Although personally in favor of Palestinian independence and critical of war crimes committed by Israel in its siege of Gaza, I attempted to explain in a back-and-forth discussion with a user (only afterwards learning was one of the community’s two moderators) why protest voting in the 2024 election to “punish” the democrats in favor of the republicans harmed the ultimate interest of reigning in Israeli violence in Palestine.
To further emphasize the damage caused by such a protest vote, I argued that not only is Palestine worse off with Trump elected instead of Harris, but as are a myriad of other social issues. The other user disagreed, arguing that Trump’s return to office facilitated the ceasefire, rather than my argument that Netanyahu deliberately delayed it to help Trump get elected.
After my fourth reply post in a reply chain that stemmed from my initial reply to the moderator’s comment, I was banned from !palestine@lemm.ee. Having at no point advocated in favor of the violence perpetuated by Israel in Gaza, I think the ban was unjustified, and demonstrates a bad precedent for maintaining echo chambers of moderator opinions, rather than communities that foster discussion.
Never in anything I wrote did I say that any Palestinian deserves the horrors that Israel has inflicted and continues to inflict upon them.
While I am against the actions of Hamas, since terrorism won’t solve anything, Israel has committed crimes far worse in comparison (approximately 60,000 Palestinians killed versus approximately 1,000 Israelis). There’s no doubt that Israel has gone far and beyond their stated goal of terrorism prevention to instead make progress towards their goal of clearing Gaza out for Israeli settlement.
The problem is that most Americans don’t share my view on the issue of Palestine, and still view the Palestinians as instigators of violence, which is among the reasons why neither the republicans nor democrats were ever going to drop support for Israel. The best course of action, in my opinion, would have been to pick Harris to at least get the better long-term course of action for Palestine, rather than the increased risk of Israeli expansionism after Trump’s re-election.