#Malice And Hate’ For Jews

[thejewishlink]

Prosecutor: Gunman In Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre Harbored ‘Malice And Hate’ For Jews

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Prosecutors on Tuesday described how a heavily armed suspect barged into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shot every worshipper he could find in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Robert Bowers’ federal trial got underway more than four years after the shooting deaths of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue. Twelve jurors and six alternates — chosen Thursday…

[infiniteglitterfall]

Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories” worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

[former-leftist-jew]

You know how in Peter Pan, it says, "Every time someone says 'I don't believe in fairies,' somewhere a fairy drops dead?"

In real life, every time someone says, "I hate Jews," somewhere a Jew reconnects with the Tradition, decides to have a(nother) kid, or miraculously recovers from whatever illness, accident, or act of malice almost took them.

[ashes-goin-down]

I think Cartman hates jewish people and -Kyle- too much to be vulnerable like you've depicted. No matter what level of physical attraction he might feel.

Hi there, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately I wrote a whole-ass novel in response so here's the TL;DR so you don't actually have to read all that: I agree that the comic is OOC but I don't think it's because of Cartman's hatred of Kyle or Jewish people.

Sorry for misusing your message to go on a somewhat loosely related rant but I've been meaning to write this for a while and it came as a convenient excuse lmao _

I agree with you regarding the vulnerability. I don't think Cartman would voice his feelings like that unless (he could claim that) it's a farce (e.g., Jenny Simons, "Cartman Finds Love") or the other person shows interest in him first so he feels safe from rejection (Heidi, initially - not opening that whole can of worms rn lol). For example, he treated his attraction to Patty Nelson as a big secret, apparently not even considering ever confessing to her, and that's most likely because he was expecting the reaction she did end up giving him since, beneath his self-deceit, he's excruciatingly aware of the fact that he's actually not exactly highly regarded by his peers.

It's a lot of work upholding the façade he's build for himself of being this cool, esteemed person and it cracks easily even without direct outside influence (for example when Clyde Frog or Cupid Me insult him) so he really, really doesn't deal with rejection very well. Him being this vulnerable to Kyle specifically and then getting rejected would be absolutely catastrophic for him, so I agree that he wouldn't put himself in that position. However, it's my opinion that the most OOC thing about the comic is the fact that he simply acknowledges that Kyle hates him. I don't actually think he'd just accept that but would instead convince himself that it isn't true ("Kyle has internalized homophobia" or better yet "Kyle doesn't think he's worthy of someone as cool and awesome as me") and then do some crazy shit to try and win him over.

So yeah, you're right: He Would Not Fucking Say That. I don't think his hatred of Kyle and/or Jewish people is the reason he wouldn't, though, as I believe Cartman's feelings towards Kyle and Judaism are a lot more complicated than that. It's not without reason that his relationships with both are such a big part of the show and that people smarter than me have written whole essays on the topic lmao

I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way trying to excuse any of Cartman's antisemitism! I'd just like to voice a few thoughts on its origin and evolution.

Cartman is clearly weirdly obsessed with both Kyle and his religion and obviously they are linked. While I suppose initially it might have been a bit of a chicken-egg situation ("He hates Kyle because he hates Jews" vs. "He hates Jews because he hates Kyle"), I believe originally his antisemitism may have simply been a byproduct of his fascination with the third reich, which itself I think was mostly a result of his enjoyment of envisioning himself as a dictator (i.e. the ultimate authority figure) and as such was actually pretty surface-level - as is evident from the fact that for a long time he didn't seem to fully grasp what exactly Judaism even IS (as shown when he apologizes to Kyle for calling him a Jew or when he uses the term as an insult towards Stan and Kenny). Still, I very much dislike it when people try to downplay his bigotry as naivety. That really doesn't hold any water after very early on in the show, if it ever even did in the first place, since he definitely acts from a place of malice and over time his fixation on the religion seems to have developed into something bigger. He's learnt more about it and it became much more synonymous with Kyle for him (the order of which is also debatable but I of course lean a certain way). At this point in the show I believe it's safe to say that he wouldn't be nearly as obsessed with Judaism if Kyle wasn't Jewish. While Cartman is obviously a bigoted asshole in many ways, he's not nearly as preoccupied with other minority groups as he is with Jews and he has even shown himself to be surprisingly tolerant of homosexuals and disabled people (who, of course, were also heavily persecuted under Nazism).

I really do think that "Jewpacabra" did leave a lasting impact on his character. It's pretty obvious that he was being genuine at the end of of the episode and actually did intent on self-identifying as Jewish from then on (and iirc M&T confirmed as much in the commentary to that episode and explained that they just sort of… forgot about that lol) and then in "Shots" he does claim to be Jewish and while that may have been in an attempt to get a vaccination exemption, the aforementioned commentary makes me believe it may not exclusively be that.

Notably, he specifically calls himself an "Orthodox Jew", which Kyle obviously doesn't seem to be and that ties in nicely with him becoming a rabbi in PC and making the religion his entire personality - because it's not enough to become Jewish: He needs to beat Kyle at being Jewish.

