Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008.
Also the fact that so many in the US claim they remember he died in prison should say something about the media landscape.
From the European perspective I recall the concerts that were held to free him and then also the concert that was held after he was free. Simple Minds even made a famous song for it [1]. I don't know if those concets were a big show in the US, we only had a few TV stations and this was always a big thing.
As far as the European vs. US on the current situation - Euro countries are denying entry to journalists and doctors who are EU citizens just because they are speaking about the atrocities they have seen on the ground.
While Euro countries tend to be a tiny bit better than the US on the issues, they are generally much more restrictive in terms of protected speech.
For example, a former Greek finance minister was banned from the Schengen area (which includes Greece) by Germany, and not because the Greek economy is terrible.
You say "Euro countries" but let's be clear - it's only Germany.
> Protests and petitions are completely ineffective
They have been effective for millenia, even before democracy. The only thing ineffective now is people saying so. With all the evidence in the world that protest works, people bizarrely disarm themselves.
The targets of the protests take great pains to convince you of it; that should tell you something. They'll bluff until they lose.
I think this greatly depends on rhe type of protest, specifically whether it threatens the ruling class's ability to make a profit or to govern. In recent centuries liberal governments have gotten better at channeling discontent into forms of protest that are less consequential and more performative.
The world would be better off if all the defeatists followed their own advice and did something else with their lives, and left the political activities to a new generation with fight and committment and passion in them, people with leadership and agency.
If people are going to quit, then quit! Stop coming to the meeting and talking about you've quit!
I remember the massive protests against the Itaq war, and how they were effectively managed in the US. In NYC for example, the train service into the cott was interrupted, delaying many protesters.
Millions protested the Vietnam war. Many millions more protested the Iraq war. Millions upon millions have protested against Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people for an entire year. Now those same people also protest against Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
It has been ineffective. We've seen peaceful protestors smeared, and beaten and harassed by the police. We've seen counter terror laws abused to smear and arrest leaders. We've seen clampdowns on what protests are allowed to go ahead, and at least on the UK they are pushing and pushing for "tougher" laws to crush protests.
We're also entering our third generation of peaceful protest against climate change with no effects whatsoever.
Protest movements are only effective when they present a viable alternative to a more radical movement with a will to violence at their flank. We saw this clearly in the indian independence & american civil rights movements, and the fall of apartheid. Iraq war and climate movement are what you get without the credible threat of violence behind or beside your peaceful protests.
One important lesson of the iraq war protests now that we can see with hindsight: we were right, and we were justified in using much more radical tactics than we actually did. Those horrors lay partially at our coward feet so let's not allow ourselves to be convinced to repeat it with palestine.
What's incredible is not only the vast disinformation on other issues, but their ability to get into the heads of even the protestors and have them parroting obvious nonsense (if you think or look at the evidence). The right doesn't have to lift a finger, make an argument, face any political struggle, because their opponents all lay down their (peaceful, political) arms and quit on their own!
You are your opponents' dream. They couldn't write a better script for you - quitting and self-defeating, at the same time!
You've given up on peaceful protest and are embracing radicalized, violent protest, which is self-defeating. Again, your enemies love you - you're doing exactly what they hope.
No I'm pointing out that some peaceful protest movements are missing a key component of successful protest movements. You calling this self defeating doesn't make it so. hth
Peaceful protest does work and has worked; that's quitting on it. Adopting violence is self-defeating. What basis do you have for your theories, other than the passing fashion of despairing and quitting.
First, that is cherry-picking. We can find lots of examples of protest being effective. [0] And as I pointed out elsewhere, the right wing - while teaching their enemies to quit - embraces activism fully and has been incredibly successful.
It's only ineffective if your measure is immediate, complete victory. You don't win everything, you face defeat, and you quit? Then I agree, your protest is useless. You think you are somehow entitled to results? Yes, your protest is worthless, a pantomime. Protest isn't a ritual you perform - a raindance that you do - and then the gods respond with whatever it is you asked for. Protest compels results - it's embracing that you are the agent, you are the power, you make it happen; the enemy will give you nothing. If you don't understand that, if you aren't planning for it, if you have no strategy that will compel victory, then you're just entitled. (I think the latter is the problem with most of the protests now - they're doing raindances.)
