May we all learn to find joy in the little things

It. Literally. Doesn't. Matter.

Spoiler alert: trans people can be antisemitic!

Franz Kafka was a real person who died not too long ago, and just because a trans person relates to his writings doesn't mean they can claim he's trans. It's not the same as relating to a fictional character. You can't 'headcanon' an actual person. I don't care how much you relate- he wasn't trans, don't call him a woman. He was an actual person, not a fictional character you can project on. An treating Franz Kafka like a fictional character you can project any label onto and separate him from his actual life is dehumanization and *also* antisemitic.

It's no different than queer people co-opting Anne Frank's memory and erasing her story to just herald her as a "bi icon" when she never had the chance to live long enough to label herself. Queer gentiles need to stop dehumanizing Jewish people and turning them into blank slates they can project onto.

I don't care how much you relate- he wasn't trans, don't call him a woman.

At some point relatively recently, people seem to have come to the conclusion that you can't empathize with a character (or real fucking person, in this case, and I cannot stress how gross that is) unless you're just like them. "Oh, I, a nonbinary person can identify with this cishet man? He must actually be nonbinary!" "Oh, I, an autistic person, can identify with this Ambiguously Quirky™ person? She must actually be autistic!"

Being able to relate to a person--real or fictional--who isn't just like you is a good thing. It's good that you see yourself in the writings of a cisgender man! Maybe it will teach you that cis people aren't the enemy. It's good that an autistic character resonates with NT people! Maybe they'll gain new insight into their autistic friends and family!

It's called empathy, and it's so important to understand that you are going to see your experiences reflected in people who are unlike you. Those connections are important. Deciding that Kafka must be a trans woman because you're a trans woman is missing the entire fucking point. It means that you do, in fact, have some things in common with a cisgender man, and conversely, it means that cisgender men have things in common with you. To flatten them out so they're just like you is missing out on so much of what they have to say.

People are beautiful and rich and layered and the fact that we can connect with other people and share experiences despite how different we are? That's the whole fucking point. That's what makes life worth living.

Because we've seen that before. We see it very often because it's a fundamental premise of some incredibly antisemitic forms of Christianity, and when it turns out that we're real people with real opinions and real beliefs and real feelings who don't just exist to validate someone else's perception of who and how we could be, people don't just abandon their pretense at allyship, they get violent.

It's also a common failing in how the Holocaust is taught. People like to present this lens of "it was random violence that came out of nowhere and could've happened to anyone. It could've happened to you! Imagine if you'd been one of the victims! That would've been a tragedy wouldn't it?" And the thing is, that's bullshit. If you were just a random German citizen at the time? You would've been one of the perpetrators. And it was a tragedy in and of itself; it doesn't become a tragedy by imaging a scenario in which people who were perfectly safe would've actually been potentially in danger (never killed, of course, because Holocaust education is also commonly sanitized, which is a different rant).

Edited to take out a rant that was in drafts and got added to this by mistake, but. Well, the Tl;dr, since that's been reblogged

in fact, the restaurant used the vegan identity and environmentalism as fuel for their marketing in quite cynical ways. at the same time they had a deal with Whole Foods (implicated in prison labor allegations btw) to source ingredients, meaning that there were transcontinentally shipped produce lol. for example we used frozen blueberries that were product of Chile. for a restaurant in the pacific northwest region in the united states of america. there are blueberry farms in oregon, washington, etc. But it’s cheaper to exploit south american farms than get local blueberries i guess. (which still by and large exploit the labor of migrant farmworkers from mexico and south and central america, but i digress)

Cashews that make vegan cheese are extremely dangerous to harvest due to the fact they mist be harvested by hand and the fruit has corrosive enzymes. Most workers end up with scars from chemical burns.

Almond farms were linked to the declining bee population due to the number of bees needed to pollinate the plants. Most bee keepers were lucky to get half their hives back after farms rented them.

We all know about how much of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed to make way for soy farms.

Agave is a main food source for many bats, but no, harvesting excess honey from bees that over produce it is the problem. If bees regularly have a large surplus of honey they swarm, the hive splits and some leave to start a new hive. Problem is that most bees don't survive this process because it makes them vulnerable to other environmental factors. So encouraging farming and over consumption of agave and stopping the consumption of honey, you're actually harming two different populations of pollinators.

"Vegan leather" is mostly plastic, which breaks down and sheds microplasics. Contributing to the ever growing landfill and contaminated water supply issues we have. Meanwhile cow hide is a natural byproduct from the meat industry, and real leather can last decades if taken care of. A single cow can feed 2 families of 4 for a year, and that leather can go towards making belts, boots, gloves and jackets that last decades.

I don't know how my girlfriend is so easily able to shrug off my ignorance with "it's not your fault; no one knows everything" and see something good in me. I don't know how she managed to be so open-minded despite Hamas' attempts at antisemitic brainwashing. Truly, her goodness humbles me. What I do know is that I love her and I want to marry her someday - and I'm terrified that doing so might make the Hamasniks who call themselves "pro Palestine" come after her. My love for her is a liability for her in the current climate.

