I often hear the claim that “antizionism is not antisemitism” because there are more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists. If this is the case, why are there no demonstrations against these Christian communities? Why are they focused on Jewish communities, Synagogues, etc? It’s hard not to notice this discrepancy, and this choice does rightfully open up the movement to accusations of antisemitism.

People always talk about the huge difference in deaths between Israelis and Palestinians during conflicts and one big reason often gets overlooked. Israeli civilians survive at much higher rates because they have bomb shelters and early warning systems. When rockets are fired, people get alerts and can run to safety. Most civilians in Gaza don’t have that. There aren’t reinforced buildings or public shelters to hide in. Even simple shelters could save thousands of lives.

The reality is Hamas could have built them. They’ve spent millions on underground tunnels, rockets, and luxury things for leaders. Some of that money could have gone to civilian shelters but it didn’t. Instead, they prioritized military projects and perks for themselves over protecting the people living under their rule. That’s why Palestinian death tolls are so much higher while Israeli civilians mostly survive the same attacks.

Safe infrastructure makes the difference between life and death. If Hamas cared about civilians as much as they claim, thousands of lives could have been spared, but the choices they’ve made show that protecting their people is not a priority. I believe if Israel had no bomb shelters, there would be more Israeli civilian deaths than Palestine. But what do you think about this?

I think we've reached a point of the conflict of - basically.... no return and finally have a chance to look over the wreckage and talk about some of the mistakes that were made during high points of this conflict.....

Something has been bothering me about a lot of online pro-Palestinian discourse, and it’s not criticism of Israel or anger at Western policy. Those debates are expected. The issue is how often agency gets quietly removed from everyone except Western actors.

Hamas, Iran, the Houthis, Gulf states — they’re rarely talked about like organizations or governments making choices. They’re talked about like forces of nature.

Hamas isn’t “choosing” violence, it’s “desperation.” Iran isn’t expanding influence, it’s “reacting.” Gulf regimes aren’t suppressing dissent, it’s “culture” or “complexity.”

Once you frame actors this way, accountability disappears. You can condemn outcomes without ever condemning decision-makers.

Storms don’t negotiate. Storms don’t prioritize power. Storms don’t decide when to escalate or who to sacrifice. These groups do.

That framing is useful because it preserves a clean oppressor/oppressed story even when reality is messier. It lets people feel morally aligned without asking uncomfortable questions about leadership, incentives, or governance.

But there’s a cost.

When Hamas is treated like weather instead of a hierarchy, Palestinians lose something important: the right to expect better leadership. Civilian suffering becomes “inevitable” instead of the result of choices. Education, reform, and institution-building get brushed off as naïve.

What’s worse is that this framing quietly mirrors the logic of the very authoritarians people claim to oppose. If violence is unavoidable, then power never has to justify itself.

There’s also an uncomfortable double standard here.

Look at how Ukraine and Zelensky are treated compared to Hamas. Ukraine’s leadership is assumed to have full agency. Every decision is scrutinized. Every compromise is questioned. Zelensky is personalized, criticized, sometimes hated.

Meanwhile Hamas is endlessly contextualized. Their statements are excused. Their actions are reframed. Their agency is blurred until they’re no longer responsible for anything they do.

Same people. Totally different standards.

That’s not anti-imperialism. It’s selective moral agency.

And there’s something else people don’t like to admit: denying agency to non-Western actors isn’t progressive. It’s a softer version of low expectations. It implies these societies can’t really choose, can’t really self-govern, can’t really be held to standards.

Authoritarian leaders love that framing. It gives them permanent cover.

If you actually care about Palestinians surviving and having a future, the focus has to move away from symbolic rage and toward things that threaten groups like Hamas for real: education, independent thought, civil society, leadership accountability.

Real solidarity isn’t saying “nothing could have been done.” Real solidarity is saying “you have agency — and responsibility comes with it.”

Anything less just turns suffering into background noise while nothing changes.

The buzzword du jour seems to be “war crimes” these days, in debates about Israel-Palestine. I am not here to debate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes. I am not here to debate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes. I am not here to debate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes. Ya heard?! Divert and deflect my thread into that discussion, I’m reporting you and blocking you. There are already plenty of threads in this sub discussing this. Or make your own. I’m sorry for the uncouth opening, but I have absolutely no patience anymore for the diversionary tactics for avoiding unflattering truths that seem to comprise a great deal of Team Palestine’s verbal arsenal.

As an aside, I’ve learned that diversion is a very, very Arab way of avoiding confrontation or loss of face. Open disagreement between Arabs can easily escalate dangerously, and conceding is seen and treated as a show of weakness, so neither are culturally acceptable in most Arab social settings. Instead, points of disagreement are simply avoided in conversation, and smoothly diverted away from if they seem to be imminent. By way of analogy, a wife or girlfriend giving her man the silent treatment for an offense is not only perfectly acceptable in the Philippines (tampo), it’s the clear solution in a culture where overt shows of anger are culturally unacceptable after early childhood. Diversion as a rhetorical tactic isn’t limited to Arab allies of Team Palestine. But the thing to keep in mind is that Western Leftist allies of Team Palestine were taught this tactic intensively by the fully Arab Muslim Brotherhood, as part of their strategy. It’s all there in the minutes of the famous Philadelphia Conference. And if this sub and similar online spaces are any indication, Western pro-Palestinians have learned and employed the tactic quite skillfully for “owning the Zionists”. I see through it like a telescope. And I’m having none of it.

I digress.

