this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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It’s pretty rare to meet a Zionist or a MAGA on Lemmy. Welcome! You might not like it here.
I'm from Germany and no MAGA and that may make a difference here (due to our experiences with antisemitism during Nazism era and WWII. I do disagree with the political actions of Netanyahu and his rightwing allies. But I also see the Hamas as a terrorist organisation and don't deny Israel the right to exist either. I am against cruelties (yes, from Israel too) but I would stand up to speak for Israels right to exist and for the deconstruction of the Hamas.
PS What I appreciate though: we disagree — strongly I assume — on this topic. Yet neither of us has threatened the other or wished one another ill. This indeed is Lemmy and a big difference to Xitter and the other commercial platforms. Thank you for that (and the welcome, even though the latter might be meant rather ironically I'm afraid). Therefor a honest: "have a nice day 🙂" from me, if allowed.
Why did your experiences with the Nazi era not also teach you that an ethnostate illegally occupying and annexing territory for Lebensraum is bad, actually?
deafening silence
A German supporting genocide. That tracks.
Did he? Where precisely did he that?
Why are you speaking in third person?
Why aren't you answering the question?
That is the answer to your question. I’m calling you a genocide supporting German. You’re making excuses for Israel to kill a bunch of people because a few of them are what you consider “terrorists”
Did I? Where?
What does "israel's right to exist" mean to you? Would equal political, civil and human rights for all the people living under Israeli law negate this right?
Also, does Palestine have a right to exist? Like as a fully independent nation with full sovereignty? And with an equal right to a military and an equal right to militarily intervene in neighbouring countries' affairs as Israel? (Equal meaning as much or as little.)
Finally, are the terrorist Zionist militias that formed the seed of the IDF (Irgun, Lehi, Haganah,...) as condemnable as Hamas, the PFLP, etc?
Basically, is it the case that what's good for the goose is good for the gander? I want to make sure I'm not talking to a Jewish-supremacist racist here. Am I?
A place in the world, where jews can live without fear for their lives, just because they're jews.
Nope! I would wish for that.
Absolutely!
Whilst granting equal political, civil and human rights for all the people living under Palestinian law … including any jews? Yes!
If they, in a believable way guarantee beforehand, that they don't wish to eliminate another group or state, just cause it exists? And believably ban warcrimes (as I would expect from Israel as well)? Yes.
Where warcrimes has happened (which should be checked after the war from a disinterested 3rd party, they should be judged fairly in any case, yes.
I do not understand this phrase, sorry (non-native speaker).
Four Answers:
I am not going to comment on anything we're agreed on. I'm just happy there are many of those :)
For the rest, let's take it from the top. The expression "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" means no double standards. If we say a thing for one side, the same applies for the other. If Israelis have a right to X, the Palestinians have the right to X too. If a Palestinian right to Y may be curtailed, the same applies to the Israeli right to Y.
Here's the first point of divergence. Israeli sovereignty is NOT contingent on any of those things. If Israel has the right to be fully sovereign NOW regardless of how it systematically mistreats the non-Jewish population under its control, the same applies to Palestine. Of course if Palestine turned out to be an oppressive shitshow, we'd take the side of the oppressed against oppressors. But national self determination CANNOT be contingent on anything, it is in fact the prerequisite for everything.
Same principle as before. Any limit you will impose on Palestine MUST be applicable to Israel. And in fact, it is even more applicable to Israel, since Israel has already committed ethnic cleansing (Nakba) and genocide (Gaza). Anything that can be alleged of the Palestinians as a potential future intent, Israel is already guilty of. October 7th style massacres included..
The illegality of settlements is a veil. Israel has systematically increased the settlements the last 30 years. This might not make sense to a German who thinks rules exist to be obeyed; welcome to the Mediterranean.
Hamas crimes against civilians and against IDF soldiers who surrendered to it, and this includes abduction, are horrific and despicable war crimes. No ifs, no buts. Their attacks on active duty IDF personnel engaged in enforcing an illegal occupation are legitimate resistance enshrined in international law.
Firstly: thank you for the meaningful responses! I understand the hate and aggression on both sides, but … “Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … it, on itself won't change anything.
Same.
Got it and agree. But … if I wish to take in account what might have happened beforehand — and will wish that for both sides — than that isn't a double standard, right? E. g. Israel wishes to be safe of those attacks and rockets of the past. So let's look after that. And want to be safe from settlers who think it's their birthright to take whatever land they want … so we'll have an sharp eye on that either. And so forth. That would be okay and single-standard?
I get your point and it is a valid one. Yet it isn't written in the constitution of Israel to do this thing to the Palestine people. Yet in the 1988 Hamas-charta article 7 ends with Sahih al-Bukhari's hadith Muslim 2922, suggesting that the Day of Judgment would not come until the Muslims fight and kill the Jews. It claims in article 13 that there is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer. It calls in article 20 for action "by the people as a single body" against "a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people" (see the Nova music festival massacre) and so on. And that is not about the past. It is a "goal" to be "gained" in future. That is where my problems lie. A Palestine constitution, which regardless of its past is okay with not proclaiming the slaughter of Jewish people (or whatever other ethnic group) is fine for me.
And so do I with Israel, which under its rightwing government end a Netanyahu whom I don't deem much better than Trump or Putin. Only: I'd love to see the corrupt government removed not the whole state with all its people.
A free mans right to lift his fist ends under the nose of every other mens nose … if you get what I mean. If the self determination bases on the elimination of an other party … then this might be a point we'll find difficult to argue further.
