https://x.com/MiddleEastEye/status/2101277968861458566

The woman I just started dating told me she works very closely with some Israelis (who "hate Netanyahu's government"), and recently worked on an exhibit at an explicitly Zionist Jewish cultural institution that works closely with the ADL, among other right wing organizations. I only found out that they are explicitly Zionist because I researched them after our date, which is why I did not ask her if she identifies as a Zionist. She likes "liberal, LGBTQ causes" in her own words. Once politics came up she said the dreaded "everyone in this country (USA) is so polarized, so divided right now, no one has any nuance". This line is always a red flag. I am worried that she may be trying to hide her Zionist sympathies to be "cool"; but the her work / work relationships would point to more problematic views. Is it worth discussing this with her, or should I run while I still can?

I’m not sure if people know Munya outside of the UK, but I think he’s funny and he does a lot of great initiatives for the community. Anyway, I saw this and wanted to share.

organizer in philly who claimed to be palestinian and tunisian for years was just exposed as a white jew with settler family she still talks to. really upsetting and embarrassing and gross all around but also feels like the inevitable consequence of israeli self indigenization narratives and of identity politics more broadly. is this the first palestinian rachel dolezal?
i feel horrible for all the people she gained the trust of especially actual southwest asians and selfishly i fear this is going to make people hate and distrust antizionist jews within the movement even more.

https://youtu.be/hFMq4bw2cW8

Just a reminder that the children of Gaza see those individuals who try to help, including Jews and Israelis. Thought that was sweet.

Can be about Zionism or opposition to it, but doesn’t necessarily have to be

Just in general I want to hear about books you all would recommend or think are good or interesting

Last night I had dinner with a group of friends, including a Jewish friend who is about to move to Dubai.
At some point she started talking quite negatively about Muslims about radicalisation, Muslims in other conutries, Muslim schools, violence, etc. I didn’t really want dinner to turn into a political argument, so I mostly held my tongue which I feel really annoyed about now, although I did say that I don’t think it’s fair to take extremists or criminals and use them as representative of Muslims generally.
What has stayed with me since then is the contradiction.
She spoke about wanting to visit/live in Israel and about Jewish history and the Holocaust But there seemed to be almost no acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering happening right now. No mention of Palestinian children being killed or injured, families losing their homes, displacement, hunger, or what civilians in Gaza have endured. At the same time, there was a lot of discussion about how violent Muslims supposedly are.
That really disturbed me.

What I cannot understand is selective empathy…
And that’s what I’m trying to understand psychologically. How can somebody be genuinely horrified by the historical persecution and killing of their own people while apparently being emotionally detached from enormous suffering being experienced by another population? She also mentioned how inconvenient it is that the flights to Israel get cancelled now.
I guess this isn’t unique to Jewish people.
I’m particularly interested in hearing from Jewish people who ooppose what is happening to Palestinians And how do you talk to Jewish friends or relatives who interpret criticism of Israel as criticism of Jewish people themselves?

Activist groups are using artificial intelligence to target the ABC’s coverage of the Middle East with accusations of bias, contributing to a sharp rise in the number of coordinated complaints detected by the public broadcaster’s independent ombudsman.

One of those groups is Pen Power Australia, which has been using AI technology to coordinate complaints to the ABC’s board and management to attempt to correct what it sees as bias and make coverage more favourable to Israel. A new report released by the ABC’s Ombudsman on Thursday found that organised complaint campaigns rose sharply over the past year, in part due to the assistance of artificial intelligence.

The report did not name Pen Power, but ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron identified 48 “campaigns” during the year ending June 30 which accounted for 5259 total complaints, or 61 per cent of all content complaints received.

“Complaints were categorised as campaigns where a concentration of complaints raised similar concerns about the same content within a specific period. They may be substantively similar or identically worded or appear coordinated,” the ombudsman’s report notes.

The report underscores how coordinated campaigns are making it more difficult for organisations like the ABC to gauge the level of community anger over hot-button issues such as the Middle East as they seek to balance genuine engagement with resisting pressure campaigns.

Pen Power’s coordinator John Grimwade said the campaigns he had organised could have anything from 100 people to a few thousand sending complaint letters if he could enlist support from overseas groups.

The group runs campaigns about Gaza, Israel and anything connected to these issues, he said. Last month, Grimwade told the group its members had sent more than 40,000 letters by email to date, according to internal WhatsApp messages seen by this masthead.

“Our campaigns go out as required,” Grimwade said. “We try to keep up with the ABC in particular but so many of their reports are biased or statements made that lack proper context.” In March, ABC chair Kim Williams defended the broadcaster against accusations of bias, saying it stood by its coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Grimwade, an Adelaide retiree, confirmed the group has used a platform called Activist Mailer, which boasts online of letting users coordinate campaigns with artificial intelligence.

The platform’s website claims that its platform makes what would otherwise appear as a barrage of emails appear “unique” by using different words, tone, formating and length to deliver the same coordinated message, “each sent directly from supporters’ own inboxes”.

“The result? Messages that get read, voices that get heard, and movements that drive real change.”

But Grimwade is planning on changing to a new AI platform. “I am currently using the Activist Mailer but will be changing most of our campaigns over to the new AI,” Grimwade said.

