keep it fresh

NEW YORK (14 November 2024) – Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there, the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices* said in a new report released today.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel,” the Committee said. “These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.”

Covering the period from October 2023 to July 2024, the report examines developments across the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan but focuses on the catastrophic impact of the current war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the Committee said.

The report documents how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza has decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that will have lasting health impacts. By early 2024, over 25,000 tons of explosives—equivalent to two nuclear bombs—had been dropped on Gaza, causing massive destruction and the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation, and toxic pollution.

“By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the Committee said.

The report raises serious concerns about Israel’s use of AI-enhanced targeting systems in directing its military operations, and the impact it has had on civilians, particularly evident in the overwhelming number of women and children among the casualties.

“The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” the Committee said.

Amid the devastation in Gaza, Israel’s escalating media censorship, suppression of dissent, and targeting of journalists are deliberate efforts to block global access to information, the Committee found. It also noted how social media companies disproportionately removed “pro-Palestinian content” in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians.

The Committee condemned the ongoing smear campaign and other attacks against UNRWA and the UN at large.

“This deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order,” the Committee said.

The Committee called on all Member States to uphold their legal obligations to prevent and stop Israel’s violations of international law and hold it accountable.

“It is the collective responsibility of every State to stop supporting the assault on Gaza and the apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the Committee said.

“Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on Member States. A failure to do so weakens the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked.”

The Committee’s report will be presented to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on 18 November 2024.

(source)

We need to bring back the term “benevolent sexism” into widespread use for real. It’s a major mechanism in how bioessentialist Girlboss Radfems can be turned into bioessentialist conservative Tradwives.

I’m not actually interested in the bad faith radfem readings of this post where I get called an incel pervert (????). But I will be donating a lot of money to trans organizations and blocking all the radfems in the notes, because I don’t think it’s worth speaking to people whose position is that their politics are incorruptible and anyone who critiques them is wrong (and having incel fantasies???? What???)

I do want to talk about how there’s a lot of radical feminists in the notes acting like men doing small nice things for women like opening doors is what benevolent sexism is. It’s not, and I don’t want anyone who’s new to the term getting confused.

“Benevolent sexism” refers to sexism that masks itself as complimentary and beneficial to women. That might include holding open doors, but that’s a tiny and useless example. The bigger part is putting women on a pedestal as kind, innocent, safe, pure, etc, often in contrast to the roughness and violence of men. That used to be a major argument against women voting and engaging in politics, that they needed to be protected from something so rough, dirty, and corrupt. That’s where the similarities to radical feminism comes in.

Let me expand on my original thought:

Gender/sex essentialist radical feminists/TERFs and traditional sexism conservatives share many of the same basic beliefs about the world. Men are inherently rough, violent, and sexually aggressive where women are kinder, gentler, and inherently safer to be around. That’s benevolent sexism. Traditional sexists turn this into a belief that women must be protected by men from the world, so women must have husbands to shelter them from the world (ie control them). There’s also strands of outright misogyny that come with traditional sexism, but this post is long enough. Radfems turn this into a belief of separatism from men, which is interesting because many sexist and misogynistic societies do practice many kinds of separation between men and women.

Any radfem who’s insecure or unsure in her beliefs, who’s attracted to men, or who thinks she knows a good man is vulnerable to traditional sexist beliefs because she’s already accepted the same base premise. She just needs to change her mind about rejecting men entirely (which can be a struggle when you’re attracted to men or have men close to you in your life) to the idea that she can pick a Good Man(tm) to protect her. A person who jumps out of one set of radical beliefs can easily overcorrect in the other direction, as well. This is what sets up radfems who do become tradfems.

It’s a lot easier for benevolent sexism to slip into queer and feminist spaces in general, which is part of why it’s important to talk about it. The traditional sexist role for women is posed as subservient to that of men, but it’s still often posed as good, honorable, necessary, etc. If you’re willing to accept anything that paints women in a positive light into your feminist spaces, then it becomes easy to let benevolent sexism slip in.

The fundamental belief of feminism about women should be the women are human beings, people, not that women are inherently good. Any type of feminism that rejects that (as transphobic and separatist strands tend to) becomes vulnerable to benevolent sexism.

Bringing back this post in the context of 52% of white women who voted doing so for Trump. Benevolent sexism, the promises and pedestals patriarchy offers as its bait, is definitely a part of some of that.

In my area, I only heard "benevolent sexism" as "if you are a special kind of woman, you'll be able to to join the lower ranks of men, who are required to trample upon other men and women. E.g. upper-middle class women trampling on the poor men and women and the minorities.", so your part is absolutely going to be my new usage of the term! Thank you.

Good to know! I first ran into it while learning about the suffrage movement and the paternalistic framing of keeping women from voting as protecting their “goodness” by keeping them away from dirty politics, so it’s interesting to hear about other contexts.

I do think that benevolent sexism tends to come into the Madonna-Whore complex where there are good, wonderful, perfect, pure women and then tainted, fallen women, so it certainly can enable certain women to become enforcers of sexism and other -isms from their pedestal of being seen as Pure, Angelic creatures. But to get pedestal treatment, they still do have to be middle class, white, cishet, etc, and perform feminine gender roles that put them as subservient to men.

