Pov you've never interacted with land back as a concept before October lol

I keep hearing this notion that Israelis are indigenous to Palestine and... do you know what indigeneity means? Because I don't think you do. Sure, non-Palestinian jews might be native to Palestine if you definition of indigeneity begins and ends at your ancestors having lived in a place. But unless you think white people are native to Sub-Saharan Africa because all humans come from Africa you need to update that definition.

Today what it means to be indigenous is defined by a relationship between the indigenous group, their colonizers, and the land they live on. Israeli do not have this relationship. They have no colonizers. Their relationship to the land is of a fundamentally different nature. They are not indigenous.

ID: Screenshot of tags being criticized, "#land back activists with the natives are jews". End ID.

How to spot Liberal Zionist Propaganda 101

This post is by no means exhaustive at all. There are many Liberal Zionist talking points but these are just some of the most common ones. While on the surface they seem a little naive and hopeful at best, they are very much harmful. If you claim to be an ally to Palestinians, this post is primarily for you!

For starters, liberal Zionists will often try to both-sides the issue of Palestine, talk about how it's complicated, they'll claim that the conflict hurts both Israelis and Palestinians, how the only way forward is one where Jews and Arabs "just need to get along," amongst other things. They also often like to centre themselves, even when acknowledging Palestinians as the victims of Israel or this "conflict." From time to time, they also like to engage in tokenising certain Palestinians whose views tend to more or less align with theirs. Here are some common arguments you may hear from them:

1. Any form of justifying Israel's existence or claiming that the only solution is two states

It does not really need to be said why justifying Israel's existence is harmful but justifying its continued existence also means legitimising Israel's land theft, its expulsions of Palestinians, and its ongoing harm to Palestinians and other populations. Reducing any sorts of “solutions” into a binary is unhelpful. Needless to say, a 2ss would not even address any legitimate concerns Palestinian have, such as the right of return, and would only legitimise Israel’s colonialism. Talking about a two-state solution also implies that the root of the conflict lies in Palestinians not having their own state rather than being an occupied people. It is very much also possible to construct a paradigm where Jews and Palestinians both live together on the same land as equal citizens that doesn't involve two separate states, much less an ethnostate.

2. Security for Israel could only come through peace

This is a similar talking point to the one above. Not only does it centre Israeli safety and security above Palestinian liberation but it mistakenly assumes that once Israel makes peace with Palestinians, it'll achieve security. The reality, however, is that Israel's imagined security has quite often come at the expense of peace. In fact, "peace" has just acted as nothing more than a smoke-screen for Israel to carry out its expansionist policies, particularly in the West Bank. When liberal Zionists talk about peace juxtaposed with Israeli security, they're talking about attaining a negative peace rather than a positive one.

3. Israelis are not their government.

This point does nothing to actually help Palestinians. It is also an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say when Israel has targeted many Palestinian civilians by having alleged proximity to Hamas, such as being family members of militants or leaders (inc. children!), civil servants in a Hamas-led government, or even any male above the age of 15 they consider to be a potential combatant! It also deliberately erases Israeli civilians' support of and culpability in Israel's actions towards Palestinians.

4. Netanyahu and/or the Israeli right are the source of conflict.

While it is true that things have gotten inadvertently worse under Israel's various right-wing governments, they are not the source of conflict, but rather a product of extremist nationalism and Jewish supremacy perpetuated by the system. Both the 1967 occupations and settlements were undertaken under centre-left governments in Israel, and Israeli policy under non-right wing governments has been just as harmful towards Palestinians and has paved the way for where we are today. Blaming Netanyahu just also obscures the violent nature of Israel's military occupation over Palestinians which long precede him coming into power.

5. Netanyahu and Hamas are two sides of the same coin

I don't think I've seen any allies give validity to this claim but it's an extremely reductionist claim and is sort of similar to the one above. Groups like Hamas are merely a response to the Israeli occupation while Netanyahu is a byproduct of it. While some Israelis may see Hamas or their actions as an "obstacle to peace," Israel's actions and policies long pre-date Hamas and how Israel is currently responding to Hamas is no different to how Israel has engaged with Palestinian militant groups in the past, regardless of political affiliations or political goals. It is also important to note that Hamas has agreed to the establishment of a state along 1967 borders while Netanyahu aims to prolong the occupation and empower the settler movement (some of whom are part of his coalition government) as much as possible.

