I didn't want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I'm right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
I mean, if you've purchased chocolate in the last century, you're supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It's nice that you're now thinking about it though.
I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn't start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who's behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don't represent us, governments do.
In general I agree with you, but reality is also more nuanced. A blanket boycott can often harm the people you want to protect. A common question in the debate about Palestine and Uyghurstan and boycotts is what to do about companies that give equal opportunities to people from the targeted communities - i.e. companies that give jobs in the same terms to both Israelis and Palestinians or the Han Chinese and Uyghur people.
Edit: For an actual "answer", some people are in fact taking it to the streets. For your favorite country you can search for it and if you don't want to do that here's an article for the US. While you may argue that we should've expected this, at the time of financing all we know is that there was a first strike and people were angry. Now it's different, at least in my local circle.
Either way, this should not be a question for asklemmy. It should be in the politics community or something.
I feel that taking one side over the other without allowing for any nuance in that complicated clusterfuck over there is disingenuous. I feel very sorry for all civilians caught between the many murderous assholes in that region, but I can't fully support one group while completely condemning the other. Acting like it's a black and white issue is so very wrong and not helpful.
Let your delegate know that you wish for more nuance, that instead of supporting the state of Israel, that it'd be better to side with the civilians on all sides who are dying in this messed up conflict.
I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I'm an American who's been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
I’m Libertarian and there are candidates that seem way more up my alley than the Big Two, but it never gets much traction.
Also while I think our foreign involvement should be minimal, I don’t think unceremoniously dropping those connections is wise. I think if the State Dept were following my orders, it could take about 50 years to get to the level of foreign interference I think we should be doing.
I love genocide. I just wish there was some way I could actually vote for it. Instead I'm stuck voting for the closest option which does none of what I want but fortunately both sides support Israel killing Muslims in mass.
I'll put this here because people are dumb as hell /s
Prime minister of my country supports Israel because “they’re allowed to defend themselves”.
What is happening now, has nothing to do with defending themselves, it’s their mission to genocide. I cannot believe the entire world is fine with it. Western but also Arabian countries unfortunately.
In my opinion, “justice” does not exist. It never did. Because it seems the law doesn’t apply to Presidents and a country that purely stands for genocide.
It's never just been the US - Israel doesn't just have a whole bunch of enablers... said enablers also back the very idea of a modern-day Israel.
France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Apartheid-era South Africa all played their part in helping with all this - I guess the fact that it's all countries with histories that are deeply entwined with white supremacism, antisemitism and colonialism is purely coincidence, eh?
Actually no. Capitalism is based on free markets and slaves aren’t involved in the market freely. If the market includes people in chains who haven’t consented to be involved, it’s not a free market.
Oh yeah, and you know the justification for indigenous peoples being granted their land back because their ancestors used to live there, and they were removed?
That's the exact same situation for Israel. The Jews used to live in Israel until they were kicked out.
Did no one live on that land before the Jews? How about we just get rid of countries, borders and religious claims to lands? How about as transient beings crossing through reality at a pace that barely even registers on the geologic timeline, we just give up this whole idea of possessing everything for that short blip of existence?
Or, you know, lets not and just keep wasting this precious little time we have playing land murder roulette.
My country has been voting to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestine in the UN until 2022 but they will probably vote the same now. As far as I know my country doesn't support Israel monetarily either so I'm pretty happy.
The only thing I'm dissatisfied with is their free hand with bombing civilians along with military targets. I can understand that Israel is angry, and rightfully so, but they fancy themselves a western country, being better than terrorist Hamas. They can't let their anger take control. Bombing civilians undermines their legitimatecy, I think they should try and be as surgical as possible, like they did in previous rounds of fighting. Other than that, I fully support their desire to root out Hamas. Though conquering Gaza only has any merit to it if they decide to stay and govern it themselves, otherwise Hamas would just rise up again.
Looking at the geopolitics and many sides of the conflict, wouldn't other better and bigger groups join in if it comes close to the annihilation of Hamas?
Looking at Hezbollah and Iran, joining in as a minimum.
This would start making the war closer to WWIII.
Anyone with more information or confidence want to correct or add detail?
