Clever_Clover [she/her]

on discord on linux you can’t screenshare with desktop audio, I think this might be already fixed in newer electron versions (but discord is closed source and has not updated their electron in a long time)

I of course know and absolutely condemn that, again what is your point?

You do not know what these words mean and you do not truly condemn them, that’s clear by the arguments you make

Israel is the most diverse country in the whole region without question

“Without question” since when are you a middle east expert? How many years did it take to get your doctorate degree on the subject?

Israel is not diverse, an apartheid state cannot be applauded for having the second class citizens be of a different race, by your logic south Africa during apartheid was the most diverse country in the southern African region

and it is also also the only democracy

Do you know what an apartheid state is? Could you give me that definition, and then give me the definition of a democracy, and try to weasel your way out of the contradiction that an apartheid state can’t be a democracy

Other countries in the region are monarchies or (often military) dictatorships.

The UK is a monarchy, but I bet you think it’s democratic to some degree, are you aware that a lot of the monarchies in the region employ a similar parliamentary system?

Israel is also the only country in the region that has womens and LGBTQ+ rights written into it’s law

You can blame CIA funding the religious extremist reactionaries (and also the british bringing in the criminalization of lgbtq people during their colonial rule over the region) for the oppressive laws that exist in the region, but despite that it’s not as bad in certain countries that are more progressive, a lot of the middle eastern countries are on the level of Serbia/other reactionary Balkan countries in terms of lgbtq stuff

Israel is not really better for lgbtq people, especially Palestinian citizens of Israel that belong to that group, they are very heavily oppressed and regularly harassed and even get blackmailed by the IDF due to their identities

You show that you don’t know anything about the region, just repeat the propaganda and pink washing that you’ve been fed.

while in all other countries in the region women are being oppressed second class citizens

it’s very funny that you think this, in a lot of the countries in the region (notable exceptions being US allies like Saudi Arabia) women have the same rights and protections under the law, this has been the case for many many years in most of these countries, women’s rights are lagging behind the west sure, but it’s nowhere near as bad as you have been told, especially in more recent years

Agreed but sadly, when we look at history, it seems to happen quite often, no matter if we like it or not.

“Agreed but” no buts, this is not a justifiable action, the fact that it happened in the past doesn’t justify current day actionsththe fact that the US and Britain committed genocide doesn’t mean we should just give up on fucking stopping genocide, “no matter if we like it or not” we have reached an agreement that we don’t like it, a global consensus that it is bad (other than the US and other western countries that support Israel, they love genocide), so we should stop people from committing genocide, if Russia starts to commit an actual genocide in Ukraine like Israel is doing in Gaza, then you’ll no doubt agree that the world should sanction them, etc, in order to stop them, you just don’t think Palestinians are people like Ukrainians are.

I fully agree with that statement. However this does not justify generalizing all Israeli citizens as child murderers.

During Hitlers rule of Nazi Germany, a very large number of Germans picked up arms and fought against their government, and were killed for it, mainly communists and leftists

But a lot Germans lived happily under and supported the actions of their government

Would you say those Germans that never lifted a finger to oppose the genocide and ethnic cleansing of jews were responsible for what happened? I’d say yes, they did not protest, did not resist, especially the ones that served in the army

Are you aware that the majority of Israeli citizens are reservists that will pick up arms to serve in the IDF if given the order? Are you aware that the IDF has a higher than 80% approval rating among Israelis? How are these people not complicit?

I fully agree with you that jews are just people like everyone else but we should also consider the regular antisemitic pogroms that happened throughout history, which are an obvious motivation for a community to get their own safe space in the world.

We should indeed consider those pogroms, every antisemite in Europe should be killed for their crimes, rather than what happened (governments with the help of NATO suppressing communists and leftists and promoting nationalistic (usually antisemitic) groups)

Also, all you’ve done with this argument is establish that “Jews should get an ethnostate” (I still disagree but I’ll humor you for a second), you did not establish that a noble cause justifies ethnic cleansing and genocide, therefore the actions of Israel are no more acceptable than the actions of british settlers committing genocide against native Americans

Absolutely agree. Please keep in mind that I in fact never apologized any of the crimes of the IDF or the illegal settlers.

You did, continuously bringing up that zionists have a (in your view) noble cause is an attempt at the justification of ethnic cleansing and genocide

All I did was criticizing the antisemitic generalization of all citizens of Israel as casual child murderers.

They are complicit in the child murder.

Sadly it seems like most people’s opinions are simply too polarized to get such nuances at this point.

