#viv asks

It's not much, but it is necessary. I saw injustice being committed, and I would not be able to live with myself if I let that go unchallenged, especially when so few others are speaking up.

There is a cost that I have paid in terms of social rejection by the 'genocide cult', even when I was only speaking about antisemitism and not i/p. But though I have been rejected by 'anti-Zionists', I have been welcomed by #jumblr with open arms, and I am glad for the new connections I have made. Though I will almost certainly never convert, I now have a great affection for Judaism and for Jews.

Of all religions whose members I have known, Judaism is probably the one that makes the most sense to me as a worldview. I like that it is an intellectual religion that questions and interprets the commandments of Hashem and views Judaism as an evolving, adaptive religion. I find myself more and more annoyed by 'jokes' about how Jews 'cheat' the commandments with things like selling chametz for Pesach and Shabbos elevators. For one, it seems like an insult to Hashem to imply that He could be cheated by mortals and for two, it seems like none of their damn business.

That's also why I get annoyed at anti-theists who target Judaism alongside universalizing religions like Christianity or Islam. It is well within my or anyone's rights to criticize the practices of a religion that seeks to impose said practices on me, but for a non-evangelical ethnoreligion so deeply tied into the culture of even secular Jews, it seems like none of mine and my fellow Goys' business. There are criticisms to be made of Judaism, especially of the Conservative and Orthodox branches. Personally as a gay man, I'm not thrilled about the idea of any LGBTQ children being born into queerphobic households anywhere in the world. But I feel it isn't my place to attack the practices of a relatively insular ethnoreligion so deeply woven into the culture of all of the world's Jewry (not the best wording, I know), especially when it's already come under such fierce attack from everywhere else. I am know that the best, most appropriate critics of any particular Jewish practice will always be other Jews. They know best the context of those practices and they are the ones who have the most at stake.

Sorry, that was a lot. I have a habit of getting on a roll with an idea and just… not stopping until I reach some kind of conclusion, which I kinda did here.

I’m tagging @basic-banshee​ because this question stems from a moment in her fic Local Hero. I’m talkin about this part here: 

However, anyone who drinks tea properly, please chime in. 

I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m an American. Furthermore, I’m not even a proper American as I’m first generation, my parents came over from Cuba, where the drink of choice is really strong espresso, consumed in alarming quantities.  I also live in the South, so until recently, my only consistent exposure to tea was iced tea. (True southerners drink it sickly sweet, but I stick to unsweet, which I always have to clarify at the drive through.) 

I’m adding a readmore link so I don’t clog your feed with my stupid tea questions (I’m doing this instead of writing actual words because I am a disaster)

I do what needs to be done.

It's scary, and I'm a non-confrontational person. While it can't compare to what it's like to be openly Jewish online, or worse, in person, it does stress me out. I worry about liking or reblogging posts from my favorite small fandom creators in case they follow me back to my blog and the Free/Pro-Palestine superposition collapses and I find out which kind of Free Palestine they mean. Is it going to be ignored altogether, like and move on, "die zio dog", instant block?

It's both trivial and not. Tumblr is important to me, and so is the fandom on it. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is, and unfortunately speaking about antisemitism gets you treated like they treat Jews (if they don't just assume you're Jewish to begin with).

It wasn't, and isn't an easy decision. Jews on Tumblr have become extremely isolated, and so have the few gentiles who stand with them, which takes a toll on a person, moreso for me because I am, at heart, a coward. And it isn't a single decision either, it's a thousand choices.

I'm not Jewish. I could escape the isolation and the vitriol if I really wanted to. I could suppress my empathy, block every Jew I come across to make things easier on my conscience (out of sight out of mind), scrub my blog of anything related to i/p, and go back to being an unremarkable fandom blog with occasional lukewarm soc-Dem takes on Orange Man bad. I make that choice to stay and it's a hard one.

And it's not like the Jews don't have a choice to avoid antisemitic violence.

