#me: i am pro palestine but that doesn’t mean i don’t feel bad for the innocent israelis being killed !!
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activism twt is honestly the most toxic place on earth it is like these ppl do not have reading comprehension and also they think everyone should die it’s fucking terrifying
#luke rambles#me: i am pro palestine but that doesn’t mean i don’t feel bad for the innocent israelis being killed !!#them: if u feel bad for them then actually ur a antisemitic zionist pig who deserves to die israel isn’t real every israeli deserves to die#me: 🧍🏼 uh#believe it or not the israeli ppl don’t all make the gov’t decisions !!! maybe just remember that they r all humans and actually they all#deserve to live a life w/o being terrified of being killed !!! just good for thought is all
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Do you have a shorted version of your DNI and blog rules because I'm fucking stupid and can't read all that. So sorry if there was a shortened version and I didn't see it :(
Pardon, but I don’t shorten my DNI, what’s on there is on there. But I can try to summarize it/put it in an easier to read format.
Do Not Interact if you are any of the following:
-If your primary blog/the blog you interact from is nsfw/kink related -A racist of any kind -Anti-Palestine -Bigoted against certain religions -Queerphobic in some way/exclude any part of the LGBTQIA+ acronym -Against neopronouns and/or xenogenders -Against “contradictory labels” (mspec-mono identities, lesboys, etc) -MAP/zoo/supporter of acting on any harmful paras -Against non-harmful paras (objectum, etc) -Pro/com/dark ship or a supporter of those things -If you police/bash non-abusive ships or try to label people as pro/com/dark shippers when they aren’t -Pro-harassment, that shit is unproductive and doesn’t help. -Ableist -Against educated self-diagnosis -Stigmatize Cluster-B disorders (NPD, BPD, ASPD, etc) or any disorder for that matter -Against otherkin/fictionkin/therains/any other alterhuman identity -If you’re against and/or sexualize age/pet/animal regressor/dreamers -Fakeclaimer of any kind -If you’re against all endogenic systems (This rhetoric is what stopped us from discovering ourselves for a long time. Get out.) -If you deny or invalidate anyone’s good-faith identity in any other way
Basically: be appropriate, don’t be a bigot, don’t support abuse, don’t be a dick, that’s it. I hope this was more succinct. If you have any questions or need any definitions, feel free to ask.
As for my blog rules/pinned I’ll try to sum up the more important things here:
Ask permission to use my art.
Do not put my characters in tournaments/polls, especially without my consent. (And no, I don’t participate in nor host art competitions, they make me uncomfortable.)
No inappropriate comments towards myself or others on my blog will be tolerated, there’s a difference between joking and being creepy.
If I upset you/I fucked up, please let me know since I can guarantee it’s not on purpose. I can’t promise a response if you just send something in on anon, but if you send me a DM or something I’ll do my best to talk if you’re willing to converse. I make a lot of mistakes and I wanna know about it so I don’t make them as much, I am bad at self-awareness and have a lot of issues.
That being said, please be patient and understanding with me. I’m trying and I am not in the best situation yet, but I’m growing. Aggression only causes a shutdown so please try to be careful, I have a lot of BPD symptoms (not certain if I actually have it yet but I’m looking into it) and struggle with confrontation and abandonment.
While this is an art blog it is also a personal one, and I do vent. It is usually tagged and under a “read more” though.
I consume media critically and I assume that most others do the same.
Be nice about my favorite ships please, they’re also mostly queerplatonic because I’m arospec.
If I ship something then that means I have reason to believe that it is not pro/com/ship, at least not immediately or inherently. It’s dumb I even have to say this, but apparently I do.
That’s basically it. I know this was still kinda long, but I hope it was abridged enough for it to be easier for you to understand, like I said follow up with any additional questions you have if you need to.
last updated (mm/dd/yy): 11/9/24
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Ok, so this reply feels very, uh, condescending. Perhaps you don’t mean it that way, but it certainly comes off as such. But maybe this is just a misunderstanding of tone via written communique situation as often happens on the internet. So I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Just letting you know, as this instantly made me feel quite defensive and slightly offended, because it felt as though you were saying I only care about others for personal gain and that caring about others in a selfless manner is a novel concept to me—which is a pretty rude thing to someone you never had a conversation with and who did not criticize you at all. Again, perhaps this is not your intention, and that’s fine. But I’m just letting you know how it felt to read.
Now for my actual response: I know you don’t advocate for Palestinian safety and liberation for personal benefit. Neither do I. If you had looked at my blog for any meaningful length of time you would know this.
Your post was queued into my ongoing tag for my “antisemitism experiment” wherein I document all instances of antisemitism I witness or experience firsthand since 10/7 on ongoing basis until it stops. Prior to 10/7 I was able to go several years of my life in the gaps between antisemitic experiences. Now I experience multiple incidents daily, as do most other Jews I’ve interacted with since the pogrom. In case it matters to you, I am a non-Zionist reform Jew. It shouldn’t matter to you, but it is my identity in case you want to judge me on it for some reason.
In my posts for the experiment, I often add commentary. Sometimes shorter and sometimes longer.
The point of my comment on your post was NOT to say that we shouldn’t care about Palestine if the act of caring about Palestine doesn’t personally protect us in some way.
