#<- not a zionist just jewish and think violence is bad (when done by or to whoever)

[autistic-katara]

yeah but the nazis pretending violence is peaceful when it’s against Bad Jews are also pretty bad which is what the post was about

peaceful is when u punch jews, yell slurs, set things on fire and wave around signs with mein kampf quotes on it

[jewish-sideblog]

"Both indigenous and colonizers" CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT SHIT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND PLEASE

This wave of antisemitism and bullshit about "indigenous vs colonizer" makes me so scared as an indigenous person in the US of what will happen when Land Back movements do result in actual sovereignty restoration and then tribes do what people do and disagree over land and resources, like we were doing for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Will we be reduced down to colonizers too??

It feels like Westerners, especially USAmericans, have such a black and white idea of what it means to be indigenous and what it means to be a colonizer/settler (because those terms are always conflated) and it makes me so angry and frustrated to see people apply those standards and lines thinking not just to complex sovereignty movements in their own countries but also to incredibly complex conflicts and wars happening on the other side of the world.

The damage I've seen done to sovereignty movements here in the US alone, people going around claiming that we want all "settlers" to go back to Europe or that we're going to start massacring people, has been horrible and the fact that it's all just to justify antisemitism makes me sick.

Genuinely. They're blocked now, but that same person said something to the effect of "Would an Iranian praying in a Mosque built on the ashes of a former synagogue be decolonization?"

And that was the point at which I was like. Ok. It seems like most people genuinely don't actually know what the terms "colonization", "colonizer" and "coloniality" mean. Obviously, that wouldn't be decolonization, because the Jews never colonized Iran. Emigration and colonization aren't the same fucking thing!

I used to have so much faith in my generation. I thought we were critical thinkers, capable of flexibility and engagement with new ideas. But I'm realizing now that we're basically just rebranded boomers. Back in the day, anybody you disagreed with was labelled as a "Communist". It didn't actually fucking matter if they were communist sympathizers, Soviet sympathizers, or even if they were remotely allied with socialist ideals. You could just call them a "Communist" and be done with it, without even understanding what that term means.

It's the same shit today. Instead of a HUAC witch hunt targeting communists, it's a social witch hunt targeting "colonizers" and "Zionists". I am terrified that the moment indigenous rights movements in the Americas and Oceania start making practical strides in Land Back, regaining rightful control over the ways your own land is used, you'll all be labelled as "colonizers" or "imperialists" or whatever the bad buzz word of the month turns out to be.

People simply can't wrap their heads around the idea that indigenous decolonization doesn't have the end goal of ethnically cleansing non-native people from the Americas. And it's because they're so absorbed in colonial thinking. They can't even fucking imagine what sovereignty could look like beyond an authoritarian structure based on control and violence. It's the same with Israel and Palestine-- they think that Jewish sovereignty must look like complete Jewish control to the detriment of Arabs, and they think Palestinian sovereignty must look like total Arab control to the detriment of Jews. The idea that a shared state or a two-state solution is "racist" stems from that false dichotomy.

Establishing an ideological binary of violence that pits "indigenous" against "colonizer", "native" against "settler", and "us" against "them" with no room for cooperation or collaboration is the core of colonialism. Because the core of colonialism is the idea that only one group can have true power at a time. And that's just not the way the world has to work.

[jewish-vents]

Don't ever forget that Israel's shitty government(s) has always been just a convenient excuse. Israel has done terrible things but it's never been about that. The moment goyim realised we were still alive (Insert Dara Horn quote here) and could fight back and be capable of wrong like all human beings, we became the enemy. We became the enemy when they realised we aren't just some sob story that they can cry about. Even if Israel had the best government in the world, they'd still hate us. Why? Because they want us to die at the hands of the Muslim extremists. They want us to die so they can cry about how oppressed we are and then die of guilt because all they ever do is feel guilty and let that control them. That's why they "care" about Palestinians and even Romani people. They see Palestinians as inherently weak, as they previously viewed us. They view them as inherently innocent and victims no matter what hence the fetishisation of their violence which then results in the extreme Hamas support that we are witnessing. They basically switched us out for Palestinians, hurting both groups. The Nakba replaces the Holocaust. They view Palestinian history the way they used to view Jewish history; as Palestinians being inherently unlucky and being violently oppressed for no reason all the time (I remember seeing goyim talk about us being treated badly in most countries and being "unlucky" and treated as this common boogeyman, many years ago).

Why hate this group? They've never done anything wrong! Is the way that they think. Now they see that we are human beings which means we are capable of doing bad things makes us evil and the Worst. I cannot stress this enough: Israel would always be seen as bad no matter what. Even if the history was different, the message is clear: JEWS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE MIDDLE EAST. We are meant to be slaughtered in Europe and that's it. I remember this "activist" tiktoker I used to follow. He posted a tiktok about how Germany should be split into two: one part being Germany and the next part being Israel. The logic is simple here. We are white Europeans and that's it. Additionally this removes the guilt of everyone else, especially the Middle East which prouldly supported Hitler. He even met with Muslim leaders.

According to everyone we must politely die without any inconvenience. The fact that the Nazis were portrayed as white worked in our favour. They pretended to care then. But once they realized our enemies, the ones who hate us so much they need to kill every single one of us and wipe up off this earth the same way they describe zionists and israel to be, were brown, they showed us who they truly are: they chose the brown side. We transformed into evil white people overnight. Why do you think almost every Jewish celeb has been accused of being a zionist? It's because everyone's becoming nazis. I don't use that word lightly. They're literally discovering that many in Hollywood are Jewish for the first time. They didn't care before. But they do now. It's angering them. They're thinking: why are so many Jews in powerful positions? They'e starting to think: this is not normal....the Jews are responsible for everything bad! Except they get to hide behind the word zionist. As a result Josh Shapiro gets singled out and had a reduced chance of being VP. Why do you think so many of them are now saying "Zionists control the media/the world/etc"? Because they're having their nazi phase (well here's to hoping and wishful thinking lmfao). How is this any different from white supremacists who angrily scream about how we control everything? Every time a big world event happens or anything happens tbh we get blamed by the progressives. We're getting blamed right now for white supremacists going on rampages throughout England. How dare they?! They use the words pogrom and nazi every second to describe what is happening in England right now. How dare they take our words and use them for everyone but us and then say we are the real nazis and the one and only evil in the world. And we're the colonisers?!

Lastly I cannot get rid of the bitter taste of irony. They are trying to paint Israel as the ultimate evil and the things they lie about Israel reflect what everyone has done to us. But they'll never see it because we're the ultimate oppressors.

Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism and Muslim countries banned her movies. Muslim countries have historically banned Holocaust movies. If you want to see real ethnic cleansing and genocide look at what the Jewish populations of Arab countries have been forced to experience.

We cannot afford to be trembling Jews with shaking knees. We must stand up for ourselves. No one else's gonna do it. All we have is ourselves. And our small but amazing allies of course. But it's limited. We need to support each other harder than ever. A Jewish American woman didn't feel safe as a Zionist abortion advocate. She then created her own space for Jews/Zionists. Of course gentiles harassed her. But our love will always be stronger than their hate. It's hard but stay safe. Have a weapon if you must. There's so little of us that they can overpower us as we've seen countless times especially recently. We need to fight back. We cannot afford to be cowards.