And you go around telling people how hopeless it is? Have you ever accomplished anything? Has anyone who has ever said those things? People saying those things are the first problem - if they were on my team, I'd tell them to never say that again or simply don't come back.
Regardless, the protests have altered behavior, including by European leaders and by the most powerful person in the world (POTUS) and a candidate for that office (Harris). They may cost Harris the election by denying her enough votes in Michigan. And though nobody can say for sure, they arguably have altered the Israeli government's behavior, though the protestors will certainly and understandably say, not nearly enough.
Finally, to evaluate protest, compare it to the alternative: silence. Imagine horrors went on and society responded with silence. Imagine how demoralizing that would be to the ordinary person, who does have a moral conscience. Imagine how crushing to public morality if nobody said anything. Protestors are essential.
[0] There was some research, I think from 10-20 years ago, that showed that it succeeds at a high rate. But I don't recall what kind of protest, etc., so I hope someone else knows about it.
No - you'll need to motivate yourself, drive yourself. Otherwise, you can't participate anyway. That's why this defeatest rhetoric is spread - to keep you from even trying.
You haven't achieved more because you and all these other people quit. Of course you're not achieving anything.
I think mass refusal to work and spend money to the point where it starts inflicting enough pain on the government to take the desired action, would also significantly affect people who have nothing to do with the conflict, and it would have a greater effect on the poor than the rich as recessions tend to do.
I’m not sure if that would be an ethical course of action outside the country where the oppression is actually happening.
I mean bombing government buildings (which is what landed Mandela in prison) is definitely what most people would consider terrorism, or treason, or similar things. Now you can argue that Mandela's actions were justified because Apartheid was evil (and I agree that it was evil) but that's entirely different than arguing that he was just a poor victim of the racist SA government who was imprisoned because he wanted to end Apartheid.
The problem is that people feel morally uncomfortable arguing that it's ok to bomb government buildings (and similar actions) when your cause is just, because that raises all sorts of other moral quandaries that most people don't want to (or refuse to) face. So they pretend like Mandela and his party were perfect angels practicing non-violent resistance like MLK so they can avoid the moral quandaries raised by suggesting that terrorism is ok for a just cause.
The poster seems to be arguing that what we consider "terrorism" can be justified sometimes, but people have a need to whitewash their heroes rather than perform these justifications, so I think he is on your side
That's not how collateral damage works. The moral and legal responsibility is on the one dropping the bombs. As horrible as the US wars were, when we decided to kill Bin Laden, we sent a special operations team at night instead of flattening entire villages in Pakistan.
The indiscriminate killing that Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon is unprecedented since the second World War. Justifying it will normalize civilian casualties in future wars that with be disastrous for everyone.
Otherwise protected targets like hospitals lose their protected status if they're used as a base of military operations or for other similar purposes.
And the US didn't send a spec ops team to get Bin Laden because they were worried about the Geneva Conventions. They sent one because they wanted to make absolutely certain that they got their target (see Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora in 2001 for an example of this) and because they were operating in Pakistan so showing up with a whole brigade or carpet bombing the compound wouldn't have gone over well with the Pakistani government. It already didn't go over well with just a surgical strike by spec ops, it would have been much worse if it was done by a larger show of force.
Okay, well then if government buildings house any members of the IDF or apartheid South Africa's military, then certainly they are also legitimate targets and it is not "terrorism" to destroy them with bombs? Or, conversely, the label must also be applied to IDF sorties?
>Okay, well then if government buildings house any members of the IDF or apartheid South Africa's military, then certainly they are also legitimate targets and it is not "terrorism" to destroy them with bombs?
Only if you ignore the distinctions between what was essentially a civil war fought by insurgents (like in Apartheid South Africa) and a war between two sovereign powers.
What percentage of Gaza, would you say, has to be leveled and carpet bombed before you would no longer characterize the Israelis as "limiting collateral damage"?
The decisions about which buildings to bomb are made by AI in order to select targets faster than humans can generate and review them manually. When you say making individual decisions, you mean through AI automation. This info comes from primary sources.
