As a leftist Jew who believes strongly in the cause of dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people, and that Israel has abused them, I am begging fellow leftists to understand that real life is not a comic book. A government being “the bad guy” in a situation does not automatically make anyone who opposes it “the good guy”.

Hamas denies the Holocaust. Hamas disseminates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—the conspiracy theory it paints is what they mean by “Zionist”. Hamas forbids foreign aid educators from teaching human rights to Palestinians, and claims that even teaching that the Holocaust happened is a war crime. Hamas has written the aim of annihilating Israel (the country and its people) into its charter—the mass slaughter and violent expulsion of 7 million Jews from the land is written into its laws.

There is no crime any state could ever do that would justify any of that; there is no act of state repression that could ever make it acceptable to side with the organization spreading Nazi pamphlets and Holocaust denial.

Oppose Bibi Netanyahu. Oppose Israel’s far-right, authoritarian government. Oppose its apartheid policies. Oppose its violent abuse of the Palestinian people. That isn’t antisemitic. But Hamas is—verifiably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to its core—antisemitic. Its portrayal of Israeli Jews as blood-thirsty, child-killing master manipulators that control international media and finance is antisemitic. Its insistence that Palestinian freedom necessitates the death & expulsion of Jews from the land is antisemitic. Its redefinition of “Zionism” as a pejorative to mean genocidal Jewish/Israeli Supremacy is antisemitic.

Supporting the Palestinian people in their plight is a noble and loving goal; please never stop that. But do not let Hamas co-opt that into excusing or denying their rampant antisemitism and war crimes.

Beyond Blue and White: a Jewish Holiday Resource for Artists

If I show you this color palette, you know exactly what holiday it refers to, right?

Image: a palette of red, green, gold, and white.

How about these?

Image: a palette of pastel blue, purple, pink, and bright yellow.

Image: a palette of orange, black, purple, and green.

American? Try these:

Palette: red, white, and blue

Palette: orange, tan, red, and brown

Now, I was thinking about this a lot this year, at various times. It came up when I tried to decorate my dining room for Rosh Hashanah but couldn’t find anything I like that really fit. It was still on my mind when the jack-o’-lanterns and bats appeared and then disappeared again under an onslaught of red and green. And then the Chanukah sections. 

Keep reading

It's astounding to me that people can refer to the military campaign in Gaza in the terms that they do.

You wanna talk proportionality? Let's! Here's something to give you some proportions.

Over the course of just two days, on Mar 9 and 10, 1945, the Tokyo bombing led to an estimated 80,000 to 130,000 civilians dead. After just two days!

And we still don't call that a genocide, because we have a basic understanding that this term refers to the intention of one nation to completely destroy another, while the Americans were not set on killing every last Japanese. We can discuss whether such intense bombing of civilians was right, but there is no doubt that the goal wasn't a destruction of the entire Japanese nation.

According to Hamas' figure as reported on Nov 15, meaning after 40 days of fighting, the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is 11,500.

When looking at this comparison, take into account that the population density of Tokyo in 1940 was about 1,337 people per square mile. The population density of Gaza City is (as reported by NBC on Oct 10) 15,000 people per square mile. So we can assume that if an army had indiscriminately bombed Gaza City the way Tokyo was, over the course of just two days, the death toll would have been even higher than the actual WWII one.

Hamas, as a genocidal terrorist organization, is NOT reliable in giving us the casualties, so its figure is likely inflated. It also doesn't distinguish civilians from terrorists (who are legitimate targets in this war), and it doesn't say how many Gazans were killed by Palestinian terrorists (whether due to the over 1,000 rockets that malfunctioned and fell inside Gaza, due to Hamas shooting civilians trying to evacuate to the south or due to terror tunnels collapsing because of the fighting, and killing the civilians who were living above).

And still!

Even if we accept Hamas' figure as is, and we pretend like every single one of the people killed is a civilian, meaning we decide that somehow the IDF has not managed to kill a single terrorist in 40 days of fighting (even though it has identified and published the names of some of the highest ranking Hamas terrorists it managed to eliminate, as well as terrorists identified as having participated in the Oct 7 massacre, and even though Hamas confirmed at least one), and we ignore the fatalities caused by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) themselves, this does not amount to a genocide. It does not even amount to indiscriminate bombing.