LOVE YOU ALL

.

[hero-israel]

I was relating it to something so know. YOU do not want to risk living in a majority Arab or Muslim country because of past actions, you point to these actions as proof that you need to have a form of control over them. So you are okay with their murder. You are okay with the fact that you moved yourselves onto their land and kicked them out. You are okay with the fact that you basically have them behind a militarized wall. Going through all that does not mean you are incapable of doing the same. Or that just because you have not done the exact same or the same amount of time that your actions are not bad. I am ethnically Jewish (not practicing) tho it’s not significant enough in my life for me to claim it as a cultural identity on my father’s side and my step father is Jewish but he’s now anti-religion (He’s on Israel’s side). My cultural upbringing… well I’m a poc and I spent years going to Holocaust memorials, I learned Jewish customs, our family friends were Jewish, and I read Jewish stories/watched the films. Media consumption? All the media I’ve consumed said that Palestinians where the problem because they refused to accept Israel and that Muslims where all terrorists (I grew up post 911). At no point did I ever say I was okay with the massacre of Jewish people or that it was understandable. I feel fine being critical of what you tell me because I know you aren’t saying the whole truth. You are still playing the role of the perfect victim. Everything has been done to you and you have done nothing back.

just because you have not done the exact same or the same amount of time that your actions are not bad

The amount of history that this sentence attempts to wave away.... No. No, that simply won't do.

I showed you dozens of examples of centuries of torture, oppression, and massacres of Jews in Arab / Muslim societies, culminating in the complete and recent destruction of 3,000-year-old Jewish civilization in all MENA countries, and you just breeze by them with no real consideration at all. You have repeatedly mentioned slave revolts because the slaves had good reason to defend themselves. Does the need for self-defense vanish when it's Jewish self-defense? Why can you tolerate violence in slave uprisings, but not in Jews trying to prevent their extermination? Cut us, maybe we don't bleed.

Your final comment of "Everything was done to you, you have done nothing back" likewise disregards the lopsided history and unequal stakes of oppression and loss. There are exactly zero countries where Arabs or Muslims have been reduced to nothing and their histories ended by Jews. Israel has a 20% Arab minority, in most MENA countries you can't even find 20 Jews. Israel is the only regional country that has any diversity, pluralism, and tolerance, instead of an unnatural Nebraska-cornfield ethnic monoculture. How much structural racism, how much systematic violence and hate, does a country need to have for it to EVEN BE POSSIBLE to physically wipe out a minority? With all of America's fucked-up racial problems, do you think they could physically push out the African-Americans or Latinos today if they wanted to? Yet you look at the Middle East and, one after another, the Jews are gone, the Jews are gone, the Jews are gone. You say you are not okay with Jewish massacres, well, I'm glad to hear that, but you don't seem to appreciate that those were the actual stakes. If your enemy says their goal is your extinction, and you survive, then yeah, maybe you do put up a wall and they have to stay on their side of it. Boo and furthermore hoo.

As for "being okay with murder" - forget slave revolts, I'm certainly fine with abolishing slavery altogether and I suspect you are too. That required killing over 600,000 people in 4 years. The combined all-sides grand total death count of the Zionist / Arab conflict is about 120,000 in 140 years. Are you "okay" with the American Civil War taking place, even though Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and all the other imperfect, morally compromised things Confederate LARPers complain about?

Overall I detect a strongly binary way of thinking, that Jewish people / institutions can only be seen as worth physical protection if they are perfect, if they have never harmed anyone, even if the options the world presents to us are Jewish people / institutions as they are or their continued, repeated disappearance. You were never promised better Jews or a better Israel, and you may not shift the goalposts on how we resist those who would repeat our genocide. I am fully comfortable in saying we are morally superior to our enemies. The fact that we still have living enemies proves that.

[ahaura]

??? Also are you implying that Hamas never misfired and accidentally bombs Gaza?? An extremely well documented, recorded fact??? With videos of bombs heading toward Israel falling and missing their targets??? Like. Why are you people desperately slobbering for a bloodthirsty Jew image. Sometimes Hamas accidentally bombs itself and its citizens. That is a fact.

the fact of the matter is that hamas does not have that kind of fire power. misfired rockets have happened, yes, but only israel has the fire power to blow up a hospital and kill 500-1,000 people. also the idea that people are trying to "paint jewish people in a bad light" does not apply when

israeli officials LITERALLY called palestinians HUMAN ANIMALS

the israeli state and western media apparatus have so thoroughly dehumanized palestinians that the idea of 2.2 million people trapped in an open air prison 25 miles long when they have been starved, abused, beaten, murdered, and oppressed does not bother the majority of western nations.

it's pretty antisemitic to assume that israel represents all jewish people. it's fucking antisemitic to say that israel = jewish people. especially when jewish anti-zionist activists exist and are actively putting their bodies on the line protesting with allies as the genocide continues. the idf regularly harasses anti-zionist israeli citizens. don't do jewish people the gross disservice of saying or implying israel represents them.

the fact that you think this is a "jewish vs muslim" issue shows that you fundamentally do not understand that israel is a settler colony who murdered and displaced the palestinian people - often times bulldozing or living in the VERY HOMES THEY LIVED IN. this is an issue of settlers vs. indigenous people. prior to british colonialism in the region, christians, muslims, and jewish people lived in the region peacefully. there are jewish and christian palestinians but the israeli state doesn't care. the israeli state has done nothing but brutalize, murder, imprison, and displace palestinians since the state's inception. or do you think that palestinians willingly left their home and just fell over and died in 1948? when zionist forces with the aid of the british army either expelled or massacred entire villages?

on second thought dont answer that. you'll only justify apartheid and utilize racist and orientalist language and say "hamas is using human shields!!!1" and how it's arab people's fault there isn't any peace and that they should just lay down and let the israeli state kill them and their families.

also hamas is literally an invention of the israeli state. hamas as it exists now is entirely the israeli state's fault.

i will not debate the humanity of people who are currently undergoing genocide by a fascist regime who claims to speak for and act on the behalf of all jewish people who has been subjecting palestinians to an apartheid since 1948. under apartheid all violence that occurs is the fault of the state, even if the oppressed engage in violent action. i am NOT saying that people should have died; i am saying that what happened on oct. 7 was inevitable . the israeli state chose fasicsm and apartheid and has now escalated to genocide.

the israeli state does not care about you. the state does not care about jewish people. if they cared about the safety and security of their citizens there would be no apartheid, no settler colonialism, no second-class citizenry. violence always begets violence; the violence of the apartheid is the DIRECT cause of what happened on oct. 7. the far-right government, including netanyahu and gvir, are squarely to blame.

the way to peace - to prevent ALL deaths - is to end the genocide, end the occupation, end settler colonialism, and end the apartheid. to make everyone equal citizens under a secular government and make restitution to palestinians and for everyone responsible for civilian deaths to be jailed. you cannot have peace if the violence of apartheid and oppression continue.

