#like even if your a zionist i think you should at least be able to see why making something about black americans about how epic cool...

[yippie-madness]

last year my school decided to use the mlk jr assembly as a excuse to talk about amazing isreal is fir being anti racist or something so guess whose excited about this years one

[stil-lindigo]

Hey, I just wanted to share something with you, as someone who's so invested in the Palestine conflict, I hope it might inspire hope, even a little.

I was born and live in Egypt, a very conservative and religious country. These days I deleted my Tiktok and rarely ever use Twitter, as I'm in my senior year, and seeing the constant deaths and torture was getting into me so much that I couldn't even eat or drink properly, nevertheless properly study. I honestly am not proud of myself for doing so, but there's comfort in the fact Egypt is so Pro-Palestine. There's a lot to be done, and even for people like me, we can help.

My school has been donating food, clothes and blankets to Palestine. The McDonald's in here have been trying to distance themselves, claiming they're "100% Egyptian", only to get mocked and insulted. I go by the local McDonald's, there's a lot of schools where I am, around 5 in two blocks, and where before they were constantly so full, these days they're so empty. I can only see maybe 3, 4 people in there. A lot of people in my school are on a complete strike, against every American product. We've resorted to buying and getting local products instead. Egypt is doing very poorly economically at the moment, but there's still a lot of effort into knocking out American products, even if not by the companies, by the youth and the children. I can't go a single class without one of my teachers openly supporting Palestine. My Arabic teacher constantly uses the people in Gaza to teach me grammar, calling them brave and courageous. My geography teacher denies Isreal, and has been in league with others to get more donations and aid. Egyptians believe so truly that Palestine will be free that it's hard not to think so too. I've had classmates openly agree that if they could, they'd join the army to help fight for Palestine, I've seen more people than ever mocking the current regime, I've seen more people than ever falling out of the American illusion and seeing it for what it is. I've spent a lot of religion classes being taught Arabic brotherhood and chivalry, when previously, the lessons were stereotypically conservative in nature and I used to despise them for it.

Yes, the government sucks like every other, but there's an air of open support in here. No one is losing their jobs for stating the truth, homes and shops are waving the Palestinian flag. Even the antisemitism, which was rampant, has seen a noticeable decline. People in here stand for Palestine.

I want to also let you know you've been an inspiration for people, or at least, to me. I want to be able to participate more, and I see your reposts and reblogs and I want to do even more than what I did at the start, which was retweeting and reposting and sharing what I can to my friends. Unfortunately due to my current living situation and my terrible memory, I missed being able to donate to the school, but they have stated to open up donations again soon, and I'm preparing in advance for that one. I was not raised Zionist, but I was raised warned against participating in political affairs, saying I'd be put in more trouble, and even could be killed. But I see you and I see so many Americans losing their jobs and being branded criminals and as moral failures for speaking out, and I find it harder and harder in me not to also speak out. And even if I'm not constantly retweeting and reposting, there is something I can do. You helped me realize that, and I'd like to thank you.

I hope this cheers you up even a little, I've noticed your posts these days expressing how much this has been upsetting you. It's been upsetting to all of us, and I want you to know that it's not fruitless, no matter how many western countries and how many bootlickers make you feel otherwise. This ordeal has taught me the world is a brotherhood, politics and money are never a reason for why we should not stand together, and why we shouldn't speak for those having their voice silenced.

Please excuse me if something comes off wrong or unnatural. Like I said, I was born and I live in Egypt, English is not my first language and I still have issues communicating my personal thoughts in it. Please never don't stand for Palestine. Please never lose hope for it, like the Egyptians never have and never will. Please never let people make you feel hopeless and insane.

Thank you for listening to me, thank you for caring about Palestine when it would've been easy not to. Thank you for using your platform, and if you found it in you to read this thing, thank you for giving time to a brown Arab, when the world so strongly encourages you not to. Please continue to inspire justice, and I hope the world one day continues to inspire hope for you.

😭 anon, I cant explain how much I appreciate you sending this message. I know there is hope for Palestinian liberation, I know that we will see freedom for Palestine. But god do I need the reminder sometimes that we aren’t all just shouting into the void. My country of Australia shamefully takes a cowardly stance on Palestine, always deferring to the US to guide our foreign policy, and yet always claims moral superiority over other countries such as yours. Thank you, really thank you so much for sending this message. I feel so so honoured to have earned an audience that includes you. I believe an audience does reflect an artist, and to know I have done you proud in any way makes me feel full.

And please don’t ever feel ashamed of your English, you are eloquent and have a wonderful, compassionate voice, and you have inspired hope in me for yet another day.

[matan4il]

To the Nonnie who (we really need to find you a better nickname) asked me about the Druze and the Bedouins in Israel, you're very welcome, and likewise, I appreciate your kind words! :)

I still think Israel should strive to include our closest brethren in law as much as we can

We actually refer to Arabs as our cousins. ;) I think the Druze in particular, as well as the Israeli Arabs and the Bedouins who are not hostile to Israel, who do not support terrorism and violence against Jews, are in fact generally seen as closer than that. And I already said in my first reply to you, that I absolutely think that Israel, like all countries, should constantly strive to make life as good and inclusive for its minorities as possible. So on that point, we def agree, Nonnie. To me, it's also clear that Israel must remain the Jewish nation state, while to you it isn't (you say you're undecided what the answer is, to me there's not even a question), and I'll admit, I'm not sure why. Being a Jewish state, doesn't mean Israel is solely a Jewish state (meaning, it is NOT a state for Jews only), but we've already covered that. You want it not to be solely Jewish on a national level as well, not just that of citizen rights, or who gets to be one. You still haven't provided me with an explanation of why you think Jews are the only ones not deserving of a nation state? Historically, many bigger and more powerful unions, have disintegrated into smaller nation states, because no one group wanted to feel controlled by, or dependent on the good will of another. Why is that acceptable for the former Yugoslavia's Serbs, Bosnians and Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians and Montenegrins (as one example), but not for Jews?

And why do you think anyone will thank the Jews for throwing our right to self determination away? The Druze, for example, have been forced to do exactly this. Under the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, they were given self rule from 1921 to 1936. Then, as part of establishing the independent Syria, the Druze State was taken away from them, and it was forcibly integrated into Syria, while they were still allowed some autonomy. By 1944, that was canceled, too. And what has happened to them since? Syria doesn't even recognize them as a distinct ethno-religious, let alone one that deserve protection or rights. In Syria's official demographics, the Druze are registered as Muslims (in fact, the only country in the Middle East that recognizes the Druze as a distinct group, is Israel). And according to at least one Druze researcher, the Civil war in Syria has made the Druze realize that their very existence there is in danger. And this is despite the fact that the biggest Druze population in the world lives in Syria, and that since the rise of the Allawi minority to power through a military coup, at the expense of the Suni Muslim majority, minorities in Syria were treated better than in most of the Middle East (while the majority was oppressed, leading to the war).

Groups without any power, without self protection, marginalized and vulnerable, have NOT been historically treated well. I don't really know many examples to the contrary, if at all. We, as Jews, should know that better than anyone. I know that you know this, but I want to emphasize it. NO ONE will thank the Jews if we throw away our right to self rule away, and NO ONE will protect us, if we choose to make ourselves once more weak and defenceless. It's just not how human nature works.

From your last ask, it sounds like your environment is very radical, and likely anti-Zionist? And I commend you for not being as extreme, as well as for being able to carry on a respectful dialogue. I think that's maybe the biggest counter to hatred, the ability to communicate respectfully even with people we disagree with. So I don't take it lightly, that you disagree with me, but we can still have a nice conversation. But I think you can and should pose some of these questions to the people around you, who you implied are radical. Do they recognize the Zionist nature of Judaism, and the unbreakable bond of Jews to their ancestral homeland in Israel, that Judaism sanctifies? Do they recognize that before the Jewish state, and the self rule and self defence it provides us with, Jews were horribly abused in the Middle East? Do they understand how Israel continues to save Jews since its inception, both by giving them refuge in Israel, and by protecting them in the countries around the world where Jews live? Do they understand and care, that dismantling Israel as a Jewish state, takes that protection away from Jews worldwide, at a time when antisemitic narratives about us are at their strongest since WWII? And why do they think it's okay for Jews to be the only ones deprived of the right to have a nation state in their ancestral land? Hopefully, you can have a respectful dialogue with these people about these questions. But even if not, I think it's vital to ask them, because Jews have suffered too much, for too long, and there's too few of us left, to risk the safety of those of us still left on this earth, by just being optimistic, or going on a sanitized version of the past (in which nothing was ever wrong between Jews and Arabs in Israel before the advent of 19th century Zionism), and not truly confronting the real facts, history, and rights regarding Jews, and the consequences of depriving us of a nation state.