Of course, Cartman never actually stops being antisemitic before the time skip but then "Cupid Ye" implies that that isn't even a fully conscious decision that he can completely control but instead at least partially caused by whatever he has going on mentally. He even actively attempts to counteract it when he decides that it has gone too far. That's my take on the episode, at least. Obviously the whole thing with Cupid Me is kind of messy. No matter what exactly is actually happening there, I do think the his actions here prove that his feelings regarding the matter are more complex than they may initially appear to be.

Though I know it's still a point of contention for many, to me personally it seems pretty clear that him being a rabbi and a family man in PC was authentic and that he wasn't simply messing with Kyle the entire time. However, I find it extremely interesting that Cartman converted BEFORE meeting Yentl so I actually don't see any way in which Kyle didn't have any part in that and as such I don't think he would have ever become a rabbi if Kyle didn't happen to be Jewish. So my personal headcanon is that while Cartman's conversion was indeed directly influenced by Kyle, he actually did end up finding fulfillment in the faith and it ironically helped him let go of his obsession with him (which I think fits the show's style of humor).

To summarize: As a shipper I may be biased but I think that Cartman is a disturbed little boy who grows up to be a disturbed little man who fails to fully understand his feelings towards Kyle and - as an extension of that - the Jewish faith and thus lashes out into extremes regarding it.

[princeofwittenberg]

Screaming out into the void once again about how painful it has been to lose so many former friends since 7/10. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s most likely ignorance not malice but it is really really hard to feel like the people who you once trusted now wouldn’t care if you died and it’s really hard not to take that personally.

I keep having these thoughts of like “how little did you ever respect me if you can believe blatant misinformation calling my people genociders?” And how little must you respect me to not even ask me why I would be supporting a side that you think is committing genocide?

So many of my former friends, people who I thought knew me well, overnight decided that I’m a terrible person who would support a genocide and didn’t even bat an eye. What the fuck ? Why do you think so little of me? Doesn’t it make more sense that you have it wrong? Or have I always just been this evil person to them?

I’m lucky to have a great Jewish community and lots of Jewish friends to feel supported by but I’m in a place of total loss of goyische friends and total distrust in the non-Jewish community because I have no idea who will listen to me and who is just going to spit vitriol in my face. Non-Jewish places don’t feel safe anymore because I am tip-toeing around people trying to figure out if the topic will come up and what to say so I don’t get the look of disgust I keep getting from people who just don’t know anything. It’s like a constant state of social anxiety but I don’t think I’m overreacting.

I wish I could just sit down with people and help them understand what’s actually going on, help them identify their antisemitism, help them understand the conflict and how to actually support Palestinians, but no one wants to listen. They just want the easy, un-nuanced answer so they don’t have to think, but that answer is wrong. And it’s hurting people.

The feelings from this are going to linger for a long time. I’m really scared that my trust around non-Jews is never going to return to where it was before. And I hate that. I don’t want to be isolationist.

But I have so much hurt inside me that I can’t resolve, so much that it feels like it’s suffocating me sometimes. It’s pain, and mourning, and grief, and anger, and it’s like I have to keep taking the hits.

B’ezrat Hashem the hostages will be released soon and Hamas will be dismantled and we can return to peace. But I’ll be honest tikvah is not my strong suit right now.

[hero-israel]

Here's the thing about this narrative that Palestinian resistance no matter what form is acceptable. Jewkilling cannot exist in a bubble. It cannot be politically neutral. 1000 years of European (and Arab) antisemitism culminating in genocide have ruined that. Sorry to Palestinian activists but that's just how it works. You can't murder a Jew without it being a tragedy, without it contributing to the continued global oppression of Jewish people.

And all that said, that's just if Hamas and others only targeted soldiers and police (or at least tried as best they could). The IRA didn't go out of its way to purposefully target noncombatants. Why? Probably because there isn't thousands of years of history of English people being seen as subhuman, there isn't thousands of years of anglophobic propaganda showing English people as twisted monsters preying on children and secretly undermining Irish society. The Irish national movement was not born because English refugees returned to their historical homeland and challenged the notion of Irish Supremacy. It was a pragmatic liberation movement. Resist military occupation, undermine military infrastructure designed to oppress the people. The descendants of English and Scottish settlers would even be allowed to stay if they had won. Imagine that.

These things are all tied up in each other. I'm against police brutality, I'm against the escalation and the militarization and the mistreatment of Arabs in Israel and in Judea & Samaria and Gaza and Golan and everywhere. But killing Jews can never be righteous. Sorry to anyone who feels that way but it can't. Antizionists NEED to understand that. Jews will always feel defensive and ready themselves for retaliation because of history, because of that context. Jews keep saying "prove to us a post zionist society where we all share the land won't be antisemitic" and their concerns are completely brushed off.

There's no empathy at all. A little girl can be stabbed to death and antizionists celebrate because she was a "settler," and that brave Palestinian man was defending his indigenous homeland, by targeting the weakest of his enemies. And since Israel has mandatory military service the antizionist can surmise that no Jews are Innocent. An Israeli Jew cannot be a noncombatant. They have to, otherwise the only other explanation for why Jewkilling is acceptable to them, or even feels good to them, is that they hate Jews. And as of right now, the optics are still against that. I have a sinking feeling the optics won't be against them much longer. I inherently don't trust a "liberation" movement that's all too eager to make murdering Jewish civilians praxis. I'm sick of the internet falling for this bullshit.

