MAKE LOVE NOT UNJUST WAR: One of the most confusing aspects about MAGA is the movements love hate relationship with Jews. American Jews and Israeli’s that support Trump and Netanyahu are good Jews, and those that don’t are bad Jews, blurring the line between what can be considered antisemitism and not. This grey area allows for attacks on Jewish billionaire George Soros and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
It also allows for Nazi salutes made by Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, turns a blind eye to antisemitism from Kanye West, Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, ignores chants made in Charlottesville by Neo Nazis, “Jews will not replace us.”
Yet at the same time the anti-Christian/Jewish task force suspends funding to Columbia University, and ICE illegally detains Palestinian protesters. Any support to end the war and stop the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children is viewed as being pro-Hamas and pro-Terrorism. Not to mention America supplying Israel with the arms to carry out the illegal killing of civilians.
South Africa is accused of hating Jews just because the government dares to highlight the mass atrocities being committed on a daily basis in Gaza and the West Bank.
MORAL CHARACTER: – We shall no longer lend a hand in the occupation of the territories. We shall no longer take part in the deprivation of basic human rights from millions of Palestinians. We shall no longer serve as a shield in the crusade of the settlements. We shall no longer corrupt our moral character in missions of oppression. We shall no longer deny our responsibility as soldiers of the Israeli DEFENSE force. –
This letter, dated December 2003, addressed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was signed by 13 reservists of Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit, serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
REFUSENIK OR SNIPER?: ‘I would prefer this over killing children:’ Why some Israeli teens are choosing jail over the army.
At a military prison in central Israel, 18-year-old Itamar Greenberg sat in a US Army-issued army uniform as the Hollywood blockbuster “American Sniper” blared from the rec room’s TV.
But Greenberg is not a soldier, and the desert camouflage fatigues are the only military uniform the so-called refusenik – as conscientious objectors are called in Israel – has ever worn.
Greenberg has been in and out of prison for the last year, serving a total of 197 days over five consecutive sentences. Earlier this month, Greenberg was released from the Neve Tzedek prison for the last time.
His crime? Refusing to enlist after being summoned for military service, which is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis – and some minorities – over the age of 18.
Greenberg said his refusal to serve came as the “culmination of a long process of learning and moral reckoning.”
“The more I learned, the more I knew I couldn’t wear a uniform that symbolizes killing and oppression,” he said, explaining that Israel’s war in Gaza – which was launched after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023 – solidified his decision to refuse.
“There is genocide,” he said. “So we don’t need good reasons (to refuse).”
The Israeli government has vehemently denied accusations that the war in Gaza amounts to genocide against the Palestinian people.
The war, which was reignited last week when Israel resumed airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza after a short-lived ceasefire, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians in 17 months, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Over 670 people have been killed and 1,200 others injured in Gaza since Tuesday alone, when Israel’s military campaign restarted, according to the health ministry there.
“I want this change, and I will give my life for it,” Greenberg said of his decision to serve time in prison rather than serving with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
OSTRACISED FOR BEING HUMAN: It’s a decision that conscientious objectors like Greenberg don’t take lightly, as refusing the draft is essentially a choice of ostracization.
In Israel, the military is more than just an institution. It’s part of the social fabric, with military service and secular Jewish-Israeli identity deeply intertwined. And it starts early: From elementary school, students are taught they will one day be the soldiers who will protect children just like them, with soldiers visiting classrooms and schools explicitly encouraging students to enlist.
At 16, those children receive their first recruitment orders, culminating with conscription at 18. Many see it as an honor, a duty and a rite of passage.
Greenberg has been called a self-hating Jew, antisemitic, a terrorist supporter, and a traitor, he said – even by family and friends.
“People message me on Instagram and say that they will slaughter me, as Hamas did to Israelis on October 7,” he said.
In prison, Greenberg was placed in solitary confinement after receiving threats from fellow inmates – a move that prison officials told him was “for his safety.”
Despite social ostracization, he – and what a network of organizations supporting conscientious objectors say is a growing number of refuseniks – remain dedicated to the cause.
PART OF THE SOLUTION: But Greenberg and other refuseniks hope that their movement might create space for a more mainstream dialogue on the pitfalls of a militarized society.
“If I join the army, I just will be part of the problem. I personally prefer to be part of the solution,” Greenberg said, noting that he may not live to see it.
Multiple human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. Israel has denounced that characterization as antisemitic.
