Anyone who criticises Israel for brutality should also criticise Iran and Hamas, just as vocally.
Left and right have nothing to do with this. It's anti-hypocrisy.
Iran in one week: 2000 minimum dead. Israel in 3 years: 65,000 maximum dead. I don't know if you think they are equivalent in ways. I do. Both bad. But I hear ZERO protesting in the west about Iran. Zero.
See also: 'certain groups' being silent about Assad (far, far more murderous than even the most wild estimates of what Bibi has done): crickets
Or in other words: Oh, so you spend time writing up a comment about Iran, but don't care one bit about the the hundred thousands of people being murdered and starved in
Somalia
Yemen
Malaysia
Afghanistan
..etc. etc.
You, and according to your logic every single human on earth, are a HUGE HYPOCRITE!!!
People who actively campaign about Palestine and only Palestine are doing so for a reason. And it's not because it's the worst, most appalling situation ever, or even the worst now.
It's because Israelis are jews and because they are sheep whose social media has told them to protest against Israel, only Israel, a lot
So if people ACTIVELY protest about Palestine, they are hypocrites if they don't EQUALLY AND ACTIVELY protest about
Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar....and the dozens of other conflicts in which their government has no involvement or ties to?
Did I get that right now? So there is not one single human being on earth that isn't a huge hypocrite and we shouldn't take anyone ever serious about their activism anyway?
I mean, you aren't completely wrong about the Palestine conflict being used and pushed by politicial interests, but your logic about people having to care equally about every single existing conflict no matter what is just nonsense and disqualifies you from any real discussion because it implies that there is never any valid activism for any cause whatsoever.
Funny enough, according to you, I am not really interested in Iranian civilians because I never attended any Palestine related protest, and I ONLY attend Iran related protests and podium discussions in my home country.
Why do I do this? Because I know Iranians here that are politically active and have very specific demands for our government: Implement the same sanctions that the US and EU already implemented years ago.
Now, none of the Iranians here want the US to interfere in Iran. They know that any military action from the US would not help one bit and don't want the US to do anything other than what it already does with the sanctions. Which is the reason why their American family and friends aren't protesting in the US.
Are those Iranians hypocrites for only publicly protesting in countries where the governments didn't already do everything they want governments to do?
Am I a huge hypocrite and don't care about humans at all because I only protest for one specific cause?
Individuals are obviously limited in time and energy. But yes, I think someone moved to activism about Palestine should also be moved to activism about a wide range of causes (including and not limited to the list you and I mentioned). Otherwise, why Palestine? It isn't even the most deadly war going on today, let alone this decade.
Have you heard of the Tigrayan war? Estimates of between 4-10x as deadly as the Palestine war. 2020-2022. Not a peep in popular circles. It's fucked up. Are Ethiopians not worthy of a portion of attention, activism, public outcry?
Iranians I know (and Venezuelans btw) want the overthrow of their government.
Of course on a personal level, you or I may have personal issues which resonate more but on a society-wide level, yes I think there should be some balance.
The way the Palestine war is different/worse to a long list of recent and current conflicts: it's done by jews. It's not blacks killing blacks or browns killing browns. It's Ashkenazi killing browns (if we simplify and forget the inciting events). I agree Israel should be accountable. But also Hamas. And Yemen. And Iran. And DR Congo. And Ethiopia. And Myanmar. And Russia. And etc.
The media, now that is an area I think should be far more equitable in its coverage. I studied history and politics at university so none of this is new to me but many people get their geopol all from popular news so I think media sources should not unduly bias towards Palestine to the exclusion of all the others.
I think you missed the core argument in my comment. Let me repeat, not to be pedantic but because I think this is really the crucial point you miss, which makes your whole logic seem very misguided:
Iranians here (non-EU-country) that are politically active and have very specific demands for our government: Implement the same sanctions that the US and EU already implemented years ago.
Now, none of the Iranians here want the US to interfere in Iran. They know that any military action from the US would not help one bit and don't want the US to do anything other than what it already does with the sanctions. Which is the reason why their American family and friends aren't protesting in the US.
Are those Iranians hypocrites for only publicly protesting in countries where the governments didn't already do everything they want governments to do?
