#the US is complicit in genocide and war crimes again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heritageposts · 3 months

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Since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in October, Israeli soldiers have been posting what can only be described as snuff videos on social media platforms. In the videos, soldiers can be seen – often gleefully – committing war crimes against Palestinians. In one video, an Israeli soldier dressed in a dinosaur costume loads artillery shells into a tank and dances as the shells are fired in the direction of Gaza. In another video, a soldier is filmed dedicating an explosion to his two-year-old daughter for her birthday. Seconds later, a Palestinian residential building behind him is blown up. Other videos show Israeli soldiers setting alight Palestinian food supplies during a starvation campaign and mocking stripped, rounded-up and blindfolded Palestinian civilians. [...] And there is another aspect of Israeli impunity that is often overlooked: Israeli soldiers routinely admit to horrific crimes they commit against the Palestinians to clear their conscience and absolve themselves of personal responsibility but never face any accountability. Israelis themselves describe the practice as “yorim ve bochim”, which translates from Hebrew as “shooting and crying”. A favourite pastime of the Zionist left, it takes centre stage in dozens of Israeli films and documentaries. Take the widely celebrated film Tantura, named after a Palestinian fishing village that was subjected to a massacre in 1948. In this film, several Israeli veterans talk with ease about the fact that they killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Others openly admit to participating in ethnic cleansing, yet all are portrayed as complicated individuals who are traumatised by the trauma they inflicted on Palestinians. “Yorim ve bochim” is also epitomised in the work of the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. A darling of the liberal West, the organisation of Israeli army veterans tries to expose the reality of the “Occupied Territories” by providing a space to Israeli soldiers to confidentially recount their experiences in the Israeli army and at times admit to taking part in systematic abuse and destruction. The testimonies on its website make for incredibly difficult reading, particularly in this moment when we are seeing what is happening in Gaza. And yet nowhere does this organisation call for accountability or address what justice might look like for the Palestinians whom the soldiers they work with have systematically abused over decades. The reality is that over the last seven and a half decades, there has been complete impunity for brutalising and slaughtering Palestinians. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the way in which it is being so brazenly shared on social media by the perpetrators is a manifestation of that impunity. The only way to make sure that it stops and never happens again is to hold not only those who have taken part in the genocide accountable but also those who are complicit.

. . . continues on al jazeera (24 Jan, 2024)

#palestine #israel #gaza #''shooting and crying'' very american of them

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gothhabiba · 5 months

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[ID: White text on a red background reads “BDS works. PUMA forced to drop sponsorship of Team Apartheid Israel.” A dark red silhouette of a cougar walks towards the right. A link at the bottom reads bdsmovement.net/boycott-puma. End ID]

It’s true. And it’s big.

PUMA won’t be renewing its contract with the Israel Football Association (IFA).

This is a BDS win, a win for Palestinian rights, and a win for people-powered pressure on corporations complicit in grave crimes.

This is also your win. You protested outside PUMA offices and shops. You convinced teams, athletes, artists, and stores to dump PUMA. You filled PUMA’s inbox. You jammed PUMA’s phone lines. You hijacked PUMA’s online presence. You called out PUMA’s hypocrisy. You boycotted PUMA products. You ruffled PUMA’s CEO to the point he inadvertently said “BDS” while talking about the Better Cotton Initiative at last year’s shareholders meeting.

We’ve demonstrated, once again, that together, via long-term strategic campaigns, we can force even multinational corporations to end their complicity in Israel’s regime of military occupation and apartheid.

Companies and institutions that still support Israeli apartheid and enable Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza are on notice. There will be consequences. We can and will cause reputational damage. And we won’t stop until they fully end complicity.

This boycott win is a bittersweet victory as Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues. But it gives us hope and determination to hold all genocide enablers and apartheid supporters accountable until all Palestinians can live in freedom, justice and equality.

PUMA’s contract with the IFA expires in June 2024. Let’s make sure PUMA ends all complicity in Israeli apartheid.

In solidarity,

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

[Get updates by going to bdsmovement.net, opening the hamburger menu, clicking “get updates,” and entering an email address. Donate here.]

#bds #Palestine #puma

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odinsblog · 5 months

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More than 15,000 people, of whom at least 6,000 were children. That’s how many people Israel has reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip in a matter of weeks – and those numbers are still rising. Israel has bombed basic societal infrastructure and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters and refugee camps. Israel has imposed a siege, preventing food, medicine, water and fuel from reaching the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the occupied Gaza Strip, leading Oxfam to accuse Israel of employing “starvation as a weapon of war”.

Dozens of United Nations experts have described the situation as “a genocide in the making”, hundreds of international scholars have warned of an unfolding genocide and prominent Israeli genocide expert Raz Segal has called it “a textbook case of genocide”. But most of the world, particularly the so-called global north, is looking the other way.