Just to make it clear, this isn't meant to say that the death of civilians in Gaza isn't regrettable. Of course it is! This post is just meant to point out that many of the people talking about this online seem to NOT have any kind of clue what indiscriminate bombing, let alone a genocide, actually looks like.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

I'm gonna give a TLDR version, because apparently it's needed.

This post isn't about whether the Tokyo bombing was right.

It's about what indiscriminate bombing of a place like Gaza would actually look like.

If Gaza had been bombed indiscriminately, in an area more than 10 times more populated than 1945 Tokyo, and for a period 20 times longer, than the death toll should have been (after 40 days of fighting) at least hundreds of thousands of people killed, if not creeping into the millions.

Without a single casualty on the other side.

And that's just not what's happening in this war.

Good omens studies. Just figuring out how to draw them comfortably.

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they're been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now

the angel staying over at my house said their eyes hurt from staring, so i took them to the store to get some eye drops. well midway through the medicine aisle i turned around to see them flashing in and out of colors like a combusting star, so i asked them what was up without looking directly at them. they told me that there were too many people at the store and they forgot how they looked. which. is understandable to be honest they've only been on earth for a little over 24 hours. my phone started to melt a little when i showed them pictures of themself, but my hand feels fine even though they held it while calming down. they're currently resting and i am not sure what to do with 5 empty bottles of eye drops

the angel staying over at my house has been eating my food for the past few days and i don't really know if they can taste it because the food sort of bursts into ash and fire before it reaches their mouth? but they seem to enjoy eating it or at least watching me cook. they tried to help me fry some onions earlier but the stove flame turned from blue to white and the onions started crackling instead of sizzling so they backed off. however they have the ability to chop garlic like a pro

the angel staying over at my house is taking daily walks with me around the neighborhood and i don't think they know about animals yet. we were going past someone's house and this labrador started barking at us. normal, right? but the angel staying over at my house asked me if that was music. and i had to stop and think about that one for a second. in the end i said it can be music to us, it's just that the dog doesn't know it (and may never know it, which is a real tragedy). then they asked me what's a dog

the angel staying over at my house went to the library with me and they wanted to know if humans actually dream or if that was something people made up for television. guess what the staff told us that the full name of the angel staying over at my house couldn't be printed on a library card so i just said well couldn't we have one anyways? and now we do but it's really like the first third of their name and not written correctly. oh well. i have to go help carry some huge books about neuroscience into the house

today the angel staying over at my house came up to me and started crying tears that melted through my carpet. told me they realised they wouldn't be able to use their library card after they left earth and i. i honestly forgot that was going to happen. but i told them hey dude that's just how humans feel too. can't read all the books, but the fact that you got to read some is worth bragging about, right? they could tell all of their angel friends about the cool stuff they've done. and they said that they used to think that the world was so small and that humans were being petty about missing earth but now they live here and they feel small too. and they're not sure what to tell their angel friends.

so i asked to hold their hand again. they didn't burn me this time, either. and i asked them if this moment felt small to them. they said it didn't.

anyways we made popcorn and watched it's a wonderful life. they told me that angels don't speak like that at all by the way

The Doctor and the Master: AITA?

Awkward! OP maybe you should consider that he is having big meow meow feelings. :(

TA. Get her the pony dude.

Hm. Sounds like you have some issues that aren’t just your ex-husband OP? Yikes.

Understandable. NTA.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Furryblr can you help?

Blame American healthcare OP??

NTA. Has your wife ever tried… talking?

I wish Tumblr would learn that you don't have to trash older, less explicitly gay works when something newer with more textual, explicit rep comes along.

how many creators watched explicitly gay stories be toned down in adaptation. how many got away with as much as they could get away with at the time and pushed the door open a little wider so a new thing could be even more open.

have a little respect and celebrate what we've achieved instead of dump on older works for not being as perfect as you'd like them to be

- the lady at the welfare office cancelling my benefits

- the lady at the welfare office cancelling my b

The lady at the w

"Choosing not to work is morally wrong. Being too disabled to work is fine though."