The point of my post is to say that no matter what kind of Jew you are religiously, culturally, or socially, Jews are experiencing antisemitism at an alarming rate and frequency in the post-10/7 world. Your actual beliefs or activism about Palestine do not change whether or not you are targeted by antisemites, because those antisemites do not care about Palestine either. They care about harming Jews, because they perceive us as the acceptable target of violence for being “bad.”
They are not interested in helping those who are hurting, because they are more interested in punishing those who they believe to be at fault.
This is the result of their emphasis on their own moral purity of being on the “right side of history” rather than on the more quiet and selfless work of actually helping Palestinians without centering their own contributions.
I did not say all this on the comment of your particular post, because I have said this many other times in many other ways on many other posts.
I am very pro-Palestine and have been donating to the appropriate causes for quite some time. I am also pro-Jew, and I do not believe that these beliefs are in conflict with one another.
At no point did I accuse you of caring about Palestine for selfish reasons. What I did say is that no matter how much you care about Palestine or how selflessly you do so, that will not protect you from antisemitism from your peers. The issue is not whether or not you support Palestine. The issue is that you are too visibly Jewish and care too openly about Jewish people and that is not acceptable right now in many leftist circles. And I say this as a leftist who has been exactly where you are.
This interaction with you has left me quite frustrated and I’m not sure if you’re the kind of person who I would get along with on a day-to-day basis or who I would more generally call a friend. But EVEN SO, I do not believe you deserve to experience antisemitism. That’s the whole point. You don’t have to like me and vice versa. But what you experienced was antisemitism in leftist spaces, which I and many other leftist Jews have been experiencing and documenting for well over a year now.
I’m open to continued dialogue if any of what I have said is unclear to you.
Hope this helps!
I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.
Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".
Disturbing things included:
Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant
Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)
Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews
Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"
...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.
To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.
One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.
I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.
I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.
Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.
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Hi! I don't want to start anything on here and am always willing for civil conversations. At this point there's so much I've found out about Seb (besides the video he liked, the tommy lee thing, and the girlfriend thing) that I feel so guilty if I would continue to support him. I love him sm but it just doesn't look good rn. He is associated/follows an organisation (for helping veterans) that has posted a blue lives matter flag picture and who's co-founder has sexual assault allegations against him, and worked with him in 'The last full measure'. His friend Paul Walter Hauser has done blackface in the past, and when called out on it he just listed a few people that also did blackface. There's more, I found a discussion on here that I can link. I seriously don't support "cancel culture" bc I don't think it helps anyone but there are just a lot of 'mistakes' and shady people that can be linked to Seb, I wish it wouldn't be that way. I honestly don't know what to think about it anymore.
Hi! I’m also open to having civil conversations and I don’t believe you’re trying to start anything. I really do think this situation of dragging up a four year old video and taking it completely out of context is harmful not just to Black people, but to fandom/activism in general. This is gonna be long because I’m going to take your points one by one, and I want to preface this by saying that I will not answer any derogatory, sideways asks pertaining to this subject. I will delete every single one and will block your silly ass. I’m not going to argue with people who think I’m blindly supporting Sebastian because I’m just trying to get fucked by him, or people who think I hate myself and am trying to appease some white man.
So, on with the discourse!
The video he liked - this video was taken completely out of context and that is my main issue with this whole situation. It was not a video of a white man saying that he thinks he should be able to say the n word as everyone claimed it was. They were quickly debating on whether or not it's okay to say in rap lyrics. He was told no, that's not okay, that's never okay and they moved on from it. That's it. End of story. That somehow was twisted into a click bait style headline of "Sebastian Stan likes a video of a white man defending his right to say the n word" when that is absolutely not true. My other issue is that people are more upset that Sebastian liked the video than they are about the white man in the video literally saying the n word. So, do you really care about the use of the n word like you're claiming? Cuz if you do, you'd be more upset at the white man that said the word than you would be about the white man simply liking the video. Or, are you just using this as an excuse to grandstand against a white man you don't like?
The Tommy Lee thing - Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee does not make Sebastian Stan a bad person. Is Charlize Theron a bad person for playing Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who started murdering men? Is Leonardo DiCaprio a bad person for playing a slave owner? Is Edward Norton a bad person for playing a nazi sympathizing racist? Actors play bad people. That doesn't mean that they themselves are bad people. 1990's Tommy Lee was a bad person, but that should have no bearing on who Sebastian Stan is or his character as a man.
The gf/Paul Walter Hauser thing - Why are we holding Sebastian accountable for what the people around him are doing? Again, why are we more upset that Sebastian is associated with people who have done questionable things than the specific people themselves? I'm not going to speak on the kimono wearing -- I'm not Asian. It's not my place to say whether or not its offensive because it's not my culture, but she posted that picture and attended that party before she started dating Sebastian, quite possibly before she even knew him. Same with Paul. I think that black face thing was long before he knew Sebastian. Now, if Sebastian was defending these actions, going around saying "I think it's okay for white women to wear Kimono's" "I think black face is fine" "I think white people should be able to say the n word" then we'd have a different story, wouldn't we? But that's not what we have, and that's not what he is doing. He is not responsible for the things his friends do or have done in the past just because he's more famous than they are, and he is not required to speak on them. Let's put it this way -- would you be comfortable having to be responsible for something a friend of yours did before you knew them? Would you want to have to be forced to answer for your friend when you yourself had nothing to do with the questionable behavior?
