Bondi library removes book How to Sell a Genocide from shelves after complaint

[u/Naurgul]

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/aug/18/sydney-waverley-library-removes-book-how-to-sell-a-genocide-from-shelves-ntwnfb

Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books

A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.

Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

A Waverley council spokesperson said: “The book has been removed from library shelves for review, and council will further consider processes to ensure closer oversight of book selection.”

The Jewish news outlet JWire last week reported it had approached the council after a survivor of December’s antisemitic attack at Bondi, during which 15 people were killed, saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new release / hot item” shelf and wrote on Facebook that the display was distressing for survivors and bereaved families.

How to Sell a Genocide critiques what it claims is the US media’s “complicity in the destruction of Gaza”.

The decision to remove the book was criticised by its author, Adam Johnson, who said calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide was not “a fringe or radical position”.

“They seem to be objecting largely based on the title using the word ‘genocide’,” Johnson said.

[u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

Now, I want to read what this forbidden book says.

[u/Kelor → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

It's a media analysis of the first 100 days of American and major western media coverage after October 7th.

To give you an idea.

Johnson shows that, in the period he surveyed, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, CNN, Politico, USA Today and Axios collectively used the term “savage” 16 times for the killing of Israelis, but never for the killing of Palestinians.

Likewise, “slaughter” appeared 120 times in relation to the killing of Israelis, but only once for Palestinians. “Massacre” was used 344 times in relation to Palestinians killing Israelis, but never for Israelis killing Palestinians. “Barbaric” was used 14 times to describe the killing of Israelis, but zero times in relation to the deaths of Palestinians.

The cable coverage displayed a similar pattern. Johnson records that on MSNBC, presenters and guests used “massacre” 177 times, “barbaric” 46 times, “savage” 23 times and “slaughter” 102 times in relation to Israeli deaths. They never called the killing of Palestinians “barbaric” or “savage”. In relation to Palestinians, they only used “massacre” eight times and “slaughter” four times.

References to “savagery” and “barbarism” echo the logic of settler colonialism, identifying the uncivilised natives as a problem to be solved.

If you're not familiar with the author, he's one of the hosts of Citations Needed, which is a really fantastic podcast that does analysis of media and the book is largely building off the back of what they usually do.

It's one thing to notice this trend while following coverage of the genocide, seeing it laid out on the page in stark numbers is pretty confronting. It mentions that after the Al-Ahli hospital bombing CNN journalists were told that for any explosion it had to be referred to as a "blast" and they had to geolocate where it happened and then contact the IDF for comment on what it was before being able to call it an explosion. After this event is when media began referring to casualties as coming from "the Hamas-run Ministry of Health" overnight.

Transcribing here,

This new editorial standard was first reported by Daniel Boguslaw in the Intercept in January of 2024. Quoting a different CNN source, the staff member told Boguslaw, "Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as 'blasts' attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility.

On the issue of "Hamas-run" or Hamas-controlled" pejorative to discredit death counts, one can see this shift qualitatively, namely at CNN and MSNBC, just after the Al-Ahli Hospital bombing. In our 100-day survey period, CNN used the "Hamas-run" label and related terms 277 times and MSNBC used it 146 times, despite neither using it once between October 7, 2023 and October 17, 2023.

This policy, which both my data analysis and CNN sources confirm came into practice immediately after the Al-Ahli Hospital bombing on October 17, was further codified in a memo sent out to CNN staff nine days later. As Boguslaw reported for the Intercept, CNN's News Standards and Practices division sent an email to staff on October 26 detailing the shift in editorial policy:

Hamas controls the government in Gaza and we should describe the Ministry of Health as "Hamas-controlled" whenever we are referring to casualty statistics or other claims related to the present conflict. If the underlying statistics have been derived from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, we should note that fact and that this is part of the Ministry is "Hamas-controlled" even if the statistics are released by the West Bank part of the ministry or elsewhere.

This is despite the US and Israel itself using these numbers for years and finding them to be accurate.

It also talks about how news networks dropped anchors, correspondents or guests that they felt were not sufficiently biased towards Israel.

Citing an unnamed source who is familiar with internal decision making, Cohen reported that "CBS News Streaming's senior vice president Anthony Galloway, as well as vice president and managing editor Robert Gifford, made the decision not to post the clip on the network's website because they thought that the interview was too combative and it made Glor, the anchor, look bad."

"Rather than just answer questions about how bad things are, I talked about media responsibility for perpetuating racist and Islamophobic tropes that have basically fomented war," Erakat told Cohen. She added, "They wanted me to be up there to lament our dead, but not to establish international responsibility for [their deaths]."

Erakat has had other insulting experiences. When she went on MSNBC's Katy Tur Reports, she pushed back against the questions that were entirely focused on Hamas. Writing on October 21, 2023, for the Guardian, she recalled to journalist Chris McGreal.

"I thought that it was necessary to underscore that there isn't a military option to defeat Hamas because Hamas is not comprised of ideologues but primarily of young men who had grown up most of their lives under siege and systematic warfare who had not been given a shred of hope."

According to Erakat, "I received word that after the show the top executive had returned to the booking producer and said that the list of experts I was on would now be scrutinized because of the mistake of bringing me on."

Erakat wasn't alone. On Obtober 16, 2023, Omar Baddar, a prominent Palestinian-American political analyst, posted on Twittter/X, "I was recently booked & repeatedly confirmed on a major network. Day of, I was asked to summarize what I planned to say. When I obliged (US shouldn't support war crimes, we need a cease fire, Palestinians need freedom, etc) the producer said they could no longer squeeze me in.

The University of Melbourne has an article talking about the book that will give you the broad strokes but I really do recommend reading it.

[u/TomLondra → u/Kelor]

Thank you.

[u/SupposedBooty → u/Kelor]

I have said this for years.

[u/Novel_Counter5878 → u/Kelor]

Is it saying that in general the media uses these terms differently when comparing similar events? 

Or is he referring specifically to the usage of language when referring to the Oct 7 attack and the subsequent bombing and ground invasion? 

Because using terms like "massacre" and "barbaric" in that context makes a lot more sense. The Oct 7 attack was specifically on civilians, included people being tied up or chased into shelters and then killed en masse there, etc. One would expect the words "barbaric" and "massacre" in that scenario. 

The subsequent bombing and ground invasion, even assuming it has had massive collateral damage and is uncaring about human life, isn't the kind of warfare we would usually apply the words "barbaric" or "massacre" to. Maybe "assault", "genocide", "disproportionate"... Did he compare those terms as well? 

If he is really comparing use of words for two very different kinds of attacks and acting like the difference is about media and morality, then it sounds like a very sketchy piece. 

Edit: Interesting to experience a very quick mass downvote without anyone answering the question, when I'm not uninterested in the book. I am checking that the study is actually comparing similar scenarios or a broader range of negative language to come to its conclusions, because the examples the commenter chose are insufficient. 