Despite these horrors, some have chosen to focus the public debate on attempts to delegitimise statements about Gaza made by young people in the climate justice movement. Contrary to what many have claimed, Fridays for Future has not “been radicalised” or “become political”. We have always been political, because we have always been a movement for justice. Standing in solidarity with Palestinians and all affected civilians has never been in question for us.

Advocating for climate justice fundamentally comes from a place of caring about people and their human rights. That means speaking up when people suffer, are forced to flee their homes or are killed – regardless of the cause. It is the same reason why we have always held strikes in solidarity with marginalised groups – including those in Sápmi, Kurdistan, Ukraine and many other places – and their struggles for justice against imperialism and oppression. Our solidarity with Palestine is no different, and we refuse to let the public focus shift away from the horrifying human suffering that Palestinians are currently facing.

Due to the amount of misdirected attention on us, as well as the number of misinterpretations of our position, we would like to once again clarify our stance. All Fridays for Future groups are autonomous, and this article represents the views of nobody but FFF Sweden.

The horrific murders of Israeli civilians by Hamas cannot in any way legitimise Israel’s ongoing war crimes. Genocide is not self-defence, nor is it in any way a proportionate response. It also cannot be ignored that this comes within the broader context of Palestinians having lived under suffocating oppression for decades, in what Amnesty International has defined as an apartheid regime. While all of this alone would be reason enough to comment on the situation, as a Swedish movement, we also have a responsibility to speak up due to Swedish military cooperation with Israeli arms companies, which makes Sweden complicit in Israel’s occupation and mass killing.

We are now seeing a sharp increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic statements, actions and hate crimes in Sweden and the world. The leader of the largest member of Sweden’s rightwing governing bloc is speaking of demolishing mosques, and the Israeli flag was burned in front of a synagogue in Malmö. This is unacceptable. We unreservedly condemn all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Everyone speaking out on this crisis has a responsibility to distinguish between Hamas, Muslims and Palestinians; and between the state of Israel, Jewish people and Israelis.

We grieve the lives lost over the past several weeks and are appalled by the fact that those numbers have been allowed to continue to rise. The death rate in the Gaza Strip is at a historic high, with thousands of children killed in just a few weeks. This amount of suffering is incomprehensible and cannot be allowed to continue. When UN experts call upon the world to act to prevent a genocide, as fellow humans, we have a responsibility to speak out.

Demanding an end to this inexcusable violence is a question of basic humanity, and we call on everyone who can to do so. Silence is complicity. You cannot be neutral in an unfolding genocide.

— Greta Thunberg

#politics #greta thunberg #palestine #gaza #israel #genocide #hamas ≠ palestine #war crimes #ceasefire #ceasefire now #never again #never again to anyone #collective punishment #bds #boycott divest sanction #islamophobia #antisemitism #israel is an apartheid state #benjamin netanyahu is a war criminal

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allthecanadianpolitics · 5 months

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Statement by the SPHR of Concordia University, concerning the meeting with president Graham Carr on 16/11/2023

The Society for Palestinian Human Rights held a meeting with Concordia University president Graham Carr for multiple concerns, the unaddressed violence on campus towards Palestinian and Muslim students and pro-Palestinian allies by zionists' harassment, as well as the University's investments in arms companies that arm Israel, thus funding the genocide of Palestinians. Here is their response to the disrespectful and dismissive exchanges with him.

Full statement under the cut.

"On Novemberr 16th, two representatives of SPHR Concordia met with University President Graham Carr. SPHR and many other student activists have been concerned with President Carr's efforts in recent years to deepen our universities' ties to Israeli institutions since learning about his trip to Bar Ilan University in August 2022, but the President has so far not responded to these student concerns.

This meeting offered a very important opportunity for SPHR members to voice our concerns around systemic anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia on campus, as well as Concordia's investments in the apartheid regime. Due to the administration's stated intentions to listen to student concerns, we were hopeful that the discussion might lead to some positive changes being implemented.

SPHR came to President Carr to ask the following:

An investigation into recent and ongoing attacks against students of all faiths and backgrounds, many of whom have been explicitly targeted for their solidarity with the Palestinian people. The University's divestment from initiatives and organisations [sic] which actively fund or otherwise support the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, the outcome of the meeting was disappointing as no commitments were made for meaningful repair and positive change and we were once again met with empty words.

When asked if he acknowledges statements by human rights organisations [sic] such as Amnesty international, the UN, B'Tselem (and at least 16 other Israeli NGOs as of July 2023) identifying Israel as an apartheid state, he replied: "I am certainly well aware of those statements and I think part of this question is here is what the role of the university is...?", deflecting and failing to answer the question.

While he could not deny that Concordia invests in several organisations [sic] identified by international human rights groups as being complicit in Israeli war crimes, he claimed that Concordia differentiates itself by saying "there is a way that we can also use investments to bring about social good in the world", to which one of our representatives asked "so social good is delivered by bombs?"