The organization that supports the military/blue lives matter - Sebastian cannot control what message that foundation puts out and it does not mean that he is or is not pro-police himself. There is not enough concrete evidence -- if any evidence for that matter -- that Sebastian is a blue lives matter supporter. Did Sebastian donate before they put up the blue lives matter post? Or after? I don’t know, cuz I don’t follow him that closely, but if he donates before they come out with a particular stance, that means he should be held accountable for that? I know I donated to an organization once and they turned out to support something that i’m 100% against. That means I’m a bad person because I couldn’t see into the future? Another point, how can we be certain that Sebastian saw the blue lives matter post in the first place? I know I’m not online 24 hrs a day, I miss posts all the time and I’m just an average person. I make three or four tumblr posts a day, and I’m gone. I have to play catch up on social media, and even then, I still miss stuff. So I’m sure the same happens to a working actor. As for the co-founder, I don't know who this person is and would rather not get into any allegations against them because I don't want to trigger anyone who comes across this post. If Sebastian knows about these allegations, is a willing participant/supporter of this person then yeah, that's pretty shitty, but we don't know the inner workings of this friendship/acquaintance/work relationship. We don’t know how close they are or if they even still speak.
I’m a pretty big fan of Don Cheadle. He’s a stand up guy, he’s a great actor, he’s funny, he’s political and stands up for what he believes in and in a very public way. I support him. Don Cheadle is also friends with Chris Evans, RDJ, Mark Ruffalo, and Letitia Wright (just to name a few). Chris Evans has a bipartisan forum that highlights/promotes right wing politicians, RDJ defended Chris Pratt during the whole “he’s the worst Chris in Hollywood” crap, who’s technically done black face, and who once said to a female reporter “nice tits” when she walked into the room, Mark Ruffalo just walked back his support of Palestine, and Letitia Wright retweeted/supported an anti-vaxxer/anti-trans Pastor who equated an ingredient of the covid vaccine to the devil because it contained some parts of the word Lucifer. Does that mean Don is now a bad person because he’s friends with these people? Why isn’t he getting any heat for his friendships with them? Why isn’t he being held accountable for what they’ve done and said? Oh right, because he’s not a white fave. So people don’t care one way or the other, which brings me to my next point.
I can guarantee you that if Sebastian’s gf or Paul or this co-founder were not associated with Sebastian in any way, nobody would give a shit about her wearing a kimono, about Paul doing black face, or about the co-founder/organization being blue lives matter supporters and in that lies the actual problem. Being critical of people and their actions should be consistent and should happen all the time -- not just when they interact with your white fave. That’s when it becomes performative and looks like you just want to be able to show internet people that you follow/support/stan unproblematic celebrities, when really, you don’t care.
I think the moral of this post is that I think it's unfair to hold a complete stranger to a standard that I cannot hold myself to. I also don't view celebrities the way most teenagers/twenty somethings do, and that’s because when I entered fandom we didn't have social media, so I grew up with a wall between myself and said celebrities. There is no wall now with the presence of social media. "Fans" nowadays have a weird ownership feeling over celebrities because they can read their personal thoughts or view personal pictures and think that they have this personal quasi-friendship with them. I can't get on board with that. I prefer having the wall and I still keep the wall.
If supporting Sebastian makes you uncomfortable, then by all means, stop supporting him. Just make sure you are making this decision for yourself based on credible sources and concrete evidence and that you're not letting this fake woke activist mob make you feel uncomfortable. Internet activism means nothing unless you put your money where your mouth is in your real life and 90% of the social justice internet warriors do not. Real activism is bigger than changing your avi to a black square.
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A Very Stressed American Jew here again,
Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)
I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.
I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.
I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.
It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.
I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.
Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians
Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis
Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.
Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed
There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.
I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.
Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,
A Very Stressed American Jew
Hi anon,
I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer.
I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds.
(Super long post under here guys)
You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years.
I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular.
This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated. Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated.
This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering?
I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.)
Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years.
On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).
Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices.
Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).
Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.
In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?
Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.
I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.
My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!
I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.
I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you.
As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.
I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime.
Free Palestine.
#palestine#israel#west bank#tala gets asks#anon#whew this ask took me like 2-3 hours to respond to#pls read it even if ure not the anon#lots of good links and info#palestine tag#anon there are more reading lists in my#to read#and palestine tag tags#check my likes on twitter too if u decide btw not just what i retweet#like also: imagine palestinians around palestine and the world who are simply waiting to hear if their relatives are dead or alive or#have been striked from a rocket. like i can see my father worried abt his friend in gaza rn like any day#now he can just never hear back from him and have to guess hes dead somewhere beneath the rubble#and israelis are anxious at the rocket sounds? good for them but again that shows the asymmetry in#palestinian vs israeli suffering#and by ‘good for them’ i mean good that thats what theyre worried abt compared to palestinians#my aunt is in sheikh jarrah#my cousin lives right by the al aqsa square#again theres so much more i couldve mentioned and talked abt but theres just so much#theres so many LAYERS i wld say but not that its complicated#and definitely theres more i need to learn and read and watch dont get me wrong! i am not a fountain of knowledge by all means!!!!
