#“its their land” ok and? they can exist there WITHOUT killing and displacing palestinians

[sukiluvvs]

love being yelled at for being against genocide

[shotbyafool]

ur the one person i know on here who loves the bands visit as much as i do, but lately i haven’t been able to actually enjoy it because fuckass isntreal is doing a genocide and now every time i listen to a song i think about all the palestinians displaced or killed in order for the setting to exist. not to be like “is it ok to like this thing” ppl can like whatever they want but i mean, is there a way to still enjoy the musical? idk, what do u think about this.

good q, and something I've been grappling with too. I don't claim to be an authority on anything, these are just my thoughts -- but like, you and I (and David Yazbek, and Itamar Moses, etc.) were born into a world where these atrocities either were already being committed, or which were beginning but we had no ability to stop. either because we weren't born yet or don't have any political power. it should not be so, and we should not take it as a given now, but the truth of the matter is that the land has been taken over, and people live there. I don't know what sort of people -- but people do live there, and that has been so! would real-life equivalents of the Israeli characters be, by our standards, terrible people, be Zionists? I don't know! I have no idea! quite possibly, I suppose!

it sort of makes me throw my hands up. this will probably be a relatively useless answer to your question!

if this is useful, and not to be like, all YFIP about it, but I have an inkling that the creators of the show understand some nuance to be had here -- see Itamar Moses' work on The Ally. I think if the show was made today it would've been different. obviously the show should not have been complacent, it should not have taken the events of the past year to have happened for the world (myself included) to wake up to this, but we cannot go back and change the past. and at the heart of it, obviously, is connection -- is simple stories of little people in little towns, is simple stories with no plot at all -- and while the plot certainly exists within a great political landscape (IT IS AWARE OF THIS), it doesn't try to tackle it. which is probably bad. but I'm not going back on my opinion on that it's a masterful musical, a real piece to behold, for what it's worth. I still think that to be true.

so like. I am actually not sure. is the answer. I still listen to it because I can listen to anything without thinking (problematic trait), but your question is a good one, and this is probably not useful, but it's been weighing on me. it sucks! the show is a piece of art about trying to form connections across political boundaries, but the unspoken political boundary at the heart of it is the land on which they stand, on which displacement and violence has occurred. and absurdly, now, it's a period piece, for its inability to start those conversations or even really acknowledge them. (again, I think Itamar Moses would've made a different piece today). but that doesn't undo it from being moving to me five years ago, and doesn't stop it from potentially moving me right now. it is just hard. and I hope this doesn't read as me moping in answer to you, either, but I'm incapable of coming up with something coherent!

[clevercorvidae]

I want to ask you something because I really enjoy having you on my dash, but I can't comprehend how can you support Hamas in this war.

I'm Israeli. I didn't choose to be born where I did. I'm so lucky I didn't live in the near border villages because if I had I would be dead today. 900 people murdered, beheaded, full families including their children shot on sight. I'm sorry if I'm being insensitive with my descriptions but I just have to make you understand, you know?

How can you still support them?

ok so. this is pretty old. over a month old now. i haven't checked my inbox in a hot second. so im gonna hope that you don't exactly hold this same position now. but i wanna make a few things crystal clear right now.

if i can accept that my country (the us) is a colonial, genocidal state that should not exist and that the land should be returned to the native peoples. if i can accept that my DIRECT ancestors displaced people from their land, killed them for their ethnicity and to make room for themselves, and condemn those actions without hesitation. even though they were facing religious persecution. even with pressure from the society around me and family members to either ignore these facts or to be proud of that ancestry. if i can do that, and i did it EASILY, then so can you. easily.

so lets start there, with that. if you can't accept even that, then i doubt you will be able to reach the level of humility you need in order to accept that you've fallen for some pretty damn intense propaganda surrounding the nature of hamas and the nature of this genocide and your place in it.

and i understand that youre very afraid, your government isn't exactly looking out for your safety very well either, colonial states are inherently unstable and their whole population suffers for its existence. because there is absolutely no way that israel will meaningfully gain from what theyre doing right now. especially not in the long run. but you gotta understand by now that the people in gaza are a hell of a lot more likely to die, be injured, or lose a family member than you are right now. perspective is sorely needed here.

now let me clear this up really quickly. i dont "support hamas". and i have never said i did. it concerns me very very deeply that you make this claim so matter of factly when all ive ever said is that i support palestine. hamas members are in microscopic numbers out of the whole of palestine and those that voted for them number to around 12% of the gaza population (if we're being very generous) due to the amount of children and young people in the gaza strip who either straight up weren't born yet or were below the age of majority during the election. thousands of these young people have been massacred. THOUSANDS who did absolutely nothing wrong besides being born. and it is this exact mindset, the one you showed here, the instinct to equate the entire ethnic group of palestinians with hamas, that has caused each and every one of those deaths. i do not say that lightly.

and i an going to be frank with you. we cannot pretend that this wasn't a last ditch effort. the people of palestine have been occupied by israel; oppressed, displaced, murdered, imprisoned, etc for 75 fucking years. thats a long ass time. you would be angry. you would be furious. and they fuckin tried too. they tried to peacefully march and were murderd, they tried to live their lives as best they could and got their houses were invaded, they were imprisoned without proper trial or reason. they tried existing as a multicultural, multi religious group of people and the israeli instigated extremism in muslim groups to make an easier target (yes they admitted to this).

i can tell you with 100% confidence that if something similar broke out in the us with indigenous people, i wouldn't hesitate for even a second in saying that its the fault of the us and that these people need freedom and their land back. that is the only route to a solution, period. fuck, im already saying it now. so im asking you and others who have similar thoughts, to consider for a moment, the people that you idly stomp on. and im asking you to consider untying your boots.