President Carr failed to respond when asked how investing in institutions founded and dependent on ethnic cleansing initiatives constitutes working to bring about this so-called 'social good'. He also did not specify how these philanthropic investments would benefit Palestinians, but rather continued the university's tradition of Greenwashing or "Social Washing" to divert attention from Concordia's more unsavoury investments.

Graham Carr's response to financially contributing to Elbit systems through its BMO investments was "Concordia is not DIRECTLY funding a weapon's company" and asked "so what's your solution on that front?"

In response to our demands of ending our university's complicity with the apartheid regime, he asked "Do you think Jewish students would be more secure?" We certainly believe Jewish students would feel safer knowing their university isn't complicit in a genocide. These types of questions are not only disrespectful to our demands, but also to the Jewish community.

While we were able to establish common ground throughout our meeting that both SPHR and the administration places the safety of students as an absolute priority, we were not provided with a clear statement on when or how the University's administration would be pursuing sanctions against members of the Concordia community who are actively harassing, doxing [sic], threatening, and otherwise attacking Palestinian, Muslim, and racialised [sic] students and their allies.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Graham Carr cut our meeting short without providing us with clear answers on our demands...

As a diverse coalition of students united for Palestinian Human Rights, SPHR would like to put these questions to their fellow students, as well as Concordia faculty, staff and administration:

Why would President Carr meet personally with SPHR to ask about our concerns, if only to belittle the urgent issues of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism and dismiss the urgent need for divestment?

Why is it that Concordia has an entire Israeli Studies Institute, and Israel is the only state in the Middle East to have its own dedicated Poli Sci course, but does not offer a single course specifically on Palestine?

How could a university President who spent nearly $9000 of student tuition on a trip to Israel organised [sic] by the CIJA, the largest pro-Israel lobby group in Canada, be reasonably expected to ensure a balanced and supportive environment for Palestinian students on campus?

Why would the university promote a social and environmental investment policy, while investing in Elbit systems' largest investors?

How can we ensure our tuition money is invested in humanitarian and decolonial initiatives for the Palestinian people as well as Indigenous people around the world instead of "impact investment" initiatives run by companies like BlackRock that has massive investments in Israel and in companies including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman that make the weapons Israel uses to murder Palestinians?"

Transcribed from this IG post by @el-shab-hussein, links added were not included in the original post.

#cdnpoli #University of Concordia #Montreal #Québec #Foreign Policy #zionist occupation of Palestine #western imperialism

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ptseti · 4 months

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Fresh from their trial at The Hague, where they accused Israel of genocidal intent, the South African legal delegation has announced that they are pursuing Washington and London next. Nearly 50 South African lawyers are gearing up to file a lawsuit against the United States and the United Kingdom, naming them “complicit” in Israeli war crimes in Palestine. They cite the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as one of many examples of unchecked Western destruction that must not be allowed to happen again. In Iraq, approximately 200,000 civilians were indiscriminately killed. Between 2003 and 2004, 181,000 artillery shells containing depleted uranium were used throughout Iraq, which has led to physical birth defects in children to this day. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, Israel uses F-35 jets to bomb Gaza. The aircraft is jointly produced by the UK, US and other partners. South Africa will use this and other evidence when building its case. Let us know in the comments what you think of South Africa’s current moral leadership on the global stage.

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inbredfawn · 6 months

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UN Human Rights New York Office Director Craig Mokhiber has resigned in protest against the UN's incompetence and failure to intervene and acknowledge Israel's crimes against humanity in Palestine.

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units.

Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva.

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Milles Collines in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we have not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75* Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20* Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists.

We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name" to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, insisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied terntones, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

#free palestine #save palestine #gaza #united nations #un human rights #israel is a terrorist state #netanyahu is a war criminal

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thoughtlessarse · 18 days

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I’m having a hard time understanding a lot about this conflict. Today, in the USA (Chicago Illinois, San Francisco California, and in New York) Pro-Palestinian activists decided to block the bridges to prevent people from entering or leaving. As a result, people waited for a minimum of 5 hours before the bridge was completely opened for them to cross. I’ve been reading stories of people who were transporting stem cells, sick people, etc who weren’t able to make it out.

According to the protestors, their goal was to cause an “economic blockade” by causing everyone to not be able to go anywhere

Shockingly a lot of Palestinians were supporting this saying that inconveniencing Americans is a good way to bring light to the situation happening in Gaza. I’ve even had some say that the few lives that were lost because of this were “fine” because it’s for the cause. I don’t want to believe that everyone is this cruel, so I will give my thought generally speaking.

I’m not an expert on these things, I don’t know much so im just using logic. Joe Biden is not the supreme authority over Israel. So let’s say that the USA stops sending aid to Israel completely. Let’s say they cut ties. Where will the protesting end up then? Will it move to another country who may support Israel? The way I see it is, Israeli government is going to do what it wants to do whether America sends it money or not.