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yeah ancient dreams is really not problematic it's just a bit??? to me like I get what's she's saying but also I don't know what the point of the song is fjdjdn i'm just not feeling it. but like you said she's literally talking about "ancient dreams" like going back to how humans lived and survived very differently to how we do now. As much as she's had some questionable lyrics, I do think that people are nitpicking to find a problem here lol. She really should stay away from social/political songs because it's just not working for her 😭 also I think she shared good info regarding Palestine. It was just about how you can help and support them without being anti semitic. Saying fighting for Palestine is all anti semitic is actually Israel/zionist propaganda
I don't have instagram so I can't see what she was saying, if someone wouldn't mind showing me a screenshot or something. I am pro-Palestinians and all so I would not want to have a bad opinion on Marina for smth she didn't say... I guess I didn't realize that commenter might have been pro-Israel and thot she was spreading misinfo because it wasn't pro-Israel. I forgot what they said ANSDKn
I agree people are nitpicking, like, it's getting silly. We all know her polisocial lyrics are clunky and not always good (hello Girls, Better Than That, and Purge the Poison!) but people are seriously reading deeper into her lyrics than she even wrote them with LOL like not saying she isn't deep and thinking about this, but people are acting like she's consciously decided to say semi-problematic things to send a message of hate and genocide and whatever and it's like... calm down. My girl is just expressing undeveloped feelings and trying to work through it. We all know she uses music as a way to explore ideas, she's said this multiple times. I honestly think people just get bristled over political talk, and with tumblr being tumblr, they expect her to be perfectly 100% up to date with very complex social issues that we all have had to work to learn or unlearn. People need to just... admit they don't like the album, that their standards for her are too high, and move on. You can like her without liking the album and criticize it without first putting her on such a high pedestal that you expect her to be perfect. It's just this dumbass black and white thing. I don't love all of her songs or agree with all of her sentiments but it doesn't mean she's a white supremacist LOL
Wrt opinions on the song, I liked it and I get why it was written for this album! Some of it was a bit confusing, specifically the whole "I am not my body" part... I believe she's talking about having a higher self here, but I'm not sure why?? I have a couple ideas though
In essence, the song is talking about how we need to go back to our roots, and how modernity is a messy waste of the lives our ancestors bestowed upon us. Thus, it's a commentary on how our lives right now in the modern era are very disconnected from the natural world and how humans were "meant" to live. So in talking about being an observer, being between the stars and the sky, being nothing that is her physical or earthly self -- she is perhaps saying that she disconnects from this realm to feel more natural?????
My other guess is that she's saying that she's just one of a line of a species, like, she's part of something bigger -- the human race
WHO KNOWS we all know she isn't gonna explain herself LOL
#this got long as fuck sorry#anon#Anonymous#marina diamandis#adiaml#ancient dreams in a modern land#why tf did tumblr replace my marina tag with primadonna
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you talk about Al Aqsa where the police only raided coz Palestinians had stored rocks inside btw nobody died that day but Taliban bombs a mosque in Afghanistan on Eid and 19 people die, but you don't talk about that. You don't talk about Saudi atrocities in Yemen. You don't talk about how Shias have to hide in Saudi why ? is that not Islamophobia ? Why this selective blame ? You're blaming Israel just coz we're Jews.
The reason I feel so strongly about Palestine is because it mirrors Kashmir. I talk about Kashmir a lot too (on other social media though), because I’m Indian. India and Israel are one and the same. As an oppressor, I believe that it is my duty to speak up for the oppressed, which is Kashmir. And now it’s Palestine.
And I do talk about islamophobic hate crimes in my own country a lot too. Does that make me hinduphobic? No it doesn’t.
Anti Zionism isn’t antisemitism. I do not believe all Jewish people are zionists. I have made sure to correct and call out anyone who is saying that kind of antisemitic bullshit or is using anti Zionism as an excuse to be antisemitic. I’ve also been following a lot of Jewish pro Palestinian pages. In fact, one of the largest anti zionist Instagram pages is run by Jewish people! @/jewishvoiceforpeace. anti zionist Jewish people exist. antisemitic zionists also exist. you do know that the UK supported Zionism so heavily in the 1900s because of antisemitism right?
honestly speaking, you don’t deserve a reply to any of your asks other than maybe (maybe) the first. your first one was “not to spread hate” and you proceeded to harass me with seven other asks. that’s a horribly shitty thing to do. and I don’t know any Israeli people personally as I’m Indian, living in India, all my friends are also Indian, so I know that I am just a random stranger to you and you have absolutely no idea what I speak about and what I don’t. I have spoken up about Yemen multiple times before, and I do absolutely hate Saudi. I did hear about the mosque being shot up by the Taliban and it was awful. but you know what makes that different from Israel? Israel has the support of the international community. The Taliban have been condemned internationally and not a single person will defend them on the Internet. What use is it if I say “taliban bad!” Everyone knows this. What people do not know much about is the plight of Palestinians. I didn’t know that much either until recently. But I’ve known about the Taliban since like. the third grade.
