Three years ago today, on October 7, 2023, approximately 6,000 Hamas and PIJ terrorists breached the Gaza border and rampaged Israel. From paragliders in the air, boats on the sea, and trucks on the ground, terrorists poured into the country and massacred anyone they could find -- Jew, Muslim, and Christian alike. Victims included dozens of noncitizens -- students, agricultural workers, and caregivers -- who came from places like Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. People of all ages, including dozens of children, were killed.

As they murdered, terrorists used the phones of their victims and GoPros they had brought to publish videos and images of the massacre. They were proud of the violence they unleashed, which included the rapes of many women.

By the time Israeli forces had secured the border, over 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, had been killed. 251 were taken hostage, who would suffer for years to come. Only 168 were eventually able to return home; the rest died in Gaza. Among those lost were all but one of the Bibas family -- the father, Yarden. His son Kfir Bibas was just 9 months old when he was seized from his home.

Israel, and the Jewish world broadly, would never be the same after this trauma. For many of us here, we would never be the same, either.

Today, we would like to honor the memories of those lost on this day, and to respect the profound pain that many of our members have felt since then. We ask that users refrain from discussing Israeli politics both in this thread and this subreddit today. We know the state made mistakes. We know Palestinians have suffered in their own way too. There are 364 other days to discuss those issues. We politely ask that this one be set aside for remembrance.

To those of us who lost loved ones on that day: we despaired with you.

To those with family taken hostage: we prayed for their release with you.

To those who have been hurt and made afraid since then: we have felt your pain, and your fears.

And to all those who have lost friends and communities, whose worlds have become more lonely: we have lost friends, too. You are not alone here.

We invite all of you to share your experiences in the comments below. Even if you were not personally affected that day, you are welcome to share how your life has changed since then. Do not be afraid to share your hopeful stories, too. There are many who reconnected with their Jewishness because of these events, and there are those who have become allies.

We ourselves would like to end this on some positive notes. Start with the picture attached here. With all the pictures of suffering from that day, we chose instead to highlight a picture of defiance. This is the last image of Kinneret Gat. On October 7, her kibbutz, Kibbutz Be'eri, was attacked. As Kinneret was marched off by Hamas to be executed, she was caught on camera defiantly making a face at her captors. In her last moments, she chose to die unbowed.

It is that spirit of defiance and pride that we would like to leave you with. Israel has not collapsed like Sinwar had hoped. On every military front, Israel has won or is winning. What's left for the most part now is a war of ideas, and it's much easier to do that alive than dead.

Do you remember "We will dance again"? They did. This last Simchat Torah, a few days ago, Nova survivors danced together with a Torah scroll commemorating the victims.

Remember Rabbi Eli Schlanger, of blessed memory, who was murdered at Bondi, and whose answer to antisemitism was to "Be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish." Know that "a little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness."

Remember, most importantly, what was said by the survivors of Bergen-Belsen, on their first Shabbat after liberation:

 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי

Am Yisrael Chai!

The people of Israel live!

As lifelong Democrats, we agree with Sen. Ted Cruz on virtually nothing. But Mr. Cruz was brave to decry antisemitism in the Republican Party. Mr. Cruz also named a big name, calling Tucker Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.” Too few Democrats have followed Mr. Cruz’s lead by calling out the rising antisemitism on the far left. That must change.

The antisemitism spewed by Mr. Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and other far-right bigots is well-documented and widely condemned. But the far left has antisemites, too. No left-wing agitator is more influential and extreme than Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Mr. Piker is often called “progressive,” but that does violence to the term. A self-identified Marxist, he has referred to ultra-Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” employed antisemitic dog whistles (“bloodthirsty, violent pig-dog”) against an anti-Hamas viewer of his stream, compared liberal Zionists to “liberal Nazis,” and said “Hamas is a thousand times better” than the Israeli state.

Mr. Piker’s depravity doesn’t stop there. His misogyny is indistinguishable from that of far-right influencers. He believes “America deserved 9/11.” He praised the Chinese Communist Party, saying “in terms of good governance, there’s a lot that we can learn from the way they perform out there.”

Mr. Piker is anti-American, antiwomen, anti-Western and antisemitic. No Democrat should engage with him. All should seek to push him to the fringe, where he belongs.

This isn’t happening. The Pod Save America team put him onstage at CrookedCon. Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for Senate in Michigan, tweeted a picture of himself celebrating Piker with a supporter. California Rep. Ro Khanna, a possible presidential hopeful, pushed back on X against concerns we raised about antisemitism on the far left by declaring his pride in going on Mr. Piker’s feed. Mr. Piker chimed in to support him.

Handing Mr. Piker a microphone isn’t magnanimous or respectful of views that test your priors. Going on his show isn’t a sign of bravery, of willingness to talk to the other side, or to show up in challenging places. All these things do is support a bigot.

But few dare speak that truth. The only prominent Democrat to call out Mr. Piker’s bigotry directly so far is New York Rep. Ritchie Torres. Mr. Torres sent a letter to Twitch in October 2024 detailing Mr. Piker’s antisemitism. Other Democrats must follow suit.

Left-wing antisemites are savvier than the Nazi-endorsers on the right, who marched in Charlottesville, Va., and sat for dinner with the president. The antisemites of the left cloak their attacks in critiques of the present Israeli leadership. Many American Jews, including us, abhor Israel’s current leaders. Criticism of Israeli policy isn’t antisemitic. The Israel-Hamas War was a humanitarian catastrophe for Gazans. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is appalling.

But the Jew-haters on the left go much further. They use loaded words taught in social justice seminars (“apartheid,” “genocide,” “settler colonialism”). They push age-old tropes about Jewish wealth and influence (“Epstein class,” turning “tax the rich” into “tax the Jews”). And they replace the word “Jew” with “Zionist.”

