It is easy to have a nuanced position and still come to the obvious conclusion on what's happening now. The past is completely enough that a basic history lesson would suffice.
Okay, but what if I just throw up my hands and say "They've always been fighting so what's the big deal?" while my Congressman takes a few million in kickbacks for the next billion in military aid shipped overseas?
Doesn't that make me a serious thinking, highly educated, objective observer? Why are you waving an Israeli/Palestinian flag in my face? Don't make me pick a side, just let the military industrial complex collect its paycheck and do the big "Whatchagonnado?" face of perfect neutrality.
Well, there's nothing objective about it, is there? How could there be? You have to choose your values at some point. In your hypothetical, the values you're choosing are powerlessness and money?
well yeah that’s… not a nuanced position. “theyve always been fighting” runs counter to any non-propagandized “basic history lesson.” kind of proved their point.
I'm a centrist in that I think the Israelis and Palestinians should live happy, productive lives and not be shot.
It just so happens that only one side seems to disagree with that.
Only one side? Do you remember how this latest round began?
Judging from other commenters here, there are radicals from both sides wilfully ignoring atrocities of the team they pick. Two state solution is the only way that would allow peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Two state solution is the only way that would allow peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
It seems like we're headed to a One State Solution, and that state is Greater Israel. Purging everyone of a different ethnicity from the region "solves" the problem better than letting another Arab state build up its population and economy along your contested border. In fact, you could call it a kind of Final Solution.
fnuny meme but if you read the article i don’t think calling them “centrist” is defensible:
Mr. Aboutboul is a founding member of Students for Standing Together, a new student group at U.C.L.A. that aims to unite Israelis and Palestinians to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
so these “centrists” are doing statistically better than your representatives. the comments here talking about “only committing a half genocide” are just doing bad faith echo chamber discourse, which i don’t find the be productive.
At Columbia University, Aharon Dardik, an Israeli American student, formed a group called CU Jews for Ceasefire after finding that his viewpoint wasn’t fully reflected in the main pro-Palestinian student movement. He is a pacifist who spent his teen years with his family in the West Bank but who ultimately refused to serve in the army in Israel. He believes in working with Israelis and Palestinians toward collective liberation and a world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances.
Dr. Waxman also became a target of right-wing pro-Israel groups, including after he wrote on social media that he supported the International Criminal Court’s request for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a position he said he took as a supporter of international law.
no hate to OP but let’s laugh loudly at the ones who deserve to be scoffed and mocked, not the people who are actively supporting Palestinian emancipation. i’m sure there’s stuff to be criticized in these folks but if there is, find it and call it the fuck out specifically instead of hand-waving “centrist”—especially when doing so just deplatforms the underrepresented Jewish Anti-Zionist population.
(honestly let’s laugh at whoever wrote and approved that headline, it does no service here.)
these “centrists” are doing statistically better than your representatives.
Not at the ballot box. Pro-Genocide Reactionaries won in a landslide. Ceasefire centrists couldn't even survive their primaries in several instances (Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman, most notably).
no hate to OP but let’s laugh loudly at the ones who deserve to be scoffed and mocked, not the people who are actively supporting Palestinian emancipation.
The problem with any conversation about "centrism" is that its a title anyone can claim, trivially, just by tilting the rhetoric to sound like you're defending the status quo rather than advocating for a change.
Right now, the centrist position of Israel and its allies is genocide, with disputes over exactly how far the slaughter needs to extend. But there's a universal accolade of Israel in its response to Oct 7th. Virtually no American politician, on the liberal or conservative side of the aisle, is contesting Israeli's right to kill 10% of the population of Gaza and rising in response.
Palestinian emancipation is a far-left position in practical terms. It would require such an enormous shift in both public sentiment and national policy as to be practically revolutionary in its own right.
(honestly let’s laugh at whoever wrote and approved that headline, it does no service here.)
It's illustrative of the state of national media in a country that has consistently been in favor of ethnic cleansing going back to its founding days.
Not at the ballot box.
??? feel like you need to read my comment again so I will just let this be. I am talking about pro-Palestine movements being further left than all but 17 represantives by calling for ceasefire. Of course they are not doing well at the ballot box; they are a minority.
The problem with any conversation about “centrism” is that its a title anyone can claim
Agree, and also a title anyone can plaster, as has been done by this post against real pro-Palestine groups whom I greatly doubt would apply the label to themselves.