6. Israel is not a settler-colonial state.

While it is indisputable that Jews have historical connections to Palestine, that doesn’t automatically make you Indigenous or negate Israeli settler-colonialism. Colonialism in particular describes a relationship of exploitation. There are many cases of this, but we most clearly see this in the West Bank where Israel exploits natural resources on occupied Palestinian territory for its own political and economic gains. In terms of settler-colonialism, it is widely known that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for Jewish refugees and migrants to the new state of Israel, and is still actively facilitating Jewish migration to Israel today while denying Palestinians their right of return.

7. (X) doesn't help Palestinians.

It is not up to anyone to determine whether certain tactics or strategies are helpful or not. This point only seeks to discredit pro-Palestine organising. Only Palestinians get to decide what is actually helpful for the cause or not.

8. Any sort of Hamas-blaming.

On the surface it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with this, but this point is often harmful and usually lends itself to right-wing talking points because its objective is to deflect blame away from Israel. Certain arguments blaming Hamas also aim to minimise Palestinian suffering perpetuated by Israel. It also paints Israeli violence as retaliatory to Palestinian violence which only obfuscates Israel’s (and by extension, the US’) role in its state military apparatus and the differing power dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians. In other contexts, this point seeks to also legitimise certain opposition, such as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas-blaming also tends to sometimes lead to racist diatribes about Palestinians and their culture.

9. Al-Jazeera is not a credible news source.

Al Jazeera is a news source like any other. It has varying editorial policies and therefore will have equally good reporting on certain issues while having terrible reporting on others. The difference is that Al-Jazeera's news on Palestine is credible because it comes directly from their Palestinian reporters on the ground and first-hand eyewitness accounts. Western news sources are no more or less credible than al-Jazeera. Compare this to CNN, NYT, and any other Western news sources where Palestinian voices are often entirely missing from the narrative.

10. Overemphasis of antisemitism on the left

Antisemitism is a real issue and has the potential to fester in left circles if not directly addressed head on. Combatting antisemitism is extremely important, however, it is not an issue exclusive to the left. There is also a double standard in that no one expects Zionists to call out Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Certain accusations of "antisemitism" also seek to distract from what's going on in Palestine by making it about Jewish comfort and feelings. Combatting antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism etc is always important as the basis of good politics.

Last but not least, be wary of native collaborators or any sort of normalisers! They are Palestinians or Arabs who try very hard to appeal to Western liberal consensus and can end up perpetuating a lot of harm to the cause and/or other activists. You will know them when you see them.

I'm not commenting on his position on hamas since I can't tell people how to feel about them but the way he puts hamas at fault for the complete destruction of Gaza is ridiculous and echoes a lot of liberal zionist talking points.

Edit: he's the type to call for "nuance".... OK lmao.

Decolonize Palestine is a terrible source that erases Jewish and Palestinian history

It's a propaganda site and I will explain/show why.

Disclaimer-I absolutely believe in and support Palestinian self determination just like I support Jewish self determination. What I don't support is propaganda. There's plenty of reputable sources out there that support Palestinian self determination. This is NOT one of them. Bad history only harms, never helps.

Right here, we deal with loaded words-dismal world image. Already, you're being told Israel has a dismal world image. I actually don't know how Israel's world image is. I would image, like any other country, views will shift and change depending on what's happening. There's a conclusion drawn here though. It also sticks out because everything else is based on Palestine, but a sudden jab at Israel was placed here.

Let's talk about the rainbow washing and why that's a problem. First and foremost, Israel is the only nation I know of to receive this kind of criticism. In fact, it (pinkwashing) was actually specifically coined for Israel. It's extremely rare for any other country to have this levied at them.

On top of that issue, it also denies Israelis agency in their gov't and makes it seem like the gov't is just this faceless evil entity and that everything that changes for the better is suspect; not done because the Israelis there voted/protested/etc, but solely due to the gov't just allowing it so they can use it for nefarious ends. That's wildly antisemitic for various reasons and while I am focusing on pinkwashing, the same can be said of the other 'washings' Israel is accused of.

