You should read up on some history. I will briefly recapitulate:

• Israel started a war in 1967. Israel would argue it was in self defense, but their argument is basically the same as that of Russia for invading Ukraine. They (Russia and Israel) felt “threatened”, but they shot first. This war is known as the six day war.

• One outcome of this war was that 400k Syrians and Palestinians were displaced (something the western media has referred to as a form of ethnic cleansing in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine), and the Golan heights, Sinai peninsula (this might be another conflict), and the Gaza strip were occupied by Israel. Two of these are occupied to this day, a violation of international law (you’re not supposed to steal land by war). Here, I mean occupied in the sense that both Israeli troops, as well as Israeli settlers were present in the Gaza strip.

• In 2005, in an effort to improve their standing in the international community, Israel decided to disengage from Gaza in a very specific way. There would no longer be any troops or settlers present inside the Gaza strip. However, Israel would maintain complete control of the airspace, borders, and its shoreline. That is, anything or anyone going in or out of Gaza needs to be approved by Israel. That sounds bad, but to really appreciate the impact this has, it helps to know some figures. Gaza is twice the size of Washington DC, or about the size of Rotterdam, and it has about 2 million citizens. That’s three times as much as Rotterdam, so it’s very densely populated. That means it cannot feed itself, and relies on imports. Imagine a city in your country being completely cut off from the outside world beyond its borders. How long would it survive? At any rate, it is hopefully clear that Israel maintained its occupation of Gaza in 2005, despite not having boots on the ground. It is this version of the Gaza occupation that even David Cameron (who is not a progressive) called a prison camp. Do you know another word for a prison camp where you keep people of one ethnicity? Starts with a “c”.

• in 2006, two years after the death of Arafat, elections were held in Gaza and the West Bank for the legislative council of the Palestinian Authority. These elections were monitored by the Carter foundation, which found them to be fair. The Palestinians elected Hamas, which had a much less collaborationist attitude than the ruling Fatah. This upset Israel and the US. Hillary Clinton is quoted saying “we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”

This describes the status quo up until October 7th. Some choice facts about the 2006-2023 period:

• in 2008, Israel calculated how many calories Gaza needs to survive and used this to limit the amount of food allowed into Gaza. This mass starvation policy ended after two years through international pressure. In the meantime, Hamas dug tunnels to smuggle more food in so that Palestinians could eat.

• Construction materials are not allowed into Gaza. This means that necessary repairs to crucial civilian infrastructure such as desalination plants cannot be done.

• Israel conducts regular bombing campaigns in Gaza, which they call “mowing the lawn”. This has killed thousands of Palestinians.

• At the march of return, a recent peaceful rally by Palestinians to be allowed back in their homeland, Israeli snipers deliberately shot people in the knees maiming dozens. In total 183 Palestinians were murdered, and thousands injured. Hospitals were overwhelmed.

There’s much, much more. So no, Gaza was not a joyful place to live before October 7th, and yes, it is because of religious terrorists, just not the ones you’re referring to.

Capitalism combined with markets with inelastic demand is a lot of fun. But communism bad because tankies or whatever.

What 1000 year conflict? The nakba was less than a century ago. Plus “please stop giving 2000 pound bombs to Israel to commit a genocide with” is a very far cry from “please end the Israeli apartheid state”.

If you vote democrat no matter what they do (and voting in spite of the current regime committing a genocide communicates that you will do exactly that), they have no incentive to take your interests at heart, and will move in the direction of the interests of the highest bidder. And this is an observable effect: fairly consistently throughout the years (and this goes back to at least Clinton), the policies and positions of the dems are exactly those of the republicans four years ago, aside from some meaningless posturing and vibes. Look at where we are with the border wall for example, or the children in cages at the border (more now than under Trump), or abortion (FOUR years of a dem president, and nothing has been done, despite promises).

You vote blue no matter who people are flushing your democracy down the drain. For the love of god, make your vote count and vote for something for a change. Vote Jill Stein or Cornell West. Or if you like murdering tens of thousands of innocent children (as we’ve done under the Biden regime), vote Kamala “most lethal fighting force in the world” Harris. If you’re lucky, you might be paying for the murder of Iranian children next.

So they can feel like they’ve done their civic duty without actually effecting any meaningful change.

Who says I’m doing nothing about it? All you know about it is that I refuse to vote in favor of genocidal regimes. Besides, refusing to vote for someone who’s actively committing a genocide is doing something. It’s exercising your right to vote in a meaningful way by showing that there are lines you do not cross. I wouldn’t vote for Hitler when that was an option, and I won’t vote for Harris (or Trump) now.

And also when the democrats win, if you look at the way policy has evolved during the clinton years, during the obama years, and also now during the biden years.

Could you walk me through steering them left when they’re in power? Over the years the democrats seem to only get more right wing. The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote, and if I guarantee my vote to you regardless of what you have done in the past or are currently doing, what incentive do you have to change course in a way that I like?

For me it’s the genocide.

What you’re doing is called concern trolling. You’re like a republican bringing up mental health in a gun control debate. They normally don’t give a shit about mental health issues, but as a means to distract from mass shootings it’s a great prop.

20,000 children have been murdered by Israel over the past ten months, with weapons gleefully provided by the united states. Israel is a genocidal apartheid ethnostate, and they have been for the past 76 years. The ethnic cleansing they’ve been carrying out since the nakba is another holocaust, no matter how much you chirp about issues you otherwise wouldn’t bring up, you dishonest fucking serpent.