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spencerflem  ·  282 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Palestine and the power of language

Gah, I wrote a long detailed response, but my cat pressed the power button on the computer just as I was finishing the conclusion. Hopefully with the second chance to write it it will be a little more edited anyways.

The basic gist was that, to me, this has a lot of parallels with the BLM movement, which also tried to solve something incredibly complicated in a What do you mean it's complicated just fucking fix it! sort of way. And while the BLM movement largely failed, as I suspect this one will to, at least it's heart was in the right place. And it does not seem like the government's heart is in the right place currently.

Is this another Kony 2012? Maybe. Was BLM another Kony 2012? Also maybe. The first draft was a little more poetic here, but there is something to the idea that with the most powerful government in the world, that we're capable of writing wrongs and making the world better. And it totally didn't work, lol. And was obviously an easy movement to criticize both now and back then, but there is still a bit of beauty to it.

    "this intractable problem has been solved by Zoomers and it's grownups who suck."

I don't think any zoomer claims to have the solution, just like BLM did not claim to know how to solve police brutality. It just demanded that people care, and gave some first steps.

Defund the police is pretty comparable to the demand to not give weapons to Israel. Increasing the police budgets to solve brutality seems about as effective as giving unconditional military aid to Israel. And as for "they have been arguing since October 8 that they're not [using untargetted bombs]", Biden himself has denied this. Saying there is ‘indiscriminate bombing’ is the closest Biden has ever come to accusing Israel of war crimes. This is while using our weapons.

From the poll you posted earlier, only 13% of the 65+ demographic think Israel is an apartheid state, and only 27% think their treatment of palestinians is analogous to racism in the US. Zoomers do not have the solution, but there can not ever be a solution if you don't agree there's a problem. I know you're not one of those, but a large part of the movement here is just to get Biden to acknowledge it! The closest he comes is calling Israel "over the top," when the rest of the world can at least say "ethnic cleansing," if not "genocide." It made the news when Biden even mentioned the possibility of a "ceasefire" instead of just a "humanitarian pause" (what a term). This is hundreds of days into the war and after being the sole veto on two earlier UN ceasefire votes.

Here's another parallel to BLM:

    Much of the Middle East is united in wanting the destruction of Israel, but also united in turning away Palestinian refugees. Jordan doesn't want them because they started a civil war there. Lebanon doesn't want them because they started a civil war there. Kuwait doesn't want them because they tried to start a civil war there and Egypt doesn't want them because they're afraid they'll start a civil war there.

Seems similar to the idea that the police are so violent because everyone has guns, and if you just look at the crime statistics, you'll see who the problem really is. Not strictly wrong, but just like in BLM it's doesn't detract from the main point, and also, maybe there are better ways to solve the problem than by giving the oppressor tanks.

Anyways, conclusion take 2:

It seems to be that Biden would like peace in the middle east in the abstract, just like he would like it if there wasn't police brutality. Any of the obvious steps towards this are not being done, in the same way that none of the steps BLM asked for ever happened. If you think the pro-palistinian movement is a bunch of piss baby dunces who watched one video and threw a tantrum, fine, but BLM was also largely based on watching one extremely horrifying video, and I while I don't know your opinions on that movement I hope you at least sympathize with why people wanted to be part of it.

That's all. I'll read and consider anything you reply with, and I promise I have spent a lot of time considering what you've already wrote. No worries if you're tired and done though, I am too, and I don't think I'll be writing any more on this. It's exhausting.