Okay, now how do you dictate who is disabled enough not to work? This is a major part of how systemic ableism happens.

Think for a second.

Think.

90% of disabilities are invisible. Those with power able to determine if we're fucked up enough to be unable to work are often ableists. They rarely give a flying fuck about us and would rather we were no longer a "burden" in order to make space for someone willing and able to work.

Landlords are evil, we know this, but how tf can you look at someone and decide they're opting to just not work? Do you consider the retired to be lazy because they're not working? My disabilities ate invisible until they're not, and it took going to court in order to get on SSDI. Because of dumbfuck ableists like you, I have to deal with other dumbfuck ableists telling me I'm evil/lazy/faking it and therefore I'm the evil category.

Kindly take a few seats and sit your dumbass down. You're making an annoying fool of yourself with this noise.

Landlords aren’t evil because they ‘don’t work’, landlords are evil because they hoard homes, force us to pay for housing and create homelessness.

CEOs aren’t evil because they ‘don’t work’, CEOs are even because they extract profit from what others create (which is wage theft) and force us to do their bidding or get fired, which creates poverty.

Their power and parasitic nature is the problem. Whether they work is irrelevant.

Get this ridiculous ‘work as morally good’ shit out of your system or sooner or later you will find yourself believing some fucked up bullshit.

americans about to experience peak sci-fi

are you ok? of course not next question

I already regret making this post, but I think this needs to be a real discussion.

** Please note: I 100% do NOT want goyische opinions on this post. I am not interested, they are not helpful, and I will block you without hesitation even if we've been mutuals forever **

I think we have reached the level of Holocaust inversion on the left that we actually need to recalibrate the entire way we engage with an alarming amount of leftist goyim, because they have decided that their twisted understanding of Zionism as a form of 'apartheid genocidal ethnonationalist fascism' is on the same level as the Nazis.

Now regardless of how that makes you, as a Jew feel, that is how a lot of them are viewing this, period.

That means that you should assume that every single "we punch Nazis, not debate them" anti-fascist principle out there can be applied in full force to Zionists [with the understanding that their definition of Zionist usually means every Jew they don't like or agree with or who doesn't perform their brand of politics to the level they are asking]

Remember that video of an actual, real elderly Nazi that just croaks in the middle of his hateful yelling that went viral? Remember how happy people were when Richard Spencer got punched? Remember the whole "the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi" slogan? That whole idea that you cannot debate white supremacists and fascists because that inherently means debating your humanity and makes their position seem valid enough to debate?

Yeah. For these people, all of that applies to Zionists [and whoever they decide to label as such]

So yeah, an older guy protesting got killed? Same reaction as yelling Nazi dude above. Shrug.

A brutal massacre of Israelis and their neighbors that wiped out 1400 men, women and children? Imagine that some group managed to do that to 1400 Nazi families. We might find the sadistic nature of the deaths distasteful, but really: how many tears are you shedding?

Civilian population centers of primarily Jews are under constant missile shelling and bomb threats? Imagine that we were talking about Nazi Germany instead. Sucks for them I guess, right? 🤷‍♀️

Their reactions to recent events ranging from silent apathy to outright glee all make sense once you play a Mad Libs game of filling in "Zionist" or "Israeli" in place of "Nazi" or "fascist" in every "punch Nazis!!!1!" slogan.

The fact that Jews are and have been frequently the targets of these fascist groups throughout history and were the primary targets of the Nazis is irrelevant. The fact that we are human people who just want to practice our ancient religion and culture in peace is irrelevant. The bottom line is that the far goyische left has now figured out a way to fully de-person Jews in a social justice approved way, without even the ability to point out how utterly unhinged and counterfactual that take is because "we don't debate Nazis."

I don't know how to fix this.

Genuinely, I don't.

