Accidental Jurist

For every Devil’s Advocate, there will be an Accidental Jurist | All posts and comments are informative, not advisory | Likes, reposts, follows ≠ endorsements

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

I’m Accidental Jurist from Reddit 😊 Starting this account on X to contribute to discussions on issues affecting Singapore and the region!

[Ami Dar @AmiDar]

When I light your candle with mine, I've lost nothing—I still have my light. This is clear to most people. I wish it was just as clear that when we empathize with the pain of others, whoever they may be, we also lose nothing. Empathy doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

[Shahak Shapira @ShahakShapira]

Don’t be rotten. Hard sell on this platform, I know.

[Moshe Emilio Lavi @MosheELavi]

6:29, 7 October 2023.

Never forget.

🕯🎗💔

[Rob Rinder @RobbieRinder]

Zionism is both historic and spiritual; the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and their right to self-determination in their historic homeland.

I am British by birth, belonging and love; Jewish by inheritance, memory and faith. Britain is my country. Israel is not a competing loyalty, it is the homeland of the Jewish people to which I am bound by ancestry, memory and identity.

For millions of Jews, that is the heart of Zionism. Not supremacy, dispossession or the killing of Palestinians and not a colonial claim to a foreign land but the self-determination of a people with an ancient and continuous connection to it. In practice, it must mean two peoples entitled to self-determination both living in security and freedom with neither people’s future purchased with the lives, rights or humanity of the other.

That is why declaring “Zionism is racism” is not merely wrong, it tells most Jews that their understanding of their own history, identity and collective freedom is itself morally suspect. The Greens should ask themselves whom they are trying to please by adopting a slogan that turns Jewish self-determination into a moral stain. If your politics of inclusion requires millions of Jews to renounce a central part of their history and identity before they qualify for your solidarity, it isn’t inclusion. You are telling Jews: you may belong here but only if you disown Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. That is not anti-racism. It is imposing a political test on Jews that no genuinely progressive movement would dream of imposing on any other minority.

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

Excellent statement from Yachad (a left-leaning, anti-occupation organisation).

‘For most British Jews, belief in Jewish peoplehood and self-determination is core to their Jewish identity, and this is what they understand to be the basic premise of Zionism. It is why when Jews attend synagogue they pray facing Jerusalem, and why the concept of “Zion” has been at the heart of Jewish communal life for two millennia.

Telling Jews they are acceptable only if they give up that understanding of collective Jewish identity, is not, as some have sought to explain it away, an attack on a political ideology. It is an attack on Jewish identity.’

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@zhao_dashuai @samuelancestor Which part of that video shows you that the lady was wearing perfume?

[Seth Frantzman @sfrantzman]

Why does it matter if some of them have luxurious homes? Shouldn't they have the same right as other people, such as where we live, to have a normal life and have a large home if they are successful? I mean, if someone has a large home in the US it's not news.

Why should Palestinians not have the exact same rights as us? Even if they were displaced, lots of people who moved to America in the 19th century were displaced and poor...and they did well economically and also built big homes.

We called the "American dream"...so why would it be considered ok for us...but somehow needs a whole report if it's a Palestinian.

Here's a thought experiment. Let's say the same Palestinian had come to the US in the 1970s, rather than remain where he is...and he worked hard, started a business, and built a large home in Arizona or Connecticut?

What's the difference? Some people are economically successful in the West Bank, some are successful in Tel Aviv, some are successful in London or Arizona or Costa Rica.

It's ok. What is it about Palestinians living normally and living like us that is considered odd? The only thing they tend to ask for is that the economic rights they have to build a nice home also be part of political rights...that other people have, such as a right to vote, or right to citizenship. Sort of like our whole "no taxation without representation." It's not that complicated to understand. Americans in 1770 were often economically successful, but they wanted political rights also. The fact some of them had large homes didn't change that.

When one steps back and thinks about it...Palestinians are just like us...they also want to work hard and have a normal life.

[Moshe Emilio Lavi @MosheELavi]

What a grotesque response to a young woman rebuilding her life after witnessing her friends being murdered, being violently kidnapped from a music festival, and spending 246 days as a hostage of Hamas. It encapsulates so much of what is performative and harmful about “pro-Palestine” activism in far-left and “progressive” circles in the West, which too often veers into pro-Hamas apologism and whataboutism.