Scrub your own blog of any mention of Judaism. Stop wearing the Star of David, the kippah, or any other visual signifier of Judaism. Stop reblogging posts from other Jews celebrating Sukkot or Yom Kippur. Move out of Jewish communities. Stop advertising that your restaurant is kosher. Stop going to synagogue. Avoid areas known to be hubs of Jewish activity and daily life. Never speak Hebrew around anyone who might recognize it. Hide your fear for your friends and relatives in Israel. Turn your back on the history of your people, a history that survives because of hundreds of generations of Jews fought to preserve it. Turn your back on the culture of your people, whether it has been yours for five years, or your family's for two thousand. Cut all association with am Yisrael, and then have it rendered all for naught because of your name or your features or because some crazed obsessive tracked down the one thing you forgot to delete.

Perhaps one day, possibly sooner than we think, they're going to come for me directly. My self-expression will be repressed because cross-dressing is a sexual offense now, and I'll have to bury my pride pins in a desk drawer somewhere or else risk being arrested for "promoting immorality". But when that day comes* the leftist spaces that promised community during the fascist Apocalypse will accept my heels and my skirts and my pins and my preference for dick over pussy.

Well, that day is here for the Jews, and for the most part the left has made it clear that the Kippah and Magen David are not safe for Jews to wear. They have made it clear that a Jew is not a safe thing to be. Even if you swear up and down that you hate Israel and hate Zionists and agree to be their token Jew, and so buy yourself time and acceptance in the small cadre of comrades you know, it won't protect you when the Molotovs start flying from people who know nothing about you except that you're a Jew. And when you're put in the ground, they'll say how tragic it is that Israel's actions are causing so much Jew-hate before they go back to baying for all Zionists to die.

I made a hard choice, and now every day I chose to renew it. But for nearly all Jews, there is no choice, because they refuse to gouge out so much of what makes them themselves to make themselves palatable to the gentile left. I won't say any saccharine bullshit about how their tremendous ordeal inspires me to . . . yada yada, because that's not how this works. But as long as the Jews remain, whether they are joined and defended by a handful of gentiles or entire continents, I hope to have the courage in me to do what is right. And to anyone else seeing this who is standing at that crossroads, I hope you find that courage in you as well. Even if you do not today, there will be more to come. As long as there is good to be done, it is never too late.

Sorry that this is so long, and kind-of a downer, and kind-of self-centered. I am glad that what I do is helping in some way to fight back the despair. I will probably start posting less frequently about the issue, because I have ambitions for this blog beyond being The Goy Antisemitism Blog™, and because actively engaging with and writing about antisemitism is physically draining, especially when discussing it as a current problem and not the topic of a historical lecture. When I burn out, I usually burn out hard, so like, I'd rather not. But I have the impulse control of a coked-up squirrel, so we'll see.

The most major issue that I need to help you with is the entire Zionist narrative that they use to justify their settler-colonialism. I do not blame most of the Zionists, as it is what they were taught by their rabbis and they do not know any better, but I know better than to try to tell them the truth of what actually happened in Palestine all of those hundreds of years ago. But hopefully you will be willing to listen and learn.

The truth is that the Jews claim that they are the original tribe and religion that received a prophet from Allah, but this is only half-true at best. Ibrahim did receive the full revelation of Islam from Allah, as did his son Ismail. However, later Jewish leaders secretly changed and edited what they had been given by Allah for their own purposes, and thus corrupted and distorted the revelations given to them. Allah was upset by this, and continued to send prophets to try to correct them, including Isa ibn Maryam, who you call Jesus, who the Jews killed for challenging them and trying to bring them properly back to Allah. This is why Allah turned to Mohammad ﷺ as his final prophet, in order to correct the teachings that had been distorted by the Jews over centuries and bring the whole world back to Him.

Several Jewish tribes knew that a prophet of Allah was coming before the birth of Mohammad ﷺ, and had settled in Arabia beforehand, and when they encountered him, they recognized him as the one they had been waiting for, and swore to be his enemy for as long as they lived, while mocking and belittling him. Mohammad ﷺ was kinder than them, and when he defeated them in battle after a betrayal, he showed kindness and mercy upon the women and children who had not attempted to betray him, even taking one of them as his wife in order to show unity and peace, even after another Jewish woman attempted to assassinate him via poison! Truly, Peace Be Unto Him and his mercy.