I'm glad my posts and opinions helped you reflect on and form your own. And I'm happy to share whatever knowledge I have, or why my conclusions and beliefs are what they are... I would be happy to meet for a coffee, and to kvetch together if you come to Jerusalem, and you're absolutely welcome in my inbox! Have a great day and week, and I hope you really enjoyed your Hanukkah! ^u^

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[svedupelle]

the random antisemitism on my dash from you fucking blew, that post literally has someone saying death to jews in the notes

Im guessing this is the post ur talking about and that this is the comment u mean

(if not, and someone somewhere in the tags said word for word "death to jews", then i didnt spot it. But more importantly, you understand that i am not responsible for that person writing those words, right? and that i may have reblogged that post not because of what some rando said in the tags that i didnt check beforehand, but because of what the post is actually about? which is the state of Isr*el's continued atrocities against palestinians, and more specifically the morbid humor in some random isr*elian on the internet being blind to the real extent of their nations descent into despotism and violence? Just so we're clear about the subject matter of the post)

Anyway. so if that is indeed the comment ur saying meant to say death to jews, then it would seem ur confused about something. Namely zionism *isn't* the same thing as judaism. let's start with the fucking dictionary:

So merriam-webster agrees with me that being a zionist is not the same as being jewish. And quite frankly, it can't be, since unless if we want to posit that gentiles have an inherent and innate opposition to the jewish people having a nation of their own, then it must be possible and true that gentiles can also support a nation of Isr*el, and therefore, can be zionists. And I don't personally believe that not being jewish inherently makes you hateful of jews and opposed to a peaceful existence alongside and together with them. I doubt you do either, considering.

So, we've basically already established that being a zionist does not automatically make one jewish, which means that calling for the death of all zionists does not mean you are calling for the death of all jews.

On the other hand, it would make sense for a lot of zionists to *be* jewish, thus meaning that you are calling for the death of, if not all, then at a least a lot of jews. Now i hate pedophiles. IF we were to imagine a world where 60% of pedophiles were jewish, and i said i think pedophiles should die, i do not believe it would be antisemitic, because i would arguing for the death of pedophiles *regardless* of a majority of them being jewish. Similiarly, the person calling for the death of all zionists is probably doing so independantly of a lot of zionists being jews (maybe, i didnt check to see if there are any statistics on that and im not about to, because this is mostly hypothetical anyway).

"But 'zionist' is just a dogwhistle for jewish, so they do mean death to all jews!"

Then let's take a look at the first part of their comment: "death to the illegal settler colonial state of Isr*el"

now im no expert. but i do believe they may be referring to the aforementioned atrocities and the current apartheid that palestinians endure under the rule of Isr*el. Personally i find it reasonable and to some degree expected of people to condemn these acts. Maybe calling for the death of living people is extreme, but either way, i dont think this person is calling for the death of jews, specifically.

Or maybe they are. Maybe the person in the notes is a big antisemite. I dont know. I dont feel like digging through their blog to check. What I do feel more strongly about is the fact that you worded your ask in a way that suggests you know me, since you expect better from me. Whether ur a follower or a mutual, it makes me incredibly sad that you felt the need to send this through anon instead of a dm. maybe its intimidating or something, but getting this ask doesnt feel like a dialogue, it just feels rude. u didnt even greet me first

i'll make it clear: i have no ill will towards jews. at all. i very much want for all jews across the world and especially in my country to be able to live their lives free from the prejudice, hatred and trauma that they may suffer as a result of antisemitism at the hands of people like myself. i dont know how to make this clearer

i do not support the nation of isr*el. i dont like its actions, i dont like its leaders. i am a firm believer in the fact that until the nakba ends, there will never be a worthy argument for the nation's continued existence. and i do not like how people intentionally misconstrue criticisms of it as antisemitic to condemn the critic, such as what you are doing.

The fact that you seem to be familiar with me annoys me. i despise letting people down. i always do my best not to do so, and always wish to be reliable. but you're annoying. so either dm me if you want to have a real discussion, or block me. read this before you go though, its somewhat interesting. now fuck off

[kendrixtermina]

Gaza is NOT totalitarian

One thing you always hear from Zionists or even unaffiliated random westerners who know little about the conflict as a reason why the war is, if not completely justified, then at least tragically unavoidable, is that Gaza is a totalitarian regime & they’re either all indoctrinated to hate Israelis, or get portrayed as passive victims with no agency that need to be „liberated“

But over the last weeks we have seen a lot of scenes of life out of gaza and i have also read many books & watched documentaries to further educate myself and there is just no trace of that anywhere.

No big posters of leaders in classroom, no symbols & logos everywhere, no political phrases in people’s everyday speech, many of the people in videos seem totally a-political & lament that their family had nothing to do with the resistance or the war. They spend more time talking about friggin olive trees and embroidery than politics.

You could glean a bunch about their culture from the videos – extended families live together in big shared houses, they are very affectionate with children, they value community, the sport they tend to be obsessed about is Football…

Saudi arabia, for example, bans booze, art, music & forces everyone to wear burqas – that’s just not the case in Palestine. There are woman doctors & journalists, a wealth of poets & painters. You can buy booze grown in the west bank. You see the occasional lady without hijab, like Bisan often has her hair out, which tells me the ones that DO wear it do so because they want to, which is their good right. There were several Christian churches apparently operating just fine inside Gaza, until Israel bombed them.

I heard that 4th way esoterism was influenced by Sufism which is an off-shoot of Islam, & seeing the religious mantras people cited I could see the relationship - they said stuff like they should trust in God's destiny, that God alone is enough for them etc. it has that same "accept what is & surrender to the universe, real strength comes from contact with divinity & then you need nothing else" vibe - though of course the esoterists believe less in a personal god & more in a panentheist "Unity Of Being". Ppl used to make a lot of bogeyman talk out of Islam meaning "submission" but now I think it's probably meant in a "surrender to the universe & accept what is" kinda way & that ppl ended up projecting the authoritarian character of Christianity onto it. Islam is alot more de-central & everyone does their own thing, innit? I remember that when Muslims hit a certain percentage in Germany they thought of introducing Islam classes to school (in addition to the Catholic & Lutheran classes they have - atheists & ppl of other religions get "ethics" instead which is basically moral philosophy) but one problem they ran into is that there's no central authority to get a course plan from. There is no such thing as a muslim pope. There are extremists who ARE authoritarian, like Saudi arabia (as there are of all religions; They're all the same, rly, it's probably down to some flaw in human brains) but that doesn't mean everyone's like that. You might pt down the authoritarianism there to Saudi Arabia being an absolutist monarchy...

(Of course, a lot of less educated westerners don’t know that the kind of extremism seen in the Saudis & Taliban is actually a fairly recent movement that was able to take over due to the ME being destabilized in the cold war… the area was once stable, organized & well-educated.)

Some of the people covering the war like Bisan, Plestia, Saleh etc. were normal instagrammers before, doing normal instagram things, not a hint of politics to be found.

I also recall this post by a gay ude saying that yeah it’s not super welcoming but there’s not really systematic persecution – your family might kick you out or quietly tolerate it while wanting nothing to do with it… so just like the more religious parts of the USA basically.

Also, I’d like to note that even if gaza WERE totalitarian, people in totalitarian countries don’t cease to be human and their lives don’t become worthless. Not everyone is a True Believer, most are just scared out of their mind. You need to read „Jugend Ohne Gott“, you need to watch „Das Boot“, you need to listen to stories of people who escaped from North Korea. Maybe if it’s easier to epathize with a fictional depiction, read 1984 or The Handmaid’s tale.

So, I consider myself German because that’s where I grew up & the only culture I have any emotional attachment to, but my parents are Cuban. Cuba is a fairly „soft“ totalitarian state in that dissenters are „only“ beaten & their job prospects ruined, not outright killed like in North Korea or under the Nazis, but even so, my grandma still rips up all papers before throwing them away because spies would go through people’s trash, and my parents needed to be told several times by friends that it’s OK to criticize politicians in public before they would feel comfortable riffing on then.chancellor Kohl.

