• PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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    7 months ago

    Another excellent example of misinformation! Finally, something actually worth my time.

    The Facts

    • Hamas supporters vandalized a synagogue with a swastika
    • Some leftists, like Malcolm Harris and David Austin Walsh, interpreted the act as a condemnation of genocide.
    • Swastikas employed against Jews has historically been associated with anti-Semitism. This is the meaning the author of the piece employs.

    The Argument

    • “A swastika clearly has a deep and painful history for the people in our community, it’s a symbol of hatred and death,” a Rabbi
    • “The swastika, whether used as a banner or a symbol of reversal, mainstreams antisemitism, not just to call for the murder of Jews, but for the killing of all those who stand in their way.”
    • Leftists “defended the vandalism as a statement against Israel and in support of the terrorists.”
    • “By defining the Jews as the new Nazis, leftist movements like the DSA justify the mass murder of the Jews, and the violent tactics they use to seize power to fight the Jews.”
    • Given all that, Swastikas Are Progressive Now.

    The Problem

    South Africa has alleged that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The internationally recognized legal definition of genocide comes from the 1948 Genocide Convention, “the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948 and signified the international community’s commitment to ‘never again’ after the atrocities committed during the Second World War.” And contrary to Republican and Israeli talking points, South Africa’s case isn’t baseless. Rather, it’s 84 pages of evidence that includes an entire section titled “Genocidal Acts Committed against the Palestinian People” that alone is a page short of 30.

    Thus, there’s the conveniently unmentioned issue that Israel is committing the same atrocities that its people endured. But this missing fact has a certain rhetorical effect: Israel is all victim according to the author. After all, they were attacked on Oct 7, women were raped and murdered, babies had their heads cut off, and this is what the left defends! The historical meaning of the swastika, used to vandalize a synagogue, has only one meaning where atrocities were committed against the victims that were Jews and the left’s use of it against those very victims must carry the very same meaning. thus, the left is antisemitic.

    Recognizing that Israel is committing genocide and that narrative kinda just…falls apart. Israel were victims, but they’re certainly not anymore. According to the leftists in the article, painting the swastika pushes the Nazi symbol on the Jews in a new way, it asserts that they’re Nazis, they’re the oppressor that once oppressed them. Israel obviously can’t accept that they’ve become the monster that’s haunted their existence for the last seven decades or so, and her supporters go along with it.

    But for the rest of us, it’s clear that when the Head of the Israeli’s Army’s Air Operations Group “described the Air Force as ‘work[ing] together with all the bodies in the IDF when the goal is clear — to destroy everything that has been touched by the hand of Hamas’”, he meant that Jews (specifically, the Israeli military) are the agents of death for Palestinian people.

    • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      The problem with your analysis is who was targeted. Isereal Is doing bad things and a Jewish temple in Pennsylvania was targeted.

      If the black Panthers committed a bunch of crimes would it be permissible to put a burning cross at a church/mosque that supported the black panther movement?

      • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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        7 months ago

        Anti-semitism runs strong with the left. They’ll jump through hoops to justify killing Jews. They ignore why Israeli has to police Gaza and the West Bank. They call Jews, the indigenous population colonizers. That’s like calling Indians colonizers.

        When you remember the Nazi used the democrats to form their racial laws. It all makes sense.

        The answer from the left is simply to genocide the Jews. The Jews shouldn’t defend themselves.

        • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I figure the reason peeps won’t reply is because he knows putting a burning cross in front of a church is a terrible thing but doesn’t want to admit swastikas on temples is just as bad.

          • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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            7 months ago

            Well, I feel like you’re missing the point.

            Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to Jews. Presumably, the synagogue supports Israel’s genocide of Palestinians (I have no idea, frankly. It matters…but not at the moment). And thus, if you accept the new interpretation of the swastika as a mark of hatred and the wish for genocide generally (rather than the mark of hatred and the wish for genocide of Jews specifically), then the swastika acts as a protest against Israeli violence against Palestinians by attempting to remind them and their supports of what was done to them.

            So, I’ll meet you half way: What would have to be done for a burning cross in front of a church to be warranted in the same way the swastika is warranted on a synagogue? Well, they would have to do more than “commit crimes”. They’d have to basically embody the ideals they hate. Just as Jews have become the Nazis for the Palestinians, the Black Panthers would have to terrorize communities, arbitrarily lynch its members, and generally violently enforce a sense of black superiority in those communities. And if a burning cross ended up in front of a black church in support of those atrocities, the symbol could be interpreted in the same way as the swastika on a synagogue.

            Both are obviously bad, but that’s the point. It should be grotesquely offensive.

            • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              The black Panthers were involved in shootouts/turf wars with the black nantionalists, they kidnapped and tortured people, pouring boiling water on a member for 3 days before shooting him and dumping him in a swamp. Had female members savagely beat to keep them in line. Ambushed police officers, traffic narcotics…

              Does that meet your criteria where you would condone someone going full klansman and putting burning crosses at churches and mosques that supported the black Panthers?

              • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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                7 months ago

                No.

                They have to embody the ideals they hate towards another group.

                Look, it’s fine. I get that it’s hard to understand. That’s part of the appeal of the original article, where it redirects you back to the historical meaning of the swastika and insists that it’s meaning is fixed.

                • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  No true scottsman, I get it. Ambushing police officers and murdering them doesn’t count as hate, ambushing black nantionalists and murdering them doesn’t count as hate, pouring boiling water on a person doesn’t count as hate.

          • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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            7 months ago

            Both are bad. The left doesn’t want admit the Palestinians are trying to kills Israelis. Israel is defending themselves. They can’t explain why Gaza and the West Bank are even policed by Israel. Could it be the Arabs tried to erase Israel?

            • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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              7 months ago

              Why doesn’t Israel police Lebanon, too?

              Let’s just assume it’s okay to round up people who hate you and try to control them. Your assumption, certainly not mine. Then why shouldn’t Israel also extend their police infrastructure to the surrounding Middle East generally?

              • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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                7 months ago

                They do in self defense.

                The problem is Egypt won’t take Gaza back and Jordan won’t take the West Bank back.

                That’s why they are out in limbo. Nobody wants them.

                • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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                  7 months ago

                  The problem is Egypt won’t take Gaza back and Jordan won’t take the West Bank back.

                  I had to look that up…and of course, it’s false. Plus, it’s as if Israel is just offering either territory to either country.

                  I’m calling it. I’m done.

    • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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      7 months ago

      Recognizing that Israel is committing genocide and that narrative kinda just

      The October was genocide as well. Until you recognize Hamas is trying to genocide the Jews, you just don’t have credibility.

      • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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        7 months ago

        Until you recognize Hamas is trying to genocide the Jews, you just don’t have credibility.

        Okay fine. Hamas wants to exterminate all Jews in Israel.

        There. Recognized.

        So what? What changed? Do you think I’m taking sides between two groups who want death and destruction for the other? As if I’m defending the rights of Hamas to wage war on Israel in opposition to Israel’s right to wage war on Hamas. Because you’d be wrong.

        • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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          7 months ago

          And the Palestinians are Hamas and support Hamas.

          Remember when they showed the dead German girl. Who went to save her or tell them to stop? Nobody. They cheered.

          As a group they are working to genocide the Jewish people.

          So don’t be shocked when Israel comes it to stop the group trying to kill them. Don’t be shocked when they monitor everything that comes into Gaza when they use those weapons to attack Israel.

          Why do you think the world is turning a blind eye to what’s going on? They know Israel is trying to stop a threat again the Jewish people.

          • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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            7 months ago

            See this is what I hate. You do think I’m defending Hamas and Palestinian aggression despite me saying otherwise all the time. And then you defend Israel’s genocide like I’m arguing for violence, just Palestinian instead of Israeli.

            Why do you think the world is turning a blind eye to what’s going on? They know Israel is trying to stop a threat again the Jewish people.

            Uhhh they’re not. There’s a reason Israel is losing support internationally.

            • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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              7 months ago

              Israel hasn’t really lost any support. Which country had said they’d use force to stop them? Nobody. Not a single country has issued a use of force to stop them.

                • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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                  7 months ago

                  When someone does it, we can have that discussion.

                  Most Israel hate is nothing more than thinly veiled anti-semitism. When you call the native people colonizers, you play your hand openly.

  • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Anyone who puts a swastika on a synagogue is absolute scum in my opinion, no matter if it was supposed to be an ironic commentary or even a condemnation of how Israel has become the very thing that tried to destroy them.

    But this… Coming to the conclusion that the left are nazis is about the wrongest possible conclusion you could arrive at.

    It seems like it’s only possible to believe this when you don’t know what these words mean. Or don’t want to know what these words mean.

    • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      It’s pretty obvious that people here don’t know what those words mean. Or don’t want to. Communists, democrats and nazis are not all the same thing.

      My main reason for posting here is to let anyone reading this know that putting a swastika on a synagogue is never ok, it is in no way a legitimate protest or political act.

      Further, that somebody did this, -and some knuckle heads attempted to interpret it- is not legitimate proof that “the left are nazis.” This nonsensical argument is an attempt to demonize and discredit those who protest the killing of children. You don’t have to wish for the destruction of Israel to think that killing children - Israeli or palestinian children- is wrong.

      It is strange that to speak out against the deliberate starvation and killing of children is to be accused of antisemitism.

      It is strange that to point out the moral implications of collective punishment and indiscriminate bombing of civilian noncombatants is to be accused of supporting hamas.

      See this is what I hate. You do think I’m defending Hamas and Palestinian aggression despite me saying otherwise all the time. And then you defend Israel’s genocide like I’m arguing for violence, just Palestinian instead of Israeli.

      This is the dishonest and manipulative tactic of those who want to justify the thinking that for every wrongdoing of the enemy, a million more wrongs must be measured out in response. If you disagree, then you are accused of supporting the enemy. If you disagree with killing children, you are labeled a hamas-loving terrorist that wants to eradicate the nation of Israel. It is nonsense.

      This is nothing new. During the Vietnam war, people protesting the US military burning Vietnamese civilians, including children with napalm were called " disloyal." People protesting burning children alive were called “communists that hate America”.

      Does anyone really believe that burning Vietnamese children with napalm was a perfectly acceptable way for America to defend itself against communism?

    • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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      7 months ago

      But this… Coming to the conclusion that the left are nazis is about the wrongest possible conclusion you could arrive at

      Not it’s pretty obvious. It’s not an accident the Nazis based their policies on the democrats.

      Which side is asking for Israel to be destroyed? You know the homeland of the Jews?