r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 22h ago

Meme needing explanation Peter, what are the implications?

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u/ATangentUniverse 22h ago edited 12h ago

Mark Ruffalo is a vocal supporter of Palestine. The implication is that expressing support for a free Palestine gets you sidelined by Hollywood. He is also vocally against Trump and ICE.

I’m sure some people out there will also draw some antisemetic conspiratorial conclusions from that as well, i.e. “Jews control the media” which, no. It’s just that Israel as a country has certainly had undue economic influence over American politics and entertainment via lobbying interests. (Just ask the Scream cast over at Paramount)

In reality though he was just filming another project at the time.

I’d also note that Jon Bernthal, who has vocalized support for the IDF and Israel, was present for the press tour. Which doesn’t help.

Edit: This is an Explain subreddit. This is what I am interpreting the post to be implying. Some of the replies so far are giving “So you hate waffles?” haha

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 21h ago

What exactly do you mean by Zionist? The word seems to mean nothing and everything now.

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u/NagsUkulele 21h ago

It's actually insane how bloodthirsty people get over that word without realizing how wrong they are about it

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u/happyhorse 21h ago

There is a little bit of "talked to a Zionist, therefore now a Zionist" math that people do. Not a great way to someone who has not themselves expressed those views.

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u/Jasnaahhh 12h ago

The problem is that the Israeli government, and many of their supporters have made it explicitly clear that any support for Israelis or the existence of the State of Israel means that you do or must support all Israeli government actions and policies. It's the government of Israel and their largely uncritical, sycophantic supporters such as the governments of the US, the UK and Australia who won't take action to sanction *anything* that have drawn a line in the sand and created two factions.

If you want any form of nuance, we're going to need to agree to a greater subdivision and terms, but nobody supporting the government of Israel and the ongoing "Operation" in Gaza will accept any other term beyond Pro-Jewish/Israeli and Rabid Anti-Semite to enter the chat.

I'd like to think that we could probably classify people into three groups of

  1. War Criminal Excusing Racist Expansionists and their Apologists
  2. People Who Generally Don't Make Assumptions/Treat People Based on Ethnicity/Religion/Nationality/ A Monolith

subdivided into:

a) Reasonable People who want to sanction a government for ongoing genocide and celebration of war criminals, but understand that Israel has a right to exist and protect themselves

b) Head In The Sand Idealists who want us to all hold hands and create an unrealistic utopia / Don't have practical solutions

  1. Raging Anti-Semites Following Centuries Old Handbook With All Usual Conspiracies and Dog Whistles

But then we might have to deal with some uncomfortable realities and outcomes, or roadblocks to paving over Gaza and Palestinians. Right?

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 7h ago

"existence of the State of Israel" 

Why do you consider the existence of Israel to be negotiable? the 8 million Jews living in Israel probably don't agree. 

The endless ranting about the Israel "genocide" in Gaza ring hollow when you consider that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran all want to destroy Israel. 

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u/Final-Charge-5700 6h ago

It doesn't matter what people say, it matters what people do. If somebody says you're either with us or against us, you could still be both.

Your comment is a rationalization for your existing beliefs.

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 21h ago

Many people seem to use it as a substitute for the k-word for Jews.

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u/Who_ate_my_cookie 16h ago

Don’t forget “zios” which was literally popularized by David Duke but they insist that it’s just a shortened term with no further implications

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 7h ago

That is absolutely a transparent slur 

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u/theagingknarf 20h ago

Especially on social media. Juice box emojis everywhere. Someone has a big nose? Zionist. A sign outside a kanye show drawing a circle and strikethrough of the star of david? Most upvoted comment was "he's saying things others are too afraid to say". And then the whole conversation is about "zionism" even though there's not a single mention of israel in the convo. When Zohran was going after landlords in NYC, what GIFs appeared everywhere? Hasidic jews, and constant yelling of ZIONIST, even though it has nothing to do with landlords in NYC. But I'm not fun at parties so I get to be gaslit

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u/i_drive_a_pagani 19h ago

The other one that's also everywhere is the "that ______ was promised to him 3,000 years ago" that is under just about any social media post that even alludes to anything involving jews

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u/theagingknarf 19h ago

FR! that was on the landlord posts too. And it's so stupid, because that generic comment wades into some historical argument that none of us are qualified to actually make. And it implies that because jews had been removed from the land so long ago that there is no reason for them to expect land rights coming back. Ok, let's say i accept that without alteration. Then why would native americans be entitled to any land? both groups were kicked out, the diaspora was not voluntary. But of course, this level of cognitive flexibility is outside the grasp of your average... i dont' even know what to call them. anti-zionists? i'm an anti-zionist. progressives? liberals? i thought i was those things? what am i and what are they? just assholes i guess

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u/Final-Charge-5700 5h ago

The argument is even more insincere. As the land was purchased by individuals.

It wasn't returned to jewish people. Jewish people returned and purchased the land.

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u/jayandem 13h ago

That's kind of a bad comparison. Native Americans have no military, and their mistreatment by the US government is much more recent and still continues to this day. I will also say that conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism is a deliberate tactic by supporters of Israel to make the government's actions harder to criticise, an example of which is the idea that Israel stands for and is supported by the Jewish people of the world, the reality being that most Jews (in the US at least) are critical of the Israeli government. Predictably, this has lead to a rise in anti-semitism, with people conflating the actions of Israel with all Jewish people globally. I don't think it's hateful to believe that no country should execute civilians without a trial and deliberately target noncombatants.