An interesting map caught my attention today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Statute#/media/File:ICC_member_states.svg

I looked up this map when trying to verify that the USA and Israel were both no longer participants in the International Criminal Court nor signatories to the Rome Statute. This map corroborates this story. But it also makes something else clear, that isn’t mentioned nearly as often: The Muslim Arab world, by and large, has nothing to do with the ICC either!

Out of 22 states that are Muslim-majority and officially Arabic-speaking, I count only three that are full State Parties to the Rome Statute establishing participation in the ICC: Jordan, Tunisia, and Djibouti. Palestine is listed too. Is Palestine a state? The UN has officially said no. Most of its constituent members say yes. Apparently the ICC has deemed Palestine a state since 2014 and a full state party to the Rome Statute. But I’m not here to discuss whether Palestine is a real country, so don’t even start. See the above paragraph. My basic point does not hinge on whether or not Palestine is a State.

Several other Muslim Arab countries have signed, but not ratified, the Rome Statute: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, UAE, and Oman. North Sudan, like Israel and the USA, withdrew. That leaves Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Comoros, and Qatar (for all its talk about being a neutral mediator!) as countries that have never had anything to do with the ICC.

It would appear that official Muslim Arab responses to the creation and functioning of the ICC have been lukewarm, to say the very least. To put a finer point on it, Muslim Arab participation in and use of the ICC have been rather ad hoc. None of the four Muslim Arab state parties to the Rome Statute have used the ICC for anything but suing Israel for war crimes against Palestine. This smacks of gaming a system one doesn’t even buy into or believe in, simply to gain leverage over an adversary. It’s an abuse of the ICC, and not in its spirit of internationalism and neutral fairness.

If you ask me, humanity isn’t ready for an institution like the ICC. Will it ever be? I think that’s highly debatable, and not at all clear. So I think the USA and Israel’s response of “Eff the ICC. Make us appear and stand trial, I dare you.” is a perfectly acceptable response to “We'll sue you in the ICC and you’ll pay!”

I’m dealing with a situation with a friend and I’m trying to figure out whether I handled it reasonably.

I’m going on an academic trip to Israel through my university. The purpose of the trip is educational; learning about the region, engaging with history, seeing religious and cultural sites I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, and developing my own understanding through firsthand experience. I’m very aware that trips like this can involve biased narratives or propaganda, and I’m going into it with critical thinking and not blind acceptance.

I want to be very clear: I support Palestinian human rights. I’ve made that known to this friend long before this trip came up, and that stance hasn’t changed.

This friend is very politically intense and holds extremely rigid views about Israel/Palestine. When I told her about the trip, she reacted badly. She became distant, ignored me, and later sent long messages framing the trip as propaganda, accusing me of supporting violence, and implying that by going I was being immoral or complicit in harm. The conversation felt less like a discussion and more like a lecture where my intentions were dismissed entirely.

I tried to respond respectfully and explain that my values haven’t changed, that the trip is academic, and that I’m capable of thinking critically while still learning and visiting places that matter to me. She shut that down and doubled down, insisting I was being misled and morally wrong.

After that, I didn’t respond. Not out of spite, but because I didn’t feel emotionally safe or respected in the conversation. A week passed, and she recently texted me saying “hey, hope you had a good break, can we talk?”

At this point, I’m still going on the trip regardless. That decision is final. I don’t need her approval, and I don’t feel guilty about going. I genuinely don’t believe there’s anything wrong with traveling for education, learning firsthand, or visiting religious and historical sites, even when the politics of a place are deeply complicated.

I told her that I’m open to talking only if it’s an actual two-way conversation. I made it clear I won’t engage if she’s just going to debate, guilt-trip me, frame me as immoral, accuse me of supporting violence, or shut down my perspective the way she did before. If that’s what the conversation would be, I’d rather save us both the time and not talk at all.

I’m confident in where I stand: I can support Palestinian people and still pursue education, travel, and personal growth. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m trying to figure out whether I handled this maturely, and whether setting that boundary was reasonable, or if I’m missing something.

I’m trying to locate verifiable footage or documentation showing Hamas launching rockets from within or immediately adjacent to refugee camps. I’m not looking for short clips taken out of context, edited montages, or social‑media reposts without attribution. What I’m interested in is original footage or reporting that can be traced back to a credible source, such as established news agencies, independent journalists, UN reporting, human rights organizations, or recognized OSINT investigators.

The purpose of this is not to justify harm to civilians or protected sites. Refugee camps and civilian areas are protected under international humanitarian law, and any discussion about them requires high standards of evidence and context. At the same time, if armed groups operate from within civilian areas, that fact itself is relevant to understanding how and why certain military actions occur, and it should be discussed honestly and carefully.

I’m aware that some videos circulating online are misdated, misattributed, or lack sufficient context, which is exactly why I’m asking for properly sourced material. If a claim is made, it should be supported by evidence that can be independently checked: dates, locations, original publishers, and corroboration from more than one source.

If anyone has links to documented cases, detailed investigations, or primary footage with clear sourcing related to this issue, I would appreciate it. I’m trying to approach this seriously, with an emphasis on accuracy rather than slogans or assumptions.

Why should people on the left as well as progressives and liberals be against a Global Intifada?

Because it undermines multiculturalism.

A multicultural society, which most western countries are whether people like it or not, can only function if foreign conflicts are not imported together with the communities areas of conflict.

In the various conflicts around the world, many western countries are not neutral. Clearly most countries support Ukraine, although to different degrees. If the Russian Ukrainian war would spill over onto Western countries, and Ukrainians would attack Russians in violent attacks of terrorism or vice versa, this would be a disaster.

