Here's the thing that really broke me about the goyische left's response to the Hamas massacre: once again, the uncritical, antisemitic double standard for Israel and Jews versus literally anyone else has now expanded to assume that Jews do not deserve human rights or have lost them by virtue of being Israeli.
Let's say, for a moment, that you have been radicalized to really believe that the Hamas attack on civilians was a liberatory action, perhaps unfortunate that it targeted unarmed civilians, but what else were they supposed to do? Besides, Israel has visited similar and worse attacks on Palestine for years, so turnabout is fair play, especially in service of the struggle of liberation of a brutally oppressed group. [To be clear: I take issue with this and find it morally repugnant. But for the moment, let's accept arguendo this belief as a baseline.]
Do you really include rape, torture, killing children at all but especially in front of their parents, or killing parents in front of their children and taking hostages of the survivors, beheading infants, trapping and burning families hidden together alive, stripping and parading hostages naked through the street, mutilating and displaying the bodies of the dead proudly and celebrating their deaths, and doing all of this on a holy day where Jewish people the world over are supposed to be celebrating the end of the holiday season and the beginning of a new cycle of Torah learning. On a day that people will be resting, with their families, unarmed and in their holy spaces, and are explicitly commanded to be happy.
.......amongst the "unfortunate-but-necessary violent struggle?"
Like even if you believe in your heart of hearts that all Israelis should die or at least are acceptable casualties in the struggle, do you really believe that there is any excuse for the above atrocities? If you do, I need you to ask yourself some things:
Do you think there is any justification for the manner and cruelty of the deaths?
Do you really think that there is anything a person could do in order to deserve any of these actions as a sentence?
Was the cruel nature of this, designed to inflict the greatest amount of trauma on the survivors and the Jewish people at large, actually necessary to accomplishing the goal of liberation?
Would you accept any of these actions being done to any other group?
If you are a white American, do you think you personally deserve this yourself for everything the United States has done to the native population (never mind anyone else)?
Do you think that civilians can be held 100% accountable for their government's actions? Is that a standard you yourself would like to be judged by?
If context is important, how is the last 2000 years of brutal antisemitism from virtually every part of the world not also relevant context? How is the Holocaust not relevant? The Farhud?
Do you think refugees fleeing genocide should be able to live wherever they can and that other countries and peoples have a duty to step up and take them in? If so, would you call refugees of genocide colonists and settlers?
Do you think that children should have to answer for the crimes of adults? That it is ever okay to kill them in cold blood?
Do you think that non-combatant deaths should ever be celebrated?
Theoretically, if the only way Hamas could accomplish its goal (which we will assume arguendo is Palestinian liberation, despite the mounds of evidence against that) is to kill whatever Israelis they could get their hands on, don't you think that a valid liberation force would just kill people as efficiently as possible rather than take the time to brutalize and humiliate them first? Wouldn't that be the more morally understandable thing to do?
Do you think it's ever okay to mock or talk down to people grieving their dead, no matter who they were, especially if they were random citizens rather than, say, high-profile politicians?
These questions to me are unanswerable and the fact that they are even in question at all unjustifiable. The left has either actively participated in this or remained silent in the face of it. And too many friends who I thought were allies have failed to reach out to even ask if we're okay, let alone made even the weakest of condemnations of the brutality my people have experienced this week.
This tells me that you think my humanity, as a Jew, is conditional. That my right not to experience war crimes is up for debate.
How am I supposed to trust you ever again? Feel safe in your presence? Collaborate with you on other issues? Why should I?
For the people who are posting about the situation yet failed to condemn the torture and brutality against my people, please know that I will likely never fully believe you that you are for restorative justice, against the death penalty, against cruel and unusual punishment, against sexual violence, for children's rights and against the murder of children, against terrorism, against civilian casualties, for the rights and protection of refugees, for freedom of movement, support indigenous groups, and certainly certainly anyone claiming to be against antisemitism. There will forever and always be an asterisk next to your statements in favor of universal human rights which reads: *except Jews.
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My printer hates me :) (with many thanks and credit to @niennanir as before)
Gosh aren’t they gorgeous tho ♥ Especially the latest and largest, though I have to give all the credit to the paper on that one haha, it’s stunning IRL, I could almost stare at the gold lattice forever rather than read, but I’m so happy with how it turned out between the pages as well!
Quick showcase of the new additions! :D
My Drinking Game as another test run, I got the spacing how I wanted it! Yay! It’s so much handsomer and less cramped! Also I gotta say, if it wasn’t such a large usage of paper, this would be my ideal way of checking for typos - I found a couple after setting it down to ink lol, they’ve been fixed now at least ♪
Paired here with the emerge, transformed three-parter, one of my all-time-favourites <3 I reread it the night I finished it and cried again, a little bit of tender mercy always wrecks me hhhh ♥ There are so many beautiful evocative lines! I’m so happy to hold it ♪ And as you can see above, that was the one that got the cute little ghost dust jacket :D
Another test run of what I’m calling volume 1 of my Vargas Drabbles lol, so not including Have you lost your mind? since that one’s currently unfinished. I do fully intend to print it once it’s done tho :3c Hopefully that one will cause me fewer problems! I hate measuring, so I may have flubbed two covers before finally getting this one into good enough shape XP And my red yarn is still in storage so >.> Did I go purchase another ball of red yarn? I’ll never tell. You can’t tell me it doesn’t look great as a bookmark tho <3
And my current happiest! Ah!! It turned out fantastic on all counts! The cover paper obviously, as I couldn’t Not lead with that, but also the size of the spine and the way the pages settled against each other while glueing - I used a different type of paper for this one and I think I’m completely converted over, it feels amazing to work with. Whatever I was using before had to have been like 15lbs lol, I’m literally just using normal 20lb printer paper but it feels and looks and behaves so much nicer <3
The size of Helix also allowed for a slightly larger bookmark, which was perfect because we had this soft gold ribbon that was all of a couple millimeters wider than the other ribbons/yarn I’d been using, and it looks so so so pretty with the gold detailing!! I’ve put it between Ch. 1 and 2 and getting to see the actual physical size differences of the chapters is so fun ♥
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