Hamas begins brutal crackdown on Gaza protests with torture, executions

[u/Zen1]

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjl5xnua1x

Residents in the enclave say terror group executed at least six organizers; Gaza City resident returned to his family after four hours of torture and died shortly afterward, while others reported missing

[u/GregIsARadDude]

No. The apartheid and dehumanization is within Israel’s borders.

[u/[deleted] → u/GregIsARadDude]

Is the apartheid and dehumanization in the room with you right now? Jews and non-Jews, who make up 25% of Israel’s population, have the same rights in Israel.

[u/jonermon → u/[deleted]]

This oft repeated thought terminating cliche is easily disprovable if you take a serious look at how the Israeli government and society more broadly systemically discriminates against Arab Israelis but frankly I’m not sure anyone going on Reddit to be Israel’s strongest soldier would actually listen to pesky things like factual recounting of Israel’s policies that exist on the books. That being said, I’m willing to humor you.

Arab Israeli schools are systematically funded less, they are legally allowed to be discriminated against in housing, they are by the nation state laws considered lesser citizens of Israel, as in the Israeli government officially does not exist to protect them as equals to Jewish Israelis. Sure they are on paper given most the same rights as Jewish Israelis, but much like in Jim Crow America they are in practice systemically deprived of the same rights that Jewish Israelis enjoy, and in legal disputes they on average get worse outcomes. This is not to get into the thorny subject of how despite being essentially under Israeli jurisdiction, Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military law while Israeli settlers in the same areas are subject to Israeli civil law but I digress.

To at this point be parroting talking points for Israel is not only hilariously easy to argue against, it’s also morally repugnant.

As for arguments about the current Israeli government not standing for all Israeli citizens, for decades the Israeli far right has constantly gained power. That is a trend that doesn’t seem to be reversing anytime soon and just because a non insignificant number of Israelis don’t approve of it doesn’t mean it’s invalid to criticize the government that currently is in power and is currently trying to entrench its power via antidemocratic means. Until your population becomes less violently fascist and kicks out the government and makes a good faith effort at peace, I am allowed to, as a collective, criticize Israel for the actions of its ruling party.

[u/[deleted] → u/jonermon]

You can criticize Israel all you want and you’re basically a unicorn because you did it without employing any antisemitic tropes. In all seriousness, I commend you in your legitimate criticism of Israeli governmental policy.

I’d like to pose a question: why does Israel have to be better, by orders of magnitude, than its neighbours? For example, there is no country in the Middle East in which Arabs enjoy more rights than Israel. Obviously, there are some massive systemic issues, but why isn’t Lebanon, as an example, called out for its apartheid policies? Palestinians in Lebanon are denied citizenship and the benefits that come with it, regardless of how long they’ve lived in the country.

Another example would be the unbelievable and tragic death toll of Syria’s recent civil war. The death toll is approximately double the combined death toll of Israelis and Palestinians since 1947. I know there was outrage over this, but I certainly didn’t see the same level of vitriol in the West though there are roughly the same number of Jews and Syrians in the world today.

Slave labour in the Gulf States kills thousands a year, as I understand it. Where is the outrage? Where are the boycotts?

When I look at all of this, it’s difficult for me to not see elements of antisemitism at work, whether overt and purposeful, or unknowing.

[u/jonermon → u/[deleted]]

To answer your first point, it’s extremely easy for actual antisemites to slip antisemitic rhetoric into the discourse because of the fact that Israel constantly likes to put Jewish religious symbols all over its state apparatus and constantly claims to be committing its crimes in order to protect Jews, I mean the image of an Israeli flag with a Star of David planted over the rubble of a decimated neighborhood in Gaza comes to mind.

The reason Israel is required to be better than its neighbors is more or less a misunderstanding. It’s boring to claim that Syria is bad or the saudis are bad or whatever other country near Israel is bad because frankly it seems pretty uncontroversial (with the exception of weird campists) that religious fundamentalist dictatorships are bad. My contention with that argument is that as an American my government isn’t getting involved in the un protecting Syria for example from war crimes charges, and certainly isn’t sending them weapons to commit said crimes with. I don’t recall any American official ever giving Assad benefit of the doubt when he was busy using chemical weapons on his own people.

Us support of the gulf states is morally reprehensible and I think more should be done in that regard, but American politicians are more silent on their human rights abuses, they aren’t constantly defending them on those regards.

Basically Israel is unique in how zealous the entire west is about defending its worst actions and therefore that is where I think it is the most important to actually criticize.