It’s illustrative of the state of national media
Yea, so laugh and attack that destructive status quo rather than student groups who do better than most. Attacking these well-intentioned, if imperfect, young people and their educators honestly just makes me sad because it’s doing absolutely nothing rhetorically to shift the overton window and contributes to an alienation of young people from the left.
"I feel like doing genocide and not doing genocide are basically the same thing."
Let's compromise on doing half a genocide?
Yep. Also calling it the“Israel-Hamas war” is propaganda. Makes it sound like the only people dying in Palestine are Hamas soldiers, which is obviously nowhere near the truth.
Centrists are literally just anti-opinion and spineless.
Free Palestine.
Centrist just support the status quo. So if the status quo is genocide then they just support genocide.
So you agree the people in the article are not centrists and that the post is all a shame then? Because they don't support the status quo and want a ceasefire and peace talks.
Calling them centrists was a lashing out against people they didn't know and the views of various people that weren't the same.
Overall I would argue this post is pro war, pro genocide propaganda.
Thats and worse. They do what they are paid to do. DNC centrists heard from their consultants that whoever had the most money tended to win elections, so they sold out in every way they could. Theyve almost abandoned the idea of having a party platform at all. Youd think that means we could just gofundme some government action, but you have to gofundme an amount that beats the corporate donaters' preference. Good luck with that. Centrist will do anything to simply win, which leads directly to oligarchy.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” is a quote by Elie Wiesel from his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
If you don't support indigenous resistance to occupation, you're on the side of the occupation. There is no center.
Next you're going to tell me the Cardassians were the bad guys.
Garak, you of all people know that's true. The question is if they're the winning side or not, right?
Where do you stop? At single celled organisms, or when they invaded the earth?
Edit: updated spelling error
When one side is committing genocide and the other side wants no genocide, you don't pick the middle and support half-genocide.
More accurate would be "Committing genocide" and "Wants to commit genocide but doesn't have the guns", with the majority of the actual population on both sides (rather than the politicians and emboldened extremists) just wanting to not be genocided. Personally I'm picking the "chuck the politicians in a hole and let the people live" option. No idea what the ideal solution looks like but I feel like getting the fascists and religious extremists on both sides out of the equation would be a good starting point
Yes, an Israeli government that recognizes Palestinians as people is the first step then hoping the olive branch extends to the other side
At my university the police literally threaten anyone who tries to be pro Palestine… every Jewish group is pro zionist
The US government is violently supressing free speech where it relates to Israel, and pretending its because of a threat to all Jews. Heres whats in that bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090/text SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act, the term “definition of antisemitism”—
(1) means the definition of antisemitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the IHRA, of which the United States is a member, which definition has been adopted by the Department of State; and
(2) includes the “[c]ontemporary examples of antisemitism” identified in the IHRA definition.
Whats in the IHRA definition?
This definition for what antisemitism is:- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
It attached itself to the civil rights bill of 1964. So it can take action against anything related to the federal government, like schools, federal contracts, etc, but it does not apply to you and me as private citizens (yet). I can and will say all day that Israel is a genocider, is a violent theocratic racist state, should not have been granted statehodd by the UN, and is as bad as the Nazis.
99% agree but not sure where “violently” comes in. I would label it more structural oppression or coercion. Still awful, and violence has certainly been invoked under other legislation and government action, but just to be accurate :)
The most middle of the road opinion on Israel-Palestine issue is the two state solution. It worked on Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement and it should work between Israel and Palestine. Many scholars from both sides also want to use NI peace deal as the blueprint. Compromise is the key just like with Protestants and Catholics did in Northern Ireland.
The problem is, of course radicals from both Palestine and Israel do not want this because-- well-- they're radical.
This is false. Only Israel does not want a two state solution. Even Hamas accepted it in 2017.
This is what people mean with enlightened centrism. There are no two sides preventing peace. There is only Israel preventing peace.
The 2017 Hamas charter is openly available on the Internet, and it says it still doesn't recognise Israel as a state and strive for "complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea." This is not really a two-state solution. Two states recognise each other's right to exist if this is indeed a two state solution.
Yeah those radical Palestinians, not wanting half their home cut off for colonizers.
You could say the same to most modern states. Colonisation is wrong, but mistakes were made and recognised. It's impractical to deport people back to their ancestors' homeland. You can't expect white Americans and South Africans to return to Europe, or black people in the Americas to return to Africa. That's like trying to abort an already born baby. Go far back enough, and we all came from Africa and you might as well say all humans should vacate the rest of the world and return to Africa.
