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One of the most frustrating things about Israel apologists is how they constantly pretend to believe things they don’t really believe in order to push Israeli PR.
There’s a tweet going around by a rabbi named Elchanan Poupko that says “I had never met a Zionist who does not care also for the lives of innocent Palestinians. I have never met an anti-zionist who does care for the lives of israelis. That is the difference between us.”
This person does not believe his own claim. He is knowingly lying about what he thinks is true about Zionists.
A Penn State survey published in Israeli media last year found that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza. Nearly half, 47 percent, said the IDF should kill all inhabitants of any city they capture — that’s inhabitants, not combatants.
Rabbi Poupko may not be aware of this specific poll, but he does interact with Zionists on a regular basis. He personally knows Zionists who would tell him to his face that his claim is false, and he is fully aware of this. He is knowingly lying in order to promote the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
They do this all the time, with everything. They’ll falsely claim pro-Palestine protests make them feel unsafe just to get laws passed to shut down the demonstrations. They’ll pretend to believe that phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” are hateful slogans which encourage antisemitic attacks. They’ll regurgitate ridiculous hasbara slogans like “human shields” and “world’s most moral army” which they know for a fact are false. They just make whatever noises they need to make to keep the western weapons shipments heading to Tel Aviv.
And, I mean, of course they do. They’re bad people. They’d support a genocide, so there’s not a lot they wouldn’t do. Of course they’ll lie and manipulate to advance the agendas of their favorite ethnonationalist war machine. Israel supporters are awful.
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A Jesus statue vandalized by Israeli soldiers has been treated with more solemnity and contrition than any IDF massacre of real human beings over the past three years. Top Israeli officials like Benjamin Netanyahu and Gideon Saar have posted statements condemning the incident, and the Israeli military has issued an apology and sentenced two men to thirty days in jail over the incident.
This is happening because Israel knows its American support base of Christian conservatives will care more about the statue than all of the IDF’s attacks on Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian human beings combined since 2023. Middle easterners are so dehumanized in their eyes that they are viewed as less valuable than a Jesus-shaped piece of fiberglass.
Israel will let its soldiers commit every humanitarian abuse in the book, but jeopardizing the support base that keeps the weapons flowing? That’s a no-no.
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On Monday, President Trump said on social media that “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran.”
On Tuesday, the State Department issued a press release which included the words “the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”
So I guess the official answer to the question of whether the US went to war with Iran at Israel’s request depends on the mood of the day and which administration figure happens to be speaking at the moment.
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Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said during a security assessment on Thursday that Israel is “awaiting a green light from the United States, first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty, the initiator of the extermination plan against Israel, and the successors of the successors of the leadership of the Iranian terror regime, and in addition to return Iran to the age of darkness and stone by blowing up central energy and electricity facilities and crushing national economic infrastructure.”
These freaks speak this way about the savagery they intend to inflict upon Iran, and yet to this day whenever I oppose this crazy evil war I still get bootlickers in my replies babbling about how the war is about freeing the Iranian people.
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The use of trained rape dogs in Israeli prisons is so well–documented at this point that there is no valid reason to doubt it is happening. All the hasbarists can say is “It’s crazy to think Israel would do something so evil!” Which nobody who’s been paying attention believes.
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People who advocate a “demilitarized” Palestinian state are admitting they know Israel would continue attacking and abusing the Palestinians under a two-state solution and they want to ensure that the Palestinians are powerless to stop it.
They don’t want Israel to be forced to get along with its neighbors like every normal country on earth. They want to ensure that Israel can continue terrorizing the Palestinians at every whim without the normal force deterrence systems possessed by any real state.
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If your strongest argument for censoring anti-Israel speech begins with the words “It makes Jewish people feel,” then your argument isn’t strong enough to be taken seriously. We’re talking about genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and nonstop wars here. Feelings take a backseat to these issues — even the feelings of people who strongly believe their feelings matter more than human lives.
Feeling uncomfortable feelings is fine and normal. We’re all supposed to feel uncomfortable feelings from time to time, especially when terrible things are happening. I myself have been feeling many uncomfortable feelings while scrolling my social media feed since October 2023, but I don’t feel entitled enough to believe laws should be passed and the internet should be censored in order to shelter me from experiencing those feelings.
Suck it up, buttercup. These are conversations that need to be had.
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The food and fuel crisis that’s about to hit is the fault of the US and Israel. All US and Israeli allies should end the alliances and collaborate with nations around the world to establish a new order of international power.
I’ll keep repeating this as life gets harder for us all.
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Caitlin Johnstone 