2y ago

How do you feel about financing a genocide?

I didn't want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I'm right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.

Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?

EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.

144 comments

I mean, if you've purchased chocolate in the last century, you're supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It's nice that you're now thinking about it though.
- I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn't start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who's behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don't represent us, governments do.
  
  You're making the mistake of assuming politicians represent the people in their district. They do not. They represent the monied interests lining their pockets.

Since you probably buy stuff made in China like everyone else, you tell us.
- What does China have to do with anything?
  
  "it's not whataboutism when I do it"
- China meets the manufacturing needs for most of the world, it's economically not realistic to boycott them
  That said, we still should boycott them, at least in principle.
  
  It's really not that hard to boycott China, people just don't do it because they're selfish and would rather support an authoritarian regime than stand for what's right
  I haven't eaten any cooked hot food since the HK protests because every appliance is made or parts majority made in China
  I will eat sliced bread and beans the rest of my life to own the Chinese
  
  The principle of being racist scumbags?
  
  In general I agree with you, but reality is also more nuanced. A blanket boycott can often harm the people you want to protect. A common question in the debate about Palestine and Uyghurstan and boycotts is what to do about companies that give equal opportunities to people from the targeted communities - i.e. companies that give jobs in the same terms to both Israelis and Palestinians or the Han Chinese and Uyghur people.
- I have been boycotting them for best of my ability for the last 6 years.
  I think problems usually include airplanes or using car where it is not clear what components is chinese made.
  The one I got stuck with was a PS5 controller. I thought Sony electronics fully made in Japan to later find out they sourced things to china.
- I just love all these creative ways people find to say that they're imbeciles without saying it explicitly.
- If you read the thread, or at least my responses, you would probably made a more conscious effort to answer my question.

My country burns money, resources and human lives to enforce its hegemony on the other side of the planet while I only have health insurance through my crappy job and the infrastructure is crumbling everywhere. How do you think I feel?
- Not too hot, I guess. Thanks for taking the time.
  
  Many are just trying to make the best out of what we have and it often feels like we have such little impact on these things happening across the country, let along in other parts of the world. The world population approaches 8 billion. Our impact is often meaningful in some way, but incredibly limited overall.
  How can someone truly help with something across the world, like Ukraine/Russia and now Israel/Gaza, when conflict is constant and many also have to simply survive, in the face of entities that are capable of spending trillions of dollars.
  
  No problemo

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Keep posting of that's all you can do right now.
- Great quote you made me think of.
  The truth hurts, but silence kills. -Mark Twain

I feel that taking one side over the other without allowing for any nuance in that complicated clusterfuck over there is disingenuous. I feel very sorry for all civilians caught between the many murderous assholes in that region, but I can't fully support one group while completely condemning the other. Acting like it's a black and white issue is so very wrong and not helpful.
- But our government did pick a side. So what is our obligation, then?
  
  Let your delegate know that you wish for more nuance, that instead of supporting the state of Israel, that it'd be better to side with the civilians on all sides who are dying in this messed up conflict.
- Well put and i completely agree!
- Which side is committing genocide? That’s the side to oppose in any fight.

Not good. All I can do is vote. Until they take that away.
- Do you feel represented by one of the political parties you may have in your country? Would they act in a general agreement with your own convictions?
  
  I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I'm an American who's been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
  My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
  
  I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
  
  I’m Libertarian and there are candidates that seem way more up my alley than the Big Two, but it never gets much traction.
  Also while I think our foreign involvement should be minimal, I don’t think unceremoniously dropping those connections is wise. I think if the State Dept were following my orders, it could take about 50 years to get to the level of foreign interference I think we should be doing.

DISGUSTING.
Prime minister of my country supports Israel because “they’re allowed to defend themselves”.
What is happening now, has nothing to do with defending themselves, it’s their mission to genocide. I cannot believe the entire world is fine with it. Western but also Arabian countries unfortunately.
In my opinion, “justice” does not exist. It never did. Because it seems the law doesn’t apply to Presidents and a country that purely stands for genocide.

