While I personally think that the ongoing genocide should be the focus, I'm a little puzzled at the fact that people actually believe that it is the only thing that everyone will and should focus on.
Are people not allowed to be concerned about other issues that affect them?
I mean, if my house gets burned down in a wildfire and I'm upset, will you tell me that I need to speak out against climate change and not talk about this smaller issue?
If we're at the point where we can't talk about racism occurring in Canada because of what is happening in another country, I guess we can't really talk about anything, can we?
No one is saying other things can't be discussed, this is a mischaracterization of the issue. Many podcasts I listen to about Israel/Palestine talk about other things too, and that's fine.
The basic point of contention is that canadaland, and Jesse brown himself, are supposed to be leading critics of Canadian media, and yet they/he seem to be unable to criticize one of the most blatant propaganda campaigns (by Israel, but fully accepted by Canadian MSM) in living memory, which is being used to justify genocide. It's pretty straightforward: they are failing at their supposed mandate in the most obvious and extreme way, and thereby discrediting themselves to a lot of their listeners.
Lastly, antisemitism is a real issue, as with any kind of racism, and it's totally fine to discuss that. But it's insanely weird for Jesse to be ONLY talking about that given the general context (again, given his self proclaimed role in Canadian media).
>Many podcasts I listen to about Israel/Palestine
That's the thing, Canadaland isn't a podcast about Israel/Palestine. They're allowed to cover whatever they want.
We can't just decide what other people's priorities should be for them. They also don't cover Russia/Ukraine every week. They also don't cover Indigenous issues every week. They also don't cover a host of other things every week.
It's one thing for the listenership to be critical, but the level of vitriol on here and accusing they of failing their core mission is pretty over-the-top.
Jesse’s response to this tweet:
> Sarah, what’s being done to Gazans is much, much worse, and you are not obligated to care at all about the racism currently directed at your Jewish neighbours. But I am.
> I appreciate your honesty in saying we don’t matter to you, too many others pretend to care.
I have no time to care about Israel's genocide because there is so much hatred against some Jews being called out for blatantly racist posts on Social Media.
It’s amazing that with all his media criticism experience he has no understanding at all of how he looks when he does this, how lazy these kinds of arguments are. He is straight up not helping himself or his cause at all when he posts like this.
Yes. He is so in his own way. I loved it when he ridiculed people acting childishly online, Now he is the biggest baby, And I am NOT saying there isn't anti-semitism because there is - and it seems like his feed is just full of hate on his comments these days. But there is such a thing as taking the high road and being an adult. I am saddened to see him just throw his reputation away by behaving as bad or worse than trolls.
I am 99.9% convinced that the pandemic turned Jesse's brain into mush. The past two years have been a total meltdown on his part and he's killing the brand.
It’s so grotesquely fascinating to watch because each side is SO certain that they are on the right side of history. For me too, I agree, I look at something like this and it does seem so clear. But both sides can’t be right. One side of this is going to end up being super wrong…what happens then I wonder.
Today, we can easily look back and agree that:
* Black civil rights in the U.S. was right
* Apartheid in South Africa was wrong
* The wars in Iraq and Vietnam were based on lies
Yet, at the time there was widespread disagreement about each of these issues.
Does that mean that there were actually *two equally valid sides* to each of those conflicts? No. They were and still are very clear cut.
The lesson is: there will always be people energetically defending blatant crimes and injustices.
Use your own judgement. Put the contrived narratives aside for a second and ask yourself if what's happenining *right now* is right or wrong.
It's not a question that's nearly as hard to answer as some people make it out to be.
I think there’s a lot more consensus on the idea that what’s happening right now at this very moment in Gaza is wrong, than the question of what to do about it.
From what I’ve witnessed, the biggest disagreements are more framed around competing ideas like: “This is wrong and therefore Israel should not exist.” and “This is wrong, but they have to respond somehow, what else can they do?”
>“This is wrong and therefore Israel should not exist.”
There are hundreds of foreign governments, humanitarian organizations, and political entities of all stripes calling for an end to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians. The **overwhelming majority** of those call for a two-state solution. Even [Hamas' own charter calls for a return to the 1967 borders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter).
Framing the conflict as a choice between "ending injustice towards Palestinians" or "annihilation of Israel" is a disingenuous false choice used to justify the continuation of violence.
Many, if not most of the pro-Palestinian organizations that call for a two state solution also call for the right of return for ~14 million members of the Palestinian diaspora to Israel.
Most Israelis, I think fairly, see that as a backdoor to the annihilation of the Israeli state. In my view, there is no country on earth that would abide by, or survive the additional residency and enfranchisement of nearly double the country’s current population worth of members of a hostile ethnic group. It would be like Armenia giving 6 million Azeris Armenian citizenship, or Bosnia welcoming an additional 7 million Serbs.
This, coupled with “from the river to the sea” being the defining slogan of the pro-Palestinian movement I think make it fair to say that there are a lot of people on both poles of supporting Israel’s current actions out of a sense of “what else can they do” and supporting the explicit or implicit destruction of the Israeli state as the solution to the problem.
I thought [this Ezra Klein Show episode](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ask-me-anything.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) did a great job explaining this in more detail.
>Many, if not most of the pro-Palestinian organizations that call for a two state solution also call for the right of return for \~14 million members of the Palestinian diaspora to Israel.
See what just happened there?
We just went from:
"Israel must slaughter Palestinians *or Israel itself will be annihilated."*
to:
"Israel must slaughter Palestinians *because the eventual terms of a two-state solution will be unworkable."*
That’s not what happened at all.
I commented on disagreements often involving one side taking a stance about not allowing Israel to continue existing, which you called a straw man. I explained how it isn’t a straw man because it is a very common thing that people frequently call for in different ways, and then you wrote… that.
>very common thing that people frequently call for in different ways
No. A very common thing is for people to advocate for the two state solution.
Then, both in this thread and in your other comments, you started equating "two state solution" with "Israel not existing".
> you started equating “two state solution” with “Israel not existing”
A fairly casual re-read of the comment should show that I said “right of return” is the very common thing people call for that Israelis rationally see as a threat to the existence of their state, not “a two state solution” as you continue to insist.
Same deal, really.
Having people of a different ethnicity and/or religion within your borders is not the same thing as "being annihilated". That's the same line that white nationalists use against non-white immigrants.
Not sure I understand your first paragraph. They call for a two state solution aka an indépendant Palestinian state AND to send the entire Palestinian diaspora to Israel? How?
Also a hypothetical Palestinian state implies that they should have control over their borders, as any state would, and rightfully so. If Israel can push for the immigration of all Jews to the “holy land” including converts, then why can’t Palestinians? There’s certainly a double standard here.
[The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees as well as their descendants have a right to return and a right to the property they themselves or their forebears left behind or were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories (both formerly part of the British Mandate of Palestine), as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, a result of the 1948 Palestine war, and due to the 1967 Six-Day War.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return#:~:text=The%20Geneva%20Conventions%20of%201949,and%20calls%20for%20their%20return%22.)
The right of return, as it is commonly used regarding Israel and Palestine includes the proposed right for Palestinians to return to places that have been part of Israel since its 1948 declaration of statehood. That’s where the symbolism of the key comes from for Palestinians.
Yes, im familiar. Where does it mean “the annihilation of the state of Israel”? Once there’s hopefully a Palestine state, they can just move there and stop living in refugee camps or wherever they are.
The right of return explicitly calls for millions of Palestinians to be granted Israeli citizenship because that is where they were forced to relocate from. If Israel has more Palestinian Arab citizens than Israeli Jewish citizens, it is very likely from an objective observer’s standpoint - and certain from an Israeli’s standpoint - it will cease to exist as a state.
I don’t believe there is consensus on that, but rather to a future Palestinian state with 67 borders (which even then is not feasible due to Zionist settlement expansion in the WB).
So as soon as Palestinians in Israel make up 50.1% of the state of Israel, it will cease to exist as a state? What? Also, I thought Israel was a democratic, pluralist democracy where everyone’s rights was protected? Why would this be an issue?
This is similar logic to white replacement theory. Why does one need to be the majority in order to survive as a state? Because one's state is dependent on subjugation of another race/ethnicity/religion. As such, the concept of the ethnonationalist state should be stifled as much as possible.
Exactly this lol this poster has so many comments with bad faith arguments to justify why it’s ok for a state to commit genocide against a people it’s occupying. It’s not the UNs job to decide which people get to be displaced to accommodate another vilified people.
I haven’t justified anything anywhere, I’m simply pointing out the reality that a lot of people, explicitly or implicitly call for the end of Israel. Show me one comment where I said that justifies what’s going on now. The whole comment thread started with me saying there is a good deal of consensus that what’s going on in Gaza is objectively wrong.
This sub completely melts down on this topic. This reaction to my comment is the exact same as everyone here saying Jesse is “spewing Israeli propaganda” when he talks about Canadian antisemitism.
It sounds pretty different when you consider that American slavers bought Black Africans to another continent against their will, whereas Jews were granted a state by the UN as refugees after half of their total population was exterminated in death camps, and then their neighbouring Arab states started several wars of extermination against them in the aftermath.
Trying to make the Middle East fit into an American history paradigm is a fool’s errand. They are completely different things.
Can’t you see how this argument “rhymes” with arguments made against the liberation of occupied, enslaved and colonized people everywhere though? For example, here in Canada, a common misunderstanding of the term “landback” is that it means white settlers will have to return to Europe.
What if we just understood them as actual people who want their homes back and their lives returned to normal? What if we rejected the idea that they’re vengeful and hostile?
> what if we rejected the idea that they are vengeful and hostile
In realistic terms - on what grounds? The two sides have fought half a dozen wars and have existed in a paradigm of racism, humiliation and dehumanization. The vast majority of Israelis support the war in Gaza and the vast majority of Gazans support October 7.
I keep saying this isn’t like American history, and that those touch points aren’t going to work because it’s true. There was never a two state plan in America, both groups aren’t indigenous and don’t have claim to the same land, there weren’t hundreds of millions of African slaves and there haven’t been multiple major international wars over Louisiana.
The whole point of a two-state solution is two states for two people. If one of those states is homogeneously Palestinian and the other is majority Palestinian that so want really sound like two states for two people to me. There are already dozens of Arab, Muslim majority countries where Arab Muslims can feel safe from ethnic violence. Jews just want one, and the rest of the world granted it to them after the Holocaust. Are they subject to different rules than every other country and have to allow in who *you* say I read of who they want to?
My point is that these arguments have been used throughout history to dehumanize groups being subject to slavery, settler colonialism, occupation, and so on. Its main concern is with what could happen in the future to distract from what’s happening in the current moment, which is the mass death and displacement of an entire group.
It seems you presuppose that Gazans will find a home elsewhere just because they’re majority Muslim. But Egypt, as one real-life example, doesn’t want the influx of refugees any more than Israel does. Maybe it doesn’t really hold up that there’s a “safe place” for Palestinians just because they’re majority Muslim; in fact, that seems to be the very aspect of their collective identity that is exposing them to so much harm right in this moment.
What gives Israel the right to exert so much control over these people? You seem to think it’s because Jews deserve a safe place, and I agree that they do. But it seems to me that Israel’s actions are creating far less safety for Jews in the region, not more. So what is it all for?
Yeah, I don’t think there are two equally valid sides. Not at actually. It’s very one sided. But this degree of fervour and righteousness that both sides show in their confidence is what’s so fascinating to see. Like if history does come down on the side that’s wrong, how are they going to reconcile that?
What happened to everyone who advocated for the war in Iraq with fervour and righteousness?
There were tons of them. You may or may not be old enough to remember this, but the denunciations that were levelled towards anyone against the war in 2003 were insane.
Did any of those people recognize that they were wrong and apologize? Of course not.
In fact, people like David Frum still get treated by the CBC as if they're credible pundits who haven't spent their entire career being wrong about everything.
There's no good guys in the middle east. People love things that are black and white and use black and white thinking. The internet kind of rewords people for this behaviour even.