One of the best asks I have ever received. Thank you for sharing it and I agree with every word.

The entire progressive intersectional social-justice frame has failed Jews (or, alternately, has succeeded in excluding them), due to being intellectually colonized by a clearly fascist ideology of incessantly hating the Jew as a poisonous alien. Try to get an online activist to critically deconstruct the social assumptions they were raised with about Jews in their Muslim, Christian, or very slightly post-Christian society... it won't go well. Funny how Jews have lived in India and China for thousands of years yet you will look in vain for examples of bitter bloodthirsty kill-your-nextdoor-neighbor antisemitism in those societies. That's because the origin, the core, of Chinese and Indian societies was not "We're the people who are better than Jews."

From a review of Richard Landes' new book "Can the Whole World Be Wrong?":

[During the Second Intifada] Israelis were described at the time as the new Nazis. But the malice that was unleashed was even worse. As Landes writes, “It was mostly about being freed from a sense of obligation to the Jews, a chance to take up again the Jew-baiting so long denied Europeans by a politically correct post-Holocaust sobriety.” Landes quotes a poisonous comment made by a member of the House of Lords and reported in the Spectator, “Well, the Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.” During that time, I was told something horrifyingly similar to my [=the reviewer's] face.

Your example of Irish nationalists not going out of their way to murder British children is a good one. The oft-reached comparisons between Palestine and South Africa are frivolous for many reasons as I have explained here before, and the ANC advocating and normalizing a vision of enduring racial diversity and equality is high on the list of reasons (made possible because black African identity is not predicated on a thousand-year history of hating and oppressing whites). The case of Rhodesia is even more instructive. Robert Mugabe - ROBERT MUGABE! - pleaded with the whites to stay, to live as equals, as brothers, and work together in building a better society in Zimbabwe. Ian Smith, last white PM of Rhodesia, agreed with him and stayed in Zimbabwe. If a so-called "liberation" movement is more openly dedicated to straight-up exterminating their enemies than Robert Mugabe ever was, maybe, just maybe, it shouldn't be described as "liberation" at all.

[nonegenderleftpain]

There are few things I hate more than "Jewish ally" anti-theists and atheists that spout complete bullshit about Judaism and our supposed beliefs as though they know better than we do what we believe. When we talk about cultural xtianity, this is the kind of shit we're talking about.

"You might not believe in hell but most Jews do, my ex-xtian interpretation of your holy texts is correct despite thousands of years of information on the subject, here's a video telling you that you're wrong." Spent several posts calling non-religious people "freethinkers," and continuously dodged the question regarding the harm eliminating religion would do to so many cultures. Not to mention going from "I think the world is better without religion" to "you have an anti-xtian bias that I don't like" as though there's not a reason for that.

Ex-xtian atheists - you need to address and unlearn your xtian belief that your way is the only right way. That you are objectively correct and everyone else is just ignorant. That you know better than the religious minorities you are addressing. People like this want an excuse to talk down to religious minorities under the guise of polite language, and if you don't want to be associated with them, you have to put in the work to not be like this. I say this as an ex-Catholic, and a former anti-theist - do better.

If you are making objective assertions about someone else's religion that you have not studied and cannot answer basic questions about, you're not being critical of religion, you're being an atheist supremacist. If you pull a "gods are more harmful than helpful" like this person but cannot tell me the impact of Kali or Sàngó on their respective cultures, you are not being critical, you're ignorant and self-absorbed. If you have not studied religion, you do not know what you are talking about, and if you are only accepting xtian interpretations of other religions as true, even as a basis for hatred of religion, you're just a xtian with a new wallpaper.

If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are advocating for the cultural genocide of hundreds of different cultures around the world. If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are inherently anti-Jew. And if you are talking over Jews when they correct you on your blatant misunderstanding of our culture, only to call us *liars* when we counter your misconceptions, or call out your cherry-picked sources for why you know better than we do, you're not just an asshole, you're an Antisemite.

I took this conversation in good faith, hoping that the ignorance was born from misunderstanding instead of malice. I should not have been so kind. And if you're going to come onto this post and whine and cry about "not all atheists," or "cultural xtianity isn't real," save us both the time and block me. I'm done entertaining atheists that will not acknowledge that y'all don't know better than the religious minorities you are insulting by assuming we're all just blind sheep being lied to by some hierarchy that doesn't exist outside of certain religions. My partner is an atheist. I was for a long time, and I chose to return to religion on my own. I'm still an atheist, but I am also very religious. I'm the "smart Jew" that ex-xtians love to talk about; enlightened and no longer clinging to the supernatural. And I'm telling you that you're a fucking asshole and I associate more with the most spiritual Orthodox Jew than I ever would with someone who thinks atheism makes you superior.