Secondly, why is it that Americans have to suffer for what we cannot control? Blocking the bridge did nothing for the people in control. They were comfortably in their homes, meanwhile working mothers and fathers lost job time because of this. People have children to feed. How is what’s happening in Gaza somehow the fault of innocent civilians?

This act today was just cruel and my heart hurt because of it. I in no way am turning a blind eye to the suffering of those in Israel, whether that be Israeli or Palestinian. But at some point we really have to think about where our actions will take us. I’m curious to know if anyone is sharing the same thoughts as I am. Again, I am not educated on the conflict to where I can speak confidently about it 100%, im just looking at this from a logical standpoint.

I've read a Daily Telegraph article on the protests in the US. The Telegraph is not known for its love of protesters, and certainly not pro-Palestine/anti-war protesters, so any deaths would have been reported gleefully. There were none. The Telegraph did interview a woman who had to walk the last stretch to O'Hare in Chicago. She said, “This was an inconvenience, but in the grand scheme of things going on overseas, it’s a minor inconvenience.”

None of the protests lasted 5 hours. Some were over within 45 minutes, and none was longer than 3 hours. In New York it was from 3:15pm and the bridge was completely open by 5pm.

The protests in Chicago have been every day since the Hamas attack on October 7. They are anti-war protests, not explicitly pro-Palestine,

Palestinians support the protests. Why is that shocking? It'd be shocking if they didn't.

The US is Israel's biggest donor. Israel could not conduct the genocide without US help. US munitions are responsible for the devastation visited upon Gaza. This makes the US complicit in the Israeli war crimes. Had the US stopped providing arms much of Gaza would still be standing and a lot more people would still be alive, 12,300 of them children bombed and shot in the four months to March 2024. From 2019 to 2022 the number of dead children in all the world's conflicts stood at 12,193.

Nobody else is in a position to give Israel some much, certainly not the Europeans, although, we too are complicit just not to the same extent. Russia is too busy fighting its own fascist war and anyway holds little love for Israel, despite the fact that they both use settler colonies to expropriate land. That would leave China, and I can't see them arming Israel.

There was a time when protest marches were all that was needed for those in power to take notice. However, such protests are easily ignored, so protesters have to up the ante. Civil disobedience has a long history. It got women the vote (US and Europe) and helped usher in civil rights in the US. It's drawing attention to the climate crisis around the Western world.

Lastly, I like to think that were I in an ambulance stuck behind a pro-Palestine protest and was still able to, I would leave the ambulance and join the protest.

#anon ask #us pro-palestine protests

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news4dzhozhar · 2 months

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lorenfangor · 2 years

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something that I wish was more discussed about meta and assorted conversations centered around “Andalite imperialism” (in quotes because as I’ve argued before I think this is much more of a personal read than the objective canonical fact) is that the Yeerks are often perceived as more victimized by their government than the Andalites are, in a way that skews interpretations in their favor.

What I mean is this - whether or not a cog in the imperial machine personally agrees with every single value espoused by that machine, whether or not they’re a good person, whether or not they’re kind and compassionate - this doesn’t actually prevent them from doing harm, or believing most of what’s being taught without examining it. We see this with Aftran, to an extent, where she doesn’t actually start to disbelieve until Cassie’s sacrifice but she wasn’t ever a huge fan of the Yeerk Empire before. Same with the Yeerks from 8 who were in love. Sure, they’re good people? but they’re soldiers in a war just the same, and no matter how much they regret or how victimized or personally wounded they feel they’re leaps and bounds better off than their slaves and prisoners. ultimately what they’re doing is still incredibly evil and simply defeating them in war won’t end their ideologies or dissuade them from rallying and trying again in a century or so.

and this is relevant to discussions of the Andalites because so much fan conversation paints them as gleeful, willing collaborators for an imperial cause. In so many cases, it doesn’t seem to matter how good they are, or how disconnected from the war machine they are, or how badly they want to process the trauma of war, they can’t escape being tarred with the same brush as Lirem or Arbat. Yeerk grooming and propaganda is something Yeerks can’t help but believe and they’d be good people if the Empire was gone, but Andalite grooming and propaganda indicates deep problems in the core beliefs of the whole society, things every single citizen must tackle and unpack before they pass the “good enough” mark.

and that’s baffling to me, because one group is a pre-9/11 commentary on the US during the Vietnam War and the other are slavers with no scruples about mass murder on a truly galactic scale. one group has committed genocide, yeah, but it was both accidental (don’t forget that the Yeerks attacking the lab were what caused the quantum virus to be released! making a weapon of mass destruction and using it are two different things!) and the great shame of their military. the Yeerks have committed far vaster and more damaging crimes. they aren’t scrappy underdogs being poisoned from the top, they’re a rabidly fascist police state and most of their citizens DO believe in the ideals being taught to them. Yeerks might be scared of their superiors but the majority aren’t conscientious objectors advocating for nonviolence or joining the Peace Movement. every individual Yeerk is just as complicit, canonically, as fandom analysis says the Andalites are.