You’re a liberal.

I condemn the racist politics of the right-extremist government of Israel and the social segregation and severe injustice it causes. What is your point?

Israel is an apartheid state, this isn’t new, this isn’t something that the current government did, this is the establishing principle of the state that has been held up since the start, calling an apartheid state “diverse” like you did in your first post is absolutely incorrect and is not close to the reality of the situation in any way shape or form, it’s pure propaganda

There was this thing you all constantly choose to ignore, called the holocaust, that afaik not just a lot of antifascists see as a reason why Israel must exist, simply because otherwise the Jews will not survive capitalism.

having suffered in the past does not give a group of people free reign to commit those same acts against a separate unaffiliated population, having an ethnostate in the first place is not a good goal, but even if we said it was necessary, doing it through the ethnic cleansing and genocide of another group is not at all justifiable in any way.

treating things as if jews are simply different from regular people and could never survive as a minority in another country so they should not be judged by the same standard we apply to everyone is in itself an anti-semitic view to have, jews are regular people, committing genocide and ethnic cleansing is bad, whoever does it and however noble their goal is doesn’t change that fact.

but you’ve labelled the a party that still commits atrocities as “right” simply because they’ve committed fewer atrocities.

I’m not particularly a fan of Hamas, but historically, violence (including towards civilians of the colonizing force) is the only realistic way to escape colonial violence and apartheid.

You are too ideological. I’m a political realist; you’re a political idealist.

I have other reasons, so, I think you probably understand why I feel the way I do, not solely for idealism’s sake and simple want for justice.

I do see your point, but you have to keep in mind that the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians has never slowed, never stopped, making a deal with Israel would only mean that the genocide and ethnic cleansing will be complete in 20 years rather than 10

You have to play the cards you’re dealt.

Hamas did do that, no? Israel was about to normalize relations with Saudi arabia, and other countries in the region would’ve undoubtedly followed, if that went through then their fate would really be sealed, condemned to being wiped out, we’ll see how it works out now, after all, this is still ongoing, if Hezbollah joins, this may very well lead to a bigger conflict, one which Israel isn’t sure to survive, afterall most american weapon stockpiles have been drained and the west doesn’t really have the same manufacturing capacity for weapons as they used to have, in any case, this sparking into a larger conflict was basically the goal of this operation, the palestinian’s suffer silently while nations start normalizing relations with Israel, so Hamas decided to force the issue to be brought up again.

hopefully this turns into a larger conflict and we see Israel take a loss.

the cards on the table for palestinians are either accepting their own genocide or this, (or the fall of the united states/current western hegemony), so they did play the card they had, which Israel forced into only being violence, Israel has never once made a deal they kept, if you know that the assailant will in both cases pull the trigger, is being agreeable and giving them everything before dying the right option, or is thrashing and trying to grab their gun the right option, which gives a larger chance of survival?

This is what I mean by “history is nuanced”. There is no black and white here and to portray any situation as such would be naïve.

it’s very funny you say that after the post you just made

one must recognise that both have done things that they shouldn’t have done.

the targeting of civilians is not the best, which is why palestinian resistance is clearly in the right, they have killed far far far less civilians than Israel, and Israel has as part of their military doctrine ( https://youtu.be/QraCgxStVcQ ) the targeting of civilians, medics and journalists, they have done this even during peaceful protests like in 2018, the killing of civilians on the palestinian side has never stopped, before the recent events 27 children were killed in the past few month or two by Israeli forces in the west bank

“but he started it” is no longer an excuse for racial and religious hatred.

the majority of palestinians would immediately let go of this supposed ‘religious hatred’ if they stopped being actively ethnically cleansed and genocided, Palestinian resistance in the past used to be majority secular leftist (fatah and the PFLP), Israel created the conditions (and even gave funding at the start) for Hamas in order to divide and conquer, to weaken the secularist leftist resistance.

It’s been 70 years already.

70 years of continuous death, apartheid, destruction, and oppression for the palestinians, would you tell a slave that fighting for freedom violently is bad since it has been a few hundred years of their ancestors being slaves “People have been born into the slavery, grown up in the slavery, and died from the slavery”

The State of Israel has committed acts of genocide against the Palestinian people. I do not deny it. But at the same time, I cannot wholeheartedly support the other party in this conflict when their methods of resistance include terror attacks, hostage-taking, and indiscriminate bombings—the same things they decry Israel for doing.

so you don’t support Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement in south africa? you’re aware that they did those things, and that he supported them and refused to condemn them, does that mean that the apartheid south african regime had a point and shouldn’t have been removed?