It's never just been the US - Israel doesn't just have a whole bunch of enablers... said enablers also back the very idea of a modern-day Israel.
France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Apartheid-era South Africa all played their part in helping with all this - I guess the fact that it's all countries with histories that are deeply entwined with white supremacism, antisemitism and colonialism is purely coincidence, eh?
- Did I read this correctly? You just tried to say that Israel's supporters are antisemitic? How'd you connect those two dots?
  
  You just tried to say that Israel’s supporters are antisemitic?
  No. I never tried to say it.
  I just plain said it - the countries that enable Israel is as antisemitic and white supremacist as they have always been. They've been hiding it since WW2 - but, as the resurgence of mask-off far-right ideology in the US and Europe proves, it's still the same old west.
  The west's support for Israel has always been antisemitic - dumping European Jewish people in Palestine was literally one the Nazi's potential solutions to the "Jewish Question". It's no secret - just mundane history that westerners doesn't like talking about.
  Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism - the whole reason these white supremacist and antisemitic societies fantasized about a modern-day "Israel" was simply because they did not believe Jewish people belonged in their precious "white" societies.
  You don't have to think about it for very long to see it for yourself - who were the people that made it so difficult for Jewish people to "belong" in western societies? If the US was so friendly and welcoming to Jewish people as the US wants to pretend it is (prominent Jewish people like Steven Spielberg and Noam Chomsky will happily tell you about US-style antisemitism), why would Jewish people need a "homeland" in the middle-east?

I love genocide. I just wish there was some way I could actually vote for it. Instead I'm stuck voting for the closest option which does none of what I want but fortunately both sides support Israel killing Muslims in mass.
I'll put this here because people are dumb as hell /s

In the US, speaking the truth about the Israel-Palestine ::cough::Palestinian genocide::cough:: war will get you cancelled by AIPAC astroturfers and useful idiots who just cancel who they’re told to cancel. That’s how they (the AIPAC, the military industrial complex, and AIPAC-run film industry..if you don’t believe me, why was Harvey Weinstein so friendly with ex-Mossad agents that he was able to use them against his opponents?) manufacture consent among normal people these days.
Additionally, 35 US states have anti-bds laws on the books punishing US citizens that choose not to buy products from Israel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws In many of those US states you can be fired from government jobs for refusing to buy Israeli products in your own personal life.

My country has been voting to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestine in the UN until 2022 but they will probably vote the same now. As far as I know my country doesn't support Israel monetarily either so I'm pretty happy.
- This is the way

If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets.
If I took to the streets over this, I would make protestors look bad because I have no experience, no social skills, no support network, and I'm a terrible rhetorician, especially when I am angry. Additionally, my family is fast to call the cops and has promised me that they would cooperate with the police if I ever got on their radar, so my presence would be a security culture issue.
Are you doing something about this?
Well, I have chosen not to work for companies that participate in such genocides, which is not a completely vacuous statement because they have sent me recruitment emails to design their fucking missiles! But frankly, I am fighting my own battles right now. I am desperately trying to find work. I am constantly fighting insurers to pay for the few times I ever muster up the courage to use my insurance. I am fighting my own goddamn family who will throw me to the fucking wolves if I can't afford the rent. I am fighting the urge to walk off into the woods and fucking die of embarrassment at having accomplished so little at my age.
So no, I'm not really doing anything. I'll cop to that. I've copped to worse, and at least for now I can live with being a hypocrite. Sorry if that's unsatisfactory.
Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
I fucking HATE America, I fucking HATE world governments, and this just adds to the list of reasons why. Unsettled doesn't even begin to cover it.

I don't mean to derail the conversation, but it pains me to say that Europeans have been financing the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh by buying Azerbaijani oil with almost no repercussion.