I’m wondering if the Yeerks are easier to sympathize with because their government is so much more obviously in the wrong and oppressive, and we see a lot more fear and uncertainty in their ranks because of how the Council of Thirteen functions, while the Andalite military and electorate are much more nebulous and subtle in their flaws. there’s probably a lot of personal guilt too, recognizing the things about America that are easy to hate in how they behave. but the Yeerks have a lot of those same problems too, so maybe that conclusion is incorrect. hm. more thoughts to follow probably.

#animorphs #animorphs meta

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zoramones · 5 months

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MORE INFO ON CONTACTING CANADIAN REPS ABOUT A CEASEFIRE IN PALESTINE:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C07AO2kAKQg/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

on the fourth slide of this post, there is a list of canadian representatives and their contact information. feel free to refer to the phone/email script a few posts down my blog and keep reaching out to demand an immediate ceasefire.

UPDATED PHONE SCRIPT TO CONTACT CANADIAN REPS FOR CEASEFIRE IN PALESTINE:

“Hello [Contact Name],

My name is [xxxx] and I am a deeply concerned resident of [city or riding]. I am calling on you to demand that you call for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the siege on Gaza to allow to immediate medical aid, and an end to all material and diplomatic support of Israel's war crimes, genocide and colonization of Palestinian land.

The civilian death toll is now over 17,000 (*to my knowledge*) due to indiscriminate bombing, the mass arrest and detention of Palestinians, and countless other violations of international law like collective punishment, withholding access to food and electricity and the use of toxic white phosphorus. This has been ongoing nonstop for over 60 days now. This is not a war, it is genocide which is currently being funded by our tax dollars.

During the 5 day ceasefire, we saw a majority of the released hostages from Palestine were children who had been imprisoned for years for minor offenses like throwing rocks. We also saw Israel shooting civilians still, and kidnapping people in the West Bank.

Now the bombing has resumed, and again, [country] stays silent and complicit.

It is high past time for [country] to stand against genocide. You, and all of Parliament, must call for an end to the root causes of all this violence: the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the Israeli government's apartheid regime.

I will not be voting for you or [your party] in the next election based on your lack of response on this emergency unless you are willing to stand against apartheid and call for a ceasefire.

Thank you for your time and we will all be watching to see if [country] will stand against apartheid and genocide.

Sincerely, (Your Name)”

#heyo it's zo!#zo’s info #🇵🇸🍉#phone scripts for ceasefire in palestine #CANADIANS ON TUMBLR!!#call your reps #call your mps #emal them or write letters i don't give a shit how #just CONTACT your local representatives #demand for a ceasefire in palestine #spread the word #share to different social media platforms #keep speaking up for palestine #expose israel #MAKE THEM LISTEN #doing what you can is better than doing nothing at all!!#hold this facist ethnostate accountable #this isn’t a war it’s a genocide #people need to be aware and ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING about it #especially in our government #our voices cannot go quiet #ceasefire now #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #israel is a terrorist state #no one is free until we are all free #free palestine #free the people from oppression #zo ✬#zoramones

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fanbynature · 2 months

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Curious why you’re upset Smosh is silent on Palestine but not any other global war happening right now. Yes what’s happening in Palestine is horrible, but so is what’s happening in Ukraine, Haiti, Sudan, Iraq, etc. Palestine isn’t the only country under siege and it says a lot that people are getting upset about this one because they have a Jewish cast member who made some really uninformed tweets about supporting Israeli civilians and liked a few Zionist hinting tweets that he unliked. I can’t think of a single instance where Smosh got vocal or involved about a political war. Yes they talk about social politics but that’s very different from something as sensitive and intricate as an actual ongoing genocide.

did you not read entirely what i wrote or not comprehend it, anon? Like I know english isn't my first language, but I thought it was pretty clear.

USA is actively helping Israel with billions of the money that get from the tax of US citizens as well as weapons.

The cast are US citizen - idk maybe the fact that their money is funding genocide should concern them and they should speak against it as people who have a big platform?

I mean it'd be lovely if they speak on every single bad current event that's happening in the world but l don't think they'll be that invested.

But being invested in what your country is "helping" be done to another country perhaps is good to be your priority, especially for people who are so vocal about politics and voting. Their president is complicit in war crimes and genocide. They're on side with literal fascist.

Also as a whole US was an active participant in the creation of Israel. And they sure do great smear campaigns to keep people "at bay".

And the point about Noah - I've posted multiple times about his actions. He didn't only like a few zionist tweets. He bragged about his great-grandfather being part of the creation of Israel - which tell me, anon, how it was achieved? Ah, yes - through stealing the land of the people there and either killing them or making them refuges aka the Nakba. Which again was with the help of USA.