[eye-in-hand]

Fighting against, and standing up to antisemitism is very important to me. Not just because racism in all of its forms is vile and should be called out, but because antisemitism is something that's affected me very personally.

I talked a little bit about this in my why I'm converting post, but to keep it simple. I was raped by a neo-nazi who kept me isolated, forced me to be financially dependent on him, targeted me when I was 17 years old, kept me in his basement, physically abused me, among other things - because he thought I was Jewish. I am not ethnically Jewish. I'm English and Rusyn. However my entire life I've been perceived as Jewish. It got me bullied, abused, and raped.

So of fucking course when some idiot shows their ass in the one fandom space I had, about how they're sooo antiracist, sooo not bigoted, they just don't want jews, I mean zionists, in their space, of fucking course it's going to make me angry. Of fucking course I'm going to talk about it. Of fucking course I'm fucking disgusted.

It's not my fault these people fell down the rabbit hole of Russian and Iranian propaganda. It's not my fault these people think they get to tell Jews what Zionism means, or automatically assume that not advocating for the genocide of Jews, or being pro- the country where 50% of the Jews (and about 100% of the Jews from the MENA region) live must mean I support killing Palestinians. Or it means that I support genocide. It isn't my fault. Yet I, and other Jews, pay the punishment for it.

No. I don't support genocide. Of any group of people. I don't support violence towards other people based on where they happened to live or what race they happen to be. I don't support imperialism when it's done by anyone. And I FULLY SUPPORT the right of indigenous peoples to have self determination on their native land.

And if you have a problem with that, you have a lot of history to learn, a lot of bigotry to unpack, and a lot of shutting up to fucking do.

I support a two state solution because it's the ONLY way I can see peace happening in an area of the world that has been filled with blood shed for thousands of years. But at the end of the day, I'm a western convert, and my opinion on the Middle East is not as important as people who live there. And there are Israelis and Palestinians who are doing much more for peace than reblogging scam donation posts, supporting Hamas, or harassing Jews online and kidding themselves into thinking they're on the side standing against bigotry. And I support those people. Jew, Arab, or otherwise.

I do not support ignorant fuckwads who think they understand a conflict that doesn't affect them. I do not support ignorant fuckwads who think they get to tell a minority group they are not a part of what that minority group's words mean. I do not support historical revisionism, conspiracy theories, or advocating for the genocide of ANYONE.

And if you have an issue with a Jew telling you that what you're saying is antisemitic, when MULTIPLE JEWS ALL OVER THE INTERNET, have said that the movement you're supporting advocates for the death of all Jews, YOU ARE A RACIST BIGOT. You are the racist bitch you say you hate. You are not immune to bigotry. You are not immune to propaganda. You are not helping anyone with your self righteous virtue signaling slacktivism. You are pathetically ignorant. And I'd feel fucking bad for you if you weren't digging your heels in refusing to acknowledge that you have fucked up.

I don't feel bad for Nazis. I don't feel bad for people who throw Jewish lives away. I don't feel bad for people who throw Palestinian lives away. I have no sympathy for bigots.

By the way, that post wasn't even fucking about you. It says more about you thinking my calling someone out for being racist was about you than it does about me. But this post is about you, and it's the only one you're fucking getting from me. Go fuck yourself.

I know what Nazis sound like. And you sound just fucking like him.

This isn't some stupid fandom drama or some stupid fight between people that hung out in a stupid discord. This is shit that affects real people's lives, and you're perpetuating violence. Disgusting.

[stephobrien]

I’m coming from my vent account because I don’t want to get found out as a Jew on my main. Please, please stop posting in the antisemitism tag. You’re clogging it up and taking away a safe space for Jews by trying to delegitimise Jew hatred. Now, I don’t know if you’re good faith or not, but I’m leaning on no. You keep on going onto posts about Jew hatred from Jews, saying what boils down to ‘wow! I’ve learned so much from this!’ and then you go back to posting inflammatory things again. I mean, you posted something from Caitlin Johnstone, I can’t believe that you give a single shit about Jews (or Ukrainians) after that

As for your most recent post on how poor you just can’t believe lying Jews when we talk about discrimination because you’re scared we’re deceiving you, you put in a comment ‘If I'd seen said Arab nations' governments massacring thousands of civilians, while painting every single criticism of said massacre as Islamophobic, yes, I would have’. This is… I don’t even know how to tackle this, do you genuinely not know all of the horrific shit so many of the Arab states have done? Qatar is known as one of the biggest countries of modern slavery. The Houthis in Yemen sex traffic Ethiopian women, and also reintroduced slavery into Yemen. Just look at the atrocities so many of these countries have committed against Shia Muslims! Is your brain mush, how can you say this when there is so, so much evidence of the horrors that these nations have committed?! And if you think these states graciously accept criticism of those horrors… you’re being ignorant on purpose. And it’s still not okay to say that you don’t believe an Arab when they talk about anti Arab racism that they’ve experienced, I think we can at least agree on that. So why’s it not the same for Jews?

For a more personal example to Jews, look up the Mizrachi expulsion. The Arab states violently expelled almost a million Jews from their countries ‘because Israel’, which they only care about because it ruined their dream of pan Arabism, not because of any solidarity with the Arabs in the mandate btw. My family was lucky, we came from Iran, which is not Arab, so the violence was coming from the people rather than the state itself. But I’ve had to heard accounts from people talking about how they watched their family get shot in the head while their homes were repossessed for no reason other than the fact they were Jews. Is that bad enough for you? Does it even make a dent in your image of the Arab states? Or is it okay because it happened to Jews?

I know I sound very angry in this, and that’s because I am very angry. And that anger is completely justified! My life, and the lives of almost every Jew on this disgusting website, have been beyond horrible for five months. The number of times I’ve had to read about a new Jew hating shooting or stabbing in the world is too many too count. And then, non Jews like you decide to play the ‘oops, I just caaaan’t believe those Jews about Jew hatred because they could be zionists!’ (Which are around eighty percent of the Jewish population, but I don’t think you’re ready for that conversation yet, it’s reserved for people who actually want to learn). All of us are so unimaginably angry. All of us are at our fucking breaking point, or we’ve completely snapped already! The people you have interacted with have been some of the kindest, most levelheaded people here, but you’d better not get used to it, because we’re all tired of this bullshit

Thank you for taking the time to call me out. Between you and the several other people who contacted me about this, I’ve come to realize that that post was a terrible mistake.

It was meant to be a vent post about people who deliberately blur the lines around what’s actually antisemitism, and about my lack of certainty about my own ability to independently assess the less obvious instances of that (which is clearly still very lacking, as the response to that post made clear to me).

But it apparently caught a lot of innocent Jews in the crossfire, making them feel unsafe, unheard, and delegitimized. That wasn’t the intention, but it was clearly the effect. I screwed up badly, and I’m sorry.

I admittedly don’t know all the details about the horrific shit Arab nations have done. I was aware of Iraq’s government mass murdering protesters, and Saudi Arabia’s horrifically sexist laws, but some of the info you shared in this post is stuff I hadn’t previously heard of.

As for why I mentioned false accusations of antisemitism specifically, it’s because that’s the one I’ve seen several times a day lately, sometimes in the form of stuff like telling people who protest child murder that “You just don’t like it when Jews defend themselves.”

