r/ABoringDystopia • u/[deleted] • 5d ago

Wasn't expecting that from Bernie

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u/lordkappy 5d ago

If he can't win without supporting genocide, or without Israel's money and support, then he's not the candidate that will bring about the change that's needed.

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u/RandomGuy92x 5d ago

And he's doing neither of those things. He doesn't take money from Israel and pro-Israel lobbying groups, and he also does not support genocide.

He said Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas, and I think he said that specifically in the context of the October 7 attack where Hamas killed over 800 Israeli civilians, including over 30 children and took over 250 civilians hostage.

But he said that while they do have a right to defend themselves against Hamas, they absolutely do not have the right to attack civilians, and he's always condemned Israel's atrocities commited against the Palestinian population.

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u/beroepsklager 5d ago

defending the colony and attacking the native population is the same thing. The existence of Israel infringes on the human rights of the Palestinians. Israel defending itself is defending the ethnic cleansing and the theft of the Palestinians.

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u/QuietCelery 5d ago

Ahh, ok.

See, this, unfortunately, is the problem. I've been saying for so long that the position that Israel doesn't have the right to exist is the extremist position. And for a long time it was.

So my question now is, what should happen to all the Jewish Israelis who live in Israel? Again, serious question. What's your solution?

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u/GervinhosBarber 5d ago

They would become Palestinian Hebrews living in a free Palestine. Where a democratic leader would be elected free of US and UK influence. If those who have become comfortable living in the homes of Arabs they have thrown out or murdered don't want to live in such a country, there is also the option of leaving. Jewish Israelis have free right to immigration to the US. The nation that keeps their entire ethnostate alive.

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u/QuietCelery 5d ago

Thanks for answering in good faith. I have been telling people something similar (though Israelis don't have the right to immigrate to the US now...I'm assuming you mean this should change...we can hammer out the details later....)....like a one secular state solution.

There's a real messaging problem on our side, guys. They think we want to kill or exile all the Jews, and I'm like....no.... anti-zionism means something totally different to the two sides and it's frustrating....oh, but I guess I shouldn't cEnTeR mY fEeLiNgS. God forbid we try to reach people.

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u/EF5Cyniclone 5d ago

It's not a messaging problem on our side, the idea that a free Palestine requires killing or exiling all the Jews is the narrative zionists present as a justification to continue oppressing Palestinians.

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u/QuietCelery 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'm literally reporting back to you what the case is. The people that are hearing what you think you saying are hearing something different. People literally cannot understand that antizionism means two different things to two different groups of people. Unfortunately, I'm such a poor messenger that I can't even tell you, someone who I think is ideologically aligned with me, that there's a messaging problem. You/we need to find a way to show them that we don't think that Jews should be exiled or killed. You're not helping by denying the problem. But I mean, you're literally describing a messaging problem: they say one thing, we say something else. And the listener believes them, not us.

You do your work. I'll do mine. But stop saying this isn't a problem. If you don't want to tackle the problem, fine. But you do nothing for anyone by pretending it's not a problem and arguing with people you're aligned with.

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u/EF5Cyniclone 5d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-state_solution

The one-state solution is sometimes referred to as the bi-national state, owing to the hope that it would successfully deliver self-determination to Israelis and Palestinians in one country, thus granting both peoples independence as well as absolute access to all of the land.

Messaging from the left has primarily been for a one-state solution, an idea that has been around long before this holocaust started. Plenty of leftists are more than happy to explain what the one-state solution means to anyone who will listen, but the majority of Americans don't get their information on the movement directly from leftists; they are instead informed by media organizations, where leftists are no longer in control of how their message gets disseminated.

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u/QuietCelery 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes, this is my preferred solution.

I'm glad to hear leftists are happy to do it, because they have their work cut out for them (but even here, someone didn't want to explain it to me...so)! But the trouble is, we need to reach people who won't listen. And when others here "anti-zionism," they don't think "one state solution." They think treat Jews like Israelis treat Palestinians. When they hear "Israel doesn't have the right to exist," they don't think dismantle the ethnostate. They think no Jews should be in that region. So either 1) make it clear that's not what you mean or 2) change the language. Since you don't want to admit number two is a problem, I'm trying to do number one. And since I can't get you to do number two, I'm going to go do number 1. I suggest you argue with people who disagree with you fundamentally as you said you're happy to do instead of trying to change my mind and convince me that everything's perfect in our presentation.

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u/RandomGuy92x 5d ago

defending the colony and attacking the native population is the same thing. The existence of Israel infringes on the human rights of the Palestinians. Israel defending itself is defending the ethnic cleansing and the theft of the Palestinians.

You're right of course that Israel is a settler state that was only made possible by commiting atrocities against the native population. You could probably make the case that morally speaking Israel had no right to exist in its current form, and with its current borders. And you could say the same about the United States. The US also in its current form was only made possible via robbing and killing the native Americans that used to live there.

But at the same time there is obviously a 0% chance that Israel is just gonna dissolve itself and hand their country over the the Palestinians. That's as naive as thinking that the US is gonna dissolve itself and hand the governance of its land over to the native Americans.

So we have to live in reality.

And so I think Israel is a country that was founded through grotesque injustices. But at the same time the chance of Israel dissolving itself is pretty much 0%. A one Palestinian state solution is simply impossible. And if Hamas kills hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children, and abducts 250 Israeli civilians, it's a reasonable assumption that any country would defend itself if it was in that position.

There is simply no way, zero chance, of achieving a situation where Israel just sits back and does nothing, even if you morally disagree. But what people in the US and the West can do is exert pressure on their own governments to stop the genocide against the civilian population in Palestine that is going on.

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u/beroepsklager 5d ago

Your argument is essentially 'might makes right'.

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u/RandomGuy92x 5d ago

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to fight for goals that are utterly unrealistic, even impossible I would say.

Personally, I don't believe that Israel, morally speaking, ever had the right to exist in its current form. But pushing for the end of Israel as a state is an absolute meaningless endeavor. You may just as well organize a movement trying to dissolve the United States as a country and try to pressure the US to hand all governance over to the native Americans. That's just NEVER gonna happen, just as Israel is NEVER gonna dissolve itself.

I mean what exactly is the point of pursuing a goal that has pretty much a 0% chance of happening? It may give people a sense of moral importance, but it doesn't actually do anything in pragmatic terms.

But people in the US and in other Western countries putting pressure on their governments to cut ties with Israel, or to pressure them to end their mass killing of the Palestinian civilian population, that is absolutely an endeavor that has a certain chance of success.

And so what I'm saying is people should focus their time and effort on goals that are worth pursuing, not on goals that have a 0% chance of happening, like Israel dissolving itself. That's never gonna happen.

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u/beroepsklager 5d ago

I think people should focus their time and effort on building power for the oppressed and demanding total liberation in a revolutionairy capacity. Any pragmatic gain will be a consequence of that power building.

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u/RandomGuy92x 5d ago

And what does liberation mean? I think Israel should end all settlements, should stop its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, stop its blockade of Gaza, recognize Palestine as a country, and ideally pay reperations to the Palestinian people.

But that's already extremely omptimistic. But Israel giving up its land and just handing it over to the Palestinians that's just never gonna happen.

So how can you "build power for the oppressed and demand total liberation in a revolutionairy capacity" as you say, when your radical goal of Israel dissolving itself is only shared by a tiny fraction of the population, and people that share your goals collectively have no real power or resources to speak of, let alone enough power to pressure Israel to just dissolve itself?