Note, however, that people DID mock the Castros in private, among trusted family members. There are tons of jokes mocking them. Heck, even mocked Hitler behind closed doors – they used to call them Flüsterwitze („whisper jokes“) because if you say them out loud they shoot you. Just to illustrate how people trapped in totalitarian states are human.

Even in the early 2000s when I was still pretty young, I didn’t buy that it’s OK to kill Iraqis just because there is a Dictator. The citizens are victims, and unlike the leadership they are poor & can’t flee. What if someone invaded Cuba and killed all my cousins just to punish the bad guy opressing them? That din’t seem fair. They said I’d understand when I’m older but all I understood is what utter bullshit that war was.

We’ve heard so many Palestinians talking about their plight and there is hardly anyone speaking of repression or totalitarianism, including peole who left the country. (In stark contrast to Cubans, North Koreans or people who fled the Nazis, who don’t shut up about how much it sucked) There is not zero repression (like an incident where Hamas got Fatah-affiliated workers fired), but the same can be said of Israel or even the west – McCarthyism or the current withhunt against pro-palestine ppl.

Meanwhile we have that creepy song of Israeli children calling for murder, and many videos by Israelis saying they were indoctrinated. One person mentioned being outright told that arabs were their „enemy“, while two arab boys were sitting in her class. I also hear that many Israelis go most of their lives without even interacting with a Palestinian outside of military service.

So, yeah, I think it’s pretty clear who the indoctrinated ones are.

[dabiensworld]

Since you make it a habit to stalk me on Twitter just to defend your beloved Jon, let's see you put that energy to defending him from the 800+ people that liked this post. Come on! Apparently you have all the dedication to defend him on Twitter and stalk my tweets to other people

Use that energy here! Let's see it! Defend your pookie bear to the replies and all 800+ people who liked it since you're apparently Jon Bernthal'a designated defense attorney. You're pressed about my tweets when they don't even blow up unlike this one.

https://www.tumblr.com/dlivee/754431555426992128/jon-bernthal-one-of-the-biggest-zionists-in?source=share

Answer yourself one question. Have you ever seen me defending him?

No, you haven't and I'm not going to use my energy for that.

But I will use that energy to fight you. Because you are a trashy person and people should know with who they are interacting. Me being able to report and suspend not one, not two but at least several your accounts is a living proof of that. I have proofs of you being ableist, bodyshamer, you harassed my friend when they posted their private photos, you are attacking people for criticized Matt's character, send hateful tweets to actors. Harassing fans here by sending them anonymous messages full of hate. List of your sins are long. Last time we spoke you were defending your behavior, by saying, that people are bodyshaming Charlie, while I haven't seen you defending him that much. Heard from someone that you also liked a lot of Asian hate tweets before Elon blocked that option, but I haven't seen it and I don't have proofs of that, so I'm not using this, but l wasn't surprised when I heard about it.

My point is you are attention seeker, you will say and do whatever give you public's attention. Most people are making themselves clowns on tik tok, you chose literally committing crimes by sending death threats. And I think everyone interacting with you should know who you are and what you are doing. And the fact that you blocked me, you wrote anonymously to me and you are triggered that I still can see you tells me that you are scared of me.

[fierceawakening]

So someone posted something in reply to me saying that Herzl at least was not the person who claimed that conquering the Arab controlled lands would civilize them. I cannot find that post now, am not sure if the person deleted it, but I wanted to post this and cite it as where I got the idea that early Zionist leaders thought of themselves as a civilizing and Westernizing force. Pulling out quotes from the text, we have this, which references Herzl himself, specifically:

Yet in the early days, the Zionist movement was astonishingly honest about its existence as a form of colonialism. For example, Herzl, one of the founders of political Zionism wrote in 1902 to infamous colonizer Cecil Rhodes, arguing that Britain recognized the importance of “colonial expansion”:

“You are being invited to help make history,” he wrote, “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor ; not Englishmen, but Jews . How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”

And then this:

Menachem Usishkin, chairman of the Jewish National Fund, was known for his calls to rid Palestine of its natives:

“What we can demand today is that all Transjordan be included in the Land of Israel. . . on condition that Transjordan would be either be made available for Jewish colonization or for the resettlement of those [Palestinian] Arabs, whose lands [in Palestine] we would purchase. Against this, the most conscientious person could not argue . . . For the [Palestinian] Arabs of the Galilee, Transjordan is a province . . . this will be for the resettlement of Palestine’s Arabs. This the land problem. . . . Now the [Palestinian] Arabs do not want us because we want to be the rulers. I will fight for this. I will make sure that we will be the landlords of this land . . . . because this country belongs to us not to them . . . “

Revisionist Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, in an essay titled The Iron Law (1925) wrote that:

“A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else-or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!… Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important… to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot – or else I am through with playing at colonizing.”

It's this page, and these quotes, that make me uncomfortable with the word Zionism.

It's possible ALL OF THIS is taken out of context, and if it is, I'd really, really like some proof. But this makes it certainly sound like, whatever other more positive goals the people who formed Israel had about resettling refugees, some of them were absolutely for an ethnostate and believed in supremacy.

PLEASE prove me wrong. I would like NOTHING MORE than for these people to have fundamentally misled me, and to be too trusting of their tone.

But at the moment, absent proof of that?

Whether or not Israel should continue to exist (and I think any manner of making it stop existing other than pressuring or convincing its current government to step down is unjustified, to be totally clear on this point), its founding does not sound very altruistic to me.

[starjxsung]

hey star, thank you for being vocal about the collab and palestine and giving us the space to be too.

it’s such an overwhelming situation for most of us from what i’ve seen on here. i also saw skz and stayblr as kind of a safe space to get away from my life problems. and seeing everything in shambles is very hurtful. but necessary nonetheless, im glad that this debacle is sparking important conversations.

i have always had kind of a resistance to getting too into kpop. (shinee,bts and skz have been the groups that i’ve spent most energy in but specially skz). bts and skz content really helped me overcome difficult af times in my life. and seeing this unwind is just crazy. i’ve always been aware of the requirements of moral ambiguity that kpop has. and it’s always been something i criticize but didn’t really feel until these latest skz situations like, cc, tommy hilfiger and then zionists are just too much. skz is also my last hope within stanning kpop groups. i’d love to think they’re just being repressed by jype and can’t speak out on it (and i bet that to certain degree this is the case) but at the end of the day, i think ignorance is mostly it. as you said, they’re just rich men too.

i’m also constantly dreading the fact that i don’t have the platform to spread awareness or be able to get messages through, because with such a passionate fanbase as many celebrities have, i would try to move mountains for social justice. i hate the fact that skz can’t (and/or won’t) speak about the issue, id hope it would be bc of repression but tbh idek anymore.

im really disillusioned with everything too. i’m very vocal of my support for the free palestine movement and protests (and everyone in my life have been very supportive as well) but seeing stays and skz openly prom tic zionists is too intense.

tbh, im not even that excited for skz @ lolla anymore (for the time being at least). i’ll still continue to support then but it’s definitely with a more careful perspective. and in all honesty im just on here to send you asks and read other people voicing their activism. not even looking forward to any skz content rn.

thank you for putting the energy you spent on skz into palestine. using your voice for good is so necessary <33

i love you angel, i hope you’re well despite everything.

