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Comment by billy99k | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think that's correct. The novel was inspired in part by the 1979 revolution in Iran, but the basis for it was her research on Puritanism. It's set in Boston, where Atwood was doing research at Harvard.

I doubt Atwood would write a novel about Islam. Her work is far more potent when commenting on her own culture, not somebody else's.

As for what liberals support... this liberal supports not killing people. Even anti-gay bigots. I'm Jewish and I have a lot of support for Israel, and an extreme skepticism about the claims of casualties from propaganda sources, but the level of brutality has managed to make me question that.

Once the Gazans are alive, then I can challenge their anti-gay view (and long list of other atrocities). For the moment, they're too busy dying to actually persecute anybody.

Just because `liberals' don't share their views, doesn't mean they want to see them die.

this is a long-tired sympathy of colonialism. social relations are slow to advance --- and slow further when under occupation, or (e.g.) a genocide. it's not as if gay marriage is legal in israel.

gay marriage is legal in israel and both partners get all rights. gender affirming care is part of government provided medical services.

gay/trans palestinians running away (honor killing and stuff) can get asylum in Israel .

Israel has pretty tight relationship with other western powers, and more specifically the US, and also tries to attract people from said western countries to come to Israel. Whereas the Palestinians are constantly killed and forced to move, and refused a stable home and country. Not sure how you want to create social reforms and progress when you don't even have basic security for living safely. You can only advance social issues if you have the mental bandwidth and means to do so, not by being constantly attacked and bombed for more than 50 years now.

I also don't condition not supporting massive amounts of civilian murder with LGBT rights. These can come after. For now the killing has to stop, regardless.

putting aside multiple "incorrectness" in your statement, 89% of palestinians support sharia as law of the land. removing occupation won't make them into society where lgbt live long and prosper. brief look at neighborhood will be a good example.

and just for lols: https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/09/not-all-in-the-same-boat-g...

Should our support for Israel killing Palestinians indiscriminately be inversely proportional to gay rights in Palestine? Does that make any sense?

Anyway Israel has fascists in power. They aren’t the good guys any more, if they ever were.

i think you commented on wrong post, because this is not what discussed in this thread.

No, definitely the correct post. Israelis and Israel defenders like to try to whitewash Israeli war crimes by talking about gay rights. It is irrelevant. Palestine could (and maybe is) be the most homophobic place on the planet—it is irrelevant, they still don't deserve to be killed.

poster said that gay marriage in israel is illegal. i said that its legal. because it is. this was the essence of the conversation.

not sure where whitewashing is.

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