Showing restraint with atomic weapons is hardly a pass for lesser violence
> The problem is that people feel morally uncomfortable arguing that it's ok to bomb government buildings (and similar actions) when your cause is just, because that raises all sorts of other moral quandaries that most people don't want to (or refuse to) face
I mean, what you are describing is just war theory, and pretty much every government in the world subscribes to it.
>The problem is that people feel morally uncomfortable arguing that it's ok to bomb government buildings (and similar actions) when your cause is just
I don't think anybody has any moral quandaries about it when it is THEIR cause. Only when it is someone else's cause. Name one freedom fighter/revolutionary (even a perfectly non-violent one) who is not a 'terrorist' to the regime theyre trying to overthrow. I don't think anyone 'pretends' Mandela was a 'perfect angel' anymore than anyone pretends the founding fathers were beacons of unblemished moral rectitude.
>So they pretend like Mandela and his party were perfect angels practicing non-violent resistance like MLK
They were far from it, then again, the ANC campaign killed less than 100 people (excluding their sorta-civil-war with Zulu which isn't what people think about) and ultimately played no role in their victory.
As I said, I don't want this to become a flame war, and to that end would have preferred not to name the apartheid state in question.
But since you insist, nobody is just 'making it so by saying it' - indeed, saying it's not happening, in spite of the abundance of evidence, does not mean it's not!
I've Norwegian friends who have seen it first hand and we're aghast, but of course that's just a personal anecdote that just happens to agree with the ICJ, Human Rights Watch, and even Israel's own B’Tselem[0].
And no - I absolutely will not try to see "both sides" of apartheid. That's a really heinous thing to say.
> Because my personal operating definition is where you have one single country that has a different set of laws for different groups of people living in that country based on their ethnicity or skin colour.
“ Walk around Hebron, look at the streets. Streets where Arabs are no longer allowed to go on, only Jews.” - says
Amiram Levin, former head of the Israeli army’s Northern Command.
That’s within the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel. A separate issue is that Israel enjoys full control over 60% of the West Bank (Area C), which is ever expanding, and various degrees of defects control over the rest of it. Within the West Bank Israeli settlers have more freedom of movement and less restrictions on their day to day lives. So any characterization of the West Bank as an independent country or polity is completely missing the point.
Also, and I don't want to take a position here, my advocacy is for learning as much about the history and current state of affairs as possible in order to form an informed position, because not only is there fog of war going on right now, but there is a decades long conflict with lots of narratives and propaganda.
I say that to offer a counter narrative in pursuit of objectivity: if you ask an Israeli, there are many areas in the West Bank that are deemed "no go zones" for for Jews, but there are none that apply to non-Jews.
And as for the security and the "check points", those are applied equally to everyone who is there, regardless of citizenship or ethnicity or any other considerations. So even if it's a shitty situation, it's not targeted at any specific ethnic group.
So given that a) Israel does not govern Hebron and b) the security check points are not specific to any ethnic group, how is Hebron a data point that supports the "apartheid" charge?
Oh to the contrary - It would be the privileged who would be fine chasing some ideal in the name of justice while sacrificing all the unprivileged people who are actually suffering day to day.
While the situation in Israel differs from that in the West Bank, there are still significant elements of systemic discrimination against Arab citizens. The 2018 Nation-State Law is a prime example, as it:
1. Removedd Arabic as an offical language
2. Defined Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people exclusively
3. Declared Jewish settlements a national value
This law effectively codified the second-class status of Arab citizens, who make up about 20% of Israel's population. Additionally, Arab Israelis face ongoing disparities in areas such as education, employment, and housing. They are underrepresented in government and leadership positions.
While Arab citizens have legal rights on paper, the reality is a system of de facto segregation and institutional discrimination. The Nation-State Law and other policies create a two-tiered system that privileges Jewish citizens over Arab citizens, meeting key criteria of apartheid even within Israel proper.
Show me a country that doesn't have systemic discrimination of minority groups.
At the end of the day it's quite clear why jewish people want a jewish country, so yes, some discrimination around immigration will always be "built-in" into israel.
Now do I think israel is trending in the wrong direction? 100% yes. Do I wish for a two state solution and achieving as equal rights as possible while maintaining the status of israel as a jewish state? also 100% yes.