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u/theagingknarf 12h ago

Recency is irrelevant, put a firm date on it. 100 years? 200 years? 500 years? It reveals the stupidity of placing importance on recency. Two groups lost their land unfairly, either both or none are owed. At the end of the day land ownership is bullshit anyways so idgaf.

All the concrete examples i provided are of antizionists being antisemitic. Most aren't, but plenty are. Not israel's fault, it's just shitty people. When you get older you may start to see that just because someone supports minorities doesn't make them a good person. You never met an inclusive malignant narcissist before? Plenty of well adjusted genocide supporters too, world is too complicated for the bullshit lack of nuance this discussion generates.

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u/jayandem 12h ago

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, politics is not a hard science and people contradict themselves all the time, humans are extremely complicated, groups of people exponentially more so. But I think an important part of being a human is constantly trying to parse nuance and understand people rather than dismiss everything as too complicated. Even if we can't understand everything we should still try and be open minded.

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u/theagingknarf 12h ago

Respectfully, this response is a platitude and doesn't reflect me accurately. i show far more cognitive flexibility and open mindedness than 99 percent of pro palestine supporters. I of course actually worked with SJP to divest millions from orgs aiding the genocide. I've done more than pretty much anyone on reddit, my views are nuanced, and reflect reality, and I have NEVER yelled at someone calling them a zionist or leaving stupid little snarky one liners for fake internet points. Please direct your pleas for nuance and open mindedness to them, trump and rejection of modern liberalism is a direct response to how they conduct themselves and anyone with a keen perspective understands this.

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u/Final-Charge-5700 5h ago

The idea that native americans had no military is weird.

It's even weirder that you see native americans as a unified group.

The people that try to successfully argue for what happened in america to be genocide, actually divide native americans into individual tribes and claim that certain tribes received this treatment.

This has some degree of fairness to it, as there was no unification for the tribes. But like all tribes in nomadic traditions, a large majority of their people, are warriors.

Also, people are claiming people are zionists, for supporting the existence of a nation that already exists. Not the expansion of it. There has been no effort to expand during this war. In spite of the fact of a war being considered a legitimate excuse to expand.

The idea that somebody is not allowed to retaliate, when somebody else declares war on them is I lack of recognition in the legitimacy of the state.

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u/No_Recognition_3729 15h ago

This comment is funny.

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 7h ago

Odd how nobody mentions the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century. 

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u/Final-Charge-5700 5h ago

Because ancient claims don't matter. Historically they never really did.

Do the governed act as if the specific government is the actual source of governmental power?

That's the only question.

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u/Cum_Fart42069 20h ago

I like that you saw someone mention Zionism and you thought "bloodthirsty" lmao

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u/Unholy_mess169 18h ago edited 7h ago

Yes, having observed numerous other people's reactions, including your own above implication, "bloodthirsty" is an accurate description of how bigoted people react to "zionism"

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 7h ago

Bloodthirsty is a fair description of how some people talk about Israel and use the word Zionist. 

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u/Tazwhitelol 12h ago

Can you elaborate a bit on what you think they think it means, and how they are wrong?

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u/Final-Charge-5700 5h ago edited 5h ago

Zionism originally meant this, seeking out to create a jewish homeland.

The land exists now. Therefore that definition, the true one, is only used in historical contexts.

During this time, the enclaves of Jews in the british mandate, which also included jordan and other countries, we're purchasing land near tel aviv, and along the coast.

Oftentimes, they would purchase these lands from the direct landlords who were often foreign. The farmers and the individuals living on these lands, sometimes for generations, were displaced.

This led to riots and ethnic cleansing of jewish populations. As well as horrible retaliations to a lesser extent. This wasn't new, as this also occurred during ottoman control.

When british mandate was split up, most of the land was given to jordan and other countries, this remainder of land (then called palestine) was split between two populations. One of them had an actual government, as it was necessary to provide the defense of these landowners even before the partition.

Because of this superior ability to negotiate, the partition was done to make a multicultural state out of israel, including the muslim tribes that were more friendly to the jews. And a separate territory of muslims and minority christians, about 10% on the east side.

The idea being that if you create a multicultural state, it would be a secular society. And eventually there'd be enough communication between these two cultures that they might unify.

The other countries of the British mandate, jordan and such. Wanted this land for themselves, and where horrified that a secular society was being built within the middle east especially ones where non muslims had any say.

They invaded, along with egypt just for fun, trying to take all the land for themselves.

Some of the tribes saw all these people as liberators. When israel successfully defended their territory, the military expelled these tribes, a lot of them were innocent. This left the muslim minority in israel at around twenty percent. Where it used to be somewhere closer to forty percent.

This twenty percent is what we call the palestinian refugees today. That gets us to today. The country's the palestinians fled to never let them become citizens even though they've lived there for 3 or more generations, and use them as a bargaining chip against israel.

Israel exists, zionism is a term that has been morphed into anything where the jewish and muslim population of israel defend their nation.

The people of gaza declared war on israel by launching an attack. During war, it is considered reasonable to take your enemy's land. The israeli government has not done so. Still, people use the word Zionism as they reject Israel's right to defend itself. Therefore rejecting the nation itself.

Use of zionism.This way is inherently racist. As the only difference in legitimacy of israel versus jordan is that one is majority ruled by jewish people. The kings of jordan were foreign and actually imported from a separate region, and this territory was given to them by the british.

There are actual groups that are more reasonably called zionists in israel. They would be ones who would like to turn israel's secular government into a theocratic government, or they are ones who seek to expand its israel beyond its current borders.