-🐈‍⬛

The amount of big accounts I’m seeing who are just retiring their pages altogether or taking an indefinite hiatus is crazy. I just saw one of the biggest skz streaming event accounts announce that they’re halting all streaming parties and won’t be supporting any skz content right now until further notice. Like this is a HUGE deal, I really hope people understand the severity of all of this

10000% agree with you on the resistance for getting into kpop. A huge part of how I feel is like… these companies are trying to hard for expansion into the west, and in the west it’s really expected of people nowadays to take a stance and made their morals transparent to audiences. Times are simply changing, and the same should be applicable to kpop idols. Yeah they’re usually under contracts and whatnot, but that just shouldn’t be the norm anymore. And there are idols taking a stance and making a difference! Suho from EXO is organizing an entire fundraising event for palestine and has openly said it’s for the people of Gaza and he’s still heavily under an SM contract. These idols have more power than they lead us to believe, many of them just want to be comfortably ignorant

Also totally feel you on the lolla part. I’m seeing some people say they’re planning on giving skz a black ocean at all upcoming festivals which is practically unheard of in skz events. I hope people understand that these issues can’t just be swept under the rug with a new album and some tour announcement. It’s really sparked a larger conversation about the obligations of rich and influential people to use their platforms

I love you so much and I’m feeling all the same of what you’re feeling :( it just sucks. What a weird time to be so annoyed with your main form of escapism. I’m sending you all my love and I’m always here for you if you need to vent or talk about any of it. 🫶💓💗💕💘🩷

[father-imperator]

to my jewish friends, followers, and tumblr strangers: chag pesach sameach! i hope you have sorts of good things planned and your holiday is both insightful and full of yummy food :-)

to my non jewish friends, followers, and tumblr strangers: this is one of the most important holidays, and it's a good idea to take this time to reflect on how you're treating jews in the community. even if you are consciously against anti-semitism, you do probably have some internalised biases.

an important one of these to reflect on is snap judgments. i've noticed that in general, if gentiles see the word zionist, they automatically think "bad person, genocide supporter", but the problem is that zionism has quite a loose definition, and before you make a judgement, it's important to keep that in mind and work out their definition of zionism.

to you, zionism probably means settler colonialism, or christian evangelical zionism. to them, it might mean that they think there should be at least one place on earth where jews can exist free of persecution, or maybe that they think jews should be able to live in or make pilgrimage to their homeland of eretz yisrael. i have zionist friends who wholeheartedly agree with me about palestinian liberation, because they believe that jews should have a place where they know they are safe, and they also believe that palestinian people deserve to live free of bombing and exiling in the place their families have lived for centuries.

it's also important to note that if you only do this with jewish people, it's likely anti-semitism. if you see a post of a blorbo in which the poster has a magen david in their profile picture, i know a lot of gentiles will check the account before liking to make sure they're a "good jew". that is anti-semitic. if you don't do that with every single post on your dash, and make sure your politics align on completely unrelated posts, then you are targeting jewish people.

i am not saying you despise all jewish people or that you're a bad person. anti-semitism is rampant in culture and is so normalised and covert that nobody even sees it, and i'm just saying that it's important to assess if that has affected you.

palestine absolutely must be liberated, no one is free until all are free, and i am so beyond happy that you're vocal about the last few months of constant mass murder. the way to be vocal about that is not to attack random jews, that isn't palestinian activism, that's jewish hate.

am yisrael chai and free palestine can and do coexist.

be kind to your jewish friends and wish them a happy passover.

[bauliya]

Hey, generally I always agree with your points about anti-Zionism and Palestinian rights, there is no freedom unless we are all free, no matter what. But I do think a part of that involves Jewish people being able to hold to their symbols of faith without being accused of supporting genocide. The Star of David and the Hanukkiah are not hate symbols, certainly not to the same extent as the Swastika. I think that conflating Jewish practices with the goals of the Zionist state is exactly what Israel wants and plays into their hands and media goals. I also think it's a dangerous element of anti-Semitism to tell Jews who are upset that they are being targeted for nothing more than being Jewish that they should only care about the oppression of the Palestinian people, they're capable of both and can be worried about the anti-Semitism of Israel linking their religion with hate and the anti-Semitism of people that many are already ideologically aligned with targeting them for celebrating their holidays. Regardless, I do agree with you overall, all focus should be on Palestine and the fight to ensure Palestinian freedom. I truly believe we will see Palestinian liberation in our lifetimes and I look forward to that everyday

I don’t understand how you can call a student hanging up a Palestine flag on a menorah as dangerous antisemitism in the same breath as calling a swastika as a hate symbol when that was also co-opted by Nazis from Hindu-ism? I was raised Hindu, but I’m sensitive enough to realise that people’s knee-jerk reactions to seeing the Swastika (even the Hindu swastika that looks different from the nazi one) are understandable and that they don’t deserve to be sanctioned for it. Meanwhile that student will probably be expelled. In an environment where the mildest of critique of Israel is silenced by accusations of antisemitism that results in loss of careers and public shaming, where the US state itself labels criticisms of Zionism as anti-Semitic, labelling this visible form of resistance as bigoted is dangerous. And I personally believe if atrocities are being carried out in your name you have a moral responsibility to at least acknowledge them. Was it actually an attack on the Jewish identity? On Jewish students? Or was it an act of solidarity to the Palestinian cause? Does it actually cause any harm to hang a Palestinian flag on a menorah or just discomfort? Why? And is that discomfort worth the extreme punishment that person who did it will suffer? These are valuable questions to be asked. You also cannot see the cries of antisemitism to any act of Palestinian solidarity isolated from the fact that literal actual Nazis on American campuses are given freedom of speech protection. It doesn’t look like the issue is “antisemitism” at all.

[gurugirl]

Sorry this is a bit of a novel haha but I wanted to get my actual point across considering that other person’s response xo (also it won’t let me do paragraphs for some reason so it’s kinda clumped)

I don’t need a celebrity to validate my feels lol I want to know what kind of person I’m suppprting to be able to continue supporting them you know? I also think not speaking on it doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person but it does change my opinion when the only thing Palestinians are asking for is for people to use their voice. Also thinking vacationing with your (I’m pretty sure) Zionist besties makes you a bad person though. He can’t change the world I know this lmao but he does have a massive voice and it does count for something no matter what people want to believe - whether it makes Palestinians feel heard or sways some of his very impressionable fans to think more about it. I also thought about this a lot more today because I saw a small under 15k follower band and another do an event for palestians with a politician in support of palestine and it just made me think they have everything to lose - up and coming hardly any recognition and they could be blacklisted forever. Harry is Harry. One of the most famous influential sought after people in the industry, his career wouldn’t end, honestly all I want is for him to tell us who he is - just a donation link does that. Or a ‘I do not stand with genocide’ whatever. Even if he just did a donation link on insta stories or something to let us know he doesn’t agree with it? Not much can come from that honestly. Most people in the world are with Palestine. Like guru said because he’s silent - we don’t know his stance. That’s enough for me to be suspect I guess the word is? I just saw a lot of integrity in those bands and see Harry being silent when he says tpwk etc. It’s not about me forming my opinion based on what Harry says or doesn’t. It’s about wanting to know wether or not the man I’ve been supporting for the last, what, 13 years is a Zionist, or excuses that behaviour because of his friends or stays silent because he wants to keep money or whatever, and I just think that’s incredibly hypocritical considering what he advocates for. I just want to know his stance. That’s the least he could do in my opinion, to let his followers know who he is when he says we should all do everything we can to take care of each other. All in all my point was not that I think he can change the world. His supporters just deserve to know if he is a genocide / Israel supporter or not. Wanting to know he is someone that practices what he preaches instead of just making money and an image from it. His silence says a lot and everyone interprets it in different ways. And honestly, most people believe silence is complicity.

You make absolutely valid points. I agree that even the smallest thing would make a lot of his fans feel really good (and a lot would hate him for it too). But the way Harry is so recognizable (even walking down the street with hoodie and sunglasses) he’s more of a target than a small band who wouldn’t have much recognition. But who knows!? Maybe he’s silent bc of money and fame more than safety reasons.

I also feel like just bc you want him to say what his opinion is doesn’t mean you need a celebrity to validate your opinion. I think that anon was just getting heated and that’s what happens with these kinds of conversations - lots of emotions come to the surface and even with people you agree with you want to argue with. It’s just talking in circles at some point.

Thank you for your thoughts. I definitely feel you and this conversation is far from over.

That being said… I have to get to some other things right now and I’m not going to be answering anymore asks like this today (this is draining y’all). Anyone is welcome to send in your thoughts and I will read them but no more of this today 💕🖤

Xoxo

[the-mozzarella-brothers]

Fucking genocide lover. I am a trans person from Palestine. Those are my people you're killing. That's our genocide you're endorsing. You think voting changes things, then fucking accept the reality that YOU ARE COMPLICIT in the genocide of my people. You people are DEEPLY evil, I can't even put it into words how horrified I am that people like you exist. But go on, continue to endorse genocide. Continue to pretend to be ignorant. Pretend I'm a conservative or a troll. It's what you people have always done. It's what you people always do. It's what you people always will do. When they say to listen to the voices of the oppressed, they don't mean white Americans complicit in the genocide of my culture, my family, my people.