The Palestinians have rejected several offers of peace.

this is propaganda, no offer that Israel made was fair to a people who were ethnically cleansed, sexually assaulted in mass, and massacred as their villages were burned to the ground, giving the colonizer what they want in exchange for ‘peace’ under an apartheid regime isn’t an offer, maybe the native americans shouldn’t have fought back if they didn’t want to get genocided too.

Two state solution proposals—rejected. Peaceful coexistence—rejected.

are you aware of the Oslo accords? are you aware that ‘peaceful coexistence’ is what currently exists on the ground on the west bank, where Israel continuously expands new colonies, where far right zionist pogroms kill innocent palestinian citizens while being protected by the IDF from any retaliation and while every palestinian lives under one of the most totalitarian regimes on earth, under apartheid with no freedom of movement, with no political right.

Instead, they counter with a Palestinian state stretching from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

leaders in the PLO actually did compromise with Israel and accept deals, which is the current status quo in the west bank, though, having one state that spans from the river to the sea where palestinians have equal rights is the only way a modicum of justice may be served.

Palestinian leaders want to wipe the State of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants off the face of the earth

false propaganda, palestinians want an end to the genocidal apartheid ethnostate of Israel, and for settlers to return to their homes (by some estimates more than 20% of the Israeli jewish population have dual citizenship), and for palestinians to be given the right to return and the right to self determination, the only group calling for genocide is Israel (as well as some palestinians (not a majority) due to the horrific conditions and trauma they experienced under this genocidal apartheid regime)

You can be right and move yourself into the wrong by how you act, and this is exactly what happened.

so almost every anti-colonial movement is wrong? like in Algeria, in Haiti, south africa as stated before, etc, the majority of these movements have used terror tactics.

do you think they should have been stopped for their terror tactics and that apartheid should have been allowed to continue in south africa?

any leftist should recognize that the evils of the crime of apartheid or colonial violence are the bigger issue, and that they are the reason these terror tactics are utilized.

Yes, I sympathise with Palestinians whose lands were taken from them by Israelis. At the same time, I condemn those who take matters into their own hands by bombing Israeli music festivals.

so they should lie down and accept the genocide? they tried peacefully protesting, every friday in the peaceful march to return, Israeli snipers killed children, disabled people, medics, journalists, civilians, and specifically shot out the knees of thousands of people creating tons of amputees and permanently disabled civilians

they tried negotiation with Israel, and the west bank is what happens, an apartheid regime where you can’t visit a neighboring village without the approval of your captors

what is left? only Israel is to blame for the entirety of the violence that they made necessary

Instead, what is happening is that the situation may quickly be moving to a forcibly-imposed one-state solution with that state being the State of Israel. And that would be a tragedy.

if you do not think that this is already the situation then you do not understand the balance of power in the region, Gaza is an open air prison, the west bank is occupied and completely ruled by Israel, Israel is a fascist, genocidal, apartheid, ethnostate, its existence as it stands is not compatible with Palestinians being alive, the goal is complete ethnic cleansing and genocide.

This is what I mean by “history is nuanced”. There is no black and white here and to portray any situation as such would be naïve.

and I say again, there is no nuance here, as much nuance existed in apartheid south africa, which today you’d say is none and that the apartheid regime was obviously bad

hopefully you can recognize that reality without it being 50 years in the past after a genocide occurs.

if a state was perpetuating apartheid (a crime against humanity), ethnic cleansing, and a genocide against your people, where you have most likely personally known/were related to someone who was killed or severely injured by that state

don’t you think you’d be just a little bit teeny tiny little bit more radical?

also, do not equate colonizers to the colonized, one is there to displace and oppress, one is the indigenous population that was ethnically cleansed and massacred.

if everybody votes, the government represent the interests of the whole population

This is simply false, representatives in the majority of neoliberal ‘democracies’ are not held accountable to the wishes of the people they are representing, and cannot be removed from their position with a simple majority from those who elected them, so then these people look towards those with influence (corporations, rich capitalists, etc) and then do things to please those groups in order to gain favor with them, like campaign donations, lavish luxurious trips and vacations, positive coverage in capitalist owned media, etc

(still disregarding lobbying)

Lobbying is not the only lever of power the capitalist class uses, the private ownership of mainstream media by capitalists means that all of their coverage would push capitalist interests, campaign ‘donations’ and funding is also used for control, to choose the candidates who represent your interest as a capitalist the best to win, and the candidates themselves are more likely to win if they come from a rich well connected upperclass background (meaning they are most likely capitalists themselves)