That said, you and the other people who responded have made it clear to me that that focus was based on an overly narrow view on my part. I’ve been more active in pro-Palestine circles than in circles that focus on the other situations you mentioned, so naturally that resulted in me seeing more antisemitism accusations than accusations focused on groups that aren’t directly involved in that conflict. So that resulted in a less than balanced viewpoint.

While my vent post was meant to be about one specific phenomenon I’d personally seen a lot of, the fact that I didn’t mention similar behavior on the part of groups I hadn’t personally seen as much of that behavior from did result in it being unjustly targeted, in a way I didn’t intend but should’ve assessed better.

What happened to you and other Jews at the hands of Arab nations (and pretty much every nation) was absolutely not okay. The effect my post had on you and other Jews who saw it was not okay. The treatment you’ve endured on Tumblr is not okay. And I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.

You have every right to be angry at me. I won’t ask you to forgive me or trust me, because I know I earned your anger with that poorly thought out post. I shouldn’t have made my own insecurities and frustrations other people’s problem like that. I screwed up badly, and I’m sorry.

[perfectlyvalid49]

Sometimes I feel like this blog is more Judaism focused than I really want it to be. Like, I am Jewish, but that’s only one aspect of my personality. I’m also interested in politics and linguistics and nerdy pop culture stuff and a whole bunch of other things. And I want this blog to have space for all of that.

So when I spent a ton of time late last week fighting with an antisemite, I told myself that when I was done with him (or as it turns out, when he was done with me), I’d take a break from posting about Jewish issues for a bit. Just like, a week where I’m just reblogging stuff that makes me laugh or an interesting language fact or something like that. Y’know, happy stuff.

He blocked me Friday, and on Saturday, Hamas attacked. And I’ve got a big mouth, so I can’t not say anything. Maybe when this is all resolved I can post happy stuff, but for right now, I need a place to talk, even though I’m struggling with what to say.

I guess the first thing I should say is that I feel terrible about what’s happening. Because what’s happened so far is bad, and what will happen next is even worse. Israel will take its vengeance; innocent Palestinians will die. The friends and families of the victims on both sides will be radicalized and the violence will continue. I hate it and it’s stupid and I wish there was an easy way to stop it and I know that there isn’t.

And I want to say that I support the Palestinian people. The way that Israel treats the Palestinians in Gaza is inhumane – it shouldn’t be allowed! But Israel treats them that way because before they did, you couldn’t get on a bus in Israel without worrying about being blown up. That shouldn’t be allowed either! Everything is complicated. Both sides are full of people who just want to live in peace who are being screwed over by a minority who won’t be happy until the other side is gone. Both sides have valid points, both sides have done terrible things. Anyone who is telling you that it isn’t complicated is either woefully uneducated about the history of the conflict, thinks one side does not deserve fundamental human rights, or both.

And after saying all that, I guess that I should make it clear that I’m still a Zionist – I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a self-determined state, and I think that Israel is probably the best place for it (I did not say a good place, I just don’t think there’s a better one. The best of a bunch of bad options is still the best). Having said that I’m a Zionist, I still hate what Israel’s government is doing and has been doing. Netanyahu is a monster. You can disagree with a country’s government and still think it has a right to exisit.

If you think that all Zionists are evil (and you’re still reading this), then tell me a better solution. Where should Jews go to be safe from governmental persecution? Or should they be denied that? If so, why?

And that’s the other thing I want to talk about. Every Jew I know is watching this with feelings of grief and horror, and the response from the left seems to be some variation on, “Israeli civilians deserved this,” “go back to where you came from,” or “terrorism is OK, actually, as long as it’s against a colonizer state (but not the one I live in).” And it’s soul-crushing. It is possible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, but it seems like right now people aren’t even trying. The only good Jew is a dead Jew, and now that there are a bunch of dead Jews, everyone is celebrating.

I keep thinking about this video that I watched at school when I was a kid about the conflict. It was probably the mid 90s and the video showed Arab and Israeli kids playing together with a voice over from an interview with one of their moms. And I remember her saying that the kids playing together was good because then they would be friends, and when they got older they wouldn’t want to fight each other because they would remember that they were friends. I know now that it was probably a propaganda video, but that’s still what I want. I want leadership for Gaza that isn’t a terrorist organization, I want leadership for Israel that isn’t a far right authoritarian nightmare, I want Palestinians to not be locked behind a wall, I want Israelis who don’t have drills for when the rockets come. I want everyone – EVERYONE – to be able to live a life in peace and I want two little boys with different backgrounds and religions that both include a history in Israel to be able to play in a field by a river and be friends.

And if you don’t want that? Fuck you.

[alaskan-wallflower]

I totally agree with your post on censorship of Israel and Palestine. Obviously what is happening between them right now and tragic and disgusting. Lately people have been grouping all Jewish people into being zionists which is so harmful, I’m Jewish and my father was beaten in the city to the point where he was hospitalised just because he was wearing the Star of David. I was with him when it happened, he didn’t do anything aside from being Jewish, my family isn’t even from Israel, we are in full support of Palestine but people want to label us Zionist for a culture we were born into. Jewish and Israeli people can’t control their heritage and calling all of them zionists for it is insane, real zionists are terrifying and to throw the term Zionist around waters down the impact of them. They want to erase history of Jewish people and make us collectively look bad, comparing current tragedies to the holocaust, no violence should ever be compared like it’s a competition. Of course there are Jewish people who are bad and hold radical beliefs but that also goes for every other culture, ethnicity, and religion. I do not condone Israel’s actions in any way but I strongly disagree with showing prejudice towards Jewish and Israeli people who have nothing to do with the war and do not support it.

Tw Antisemitism, politics mentions of the Israel/Palestine conflict, read at your own risk. Come after me all you want. I don’t care. But I need to talk about this because it’s important.

First off, I’m so sorry that that happened to your family. Nobody deserves that at all. I send my deepest condolences and I hope that your father (and the rest of your family) is okay. It is absolutely disgusting that that happened. I’m assuming by ‘the city’ you mean NYC, and I know that antisemitic hate crimes have risen 200%, and it’s just vile, especially because Jews in places nowhere even near Israel are hiding blamed. It’s not their fault.Its not even the Israelites’ faults. It’s the Israeli government’s fault.

Secondly, I agree whole heartedly. There are good Jewish people in Israel. Good, innocent Jewish people who haven’t done anything wrong and absolutely do not deserve to be censored. Although I do not condone what is going on there right now, I absolutely do not condone October 7th either. You could argue that none of this would have happened if October 7th never happened. If you’re gonna talk politics, you have to look at both sides, not just the one you support. That goes for any politics, be it this, your position on the left/right spectrum, whatever. You have to look at both sides.

Words can’t even describe just how awful it is that Jewish people in places that have nothing to do with Israel are being blamed and harassed mot just on the internet, but in r3al life too. Watching it just makes me feel sick. Again, while I do not and will not ignore the fact that what the Israeli government has decided to do is absolutely disgusting and tragic, I also cannot and will not ignore the fact that innocent people are being labeled such harmful terms and their voices aren’t being heard. That’s like saying every American ever is anti immigrant or that every American in the world supports what’s going on in the government there, albeit on a much less extreme scale.

