Although personally in favor of Palestinian independence and critical of war crimes committed by Israel in its siege of Gaza, I attempted to explain in a back-and-forth discussion with a user (only afterwards learning was one of the community’s two moderators) why protest voting in the 2024 election to “punish” the democrats in favor of the republicans harmed the ultimate interest of reigning in Israeli violence in Palestine.
To further emphasize the damage caused by such a protest vote, I argued that not only is Palestine worse off with Trump elected instead of Harris, but as are a myriad of other social issues. The other user disagreed, arguing that Trump’s return to office facilitated the ceasefire, rather than my argument that Netanyahu deliberately delayed it to help Trump get elected.
After my fourth reply post in a reply chain that stemmed from my initial reply to the moderator’s comment, I was banned from [email protected]. Having at no point advocated in favor of the violence perpetuated by Israel in Gaza, I think the ban was unjustified, and demonstrates a bad precedent for maintaining echo chambers of moderator opinions, rather than communities that foster discussion.
The Dems were not “weak” on Gaza - they very strongly supported their favorite little genocidal white supremacist colonialist project.
Nobody “handed” Israel the West Bank - the IDF can concentrate on the West Bank now because they were too entangled by their abysmal failure to beat Hamas in Gaza.
Good. The people doing “peaceful” protest needs to learn what “peaceful” protest amounts to one way or the other.
So does the entire US political establishment, including anyone the Dems will allow as a presidential candidate.
What I’m saying is that in order to convince people to show up to your protest now, you also have to convince them it’s worth getting shot over.
When they start shooting protestors, the time for protest is over.