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Grave Dohl

@letsdestroy.bsky.social

760 followers 330 following 3.6K posts

Void boi. Balkan bear-man living in exile in the decadent West. Union thug. Scientific socialist. Neurodivergent. I'm sorry for whatever it was that I said.

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · Jul 2

I started ADHD meds and am reining in my social media usage, including Bsky. I'll be posting a lot less and will probably start unfollowing a lot of people. It's nothing personal, and I'm doing well, I just need to unplug from The Discourse to a large degree.

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 1m

were used. In retrospect, and we'd Edward Said had it right, the Oslo Accords were a mistake and Hamas was right to oppose them. But why suicide bombings? I can sort of grasp the rage and desperation that sparked the campaign of the Second Intifada. John Pilger addressed this in his 2002...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 7m

has historically allied with. Where their actions begins hard to defend is with deliberate attacks on civilians going back long before Oct 7th to the suicide bombing campaign that started in 1994. Suicide bombings of cafés and buses were a powerful terror weapon, which presumably is why they...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 10m

to "extremists who enslave women and decapitate infidels"? Where does HTS or the Taliban fall on that spectrum? I'm not expert enough to know.

In terms of their statements, policies and presentation, Hamas come across very much as moderates. Much more than HTS in Syria or other groups the US...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 14m

I know ISIS were global "Jihadist" (a problematic word) extremists and broadly unpopular, which is part of the reason their "state" in Iraq and Syria was so short-lived. But the spectrum between those two is quite murky to me. Where does a group go from "normal conservatives one can work with"...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 17m

in to your consciousness whether you realize it or not.

My own ignorance is part of the problem here because I don't understand the nuanced distinctions between the different strains of Sunni Islamism. I know the Muslim Brotherhood (of which Hamas is an offshoot) are mainstream conservatives.

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 19m

characterization of Muslims and Arabs because it was so clear they'd been wronged by the US in both Iraq and Palestine. But you can't grow up in the early 2000s without having been exposed to a firehose of "Muslims/Arabs = terrorists" insinuations in the media and public discourse. And that seeps...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 23m

this tiny voice that says "what if the Islamophobic right-wing is onto something?". I probably wouldn't give that any credence if I hadn't come of age in the post-9/11 war on terror era. That experience mostly turned me against US militarism and I generally pushed back on the mainstream...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 26m

society. I have Muslim friends, comrades and coworkers, I've travelled to Muslim-majority countries and enjoyed myself, I've visited mosques and attended Muslim community events. I've never had a negative personal experience related to Muslims or Islam. But in the back of my mind, I can't help...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 29m

is also located. I don't have the same concerns regarding Shia Islamism, where I'm not aware of an equivalent "global jihad" (for lack of a better term) tendency in the extreme end.

I'm not particularly Islamophobic in my day to day life, but I'm not immune to the ambient Islamophobia in my...

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 33m

"analysis" of a random right-wing guy on Facebook is superficial, paranoid and probably worse than useless. But I have to admit, part of me *does* fear Sunni Islamist groups at some level. It's hard not to think of AL Qaeda or especially ISIS as the extreme end of the spectrum on which Hamas...

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 37m

not so different from other guerrilla organizations in their tactics. I think that's true. I also think that the ambient western Islamophobia, racism and ideological biases make it hard for us to understand groups like Hamas, Hezbollah or Ansarollah as they really are. In that regard, the...

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 40m

Peter Beinart and say that I find Hamas repugnant but I support the Palestinian struggle for basic rights and self-determination. I like Beinart and I found that his book "Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza" challenged liberal Zionist views in a logical and sensible way, e.g. Hamas are...

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 44m

I think at the end of the day it boils down to my own feelings around Hamas and the use of violence against civilians. I've talked about this at great length here. And still nothing seems to resolve for me. I remain conflicted. I could take the liberal pro-Palestine position of someone like...

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 47m

And because of my own particular neurodivergences, I take people very literally and lose myself in their perspective. I give too much weight to their views. But above all, I think I'm wrestling with my own internal conflict over Israel-Palestine that I still haven't resolved.

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Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 50m

There are days when I feel lost in the discourse, when I don't know what's true and what isn't. The discourse on Israel-Palestine is especially bad for this. How can I know what's true? I'm not there in person to see things for myself. It's all *mediated* by others who are telling *their* stories.

Grave Dohl @letsdestroy.bsky.social · 54m

My mental health must be a lot more fragile than I realized because I almost cried and had to take a nap after seeing a whole lot of pro-Israel conservatives brigade a post by a local student newspaper about local flotilla activists captured by Israel.

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