He had also twitted, a while ago, about going to his birthright trip. But you won't be able to find it now cus people back then told him that it is all propaganda to make jews "oh so proud of the jewish state". He covered his tracks and had deleted the tweets.

He was raised a zionist. He's not simply a misguided little boy. He's a grown man with access to so much information yet he chose to be ignorant for YEARS.

People who are trying to find excuses for him - just simply block me, cus I'm not supporting him until he makes it clear he had changed his views.

But honestly anon I don't expect that much from them - they didn't even address the whole situation with Matt Raub when it was happening and kept him working there until he left on his own (and that very much wasn't a defy issue cus they sure like to blame 99% of their fuck ups on them - yes, they were horrible but even before defy was there smosh certainly wasn't the wisest when it came to some issues). I'm just a person expressing their frustation.

Peace out

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not-a-newt · 5 months

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Pls. Would you ever write a fix-it for Calix 🥺

Spoilers for Mass effect andromeda & nexus uprising below v

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would un-gank calix and I think I've settled on the hc that he DID get shot in the head BUT didn't die and was left in critical condition (bonus points for sloane still thinking he'd been killed?) then was consequently shoved back into cryo because 1) They didn't have the resources to fully treat a serious neurological injury like that and 2) they didn't have the judicial/penitentiary resources to handle that serious of a criminal even if they did manage to get him patched up — because you cant, you know, exile someone who's unconscious?

Then, AFTER the events of the game (where Sloane may or may not survive depending on how angsty I'm feeling?), paragon Ryder pushes for exiles to be universally pardoned for crimes they committed in the name of survival (theft, insurgence, etc.) but not "actual" crimes (homicide, cannibalism, nonconsensual and inhumane sapient experimentation, sabatoging life support operations, etc.)

Whereupon Calix gets revived, gets treatment, begins a regimen of intense, morale-breaking physical therapy, and is then given some kind of house arrest/indentured servitude punishment ft. major angst and dissociation from getting knocked unconscious during the middle of an explosive, blood-drenched rebellion, then waking up to a new utopia where everything is suddenly clean and perfect again but (MAYBE) finding that the one person who had his back and who he was maybe starting to feel a deeper (more than platonic?) connection to is dead? Or maybe she isn't dead, but she's changed? Maybe she went pirate and was complicit in the deaths of countless innocent civilians on Kadara and had becomes warped into something unrecognizable to him, fueling the disconnect between his already broken mind and the reality around him?? Ouch!

"And—oh, by the way, while you were out, we successfully waged war against a highly intelligent, yet genocidal race of aliens that we just happened to run into out here, plus we discovered and conquered this ancient, more-advanced-than-prothean technology to terraform all of those world's that were supposed to be garden paradises that turned out to be desolately uninhabitable, so they actually are habitable again... also here are the angara, they're our buddies :) "

I don't know if I would ever get around to actually writing this... but that's the way it exists in my head. It's not so much saving calix, but rather forcing him live so that he can suffer longer because I like to play with my blorbos like someone who uses the sims to design prisons <3

#Mass effect #mass effect andromeda #mass effect nexus uprising #mass effect novels #calix corvannis #sloane kelly #space newt #newt speaks #newt answers #thank you for the ask bestie

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handmedownpocketpussy · 1 month

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Some positivity in the Palestine tag! The Ecuadorian interfaith pilgrimage for ceasefire in palestine gets over 100 participants, and media coverage! Palestina, escucha: tu lucha es nuestra lucha! translation of article: We do not want to be unphased in the face of this global situation that affects us all, including our country, said Monsignor Victor Corral before beginning the walk that called for peace for the Palestinian people.

The journey, in which people of various beliefs participated, started from the Lutheran Church in Quito, passed by the Israeli embassy and ended after 10.25 kilometers in Carolina park.

In front of the diplomatic headquarters in Tel Aviv, religious leaders lamented the pain of Palestinian fathers and mothers who lost their children, the destruction of the entire infrastructure of Gazan families, forced to migrate towards an uncertain future.

“Ecuador with Palestine” and “The children of Gaza are not a threat” were repeated over and over again by Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and representatives of social organizations who with flags and banners rejected the Zionist genocide. [translator's note: there were Jews as well there, but it is not mentioned in the article, though one is shown in photos]

The population of the Gaza Strip is exposed to horrendous and inhuman crimes caused by Israeli aggression, which caused the death of thousands of innocent people, denounced Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to official data, since the start of the war, in October 2023, more than 32 thousand people have died in the besieged coastal enclave and almost 75 thousand have been injured.

Social and political organizations in Ecuador have expressed their rejection of the support of President Daniel Noboa's government for Israel in the midst of the genocide against the people of Palestine and accuse the president and the chancellor, Gabriela Sommerfeld, of being "complicit in the genocide."