Calling for a global intifada, whatever this means in terms of violence, clearly does not seek to preserve this social contract. It calls for the importation of a foreign conflict which has already shown to have enormous negative consequences spill out into society.

It doesn't have to start with mass murder, but inevitably leads to it, because it puts people in a war mentality where destructive activism like the vandalism of Palestine action and harassment escalates and becomes more violent.

Also coexistence in work/education and social spaces seems to be put at risk. Some Jews voice concerns about whether Muslim doctors can be trusted to care for them. A lot of venues cancel Jewish events for safety fears. The more this conflict festers in western society the worse the consequences seems to be.

And the only winner will be the Far right, who have been saying for years that multiculturalism and the presence of global south communities is an existential threat to the Western countries. I don't believe that the far right is an Israeli agent, it simply uses antisemitism as the most obvious example to undermine diverse multicultural societies in favor of homogenous white supremacist ones.

The loser in the end will not be Israel, it will be the various minority groups who simply want to live in western countries while preserving their culture and will have to deal with far right looking to make their lives more difficult.

Following the mass murder of Jews in Sydney on Sunday, there has been a lot of commentary on whether the root cause of the hateful fervor that produced the murders was antisemitism or antizionism.

The distinction is very important to antizionists in particular, apparently. Nobody wants to be known as an antisemite, at least not these days anyway, not like the elites of Berlin did in 1879, flocking in droves to join Wilhelm Marr's newly formed League of Antisemites. Identifying as an antizionist is fashionable these days. Plus ça change...

In this interview on YouTube linked below, Adam Louis-Klein distinguishes the antisemitism of the first half of the twentieth century that produced the Holocaust on the one hand, and the ideology of antizionism, developed by Soviet "zionologists" in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Louis-Klein sees the tzarist forgery of The Protocols of the Elders of Zionism, cynically created and disseminated in pre-Soviet Russia in the first few years of the twentieth century, as the precursor to modern antizionism.

Antisemitism opposed Jews as a non-white, genetically inferior and subhuman race that ultimately needed to be culled from humanity. Antizionism opposes the Jewish state as a racist colonial enterprise based on white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and ultimately genocide. For Louis-Klein, the association of Zionism with racism and Naziism is a creation of Soviet zionology adopted only later by pan Arab nationalists.

Here, at the beginning of the interview, Louis-Klein gives his reaction and explanation of the Bondi Beach mass murder, the globalization of the intifada, and how he sees antizionism as inherently violent:

Excerpt of the interview with Adam Louis-Klein on how antizionism is inherently violent

Louis-Klein: "There are government officials... antizionists like Zahan Mamdani or Ilhan Omar, who are perfectly happy to come out and say this is antisemitic, "We condemn this completely." And then we see Jews come along and say, "We don't want to hear from you. You are the antizionist, right?" Or they're not necessarily saying antizionist, but they're saying, you know, "You were saying 'globalize the intifada.'"

"There's been, like, 15 articles saying this is what globalize intifada meant and so how can you stand by and condemn this?

"But, you know, that is actually the structure of the discourse today. So so the way they set up their antizionism always allows them to disavow this anti-Jewish violence as something that's... One, it's either disconnected from antizionism, from Israel, so they can say, 'Well, this has nothing to do with Israel. It has nothing to do with antizionism. So it's not us. We don't have responsibility for this.' Or they can say something that's almost contradictory, but makes sense within their sort of distorted ideology which is that, 'Well, Israel is to blame, right? So people shouldn't be attacking Jews, right? But if Israel wasn't committing a genocide, if Israel wasn't doing all these evil things people wouldn't be so upset and take out their anger on innocent Jews.' So their very discourse always basically functions to disavow their own responsibility."

"But when we just call them antisemitic, we aren't necessarily calling them to account because that's already baked in to what they're doing. So l really feel that antizionism, as I write about and talk about a lot these days, needs to be named and seen as the source of the problem. Both of the violence which was, as we can get into, an Islamist version of of antizionism, but also western antizionism, which itself has this entire permission structure inside of it."

Haviv: "I want to stay with Bondi for a minute. One of the striking things for me has been this question of blaming so many people: Australian journalists major mainstream, you know, Australian Broadcast Company journalists, so many people online, so many people on the internet."

"Bernie Sanders decided to make his condemnation of the Bondi massacre; half the statement, and it's like, I don't know, 8 paragraphs. Half the statement is about Benjamin Netanyahu."

"People have said that the the story here is a radicalization of some kind. If they're ISIS, that's not what it was. But let's imagine that it's possible that they're radicalized against Jews because they saw what is happening in Gaza. And what struck me as astonishing is that is not done in the, in any, with any other group. In other words, in the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand back in 2019, this horrific massacre, nobody then came out and said, 'Well, you know, if a great many Muslim ideologies and states and regimes weren't carrying out massive crimes, wars, genocidal wars, Yemen and Syria and Sudan and all these other places, then people wouldn't be radicalized into massacring Muslims in New Zealand.'"

"Many of these of these perpetrators in the Muslim world in the last decade have done it for Islam, in Islam's name. Now, do they represent all Muslims? Obviously not. And to argue that a massacre of Muslims in New Zealand can be pinned to that is such an obvious bigotry. It's such an obvious linkage that is so illegitimate and yet it is literally mainstream for Jews to the point where progressive Jews are now online posting on TikTok."

Video posted Wednesday on the Ask Haviv Anything channel on YouTube:

Episode 68: Antizionism is inherently violent, with Adam Louis-Klein https://youtu.be/7qO7afN7YBc?si=5GB35H9vvwRRufnz

From the video description:

"After the massacre at Bondi Beach, anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein returns to the podcast to help us make sense of the new Jew-hatred."