Honestly, 'washing' in general is more used against businesses as well. So there's also that factor to consider on why Israel is the top target by far for this (It's antisemitism-not a stretch for people to think Israel is a faceless evil looking to control the world to also think of it in a more monetary sense because Jewish people=money antisemitism at play).

It also tends to be highly generalized criticism with little to no additional research done into said issue.

The Palestine Through History section is...ahistorical.

It completely erases Ancient Israel and Judea. Indeed, there's no mention of these ancient kingdoms. It mentions Rome, Assyria, etc, but not anything involving the indigenous Israelites. This is flat out erasure.

It brings up the Peleset Tablet as proof. The group in question there is the Philistines. Who were they? People from the Aegean that came and settled into the southern Levant, and came into conflict with the indigenous people there-particularly the Israelites. They would later be completely assimilated into the Achaemenid Empire.

There's a massive jump to suddenly the Ottoman Empire. Wiki has at least a paragraph talking about the later periods. The periods skipped are the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Arab Conquest, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk then the Ottoman Empire. That's a shitton of history to skip over. Important to note is that about a 100 years after Jesus Christ died, Rome got sick of the ancient Jews (the Kingdom of Israel having been destroyed by Assyria, leaving the Kingdom of Judea as the only surviving kingdom) telling them to fuck off and devastated the region. This forced many into exile when not put into slavery and those that were able to remain were forbidden from their most holy city/site-Jerusalem. The Romans also renamed Judea to Syria Palaestina. Palaestina being the Roman version of the name Philistines and done deliberately to try and erase Jewish people from their homeland. They were THAT PISSED at the Jewish people for their rebellions against Roman rule and wanted to praise the Greeks that aided in putting down the rebellion-remember the Philistines came from around Greece.

I cannot stress ENOUGH on how much erasure of Jewish history is in this section and on how they are trying to tie a group related to Ancient Greeks to modern day Palestine. It's a fictional narrative and it skips over the many different empires that took over the area, Christianization and Islamification and how those affected the peoples living there.

Hell, there's erasure of Palestinian history here too! So much of their own history was left out deliberately.

And yes, Palestinians are indigenous as well! Many are descended from other indigenous groups in the area and/or Jewish people that converted (willingly or not) to the point that on the genetic level, Israelis and Palestinians are kin.

To the shock of no one the Ottoman Section absolutely downplays the issues Jewish people had there.

The site erases Theodor Herzl's Jewishness in favor of playing up him being European. As a reminder, Judaism is an ethnoreligion-you can be both atheist and Jewish AND a European surname doesn't mean the person is of European descent. There is also downplaying of Jewish indigeneity to the Southern Levant. There's also a severe lack of discussion on the violence of Arabs and Jews towards each other as well as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem having met with Hitler and being allies.

It is an extremely one sided affair. There is much to criticize on how Israel developed, but this isn't it. At all. Honestly, I could continue reading on, but there's no point really. There's so much wrong historically that it's not worth it to me.

They also promote BDS, which as a reminder, made a map of supposed 'Zionists' when it was really just Jewish people living in Boston and wants only the state of Palestine to exist and is actively against Palestinian-Israeli led Standing Together, which aims to change how Palestinians are treated in and out of Israel. And more. There's always more.

A brief view of the sources listed are of people that do not see Jewish people as indigenous and are very one sided. Basically, the site itself has the conclusion that everything with Jewish people and/or Israel is bad and from the glance I got from their list, they curated it to 'prove' the conclusion they came to.

Actually, doing some digging Ive found that the term "pinkwashing" was created by Israeli activists: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/720059/summary#:~:text=As%20applied%20to%20anti%2DIsrael,the%20pretense%20that%20they%20were

"according to Aeyal Gross, Associate Professor of Law at Tel-Aviv University, the pinkwashing moniker actually originated in Israel in 2001 when leftwing queer activists created the group Black Laundry (Kvisa Shchora in Hebrew) to protest the Israeli Defense Forces' crackdown on Palestinians following the Second Intifada. After long struggles for LGBT equality in Israel—often against the determined opposition from the government and Orthodox Judaism—the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu cynically appropriated LGBT rights to advance its own agendas against Iran and the Palestinian Territories at the United Nations."