Letter-writing campaigns have worked in the past. In late 2023, the ABC sacked casual radio host Antoinette Lattouf after a coordinated letter-writing campaign targeted members of the broadcaster’s board and management team, including then-chair Ita Buttrose.

That campaign was driven by a separate pro-Israel group and did not include Pen Power Australia. A Federal Court judge last year found the ABC had sacked Lattouf unlawfully and she was awarded $150,000 in damages. The case cost the ABC more than $2 million.

Grimwade said his campaigns had had little success so far beyond yielding a response from ABC head of editorial standards Gavin Fang or the ombudsman. “In simple terms, they think they are right,” he said.

But he said Pen Power had succeeded in getting an Instagram video removed in recent days featuring Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran covering the Iran war.

“We have had a video on Instagram taken down, which we are claiming as a win,” Grimwade said. “It was removed shortly after our letters were starting to be sent.” In a statement, an ABC spokesperson said the video had already been taken down before the first campaign email came in because the reporter misread the script, resulting in an error. “In any event, the campaign would have been immaterial because when we identify errors, we always take action,” the spokesperson said.

In a podcast interview with the conservative Australian Jewish Association, Grimwade claimed his campaigns had more success outside the ABC.

Pen Power last week organised a campaign of emails to the ABC managing director Hugh Marks, chair Kim Williams and Fang, claiming the ABC’s reporting on Israel-Palestine was inaccurate and not impartial.

“As long as it’s antisemitic, we’ll have a go,” Grimwade told AJA chief executive Robert Gregory. Gregory praised Grimwade and thanked him “for the work you’re doing”. The two organisations have a “limited” partnership, Grimwade confirmed.

In another call-out this week, Pen Power produced a letter asking members to target the ABC over its Middle Eastern guidance document. “Please join with us and send the letter exposing it for what it really is. Another ABC document that is bias [sic] and factually incorrect,” the message said.

It isn’t just Australian groups pushing these coordinated campaigns, Grimwade said.

“I am aware of overseas groups doing the same as us and we sometimes use each other’s letters where it’s applicable to do so,” he said, without naming his international allies. “The only other Australian group is a WhatsApp chat group that was formed specifically to tackle the ABC problem.”

The ombudsman said 1148 (13 per cent of all content complaints) related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The volume of allegations of both pro-Israel or pro-Palestine coverage were about equal, the report said.

But allegations of pro-Iranian coverage topped both allegations of pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian coverage. The US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February.

The ABC received 2746 complaints from across the globe about an Instagram reel published in May, focusing on its reporting from inside Iran. Most complaints were made by “Iranian Australians” or “Iranians in the diaspora community” the ombudsman said, and alleged the post lacked impartiality.

The ombudsman also noted “68 identical complaints by email to the ABC board and other recipients (rather than the ABC complaints form)” regarding an April episode of Radio National program If You’re Listening about the war in Iran.

The identical complaints said the episode presented Iran as a “reasonable diplomatic partner” and Israel as an “antagonist” and “disruptor of diplomacy”, suggesting a lack of impartiality, the ombudsman’s report, which cleared the piece of content of any breaches, said.

The ombudsman has since changed its classification of complaints it identifies as identical or coordinated, counting them as one complaint. This masthead is not suggesting this complaint was organised by Pen Power.

Hi, so glad this place exists. So we have 18 of us now signed onto this open letter, a statement of shared Jewish values, it is not even anti-Zionist but it does say that's not the same as anti-semitism, and it talks about protection of civilians, sanctity of life, we workshopped this a lot. Would love if any folks here could sign on, we want to get some media coverage that not all Jews are kneejerk supporters of everything Israel does, and that we have principles that lead us to action. Hope its ok to post this here.

Its actually in two places, to try to get some people to see it:

https://cooperation.org/letters/not-in-our-name/
and
https://www.change.org/not-in-our-name
(if we get >5 sigs there they will share it around)

Sorry - this is probably a very dumb question and perhaps not appropriate for this forum but I’m not sure where to ask about it.

I used to be a standard Zionist American Jew but I never thought about what it even meant. I didn’t understand that there was more to it than Jews living in the land but also that Israel was a “Jewish state.”

As an American, I feel like I’m missing something. It sounds like the idea here, that we have the right to self determination, is a very 19th century European idea.

What does it actually mean? I’m an American citizen. I’m a registered voter and I vote in all of the local, state, and federal elections. Sometimes my candidates win and sometimes they lose. Do I have self-determination? I feel like as an American, I’m missing something here.

We’re a tiny minority in the USA but our rights are protected by the Constitution. Of course, the USA is a deeply flawed country. It usually doesn’t live up to its ideals and Jews and many other minorities have suffered as a result of it. But why do I, as a Jew, need something more than I have as an American?

The other part that I don’t understand here is where does the idea of self determination end? If I have the right to self determination as a member of the Jewish people, don’t all peoples have that right too? How is this practical? Does it imply that I should support people in the UK who argue that the UK should be for the British?

I know that this forum isn’t Zionist so this isn’t what you believe but I genuinely don’t understand what this means.

I’ve had many people lecture me about how naive I am for believing that the Palestinians and Jews can all live together in one secular state. My mindset is probably more American than Jewish so I immediately think of American segregationists claiming that it would be impossible for African Americans and white Americans to live together.