this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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Went to a Palestinian solidarity protest/rally with some new folks who’d become radicalised against America/the West over the last six months. They aren’t socialists (yet, I’m working on it) - but they’re good people. So, seeing the genocide and its support by our governments filled them with disgust. We talked about the Nakba, the history of Zionism, and the current apartheid etc.

Now, we come to the protest.

Overall, the atmosphere was incredible. Lots of cool signs, different kinds of people, and, of course the pigs. That’s not the problem.

The problem was the fucking speakers. I swear, at least half of them had to be feds whose entire job was to turn people away from turning up at these events.

Some of them, and I mean this literally, wanted the crowd to chant “we support October 7” and “we stand with Hamas”.

I swear, the way the people I was with turned to look at me.

Not every speaker was like this - most were genuine. They talked of labor solidarity, campus organizing, personal anecdotes. But all of that made these speakers stand out all the more.

The worst part is that when it would happen, the organisers was one of them. So this entire thing was a sham from the start.

I feel so bad. I shouldn’t have just brought people to a random protest I saw and should’ve vetted it first.

Like, seriously. I can’t fucking get over this. Who organizes a protests of people from all walks of life in support of Palestine and wants them to chant we stand with Hamas and let’s do one hundred more October 7s?.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Like, of fucking course Hamas is a natural reaction to apartheid and ethnic cleansing and genocide. And of course Oct 7 is nothing compared to the 200 days that followed since (or the 75 years that preceded it). But come the fuck on.

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[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 67 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Of course feds are going to try shit. What did you expect?

Did you forget them starting shit during the George Floyd protests?

Don't let it get you down. This is a war, monsters are going to act like monsters. You just have to keep strong despite them.

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[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 67 points 6 months ago (13 children)

I stand with Hamas and support October 7th

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 36 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've seen photos of protestors with Hezbollah flags. We don't have to apologize for Hamas.

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 63 points 6 months ago

hezbollah, ansarallah and hamas are all showing solidarity with the western protests, and shitlibs like OP want to throw them under the bus for optics

this is why the western left sucks

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[–] 2Password2Remember@hexbear.net 56 points 6 months ago

we stand with Hamas and let’s do one hundred more October 7s

I-was-saying

Death to America

[–] SexMachineStalin@hexbear.net 55 points 6 months ago

Meanwhile just in Johannesburg alone:

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 55 points 6 months ago (1 children)

we stand with Hamas and let’s do one hundred more October 7s

Waow

[–] Rojo27@hexbear.net 53 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Trying to get the anti-semetic accusations to stick I would imagine. Not that the actions of Oct 7th and Hamas are, but the public would certainly perceive this as antisemetic.

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 45 points 6 months ago (2 children)

hamas and oct 7th aren't anti-semitic and pretending they are is already caving to zionist narratives.

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[–] SootySootySoot@hexbear.net 50 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Some people in this thread really do need to touch-grass

Violent opposition to genocide is of course justified, but publicly chanting supporting for an event that is, at the very least, widely public perceived as a massacre of civilians, is pretty shitty protest tactics at best. And discrediting fed-work at worst.

Critical support for Hamas. They should do more violent resistance to the IDF, and sadly civilians will die, but that aspect is an unfortunate necessity, not a thing to be lauded. Hamas themselves say they made mistakes in that attack.

People should not stand with them on every issue and event; overall obviously fighting a genocide makes them worthy of support.

