~~The current emote for it is terrible. What's with the fist? ~~ Ok apparently it's the symol of the Stern Gang so it's not terrible, but it still muddies the message. The message should be clearly and unequivocably: fuck the nation-state of Israel, and making it the one flag that doesn't get a burning emoji is still treating it with kid gloves. Giving that flag special consideration is not ok and is disrespectful to all the innocent people who've been murdered by that military base masquerading as a country.

It's antisemitic to conflate Israel with Judaism. Presumably everyone here knows this and doesn't need that explained. As such I do not understand the official Hexbear party line that burning the flag of the country that is actively and enthusiastically committing the active, lethal, exterminationist phase of genocide, "looks antisemitic".

We already get smeared as secret Trumpers by liberals whose brains have been too broken by 9 years of seething over Russiagate cope in order to understand anything. We already get smeared as antisemites by Zionist freaks who think that nobody could care about Palestinians because Palestinians are humans (Zionists do not acknowledge that Palestinians are people), so anybody who says they care about Palestinians must actually just be antisemitic. Pandering to Zionists is not going to make them stop being hateful genocidal freaks.

The optics or having a burning isntreali flag will be confrontational and offensive. But confrontation is what is needed at this moment in history. Not pandering to genocidal fascists. If someone sees that flag and feels uncomfortable, that's an opportunity for them to do some learning and reflection about why they'd feel uncomfortable with it, and why their feelings matter more than criticizing the entity that has enthusiastically murdered what, at least 100,000 civilians by now?

Thinking back to my religious days: If anyone had told me that burning the flag of ISIS was not ok because it's Islamophobic to burn ISIS's flag, I'd have called them a white radlib crackkker, emphasis on the Ks, because equating ISIS and Islam is super hateful toward Islam and extremely disrespectful to all the Muslims ISIS has killed and brutalized.

It's not a 1:1 comparison but there's something transferable.

Related: In 2019 I heard this interview with 3 Jewish MLs who disavowed not only Israel, but the Magen David itself! They went way further in their condemnation than anyone on this site ever does! They said it was a very painful journey to get to that stance, but that's their stance, because Israel has weaponized the Star of David. They argue that other symbols should be used instead, symbols of Judais which have not been used to terrorize, brutalize, oppress, and murder Middle-Easterners. They suggested alternatives such as the hamsa or the pomegranate. They also went pretty deep into the history of symbols in Judaism and argued against the Star on other historical/symbolic grounds which I didn't really follow, not having the cultural background and context.

I thought it was interesting to hear their personal struggles with the symbolism and their attachment to it. I decided while it was interesting, I wasn't able to take a stance on it since I'm not Jewish and the Star of David on the Israeli flag is a co-opted symbol. But I think it's worth a listen for anyone who's struggling with their relationship with these symbols: https://prolespod.libsyn.com/website/special-release-proles-of-the-minyan-ep-1-symbolism-under-zionist-hegemony-dc-dyke-march-the-magen-david-hamsa-flag

Lastly, I was going to take this moment to complain about how the israel-cool emote used to bring up a picture of Hawaiian musician and indigenous rights activist Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, and how disgusting and disrespectful that was. But I see it's been changed.

This is turning out to be a very struggle session.

Unearthed some spicy shit I had no idea about. I don't know how I'm terminally on Hexbear and always miss this shit, for real.

Death to the Zionist Entity.

I am personally of the opinion that:

1. The current has got to go ASAP, or be changed in some way (:freehawaii: or something, IDK). He should not be used as a stand in for what the meaning of that emoji is supposed to be.

2. In a timeframe that is manageable, the real deal and the other flags that went away (:saudicool:, :turkeycool:, etc.) should also return.

EDIT: also zposter should be unbanned. This struggle session popped up again because of a court ruling, and its still the correct position to hold on this.

What exactly was Z_poster banned for? Checked the modlog and haven't seen anything worth an outright ban.

I know they're often aggressive when expressing their views, but I think their opinions are generally well founded even if expressed with more zeal and antagonism than would be ideal. Would be a shame to lose them over something silly. Unless something worse comes to light, I think Z_poster should be reinstated.

What I saw in the modlog by Nakoichi should not ever be accepted here. Not in favor of a ban, but I think an apology and self-crit is certainly in order.

Moreover, as part of ongoing efforts to be more friendly to neurodivergent users, I think we should have more tolerance for outbursts from our comrades here with an extensive history of being good-faith users with genuine socialist convictions. Everyone gets on edge sometimes. Many people feel attacked and dogpiled for taking firm stances. Intent is often misread. It should be expected that people will lash out and not think a comment through from time to time.

Not saying we shouldn't scrub posts and let people be assholes, but I think public warnings from mods would be a better way of handling things than bans. Temp bans are more appropriate imo.