Another thing: just because I may not post about something doesn’t mean I don’t care about it. I don’t post much on tumblr about politics anyway. this is literally a shitpost blog where I reblog anything I like- mostly supernatural. Dude I just rebloggrd like fifty comics by the same artist today morning. This is MY blog. I get to choose what I want to talk about. Something I care about deeply and won’t post here for example is caste. I talk about anti caste stuff on Instagram because it’s relevant to my audience, who are mostly upper caste friends of mine. Here? There aren’t any desi people who will see my posts anyway so I don’t post abt them here. You don’t know me personally, you absolutely do not know what I talk about and what I don’t.
Another thing: I never said I was pro-Hamas. you just assumed. I’m for the liberation of the Palestinian people. I don’t support everything the Hamas do, as some of their leaders have been openly antisemitic. I won’t condemn their rockets however, because Israel has a state of the art billion dollar system to protect you guys and the deaths and casualties are minimal compared to those of Palestinians. Condemning the Hamas for being violent doesn’t make much sense when Israel is just. so much worse. My first reply was just information regarding all this and I do hope you read through it.
Please do not send me any more messages on Anon. I will be deleting them. Unless it is an apology for saying “no hate” and then proceeding to send me like 7 completely unwarranted messages. Feel free to do that/srs
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since I inevitably get like 1 confrontational ask about this every year or so and have been Posting Opinions tonight, I think I’ll pre-empt right now any questions about how I personally square being pro-Palestinian liberation with “hey, so G*l G*dot, aka the lead in that 2017 W0nder W0man movie you never shut up about, is considered a pretty vocal Zionist”. answer below the cut.
(please do not reblog this post)
first: let it be known I am not required to vet and evaluate the personal and political beliefs of every one of the thousands of people involved in making a piece of art on the scale of a blockbuster film, who already got their paychecks, before I’m allowed to buy merch or enjoy it. Hollywood is full of terrible or disagreeable people, some are just more famous than others. that is a ridiculous stance, and if that is where you are coming from then I think it’s best if this is the point at which you and I part ways. be well
second: having said what I said above, I will also say this: to me, G*l G*dot may play W0nder W0man, but that doesn’t mean she is W0nder W0man. yep, that’s her face. yep, that’s her doing the acting. and that’s about where my association of her with the character stops for me. she happens to provide the face and voice and physical acting for my favourite W0nder W0man story. she did not create or originate this character/role. several other actors have portrayed W0nder W0man before, and more will do so in the future. each of them has brought something different to the character. that does not mean they ARE that character. I watched and fell in love with the 2017 film long before I knew G*dot’s name or the slightest thing about her political beliefs, so I came to think about the character very separately from her as a person irl. to continue this separation and keep the bad tasted out of my mouth, you will not see me speak much about G*dot’s performances in the role in an outside-the-narrative perspective, or reblogging her interviews or photoshoots, or anything that highlights/praises her specifically for the role. she did a fine job. cool. I’m not here for her, or to promote her as a celebrity worth admiring or even paying attention to. I’m here for the character in the text who happens to wear her face in this incarnation.
third: let’s get meta-textual for a second. to me, a militant Zionist perspective is actually extremely contradictory to my reading of what W0nder W0man, the fictional character, stands for, believes, and represents. in my reading of the character as-written in most incarnations, she would not support the illegal and violent occupation of Palestine. I don’t consider that to be supported by her characterization in the 2017 film or the other parts of her MASSIVE canon that I’m familiar with/fond of. it really does not mean two green beans to me if this specific actress feels differently inside her own head about what stance the character might take — lots of characters I like in many things are played by actors who believe that character is heterosexual, and I ignore their headcanons all the time. art is as it is read. to me personally, the philosophy of Justice which W0nder W0man represents encompasses the same sentiments which lead me to support the Palestinian cause. if other people feel differently, or can’t see past G*l G*dot’s face on the character (or are put off by the racism in WW84, which, ugh, that’s it’s own post), they are entitled to feel that way and are not obligated to agree with me or follow me at all. if that is a dealbreaker for you on being with this blog, and this is where we part ways, I wish you well in your future.
so that’s where I’m at on this. I don’t pretend to believe this is a fully morally righteous stance, I may change it in the future, who knows. I may or may not be a hypocrite, but really I’m mostly just trying to exist as the most compassionate person I can in a very complex and messy world, while consuming art under capitalism. and now nobody can say I haven’t explained myself or tried to justify where I stand. please simply unfollow me if you don’t agree with me, I do not have the spoons to have extended arguments about this with random people online. the internet is big enough for us to leave each other alone. once again, please do not reblog this post
if you have made it this far and have some spare dollars, please consider donating to a Palestinian aid organization such as Medical Aid For Palestinians. I personally will be matching what I paid to rent WW84 with a donation to one of these orgs next time I get a paycheck
#do not reblog#long post#I tried to make this not show up in the tags but I feel like it will do that anyway
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Vulnerability
Vulnerability has a bad rep in our world. In fact, what we all long for is precisely the opposite: to feel invulnerable, impervious to incoming danger, safe and secure not only when we hide under our beds in the dark of night but when we are out and about in the world. But we—speaking of society as a whole but also of us ourselves as individuals—we may have moved a bit quickly in that regard and not sufficiently thoughtfully. Being paralyzed with fear about dangers that are highly unlikely to come our way—that kind of vulnerability is definitely something negative that all who can should avoid. But owning up to the vulnerability that inheres in the human condition itself is in a different category entirely. As this last pandemic year has taught us all too well, it is only a sign of maturity and self-awareness to own up to the degree to which we can fall prey to a virus so tiny that you’d need an electron microscope to see it at all and to behave accordingly. And waving away that danger as fake news because you don’t choose to acknowledge your own vulnerability is not a sign of courage or valor, but of lunacy born of a witch’s brew of foolishness, naiveté, and arrogance.
