#because I do believe there's people who kind of identify as zionist but are also anti war and support palestinians?

[bogleech]

I still can't fathom what in the entire world I could have ever said or done to make that gerrysherry (also known as spot-the-antisemitism) person come after me, and try every possible way of reframing every anti-war feeling I have as somehow, secretly, anti-jewish. Unless they don't actually believe that, but they hope saying it enough will make people believe it?? I don't know them, never did anything to them, and yet this person has reportedly still spent weeks and weeks boosting the same thread over and over, in which they urge people to boycott my book - something I'm depending on to even be able to afford my home in the future - because they apparently insist I have only antisemitic reasons for wanting to support Palestinians. How would that even make sense?! Jewish people aren't doing anything to Palestinians, a government is. They failed to make any dent in my follower count which just keeps jumping up every day, and I'm technically making more income off my art than ever (even if it still only barely covers cost of living), but I can't get over the sheer principle of someone hoping they could spread misinfo like that with the hope of impacting my ability to live. I've never run into anything that personally vicious before, all over sentiments they just up and pretend I have? For what??

[thecrazyalchemist]

I've recently seen a post on Tumblr that just, 'broke' something in me (for a lack of a better term).

So I just want to vent about it and another thing that's been bothering me.

(Disclaimer: this is a vent post. I am not an expert in the topics discussed. What I say is knowledge that I have learned from all kinds of places (school, history classes, researching for history projects, reading first hand written material from archives, and other places) and I don't have much the energy to compile everything source into a list (if I can even remember them). However, if you want to add, argue against, or argue in favor of something said here, correct me, you're welcome! Although, please act civil and cite your sources please. (I know I didn't and I'm sorry, but also please remember this is a vent post.) so anyways, here we start)

So, first of all:

Let's talk about Zionism. What does it mean?

To me, it seems that a lot of people think Zionism is something along the lines of 'racist bloodthirsty monstrous baby murderer and cold blooded killer and a rapist pedophile' since I keep seeing the word 'Zionist' in DNI lists next to 'nazis', 'pedophiles', 'minor attracted people', and other stuff like that.

I would love to hear what you think its definition is and I would love to hear where did you learn it, or perhaps any sources for such a definition.

Here's a brief recap of how Zionism was formed and what it is:

Zionism means the desire for Jewish self determination and self governing to exist/continue in the land/country of Israel.

It is an umbrella term, like the term queer, for example.

Zionism has deep roots in Judaism. A lot of practices and rituals in Judaism involve or are related to Israel. The name Israel comes from the name Jacob got from the angel he defeated, and after him the whole tribe of the Jewish people and the area are called Israel. The name Israel is in one of the most basic Jewish prayers - Shema Israel. Also, at the end of every pesach (Passover) Seder we say "Leshana habaa beyerushalaim habnuia" - next year in built Jerusalem. Jewish people have said so ever since the diaspora started.

Before the state of Israel existed, Zionism was about how to create and build Israel.

Three examples:

Political Zionism - create Israel by first getting a charter and international recognition and funding.

Practical Zionism - create Israel by first buying land, building settlements and developing the area.

Synthetic Zionism - a merge between the two movements above. Afaik most of the early political leaders of Israel were from that movement (for example, the first Israeli prime minister - David Ben Gurion).

Nowadays, Zionism is more vague. The reason for is that Israel already exits. The different movements on how to create Israel are kind of irrelevant now, because it exists now. The discussion on how to run Israel is perhaps what one may define as different movements within Zionism in modern time, however yet almost always when one says they are a Zionist, they mean they desire/want/believe that Israel should exist. That's it.

As such, Zionism alone doesn't say almost anything about the political view of the person who identifies as a Zionist.

Afaik basically 100% of Israeli Jews and around 80% of the Jews in America identify as Zionist. Under *this* definition.

Now because Israel exists, it's much harder to talk about different movements within Zionism which aren't basically political movements within Israel.

That leads me onto Kahanism.

Kahanism is an extremist far-right nationalist-racist religious Zionist movement (that I completely do not, I repeat: **do not** agree with). It was founded by the rabbi Meir Kahane, which believed that Jews should rule the whole area which was the kingdom of Israel in the days of the Tanach and should kill anyone who's an enemy of the Jewish people (which according to him, is basically everyone).

Here's an article that sums up some of my feelings about it in relation to the current events:

[https://archive.ph/2024.06.10-191347/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-06-10/ty-article-opinion/.premium/forget-being-anti-zionists-lets-be-anti-kahanists/00000190-0228-d660-af95-6fbed3e60000]

Now on to the post that 'broke the camel's back', per say.

The post said “I think that all Israelis should go back to Europe” and that it would solve all the problems here.

Let's try to break down the sentence “all Israelis should go back to Europe”. That sentence implies that that's where *all* Israelis came from.

What's "Israeli"? Afaik, since Israel is a country, Israeli is anyone who has Israeli citizenship (and some may even add 'and/or everyone who was born here').

What's Israel's population demographic? According to official government surveys, Israel has around ~9.9 million citizens, out of which ~73% (~7.227 million) are Jewish, ~21% (2.079 million) are Arab and the rest ~6% (0.594 million or 594 thousand) are classified as else.

The Arab population of Israel (which has equal rights as the Jewish population in Israel) and the Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank originate from the same group of people. Some of them originate from Arab people who had been here for hundreds of years (since the empires age) and many originate from Arab immigration between the end of the WW1 and the establishment of Israel.

Even if you claim that the Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank are the actual indigenous population of this area (despite numerous archeological and historical evidence pointing otherwise, although they do have a long history here), you cannot claim that just because a person was born or even just lived on the other (wrong, in your eyes) side of a border they aren't indigenous to the area!

In Israel, there are also a lot of minorities who are persecuted in other parts of the middle east. Such as: Druze, Armenians, Circassians and more. They have to go to Europe too? No, just the Jews? Surely this isn't antisemitism!

And let's talk about the Jewish population in Israel. MOST JEWS DID NOT COME FROM EUROPE! There are Jews who came from diaspora in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Saudia, Ethiopia and a whole lot other countries through the middle east, south west Asia and north Africa. They have to go to Europe too?

And that's beside two other important facts: first of all, the Jews are indigenous to the levant. We are indigenous to the land of Israel.

And of course, do you now what happened to Jews all over the world, and especially Europe?

To name a few very notable examples: *The Spanish inquisition*, Kishinev pogrom, Jedwabne pogrom, *The Holocaust*, what that happened in the Soviet Union and many more pogroms, expulsions and massacares. (There were of course also pogroms in the MENA countries, however *I* haven't learned about them. Two examples I am told is notable is the farhood pogrom and the Holocaust in North Africa).

All throughout history, the Jews were expelled and massacred from almost every place. You then expectus to just come back to those places as if nothing has happened?

You want us to come so badly. Can you prove that we are safe to come? That we *have a place to come to*? Because so far you haven't shown that.

That when you and the people around you see a Jew, you won't immediately turn them into the scapegoat of every problom you have and then rape and/or expell and/or kill them.

And also, how would that solve more problems than it will create? Exchanging around ~2 million refugees for ~9.9 million refugees? How would that help? And even if you only mean the Jews (which I can't see how it isn't antisemitic) it's ok cause it's Jews? (which is even more antisemitic)

So no, it would not solve any problems. The country of Israel won't go anywhere, the Jews won't go anywhere, because we don't have anywhere to go - we were born here and we are staying.