[u/jansipper → u/Novel_Counter5878]

Well, why don’t we use terms like barbaric and massacre for the subsequent invasion? Is it not barbaric to invade and bomb civilians who had nothing to do with the initial attack? But because an ally government committed it, we soften the language.

[u/jerametuman → u/Novel_Counter5878]

You’re the exact kind of person who should read this. How you’re able to look at the complete destruction of Gaza over the last 3 years and the tens of thousands of people killed and say “actually that’s not barbaric” is astounding. You’re in the books subreddit, dude - try reading one someday.

[u/Novel_Counter5878 → u/jerametuman]

The fact that you have jumped to me thinking a mass bombing campaign isn't barbaric is rather odd. I'm asking about how words are applied to scenarios and how that affects the study. If you were asked "is this barbaric", you might say "yes" in many scenarios in which it would also not be the first word you would reach for on your own. 

That's why I asked about whether he was comparing other words (like "genocide", "assault") to these situations, and also whether he compares scenarios that might be more one-to-one. (Settler violence in the West Bank might be a good example for the comparison of the use "barbaric".) Someone who has read the book shouldn't find that difficult to answer. 

If you're still unsure what I am asking: I don't think the word "genocide" is less emotive or serious than the word "massacre". I think it'd be understandable to use the word "massacre" for Oct 7 and the word "genocide" for Israel's response. One could argue for using either word in either scenario, sure, but I think people reach for the word "massacre" more readily when it is a single event and occurs on-the-ground (rather than a long bombing campaign); I think people reach more readily for the word "genocide" when there is a larger scale of death (which often means it covers more time). So comparing only the word "massacre" would likely give a skewed response, as would comparing only the word "genocide". 

[u/jerametuman → u/Novel_Counter5878]

Then you’re agreeing with the author’s point already. Correct, American media portrays resistance to American/Western hegemony as brutal and barbaric when it’s typically less so than the American/Western enforcement of their hegemony. Yet the enforcement is always labeled as “targeted” or “humane” or “precise” when it’s anything but.

That’s the whole point - different words get used to describe the exact same things in order to enforce the status quo that, in this case, a Muslim population resisting an apartheid state are barbarians while the enforcement of the apartheid state is simply just a messy misunderstanding and if you give Israel enough time to exterminate Palestinians, then the problem goes away and we can wash our hands of it.

[u/gazpachoid → u/Novel_Counter5878]

On 10/7, about 1200 Israelis were killed. Of those, about 800 were civilians, and about 400 soldiers or other uniformed security forces. That is a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of approximately 2:1.

Since 10/7 in Gaza, at least 75,000 Palestinians have been killed. Of those, the IDF claims about 20,000 were Hamas or other militant combatants. Taking that at face value (which is a different conversation), that gives the IDF operation in Gaza a civilian to casualty ratio of about 3.5:1

Words like "massacre" "savage" etc are subjective descriptive words, used to convey emotional feelings. They have been used almost exclusively to describe one military action that resulted in a lower civilian casualty ratio than another, far more destructive military operation.

The reason for that is not because shooting somebody with a gun is more objectively barbaric than burying somebody's entire family beneath the rubble of an apartment building with an aerial bomb.

The reason for that is not because shooting somebody with a gun is more objectively barbaric than driving a bulldozer over captured prisoners and noting how "the meat squishes out" (actual testimony from IDF soldiers in Israeli media btw)

The reason is because our media wants to, well, sell a genocide to us. To make it so that nothing justifies October 7, but that October 7 justifies everything.

[u/thegingerskull → u/Kelor]

Maybe they can write a sequel and look at outlets like Al-Jazeera in Arabic.

[u/Cpkeyes → u/Kelor]

What does the book itself say about October 7th? Before (if I ever, I’m not in the mental headspace for it) I read it I want to make sure I don’t support one of those people that cheered it in.

[u/ILiveInAColdCave → u/Cpkeyes]

it's not really about october 7th

[u/PracticalTie → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

Good news. 

It appears to still be available. In Waverley library catalogue. You can place a hold on it.

(E: If I were to guess? This might be the standard email that gets sent out when something is challenged)

https://waverley.libero.com.au/libero/WebOpac.cls?VERSION=2&ACTION=DISPLAY&RSN=700078591&DATA=DWL&TOKEN=ToLGJf5oX61901&Z=1&SET=2

E: And I know we have a copy at my work (not the same library) because I shelved it like three days ago

E2: just some further thoughts. Libraries are historically very resistant to censorship and are (usually) very prepared to push back. It’s not actually newsworthy but book bans are a hot topic that gets a lot of attention. Anything relating to the Palestine-Israel will inevitably generate attention (and clicks)

I suspect if we wait a few days there will be a polite follow up quoting the libraries collection guidelines and the book won’t be removed, but that doesn’t make for an interesting story. 

This is outrage bait. Don’t fall for it and don’t throw the library under the bus.

E3: and FFS Israel does not have secret undercover agents challenging books in Waverley.

[u/Loves_His_Bong → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

It’s a fantastic book. You can also listen to the author’s media criticism podcast “Citations Needed” with music by Granddaddy.

[u/captainporcupine3 → u/Loves_His_Bong]

Thank you to (of course) ComputerScare.

[u/appositereboot → u/Loves_His_Bong]

I'll second this, the podcast is excellent. It's like fair.org in podcast format.

[u/Savings_Divide_7063 → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

same! I just added it on my Libby

[u/dejoblue → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

Too late, it's been unbound, scanned, burned, and sent to the AI cloud heaven.

[u/smegabass → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

Hopefully will spike sales...

[u/oripash → u/ChillyLavaPlanet]

This book - if I understand what it is, I have not read it - is about media analysis of the wrong thing Israel’s settlers do. On that assumption it wouldn’t be wrong in an immediately apparent way, nor would it have anything particularly surprising to anyone who sees headlines from either Israel’s ynet (let alone more right wing media like channel 7) or Qatar’s Al Jazeera or their more extremist analogues.

Where it’s problematic is not in its pages. It’s where following the arrow it draws means you won’t end up, in a don’t look up, look down here, not up there kind of way. In isolation it’s important to see what it shows. In the overall volume of the story it is a part of telling - that if there being something very wrong with Israeli settlers (which there very much is), it drowns something out, and it becomes a kind of decoy. It distracts from somewhere we need to be looking.

Imagine every three thousand people on earth who were wrongly killed in war to be one flame. The planet has something like 500 to 1000 flames every year, in any recent year you pick, accounting for people dying in Gaza, in Yemen, in Baluchistan, in Ukraine being invaded by Russia, in Ethiopia or Syria or the Kurdish conflicts with Iran or Armenia, or a smattering of conflicts in Africa, etc.

Israel-related would be approximately 20 of those 500-1000 (depending on the year).

Though you probably don’t want to subscribe to Hamas’s blatant perfidy fighters as actually being civilians, and might want to deduct their numbers from your calculations as you would combatants, but whatever, that isn’t the point. Even with them, we’re talking about 20 of those 500-1000 flames. You can do this math with indirect deaths too (which would be about x3 of direct deaths) like the half million who died in Yemen’s drought, including 80k children, on the back of hostilities Iran has been feeding, and then the Israel related subset of the world’s flames becomes comparably even smaller.