As I prepared myself for surgery last week, I was feeling exceedingly vulnerable. I lay in bed at night talking to my heart, asking why it wasn’t just doing its thing properly on its own, why it was intent on betraying me after all these years of me not burdening it by smoking cigarettes or consuming huge quantities of trans fat. Didn’t I deserve better? I certainly thought I did! But now that the whole procedure is behind me and I’m feeling healthy and fortunate to live in an age of miracles (and if having a non-functioning valve in your heart replaced without them having to open your chest and then being sent home the next day to recuperate doesn’t qualify as a miracle, then what would?)—now that all that is behind me, I see that intense vulnerability that I was feeling in the days leading up to last Thursday in a much less negative light. Yes, there are people who live in terror of an asteroid colliding with the Earth. (For NASA’s own statement about the likelihood of that happening, click here. We’re apparently good for at least the next couple of centuries.) But that’s not the kind of slightly obsessive vulnerability I want to promote as healthy and sane, but rather the kind that speaks not to fantasy but to reality. To the fact that our hearts are not made of steel and that our bones really do crack quite easily. To the fact that, despite all we do to suggest that the opposite is true, we are mortal beings lucky to be gifted with a few score years to wander the earth, to do whatever good we can, to leave behind some sort of legacy for our descendants to contemplate positively once we ourselves are no longer around to be contemplated in person. Feeling vulnerable because the human condition is vulnerability itself—that isn’t craziness or obsessivity, just an honest appraisal of how things are in this world we all share for as long as we do.
These were the thoughts I had in mind as I read the report in the paper the other day about people coming to shul last Shabbat on 16th Avenue in Boro Park last week only to be greeted by men gathered in front of the synagogue screaming “Kill the Jews” and “Free Palestine.” Which kind of vulnerable did those people feel, I wonder—the silly kind (because there weren’t that many hooligans in front of the synagogue, because the cops showed up almost instantly, because the bad guys didn’t actually have guns with them or bombs, and because they fled the scene once they realized how completely outnumbered they were about to become) or the wise kind rooted in a fully rational appraisal of how things are in this world we share with so many who seem to feel entirely justified in their bigotry and prejudice and who appear mostly to have no problem putting both on full display for all to admire? (For an account of the Boro Park incident, click here.) I’m hardly an alarmist who sees a pogrom around every corner. But, of course, it’s hardly an example of alarmism to be alarmed when truly alarming things happen. Maybe I’ve read too many books about Germany in the 1930s. Or maybe not.
We have entered into a new stage, a dangerous and upsetting one. At first, the stories appeared random. A twenty-nine-year-old man wearing a kippah was beat up in Times Square as he tried to make his way to a pro-Israel rally. Then, a day or two later, a group of thugs wearing keffiyehs invaded a restaurant on 40th Street and started spitting on patrons they suspected of being Jewish. Next we heard about people being attacked in the Diamond District on 47th Street, where it isn’t ever hard to come across some Jewish businesspeople or shoppers. Two days later we were back in Times Square, this time watching footage of a Jewish man being knocked to the ground and beaten in front of the TKTS buttke where they used to sell last-minute tickets to unsold-out Broadway shows when the theaters were open. Nor is this just a New York thing: the police in L.A. are currently investigating an attack on outside diners at a Japanese restaurant as an anti-Semitic hate crime that occurred the same day that a family of four was terrorized in Bal Harbour, Florida, by a group of men threatening to rape the wife and daughter and yelling “Die Jews” and “Free Palestine” at them. I could go on. There have been similar incidents in New Jersey, Illinois, Utah, Arizona, and several other states. And although I’m focused here mostly on American incidents, the rise in this kind of hate crime is not specifically an American phenomenon: we’ve read of similar, even worse, incidents just lately in London, in Germany, and in Italy.
The question is how to respond, not whether we should. The fantasy that complaining only makes things worse needs to be laid to rest permanently and irrevocably. (The Jewish community could learn a good lesson in that regard from Black America, where it was once also imagined that responding publicly to racism would only make things worse. It’s hard to imagine any Black citizens putting that argument forth today, yet I hear it from Jewish Americans regularly.) Nor can we allow ourselves the luxury of imagining that this dramatic uptick in anti-Jewish violence is “about” Israel. Israel’s recent war with Hamas was, in my opinion, entirely justified. I can see how people might feel otherwise, and even strongly so. But I know too much history—and specifically too much Jewish history—to indulge in the fantasy that anti-Semitism is “about” anything other than the hatred of Jewish people, Judaism, and Jewishness itself. No matter how many shows an actor appears in, he’s the same person under all of the costumes he gets paid to wear on stage.