Hi! i havent gotten anon hate in ages. i was worried for a bit. i also havent heard the greeting “fucking genocide lover” yet, it sounds interesting, i might start using it. (im kidding btw) jokes aside, i dont love genocide. i dont think the genocide in gaza (im not sure if id personally call it a genocide based on the ICJ ruling but lets put that aside for now and pretend i would) is good at all. whether its a genocide or not, people are still dying, and that is objectively bad.

id like to say that i am not directly killing anyone, and as far as i know, im not killing anyone indirectly either. i sure hope im not at least.

id like to say, that as much as i despise hamas and what they did on october seventh and what they are still doing, does NOT mean i support, like, or think that bibi is a good person or prime minister. i absolutely hate him and always have. what he is doing right not is absolutely NOT the way to go about the current situation.

i do not think ANYONE deserves to die, very much including any palestestian or israeli civilians (as well as ukrainian civilians and any other civilians experiencing war or genocide). even the hamas and bibi, do not deserve to die, in my opinion. they deserve a life sentence in jail where they can do no harm to anyone.

i think that this war should end as soon as possible with a PERMANENT ceasefire, a two state solution, with people in power in both countries who are interested in PEACE.

regarding “its what you people have always done. its what you people always do. whats what you people always will do.” who is “you people”?. is it jews? “zionists”? fans of the beatles? you are not specific, who is it? all jews (that i have met) do not endorse genocide. all zionists i have met do not endorce genocide. not sure about beatles fans, thats too broad for me to say, i havent talked about this topic to many of them. if it is jews, id like it if you actually talked to us properly, maybe we could figure something out.

id like to say that im extremely sorry you are going through whats happening in gaza, i only directly know whats happening in israel and i know its stressful there and whats happening in gaza is worse so i hope you keep surviving until the war is over, maybe our countries will be able to live in peace, and we can be friends :) i hope you and your family are doing okay :)

[snekdood]

so op made the post unrebloggable bc they're a coward and probably too many ppl with brains were pointing out how conspiratorial they sounded but here was gonna be my response lmao:

heres the link to the last article since it'll be relevant to my response

so two things about that last article.

1.it was posted in 2022.

2. while the dude does suck and you should totally stop using spotify anyways (for a myriad of reasons that are unrelated to this) it's about how the CEO helps fund instruments of war- not the wars themselves. he's not out here meddling in specific wars, it seems more like he thinks war is a necessity in general. until we know the dudes a loud and proud christian zionist (and even then i doubt hes as hands on with this company as ppl are thinking he is) i think its a little conspiratorial to say this was all planned this way. I don't think theres enough evidence to work with to conclude that was The reason, especially since upon looking it up, in 2017 and 18 spotify wrapped was released on the 6th of december, 2019 on the 5th of december, and 2020 on the 2nd of december. it was only 2021 that it was dec 1st and 2022 that it was nov 30th, not every time it was released. what this leads me to believe more than anything is that they're trying to push the date back, especially since in the article im getting these dates from it says this at the bottom of this section:

Maybe they were able to finish compiling everything earlier, and wanting to get your wrapped info out to you, perhaps for the holidays so friends and family know what kind of music or whatever to buy for you, idk, giving the benefit of the doubt over here. someone else mentioned how they release the last week of november, which tracks, and im more willing to believe thats the reason.

The fact that its posted earlier than usual can be seen as pretty strange given the day chosen + the fact we know he thinks war is necessary, it's at least really bad timing and spotify should expect to get some shit for it for sure and deserves to quite frankly since it does distract a bit from calling for a ceasefire (i dont think it distracts as much as op thinks though...), but ig I just personally dont think theres enough evidence to conclude things are one way or the other yet. I dont think funding for shit like ai data collection or robot dogs or whatever tf, while shitty, is the same as supporting this specific war

This post is also suggesting that ceos are the end all be all of decisions and ig since we dont know how much of a hand the ceo had in spotify wrapped this year at all (likely none. hes probably busy rolling around in money) we can't know for sure that it was his choice to release it today. that could be the reason or like I said they've been wanting to push the dates back, or maybe the release date all depends on how quickly they compile the wrapped data and how quickly they can shit it out, and the sooner the better, or maybe they release on the last week of november (leaning on this one)

ig I just personally dont think all of spotify- every moving part- was able to work together on this with the same exact goal of getting this out today specifically to spite palestinians, unless the ceo is quite literally whipping everyone into action (which i kinda doubt. ceos just seem too lazy to me for that, and I think there'd be a lot of push back and we'd hear about it from employees who quit/were fired)

it's either spotify's ceo banking on plausible deniability (doubt) or ppl just being quick to be a bit conspiratorial about things rn (most likely). either way I just dont think theres enough info to conclude either way and I think we should discourage paranoid thinking.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hi I just saw your post about Israel and Palestinian. I don't know if you're the person to ask or if this is a dumb question but I was wondering if anyone has considered starting a second Jewish state? I was wondering because there's a bunch of Christian countries so why not multiple Jewish ones.

Sorry if I'm bothering you and Thanks for your time.

That’s actually a pretty interesting question. I am going to apologize right now, because I essentially can’t give a short answer to save my life.

I’m not a ‘Jewish Scholar,’ so while I can speak with some authority about the history of Zionism, I definitely couldn’t speak about it with as much authority as others. I mentioned in at least one of the posts I have written about the history of plans for a ‘Jewish state’ when Zionism was originally being proposed, and I can kinda of track the history of Zionist thinking for you if you are interested, though essentially it’s just about arguing where to go. But there are better scholars for this than me, so I would recommend Rebecca Kobrin, Deborah Lipstadt, Walter Laqueur … idk. Maybe just read some Theodor Herzl, honestly. With all of that said, I can speak with some authority about the post-war history of this in the Middle East. So let’s go.

In post-war times, there has really only been one serious discussion of an alternative Jewish state, as far as I know. And actually, this is part of why I find it so ironic that people are campaigning so hard to be “anti-Zionist” and to express views like “anti-Zionism” in their activism, because the Jews in Israel who are most anti-Zionist are actually the settlers of Palestinian territories, who want to secede and form a “Gaza-State” called Judeah. There's a great book about this called The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill, if anyone is interested. Anyway, most of those people, who are largely Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, though some of those settlers are semi Orthodox), have essentially been waging a “culture war” about what it means to have a Jewish state and what the identity of that Jewish state should look like basically since the 1980s.

There is a really good article about this that you can find right here written by Peter Lintl, who is a researcher at the Institution of Political Science for the Friedrich-Alexander Universitat. I’ll summarize it for the lazy people, though, because it’s like 40 pages. Just know that this paragraph won’t be super source heavy, because it is basically the same source. Essentially, the Haredim community has tripled in size from 4% to 12% of the total Israeli population since 1980, and it is probably going to be about 20% by 2040. They only accept the Torah and religious laws as the basis for Jewish life and Jewish identity and they are critical of democratic principles. To them, a societal structure should be hierarchical, patriarchal, and have rabbis at the apex, and they basically believe that Israel isn’t a legitimate state. This is primarily because Israel is (at least technically, so no one come at me in the comments about Palestinian citizens of Israel, so I’ll make a little ** and address this there) a ‘liberal’ democracy. Rights of Israeli citizens include, according to Freedom House, free and fair elections (they rank higher on that criteria here than the United States, by the way), political choice, political rights and electoral opportunities for women, a free and independent media, and academic freedom. It is also, I should add (as a lesbian), the only country in the Middle East that has anything close to LGBT+ rights.

[**to the point about Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel: I have a few things to say. First, I have recommended this book twice now and it is Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, which absolutely fantastically talks about the ways in which the entire structure of the Palestinian ‘citizenship’ movement, Palestinian rights, and who was responsible for governing Palestinians changed after the Six Days War. If you are at all interested in the modern Middle East or modern Middle East politics, I highly recommend you read this, because a huge tenant of this book is that it was 1967, not 1947, that caused huge parts of our current situation (and that, surprisingly, a huge issue that quote-on-quote “started it” was actually water, but that’s sort of the primary secondary issue, not the Actual Issue at play here). Anyway, I’ve talked about the fact that Israel hugely abuses its authority in the West Bank and Gaza and that there are going to be current members of the Israeli Government who face action at the ICC, so please don’t litigate this again with me. I also should add that the 2018 law which said it was only Jews who had the natural-born right to “self-determine” in Israel was passed by the Lekkud Government, and I really hate them anyway. I know they’re bad. It’s not the point I’m making. I’m making a broader point about the Constitution vis-a-vis what the Haredim are proposing, which is way worse].