“The system of apartheid and the maintenance of this rule that actively oppresses another group cannot be upheld. Not only is it immoral and generally horrible, but it will end up blowing up in your face,” Lior Fogel said.
Rage against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a fever pitch this week among tens of thousands of protesters who believe he is employing increasingly anti-democratic means to stay in power, and who question what he hopes to achieve with a renewed military campaign that nearly a year and a half of relentless war has not.
Many blame Netanyahu for prioritizing his political survival over the security of his country and say the renewed military campaign grossly endangers the lives of the estimated 24 living hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas and its allies.
Another refusenik at the demonstration, Iddo Elam, 18, who served time in prison for his refusal, told CNN: “I would prefer this over killing children.” According to UNICEF, more than 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
Elam said he was hoping his protest would help fellow Israelis to understand that “the pain of Palestinians is the same as Israelis.” –
By Kara Fox and Zeena Saifi, CNN, Mon March 24, 2025.
OCCUPY GAZA: Israel is making plans for a potential major ground offensive in Gaza that would involve sending tens of thousands of troops into combat to clear and occupy large swaths of the enclave, an Israeli official and a second source familiar with the matter said.
The potential large-scale offensive is one of several possible scenarios the Israeli government is contemplating as it escalates its attacks on Gaza and seeks to pressure Hamas to release more hostages without negotiating an end to the war. – CNN
UPDATE: KILL THEM ALL – On a bright Sunday afternoon outside of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, a group of teenage girls was creating chaos.
“Bibi, Bibi, we love Bibi,” they yelled, using a popular nickname for the Israeli leader, as one spat into a “Bring Home the Hostages” hat before stepping on it in front of hundreds of silent protesters who had gathered to call for the hostages’ return.
Sixteen-year-old Sarah was among the teenage agitators who had skipped school to voice their support for Netanyahu and his far-right coalition, whose recent reignition of the war in Gaza has been criticized for endangering the lives of the 24 living hostages, and for serving as a distraction from the prime minister’s array of political crises.
CNN is using pseudonyms for the teenagers featured in this article as their guardians were not present at the time of reporting.
“If we don’t do war right now, terror is going to come back again,” Sarah said, as her friends blared a song, “Bibi, Bibi, our friend,” through a portable speaker at pro-democracy protesters leaving another nearby demonstration.
Sarah said she supports Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza and trusts that Netanyahu’s plan will ensure the best path forward for the security of Israel and her future – one she envisions without Palestinian participation.
“I don’t love any Arabim,” she said, using an English-Hebrew hybrid to refer to Arabs, who make up around 20% of Israel’s citizenry (another five million live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.) “I don’t have Arab friends because I know some day that they are going to cheat me, kill me,” she added, regurgitating the kind of inflammatory and dehumanizing rhetoric that many Israeli politicians and leaders have long normalized, but that has become more extreme since the start of the war.
“Those children will grow up to be terrorists,” Sarah said. Her friends nodded in agreement. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023 – among them 15,600 children – according to the health ministry there.
Days before, at another demonstration just outside of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Maya, another 16-year-old girl, went even further with her language.
“I think we should kill all of them,” she said, referring to Palestinians.
The teenager told CNN she supported US President Donald Trump’s call to relocate Palestinians in Gaza to third countries – a “voluntary” emigration plan approved by Israel’s cabinet on Sunday that critics say could amount to ethnic cleansing.
“It’s never been so bad,” Batya Kenine, a Jerusalem-based realtor, who had come to support the silent protesters in Jerusalem, said of the teenagers’ divisive rhetoric.
“When I was 18, I too voted for the most extremist party. They said: ‘We’ll fight, we’ll go, we’ll demolish.’ But I grew up and understood that’s not the way to live in this country – always fighting, fighting. People in Gaza, you know, they are human as well,” Kenine said.
The embrace of right-wing attitudes by Jewish Israeli youth is not a new phenomenon, analysts say, but it has become more extreme in recent years, particularly in the era of Netanyahu – who, having been in office for 12 of the past 14 years, is the only leader that teenagers like Sarah have ever really known.
“When you don’t resolve military conflicts, you have to convince your population of why you’re there, and then you have to convince them by telling them the other side is irredeemable, genetically disposed to be an existential threat,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel-Aviv based political analyst, told CNN.
That messaging has resonated with many young Jewish Israelis, who overwhelmingly identify as right-wing, and who helped to usher in Netanyahu’s latest government, the most extreme in Israel’s history.