I myself have lived a blessed life. Born just eight and a half years after the Nazis were murdering up to twelve thousand people a day at Auschwitz, I have hardly ever encountered real anti-Semitism directed directly at me personally. (And I speak as someone who spent several years living in Germany in the 1980s.) Nonetheless, sensitivity to anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence is the hallmark of my Jewishness, the foundation upon which my eager willingness to live my life as a public, fully-identified, and unambiguously-identifiable Jewish person rests. And that is why I am disinclined to wave away the latest series of anti-Semitic incidents in New York and elsewhere as a random set of creepy one-time events—nor would anyone describe that way who has ever read a book about the history of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism. For people eager to dine at my table, I recommend Walter Laqueurs’s The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day as your appetizer, Léon Poliakov’s four-volume History of Anti-Semitism as your main course with a side serving of David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. For dessert, I recommend Deborah Lipstadt’s Antisemitism: Here and Now. I can promise you that you won’t be hungry when you’re done.
There have been encouraging signs too, of course. President Biden has spoken out sharply and strongly against the uptick in anti-Semitic incidents, calling them despicable and condemning them unequivocally as “hateful behavior.” We have heard similarly supportive rhetoric from Governor Cuomo, Mayor Di Blasio, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. So that’s good. But will any of the actual sonim out to harm Jews hold back because of a presidential tweet or a senatorial press release? On the other hand, there were seventeen thousand tweets disseminated by Twitter last week that contained some version of the words “Hitler was right.” Just wait until they find out that the President considers them despicable!
I don’t mean to sound unhappy that supportive, unambiguous language denouncing anti-Semitism has emanated from the highest offices in the land. Just to the contrary, I am thrilled that our leadership has spoken out so boldly and clearly. But I also don’t imagine it will matter until it is deemed just as unacceptable to speak disparagingly about Jews in public as it is—at least in all places that decent people gather and live—to espouse hate-fueled violence against Black people or Asian-Americans, or any other American minority. And that will take—at least in some quarters—a sea change of attitude that can only be accomplished through the kind of ongoing educative process capable of moving society forward. How to do that, I’m not sure. But I am sure that that is the challenge the new normal has laid at our feet. And I am as sure about that as I am that these recent incidents, for all they come dressed up as part of the Israeli-Palestinian controversy, have nothing at all to do with Middle Eastern politics and everything to do with the unique place anti-Jewishness continues to occupy in Western culture as the one remaining version of bigotry to which otherwise normal and nice people can still openly subscribe without suffering much for their views. Or at all.
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somebody just submitted this into my inbox and im wheezing omfg
If you can still give Gal Gaddot dignity and acknowledge her humanity even when she doesn’t care about the lives of thousands of Palestinian people under military brutality and war crimes, also partook in idf, then WHY can’t you do the same for Sia’s autism misrep scandal and the rest of them? WHY?! They probably feel the same as Gal when you fling them poop too! So cut this selective “teaching a lesson to”?! Leave all alone or call all out, don’t be a double standard shitfuck!
Look, don’t throw literal shit at Gal G-dot, but don’t deny her slipups and crimes too! #FreePalestine 🇵🇸
Come on, it is obviously known she did:
- Serve in the IDF during the 2006 Lebanon fiasco
- Expressed her support and praise IDF from time to time even after her mandatory service, her most famous one being the 2014 Gaza bombings which lost 4 boys. Even Holocaust survivors in the Haaretz spoke out against that incident saying it’s gone too far. Never apologized or retracted that. That specific FB post also still up.
- Allegedly responded poorly to a former friend’s r*pe and blamed the friend while defending the perpetrator
- Talks about her military service with pride and “how it has helped her play WW” despite simps’ claims that she hated IDF but was forced to do that
- Subtly mass stereotype all Palestinians and MENA Muslims as ‘terrorists’ and ‘inferior stock’ in her community. Have you seen WW84’s hateful writing?
Why people don’t care about Palestinians or military brutality war crimes in this case:
- “Gal is too hot and cute!!!12!! I’m gay for her!!!11!!”
- Gotten too attached to her thru watching her “relatable moments” and funny or sweet-presenting propaganda where she “being herself”…'psycho’ actresses sure can mask well, can’t they?
- Tried to hamster away her exact words by claiming she sorta apologized in some other way or “said something to counter that!!11!!1”. She only stood up for Arabs with Israeli citzenship ONLY, still not the Palestinian neighbours so simps stop bluffing! And saying “peeaceeee” multiple times is so vague. Does that word to Gal imply taking Palestine land and genociding the children?!
- pull the “Palestine is not oppressed” card. But when you just attack neutral run-of-the-mill Palestinian citizens and families and prevent vaccine supplies from them and go beyond apartheid, you know you’ve crossed some serious lines and can conclude Palestine is oppressed too.