To get back to the Haredim, basically there is this entire movement of actual settlers in territories that have been determined to belong to the Palestinian people as of, you know, the modern founding of Israel (and not the pre-Israel ‘colonial settler’ narrative you’ll see on instagram in direct conflict with the history of centuries of aliyah) who want to secede and form a separate Jewish state. They aren’t like, the only settlers, but I point this out because they are basically ‘anti-Zionist’ in the sense that they think that modern Zionism isn’t adhering to the laws of Judaism — that the state of Israel is too free, too radical, too open. And scarily enough, these are the sort of the people from whom Netanyahu draws a huge part of his political support. Which is true of the right wing in general. Netanyahu can’t actually govern without a coalition government. Like I have said, the Knesset is huge, often with 11-13 political parties at once, and so to ‘govern�� Netanyahu often needs to recruit increasingly right wing, conservative, basically insane political parties to maintain his coalition. It’s why he has been so supportive of the settlements, particularly in the last five years (since he is, as I have also said, facing corruption charges, and he really can’t leave office). It would really suck for him if a huge chunk of his voters seceded, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, that is the only ‘second Jewish State’ I know about, and I don’t think that is necessarily much of a solution. I really don’t have the solutions to the Middle East crisis. I am just a girl with some history degrees and some time on her hands to devote to tumblr, and I want people to learn more so they can form their own opinions. With that said, I think there are two more things worth saying and then I will close out for the night.

First, Judaism is an ethno-religion. Our ethnicities have become mixed with the places that we have inhabited over the years in diaspora, which is how you have gotten Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and even Ethiopian Jews. But if you do actual DNA testing on almost all of the Jews in diaspora, the testing shows that we come from the same place: the Levant. No matter how pale or dark, Jews are still fundamentally one people, something we should never forget (and anyone who tries to put racial hierarchy into paleness of Jews: legit, screw you. One people). Anyway, unlike other religious communities, we have an indigenous homeland because we have an ethnic homeland. It’s small, and there are many Jews in diaspora who choose not to return to it, like myself. But that homeland is ours (just as much as it is rightfully Palestinians, because we are both indigenous to the region. For everyone who hasn’t read my other posts on the issue, I’m not explaining this again. Just see: one, two, and three, the post that prompted this ask). This is different from Christians, for example, who basically just conquered all of Europe and whose religion is not dependent on your race or background. You can be a lapsed Christian and you are still white, latinx, black, etc right? I am a lapsed Jew, religiously speaking, and will still never escape that I am ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish.

Second, I think you raise a really good point about other religious states. There are many other religious majority states in the world (all of these countries have an official state religion), and a lot of them are committing a lot of atrocities right now (don't even get me started on Saudi Arabia). I have seen other posts and other authors write about this better than I ever could, but I am going to do my best to articulate why, because of this, criticism of Israel as a state, versus criticism of the Israeli Government, is about ... 9 times out of 10 inherently antisemitic.

We should all be able to criticize governments. That is a healthy part of the democratic process and it is a healthy part of being part of the world community. But there are 140 dictatorships in the world, and the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 45 times since 2013. Since the creation of the UN Human Rights Council, it has has received more resolutions concerning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. This is compared to like … 1 for Myanmar, 1 for South Sudan, and 1 for North Korea.

Israel is the world’s only Jewish majority state. You want to talk about “ethnic cleansing” and “repressive governments”? I can give you about five other governments and world situations right now, off the top of my head, that are very stark, very brutal, very (in some cases) simple examples of either or both. If a person is ‘using their platform’ to Israel-bash, but they are not currently speaking about the atrocities in Myanmar, Kashmir, Azerbaijan, South Sudan, or even, dare I say, the ethnonationalism of the Hindu Nationalist Party in India, then, at the very least, their activism is a little bit performative. They are chasing the most recent ‘hot button’ issue they saw in an instagraphic, and they probably want to be woke and maybe want to do the right thing. And no one come at me and say it is because you don’t “know anything about Myanmar.” Most people know next to nothing about the Middle East crisis as well. At best, people are inconsistent, they may be a hypocrite, and, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, they are either unintentionally or intentionally buying into antisemitic narratives. They might even be an antisemite.

I like to think (hope, maybe) that most people don’t hate Jews. If anything, they just follow what they’ve been told, and they tend to digest what everyone is taking about. But there is a reason this is the global narrative that has gained traction, and I guarantee it has at least something to do with the star on the Israeli flag.

I know that was a very long answer to your question, but I hope that gave you some insight.

As a sidenote: I keep recommending books, so I am going to just put a master list of every book I have ever recommended at the bottom of anything I do now, because the list keeps growing. So, let’s go in author alphabetical order from now on.

One Country by Ali Abunimah Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust: A Memoir by Noam Chayut If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State by Daniel Gordis Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman

[mikhalsarah]

RIP Open Orthodoxy, eaten alive by parasitic “Wokeness”...

There are already three streams of Judaism where women can be rabbis (Conservative/Masorti, Reform, and Reconstructionist), I should know, I belong to one of them. I’ve never entirely understood the Orthodox commitment to sidelining women in this day and age, but the simple fact is, people who are unhappy with Orthodox halakhah in this area have other places to pray, and the stubborn refusal to pray in any of “those places”, yet fighting tooth and nail to make their own shuls become just like them, smack of a weird sort of snobbish attachment to the word “orthodoxy”....even though the rest of Orthodox is but a hair’s breadth from considering them a treif liberal “fake” Judaism like the rest of us already.

As difficult, but possible, as the issue of female rabbis would be to bring about, (seeing as it is a rabbinic prohibition based largely on cultural attitudes no longer in play in western society), the issue of getting the Orthodox to accept gay couples is another matter. Again, not an insurmountable issue, Centrist Orthodox Rabbi Schmuley Boteach has written quite openly about the need to find a place in Orthodox shuls for gay and lesbian Jews. However Orthodox culture is never going to let them hold hands during service or kiddush, for the simple reason that public displays of sexual/romantic affection, even between heterosexual married couples, are frowned upon everywhere from the sanctuary to the grocery store, due to the strong feeling that sexuality should be put aside, or sublimated, when encountering certain kinds of holiness (engaging in prayer etc). Of course, that does not mean that in Judaism sex is the opposite of holiness in some way, or else it would be forbidden to have sex on Shabbat. Since marital sex is a mitzvah (commandment, meritorious act) on Shabbat, better to understand it as a different kind of holiness, one that is not compatible with some other mitzvot (like prayer) or with public life in general. Sexuality itself is a sort of holiness surrounded by taboos and necessitating the utmost privacy in Judaism, so this is ironically probably the hill Orthodoxy would die on, not figuring out how to tolerate the gays.

I heartily agree that it’s time to stop being racist to the Palestinians. Strange though that a “Woke” rabbi still can’t bring himself to call them what they call themselves, and in typical Israeli/Zionist  fashion emphasizes their Arab otheness, rather than their indigenousness...thus making it seem rather like a favour being granted to them out of the goodness of his Woke heart, rather than an acknowledgement of their intrinsic belongingness. (This kind of stuff is typical for Woke social justice, which consistently cares far more about virtue-signalling and screaming at “white people”, or whomever else is deemed an Oppressor in the situation, than listening and paying attention to those who are actually oppressed.)

I spent decades of my life as a vegetarian, years of that as a vegan. Even though for medical reasons I had to adopt a diet which relies on meat for sufficient protein, I still try to limit my meat consumption. I am very pleased that so many people are seeing the value of vegetarian and vegan diets, and that even regular omnivore folk are adopting “meatless Mondays” and so forth. I’d be even better pleased with governments helping to encourage it by working to make it less expensive if/where possible. I’d nod my head approvingly if rabbis suggested meat-eating be reserved for Shabbat, if one didn’t feel able to give it up entirely. However, even when I didn’t practice (Judaism) and was secular it would never have occurred to me to ban it wholesale. I’m just not Puritan enough for banning things, I prefer the Quakerly ways of  “convincement”. The Woke, on the other hand, are full-bore Puritan, convert-the-heathen-masses.