As Mohammad ﷺ continued to spread his revelations from Allah, many recognized the truth within them and returned to Islam. Among these included the Jews of Palestine, who returned as a group, and took the name "Palestinians" to commemorate this, handing down their identity through the generations. Other Jews elsewhere in Muslim lands were more stubborn, but were recognized as People of the Book and given a protected status, where they would be free to follow their ways, however edited they were, in exchange for a modest additional tax, with the Christians there being likewise given the same protection. For centuries, this state of harmonious peace lasted under the auspices of Allah, only to be shattered by the European powers carving up the Arab lands between them a century ago.

As part of that, for some reason that I don't understand, a number of Christians in Europe decided to convert to Judaism over the centuries. These White European Jews later created the myth that they were descended from the ancient Jews, which is impossible as those people all returned and became the Palestinians when Allah's revelations reached them. From what I do understand, this myth was created by a group of these European Jews, the Zionists, in order to create a colony of their own during the height of European colonialism, and convinced the British and the other European powers to give the land to them in order to displace and replace the Palestinians, so that they would have a permanent colonial presence in the region covered over with a false justification.

The Zionists, however, betrayed the British and declared independence. Some people I know have suggested that such betrayal is a part of the Jewish religion, with their own Tawrat showing several such cases of the people they claim as ancestors engaging in deceit and betrayal. I find myself more skeptical about such claims, even if it would explain a lot of things, such as how they managed to convince so many Europeans to convert, or their claims about their importance to the world, or even the entire basis of Zionism itself, where they are trying to displace and genocide the actual descendants of the ancient Jewish tribes and claim their place, with concocted and transparently false archeological and genetic evidence to back up their narrative.

I hope that this helps you understand who you are deciding to help and speak out for--they are not victims, but victimizers, and their claims of being 'indigenous' and 'decolonization' are absurd and insulting, and I hope that you see that now.

Ho–ly—shit.

I was going to ignore this, but the further I read the worse it got, so here goes. Apologies in advance, but this is going to be extremely long.

The doc contains quotes from four men, PM Netanyahu, President Herzog, former MOD Gallant, and Benny Gantz, formerly a minister in Netanyahu's war cabinet. They are categorized as evidence of one or more of the following alleged actions: civilian harm, collective punishment, genocidal intent, forced displacement, dehumanization, and destruction. 

# 1. Yep. That's pretty blatantly threatening civilian harm. Yoav Gallant sucks. 

# 2. This is definitely a war crime. I don't know that I would strictly categorize this as either civilian harm or collective punishment, though. Starting with the latter, collective punishment is, you know, punishment. Mass reprisal killings, mass arrests, punishment of family members or associates. There is no crime specified here that Gaza is being punished for. For the former, this is a little more complicated. Civilian deaths are not, in fact, prohibited in war. There is such a thing as legally acceptable collateral damage. What exactly discerns legal military actions from war crimes is somewhat complex, but the important consideration here is proportionality. The proportionality of a military action is determined by the expected harm to civilian life, property, and infrastructure as compared to the expected military advantage gained. I think this should go without saying, but flattening buildings to kill a single militant constitutes criminally disproportionate use of military force. 

# 3. Oh, wow. No. Not any of those. As per the previous section, harm to civilians proportionate to military advantage gained is legal in war. As a statement without additional context, that quote is completely meaningless. It isn't proof of criminal harm to civilians, it has fuck-all to do with collective punishment, and I have no idea where the hell genocide comes into this. 

# 4. No, not really. The closest this comes to any of these categories is "Gaza is the city of evil..." as dehumanization and "...act everywhere and with full power." as potentially disproportionate use of force. In isolation, I think this quote actually credits Israel more than it discredits it. To my knowledge, warning civilians of imminent military action doesn't really have any kind of legal consideration, but it could potentially be an argument that 'expected harm' to civilians was lower and thus more proportionate. I doubt that would hold much sway in a court. Beyond that, Netanyahu specifically names a Hamas presence as the target criteria. Do I necessarily believe him? No. Does this quote support any kind of criminal action? Also no. Once again, I have no idea where collective punishment comes into this. 