Do I think that calling israel proper an apartheid is just leading to people on both sides to become even more extreme? also yes.
Could a one state solution work sometime deep into the future? Perhaps, but the only way to achieve a stable and prosperous one state solution is by first having a two state solution with decades of peace, rebuilding of trust and a return to a more secular direction from both sides.
If you'd try to force a one state solution in the near/medium term you'd just end up with another divided failed state similar to lebanon (and probably much worse), the population would just be too divided on basically every subject, with militant/religious extremists on both sides making the keg especially explosive.
So ask yourself what is better for the people, trying to achieve some ideal for the sake of that ideal or actually trying to achieve something that could work? If this were an engineering project, would you do a full refactor with an extremely high chance of failure or go through an intermediate step that would bring a lot of the benefits with a much higher chance of success?
Your comment is complicated in and of itself, even without the enormous historical, legal-theoretic and political context surrounding that law and its enactment.
Constantly framing it as „complicated“ does not make it so. It was populated land, home to muslims, Christians, jews. One state for all. Until Zionism started colonising Palestine. And expelled Christians and muslims. First Zionists called their conferences „Colonising Palestine“. Nothing complicated.
Constantly claiming it is not complicated does not make it so. It was populated land - before Greeks, Romans, Christians and Muslims conquered it and ethnically cleansed the Jews from the area. There wasn't one state - in what is Israel/Palestine today, until 1948, was at least Jordan, Egypt, British Palestine and Syria.
Ahh, here we go again: „Thousands of years ago jewish people populated the area.“ And that’s how nations define their borders in modern days? Who said it was one state? I said it was populated land. People lived there for centuries. Mostly Christian and muslim arabs. Some jewish arabs. And then came a settler colonial ideology in 19th century, way before Holocaust, polish jews, created the idea for a jewish majority homeland in an area that was populated, so they expelled many people from their homes in Palestine. And that led to first Nakba. Today we witness the second Nakba. The most detailed documentation of a Genocide.
Btw: „God‘s chosen people, God‘s promised land, nation state law, jewish majority“. Sounds very racist to me. - If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it is propably a duck?
Here we go again with genocide and nakba and settler colonialism.
Here's the thing about settler colonialism: it's when you're sent by an empire to settle on land you're not native to. Jews are native to Israel. Dig in the ground, you'll find coins and pots and tablets in Hebrew.
"Thousands of years ago" is not OK, but "for centuries" is. Sorry, you don't get to choose.
As for the second Nakba, October 7th really was as close to a second holocaust as the Jews experienced, one in a long line of pogroms. To do that and then hide behind and below women, children and innocent civilians you're using as human shields, that's beyond a war crime, it's a crime against humanity.
As for the idea of a Jewish majority homeland, go check the bible. It predates "polish jews in the 19th century" by a few centuries.
Dig in the ground, you'll find coins and pots and tablets in Hebrew.
Hey, looks like they just found not just a few coins and pots, but an entire Nabatean temple (along with a warehouse district) just off the cost of Italy.
So by your logic, Jordan and/or Saudi Arabia are welcome to annex the surrounding land (which much have belonged to the settlement also), and start kicking out the rootless interlopers currently living the area, any time they want to.
If you check the Bible you'll find that the Jews obtained their "homeland" through... genocide. Their deity told them to move there and kill every man, woman, child, and even the livestock already living there. They're just another invader.
Then they had a kingdom that lasted about 200 years before falling apart, we can count it as almost 500 years if you want to include the kingdom of Judah time. And now it's more than 2500 years later. Jews who can't trace a single ancestor back to the Middle East for hundreds of years can somehow claim to be indigenous to the land and "return" there. And they have the right to displace or murder the people who have been living there for generations and whose genetics show their ancestors have been in that area for hundreds or thousands of years.
Clearly this is an absurd standard of 'indigenous' that nobody in their right mind should take seriously.
As for your other claims, they are irrelevant. Whether or not Hamas uses or has used human shields is completely unrelated to whether or not it is good or righteous to commit genocide on the Palestinians (indeed, there can be NO excuse for genocide). And if using human shields is so vile that the people of the same country deserve to be slaughtered I should point out that the Israeli military has a rich history of using Palestinian civilians (including children) as human shields. And if October 7th qualifies as a holocaust, then what Israel has done in Gaza is a holocaust ten times over.