This is perhaps the strangest part of entire essay. This newly minted “rabbi” is publicly expressing the desire to not just overhaul a big chunk of halakhah in order to make Judaism less restrictive and bring it further into line with the mores of the gentile world... a process that has been going on forever, whether excessively quickly (Reform) or excruciatingly slowly (Haredi)... but is calling to make Judaism more restrictive in other ways, by banning things permitted by halakhah which happens never or so infrequently that I can’t recall an instance offhand. And he’s willing to use secular governments to achieve it by force.

I recall hearing conservatives decades ago saying “Inside the heart of every liberal is a fascist screaming to get out” and laughing derisively at how they could think that. I laugh no more, though I contend that it is a particular species of illiberal liberal, known as the progressive activist, that is to blame rather than liberals in general. Still...there it is, and the regular liberals are generally no help opposing their own extremists because deep down they harbour that intrinsic liberal guilt that they are never doing enough or being enough to be truly authentic and useful. For authenticity and “real change” they look ever to the fringes, on the assumption that the more wildly opposed to society in general an ideology is, the better it is, if only they weren’t too cowardly and comfortable to join up and suffer like the “real” activists. 

I have to add here, how nice it is despite not having set foot in any shul in over a year, to still have something of the religious Jewish mindset, which makes impressive demands on your time, money, and moral fastidiousness, but at the same time reminds you constantly that you’ll never be perfect and will never accomplish everything you want or that God asks of you and God already accepts that as a given. “It is not yours to complete the task (of repairing the world), but neither are you free to desist from it.” -Pirkei Avot 2:21. Despite the reputation Judaism has for being guilt-inducing, at least we are free from the overwhelming and psychologically destructive levels of guilt induced by secular liberalism, which now has decided, via Wokeness, that merely existing in a society that is imperfect is a damnable offense, even if it is, on balance, one of the least imperfect societies around. This is how Jews like me know that Wokeness is not just a new religion, it’s an offshoot of Christianity, where just being born damns you to a state of perpetual sin.

This authenticity-of-the-extremists mindset blinds them to the fact that while the fringes are the birthplace of some excellent critiques and paradigm-changing ideas that have been of great benefit, those benefits most often only come when those ideas are tempered by counter-critiques and more pragmatic people who can tolerate the loss of ideological purity required to make them work in practice. Also invisible to the liberal mind are those historical moments when progressives have backed ideas that were...well, the term “clusterfucks” springs to mind.

 Progressives less than a century ago were enamoured with ideas ranging from Eugenics to Italian Fascism (less so with Naziism, but even that had its adherents until the war and the atrocities of the camps coming home to roost). They backed Communism to such a degree that it took Kronstadt to shake most of them loose, and they still idolize Che Guevara, the gay-hating, probably racist, illiberal who put people to death without trial and “really liked killing” (his words) and can’t hear a word against Communist China (”That’s racist to the Chinese!”) or Islamic extremists (”That’s Islamophobic!), despite the fact that Communist China is “re-indoctrinating” the Muslim Uighers and using them as slave labour (in part for the profits and in part because keeping the men and women separated prevents them breeding more Muslim Uighers), and despite the fact that the Islamists throw gay men off roofs in public executions. When you do get a left-liberal to admit something on the Left has gone wrong at all, they immediately shift to rationalizing it as somehow really being the fault of conservatives all along...even in a case like Eugenics where religious and other conservatives were fighting it tooth and nail.

(NB: This is not an endorsement of conservatives, who have their own sets of problems but who, when they finally do change their mind on an issue, don’t try to rationalize their former wrongheadedness by claiming it was really the fault of left-liberals that they ever believed such things in the first place)

And that brings us back to Zionism and the Woke. The Woke cannot for the life of them admit that it was secular, and often quite far left, Jews that birthed Zionism directly out of the leftist “liberation” traditions of the day (albeit with a healthy side of pro-Western colonialism-admiring fervour for being “an outpost of the West” shining the light of rationality on the barbaric, backward, religiosity of the Middle East). They don’t want to see it. It disturbs their comfortably simple narrative, which prefers to maintain that it was the “whiteness” of the original Zionist Jews and their early followers that was the problem, not their politics.

But Zionism is merely the predictable result of what happens when you take an oppressed people and tell them that their oppression entitles them to do whatever they need to in order to end their oppression and that violence is not violence when perpetrated by the oppressed. That the world owes them, and their descendants, something in perpetuity for having oppressed them, some sort of special treatment, and that it must never withdraw that special dispensation because that itself would be oppressing them again. The fact that what the Jews would feel like they needed to do was ethnically-cleanse their former homeland of people who had once shared it with them (both Jews and Palestinians can be traced to a shared ancestry in the region going back about 50,000 years) and necessitating a whole new liberation movement to free them was an unintended consequence of th\e liberation movement, but a consequence nonetheless.

The Woke cannot admit that Zionism is, in large part, a direct consequence of the leftist liberation project, and Woke Jews (who are almost invariably “white”) can’t admit that the rest of the Woke movement hates them. They truly deserve each other.

Ah, well, at least this “woke” rabbi isn’t trying to qualify for the cognitive dissonance finals by being Woke and a Zionist at the same time like the current rabbi of my (rapidly sinking) former synagogue. We’ve had rabbis that horrified the congregation by being too right-wing (mostly on halakhic issues rather than politics), and we’ve had rabbis that horrified (the older portion of) the congregation by being too left-wing and running off to march in Selma. Thanks to this rabbi haranguing the congregation daily about LGBTQ issues to the point that even the LGBTQ Jews got tired of hearing him (our sexuality is NOT our whole fucking existence...no pun intended) and marching around the Sanctuary with the Israeli flag on Shabbat (an honour reserved for the Torah even by the most fervently Zionist among us, none of whom are yours truly) we now have the dubious distinction of being a congregation horrified by a rabbi being both too left-wing and too right-wing simultaneously. 

Apropos of nothing, there is now a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn of my former synagogue and the membership at the Orthodox synagogue has grown with astonishing rapidity. We can extrapolate from this that in 4 years time, should the U.S. Republicans run any candidate remotely sane, they will sweep the election.

[nightbloomsresorthotel]

Etgar Keret’s Short Story “What, of this Goldfish, Would You Wish” got me crying like a baby. Taken from here. 

Author and filmmaker Etgar Keret was born in Tel Aviv in 1967. Salman Rushdie has called him “the voice of the next generation” and his work has been translated into 29 languages. The following story is from his sixth collection, Suddenly a Knock on the Door, published on 23rd February by Chatto & Windus.

The idea for this story, translated by Nathan Englander, came to Keret after he read his five-year-old son Alexander Pushkin’s “The Fisherman and the Goldfish.” Keret says, “My son asked me what I would do if I had three wishes. He quickly rejected my ‘safe’ wishes for family health or world peace and insisted that I ask for something I really, really wanted. And that’s when my goldfish story began.”

Yonatan had a brilliant idea for a documentary. He’d knock on doors. Just him. No camera crew, no nonsense. Just Yonatan, on his own, a small camera in hand, asking, “If you found a talking goldfish that granted you three wishes, what would you wish for?”

People would give their answers, and Yoni would edit them down and make clips of the more surprising responses. Before every set of answers, you’d see the person standing stock-still in the entrance to his house. Onto this shot he’d superimpose the subject’s name, family situation, monthly income, and maybe even the party he’d voted for in the last election. All that, combined with the three wishes, and maybe he’d end up with a poignant piece of social commentary, a testament to the massive rift between our dreams and the often compromised reality in which we live.

It was genius, Yoni was sure. And, if not, at least it was cheap. All he needed was a door to knock on and a heart beating on the other side. With some decent footage, he was sure he’d be able to sell it to Channel 8 or Discovery in a flash, either as a film or as a collection of vignettes, little cinematic corners, each with that singular soul standing in a doorway, followed by three killer wishes, precious, every one.

Even better, maybe he’d sell out, package it with a slogan and flog it to a bank or mobile phone company. Maybe tag it with something like, “Different dreams, different wishes, one bank.” Or, “The bank that makes dreams come true.”