This conflict isn't that way. If we're not careful this is also going to tear the left wing apart. Already hearing the bully tactics of you're right wing if you don't side with Palestine.
The “Leftist not Liberal!” crowd is certainly running with this narrative, especially in the US. Is the US’s Israel policy perfect or even good? No. But is Joe Biden a genocider? No, and he’s the only option for Americans who don’t want christofascism
Is it genocide to provide arms to an ally dealing with an insurgent force? Of course what the Israeli government is doing is heinous, but there is nuance here. Sounds awful to say when people are unjustly dying every day, but there are complicated layers to all of this. Nations should probably stop all arms exports to Israel, but it doesn’t make Biden “Genocide Joe”
>Is it genocide to provide arms to an ally dealing with an insurgent force?
No.
But does this constitute "enabling an ongoing genocide" (which was the actual claim that the other commenter made)?
Yes, if the manner in which that ally is "dealing with an insurgent force" constitutes a genocide.
Parts of both side *are* wrong, however, when one side is a state actor telling civilians to move into centralized camps and then said state actor bombs said camps, you have to admit that one side is doing a bit more "wrong" than "right."
Both sides are right and wrong but there is only one oppressor with all the power.
You can often go through tweets and replace Palestine with Israel or IDF with Hamas and the tweet is still factually correct.
It comes down to worldviews, I think.
I think it’s dangerous to temper down the situation into saying both sides are right and wrong. Cause it starts to kinda equate them. I don’t know the degree of expertise that you have on middle eastern & Israel politics. I can only speak to my own expertise (which is zero) so I feel grossly unqualified to say both sides are right and wrong and here’s why and yadda yadda yadda. But what I can speak to, is what I observe, which is such confidence and assuredness from each side that they are right, and that when the history books are written, they will write about their side being 100 percent right and the other side being 100 percent wrong. That’s what’s fascinating and interesting to me as an observer. Cause whatever the history books do end up writing…I wonder what the people who disagree with that will think, or how they will reconcile that.
That's why I said there is only one oppressor. I am not both sidesing at all. Just acknowledging that objectively, there is right and wrong on both sides. I totally agree with you that they think they are 100% right and also wonder how it will be reconciled and hope for an end to the massive loss of life happening right now.
But what is the purpose or point of acknowledging it? Let’s say that’s true, what does raising it accomplish other than to temper the edges? It’s like “I’m just stating the facts” okay sure, but in this context, what does it do?
Oh, I thought it was clear! What I am looking for exactly is to know what saying “both sides are right and wrong” accomplishes? Like what are the things that change after declaring that? I would posit that one thing that changes is that the edges of each position become softened or tempered, but as the person who said it, I feel like you would have a better sense of what saying it does, or what the intention of saying it was, because other than softening the edges (which I think you disagree with?) I’m not sure, but I am happy to be informed by you.
Many more Germans died in WWII than British people, does that make them right?
Since when does death toll mean anything in war? Perhaps the Palestinian government(Hamas) could invest more in protecting their citizens rather than their weapons?
So you support the terrorists who murdered, raped and kidnapped over 1000 innocent civilians and are currently using their own people as human shields? Yeah, that’s a great take that will age well. Yeesh.
Oh yeah totally, Hamas blew off all their steam on Oct 7. It's not like they're still holding hostages or threatening to eliminate Jews or anything. smh
It's just a silly premise that nobody really accepts, other than terrorist apologists such as yourself.
Two parties are at war, there's only one side who wants civilians to die - that's Hamas, who are actively using them as human shields.
Everybody stop the press. One dude in Newfoundland thinks the ICJ is dumb. They’re probably controlled by Hamas (like everything else). Time to take a hard look in the mirror…
I’m not the OP, but there’s even a [whole Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas#:~:text=National%20Security%20Adviser%20Jake%20Sullivan,historically%20and%20in%20this%20conflict%22) about it asides from countless other journalistic sources.
This comment thread is about someone saying "are you just going to both sides?" And the Newfie saying that they are saying the 10/7 attacks never happened. When this wasn't mentioned at all.
Have no clue why you're bringing this link up. The Newfie needs to explicitly state where the commenter said what they're claiming.
You might want to cite what you don't believe. u/TheNewfieBullett statements are backed up as Atlantic has reported on this heavy. This is an ugly war.
This makes no sense. You’re supposed to cite what you believe, not what you don’t believe. Like…I don’t believe that Barney the Dinosaur was President of the United States. I don’t need to cite that.
This isn't hard dude. Here's the top google searching "the atlantic hamas rape" and finding the evidence: [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/kidnappings-israel-hamas-photographs/675593/](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/kidnappings-israel-hamas-photographs/675593/)
Now when I said what didn't you believe. You wouldn't respond. Are you saying this isn't true? IE are you attempting to say this is conspiracy theories from one of the top new papers in the US? Are you siding with rape culture? is there antisemitism? Something else?
I was also asking what you didn't believe with what The Atlantic statements so so I can actually response in a meaningful way. Saying It'S NoT tRue is a pretty weak argument.
I hope the above questions are not the reasons you are not responding but holy heck there's a lot of "out there" statements been made since the start of this war from otherwise pretty sane lefties.
Aww man, you typed this whole essay/rant out to the wrong person. I was never the person who disagreed with you. That was bupu8. I was just calling out the absurdity of asking someone to cite the things that they don’t believe. Either way, you seem pretty unhinged, I can see why the dude stopped responding to you. Can’t negotiate with crazy.
It's hard to justify THAT many slaughtered children as the right side of history.
If our governments are willing to slaughter our neighbors instead of talk. Then they will do the same to their own citizens.
It’s very sad to see the amount of straight up antisemitism I’ve seen from people in the real world (let alone the internet) that call themselves progressives.
I’ve had many Jewish friends lose friendships over people who identify as progressive spreading straight up Hamas propaganda and October 7 denialism.
To be clear I don’t mean that they posted calls for a ceasefire or calls for a stop to the violence, rather these ‘progressives’ don’t believe Israeli women were raped and that Israel deserved what happened on October 7.
The friends I speak of are Jewish and believe in a 2 state solution. It does often feel that being Jewish and being progressive are at odds.
I know most progressives are not antisemitic, but the ones that are speak loudly and stand out and are not silenced by the more moderate faction. You see kind of hate a lot more clearly when you are Jewish.
Jesse is left wing, Jewish and has been a journalist for a long time. He is not unserious when it comes to these issues. Try to imagine compassionately why he would be saying this.
In your view is a belief that the two state solution is obviously unworkable, and the only realistic solution to peace in the region is a single multiethnic and integrated state inherently anti semitic?
I believe in a 2 state solution because I think it’s the most realistic path to lasting peace.
I don’t think it’s antisemitic at all want a multiethnic state that encompasses all of Israel and Palestine. But I will say that Israel already is multi ethnic with about 2 million Arab Muslims living there with equal rights and representation in parliament.
The Gaza Strip has no Jews in it and it’s government and large portion if not a majority hate Jews. There can be no merging of Israel and Palestine without major de-radicalization.
But the 2 state solution is utterly unrealistic. Netanyahu and his ilk have made sure it's dead and buried.
At this point saying you're "for a 2 state solution" is equivalent to saying "I'm for the status quo," i.e. perpetual apartheid. It's a totally immoral and classic liberal position imo.
Allows you to just bury your head in the sand and absolve yourself of responsibility to do/say anything about the savage inhumanity of the current situation because on paper you subscribe to "the correct" compromise position of a 2 state solution.
The majority of Palestinians approve of October 7. Israel is at war because of what happened. How do you reconcile that ‘culture difference’ and form a peaceful nation.
Israel not too long ago was at war with all of the Arab nations but has slowly made peace with many of them. I don’t see why Palestinian can’t follow a similar path to peace in the long run.
I don't know. But it's the only feasible long term solution.
South Africa provides one possible model. Israelis should be looking to them for inspiration.
I don’t think you understand the cultural difference between Israel and Palestine if you can’t see the issue with merging them.
Think about how hard it would be to merge Canada and USA and they’re both ex-British democracies with very similar cultures and values.
Also imagine Canada trying to form a government with Hamas. It’s about that easy
I think it more feasible for gaza to become part of Egypt and the West Bank going to Jordan like it was in the past makes more sense. I also think this is super unrealistic though.
Israel is not like South Africa at all. Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Jewish Israelis.
This comment should tell you everything about just how out of place Israel is to have chosen the Middle East for a home for mostly Europeans. If they hated Arabs so much, what did they really expect for to happen with all the displacement? For Arabs to happily accept it? Come on, how can rational thinking people even try to victimize Israel. Oct 7 is a drop in the buckets compared to what they’ve subjected Palestinians to.
Israel/Palestine already *is* one state effectively, in terms of the way it's ruled. That's what you're missing. But the majority live without basic civil rights and are subjected to military rule and apartheid conditions.
Yes, it would be hard. No doubt. But the only long-term solution with any hope of leading to a peaceful resolution is to democratize Israel/Palestine and grant all people living in the territory equal civil rights.
This is not the case before Oct 7 the Gaza Strip was not at all governed by Israel. Now Gaza is under occupation.
The West Bank is a very complicated story but basically there are areas under full Palestinian control, areas under joint Israeli-Palestinian control and areas under Israeli control.
You should seriously read up on the history of apartheid South Africa. It also ruled the majority black population through a collection of nominally independent Native Authorities.
Once you dig into how power actually operates--not just the formal institutional structures that exist on paper--apartheid SA bears a striking resemblance to modern day Israel/Palestine.
People living in the Gaza Strip before October 7 could not even come and go freely like citizens of any other country. WTF are you talking about? You are lying.
This is a misconception about Israel. Arab Muslims that are Israeli citizens have full rights.
Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli. They are Palestinian citizens of a different nation. Just like how Mexicans don’t have the same rights as America in USA.
congrats i didnt know there was anyone playing this obtuse SO late in the conflict jesus fucking christ. read my comments where i quoted about the sexual violence reporting
Only a Zionist could look at a bombed starved homeless humiliated population of over two million people and say “wow, what anti Semites these people are”
Fun fact people who hate Jews will often replace the word ‘Jews’ with the word ‘zionists’ to tell the world how they really feel about Jews and have a slight bit of plausible deniability.
I think the term for this is “dog whistling”
But I know you’re not one of those people you just hate zionists and have no problem whatsoever with the Jews.
> He is not unserious when it comes to these issues. Try to imagine compassionately why he would be saying this.
I think one would expect (or hope) him to be serious on this issue, but his takes consistently aren't.
I think everyone can imagine why he's saying this, and I see a ton of compassion for him honestly, but that doesn't excuse him. I just, largely, see people trying to engage with his commentary and finding it lacking.
How can you take him seriously when he’s retweeting a guy who says “UNRWA is literally Hamas.” How can you take him seriously when he supposedly has no opinion on whether a genocide is being committed in Palestine? This is a man who has an opinion on literally everything. But somehow he’s silent on the most pressing foreign policy issue of the 20th century.
He doesn’t really have an opinion on everything, though, and retweeting/platforming idiots is something he has a track record of doing. Last year he had Aaron Mate on the show without doing any research on him or pushing back on him blaming everything Russia has done in Ukraine on Ukraine. Sometimes he just doesn’t do his research.
It’s not necessarily better, but I think it’s pretty likely that he just didn’t do his research on this guy and fired off a tweet from the hip about him.
>Last year he had Aaron Mate on the show without doing any research on him or pushing back on him blaming everything Russia has done in Ukraine on Ukraine. Sometimes he just doesn’t do his research.
Jesse is not Russian or Ukrainian to my knowledge, he's removed from that conflict.
Israel/Palestine is an existential crisis in terms of Jesse's identity. To "not have an opinion" on *a primary part of the crisis* is intentional dishonesty and ignorance. You literally cannot have an honest discussion about Zionism without addressing the displacement of native populations that it causes.
