That’s like saying “I know the term ‘patriot’ as referring to the republican party in the US”.
Like, yes, the right tries to take over the term, thus making all other parties “anti-Zionists”/“anti-patriotic”. But in reality the term crosses political boundaries.
If anything, the far-religious-right parties are the only (non-Arab) parties that don’t refer to themselves as Zionists (they have some issues with Zionism being a secular movent)
The Wikipedia article isn’t really something I, as someone who’d describe himself as a Zionist, would agree too.
I’m not going to go through every point, but talking about Zionism in terms of ethnicity is… weird. Like, that’s technically right, in the scene that the Jewish people are “A group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups.” (link), but you’re trying to use it in the context of race, and that’s factually wrong. Israel are probably is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world.
The translated Hebrew Wikipedia article hits closer to home IMO:
Zionism is a national movement and ideology that aims to establish a national home state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement, as a Jewish national movement, arose in the last third of the 19th century, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe.
Shortly after the establishment of the Zionist movement, most of the movement’s leaders linked its main goal with the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel - the establishment of a Jewish state. With the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism continues to work to support Israel, ensure its existence and strengthen it.
The roots of Zionism lie in age-old motives and values inherent in religious tradition on the one hand, and in the national ideologies that flourished in Europe in the 19th century on the other. Zionism as a popular political movement that developed among the Jews in Eastern Europe was spurred by outbreaks of anti-Semitism and was fueled by a process of secularization that intensified among the Jewish population from the mid-19th century, which also gave its signs in the secularization of the two-thousand-year-old religious longing for Zion. The modern world has led to the fact that on the one hand, religion has ceased to be a sufficient identity definer for them. This conflict has led to the creation of a new national self-definition[1].
From its beginning, the goals of Zionism were the return to Zion, the gathering of the exiles, the revival of Hebrew culture and language, the creation of a new Jew – muscular Judaism according to Max Nordau, and the establishment of independent Jewish sovereignty. According to Benjamin Zeev Theodor Herzl, who is considered the thinker of modern Zionism, Zionism is a broad tract of ideas, which includes not only the aspiration for a legally guaranteed political territory for the Jewish people, but also the aspiration for moral and spiritual perfection. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist movement has continued to mainly support Israel and address threats to its existence and security.
From its beginning, Zionism was not homogeneous. Its ideology, leaders, and parties were different from each other and even contradictory. The need of the hour, along with the longing to return to the homeland of the ancestors, led to compromises and concessions for the sake of a common cultural and political goal.
Edit: The English Wikipedia article from mid 2023 is also good:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230312004301/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
My guess is that it’s been revised in the last year-and-a-half to retroactively make what’s happening in Gaza a natural extension of Zionism.
It’s not just the third one. A non-marginal minority of people will be hurt by valid criticism even if it meant to to help them (I’m saying this as a third party observer. This isn’t me telling someone “Hey, you’re an idiot. Whoa, why are you acting offended? I’m just trying to help you be less of an idiot! Wow, some people can’t take constructive criticism”).
I know I’m at the low end of caring what people think about me, and that other people will get offended by some things. That’s fine, not saying they’re wrong to feel one way or another. I just can’t empathize or model the mechanism that makes them feel that way.
Not technically a behavior, but - having hurt feelings over other people expressing their negative opinion about myself.
Like, say someone tells me I look bad of that I acted badly or whatever. I see three options:
I guess it’s some defense mechanism? I can see how that would work with people prone to narcissism, but having ones feeling hurt over things like that seems normalized in (most?) societies.
Oh, also religion. People believe in an all powerful being that personally cares about every person in the world, but is unwilling to reveal itself? Despite having zero corroborating evidence? And he’s responsible for every good thing that happens to me therefore I should see that as proof it exists and believe more, but if something bad happens that’s because I didn’t believe hard enough and should therefore believe more? And you’re sure about that and don’t see how that might be purely because this answers a psychological and social need? I understand I’m exaggerating a bit, and no offense to religious people, but… I don’t get it.
Usually, if someone requests something that annoys me and I’m in a position to refuse, I just go ahead and refuse or outright disregard the request.