[notaplaceofhonour]

An Open Letter Regarding the Holocaust Inversion & Blood Libel of the “Average Pace” Meme:

The person who shared the screenshotted post deleted it after I sent the following message. I truly believe they shared it out of ignorance & not malice; I cannot say the same of OP who created the graphic. I am sharing my deconstruction of its rhetoric & imagery here as a learning opportunity:

Nothing justifies the injustices Palestinians have faced, and what Netanyahu is doing is vile. No country should be above criticism, nor its leaders above condemnation, but this is not that.

What people like OP are doing is weaponizing legitimate atrocities to spread the antisemitic narratives of Holocaust Inversion (an offshoot of Holocaust Revision & Denial that claims “The new Nazis are Jews”) and Blood Libel.

And no, the fact that these libels are made in criticism of Israel does not absolve them of being antisemitic narratives that predate the existence of the State of Israel. As if to hammer in that point, that is not the flag of Israel that the creator of this agitprop decided to equate to the Swastika—that is the Magen David. That’s just the symbol for Judaism.

Worse, to impose the Magen David over images of blood (especially what is implicitly the blood of children) is a direct invocation of Blood Libel, the antisemitic accusation that Jewish leaders thirst for the blood of children. This libel has incited the mass slaughter of Jews since long before the Shoah, and is still being used to this day to incite violence against Jews through Qanon & accusations that Israelis drink & bathe in Palestinian blood.

And if it truly weren’t about the Jewishness of Israel, why would OP pick the Shoah specifically? There have been countless other mass killings in the world, many with much greater resemblance to Israel/Palestine than Jews in Nazi Germany (see: ethnic cleansings in Liberia & India/Pakistan for instance). Meanwhile, the only things The Shoah/WWII and Israel-Palestine have in common is people dying and Jews being present. So why specifically invoke the slaughter of Jews to criticize Israel if it is not about invoking the Jewishness of Israel?

That doesn’t even get into how cherrypicked those numbers are to the point the exact same “average pace” metric could easily be used (and in fact is, by the German far-right) to present the Bombing of Dresden by the Allies—a campaign that killed more than 25,000 German civilians in 72 hours in an area much bigger & less densely populated than Gaza with a fraction of the bombs that Israel has used—as comparable to the death camps.

This rhetoric does not aid Palestinians in any way. In fact it drags the movement down by providing ammunition that can be used to paint all criticism of Israel as antisemitic & give people who just hate Palestinians the casus belli they need to shut it down. The only thing it accomplishes is hurting Jews; it twists the knife in the wounds left in our community, it trivializes the Shoah by universalizing it or presenting it as “the lesser of two evils”, and it incites violence by equating Jews to Nazis.

[screamingfromuz]

Hi do you have any posts on the BDS movement? I think most don’t oppose it solely because it calls for a boycott of Israel, but because the org has unnecessarily called for boycotts found unjust and apparently doxxed Jewish people.. do you know anything about that?

I have a rant on them here, but not a lot else. But put simply, I think they are evil. they have doxed Jewish people, there was the whole map debacle, and they often used highly antisemitic rhetoric.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

the art boycott is pissing me off. working to isolate Israel from the global art world is fucked (how are people supposed to be exposed to other opinions if you refuse to let them interact?), but the people that suffer the most from it are Palestinian. the worst tendency of it is that if a Palestinian artist want to preform before Palestinians within the green line, they face huge backlash, and often just cancel their shows. And I can tell you that arranging shows in Gaza in fucking hard due to both Hamas's religious fundamentalism and Israel and Egypt's sieges, and the West Bank is tough because of Israel's tight ass border control that is so fucking annoying that many artists don't have the ability to fight with! So they are helping to keep Palestinians culturally isolated!

AND this block Israelis from interacting with big name international Palestinian artists which is making my life harder when I am trying to expose Israelis to Palestinian culture in order to deradicalize them! Also, I have some Palestinian artists I would like to see and it suck that the BDS will give them such hell for that, that it might not be a possibility.

I understand the desire to vote with your money, to boycott, and I give zero fucks about it. your money, your choice. My problem is how violent it is, how it attacks everyone, how they spew hate and malice. I have no problems for the original core values of the BDS (ending the occupation in the west bank, having full equality for Arab-Israelis and following Resolution 194), even if I disagree with the phrasing of some. but over the years there have been calls for violence against Jews (shoot a Jew is one of the more blunt ones), death threats against people who wanted to go to Israel, doxing and working with SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine). SJP in a shit show by itself, and often tokenise and drown Palestinian voices so a bunch of white American colonizers could play their fantasies of being oppressed and getting to be violent.

[coffeeman777]

Everyone reading this, this is for you. God appointed that you would see this post at this time. He has a message for you, please don't ignore it.

The message is this: repent of your sins, and believe in Jesus! This life will not last forever. Some day, maybe some day soon, each and every one of us will stand before the Lord to be judged. For those who repent and receive God's offer of pardon through Lord Jesus' sacrifice, they will obtain eternal life. Those who refuse the Lord Jesus and die in their sins, they will receive condemnation and everlasting punishment. Please, I beg you, don't let yourself be counted among the latter!

If you read this and you want to know more, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

I love you all. I'll be praying for you!

Romans 10:9-13

"...9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”"

Titus 2:11-14

"11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works."