However, yes, just as well, the Palestinians will probably not go anywhere (*not talking about Hamas and other similar groups here*). The only way to solve the situation is to unpack and deescalate those decades of conflict and escalation and hate, which will take a lot of work.

[schoolhater]

it is election day. i wrote a little essay to share with my IRLs who can't fathom why i might want to abstain from participating in the bloodshed by putting holocaust harris in power, or giving the transpbobic and anti-abortion green party federal campaign money. i've reposted the entire thing under the cut for anyone who wants to read.

but before i begin: donate to mohammed al-habil. he is recovering from surgery, his little sister is chronically ill. the genocide ruined his senior year of high school. it’s his birthday today. he should be celebrating and instead he’s begging on an internet full of people trying to justify the continued destruction of his entire people.

learn more + donate

i keep hearing from people defending their choice to vote for the genocider that even though the democrats are bad, the republicans are worse. or that this election is the most important one. i often see trolley problems that declare that the *only* people who would suffer under the democrats would be palestine, and, because *americans* would suffer under the republicans, we have to put aside our grievances about the potentially-three-hundred-thousand-and-thiry-five people who have been murdered in the past thirteen months and offer our full support to the person who did it.

nearly every time settler colonialism has occurred in history, the first wave of settlers is some vulnerable yet radicalized population who believes they will achieve prosperity in the new world. the uae-backed rsf is establishing settlements using refugees from other african countries in southeast sudan right now. the first wave of israeli settlers were poor. even herzl planned this in the 1890s, in 'the jewish state' he writes that the first wave of settlers should be poor farm workers. and now, the modern settlers in the illegally occupied west bank live in and they are the most radicalized most. despite facing extreme racism within israel, arab israeli settlers are among the most radical zionists. the first settlers in america were poor and tired religious extremists from britain. when they came here they didn't have shit except the military backing of the empire and the carte blanche to commit massacres of indigenous people.

imperialism needs these vulnerable people. it needs to funnel the oppressed populations it creates back into the machine to enact further violence. these people are effective cannon fodder against the indigenous population. they are vulnerable enough that they cannot resist, but their lives are comfortable enough thanks to subsidized housing and special treatment that they begin to identify wholly with the imperialist entity, so they don't even want to. if you're stuck thinking 'well, of course kamala and trump are the same to palestine, but trump will be worse for us!' you've taken the bait. that's exactly the kind of attitude that is allowing this genocide to happen right now. do you know why the usa gives subsidized healthcare to israelis? why we give so many benefits to veterans? why do thousands of people risk their entire lives to come here after we destroy their countries? the usa wants to recruit you into participating in the genocide of gaza so you never oppose it, because it would mean opposing yourself.

even kamala harris knows this. multiple times she's repeated some version of "sure people care about the genocide, but they also care about the price of eggs" as if these things are remotely comparable. because to her supporters, they are. to americans, the rest of the world does not even exist.

i said this on my instagram story and i'll say it again - we understand that the israeli elections are just a performance of democracy to pacify criticism of a violent genocidal apartheid system. none of us would really care if netanyahu stepped down tomorrow because we would see the bombings continue. well, america is the world's "israel"! to the rest of the world, america is that attack dog that only ever brings death and suffering. and regardless of which party is in charge, that doesn't change. and the democrats arent even hiding it anymore.

what the discourse around this election and seeing so many people i once respected voting for the genocide has taught me is that there is no red line for the majority of americans. we are the most self centered, narrow minded, backstabbing group of settlers on this earth. we have seen the terrorist organization that occupies the land we live on fund 70% of the most vile horrific crimes against humanity - the most nightmare inducing rapes, tortures, kidnappings, incarcerations, concentration camps, people being burned alive, people being ripped apart, rendered unrecognizable as human bodies, literally vaporized, killing over three hundred thousand people over thirteen months - and we still want the entities that did all this to exist tomorrow. we want to invest into a future in which all of this still exists.

and when asked to stop, we will threaten to do worse. a greater evil is imagined.

what does this make us?

....

i refuse to participate in this bullshit even to support a third party candidate. i refuse to be bought. i refuse to invest my time and energy into an institution that kills children. i don’t care who runs it.

i wanted to push back against this idea before the polls close as a sort of last ditch effort to be heard. i am not being heard right now. i have gotten into way too many arguments with people i once respected over why voting in favor of a genocide might not be the best idea. and every time i am met with utter disrespect - i am not treated as a person with a political perspective based on my experiences and learning, i am treated like an idiot. and the people voting for genocide are pragmatists, somehow. in lieu of a reason to disagree with me they resort to belittlement. i feel betrayed. i hope this rant changes some minds; if not, let it explain why i treat you differently now.

[antisemitism-101]

Welcome and FAQ

I'm so excited that you want to learn more about antisemitism and how to fight it! Thank you. Here are a few questions I've been asked while setting up this blog; I figured it would be worth putting them all in one place.

Why make this blog?

Often, growing up Jewish means growing up with intensive training in identifying antisemitism.  Even our religious holidays frequently boil down to "They tried to kill us and failed!  LET'S EAT ABOUT IT."  

The upside of that is, we learn from a very early age how to be safe.  What to watch out for, what escape plans to make.  The downside?  A lot of kind, thoughtful people who care about social justice, who want to help, didn't get that training. They didn't have to.  And us trainees failed to realize our training wasn't common knowledge.  That training gap leaves lots of room for bad actors to promote dangerous misinformation and antisemitic tropes.

I want to reduce that wiggle room.  To share knowledge with people who want to learn but are afraid to ask.  To help people understand why so many of us feel hurt and alone.  To identify language with antisemitic implications that are harder to see.   And I want to help the helpers.  I know there are a lot of you.

Who are you, and what makes you qualified to do this?

I am a Reform Jewish woman from the United States (Not A Zionist, Free Palestine, just to get that out of the way.)  My biggest credential, honestly, is my adorable mother-in-law.  She's a deeply curious woman with no sense of what an appropriate question is.  She's also lived in rural Texas without internet access for decades, and I was the first Jewish person she ever met.  Thanks to her, I have so many years of practice answering really painful good faith questions about Judaism.

The second person helping with this blog is a dear friend, a Zionist, and pro-Israel, and I've been arguing with him about Palestine more or less nonstop since October 7. I figure anything we two can agree on about antisemitism is probably broadly applicable.

Why are you blogging about this instead of about Gaza?

I don't believe being one more person blogging about Gaza is going to make a meaningful difference in the lives of Palestinians; I've currently focused my activism there on donating to aid organizations like Islamic Relief USA, which I encourage you to also do, and calling my elected officials.

In my experience, a lot fewer people are discussing antisemitism, for a lot of reasons.  I feel like largely people are afraid discussing antisemitism means ignoring the nightmarish suffering of Palestinians.  I know we have enough compassion in our hearts to support people in two marginalized groups.  And since I can discuss antisemitism in a knowledgeable, warm, and level-headed way, I feel like it's my obligation to right now.

How do you decide whether a question is in good faith?

That's a good question!  The unsatisfying answer is: it's entirely subjective.  But my definition of 'good faith' is generous, so don't be afraid to ask something because you feel like I won't like it.   