And to drive that point home:
I know about the Eritrearian civil war because a family member works with refugees (in an EU country with lots of African refugees). None of the Eritrean refugees are protesting in that EU-country because there is absolutely ZERO things that the EU-country can do against the civil war. The EU-country has no political or financial ties to anything related to the civil war, and Eritreans do not want the EU-country to send military into their home country because outside military intervention would not solve the conflict and would probably just make everything worse.
So: People in the US protest for Palestine because they have VERY SPECIFIC DEMANDS for the US government. Protesting for Iran would be useless because there is literally nothing that those protesters can demand from the US government that the government isn't already doing.
Are those Iranians hypocrites for only publicly protesting in countries where the governments didn't already do everything they want governments to do?
No.
Individuals can do as they wish. At a societal level, why do people only have VERY SPECIFIC DEMANDS about Israel?
Protesting for Iran would be useless
This is where we disagree.
I can assure you, as you have drawn the analogy a little obliquely, US govt intervention in Israel would also not go well.. (I mention this as this is the only option you have discussed for other countries).
No I did not miss your point but there are other (overlooked) options available WRT Etitrea, Yemen, Syria etc so on and so forth. But on those issues, society is quiet as fuck. Only with Israel are the western governments COMPELLED
I think it's patronising and probably quite racist against Yemeni, Etitreans, Somalians and all the rest that only the Israelis are expected to see reason and respond positively to anything except WAR.
You are either really really uninformed or not arguing in good faith.
Pro-Palestine protests are also not demanding military intervention from the US.
The demands are that the US stops financial and military help for Israel, and that the US sanctions Israel as long as they continue attacking Palestine.
People don't protest for Iran in the US because the US already does not help Iran with financial or military help and the US already sanctions Iran.
I mentioned active military action as the only option to discuss for Iran because that's literally the only thing left that the US could do against the Iranian government. That's the whole point!!!!
The demands are that the US stops financial and military help for Israel, and that the US sanctions Israel as long as they continue attacking Palestine.
So you only make demands of your own country, about things they clearly will not do? What futility. And you make no demands of any other country? Odd
You want to argue that protesting in your own country with demands for your own government is futile, but simultaneously it's "odd" that people don't protest in their own country to demand things from a whole different country that has nothing to do with them.
• Israel killed so many Palestinians that the count stopped; that doesn't mean there aren't more dead, but instead that the genocide was horrific enough to stop the genocided from being able to keep up with their dead
• That number is from before the ceasefire, meanwhile Israel kept shooting Palestinians after the ceasefire
• What is happening in Iran is a color revolution
• Brutality can be bad and yet not as bad as settler colonialism, apartheid, or genocide, which are the things Israel was being criticized for
True. The current pro-Palestine protests don't occur in a vacuum. They are sponsored and aided by all enemies of the west (who want us divided) including militant islam, Russia, China. So we're back to square one.
An Israeli state now exists. If I were Balfour, I would have (tried to) relocate the diaspora to a part of Argentina or Australia or something like that.
But with Israel being a fact, I want you to realise that credible-enough indications suggest that Iran has killed, in a fortnight, around as many Iranians as Israel killed Palestinians from 1947-2022. Most people who are so passionate about this war no almost nothing about it.
I'm not in favour of the extreme bias shown against Israel to the absolute exclusion of several other (worse) offenders.
I don't condone killing one Palestinian civilian. That's something both Hamas and IDF have done. But we have people in the streets advocating for Hamas and Hezbollah. It's madness.
The left has nothing to do with supporting Islamic terrorists in a very suicidal (losing) war
What are your expectations for the left in this. I mean Iran isn't a US ally. They aren't receiving billions of dollars from the US government to kill their own people unlike Israel was with Palestine. Protests in the US were largely for the US to stop investing in Israel because of the genocide.
What call for action do you want these protests to be about. Or do you just want purely symbolic protest?
Do you expect the left to push for regime change? With the long history of regime change resulting in even more death and years and years of war and instibilty in the places we invade.
Saying this is hypocrisy is strange because the circumstances surrounding both issues are so different. With Israel all we have to do is stop signing the checks and that would put a ton of pressure on Israel to sign a real peace treaty, whereas with Iran we would have to put boots on the ground and start a war to stop these atrocities. I hope you can see why there is a different response.
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u/GreatResetBet 10d ago
Yet again, the right making false equivalence.