Titus 3:3-7

"3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10

"5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, 10 when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed."

Revelation 20:11-15

"11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. From His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

[rabbiaharon]

BS”D

The Two Children

A parent has two children. One of whom is responsible, humble, and desires connection with their parent, and one of whom is egotistical, irresponsible, and primarily pursues their own benefit and enjoyment. Early in their childhood, the parent gives both children the same responsibilities. Easy, simple chores that they expect both children to do, and if they don’t, there will be no major loss. The responsible child does their chores with respect, knowing that whether or not they enjoy their chores, they look forward to the time they’ll be able to spend with their parent after they are finished. The irresponsible child rarely does their chores, instead choosing to lounge around, draw on the walls in crayon, complain, and roll their eyes at anything their parent asks.

As they get older, the parent recognizes that they can trust the responsible child with more meaningful tasks, and that they can rely on them to be completed. In return, the responsible child acquires a deeper relationship, and cultivates their emotional connection with their parent. The irresponsible child continues to receive basic tasks, and continues to present emotional resistance to their parent, refusing to do the simple tasks, respecting only themselves and even going directly against their parents’ wishes, doing things that present danger to themselves, and maybe even the entire family.

When they are teenagers, the responsible child is trusted to stay out late, to come home when expected. The parent trusts them to start to take some responsibilities in organizing and planning in the household, and they get a job. The irresponsible child continues to misbehave, perhaps joining a gang, or getting into drugs. They still refuse to contribute to the household via any basic tasks, and occasionally even try to work against the responsible child in their own actions.

When they are full-grown adults, the contrast is stark. The responsible child has developed a deep and meaningful dialogue with the parent, and has a reciprocal relationship, where they provide the parent with some of the support they once received as a child. They have learned to do things for the parent on their own initiative… not because they are told what to do, but because they’ve developed a feeling for what makes their parent happy. The irresponsible child has finally noticed that their own actions have shredded their relationship with their parent, leaving them estranged. Rather than reflecting on how they should behave in the future and trying to repair the bridges they burned, they begin to resent and even hate the responsible child for their rich, intimate, and personal relationship with the Parent, a relationship cultivated…. Over thousands of years.

Such is the relationship between Hashem, Jews… and antisemites. In the days of Noah, G-d gave all of humanity 7 commandments; Not to murder, not to steal, not to commit acts of sexual immorality, not to blaspheme His name, to believe in Him, to establish courts of law, and not to eat meat taken from a live animal (Rambam, Hilchos Malachim). By and large, the nations of the world paid little heed to these laws, and invented new forms of idolatry, undermining any relationship they had with the Master of the World. When they did keep the laws, they often did so with complaint, or with perversion and malice. For instance, the “courts of law” of the city of Sodom were used to accuse, try, and execute those who hosted guests or gave charity….

… And then there was Avraham and his family. They kept the 7 Noahide Laws with awe and respect, and cultivated a relationship with G-d. G-d gave Avraham tasks, tests to his dedication and he passed them all. In response, he was given a new mitzvah. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe says in the final Ma’amer he left us with, the term mitzvah (מצוה ־ commandment) is related to the term tzavsa (צװתא) meaning “connection”. This mitzvah - the mitzvah of milah - represented the first vote of confidence between him and his Father in Heaven, “I understand, you want to connect to me, and I know you want to do more, but let’s start with this. This isn’t a one-off, this is the first step between you and I.” As the years, decades, and centuries passed Avraham’s children deepened their relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One Blessed be He), and he took care of them intimately, as with Yitzchak during the famine. When Yaakov dedicated himself to raising a people who would all follow G-d’s word, he was even given a name which showed his relationship with G-d… a name which foreshadowed an even deeper relationship in the future - one where his hundreds of thousands of descendents receive a Torah containing a spiritual letter for each and every one of them, as it says in the Zohar Hakodesh - that Yisrael stands for “There are 600,000 letters in the Torah” (י־ש ש־ישים ר־יבוי א־ותיות ל־תורה). After the people’s teenage years - 210 years of suffering in Egypt (Who’s to say that Hashem doesn’t understand the suffering of a teenager!), they were ready to deepen their relationship again.

Hashem was ready to give them the responsibilities associated with the upkeep of the house. Hashem was ready to begin the partnership that was prepared for from the 6 days of creation, as it says “אשר ברא אלקים לעשות” “Which Hashem created ‘to do’.” It states in Bereishis Rabbah (11:6) - “Everything that was created in the 6 days of creation requires further work”. While the simple understanding of this Midrash is the idea that wheat needs to be ground to make bread, or that mustard must be sweetened before it is eaten, a much deeper explanation is brought in sifrei kabbalah and sifrei chassidus: The Mitzvos that Hashem has commanded us help to spiritually complete the creation he left uncompleted.