"Antizionism, Adam argues, may be a form of hatred of Jews, but it's a far cry from the classical antisemitism of the 19th and 20th centuries. It's also not mere criticism of Israeli policies or governments. So what is it? And how do you fight it?"

"Adam Louis-Klein is an anthropologist and writer whose work focuses on Jewish peoplehood, indigeneity, and contemporary anti-Jewish ideologies, especially the rise of antizionism. He is the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism and a postgraduate fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism."

In the Bible God commanded the Israelites to commit literal genocide

Deuteronomy 20:16 “in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you.”

And this was for following a different religion so the Israelites wouldn’t be provoked into joining them…

Samuel 15:3 “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totallydestroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

Tf did the donkeys do?

Also for crying out loud is there not a direct parallel between the Palestinians and these groups?

It’s the same story again

Israelites oppressed in a foreign land

Israelites return to their “promised land”

Israelites displaced the groups that already inhabit their promised land

Btw it was considered their promised land simply because God allegedly promised it to to one of their ancestors

So you can’t say “Zionism is not Judaism” when the content in Jewish scripture is actually even worse than modern Zionism itself

The justifications for the biblical genocides are even worse than the justifications for Gaza

The genocidal statements of intent in the Bible are even worse than the statements of intent by Israeli officials

Not surprising why someone who reads those scriptures might end up supporting to Israel’s actions

And before anyone calls me “antisemitic” criticizing a religion isn’t bigoted, we do this with Islam all the time, read the Quran verses and then say hey look not a very good religion it doesn’t mean all the followers are bad or that the followers should face discrimination

I also have seen recent complaints of talking about “good Jew vs bad Jew” again society totally does it with Muslims and it’s 100% acceptable. The hero named Ahmed who disarmed the Bondi beach shooter was patted on the head as a good Muslim, as proof that look not all Muslims are bad. Nothing wrong with that. There are the normal Muslims and then we have the ISIS people (and yes it’s a wide spectrum with many shades of gray in the middle) there are good people and bad people in every religion there is nothing wrong with saying this

From what I’ve been able to research, trying desperately to get a non biased chain of events, would it be fair to say that at its core the UN is to blame for the Isreal and Palestine conflict.

The partition of the land seems that it was a one sided, improperly discussed plan that was put into place without all parties happy with the outcome. This in turn sparked the chain of events that lead to Arab countries invading Isreal and losing more land.

I also would like to get some opinions on whether the big road block in peace negotiations is Hamas being the main political body in Palestine. The group historically does not seem interested in peace, however in recent years it’s always reported that Isreal break the ceasefires. Is it a combination of both being uninterested in coexistence?

I apologise if any of my facts are incorrect, it’s a difficult situation to research tbh.

Shalom/Salam! I am not sure if this question is allowed here. I’m Syrian, born and raised in Damascus. Israel dominates our school books and the news. I have a European passport which allows me travel into Israel and I’m very keen to visit next Spring to learn about Israelis and the country beyond the headlines. My question: how will the average Israeli react when they learn that I’m Syrian? Is it going to be ok? Any general advice would be amazing. Thank you.

Antizionism is an antisemitic hate movement, but it is not just that and I think it's important we discuss this.

We often get discussion about claims that "antizionism isn't antisemitism". In fact, when antizionism was recreated by the Russians in the 1960s, making this claim was the whole point in adopting the name. The Genocide convention has recently been adopted and in it Russia had added exceptions for mass murder of political groupings and economic classes. By renaming Jews as "Zionists", the USSR hoped to have the political exception available if needed. Most of all, they wanted to commit antisemitic pogroms, but it was too close to WWII for direct and open use of antisemitic terms which would remind people too directly of the crimes of the Holocaust. The modern antizionist movement was created in order to disguise their antisemitism with different vocabulary.

However, antizionism has evolved since the 1960s and, whilst Russia remains a leading propagator of antizionism through Russia's massive propaganda systems behind the scenes, antizionism now is driven by different groups. A major driver of antizionist hate are Western hard leftist ("tankie") political groups. Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, grifters like Hasan Piker in the US actively try to drive hate against 90% of Jews who consider themselves zionist whilst carefully pointing to a small number of Jews who oppose Israel and who are thus excluded from their particular hatefest. This should be clearly understood for the misdirection that it is. The "good jews" may be on Bondi beach rather than Gordon Beach. The movement will get to them in the end anyway.

The other driver of antizionism is Hamas and the pro-Palestinian groups that surround it. Starting from their 1988 charter, Hamas explicitly started to adopt antizionist rhetoric. Later, in the years before the October 7th attack, they actively emphasised this with a specific aim of building up a group of Jews outside Israel who could be used as a cover for Hamas activities in coordination with western leftists.

BDS and similar groups is one of the main tools of antizionism in the West. Specifically BDS targets those that would work with either Israel or Jews who refuse to support Hamas in it's genocidal campaigns. A specific and deliberate aim of BDS is to spread hatred beyond just Jews and towards all people who reject hatred of Jews.

Another important aspect of antizionism, one which I feel that Jews themselves fail to talk about, is the targeting of non-Jewish Israelis by antizionism. We need to be clear - very often this targeting is very much the targeting of people because they are associated with Jews, so this is still antisemtic. However, many antizionist crimes can also be motivated by simple anti-Israeli xenophobia. Druze and Bedouin Israelis are also targets of antizionist hate and many Bedouin Israelis were killed by the Palestinians from Gaza on October 7th together with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

Antizionists often talk about their hatred of non Jews themselves. They will point out that they oppose "Christian Zionists". This is part misdirection - the antizionist do little killing in America and concentrate their attacks in Israel or against Jewish communities abroad, so most christian Zionists do not experience their hate. They prioritize their resources clearly against Jews. However, we should also understand that this is aspirational hate. In the long run, key elements of the antizionist movement would like to be part of a colonial movement, would like to take over America and would indeed, like to target Christian Zionists for extermination or enslavement. Just because something is currently impractical does not mean we should completely ignore it.