I can't say much for everything else, but I still consider the website a good source for information when it comes to other stuff.

As for why it doesnt go into earlier history than the Ottomans; the history section isnt meant to be completely comprehensive, its supposed to give a brief overview of history in the region of Palestine from the recent past to today to introduce them to the present situation.

do you guys remember when the jumblr tag wasn’t constantly clogged with the same seven right-wing Israelis and three converts-in-progress spreading a shit ton of right wing talking points and making a text post every time they experienced the slightest amount of political discomfort? like there used to be actual stuff to reblog and share and talk about there

Teach children that this is not ok

Teach children that there’s nothing wrong with this

I’m really not understanding why you think cultural appropriation would be ok, unless you are assuming that the girl in the picture is part Japanese.

Yellow face yet she’s using white makeup in the traditional style but okay.

Cultural appropriation isn’t a thing, hon. ☺️ Cultures should be shared by all means.

I disagree. The makeup is clearly reflective of traditional Geisha makeup which is yellowface and therefore racist. Furthermore, the girl is wearing a kimono, a garment that has for ages carried cultural significance. Assuming that she is white how can you think this is ok? And cultural appropriation isn’t a thing? What rock do you live under? I suggest you educate yourself on the differences between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.

I am japanese, in japan at this very moment. The only people who think culture shouldnt be shared are racists like you.

A vast majority of Japanese people actually enjoy other people making an effort to spread and enjoy japanese culture, and encourage it. Many make businesses in deliberately taking pictures of people in kimono. A common omiage (gift) for foreigners from japanese people is traditional japanese things such as kimonos, tea seats, shisa dog statues, ect.

And to top it off, basically 80 percent of japanese customs, traditions, and food, came from other countries. Japanese is an integration of different cultures, like america. Japan takes influences from places like korea, china, russia, and europe. If japan stuck to itself, there would be no tempura, japanese tea, tea ceremonies, kabuki, japanese bread, japanese curry, j- pop, anime, cars, or modern fishing techniques. The picture is not “yellow face” they are not making fun of asians. In fact, it looks like they put extra care and research into their work.

The only reason that you have a problem with this is because that little girl is white and you know that it is acceptable on tumblr to crap all over white people. The only racist here is you.

Rekt

b t f o

Dang she got shut down.

Damn I’ve never hit reblog so fast in my entire fucking life

Daaaaamn

Pew pew pew

I reblog this every time I see it

I live in Japan and I’d like to back up this sentiment. 

Recently a museum in Boston came under a lot of fire for allowing visitors to wear a ‘kimono’ (it was featuring a painting my Monet of a girl – a white girl – in a kimono, and the museum had replicas made that guests of ANY RACE could wear to mimic the painting, Pageant-of-the-Masters style). After protests and heated debate, the museum closed the event.

I was living in Japan at the time, and out of all the *actual* Japanese people I asked, not a single one was offended by the event. Rather, they were excited that people half a world away were showing interest in their culture, and were sad that visitors could no longer enjoy the event.

This party, though somewhat silly in application, is an attempt at experiencing and appreciating another culture. The mom who put this together is not an expert on Japan, but she did her best. She got a lot of things right: there are few things Japan loves more than tea, Pocky, and sakura. 

Where do you draw the line for who is “allowed” to learn about Japan? If the girl were of Japanese descent, would that make it ok (even though her citizenship would be the same as the girl from the photo)? If one of the girl’s parents were from Japan, then would it be ok? 

Are you only allowed to make pizza if you live in Italy? If you’re an Italian immigrant? How do we decide these things??

You can’t say you want to dismantle racism and then in the next breath make rules – based on race – for who people can wear, try, or eat, especially when the intent is obviously to have fun experiencing a culture (as opposed to having fun by making fun of a race or culture, like blackface does). 

When you tell people they can only experience things ‘meant for their race’, it totally smacks of segregation to me and I can’t stand it. As someone who (obviously) loves Japan, I say let people learn about it, let people experience it, let people appreciate it. You don’t have to know every single thing about a culture to enjoy it.

fucking people got owned is what, fuck i hate how people say you cant do shit when culture should be shared and is shared its how it grows and changes through fucking generations itS HOW YOU LEARN about the world and just fucking, tumblr fucking stupid like 70% of the dam time

this new light

Vintage post, sipping on it like fine wine.

