Summary
Russia launched a major attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Christmas Day, using 184 missiles and drones, resulting in power cuts across the country.
Ukrainian President Zelensky condemned the attack, calling it “inhumane” and a “conscious choice” by Russia.
Despite the damage and casualties, Ukrainians remain resilient, celebrating Christmas amidst the crisis.
The irony of your approach throughout this thread is that the Palestinians support russian genocidal imperialism.
I say this as a Ukrainian who leans towards the Palestinian side.
EDIT: In retrospective, it was wrong for me to say Palestinians in general support russian genocidal imperialism. A fairer approach would be to say that Palestinian leadership has generally espoused pro-russian statements, but they likely didn’t have much choice.
I‘m Palestinian and absolutely we don’t. We’re tired of just literally ANYONE wanting to rule us. What happens in Palestine is a genocide, period. What happens in Ukraine is also a genocide. I don’t want to antagonize you, but I’m honestly curious what you mean by „leaning towards“ the Palestinian side.
To me, imperialism needs to be abolished and I don’t care if the US or Russia or Iran or China does it. And imo Zelenskyy is a piece of shit for appeasing to Israel while they do literally the same to Palestinians that Russia does to Ukrainians. And in that sense, I will always be against the oppressor and it sounds a bit like there would be anything else to what happens to Palestinians than genocide & colonization.
That being said I wish you victory and peace.
Thank you for the kind words. I do appreciate it. I genuinely mean it.
What is happening in Palestine is genocide. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t agree with this. My somewhat aloof statements are because I don’t speak Arabic or Hebrew and I’ve never been to Israel/Palestine. But yes, Israeli actions are colonialist and genocidal (both current actions and the broader historical context). You don’t need to speak Arabic or Hebrew to see this.
FWIW, I think Zelenskyy has a much more negative attitude of Netanyahu specifically and Israel’s policies than his statements would lead you to believe. We don’t have any other options because we are critically dependent on aid from US and EU. Ukraine has provided aid to Gaza and Zelenskyy has made (subtle) public statements that suggest thinking beyond a simplistic pro-Israel approach.
Palestinian leadership has definitely been pro-russia in their statements. It was wrong for me to say Palestinians in general support russian genocidal imperialism. That being said, I don’t hold it against them (as in my OP, I lean toward the Palestiniain side) as they don’t really have any choice.
Thanks for the explanation and equally thanks for the kind words!
I think I get where you’re coming from, and I think both Ukrainians and Palestinians have the same problem that they’re just pawns one some Cold War 2.0 geopolitics chess board. We are truly fucked. You know I somehow get the whole thing with parroting what the people backing you say, but I always believe you could just shut up and that’s better than being a hypocrite. But meh I also don’t take it at face value.
As for the Palestinian leadership, they’re simply corrupt, they don’t represent us and we don’t want them. Fatah in the West Bank they are a puppet of the Israeli regime and they work against their own people. Hamas in Gaza, they’re also corrupt and additionally an extended arm of Iran, although only to an extent. They’re considered part of the resistance but even religious, conservative people aren’t fans of them. Yeah I’m honestly sorry for all of their existence, as said they don’t represent us.
I think this is an unfortunate case where I understand his silence. It’s realpolitik. He’s fighting a war to save his country from imperialism so he doesn’t want to alienate a potential source of aid. I think places like the US and the EU are far more culpable in their complicity because they don’t have that same kind of desperate need. Quite the opposite even, they actively enable
I get why people want to think that it’s just realpolitik but then he‘d need to be actually silent. He has always been vocally pro-Israel though. Israel has surely escalated things by magnitudes since October 7 but they’ve been colonizing us for more than 100 years now, so it’s not like the dynamics were different before October 7.
As an example this article from April this year: https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-calls-allies-to-defend-ukraine-recalling-iranian-attack-on-israel-on-april-14/
And at this point it was already abundantly clear that there’s a genocide happening in Gaza, he could have said many things but he chose those exact words. Maybe he just doesn’t care about Palestinian life if he can get more weapons, maybe he actually believes what he’s saying, either way it’s not a good look on him. That being said, I don’t think he’s particularly bad, he’s just not better than any other hypocritical politician.
Zelensky is Jewish and I hope he believes in the letter Albert Einstein wrote to the New York Times in 1948.
Where you’re from, doesn’t matter to me. But if* you see it that way, that’s okay.
I am just pointing out that you have a sophomoric if not outright childish attitude in this thread.
You’re basically LARPing. If anything the Ukrainian government (privately) has a more negative attitude towards Israel than the public at large (and even with respect to the Ukrainian public, there arguably has been a change over time).
You don’t speak Ukrainian, you’ve never lived in Ukraine. You have no understanding of Ukrainian attitudes around what’s going in Israel/Palestine.
And to be honest, it is reasonable to assume you don’t really care about the plight of the Palestinians. It’s mostly a theatrical thing for you.
Most probably just see the Israel Arab conflict as another wing of the same global war that Ukraine is involved in. to Kyiv, Israel is fighting against an amalgamation of terrorist groups and states that are all allied with the aggressor Russia, and some of them are directley aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Iran.