Defeated and hopeless mostly. Almost the same as I felt funding the war in the middle east after looking at the casualties and reading testimonies from US soldiers. It's long weighed heavily on me that half of every dollar I'm required to pay to the government is used to kill people who have nothing to do with me, especially as someone whose worked since he was 16. The war in the middle east was met with the largest protests in US history at the time and nothing changed. We then elected a democrat who was given a noble peace prize, he kept the war going and killed many civilians with drone strikes. I don't even own a house and the rate at which my savings are stacking up, there's not much I can even afford to do. Welcome to the machine.

and supported by taxpayers money;
nah our national taxes don't pay for anything, a sovereign government prints fiat money before anyone pays any tax and part of what gives that money any real value is that it's accepted as payment for debts owed to that sovereign.
- They print money for the government budget but that massively inflates the money supply so to counterbalance that inflation, they destroy all the money that was paid in taxes by their citizens
  Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
  
  Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
  you can print money up to the natural resource+ labor output of a nation-state and nobody is printing that much money.
  where did the 20,000 per person per year for all those years the US spent on its wars in iraq and afghanistan come from? it wasn't tax revenue.
- I live in a country where people's been bornt in debt for decades. It definitely feels people's debt, particularly if you are poor.
  
  what?

I desire the end of America and indeed all capitalist states, ideally before they slide even further into fascism in the near future. Death to the Israeli state, and death to any states that support it.

Americans are the biggest donors, but Britain, Germany, and to a lesser extent Australia and Canada, and a handful of non-German EU countries also give Israel a lot of money.

I want to finance a complete genocide of mosquitos and i'm not kidding.

It's giving me Iraq war vibes, except my friends aren't getting involved. The escalation doesn't make sense at all unless you consider Netanyahu needed to distract from his aspirations of becoming a dictator.

Also please remember that Europe purchased nearly the entirety of products produced by slaves in the Americas.
If there were no European market there would have been little incentive for American slavery.
I guess the slave free northern states also purchased their fair share, but nothing compared to Europe.
- It's almost like capitalism fosters slavery, weird 🤔
  
  Actually no. Capitalism is based on free markets and slaves aren’t involved in the market freely. If the market includes people in chains who haven’t consented to be involved, it’s not a free market.
- Oh yeah, and you know the justification for indigenous peoples being granted their land back because their ancestors used to live there, and they were removed?
  That's the exact same situation for Israel. The Jews used to live in Israel until they were kicked out.
  Let that complicate your morality.
  
  But I’ve never seen any calls for indigenous people to get their land back.

The only thing I'm dissatisfied with is their free hand with bombing civilians along with military targets. I can understand that Israel is angry, and rightfully so, but they fancy themselves a western country, being better than terrorist Hamas. They can't let their anger take control. Bombing civilians undermines their legitimatecy, I think they should try and be as surgical as possible, like they did in previous rounds of fighting. Other than that, I fully support their desire to root out Hamas. Though conquering Gaza only has any merit to it if they decide to stay and govern it themselves, otherwise Hamas would just rise up again.
- I think they should try and be as surgical as possible
  How about this, remove the blockade on Gaza, give everyone there citizenship and become a secular state.
  like they did in previous rounds of fighting
  When has Israel not leveled civilian buildings? Have you not seen charts comparing Israeli casualties to Palestinian ones?
  I can understand that Israel is angry, and rightfully so
  I think Palestinians should be the ones who should be angry for the way Israel has treated them since inception.
  
