Why is it so fucking hard for the U.S. to see Israel for what it is. I mean, as an agnostic I know exactly why, but I still have to ask my country why we can't call out genocide when we can fucking see it?

It's like sitting on the sidelines of the holocaust and just saying...well...we have interests in that region, so let's hold on a minute.

[–] stewie3128@lemmy.ml 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

We didn't get involved in WW2 because of the Holocaust. There were plenty of newspaper articles about it all over the country well before Pearl Harbor, and nothing was done until we were attacked directly.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 32 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Because the US supports genocide.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Damn. You beat me. I’m gonna leave my post for critical support.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago

It’s America’s lost cause fallacy overseas. Somehow there’s a chunk of the population that seems to overlook the reality of what’s happening and attribute it to Israel’s desire to exist when the reality is it wants to pursue its apartheid and genocide.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

If there is one thing this whole affair is bringing up in the West is just how extremelly racist even the people who loudly proclaim themselves as "progressives" really are.

You see it when they pull out the anti-semite card to try and bat away criticism of Israel: even if Israel indeed represented all Jews (itself a racist assumption because it presumes "all Jews are the same and think the same"), the etnicity of the people mass murdering civilians because of their etnicity, having any weight on ones judgment of their actions is incredibly racist (of the "different weights for different races" kind).

Personally what I see is people who never stopped being prejudiced racists who judge people on their etnicity rather than their actual actions, only some etnic groups became less fashionable to overly be racist against whilst others did not - the architecture of racism is still well in place and in use, it's just that for certain etnicities the prejudices changed.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How on earth did you come up with the idea that this is a progressive thing? It's overwhelmingly conservatives and neoliberals using the "anti-Semitism" charge in defense of genocide.

[–] Flumpkin@slrpnk.net 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The overwhelming absence of critique in liberal newspapers can be seen as evidence of self censorship due to "anti-semitism". But corporatism / imperialism can also explain that. The charge of antisemitism is always hurdled at pro-palestinian (anti-genocide) protesters. Liberal media was also arguing "(a free Palestine) from the river to the sea" is a call to genocide.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, liberal newspapers. Liberals are not progressives.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

That sound a lot like the No True Scottsman Falacy.

Every single time I've seen politicians in the Anglo-Saxon world harping all about moral liberalism, they're also the same politicians that are "relaxed about wealth" and don't really talk much about how it's wealth discrimination which inflicts the most pain and removes the opportunities for those who are the sons and daughters of those who before were pushed into poverty due to discrimination.

You can't solve the problems from past discrimination that threw people into the pit by keeping the pit going, the ladders to it up and its walls tall and near unsurmountable - if you're not talking about social mobility, the social safety net, worker rights and equal access to Justice, Education and Health independently of wealth when you're talking about discrimination, then you're just another Neolib trying to pass yourself as a leftie as there's no progress in that since you're just keeping the shackles on the descendents of the victims of discrimination (along with a whole lot of other people who just happen to have been born in the less wealty classes).

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 8 points 9 months ago

It's not. In US politics, liberals will often try to paint themselves as progressives, but the policies they hold and the funding for their campaigns tell a very different story.

The banner carrier for the progressive movement in the US is clearly Bernie Sanders, and he doesn't pull this shit. Neither does AOC, or the rest of the "squad". Nobody in progressive media does either.

On the Republican side, it's even more obvious. Republicans have been the driving force behind the anti-BDS movement. Biden might be splitting hairs in his mixed messaging on Israel, but not the Republicans. Republicans are solidly behind Israel in their genocide of Gaza.

Of all the possible political ideologies you could single out for this in America, "progressives" would be the least accurate.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Anybody that goes on and on about how people in some groups defined by the genetics they were born with are victims or are aggressors, is using the very same framework of prejudiced treatment as the far right.

Fair treatment is to classify people as victims or aggressors by those people having actually been victims or having victimized others and then help the former and stop and punish the latter. Not only is it wholly irrelevant the etnicity of the people involved (unless the people who victimized others did so due to the etnicity of said others, in which case they should be punished extra hard, IMHO) but it's also massivelly unfair to paint a wide brush over everybody else who happens to have been born with the same genetics as either because of the actions of just those.

There is no such thing as Positive Prejudice: if you're judging people differently because of their etnicity, you're being unfair, even if you are judging them more positivelly than you would otherwise.

Successive ultra-nationalist and ever more far-right governments of Israel weaponized the "positive" prejudice of many towards Jews, and this is why we find ourselves were we are now: because complete total murderous racist sociopaths hid being this whole etnic group and committed ever more hideous acts of violent racism whilst avoiding punishment for it by taking advantage of people who still run around thinking in the very same mental framework of discrimination as the Nazis had - with a different list of "good" etnicities and "bad" etnicities in their minds than said Nazis, but still judging and behaving towards others differently depending on their etnicity.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What does any of this have to do with misuse of "antisemitism"? Progressives are best defined by their opposition to wealth inequality, so how is any of this on them? If you think progressives in the US are too soft, that's fine, but they are certainly better on wealth inequality than the conservatives and neoliberals.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well, not being in the US, most exposure I've had to self-proclaimed "Progressives" is British neoliberals (mainly the New Labour types).

If "progressives" are indeed against wealth inequality (what in other countries is just called "being leftwing"), maybe it's as somebody else said that it's just that the people I've mainly run across claiming to be "progressives" were just liberals.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

Because the United States is genocidal and proto-fascist too. Where do you think Israel learned it? And before you go “not us,” think about how Israeli’s don’t recognize their fascism.