Can I ask general questions about Judaism here?

Try it! If the questions aren't related to antisemitism at all, I reserve the right to not publish them, but a lot of antisemitism comes from a misunderstanding of Jewish culture and tradition. If you want a Judaism 101 blog too, feel welcome to suggest it.

Is there a good place to find Antisemitism 202 content on Tumblr?

I'm glad you asked! My favorite two Tumblr bloggers who write on the subject (from very different angles) are:

@edenfenixblogs, who writes eloquently about common Jewish experiences and promotes both Jewish-Muslim solidarity and Israeli-Palestinian Solidarity. This post about the relationship between Judaism, trauma, and the desire to be a light in the world feels like it came straight from my heart.

@historicity-was-already-taken, who is a Holocaust scholar by profession. Obviously she writes mostly about the Holocaust and academia, but branches out into current events sometimes. I've linked her 101 post on antisemitic tropes to watch out for to multiple friends.

(Hi, both of you! I doubt you know me, I've just been an occasional commenter, but I'm a fan. If you don't want to appear on this list, please feel welcome to ping me and I'll remove you.)

What is that icon?

It's a dreidel, which is a children's toy used to celebrate a Jewish holiday, Chanukah. I wanted to pick something friendly and recognizably Jewish to USians like me.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Hiya, same gentile Anon who sent the ask about Kippot (Kippot is the plural form of kippah right?) and Trump. I've got a bit of a tough question. 

It's easy to call out other gentiles / goyim who are being Antisemitic, using Zionist as a dog whistle, spreading disinformation, etc etc. But how does someone who isn't Jewish go about calling out and correcting the same kind of stuff when it's coming from other Jewish people*?

Such as “Please reblog these posts about Antisemitism, OP isn't a Zionist so it's okay to reblog” and “Don't support this Jewish creator because they're a Zionist, the rest of us [Jewish people] have our humanity intact” and other dehumanizing (or iffy) rhetoric directed towards other Jewish people (whether they actually identify as a Zionist or not, regardless of what specific branch of Zionism they believe in, etc). 

My typical go-to is to put people on blast, say they're using dog whistles, call them out for dehumanizing others. But what's the guidelines when the person saying dehumanizing things to a Jewish person is also a Jew? 

*I know some people will call out some so-called Jewish tumblrs as racefakers/racefaking, but I'm not exactly qualified to go around lobbing serious accusations like that. And even if I was pretty confident that someone was lying? I still wouldn't say that because 1) It's really not my place and 2) feels very icky to go around saying someone doesn't belong to X, Y, Z group because I think they have wrong opinions (or bigoted opinions). 

(oh and thank you for your earlier reply, the reason I say trying to be an ally instead of an ally is for a few reasons. Firstly because it felt a bit presumptuous as if I was saying "Look at me, I'm an ally, I can do no wrong and can never be Antisemitic ever again". Secondly because being an ally is always a work-in-progress imo, you always have to double-check yourself, listen and uplift voices, and so on. Also I'm asking all this on Anon, so hiding my identity, so debatable whether that still makes me an ally y'know.

- Same Gentile Anon who's trying to be an ally

Dear Gentile ally anon,

it's really not your place to make callouts of Jews OR fakeclaim them leave that to me

Now if this is an argument or a reblog and you want to call some token grifter on their shit go right ahead with "that's a dogwhistle" or "that's misinformation" but never condescend or goysplain to a Jew about antisemitism.

Usually the reaction will be "Yeah goy we know, stay our of this". Unlike gentiles like yourself Jews know they're being antisemitic and do so on purpose all while claiming that antisemitism doesn't count or that antisemitism is a punishment to keep bad jews in lie. Using another community I am a part this the way LGBT people misgender and harrass the "bad queers" to "protect the community"

Gentiles listen to gentiles so you calling other gentiles on their shit is productive, conversly Jews listen to other Jews so unless those Jews are part of the same community as you or are attacking your friend

you STAY THE HELL OUT OF THIS lest you make it worse

Let Jews callout Jews, you see something that's odd you send it as a receipt (although I DO NOT cover "zionists dni" because they're not worth my time and are too prevalent)

and hey Jewish values put safety over grand gestures of heroism. You're using your anonimity for good that's all that counts. Many of my regulars operate off sideblogs and I have no idea what their main is. consider getting a throwaway sideblog or hijacking a previous one for this

please write again,

Cecil

[jewishbarbies]

I know it's stupid and you don't have to answer but is being anti-zionist bad? I saw many Jewish saying that they hate Zionism and I thought Zionism were also Jewish? I am confused?

not stupid at all! a lot of people get confused about it bc it’s hardly clearly defined when discussed on social media and a lot of people just assume things.

there’s different kinds of zionism and i think that’s what mostly trips people up, because the majority of goyim don’t know there’s more than one. christian zionism is evil and disgusting and fetishy. there’s no justifying it. the basic definition of zionism in general is believing in the jewish right to self determination, specifically in the Middle East/israel. if you believe Israel is a settler colony and/or that jews don’t count as indigenous to the levant despite the 3000yr old evidence, then you’d be antizionist for sure no matter the kind. there’s a political kind of zionism that’s typically used by western politicians and evangelicals, and that’s also bad, but it can be hard to spot if you’re not jewish/educated/etc.

don’t get me wrong - there’s a lot of people who identify as zionists that have said disgusting things about palestinians/muslims/etc. and those people are just horrible people. but the core belief that jews have the right to self determination in the land they’re proven to be indigenous to is not morally wrong. it’s literally like telling people indigenous to the americas it isn’t their land, they’re not indigenous, and that they’re evil colonizers for wanting their land back. so, imo, being antizionist from that perspective is bad. if you’re anti christian/political zionism, I’m right there with you. but denying jewish indigeneity is fucked beyond belief. you don’t have to deny jews their homeland to support palestinians and vise versa. anyone telling you that you do is a liar and a moral fraud imo.

[healingmoth]

I’m very curious, seeing as you have family in Israel, how do you define antizionism and zionism? Because my definition of zionism is literally just the belief that Jewish people should be able to have our own sovereign state in our ancestral homeland (and so should palestinians ofc- i’m in favor of a two state solution with an overarching coalition) Are you in favor of some kind of two state solution, a one state solution with the state being called Palestine, or do you not believe that a Jewish state should exist at all? And with that, do you believe that muslim and christian countries should also not exist?

This isn’t an attack, I’m just very curious bc I don’t personally know a lot of israelis who consider themselves antizionist!

Jewish Zionism is a broader term than I think a lot of goyim like to believe. I don't think it is as simple as believing in the eradication of Palestinians/being against the liberation of Palestinans (which many goyim seem to, it's very confusing and reductionist). Some people might consider me a zionist because I believe that Jewish people should be living in Palestine/Israel and that space should be made for them, as well as believing in Jewish indigeneity to the region. I think it means different things to different people. However I, broadly agree with your definition from a politically relevant perspective. The complexity of this situation is nuanced, Jewish people are indigenous to Palestine/Israel however this does not necessitate an ethnocracy (term coined by Oren Yiftachel, please look up his work he is a brilliant Israeli political geographer, here's a video by him), especially because Palestinians are ALSO indigenous to the area.