Also support burning the Israeli flag. It is a fascist symbol full stop. If we really want to both-sides the issue, just add some more emotes that celebrate our Jewish comrades, their achievements, and Jewish history.

Unban Z poster

How are we supposed to know the mods aren't lying about him using alts in this case specifically

looking at the comments on this post its easy to see what the sentiment is regarding the issue ,the mods on the previous post labled people who supported Z as an alt even when it was clear they were not

You know what my opinion is

SHOOT DOWN THIS FLAG!!!

There is zero reason not to burn the flag of a genocidal nation state no matter what symbolism that nation state has co-opted, anyone claiming to be a communist holding an opposite opinion really needs to confront the contradiction they are holding within themselves on this matter.

use the real flag. any other choice is liberalism

Make it the real flag. Our goal at the end of the day is to give voice to the truly oppressed and right now those are the Palestinians.

Also, let's unban zposter who was in the right in this case.

My opinion is add the emoji. Maybe (probably), it was wrong not to from the start, maybe not, but regardless I think the vast majority of us can agree to it now so the course of action is simple.

You weren't the only one holding the line on this either so don't wholly blame yourself, there was a lot of "I'm not comfortable with this", "this is horrible optics", "the way people are arguing for this is borderline antisemitic" in the threads when this issue first came to a head. Now things have changed, and even if we are late to the party we should change too.

I think we need a burning Israel flag emoji since they're doing a holocaust and zposter should be unbanned.

(not towards comrade whyesseff but towards certain admin(s) and/or mod(s) and also users, you know if you did this)

Unban zposter and the people that were accused of being their "alts" with insanely circumstantial evidence. Apologize for calling fellow users antisemites, incels etc. Log off. Reflect.

Death to america and its dog israel.

I'm in favor of the real Israel flag.

Personally I'd like a partially-background-removed IRL flag burning published by an Axis of Resistance group to be our israel-cool emoji, but that's just my opinion.

Please add the proper flag burning emote and unban Z_Poster.

the worry of the appearance of antisemitism from a burning Israeli flag emote strikes me as odd when we can freely shout

DEATH TO ISRAEL

and have

and there are examples of liberal Zionists claiming those symbolic expressions are antisemitic.

if someone were using it to be antisemitic we would ban them.

eww there's zionist mods here???

My only opinion is that Israel Kamakawiwoʻole was a cool person whose music centers the dignity of native Hawaiians and his name and image should not be associated in any way shape or form with the genocidal entity that has the misfortune of sharing his first name. Because of this I think we should rename the israel-cool emoji because, while it is an image of him looking cool, all of our other x-cool emojis are of burning flags of murderous regimes, which his music decidedly does not represent.

The use in the original post is exactly the kind that annoys me

Unban zposter

If the burning israel flag emoji isn't implemented, then all the other flag burning emojis should be removed.

Only thing controversial here is defending a symbol, in the context of a genocide, used by a genocidal country because it is also a religious symbol 🤔 reminds me of something very particular… something that rings for me. Any burning of the Israeli flag is warranted when the subject is one or more of the many crimes committed by Israel. To the victims of Nazi terror, the swastika symbolized their destruction; today, for millions of suffering people, the Star of David has become its equivalent.

I don`t particularly care about the user banned(z) but if it was over Israel cool than fuck that. Burn this shit ass flag, unban them and whoever is still doing liberal pearl clutching over the flag needs a reality check.

The best time for Israel cool was 2 years ago, the second best time is today.

Norman Finkelstein has been correct on this, despite his boomer ass edge issues, on the issue of Zionists who know exactly what they are doing, conflating zionism with anti-semitism was always the point and they don't care about the consequences. If you cede ground they`ll try to take everything. There is no compromise. He is even correct, its no longer just Zionism but a form of "Jewish supremacy" when you look at how the billionaire rich Zionists just fucked the student protests and the universities. The anti-zionism fear already far exceeds identity politics, even the liberals were not able to oppose or object to it is the point, there was not even a speed bump, it was just a demolition truck.

Zionists? Not even, just crocodile tears supremacists who know what they`re doing because unfortunately if one day there is real antisemitism they wont have to face it, they're rich, powerful and already integrated into the western circles of power.

The point here is someone like Norm is willing to call this out already for quite some time and the left is still tripping over themselves regarding a shitty ass flag that is now akin to a swastika. Who gives a shit about the crocodile tears.

Sad that it took the equivalent of Titanic hitting an icerberg(the news) to bring this change but this was always a cowardly position, change now is better than never.

Professorowl was finally banned. Why that required serious thought and discussion but zs ban didn't is a question we'll never get an honest answer for but at least the foolishness had been corrected.