Regulatory capture is also a thing

There’s also the fact that capitalists also fund think tanks to publish studies that support their interests (no matter how far from the truth they have to stray) and are then used to support legislation that is in their favor (see global fossil capital and climate change), there’s also lots of astroturfing that goes on

And if lobbying were the issue, we could just ban it…

Even if you outlaw lobbying capitalists will still control the government in a myriad of other ways, capital flight being an example I didn’t mention in this reply yet,but this one is very strong and the US/WTO/IMF enforce it on as many countries as they can, the only way to have actual democracy is through forceful suppression of the capitalist class, only then you could imagine having a government actually controlled by the people while still having a capitalist market and a capitalist class

What exactly do you mean by “capitalist class”?

the class of people that makes a living through ownership of capital, they do not need to sell their labor, as opposed to workers which need to sell their labor to survive.

Is that only the people that dont work at all?

it is people who do not need to sell their labor to survive, they make their living through taking the surplus labor value that workers generate. (they may also choose to work, but this doesn’t change their position, they have a choice to work if they desire, unlike a worker which doesn’t have a choice)

And why cant those capitalists and the “working class” BOTH have power over the government?

because one class here has more leverage over the government, and so in a conflict of interest the government sides with the capitalist class as can be seen during any economic crisis (or crisis of any kind really) where austerity measures are immediately implemented and worker rights are rolled back.

how does each member of the “capitalist class” have any more influence on the government than each member of the “working class”?

they do on average, but you’ll easily be able to find a small capitalist that doesn’t have more power than you to control the government.

the thing is, here we are talking classes and class interests, if those who control the government belong to the capitalist class then the government will do things that benefit most members of the capitalist class, there doesn’t need to be direct control by every single capitalist for them to benefit from capitalist control over the government.

to give an example, regulatory protections to protect employees from hazardous working conditions may be removed through the direct influence of amazon or some other large corporation, but, smaller capitalist corporations also benefit from this as they stop having to take on the cost of providing a safer working environment (they can exploit their workers more fully), in this way, the government is controlled by capitalist, but not every capitalist controls the government, yet the government works for the benefit of the entire capitalist class.

what facts did I deny? do you want me to get you the homelessness and home ownership statistics for China? I assure you that they support my point, which is that the majority of people in China (even the poor rural people) are not homeless and even own their own homes.

the poverty line is very made up bullshit based on nothing but vibes some economists had, not even any statistics, it should be higher in a lot of places, lower in others where the price of things is lower, but in any case, no one claimed poor rural Chinese people don’t exist, ThereRisesARedStar said they don’t have a homelessness problem anywhere approaching the west, which is true, all of those poor rural Chinese people have homes, hell most of them even own their own homes, they don’t even rent, so, what exactly is your point? China has been the largest alleviator of poverty in modern history, yet, they do still have poverty, it has not been eradicated yet, but, they do not have a homelessness issue due to government initiatives that have worked very hard to make sure there is enough housing for their population (see western propaganda about ghost cities and the reality of how they’re all filled with people now)

you should read more Marx if you think Marx only said things about economics

‘democratic’ is used today a lot of the time to describe neoliberal capitalist governments that are controlled (influenced greatly) by the capitalist class

for example we can look at somewhere like the US and point out how the majority of people in government are all rich capitalists and how through lobbying and campaign ‘donations’ and owning the media the capitalist class controls the government

marxists call this kind of state a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (capital), as opposed to a dictatorship of the proletariat (workers)

dictatorship here meaning general ‘rule’ not the specific meaning that the word has taken on more recently

so ‘democratic’ capitalist countries that exist today are under the “rule of the capitalist class” or “dictatorship of capital”

so if you wanted an actual democratic (in the real sense of the word) government, you’d need a government which is controlled by the majority of people, that is, the workers, a dictatorship of the proletariat

under such a system capitalists cannot be allowed to have influence on the government, which is something that is not really possible unless you implement tight capital controls like they do in China

the reason being that capital flight is a very real threat to a capitalist economy, and having that power over a government lets the capitalist class dictate terms and change laws to be favorable to them despite what the majority of people might want.

so to answer your question, the only way to have a government with a capitalist system not be controlled by capitalists is through suppression of the capitalist class, if they are allowed to have influence then you no longer have actual democracy.

best way I’ve seen to tell someone to read capital lmao