# 5. Denazification is genocide now?!?!

# 6. I notice a hint of editorializing here. The quote itself is so out of context as to be meaningless. 

# 7. This quote is too vague to tease much of anything out of it. Who are the "they" Gallant is referring to? Is it Hamas? Is it the people of Gaza? I looked at the source to try and get some additional context, but I don't understand Hebrew and Firefox's Hebrew-to-English translation isn't great. 

# 8. Humanitarian aid is collective punishment now? 

# 9. I have no idea what this has to do with either genocide or excessive civilian harm. 

# 10. OK, am I going crazy or I'd this list actually just ass? This has fuck-all to do with forced displacement. It's a political statement concerning Netanyahu's distrust of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body of the West Bank and the former governing body of Gaza before Hamas. I went into the source, where I found Netanyahu's reasons for that position. He cites "Abo Mazen" (Firefox's mangled translation of Abu Mazen, another name for the PA leader Mahmoud Abbas) refusing to condemn the 7 Oct attacks, expressions of support for the attacks by members of Abbas' government, and the PA's deposition in Gaza by Hamas. In a "heartbreaking, the worst person you know" moment, I regrettably have to agree with his reasoning here. I don't think it should be his decision to deny the PA control over Gaza in the first place, but he does make some good points here. 

Once again, this has fuck-all do do with forced displacement. 

# 11. Yep. That's textbook dehumanization. Issac Herzog also sucks. However, while dehumanization is one of the steps of genocide, it is not genocide in and of itself, nor does his full statement support the claim of genocidal intent. Herzog says nothing about what actions Israel will or will not do in Gaza. He doesn't say, "There are no innocent civilians in Gaza, therefore we will kill them all as punishment." He doesn't say, "There are no innocent civilians in Gaza, so any action we take is justified," which could be evidence of disproportionate harm to civilians. 

# 12. Yep, that's a war crime. "Restraints" includes stuff like proportionality and distinction, which I haven't mentioned yet, mostly because it's so basic so as to almost go without saying. Distinction is just the legal term that means differentiating combatants and protected persons, which includes civilians and medical personnel. You can't order your soldiers to ignore the laws of war. That's a fucking war crime. I dispute that this quote constitutes evidence of collective punishment, however. 

Yoav Gallant still sucks. 

# 13. This actually comes from the same source as # 11. There are a lot of these that are just different parts of one larger statement, actually. If I were a cynical person, I might believe that this was done to make the list look longer. Back to the quote, just like # 11, it's dehumanizing language, as well as closer to expressing a desire for collective punishment than the previous excerpt. 1,000 % shitty, but not evidence of any acts of collective punishment taking place. 

# 14. Textbook dehumanization. I have no idea what prophecy he is referring to. 

# 15. So he's saying ... that Israel is destroying Hamas ... the terrorist organization that attacked Israel, murdered over 800 civilians, and started the ongoing war? This is quite literally the opposite of collective punishment. Also, "destruction" means nothing in international law. 

# 16. Well that's a whole lot of editorializing. Isn't the whole point of this list that these statements by Israeli officials constitute proof of genocidal intent? 

# 17. Oh, wow! That is the most literal example of dehumanization I've seen in a long time. Yoav Gallant still sucks. 

As for the blockade, that's at least two war crimes. Blockades are legal in war. However certain goods like food and medical supplies are excepted from legal military blockades. To withhold those constitutes a war crime. The second is starvation. Yes, you read that correctly, the act of starving a population is a war crime in and of itself, regardless of considerations of genocide or genocidal intent. 

# 18. I don't accept biblical or metaphorical language as proof of genocidal intent. Dehumanization? Sure. Incitement to violence? I'll hear you out. Genocide? Not even close. 

# 19. I can't access the original source, so I have no idea what the context is. What does the "everything" in "We will eliminate everything" refer to? The people of Gaza? Hamas? Gazan infrastructure? Anything of military ability? 

