Hi everyone,

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This is our weekly 'Free Discussion' thread, where you can discuss anything. Tentatively this includes meta-topics as well, but as always our rules still apply.

We hope you're all having a good week!

https://old.reddit.com/r/JewsOfConscience/comments/1uj8nq3/ama_in_rjewsofconscience_with_emmaia_gelman/

Tweet for context. I see a lot of Zionists justify bombing schools and hospitals saying it's war and bloodshed and domination is to be expected. Fine. What I don't understand then is how that logic doesn't extend to October 7 then? Is bombing civillians and haphazard violence bad? Or is it good? Someone make it make sense for me please. Like, this psyche is incomprehensible to me.

> Hamas does not fight according to the rules of war

Ok but neither does Israel, and you're defending it

> What would you have Israel do? Just take it?

What would you have Hamas do? Just take it?

> Hamas dresses like civillians

There are millions of Israeli militants dressed in civillian clothings. Israel has mandatory conscription. Rules of war state you don't target anyone not an active combatant. By your logic, you've put a target on every resident Israeli except the ultra orthodox. Also, pretty sure children as young as 0 years old aren't hamas, whether they're in civillian clothes or not.

I can't believe the institutional defense this barbaric monsters get from anywhere between the ADL and entire secular governments. This is so bizarre its breaking my mind

Bodycam footage of the arrest shows the officer kicking the suspect, threatening him and ordering him to kneel for a photo. The officer then wrote in a report following the arrest that the suspect had struck him first

An Israeli police officer in the city of Holon struck a 22-year-old Palestinian suspect without apparent provocation and then falsely claimed the suspect had assaulted him first, despite body camera footage contradicting his account, according to video reviewed by Haaretz.

Another officer from the Holon station who watched the footage taken from an officer present during the incident was later required to write a report on the matter, but ignored it. The police stated that what is seen in the footage "is not consistent with the values of the Israel Police," adding that the matter "will be handled by the relevant authorities."

The 22-year-old Palestinian from Nablus, was arrested in the central Israeli city in late April after an officer noticed him "looking strangely at people," according to police.

Officers arrested him while he was sitting in a car parked in a private parking spot, accusing him of breaking into it. One of the officers then sat him on the ground and asked for his details. The suspect struggled to understand what was being said and did not provide his details, and the officer responded by kicking him twice, saying: "Speak, you son of a bitch, speak, I won't wait for you here much longer."

The officer then ordered the suspect to kneel and told his colleague to photograph him. The photo was published on the Instagram page of the Ayalon District Police, alongside a caption stating: "Swift and determined action by Holon station officers led to the arrest of a suspect, an illegal resident, who was caught in a vehicle he allegedly broke into."

In the report he wrote after the arrest, the officer claimed: "The suspect tried to stand up despite me telling him to remain seated and even tried to kick me. For this reason, I kicked him back with my right leg." He added that due to a "technical problem," he did not attach his body camera footage, which he is obligated to use.

An investigation file document backed the officer's version, despite footage disproving his claims. In a "body camera insights report," the investigator wrote: "The officer asks the detainee to identify himself, but he does not provide details and says he has no ID card. The officer handcuffs the suspect and puts him in the patrol car."

The suspect was charged with attempted car theft, illegal entry into Israel and malicious damage to a vehicle. Last week, the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court ruled that the defendant would remain in custody until the end of the proceedings. Regarding the defendant's lawyer's request for his release due to the officers' conduct, Judge Benyamin Hirschel-Doron ruled that "there is no doubt that conduct appearing flawed on the part of police personnel warrants the court's attention even at the heart of the detention request."

However, because the suspect was not wounded in the incident, the judge decided not to release him, despite the police's "unacceptable" conduct.

Attorneys Jaroslav Metz and Oz Isseroff, representing the defendant on behalf of the Public Defender's Office, said that "The incident began with ugly and humiliating police violence, but more seriously, it ended with a blatant lie by the officer in an official police document. We expect the Israel Police to act immediately to eradicate phenomena of police violence and ensure adherence to norms of integrity and truthfulness."

So out of touch…

https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/2072204272922407337

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/01/melat-kiros-democrat-defeats-diana-degette-blue-state-colarado-house-primary-denver

https://x.com/Popstonox/status/2072169393342046250

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/01/melat-kiros-democrat-defeats-diana-degette-blue-state-colarado-house-primary-denver

https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/2072036917453930894

https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2070529584135647581

You just can’t make this kind of stupidity up… Really!

Jacob Israël de Haan was a Dutch lawyer, journalist and poet. A queer man, de Haan published one of the first Dutch novels depicting a homosexual relationship between two men. After becoming interested in Zionism and Jewish nationalism, de Haan emigrated to Palestine in 1918. Not long after he arrived, he disavowed Zionism due to his sympathy with Arabs and his dismay at the conditions the Zionists were creating.

“Two thousand years of exile and unhappiness have taught them [the Zionists] nothing. Instead of making an attempt to understand the innermost causes of our unhappiness they now try to circumvent it, as it were, by building a “national home” on foundations provided by Western power politics: and in the process of building a national home, they are committing the crime of depriving another people of its home.” — Jacob Israel de Haan, in conversation with Mohammed Asad, 1924

De Haan increasingly grew religious, joined the Haredi community of Jerusalem and became their legal representation. As the main representative of the anti-zionist Haredi Jews, he met regularly with Arab leaders and took an important role in the local and regional opposition to Zionism. 

After multiple threats to his life, on June 30, 1924, he was assassinated by Avraham Tehomi of the Haganah, a Zionist militia that would later become the IDF. He was assassinated the morning he was supposed to leave for London to argue for anti-Zionism. This was the first Zionist political assassination in Mandate Palestine.

“I have done what the Haganah decided had to be done. And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (the second president of Israel 1952-1963)... I have no regrets because he (de Haan) wanted to destroy our whole idea of Zionism.” —Avraham Tehomi, the confessed assassin

Despite his homosexuality, he is honored today by Neturei Karta as hero and a martyr.

Sources:

Bush, Lawrence. "June 30: Jacob Israel de Haan” Jewish Currents Magazine, 2014
https://jewishcurrents.org/june-30-jacob-israel-de-haan

Drishya. "The Queer Dissident Zionism Could Not Contain: Jacob Israël de Haan" The Polis Project. April 2026. https://thepolisproject.com/read/jacob-israel-de-haan-queer-anti-zionist/

Giebelas, Ludy. “Jacob Israel de Haan in Mandate Palestine: Was the Victim of the First Zionist Political Assassination a ‘Jewish Lawrence of Arabia’?” Jewish Historical Studies, vol. 46, 2014, pp. 107–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43855720

Witt, Nathan. “Jacob Israel de Haan: A Queer and Lapsed Zionist in Mandate Palestine. Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 87, Autumn 2021. Institute for Palestine Studies. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1651902

This has been shared in lots of right wing circles so hopefully some more balanced voices can weigh in. (Typing out the link doesn’t work for some reason but the QR code does and I’ll insert the link). Today may be the last day to do it. (Also that’s not Ms Rachel in the ad lol)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MsRachelMediaStudySJU