  I have so much to say over this comment. I'll try to be concise.
  remove the blockade on Gaza, give everyone there citizenship and become a secular state
  Israel doesn't trust Hamas. The blockade, which, mind you, is also enforced by Egypt, is meant to limit the group's ability to procure weapons. Water, food, fuel and other necessities are usually provided by both Israel and international help.
  Neither Gazans want Israeli citizenship, nor Israel wants Gazans to be its citizens.
  Religious and secular political forces quarrel in Israel daily. It can't just "become" secular. A big portion of Israelis don't want it to.
  When has Israel not leveled civilian buildings? Have you not seen charts comparing Israeli casualties to Palestinian ones?
  If not for Iron Dome, Israeli casualties would be way higher.
  Any civilian casualties are to be condemned. Yet, you must remember that Hamas likes to base itself under hospitals, schools, mosques. Not only that, but Gaza is also very densly populated. They're some 2.5 million people over 365km squared. It's very difficult to carry out any strikes without damaging hundreds of people. Yet, in the 2021 conflict, only 260 Gazans died as a result of strikes, despite hundreds if not thousands of shellings. Israel claims that at least 200 of those were militians. If that is not surgical, I don't know what is.
  I think Palestinians should be the ones who should be angry for the way Israel has treated them since inception.
  Read a little about the history of the conflict, as well as about peace talks and different offers that Israel made.
- Are you satisfied about they having a nuclear arsenal after this? It's not a rhetorical question, I'm actually interested in your thoughts about this.
  
  I don't know, what does it matter? They don't even acknowledge it, nevermind about using it. The only instance in which they might use their nukes is the Samson Option, which looks like something any country would do.
- Wat?
  Why even post?
  Are you going to edit later?
- but they fancy themselves a western country
  They are. This is what the west is.
- Looking at the geopolitics and many sides of the conflict, wouldn't other better and bigger groups join in if it comes close to the annihilation of Hamas?
  Looking at Hezbollah and Iran, joining in as a minimum.
  This would start making the war closer to WWIII.
  Anyone with more information or confidence want to correct or add detail?
  
  This attack will energize the populations of a lot of middle-eastern regimes that have been playing footsie with Israel over the last few decades - so yeah... both in the long and short term things are looking shaky for Israel. Would it lead to WW3? Unlikely... even if Israel's geopolitical reach and importance is curbed by this, the US already has another thug regime in the area that can do it's dirty work for it - Saudi Arabia.

I don’t like it one bit.
The government sees it as a strategic need to have a strong ally in the region. That view will not change, at least not anytime soon. The Pentagon considers it a national security issue, which puts it beyond politics. Unfortunately, I have to live with that.
- It’s also worth noting that people serving high positions in the military are in their offices far longer than our elected officials.

Germany is bound to support them no matter what. I understand why but there should be some conditions. It’s a sensitive subject here.
Beyond that I don’t really understand this conflict enough to have an objective opinion.
- I fell like most people have very little idea whats going on. The conflict is extremely complicated.
  
  Israel is retaliating against civilians for an attack carried out by Hamas. This is what America did in Afghanistan after the attack on the world trade center in 2001. It was dumb and it's dumb now.
  
  The conflict is extremely complicated.
  It really isn't. It's just pro-Israeli propaganda pretending it's complicated.
- I didn't listen to what Scholz said. But it's probably easy to show support in a fight against a terror organization.
  I don't think it is "no matter what". I think there are quite some conditions. But you don't say that to a nation that is supposed to be a friend. You pledge allegiance to friends. But being a dependable friend doesn't extend to literally everything, no matter what.
  And Germany is -in my opinion- more obliged to support people. Not necessarily their nation.

Similar to all other wars, shitty but numb to human greed, at times.
Best when brought up organically, but steering toward it may also happen.
Teaching/learning and talking to as many people about it IRL, while also trying and failing on the interwebs.

An ongoing genocide or a genocide in hindset? And what kind? It would largely depend. Often when we give people money and they happen to use that money to pay for misdeeds, some people come back and accuse us of financing that misdeed. On the contrary, in any situation on Earth at any time, we have to be prepared for any given situation to have unconforming parts and pieces. In this situation, it's not like the government gives us a contract that says "here, sign this to show you agree to what we're going to use your taxpayer money for". If they did, I wouldn't sign, because my ethics as a relationship anarchist extend to politics, but they're not playing by relationship anarchist rules, so I become something to squeeze money out of without explanation, and it becomes less understandable how any burden is at play, especially when people start pressuring us to conform and cheat the system so-to-speak. We can try our best though.
- At any stage of this process are we being given a choice? There's the main problem to me. I agree with you that, at some point, we just should try our best. I believe this should include reclaiming some power back to the people.