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

Lib shit. October 7th wasn’t a massacre it was a brilliant, heroic and successful military action. Stop ceding ground loser. The main mistakes Hamas made was not taking even more hostages and not killing even more Israeli scum.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Your optics cuckery is pathetic and a losing strategy. You conceal your aims. You accept Liberal framing. You cower before truth and put up lies

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[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (9 children)

widely public perceived as a massacre of civilians, is pretty shitty protest tactics at best

So instead of challenging the perception of Liberals you buckle to it, accept their framework and then lie about your ‘critical support’ of Hamas and hide it (or maybe you don’t actually support them after all if you can’t stand up to smears against them)

If you say to me you “critically support Hamas” but then in public condemn them you are lying to either me or the public. Neither is acceptable

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[–] Xx_Aru_xX@hexbear.net 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (8 children)

and sadly civilians will die

only ones I'm sad to see die are the Palestinians, may all settlers face what they deserve

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[–] ksynwa_from_lemmygrad@hexbear.net 49 points 6 months ago

Some of them, and I mean this literally, wanted the crowd to chant “we support October 7” and “we stand with Hamas”.

These both chants are pretty lukewarm. Both are objectively good things to say too. October 7 was not a massacre. What it is perceived as is irrelevant to this fact. Hamas actually showed a lot more restraint than I would have expected and I'm pretty sure Israelis killed more of their own than Hamas did. Normalising support of Oct 7 is funny in my books and does not feel like fed behaviour.

[–] JayTwo@hexbear.net 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Sometimes I wonder if people who pull stuff like that (I've had similar experiences) are feds or if they just don't realize that the shitposting stays in the designated shitposting areas of the internet and can't be allowed to leak out to IRL.

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 39 points 6 months ago (3 children)

it's not shitposting, it's the correct anti-imperialist position

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[–] BigHaas@hexbear.net 45 points 6 months ago

Here I am thinking we should start chanting "death to america" and "break the back of the Fourth Reich"

[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

reading these comments and realizing that there are tons of leftists, here and elsewhere, who quietly believe all the right things, but cannot emotionally deal with the fact that anti-imperialist communism isn't as popular as DNC Vote-ism and never will be, so they fedjacket anyone who can on political-tactical grounds.

[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

like, please ask yourselves, do you actually have reason to believe this is the work of feds, or have you failed to apprehend the reality in front of you, and you need some explanation that renders it illusory?

[–] Sinister@hexbear.net 44 points 6 months ago

You know that Hamas isn’t made up of irrationally and bloodthirsty grunts?

Similar to the revolting slaves that killed „all“ the white people in haiti. „Violent“ organized groups are usually symptomatic of more peaceful methods failing and have been proven historically willing to „spare“ their oppressiors civilian population, if they don’t stand in their way. Nevermind that most Israelis aren’t civilians but armed settlers/soldiers, similar to the neofeudal uralic wehrmacht-bauer concept of the third reich.

[–] chickentendrils@hexbear.net 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Possibly feds but honestly some people got a bit juiced that public sentiment is shifting in what seems like a big way, forget where most people are at, at least as long as "supporting the IDF" is still less taboo in the mainstream I think more people who rhetorically "support Hamas" will actually say it than mean it.

They might also be forgetting where most people are at & supremely confident that almost all of the non-militarized Israelis killed in/around Al-Aqsa Flood were killed by the IDF. Which is certainly plausible, I'd feel comfortable assuming it's true but like a lot of things it'll probably be a distant memory by the time we know certainly.

Ideally the *world* could come together to intervene and stop Israel, but sometimes we deal with what we have.

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 42 points 6 months ago

My org was pushing critical support for Hamas and Oct 7 on October 10 and it paid big organizing dividends.

Folks here need to stop listening to the liberals trying to make them cowards. If you do not project and own correct positions you will abandon allies and leave space for liberals to create their own versions of the narrative you should've been running with.

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[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I stand with Hamas.

I understand the optics are bad in the US. I still believe it and I'll say it. I don't think there's a way to believe otherwise if you oppose genocide and you fully understand the history of the occupation and of resistance to colonialism. Maybe there's a lot more we could be doing to educate people (more posting!), but I think it's a mistake to deny your actual beliefs in service of the carefully crafted PR produced message that will immediately transform a fully propagandized American liberal into a comrade. For decades we in the West tried depicting the Palestinian people as passive observers of their own destruction, and it somehow has done little to weaken the racist image of the bloodthirsty terrorist. Maybe we need to rely more on the truth: that Palestinians have always fought back, and have not given up.