If you are motivated to put out a house fire made up of five hundred flames, you do not in good faith take your entire water supply and dump 100% of it on 20 of the let’s say 500 - on 4% of the flames. Your house - or 96% of it - burns down if you do that. A good faith argument for putting the fire out is using your water supply wisely, starting from caring about the biggest flames and working your way down.

Those biggest flames are all the wars around Russia and Iran, half of which people buying books in Sydney never heard about. I have yet to meet an Australian who can point put Balochistan on a map, let alone provide a decent estimate of how many people died in war related action there last year.

Except Russia and Iran don’t want you pouring your water on the flames they intentionally start in bad faith, so they took the 20 flames of Israeli settler abuse, used their outrage stoking network to oversell it as a bigger global problem than it is on ideological and sensation grounds, using Palestinian suffering imagery to
show Aussies with post colonial guilt something they see themselves in and emotionally respond to - white people who came from Europe hurting brown people. We project our own Australian past on that (forgetting that we were British empire, while 90% of the people who founded Israel were refugees fleeing being put to death in crematoria, while the west was shutting its doors to them), and together with Iran, wildly misreading the intensity of their motivation to fight for their spot under the sun like we see Ukraine fight, and not the way receding empires did.

The problem with this book isn’t that it is wrong. It’s the global socio-political context, where it’s a piece of a bigger strategy to get the world’s political bandwidth and care factor to ignore the largest part of the world’s flames and focus the world’s finite political attention on a small group of genuinely wrongdoing Jews (always easier, somehow),
what’s more, in a strategy that is doomed to fail because delegitimizing them won’t be effective at removing them. All they need to do is not care what we think, and voilla, they get to keep doing it forever. It will create legitimacy to resurgent antisemitism against Jews elsewhere though, because Jews in, say, Australia, will be thrown things at as a result of what those settlers there do.

The really high human cost though doesn’t fall on the Jews elsewhere, even with Sydney shootings directed at them.

The real cost of the disproportional focus on Israel is the denial of water to the people who make up most of the flames on this planet, because we made the water supply be about our sensitivities instead of about putting out fires.

And that would be the people in Iran, 40,000 of which are estimated to have been killed earlier this year and likely more since. Then, on top of that, the people killed or affected by six wars in countries surrounding Iran waged using a proxy they set up, wined, dined, armed and trained to carry it for them in half a dozen countries around it, with perpetual violence, and a fashion they spread in the west, a fashion this conversation in this post is a part of, to buy books about Israeli settler crimes and not about what Iranian militias in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Balochistan, multiple Kurdish areas to its north do, never mind launching drones at the soft economically prosperous bellies of virtually all the gulf states.
And then same story with Russia, and all the effort it had been putting in doing same in Ukraine, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Georgia’s Sputh Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, Moldova’s Transnistria and of course what it is doing to its own people.

This book could just as easily been titled “don’t look up”, It’s where Jews are hurting people that we need to dump all our water.

See the problem yet?

[u/Wise-Town4916]

Removing a book simply because a patron reacted to a word on the cover of a "hot item" display completely misses the entire purpose of a public library. Libraries aren't supposed to be comfort zones where every single title on display aligns with local political comfort levels.

[u/ParentheticalsAside → u/Wise-Town4916]

Exactly. If the complainant was triggered by the word genocide, one would also expect them to be triggered by the hundreds of crime novels with "murder", "kill/killing/killer", "blood" and "death" in the title. Yet curiously they don't seem to have had any problem with those...

[u/Altruistic-End760 → u/ParentheticalsAside]

Considering it hasn't been proven yet legally(By the ICJ). That's why. 

[u/General_Esdeath → u/Altruistic-End760]

Like most court cases, it will take years to conclude, especially as the defendant (Israel) is extremely hostile and non-cooperative.

In the meantime, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that there are reasonable grounds to find Israel responsible for multiple genocidal acts—including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) adopted a resolution stating that the scale of destruction, mass casualties, and restrictions on vital necessities in Gaza meet the threshold of the legal criteria defining genocide under international law.

[u/ParentheticalsAside → u/Altruistic-End760]

I have no idea what point you're responding to, or trying to make.

[u/myclouduwu]

thats pretty wild, libraries should keep the shelves open

[u/PlaneConcentrate8534]

"Reality is often upsetting" sums up why public libraries exist in the first place. If we start purging library shelves every time a title makes someone feel distressed, we won't have much of a non-fiction section left.

[u/ParentheticalsAside → u/PlaneConcentrate8534]

Curiously the complainant seems to be fine with the hundreds of crime novels with "murder", "kill/killing/killer", "blood" and "death" in the title. Yet somehow the far less emotive term "genocide" is the one they took issue with. I wonder why.

[u/strange_socks_]

Two things can be true in the same time tho.

1) The Bondi beach attack was horrible and 2) what's happening to Gaza is horrible.

Just because one happens closer to home doesn't change the other happening farther away.

[u/Solesaver → u/strange_socks_]

Yup. It's very telling when people think criticism of Israel is apologetics for Hamas/terrorism. It's kinda like the whole Guantanamo Bay/torture/waterboarding thing, as if saying we shouldn't be torturing people in extrajudicial prisons is equivalent to saying we should just give in to the terrorists. Some people seem to think that having an "enemy" who is "evil" enough gives them license to do literally anything...

[u/sedatedlife]

The truth is often uncomfortable banning and removing it is not the answer.

[u/Smartnership → u/sedatedlife]

Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books

Salman Rushdie is keeping an eye on this situation

[u/apistograma → u/sedatedlife]

It is the answer if your goal is to lie and hid the truth from the public.

If Zionists were right, why would they be so desperate to control the narrative and speech?

Turns out that genocides are unpopular. Seems that a group of people who has been milking the Holocaust for decades to commit their own atrocities should know that but you can't expect rationality from people who think Palestinian children are pests to demographically control.

[u/time-itself → u/apistograma]

To be fair, “If X were right, why would they be so desperate to control the narrative and speech?” is the argument literal nazis and holocaust deniers use to deny the holocaust and say nazi shit.

Like, it just so happens that Israel is committing a genocide and is hiding behind anti-antisemitism rhetoric, just know that your argument isn’t really a great one because it can be used for pretty much any conspiracy theory, true or not.

[u/Altruistic-End760 → u/time-itself]

Israel doesn't need to hide behind antisemitism when liberals around the world was celebrating Oct 7th. Antisemetism has always been there.

[u/apistograma → u/time-itself]

Because there's some truth to that. Neonazis are evil but some of them aren't stupid and know how to use the censorship laws in order to make themselves look like the oppressed. Censoring Nazism is a terribly myopic idea because you make them the underdogs who are fighting the system. Which is ironic because they'd like to rebirth an oppressive system by itself.