This also goes for things like 'divine femininity' and 'women are mystical creatures that need herbs based on their menstruation and not western medicine' etc etc.

Yes medicine has large gaps regarding qualitative treatment of bodily systems generally associated with women. No that doesn't make women ~mystical aliens~ that need completely different things than regular humans (men).

I love my job, but reblogging employment jelly for someone else I love.

Thinking about Kira Nerys and the Bajoran Resistance for no particular reason this week.

Crazy how kamala Harris had a landslide win guaranteed when she first announced her campaign and then completely fucked herself in every way trying to appeal to republicans and moderates and racists and fascists and genociders and etc. nice job

Simultaneously saying she had no issues with the way Joe Biden ran the country, but she would be harder on border control than donald trump, wouldn’t endorse trans rights, and was just as committed to international genocide as everybody else. Literally the worst campaign I’ve ever seen

Anyway American trans friends, now's the time to put "be gay do crime" into practice and the first step is to get onto secure communication channels so you're not discussing details of what you're doing and how on the public internet.

north gaza has been under siege for over a month and now every single hospital is no longer functioning, with only kamal adwan left on minimal supplies and constant bombardment. the hospital director films daily videos asking for help and assistance, after his son was murdered by the idf in retaliation for him refusing to leave the hospital.

the idf has announced "no civilians will return" and also that "no civilians are left" in northern gaza, despite neither of these things being true. they've also made it clear that they will ethnically cleanse and annex it, have further plans for a "three part" annexation of gaza, have attached their insane minister of settlements who's been frothing at the mouth to resettle gaza since 2005 to the war cabinet (she's also calling for settlements in the south of lebanon) and continue to kill between 80-100 people daily in both lebanon and gaza, many if not most of them children.

joe biden is still the president... with presumably nothing to lose. one can only conclude he is ideologically and economically committed to making sure israel finishes the job before trump even enters the white house.

smotrich announces "annexation of the west bank" with 2025 being "the year of israeli sovereignty in judea and samaria." (fwiw the west bank is de facto annexed and most palestinians barring mahmoud abbas don't care as much as people think about this)

joe biden is still the president, and the US is still impeding the ICC warrants out for israeli leaders. also note that the ICJ—the international court of justice—ruled this july that israel is obliged to dismantle west bank settlements and pay reparations to palestinians. the US could make that happen, if it chose to. the US could simply get out of the way of the UN and let other international bodies make that happen as well.

people who want biden to use his scotus-granted god-king powers to Deal With trump aren't thinking big enough. he could make jd vance dress up as barney and say "it's true, i did have sexual relations with that couch" on live television if he said he was doing it for national security

Lil Nas X – DREAMBOY. Teaser

i'm keeping you in the time loop. it's the only way i know how to keep you safe. trapping you here, in the last day that you're alive, ignorant of what's to come as the sun sets. i dread each minute, a countdown to the end, but live in relief as all the blood washes away, all the would-be scars fade, and the tears dry before they have a chance to fall. but the memory of you dying in my arms remains, and so i'm keeping you in the time loop

Starbucks had Christmas music and their Christmas cups today so in honour of that here are some memes to celebrate the classic experience of being a Jew from November to December

I know it's early but cheshvan has no holidays and so yeah

Fuck it

This just reminds me of the time a (non-Jewish) friend told me that Hannukah couldn’t be my favorite holiday because it’s a minor holiday. A little information can be a dangerous thing!

its really amazing how much liberals are addicted to losing and cannot get enough of it. for people allegedly invested in electoral politics as a vehicle for change they really proudly and avowedly refusing to understand its very basic mechanics. "kamala won a perfect campaign" Well i dont kinow if you noticed this but she lost the election

"people shouldnt be mad about the economy, look at all the charts saying its good!" Okay well,. they are mad though. like theyre mad about the economy. thats just the actual facts on the ground. you cant just be like Well that doesnt make sense and have that fact disappear into a puff of smoke you need to actually contend with it to win elections. how can anyone not understand this. this is like trying to explain political science 101 to a baby. this isnt even my circus or my monkeys i dont care about this its just that watching voteblues react to this election activates the same neurons in my brain as those ads where the guy is playing the mobile game and fucking up in extremely egregious ways

If nandermo storyline doesn't continue after 5th episode I'll go fucking crazy👹👹👹

I think I’m gonna stop using tumblr search to find posts made by and for trans guys bc everytime I search ‘trans man’ on tumblr i see posts of people trying to act like trans men breathing is misogynistic

Like oh no someone headcanoned a character as a gay trans man. Gonna cry. Gonna piss your pants maybe?

Real question is why do people have such a huge issue with trans people headcanoning female characters to be trans men? Why are we restricted to characters that are canonically male? It's almost like the people who complain about this have a problem with someone of an assumed gender becoming another gender!

#How do you think we all got here. We were all female characters who got the chance to become real people and we did it by becoming men.#Sorry that I saw myself in a fictional women#I was only trapped living my life as a fictional women for several painful decades.#Sorry I connected to a character that reminded me of when I desperately needed to change who I was#Sorry I made your blorbo a boy. That was so evil of me. Sorry I erased a beautiful female character when I transitioned.