One is in the charter (Hamas) but not — I think — in the constitution (Israel) … correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, Israel has done many unjust things to the Palestine people and that should be pointed out, stoped and prevented for the future. If you want to protest Israel there, then I'm on your side. If you want to speak up for a free Palestine, then I'm on your side too. "If" you want to declare a free Palestine "from the river to the sea", i. e. without any Israel … then I stand against that, as I stand against Netanyahus current wish (if so, I'm sparse on news atm) to manage the "Gaza problem" by killing or exiling all Palestinians.
I … am still not sure, that that is a double standard of mine, but open to overthink it further (on myself, not here).
And those in political or military command should be judged for wrongdoings, military crime, etc. But I don't claim all Israeli and/or Jews guilty of those crimes. Yet Israel exists and if you say, that therefore a free Palestine should be real to, I'd agree. But again: A Israel with a constitution declaring that it's neighbours "should be killed – there is no other way". would be denied to exist from my side immediately. And so I object a Palestine under Hamas-ideology.
Then end the guilt and prevent it from continuing, on both sides. Stop the guilty people … but not their whole ethnicity.
I've seen that and objected that. Honestly spoken: If I had lived back then, I would have suggested that the German people, after WWII should be forbidden to return to government positions, military or police (i. e. positions of power) or to own more than they had before 1933 and would have suggested that all the Jews should return to germany and rule over it as theirnew country. To "give" them Palestine … always felt somehow not that right to me. But it is as it is now and as I wrote somewhere else (dunno btw why my answer to you there has been removed), if not all "white people" (European ethnicity)should be abandoned from the US and so forth … yet the "expansion" after the six day war in 1967 feels wrong and if that can be undone for a peace for all people I'd be fine with that. (Even without peace that should be undone, agreed.)
THANK YOU for that!
Yet it is the same Hamas doing both. I would even be fine with the organisation declaring (and following said declaration) to stop the former, whilst continuing the latter. An other organisation doing only the latter and condemning the former would even earn my respect — even if I still may on choosing violence as a tool (see the MLK Quote at the top. I still can see, why some seek this kind of resistance (yet my guess is, that without the Hamas, there would already have been a peace which really earned to be called so. One that benefitted all [civilised] sides ).
To differ is okay … it's almost always possible to find solutions — if everybody is willing to seek them. We had differreces and maybe still have. But I'm even not sure anymore about that. Yet the key point, in my opinion, is to condemn violence against civilians, be they Israeli or Palestine, Jews or Arabs, religious or not. And I too do condemn every warcrime of Israel against civilians (and I'm sure by now, that there are). Yet let us judge the guilty persons, regardless of the side they're standing on … but not whole ethnicities or states.
Why do you equate Palestine with Hamas? Hamas is (nowadays barely) in control of a fraction of the Palestinian people. There is also the PA, there is also the massive diaspora and refugee population. I don't see any reason why a discussion about a Palestinian state should be centred around what Hamas has to say. So, no, it is not written in some "Palestinian constitution" that all Jews must be killed. That's just misinformation and dangerous conflation.
Hamas is actually doing a better job at not conflating Jews and Israel than you are doing at not conflating Palestinians and Hamas. Their updated charter from 2017 removed the antisemitic passages you quote and specifically made the distinction between Jews and Israel:
On the other hand, Israeli politics and law does not make this kind of distinction. The right-wing and far-right wing that have been in power since Oslo (with the brief exception of Ehud Barak) have acted entirely under the old Likud slogan that "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." This has been codified in Basic Law and has been made into "facts on the ground" through 30 years of systematic settlement of 700,000 settlers on the best land of the West Bank that are not going anywhere.
Which is why also your statement that "without the Hamas, there would already have been a peace which really earned to be called so" is so (I'm sorry) ridiculous Palestine is an excellent example of a natural experiment: one area Hamas, another area no Hamas. Guess what is going on in the no Hamas area? Do you call that ...peace? Without Hamas, Israeli occupation has a clear face: APARTHEID and slow motion ethnic cleansing. If anything, the honest thing to say would be to acknowledge that the biggest failure of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority is that it gave away everything to the Israelis and failed to stop colonization the way that Hamas actually did. Hamas rose in popularity in Gaza precisely because Israel clipped the wings off of the Oslo process and killed off the credibility of the PA.
It is in this particular context that the slogan "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" takes a very specific ANTI-APARTHEID meaning. If the Israeli policy of settlement has killed off the possibility of a two state solution, then there is only the one state solution left. And to quote John Kerry: "if the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic". And since for any civilized person democracy is non-negotiable, whereas ethnic purity is not, the vision of a "free Palestine" is the same as a free South Africa, a country where whites, coloured and blacks have equal rights. Free Palestine, means democracy and human rights for all people living between "the river and the sea" regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Note that once you get to the point of realizing the horror of Israeli Apartheid, you have to also recognize that Germany has a utterly SHAMEFUL policy of effectively outlawing BDS (exclusion from public funding of participating entities, surveillance, refusal of public space), an explicitly peaceful, non-violent, and pro-democratic campaign endorsed by moderate Palestinian Civil Society. BDS was exactly the leverage that cracked South African apartheid. So, there's a policy issue you could pursue in your own country if you actually care about peace...
I don't. Or at least: that was not my intent. For the rest I might respond later, don't have the spoons left to read much. Palestine without Hamas is fine for me. Yet I had a problem in the past with people protesting against Israel and citing the Hamas. One other user here declared more or less to stand behind the Hamas. I mentioned it not in the intent to equate it with Palestine (which I really don't) but to point out, with what I have trouble (not Palestine on its own). Sorry, if I offended you. More later (maybe).
No worries. I think I'm spooned out too. So let's just disengage.
Let's do that. And again: thanks for the time and effort you spent herein so far. I really appreciated it! (And I will continue to think about it and my position in this all.)
That PS warrants an upvote.