A large majority (73%) of Israeli Jews between the ages of 15 and 24 define themselves as right-wing, compared with 46% of Jewish Israelis aged 65 and above, according to research published in January 2023 by the Jerusalem-based think tank the Israel Democracy Institute, the most recent of its kind. For many Israelis, that’s not surprising.
Alon-Lee Green, the founding co-director of Standing Together, a progressive grassroots movement, told CNN that young people aren’t at fault for the extremist attitudes that are dividing wider Israeli society. “It starts at the top,” he said.
“Young people in Israel have never encountered a leader that says that we can go in a different direction, that says that there is an option to not go to war, to not deepen the occupation, to not deepen the conflict or violence with other people,” Green said.
Netanyahu has only ever paid the most perfunctory allegiance to the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, he has insisted that statehood would be a “reward” for the assault.
Those attitudes are trickling down to even the most left-wing parts of Israeli society, one mother of a pre-teen told CNN. One mother, who asked not to use her name to protect her daughter’s identity, said that her 11-year-old attends a school in a liberal suburb of Tel Aviv, and that children in her class have thrown shoes or objects at maps of Gaza, and play games that include “death to Arabs” in the playground.
On a school field trip to a local pool, one of her daughter’s friends said she wouldn’t enter the water after Palestinian children had swum in it. And when her daughter’s best friend asked who her mom was seeing – she is divorced and her partner is a Palestinian man – her child “froze.”
“She said to me: ‘Mom, I realized in that moment that I couldn’t say (his name) because they wouldn’t be my friends anymore.’”
Such attitudes are also reflected in online trends, promoted by young Israeli content creators.
In one of those trends, content creators mock the hardships faced by Palestinian children in Gaza by pranking their parents or grandparents by pretending to represent a fictional humanitarian organization asking for donations for Palestinian children. The parents normally react with outrage before the pranksters reveal themselves.
Other recent viral videos show Israelis making fun of Palestinians in Gaza unable to access water by running the tap and turning the lights on and off. Israel cut off the electricity supply to a desalination plant for drinking water in Gaza earlier this month, shortly after blocking the entry of humanitarian aid.
“When extremist narratives are something that you’ve been fed your entire life and when a moment of such extreme violence, like the Hamas attacks of October 7, happens… we see these trends of completely losing the ability to recognize humanity on the other side,” said Green, of Standing Together.
His organization, which has a large social media following, attempts to counter such rhetoric in the hope its message will spill out into wider society. On its social media platforms, the movement urges people to see Palestinians as fellow humans, as well as calling for an end to the war, through a lasting ceasefire and hostage deal, and reinforcing the understanding that there are innocent people “on the other side.”
But it is bombarded with “daily attacks on those truths,” said Green, who estimates that there are no less than “hundreds of thousands” of Israelis that have written vile and dehumanizing responses to the organization’s posts. Those comments come without consequence, he said.
Nobody is saying, “’Wait, maybe this is not a line we should cross’ – because other people are laughing with you,” he said, noting that no members of government – even from the left-wing opposition – are encouraging a stop to that type of behavior.
The Tel Aviv mom thinks that sort of pushback would force all of society – regardless of political allegiance – to reevaluate the way in which it operates.
Jewish Israelis are intentionally separated from their Palestinian counterparts, she said, noting that multiple human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. Israel has denounced that characterization as antisemitic.
“If Israelis actually ever meet their other and understand they’re okay, then this whole plan, this whole invention, falls apart. And I think it’s the greatest fear of the government, but also the greatest fear of the people here: that they themselves would hate to wake up and understand that it’s all been for nothing,” she said.
Green believes that young people can change, arguing that the only way to counter extremism is to model a different kind of behavior for young people – and that protecting Palestinians and demanding peace is in Israelis’ own interest.
“We are the only ones that will determine what kind of a society we are. It’s not Hamas, it’s us,” he said.
As the Jerusalem demonstration began to wind down Sunday, some of the teenagers gathered close to compare notes on their favorite Taylor Swift songs while others yelled “Bibi, Bibi” at a group of pro-democracy LGBTQ+ activists leaving the rally.
One of the activists yelled back, “Enough.” The heckling carried on.
Jerusalem CNN — By Kara Fox, CNN, Fri March 28, 2025
Photographer Marc Ribard. Anti-Vietnam war protester Jan Rose Kasmir offering a flower to a bayonet wielding National Guardsman protecting the Pentagon.
Mar 24, 2025 1:08:18 pm