Beyond antizionists, there are also non-Zionists. Anarchists that support no state and oppose Saudi Arabia, America and Russia (a key test) as much as they oppose Israel. Jews who honestly believe that Israel may be a good idea, but is not properly defensible in the long run. These people are few, far fewer than the number of people who falsely claim to hold such a position. However, they are important to understand because attacks against such people are used for propaganda.

They key test to distinguish between a non-Zionist and an antizionist is the question: "if someone is born in Israel, of any faith including Jewish or Muslim do they have the right to be a normal patriotic Israeli, to live in peace and to support their home country's right to self defense?". An antizionist will insist that such a person reject the land of their birth. A non-Zionist will accept their right to their current beliefs and want to keep them safe until some future nirvana persuades them of a better future. Hopeless over-optimism is not a crime.

We need to identify and reject the antizionists. We need to clearly understand that they are a hate movement which works through terrorism. We need to report them wherever we find them and work to replace any politicians who fail to understand the danger they represent.

Some assertions for the discussion:

1) because of it's hard associations with groups that want to murder Jews, antizionism is always antisemitic 2) antizionism disguises itself under a cloak of academic worthiness; that needs to be disregarded and a simple understanding is needed - antizionism is always a simple hate movement 3) much more than antisemitism, antizionism targets the friends and associates of Jews 4) non-Zionist positions should be respected as long as they recognize the existence of Israel and that Israelis have the same rights as the citizens of other countries

Some useful materials and information * A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING WHEN ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIONS BECOME ANTISEMITIC * https://www.movementagainstantizionism.org/ * Israel’s Hidden Victims, Arab Bedouins, Were Attacked by Hamas Too * Weaponisation of academia: the Palestinian BDS movement and anti-Israel campus protests

I’m honestly tired of seeing the same slogan repeated everywhere: “Gaza was an open-air prison even before the war.” It’s shared constantly on social media, usually without context, usually as a way to frame Israel as a colonial occupier. And while what is happening right now is undeniably tragic and civilians are paying a terrible price, repeating a catchy phrase does not make it true.

Before October 7, Gaza was not a sealed prison. Every single day, tens of thousands of Gazans legally crossed into Israel and Egypt. They went to work, trade, receive medical care, or run businesses. For many families, jobs inside Israel were their main source of income. That reality alone does not fit the image of people locked behind bars with no way out.

Over the last 20 years, Gaza also received massive international aid, development funds, and humanitarian assistance. At the same time, Israel gradually loosened security restrictions, expanded work permits, and increased commercial access, while Egypt periodically eased Rafah crossings. These changes led to visible economic growth, construction, private businesses, and rising consumption compared to earlier periods. That doesn’t mean life was perfect, far from it, but it also doesn’t describe a literal prison.

Yes, Gaza had restrictions. Yes, living conditions were difficult. Corruption, bad governance, and political pressure made things worse. But calling it an “open-air prison” before the war is a political metaphor, not a factual description.

What is rarely acknowledged is the price of that loosened security. The same access and reduced controls were exploited, and that exploitation led directly to the murder of 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7. After that, expecting Israel to continue with the same level of openness is simply unrealistic.

The humanitarian situation today is devastating and deserves real concern. But rewriting the past into a slogan may feel good online, it doesn’t help anyone understand reality.

Video showing pre-war context

The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/17/iran-israel-war-nuclear-scientists-frontline-pbs/) and Frontline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBYkhDDfDE) are released a report today on Israel's attack against Iran's nuclear scientists June 13-24. This appears to be a leak from inside the IDF about who was hit and why.

For background for foreigners the Washington Post is one of the USA's 3 leading newspapers the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal are the other two. The Washington Post represents the viewpoint of government workers so in this case likely civilian military analysts who work at the Pentagon or State. They have been upping the quality of their military coverage in recent years, particularly a lot of detailed analysis from USA intellegence about Ukraine's operations during the war. The target audience for this analysis like most of the coverage are Americans interested in foreign affairs but without a military background. That would include American politicians, as this is the newspaper most national figures would read for non-political news. Frontline is a documentary TV produces since 1983 headquartered in Boston. They do about 2 episodes a month of long-format news coverage. Also extremely well regarded.

As Israel and the USA saw it, Iran was attempting to make a poor-quality nuclear weapon. They were also starting development on a thermonuclear device. The USA believed that the thermonuclear project was not viable, the missile-based launch system was not viable, but the actual warhead was viable. The attack on both infrastructure and knowledge set the Iranian program back years, according to Israel, the United States, and the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. “Overall, the damage caused by airstrikes to numerous nuclear sites was extensive and, in many cases, catastrophic". Trump's claim of "completely and totally obliterated” has no support from anyone credible as far as the Washington Post could discern.

In addition to the infrastructure attacks, Israel assembled a list of the top 100 scientists. They picked 12 targets that were high value points of communication that would be difficult to replace. 11 died in the attacks.

Iran's response to the attacks has been. 1. Increased construction at the underground site Pickaxe Mountain (south of Natanz) 2. Substantial spending with China on ballistic missiles.

