From their IG story.
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Sadly, I feel like Israel is pretty much left alone in this situation. Remember they are the ones who want to live in peace and reach out friendly to it’s neighbors, I think there is even some kind of law or constitution about it. While at least part of the Arabic world wants nothing less than Israel to be deleted from the map. Paroles like “From see river to the sea, Palestine will be free” make this very obvious. Also remember that Israel was attacked by most of its neighbors from day one foundation onward, and they didn’t call for that. Of all its neigbors, only Egypt recognized Israel and it’s right to exist. In Iraq there is a law against normalizing ties with Israel:
Same in Tunisia, quote from a German article:
“Anyone in Tunisia who commits the “crime of normalizing” relations with Israel risks a long prison sentence in future. Any form of communication will be considered “high treason”. Meanwhile, the speaker of parliament is indirectly calling for Israel to be wiped out.”
In my opinion, Israel deserves at least as much support as the Palestinian side. I think it’s really not Israel which does not want peace, but over all the decades a status quo got established which will be very difficult to solve.
Just gonna drop a friendly preemptive reminder to please keep all discussion within the TOU, which can be found here:
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My take:
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All humans have the right to exist.
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War is not the answer. Period.
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My post from the other thread:
I don’t like that they jump onto the “free Palestine” train. Palestinians had their chance to found their own state instead of attacking the young state Israel when that was founded. The following occupations were a direct consequence of their own actions. They were given many chances for peace, even while Israel was a victim of constant acts of terrorism. You should blame Britain for how they handled - or rather not handled - the situation during the first half of the 20th century. You should blame the Hamas which wanted this very unfavorable situation for Israel so that state falls out of favor and loses support, which they unfortunately achieved pretty well, but a smart person shouldn’t fall into that trap. It’s pretty obvious if you study the history of the Palestinian region just a little bit.
For context: referring to this video, time stamp 1:31:30
As an addition:
The situation in the Middle East is far more complex than it appears to be and my impression is the band isn’t really aware of this.
There is a novel by the German author Frank Schätzing with the title “Breaking News”. During most of the book Schätzing treats the historic backgrounds to today’s situation in the Middle East and I personally think it’s a really good starting point on that topic. Not sure if the title is the same in English, but it most probably is.
I also wrote a mail to the band"s management since I assume they aren’t completely aware of the complexity of this topic and I think it could be their job to put the band onto things.
Yes, I’m really invested into this topic.
I don’t know how the band wouldn’t be aware that the Middle East is a politically complex situation considering that’s the prerequisite concept that casts a shadow over everything you see today. The first thing I ever heard about the conflict as a kid was “it has a long history.” In fact I’d wager most people saying “free Palestine” understand that there’s a long and violent history to the region. They might not know the ins and outs of every single thing that’s happened over decades at this point but they do know its a complex situation. But here’s my issue: I don’t really think having that good of an understanding of history is needed to comment on war and deaths in the thousands. I get a bad feeling when people say you need to understand a century’s worth of history before you can comment on whether you think innocent people should be killed or not. It feel as if this sentiment is to gatekeep and delegitimize those who are disgusted by the deaths of innocent people in Palestine and those who find Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to be cruel and inhumane.
What’s going on in Palestine is awful and Hamas has a hand in it. Hamas is not constructive when we talk about resolving this but neither is killing thousands of innocent Palestinians in attacks that any strategist knows would have collateral damage. Neither is killing aid workers in specially marked trucks or officials saying that the Gaza Strip should be leveled and turned into a museum much like Auschwitz. I don’t need a century of info to condemn October 7th, but I also don’t need to know the history to say that what Israel’s government and military are doing is nightmarish, that I have serious concerns over war crimes committed, and that I think ordinary Palestinians trying to live day to day shouldn’t live in fear of attacks which they have seen play out again and again.
I’m not going to argue because I know if you feel strongly enough to write a letter to the band over it that a forum post isn’t going to do much (nor do I really want to waste time on arguing as I have better things to do). I just find the premise of your post to be off-putting. And if you’re talking about something more specific than general chants, it didn’t come across.
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My problem with that point of view is that killing dozens and hundreds of Israelis over all those years have been okay and still is for many. There were plenty of rocket attacks onto Israelian territory over the past few decades, but that wasn’t a thing in the media. Israel mostly didn’t even react to it. And I think it is very important to understand why there even is that conflict today, the historical roots of it. If you read about the history, you’ll most probably understand that the reason is, that Europe failed, Britain, Turkey, France, all of them. And it would be an important step if we just stood up and admitted “Yes, we are responsible for this situation, at least partially.” And it would be on us to find solutions instead of blaming the people who did not much wrong, be it Palestines or Israelis. That’s definitely the wrong approach. It doesn’t help the situation to chant “Free Palestine” while at the same time you ignore Jewish history. You know, that initially was Jewish land. They were expelled out of their land which got over the centuries occupied by Rome, Byzantine, Assyrians and others. They got homeless, I think it is important to acknowledge this fact and say “Yes, they have the right to be there.” instead of chanting “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, which happened in the past. That is rassisitic, it is inhuman, it’s a form of violance against Israelis.
You have to see both sides, and in order to be able to do that, you have to know about the history of the region.