It's like the spirits of their pogrom-loving ancestors have gripped them and instead of whispering "the Jews killed Jesus, poison wells, and thirst for the blood of children," they just substitute out Jesus for Palestine.

I'm not 100% sure how to articulate this, but something that has been bothering me about I/P discourse (especially in the last month, it's gotten so much worse) that I haven't seen talked about in a productive way is the "yoking" effect that the extremist ugly takes create for the good-faith people just trying to talk about their issues. And I see it on both sides, and have felt compelled to act this way myself.

Essentially, when I talk about antisemitism (especially the significant spike in the last month), my goal is focused on educating people about the antisemitism and urging them to do something about their own behavior, help groups that are working on it, and/or become part of the people working on advocacy to that effect. I just want to talk about the antisemitism, and have that stand as a topic on its own terms. But the problem is, I'm a Jew and extremists on both sides have made it so that anything I post about this requires disclaimers that I also support the rights, freedoms, and care about the lives of Palestinians also. And I do! But that's not the point. The point is that Jews facing antisemitism should be able to talk about this without bringing in a whole separate topic to prove we're worth listening to. And I saw this with Israelis trying to talk about the grief they were feeling after the Hamas pogrom; they couldn't do it without either including some kind of statement about wanting peace, separating Hamas from Palestinians as a whole, etc. or face relentless antisemitic abuse.

And this effect comes both from outside people [supposedly] supporting Palestine being awful unless the Jew in question attaches sufficient disclaimers, as well as [supposedly] pro-Israel people who couldn't help themselves from spouting off dumb racist shit in their posts on otherwise valid topics.

But as I've watched things play out, and Western outsiders become more and more antisemitic in their [supposed] support of Palestine, I've noticed Palestinians and their not-antisemitic allies having to couch their [valid] criticisms of Israel with caveats about how antisemitism is not okay, or else face harassment when talking about their legitimate issues - even ones that aren't about Israel at all.

That's what I mean by "yoking" - this inability to talk about ourselves and our own issues without bad faith actors coercing us to address the other and "prove" that we're worth listening to. It's dehumanizing, because it means that our legitimate issues are always and only ever able to be discussed in the shadow of the other. They aren't allowed to stand on their own without risking harassment.

Anyway, I think the reasons we got here are complicated, but I lay most of the blame at the feet of uninvolved westerners using this conflict as a proxy for their own problems. I don't know that there's a way to fix this at this point, either, because the discourse has become so unbelievably toxic. I think the closest thing I've got is just the suggestion that if you see a Palestinian (or ally) talking about Palestinian issues and not being antisemitic about it, don't derail what they're saying even if they don't specifically denounce Hamas outright and/or antisemitism in their post. And if Jews (including and especially Israelis) are talking about antisemitism and/or legitimate issues and aren't being racist or Islamophobic about it, don't derail what we're saying even if we don't offer caveats denouncing the Israeli government and/or Islamophobia/anti-Arab racism in that specific post.

We can support each other in the face of danger and want peace without having to constantly be forced to talk about other issues and divert focus from our own issues.

@therorlord "one conversation cannot be every conversation" I really like that framing, it really gets to the heart of the problem.

I also think another possible explanation here is the heightened emotional aspect of it, too. These are sensitive issues and the internet in general and tumblr in particular suck at addressing complicated issues in a sensitive and level-headed way.

I know I personally have fallen into both traps, where I find myself breathing a huge sigh of relief when someone talking about the violence Palestinians have experienced from the Israeli government stops to acknowledge that antisemitism (a) exists, (b) is bad, and (c) that the Netanyahu administration doesn't represent all Israelis, let alone all Jews everywhere. But why? They shouldn't have to - it's only because the discourse is so toxic and antisemitic that I feel relief when I realize that this person doesn't hate me and my people, they're just talking about their legitimate struggles.