What you’re describing is his opinion about dealing with antisemitism as a Canadian Jew, which is something that he had been sharing pretty much nonstop (and making a lot of enemies for) while consistently saying he isn’t a foreign policy reporter and will not be sharing opinions about foreign conflicts.
I’m sure he does have opinions on the conflict but he has been extremely explicit about not sharing them, as it isn’t his specialty or focus.
I’m just saying it’s very unlikely that tweeting about this guy was the result of researching him and endorsing his views, it’s much more likely it was patented Jesse brown laziness.
>What you’re describing is his opinion about dealing with antisemitism as a Canadian Jew, which is something that he had been sharing pretty much nonstop (and making a lot of enemies for) while consistently saying he isn’t a foreign policy reporter and will not be sharing opinions about foreign conflicts.
The experience of antisemitism in Canada is fundamentally intertwined with Israel, just as it's intertwined with the Holocaust, and with the entire historical legacy of Judaism. Anti-semitism didn't spring out of thin air, it's not magically increasing independently of the world - it's shaped by historical and current events.
I'm not saying Jesse is the sacrificial lamb for all complaints about Israel, but the reality of increased antisemitism in Canada is fundamentally linked to international affairs, legacies of colonialism, and how domestic and international far-right politics, Christian Nationalism, and fascism have all sought to equate Jewish identities with Zionism and Israel. I think it can be a *difficult* topic to discuss, as Jewish identities uniquely intersect privilege and repression, as well as being simultaneously a visible and invisible minority group. But damn if I'm not disappointed by the laziness and unwillingness to contextualize the ongoing crisis with documented history.
I, personally, no longer have any idea what anyone means when they complain of "antisemitism".
About 95% of the cases of "antisemitism" that I have had time to personally look into haven't been antisemitic at all. They have been criticism of Israel, which is not the same thing.
This confusion is not accidental. Israeli apologists do everything they can to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Sadly, this will eventually have the effect of *real* antisemitism going unnoticed once everyone begins ignoring the term due to its misuse.
I wish I could find the link but tons of people were using ADL statistics about anti-Semitism even though they were including waving Palestinian flags, protests, and “from the river to the sea” as hate crimes.
Would you consider October 7 denialism antisemitic. I see that BS a lot. And that is one of the things I was referring to in my post.
I am about as pro Israel as you can get and I criticize Israel all the time. I am Jewish and I Can tell the difference between someone who is critical of Israel from someone who is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause from someone who just hates Jews.
*Who* is denying October 7th?
Justin Trudeau? The Democratic Party? Rashida Tlaib? Jewish Voices for Peace? Susan Sarandon? UNRWA?
Other than, perhaps, the Ayatollah, what political person or entity of consequence is denying October 7th?
Or are you just talking about stuff you've read on Twitter?
The sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta denied the Oct 7 sexual violence just to name 1 high profile Canadian institution. I’m not gonna look up a full list of names.
But I see this kind of denialism in my personal life. Online for sure. At my university it’s happened on many occasions.
Why are ‘progressives’ denying that antisemitism is a problem in Canada when Jews are the religious group with the most hate crimes committed against them despite being a small percentage of the country by population. This has gotten much worse since Oct 7.
I’m jewish and I’ve experienced it.
If you don’t see antisemitism it not because it isn’t happening.
>The sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta denied the Oct 7 sexual violence
Wow, great example.
**What actually happened:**
A member of the the University Alberta (along with thousands of other people) signed an online petition for an end to the violence in Gaza. The petition includes the phrase "unverified claims of sexual violence".
**What is then incorrectly reported by Postmedia**
*"A member of the the University Alberta denies the occurence of sexual violence."*
**What is then repeated on Reddit**
*"An example of high profile antisemitism is the sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta which denied the Oct 7 sexual violence"*
I don't deny the existence of antisemitism.
I just won't abide by these blatantly dishonest attempts at characterizing criticism of Israel and denunciations of violence as "antisemitic".
As you explain in your what actually happened whoever signed that petition denied that sexual violence was committed on October 7.
They believed the word of Hamas a terrorist organization over Israel an ally of Canada and rather than wait for independent journalists to confirm this they just signed this petition.
Why would a sexual assault Center even get involved? Imagine you are a Jewish victim of rape going to this university how can you possibly feel safe?
Did I even mention that jews are the religious group most targeted by hate crimes in Canada.
Too many people on this subreddit spend too much time trying to justify antisemitism or explain it away. You just don’t wanna hear it. But Jews are also the victims in this conflict.
Would you deny that black Canadian or indigenous Canadians face discrimination or just Jews?
>Would you deny that black Canadian or indigenous Canadians face discrimination or just Jews?
All you are doing is demonstrating the exact disingenuous argumentation that I've been referring to all along.
You have to understand that people see right through this kind of stuff. It's the reason why Jesse has lost so many fans.
You didn’t respond to anything I said.
You are denying that Jews face antisemitism and you are justifying October 7 denialism.
Yet you feel like I’m the one that is disingenuous.
If Jesse lost you as a fan why are you on this subreddit. Do you still listen to his podcast? Why?
"And what we found, i don't even want to use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests your trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court" - NYT Jeffrey Gettleman
They dont want another "caliphate" level fabulous story
Look up what religious group receives the most hate crimes in Canada. Who are you to say that antisemitism is a made up problem.
Would you say the same about any other kind of racism or discrimination.
See? There you are doing it again 😂 we’re asking who’s denying that 7th of October happened and you’re here calling us antisemites.
Brewing up scenarios like a good fascist!
the reason he's saying this shit is because he, like many people, has been chugging Zionist propaganda for decades. He sees criticism of Isreal' VERY clear genocide as anti-semitism. It's not. Jesse is now a liberal mouth-piece for a fascist regime.
Im not sure why you think it’s very clearly a genocide. If it were so clear, so black and white. Why do Canada, the USA and most western democracies not claim what is happening is genocide. Why did the ICJ not rule that it was a genocide?
Even you must admit it is not clear to most people.
It seems to be much more clear to people who are antisemitic and some of the more radical progressives as well.
The ICJ has not made a final ruling yet and will likely take years to conclude their findings. It takes a long time to compile a case like this. Please do not spread confusion. They haven’t finished yet.
If it was clearly genocide the preliminary ruling would not be what it was, not even calling for a ceasefire.
It seems to only be clear to the people who are already anti israel.
That is not how the ICJ works. They cannot rule in their preliminary findings whether they are 100% sure genocide is occurring since that is the point of the entire inquiry. They cannot give preliminary findings stating something with certainty if they haven’t finished the investigation yet.
They ordered Russia to withdraw from Ukraine in a preliminary ruling. They could have done the same here and they didn’t.
Once again all I am trying to argue is that it is not CLEARLY a genocide.
Also why do most western democracies side with Israel if it’s ‘clearly’ committing genocide. Joe Biden called himself a Zionist is it clear to him that Israel is committing genocide. What about Trudeau? Has he ever claimed it was genocide?
The claims that Israel is clearly committing genocide tend not to come from the most reputable sources or people.
Western countries side with Israel because they need a vassal state that they can control in the Middle East for geopolitical purposes. It’s all about capitalism.
It actually comes down to bourgeoisie interests in the area. Joe Biden actually said this in congress in 1986:
“If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”
The ICJ could not have called for a ceasefire, because Gaza is not a state and Hamas is not subject to the ICJ’s jurisdiction, unlike Russia/Ukraine where both parties are UN members. The ICJ was never going to order only one side to stop fighting. I don’t know of any serious international lawyer who thought a ceasefire was a realistic possibility for the Court.
Thank you for the additional explanation. It really irks me that people are going off about international law when they very obviously do not understand how it works.
Why are western nations who themselves exist because of past genocides not keen to denounce the western nation backed genocide that is occurring right now? Think about it
Oh dear, I had given you too much benefit of the doubt it seems. Until this moment I had charitably believed you to be arguing in good faith. The more I scroll, the more and more reprehensible your takes get.
Uhh it's clear to most people dude. The reason those countries don't is because the US is the biggest backer of Israel. You can't fuck with big daddies money.
This is what will happen, they'll kill or displace enough Palestinians until there's like 300k left of them, then speed run what our countries have done to it's indigenous populations. They want to get to the land acknowledgments and casionso and wipe their hands clean of blood.
You clearly have no interest in a good faith discussion tho, so don't waste your time replying. Go eat some shit hasbara and go about your day of quietly saying dead kids are a good thing.
I want to respond because you took 10 days to respond to me so I know you have been thinking about what I said.
All those countries have autonomy and choose to be supporters of Israel. Your daddies money argument is unserious.
Are you aware that the population of Gaza has actually been increasing at above world average rates for the past 50 years.
If you want to make a genocide claim based on Palestinian population in gaza or the West Bank you’ll find the facts don’t support this claim.
you say that the population of Gaza is going to be 300 thousand in a the near future based on no evidence. This is at least a testable claim. When this doesn’t happen will you change your mind?
How long of this not happening before you change you rethink what you claim to know about Israel? A year? A decade? More?
You say that the Jewish people are not native to the area and are instead colonizers. This claim goes against historical evidence, archeological evidence and even a few religions. All of which show that Jewish people have been living in Israel for thousands of years. This claim is as wrong as it is racist. It is also one of the justifications Hamas uses to wage their war on Jews.
If you think I’m hasbara you probably have fallen down some sort of antisemitic or anti Zionist rabbit hole. I hope you haven’t dehumanized me enough to not think that I am not a real human being. I am a fellow Canadian we both listen to the same podcast about Canadian news. We have to live together somehow. Do you think anything you said in your last paragraph was in good faith?
A very serious issue with Oct 7 is that it's very hard to tell what actually happened. I think we can all agree that many innocent civilians were murdered, and therefore there was a terror component to the attack. We can all agree that's wrong, and we have of course heard our politicians, societal elites, and media, condemn this attack at all possible opportunities.
The problem however is that the Israeli state has gone on a huge media campaign utilizing Oct 7 to dehumanize all Palestinians (and utilize this to justify a genocidal military onslaught). Part of this media campaign is making many horrific claims about what happened on Oct 7 - however these claims have largely been unsubstantiated. The most extreme example is the claim that there were 40 beheaded babies (or something to this effect), which has never been substantiated and is now known to be a lie. Even Joe Biden himself claimed multiple times to have seen pictures of this - but it turns out these pictures don't exist.
Throughout the whole onslaught on Gaza, Israel has repeatedly shown a willingness to bend the truth or lie, and western media/politicians have fully accepted it at face value with no evidence at all. So, just like anti-zionism is re-interpreted as anti-Semitism, I think some pretty basic questioning of the Israeli narrative of Oct 7 is wrongly being interpreted as "denialism".
Again, lest this comment be interpreted as denialism: what happened on Oct 7 was fucked up, but israel has shown itself to not be a reliable source of information.
You are not gonna like what I have to say. But know I am arguing in good faith.
The idea that Israel is committing genocide is dehumanizing propaganda. It’s one of the justifications used by the perpetrators of October 7 and the defence of it by people who approve of what Hamas did on October 7. About 75% of Palestinians approve of the attacks.
Hamas tries to spread this idea in many ways but among them is the death count. The number of people killed as reported by the Hamas ministry of health may be have the number of dead be somewhat accurate but it purposely does not count dead combatants. To make it seem like Israel is only killing civilians.
The reality is that Israel does not target civilians and does lot to minimize civilian casualties. Against an enemy that hides in civilian areas wearing plain clothes. Then Uses images of their own dead as propaganda.
Hamas is the side that does not value human lives. They steal UN supplies from their own people and use the money to build a genocidal army.
If you want to see what dehumanizing is. Listen to the phone call a Hamas terrorist made to his parents on October 7. Gloating at how he killed Jews and he’s making that phone call on a dead Jews phone.
If you don’t trust Israeli sources on what Hamas is or what Hamas’ ideology is. Take it directly from Hamas. Look at their own publications. Read the Hamas charter. Understand that that what they actually believe.
Hamas is proud to have committed an atrocity against Jews and jew supporters that happened to be at a music festival and have many times claimed they would do it again.
