#likud

I'm not sure where I did that.

Are we talking about the reblogs where someone else used the words "Eurotrash" and "swine" to describe Fredrich Merz because they thought he should do more?

My objection to that wasn't really political - I just think it's vulgar and dumb. @the-library-alcove is right that I should have criticized it more harshly and more promptly.

(I also defer to their vastly superior knowledge of German politics, so check out what they say in the reblogs of that post.)

Europe doesn't do international military intervention and we shouldn't want them to.

Instead, they'll wait for the US to intervene and publicly criticize US unilateralism (for a domestic audience) while privately being glad the US did it because they know the regime is the greatest source of regional destabilization. That's just how the politics work. Merz isn't a fool and he knew Israel was doing the world a favor in their 12-Day War against Iran.

Merz is the first major European leader to show meaningful support for the protestors in Iran, and he did it much sooner than anyone expected. It wasn't without some risk for him, it was the right thing to do, and I'm very glad he did it.

Were I an Israeli, I doubt I'd be a Likud voter - but I don't know that I'm comfortable with the suggestion that there's equivalence between Likud voters and Hamasnik supporters of terrorism and violent Islamism.

You understand that Likud isn't at the far right end of Israeli politics, right?

Israel’s ruling coalition proposes early elections amid ultra-Orthodox anger at Netanyahu

Prime minister under pressure over failure to grant military service exemptions as multi-party government looks at risk of collapse

Israel’s ruling coalition has submitted a proposal to dissolve parliament to pave the way for early elections as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came under mounting pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties.

The move, initiated by Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, came as Netanyahu appeared to be facing a possible collapse of his fractious coalition.

If the bill is approved it would automatically trigger elections to be held after 90 days.

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.

According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While Netanyahu does not make these kind of statements publicly or officially, his words are in line with the policy that he implemented.

I've been listening and learning from a wide variety of sources and have come to the opinion that defining+criticizing any of the seemingly many interpretations of zionism is so far out of my own lane it's a whole different highway, and like I'm not trying to shirk responsibility for the antisemitism in my communities, but I don't want to risk cosigning and possibly amplifying the legitimate anxieties and traumas being caused in the diaspora.

Thank you for your time!

There is a difference between wishing and working for the liberation of the Palestinian people and the end of repression, violence, and war crimes and frothing, fervent falling into antisemitism.

Stop, think for a second, and recognize what you do, and do not know, about Palestine and Israel.

I have more than seen enough to make me question, to put it lightly, the anti-Israeli things being said as people casually gloss over and conflate Israel and Israeli, and Israeli and Jewish, creating a monolith of people and perspectives.

I lack the words or the reach to matter in and for this. But please don't allow yourselves to fall for baseless hatred and shallow, stilted thinking.

Both Israel and Gaza are in the throes of far-right theocratic governments (or wannabe governments) prioritizing the death of the other and their own power to the safety and long-term stability of their people.