Besides that, diasporic communities who have been so displaced for such a long time have the right to connect to the land and some right to even live there-- but they ALSO have a responsibility to respect the sovereignty of the indigenous communities who are still on that land. These people who still live there have tended to the land and kept it safe for generations, it is our responsibility to listen to their voices on how the land should be treated and respect their right to their homes as it is theirs ancestrally as well. Along with Muslim, Christian and other Palestinians who lost and are losing their homes, farms, families etc, there were Jewish Palestinians who's land was stolen too. Never forget these people should have sovereignty in this area.

Here is the sticking point, I think-- my rejection of a Jewish ethnocracy is what makes me an antizionist. I did not always consider myself as such, but I began to identify as an antizionist in my late teens because I realized that the creation of an ethnocracy is the issue. I think the conflict is less religious than people like to acknowledge, especially in Jewish circles since it is an ethnoreligion, but Israel is an ethnocracy and not a theocracy. It privileges Jewish people but it considers itself to be a secular state, though just like the US, religious ideals have also taken hold.

Ideally I would be in favor of a one state solution that gives the stolen homes and land back to Palestinians, that the apartheid in Israel should end and makes reparations while also finding a way to not displace Israelis. I think the government should be made up of both Israeli and Palestinian people. I think the voices of Palestinians should be centered for a while as we rebuild after the genocide. This is (loosely) in line with how I think decolonization*** in countries should be handled in general, including on Turtle Island, in Aotearoa, in Hawaii etc etc

This is, given the situation, very unlikely and many left-leaning Palestinians and Israelis have said that only a two state solution is likely, and I trust the voices of those on the ground in this more than I trust US voices (which includes myself, I am not Israeli but my family is). I am committed to listening to Palestinian voices above all others as they have faced untold violence and displacement. I hope we find the most peaceful, just and fair end to this genocide as possible.

I am, in fact, opposed to ethnocracies and theocracies, they are both pretty terrible systems that harm the people who live in them, including the people who are part of the dominant class. I do not believe that ethnocracies or theocracies benefit anyone involved.

*** (sidenote: I do consider Israel to be a colonial project, but not just by Jewish people I think it is a colonial project mainly funded and spurred on by Christian zionists/nationalists as well as prominent military powers, most obviously the USA. There are more Christian zionists worldwide than there are Jewish people. Not Jewish zionists, Jewish people. That should tell you something about who is voting in favor of this and who is funding it. Also, tumblr is VERY resistant to linking the YouTube video of Oren Yiftachel, so here it is hopefully it works: )

[bonyassfish]

I don’t wanna detract from this post but if anyone’s curious I’ll share my experience in the diaspora with this.

I grew up going to synagogue every week and every holiday, and also going to Jewish schools from preschool up through high school. in the summer, i went to a jewish sleepaway camp.

In shul, which was a typical conservative (the Jewish movement, not the political leaning) congregation, I never questioned the Israeli flag (or the American one for that matter) or the prayer for the state of Israel.

In school, we learned the typical narrative of “a land without a people”. We were taught that all Arabs hated Jews and didn’t want us to live in peace. We were taught that Israel was a marvel, a final step toward self-determination in the long history of jewish trauma.

israel was so advanced in technology! israel so multicultural! israel was doing great things for the environment! israel was so humane in comparison to her bloodthirsty neighbors! the only democracy in the middle east!

Every year, my school would host two "shinshinim", teenage israelis delaying their army service by a year by going to north america and parroting israeli govt propoganda. in eighth grade, my school took us to israel. other than spending one night in a bedouin tent (and learning nothing about bedouin culture) there was nothing about Palestinians

it wasn't really until high school that any part of this narrative was complicated in my classrooms, but even then it was always with a heavy pro Israel, pro Zionist slant.

I don’t know what precisely changed my mind per se, maybe watching the news did, and using those critical thinking skills my teachers taught me but didn’t want me to use vis a vis Israel. I remember watching the horrific violence of the Israeli army in Gaza in 2014, during the summer before my last year of high school.

A year later, I would meet my first Palestinian friend in university via facebook. Maybe that’s what did it, and I guess this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but knowing a real Palestinian person, hearing her family stories of trauma from the nakba, it got very real. I decided to make an effort to learn the real history, not the blue and white washed version from school. (I also did something similar with the general American propaganda, but that’s another story)

And as my political awareness has grown, as my ideas about the world have shifted and changed, I’ve gone from “Zionist by way of propaganda”, “self identified liberal Zionist”, “depends of the definition of Zionist”, to finally where I am now (not a Zionist because it’s a settler colonial ideology and also because I’m an anarchist who doesn’t believe in nation states)

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[socialjusticefail]

It's interesting how in extreme leftists circles the two words Nazi and Zionist mean absolutely nothing, beyond "person I don't agree with." just that they figured out that they can now openly use zionism. It's not even like anyone is trying to make it a secret. Poc especially seem to relish in the fact that they can finally "kick out the whites" because to some of them it was always an insult that those they perceive and label as "white" would also face racism and discrimination.

Also, funny thing that "modern" racism was literally built on the fact to tell Jewish people, (and pale but not "central European" ethnicities like Slavs and the Irish) that they're not white. Like, Jewish people were always an outlier, because they're not white, your skint tone never mattered, people knew you were Jewish because there's more to it than just your skin.

People have decided that even though they'll constantly blame white people for "racism existing" (aka people using the system created to oust Jewish people), they'll kick out those that were basically the cornerstones of European racism existing the way it does/did, and then changed till now. Completely appropriating it to only fit the American standard of racial understanding, which oh just so happens to exclude Jews all of a sudden.

It's almost like a country built on insane levels of fundamental protestantism, letting those beliefs flow into every institution to the point even "non believers" follow that belief centuries later, would already have sowed the seeds for Antisemitism.

It's also laughable how people, activists, ESPECIALLY POC AND QUEER/LGBTQIA++ would dare use the "Well these Jews agree with my activism against the Jewish." Oh you for sure know that these very same people are the ones who tell you that you can't use the "But I have XYZ friends!!" would never fucking fly, but the themselves decided that it's ok when it's Jews? No fuck that, you do not get to use those arguments as a non-Jew. If this happens it's between the people affected, which is Jewish people, not some random POC or queer/lgbtqia++ person who wants to get some asspats and pretend they're not antisemitic.

I've seen POCs use terms like "blood money" as if they have any right to use the term, even as an "own" to zionists they dislike. If you're repeating antisemitic rhetoric when angry, if you feel like you're allowed to use any kind of insult, slurs and anything like that, you're an antisemite plain and simple. You do not get to wash your hands of it, no matter who you are. A non-black person calling a black person the N word in anger is just revealing their racism. A cishet person who insults a queer/lgbtqia++ person by using the F-word is just revealing their -phobia. If you use "blood money" or similar rhetoric against as Jew in anger, you're an antisemite. And nothing will change that, because that's what's deep inside you.

I feel like you identified exactly what is going on with the current discourse.