Call your congressperson and senators. They might not listen to just you but the more people call the more their positions can be moved.

My biggest complaint is that Ukraine has to be very careful about this or they would lose their support. Israel goes all out on this and the west can't give them sorry fast enough.

I feel bad at all the suffering in the world. Some days are harder than others, but I'm fully aware I'm nobody. Nothing in the grand scheme and less than that in the grander scheme. My small actions have no direct effect on anything. All I can hope to do is be a positive, supportive person to those around me and make decisions on how I live my life that causes the least amount of suffering.
As an American my vote has little weight. Those that are meant to represent me are bought and paid for. The systems that provide my food, shelter, employment, medical care etc are all corrupt and alternatives promising fairer, better treatment of those involved are just different expressions of that same corruption. I'm a slave. I'm cattle. I'm not being bombed or shot at, because I exist as a resource to ensure my masters continue to gain.

Leading question.
Edit: For an actual "answer", some people are in fact taking it to the streets. For your favorite country you can search for it and if you don't want to do that here's an article for the US. While you may argue that we should've expected this, at the time of financing all we know is that there was a first strike and people were angry. Now it's different, at least in my local circle.
Either way, this should not be a question for asklemmy. It should be in the politics community or something.
- Loaded question.
  
  rhetorical “question”

All the evidence so far tells me that nobody is serious about stopping the violence. The only way the violence will end in this region is if the entire region is turned into a sheet of glass.
My only interest in the region is ensuring that the violence continues, until such time as an option other than "glass them all" presents itself.
- Why is that your interest in the region?
  
  Because once we normalize ending violence with nuclear weapons, the whole fucking world burns.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/protestors-block-downtown-seattle-streets-amid-middle-east-war/QHUUZH3QQNBL7IB7I7UPY6EKZM/

I'm not sure if it constitutes genocide yet, but it's fair to say it's going that direction. For every dead group A, group B wants to kill 10 group A people, and vice-versa. There's two ways that can stop; either they bury the hatchet or one group is entirely wiped out.
As for how I feel about my government, actually kind of hopeful. I was expecting SNAFU but it's clear the Canadian government is actually having to consider the Palestinian perspective this time around.

If you were in power in Israel, and care for its citizens, what would your steps be as reaction to what happened? Please imagine both short and long term consequences.
- and care for its citizens,
  If the Israeli government cared about the people it (supposedly) represents it wouldn't be turning them into violent colonialist goons to do the west's bidding in the middle-east, would it?
  You might just as well ask how to fix the Apartheid-regime without upsetting white people or fix the Nazi regime without discomforting Nazis.
- Ending the illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank would be a good start

I'm not sure I think Israel is engaged in genocide - although I'm deeply unhappy with some of their military approaches.
Hamas, on the other hand, is unashamedly aiming at genocide. Their started aim is the death of all Jews and they are frequently heard chanting "from the river to the sea".

ROFL!

Depends on the genocide. For Isreal I'm fine with it because I think anyone would do the same in their position.
- Depends on the genocide.
  No it literally fucking doesn't. Doesn't matter what happened before or what happens after. Genocide is never justified. Fire hot. Water wet.
  
  Considering this guy just slapped the label genocide on to thr question to evoke a moral reaction I think its fine to say depends. It wouldn't be an interesting comment section if everyone agreed. In ww2 the us dropped Teo bombs on Japan and basically said surrender or we will destroy you. This show of force and threat of genocide was justified in my opinion.
- What's your take on the Holocaust?
  
  What do you mean my take on the holocaust? There's only 1 take on the holocaust..

144 comments