#free palestine #palestine #jews for palestine #free gaza #praxis #jewish activism #activism #ecuador #quito #quitoecuador #my tags are jewish leaning because I'm a jew and because I took part in this march

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ideal-girl · 2 months

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I know you said you’d like to move on from this subject and I’m sorry, but there’s some things I need to get off my chest (I’m sorry but these things are continuing to eat at me and I cannot keep them bottled up).

LONG POST

Firstly there’s this paragraph by you:

”We have to decide if we are still going to support Israel and the IDF, despite the displays and confessions of hate crimes and war crimes, and if we are going to be friends or allies with people, Jewish or non-Jewish, who vow to love and honor them no matter what. Do we want to be friends and allies with someone who knows that a government and its soldiers are genocidal but still supports them?”

I think it’s rather unfair to judge the Jewish side as this. Neither of us knows much about how the Jews have been affected by this (you said so yourself, I only did minimum looking into, though I did see something, see below), so it’s rather uncalled for to judge them as this, as well as the “willfully complicit deceivers” comment. Do the majority really support and love Israel (including, most importantly, it’s government) or do they simply detest violence and don't find any favor in destroying Israel? Also going by some posts I found by Jewish people, Israel may be the only place for them where they don’t have to live in constant fear of those willing to kill them for the sake of existing, so could it be a case of maybe they find Israel wrong but at the same time it and the people are the only place they got? Like basically a case of “this sucks, but the alternative is worse”? I could see some Jews moving to Israel because of what’s been happening as of recent (see below). Again I know even less about Israel and how living conditions are there (especially for Jews), but also again; governments are not exactly reflective of the people they control.

I’m confused by what you mean about @amaditalks and @jewish-kulindadromeu since their posts didn’t even mention Hamas (which I don’t know of), nor did they say that Israel was right in destroying Palestine and that it was for their own protection. Was it this line that led you think this way?

“Israeli nationalism or patriotism, which subsequently includes actions of the Israeli government undertaken in the cause of Israeli defense (or in the name of it, even dubiously)”

If so I think it’s important to notice the bolded part of this, which implies that the OP of this post isn’t on board with what Israel is doing. Or were there other posts made by these two accounts that you were referring to, for I only saw this one. Otherwise I saw nothing that implies they fully supported (the government of) Israel nor saw what happened to Palestine as just.

Now about them not sharing atrocious things Israelis said or done, well first of all I have to talk about something that’s really been bothering me as of late. It’s what you are doing recently, which is showing some of the shitty things Israelis said or done as of now. That’s not bad of itself, I get that that these people shouldn’t get away with it and some things need to be accounted for. But you said that you knew little about how Jews were impacted by Israel and Palestine (to be fair, I didn’t do a whole lot looking either) and so I remember very little rebloggings or posts from you about what Jews think, feel, and have been impacted . You haven’t reblogged or posted about the Israelis who DO have troubles with what their government is doing to Palestine; let alone Israelis Jews. Now this one I’m probably wrong about; and if so im sorry, but I don’t remember you reblogging any posts which linked to anything SUPPORTING Palestine, like fundraisers or whatever. So the main thing from you, the most focused thing, is reblogging or making posts reporting on shitty acts or words committed by Israelis people. And just that.

Look I’m not going to lie and sugarcoat it so I’ll be blunt. What you’re doing recently reminds me of the people against certain movements, who use incidents like lootings, “annoying protests”, or false accusations to portray said movements as just grounds to make excuses to engage in “annoying” or violent behavior; or perform something like “witch hunts”. That they say whatever the movements are fighting against (racism, enviromental damage, creepy men in power) is not a big deal and that those who follow them are all violent thugs or narcissists seeking attention. Those people against the movements (willfully or subconsciously) ignore other factors to paint a narrative, especially one exploited by grifters. Now I don’t know anything much about Israel, Palestine, Zionism, or Jews (aside from one thing below), so I don’t have a “real” take on it nor can I say if you’re in the “right“ or “wrong”, but I can’t ignore that what you’re doing recently reminds me of those mentioned above, that it’s obviously biased. You may not think all Israelis or Jews are responsible for Gaza, but by focusing mostly or solely on those specific types of people (the bad ones), you’re unintentionally painting a (unfair) picture that maybe they really all are and that “antisemitism against Jews” is overexaggerated or a copout excuse, as you‘re not giving (enough) focus to the ones who ARE against it, or how Jews have been affected by Israel. I mean I know little, so you’re not giving me any reason to think that all Israelis AREN’T scumbags and as bad as the country they hail from.

It‘s also bringing to mind the way media coverage is, which brings it back to the point about some accounts or people not sharing some of the atrocities some Israelis people have committed.

Have you ever seen the game “You Become What You Behold” as well as the movie “Christine” based on real life reporter Christine Chubbuck? In the latter movie, Christine is a reporter who yearns for “honest news” such as human-interest pieces, however her boss wants her to focus on news that will gather “more ratings”, such as murders and other grisly kinds. She eventually sacrifices her ideals to play by this new guideline and this plays a role in her fate by the end of the film. A major theme on the former is how the media focuses on grislier content and ignores more peaceful ones, and that too much attention to something negative is ultimately detrimental.

