Re: <nettime> Support Palestine Action and go to jail ...

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Oliver, thank you for being more explicit about what you meant. My own
viewpoint, for whatever it is worth, is that this is a tragic situation in
which both sides have been caught by historical forces that far exceed
them. It's what I said on October 8. However that does not leave
individuals and nations without responsibility in the present.

A longstanding British strategy to populate Palestine with industrious
European Jews, the horror of the Holocaust, and then later, the increasing
use of Israel as the US military proxy in the Middle East are some of the
key global-scale factors that have led the Israeli state to this dead end.

I think the Israeli state has seriously failed to organize its possible
coexistence with the other peoples in the region. Yet it has been enabled
in its arrogance by the flood of weapons and economic support from the US
and Germany in particular. Concerning Hamas, I think they are plenty to
blame and unlike many peers, I do not leap on any bandwagon to proclaim the
anti-imperial legitimacy of their actions. However, look at what Israel
does, both on the West Bank and in Gaza. It then becomes difficult to call
Hamas terrorists, and the other side what? Legitimate violence?
Peacekeepers? It's absurd. In this context the word has become absurd.

The responsibility of the Western states was to bring an end to this
bloodletting and help create a solution. Instead they have gone on
intensifying a problem which was essentially their creation. This, and
related issues, are driving anyone with a conscience crazy, really,
literally for many people. In the US and Germany, our governments clearly
enable one side. It's wrong. It's genocidal. Ending that support is our
responsibility as citizens, in my view. But it's not clear to me that more
bellicose polarization is going to help.

What we need to do as citizens, and just inhabitants, is control the
aggression of our own societies. Hamas is not going to take out or
transform the US government. We the people would have to do that.

soberly, Brian

On Mon, Jul 14, 2025 at 4:55 AM mp via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 14/07/2025 08:33, Oliver Gassner via nettime-l wrote:
> > Nope, "WE" did not forget that.
> >
> > I opted for more aspects to be included in the argument.
> >
> > It is somewhat sad if that is rejected.
> >
> > Both sides are at fault.
>
> In a genocide, for the simple person, the ordinary human, it seems
> somewhat reasonable to choose sides.
>
> Conversely, would it be reasonable to say something like: Well, the Jews
> had banking connections, so they were also at fault for the Holocaust?
>
> At any rate, West Asia has been a battle ground and frontier for
> European identity, trade routes and colonialism for a thousand years.
>
> Richard Lionheart was the good guy, right?
>
> Palestine is not merely about Hamas and IDF. That's just a contemporary
> snapshot.
>
> As Pankaj Mishra (more or less) says: Palestine today signifies the
> collapse of the western world/word order.
>
> In that vein, the genocide becomes a systemic inevitability, a convulsion.
>
> The emperor is not naked yet -- but his fine fabric of moral
> superiority, Reason, rule of law, is nothing but war, and in flames.
>
> Then we prepare to build from love, with care, in the ashes...
>
> ...
> ..
> .
> --
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