were a stateless people, not a colony of any nation, what you mustve picked up on is that I noted it was influenced by european colonialism, and it was, but it was also influenced by a jewish nationalism as old as the hasmoneans. I only start to call it colonialist when the Israelis sought to form colonies of the state of israel in other nations and to-be nations. so zionism now is colonialist I would say, but I would not say it began as such. this isnt just a semantic matter, it rests on a denial of jewish peoplehood independent from where we lived (which at least you didnt deny) and jewish origins in Canaan (which you also didnt deny).

the comparison to the native americans (calling it a "holocaust" instead of just a genocide is frankly invidious and provocative in this context) is incredibly flawed. first off, as ive said you did not contest, both jews and palestinians are native to palestine. but perhaps the biggest flaw of course in an overarching genocide narrative is that the population of palestinians has consistently grown, whereas the native americans shrunk to practically nothing due mostly to diseases, but also due to forced marches and recognized genocidal acts particularly in the case of the trail of tears. the current war in gaza is genocidal because of the bombing of hospitals and other civilian services and the restriction of food and medicine, but it overall has a death toll nowhere near rivaling the total deaths of native americans.
another distinction is that we subjected native americans to cultural genocide. compare native americans on reservations forced to be reeducated in white schools to palestinians in israel or even in refugee camps who almost always are educated by other palestinians (this brings up UNRWA, which exists to keep palestinians dispossessed not to resettle them unlike every other refugee the UN serves). now ive heard complaints of Israeli cultural appropriation of arab things, especially arab food, which has merit, but only when you forget that half of Israels jews come from arab countries and ate that arab food. what else on this subject? both americans and jews were influenced by a sort of manifest destiny in their expanding settlements, and youre right that both oppressed a native people and left them confined to certain areas of autonomy. jewish expansionism is motivated by revanchism in particular, thats a fairly minor but notable difference.

anyway, were probably not going to agree on this topic. ive found I disagree with most people and half agree with many people because most people accept one set of narratives and facts while I accept both.

@subnetter @georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach

> what you're saying implies that there weren't Jews living in harmony with Muslims and Christians prior to claiming Palestine.

Provide one (1) example.

I can come with current examples of places that have muslims and christians co-existing today, funnily enough jews are not involved, which is most definitely why they can get along.

@georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach sorry I'm not home so I cannot provide a full response but in regards to

you dont deny jews are descended from canaanites

This is not true of all Jews. Jewish converts without ancestry to MENA exist. That is the primary issue at hand. A lot of Ashkenazi Jews are simply not Indigenous to Palestine and that's okay. But it is settler colonialism what has happened in Palestine. I don't mean to offend by calling it the native American holocaust, I mean a genocide and that did not only extend to North America or the trail of tears. It was systematic and done in varying ways across the world. The situation for southern natives is also unique and not the same as what happened in North America as our caste system was different.

I think what we primarily disagree with is whether or not the creation of a Jewish state was necessary. I don't really disagree with much else of what you have said.

@sally @georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach Mizrahi Jews are Arab

@subnetter @Ree @patchuun @scathach studies on ashkenazi jews find we are (until recent intermarriage) incredibly monolithic with a founder effect and a bottleneck, so its not really an issue of many ashkenazi jews. its an issue of "how much". reputable studies ive seen (anything not by elhaik I consider reputable) range from jews being 25-58 percent middle eastern. thats a substantial portion, enough to help make calling ashkenazi jews european oversimplistic. one recentish study found that ashkenazi jews are 60 percent canaanite related (not necessarily canaanite, but canaanite related), and moroccan jews 70 percent. I should also note that sephardic jews and ashkenazi jews are very closely related, yet few discount sephardic jews as indigenous (except elhaik, lol, I think he said they were Kurds?). anyway, even if its true that ashkenazi jews are only 25 percent middle eastern, being indigenous is a matter of being defined as indigenous by an indigenous people. the israelites consider converts to be fellow israelites and accept them into the sphere of their indigenous culture, sacred language, and religion. and ashkenazi jews bear those things and are part of the "jewish story". I believe its existence that makes a people, not essence. prior to america weve always been treated like foreigners, except perhaps briefly by cosmopolitan roman pagans, so we became perpetual foreigners. and existence, not essence, also made the palestinian people separate from syrians, jordanians, and lebanese.

as far as the necessity of israel, I do believe it was necessary for a jewish state to be formed. the proof is the antisemitism I see every day. in another thread ive been arguing with a bunch of holocaust deniers. its not that deep for me. honestly, I am not religiously jewish and israel is more sacred to me for jesus than for moses. but people who hate jews with every fiber of their being keep making it my problem. my ex best friend just posted "I wish the holocaust had happened" just the other day. it made me feel frankly violated, he kissed me more than once without my consent. anyway, theres a lot of folks like him. leftists now like to say its all Israels fault they exist, but nazis say the holocaust was jews fault too, if they admit it happened at all, so that doesnt convince me too much.

@subnetter @sally @Ree @patchuun @scathach smh they dont consider themselves arabs. at least not the ones ive met. (my SPED teacher in 10th grade) its like the christians who consider themselves Assyrians or arameans.

@subnetter @georgia @Ree @patchuun @scathach

And?