But yes. I absolutely don’t think that Israel should be censored while Palestine isn’t. If you want to censor one you gotta censor the other. What happened with me was that the person said they n didn’t want pro Israel people finding my post’. The thing is I don’t care who sees my posts. People aren’t always going to agree with me and my opinions and that’s fine. People aren’t always going to enjoy what I say. But I can take it. I don’t need a group of people to be censored for the sole sake of ‘protecting me from “the bad guys”’ (putting that in HEAVY quotes).

Again. I’m so sorry that that’s happening to you and other people on the internet. I’ve seen it happen. One blog I like in particular had been labeled a Zionist when they aren’t. And I feel awful for them because it isn’t fair. They’ve never even indicated that they are. In fact they’ve heavily denied it and I feel awful that so many people get this sort of traction on the internet. Everyone deserves to feel safe online, including Jewish people.

I don’t expect anyone to really listen to me though. I myself am not Jewish so take what I say with that in mind. I’m also a technical minor and nobody listens to minors so you know. People are probably not gonna care about what I say. But I’ll still say it because I wanna raise awareness

(Sorry for the rant)

[notetaeker]

Regarding the shift of focus of your blog, I just wanted to thank you for doing that.

Your posts were the first to introduce me to the other side of the story, and make me aware of the horrific and indescribable violence inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Zionists. I’m ashamed to admit that up until that point I was blind to all of it, from start to finish. The mainstream media had a firm grip on me with regards to this issue, even though I tend to read multiple news sources and generally consider myself media-literate. Clearly, media literacy isn’t enough, if 95% of the media is supporting genocide and spreading lies.

That is to say, what you’re doing here is important. If it weren’t for you, I probably would’ve carried on in ignorance. Thanks to liking your posts the algorithm has now suggested me a few other related posts from creators I never would’ve found otherwise, since they exist outside of my narrow areas of interest (studyblr, notebooks, stationary, art).

I am so sorry for what you’re going through. My heart goes out to you and everyone affected.

No omg don’t feel ashamed! As you said it is the tight grip of the media. Especially if you don’t have exposure to the communities that are talking about the other side not mentioned by the news. It’s so deeply ingrained in us that news is supposed to be unbiased and include both sides of the story that we don’t notice when it’s not (we automatically assume it is true because that is what we expect of news)

As for me, my palestinian friends would tell me stories of their families, how houses of people they knew were crushed by the colonizers bulldozers, humiliation they themselves experienced at Isr*eli checkpoints and the fear. Oh God the fear of making a mistake. And I was in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL hearing all of this so it has always stayed with me.

I think this issue is crystal clear for anyone who looks up the information. Even just looking at things like accounts from people who live on each side it becomes so clear. But that’s the thing they add labels and bad words so that you don’t want to support them. Like who wants to support terrorists? barbarians? antisem*tics? No one.

But if you go deeper than labels, for example for anti-semitism, you see that many diaspora Jews condemn Israel. Some Isr*eli citizens themselves don’t agree with the violent settler colonialism of the Isr*eli government. Many Isr*elis aren’t even practicing Jews- it’s not Judaism that is the problem- it never was. It’s not even a Muslim-Jewish “religious” conflict- Isr*el has displaced half the Christian Palestinian population of West Jerusalem as well. Muslims don’t hate Jews, in fact, a quick check into history reveals that Jews have always thrived under Muslim rule and often sought to live under Muslim rule themselves because of the violent history of antisemitism from christians!

And all of that is needed JUST to dismantle the way a single word is used to label the issue. So who would go out of their way to do that research? That’s what the oppressors are banking on.

Don’t be ashamed at all, I applaud you actually. It takes actual concern for your fellow humans to look past those labels and find out what’s really going on. I do always say that it’s the least we can do, and that we owe it to the civilians suffering on both sides to find the truth, but in reality no one does it, so it is a very commendable task that you have actually done. I applaud you for having the courage to question what you believe. It is a powerful thing 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[nothingbuttrashhere]

Sometimes Jewish Zionists reblog my posts to be angry at me and I always have mixed feelings.

What the hostages went through at the hands of Hamas was horrific. However, there is no denying that what Netanyahu has done is disproportionate in the same way that the US’s response to 9/11 was disproportionate.

I honestly feel bad for Israel, being caught in the power of a relentless war-mongering dictator is something I am (as a US citizen) intimately familiar with. And Netanyahu is clearly using the genocide to prolong his time in power (just like G.W. Bush used the conflict he kicked off to keep himself popular and in power).

That said?

The deaths of countless children and civilians is wrong and Israel has a long history of violence against Palestinians. I remember coming across articles going back to the 1990s (this probably goes back further) describing horrific violence and aggression. There is no defending the actions of Israel against civilian Palestinians. It should not be controversial to say a state should not commit atrocities on any other ethnic group or nation.

I’m afraid I am not going to shut the fuck up.

That said, antisemitism by the left is unacceptable when there are entire churches full of Christian Zionists in the USA who have been funding war and conflict in the Middle East for a very long time. And the fact that the left is so quick to overlook the complicity of American evangelicals in this genocide is despicable. It is a blatant attempt to shift a great deal of blame from the people at home who are bear a great share of the responsibility for this genocide to those who, without the support and political advocacy of those groups, might not be able to do half as much damage as they will be able to do otherwise.

These are the same groups that advocate for violence against minorities, queer people, and disabled people. These are the same groups giving money to the Republican Party in an effort to create a christofascist state.

Anyway, I am not someone a Jewish Zionist should follow. I think Netanyahu is a tool of US conservatives and I have no kind words for anyone who thinks repeated 9/11 in another context is a good idea.

Block me for your mental health.

[steampunkforever]

I feel I've often been quoted as saying that propaganda films should at least be well done. Usually I level this at military propaganda or films directed by people who think they're Micheal Tomasky and Adam McKay's long lost child. Which is to say, people justifying the countless foreign and domestic human rights abuses of the GWOT and also Ivy Leaguers with heads too far up their own diplomas to understand how American social issues might cause people to (*scandalized gasp*) vote Republican.

Of course most of my critiques are aimed at bad political soapboxing and movies where cops/soldiers violate constitutional rights/commit war crimes. Simply put, there are more bad propaganda films than good ones. Preaching is best left in the pulpit, and is worst when shoehorned into the narrative rather than into the subtext. Because of this, we rarely see a well done propaganda film, but if we're looking for one, Steven Spielberg's 2005 film "Munich" is a pristine example.

Quick sidebar: Spielberg is Jewish, despite the viral post referencing his ownership of MLK's speeches calling him white, and his political leanings reflect Zionist attitudes. In the conversation of Jewish history within media and entertainment, the conclusions often go ugly places regarding who controls the establishment and pushes narratives. To that point, one should be careful when discussing media narratives about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

As far as those media narratives go, Munich is much more nuanced than I expected. This is a film about the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics, in which Palestinian terrorist group Black September massacred 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and were subsequently hunted down and executed by secret Israeli hit squads for their participation in the massacre. No need to get too sympathetic for the guys who tossed grenades into helicopters full of handcuffed hostages.