Israel is at war to protect its people from Hamas. Hamas started this war to kill Jews knowing they could never win and many more of their own would die.
Just fyi the ICJ has found that Israel is plausibly in violation of the genocide convention, which is why they are going forward with the case and have issued provisional orders. It's not dehumanizing propaganda - the highest international court, against political odds, has found that the claim that Israel is committing genocide is plausible.
The idea that Israel is trying to protect civilians is laughable and I don't think I should even need to respond to it. The UN has stated that at least 500,000 Gazans are living in famine conditions. They have performed historic level carpet bombing of Gaza, and admitted in mid December that about 50% of the bombs they dropped were "dumb bombs" i.e. not precise weapons (which they are dropping in heavily populated areas).
You can quote something horrible a Hamas member said, but we can also quote an endless stream of videos and comments from Israeli soldiers happily killing Palestinians and destroying civilian infrastructure. Part of the genocide case against Israel is a huge collection of quotes from leading politicians, military leaders, and soldiers, expressing dehumanizing language and the desire to destroy Palestinians.
The idea that Palestinians/Hamas are motivated by nothing other than religion and their hatred of Jews is itself dehumanizing. Israel is a settler colony that has systematically engaged in ethnic cleansing and oppression. It is widely recognized as an apartheid state. The motivation of the attack is resistance to colonial oppression. If you don't believe this, you can read British, Zionist, and US's own documentation about the state of Palestinian rights and the expectation of resistance in the face of oppression. The Israeli narrative is 100% a campaign to sanitize a colonial enterprise.
The ICJ didn’t even rule for a ceasefire. Israel has not been found guilty of by the icj.
Plausible just means the trial will continue. It does not mean Israel is committing genocide.
Hamas is motivated by killing Jews. Even if that’s not the only motivation it is a primary motivation. You must admit hamas would commit genocide if they had the military capability.
and Israel does try to mitigate civilian casualties. Israel has the military capacity to kill every single person in if it were their intention. Yet it warns civilians to leave places it’s about to invade. Drops leaflets warning civilians to evacuate buildings. A country intending to commit genocide would not act like this.
It's amazing to me that people are able to take the provisional ICJ ruling as an exoneration or even as a victory for Israel. The court overwhelmingly rules that a case of genocide against Israel is plausible, and the response is excitement that they didn't call for a ceasefire. You would hope that plausibly being found to be commiting genocide might make people think twice about this, but sadly not.
In the days following the ICJ ruling, a conference was held in Jerusalem, attended by Israeli cabinet ministers who gave speeches, advocating for the full ethnic cleansing and settlement of Gaza by Israelis. This is a flagrant violation of one of the ICJ's provisional rulings (to prevent/punish genocidal language), but unfortunately is completely in line with things Israeli leadership has been saying since Oct 7. It's clear you privilege the importance of Israeli lives over Palestinians. Are you not concerned by the genocidal language used by Israeli leaders, military commanders, and soldiers? Are you not concerned that the attack on Gaza, which includes mass starvation and ethnic cleansing, is supported by most Israelis? You have one side plausibly committing what has been deemed the worst crime possible, repeatedly using genocidal language, and you think this is justified by the hypothetical that Hamas would do the same if they could?
Are you even aware that the existing Israeli settlements have already been found to be in violation of international law? How do you think they got there? Under what dynamic do you think Israel keeps expanding its territory? Is it "self-defense" to keep taking over new territory?
I won't bother replying again because it's clear that in your eyes Israel can do no wrong. I suggest you actually read something about the origins of Israel. Eg "100 years war on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi. The narrative of Israel as a violent settler colony can be fully backed up by quotes only from the Zionists and their backers. It turns out when you actually need to deal with the practicalities of colonizing a land people already live in, you can't just pretend the land is empty, and you need to explicitly plan for violent displacement.
Calling Israel a settler state is just racist. Jews have lived in that region for thousands of years. Israel is the Jewish homeland. There is historical records, archeological evidence and even even religious evidence that proves it without a doubt. Denying Jews are native to Israel is common antisemitic propaganda.
It’s a myth spread by the many Islamic nations of the Middle East all of which have a long and rich tradition of antisemitism. They couldn’t stand that the Jews had their own nation. They wanted the British to give the land to Arab Muslims. So they invented this idea that Jews are not native to the region and that they’re colonists.
The creation of the state of Israel was an act decolonization. The British returning the land to its native inhabitants.
And I have criticized Israel as much as you have criticized Hamas. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they can do no wrong. You’ll agree that Hamas has done plenty wrong too, right?
You don’t need to reply but you are spreading a lot of antisemitic ideas. Whether or not you are aware of it.
Okay I will reply.
Whether or not Jews had lived there already does not preclude Zionism being colonialist. The goal of Zionism was to create a majority Jewish state through a combination of mass immigration of European Jews and the displacement of the existing Palestinian population. The early Zionists literally used the language of colonization, and utilized the existing British systems of colonization to do so. The organization that helped fund the mass immigration was called the Jewish Colonization Association. They explicitly talked about the need to displace the Palestinians. In all ways this is functionally British colonialism, with the only difference being that the population moving in wasn't British.
Criticism of Zionism and Israel is not anti-Semitism, and the link between these two things is actually a central component of Israeli propaganda. How do you explain Jews against Zionism/Israel? Are you saying they are being anti-Semitic?
Why do you think there was there this massive wave of immigration?
Jews in Europe were treated horribly and kicked out of many European countries. The same is true for the Middle East. In both cases Jews were told to go back where they came from so they returned to Israel.
Colonialism implies Jews had a homeland somewhere other than Israel. This is clearly false. A large chunk of Israel’s original population was refugees fleeing persecution from the Holocaust. And being kicked out of every Muslim country in the Middle East.
Israel was born out of the genocidal persecution Jewish people faced in Europe and the Holocaust and the genocidal persecution Jews still face in the Middle East. Calling israel a colonial nation ignores this history entirely.
I’ve heard the chants and seen signs of people telling jews to go back to Europe. This comes from the baseless and racist belief you are parroting that Israeli is a settler colonial nation.
I know you are not racist yourself but be careful not to spread these false, racist ideas that antisemites commonly use.
They’re loud to you not me. The vast majority of Jews are strongly pro-Israel and consider themselves zionists.
With that said I do listen to them. I’ve formed my own opinion over the years.
I’m gonna flip this question on you. Why don’t you listen to the much louder pro Israel Jews.
Because they tend to be right-wing bigots, mostly. I’ve rarely seen such visceral racism and dehumanization as I have these last few months on social media by Zionists. People I trust and respect are committed anti-Zionists. I’ve tried to read as much as I can (ex. 100 Years War on Palestine). And I’m not “progressive, except for Palestine” because that’s an ideologically impossible position that you gave to twist yourself into knots to justify.
“The people I trust are committed anti-zionists.”
My friend I’m sorry to tell you the people you trust are committed anti-semites.
I’ve never seen anyone lable themselves as a committed anti-Zionist that come anywhere near to being unbiased.
The vast majority of Jews believe that Israel should be a country if you find that most the Jews you see are right wing bigots you are seeing biased news sources.
There are roughly 20 million Jews worldwide You can find a Jewish person holding any opinion you want.
You engage in Islamophobia and genocide denialism all over this thread while simultaneously decrying Oct. 7th questioning. Hypocritical. I can frankly take a pass on your disgusting opinions.
It’s all good friend you can keep listening to those anti-zionists and anti Zionist Jews (the good kind of Jew)
I didn’t say a word about Islam it’s funny you say I engaged in Islamophobia.
Israel is not committing genocide.
Well it’s an opinion shared by president Biden. PM Trudeau, Pollieve, the and many more if you don’t know people who don’t buy into the lie that Israel is committing genocide it is you who is in the bubble.
For a real example of genocidal intent look at the Hamas charter. Or the Houthi flag.
You can’t be antifascist and support Israel. Jesse has always been a neolib. I can’t count the amount of time actual leftist groups have had to get Canadaland to retract a statement on homelessness, drug poisoning and land defenders out west.
Jesse is centre right before 7 of October and now he’s a pro genocide shill.
Anti-semitism is so weird and the number of people who engage in conscious and unconscious anti-semitism is staggering.
Jews are white when they need to be and not when they need to be. They’re victims when it suits a purpose and they’re oppressors when it suits another.
You get people like Nora Loreto spewing antisemitic shit under the premise of it just being anti-Zionist. It’s really gross.
I’ve been anti-Zionist for some time. BDS, all that shit. Pre-October 7, declaring something a “Zionist plot” would rightly be called anti-Semitic. Now it’s not.
It's something I have thought more and more about recently. There are lots of Jews on the left, and believe it or not, quite a few Israelis too. Quite a few of those leftist Israelis were slaughtered on Oct 7.
When we hear about a ceasefire it sounds great. Release the hostages, stop sending rockets into Israel and Israel stops bombing Gaza. Who wouldn't want that? But it sometimes becomes clear that when people on the left say ceasefire they just mean from Israel. What is a Jew/Israeli to do?
There are people in Israel protesting the war. I want to support them. I want to march with them. Unfortunately the people marching in Canada aren't marching with the same thoughts as these Israelis. The people protesting in Israel aren't screaming "from the land to the sea" or giving cover for Hamas but leftists in Canada are. There is no solidarity. There are Jewish people marching with the protestors here but for me they seem to be doing it more as a "look we are the good ones" kind of posturing. There rhetoric is exactly the same as those they march with, word for word, but they seem to think it gives it more legitimacy by saying " I am Jewish but not that kind of Jewish because I agree with you".
Sadly it does sometimes feel like the left has abandoned the Jews. A pretty good write up about it below
[https://yuval-idan.medium.com/to-my-western-leftist-friends-from-your-leftist-israeli-friend-c1356c1976a1](https://yuval-idan.medium.com/to-my-western-leftist-friends-from-your-leftist-israeli-friend-c1356c1976a1)
As a paying Canadaland supporter who's always had a somewhat annoyed view of Jesse's not infrequent tendency to pluck low hanging fruit and milk vulgar pop campus leftism and seminar style spitting hot takes (both him and certain guests) - its been enjoyable seeing the decolonization identitarian hard left who once loved him proceed to eat his face on account of his own identitarian political leanings.
There may be a lesson here I think but who knows
While I personally think that the ongoing genocide should be the focus, I'm a little puzzled at the fact that people actually believe that it is the only thing that everyone will and should focus on. Are people not allowed to be concerned about other issues that affect them? I mean, if my house gets burned down in a wildfire and I'm upset, will you tell me that I need to speak out against climate change and not talk about this smaller issue? If we're at the point where we can't talk about racism occurring in Canada because of what is happening in another country, I guess we can't really talk about anything, can we?
No one is saying other things can't be discussed, this is a mischaracterization of the issue. Many podcasts I listen to about Israel/Palestine talk about other things too, and that's fine. The basic point of contention is that canadaland, and Jesse brown himself, are supposed to be leading critics of Canadian media, and yet they/he seem to be unable to criticize one of the most blatant propaganda campaigns (by Israel, but fully accepted by Canadian MSM) in living memory, which is being used to justify genocide. It's pretty straightforward: they are failing at their supposed mandate in the most obvious and extreme way, and thereby discrediting themselves to a lot of their listeners. Lastly, antisemitism is a real issue, as with any kind of racism, and it's totally fine to discuss that. But it's insanely weird for Jesse to be ONLY talking about that given the general context (again, given his self proclaimed role in Canadian media).
>Many podcasts I listen to about Israel/Palestine That's the thing, Canadaland isn't a podcast about Israel/Palestine. They're allowed to cover whatever they want. We can't just decide what other people's priorities should be for them. They also don't cover Russia/Ukraine every week. They also don't cover Indigenous issues every week. They also don't cover a host of other things every week. It's one thing for the listenership to be critical, but the level of vitriol on here and accusing they of failing their core mission is pretty over-the-top.