In this case yes, it’s perfectly valid. Japanese culture is something they WANT to be shared, so experiencing it this way is completely valid. But that doesn’t mean that’s true for ALL cultures. The goal is to pay attention to what people from those cultures are saying is meant to be shared and what isn’t.

@ginzers

so this post is old as heck but just having discovered it, I want to add my thoughts: first off, I don't have much to say about cultural appropriation-but no one is saying that cultural sharing is wrong. It's at least not wrong when it comes with cultural invitation, like buying traditional clothing from the people belonging to the culture, or being invited to put them on while at an event.

However, this "Japanese Tea Party" is not respectful nor "cultural sharing". It's not sharing if no one from the culture being shared is involved, and nothing about the costume is reflective of real traditional japanese clothing.

It's dressing up as a stereotypical depiction of an Asian person, no different than stereotypical halloween costumes.

The little girl is just a child, but the parents who threw the party should've known better.

You can't put some chopsticks in your hair, smear your face with white paint and put on a robe and claim that this is a representation of real Japanese culture.

The "placing your hands at chest-level" is a greeting gesture from southeast Asia; the traditional Japanese greeting is bowing, so thats another wrong.

Also, fun fact: in Japan the left lapel goes over the right, The only exception is for dead people. The little girl has has her right lapel over her right.

@ginzers I take issue with the idea that its "traditional geisha makeup". Heres some examples of what real Geisha wear:

i wasn’t joking

this post has haunted me for like 3 years. every time i start to think i imagined it, it shows up on my dash again and then immediately disappears into the ether for another 17 months

who else expected to see "one-time-I-dreamt" before getting to the end?

“May I please draw your OC?”

Reblog this message if you encourage anyone that wants to draw your OC to do so.  No need to ask for permission in advance.

Go for it.  Draw my OC.  If you want, I’ll even give you reference posts.  Go to town on it.

You are welcome to draw my OC and surprise me with the result.  Seriously.  In fact, I encourage it.  I will proudly display whatever it is you submit to me regarding my OC.  There is a chance that I will squeal about it for several days.

Even if you feel you aren’t good at whatever artistic adventure it is you do, please feel free to submit it to me.  I want to see what you have done.

Coddling Colonizer Guilt

"Performative diversity is when MAWS features a Native American variant of Lois Lane in the multiverse episode only to end the season on a Thanksgiving episode."

...is something I like to joke with my friends as a shorthand for referencing MAWS' squeamish approach to politics while still trying to reap the clout of "diverse representation". I want to get my thoughts out there and perhaps start a discussion over why this feels off.

Is it not possible to make Superman both a metaphor for immigrants and the descendant of colonizers at the same time? Because a fundamental part of his character is that despite being an alien from another planet, he was raised by regular humans, and thus cut off from his heritage. Despite his ancestors being colonizers he doesnt benefit from that.

Hopefully this is my last time having to explain this. I've covered this already here: and it's that making Clark into the sole exception to a planet of colonizers "because he's adopted" is a convenient absolution of colonizer guilt by the narrative.

I think it's important to ask "why do people want Superman to be a descendent of colonizers or a redeemed one"? If he's historically meant to represent Jewish immigrants in the 40s, why is there a desire for him to reflect colonizer guilt? We should interrogate why we want to shape an allegory about marginalized people into a story about why oppressors feel bad about what their parents did.

Thanks. But whats your opinion on the potential of exploring an imperfekt Krypton? Theres a post about how some aspects of the comics imply that Krypton practices racial segregation and gender inequality-black kryptonians are stated to live apart from the white ones, Kal-els mother isnt in the video recording meant to be viewed by her son.

That violent Israeli settler kicking that Palestinian flag upon which a mine explodes beneath him was some real looney toons shit ngl

Producing a musical with a war criminal is really hitting the bottomest of the bottom for me

Is it ironic that a woc from the global South gets turned into a martyr by white westerners, while a white girl gets ridiculed?