For a film about murdering terrorists, Munich is surprisingly good at giving the other side a chance to state its motivations. I'm sure that if you're pro-Palestinian it's not a satisfying representation of the Palestinian viewpoint, but for outright propaganda I'd say this was still a pretty solid dialogue between ideologies. Paired with the narrative's acknowledgement that much of this Israeli savagery was neither morally correct nor wholly warranted, and I will say I was impressed with how subtly Spielberg managed what could have just been "the IDF does John Wayne's Green Beret."

Subtlety only goes so far in propaganda, I will admit. At the tail end of the film, we witness two key conversations that spell out the movie's final conclusion. The first, between the protagonist and his mother, concludes with the assertion that for Jews to find a place they can be safe, they must forcibly take and hold it. The second conversation, held between the protagonist and his Mossad handler in what is the final scene of the film, assures us that the violence was simply a nasty inevitability. This is the takeaway of the film: It's worth it, and they had it coming.

Maybe those specific guys did deserve it. I would also assassinate terrorists killing my countrymen, even if they really were "doing an anti-imperialism." Except propaganda requires context, and Munich entered production in the middle of the Second Intifada, the conflict that set conditions for the current Israeli apartheid state as we know it. This is the context Munich speaks to.

"It was worth it." "They deserved it." The final shot of the film, a pan up from the final conversation, pulls out wide and holds on a view of the World Trade Center's twin towers. The connections Spielberg makes here are clear. Either way you read it, it's an ugly piece of propaganda. It's also incredibly well done.

[writingmyheartoutforyou]

Just saw someone tag a post about the rise in antisemitic violence with something along the lines of "don't let Zionists dictate how we talk about antisemitism".

Which given that like 90% of Jews consider themselves Zionist in some way, essentially is telling Jews they can't tell non-Jews what antisemitism even is.

Like, I shouldn't have to explain why this is a bad take, right??? How can we even begin to tackle this problem, when there are people who want to define antisemitism down until it's completely meaningless?

Speaking as someone who is not Jewish; I think dictating how a group should respond to the oppression and rising hate crimes they're going through, is bad. I don't think we should do it. I'm tired of seeing people trying to gaslight the Jewish community over the very real rise in hate crimes and violence done against them. Don't tell a group you are not a part of how they should be reacting to crimes done against them. Don't tell them the things happening to their community are justified because you happen to dislike a country on the other side of the planet.

If you're gut reaction to seeing someone posting about how antisemitism is on the rise is to try and justify the antisemitism, then you need to step the hell away from people and do some self-reflection. You are not a safe person to be around, because if you can justify antisemitism, what else are you capable of justifying.

[jewishvitya]

Another thing is. I hope this will be understood the way I intend it, with the context of my other posts. Nothing I'm saying is meant to justify Israeli abuses. It's all inexcusable, from the start decades ago.

I see a post going around with essentially, "if the state of Israel was founded in response to the holocaust, why did zionism start so much earlier."

This framing makes it sound like antisemitism started and ended with the holocaust, which is not the case. Because the holocaust was a huge and significant event in terms of the ability of the zionist movement to achieve its goal of a Jewish state. But it isn't so much a response to the holocaust itself. For a lot of people who joined the movement, it's a response to antisemitism more broadly.

There were several schools of thought in Jewish communities. The zionist movement was one. Or several, depending how you look at it. It's a complicated ideology with schools of thought. And other Jews wanted to stay where they were and fight bigotry where they were, make us a home in any country among any group of people, like many other minorities are working towards.

The holocaust made the zionist movement stronger, because many people became refugees and were basically taken to the only place they were allowed to go, and many others came out of it thinking "the other ideas failed, we can't fight antisemitism where we are, we can't defend ourselves without our own state and our own army." And it's still a belief that holds firm in many Jewish communities. When you hear a Jewish person who isn't Israeli saying "if Israel doesn't exist, where will I live," I saw people respond like it's silly, like "what do you mean, you'll still live where you live now." But they don't mean now, they mean in case they have to run from violence again. We don't trust other countries to take us in as refugees and keep us safe.

The response shouldn't be "your worry is silly," the response should be... work with Jewish people to make sure we're safe everywhere, without it being at the expense of another group of people because that can't be the solution. Reimagining safety for Jewish people requires non-Jews to take our safety seriously.

I see a lot of responses that act like antisemitic violence is just in our minds, or like it's not that serious. All while Jewish people in different countries are living through an escalation of it, with the understanding of how bad it can get fresh in our minds.

I got some backlash for saying in a previous post that this isn't the time to stay quiet, Palestinian people are dying, and I stand by that. And I also said to be careful about what you're saying. I mentioned right-wing grifters using the situation to normalize antisemitic conspiracy theories, and sensationalized speculations and overblown stories spreading fast. I said this with the understanding that I won't be perfect myself, and I don't expect perfection against the stream of mixed information and misinformation, I just want people to try.

I didn't expect it to have much impact because I'm no one, I don't have any real influence. I just don't think people are being careful and it's scary to see.

How long will people have in their mind the idea of Ashkenazi Jews being white Europeans with no real connection to our actual ancestry. Or the idea of Jews being so rich that we all have dual citizenships and houses in multiple countries, instead of many being refugees and their children. Or that "Jewish sex trafficking rings" were proven because of the responses to the digging at that synagogue. Or that Jewish world domination is proven because that's how many people decided to interpret the reason Israel had international support from some powerful countries.

How is any of this helpful to oppose Israel. Does violent occupation become a problem only when you proved that it's done by an entire ethnicity of world-dominating rich white sex traffickers who fake the oppression of their people worldwide.

"I'm anti-zionist, not antisemitic" doesn't work together with "a group of Jews digging to expand a synagogue illegally? Must be a sex-trafficking tunnel." Seeing people who have been posting information about Palestine and gaining a following and seen as credible, and then sounding completely like Qanon conspiracy theorists.

[perfectlyvalid49]

I just want to say that your words about feeling like you yourself are becoming radicalized resonated with me. I was already growing fed up with the current state of leftism and this just seems the last straw. The black and white thinking, the purity culture, the blood thirst – I’m just done.

I’m not even Jewish in any meaningful way (my mom hid/disavowed that part of her ancestry growing up in the soviets). I’m just a very mixed queer person whose ethnicity is best described as ‘uhhh.’ But my social circle has always been largely Jewish, and recently many of said social circle have had to up and leave their home country. In many cases, Israel was their only option. So seeing thousands of people who are supposedly on my side thoughtlessly chant ‘from the river to the sea’ just broke me. Seeing people try to prove that it’s not antisemitic has been mind-boggling. “It doesn’t explicitly call for violence against Jewish people.” Well, nor does ‘Jews will not replace us,’ and yet…

I deleted my social media at a really low point, and now that I’m back I find myself mostly following Jewish blogs. And I feel my worldview shifting because where before I had hopes that things that frustrate me on the left could maybe be fixed, now I no longer think it’s fixable.

Sorry for rambling from this Schrödinger’s gentile

Hi Anon,

I’m glad I could write something that spoke to you.