Noa Argamani (@ArgamaniNoa) is not, and should not be, a metaphor for Israeli policies Matt and his comrades object to. One can object to those policies, argue against them, and advocate for Palestinians without turning a young woman who survived a horrific crime into their embodiment. Yet apparently even her decision to rebuild her life, and Business Insider’s decision to tell her story, must be hijacked by far-left online activists like Matt to make some smug political point.

There is something profoundly rotten about seeing a captivity survivor, held by Islamist terrorists, move forward and responding with resentment rather than basic human empathy and profound respect. And it does absolutely nothing for Palestinians. It alleviates no suffering, advances no solution, and builds no constituency for peace or justice.

It merely turns another person’s trauma into ideological content, deepening the very dehumanisation and toxicity that make empathy across this conflict increasingly impossible, particularly among those who are not directly affected by it but live it vicariously in the West through Instagram posts and Twitter takes.

[John Lyndon @JohnLyndon_]

1/ Today at UNSC, bereaved peacebuilders @maozinon & @AzizAbuSarah delivered a message that was both deeply personal and profoundly political. And took demands of civil society into room that can determine I/P future
🧵

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@WalshFreedom And what about the people of Gaza who hate Hamas terrorists and other terror groups? Would you hold all of these “people of Gaza” collectively guilty?

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@mehdirhasan So according to your world view, the IRGC aren’t a principal threat to peace and security?

[Fania Oz-Salzberger 🇮🇱🕊️🟣 פניה עוז-זלצברגר @faniaoz]

Every innocent civilian in Gaza is a victim of their regime and its numerous fanatics.
How hard is it to support the innocents but hate the government and the murderous mob?
The West has lost its grip on nuanced truth.

[Seth Frantzman @sfrantzman]

Important piece by @LTCPeterLerner "The ability to distinguish between killing an active threat and killing someone after that threat has passed is not weakness. It is the difference between a disciplined military and an armed mob."
https://t.co/VAk7bIasjw

[Rob Rinder @RobbieRinder]

Whatever your politics this is what cultural democracy looks like. Opera, theatre, music & art shouldn’t be inherited privileges but part of our common life; doors through which anyone can walk, whatever their income, postcode or background. Access to culture is access to possibility, to imagination, confidence & belonging. We should be doing this here. 👇🏻

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

He’s speaking to the non-professional audience, which - shocking as it may be to professional players and coaches - makes up the larger portion of the potential audience broadcasters and advertisers, i.e., the sponsors, can tap on.

Alternatively, maintain this attitude as you wish. And be content with stagnation or decline.

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@JonathanLitvak @Palestinia12961 So why do you post such a reply to @Palestinia12961? She isn't a terrorist supporter. How does your shitposting help to forge a path towards peace?

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@JonathanLitvak @Palestinia12961 No one is asking you to make peace with Hamas terrorists. Question is whether you see ordinary folk who reject terrorism, and who reject Hamas, as potential partners who you can start working with now.

[Moshe Emilio Lavi @MosheELavi]

@Palestinia12961 And in between are Israelis and Palestinians, and we share a responsibility to show them, as well as our own people, that another way is possible.

I don’t know whether we will live to see the peace we hope for. But we owe it to those who come after us to keep working towards it.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

The last thing Palestinians need is “support” from the criminal regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This regime has spent years using our people and our cause to advance its own regional agenda while contributing to horrific suffering across the region.

And this is supposed to be an official account representing the State of Palestine. Does whoever runs it even know the position of the Palestinian president? Just days ago, President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Iranian regime’s attacks on Arab countries.

I don’t care if he was talking about Palestine. Our suffering is not a propaganda tool for the Iranian regime to exploit whenever it serves its interests. Palestinians have paid enough for other regimes turning our cause into a weapon for their own agendas.

Whoever is responsible for this post should be removed from managing an account that speaks in the name of the State of Palestine.

[Accidental Jurist @AccJurist]

@mehdirhasan If the guy did not mean to convey any malicious meaning in that sentence when he wrote it, why is rushing to claim he regrets writing it now? If he intended for the meaning to be benign, what is there to regret?