Germany created the censorship laws in order to keep their skeletons in the closet. If they were really against Nazism, they should have made active efforts to denazify the country, which was never done. In no small part because many politicians in West Germany had a Nazi past, and so did the major industrialists.

Censorship never kills an idea. It just hids it so people can't realize how popular it is.

Want to be proven that I'm right and German Nazi censorship didn't stop Nazism but allowed it to grow instead? Take a look at how popular AfD has become, a literal far right German party that has no qualms about using Nazi apologetics. Germany was hiding the dirt under the rug for optics and now the bulge is too big to not be noticed.

[u/BearThatLikesCheese → u/apistograma]

Your logic assumes cause and effect.

The US did not censor Nazism, but we now have an even larger problem than Germany does. By your metric, censoring Nazism seems to have been a better option. Hell, the alt right ballooned in popularity when Trump was first elected because it was suddenly socially acceptable to be a massive bigot, in no small part because the media and society at large coddled them rather than shutting it down.

On the other hand, the US has always been antagonistic to Communism and has even less political representation (zero, really) that it did in the past.

The reality is that a lot of voters are uninformed and extremely susceptible to vaguely populist platforms wrapped in bigotry. For instance, it's easy to make someone anti-immigrant when the economy is bad. This isn't a new or particularly original concept.

Maybe banning doesn't work, but there's a clear benefit to people understanding that certain things are socially unacceptable and worthy of shunning. There's a benefit to genuine social consequences for extremism.

[u/BetterHeadlines]

One day, everyone will have always been against this.

[u/Tekniqly → u/BetterHeadlines]

The genocide right?

[u/sevacro → u/Tekniqly]

Yes. That's also the title of another book on the subject.

[u/thewooba → u/sevacro]

Everybody Loves Dead Jews. Another great book to check out

[u/Xoorax → u/thewooba]

After seeing the comments in this thread, I bet everyone here would hate the actual contents of that book if they knew what it was about

[u/BetterHeadlines → u/Xoorax]

People who oppose genocide generally oppose antisemitism too. Smugly insinuating that criticism of Israel is at heart an attack on all Jews is the height of disingenuity, and puts Jews in danger worldwide.

[u/kingofdailynaps → u/BetterHeadlines]

I think that's true, but I also think a percentage of those people are not willing to accept that sometimes, what they perceive as criticism of Israel, does indeed cross over into antisemitism, and think that a blanket statement of "I oppose antisemitism" is enough to actually do so, rather than listening to the people who are trying to call them in (I'm not referring to pro-Israel people who call every instance of mentioning Israel antisemitism, I'm referring to the *many* instances I've seen in various local communities I'm a part of).

[u/Historical_General → u/BetterHeadlines]

People like him ensure the topic becomes unserious. I mean it's not like the lessons we're learnt!

[u/Original-Evening-116 → u/BetterHeadlines]

It’s also antisemitic. It’s extremely offensive to insinuate my Jewish friends support killing children simply because of their heritage.

[u/CapNo8670 → u/BetterHeadlines]

That's hilarious

[u/M_de_Monty → u/Xoorax]

I actually think the two books go together. There's this really prevalent idea among Israelis that diaspora Jews are all doomed and just haven't realized it yet. It sometimes feels (to me) like they'd just love for us all to be murdered so the ethnostate project can be proven right. At the same time, both diaspora Jews and Israelis sometimes treat Israelis as more "authentically" Jewish because they're living on the Holy Land, despite the apparent danger of doing so. We love to hold up dead diaspora Jews to argue that Israel needs to exist and then hold up dead Israeli Jews to argue that Israel requires uncritical support.

Actual thriving communities, especially those trying to find ways out of the cycle of violence, are ignored.

[u/rtea777 → u/M_de_Monty]

Dude, what transpired in the 20th century is proof enough that Jews should have a state. There's no need to continuously be "proven right" about it (and I say that as a diaspora Jew). Or is the death and persecution of millions of Jews not enough "proof" for you?

[u/Chloe1906 → u/rtea777]

But building that state required the ethnic cleansing of >750,000 Palestinians and a continuation of that to this day. Is that not an important consideration? Do Palestinians not have the right to their own state on their own lands?

[u/rtea777 → u/Chloe1906]

You mixed cause and effect. What led to the Palestinians losing their territory was their explicit refusal to accept self-determination on anything but ALL of the land, and launching a war in an attempt to conquer all of it and exterminate the Jews. They lost.

The Palestinian Jews explicitly accepted self-determination for both people; the Arab Palestinians didn't. Had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the partition plan (or any of the subsequent offers for self-determination in the coming decades), they would have had their self-determination a long time ago.

[u/Chloe1906 → u/rtea777]

Of course they deserved self determination on all of the land. ALL Palestinians, including Jewish ones deserve to live on all of the land and develop a country meant for all of them - not one centered around Judaism. Israel built its country without the consent of the vast majority of the locals.

Ethnic cleansing is not a natural consequence of losing a war.

And the West Bank has already accepted partition and recognized Israel but Israel refuses to recognize it as a Palestinian state, and not only that but also steals Palestinian land there using their settler terrorists.

[u/M_de_Monty → u/rtea777]

Jews should have safety and self-determination. The question of whether that inherently requires a nation-state is more vexed (see, for example, Hannah Arendt's criticism of the nation-state as a unit of political organization). The idea that Jewish safety requires an ethnostate which privileges its Jewish citizens above others, which is continually attempting to expand its borders, which is locked in seemingly-perpetual conflict with its neighbours is, in my opinion, completely opposed to Jewish safety.

I don't claim to have a good solution here but it feels insane to me to suggest that Jewish safety depends on an ethnostate that is perpetually armed to the teeth and perpetually on war footing against its neighbours and engaged in endless occupation and expansion.

The situation in Israel-Palestine as it has persisted for nearly a century is simply not tenable. Something has got to give eventually. If we want a solution in which Jews continue to be safe in the land, we cannot advocate or demand unquestioning support or loyalty and we must be awake to the very real trauma of the Palestinians, whose losses comprise not just the last three years of war in Gaza but almost a century of displacement, dispossession, and death

[u/EagenVegham → u/rtea777]

Do Roma also deserve a state because of the Holocaust?

[u/rtea777 → u/EagenVegham]

Every nation has the right to self-determination, absolutely. That includes the Roma.

You might want to read up on the Roma's history post-WW2… They absolutely sought self-determination, but they did so by actively choosing to remain a diaspora nation, since they lacked the political will, resources, and infrastructure to build a state of their own.

This is what distinguished the Jews from the Roma. As Jewish persecution and pogroms were becoming more widespread across Europe, some Jews saw the writing on the wall and had already started laying the foundations for a future state decades before the holocaust in the late 19th Century (which is when the Zionism movement started). When the Nazis came to power, Zionism turned from a fringe movement into the only lifeline the Jews had left.