Countries who support Palestine also support two-state solution. Israel is there to stay and Palestine has the right to exist. It's simple as that. Frankly, any one who does not support two state solution are radicals. That goes for Israeli, Palestinians and outsiders who don't support two state solution. Someone mentioned Hamas 2017 charter, but it still doesn't recognise Israel's right to exist. And if Hamas really want a two state solution, they would not have taken hostages, many of whom are foreigners with no dog in the race. Is this really the act of freedom fighters? Had resistance fighters in World War 2 killed civilians? Last time I asked this rhetorical question to someone, the person said it's justified as price of freedom. If your answer is yes, then you are a radical and need time to think about your life.
Most people, specifically outsiders who don't even live in the region and feeling safe behind the rule of law, too opinionated on Israel and Palestine issue, don't really have a clue when they are prodded down to the kernel. They consume information from what I would call "fast food" sources and from biased ones, and thus adopt radical stances. Two state solution IS the solution.
When you're born in a country you're only a colonizer if you start conquering more territory.
How will creating two segregated ethno-religious states help anything?
What do you mean? The issue of Palestine and Israel isn't ethno-religious, it's nationalism in nature. There are still Muslim Arabs in Israel especially in the north where they live peacefully with Israeli Jews.
The other centrist option is the zero state solution. Just glass the Levant and let any survivors fight it out mad max style while the rest of the world refuses to have any interaction with them. Unlike the two state solution, neither side had to trust, cooperate, or develop empathy and respect for the other. It's extremely expedient: any one of a handful of leaders could implement this solution within just a few minutes. And nothing says "this peace is permanent" like a charred radioactive hellscape.
My "lose lose" zero-state solution benefits over 8 billion people who will never again have to endure on the nightly news the bitching and posturing of these two mutually genocidal tribes.
How is "Everyone needs to end the violence and seek an ideal solution for everyone involved." a nuanced position? That's what I expect every person to believe when they first start thinking of Israel and Palestine.
How is "Everyone needs to end the violence and seek an ideal solution for everyone involved." a nuanced position?
It's not nuanced, just naive. You'll never get Israel as it currently exists to willingly acknowledge that Palestinians deserve human rights, which is exactly why the non-violent option already failed multiple times.
Because people aren't interested in solutions. They really just want to talk about the genocidal colonialist imperialist western project. And then move on. With little consideration or forethought for either the Palestinians or the Jews - literally anyone living in the region.
Case example: Hasanabi fans cheering Hezbollah rockets hitting areas inside Israel. But because the rockets have incredibly low precision they were frequently hitting Arab quarters in Haifa and elsewhere.
To sum up: whenever you talk to anyone about me or ip first establish how much they actually understand about the conflict before continuing the conversation any further. My experience is that most people online are locked behind memes and virtue signaling while having absolutely no comprehension of what in actually going on there
What I've seen plenty of those alleged "centrists" doing is the opposite - removing the nuance. For example, conflating the four sides (Israelis, Palestinians, State of Israel, Hamas) into two.
Centrist opinions be like Six million Western European Jews were killed in the holocaust so millions of Eastern European and American Jews, who were supported by the Nazi’s, deserve to kill any middle easterner that stands against the formation of their own imperialist state
The problem is, it very much feels like the "middle of the road" opinion on this issue is "both nations have the right to exist."
Both sides are going to tell you that you are supporting genocide. And now you're a centrist for thinking everyone is shit in the terrorist vs right wing government fight....but that's enough about the IRA.
People have a right to exist and to self-determination, not nations. "Israel has a right to exist" is just a strawman argument.
Especially since the Israeli people already have self-determination and overwhelmingly support their government committing countless crimes against humanity to ensure that Palestinians never will.
"Imagine" if they wrote a song about this roughly 50 years ago.
Yep we totally need a middle ground between settler colonialism, genocide and apartheid and not that. There is obviously no right side maybe we can have a little settler colonialism, gentler apartheid and a gentler genocide.
We must only kill half the Palestinians.
Mockery is always an airtight defense for binary thinking on any issue.
good comment
If you're a ShitLib who supports genocide its pretty easy to find company. Just enter .world, twitter, read any capitalist run media outlet, or talk to the millions of braindead "centrist" ShitLibs that hang out in the gentrified parts of any city.