Before this blog became so focused on the conflict in Israel, I talked a lot about US politics, a topic I’ve been interested in since I was in middle school (I’m weird and nerdy – get over it). And to be clear, I’m “old” for the internet, so middle school means the 1996 presidential election, which I remember discussing with my friends at lunch (they were also weird and nerdy, there’s a reason we were friends).

So when I say that I’ve been watching other people get radicalized for a long time, I mean it. I’ve watched friends fall into information silos and have felt helpless to stop it. I mean, the best man at my (very Jewish!) wedding is now a trad-Cath who thinks I’m going to hell because I refuse to accept Jesus into my life.

There has always been an antisemitism problem on the left. You can scroll through just about any blog on jumblr and look at posts prior to October and you can see that we were all bitching about it before the 7th. I’m not sure if it has actually gotten worse or if it’s just more obvious now, but we can say they seem radicalized now. Honestly, there’s nothing I can do about it, because they certainly aren’t going to listen to me – I’m a filthy (((Zionist))) after all.

But there’s at least a handful of Jewish people who are listening to me. I’ve picked up a score of followers in the last few months, so clearly you all think what I have to say is worth reading, so read this: I worry that at least parts of the Jewish community are headed down a bad path and I don’t know what to do about it. I know why we are blocking and unfollowing so many – the things they say are hurtful at best and terrifying at worst. But it leaves us in a situation where it’s the same few voices being repeated over and over. It doesn’t mean that we are radicalized, but I worry that we’re headed toward an echo chamber at least, and that’s not good. I’ve left a lot of leftist spaces behind. I’d prefer to not have to do that with Jewish ones as well.

I don’t have a solution other than that we need to be really careful and think about how we’re thinking about things if that makes any sense. The example I gave last time was moving from “you can be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic” to “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” How did we make that move? Was it motivated by logic or emotion? It’s ok to change your stance, but with the way things are I think we really need to think about why we’re doing that, or it could lead to a bad place.

Back to the anon who is losing hope – that’s tough, and I can see why you feel that way. There are two thoughts that I repeat to myself to keep me hopeful. The first is that on a long enough timescale, things tend to improve. There’s lots of small steps forward and stumbling backwards, but overall we tend to move in the right direction. The other is that trying and failing and not trying at all have the same result. Maybe we won’t have a big effect. But if I can tell 30 people and even three of them can tell 30 people and so on, then maybe my words can reach at least one person and help them pull their heads out of their ass. And that’s better than nothing.

[nevermindirah]

Non-Jewish friends, y’all might be wondering right now: Israel is doing clearly unacceptable shit to Palestinians. So, why are some Jews ardent Zionists, and why do some Jews seem to feel personally attacked by criticism of Israel?

A lot of (non-Palestinian) non-Jews have asked me where I stand on Israel/Palestine over the years, apropos of nothing, just because I’m Jewish. For the longest time I felt so stuck because I just didn’t know much about Israel/Palestine and what little I did know turned out to be largely misinformation and I felt so much pressure to say The Correct Thing That All Jews Should Say About This Issue. Obviously the violence Israel is committing against Palestinians is horrific and the interpersonal weirdness individual Jews might experience as people discuss Israel’s horrific violence doesn’t compare. I’m making this post as a small supplement to the important conversations going on about what Israel is doing to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees and their descendants living outside land Israel controls. I’m making this post because non-Jews might be feeling confused by conflicting messages about Zionism as either settler colonialism or Jewish self-determination. It sucks feeling like you have to choose only one oppressed group or another. It’s possible to support Palestinian liberation and Jewish liberation at the same time! Here’s some context that might help.

Palestinian friends will probably want to ignore this post, y’all shouldn’t have to deal with your oppressors’ feelings, and especially not right now.

Zionism is the ideology behind the devastating violence Israel is committing against Palestinians right now and has been committing against Palestinians since 1947-48. It’s heartbreaking and messy to talk about this reality, because Zionism originated as a strategy to protect Jews from antisemitism.

Any oppressed group can turn into oppressors under enough pressure, because humans are flawed. Jews fleeing antisemitism turning into Israelis ethnically cleansing Palestinians happened because Zionism is profoundly influenced by its time and place of origin: 19th century Europe.

Europe invented antisemitism, and basically every European country has done at least one very very bad structural antisemitism, like expelling all the country's Jews (the monarch and/or the church then stole all the wealth the expelled people had to leave behind), looking the other way when peasants murdered a bunch of Jews as an outlet for their frustration with the actual (non-Jewish) ruling class, banning Jews from owning property or holding certain jobs or being members of guilds etc, and of course the big horrific state-sponsored mass-murder operations the Inquisition and the Holocaust. From the 1790s through the 19th century different European governments emancipated their Jews, ie removed legal barriers to full citizenship and economic participation. But this didn't end antisemitism. Just like the legal improvements of the 19th and 20th centuries didn't end antiblackness in the United States.

Also happening in this time: nationalism swept Europe. From the French Revolution through the end of World War I, Europe’s predominant form of government transformed from multiethnic empires to nation-states, countries led by and for a particular ethnic group.

So this Austro-Hungarian dude Theodor Herzl came up with this idea for Jewish nationalism. Every other European ethnic group is getting their own country, so why not Jews? Maybe this is the solution to antisemitism! Maybe we’ll finally be safe if we just all move en masse out of Europe to a place that will take all of us and never expel us!

But also also happening in Europe and around the world in this time: European imperialism and white supremacist settler colonialism. Chattel slavery saw its height and then its end (legally, at least) during this era, but white supremacy entrenched itself across the planet in post-slavery economic practices and cultural imperialism as well as national and international laws.

I believe countries have a moral obligation to take in as many refugees as they can squeeze in. International law protecting refugees has evolved a lot over the past century, but we’re still devastatingly far from every refugee getting a safe place to call home, and the main reason for that is white supremacy. The Biden administration didn’t undo the Trump administration’s horrifically low cap on refugees until like last week and it’s because Democratic party leaders treat centrist white people as more valuable voters than the huge and growing numbers of people of color, immigrants, LGBT people, unmarried women, and working class people who want to vote for elected leaders who get that nobody’s free until we’re all free. Ahem. Back to the topic at hand, the US and many other countries turned away untold numbers of refugees fleeing the fucking Holocaust, so odds are slim they’d be more welcoming in less desperate times. Moving from places where Jews are an unwanted minority to places where Jews are still a minority and either still unwanted or little understood and unlikely to win revolutionary levels of support from a largely non-Jewish public seems like a bad plan.

In the mid to late 19th century, lots of Jews took the kernel of Zionism and ran with it in different directions. Maybe this ideology could mean Jewish cultural flourishing alongside stronger political/economic integration into the societies where we’re already living! Maybe it could mean a particular kind of socialism that advocates for the liberation of Jews both as Jews and as workers! Maybe it could mean a revitalization of Jewish religious practice both in Jerusalem where we have important heritage sites and everywhere we live across the world!

Eventually Herzl’s vision of Zionism won out over the others: Jewish nationalism in the sense of a Jewish nation-state, a country that has a Jewish demographic majority and/or that legally privileges Jews over non-Jews.