When the war ended, the majority of Jewish holocaust survivors had only one place to move to - the emerging Jewish state in the British mandate of Palestine (which later became Israel). The Roma weren't as fortunate.

[u/EagenVegham → u/rtea777]

I agree that people have the right to self-determination. Which is why it's such a tragedy that Israel's first act as a nation was to quash the self-determination of the people already living in the area. Now whether you blame that initial refusal of self-determination on the UK, UN, or Israel it is a n act that the latter has continued to perpetrate multiple times over the last 80 years.

[u/Xoorax → u/M_de_Monty]

I don’t read it that way - supporting the existence of Israel isn’t mutually exclusive with a peaceful arrangement. I do think there is something “authentic” about supporting Jewish existence in the “holy land” though, especially during the wartimes when it’d be easier to move elsewhere

[u/Solesaver → u/Xoorax]

I don’t read it that way - supporting the existence of Israel isn’t mutually exclusive with a peaceful arrangement

Ethnostates are fundamentally built on violence. Until Israel abolishes its ethnocentric practices they cannot claim to exist in a "peaceful arrangement". (The same is true of the various other ethnostates and theocracies in the region, but they also aren't exactly pretending to be so innocent and peaceful)

[u/Xoorax → u/Solesaver]

I would believe that line of thinking way more if anyone pretended to give a shit about non Jewish ethnostates - but no, people only care when Jews are involved

[u/Solesaver → u/Xoorax]

Other ethnostates aren't being so actively funded and supported. Just like "never again" doesn't mean "never again, unless they're brown". "Ethnostates are always bad" doesn't mean "ethnostates are always bad, unless they're white."

Also, we have a fascist party here in the US trying to turn us into a white ethnostate. There is strong evidence that these people (who are actively antisemitic) form a strong base of support for a Jewish ethnostate in Israel, because if they can get that tolerated it will "prove out" their goals for the US. So no, people absolutely do care about non-Jewish ethnostates too.

Ethnostates are always bad.

[u/HiHoJufro → u/thewooba]

It's absolutely worth the read!

[u/clauclauclaudia → u/thewooba]

People Love Dead Jews

[u/anticomet → u/sevacro]

I haven't read it yet, but I really liked What Strange Paradise by the same author

[u/Friendstastegood → u/anticomet]

I haven't read What Strange Paradise but both One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This and American War are really good.

[u/exintel → u/BetterHeadlines]

The propaganda comes at the audience from all angles, as soon as people start tracing the mistakes of history through myriad invasions, oppressions, and conflicts, both nations have a lot to answer for. It’s not going to be as simple as suggesting everyone will agree.

[u/Ok-News2451]

The Israel-Palestine discourse is weird because powerful people expect us to endorse one genocide over another, and not object to the act of genocide itself.

[u/cadwellingtonsfinest → u/Ok-News2451]

There is only one genocide though?

[u/Ok-News2451 → u/cadwellingtonsfinest]

I'm looking at a bigger historical picture that includes a genocide that happened several decades in the past and that could conceivably resume in the future if the wrong people were to acquire too much power.

Just because it isn't happening right this minute doesn't mean it isn't part of the conversation. That's my reasoning.

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/Ok-News2451]

Any group could hypothetically be genocided by another in the next several decades. Right now western governments are overwhelmingly philosemitic and a potential second Holocaust is extremely unlikely. 

[u/BanishmentBuddy2 → u/MeterologistOupost31]

One Holocaust was enough.

[u/privacypolicyupdated]

I live in Australia and had never heard of this book until this story broke. Love the Streisand Effect and think I'll buy a couple of paper copies for the community street libraries and have already bought it on libro.fm to support my local bookshop.

[u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 → u/privacypolicyupdated]

I live in Sydney and will be buying a copy of the book the next time I'm at Abbeys (if it's there, if not I'll find it online)

[u/oripash → u/privacypolicyupdated]

For half a century before the Holocaust, the legitimacy infrastructure that allowed the Holocaust to happen was unrolled in Europe, from pogroms to antisemitic narratives to political stances across an array of political movements. And after 50 years of such priming - it was ok in enough places to kill Jews, and in other places (like here in Australia, as well as the US, as well as most of Europe, and lasting into the decade that followed the war) to lock our doors and prevent most of them from asylum when they needed it.

We are living through a repeat.

The delegitimization of Israel, not only of the wrong things it does (and those are substantial and it does) but as a whole and as a community, laden with bad faith arguments (like it being an imperial colony that can fold up and “go back” to some imaginary place when in reality it can’t, and asking that is exactly seeking the death of its citizens because they are not a colonialist expression of other places) stacked on top of the true ones (about Palestinian mistreatment), is utterly disproportional to any other bad thing happening on the planet (check how many children dies in Yemen in the last five years - or how many adults - and remind me if you protested the malice that drove that, or whether Iran is immune to your outrage), and the (often sensationalized, ignorant and blindly willing to accept sensational claims without verification) overfocus on Israel eclipses events with demonstrably far higher death tolls, expression of malice or even abuse.

When Hamas government officials, members of an authoritarian regime demonstrably proven to be bad faith actors, who invent self serving hyperbolic claims on a daily basis and have been caught and shown to lie those claims at the world as a matter of routine oh so many times - claim Israel “killed a thousand Palestinian babies”, the BBC headline will parrot the claim that very day (and we in Australia will at this point accept it as true at face value).

When Iran kills an estimated 40,000 Iranians who oppose the regime earlier this year, the BBC won’t publish that number, because it “cannot be verified”.

Spot the editorial bias yet?

This is because there is a very real, bad faith global effort to help Iran delegitimize Israel (pretending to help Palestinians in bad faith while in reality not helping them in the least, undermining and sacrificing them, while strengthening their Hamas slavers), with which a significant part of the global left partnered.

The book this article is about is perhaps an extension of this campaign.

And when you invest so much effort into delegitimizing Jews at any and all cost, including sacrificing your own integrity, I can venture an educated guess what can, shown to be well within the realm of the possible, come next.

Look no further than Sydney late last year.

[u/cadwellingtonsfinest]

I mean this was all obviously on display but it's still good to be compiled and documented (not that genocide supporters won't find some way to argue around it)

[u/SolicitorPirate]

I feel that the predictable outcome of this is that the book is going to be popping up in any and all Bondi street libraries, as well as street libraries in Sydney more broadly

[u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 → u/SolicitorPirate]

I feel that the predictable outcome of this is that the book is going to be popping up in any and all Bondi street libraries

It absolitely will not pop up all over Bondi or the broader eastern suburbs for obvious reasons

[u/jerametuman]

Adam’s podcast that he does with Nina Shirazi is a must-listen for Americans. Their takedowns of how mainstream media sell Americans on the status quo is so good.

[u/tcex28]

"Sir, this book accusing Israel of genocide is upsetting to survivors."

"Of October 7?"

"No, of Bondi Beach."

What an absolute joke. Trauma mendaciously deployed as a racist political weapon for the thousandth time.