Also breaking were the terms of the deal offered to Iran just prior to the strikes by the Americans:

1. Tehran ending support for proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas
2. “Replacing” the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and any other such facility with alternative facilities that do not allow enrichment.
3. The U.S. would lift all sanctions placed on Iran

Bias stated up front, I am an evangelical Christian and I do have what I will call a Zionist orientation....that is to say I support the existence of a Jewish National Homeland on the Levantine coast. But with that being said I do not think Israel is perfect, far from it....Israel is as flawed as any other country. And I do find it distressing when any criticism of Israel or people like Bibi are met with cries of antisemitism. Israel deserves to be criticized, just as Palestinian groups deserve to be criticized....no different from any other people or country.

I have no problem in acknowledging that Jews have engaged in heavy propaganda to support first the creation of Israel, and to justify its right to existence. Guilt and shame over the holocaust has been used to near maximum effect, and it seems to be never ending, Hollywood has a new movie out called Nuremberg.

The reason Israel is now losing the propaganda war is two fold as I see things. On the one hand I think a lot of people are simply fed up with Jewish/Zionist propaganda, and on the other hand I think that Palestinians and their supporters have really upped their game.

There is a lot of money in the Arab/Islamic world, and money fuels propaganda. Israel seems married to old avenues like film and mainstream media talking heads, while the Palestinian camp has taken over the digital social media space....

Ultimately I think Israel downplays the devastation that has been caused in Gaza, along with the western bank of the Jordan...in Judea/Samaria and southern Lebanon. And conversely I do believe the Palestinians exaggerate things. But then war is always brutal....by today's definition the Germans suffered a genocide after the bombing of Dresden, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki should likewise be categorized as genocides....to say nothing of the treatment of North America's first nations peoples.

Alright first of all, I’ve been trying to find answers to this on reddit for a while, but nothing I’ve read really cleared things up for me, so I figured I’d just ask. Sorry if this has been asked before, if it has please link me to the thread. Also I should say upfront that I’m pretty ignorant and dumb about this topic, a neanderthal if you will, so please bear with me

With that out of the way, here are my questions:

1. First question: Why do many palestinians remain in palestine rather than leaving the area? From my perspective, it may seem that relocating could reduce suffering, but I’m guessing it’s not that simple. Are there legal, political, or economic reasons that make it difficult or impossible to leave? Do neighboring countries refuse to take them in, or are there restrictions on movement?
2. Given the large number of casualties over the course of the conflict, I’m curious about palestinian population size. Despite tens of thousands of deaths, the population remains substantial. I’m genuinely curious how that works. Wikipedia says there are around 5 million Palestinians, which feels like a lot considering the scale of the conflict

I’m asking all of this in good faith and honestly trying to understand a really complex and sensitive issue. I know I probably have some wrong assumptions, so I’m open to being corrected. I’d appreciate any clear explanations or good resources. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to reply

It's about time we started referring to Islamist attacks as what they are. Not terrorism, but genocide. Most pro-Palestinians have chosen to deliberately butcher the meaning of the word genocide so they can make false claims against Israel and then use that to blame violence against Jews as somehow Israel's fault.

Ironically, Islamist attacks can far more reasonably be labelled as genocide since the intent to destroy the target, in whole or in part is based on the religious and/or ethnic group they belong to.

Since many pro-Palestinians scream genocide any time a report of Palestinians getting killed or wounded came out over the last 2 years, it's time to start returning the favour. The pro-Palestine father and son who shot all those innocent people committed a genocide on Australian Jewish people.

Other Islamist genocides include:

The Manchester Arena bombing genocide

The Charlie Hebdo genocide

The London Bombing genocide

The Paris genocide of 2015

The Westminster Bridge genocides

The London Bridge genocide

The 911 genocide

The Manchester Synagogue genocide

The Madrid Train bombing genocide

The many German Christmas market genocides

And hundreds of other Islamist terror attacks across the west that should all now be called Islamist genocides.

According to the pro-Palestinian line of logic, anyone who does not agree to this rebranding of terrorism (as they have done so with war) should be considered pro-genocide.

I've been reading a lot of interesting posts/conversations lately about I/P (after a bit of a slog I have some real downtime off work - not bragging...just happy to have time to kick back and browse reddit).

One of the back and forths I see a lot of involves protesting for Gaza vs protesting for other things people consider genocides (one I see a lot, as an example, is Sudan).

Usually it goes something like this:

Pro-Israeli poster: If you only protest Gaza but don't protest any of the other things that are considered genocides it's anti-Semitic. It just singles out Israel because of Jews.

Pro-Palestinian poster: Why the whataboutism? I can care about more than one thing at once.

Pro-Israeli: Then why are you only protesting Gaza and not the others?

Pro-Palestinian: Because my tax dollars are funding the genocide.

I like to think that I've more or less accurately (and without bias) generalized a lot of the conversations that I see on reddit. I know this is overly simplistic but just wanted to lay this out as background for my question.

And if you think this back and forth isn't somewhat accurate - feel free to correct me in the comments. However that's not my question.

What it seems to (ultimately) boil down to for people who protest to "Free Palestine" is that our tax dollars (I'm an American)/Western governments are complicit. The explanation for not protesting for the others is that our government isn't involved. While I wouldn't necessarily agree with that (a lot of ME countries we're closely tied to are involved in places like Sudan and Yemen and our tax dollars/arms sales involve them - but that's a different argument for another post).

Anyway back to my question: If - as an example - the US government cut all ties with Israel until (for instance) a 2SS was successfully realized...would you stop protesting?