[expfcultragreen]

Even in supposedly antizionist circles people will say that if a jewish person is telling you to think something, you think it, or youre an antisemite, and further, that claiming anyone would ever misuse this, is antisemitic........except when its zionists which is different (but not to the zionists, who use the same logic exactly. Who adopted it from whom? "Believe jewish people about what is antisemitic and who is an antisemite" but you dont all agree so anyone who says it is what? An irrational & tyrannical operator)

If aggression is in impact everyone is aggressing on everyone and theres no start to it so???? Who owes who what

If someone says something nazish and im like that was nazish and theyre like "nuh uh because that hurts my feelings and im secretly jewish so YOURE the nazi touche infinity everyone knows that" .............who is the nazi? Is it both? Because if i fall into a variety of categories the nazis arrested too.........youre automatically anti-those-things for upsetting ME

For example,

Veganism doesnt makes you an antisemite even when it upsets your jewish roommate who feels persecuted by it and conflates that with being hated for being jewish

I could just say, i was fem-identified at them time and this is femphobia because youre clearly just afraid to live compassionately for fear of your masculinity being impugned, at possibly high personal risk

Or,

asking questions about ace history doesnt make you an antisemite (or homophobe) even when its triggering to random jewish bloggers for misty reasons that cause them to conflate being upset with being attacked for being jewish

But being conscriptive about sexuality is the bedrock of ace erasure/ denialist culture and exclusionism, and now we're steering into grim territory with the compulsory natalism and its corollaries homophobia (and queerphobia uwu🫶) and transphobia, but also, youd have to read a lot between "is it" to make it into a thing so i think youre a whorephobe because it was on my sexwork blog that i said it and you were mean for no reason and i got thrown out of housing over it, which, could have also been whorephobia why not. If im a whore and i feel persecuted or slighted then it must be whorephobia. yall might as well be pickton for all the grace i got.

Presumably the individuals who do this are so put upon that their ability to parse micro/aggression from anything else is dysfunctional and the last avenue of intervention that would work is confrontation by someone theyre already feeling attacked by so 🤷

Happens all the time with all kinds of intersections of identity; the more "willfully" autistic you are, particularly online where theres no tone or nonverbal cues, the more this will happen.......because theyre alllllll ableists (nazis)

[c-rowlesblogs]

okay. I don’t know anything about attachment theory or really care, so I read this post with mild interest and was about to scroll on by, and then that last line. Okay. I haven’t posted about this before out of self-preservation, because I did not want my inbox to be swarmed by angry hornets and some conversations do not need every single voice, but this post appeared on my dash. It was brought into my house. So I’m going to say something: I feel seriously unsettled by this growing trend (at least, growing on the left— right-wing conspiracy nuts have been doing this forever) of people using the label “Zionist” as a way to instantly condemn and/or dismiss another person wholesale, with no further explanation or evidence required.

After some googling of both authors that made me feel like kind of a creep (combing through professional profiles, book blurbs, etc for evidence of a complete stranger being “a Zionist” whose online presence is not explicitly political should make you feel like a creep, by the way), I found one author, Dr. Amir Levine, M.D., referred to as “Israeli Canadian”, and that the other author, Rachel S. F. Heller, M.D., at one point worked for the Educational Psychology Service in Modi’in, Israel as a psychologist for families, couples, and children.

Both of these people live in America: one lives in San Francisco, and the other is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University. I found plenty of information about their professional careers, but I could not find anything in their extremely normal internet presences about their political views. All I found to “substantiate” the OP’s claim of Zionism, which they used to dismiss the authors’ credibility and presumably their moral character, were ties to Israel, a country of 9.5 million human people that is also visited every year by a large number of diaspora Jews.

(Well— the authors’ names are recognizably Jewish as well, which may at this point be enough for some people to cast them as “Zionist until proven otherwise”. I sincerely hope that is not the case here.)

(and while I’m at it, “Zionist” as a blanket condemnation also strikes me as misguided— if someone identifies openly as a Zionist, do they simply believe in Israel’s right to exist as a country, or do they want to raze Palestine to rubble and drive one of the bulldozers themselves? It’s a nuanced term. And, again, could be a moot point here, because I did not find any political statements by these two psychiatric professionals readily googlable.)

I also want the suffering of the Palestinian people to end. But there’s fighting to end a war and pressure Israel, the political entity, to back down, and then there is labeling everyone born into, or who has at any point lived in, the nation of Israel as inept, untrustworthy, or outright evil. I’ve been seeing more and more of the latter from left-leaning folks online and in real life, and it both disgusts and scares the hell out of me.

Is attachment theory bullshit? I thought it was legit for a long time but more and more it seems like glorified astrology that people use to excuse and dignify all kinds of shitass behavior.

I have an essay on that for you!

And a few rants about the topic in Unmasking Autism and Unlearning Shame.

Here is the short version: every relationship that we have has its own attachment pattern, which can change as the relationship does, and often if we are acting "anxious" or "avoidant" it is because we have accurately noticed a pattern that suggests that relationship is insecure. Which we might feel for all kinds of reasons. Furthermore, the way attachment was traditionally assessed, it was essentially impossible for any Autistic or visibly neurodivergent child to register as secure ever. So we (psychologists) have very flawed models of what healthy attachment looks like.

I think attachment is a real source of grounding, and threat, and meaning, and modes of relating worth talking about a lot. But it isn't some personality test hogwarts house shit like it gets reported on.

Also that book Attached that was super popular ten years ago was written by Zionists.

[needlebeetles]

yes, the discourse that's included in that post is about using words like 'transandrophobia', and several transfem bloggers on here have talked about why it's a transmisogynistic framework. sure, use whatever words you want for Your identity, but once you start creating new ways to analyze oppression dynamics that don't hold up to scrutiny, you open yourself up for criticism of the ideas you're bringing to the table, especially if they are deeply transmisogynistic ones. as another example, no one can stop you from identifying yourself as an AFAB transfem, but if you start arguing that because you're AFAB you experience sex-based oppression on top of the misogyny you get for presenting as fem, and therefore you are more vulnerable to transmisogyny than a trans woman, trans women are allowed to criticize those ideas

going to assume this is about my tags on the “we should just kiss” criticism post. If this was about something else and I’m not responding with the correct context, please inform me.

before answering this post, I did do some searching for posts and generally on the internet about how the word transandrophobia was transmisogynistic and didn’t find anything, so if you have any links you’d like to share, please do.

obviously all theory is open to criticism, and should be, especially if it’s rooted in bigotry.

From what I’ve seen, a lot of the people who use words like transandrophobia tend to think that “androphobia” or “misandry” exists as its own force in the hatred of men and masculinity. It does not, and when one’s masculinity plays a role in the discrimination one experiences, it usually has to do with how gender roles affect other forms of bigotry, such as racism or transphobia. That being said, I do think that there’s a hatred and fear of people who are seen as women transitioning into men/masculine identities because of how society sees the bodies of women and those it deems women as resources under ownership by patriarchs and society at large, and that femininity being lost or altered threatens the hierarchy of gender, the desire for women’s appearances to all fit a certain mold, and taps into fears of men being superseded or dominated by women. For me, transandrophobia can be a useful word to analyze certain kinds of misogyny and transphobia, and I’m not going to instantly write it off the same way I would if I saw the words “misandry” or “reverse racism” being used genuinely.