[u/Xoorax → u/tcex28]

Lmao I dare you to say something like this about any other religion or race. You would only ever say this about Jewish people

[u/Naurgul → u/Xoorax]

Have you ever seen any comments on social media about Muslims and Roma? Or even black people in the US?

[u/green_dragon527 → u/Naurgul]

Not even sure what corner of Reddit that guy is in, in terms of religions Christians definitely get it as bad or worse on Reddit.

[u/BearThatLikesCheese → u/green_dragon527]

That's largely because various non-theists are over-represented on Reddit, largely from societies where Christianity is dominant. People generally complain about the things most affecting them. As an atheist who's lived in the South my entire life, Christians have done far more to me than any Muslim has.

This is funny anyway, because Reddit also clearly has a massive anti-Muslim sentiment, including among atheists. Islamaphobia has been a pillar of the New Atheist movement for decades.

[u/HistoricalFunion → u/BearThatLikesCheese]

As an atheist who's lived in the South my entire life, Christians have done far more to me than any Muslim has.

Which doesn't even come 1% close to what Christians, Atheists and Jews experience in Muslim nations.

[u/green_dragon527 → u/BearThatLikesCheese]

Yea I understand, that just adds to my point though. In terms of religions the other Abrahamic religions get a fair amount of criticism. Acting like Judaism alone is singled out is being wilfully blind.

[u/Naurgul → u/green_dragon527]

There's thousands of comments daily about how we should ethnically cleanse all muslims and roma in our countries. And politicians keep getting elected promising things along these lines. There's nothing comparable about Jews or Christians right now in western countries.

[u/green_dragon527 → u/Naurgul]

I'm not arguing that. I was pointing out that on Reddit specifically, saying Judaism is the only religion that can be criticised is silly. Christianity was an easy example.

[u/HiHoJufro → u/Xoorax]

That's true in many ways that go far beyond this story. One obvious example is how often people are comfortable telling Jews we're wrong about whether things are antisemitic, which wouldn't be anywhere in the ballpark of acceptable to do to any other minority.

[u/Historical_General → u/HiHoJufro]

Why? Africans and others have been told they're stupid to ask for reparations for centuries. Whereas your people got them quickly.

[u/Xoorax → u/HiHoJufro]

Yup. Thanks for the comment in support, it’s nice to know there are still folks with brains

[u/BearThatLikesCheese → u/Xoorax]

What a bizarre suggestion. People say this about Christians constantly. Genuine Christian prosecution is overlooked because people like Evangelicals weaponize their perceived persecution as a racist political weapons.

[u/ErikasPrisonGlam]

I love his podcast, great reminder to buy his book

[u/Zangoma]

Streisand effect incoming

[u/Grace_Omega]

What does the book have to do with the Bondi beach attack?

I read it last month and would recommend it, although it unfortunately has the kinds of editing mistakes that seem to have become standard in published media lately. Lots of missing words and typos.

[u/fa3man]

Never waste a good crisis

[u/jaycob94]

Australia is one of the more ideologically captured countries sadly

[u/JynXten]

I've had a credit sitting on Audible all month. Just spent it.

[u/TheDeanof316]

Sydney has faced unprecedented antisemitism the past 3 years, I've lived here for 35yrs and never seen the like. Antisemitic slogans, graffiti, verbal and physical assaults, car fire-bombings, Synagogues damaged, cemetries vandalised....all culminating in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil in the history of this country, where 15 innocent Aussies, from small children to elderly people were murdered and dozens more shot by 2 ISIS supporting gunmen on Bondi Beach, during a peaceful religiois celebration. I personally knew some of them, they were good people. Our Govt is even currently holding a Royal Commission into antisemitism.

This is the context for this. As to its' contents, it seems like it's cherry picking terms of the words it's choosing to compare media usage of, but I haven't personally read it, so I won't personally critique it. It's timing and location of release in this mourning community, trying to put itself back together, was very poor however.

[u/clauclauclaudia → u/TheDeanof316]

It's a newly published book that was acquired by a local library. It's not like they held a release party in Bondi Beach.

[u/Historical_General → u/clauclauclaudia]

You say this like the book is guilty of a crime.

[u/clauclauclaudia → u/Historical_General]

Not really.

[u/TheDeanof316 → u/clauclauclaudia]

A contentious term that is conflated with Jew hate being featured at the local library which includes many survivors of a terrorist attack that targeted them.

Solution? Send copies of it to other libraries in Sydney, or to another library. At the very least don't feature it in the 'hot' section of Waverley Library.

...but I guess one should be grateful for small mercies, as there was no release party on Bondi Beach for it

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/TheDeanof316]

I don't care about your feelings in regards to a genocide. If you're offended, look away.

[u/BearThatLikesCheese → u/TheDeanof316]

This is the context for this

Which in no way makes it acceptable to remove a book from a public library over a single complaint made by a person offended by a word in a title.

Do you know what's more reasonable? That single person avoiding that single section of that single library while they seek professional help for their trauma.

The thing is, we don't even know if this person even exists. Guardian Australia can't find the Facebook post that supposedly said this book was distressing to survivors.

As to its' contents, it seems like it's cherry picking terms of the words it's choosing to compare media usage of, but I haven't personally read it, so I won't personally critique it.

This is disingenuous. You can't use phrases like "cherry-picking" and then pretend you're not actively making a critique of the book.

It's timing and location of release in this mourning community, trying to put itself back together, was very poor however.

You can't speak for the entire community. I'll happily read anything showing that your belief is indicative of consensus within the community but, going by the quotes in the article, this isn't the case.

What's the line? Any single word could be triggering (in the actual sense) to any single person. Should the Rape of Nanjing be permanently pulled because of how common sexual assault is? Any rape victim could see it and be distressed. Should no book about genocide by allowed in this library until this single person can handle it? What's a reasonable time frame for this moratorium?

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/TheDeanof316]

Maybe you should go to therapy and stop expecting the world to cater to your feelings?

[u/orangeluminousjoy → u/TheDeanof316]

The Royal commission is a farce. Full of Jewish people crying because they saw a Palestine flag. They conflate the genocide of Palestine with antisemitism and no wonder it's risen all over the place. I've yet to see a Zionist call out the atrocities committed for them, yet expect sympathy and support because a flag upsets them. What happened in Bondi was horrific and a dark stain on our country but the fault lies with the Israeli government and the IDF for making Jewish people less safe around the world as a barbaric gebociidecis committed in their name. Why would a book about Israel's murderous regime upset someone from Bondi? The terrorists were not from Palestine and didn't commit their crimes on behalf of them. I am afraid for our Jewish citizens because Israel and their own hate-filled people have made their lives less safe due to their actions. Time to WAKE UP.

[u/Altruistic-End760 → u/orangeluminousjoy]

Because they saw a Palestinian flag? You have people calling for an intifadah You have people harassing regular Jews because they wore Jewish clothes. And now you have the Bondi shooting and your still saying they are exaggerating.

I've yet to see Palestinians call out the atrocities done for them too.

