So of course in the end it should come down to what you want to do and where you see yourself living a happier life, and not what people on the internet think you should do. However, purely from a “making the world a better place” perspective, I’d recommend not returning. I get the idea of trying to change society from within, but frankly I think Israel in its current state is beyond saving. The sense of invincibility, among other issues, is too much for simple activism to fix; the country as a whole needs the Nazi Germay treatment (the de-Nazification part, not the war part). At least by not being in Israel you make sure your tax money and children aren’t used in genocide.

I repeat, do what you feel is best for you, but to directly answer your question your absence does more to weaken the Israeli Apartheid apparatus than your presence. Do vote though; definitely vote.

I mean yes but it’s diminishing returns. The rule kind of falls apart at these numbers.

I’ve never used a Mac but my experience with iPhones and iPads (not mine) has convinced me to never touch anything Apple makes. The requirement of iTunes to send files between an iPhone and a PC is, for example, just ridiculous.

I mean no, but the people with meteorology degrees are probably not gonna be working a job where the number one requirement is to be hot (and not, y’know, have a meteorology degree).

I mean I don’t know if I’d call it a genocide, since it was a more “peaceful” affair than its equivalents and doesn’t seem to satisfy the intent requirement, but yeah it’s definitely up there in terms of crimes against humanity.

Tbf they didn’t have much of a choice.

Yeah. The protests aren’t because Bibi’s actions are too right-wing; they’re because even as a far-right leader he’s doing a shit job. Him being a genocidal far right leader isn’t, as a rule, an issue with the general Israeli public. You can look at this if you wanna lose some faith in humanity.

There are protests against Bibi because of his disregard for the hostages’ lives and attempt to destroy Israeli democracy. His party isn’t losing support AFAIK, and the right wing is actually growing.

I don’t think Likud and IDF leaders care too much about the wellbeing of the hostages, and their behavior pretty clearly reflects that.

They don’t, but the Israeli public does. This will matter if a Gaza remains after the war ends.

So if Hamas wants to maximize their bargaining power they should be seeking to undermine the public narratives around the necessity of the war.

Honestly, nobody who doesn’t already support Palestine will change their position because they released the 30 or so hostages that are still alive. It’ll just be called a move for clout, which won’t be too far from the truth. Also during post-war negotiation what’s important won’t be clout with the international community; that’s more of a long-term thing. What they will need then is negotiating power with Israel. Maybe it’ll be different if the international community actually takes an active role in negotiations, but we both know that’s not happening.

Okay I entered this thinking “ugh, more shilling for proto-fascism” but you know what? I’m convinced. Take my upvote or whatever we call those here.

I mean they kidnapped civilians and refuse to release them.

This is a textbook case of don’t blame the player, blame the game. Whatever little of Gaza’s dignity Hamas will be able to preserve after the war will depend on the hostages. While it sucks for them it’d suck worse if after this is all over Israel starts “resettling” Gaza or continues their starvation campaign.

I don’t think anyone is trying to imply that all Israelis support what their government is doing, but 80% (including 88% of Israeli Jews, which are the main demographic we’re looking at here) is a very damning number. Related: I don’t have the total number for this one, but the number of Israeli Jews who believe Israel is using too little or an appropriate amount of firepower is 94%. Again not all of them, but these are pretty damning numbers and dispel the idea that there’s real domestic opposition to what’s going on in Gaza.

Considering that most of the casualties were civilian

66%, even including counting crossfire, the involvement of other less trained forces (including random Gazans who happened to enter through the hole Hamas opened) and Israeli friendly fire (the latter is not insignificant; there were multiple proven cases of Israel choosing to kill Hamas fighters along with hostages instead of letting them return to Gaza). Not denying the atrocities that Hamas actually committed, but given these factors 66% isn’t indicative of any deliberate targeting.

It is reqlly hard to believe any Hamas leader in that regard, once you see who was killed and how.

What I’m trying to say is: Hamas’s official stance is that Israeli civilians aren’t valid targets. If they do consider all Israeli civilians targets (which considering how pragmatic Hamas generally is as an organization would make absolutely no sense) they’re definitely not saying it out loud. They said they’ll repeat 7/10 against Israel, the political entity, not that they’d keep killing civilians, is what I’m saying.

Mate, i have seen enough justification for 7/10 by calling every Israeli a legitimate target

That’s why I said nobody important.

Nowadays, that language isnt used on the new manifesto,

Uh yes exactly. Hamas radically changed their approach to the conflict in 2006, and then in 2017 updated their charter to reflect that.

Hamas leaders (who just happened to sit comfortably in Qatar and Iran) have called for repetitions of 7/10,

Yes.

again, considering every israeli a valid target.

No. They’ve actively denied that Hamas fighters were responsible for any civilian casualties, and claimed that any such cases are accidents. Now that’s obviously not true, but they definitely didn’t consider every Israeli a valid target.

people that believe that Israel should be destroyed and Israelis killed, partly because of the damage that they have done to Palestinians

Nobody important seriously believes this. Not even Hamas. Well “Israel should be destroyed” is a popular position, because that’s calling for an end to Israeli Apartheid. “Push them into the sea” rhetoric died in the 90s.

“Israelis completely support what their government is doing”

They do though. Specifically 80% of Israelis and 88% of Israeli Jews.

It helps when you realize that home is an adverb in English.

So most people’s vision of socialism doesn’t involve slaves (not that I’m a socialist but let’s get our facts straight). Also what issues?

in the last election 70% of eligible voters voted, 23% voted for the likud (bibi).

I’m not talking about Likud alone; I’m talking about the right wing in general since they all seem to agree that they should steal Palestinian land for Lebensraum. Also I was specifically talking about his policies relating to Palestine, not as a whole.

Anyway I haven’t seen any evidence that there’s significant Israeli opposition against the genocide in Palestine, especially given that the Israeli right wing is actually growing.

And because he’s been Israel’s PM for about half the past 30 years. What I want to say is: Enough people like him that he keeps getting reelected, and even now people aren’t objecting to his policies but rather because he wants to sidestep democracy. I mean good thing they’re trying to defend “democracy” (it’s debatable how much an Apartheid state where 5 million people don’t have voting rights can call itself a democracy but that aside) but the fact that words like “war crime” or “genocide” don’t appear even once in this article (except when talking about October 7th) is very damning.

True enough but let’s not forget that there’s a reason Netanyahu is called the king of Israeli politics. His policies represent a majority of Israel’s voting popuation.