General News “Queers for Palestine” and the Death of Irony

This is an article from Armin Navabi, an Iranian-Canadian who is familiar with both the middle-east and Islam, and also the western politics.

https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/queers-for-palestine-and-the-death-of-irony

I think many people in the west doesn't help the Palestinians by being against Israel, as they might think. That position will get more Palaestinian lives, I'm afraid.

Will be happy to discuss with anyone who thinks Israel's response to the 7th October masacre is not justified.

 

I don't know. It's about a slogan that some queers use in their pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas rallies.

 

It doesn't work this way. Nazi Germany had far more civilian casualty than Britain in World War II, so we should say that Nazi Germany is better?
Would you let me know how did you get those ratio of 9 to 1 (I mean the 90% civilians)? I don't think anyone can be certain about any ratio yet.

The difference is that Hamas deliberately chased civilians, including Muslim Arab Israelis and did what we know they did in 7th October.

And genocide of whom do you mean? I mean, about 25% of Israel is Arabs and 0% of Gaza is Jews. We have a history of Jewish exodus from from Islamic countries, like Iraq, in 20th century. In fact the opposite is true. Because Hamas' official charter in 1988 is about annihilation of Jews. Genocide is what Hamas did in 7th October in action (killing every random Jew and Israeli you face).

I have one more question. If Israel is against Muslims or Arabs, Why Hamas took Muslim Arab hijabi Israelis as hostages? How Israel could care about these people and want to genocide similar people inside Gaza at the same time?

And to be clear, I know Israel has its faults. So don't assume I think it's black and white.

 

The reason I compared the Nazi Germany/Britain with current war was numbers. I thought maybe you compare the numbers and because Israel had less casualties, you'd assume they're worse.

I don't think those examples (Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are similar to what we have here in Gaza. Israel doesn't wanna kill civilians. I am not in their head. But I don't have evidence for them killing civilians as a deliberate act. Show me one war in history in which a country help the civilians in various ways to flee from the dangerous zones or cities. Especially when you're in a defensive war and the majority of the civilians are supporting the initial attack. I think this is kinda unprecedented in history.

Another point is you calling Israel's war a genocide. If I call Hamas genocidal, it's in their lectures, their tv programmes for children, their founding charter, etc that they want to destroy Israel as a state and also annihilate Jews from the face of the earth.
I mean, what is the characteristics of a genocide in your opinion? And on what bases, Israel is commiting genocide?

I am from Iran. In Iran-Iraq war, they bombed our cities deliberately.
Was it bad? Yes, it was an extremely heinous crime.
Was it genocidal? I don't think so. They didn't want to genocide Iranians or any other group. They wanted to win the war.
(In response the government in Iran also bombed their cities. This wasn't genocidal also.)

 

I'm afraid we have elections in the west and Israel, in which people could elect candidates who are against what you called warmongering. It's being done by democratically elected governments.

But not so in my country. I have a rich country which is occupied by some mafia bands and terrorists who has made all of us poor and miserable. Their most important goal is to destroy the state of Israel. Hamas would be nothing if it wasn't because of the government in Iran spending our money and weapons for them.

 

These are a lot of points in your post which needs to be disscussed. But you don't have to answer every or any.

No one can deny that there are people inside Israel and IDF that condone killing the civilians. But I wouldn't say Isarel's army or government want to do that. Questiong (being skeptic) is reasonable and more effective in my opinion.

As far as I know Israel only closed its own borders. Every country have that right. Egypt also did the same to Gaza, even more strictly. It was because Hamas was elected to govern Gaza. Even Arab countries fear Gaza and Hamas. It seems reasonable, especially after what we saw in 7th October. A small breach in the walls and about 1500 people being masacerd.
I want to add that Israel accepted a lot of Gazan workers to come to Israel and work there. Many people would come to Israeli hospitals from Gaza. But not anymore, unfortunatly.

I think you mean West Bank, when mentioning about losing lands. Israel left the Gaza alone in 2005 unconditionally and removed its 21 settlements in it, hoping that would help making some peace. But unfortunatly Hamas was elected in Gaza and took the control of it.

I'm sorry, but according to the new polls, majority of people in Gaza support the 7th October too. Not just against IDF.
I'm unaware of the specifity. If you mean marching to cross the borders of Israel, no country in the world would accept that.

I don't see evidences of it being intentional.
According to international laws (the Geneva conventions), these matters are not that simple. We should investigate each case very accurately to be able to say it is a warcrime or not. Having many civilian casualties doesn't mean it's a warcrime. As I said, it's good and reasonable if you are skeptic and pressure Israel and the US to help IDF get more humane in the war, but we don't know much yet. For the most part we will be able to judge after the war, through thorough investigations.

Again, the people could pressure your politicians to not aid the only liberal country in the Middle East. We can't pressure our rulers to not aid terrorist groups who want to transform Israel into just like any other misearble country in the region, ruining the only safe country for Muslims, Arabs, LGBTs, Jews, etc here. Yes, Arabs or Muslims enjoy equal rights in Israel which doesn't have in a single Arab or Muslim country.
I see not much similarity here.