And on the other side of it, I find myself frequently putting in caveats to my posts and statements about antisemitism in the diaspora and my grief over the Israeli citizen victims of the pogrom, the hostages, and the safety of my friends who live there and are still constantly having to run to their safe rooms from the missile bombardment. But why? Shouldn't people assume that it's possible for me to care about more than one group of people suffering? But I find myself adding it because I worry about any Palestinian (or even just generally Arab and/or Muslim) folks reading what I'm saying and wondering if I care about the suffering of their people and/or if I am internally holding them responsible for the actions of Hamas or the people terrorizing diaspora Jews. I do care and I am not displacing that responsibility, but if I don't say that, how can they feel safe engaging with me? So I attach caveats where none are needed, technically, because I don't want that question clouding everything else I'm saying. I don't want folks who are already hurting to fear that I'm another person cheering that on.

None of this would be a problem if there could be a baseline level of trust that people are generally good and nuanced and care about people simply because they are people who deserve equal human rights. But enough bad faith actors and extremists have polarized the discussion to the point where the social contact has been broken and the trust just isn't there.

In recognizing these behaviors in myself, I've been trying to change by questioning the assumptions embedded in that sigh of relief and the apprehension when those caveats aren't spelled out, and I've been trying to be more direct and not derail my own posts, trusting people to engage in good faith with what I'm actually saying and not whatever they think I should be saying. But it's hard. It's real hard.

The "No cease-fire" chant while Van Jones was speaking is deeply regrettable, based on a complete misunderstanding of what he was saying. He was not calling for a cease-fire while Hamas still rules Gaza, but speaking of a true and lasting peace between two nations.

Nonetheless, there should not be a cease-fire until the campaign is concluded and Hamas has been uprooted. We have seen what Hamas intends to do time and again, by their own promises. We have seen how Hamas treats its own people as expendable pawns for PR.

Anyone who cares about Palestinians, about peace, about the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestine, must be on the side of Hamas's removal. There is no way forward while they continue to wield military and political power. So long as they exist, the blockade must remain. There will be no reconstruction because all materials will be confiscated by them to rebuild their tunnel networks and luxury resorts for tourists and party members, but not for ordinary Gazans.

This fight is not to punish Palestinians or kill civilians. Quite the opposite. It is to eliminate a savage terrorist organization from a position whereby it can dictate two peoples' trajectories for the worse.

Hamas can abandon hospitals. Hamas can don its uniforms. Hamas can come out from behind its civilians. Hamas can abide by the rules of war. Instead, Hamas shows contempt for international humanitarian law and for its own people. It shows contempt for prior agreements and cease-fires. Therefore there is no further negotiation with them. They must be destroyed if both Israelis and Palestinians are to be free.

#every civilian death is a tragedy. and. nobody has any better way to apprehend tens of thousands of armed fascists embedded in a city#and nobody else is offering to help#we are not dealing with rational peace-seeking people here#the options are people die now or people die later. there is no third option to extract 20k+ armed fascists from a city#what happened to this website's interest in the trolley problem where bad actors have contrived things so somebody dies whatever you do#please try to imagine how it would play out if the US national guard had to retake NYC from tens of thousands of armed christofascists#you think they'd manage any better even with their greater resources?#if Israel really wanted to kill civilians don't you think they'd have killed more? it's easy to indiscriminately bomb refugee camps#it's more challenging to bomb a city for a month and only have killed 11k people (counting combatants and civilians together)

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

Someone who says they don't care if dudes wear dresses and makeup is a better ally than someone who says they're a safe space for women and non-binary people. I am not joking.

yeah I went to a gay bar recently with my husband tumblr user beemovieerotica, and a VERY confused capital S Southerner straight man in cargo shorts and a trucker hat showed up

apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)

Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????

Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.

Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song

We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"

When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."

During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid

When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."

When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."

like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time

The person matters more than the language

@halorvic Sorry, I kinda stole a frame of one of your Tea Dragon Comics, But I made a nice print out of it. I just liked it too much to pass it up. It was for a school project too and my teacher appreciated the dragons!

Oh that’s very cool – I hope you got high marks for it!

An angel begging for a demon’s forgiveness.

Crowley wants to forgive him, but he can’t…

happy pride to queer role models and fish

a late night debate!! (prints)

-- aka A. J. Crowley's guide to demonic lying (from @nunystuff's post)