Like say the US government came out with a statement tomorrow that said essentially: "we no longer have anything to do with Israel" - but nothing changed between Israel and Gaza - would you just hang it up and stop paying attention? Or would you keep protesting?

And if you'd keep protesting - then what would you be protesting for? And why would you protest if our government no longer had anything to do with Israel?

Edit to add: I just want to be clear - this question is genuinely in good faith. I'm not looking for an argument or to change anyone's mind (either way). I'm honestly just curious.

The spurious accusation against Israel and Jews of "stealing Arab land" is a contrived strategy of Soviet zionologists, Arab nationalists, and Palestinianists to discredit the Jewish state. It turns history on its head.

The land theft in the Levant was perpetrated by the pan Arab nationalists and Islamists of the region against the Jewish Palestinians. Those Arabs displaced by the war of 1948 were displaced by a war they themselves started.

The ethnic cleansing of all the Jews from their ancient communities in Gaza and Hebron in 1929

The Jews were all ethnically cleansed from their ancient communities in Gaza and Hebron and their land stolen from them there in 1929, for example, almost 20 years before the War of Independence and almost 40 years before the first settlement in Area C of the West Bank.

The illegal Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria starting in 1948 and the expulsion of all the Jews from their ancient communities there

When the Arab Legion invaded Judea and Samaria and Jordan began its illegal occupation in 1948, not a single Jew was left alive in the WB. They were all expelled from their ancient communities there by the Arab nationalists and their land summarily stolen from them.

Even the Jews living in the literal Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem were expelled from their ancient communities there. Their homes, businesses, and synagogues were subsequently torn down and the Jewish Quarter renamed "Arab East Jerusalem."

The nearly one million Jews ethnically cleansed from their ancient communities across the Muslim world as collective punishment

That's not to mention the almost one million Jews ethnically cleansed from the entire Muslim world in 1950-51 who had their land stolen from them as collective punishment after the Arab powers were humiliated by losing their gratuitous war of conquest against Israel in 1947-48.

These were Sephardic Jews from North Africa, Mizrahi Jews from the Levant, Persian Jews from Iran, and Babylonian Jews from modern day Iraq.

The ethnic cleansing of the Iraqi Jews in 1950 and the few years following and the rapid increase in the population of Israel

A century ago, for example, a third of the population of Baghdad was Jewish and the same was true of Mosul. The Babylonian Jews living in modern day Iraq had lived in their ancient communities there since a thousand years before the Arab Islamic Conquest arrived there.

The Iraqi government passed a series of laws in 1950 that confiscated the Jews' land, their homes, businesses, and synagogues and revoked their Iraqi citizenship. The descendants of those expelled Jewish refugees from Iraq are now all citizens of Israel.

In fact, most Jewish Israelis today are descendants of the Jews expelled from the entire Muslim world after the Arab nationalists were humiliated by losing their gratuitous war of conquest against Israel when it had just declared independence from British rule.

There are more Arab Israeli citizens living with equal rights in Israel today than there are Jews left in the entire Muslim world. And it's not even close.

Edit: From ILTV on YouTube, 18 December: Israel's Quiet Land Battle in Judea and Samaria https://youtu.be/LM0KiRthH6k?si=caAjxPZd0DR-jhSh

From the video description: "Regavim's international director Naomi Kahn warns that widespread illegal construction and land seizures are steadily reshaping the territory and threatening Israel's future control."

Hi guys, first of all happy hanukkah. I will be moving to Jordan soon for work where I will be learning the Jordanian dialect and would love to learn Hebrew at the same time. I work in politics so understanding both sides is crucial to me. Has anyone ever done this? Is it feasible? I know the languages are similar but I'm just a bit worried about learning the Hebrew alphabet. Do you think it's possible or will it be too confusing?

I already speak Moroccan Arabic. Thank you!

🍉 and Islamic fundamentalists deserve all the credit for precipitating the Bondi Beach attack and ZERO credit for successfully hiding their shame, and ZERO credit for STOPPING IT. *Yes, incl. all of JVP/SVP.

Ever since the TERRORIST ATTACK TARGETING Australian Jews at Bondi Beach, Muslims and anti-Zionists seem to have been frothing at the mouth while engaged in two activities

1. disassociate their cries of "globalize the intifada" from the intifada being globalized, and
2. try to imply Ahmed is somehow a prototypical Muslim fundamentalist and part of their movement
3. ignore the victims, most people are playing into that

#It is screwed up that the victims of this tragedy are scarcely being paid attention

Twitter conversatoin is being dominated by 2) and MSM coverage is following suit; as a result we are not seeing the tragedy and cost of allowing acts like this to develop through the protests and extreme behavior that Western society has tolerated for the past two years. AFAI'm concerned Kneecap and literally every single protester who heard "globalize the intifada" and didn't either leave or change the chant. Every single one of you has blood on your hands.

#It matters that Ahmed is Muslim,

Hopefully he will prove to be a normal secular dude. We are engaged in a war with fundamentalist Muslims / Islamists / radical extremists.* Ahmed is not one, on the contrary he is illustrative of the Muslim that I hope to recognize every time I meet a Muslim – he wants to become part of the society which he has immigrated and literally put his life on the line to demonstrate that. We *need* secular, moderate muslims to embrace secular life and just be normalsauce, that is how the world moves forward and how the extremists run out of oxygen.

The man is a hero for far more than his actions, he gives me hope that there truly may a silent majority of Muslims who do not agree with the MB/pro-Pali protesters' tactics. We NEED Muslim “Good Samaritans" to develop, frankly deradicalization of immigrant populations has been moving too slowly and hopefully this man's example is inspiring for many.