No prep, no plotting, natural as can be, Yoni grabbed his camera and went out knocking on doors. In the first neighbourhood he went to, the nice people that took part generally requested the obvious things: health, money, bigger flats, to shave off either a couple of years or a couple of pounds. But there were also powerful moments. One drawn, wizened old lady asked simply for a child. A Holocaust survivor with a number on his arm asked very slowly, in a quiet voice—as if he’d been waiting for Yoni to come, as if it wasn’t an exercise at all—he’d been wondering (if this fish didn’t mind), would it be possible for all the Nazis left living in the world to be held accountable for their crimes? A cocky, broad-shouldered ladykiller put out his cigarette and, as if the camera wasn’t there, wished he were a girl. “Just for a night,” he added, holding a single finger right up to the lens.

And these were wishes from just one short block in one small, sleepy suburb of Tel Aviv. Yonatan could hardly imagine what people were dreaming of in the development towns and the collectives along the northern border, in the West Bank settlements and Arab villages, the immigrant absorption centres full of broken trailers and tired people left to fry out in the desert sun.

Yonatan knew that if the project was going to have any weight, he’d have to get to everyone, to the unemployed, to the ultra-religious, to the Arabs and Ethiopians and American expats. He began to plan a shooting schedule for the coming days: Yaffo, Dimona, Ashdod, Sderot, Taibe, Talpiot. Maybe Hebron even. If he could sneak past the wall, Hebron would be great. Maybe somewhere in that city some beleaguered Arab man would stand in his doorway and, looking through Yonatan and his camera, looking out into nothingness, just pause for a minute, nod his head and wish for peace—that would be something to see.

***

Sergei Goralick doesn’t much like strangers banging on his door. Especially when those strangers are asking him questions. In Russia, when Sergei was young, it happened a lot. The KGB felt right at home knocking on his door. His father had been a Zionist, which was pretty much an invitation for them to pop over any old time.

When Sergei got to Israel and then moved to Yaffo, his family couldn’t get their heads round it. They’d ask him, “What are you hoping to find in a place like that? There’s no one there but addicts and Arabs and pensioners.” But what is most excellent about addicts and Arabs and pensioners is that they don’t come round knocking on Sergei’s door. That way Sergei can get his sleep, and get up when it’s still dark. He can take his little boat out into the sea and fish until he’s finished fishing. By himself. In silence. The way it should be. The way it was.

Until one day some kid with a ring in his ear, looking a little bit homosexual, comes knocking. Hard like that—rapping at his door. Just the way Sergei doesn’t like. And he says, this kid, that he has some questions he wants to put on the TV.

Sergei tells the boy, tells him in what he thinks is a straightforward manner, that he doesn’t want it. Not interested. Sergei gives the camera a shove, to help make it clear. But the earring boy is stubborn. He says all kinds of things, fast things. And it’s hard for Sergei to follow; his Hebrew isn’t great.

The boy slows down, tells Sergei he has a strong face, a nice face, and that he simply has to have him for this film. Sergei can also slow down, he can also make it clear. He tells the boy to fuck off. But the boy is slippery and somehow between saying no and pushing the door closed, Sergei finds that the boy is in his house. He’s already making his film, running his camera without any permission, and from behind the camera he’s still telling Sergei about his face, that it’s full of feeling, that it’s tender. Suddenly the boy spots Sergei’s goldfish flitting around in its big glass jar in his kitchen.

The kid with the earring starts screaming, “Goldfish, goldfish,” he’s so excited. And this, this really pressures Sergei, who tells the boy, it’s nothing, just a normal goldfish, stop filming it. Just a goldfish, Sergei tells him, just something he found flapping around in the net, a deep-sea goldfish. But the boy isn’t listening. He’s still filming and getting closer and saying something about talking and fish and a magic wish.

Sergei doesn’t like this, doesn’t like that the boy is almost at it, already reaching for the jar. In this instant Sergei understands the boy hasn’t come for television, what he’s come for, specifically, is to snatch Sergei’s fish, to steal it away. Before the mind of Sergei Goralick really understands what it is his body has done, he seems to have taken the pan off the stove and hit the boy on the head. The boy falls. The camera falls with him. The camera breaks open on the floor, along with the boy’s skull. There’s a lot of blood coming out of the head, and Sergei really doesn’t know what to do.

That is, he knows exactly what to do, but it really would complicate things. Because if he takes this kid to the hospital, people are going to ask what happened, and it would take things in a direction Sergei doesn’t want to go.

“No reason to take him to the hospital anyway,” says the goldfish, in Russian. “That one’s already dead.”

“He can’t be dead,” Sergei says, with a moan. “I barely touched him. It’s only a pan. Only a little thing.” Sergei holds it up to the fish, taps it against his own skull to prove it. “It’s not even that hard.”

“Maybe not,” says the fish. “But, apparently, it’s harder than that kid’s head.”

“He wanted to take you from me,” Sergei says, almost crying.

“Nonsense,” the fish says. “He was only here to make a little thing for TV.”

“But he said—”

“He said,” says the fish, interrupting, “exactly what he was doing. But you didn’t get it. Honestly, your Hebrew, it’s terrible.”

“And yours is better?” Sergei says. “Yours is so great?”

“Yes. Mine’s super-great,” the goldfish says, sounding impatient. “I’m a magic fish. I’m fluent in everything.” All the while the puddle of blood from the earring boy’s head is getting bigger and bigger and Sergei is on his toes, up against the kitchen wall, desperate not to step in it, not to get blood on his feet.

“You do have one wish left,” the fish reminds Sergei. He says it simply like that, as if Sergei doesn’t know—as if either of them ever loses count.

“No,” Sergei says. He’s shaking his head from side to side. “I can’t,” he says. “I’ve been saving it. Saving it for something.”

“For what?” the fish says.

But Sergei won’t answer.

That first wish, Sergei used up when they discovered a cancer in his sister. A lung cancer, the kind you don’t get better from. The fish undid it in an instant—the words barely out of Sergei’s mouth. The second wish Sergei used up five years ago, on Sveta’s boy. The kid was still small then, barely three, but the doctors already knew. Something in her son’s head wasn’t right. He was going to grow big but not in the brain. Three was about as clever as he’d get. Sveta cried to Sergei in bed all night. Sergei walked home along the beach when the sun came up, and he called to the fish, asked the goldfish to fix it as soon as he’d crossed through the door. He never told Sveta. And a few months later she left him for some policeman, a Moroccan with a shiny Honda. In his heart, Sergei kept telling himself it wasn’t for Sveta that he’d done it, that he’d wished his wish purely for the boy. In his mind, he was less sure, and all kinds of thoughts about other things he could have done with that wish continued to gnaw at him, driving him half mad. The third wish, Sergei hadn’t yet wished for.

“I can restore him,” says the goldfish. “I can bring him back to life.”

“No one’s asking,” Sergei says.

“I can bring him back to the moment before,” the goldfish says. “To before he knocks on your door. I can put him back to right there. I can do it. All you need to do is ask.”

“To wish my wish,” Sergei says. “My last.”

The fish swishes his fish tail back and forth in the water, the way he does, Sergei knows, when he’s truly excited. The goldfish can already taste freedom. Sergei can see it in him.

After the last wish, Sergei won’t have a choice. He’ll have to let the goldfish go. His magic goldfish. His friend.

“Fixable,” Sergei says. “I’ll just mop up the blood. A good sponge and it’ll be like it never happened.”

That tail just goes back and forth, the fish’s head steady.

Sergei takes a deep breath. He steps out into the middle of the kitchen, out into the puddle. “When I’m fishing, while it’s dark and the world’s asleep,” he says, half to himself and half to the fish, “I’ll tie the kid to a rock and dump him in the sea. Not a chance, not in a million years, of anyone ever finding him.”

“You killed him, Sergei,” the goldfish says. “You murdered someone—but you’re not a murderer.” The goldfish stops swishing his tail. “If, on this, you won’t waste a wish, then tell me, Sergei, what is it good for?”

***

It was in Bethlehem, actually, that Yonatan found his Arab, a handsome man who used his first wish to ask for peace. His name was Munir; he was fat with a big white moustache. Really photogenic. It was moving, the way he said it. Perfect, the way in which Munir wished his wish. Yoni just knew even as he was filming that this man would be his promo.

Either him or that Russian. The one with the faded tattoos that Yoni had met in Yaffo. The one that looked straight into the camera and said, if he ever found a talking goldfish he wouldn’t ask of it a single thing. He’d just stick it on a shelf in a big glass jar and talk to him all day, it didn’t matter about what. Maybe sports, maybe politics, whatever a goldfish was interested in chatting about.

Anything, the Russian said, not to be alone.