As we matured as a people, we came to understand what Hashem wanted of us, and enacted our own decrees, including Rabbinic Mitzvos and fences or additional obligations in addition to the scriptural ones, as it says in the Talmud (Berachos 20b):

דרש רב עוירא, זמנין אמר לה משמיה דרבי אמי וזמנין אמר לה משמיה דרבי אס��: אמרו מלאכי השרת לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא: רבונו של עולם, כתוב בתורתך ״אשר לא ישא פנים ולא יקח שחד״, והלא אתה נושא פנים לישראל, דכתיב: ״ישא ה׳ פניו אליך״?! אמר להם: וכי לא אשא פנים לישראל, שכתבתי להם בתורה ״ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה׳ אלהיך״, והם מדקדקים [על] עצמם עד כזית ועד כביצה.

”Rav Avira taught, sometimes in the name of Rebbi Ami, and sometimes in the name of Rebbi Asi: The ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, in Your Torah it is written: ”who favors no one and takes no bribe” (Devarim 10:17), yet You, show favor to Israel, as it is written: “The Lord shall show favor to you…” etc (Bamidbar 6:26).

He replied to them: And how can I not show favor to Israel, as I wrote for them in the Torah: “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God” (Devarim 8:10), yet they are exacting with themselves [to recite birkas hamazon] on [bread] the size of an olive or an egg.

The irresponsible child began to truly notice his lack of relationship with his Father in Heaven when the Torah was given, and began to resent the Jewish People even then, as it says in Tractate Shabbos in the Talmud (89a);

“מאי ״הר סיני״? הר שירדה שנאה לאמות העולם עליו.

”What is the meaning of ‘Mount Sinai’? The mountain which drew hate (sina) from among the nations”.

As time went on his hate turned to anger, and anger to rage. He did not look inward to see why he wasn’t being given more responsibilities. He didn’t examine his own behavior to realize that the true cause of his resentment was the guilt of a missed opportunity - or many of them. Instead, the rage of the Irresponsible child has manifested in every generation, causing violent actions towards individual jews and genocide attempts against the entire Jewish people. With the entire history of the world as precedent, his behavior in our generation is neither unusual nor surprising.

Next time you see an antisemite spouting vicious vitriol - or if you are an antisemite and you’re feeling angry while reading this, remember that those feelings are nothing more than the invalid insecurities of a petulant child who squandered every chance to form a meaningful relationship with his Father, and instead of reflecting on his own shortcomings, he has chosen to blame his sibling for all of his problems.

The solution in my eyes is twofold: Antisemites must recognize where those feelings come from. Blaming a people that makes up 0.2% of the world’s population for 99.8% of the world’s problems is neither logical nor realistic. Learn about us. Get invited to a shabbos meal, or a passover seder. Trust me, you WILL find a jew (for better or worse) who will invite you. You’ll be well fed, and it won’t be poisoned. Don’t just take my word for it either: Educate yourself about Judaism from Jewish websites, like Chabad.org or Aish, not from Wikipedia - and certainly not from random users on Tumblr or Facebook.

Us as Jews? We must recognize the source of these things, and not be discouraged. We should stay the course. We’ve been developing our relationship with Hashem for thousands of years, and we’ve been tasked with fixing his broken world. If someone who was formerly an antisemite - or someone who is trying to change - approaches you, remember to stay safe (do your due diligence to ensure your own safety before inviting them over!), but be welcoming and warm to the best of your abilities. Ultimately… even the estranged, petulant, irresponsible child is still a child of Hashem, and regardless of your personal feelings (and mine, by the way), can be accepted in repentance, should Hashem desire it.

[cisthoughtcrime]

and he was. americans love to hide behind extremists to fearmonguer about any actual shared concerns with revolutionaries. the contents on osama bin ladens letter to america concerning imperialism and his religious and social views have very little to do with each other unless you lack comprehension skills about what people are agreeing with. to be expected from a zionist "radfem"

his criticism of American imperialism is not something I actually have a big problem with. it doesn't surprise me or upset me that people agree with that part, especially since many Americans (including myself) have already been expressing similar criticism for years. America is directly and undeniably responsible for atrocities which do absolutely deserve to be brought to light free of the US nationalism and egocentrism that so often rejects any criticism at all.

you are distinguishing between his blame of the US and his blame of the 'corrupting' influences of Jews and homosexuality. these tiktok readers are not making that distinction. that's the point.

this is a particularly naive demographic, under-practiced in critical reading and highly susceptible to hopping on bandwagon opinions as they snowball. jkr's essay on feminism was unsalvageable because of its 'transphobia', but obl's letter on american imperialism is a galaxy-brain moment with no issue taken with the homophobia and antisemitism. I find it deeply concerning that so many people who read his letter and agree with the criticism of America are so comfortable ignoring / staying silent about the pervasive hate speech in it. in a demographic that seems to be allergic to nuance and disagreement, there's a great deal of "he was right!" and a glaring absence of "about which parts". I am disturbed seeing people act like their third eye is being opened by this, and I wish their first not-written-on-social-media exposure to a condemnation of American imperialism had not been one so grounded in attributing America's evils to the immorality and malice of vulnerable groups.

also why do you say I'm a zionist? you also seem to think I'm one of these patriotic americans "hiding behind extremists to fearmonger about actual concerns of revolutionaries," but I, an ex-pat, have been quite vocally and consistently critical of US imperialism and the crimes against humanity america has committed against many countries.