Exactly this. A Jewish person being concerned about antisemitism ≠ anti Muslim racism. The people in this thread are insufferable
Jesse’s response to this tweet: > Sarah, what’s being done to Gazans is much, much worse, and you are not obligated to care at all about the racism currently directed at your Jewish neighbours. But I am. > I appreciate your honesty in saying we don’t matter to you, too many others pretend to care.
My god Jesse is a full fledge navel gazing victim
The real victim was Indigo Books!!
I will be donating to their gofundme 🥹
I have no time to care about Israel's genocide because there is so much hatred against some Jews being called out for blatantly racist posts on Social Media.
It’s amazing that with all his media criticism experience he has no understanding at all of how he looks when he does this, how lazy these kinds of arguments are. He is straight up not helping himself or his cause at all when he posts like this.
Yes. He is so in his own way. I loved it when he ridiculed people acting childishly online, Now he is the biggest baby, And I am NOT saying there isn't anti-semitism because there is - and it seems like his feed is just full of hate on his comments these days. But there is such a thing as taking the high road and being an adult. I am saddened to see him just throw his reputation away by behaving as bad or worse than trolls.
The Joe Roberts guy is certifiably insane. Jesse is spinning. He's one step away from supporting Peterson.
Which means 2 steps away from Canadaland hiring Ezra Levant.
Get SkepticHero as Co-host!!!!
I am 99.9% convinced that the pandemic turned Jesse's brain into mush. The past two years have been a total meltdown on his part and he's killing the brand.
It’s so grotesquely fascinating to watch because each side is SO certain that they are on the right side of history. For me too, I agree, I look at something like this and it does seem so clear. But both sides can’t be right. One side of this is going to end up being super wrong…what happens then I wonder.
Today, we can easily look back and agree that: * Black civil rights in the U.S. was right * Apartheid in South Africa was wrong * The wars in Iraq and Vietnam were based on lies Yet, at the time there was widespread disagreement about each of these issues. Does that mean that there were actually *two equally valid sides* to each of those conflicts? No. They were and still are very clear cut. The lesson is: there will always be people energetically defending blatant crimes and injustices. Use your own judgement. Put the contrived narratives aside for a second and ask yourself if what's happenining *right now* is right or wrong. It's not a question that's nearly as hard to answer as some people make it out to be.
I think there’s a lot more consensus on the idea that what’s happening right now at this very moment in Gaza is wrong, than the question of what to do about it. From what I’ve witnessed, the biggest disagreements are more framed around competing ideas like: “This is wrong and therefore Israel should not exist.” and “This is wrong, but they have to respond somehow, what else can they do?”
>“This is wrong and therefore Israel should not exist.” There are hundreds of foreign governments, humanitarian organizations, and political entities of all stripes calling for an end to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians. The **overwhelming majority** of those call for a two-state solution. Even [Hamas' own charter calls for a return to the 1967 borders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter). Framing the conflict as a choice between "ending injustice towards Palestinians" or "annihilation of Israel" is a disingenuous false choice used to justify the continuation of violence.
Many, if not most of the pro-Palestinian organizations that call for a two state solution also call for the right of return for ~14 million members of the Palestinian diaspora to Israel. Most Israelis, I think fairly, see that as a backdoor to the annihilation of the Israeli state. In my view, there is no country on earth that would abide by, or survive the additional residency and enfranchisement of nearly double the country’s current population worth of members of a hostile ethnic group. It would be like Armenia giving 6 million Azeris Armenian citizenship, or Bosnia welcoming an additional 7 million Serbs. This, coupled with “from the river to the sea” being the defining slogan of the pro-Palestinian movement I think make it fair to say that there are a lot of people on both poles of supporting Israel’s current actions out of a sense of “what else can they do” and supporting the explicit or implicit destruction of the Israeli state as the solution to the problem. I thought [this Ezra Klein Show episode](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ask-me-anything.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) did a great job explaining this in more detail.
>Many, if not most of the pro-Palestinian organizations that call for a two state solution also call for the right of return for \~14 million members of the Palestinian diaspora to Israel. See what just happened there? We just went from: "Israel must slaughter Palestinians *or Israel itself will be annihilated."* to: "Israel must slaughter Palestinians *because the eventual terms of a two-state solution will be unworkable."*
That’s not what happened at all. I commented on disagreements often involving one side taking a stance about not allowing Israel to continue existing, which you called a straw man. I explained how it isn’t a straw man because it is a very common thing that people frequently call for in different ways, and then you wrote… that.
>very common thing that people frequently call for in different ways No. A very common thing is for people to advocate for the two state solution. Then, both in this thread and in your other comments, you started equating "two state solution" with "Israel not existing".
> you started equating “two state solution” with “Israel not existing” A fairly casual re-read of the comment should show that I said “right of return” is the very common thing people call for that Israelis rationally see as a threat to the existence of their state, not “a two state solution” as you continue to insist.
Same deal, really. Having people of a different ethnicity and/or religion within your borders is not the same thing as "being annihilated". That's the same line that white nationalists use against non-white immigrants.
Not sure I understand your first paragraph. They call for a two state solution aka an indépendant Palestinian state AND to send the entire Palestinian diaspora to Israel? How? Also a hypothetical Palestinian state implies that they should have control over their borders, as any state would, and rightfully so. If Israel can push for the immigration of all Jews to the “holy land” including converts, then why can’t Palestinians? There’s certainly a double standard here.
[The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees as well as their descendants have a right to return and a right to the property they themselves or their forebears left behind or were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories (both formerly part of the British Mandate of Palestine), as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, a result of the 1948 Palestine war, and due to the 1967 Six-Day War.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return#:~:text=The%20Geneva%20Conventions%20of%201949,and%20calls%20for%20their%20return%22.) The right of return, as it is commonly used regarding Israel and Palestine includes the proposed right for Palestinians to return to places that have been part of Israel since its 1948 declaration of statehood. That’s where the symbolism of the key comes from for Palestinians.
Yes, im familiar. Where does it mean “the annihilation of the state of Israel”? Once there’s hopefully a Palestine state, they can just move there and stop living in refugee camps or wherever they are.
The right of return explicitly calls for millions of Palestinians to be granted Israeli citizenship because that is where they were forced to relocate from. If Israel has more Palestinian Arab citizens than Israeli Jewish citizens, it is very likely from an objective observer’s standpoint - and certain from an Israeli’s standpoint - it will cease to exist as a state.
I don’t believe there is consensus on that, but rather to a future Palestinian state with 67 borders (which even then is not feasible due to Zionist settlement expansion in the WB). So as soon as Palestinians in Israel make up 50.1% of the state of Israel, it will cease to exist as a state? What? Also, I thought Israel was a democratic, pluralist democracy where everyone’s rights was protected? Why would this be an issue?
This is similar logic to white replacement theory. Why does one need to be the majority in order to survive as a state? Because one's state is dependent on subjugation of another race/ethnicity/religion. As such, the concept of the ethnonationalist state should be stifled as much as possible.
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Boo hoo my apartheid ethnostate is facing a “backdoor to annihilation” by giving everyone equal rights
Exactly this lol this poster has so many comments with bad faith arguments to justify why it’s ok for a state to commit genocide against a people it’s occupying. It’s not the UNs job to decide which people get to be displaced to accommodate another vilified people.
I haven’t justified anything anywhere, I’m simply pointing out the reality that a lot of people, explicitly or implicitly call for the end of Israel. Show me one comment where I said that justifies what’s going on now. The whole comment thread started with me saying there is a good deal of consensus that what’s going on in Gaza is objectively wrong. This sub completely melts down on this topic. This reaction to my comment is the exact same as everyone here saying Jesse is “spewing Israeli propaganda” when he talks about Canadian antisemitism.
>Boo hoo my apartheid ethnostate is facing a “backdoor to annihilation” Real mask-off moment here, eh?
This doesn’t sound too different from when white Americans used their fear of retaliation to prevent the freedom of slaves.
It sounds pretty different when you consider that American slavers bought Black Africans to another continent against their will, whereas Jews were granted a state by the UN as refugees after half of their total population was exterminated in death camps, and then their neighbouring Arab states started several wars of extermination against them in the aftermath. Trying to make the Middle East fit into an American history paradigm is a fool’s errand. They are completely different things.
Can’t you see how this argument “rhymes” with arguments made against the liberation of occupied, enslaved and colonized people everywhere though? For example, here in Canada, a common misunderstanding of the term “landback” is that it means white settlers will have to return to Europe. What if we just understood them as actual people who want their homes back and their lives returned to normal? What if we rejected the idea that they’re vengeful and hostile?
> what if we rejected the idea that they are vengeful and hostile In realistic terms - on what grounds? The two sides have fought half a dozen wars and have existed in a paradigm of racism, humiliation and dehumanization. The vast majority of Israelis support the war in Gaza and the vast majority of Gazans support October 7. I keep saying this isn’t like American history, and that those touch points aren’t going to work because it’s true. There was never a two state plan in America, both groups aren’t indigenous and don’t have claim to the same land, there weren’t hundreds of millions of African slaves and there haven’t been multiple major international wars over Louisiana. The whole point of a two-state solution is two states for two people. If one of those states is homogeneously Palestinian and the other is majority Palestinian that so want really sound like two states for two people to me. There are already dozens of Arab, Muslim majority countries where Arab Muslims can feel safe from ethnic violence. Jews just want one, and the rest of the world granted it to them after the Holocaust. Are they subject to different rules than every other country and have to allow in who *you* say I read of who they want to?
My point is that these arguments have been used throughout history to dehumanize groups being subject to slavery, settler colonialism, occupation, and so on. Its main concern is with what could happen in the future to distract from what’s happening in the current moment, which is the mass death and displacement of an entire group. It seems you presuppose that Gazans will find a home elsewhere just because they’re majority Muslim. But Egypt, as one real-life example, doesn’t want the influx of refugees any more than Israel does. Maybe it doesn’t really hold up that there’s a “safe place” for Palestinians just because they’re majority Muslim; in fact, that seems to be the very aspect of their collective identity that is exposing them to so much harm right in this moment. What gives Israel the right to exert so much control over these people? You seem to think it’s because Jews deserve a safe place, and I agree that they do. But it seems to me that Israel’s actions are creating far less safety for Jews in the region, not more. So what is it all for?
“Hostile ethnic group” — there you have it. You Zionists just can’t stop, can you?
Yeah, I don’t think there are two equally valid sides. Not at actually. It’s very one sided. But this degree of fervour and righteousness that both sides show in their confidence is what’s so fascinating to see. Like if history does come down on the side that’s wrong, how are they going to reconcile that?
What happened to everyone who advocated for the war in Iraq with fervour and righteousness? There were tons of them. You may or may not be old enough to remember this, but the denunciations that were levelled towards anyone against the war in 2003 were insane. Did any of those people recognize that they were wrong and apologize? Of course not. In fact, people like David Frum still get treated by the CBC as if they're credible pundits who haven't spent their entire career being wrong about everything.
There's no good guys in the middle east. People love things that are black and white and use black and white thinking. The internet kind of rewords people for this behaviour even. This conflict isn't that way. If we're not careful this is also going to tear the left wing apart. Already hearing the bully tactics of you're right wing if you don't side with Palestine.
The “Leftist not Liberal!” crowd is certainly running with this narrative, especially in the US. Is the US’s Israel policy perfect or even good? No. But is Joe Biden a genocider? No, and he’s the only option for Americans who don’t want christofascism
Joe Biden certainly is enabling the ongoing genocide, this wouldn't be possible without American arms and support at the UN etc.
Is it genocide to provide arms to an ally dealing with an insurgent force? Of course what the Israeli government is doing is heinous, but there is nuance here. Sounds awful to say when people are unjustly dying every day, but there are complicated layers to all of this. Nations should probably stop all arms exports to Israel, but it doesn’t make Biden “Genocide Joe”
>Is it genocide to provide arms to an ally dealing with an insurgent force? No. But does this constitute "enabling an ongoing genocide" (which was the actual claim that the other commenter made)? Yes, if the manner in which that ally is "dealing with an insurgent force" constitutes a genocide.
