Thread by @sfrantzman

There are basically three types of anti-Israel protesters.
1. The left wing types who are into various causes.
2. The people who come for the fun of it.
3. Far-right types who are basically genocidal extremists but who found a cause that lets them channel hate as "human rights"

Among the far-right types are all those who are responsible for violence, gangs of young men, many of them who look similar to extremist sectarian militias in places like Iraq more than a "peace protest"...who seek out minorities in the West to attack.

Their sectarian mentality is basically genocidal. We're not supposed to admit what guides these folk or watch closely their behavior, but the attacks in UK, NY, California and elsewhere are all the same and guided by men whose mentality is right wing sectarian nationalist hate.

One of the problems some on the western far-left have is that when it embraces some causes it doesn't distance itself from the far-right voices in those causes and if those far-right are the "other" they are laundered through the cause and allowed to be aggressive and violence.

Consider how it works. Some nice folk want to go to a protest against human rights abuses in Gaza. A convoy of men show up waving flags and say "let's go target a synagogue"...and there's no push back against that. Just appeasement of "oh...umm well that sounds bad but ummm"

The difference also is essentially two versions of what is meant by "peace." Some want peace, meaning two states or peace and coexistence between peoples. They mean peace in an ideal way, equality and acceptance and tolerance.

There are others who talk "peace" but what they really mean is genocide and the "peace" of destruction and war and forcing others to submit. They mean the "Roman peace" or the peace of slavery, where one is subjugated and the other takes over everything.

Part of the "peace" narrative includes the word "justice" and interpretations of "justice" are different, like the word "resistance" and "struggle"...and in these terms generally can be found the excuse for genocidal violence, bus bombings, rocket attacks, stabbing, terror.

You can't have peace if your goal is actually endless war. Those who support "one state" are supporters of endless war inside that state. Those who claim Israel is "settler colonial" are essentially into endless war because they mean a "colony" must be removed.

Those who talk "peace" but have maps of only one state...are essentially Palestinian nationalists whose only end goal will be endless war. One can't have peace when one wants everything and sees only one state and talk in terms like that.

The other side of the coin is the same, those far-right in Israel who want all the land and want Gaza blockaded forever...are essentially into endless conflict. The difference is most of them don't pretend they want peace.

it's important to interrogate the word "peace"...if peace means war it is not peace. If peace always means "justice" too, then it may not bring peace. If peace means only one state in which millions don't want that outcome and are forced into it...that's recipe for conflict.

If you look at the kind of peace that can come in Europe after 1945, you have one model of peace. But there are historically other forms of "peace" that have generally meant destroying one group and trampling them until only one group remains and calls it "peace." Beware.