Edit February 2024: I don’t believe this anymore a lot of the “chill” transandrophobia theorists I followed turned out to be huge transmisogynists and also zionists for some reason + read some more theory and thought about it and I think transandrophobia tries to unify a lot of disparate kinds of transphobia and misogyny under one umbrella because it happens to transmascs but doesn’t acknowledge that the same phenomenon happens to non trans masc people. Like there’s straightforward antitransmasculinity, paternalistic transphobia (“you’ll ruin your body :(“ “our lost children” type stuff) and then what I’ve decided to call obligatory femininity (happens to both cis women, women, and those transitioning away from womanhood, where feminine attire, behavior, and body parts are treated as socially necessary and owed to the public if one wants to be recognized as a woman)

[underestimated-heroine]

as for the shit about Zionism, which I am not going to get into on that post, here's most of Lessons of growing up black and Jewish By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

It was in this context that I attended a peace vigil organised by a new friend: a Palestinian German who also happened to be president of the Harvard Society of Arab Students (SAS) when the Intifada began. The peace vigil was largely unremarkable; nothing controversial was said by any of the speakers, who instead hoped for peace. My friend, the president, called for a moment of silence for all those who were dead. We bowed our heads. The moment was disrupted by a woman who began yelling. I don’t remember her words exactly except the phrase “you people”. And whatever it was she said, it established her in my eyes as a fellow Jew. I was filled with shame and with anger. How could any of us disrespect the dead like this? My best recollection is that I felt responsible for her behaviour, and I approached her to intervene. She, a white woman, looked at me and said, “You Arabs don’t want peace.” I was disgusted by her premises: the erasure of my Jewishness and the racist claim about Arabs. When I explained that I too was Jewish, she seamlessly proposed instead that I was self-hating. That was my entrée into black Jewish adulthood: at a peace vigil organised by Arab students, I was too brown-skinned to be visibly Jewish and was told that only a self-hating Jew would attend a peace vigil with Arab students. In hindsight, this was a preview of some elements of what life would be like in the post-9/11 world, where I would regularly be taken for an Arab on the street and felt my safety was constantly in question because of it. In Jewish spaces my presence was always a question mark too. My skin colour meant I did not fit into any preconceived categories. I experienced a profound ideological disconnect between the Judaism I found at Hillel, the Jewish campus organisation, and the lessons I had learned in a family of white Jewish labour organisers and black civil rights activists: enacting solidarity at all times, and identifying and struggling with the oppressed – honouring fellow Sojourners. In Jewish spaces I found that the primacy of Israel and Zionist ideology was preached side by side with otherwise progressive values; Palestinian humanity was nowhere to be found. I believe millennials such as myself were the last generation to experience this kind of propaganda without challenge. Younger millennials and Gen Z Jews have rejected compulsory Zionism in large numbers, and it is under us that the Open Hillel movement has shifted the conversation. Millennials and Gen Z take seriously the lessons we were taught about equality. We are also the most racially diverse Jewish generations in US history. Many Jews of colour interpret the language of Zionism through our experience with racism and colonialism, and we recognise the familiar supremacist logic that underpins it. An ideologically coherent Jewish left must reconsider the stories we have been told about safety, security and what it means to live without terror. We must take seriously the idea that none of us are free until all of us are free, and to understand that the “us” includes Palestinians. This means rejecting the supremacist logic of liberal Zionism, that it is possible to build a multicultural sovereign state where Jews are uniquely, legally entitled in ways that others are not. As a black Jew, I find it easy and rather natural to repudiate this premise, which has the same basis as American Jim Crow laws. Instead, a coherent Jewish left must return to core progressive Jewish values: standing with the oppressed, even if the face of the oppressor is Jewish. It is the duty of every Jew to do work mip’nei tikkun ha-olam, for the sake of repairing the world. We are commanded by Deuteronomy, Tzedek, Tzedek, tirdof, justice, justice you shall seek. The Jewish left must seek justice, peace and liberation for our Palestinian siblings. We must take seriously – as so many millennials my age did – the idea that “never again” means never again for anyone, ever.

I am not being mean to Zionists. ethnonationalism is a bad thing when everyone does it. no free passes. unfollow me if this does not entirely resolve your disagreement. good luck with your shit.

hello. i actually already unfollowed you after your response to my addition on that post, so no need to worry there. i've always appreciated your perspectives on things so it makes me a bit sad, but i don't want either of us to have negative energy between us going forward, which would be difficult now because it is very obvious you felt attacked by my addition.

that was not my intention at all. I truthfully had no idea you'd reblogged the post in its original form and was not speaking specifically to you, but trying to add to a broader conversation and warn others against doing something i, too, have mistakenly done. i am not "without sin" as you put it. that's literally part of the reason i made the addition.

this is a very fraught issue where a lot of harm could be done unintentionally--and I do know a lot of it is unintentional. but unintentional harm is still harm. that's something i had to have a talk with myself about while trying to speak out for Palestinian liberation. all i was trying to say is that we should all be more careful moving forward. that's literally it.

this was genuinely a great read! and one i completely agree with. In my pinned post, I have linked posts and in one of the indirect links I actually believe that person is cited but I may be wrong. In any case, the talking points are much the same.

I brought up defining terms with Zionism on THAT PARTICULAR POST because of how bad and inaccurate it was in its original form. another addition there pointed out that it read like some qanon shit and I'm sorry, but they were absolutely right. People are out of their minds if they think Zionism is never used as code for just "Jews" by white supremacists and the like. More importantly, they are ignorant and unresearched.

I also want to point out acknowledged that you don't want to guilt people and explicitly agreed with that sentiment. i truly believe that guilt only serves a function insofar as it helps us grow. again, all I'm saying is that I think many of us are being too trigger-happy with the reblogs for good reasons...but also some less-easy-to-pinpoint, ignorant, guilt-panicky bad ones. people are just not being as careful as they should here, not fact-checking. no one's perfect and of course that's okay, but Jewish people are begging us to be more careful with this stuff and I think we need to listen more.

good luck with YOUR shit.

[a-s-fischer]

So I have come up with a concept and term for this kind of thing, because I have seen it a lot in reactionary circles both on the left and the the right. And the key thing to remember is that there are large groups of people who are absolutely uninterested in nuance or complex ideas, or even actually solving problems, and what they really want is to sort the world into good people and bad people and have the good people fight the bad people. So they need a tool to sort the good people from the bad people and really what they are most concerned with is rooting out the bad people. And in service of this, they use what I have taken to calling a pump label.

A pump label is one that is very broad when deciding who it encompasses, to suck people into the label, and very very narrow when explaining why this group is extra good or extra bad, usually extra bad. Why in short, this broad group belongs on either the unequivocally good or unequivocally bad side. And again, it's usually the bad side.

Pump labels are a subset of this common phenominon where groups who know their ideology is not widely held, make use of a split definition model for terms, one definiton that is the in-group definition, and one that is the generally held definition. On some level, the people using split definitions, including pump labels have to know what they're doing because they use them so consistently. Indeed, dogwhistles fit into this category, and we know those are employed deliberately.

And with pump labels, this is extra obvious, because frequently the thing that will put you into the broad definition of the label is directly at odds with the definition of the narrow definition of the label. For example, I am a middle of the road two/multi-state solutionist, who thinks that the ideal and most practical result of a peace process between Israel/Palestine is one or more fully independent democratic Palestinian states, and the continued existance of an Israel with less terretory than it currently has. Like most middle of the road two state solutionists, I want Palestinian children to grow up happy, safe, and free, and I want the same thing for Israeli children. Also like most middle of the road two state solutionists, I want to dropkick Bibi off a cliff. So I belong to the broad definition of the label Zionist. The narrow category of Zionist is someone who wants a genocide against Palestinians, and also loves sucking Bibi's cock. You might notice this is directly contradictory to the views that put me into the Zionist category in first place.