This attack will energize the populations of a lot of middle-eastern regimes that have been playing footsie with Israel over the last few decades - so yeah... both in the long and short term things are looking shaky for Israel. Would it lead to WW3? Unlikely... even if Israel's geopolitical reach and importance is curbed by this, the US already has another thug regime in the area that can do it's dirty work for it - Saudi Arabia.
I don't know, what does it matter? They don't even acknowledge it, nevermind about using it. The only instance in which they might use their nukes is the Samson Option, which looks like something any country would do.
I don't mean to derail the conversation, but it pains me to say that Europeans have been financing the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh by buying Azerbaijani oil with almost no repercussion.
I'm not sure I think Israel is engaged in genocide - although I'm deeply unhappy with some of their military approaches.
Hamas, on the other hand, is unashamedly aiming at genocide. Their started aim is the death of all Jews and they are frequently heard chanting "from the river to the sea".
My biggest complaint is that Ukraine has to be very careful about this or they would lose their support. Israel goes all out on this and the west can't give them sorry fast enough.
My old congressman wrote me a letter back with telecom industry talking points when I did the same. I wrote him a reply stating as much and told him he should be ashamed for either not understanding or ignoring the full scope of the issue. I’m glad I have a congressperson who is actually pretty decent now that I moved.
If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets.
If I took to the streets over this, I would make protestors look bad because I have no experience, no social skills, no support network, and I'm a terrible rhetorician, especially when I am angry. Additionally, my family is fast to call the cops and has promised me that they would cooperate with the police if I ever got on their radar, so my presence would be a security culture issue.
Are you doing something about this?
Well, I have chosen not to work for companies that participate in such genocides, which is not a completely vacuous statement because they have sent me recruitment emails to design their fucking missiles! But frankly, I am fighting my own battles right now. I am desperately trying to find work. I am constantly fighting insurers to pay for the few times I ever muster up the courage to use my insurance. I am fighting my own goddamn family who will throw me to the fucking wolves if I can't afford the rent. I am fighting the urge to walk off into the woods and fucking die of embarrassment at having accomplished so little at my age.
So no, I'm not really doing anything. I'll cop to that. I've copped to worse, and at least for now I can live with being a hypocrite. Sorry if that's unsatisfactory.
Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
I fucking HATE America, I fucking HATE world governments, and this just adds to the list of reasons why. Unsettled doesn't even begin to cover it.
I didn't listen to what Scholz said. But it's probably easy to show support in a fight against a terror organization.
I don't think it is "no matter what". I think there are quite some conditions. But you don't say that to a nation that is supposed to be a friend. You pledge allegiance to friends. But being a dependable friend doesn't extend to literally everything, no matter what.
And Germany is -in my opinion- more obliged to support people. Not necessarily their nation.
Defeated and hopeless mostly. Almost the same as I felt funding the war in the middle east after looking at the casualties and reading testimonies from US soldiers. It's long weighed heavily on me that half of every dollar I'm required to pay to the government is used to kill people who have nothing to do with me, especially as someone whose worked since he was 16. The war in the middle east was met with the largest protests in US history at the time and nothing changed. We then elected a democrat who was given a noble peace prize, he kept the war going and killed many civilians with drone strikes. I don't even own a house and the rate at which my savings are stacking up, there's not much I can even afford to do. Welcome to the machine.
An ongoing genocide or a genocide in hindset? And what kind? It would largely depend. Often when we give people money and they happen to use that money to pay for misdeeds, some people come back and accuse us of financing that misdeed. On the contrary, in any situation on Earth at any time, we have to be prepared for any given situation to have unconforming parts and pieces. In this situation, it's not like the government gives us a contract that says "here, sign this to show you agree to what we're going to use your taxpayer money for". If they did, I wouldn't sign, because my ethics as a relationship anarchist extend to politics, but they're not playing by relationship anarchist rules, so I become something to squeeze money out of without explanation, and it becomes less understandable how any burden is at play, especially when people start pressuring us to conform and cheat the system so-to-speak. We can try our best though.
At any stage of this process are we being given a choice? There's the main problem to me. I agree with you that, at some point, we just should try our best. I believe this should include reclaiming some power back to the people.