Sometimes I feel like she would've had a better life if we hadn't fallen in love. I wish I were rich and could buy us a cottage somewhere in the countryside and we could run away from this hateful world together.

How much snuff they produce is anyone's guess. There's a lot of that with cut audio, which makes identifying origin harder. It's not not being produced, but the volume is unknown.

Hamas are not your blorbos. They're not freedom fighters. They are monsters and their first victims are Palestinians.

One of those victims was six weeks old. Without getting graphic, I would be absolutely astonished if she survived what was done to her, particularly given the internal bleeding being visibly free-flowing in the video and the lack of medical care in Palestine. And the man who did it, the men who filmed it, the ones uploading it and profiting off of it? These are the people "Pro-Palestine" people are defending. These are the people they are willing to let be killed by Hamas because this is what "by any means necessary" looks like so Hamas can make enough money to fund their good lives while their people starve and die.

Six weeks old. I want that burned into the mind of every "Pro-Palestinian" protestor.

This post is about that fact that a lot of people who claim to be "Pro-Palestine" (mostly in the West) support Hamas and repeat Hamas talking points despite the fact that this is inconsistent with the goal of actually helping Palestinian people and the fact that Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that hurts many people - especially Palestinian people. These so-called activists, under the guise of being “pro Palestine” support Hamas, allow Hamas supporters into their movement, and talk over people from the region who contradict them.

The largest, most prominent, and most prolific “Pro-Palestine” organizations that all of the major protests have been organized by, from WOL to JVP to SJP to AMP to PYM regularly cape for Hamas, celebrate their human rights abuses or downplay them.

The entire point of the extreme hyperbole about anything Israel does, like the “dog rape” libel or calling the Israel-Hamas war a “genocide” despite not meeting the criteria, and lacking any actual ruling from any court of international law calling it one, is to deflect from the actions of Hamas and similar organizations’ own human rights abuses.

Yeah, it means that I'm Jewish, have studied Jewish history, spoken to Jewish survivors from all over the world, and know what happens when Jews are left at the mercy of goyim.

Read what Yahya Sinwar said would be done to Jews. Read what Hamas did to people. Here's a tiny example of what Hamas does to Jews:

In terms of how surrounding countries treat Jews, I offer this.

And if you don't want to believe a Jew, fine, but I hope you'll listen to an actual Palestinian who has repeatedly called for peace and a two state solution.

"Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised."

"The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised."

"In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all. They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were the worst war criminals."

"Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people."

"Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews."

*note that every spelling is in the actual document, not my words.

or a quote from Ahed Tamimi: "We are fighting the Jews, not just Zionism"

please stop lying. Hamas or other groups like them being in charge absolutely means no Jews. and since you see little value in Jewish lives, I will ask you what you think would happen to the 1 in 5 Israelis who are Arab Muslims considering Hamas did not spare them on October 7th.

"Israel is committing genocide" when Jews were the victims of the deadliest genocide ever.

"Israel is an apartheid state" when Israeli Arabs are legally given equal civil and political rights and can vote, stand for political office and have equal access to state courts and services.

"Israel is an illegal occupier" when the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid caliphates/sultanates occupied Israel for over 500 years.

You talk like this is something new that we've never faced before as a people, lol. You understand that words like scapegoat, colonia, diaspora, ghetto, genocide, etc, were literally invented to describe our circumstances, right?

Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Goyim think they're so special asking the Jews if we're accustomed to people hating us, lmao. Shut the fuck up, dumbass.

You've probably seen people online spouting nonsense like "Israel killed most of its own people on October 7th. The Hannibal Directive proves it. Hamas didn't do the massacre - Israel did."

Let's go over what the Hannibal Directive actually was, its status on 10/7/23, and how stories about it have been dishonestly spun.

The Hannibal Directive was issued in 1986. Here's what it actually said:

"א. בזמן מחטף הופכת המשימה העיקרית חילוץ חיילינו מידי החוטפים גם במחיר של פגיעה או פציעת חיילינו. ב. במידה ויזוהו החוטפים והחטופים ולא נענו לקריאות לעצור, יש לבצע ירי נק"ל (נשק קל), על מנת להוריד את החוטפים לקרקע, או לעצור אותם. ג. אם לא עצר הרכב או החוטפים, יש לירות לעברם ירי נשק קל בבודדת, במכוון, על מנת לפגוע בחוטפים גם אם המשמעות פגיעה בחיילינו."

"A. During an abduction, the main mission becomes rescuing our soldiers from the captors, even at the cost of harming or injuring our own soldiers. B. If the captors and captives are identified and do not heed calls to stop, use small arms fire to bring down the captors or halt them. C. If the vehicle or captors do not stop, use aimed small arms fire to hit the captors, even if that means harming our own soldiers."

This isn't particularly controversial in principle. A captured soldier becomes a massive piece of political leverage, a tool for extortion, and a severe threat to national security - and accepting the risk of injuring your own people during a rescue attempt is a standard, tragic reality of combat. The underlying logic is standard across professional militaries.