As it pertains to king gizz, i havent noticed that they were being vocally supportive of palestine at any of the shows during the first leg of the euro tour (many of the shows were in germany, i assume they are mostly pro israel, but idk). And now its like a big part of the show. I could be wrong i havent seen every second of every show
Im anti war, btw. And feeling lucky/privileged to never have experienced any bloody conflict anywhere near any communities ive lived in
Added politics
it was not a “big part of the show” it was like 30 seconds max in the middle of a song
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IMHO the state/military of Israel is doing horrific things; that does not make killing Israelis “okay”. Antisemitism is wrong and also perpetuating genocide against Palestinians is wrong. “Free Palestine” does not mean eliminating the Jewish faith. This is not a zero-sum situation.
I found this to be an eye-opening read, from a Jewish writer and former war-crimes lawyer. It’s long but please read the whole thing:
I have been accused of spreading hate and contributing to an uptick in antisemitism many times over. And yet, my inbox is filled with messages of hope and peace from Arab Muslims reaffirming the brotherhood of our religions and their love for Jewish people. Many of these messages express a profound desire to return to a time before Zionism arrived and disrupted religious co-existence in the Arab world. They express respect for the Jewish religion, which is part of Islam, and sadness at it being used to further an exclusionist ideology that has led to so much violence. I’ve interacted online with a few hundred Arabs since October 7th. Many of these interactions led to conversations that have built bridges and understanding.
[…]
The vast majority of people who are critical of Israel aren’t singling Israel out because it’s Jewish or because they believe only Jews should be denied the right to self-determination. What they are challenging is the idea that Jewish self-determination includes a right to ethnically cleanse an existing population to achieve a demographic majority and that a Jewish right to self-determination supersedes the right of Palestinians to the same.
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“Big part of the show” was heavy handed to say. But still i feel like there may be some significance to it… there was also a “free palestine” during the silent break at the beginning of pleura. At one of the more recent shows
If you don’t like what giz is doing then don’t Fuxking come to the shows. Simple as that. The bands opinion is not up for debate. If you don’t like what they support and how they do it get the Fuxk out
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Just gonna say this again…
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I don’t see how this comment is constructive.
I didn’t say anything against the band or whatever and I completely understand that it feels good to take the side of the supposedly oppressed people, however doing so and not acknowledging the history of oppression towards Jewish people for milleniums now just doesn’t feel right to me.
I don’t agree with how the Israelian government handles this situation, at the same time I think it’s important to keep in mind that are not the Israelian people. Most of them just want to live in peace like most people. That book I mentioned really enlightened me on quite some aspects, personally, I wasn’t aware about i.e. that quite some Jews didn’t even want to move to Israel, but they had to since they weren’t safe in other places like Germany (I’m German) and give up their pretty comfortable lives they led until then.
There was a lot of harm for people on both sides, I personally refuse to take either side. However, I condemn when the right to exist is denied, what is exactly what the Arabian League officially stated. You can easily say “Just move out of occupied territory”, but there are very personal fates involved. Families lose their basis of existence, that’s easily to forget about. That’s what I mean with
“It’s much more complex than it appears to be.”
It will be difficult to find a solution, but I really wish European countries would step up and admit their responsibility for the current situation.
fuck zionism
it’s the last surviving branch of European colonialism
it’s time that evil tree is finally cut down
the only nations still on the genocidal state side are those that profit from its existence
the ICC, the UN, Emergency, Doctors Without Borders, Haaretz, the World has exposed their crimes again and again
this genocide is being broadcast live, not only by the victims, but by idf members who take pride in their crimes against humanity and make fun of their victims
the audience at every gizz concert is made up of at least 50% western white males – just like they are. The least we can do is acknowledge it and be vocal against it
fuck zionism
oh, and for the “anti-semitic” shit: Semites in israel are a few thousand people, while Palestinians are mostly Semites
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About Zionism, to see Israel as a zionistic is a misinterpretation. Only a rather small number of the Jewish population defines themselves as orthodox, and of those even less are Zionists. Yes, there for sure are some Zionists among the non-orthodox population, but Zionism didn’t play a huge role in why things happened the way they did.
When Israel won the 1948 Palestine War, occupations after this and the following wars happened due to Israelian safety interests, for example, Syria could attack the region around the See of Galilee from the Golan Heights, which they actually did, so Israel occupied that territory after they won the war to push back Syria and not be under threat in their own state any longer. It was their puffer for their own safety towards Syria, Sinai the puffer zone towards Egypt, etc.
That’s the reason why occupations initially happened and it had absolutely nothing to do with Zionism, colonization or whatever.
Of course the Israelian settlement policy should be condemned, it’s against international law, but the reason why this happened in the first place is not Zionism and neither colonization.
On the other side Israel did quite a few things to achieve peace in the region, they moved out of Sinai and made a peace treaty with Egypt, for which Egypt was condemned by all of their Arabic neighbours. They moved out of Gaza, the PA was founded. Then the Hamas took over and life wasn’t save anymore for Palestinians in Gaza. You mustn’t say anything against the Hamas, you mustn’t protest or you could as well shoot yourself which might be less painful than being killed by the Hamas.
There was a real chance for peace under Rabin until he unfortunately was murdered and even under Scharon, those were missed, which isn’t to be blamed on Israel, for the the most part it were the Arabic neighbours which didn’t want peace with Israel and - except Egypt - don’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a state to the current day.
You can learn about the history of the region or you can state paroles of which necessarily many will be wrong or erroneous since they lack the historic context.