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Two Israeli embassy staff shot dead near Washington DC Jewish museum
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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So anyone working for a part of the state is responsible for the actions of that state?
The undersecretary of Education is responsible for splitting up mothers and children at the border in 2017?
That's the same reasoning. Show that it is not, if you can.
I don’t think it’s a binary. Culpability is relative to one’s role and actions. The severity of state action is also a factor and as that severity increases, culpability expands. I want to be explicit, I hate violence and I wish this had not happened. That being said, such violence is an inevitable consequence of circumstances like what the State of Israel and the US are orchestrating. To quote JFK:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
You stated that these two murder victems "facilitated a genocide". Then you explained that that was because they worked for the state of Israel.
Now their presumed culpability is relative to their role and actions, which brings us back to the very first question - what were their roles and actions that made them culpable for the genocide in Palestine?
According to the reporting so far, they worked for the embassy. That is, they worked directly in the foreign relations office of the state doing the genocide, facilitating the relationship between that state and its sole benefactor, the US, which is funding the genocide, providing materiel and intelligence to further the genocide, and running cover in the international community for the genocide. The embassy for that country in this country with this shared project is pretty high up the list in terms of being participants in that project. We aren’t talking about the janitor cleaning the kitchen at the food court. I would also emphasize the severity of the project these people are engaged in.
Now, if subsequent reporting is done that shows that these two pretty butterflies were selflessly throwing themselves into the gears of that genocide machine, and working to undermine Israel and the US, I will admit to jumping the gun and being wrong here.
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Everything here indicates that they were intelligent, well informed and thoughtful. That makes their participation in this outrageously inhuman project that much more egregious.
I still don't see their "participation" being very clear at all, and just can't agree on that point.
I get people are angry as fuck about the outrageous war crimes and genocide, but I don't think gunning down random Jews in the streets of the US is really a solid counter-strategy. In fact, in one way of looking at it, it's just as bad.
Violence begets violence and I think we are in agreement that it’s all bad. No reasonable person wants to see people getting gunned down in the street. I will challenge you on your assertions that they were random, and that they were gunned down for being “Jews”. We should interrogate the motivations and methods of this murderer, and if it turns out to be motivated by ethnic hatred, let’s call it out. So far the reporting has not shown that to my knowledge and there is a real danger in conflating hatred of the genocide with hatred of Jewish people.
So you think they were specifically targeted for working at the Israeli embassy but not because they were Jewish visitors to a Jewish museum? That's threading a ridiculous needle. I'm not even sure what a narrative like that would be? Is the gunman a super sleuth who works in IT at a non-profit in his spare time?
Well, I don’t think it takes a super sleuth. I suspect he was stalking embassy staff, but let’s see what the investigation turns up. If he was just looking to murder Jewish people, why did he stop with these two? As far as I can tell from the reports, he was hanging out with others in the building for at least ten minutes after the murders, before the police arrived and he turned himself in. Also, the manifesto he provided specifically calls out the genocide and not “Jews”. Again, subject to change if different reporting comes out, but that’s what we have so far.
That's wild. That you would think he's specifically targeting people who support the Israeli occupation of Gaza but specifically not Jews.
Wow.
It’s wild, and incredibly antisemitic BTW, that you won’t segment the State of Israel and its incredibly racist and inhumanly violent project, from Jewish people as a whole.
Listen, I get it. It’s been a fundamental goal of that fascist state to conflate itself and Judaism holistically. It’s an attempt to somehow rationalize their dishonesty and brutality in the minds of well intentioned people. But, I would implore you to consider how unfair it is to Jewish people worldwide, to equate them with the unimaginable injustice and violence of one colonial nation.
I’d argue that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I’m - not exactly sure what we’re disagreeing about here. Are you saying expecting a Jewish person to support the country of Israel in general is horribly racist?
The embassy exists to maintain international support and cooperation in all areas.
Like I'm iffy on all this, I'm smelling some potential antisemitism with the location and everything. But the Israeli embassy to the United states is not bloodless. Their purpose is to maintain positive relations with their largest supplier of arms and armaments. That's not the only reason they exist, it's probably not the majority of their interactions. I'm sure they do plenty of good, but it's one of the goals of their diplomacy. The Israeli embassy to Kenya is far less complicit.
There's nuance here. Janitors at an Israeli government building? Probably not. State department employees serving an overseas mission to represent and lobby for your genocide? Yeah.
And you're sure that’s what they were doing.
By working there they were implicit in helping the mission there so yes. I wouldn't have joined the German Embassy in 1941 even as a functionary unless I was a Nazi.
And if they joined before Oct 7th 2023?
So what if someone works for the US DHS, FBI, or the foreign service? Guilty?
Absolutely, is that even a question? Do I think gunning them down in the street is necessarily the best way to take the system down? Maybe not, yet at least. But I'm not gonna be sad about it.
So you're all for gunning down anyone working for the US government in the street.
Cool.
Enabling is being complicit, it's not a complicated idea.
To the earlier example of the undersecretary of education; they are enabling family separation at the border?
Is it not that complicated?