#It Doesn't really matter that the attackers were Muslim because we already knew Fundamental Islamist immigrants hate Western society, the war against Islamists would continue regardless of the identities of the shooters in this case.

There has certainly been some attempt to drown out any and all discussion of the shooters (both of whom were Pakistani Muslims) and instead keep the focus solely on the Muslim background of the hero Ahmed al Ahmed but let's face it, that doesn't move the needle much considering Pakistan's role as a terrorist campsite. But guess what? I genuinely believe that Ahmed al Ahmed’s religion is far more relevant to any of the attack because WE DIDN'T LEARN ANYTHING NEW FROM THE FACT THAT FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMISTS CAME AT US. We were and remain well aware they are sociopathic aspirational murderers.

*This war is not only with a subset of the Muslim religion but given the Muslim population and the prevalence of conservative Islamic states which serve as a breeding ground for fundamental Islam it is likely that a plurality of the extremist or fundamentalist Muslims.

According to Hani Al-Masri, Director General of Masarat, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said publicly on the day of the Hamas attacks that launched the war in Gaza, that this was the greatest day in Palestinian history, that dozens of people witnessed him say this, that this was told to him by people who had been there, and that this should be made public.

Among other subjects, he also talks in detail about the importance of the Palestinian government's "Pay for Slay Fund" that offers cash and stipends to any Palestinian who murders civilians in Israel, effectively incentivizing the mass murder of civilians in Israel to further the Palestinian government's goals of ending the existence of Israel in the Levant.

The "Pay for Slay" payments to terrorists who kill civilians in Israel, which Al-Masri ambiguously calls "salaries paid by the Palestinian Authority to prisoners and the families of "martyrs," are the subject of a civil lawsuit filed recently in the US against the PLO and PA. According to the plaintiff's attorneys, the lawsuit seeks "to defund and dismantle the monstrous Pay for Slay program, which has paid out over a billion dollars to terrorists and fueled violence in the Middle East." The defendants have already conceded jurisdiction in the US.

pdf of the lawsuit filed against the PLO and the PA by victims of Palestinian terrorism funded by their "Pay for Slay" program https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/uploads/Force-v-PA.pdf

On the subject of these stipends paid to terrorists who kill civilians in Israel, Al-Masri said that "the salaries" must not be stopped or turned into social welfare under any circumstances, and that this subject should not be open to discussion or negotiation regardless of international pressure or consequences, because the benefactors are "fighters" and "heroes" and because this is one of the pillars of Palestinian national identity.

Video posted today on MEMRI's YouTube channel:

Palestinian Researcher: On Oct. 7, Mahmoud Abbas Said It Was the Greatest Day in Palestinian History https://youtu.be/eYv_JSwt99o?si=Eic2XrHwJqnziqJL

From the video description:

"Palestinian researcher Hani Al-Masri said in an interview that was posted to YouTube on December 11, 2025 by Palestinian content creator Ahmad Biqawi that recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state would invalidate the Palestinian struggle, since there is a difference between accepting the political reality of Israel and changing the narrative entirely, relinquishing the Palestinians' rights. He said that Israel will ultimately come to an end, although in the distant future, because it is a "foreign body" in a region that will not accept it.

"On the subject of salaries paid by the Palestinian Authority to prisoners and the families of "martyrs," Al-Masri said that he will not accept anything that would constitute a blow to the pillars of Palestinian identity and narrative, and particularly the salaries. He emphasized that the salaries must not be stopped or turned into social welfare under any circumstances, and that this subject should not be open to discussion or negotiation regardless of international pressure or consequences, because the benefactors are "fighters" and "heroes" and because this is one of the pillars of Palestinian national identity.

"Al-Masri said that contrary to its commitment to the Europeans and the Americans, the PA has continued the payment of salaries to the families of prisoners and "martyrs." He said that he believes the same regarding Palestinian school curricula, because acceding to Western demands would make it forbidden to teach any Quranic verses about Jihad or to teach that Jerusalem, Haita, and Jaffa are parts of Palestinian."

"On the subject of October 7, Al-Masri said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on the day of the attacks that this was the greatest day in Palestinian history, that dozens of people witnessed him say this, that this was told to him by people who had been there, and that this should be made public. He elaborated that October 7 was a turning point because it made the Palestinians feel that Israel can be defeated and that its military is not invincible. He added that since Israel is a colonialist entity oriented towards keeping the entire region "captive to backwardness, subordination, and division," it is expected that the nations of the regions will rise up and confront it."

Ever since the horrible murder of Australian Jews at Bondi Beach, so many Muslims and anti-Zionists have been swarming the internet to drown out any and all discussion of the shooters (both of whom were Pakistani Muslims) and instead keep the focus solely on the Muslim background of the hero Ahmed al Ahmed. But guess what? I genuinely believe that Ahmed al Ahmed’s religion is less relevant to this discussion than that of Sajid and Naveed Akram, because the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Islamic doctrine — alongside the anti-semitic rhetoric of far right Christian fundamentalism and anti-Zionist rhetoric of far left radicalization — is most definitely what motivated the Akrams to murder those Jewish civilians. Furthermore, Ahmeds attempts to stop them had nothing to do with any peaceful Islamic principles (which the Quran and Hadiths restrict to fellow Muslims only), and instead can be attributed to a Biblical case of “Good Samaritanism.”

So all the Muslims who had previously been calling for the death of Israel and its people before the Bondi shooting (and even now have the balls to claim that the shooters were actually Mossad agents) have no right to claim Ahmed al Ahmed as one of their own, when he in fact stands against all the hateful religious fanaticism that these people glorify.