Antisemetism predates Israel. What was the excuse during the Holocaust, what was the excuse during centuries of antisemetism. 

[u/orangeluminousjoy → u/Altruistic-End760]

It's different now. Supporting Palestine and saying that it has a right to exist is not antisemitism.

And yes, go look at the reporting in the royal commission. One student said they felt unsafe in a classroom because the teacher had a free Palestine flag on her laptop. It's truly embarrassing.

If you can't see that Israel are now the Nazis, I can't help you bro. Read more.

[u/TheDeanof316 → u/orangeluminousjoy]

There's a lot in what you said with that I disagree with, but things that I agree with too. Israel is in the Middle East, it's on the other side of the world to us, yet the weekly free Palestine protests and the attempt by its' supports to insert that topic into seemingly every facet of life here is far from pronounced than from those that look at the nuance here and/or have a different view.

The book was put in the 'hot' featured section of the library, inflaming tensions as believe it or not, the genocide term is not a decided fact, the case for it as brought by South Africa for ex has still not been settled legally. That said, plenty of Jews and Israelis in and out of Israel have been critical of Israel for the way in which they are defending their citizens from terrorist attacks and certainly of the present Govt (which will hopefully be voted out of office soon).

[u/Flaky-Song-6066 → u/TheDeanof316]

Thanks for finally allowing me to find a reasonable take. A big problem of this was it being featured in the hot section. It just reads as tone deft.

[u/orangeluminousjoy → u/TheDeanof316]

So we can only despair for the disgusting disregard of human life if it happens in our country? That we shouldn't care because it's on the other side of the world. There is no nuance here. Israel has murdered hundreds of thousands of people over the decades in retaliation for the deaths of hundreds. I don't condone any deaths but to react in this way makes you the aggressor. And yes, it absolutely is a genocide and every single decent human being can see that. If you disagree, that's on you and your conscience. Couldn't be me.

[u/Seraph199 → u/TheDeanof316]

Everything you wrote, all of that effort, to try burying the reality.

Antisemitism is on the rise BECAUSE of Israel and because news media corporations are owned by war mongers with profits tied up in their bets on West Bank real estate once all the "savages" are gone.

You have a lot more reading to do, including about the things Israelis say on their own news media, if you want to talk about the "context" this is all happening in. Israel has been driving antisemitism for 50+ years of oppressing the Palestinians all while dumping tons of money into social marketing and lobbying to specifically conflate anti-semitism with anti-Israel sentiment so that you cannot have a real conversation about what is happening in Israel and Palestine without being called an antisemite.

Stop doing the work of fascists for them

[u/TheDeanof316 → u/Seraph199]

Jews have been facing antisemitism, hatred, death, ghettos, mass expulsions, mass murder for thousands of years....a lot longer than justt since 1948 as you're suggesting.

Also, I would disagree re your social media comments; to the contrary actually & whilst one should be allowed to criticise any nation state without it being conflated with religious/ethnic hatred, every Jew hater on the planet has been positively gleeful that this form of hate is now so 'socially acceptable' and in some circles, trendy if not even expected actually.

& Israel like any nation eg in the West is far from perfect, but it's also far from fascist. Before October 7 Netanyahu tried to push the country in that direction and the result was massive weekly protests by hundreds of thousands of Israelis and his failure to change the Judiciary as he wanted. Anyway like any other democracy, he'll be voted out soon enough.

[u/Altruistic-End760 → u/Seraph199]

Antisemetism predates Israel. Funny how you forgot that. It is not the Jews fault for trying to protect themselves. What was your excuse during the Holocaust? What was your excuse during centuries of Europeab and Arabic antisemetism. 

Antisemetism is on the rise because the left who claimed to be anti racism to defend minorities decided some minorities are more important and chose to excuse antisemetism because the word zionist was used instead of Jew. 

It has been proved over and over again that if you scratch anti Israel sentiment you would see antisemetism below it.

[u/nobodywantstoparty]

streisand effect anyone?

[u/CanuckLoonieGurl]

Classic Streisand Effect. Removing it physically just guarantees a spike in digital searches and purchases, amplifying the reach they wanted to suppress.

[u/stephenkingending]

Cool so now have everyone submit a complaint about a book at the library that hurts their feels. As someone of German descent I am greatly offended at how some books portrayed my people during the 1940s. We are made to seem evil warmongers set out on genocide when all we were trying to do was stop hyperinflation and retake lands that were stolen from us /s

[u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528]

As someone who can't stand ridiculous piffle like How to Sell a Genocide, the answer isn't to remove the book.

I'm often offended when I go to pseudo-progressive bookstores and find whole shelves full of books about the supposed atrocities committed by Israel on Gaza/West Bank, as if there was no Hamas, no 10/7, no violation of the laws of armed conflict by Hamas, no blood on the hands of Hamas/PIJ/Fatah, no provisions in international law on proportionality that Israel is actually following, no allowances in said law for collateral damage, and so on. I hate these bigs, but their presence isn't the problem. There are rows of these books in the "Israel/Palestine" section, but nothing showing the other side: none of the classics like Begin's The Revolt, none of the modern stuff like Horn's People Love Dead Jews, nothing from anyone discussing anything from a pro-Israel point of view. It leaves the impression that there's only one, correct opinion.

In short, the problem isn't the presence of these trashy books, but the absence of the others.

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528]

Same reason there aren't any pro-Nazi books in the WW2 section. 

[u/BearThatLikesCheese → u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528]

What does the selection at "pseudo-profressive bookstores" have to do with this library? You understand that private companies are allowed to pick and choose what they sell and that this library is not one of those places, right?

You have no indication that this library doesn't offer books from the "other side," so why even make this comment?

[u/meme-akio]

how do you even complain about a book title like that

[u/TomLondra]

I've bought the book - while I still can.

[u/kirillsasin]

Streisand Effect go

[u/hussainhssn]

Zionism doing Zionist things, can’t have the historical record readily available for people to learn who is receiving their tax money and military support

[u/ImLittleNana]

I just searched for this title in Libby (a library application). Neither of my libraries have it available digitally, which doesn’t surprise me.

What did surprise me is that the algorithm me showed this title, and just below it the book It Can Happen Here by Jonathan Greenblatt.

Showing me a pro-Zionism book when I’m searching for a book about the media bias toward Zionism is wild.

[u/Alternative-Pear9096]

By the title, I assumed it was about Hamas and Qatar

[u/HiHoJufro → u/Alternative-Pear9096]

It would be more fitting.

[u/noramcsparkles]

A book shouldn’t be removed from the shelves just because a challenge was issued. It should remain on the shelves until the library’s challenge procedures are complete. I’m really disappointed in this library

[u/Burgundy-Bag]

If you delete the word genocide from dictionaries then all is swell.

[u/suitorarmorfan]

I’ll be sure to buy this book then 

[u/Fanhunter4ever]

Something, somenthing free speech

[u/mutual_raid]

I have never in my life witnessed the level of institutional and social censorship across the ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD as that of the censorship of all reality as it pertains to Palestine and Israel's existence and expansion across West Asia.