[–] dudes_eating_beans@hexbear.net 41 points 6 months ago

“we support October 7” and “we stand with Hamas”

This but unironically.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

1- It's literally their job to ruin/coopt/disrupt/discredit these kind of cool things. Especially when it's popular.

2- Sometimes legit cool (or seemingly cool) people are stupid/insane

3- I-was-saying

[–] Des@hexbear.net 40 points 6 months ago

hamas did nothing wrong

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 37 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Let me ask you this, it’s 1943. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising takes place, news spread all over the world. A protest against nazi germany occurs and people chant “The uprising was justified”, “we stand with the resistance”. Would you balk at Jewish violence committed towards the nazi regime? They killed cops and military officers, those cops and officers used to be farmers, accountants, and more. They were also someone’s fathers, uncles and sons. Was it not justified?

Paolo Freire wrote in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that violence committed by the oppressed cannot be compared to violence committed by the oppressors. Organizing a resistance and escaping an open air concentration camp and attacking their guards, and kidnapping people living near those camps, unbothered and unconcerned by the oppression happening nearby, is not the violence of the oppressor.

The speakers may or may have not been feds. I see some of viral out of context clips and cringe. But Liberation is not clean, specially when the oppressors put up a resistance. There’s nothing honorable about resisting, it’s just our deeply and powerful need to survive by any means necessary.

[–] Kolibri@hexbear.net 34 points 6 months ago

Would you rather just like, let those trying to villianize Hamas be successful? When Hamas are doing heroic things and doing things like fighting against genocide and being a major force against everything Israel doing? Like why should any ground be given to those who want to condemn Hamas? Fuck anyone trying to condemn Hamas

[–] brainw0rms@hexbear.net 34 points 6 months ago

Assuming this isn't a bit:PIGPOOPBALLS

[–] InternetLefty@hexbear.net 32 points 6 months ago

I support Hamas and I support the military struggle against Israeli occupation to the hilt. The Palestinian people have the legal right to militarily resist occupation, and the October 7th attack is a realization of that (that of course has been widely maligned and lied about by Western media). I also think that there are right and wrong ways to approach this topic to maintain popular support for a protest movement in the west, and come off as bloodthirsty in respect to any issue and you'll lose people. You have to maintain a messaging that does not cede ground to incorrect Western narratives, though - so this requires some careful thought. Ultimately, those people who have no sympathy for the resistance and just want the fighting to stop have an incorrect position that must be challenged.

I also think it's uncomradely to be so hostile to our friends on HexBear. Some people on here always assume the worst and start laying in with the personal attacks and unkind words. I don't think it's acceptable. We should correct others where possible in a way that respects them.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 32 points 6 months ago

Hmmmm.............feds will attempt to portray the Palestinian movement as crazed antisemites, and will do this by claiming that everyone supports Hamas/Oct7, as public opinion has not yet turned in the favor of these.............but also supporting Hamas/Oct7 is by all means the correct position, and it is proven time and time again to be a losing strategy to cave in to liberal optics by refusing to challenge comfort..............both of these things can be true at the same time............'tis quite a pickle indeed..............hmmmmmm, yes, quite................ [smokes oversized pipe sitting in the shade of a large oak tree, and falls asleep]

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 31 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They are trying to justify their narrative that palestine supporters are antisemetic

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[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 31 points 6 months ago

So how does poop taste?

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 30 points 6 months ago

You should critically support Hamas in their resistance to occupation and so should the people you brought with you.

Protests are meant to push back against the status quo and be a space for sharing understandings and strategies for resistance. They should not be a space that is ideologically comfortable for gullible liberals. If you want liberals to shift you need to get them to read or you need to get them to try organizing and let the failures teach them how the system actually works. Or you need to use these moments to explain critical support to them.

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