Note that the directive as written applied specifically to soldiers. That distinction matters when we get to October 7.

From its inception, the directive was controversial within Israel. Some commanders refused to pass it down, as they were permitted to do under the Spirit of the IDF booklet. In 2011, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz clarified that the directive did not authorize deliberately shooting a captured soldier - it aimed to stop terrorists from escaping with them, not to kill the hostage. The directive was revised several times, with legal reviews consistently recommending every effort be made to avoid harming soldiers who were hostages.

In 2016, Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot officially cancelled it.

It was long gone on 10/7/23.

A Haaretz investigation, though, identified three specific instances where local commanders invoked a Hannibal-style order at points along the Gaza border: at the Erez crossing, the Re'im army base, and the Nahal Oz outpost.

The orders were primarily aimed at striking the gaps in the border fence and vehicles moving back into Gaza to stop the mass transfer of hostages. Because Hamas was taking civilian hostages, not soldiers -local commanders were adapting a soldier-focused doctrine on the fly, in chaos, without official authorization. That context matters for understanding what actually happened.

So what does the evidence actually confirm?

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry confirmed at least 14 Israelis likely killed by IDF forces. The Be'eri incident (where a tank commander ordered fire on a house holding hostages, killing 13 of 14) is the most documented single case.

These deaths are real, they are serious, and the officers responsible should face accountability - that's the only acceptable reaction to a friendly fire incident.

At no point has any investigation found that the IDF deliberately targeted Israeli civilians.

Every documented IDF-caused death on October 7 occurred in the context of combat decisions made to stop Hamas from dragging hostages back into Gaza. These decisions were chaotic, unauthorized, and in some cases probably a bad call. A commander who orders fire on a vehicle he believes contains Hamas fighters and accidentally kills Israelis in the process has made a bad decision, but he has not committed a premeditated massacre of his own people.

There is no evidence -NONE WHATSOEVER - that the IDF identified Israeli civilians and chose to kill them. This claim exists solely to launder the responsibility of Hamas (and others from Gaza) for the atrocities visited upon Israeli civilians on 10/7/23.

The total October 7 death toll was approximately 1,200 Israelis. That number is documented and forensically verified. The 14+ deaths caused accidentally by the IDF are worth investigating and accountability should be sought- but they are not an alternative explanation for the massacre.

That's how Hamas supporters spun it.

In July 2024, when Haaretz published an investigation into Hannibal-style orders at those three military sites on October 7, this was journalism. Israeli reporters, using IDF documents and soldier testimony, holding their own military accountable for specific decisions made in specific locations.

The article did not claim Israel caused most of the deaths. It did not claim Hamas was innocent. It reported on a real institutional failure at the Erez crossing, Re'im base, and Nahal Oz outpost.

Within two weeks, that article had been shared over 16,000 times on X, almost entirely by accounts using it to argue that Israel, not Hamas, was responsible for the October 7 massacre.

Hamas supporters have elevated this sort of dishonesty to an art form: they take legitimate accountability journalism, remove every qualifier, delete the specific scope, and present it as proof of something the article explicitly does not claim and try to make the IDF responsible for the crimes committed by Hamas and other Gazans.

The people doing this aren't engaging with the Haaretz investigation. They're borrowing its brand as a prop to make the absurd allegation seem credible. It isn't - and anyone who actually read the article knows that.

The claim that Israel killed its own people on October 7 isn't a good-faith misreading of a complicated story. It's a conspiracy theory.

It takes a documented atrocity with 1,200 named victims, forensic evidence, and survivor testimony, and replaces it with a fairy tale where the Jews did it to themselves.

That's not skepticism. That's not "asking questions."

The people spreading this libel aren't engaging with the Haaretz story or the UN or any of the investigations they pretend to cite without having read them. They're using the language of accountability journalism to run interference for a massacre.

~6,000 people including Hamas, other militant groups, and Gazan civilians burned families alive, took 251 hostages, and committed widespread torture and sexual violence on October 7. That happened. The Hannibal Directive didn't make it happen. Israel didn't make it happen. Hamas made it happen.

They filmed themselves doing it, they livestreamed it, they called their families to brag about it, they celebrated it in Gaza, their leaders praised it and promised to repeat it. They want the credit for their massacre.

I was wondering if you know where I can find an exhaustive list of events before 1948, that prove peace was never truly a thing? I know of the Arab revolt and Hebron massacre, but I'm almost certain there were others, but idk how to even look these up. (I'm quite bad with that stuff).

I can later look these up and find sources about them, but idk where to start is my problem.

Thanks in advance!!

I also want to thank you, from the depths of my heart, for helping me learn more about this history!! You're so well-versed and you carry yourself in arguments/debates and express yourself with such elegance and eloquence. Thank you!!

https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7649-Informational-Materials-20251210-70.pdf?hl=en-US

Hello?, everyone that didn't shut up about the people the Israelis stopped, where the fuck are you? These ones are in genuine danger and you're completely silent.