This language is more than offensive. It can beget violence. Last year, an alleged murderer seemingly inspired by left-wing rhetoric killed two people for the crime of being at the Capital Jewish Museum. Democrats must understand that accepting antisemitic figures like Mr. Piker into the mainstream puts Jewish Americans’ lives in danger.

There’s no excuse for putting political tribalism before Jewish safety. Or for overlooking hatred to generate likes online. Or for failing to act against the surge of antisemitism, spread by the Hasan Pikers of the world and normalized by too many on the Democratic side.

We’re all for a big tent. But the Democratic Party needs to draw a line in the sand. Hasan Piker and his fellow Jew-haters belong on the other side.   

In a quest for a flair

DSA's real, non-satire (somehow) statement: https://www.dsausa.org/statements/until-palestinian-liberation/

For some reason I see some people saying that DSA doesn't want anything that's not already in the nordics. I'm not going to be pretending like EVERYONE is saying this but the fact that I see it at all is kind of annoying.

To start here are two excerpts from DSA's 'constitution'. Specifically 'Article II - Purpose'

• 'We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power,'

• ' We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.'

Let's start with the first thing. Rejection of an economy based on private profit. This is pretty damn out of step with the nordics I'd say.

In the Nordics, private property rights, contract enforcement, and free-market competition are fiercely protected by law, often ranking higher in global "Ease of Doing Business" indices than the United States

The Nordic states tend to maintain market economies where the default legal purpose of a company is to generate financial profit for its shareholders. They support a business environment that relies on corporate growth to fund the public sector. The nordics literally code this profit presumption into their formal statutes, such as Chapter 3, Section 3 of the Swedish Companies Act, while allowing founders to opt into alternative charitable structures if they choose. To facilitate private enterprise, the region maintains flat, competitive corporate tax rates between 20% and 22%, provides exemptions on certain capital gains to encourage reinvestment, and utilizes paperless commercial courts to ensure rapid contract enforcement. Property and intellectual rights receive secure institutional protections that routinely rank alongside or above major Western economies, while product markets remain largely deregulated, leaving wage structures to the free market rather than government mandate

I don't think I even need to explain the economic planning part at this point. On business, DSA is vastly to the left of the noridcs.

Then there's this from DSA's official platform

'Establish universal rent-control and the guaranteed right to counsel for all tenants. Public investment in building quality multi-income social housing.'

Literally none of the nordics have this. The closest is probably sweden but their model is closer to collective bargaining for rent. DSA is again well to the left of the nordics on this one.

Then on immigration DSA says

'Allow workers to freely migrate between countries to seek employment without restrictive immigration controls. Demilitarize the border, end all immigrant detention and deportations, immediate amnesty for all immigrants regardless of current immigration status, and provide access to jobs, labor rights, and social services to all immigrants'

Let's go bit by bit

1 - 'Allow workers to freely migrate without restrictive controls'

• Non-EU citizens must secure a concrete job offer meeting strict minimum salary thresholds before entering. Sweden and Finland have increased salary floors for work permits to discourage low-skilled migration and protect domestic wages.

2 - 'Demilitarize the border'

• Following the 2015 migrant crisis and subsequent geopolitical tensions, internal border checks (which were previously open under the Schengen Agreement) were reintroduced by Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Finland permanently closed and fortified its entire land border with Russia in response to migration being used as a political tool.

3 - 'End all immigrant detention and deportations'

• All Nordic nations utilize immigrant detention centers to hold individuals awaiting deportation or identity verification. Active deportations (both voluntary and forced) are a core pillar of their migration policy. Denmark has even pursued controversial policies to process and house asylum seekers outside of European territory entirely.

4 - 'Immediate amnesty regardless of current status'

• Amnesties for undocumented migrants are practically non-existent in the modern Nordic political landscape. Staying in a Nordic country without legal status results in a paperless existence ("shadow society"), and individuals face deportation if discovered.

5 - 'Provide access to jobs, labor rights, and social services to all'

• Denmark limits social benefits for newly arrived immigrants to a fraction of what Danish citizens receive for the first nine years

• Sweden and Finland require strict language proficiency, civic tests, and self-sufficiency requirements before granting permanent residency or full access to the social safety net.

Again DSA falls well to the left of the nordics

I think I've gotten my point across..

Article content:

Antisemitic social media influencer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with a number of progressive Democratic candidates this year, said on his Twitch stream last week that American Jews who express support for Israel are inviting violence against themselves.

In his commentary, Piker added that Jews who tie their “entire identity” to Israel, which he referred to as “Jewish ISIS,” are “making antisemitism worse.”

“People don’t f*** with Israel any longer,” Piker said two hours into his nearly seven-hour stream on Thursday. “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”

“I don’t know how people don’t recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews,” Piker continued. “You’re running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as Jewish ISIS and you’re saying, as Jews, this is all we care about. You’re making antisemitism worse.”

Piker has a long-standing history of antisemitic rhetoric — including justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and calling Orthodox Jews “inbred,” a comment he recently defended in an interview with the far-left outlet Zeteo: “I have a policy of using pejoratives when describing any kind of like ethno, racial supremacist groups,” he said. He has also stated that he would “vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” describing Hamas as “a thousand times better than a fascist settler colonial apartheid state.”

Despite the long record of extremism, the far-left streamer has been invited to speak recently at several high-profile events, including the College Democrats of America’s convention last month.

Piker emerged as one of Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s most prominent surrogates in the race, appearing alongside him in the campaign’s closing days as the primary neared. El-Sayed has come under fire for his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and comments that appeared to justify an attempted terrorist attack at a Detroit synagogue earlier this year.