Telegraph and wire transfers were a thing 100 years ago, you could say “Everyone have a telegraph at home. Private communication, for example orders to your bank to wire money, uses codes/cyphers that can be decoded if the third party was smart enough”.
You’d have to go back before the discovery of electricity, and even then you could make an analogy with lighthouses (which isn’t really a stretch, as fiber optic cables can be described as point-to-point light houses), and most people at most periods are probably familiar with the idea of talking in codes.
Technology isn’t really that hard to explain. Social change is much harder. Try explaining to someone from 1920 that the US had a black president and nothing catastrophical happened, or that all professions today are open to women and you’d have a much harder time.
For the same reason western European countries have roads connecting them to Russia.
Huh?
The smartphone improvements hit a rubber wall a few years ago (disregarding folding screens, that compose a small market share, improvement rate slowed down drastically), and the industry is doing fine. It’s not growing like it use to, but that just means people are keeping their smartphones for longer periods of time, not that people stopped using them.
Even if AI were to completely freeze right now, people will continue using it.
Why are people reacting like AI is going to get dropped?
No matter what you say, you won’t convince us to accept genocide when it’s happening to Palestinians or anyone else.
Oh, OK, thanks, that was genuinely helpful. If I understood correctly, you think I’m trying to convince you that “Israel = good”, so you mentally add “and that’s why Israel is in the right” after what I said, and are replying to that instead of what I actually said. I’m absolutely not trying to convince anyone Israel is in the right here, or that they aren’t committing genocide. Not saying I agree or disagree with you on the subject, just saying that’s not what I’m talking about. This started out as me pointing out that the reason people are saying Hamas are using civilians as human shields is because that’s what’s they’re doing. Now I’m trying to understand why people focus so much on Gaza and are giving Hamas a free pass for what’s going on there.
I fail to see the comparison with these other conflicts
It wasn’t a comparison. I took the criteria you gave (number of casualties) and applied it to other situations. Which seemed to be productive because now you’ve given me new criteria. The only one that’s unique is western support. I get that - as (probably?) a citizen of a western country, you don’t want your tax money financing genocide. But that’s more a criticism against your government, and, more importantly to my interest in the conversation, it doesn’t explain the visceral hate people seem to have towards Israel in particular.
Sudanese civil war is terrible with over 60,000 deaths so far, we just want Gaza to not top that
That’s what I’m asking - why do you “just want Gaza to not top that” and don’t seem to care that much about what’s going on Sudan? (I’m talking about the discourse among the, and I’m hoping I’m using the correct term, progressive left).
The problem is there can’t be an accurate count because Israel won’t let independent investigators in
According to your own source, there can’t be an accurate account because “Collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure.”
Well people say Israel is in the right because they had people killed.
And those people would be wrong. That doesn’t contradict anything I said.
Actually, 44,000 is about right for the IDF estimations.
Anyway, you’re saying it’s a numbers game? Let’s say Israel were to round up 1,199 random Gazans and shoot them in the street, people would be saying “Well, Israel killed less people, so Hamas should stop their aggression”?
If Israel killed 1200 and then Hamas returned by killing 44,000, we’d be focusing on Hamas
Sorry, but I doubt that. Right now there are at least two other major conflicts, each with more casualties (the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Sudanese civil war), yet the interest in Lemmy and like minded places is like that meme with the drowning kid and the skeleton (inb4 someone accuses me of “antisemitism” - I’m pointing out that Israel is singled out, not accusing anyone of anything).
My gut reaction is to say - I don’t know, if murder isn’t okay, how come I only see people here criticizing Israel and not Hamas or Hezbollah?
When people assign blame only on one side, they’re encouraging the other side to do more bad things. This applies to both the “Free Palestine!!!” and “Antisemitism!!!” camps.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the reason people are saying that Hamas are using Palestinians as human shields isn’t a Hasbarah plot to dehumanize Palestinians, but because Hamas are using Palestinians as human shields. Could you explain why this seems to be controversial? Do people not agree that Hamas are using human shields, or do they think that pointing any criticism at anyone Palestinian is “pro-Israeli”?
It’s considered acceptable language by mainstream culture because it’s a legitimate interpretation of reality.
It’s not reasonable to say Jews are literally rats. It is a reasonable to say civilian Gazans are used as a shield by Hamas. What is dehumanizing, sometime literally, is using people as shields.