It's almost like you don't know what my beliefs are and just sent an angry accusatory ask based on your own presumption that I was clutching my pearls about the country's youth committing blasphemy against the church of american patriotism. I love criticising America. I do it a lot. that's not actually the distressing part of what's happening here and I never said it was, but thanks for accusing me of that and other things I never said.

[hiswordsarekisses]

To “Will” to do God’s will is much like “the love of the truth” - it is to want it no matter the consequences to ourselves personally - even to the utmost humbling - and to desire to know if we are wrong is the most important part, because to be any other way is to be self-deceived. We have to come to Him bare and open and willing even “to be made willing.” He cannot change the mind, heart, or will of one who has stiffened their neck, but that one can ask to be made willing to have their will broken so they are able to desire His will only. (Me)

“If any man has a heart truly disposed to know and embrace whatsoever shall be revealed to him to be the will of God, how contrary whatsoever it be to the interest of his own lusts, and ready to do it in all things, and live according to the prescript and revelation of it, having a serious purpose of heart to obey God in every thing; if he seeketh for truth seriously, and in the fear of the Lord, laying aside all wrath, malice, hatred, and any corrupt passions or affections; God will reveal the truth to him, so as he shall know the doctrine that is of God; and that I do not speak of or from myself, but by authority from my Father.” (Matthew Poole)

“The truth holds good for every honest heart in every walk of life. The “any man” of Christ’s own words excludes none from its reach, and the voice of comfort and of hope is spoken alike to all in our ignorance, fears, doubts—that he who in very deed willeth to do God’s will, shall not fail to know, now or in the life to come, of the teaching whether it be of God.” (Ellicott)

“Amidst the disputes which disturb the world, if any man, of any nation, seeks to do the will of God, he shall know whether the doctrine is of God, or whether men speak of themselves. Only those who hate the truth shall be given up to errors which will be fatal.” Matthew Henry

“To desire only God’s will is to yield our intellects, our feelings, and all that we have entirely to Him, to be governed according to His pleasure. This person shall know - and have evidence, in the very attempt to do the will of God, of the truth of the doctrine. This evidence is internal, and to the individual it is satisfactory and conclusive.” (Barnes)

“A principle of immense importance, showing, on the one hand, that singleness of desire to please God is the grand inlet to light on all questions vitally affecting one's eternal interests, and on the other, that the want of his, whether perceived or not, is the chief cause of infidelity amidst the light of revealed religion.” (Jamieson-Faussett-Brown)

“The mere mechanical performance of God’s will is not enough; there must be an inclination towards Him, a wish to make our conduct agree with His will; and without this agreement Divine doctrine cannot be recognised as such. There must be a moral harmony between the teaching and the taught.” (Cambridge)

“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John‬ ‭8‬:‭31‬-‭32

[phoenixyfriend]

@jewishdainix commented on this post:

The thing is, israel must be dismantaled because it is built on xenophobia, nationalism and subjeugation of palestinians. I agree with you on the worry of jewish safety, but that needs to be done by fostering and building communities of both nations of people, where both are welcome and safe, not by keeping an opressive colonialist state with no interest in equality or peace in power.

And Im saying this as a jew who lives in occupied palestine, btw. I know co-existing eont come out of nowhere, but it can be built.

(New post because the original is very long.)

Thank you for commenting! Most of the commentary I'm getting seems to be from people who are as removed from the conflict as I am.

I think a major factor in the discussion that stemmed from my initial response to the first "r u pro Palestine" question was that I was... well, very tired and not running on all cylinders, for one, but also in an intersection of Tumblr that sees a lot of half-baked political reblogs where people just... share things they either don't know ANYTHING about or don't realize how much is our isn't propaganda.

I am not immune to propaganda, especially the subtler kind, as evidenced by my having to adjust my understanding of the Yemen situation.

But the thing is that like... that intersection means I've seen a LOT of takes that are extreme (like Hamas and the Houthis being entirely right about Israel and how to handle it, or that even the children in Israel, by virtue of being Israeli, are guilty) as well as a lot of people who are supporting extreme solutions without really thinking things through?

Like, the majority of the people I see talking about Dismantling Israel seem to be in favor of doing so quickly and without regard to what happens to the people there, Because They're The Bad Guys, or because they just don't realize that this is the sort of thing that takes time and management to do safely.

Like... when I see so many people parroting things with an underlying tone of hate and malice towards even the civilians, it makes me concerned that any expression of support for a position like "dismantle Israel" will be taken as support by both "do so slowly and responsibly with an aim towards integration and safety for all" AND the "boot out all the jews" sides, because when the first question is only four words, I can't also answer in only four words, because political slogans are never JUST what they actually mean.

That said, the discussion over the past few days definitely has me sympathizing more with the Dismantle argument, but I do wonder about how it would be enforced, and by whom. Like, the Israeli government has made it pretty clear they have no interest in ceasefire, let alone a dismantling, so... does the UN get involved? NATO? Is the US sent in to undo Israel, the way they're trying to undo things like the Houthi government (as I've been told they're functionally the government of 70% of Yemen)? What gives us people of the world the right to choose interventionism in Israel but not Yemen or Iran?