# 20. Not necessarily even illegal. The laws of war make no place unconditionally off limits to attack, nor is there a requirement to designate zones of sanctuary. Even hospitals can void their protection if they can be demonstrated as having been put to military use beyond the provision of medical care and sustenance. If a valid military target has been identified and is attacked in such a way as to avoid disproportionate harm to protected persons, that does not constitute a war crime, no matter where it happens. 

# 21. More objectively dehumanizing language. Bibi does, in fact, suck, and I eagerly anticipate his obituary. Still not genocidal intent. 

# 22. More metaphorical language too vague to constitute much of anything. 

None of that, based on my understanding of international law and my ability to read, constitutes remotely concrete evidence of incitement to genocide.

War crimes? Absolutely. There's, like, a horrifying number of war crimes there. Everyone and their mother knows Israel has committed war crimes already. But this supposed "proof" of genocidal intent is, at best, extremely dubious.

Genocide is somewhat unique among war crimes and crimes against humanity in that it requires proof of intent.

Bomb a hospital? That's a war crime*. Kill 5,000 civilians to destroy a single, moderately sized factory? That's a war crime. Impose starvation on a population? That's both a war crime and a crime against humanity. Cluster bombs? War crime. Torturing POWs? War crime. White phosphorus?

Not actually a war crime, necessarily. That's a myth. It is legal, but there are restrictions on its usage. You can't drop white phosphorus bombs near civilian areas, for example.

Intent matters to a certain extent; whether or not you can commit a war crime through incompetence is to my knowledge a legal grey area. But for many war crimes, the act is enough.

Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of a modern, developed nation with one of the most powerful and technologically advanced militaries in the world, operating mere tens of kilometers from their home soil, with absolute, unopposed air supremacy, completely unchallenged armored combat units, and supported by the unquestionably effective intelligence capabilities of Mossad. 

Israel, with the co-operation of Egypt, has absolute control over movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. They decide, alone and unchallenged, what aid has made it in, and what aid - by far the greater quantity - has been refused entry. 

Most importantly, they have, since January 2025, the unconditional backing of THE SOLE global military hegemon, the United States. 

The maximum destructive power the State of Israel could theoretically bring to bear on Gaza is unfathomable. If Netanyahu were really determined to genocide the people of Gaza, there would not be any of them left by now. 

Please do not ever side with the wars of the rich. You are staining your hands with the bloods of innocents.

Murder the rich.

Alright, let's do this shit.

First, I would like to apologize. I was an asshole to you when I didn't have to be.

Now, to make this perfectly clear, I made three comments in response to you. Those comments were:

You implied that Iran is a better place to exist as a trans person than the Untied States. This is patently bullshit. Yes, the IRI pays for gender-affirming surgery for trans people, social acceptance of trans people is virtually nonexistent in Iran. If it is known that you are trans, you will face extensive discrimination from both the public and from the government. There is no recognition of trans people who have not already medically transitioned. There is no recognition of nonbinary people. The transition process is long, arduous, and humiliating, often including measures like virginity tests.

Iran is a miserable place to be a trans person.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!?!?! also nice deflection

The IRI routinely murders its own citizens. Women who do not wear the hijab are regularly raped and murdered by the Iranian morality police. The IRI subjects its citizens to invasive surveillance the likes of which the NSA wishes it had. The USA has a lot to answer for, but saying that the Islamic Republic of Iran treats its people better is fucking insanity.

I know how the fucking economy works. I know how systemic failure works. That is not a replacement for facts.

Here's a fact: USAID (the one Musk gutted, thanks Gaza voters) was established in 1961 to increase American soft power. USAID was continually funded through 12 presidents and saved tens if not hundreds of millions of lives.

USAID's gutting by Musk and Trump has already lead to an estimated 780 thousand deaths (almost ten times that of Gaza, source) including more than half a million children (source). The gutting of USAID is estimated to kill 14 million people by 2030, 4.5 million of which will be children (source).

This is how you substantiate claims. In this instance, I have demonstrated that anyone who did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 has the deaths of millions on their hands.

As someone who actually understands history and doesn't base my opinions on vibes, all of these movements are completely unrelated. I know it's shocking, but "We should have that land" is a conclusion that a whole lot of people in history have come to entirely independently.

