I’m getting really fucking sick of the Palestine Movement’s obsession with “celebrity” activists and how much it prioritizes these western activists over actual Palestinians.
All the time on social media I see incidents of sone western activist living in America losing their job for speaking out against Zionism and then proceed to raise $20,000+ through a GoFundMe account in response. All of that money could have been better spent by being directly given to Palestinian families in Gaza who lost everything because if the genocide, or at the very least organizations with a good reputation for helping Palestinians in Palestine. Western activists will survive without your $100 donation, Palestinian families in Gaza won’t.
Tgis obsession with propping up the personalities of “activist celebrities” is one reason the Palestine a movement has become such a clusterfuck. I’m talking about people like Hasan Piker, Greta Thunberg, Chris Smalls, Ms. Rachel, Kehlani, and Vic Mensa to name a few. How about we start focusing on actual Palestinians? The flotilla activists are the same way: they receive so much money and support when they know full well the Zionist authorities won’t let them into Gaza, making the flotillas merely a stunt. Yeah, they were tortured in Zionist prisons but so have thousands of Palestinians who will never have their voices heard in global media.
Or, when Elias Rodriguez goes to trial in a few months you can be sure he’s going to get tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in legal donations from Palestine activists. Gaza is suffering and yet you think giving money to a guy who will clearly be found guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison is a better use of your funds?
Celebrities and influencers should not be propped up on a pedestal at all but the same thing goes for these “I was fired for saying ‘Free Palestine’, I’m a martyr now, gib munny pls” types. Palestinians should be the ones centred here, not western activists who have made loads of money and clout for being pro-Palestine.
146 posts and 14 image replies omitted.>>2821051there is a problem with gatekeeping to only allow palestinian voices and that is that israel has found gusanos they can bribe, and everyone else is forced to pull their punches because israel has their family hostage.
>>2825701No one is saying listen yo Palestinian gusanos.
>>2825602Don’t give to this woman’s GFM. Give to orgs helping Gaza rebuild instead.
>>2825608Okay, and how will Hasan fix this problem?
OP is right. Palestinian children have sacrificed more for Palestine than Hasan or all these other influencers ever will.
>>2825298New York City as well, yeah. You have a critical mass of left-wing people and Arab/Muslim diaspora who can unite.
I think a lot of normies in the U.S. view it kind of like this though. Not to say they "should" feel like this, but I think some of the problems pro-Israel Zionist Jews in the U.S. have been having is going overboard with their own identity politics and muh trauma / muh Oct. 7 stuff so they just look unhinged to people who would otherwise sympathize with them.
What people ITT are missing is that “Palestine” is not and has never been about “the Palestinian people”. “Palestine” has use-value to the left in what it symbolically represents. We don’t care about “the Palestinian people”, we care about ending Zionism because Zionism is the epitome of every evil humanity has ever known. To hell with “the Palestinians”. Who cares about them? The point is to finally destroy Zionism. If that means sacrificing 2 million Palestinian lives then so be it. Human life is the biggest liberal bullshit cope.
>>2828714Why do we even care about Hasan? Or better yet, why are we hearing so much about this guy yet have heard almost NOTHING from Gaza since the bogus "ceasefire" was implemented?
>>2828721Because it’s not about “the Palestinian people” but about stopping the evils of Zionism.
>>2828714Europe is fascist, free speech exists exclusively in the americas
>>2828721The point of the ceasefire was to get Gaza off the news
>>2829319Hasan is doing more for Palestine than any Hamas member right now.
>>2829319>picrelIt is the complete destruction of all organized life.
>>2830237Finkelstein is a Zionist himself, idiot.
>>2821174Fuck off Jacobin
so has the "the western public will totally do something if it's white people getting tortured" gambit of the flotilla pay off at all?
>>2835962Look, I get it. Dude organized some Amazon workers. Cool. But watch what happens when you put a lumpen ego case like him in charge. Suddenly it's not about labor anymore. It's about him. His face. His brand. His "movement." He starts purging anyone who doesn't kiss the ring. Starts acting like he's Che with a vest from amazon or some stupid shit. these people always get way too cocky.
This is the problem with putting unstable personality types in power. They get a little fame and think they're a prophet. Next thing you know, he's demanding loyalty tests and talking about himself in third person. Seen it a hundred times. They always crash. And they take everyone down with them.
Smalls isn't a leader that can last hes just a liability with a complex and if you dig into the guy his leftism is a bit out there cultish and extreme. not normal labor rights all this black power bs and white people invented the moon to oppressed black man nonsense. Give it a year. He'll either burn out or try to start a cult. Either way, the real workers lose when we let people like this lead
>>2825227This is a good territory to work on because it shows the extent of the subversion.
>>2836504It got some European governments launching an investigation but nothing else.
So /leftypol/ supports Hasan over Chris Smalls?
Why?
>>2836705What is this post even supposed to mean? Chris and Hasan are personal friends.
>>2836713so what's the craic with all these anti-Chris Smalls articles and posts suddenly popping up? Not just on here, but all over the gaff. Did the boy go and denounce Israel or something? Have a cut off the US military? Or maybe he gave a mouthful to the white settlers who voted MAGA? Sure as day, this has the stink of a CIA disinfo campaign all over it same crowd that's always trying to split the left and make us fight among ourselves. Wouldn't be the first time they've flooded the zone with shite to distract from the real enemy. Keep your eyes peeled, lads. This isn't a coincidence it's a god damn glowie operation.
