Starting to feel pretty fucking precious that this is the only imperialist country that doesn’t have a burning flag emoji on account of it having a religious symbol on it
Meanwhile the IOF is plastering it all over their war crimes
Don’t tell me about
. That’s some weak-ass shit
Add the israel-cool flag now
Not adding a burning the Star of David emote, apologies, but that’s the line I draw, being Jewish. I know that’s not the intent stated, but it still is as such. I’m not trying to say that Israel’s use of it is in any way legitimate, nor that I disagree that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state that deserves 1000 October 7ths for all the terror they wrought, but it just makes me viscerally uncomfortable to have an emote depicting that.
Full disclosure, but I’ve ended up in the middle of a conflict of my school where a bunch of Jewish teachers are flipping the fuck out about expressions of Palestinian solidarity and someone literally stole a free Palestine sign out of the only Muslim teacher on staff’s room. It’s very upsetting how much of the discourse around an ongoing genocide by Israel has been about the importance of making sure that Jewish people in the West are not made even a little bit uncomfortable.
I understand your feelings about this, and I’ve wanted to respect them in the past, but Israel is killing people en masse and flying that flag over the ruins of their homes. It should be burned, end of story.
you’ve twice now implied that you no longer care about the concerns of your jewish comrades, which i think is pretty bad in and of itself, but i really feel the need to point out that no amount of burning stars of david is going to improve the situation in palestine even a single iota. none of those people will ever see your fervent anti-israel posting. pushing so hard for an emote to be added to a niche communist website is a complete waste of energy that could be better spent doing anything else.
i’m not trying to be harsh but i genuinely think you need to reconsider the value of the demand you’re making
That’s quite a stretch. It sounds to me like you are trying to be harsh, honestly.
how would you take these statements?
Like they are talking about the prioritization of a single matter and not simply disregarding the concerns of their Jewish comrades.
The only way I would read it differently, is if I were to assume that Jewish people only had concerns over this one matter. But that would be patently absurd.
Perhaps you missed the part where, in real life, I’m having to fight tooth and nail to allow students and teachers the right to express solidarity with Palestine, precisely because of Zionists I work with. Zionists who are explicitly using their identity as Jews to censor others’ speech. This is not an abstract issue, it’s a very real one where I’m having to stick my fucking neck out in a way that has real life consequences. Stick your condescension in a sack and take it elsewhere
If I’ll say it IRL, I’ll say it on the niche communist website, and you coming at me with the smarmy “it’s a waste of energy” bullshit is not going to change that. Why are you wasting your time arguing with me on a niche communist website?
the work you’re doing in real life matters and can improve people’s lives in some way. what you’re pushing for here doesn’t, and only serves to make people who are already on our side uncomfortable. i’m not being smarmy or condescending, but you are kind of being an asshole.
Dude, just settle for a flag modified to not have the star, it’s not that difficult.
What are you talking about? We don’t even have that, lol
We don’t but I think our kind and patient emote Czar would be happy to add that
Okay? I should settle for a hypothetical thing that might possibly exist at some point? I’ll get right on that
You are being obtuse, talking to you is like a prison. You can request it and it’ll probably be added within the day.
You are welcome to stop talking at any time
I’m hoping that you can be dissuaded from this absurd badgering about having a little cartoon with the star of david burning. Literally just put in a request for a proxy and it’ll be fine.
I’m sorry to hear that, being a Muslim in the west is a struggle that is often invisible to people, because there was never a civil rights movement in the west based around Islam. There are no Oscar-winning movies about Muslims winning a Supreme Court case, or getting a constitutional amendment passed.
But on the “burning star of David” issue, I would ask you to reconsider. Many Jews around the world are not zionists, and in fact many oppose zionism and especially the genocide Israel is currently carrying out in Gaza. Burning the star of David comes across, at first glance, the same as burning a cross on the lawn of a black person. It will draw in the wrong crowd, no matter the intention.
Also, I would never support having an emote displaying the prophet Muhammad. Why? Because there are 2 billion Muslims in the world and most of them are wonderful people. Are there a handful of reactionary, theocratic governments led by Muslim clerics, who have ruthlessly crushed socialist movements? Yes. Erdoğan is an asshole, and his attempt to destroy secularism and socialism in Turkey is despicable. But just because Erdoğan is using Islam for evil, as part of his right-wing ideology, that does not mean Islam itself is evil. It does not mean we should post cartoons of Muhammad everywhere, to spite Erdoğan. Being “precious” about posting pictures of Muhammad is, in truth, a sign of respect to Muslim comrades, not a tacit approval of right-wing Islamic theocracies. It’s a complex issue, but I trust WhyEssEff’s judgement.
Malcolm X: am i a joke to you???
If someone else who has access to the emotes tab agrees that I have too much of a conflict-of-interest here and wants to personally make it and add it, then I’ll argue my case and grit my teeth, even though I feel uncomfortable about it and think it invites in some issues that I’d rather not have to second-guess about. I’m not going to do it myself. Sorry.
There’s no conflict of interest here, I also fully support not adding a burning star of david emote. It would be an unforced error to do so and we’ve had this policy in place since the site started while still being vocally anti-settler-colonialist.
I can try to dig up the original afphoto file for :entity-cool: if you’re interested
ended up designing my own based on the stern gang’s symbol
other hexbear jews lmk if I’m having a brainfart (if so I’ll backtrack to blank white with blue bars) but I don’t think this specific symbol is very linked to anything but zionism
Wouldn’t the Jewish people be better off without a genocidal ethnostate claiming to speak for them?
We would, yes. I’m an anti-Zionist, of course. In no way do I support Israel. There’s just a line for me in regards to adding a pictographic representation of burning the Star of David that I’m viscerally uncomfortable crossing. If another person who can access the emotes tab decides to go over my head because this is that much of a conflict-of-interest, then I’ll plead my case and then grit my teeth about it, I guess. As the self-appointed emote czar, though, I’m not personally going to add it.
I’ve added other anti-Zionist emotes here:
off the top of my head.
Thank you for being so patient in discussing this matter. I think you’re in the right about the star.
As a fellow anti-zionist Jew, I feel similarly. Thank you for your patience.
I’ve always appreciated that this is a line you draw. I’ve seen the “Why don’t we have Israel-cool?” “We thought a burning Star of David might make Nazis feel welcome” “Yeah fair fuck them” exchange a bunch of times, I think it strengthens the site’s culture.
I’ll add as many anti-Israel emotes as y’all and I can come up with except the one where we’re toeing the line into, and I hate to use this phrase as a cracker but I don’t know how else to describe it, generational trauma. I know the holocaust has been cynically weaponized by this freak fascist ethnostate to do unspeakable horror, but it’s innately uncomfortable even as part of the anti-Zionist diaspora to make something like this. It fucking sucks, and I’m sorry, but that’s why I scoured for any other representation of Israel that doesn’t invoke Judaism as a whole.
This might be my suburbanite americracker brain showing, but it’s really my only major line-in-the-sand. Sorry.
Nah this is a good call
Uncritical support.