For Manifest Destiny, it was a mix of white supremacy and the idea that America was the most morally advanced and civilized nation in the world, and it was our duty and birthright to spread that civilization across the continent.

For Lebensraum, it was an explicitly racialized ideology based in the Nazi hierarchy of races, with pure Nordic Aryans at the top, mongrel Slavs below them, and the degenerate Jews beneath them. Jews were seen as a literal sickness on the Aryan nation. The Nazis demanded Lebensraum not because they felt it was their birthright but because they believed that the superior Aryan race was engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the degenerate Jew-Bolsheviks and the Slavic hordes they used as their racial weapons. The Nazis were, in their eyes, fighting a racial war against the genetically diseased and inferior. In other words, they were fucking insane.

Zionism is the belief that Israel is the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, and that in order to protect the Jewish people from persecution and extermination at the hands of others it is necessary for a Jewish state to exist that is capable of defending itself. What Zionism means specifically depends on the Zionist. Zionism is an old ideology with many variations. Labor Zionism, which was the dominant strain of Zionism during the founding of Israel, accepted the 1947 UN proposal, while Revisionist Zionists rejected any kind of compromise and insisted on a Jewish state that encompassed all of the Palestinian Mandate.

In any event, the Arab states rejected the 1947 proposal, went to war, lost the war, and lost territory the Israelis had already agreed to give them. The Palestinians then lost the West Bank to Jordan, which annexed it, leaving them with the Gaza Strip, which was occupied by Egypt.

My god you're insane…

For the record, Puerto Rico has had four referendums since 2012, all of which have returned majorities for statehood. They literally want to join the "axis of evil."

1) I know the president of Iran is different from the Ayatollah 2) It's Tehran 3) Source please? 4) What does this have to do with anything? Xi Jinping has security. Putin has security. The leaders of most countries have security. The US invests so much into the protection of our leaders because we've been the most powerful nation on the planet since 1945 and we have a lot of enemies.

This is the thing that gets me. I responded to three specific claims, all of which you were incorrect about. But from that, you have assumed a wide range of political opinions that I don't have. I don't think we should be at war with Iran. I don't support Netanyahu. I want Israel to liquidate the settlements in the West Bank and stop the fighting in Gaza. But I'm not so delusional at to glaze the most brutal regimes on the planet because "America bad."

He knows just how much shit anakin has already been through (plus the two are pretty codependent). Also ahsoka?? Poor girl was just as deceived, she was about to cry holding obiwans body. Obiwan wouldn't willingly put either of them through that pain.

I'm adopting your "Palpatine got bored so planned a kidnapping" headcannon, I can 100% see that as something he'd do. I'd also never considered just how badly thought out it was given how controlling Palpatine is, man was *really* bored

The post, for those curious.

Yeah, I was more focused on the "should they have" rather than the "would they have", but honestly this arc is also disastrous from a character perspective. Especially as a lover of the RotS novelization, where Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship is elevated to truly transcendental levels of co-dependent homo-erotic/platonic/romantic/filial/fraternal mutual devotion, the idea that Obi-Wan, who is arguably more attached to Anakin than he is to Satine! would just betray his trust like that is kind of unfathomable.

Even beyond that, this seems really out of character for the rest of the Jedi as well. Windu and others may not be friends with Anakin, but they definitely don't hate him. As portrayed in TCW, they respect him and value his contributions to the war effort. If this plan were to be suggested, I would expect at least Plo Koon or Kit Fisto to object to the obvious emotional cruelty, and I even have a hard time seeing Windu, Yoda, Mundi, and the others going along with it.

The whole thing just seems really poorly written. The problem is, the arc does have moments that are good in isolation, unlike a lot of TCW's other trash arcs where the whole thing is usually unbearable (see: every arc where Jar Jar shows up). So a lot of people accept the surface level and roll with it, and don't dig in to realize that the whole arc is terribly written and should just be ignored.

As far as I can tell (minimal online research), it does seem to be שֵׁם (shem) telephoned through every Classical language.