If you were in power in Israel, and care for its citizens, what would your steps be as reaction to what happened? Please imagine both short and long term consequences.
If the Israeli government cared about the people it (supposedly) represents it wouldn't be turning them into violent colonialist goons to do the west's bidding in the middle-east, would it?
You might just as well ask how to fix the Apartheid-regime without upsetting white people or fix the Nazi regime without discomforting Nazis.
All the evidence so far tells me that nobody is serious about stopping the violence. The only way the violence will end in this region is if the entire region is turned into a sheet of glass.
My only interest in the region is ensuring that the violence continues, until such time as an option other than "glass them all" presents itself.
I'm not sure if it constitutes genocide yet, but it's fair to say it's going that direction. For every dead group A, group B wants to kill 10 group A people, and vice-versa. There's two ways that can stop; either they bury the hatchet or one group is entirely wiped out.
As for how I feel about my government, actually kind of hopeful. I was expecting SNAFU but it's clear the Canadian government is actually having to consider the Palestinian perspective this time around.
Additionally, 35 US states have anti-bds laws on the books punishing US citizens that choose not to buy products from Israel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
In many of those US states you can be fired from government jobs for refusing to buy Israeli products in your own personal life.
I don't feel that my country, America, is funding a genocide right now, though it's worth keeping in mind that America is the product of genocide against the Native American tribes and just about every nation in the modern world is the product of conquest at some point in history.
I can only remind myself of the facts:
America did not create this conflict, nor did we add the fuel to escalate it. It is a wild stretch of a biased imagination to blame America for this.
Land itself belongs to no race or nation. People fight to capture land and they fight to defend it from invaders.
Israel and Palestine we're effectively crafted as nations at the same time by the British.
The argument of "who was there first" is not only irrelevant but also complicated. It can be argued that the tribal ancestors of both Israel and Palestine have been there for thousands of years.
Before the independent states of Israel and Palestine were created by the British, this area has been part of many large empires, including the Ottomans (Turks), the Islamic Caliphate, the Byzantine / East Roman empire, the Roman Empire, the Assyrians and the Egyptians. As such this area has been conquered and colonized by various peoples (maybe even your ancestors depending on where you're from) for almost the entirety of the Common Era.
Palestine is a thorn in the side of Israel that they would rather not have to deal with. At the same time Israel is the target of many of its large and powerful neighbors, many of whom have not been shy to express their own genocidal ambitions.
By the definition of genocide it's hard to call an attack on Gaza a Palestinian genocide when the West Bank is not also being attacked.
I won't pick a side between the nations of Israel and Palestine, instead I'll side with the innocent over those who would target and kill them.
The terrorist attacks orchestrated this week by Hamas and possibly funded by Iran and Russia were a sickening crime against humanity and should be easy for anybody with human decency in their heart to reject and condemn. At the same time, innocent Palestinians should not have to bear the brunt of Israeli rage or revenge. This situation has now escalated to full blown war, with rockets and missiles being thrown both ways, hundreds of people kidnapped from Israel, and hundreds of thousands soon to be displaced from their homes in Gaza with basically nowhere to run. It is a genuine humanitarian disaster. Israel has to respond to this attack, not only to at least attempt to save the hostages that were taken, but also to show strength against those that would try to attack them. There are no shortage of nations and groups in the middle east who despise Israel and want them wiped out, and now that they have shown weakness, as their most powerful and important ally America must come to their defense and aide as a deterrent to further attacks.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the oldest and most complicated wars in history. Everyone wants to boil this down to good and bad, but I hate to break it to you. There are no good guys here and there are no bad guys either. Or maybe you can argue that there are only bad guys, if that helps you sleep at night.
But in the end of the day, this shitshow of human horrors is nothing more than the culmination of thousands of years of history, politics, conquest, cold war, religion, prejudice, money and blood. This is war. Just like Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but actually with much more nuance and history behind it.
Considering this guy just slapped the label genocide on to thr question to evoke a moral reaction I think its fine to say depends. It wouldn't be an interesting comment section if everyone agreed. In ww2 the us dropped Teo bombs on Japan and basically said surrender or we will destroy you. This show of force and threat of genocide was justified in my opinion.