Just cutting US aid from Israel opens the doors to Hamas and Houthi and associated groups "managing" the dismantling, which is the situation I expressed so much concern over in the previous post, so that's not an option. It looks like we do need the UN to be involved if that goal of Dismantling to build something new is possible, but that's interventionism, which is bad because it violates self-determination, except when it's not bad because there's mass murder happening, except when it's still bad even though the mass murder already happened, and...

IDK

It's so complicated and I WANT to believe there's a solution but the political philosophy and practical implications are kind of. A necessary consideration even when the ethics are clear cut.

[perfectlyvalid49]

The world post October 7th is worse in so many different ways, but one of the ones I’m really struggling with right now is the sheer amount of assholery that is being directed at Jews.

I went to therapy for YEARS to try to learn that 1) the world is not a terrible place and 2) people (in general) will not hate you/be mean to you for no reason. I still struggle with the idea that people are fundamentally good. Like, decades later, that idea is not something I believe, just something I remind myself is (hopefully) true when I’m feeling otherwise. I’ve gotten compliments for how patient I can be with people who are being antisemitic, and a lot of that stems from actively practicing looking for explanations other than malice for people’s behavior and knowing that giving people the benefit of the doubt is good for my own mental health.

But for the last six months, people have been hateful for no reason. I’ve given people the benefit of the doubt, and they’ve shown that they were choosing malice all along. Even large institutions that are supposed to be working for a better world are showing that their definition of a better world is one that doesn’t include me and those like me in it – that they’d rather side with the people who chose hate.

And it makes all the bad stuff want to come back. The cynicism, the nihilism, the part of me that wants to lash out first to gain a sense of control – they’ve all reared their heads in the last six months, and the longer this goes on, the harder it is to put those parts of myself back to sleep. I’m not going to let them win, that’s a choice I get to make, but it sure would be nice if they weren’t being actively encouraged by real life.

[for-the-writing-artist]

My pastor was discussing the sin of lying the other Sunday ─ an absolute truth is that God hates lies, I am not denying this (see Prov 12:22, I Tm 1:10, Ex 20:16)─ with relative examples of day to day situations. I tell you, it was a real hand-on-your-head kind of day.

And unfortunately for us, ambiguous temporal creatures that we are, not all actions are everything or nothing. But I think to better explain my position, I have to identify the premises of my argument.

The first being:

Every sin holds equal value.

God will condemn you to hell for being an impulsive liar, be that the only sin you have ever committed in your life, just as He will condemn you to hell for murder (see Ja 2:10-11). But notice that, though in the spiritual plane and eternal time, it does not matter what sin you are charged with, in our temporal world, and mortal plane, some sins are more destructive than others. This is my first belief.

And the second being:

Our sins do not affect us equally.

Which is obvious. Take the sin of murder (Ex 20:13), for instance; where time and time again the OT shows whoever takes a life will repay ─ in this life ─ with their own. (Gn 9:5-6, Ex 21: 16, Lv 24:17, and in the NT, a reprimand from Jesus himself, Mt 26:52.)

Versus divorce (Ex 20:14), which was acceptable in the OT (Dt 24:1-4), but forbids either party from ever marrying again, lest they be charged with adultery (NT ─ Mt 19:9,6 1 Co 7:10, Mk 10:1-12).

Thus, I can conclude that, if God so wishes, the sin you commit will impact your life proportionally. As an addendum, the above in no way condones the Prosperity Gospel ─ as there is yet to be found in the Bible where faith and financial donations somehow annul the consequences of sin in your life.

Of Lying, and Moral Ambiguity.

In many cases, the intention of our actions leaves no room for moral ambiguity with the sins we commit ─ I cannot be so certain this to always be the truth in the case of a lie. A murderer's intention is premeditated. A divorce is only allowed under the clause of sexual immorality.

Why do we lie, then? To deceive our neighbor with perjury or slander. Strong's Hebrew seems to imply this commandment strongly in the topic of courts, and injury to one's image.

Something my pastor talked of was honesty in the face of our worldly governments ─ in my opinion, this shouldn't always be the case.

I am not talking about small things like tax evasion (← the example he used), simply because the consequences of evading taxes are too big to justify the risk. It is unwise. But I do argue against using the example above as an endorsement for us to always be honest with our governments.

If I were hiding Jews in Nazi occupied Europe in the 40s, would the Christian thing to do be, if the government came looking, to lie or not lie? Simply because lying is a sin, I should therefore reveal that yes, am I hiding Jews?

In this example, I ask that you go back to my second premise, and examine the impact the lie and the truth have in the supposed scenario.

This is a situation where one or multiple lives are my responsibility, along with my own. And what does this ill-placed honesty impact in their lives? Certain death, and mine also, if we take what the Nazis did in Poland to heart.

The lie does not seem unreasonable, as is my responsibility in this situation to keep theirs, and possibly my own safety, intact.

A lie (the sin) is spread due to malice, falsehood, or slander, directed at one or more people ─ a false testimony without cause, intended to cause perjury to another. In such cases, the sin is absolute and easily identifiable.

In conclusion; though I hold that honesty is always the ideal thing to do, I cannot agree that it is absolutely so when it comes to local governments or authorities.