Problem is, if you want to do that, you have to find a piece of land on which to do it, and Earth was already a pretty crowded place a hundred years ago. Many locations were considered, and the one that ended up winning that debate was Palestine. Where a shit ton of people, mostly non-Jews, were already living. They were forming their own nationalist movement at the time: in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire they began to organize for local self-determination in Palestine.

The Herzl types who developed Zionism as an ideology and built institutions to advocate for and create a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine were a small subset of European Jews, mostly men, mostly with significant economic privilege within what Jews were able to achieve in their particular societies at the time. They were just as Orientalist as the non-Jews around them, just as antiblack, just as racist generally for all that Jews were (and sometimes still are) considered non-white in much of Europe. They had a cool idea (put a lot of effort into something that could protect Jews from antisemitism) floating in a bathtub full of shit, and they did practically nothing to protect the cool idea from absorbing that shit. Results of this include thinking about the millions of people already living in Palestine as if they were either like the rocks and the trees that will go with the flow and accept a new ruling class, or indistinct Arabs who would just leave for other Arab countries because what could be the difference — in the staggeringly small amount of time they considered the existing residents of Palestine at all.

This racist hand-waving extended to Zionist leaders’ attitudes about Jews outside Europe as well. White Jews in settler colonies like the US were largely anti-Zionist at the time (not wanting their own countries to accuse them of dual loyalty was a common reason) but European Zionist leaders took what help they could get from Jews in the US, South Africa, Australia, etc. Jews across the Middle East and North Africa, however, barely heard from Zionist leaders about any of this until Zionist militias had removed enough Palestinians from the land and it was time to repopulate it with whichever Jewish bodies were convenient. You might have heard "all the Arab countries expelled their Jews in 1948" but lots of first-person accounts tell a different story of Israel coercing Jews who’d lived securely for a long time in places like Morocco to immigrate to Israel and then confiscating their passports and forcing them to live on less-fertile land with fewer resources while serving as a buffer between Palestinians and European Jewish immigrants. Ella Shohat is the best-known writer on Israeli racism against non-European Jews and I strongly recommend Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Perspective of Its Jewish Victims as a starting point to learn more about this.

Which brings us to today. We still haven’t eradicated antisemitism, several European governments that did a lot of structural antisemitism they still haven’t made meaningful reparations for get to feel good about themselves for “giving the Jews a state” as if carving up the former Ottoman Empire was up to them and not the people who lived there, and millions of people across the world who previously either lived peacefully enough alongside Jews or hadn’t really thought about us much at all now have very valid reasons to be pissed at this country that claims it represents all of us.

Zionism was supposed to protect Jews from antisemitism. And Israel has saved Jewish lives! But if we hadn’t sunk the past 70+ years into an ethnostate we could’ve been putting that energy into other political and economic activity to create adequate international support for refugees while we work on ending root causes of refugee crises, like antisemitism, racism, climate change, and capitalism. Meanwhile Zionism has killed, maimed, incarcerated, stolen from, traumatized, and erased the history of millions of Palestinians just because they happened to be living on land that some dudes who had a lot more in common with Thomas Jefferson and Donald Trump than with you or me decided needed to be cleansed for a Jewish ethnostate.

White nationalists in the US love Israel because they want American Jews to go away. Fascist leaders across Europe love Israel for the same reason, so much so that Israel’s prime minister is buddy-buddy with Trump and the equivalent shitstains of several European far-right parties. And I don’t know what it’s like in other white supremacist countries that are close allies of Israel, but the overwhelming majority of Zionist lobbying that pushes the US to give so much aid to Israel comes from Evangelical Christians, because they believe all the Jews have to be in the Holy Land for Jesus to come back. No thanks.

This whole thing fucking sucks. Jews and Palestinians, like all human beings, deserve to be free. Many Jews are understandably afraid of what might happen next if Israel decided to give up on ethnonationalism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, make reparations, and establish a pluralistic democracy that represents and protects all its residents — will some Palestinians murder Jews in revenge? That’s genuinely fucking scary. And it’s genuinely fucking scary to be a Palestinian in Israel/Palestine, and has been for over 70 years. We’ve gotta do something different. I say that as a white person sitting on land stolen from Piscataway people who has thought in detail about what portion of my income would be reasonable for my government to tax in order to fund reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

Ok. One final piece of context before I wrap this up.

Most Jewish institutions in the US are explicitly Zionist, teach children that Zionism is THE way to ensure Jewish safety, and increasingly tell non-Zionist Jews that we're unwelcome or even that we’re not “real” Jews. This comes in a context where it’s only been 76 years since the latest and most gruesome of several attempts to wipe our entire people off the face of the planet. If you grew up in that environment, you, too, might be jumpy about even hearing the words Zionism or Israel, let alone considering the devastation this ideology and country have caused Palestinians.

Jews have a right to exist. Jews have a millennia-old connection to this scrap of land in the Levant, and we have a right to access religiously and culturally important geographic landmarks. What we don't have a right to is murdering or expelling other people in order to make an ethnostate, on that land or any other. Zionism is settler colonialism, but it’s settler colonialism by and for people who have a valid need for protection from structural antisemitism, which means that it’s going to take a lot of messy empathy to undo. The members of my extended family who voted for Trump (non-Jews in my case, though Jared Kushner isn’t the only Jewish Trumpite) are afraid that ending white supremacy will demote them from a privileged class to equal footing with everyone else — that’s the kind of fear individuals work on in therapy, not the kind that’s reasonable for a whole society to prevent from happening. I and millions of Jews do deserve for whole societies to work hard to end antisemitism.

I would never and will never ask a Palestinian to gently request their liberation. But if you’re not Palestinian, and you’ve got a little extra empathy to spare this week, I ask you to remember what I’ve shared here when interacting with Jews about Israel/Palestine.

If you’re a fellow Jew reading this and you feel like Israel is the only way to guarantee our safety, all I ask of you is to sit with the idea that what Israel is doing to Palestinians is too high a cost for safety that’s still not guaranteed, and start to imagine real-world ways we can protect our people from antisemitism without an ethnostate.

I made this post for people who know me (or know of me I guess?) in Old Guard and Cap fandom, despite my better judgment, because talking about Jewish Booker and Jewish Bucky and Jewish Natasha makes me so happy and I think some of the people I love on these characters with might appreciate this perspective. I didn’t provide any links in this post on purpose (to decrease its usefulness, so fewer people will reblog it) because the risk of anon hate when talking about Zionism outside my immediate fandom circles is so high. You’re welcome to reblog this post if you find it helpful! Unless you’re not within a few concentric circles of me, in which case, maybe don’t? If seeing this post makes you want to send me anon hate, no need: many people who share your perspective have already done so on Twitter.

Reliable sources on all this info are a few googles away, and I apologize for the things I know I oversimplified as well as any things I might have misremembered. I’m an American who’s never lived in Israel/Palestine who is posting this on my fandom blog.

TL;DR: This is a short ‘n pithy post about the same idea.

TL;DR, fandom edition: The shortest distillation of this anti-Zionist Jew’s feelings on the matter can be found in segment 4 of Five Times Booker Got Wasted on Purim and One Time He Didn’t.