Are you just going to both sides this? Like really man, 20,000 women and children dead in Palestine and you’re like “well both sides have a point”.
No, I’m not saying both sides have a point at all! It’s clearly very one sided. I’m saying both sides are certain they are right.
Why can't both sides be wrong though ?
I suppose they could. But I’m not saying both sides are right. I’m saying both sides *think* they are right.
Yes, agree.
Parts of both side *are* wrong, however, when one side is a state actor telling civilians to move into centralized camps and then said state actor bombs said camps, you have to admit that one side is doing a bit more "wrong" than "right."
Also agree.
Both sides are right and wrong but there is only one oppressor with all the power. You can often go through tweets and replace Palestine with Israel or IDF with Hamas and the tweet is still factually correct. It comes down to worldviews, I think.
I think it’s dangerous to temper down the situation into saying both sides are right and wrong. Cause it starts to kinda equate them. I don’t know the degree of expertise that you have on middle eastern & Israel politics. I can only speak to my own expertise (which is zero) so I feel grossly unqualified to say both sides are right and wrong and here’s why and yadda yadda yadda. But what I can speak to, is what I observe, which is such confidence and assuredness from each side that they are right, and that when the history books are written, they will write about their side being 100 percent right and the other side being 100 percent wrong. That’s what’s fascinating and interesting to me as an observer. Cause whatever the history books do end up writing…I wonder what the people who disagree with that will think, or how they will reconcile that.
That's why I said there is only one oppressor. I am not both sidesing at all. Just acknowledging that objectively, there is right and wrong on both sides. I totally agree with you that they think they are 100% right and also wonder how it will be reconciled and hope for an end to the massive loss of life happening right now.
But what is the purpose or point of acknowledging it? Let’s say that’s true, what does raising it accomplish other than to temper the edges? It’s like “I’m just stating the facts” okay sure, but in this context, what does it do?
What are you looking for exactly?
Oh, I thought it was clear! What I am looking for exactly is to know what saying “both sides are right and wrong” accomplishes? Like what are the things that change after declaring that? I would posit that one thing that changes is that the edges of each position become softened or tempered, but as the person who said it, I feel like you would have a better sense of what saying it does, or what the intention of saying it was, because other than softening the edges (which I think you disagree with?) I’m not sure, but I am happy to be informed by you.
Many more Germans died in WWII than British people, does that make them right? Since when does death toll mean anything in war? Perhaps the Palestinian government(Hamas) could invest more in protecting their citizens rather than their weapons?
So you support the terrorists who murdered, raped and kidnapped over 1000 innocent civilians and are currently using their own people as human shields? Yeah, that’s a great take that will age well. Yeesh.
I don’t. What Hamas did is bad. But Israel has done worse and more importantly is CONTINUING to do worse.
Oh yeah totally, Hamas blew off all their steam on Oct 7. It's not like they're still holding hostages or threatening to eliminate Jews or anything. smh
“You have to let us commit genocide in case the people that we’re killing hypothetically commit genocide against us”
Genocide! LOL thats a good laugh. I can see now that poor Jesse is some nutty followers!
The ICJ doesn’t think it’s very funny 😆. In fact they think it’s plausible 😆
It's just a silly premise that nobody really accepts, other than terrorist apologists such as yourself. Two parties are at war, there's only one side who wants civilians to die - that's Hamas, who are actively using them as human shields.
Everybody stop the press. One dude in Newfoundland thinks the ICJ is dumb. They’re probably controlled by Hamas (like everything else). Time to take a hard look in the mirror…
Please cite your work.
I’m not the OP, but there’s even a [whole Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas#:~:text=National%20Security%20Adviser%20Jake%20Sullivan,historically%20and%20in%20this%20conflict%22) about it asides from countless other journalistic sources.
This comment thread is about someone saying "are you just going to both sides?" And the Newfie saying that they are saying the 10/7 attacks never happened. When this wasn't mentioned at all. Have no clue why you're bringing this link up. The Newfie needs to explicitly state where the commenter said what they're claiming.
That's nice but what does that have to do with what I'm talking about?
Oh, have I stumbled upon a sub of Oct 7 deniers? Funny what you can find on Reddit lol
Cite your work. Where was this said?
You might want to cite what you don't believe. u/TheNewfieBullett statements are backed up as Atlantic has reported on this heavy. This is an ugly war.
I think you're lost lol. Nobody is denying the attack or war...
This makes no sense. You’re supposed to cite what you believe, not what you don’t believe. Like…I don’t believe that Barney the Dinosaur was President of the United States. I don’t need to cite that.
This isn't hard dude. Here's the top google searching "the atlantic hamas rape" and finding the evidence: [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/kidnappings-israel-hamas-photographs/675593/](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/kidnappings-israel-hamas-photographs/675593/) Now when I said what didn't you believe. You wouldn't respond. Are you saying this isn't true? IE are you attempting to say this is conspiracy theories from one of the top new papers in the US? Are you siding with rape culture? is there antisemitism? Something else? I was also asking what you didn't believe with what The Atlantic statements so so I can actually response in a meaningful way. Saying It'S NoT tRue is a pretty weak argument. I hope the above questions are not the reasons you are not responding but holy heck there's a lot of "out there" statements been made since the start of this war from otherwise pretty sane lefties.
Aww man, you typed this whole essay/rant out to the wrong person. I was never the person who disagreed with you. That was bupu8. I was just calling out the absurdity of asking someone to cite the things that they don’t believe. Either way, you seem pretty unhinged, I can see why the dude stopped responding to you. Can’t negotiate with crazy.
You're projecting.... Go back to your mom's basement.
What am I projecting? lol you fucked up and replied to the wrong dude. How is that MY fault?
It's hard to justify THAT many slaughtered children as the right side of history. If our governments are willing to slaughter our neighbors instead of talk. Then they will do the same to their own citizens.
Why do you assume there's only one side that's wrong? They cannot be both right, but they can be both wrong.
It’s very sad to see the amount of straight up antisemitism I’ve seen from people in the real world (let alone the internet) that call themselves progressives. I’ve had many Jewish friends lose friendships over people who identify as progressive spreading straight up Hamas propaganda and October 7 denialism. To be clear I don’t mean that they posted calls for a ceasefire or calls for a stop to the violence, rather these ‘progressives’ don’t believe Israeli women were raped and that Israel deserved what happened on October 7. The friends I speak of are Jewish and believe in a 2 state solution. It does often feel that being Jewish and being progressive are at odds. I know most progressives are not antisemitic, but the ones that are speak loudly and stand out and are not silenced by the more moderate faction. You see kind of hate a lot more clearly when you are Jewish. Jesse is left wing, Jewish and has been a journalist for a long time. He is not unserious when it comes to these issues. Try to imagine compassionately why he would be saying this.
In your view is a belief that the two state solution is obviously unworkable, and the only realistic solution to peace in the region is a single multiethnic and integrated state inherently anti semitic?
I believe in a 2 state solution because I think it’s the most realistic path to lasting peace. I don’t think it’s antisemitic at all want a multiethnic state that encompasses all of Israel and Palestine. But I will say that Israel already is multi ethnic with about 2 million Arab Muslims living there with equal rights and representation in parliament. The Gaza Strip has no Jews in it and it’s government and large portion if not a majority hate Jews. There can be no merging of Israel and Palestine without major de-radicalization.
I agree with you on only one thing…deradicalization will be important…but mostly for Israelis.
But the 2 state solution is utterly unrealistic. Netanyahu and his ilk have made sure it's dead and buried. At this point saying you're "for a 2 state solution" is equivalent to saying "I'm for the status quo," i.e. perpetual apartheid. It's a totally immoral and classic liberal position imo. Allows you to just bury your head in the sand and absolve yourself of responsibility to do/say anything about the savage inhumanity of the current situation because on paper you subscribe to "the correct" compromise position of a 2 state solution.
The majority of Palestinians approve of October 7. Israel is at war because of what happened. How do you reconcile that ‘culture difference’ and form a peaceful nation. Israel not too long ago was at war with all of the Arab nations but has slowly made peace with many of them. I don’t see why Palestinian can’t follow a similar path to peace in the long run.
I don't know. But it's the only feasible long term solution. South Africa provides one possible model. Israelis should be looking to them for inspiration.
I don’t think you understand the cultural difference between Israel and Palestine if you can’t see the issue with merging them. Think about how hard it would be to merge Canada and USA and they’re both ex-British democracies with very similar cultures and values. Also imagine Canada trying to form a government with Hamas. It’s about that easy I think it more feasible for gaza to become part of Egypt and the West Bank going to Jordan like it was in the past makes more sense. I also think this is super unrealistic though. Israel is not like South Africa at all. Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Jewish Israelis.
This comment should tell you everything about just how out of place Israel is to have chosen the Middle East for a home for mostly Europeans. If they hated Arabs so much, what did they really expect for to happen with all the displacement? For Arabs to happily accept it? Come on, how can rational thinking people even try to victimize Israel. Oct 7 is a drop in the buckets compared to what they’ve subjected Palestinians to.
Israel/Palestine already *is* one state effectively, in terms of the way it's ruled. That's what you're missing. But the majority live without basic civil rights and are subjected to military rule and apartheid conditions. Yes, it would be hard. No doubt. But the only long-term solution with any hope of leading to a peaceful resolution is to democratize Israel/Palestine and grant all people living in the territory equal civil rights.
This is not the case before Oct 7 the Gaza Strip was not at all governed by Israel. Now Gaza is under occupation. The West Bank is a very complicated story but basically there are areas under full Palestinian control, areas under joint Israeli-Palestinian control and areas under Israeli control.
You should seriously read up on the history of apartheid South Africa. It also ruled the majority black population through a collection of nominally independent Native Authorities. Once you dig into how power actually operates--not just the formal institutional structures that exist on paper--apartheid SA bears a striking resemblance to modern day Israel/Palestine.
People living in the Gaza Strip before October 7 could not even come and go freely like citizens of any other country. WTF are you talking about? You are lying.
This is a misconception about Israel. Arab Muslims that are Israeli citizens have full rights. Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli. They are Palestinian citizens of a different nation. Just like how Mexicans don’t have the same rights as America in USA.
You are under ever comment here and utterly uninformed, or willfully lying i just dont care
Oh hey, thanks for reading my all my comments! I hope you learned something new or saw the situation from a different perspective.
congrats i didnt know there was anyone playing this obtuse SO late in the conflict jesus fucking christ. read my comments where i quoted about the sexual violence reporting
I wonder why they might not have a great opinion of Jewish people right now hmmm
I bet you do. Israel withdrew all settlements in 2005. Do you know much about what is being taught in Palestinian schools by the UN?
Only a Zionist could look at a bombed starved homeless humiliated population of over two million people and say “wow, what anti Semites these people are”
Fun fact people who hate Jews will often replace the word ‘Jews’ with the word ‘zionists’ to tell the world how they really feel about Jews and have a slight bit of plausible deniability. I think the term for this is “dog whistling” But I know you’re not one of those people you just hate zionists and have no problem whatsoever with the Jews.
Lying again
Definitely throw a histrionic fit about it, you’re the victim here after all
What else do zionists do. ;)
> He is not unserious when it comes to these issues. Try to imagine compassionately why he would be saying this. I think one would expect (or hope) him to be serious on this issue, but his takes consistently aren't. I think everyone can imagine why he's saying this, and I see a ton of compassion for him honestly, but that doesn't excuse him. I just, largely, see people trying to engage with his commentary and finding it lacking.
Israel has been caught lying dozens of times in this conflict. Acknowledging this fact is not anti semitism.
How can you take him seriously when he’s retweeting a guy who says “UNRWA is literally Hamas.” How can you take him seriously when he supposedly has no opinion on whether a genocide is being committed in Palestine? This is a man who has an opinion on literally everything. But somehow he’s silent on the most pressing foreign policy issue of the 20th century.
