Once you realize the true history of last 100 years of Palestine's history, and you come to the conclusion that an outside, non-indigenous, mostly white, mostly European/American population migrated there, killed, stole the land from, and expelled the indigenous Palestinians, these weird Zionist narratives become hilarious jokes.
Except for these narratives are cover for genocide, so in that way, like many of the Nazi ideologies and myths and shit and like the myth of American Exceptionalism, in a vaccuum these things can be hilarious because they're so absurd.
"Wait, so your family was in Europe for 300 years and then moved to a place that a book says you were in 3000 years ago, so that means it's ok to murder the current occupants and take their house and land?"
It's as ridiculous as Americans and Germans who claimed God or whatever the fuck racial superiority gave them the right, by use of their might, to take land, do genocide, settle the now-cleansed lands, and establish new governments which ensured that any remaining indigenous would never be equal.
The only difference being the Nazis were stopped part way through the "cleansing the land" part, while America succeeded basically completely. Succeeded to a point that indigenous Americans in the US will probably never, ever be considered any sort of legitimate power or threat to the US government and now it's been "settled" (literally settled but also in the way of law) for long, multiple generations, that seeing any other future where tribes are given land back or even offered some proper form of reparations is gone from the picture.
So Israel is at the "cleansing the land" stage as of now. Their obvious medium term goal is cleansing Gaza and then immediately doing the same to the West Bank and move "settlers" in to both areas, squat on it for decades, and eventually the world goes "goddamnit... what can we do at this point?"
So Israel is at the "cleansing the land" stage as of now. Their obvious medium term goal is cleansing Gaza and then immediately doing the same to the West Bank and move "settlers" in to both areas, squat on it for decades, and eventually the world goes "goddamnit... what can we do at this point?"
If they get their way, there will be shoot-and-cry movies about it a few decades from now where a bunch of Hollywood vampires will cry crocodile tears about it at the Oscars.
It's a matter of demographics more than anything, all the people in the US with any sort of indigenous connection make up about 4% of the total population. Even organised and with average wealth they'd struggle greatly to threaten the US government in anything but swing state elections.
What part of my comment gave you the impression I wanted to read a reply about electoralism and demographics?
The person I replied to wrote some ignorant shit, and I replied with a clear counterexample. If the settler guvmint didn't consider AIM a threat, Leonard wouldn't still be in prison.
Or for more recent examples, the settlers wouldn't react so strongly to land defense actions in the last decade (at Mauna Kea, Standing Rock, Line 3, Wet'suet'en lands, etc. etc.) if they didn't consider them threats. The Mexican guvmint & CIA wouldn't've just given organized crime control of Chiapas if the Zapatistas weren't a threat.
This 'it's so far in the past there's no hope now' attitude is just another face of settler genocide denial and absolutely ignorant of the organizing and actions taking place on the ground today.
Decolonization will obviously look different in a white majority settler country like amerikkka and a white minority apartheid country like South Africa, so you can't really point at other examples of decolonization and say "just do that in america."
No disagreement there. I don't think I was making the point that decolonizing settler-majority states will look like decolonial efforts in extractive-colonial or minority settler states? All my examples are of actions in the last 50 years that have taken place on so-called north america.
Just pushing back against this subtle genocide denial of 'too far gone' I see from settlers all the time. It erases both the current decolonial actions and (more grossly IMO) the current and ongoing genocidal actions taking place.
Or for more recent examples, the settlers wouldn't react so strongly to land defense actions in the last decade (at Mauna Kea, Standing Rock, Line 3, Wet'suet'en lands, etc. etc.) if they didn't consider them threats
Honestly, I feel like they might react so strongly not because they feel threatened, but because they consider indigenous groups so unthreatening they can dispel with the thin veneer of civility and apply the boot directly wherever possible.
I'm not saying there's no hope, probably some reparations and an improvement of conditions is achievable with intersectional support, but decolonisation and proportionate reparations are never going to happen.
Honestly, I feel like they might react so strongly not because they feel threatened, but because they consider indigenous groups so unthreatening they can dispel with the thin veneer of civility and apply the boot directly wherever possible.
The absolute mental gymnastics. State violence isn't wielded against non-threats. Would you say that the state didn't view Fred Hampton and the BPP as a threat? Or that isntreal doesn't view Gaza as a threat? Your words imply as much.
I'm not claiming the state sees these threats as existential. But to claim there's no perceived threat at all is genocide denial.