#also I’ve seen a lot of ignorance and antisemitic tropes repackaged by ostensibly well-meaning people and that’s really frustrating

[c-rowlesblogs]

I’ve been holding back from blogging about a certain important and devastating current multinational conflict, for various reasons, not least of which being that not every conversation needs every voice, much less a foreign one.

But just now on my dash I came upon a post, which I read with my own two human eyeballs, where OP confessed that recently when they received a customer service call from someone inquiring about shipping to Israel, it sent them into such a state of emotional upset that they asked their boss to reply to the customer for them. And… okay. I don’t think this is unreasonable to say, but I guess it needs to be said: if just encountering everyday citizens from a particular country online or in real life, and having to—god forbid—talk to them, about anything, even to answer a simple yes or no question about international shipping, is too much for you to handle emotionally… maybe you’re not actually engaging with international politics in a mature or rational way.

The Israeli government and military are doing terrible things— but it seems that more and more folks on here are letting their anger and heartbreak make them forget that Israelis are just ordinary human people, just like everyone who has ever lived in every country that has ever waged war. You can talk to one of them for thirty seconds about international shipping. I promise.