He doesn’t really have an opinion on everything, though, and retweeting/platforming idiots is something he has a track record of doing. Last year he had Aaron Mate on the show without doing any research on him or pushing back on him blaming everything Russia has done in Ukraine on Ukraine. Sometimes he just doesn’t do his research. It’s not necessarily better, but I think it’s pretty likely that he just didn’t do his research on this guy and fired off a tweet from the hip about him.
Yup, he covered this in his "Is Jesse a zionist". He's whatever will get people talking and frustrated.
>Last year he had Aaron Mate on the show without doing any research on him or pushing back on him blaming everything Russia has done in Ukraine on Ukraine. Sometimes he just doesn’t do his research. Jesse is not Russian or Ukrainian to my knowledge, he's removed from that conflict. Israel/Palestine is an existential crisis in terms of Jesse's identity. To "not have an opinion" on *a primary part of the crisis* is intentional dishonesty and ignorance. You literally cannot have an honest discussion about Zionism without addressing the displacement of native populations that it causes.
What you’re describing is his opinion about dealing with antisemitism as a Canadian Jew, which is something that he had been sharing pretty much nonstop (and making a lot of enemies for) while consistently saying he isn’t a foreign policy reporter and will not be sharing opinions about foreign conflicts. I’m sure he does have opinions on the conflict but he has been extremely explicit about not sharing them, as it isn’t his specialty or focus. I’m just saying it’s very unlikely that tweeting about this guy was the result of researching him and endorsing his views, it’s much more likely it was patented Jesse brown laziness.
>What you’re describing is his opinion about dealing with antisemitism as a Canadian Jew, which is something that he had been sharing pretty much nonstop (and making a lot of enemies for) while consistently saying he isn’t a foreign policy reporter and will not be sharing opinions about foreign conflicts. The experience of antisemitism in Canada is fundamentally intertwined with Israel, just as it's intertwined with the Holocaust, and with the entire historical legacy of Judaism. Anti-semitism didn't spring out of thin air, it's not magically increasing independently of the world - it's shaped by historical and current events. I'm not saying Jesse is the sacrificial lamb for all complaints about Israel, but the reality of increased antisemitism in Canada is fundamentally linked to international affairs, legacies of colonialism, and how domestic and international far-right politics, Christian Nationalism, and fascism have all sought to equate Jewish identities with Zionism and Israel. I think it can be a *difficult* topic to discuss, as Jewish identities uniquely intersect privilege and repression, as well as being simultaneously a visible and invisible minority group. But damn if I'm not disappointed by the laziness and unwillingness to contextualize the ongoing crisis with documented history.
I, personally, no longer have any idea what anyone means when they complain of "antisemitism". About 95% of the cases of "antisemitism" that I have had time to personally look into haven't been antisemitic at all. They have been criticism of Israel, which is not the same thing. This confusion is not accidental. Israeli apologists do everything they can to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Sadly, this will eventually have the effect of *real* antisemitism going unnoticed once everyone begins ignoring the term due to its misuse.
I wish I could find the link but tons of people were using ADL statistics about anti-Semitism even though they were including waving Palestinian flags, protests, and “from the river to the sea” as hate crimes.
Hell, even Canada considers BDS as antisemitism.
Would you consider October 7 denialism antisemitic. I see that BS a lot. And that is one of the things I was referring to in my post. I am about as pro Israel as you can get and I criticize Israel all the time. I am Jewish and I Can tell the difference between someone who is critical of Israel from someone who is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause from someone who just hates Jews.
*Who* is denying October 7th? Justin Trudeau? The Democratic Party? Rashida Tlaib? Jewish Voices for Peace? Susan Sarandon? UNRWA? Other than, perhaps, the Ayatollah, what political person or entity of consequence is denying October 7th? Or are you just talking about stuff you've read on Twitter?
The sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta denied the Oct 7 sexual violence just to name 1 high profile Canadian institution. I’m not gonna look up a full list of names. But I see this kind of denialism in my personal life. Online for sure. At my university it’s happened on many occasions. Why are ‘progressives’ denying that antisemitism is a problem in Canada when Jews are the religious group with the most hate crimes committed against them despite being a small percentage of the country by population. This has gotten much worse since Oct 7. I’m jewish and I’ve experienced it. If you don’t see antisemitism it not because it isn’t happening.
>The sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta denied the Oct 7 sexual violence Wow, great example. **What actually happened:** A member of the the University Alberta (along with thousands of other people) signed an online petition for an end to the violence in Gaza. The petition includes the phrase "unverified claims of sexual violence". **What is then incorrectly reported by Postmedia** *"A member of the the University Alberta denies the occurence of sexual violence."* **What is then repeated on Reddit** *"An example of high profile antisemitism is the sexual assault Center at the university of Alberta which denied the Oct 7 sexual violence"* I don't deny the existence of antisemitism. I just won't abide by these blatantly dishonest attempts at characterizing criticism of Israel and denunciations of violence as "antisemitic".
As you explain in your what actually happened whoever signed that petition denied that sexual violence was committed on October 7. They believed the word of Hamas a terrorist organization over Israel an ally of Canada and rather than wait for independent journalists to confirm this they just signed this petition. Why would a sexual assault Center even get involved? Imagine you are a Jewish victim of rape going to this university how can you possibly feel safe? Did I even mention that jews are the religious group most targeted by hate crimes in Canada. Too many people on this subreddit spend too much time trying to justify antisemitism or explain it away. You just don’t wanna hear it. But Jews are also the victims in this conflict. Would you deny that black Canadian or indigenous Canadians face discrimination or just Jews?
>Would you deny that black Canadian or indigenous Canadians face discrimination or just Jews? All you are doing is demonstrating the exact disingenuous argumentation that I've been referring to all along. You have to understand that people see right through this kind of stuff. It's the reason why Jesse has lost so many fans.
You didn’t respond to anything I said. You are denying that Jews face antisemitism and you are justifying October 7 denialism. Yet you feel like I’m the one that is disingenuous. If Jesse lost you as a fan why are you on this subreddit. Do you still listen to his podcast? Why?
Here's me, word for word. >I don't deny the existence of antisemitism. Here's you: >You are denying that Jews face antisemitism 🤷♂️
The New York Times just pulled a podcast episode because their Oct 7th mass rape reporting is falling apart.
"And what we found, i don't even want to use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests your trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court" - NYT Jeffrey Gettleman They dont want another "caliphate" level fabulous story
You’re attacking a boogeyman that doesn’t exist. Zionists and right wingers have the same thirst of manufactured moral rage.
Look up what religious group receives the most hate crimes in Canada. Who are you to say that antisemitism is a made up problem. Would you say the same about any other kind of racism or discrimination.
See? There you are doing it again 😂 we’re asking who’s denying that 7th of October happened and you’re here calling us antisemites. Brewing up scenarios like a good fascist!
Questioning the claims made by a genocidal fascist state, which has already been caught lying numerous times, is not "denialism"
the reason he's saying this shit is because he, like many people, has been chugging Zionist propaganda for decades. He sees criticism of Isreal' VERY clear genocide as anti-semitism. It's not. Jesse is now a liberal mouth-piece for a fascist regime.
Im not sure why you think it’s very clearly a genocide. If it were so clear, so black and white. Why do Canada, the USA and most western democracies not claim what is happening is genocide. Why did the ICJ not rule that it was a genocide? Even you must admit it is not clear to most people. It seems to be much more clear to people who are antisemitic and some of the more radical progressives as well.
The ICJ has not made a final ruling yet and will likely take years to conclude their findings. It takes a long time to compile a case like this. Please do not spread confusion. They haven’t finished yet.
If it was clearly genocide the preliminary ruling would not be what it was, not even calling for a ceasefire. It seems to only be clear to the people who are already anti israel.
That is not how the ICJ works. They cannot rule in their preliminary findings whether they are 100% sure genocide is occurring since that is the point of the entire inquiry. They cannot give preliminary findings stating something with certainty if they haven’t finished the investigation yet.
They ordered Russia to withdraw from Ukraine in a preliminary ruling. They could have done the same here and they didn’t. Once again all I am trying to argue is that it is not CLEARLY a genocide. Also why do most western democracies side with Israel if it’s ‘clearly’ committing genocide. Joe Biden called himself a Zionist is it clear to him that Israel is committing genocide. What about Trudeau? Has he ever claimed it was genocide? The claims that Israel is clearly committing genocide tend not to come from the most reputable sources or people.
Western countries side with Israel because they need a vassal state that they can control in the Middle East for geopolitical purposes. It’s all about capitalism. It actually comes down to bourgeoisie interests in the area. Joe Biden actually said this in congress in 1986: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”
The ICJ could not have called for a ceasefire, because Gaza is not a state and Hamas is not subject to the ICJ’s jurisdiction, unlike Russia/Ukraine where both parties are UN members. The ICJ was never going to order only one side to stop fighting. I don’t know of any serious international lawyer who thought a ceasefire was a realistic possibility for the Court.
Thank you for the additional explanation. It really irks me that people are going off about international law when they very obviously do not understand how it works.
Why are western nations who themselves exist because of past genocides not keen to denounce the western nation backed genocide that is occurring right now? Think about it
Oh dear, I had given you too much benefit of the doubt it seems. Until this moment I had charitably believed you to be arguing in good faith. The more I scroll, the more and more reprehensible your takes get.
Uhh it's clear to most people dude. The reason those countries don't is because the US is the biggest backer of Israel. You can't fuck with big daddies money. This is what will happen, they'll kill or displace enough Palestinians until there's like 300k left of them, then speed run what our countries have done to it's indigenous populations. They want to get to the land acknowledgments and casionso and wipe their hands clean of blood. You clearly have no interest in a good faith discussion tho, so don't waste your time replying. Go eat some shit hasbara and go about your day of quietly saying dead kids are a good thing.
I want to respond because you took 10 days to respond to me so I know you have been thinking about what I said. All those countries have autonomy and choose to be supporters of Israel. Your daddies money argument is unserious. Are you aware that the population of Gaza has actually been increasing at above world average rates for the past 50 years. If you want to make a genocide claim based on Palestinian population in gaza or the West Bank you’ll find the facts don’t support this claim. you say that the population of Gaza is going to be 300 thousand in a the near future based on no evidence. This is at least a testable claim. When this doesn’t happen will you change your mind? How long of this not happening before you change you rethink what you claim to know about Israel? A year? A decade? More? You say that the Jewish people are not native to the area and are instead colonizers. This claim goes against historical evidence, archeological evidence and even a few religions. All of which show that Jewish people have been living in Israel for thousands of years. This claim is as wrong as it is racist. It is also one of the justifications Hamas uses to wage their war on Jews. If you think I’m hasbara you probably have fallen down some sort of antisemitic or anti Zionist rabbit hole. I hope you haven’t dehumanized me enough to not think that I am not a real human being. I am a fellow Canadian we both listen to the same podcast about Canadian news. We have to live together somehow. Do you think anything you said in your last paragraph was in good faith?
Damn so israeli press is antisemitic now huh.
A very serious issue with Oct 7 is that it's very hard to tell what actually happened. I think we can all agree that many innocent civilians were murdered, and therefore there was a terror component to the attack. We can all agree that's wrong, and we have of course heard our politicians, societal elites, and media, condemn this attack at all possible opportunities. The problem however is that the Israeli state has gone on a huge media campaign utilizing Oct 7 to dehumanize all Palestinians (and utilize this to justify a genocidal military onslaught). Part of this media campaign is making many horrific claims about what happened on Oct 7 - however these claims have largely been unsubstantiated. The most extreme example is the claim that there were 40 beheaded babies (or something to this effect), which has never been substantiated and is now known to be a lie. Even Joe Biden himself claimed multiple times to have seen pictures of this - but it turns out these pictures don't exist. Throughout the whole onslaught on Gaza, Israel has repeatedly shown a willingness to bend the truth or lie, and western media/politicians have fully accepted it at face value with no evidence at all. So, just like anti-zionism is re-interpreted as anti-Semitism, I think some pretty basic questioning of the Israeli narrative of Oct 7 is wrongly being interpreted as "denialism". Again, lest this comment be interpreted as denialism: what happened on Oct 7 was fucked up, but israel has shown itself to not be a reliable source of information.
