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I don’t believe you can be a good Zionist anymore than I believe someone can be a decent Nazi. The ideology itself describes a major character flaw.
I cannot take seriously the idea that some ethnicities or religious groups are inherently prone to nefarious behavior; it goes against everything I’ve learned about the human condition over the course of my strange adventures on this planet. I absolutely do believe, however, that there are political ideologies whose adherents are universally dogshit people.
If you’ve been watching the incineration of the Gaza Strip and thinking it’s good, or thinking it’s complicated, or thinking it’s an unfortunate development that can be blamed on a few bad apples in the Israeli government but doesn’t reflect Israel’s nature as a whole, then you’re a piece of shit. You’re a horrible human being. It really is that simple.
If you can look at Israel starting all these wars, bombing the fuck out of Iran and Lebanon and Palestine, passing laws to execute Palestinians exclusively while sparing Jews from the same sentencing for the same crimes, and still fail to recognize that the Israel experiment must be aborted, then you have not developed a functioning conscience. You have wasted your time on this planet. You have not managed to mature into a morally healthy human in all these years you’ve been alive.
There are Zionists who are vegetarian, who are nice to their pets, who give money to charity — but there are no Zionists who are actually good people. John Wayne Gacy did charity clown shows for hospitalized children, but he was still a serial killer and a very bad man. His abusiveness eclipsed any other kindness he may have performed, and became his defining characteristic as an individual.
Being a supporter of the Israel project is exactly the same. It doesn’t matter what else you do with your life if you stand on the side of a man-made murder machine which is fueled by the blood of the innocent. You’re just plain awful.
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Israel’s Knesset has passed its notorious bill to execute Palestinians convicted of “terrorism” in bogus military court show trials. The law is explicitly crafted to exclude Jews and solely target Palestinians, which is about as strong a sign you’re looking at apartheid as you could possibly imagine.
As The Times of Israel explains, “The law effectively enshrines capital punishment for Palestinians alone, as it explicitly excludes Israeli citizens or residents, and Palestinians alone are tried in military courts. Israelis are tried in civilian courts.”
For years Israel apologists have been admonishing me for calling Israel an apartheid state. For years liberal “moderates” have been saying it’s extreme for me to call Zionism a fundamentally racist and murderous ideology. And yet, here we are. Can’t wait to hear the hasbarists try to spin this one.
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On Monday US Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed Iran for spending its money on weapons instead of investing it toward the benefit of the Iranian people, saying “Imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, Iran had spent that money helping the people of Iran. They would have a much different country.”
Again, this is an official from the United States of America saying this. Literally the funniest country that could possibly utter this criticism of another country’s military spending.
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Violence in the middle east spiraled into a hot war with Iran because the world didn’t have the sense to tell Israel it got what it deserved on October 7.
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As Trump threatens to blow up Iranian desalination plants and US-Israeli attacks on civilian targets get more and more egregious, an article from Middle East Eye titled “Iranian livelihoods are being blown apart by US and Israeli bombs” paints a picture of the way people’s lives are being ruined even among those who are fortunate enough to survive the onslaught.
“They [the US and Israel] said they were bringing us freedom. Is this what freedom looks like?” says a 40 year-old man in Tehran after his small optical store was obliterated despite no military targets being located in the area.
And yet the next time the US wants to bomb a country to topple its government we’re going to see its diaspora cheerleading the attack and telling everyone this time it really is about bringing freedom and democracy to the victims of a tyrannical regime. There are suckers in every country.
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It’s hilarious that there are billionaires poisoning every facet of our society and making everyone miserable and starting insane wars and incinerating the biosphere and there are people trying to tell me I should be angry at Muslims.
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Caitlin Johnstone 