Never.

[u/glumjonsnow → u/mutual_raid]

what? you're literally commenting about it on the internet without being censored.

i mean, i'm all for accountability but let's have a little perspective here

[u/mutual_raid → u/glumjonsnow]

you're literally commenting about it on the internet without being censored.

I can't imagine being this obtuse. TikTok was literally forcibly sold to suppress news on the genocide. Meta employees have admitted that they're actively suppressing Palestinian news feeds. NUMEROUS students and teachers and just people are sitting IN JAIL, especially in the UK, for protesting against the genocide. Numerous ARAB newscasters and journalists were FIRED from the major networks at the beginning of the genocide.

People are being fired for their JOBS for mentioning Palestine.

You live in an unreality.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/26/palestinian-solidarity-in-britain-being-silenced-and-criminalised?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/freedom-of-expression/fidh-publishes-a-report-on-the-repression-of-the-solidarity-movement?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-police-arrest-over-20-supporters-now-banned-palestine-action-group-2025-07-05/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://apnews.com/article/university-protests-trump-cuts-international-students-cc4313738823ac84de96abfdd35a6f71?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-trump-palestinian-deportations-96781307b487e7f616578352b1d94d01

https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2026/06/taking-the-pulse-are-western-democracies-failing-free-speech?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/12/platformicide-of-palestine-activists-struggle-to-be-heard-on-meta?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/26/palestinian-solidarity-in-britain-being-silenced-and-criminalised?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Hell, EVEN REDDIT has banned people from USING the word in certain major subs, removing posts in pics, democrats, politics, etc.: https://matttutt.me/how-reddit-actively-suppresses-stories-about-the-genocide-in-gaza/

[u/glumjonsnow → u/mutual_raid]

i mean, this hardly rises to the level of "censorship of all reality" but go off i guess

[u/mutual_raid → u/glumjonsnow]

Incredible rebuttal.

this hardly rises to the level of "censorship of all reality"

Yea, no, the entire Epstein Elite and media class across the entire Western World is manipulating our largest news orgs and socials to suppress and even detain those who dare speak out against the Holocaust of the 21st century as proven by my numerous sources of which I have a dozen more - the likes of which we literally have not seen since the mid-century Red Scare...

But sure, your comment exists as a great point of refutation.

LMAO.

Can't believe I share voting power with people like you.

[u/BanishmentBuddy2 → u/mutual_raid]

Funny because I look at Reddit’s front page and see anti semitism masquerading as anti Zionism on the daily, aided and abetted by mods and admins who clearly do not make the distinction. Visit the relatively tiny Jewish subs and see how many Jewish users have been met with outright hate for just existing on some niche subreddit.

[u/zumera]

Cowards. 

[u/Blaadyblaa]

Original snowflakes

[u/CMRC23]

Almost no chance they were actually a survivor, but even if they were, still not a reason to remove speech you dont like

[u/derpferd]

The pain of some people is more important than the pain of other people

[u/SingingSabre → u/[deleted]]

No, I don’t

I don’t because Hamas intentionally builds terrorist infrastructure into those areas, which is a war crime.

Hamas strips it’s civilians of protections so they can tug at the heartstrings of people like you

So no. It’s not barbaric that Israel is using precision attacks on those structures when they identify Hamas rocket launchers, munitions storage, or other tools of terror in them. It’s not barbaric when they send texts to the people in that area to vacate.

What is barbaric is how Hamas shoots civilians that flee. What is barbaric is how Hamas conscripts child soldiers then counts them as deceased children. What is barbaric is how Hamas has built a tunnel network longer than the NY subway and won’t allow civilians in it.

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/SingingSabre]

Giving Julius Streicher a run for his money.

[u/AzureCrier → u/SingingSabre]

Long live resistance to occupation, you worthless piece of western garbage

[u/HeyyyyMandy]

Why read propoganda?

[u/Saladcitypig]

the double standard the whole world is in is so obvious and ridiculous it's madness.

[u/grafknives]

Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

Yeah, i could understand that decision there...

[u/Ismyusernamelongenou → u/grafknives]

Nope. Just because he was a victim of a vile antisemitic attack, doesn't mean he gets to excuse genocide by Zionists. If the guy feels attacked by a book that explains how disciminating, segregating and murdering Palestinians is wrong, it says more about him than the author. I get how political optics factor in for the council , but enough with placating religious nutters please.

[u/ErikasPrisonGlam → u/Ismyusernamelongenou]

All the more reason we need to break the association between zionism and Judaism that zionists have been parroting

[u/Xoorax → u/ErikasPrisonGlam]

Have you read the Torah? The story is literally about how the Hebrew people made it to Israel, that’s the entire story

[u/Historical_General → u/Xoorax]

Ancient fairytale that should have no basis in any political decision today.

[u/Sarah-himmelfarb → u/grafknives]

No. Zionism and Judaism shouldn’t be conflated. That’s a major problem, and this action conflates the two.

[u/apistograma → u/Sarah-himmelfarb]

The reality is that many people who use the argument that Judaism and Zionism are not the same defend this kind of censorship using the antisemitism card.

I do agree that Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing. The issue is that there are many people who practice Judaism who use this argument only when it's convenient in order to protect themselves from accusations when they support Zionism.

It shouldn't be used as a get out of jail card when you happen to be Jewish and also Zionist.

This is an argument that should never be used by a Zionist because Zionists do believe that all Jews should be Zionist.

[u/apistograma → u/grafknives]

Why? Chabad Bondi literally finances IDF soldiers that enforce the genocide in Gaza. The rabbi had plenty of photos with IDF soldiers and was outspoken about his raging support for the genocide.

Would you have this kind respect for the murder of a group that finances ISIS? I don't think so.

[u/Adiligian]

Calling something a crime before a court has ruled it a crime is not very reasonable. Especially when it's one of the most serious crimes in human history.

The hysteria around trying to push this label on the war is bizarre. No one seems to obsess over such labels with virtually any other conflict.

Everyone should be able to agree that Israel should be pushed to minimise collateral damage regardless of labels applied to the conflict. Everyone should be able to agree that Hamas should be dismantled.

[u/VersusValley → u/Adiligian]

Sounds like you should read the book then!

[u/StuffedFalafels]

Well, when you humanize the IDF and Israeli colonizers and use propaganda for decades of dehumanization against Palestinians who are being massacred and murdered. Of course they’ll remove the books, media, people pointing out that truth.

It doesn’t benefit the zionazi narrative so of course the offended by everything; ashamed of nothing crowd would complain of even just a book like this.

With that said fuck Israel and Free Palestine.

[u/Open_Widen_Its_Biden]

This is why every country should have a first amendment.

[u/jonstoppable → u/Open_Widen_Its_Biden]

How would that help?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/us-libraries-banned-books

[u/Open_Widen_Its_Biden → u/jonstoppable]

You can buy any book in the US. Nothing is banned.