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"We as American Jews believe that 'never again' means never again for anyone, and that includes Palestinians," said JVP, referring to the refrain repeated by the Jewish American community regarding the need to prevent genocide. "'Never again' is this very moment."
Something so common sense will surely fall on deaf ears.
Didn't you know? Those American Jews are being antisemitic for daring to oppose genocide.
Still, it doesn't go without saying. They might ignore it, but they can't pretend nobody said anything.
I asked once why the law (Jewish religious law) said don’t kill, steal etc then said of Amallites not to leave one alive, man, woman or child. The answer? “Jewish law doesn’t apply to gentiles.”
Thinking about this some more, I have a feeling you misinterpreted what "Jewish law doesn't apply to gentiles" means. If I, a Jew, eat bacon, it's considered a sin. If a non-Jew eats bacon, it's not considered a sin. Jewish laws (restrictions, observances, etc) don't apply to non-Jews. It doesn't mean that Jews are allowed to treat non-Jews however they want with no repercussions.
This isn't quite true. First of all, I'm guessing you mean the Amalekites. The reason they are singled out is because they followed the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. They attacked from the rear to target the slowest people - the elderly and children. This gave them a "special status" so to speak with a commandment to wipe them out.
That being said, there are no Amalekites nowadays. There might be spiritual successors of them - people who want to wipe out all Jews no matter what and who will start with the elderly and children - but these people don't get "Amalekite treatment."
Apart from this exception (which, again, has no relevance in the modern world), Jewish law absolutely applies to how we treat non-Jews.
I appreciate the work they do to cut through the mandatory pro-Israel dialogue in the states. “Not in our name!” ❤️
And for their efforts, the ADL labels Jewish Voice for Peace an extremist anti-Semitic hate group. 😂
Cease fire wont stop the humanitarian crisis that sparked this. They need water and power and humanitarian aid that israel has blocked.
Israel has the world's sympathy and support but if they retaliate brutally and massively that sympathy and support will shift to the Palestinians.
I think it already has.
I think it's very confused and polarized. Neither side is even remotely in the right at this point, and those who suffer have almost no agency. The only third rail here is the Israeli people. They can make the madness stop.
The civilians on both sides aren't in the right? I misunderstand you, and am being genuine here. Morality/ethics of a conflict can't just be measured and analyzed by the actions and consequences of the combatants. The people caught in the middle, whether Palestinian or Jewish are the real losers in this. War has no real victor..
They're saying the powers at play, the big boys, on both sides are fucked. The people in the middle, the civilians on either side, have no real say in what's going on, they just get slaughtered.
Every single time this type of shit plays out the same way. Outrage at whichever Palestinian group did whatever. Outrage at Israel's response. Then people taking what they think are reasonable sides in a religious war, then finally things calm back down to the fucked up status quo. I see no reason this will be any different.
I think there are four factors at play here. They're mixed together in an extremely messy fashion and overlap quite a bit, but they are:
The people on both sides fear for their safety. The Palestinians fear the Israeli government and military taking action against them. The Israeli people fear rocket attacks and raids like the one that just happened. When a populace lives in fear, it leads to -
Extremist groups are in charge. You have Hamas on one side whose stated goal is to kill all Jews. (Not just in Israel, but across the world.) You have the right wing Israeli government on the other side who push for horrible actions against the Palestinians in the name of "safety."
Foreign interference. Iran on one side is arming/helping Hamas. On the other side, evangelical Christians help the settlers and push the Israeli government because they think Jesus will come back if Israel suffers a big enough attack. (Peace would prevent that attack and stop Jesus from returning.)
A long and bloody history. Both sides remember when they were killed by the other side. Both sides refuse to leave the past in the past and intend on making the other side pay. The problem here is that the cycle of violence never breaks. If you always have to attack because "they did X to us" then they will feel like they always need to attack because you did Y to them. It goes around and around and never changes no matter how much everyone suffers.
How do you untangle this mess? If I knew that, I'd have the Nobel Peace Prize. I wish I did know. I'd set the peace prize aside in a second, tell the world what to do, and stop it all. Unfortunately, I'm no diplomat. (Some of the best diplomats have failed in this arena.) I can see what's going on, but I have no clue how to stop it.
The best I can think of is that perhaps UN security forces need to move in. Not to attack one side or another, but to keep both sides away from each other. Sort of like the national version of putting two kids who were fighting in time out until things cool down. But again, I'm no diplomat so for all I know that would make things worse.
You act as though both sides are equivalent.
They are not. Israel is an apartheid state. Palestinians are legally deprived of human rights and restricted to ghettos. Hamas is merely an extremist group that offers Palestinians something, even if its something they cannot deliver on and have no legitimate means of achieving. Palestinians have been massacred by Israel since its inception. Israelis have occasionally died in comparatively small numbers from Hamas attacks. Hamas is not Palestine though. And hamas has no legal power within the Israeli state. The Israeli state is entirely responsible for the current state of affairs and for the ongoing violence.
Palestinians have no state. They have no home. They are kept in ghettos. They are currently facing one of the largest humanitarian crises of the 21st century. The Israeli state could stop it all tomorrow. They could stop it all right now. Unconditionally grant equal citizenship to all Palestinians, return them their homes, give them 50% representation in the Israeli government, and formally condemn the racism and genocidal rhetoric of the Netanyahu administration and the many war crimes committed both by him and the IDF and the Israeli police force.
Its entirely up to Israel. Palestinians can do none of these things. Their only available recourse is extremism.
How do you untangle this mess? If I knew that, I'd have the Nobel Peace Prize.
I wouldn't wish that on you. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin won the Nobel in 1994, and was assassinated for it the following year.