Your post right there? That’s one of the reasons Harris lost.
Of course people (not just Americans) are selfish. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, that’s just the factual truth. The Republicans knew how to work with that, by selling the voters a solution to the things that actually interested them. That’s also what helped Obama (“Hope”, though a bit vague) and Bill Clinton (“It’s the economy, stupid”) get elected (Yes, it also didn’t hurt that they were rock stars). Now the Democrats are perceived not only as a party that’s not willing to work on issues that concern them, but as actually criticizing them for wanting what they want.
Dude, you brought up the comparison between Hamas and Israel and you brought up the IDF investigation. Now you’re acting condescending while trying to straw man the things I said (hint: I never said the IDF is just, nor is it relevant to my argument).
Don’t really see a point continuing the discussion any further, but thanks for answering some of my questions. I do have one more question though - would you say your opinions are representative of the “Pro-Palestinian” crowd in your country?
Counteroffer - try to read what I said with the understanding there might be a difference between what you think “Zionism” is and what Zionism actually is. Not all Zionists would agree with what I said, but then again that’s also one of the thing you probably don’t understand.
First of all, you didn’t address the main point I was making, or answered my question (just wanted to point that out).
The way that Hamas treats Palestinians is partially the responsibility of Netanyahu and the Likud given that they provided Hamas with material support to take power in the first place.
Not really. Netanyahu didn’t provide material support for Hamas, rather allowed Qatar to materially support them (Yet somehow I don’t see anyone condemning Qatar…). Also, this began about a decade after Hamas took over Gaza. And, really, it’s an extremely weak argument even if what you said were true. Saying Israel is partially responsible for the way Hamas treated the people in Gaza doesn’t mean it treated Palestinians worse than Hamas.
Also, the fact that Israelis stormed an IDF base in protest of the punishment of IDF thugs that anally raped innocent Palestinians to death with rifles
That’s not what happened. The IDF detained some soldiers who allegedly anally raped and perhaps killed Palestinian detainees as part of an investigation. After hearing that, some extreme right wingers stormed the base in something raging from protest against the way soldiers were detained to the mere fact they were detained (depending on who you ask). The act was condemned by a huge majority of the Israeli public. Judging Israel by that is like judging the US by the proud boys of the Jan 6th Capitol riots. But let’s go back to your point of Israel treating Palestinians worse than Hamas - could you point out an example of Hamas investigating it’s operatives for mistreating detainees? If not, is it because you think Hamas doesn’t mistreat its detainees?
What “should”? The context of the discussion is the screenshot, and it said "if “Zionism is defeated like the south was defeated in the civil war”. The comparison to the US civil war might be a bit weird, but it’s pretty obvious he means “If Hamas were to win the conflict and treat Israel as it saw fit” (like what happened in the civil war).
Also, it’s a bit weird for me you’re phrasing your scenario as a “Zionist defeat”, as I know many Zionists (myself included) who would view that as a “Zionist win”, at least in the long run (as long as you’re for equal treatment of Hamas and Palestinians).
Secondly, I belive Hamas would treat Israeli the same way Israel treats Palestinians.
That’s a bit funny to me, as I think Hamas treats Palestinians wore than Israel treats Palestinians, but there’s probably no point going into that. Regardless, do you think this would be worse, the same or better than the current situation?
You think Hamas would treat Israelis the same as the allied forces treated Germans? Based on what?
To answer your question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_October_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#Reported_atrocities (as well as the mass murder of civilians that for some reason aren’t mentioned in the section)
Yeah, that’s what I meant by “My guess is that it’s been revised in the last year-and-a-half to retroactively make what’s happening in Gaza a natural extension of Zionism”.
You’re talking about the Israeli reaction to the Oct. 7th attack, not Zionism. Some people are trying to link these things together, making the very concept of a Jewish state in the area of Israel “genocidal” (while also tying it to white supremacy, as a bonus). That’s not the case.
Yes, some Zionists would like to kill as many Palestinians (a disproportional part of them are a part of the Israeli government). Then again, some people who like to put ketchup on their steaks would also like to kill as many Palestinians. That doesn’t mean liking ketchup on your steak makes you genocidal.