"We as American Jews believe that 'never again' means never again for anyone, and that includes Palestinians," said JVP, referring to the refrain repeated by the Jewish American community regarding the need to prevent genocide. "'Never again' is this very moment."
Something so common sense will surely fall on deaf ears.
This is not genocide. The Israeli army has a massive amount of weapons with which it could commit genocide if it truly wanted to. The situation is horrible and the loss of civilians lives is also horrible but this is not genocide. Misusing that term risks it losing all meaning.
I asked once why the law (Jewish religious law) said don’t kill, steal etc then said of Amallites not to leave one alive, man, woman or child. The answer? “Jewish law doesn’t apply to gentiles.”
Thinking about this some more, I have a feeling you misinterpreted what "Jewish law doesn't apply to gentiles" means. If I, a Jew, eat bacon, it's considered a sin. If a non-Jew eats bacon, it's not considered a sin. Jewish laws (restrictions, observances, etc) don't apply to non-Jews. It doesn't mean that Jews are allowed to treat non-Jews however they want with no repercussions.
This isn't quite true. First of all, I'm guessing you mean the Amalekites. The reason they are singled out is because they followed the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. They attacked from the rear to target the slowest people - the elderly and children. This gave them a "special status" so to speak with a commandment to wipe them out.
That being said, there are no Amalekites nowadays. There might be spiritual successors of them - people who want to wipe out all Jews no matter what and who will start with the elderly and children - but these people don't get "Amalekite treatment."
Apart from this exception (which, again, has no relevance in the modern world), Jewish law absolutely applies to how we treat non-Jews.
I think it's very confused and polarized. Neither side is even remotely in the right at this point, and those who suffer have almost no agency. The only third rail here is the Israeli people. They can make the madness stop.
Since Israel has already killed at least twice the number of Palestine civilians than the number of Israeli citizen that were killed by Hamas, this is absolutely true.
Every single time this type of shit plays out the same way. Outrage at whichever Palestinian group did whatever. Outrage at Israel's response. Then people taking what they think are reasonable sides in a religious war, then finally things calm back down to the fucked up status quo. I see no reason this will be any different.
I think there are four factors at play here. They're mixed together in an extremely messy fashion and overlap quite a bit, but they are:
The people on both sides fear for their safety. The Palestinians fear the Israeli government and military taking action against them. The Israeli people fear rocket attacks and raids like the one that just happened. When a populace lives in fear, it leads to -
Extremist groups are in charge. You have Hamas on one side whose stated goal is to kill all Jews. (Not just in Israel, but across the world.) You have the right wing Israeli government on the other side who push for horrible actions against the Palestinians in the name of "safety."
Foreign interference. Iran on one side is arming/helping Hamas. On the other side, evangelical Christians help the settlers and push the Israeli government because they think Jesus will come back if Israel suffers a big enough attack. (Peace would prevent that attack and stop Jesus from returning.)
A long and bloody history. Both sides remember when they were killed by the other side. Both sides refuse to leave the past in the past and intend on making the other side pay. The problem here is that the cycle of violence never breaks. If you always have to attack because "they did X to us" then they will feel like they always need to attack because you did Y to them. It goes around and around and never changes no matter how much everyone suffers.
How do you untangle this mess? If I knew that, I'd have the Nobel Peace Prize. I wish I did know. I'd set the peace prize aside in a second, tell the world what to do, and stop it all. Unfortunately, I'm no diplomat. (Some of the best diplomats have failed in this arena.) I can see what's going on, but I have no clue how to stop it.
The best I can think of is that perhaps UN security forces need to move in. Not to attack one side or another, but to keep both sides away from each other. Sort of like the national version of putting two kids who were fighting in time out until things cool down. But again, I'm no diplomat so for all I know that would make things worse.
You're missing the part where Israel's reaction to an attack (often on the IDF) ends up with casualties at least one or two orders of magnitude higher. Nearly all civilians who are already living an oppressed life and being illegally displaced from their homes and their land.
One has unquestionable support by the most powerful military that has ever existed.
People have this bright idea that the horrible status quo will somehow change by diplomatic means. It never will when the whole conflict is based on the ideology which sole goal is the genocide of the Jews.
Not commenting on the actual crisis going on but who cares what the American Jews think? They aren't in Israel and have never lived a day over there. It's almost like American Irish giving their opinion of Brexit. Yes we know what is going on is wrong, but the audience voicing their opinion barely has more relevance than the average person. It must be exhausting on boths sides to have foreigners voice their opinions on what is an actual war zone right now.
When a common refrain of pro-Israel propaganda is "All criticism is antisemitism", you bet your fucking ass that the opinion of American Jews is important.
Comparing the Jewish diaspora to the American Irish isn't even apples and oranges, it's apples and ice cream trucks. They're not even in the same category.
People with Jewish ancestry are born with a "birthright" to become a citizen of Israel (including the option for dual citizenship, of course). It's just a completely different and unique situation.
I might have a "birthright" to become a citizen of Israel, but that doesn't mean that I, as an American Jew, have a strong connection to Israel. It definitely doesn't mean that I have influence over what Israel does or am somehow responsible for Israel's actions.
I've recently seen people celebrating attacks on a Jewish temple and bakery in America because "they are a symbol of Zionist aggression." The person was justifying anti-semitic attacks on American Jews because "Israel did X." I expect this antisemitism from the right, but this was coming from someone on the left. As an American Jew, it's scary to suddenly face antisemitism for something I have no influence over from both sides of the aisle.
Not commenting on the actual protest going on but who cares what the random Fedi thinks? They aren't in the protest and have never participated a minute over there.
This is a social forum. It's made for comments? You don't have to care what I think and I'm fine with being wrong, but I hope you aren't on Lemmy just for an echo chamber.