But that doesn't matter, because I have been successfully sucked up with the broad definition of the label and pumped out into the narrow definition of the label where I am safely on the bad side and can be safely hated. The key thing with a pump label is that when the definition narrows, The people sucked up by the broad definition are not released. They are insistantly kept, and their views decided for them. Any attempt to insist that no, this is not what they believe or what they do, is reframed as lying. If for example I talk about how I want Palestinians to be safe, happy and free, I am lying and covering up a genocide. And because I have been judged an evil Zionist who lusts for the blood of Palestinian children, anything bad that happens to me is richly deserved and a noble act of fighting evil.

And as I said, I'm actually pretty middle of the road. I actually identify as Zionist. You can get sucked into the definition of Zionist just by acknowleging that Hamas is a brutal organization that both oppresses Palestinians and also commits acts of violent terror on Israeli civilians. You can get sucked into the definition by not being okay with all Jewish Israelis being expelled or killed. In many cases, you can get pulled into the definition simply for being Jewish.

And once you've been sucked up from the normal population and pumped out into the bad category, you are now made useful to the people doing the pumping. A pump label is designed to find people that it's okay and safe to hate. It's no coincidence that this turns into bigotry real fast, especially since frequently, the purpose is not to find people to hate, but to justify hating the people you already do. When you divide the world into good people and bad people, and think all problems should or can be solved by the good people fighting the bad people, and you feel utterly helpless, then the best feeling in the world is locating bad people and making them pay. The fact that this in reality helps no one and in fact usually hinders the cause they claim to be fighting for does not matter. It feels good.

Anti-Zionist types seem to do a frustrating little two -step where sometimes when they say “Zionist” they mean “having any sort of connection to the state of Israel, or the concepts of Eretz Yisrael or Am Yisrael, or with Jews as a self-determining collective” and sometimes they mean “Kahanism” (even though most of them probably don’t know the terms “Eretz Yisrael”, “Am Yisrael”, or “Kahanism”) and because they have already previously defined both as “Zionism”, they then define any sort of connection to Israel as a state, or Israel as a concept, or Jews as a people who self-determine who we are, as Kahanism to be shunned/protested/etc. it is literally maddening.

[wxlfbites]

The Church of Satan

I can only imagine the amount of criticism and hate I'm going to get for this, so I just want to preface this post by saying that in 2015 I considered myself a LaVeyan Satanist for a while. I was a teenager and felt like what I was reading was exactly how I felt, it gave me a sense of justification for the views I had. I am not just some random, misinformed individual who only read anti-satanism propaganda. In fact, I've still actually never read anti-satanism propaganda. My opinions have been formed based exclusively on what I've read on the Church of Satan's own website. These are of course, my own opinions and people are allowed to disagree... I just think it might be something to think about if you're considering becoming a satanist.

THIS WILL BE AN EXTREMELY LONG POST

Firstly, I'm addressing the membership the Church of Satan is now implementing. ~ While the Church of Satan says that you do not need to become a member in order to consider yourself a satanist, it is clear that they encourage you to do so. It has registration and payment based memberships that allow you access to confidential information, rituals, and online chat groups you are otherwise not entitled to. Their website claims these memberships have always been in place, but I do not remember any such kind in 2015. ~ It is their policy that affiliated members are discouraged from exchanging member-exclusive information with non-members. They also express that if you are a non-member of the church, you should not expect members to keep up extended exchanges or promotion of your wares. Further, your membership is subject to rejection and retraction at their discretion and they openly state that when you apply for a membership, they gather information on you to ensure you are someone safe and trustworthy to allow in. ~ Whether or not it is intentional, they use guilt tactics in order to persuade people into becoming members. To quote some of these phrases on their own website: "Those who proudly carry our red cards identifying themselves as members have the strength and dedication to implement the tools traditionally associated with Satan". "Look to your other possessions and expenses (most people spend far more than this on general entertainment) and we’re certain you can do this if it means something to you to become a member." "We’ve discovered that most individuals can muster these funds if membership is something they truly desire." ~ They describe your membership card as a key that you must show and scan to other members to prove your affiliation. They make a few references to the underground secrecy that members may or may not choose to maintain, and so to protect their identities as members, these... calling cards if you will.. are used to discretely confirm ones membership in the Church. ~ They do not tell you where the money for your registration fee goes. In fact, they say: "That is up to the administration. It will be applied to whatever is most required at the time it is received. If you feel the need to know in more detail, then don’t join." Implying you don't have the right to know exactly where your money goes? ~ Their membership application includes inappropriate questions that no organization, religious or otherwise, should ever ask. These include: " Are you satisfied with your sex life? Describe your ideal of a physically attractive sex partner." "How many years would you like to live?" "In what organizations do you hold membership?" "Are you a smoker? If so, to what extent." "Do you drink alcoholic beverages? If so, to what extent? State preferences." " Secondly, how does satanism compare themselves to other religions and philosophies? ~ The Church of Satan declares themselves to be "a formidable threat to those who would halt progress in the name of spirituality and theism of any sort." "We are a group of dynamic individuals who stand forth as the ultimate underground alternative, the “Alien Elite.” ~ They state things like "Our members and officials will not serve as teachers nor as entertainers—we have neither the time nor the inclination.", "It is our policy not to spoon-feed information to students who are too lazy to do research." and "Your schedule is of no importance to us." so it's no surprise that the satanic texts they do not provide in full on their website, including the Satanic Bible, - which is there main text and one they highly encourage you to read - cost money. ~ They believe themselves to be the only form of satanism, stating: "People who believe in some Devilish supernatural being and worship him are Devil-worshippers, not Satanists.", "Anton LaVey was the first to define Satanism as a philosophy, and it is an atheist perspective." and “Theistic Satanism” is an oxymoronic term and thus absurd." ~ Statements like: "we stand in opposition to theist religions and their

inherent hypocrisy.", [regarding the word Shemhamforash] - "So, Satanists use it for traditional blasphemy’s sake.", [regarding someones question about their experiences with demons] - "Satanists do not believe in demons or other supernatural beings, nor do we believe in spells. Seek help from local mental health professionals to assist you to get over these delusions.", "We Satanists are all anthropologists to some degree and can find that not upsetting people who think in such simplistic and erroneous terms of “belief equals goodness and truthfulness” might be worthwhile to smooth the proceedings in which one is involved. Trying to teach them that they are mistaken in such a belief may not be worth one’s efforts." are pretty much self explanatory as to the lack of consideration satanism has for other religions as being true for others.

~ This statement: "Knowing this, if you choose to affiliate with any pseudo-Satanic or anti-Satanic groups, you may well find yourself disaffiliated from the Church of Satan. Forewarned is forearmed." might sound harmless at first glance, but this kind of reminds me of an isolation tactic where cults discourage their followers to read or engage with opposing or differing opinions because it might open their eyes to the truth of things?

Finally, here are some statements that I personally don't find are morally or ethically okay?