Thank you for the first part. Never saw it so clear. Here is a write up based on your text:
Jewish History in Palestine
The history of Jewish presence in Palestine and the claim to this land is often justified by religious, historical, and modern political narratives. Central to the debate are the biblical accounts of the conquest of Canaan and the brief duration of the ancient Jewish kingdoms. Today, the Jewish claim to the land after more than 2,000 years is frequently challenged, especially in light of the continuous presence of Palestinians in the region.
Biblical Narratives and the Conquest of Canaan
The Bible provides several accounts of the violent conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. Their God explicitly commanded them to exterminate the native population. This is illustrated clearly in the book of Joshua, where the destruction of Jericho is described:
“And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.”
(Joshua 6:21)
This systematic annihilation of the population was understood by the Israelites as a divine command. A more explicit directive is found in the book of Deuteronomy:
“But of the cities of these peoples, which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them…”
(Deuteronomy 20:16–18)
These passages suggest that the Israelites did not acquire their “homeland” through peaceful settlement but through genocide. According to the biblical narrative, they were invaders, seizing land through brutal force and eliminating its original inhabitants.
The Brief Duration of the Ancient Jewish Kingdoms
While the Jewish kingdoms play a significant role in the Bible, their actual existence was historically limited. The Kingdom of Israel (the northern kingdom) lasted only about 200 years before being conquered by the Assyrians, while the Kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) existed for around 350 years before being destroyed by the Babylonians. In total, the Jewish people had about 500 years of political control in the region—a relatively short period compared to the millennia during which other civilizations lived there.
Now, more than 2,500 years have passed since the fall of these Jewish kingdoms. In that time, the descendants of the local populations—today’s Palestinians—have lived continuously in the region. The claim that Jews, after centuries of absence, have a right to return to this land appears weak, especially considering that many Jews living in Israel today have no genealogical connection to ancient Israel.
Ancestry and Genetic Studies
Modern genetic research further supports the notion of a deep-rooted Palestinian presence in the region. A 2017 study revealed that around 90% of the DNA of modern Palestinians is derived from the people who lived in Bronze Age Canaan. This suggests that the Palestinians are the direct descendants of the ancient inhabitants who lived there long before the arrival of the Israelites.
In contrast, many modern Jews have no traceable ancestry to the biblical Israelites. Historians like Shlomo Sand argue that many Jews are descendants of later converts, such as the Khazars from Eastern Europe, who embraced Judaism centuries after the fall of the Jewish kingdoms. These findings cast doubt on the idea that Jews have an inherent right to return to the land.
Historical Expulsions and Colonization
The claim of returning to the “ancestral homeland” after over 2,000 years is also problematic from a historical and moral standpoint. Following their expulsion by the Romans in the 1st century CE, Jews lived primarily in the Diaspora, while the ancestors of today’s Palestinians continued to reside in the region.
In the 20th century, European powers, through the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, facilitated colonial projects that supported the Zionist movement. These events led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, resulting in the Nakba—the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes. As such, the establishment of Israel can be seen as a colonial project that relied on the displacement and dispossession of the native population to make way for Jewish settlers, many of whom had no direct genealogical link to the region.
—-
The biblical account of the genocidal conquest of Canaan and the brief political presence of the ancient Jewish kingdoms challenge the modern Jewish claim to the land. Given the genetic continuity of the Palestinian population and the colonial backing of modern Zionism, the Jewish right of return after so many centuries appears increasingly questionable.
With barbarism you mean breaking of any rule of engagement? Shooting civilians, children, innocents? Or fighting for the right to rape detainees on TV? Or starving 2.5 mil civilians?
The whole world sees who the barbarians are. You keep believing in fairy tales in your echo chamber.
You need to understand as long as Citizens United stand it's practically impossible to make a change like this in the United States. People don't care enough and political issues are bought.
IMHO, you need to understand that your messaging is the only problem. For example, people on the right have made revolutionary changes - unthinkable changes as of 10 years ago.