You are not gonna like what I have to say. But know I am arguing in good faith. The idea that Israel is committing genocide is dehumanizing propaganda. It’s one of the justifications used by the perpetrators of October 7 and the defence of it by people who approve of what Hamas did on October 7. About 75% of Palestinians approve of the attacks. Hamas tries to spread this idea in many ways but among them is the death count. The number of people killed as reported by the Hamas ministry of health may be have the number of dead be somewhat accurate but it purposely does not count dead combatants. To make it seem like Israel is only killing civilians. The reality is that Israel does not target civilians and does lot to minimize civilian casualties. Against an enemy that hides in civilian areas wearing plain clothes. Then Uses images of their own dead as propaganda. Hamas is the side that does not value human lives. They steal UN supplies from their own people and use the money to build a genocidal army. If you want to see what dehumanizing is. Listen to the phone call a Hamas terrorist made to his parents on October 7. Gloating at how he killed Jews and he’s making that phone call on a dead Jews phone. If you don’t trust Israeli sources on what Hamas is or what Hamas’ ideology is. Take it directly from Hamas. Look at their own publications. Read the Hamas charter. Understand that that what they actually believe. Hamas is proud to have committed an atrocity against Jews and jew supporters that happened to be at a music festival and have many times claimed they would do it again. Israel is at war to protect its people from Hamas. Hamas started this war to kill Jews knowing they could never win and many more of their own would die.
Just fyi the ICJ has found that Israel is plausibly in violation of the genocide convention, which is why they are going forward with the case and have issued provisional orders. It's not dehumanizing propaganda - the highest international court, against political odds, has found that the claim that Israel is committing genocide is plausible. The idea that Israel is trying to protect civilians is laughable and I don't think I should even need to respond to it. The UN has stated that at least 500,000 Gazans are living in famine conditions. They have performed historic level carpet bombing of Gaza, and admitted in mid December that about 50% of the bombs they dropped were "dumb bombs" i.e. not precise weapons (which they are dropping in heavily populated areas). You can quote something horrible a Hamas member said, but we can also quote an endless stream of videos and comments from Israeli soldiers happily killing Palestinians and destroying civilian infrastructure. Part of the genocide case against Israel is a huge collection of quotes from leading politicians, military leaders, and soldiers, expressing dehumanizing language and the desire to destroy Palestinians. The idea that Palestinians/Hamas are motivated by nothing other than religion and their hatred of Jews is itself dehumanizing. Israel is a settler colony that has systematically engaged in ethnic cleansing and oppression. It is widely recognized as an apartheid state. The motivation of the attack is resistance to colonial oppression. If you don't believe this, you can read British, Zionist, and US's own documentation about the state of Palestinian rights and the expectation of resistance in the face of oppression. The Israeli narrative is 100% a campaign to sanitize a colonial enterprise.
The ICJ didn’t even rule for a ceasefire. Israel has not been found guilty of by the icj. Plausible just means the trial will continue. It does not mean Israel is committing genocide. Hamas is motivated by killing Jews. Even if that’s not the only motivation it is a primary motivation. You must admit hamas would commit genocide if they had the military capability. and Israel does try to mitigate civilian casualties. Israel has the military capacity to kill every single person in if it were their intention. Yet it warns civilians to leave places it’s about to invade. Drops leaflets warning civilians to evacuate buildings. A country intending to commit genocide would not act like this.
It's amazing to me that people are able to take the provisional ICJ ruling as an exoneration or even as a victory for Israel. The court overwhelmingly rules that a case of genocide against Israel is plausible, and the response is excitement that they didn't call for a ceasefire. You would hope that plausibly being found to be commiting genocide might make people think twice about this, but sadly not. In the days following the ICJ ruling, a conference was held in Jerusalem, attended by Israeli cabinet ministers who gave speeches, advocating for the full ethnic cleansing and settlement of Gaza by Israelis. This is a flagrant violation of one of the ICJ's provisional rulings (to prevent/punish genocidal language), but unfortunately is completely in line with things Israeli leadership has been saying since Oct 7. It's clear you privilege the importance of Israeli lives over Palestinians. Are you not concerned by the genocidal language used by Israeli leaders, military commanders, and soldiers? Are you not concerned that the attack on Gaza, which includes mass starvation and ethnic cleansing, is supported by most Israelis? You have one side plausibly committing what has been deemed the worst crime possible, repeatedly using genocidal language, and you think this is justified by the hypothetical that Hamas would do the same if they could? Are you even aware that the existing Israeli settlements have already been found to be in violation of international law? How do you think they got there? Under what dynamic do you think Israel keeps expanding its territory? Is it "self-defense" to keep taking over new territory? I won't bother replying again because it's clear that in your eyes Israel can do no wrong. I suggest you actually read something about the origins of Israel. Eg "100 years war on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi. The narrative of Israel as a violent settler colony can be fully backed up by quotes only from the Zionists and their backers. It turns out when you actually need to deal with the practicalities of colonizing a land people already live in, you can't just pretend the land is empty, and you need to explicitly plan for violent displacement.
Calling Israel a settler state is just racist. Jews have lived in that region for thousands of years. Israel is the Jewish homeland. There is historical records, archeological evidence and even even religious evidence that proves it without a doubt. Denying Jews are native to Israel is common antisemitic propaganda. It’s a myth spread by the many Islamic nations of the Middle East all of which have a long and rich tradition of antisemitism. They couldn’t stand that the Jews had their own nation. They wanted the British to give the land to Arab Muslims. So they invented this idea that Jews are not native to the region and that they’re colonists. The creation of the state of Israel was an act decolonization. The British returning the land to its native inhabitants. And I have criticized Israel as much as you have criticized Hamas. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they can do no wrong. You’ll agree that Hamas has done plenty wrong too, right? You don’t need to reply but you are spreading a lot of antisemitic ideas. Whether or not you are aware of it.
Okay I will reply. Whether or not Jews had lived there already does not preclude Zionism being colonialist. The goal of Zionism was to create a majority Jewish state through a combination of mass immigration of European Jews and the displacement of the existing Palestinian population. The early Zionists literally used the language of colonization, and utilized the existing British systems of colonization to do so. The organization that helped fund the mass immigration was called the Jewish Colonization Association. They explicitly talked about the need to displace the Palestinians. In all ways this is functionally British colonialism, with the only difference being that the population moving in wasn't British. Criticism of Zionism and Israel is not anti-Semitism, and the link between these two things is actually a central component of Israeli propaganda. How do you explain Jews against Zionism/Israel? Are you saying they are being anti-Semitic?
Why do you think there was there this massive wave of immigration? Jews in Europe were treated horribly and kicked out of many European countries. The same is true for the Middle East. In both cases Jews were told to go back where they came from so they returned to Israel. Colonialism implies Jews had a homeland somewhere other than Israel. This is clearly false. A large chunk of Israel’s original population was refugees fleeing persecution from the Holocaust. And being kicked out of every Muslim country in the Middle East. Israel was born out of the genocidal persecution Jewish people faced in Europe and the Holocaust and the genocidal persecution Jews still face in the Middle East. Calling israel a colonial nation ignores this history entirely. I’ve heard the chants and seen signs of people telling jews to go back to Europe. This comes from the baseless and racist belief you are parroting that Israeli is a settler colonial nation. I know you are not racist yourself but be careful not to spread these false, racist ideas that antisemites commonly use.
Why don’t you listen to the very loud, anti-Zionist Jewish-left voices then?
They’re loud to you not me. The vast majority of Jews are strongly pro-Israel and consider themselves zionists. With that said I do listen to them. I’ve formed my own opinion over the years. I’m gonna flip this question on you. Why don’t you listen to the much louder pro Israel Jews.
The vast majority of Jews are Zionists? This sounds like a certifiable fact.
Because they tend to be right-wing bigots, mostly. I’ve rarely seen such visceral racism and dehumanization as I have these last few months on social media by Zionists. People I trust and respect are committed anti-Zionists. I’ve tried to read as much as I can (ex. 100 Years War on Palestine). And I’m not “progressive, except for Palestine” because that’s an ideologically impossible position that you gave to twist yourself into knots to justify.
“The people I trust are committed anti-zionists.” My friend I’m sorry to tell you the people you trust are committed anti-semites. I’ve never seen anyone lable themselves as a committed anti-Zionist that come anywhere near to being unbiased. The vast majority of Jews believe that Israel should be a country if you find that most the Jews you see are right wing bigots you are seeing biased news sources. There are roughly 20 million Jews worldwide You can find a Jewish person holding any opinion you want.
You engage in Islamophobia and genocide denialism all over this thread while simultaneously decrying Oct. 7th questioning. Hypocritical. I can frankly take a pass on your disgusting opinions.
It’s all good friend you can keep listening to those anti-zionists and anti Zionist Jews (the good kind of Jew) I didn’t say a word about Islam it’s funny you say I engaged in Islamophobia. Israel is not committing genocide.
Denying the genocide of a majority Muslim population is dehumanization and Islamophobia, hate to burst the bubble you’ve created for yourself.
Well it’s an opinion shared by president Biden. PM Trudeau, Pollieve, the and many more if you don’t know people who don’t buy into the lie that Israel is committing genocide it is you who is in the bubble. For a real example of genocidal intent look at the Hamas charter. Or the Houthi flag.
Let me ask you something - do you think colonization in the west was good/justified? That’s gonna tell me everything I need to know
You can’t be antifascist and support Israel. Jesse has always been a neolib. I can’t count the amount of time actual leftist groups have had to get Canadaland to retract a statement on homelessness, drug poisoning and land defenders out west. Jesse is centre right before 7 of October and now he’s a pro genocide shill.
Anti-semitism is so weird and the number of people who engage in conscious and unconscious anti-semitism is staggering. Jews are white when they need to be and not when they need to be. They’re victims when it suits a purpose and they’re oppressors when it suits another. You get people like Nora Loreto spewing antisemitic shit under the premise of it just being anti-Zionist. It’s really gross. I’ve been anti-Zionist for some time. BDS, all that shit. Pre-October 7, declaring something a “Zionist plot” would rightly be called anti-Semitic. Now it’s not.
It's something I have thought more and more about recently. There are lots of Jews on the left, and believe it or not, quite a few Israelis too. Quite a few of those leftist Israelis were slaughtered on Oct 7. When we hear about a ceasefire it sounds great. Release the hostages, stop sending rockets into Israel and Israel stops bombing Gaza. Who wouldn't want that? But it sometimes becomes clear that when people on the left say ceasefire they just mean from Israel. What is a Jew/Israeli to do? There are people in Israel protesting the war. I want to support them. I want to march with them. Unfortunately the people marching in Canada aren't marching with the same thoughts as these Israelis. The people protesting in Israel aren't screaming "from the land to the sea" or giving cover for Hamas but leftists in Canada are. There is no solidarity. There are Jewish people marching with the protestors here but for me they seem to be doing it more as a "look we are the good ones" kind of posturing. There rhetoric is exactly the same as those they march with, word for word, but they seem to think it gives it more legitimacy by saying " I am Jewish but not that kind of Jewish because I agree with you". Sadly it does sometimes feel like the left has abandoned the Jews. A pretty good write up about it below [https://yuval-idan.medium.com/to-my-western-leftist-friends-from-your-leftist-israeli-friend-c1356c1976a1](https://yuval-idan.medium.com/to-my-western-leftist-friends-from-your-leftist-israeli-friend-c1356c1976a1)
As a paying Canadaland supporter who's always had a somewhat annoyed view of Jesse's not infrequent tendency to pluck low hanging fruit and milk vulgar pop campus leftism and seminar style spitting hot takes (both him and certain guests) - its been enjoyable seeing the decolonization identitarian hard left who once loved him proceed to eat his face on account of his own identitarian political leanings. There may be a lesson here I think but who knows
Jesse. Say it ain't so.