~ In terms of kids worrying about their parents approval the Church says: "Satanism teaches that, so long as you live with your parents, you are in “their lair” and must show them respect". Which... is literally the same shit abuse victims hear all the time..... (example "you live in their house, they're your parents and you should love and respect them no matter what")...

~ "There can be no more myth of ��equality” for all—it only translates to “mediocrity” and supports the weak at the expense of the strong." is a statement I just .... wish I were making up at this point.

~"The emotional drive to “change the world” is a common stage of early adult development typically beginning around age 16 and lasting until around age 24. Usually, individuals who become aware as to how the world actually functions—rather than being lost in a fantasy wherein they will be some sort of savior figure—come to realize that idealism (such as changing the world) is less important than the principle of getting what you want for yourself.",

Also! Um.. they are fully aware and okay with people who uphold discriminatory political views....

To quote their website regarding politics: "Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine."

And to justify this, they say: "Members who demand conformity from other members to their particular political fetish are welcomed to depart.”, "For a Satanist to expect, much less demand, consensus on any given issue, beyond basic advocacy of individual liberty within local laws, is an enterprise which is probably as masochistic as it is insane.", "Some naïve idealists seem to think that the Church of Satan as an organization risks irrelevancy if it does not become an advocate of certain political positions—usually their own pet issues which are assumed “must” be shared by other Satanists. This fear is based upon the assumption that the Church of Satan needs to change the world or risk “fading into obscurity.”

Again, all of this information comes directly from the Church of Satan website itself. It it not "propaganda". It comes from their own mouths. You're free to disagree with my interpretation and views of the above. But if you do agree, I'd love to know.

The things above make me uneasy. They give me huge cult vibes and are actually disappointing to read as someone who once considered themselves a satanist. As an omnistic pagan now, I do believe that all religions hold truths within them and can say that there are certain things within satanism I do agree with. But overall, I feel like calling satanism a religion is a stretch and should be joined with caution if it's something you are really interested in. I am only one person, I can't tell anyone what to do. But if you were considering becoming a satanist but hold values and views that the things in this post opposed or were opposite to, then maybe satanism isn't right for you. It's definitely not right for me.

I hope this post was educational at the very least. I hope that it might help people make a decision either way if they were interested in joining the Church.

[cloudbxrry]

hello, and welcome to my blog! You can see some of my info in the blog description, but this is for rules and additional information. If you do not agree with the rules here, you can leave.

ALSO, I am cynophobic (scared of dogs) so do NOT try to send me pics of dogs. Cute puppies are ok, but just don’t send your fearbeastpics. Also, please do not come onto my blog to just send hate abt how I’m scared of your “little fluff muffin who can do no harm”. I am not sending hate to your dog, or any dog. Only putting this here just in case. Idk why anyone would send dog pics, but I guess I want to be sure idk lmao. • Black Lives Matter

• I believe that many cops are kind, but DO NOT support police brutality or racist cops.

• Stop Asian Hate

• Fuck Donald Trump

• All lives matter

• Pedophiles are NOT part of the lgbt+ community

Trans men are men and trans women are women

Non binary and Agender people are valid, including those who use neopronouns

You do not need dysphoria to be trans

Terfs and any other people who exclude/gatekeep trans people are not welcome to interact with me, my blog, or my content

Queer is not a slur. It is perfectly acceptable to identify as queer

I support ace and aro people, who are queer and part of the queer community

Love is not inherently romantic. I support platonic and queerplatonic relationships, as well as those who do not wish to be in any relationship • Lgbt+ rights

A relationship does not need to be monogamous. I fully support people in polyamorous relationships

I support bi, pan, and multisexual people, who are queer and part of the queer community

Pedophiles are not part of the queer community and are disgusting humans that are not welcome on my blog

Incest is never okay in any circumstance, even if it’s between foster or adopted family members

All religions are valid and welcome on my blog

Indigenous lives matter

Free Palestine

All races are valid. Racists are not supported by me in any regard

Nazis, white supremacists, alt-right members, zionists, and any other members of discriminatory groups are not welcome here whatsoever

Disabled lives matter, and this includes both mental and physical disabilities

Women’s rights are extremely important and I support feminist movements

Sex workers deserve respect, safety, and security

Wearing a mask is extremely important. Everyone should be wearing masks in public no matter what

• Your mental illness does not give you the right to be an asshole

• Do not use harmful slurs

• Do not post/talk about nsfw content on this blog please. I am a minor and am not comfortable with those types of jokes

These things are not up for debate. If you don’t agree with all of these, my blog is not for you and I am asking you to not interact with my blog. Unfollow me, block me, do whatever you must.

If you do agree with all of these, you are welcome and accepted here with open arms. My blog is a safe place for all people. I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. Thank you.

(credit to mayflowers07 for some of the rules on here, I am not very good at wording things and I didn’t want to offend anyone/forget anything

These were already said, but If you are racist, queerphobic, transphobic, homophobic, biphobic, a “battle-ax Bisexual” (as in being a Bi that does not supporting omni, pan, or other multisexual people), Aphobic, or bigoted in any way then you are not allowed on this blog. It is a safe place for people of any race, religon, neurodivergant, cynophobic, and mentally ill people.

A BIT ABOUT ME:

(most of this is in the blog description)

Name(s): Ari or Nova

Pronouns: She/They/He/Void

Hobbies: Reading, writing fanfic, sports, drawing, memeing, stalking tumblr /lh

I do Grit Ninja (look it up on google if your interested, it’s a gymnastic/parkour thing lmao idk how to describe things)

My favorite ship is Cremini/Alyssa (my and my friends OC’s, they are dryad cottagecore lesbians ❤️) I have adhd (undiagnosed), depression, anxiety (getting diagnosed), and am a Bisexual Agender person.

MY (CURRENT) FANDOMS:

• Dream SMP (only the fandom. I have never watched the streams and my attention span wouldn’t allow it. I have been lurking in the fandom for a while tho)

• Hermitcraft

• 3rd Life

• Evo SMP

• Percy Jackson (especially TOA)

• Warrior Cats (kinda)

OTHER TOPICS I WILL POST ABOUT:

• ADHD/Neurodivergant stuff

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Therapy

• Abuse/Child Abuse (and Ptsd/C-Ptsd)

• School

HOW THINGS WILL BE TAGGED ON THIS BLOG:

Answering questions will be tagged #Ari Q&A

My Art will be tagged #myart

Picrews will be tagged with #Aricrew

Things with my and my friends OC’s will be tagged #AriOCs

Updates on therapy (starting in 9 days!!!) will be tagged #Ari therapy

My rants (I rant A LOT) will be tagged #Ari rants

Serious content (s3lf h4rm, depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, suicidal thoughts) will be tagged #Ari srs

Random, more lighthearted things will be tagged #Ari speaks

MumboJumbo angst things will be tagged #Mumbo Angst Society

(Will use tags to tag this post to demonstrate)

Backround info to the Mumbo Angst Society:

I had noticed there wasn’t a lot of mumbo angst, and I was confused because he has just so many angst options! So I posted abt that and @ mayflowers07 in the post, and they responded (small fanenby noises bc fanfic writers are awesome) and said “Well this is a pleasant surprise! Thank you op, I am honoured to be the sole provider of the Mumbo Angst Society.” So now im calling it the Mumbo Angst Society ok.

Will add more to this over time :) have a good day!