The point is there’s only so much that one could handle. Absorbing too much negative news is not good for the mind, especially if there’s already shitty things happening their life, it just amplifies it. Aside from pointless celebrity gossip, news loves to focus on misery and death, while paying little attention to more simpler and kinder tales. Its why I don’t watch the news anymore, and it’s part of why Im not following the news about Israel and Palestine; that and I’ve learned from experience from MeToo and BLM is that there’s always going some sort of soul draining controversy that looking into it will do no good for my mental health.

Now going back to the point with Jews; well I found this post which dates back to November 2023, to find out how Jews were affected. It doesn’t paint a good picture for how Jews are being treated recently (one of them including by ******* Russia). My “hypothesis” as to speak is that (presumably, I didn’t look into this) Jews don’t recount the bad things Israelis people have said or done because to them; it’s just adding more hate to the pile of hate and they already deal with that in a regular basis and wish to deal with it no more. As in they don’t want to be absorbed too closely with the ongoing news about Israel and Palestine, as it’s just more superfluous misery porn, as is news in general, and they already feel miserable enough. Does that make sense?

And as for the “restorative Justice” bit, that will be detailed in a separate post, as I feel it goes beyond what’s going on in Israel. If I can offer advice, simply look up what Jews think about this. And I don’t mean only talk to a few, chances are you could have encountered only “Zionists”. Go look up communities online (like the Judaism subreddit), talk to more than a few Jewish people, see how they see things (but take caution and be sensitive to them). And if you will continue highlighting the asinine nature of Israeli people, then you SHOULD do the same for those using the conflict as an excuse to be violent or unpleasant towards Jews. Reblog things that are like fundraisers for Palestine survivors and Jews being targeted. Heck I could look things up if you ask me to.

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iamnmbr3 · 3 years

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she doesn't abandon loki for thor. thor had literally been banished and she didn't know when she'd see him again. if my brother ended up lost in the wilds and suddenly showed up in the doorway as i was hugging my mum, i'd 100% expect her to run over and hug him, why wouldn't a mother do that? the frigga hate really baffles me, she ADORED her boys and loki adored her. loki is not a poor little victim being bullied; the show is right going over how much of a brutal, manipulative bastard he's been.

The intent of the writers of the Thor movies was to write Frigga as a good mother so that's how her scenes are portrayed. Unfortunately they didn't succeed. In universe Frigga was complicit in lying to Loki about his heritage and in raising him (and Thor) to have violently xenophobic attitudes about the Jotnar even though she knew Loki was one. Given that she didn't have a problem with this or try to correct those attitudes, she probably shared them. It was also almost certainly she who told them stories as children about the monstrous frost giant. Furthermore, in every discussion where Loki expresses anger or hurt about the situation she discourages him from having those feelings and defends Odin.

Your last line demonstrates exactly why I feel that the messaging in the show is extremely harmful. The show frames Loki as a villain and retcons his backstory in a way that makes him seem much more straightforwardly evil than he was and promotes abuse apologism and victim blaming. It's interesting that you fixate here on Loki being brutal and manipulative, rather than on the TVA being brutal and manipulative. The reason you are doing that is that is how the show presents things. The show focus on "evil and villainous Loki" being justly "confronted" with his flaws by the TVA and Mobius who are presented as moral authorities.

However actually even if Loki was as simplistic a villain as the show presents him as, the TVA are far worse. They are a violent authoritarian policing organization that as a matter of procedure commit acts of genocide (obliterating whole timelines as well as individual people because they belong to a class the TVA deems unworthy of life - Variants), torture, enslavement, unlawful surveillance, trial without due process, and police brutality. They are far, far more evil than even the retconned version of Loki the show presents us with could be. They are not the moral authorities. Mobius berating Loki until he breaks down by telling him that he is inherently monstrous (the reason he attempted suicide in Thor 2011) is not justified or correct. The villain in that scene isn't Loki, it's Mobius. But the show doesn't present it that way. And so you're echoing that view. This is why the framing of the show is deeply problematic and harmful.

It tells you Loki is terribly evil when really although he is certainly morally grey, he's not nearly as evil as the TVA. In Thor 2011 he take morally ambiguous actions to prevent a war, and then attempts a crime of passion because he is having a suicidal mental breakdown due to internalized bigotry. In Avengers he is being mind controlled and coerced. But the show doesn’t present it that way. The show encourages us to ignore the ways Loki has been victimized and accept the TVA’s treatment of him as justified. This encourages victim blaming, abuse apologism, and authoritarianism apologism.

#asks #loki tv series #loki show #loki series #loki 2021 #loki tv show #Marvel #MCU #Frigga's equally A+ parenting

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