>>2836714Smalls is a Black man. That’s it.
>>2836714>Did the boy go and denounce Israel or something?He was on one of the flotillas.
>>2840598Israel is gonna collapse just like Rhodesia… right after Amerika… right after Chyna… Gaza is gonna win guys honest.
>>2840598Even if Israel were to collapse, the American left has zero ability to accelerate that collapse. Like you said, Israeli tech and pharma companies are so embedded in the West that Israel is almost impossible to fully boycott. Plus, that just assumes boycotts will the the thing that "destroys" Israel, even though sanctions have been much more effective historically. And that even assumes that, even if it were possible to sanction Israel that Israel simply wouldn't find a way to be self-sufficient. They have the tech to grow a lot of their own food, for instance.
Also, a weak Israel means nothing without a strong Palestinian resistance. So far, nearly all of the resistance is coming from Gaza, not the West Bank. The Gaza genocide reduced 80% of the Strip to rubble and any Palestinian in Gaza with the means is looking to leave, not stay and fight. Hundreds of Palestinians were also made permanently disabled by the fighting. It's so bad that Hamas is using child soldiers now because they have to. So, even if Israel were on the brink of collapse, how would the Palestinians be able to win if they're too weak and can't do much?
>>2840614
I think what's interesting (as others ITT have pointed out) is how "Palestine" truly is a brand now. Even before, you had scholars like Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel (RIP), and Ilan Pappe who made their entire "brand" Palestine. Do they have any other theoretical insights? No, all they do is talk about Palestine and make careers off that. The amount of opportunism and grifting among these activists is astounding.
I also think, and please don't take this the wrong way, that these people don't really want the conflict to end. Like if there was a two-state solution on the '67 border tomorrow (complete fantasy but this is a hypothetical) those "professional Palestine activists" would break down and cry because it would mean that they've essentially lost their niche. You didn't see this with the anti-Apartheid South African struggle. It's not like Peter Gabriel or these other pop musicians who were active in anti-Apartheid flipped their shit when Mandela got out. But if the Palestine conflict ends, the Palestine activists (and scholars) lose their jobs, essentially. They have every incentive to want the genocide/war to keep going.
>>2840627They'll point to Cuba and how it's totally possible for insurgents to win
>>2840669The Batista regime didn't have nuclear weapons or one of the most technologically-advanced militaries in the world.
>>2840668Palestinians never compare Palestine to South Africa, they compare it to Algeria.
>>2840668>. Even before, you had scholars like Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel (RIP), and Ilan Pappe who made their entire "brand" Palestine. Do they have any other theoretical insights? No, all they do is talk about Palestine and make careers off that. The amount of opportunism and grifting among these activists is astounding.Tbf, that's kind of true for academia in general. After the Cold War, the left was basically dead and there wasn't any real leftist movement to attach itself to. A lot of the Western left ended up getting folded into the same academic circles.
I disagree with the idea that they don't want this conflict to end, they obviously do. It's just that they'd prefer a South Africa style outcome brought about through international pressure. The problem is that they're so tied to Western academia that they struggle to develop any worthwhile theory beyond gestures of BDS solidarity and they're also limited in their political tactics and often censor themselves because there are certain aspects of Israel they feel they can't openly discuss(like Jewish supremacy, the religious politics of the hilltop youth and building of the third-temple) Instead they end up constructing increasingly convoluted theories to justify their positions. In this conflict those contradictions are starting to become much harder to ignore.
>>2840673People on the left literally have no knowledge whatsoever of military matters.
>>2840746I wouldn't say that entirely. It's more that Palestine has become their "thing" the way that intersectional Black feminism has become a "thing" for many academics. And there are academics who openly talk about Jewish supremacy.
>>2840755>And there are academics who openly talk about Jewish supremacy.Who? they only refer to Jewish supremacy as being only white supremacy
>>2840627>Also, a weak Israel means nothing without a strong Palestinian resistance.<Palestine depends on "national liberators"Yeah they are doomed.
>>2840785Well yeah, with the exception of Cuba there’s never really been a guerrilla movement that managed to liberate a country entirely on its own. Most movements in the 19th century were basically groups of bandits or insurgents hiding out in the mountains because they knew they couldn’t realistically capture and hold major towns, so they stayed in those regions. The few that did succeed usually got significant help from a foreign power, that’s pretty much how it’s always worked. Even Cuba’s revolution wasn’t completely independent; there’s some evidence that the CIA provided limited support to Castro’s movement at certain points because they saw Batista as increasingly incompetent and damaging to US interests.
Hot take, but I feel like centring a socialist movement around Palestine is going to be a failure. Palestine has very little relevance for working people. “The US doesn’t have free healthcare because they spend all the money on Israel” doesn’t build momentum for socialism like you think it does.
>>284337720,000 from rightoids, why do you think they'll ever eempathize with Gaza?
>>2843395Tucker Carlson does.
>>2843377Gazauyghurs get millions in aid retard
>>2844746So why is Gaza still starving?
>>2844855Hamas routinely steals aid in order to keep Gaza’s population hungry enough that they’re willing to fight Israel. This has been documented.
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