Thus, when you’re being sold out and stabbed in the back every day, you have to resort to ruthless pragmatism, you can be Pro Ukraine, and Anti-Israel, but you should also recognize that the side fighting against Israel, is also fighting against Ukraine.
This is actually somewhat close to the Ukrainian public’s perception of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Well, the part of the public that follows what’s going, most people have more pressing concerns.
I personally have a skeptical view of the Israeli government and I don’t think there is anything Ukraine can do with respect to gaining Israeli support (although I understand and even support the “PR needs” with respect to the US). I get the impression the Netanyahu government is basically a corrupt, oligarch-run ethno-supremacist movement. And the statement by Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich:
Sounds very russian to me.
Like they give a fuck about hostages. They killed a ton of Israelis on october 7th.
Hamas did kill a lot of civilians on october 7th. This does not in any way justify the statements by Smotrich.
I stand by statement that Smotrich’s statement has a very “russian” quality to it.
Most of the dead on october 7th were civilians. Yes, they killed a lot of Israeli soldiers, ambushing them in their outposts. But they killed far more unarmed non-combatants.
I meant the Israelis killed Israelis that day too. I was implying if they cared about hostages they wouldnt shoot them.
I wonder if they’ve ever taken the time to talk to a Palestinian about what they think? I doubt it.
Zelenskyy’s Jewish, right?
“Jew” and “Israeli” are not synonyms.
I didn’t say they were. I merely asked the question… which I knew the answer to already.
Sure, not all Jews hate and kill Palestinians, but Palestinians are hated and killed by Jews.
Palestinians are hated and killed by non-Jews too, because it’s not only Jews in the IDF and not only Jews are Israeli citizens.
So you are still making ‘Jew’ and ‘Israeli’ synonyms.
And some of us have been working very hard to make this war stop. People like you are not helping, bringing up Zelensky being Jewish as if that is relevant here. All you are doing is promoting the disgusting “dual loyalties” bigotry. I’ve faced it myself many times. Including on Lemmy. There are people here who are absolutely convinced I support Israel no matter what I say.
And I am sure there are people who are absolutely convinced I’m antisemitic (a term that gets thrown around way too often and has no relation to the actual true meaning of the term “Semite”). Personally, I don’t care for anyone’s primitive monotheistic religious beliefs, Jewish or otherwise.
Zelenskyy, in my opinion, is an American imperialist tool just like Netanyahu. Could you imagine America’s response if the ball was on the other foot and unfriendly powers were encroaching on their borders? There’s a reason that Ukraine isn’t in NATO already. It’s a fragile democracy at best and corrupt to the core at worst.
As for the IDF, I’d be interested to find out the percentage of Jews to non-Jews that serve, but given that 65% of the Jewish Israeli population oppose the criminal prosecution of soldiers suspected of gang-raping Palestinian prisoners held in torture facilities, I’m guessing the percentage is high.
Suggesting that Zelensky has dual loyalties because he’s Jewish is a bigoted thing to say.
And yet not 100% as you implied earlier. Which, again, was bigoted.
Whether or not you think you’re not antisemitic, what you said was bigoted.
I believe he made a statement about converting to Orthodox Christianity. I personally think this was a political move.
To be honest, I don’t think he believes in the religious polemics of Judaism or Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity.
I am talking about the detailed religious polemics. Theological axioms. I am an atheist, but I support the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, smaller (pro-Ukrainian) Christian denominations and Crimean Tartar muslim organizations. I would even go as far as saying the government should support them with tax money.
I think they said that to try to suggest that Zelensky has dual loyalties. Not something Jews are un-used to hearing.
The fun thing in my case is that I’m a U.S. citizen and, because my dad was British and I fit certain requirements, I just got my British citizenship. So I guess I have triple loyalties?
Yeah, the multiple loyalties thing is complete BS.
If that was the case Zelensky would have evacuated to Lviv as per American recommendations. He is clearly not a person to give up.
And I didn’t even vote for him in 2019 (wasn’t a big fan of his opponent, but there were other issues at play).
What you think of me, lets me cold. Think what you want to think of me. I won’t try to change your mind.
I am just pointing out that you have no clue what you are talking about.
Your polemics don’t really make any sense (if you actually follow official gov relationships between Ukraine and Israel) and you don’t even understand the basics of Ukrainian attitudes towards Israel/Palestine.
So why the fuck are you talking about this with such fake confidence?
Yes, yes. You are right, I have no clue /s.
You don’t though. You have zero knowledge about Zelensky beyond some high-level english language news articles. You don’t even speak Ukrainian. You’ve never lived in Ukraine.
You are acting in bad faith. Contrarianism for contrarianism’s sake. You are harming the Palestinian cause with your attitude. That’s why I said you don’t actually care and you’re just doing this for theatrics.
Yeah, you’re totally right. Hundred percent /s. Like I said, I won’t change your mind.
You really don’t.
We all think you’re a disengenous fool who justifies Russian atrocities under the guise of being “just”.