- feel sympathy for her even though they hypocritically say “you shouldn’t feel sympathy for supremacists or terfs or military bootlickers!!!11!!“
- they have become stupid simps for her
All while no problem attacking and cancelling other people like Sia, Gina, Letitia Wright - NOT defending or condoning their deeds too but Gal is in such a similar boat don’t excuse it. At least Sia never was a sergeant or cheered on the bombing of a certain area
How do you scrub this kind of idiotic self-righteous hypocrisy and pious smugness?!?! If you can still give Gal dignity and acknowledge her humanity even with blood on her hands and beliefs, then WHY can’t you do the same for the rest of them? WHY?! They probably feel the same as Gal when you fling them poop too! So cut this selective "teaching a lesson to”?! Leave all alone or call all out, don’t be a double standard shitfuck! And Maddie Ziegler supports Sia but that does not mean she is defending the movie, she was just doing interviews!
Edit: Admit that the USA’s coverups and censorship of Gal’s pro-idf and borderline supremacist views also helped some!
You know America is all about stanning Israel and military, same with their allies, so obviously not letting too many know about Gal’s statements and putting out good propaganda of her to cover it would boost.
When US wants her as a token, they will have her as a token.
Edit 2: Just to be clear, Israel can have their areas but let Palestinians have some land too. And don’t go genocidal on them for it
Okay sis first of all I haven’t even seen Wonder Woman, if I simped for Gal Gadot some years ago it is because I am a wlw and was not aware of what she stands for. I’ve had this blog for over 10 fucking years of my life, starting when I was 15. I simped for a lot of bad people and I probably used the n-word, the r-word and a bunch of shit I’m not proud of. This blog is a personal journal to me, something I’ve used to grow in years which were really hard in my life, and I’ve probably posted a bunch of shit that should have never been posted. If I’ve ever defended Gal Gadot, among the 30,000 posts I posted on this blog in the past, then I admit, I was wrong.
But you literally coming here writing me this essay, it’s hysterical to me that you took your time to write this all out. Obviously you have some frustrations in your life that makes you write this shit, I know that all my frustrated posts on this page at celebrities, billionaires, etc, all come from simple life frustrations and I come here to vent. I post my posts as if nobody was ever gonna read them because I’m a nobody on this site, and nobody in life in terms of reach. It’s funny to me that you decided to equate some post I made years ago (how did you even find those??? i have literal 1000s of pages on my tumblr) with what I say about Sia. Autism happens to be very personal to me. And although I feel very strongly about what’s going on in Palestine and support the Palestinians (which I also posted about in the past, I’m pretty sure I also reblogged shit about Gal Gadot you mention but I guess you haven’t found those posts on my blog), I do not have as much of a personal connection to it, so I don’t post about it as much. And I’m still bewildered, where did I say I like Gal Gadot??? Last I recall I posted about Gal Gadot organizing this fucking disaster of a pandemic celebrity song contest.
But anyway, all this being said, you literally cannot come to people and bash them for not being ideologically pure. I’m 26 so I don’t give two shits about what you think of me, but there are teenagers on this site that really take this stuff personally. That get anxious about not being the perfect humans, invested in all issues at once. Everyone fights their own battles, sis. We can’t all support all causes at once. I will never support Israel but I can’t single handedly change the situation of the Palestinians, and especially not through a fucking tumblr post. So while I’m gonna post this, because maybe some people want to get educated about what goes on, why don’t we just quit making people feel guilty for not being aware about every single bad thing any celebrity did at all times? Like, I think the volunteer work I do with refugees in my country in real life helps much more than bashing celebrities online about their ideology on a blog nobody is ever gonna look at twice.
Maybe I’m too old and this is just a troll but it’s pretty incredible to me that you come into my inbox calling me all kinda shit. If you’re having a bad day, a frustrating time in the pandemic, sorry sis. Me too. Hope this venting helped you.
Yours truly,
Double Standards Shitfuck <3
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do you know any neutral post that sums up the Israeli–Palestinian conflict because I don't know what to think. I don't want to dislike jews or Israel but it all sounds so bad? Send help
Hi! I super appreciate you asking because I know exactly how hard it is to even find one reliable source.
Of course it all sounds super bad, because Hamas is a well-oiled and functioning propaganda machine with a lot of money and children and parents willing to throw themselves in front of the camera to make Israel bad, and for some reason their pictures are always what get picked up by the media. Plus, there are super loud antisemitic voices everywhere chanting against Israel at every mention. And the BDS is lobbying pretty hard too, so it's very hard to not find a super negative picture.
It's a super tricky conflict. I'm not saying everything went well and Israel is a country with a pristine history. But here's some points to consider that are usually the biggest issues in any ''''controversy'''' around Israel- Jewish people have always lived and practiced Judaism for over 5000 years in Israel. They have been victims of pogroms and hatred and chased in the desert, but they have literally always been there and to say that Israel was a state installed by foreigners for foreigners coming to these lands is a blatant lie.
There are countries with way more questionable borders in existence, yet Israel is the only country to continuously has to defend its very existence.
The United Nations have two organisations for refugees. One is the UNHCR which deals with refugee questions for all over the world, except for one group. And the other is the UNRWA which is an organisation only for the Palestine/Gaza refugees. The differences between these organisations are more than in structure and beaurucracy, they have two different tasks: UNHCR aims to give refugees a home, UNRWA doesn't. When in 1951 the director of UNRWA proposed to give 250.000 refugees a home in different arabic countries, these governments were angry and strictly refused, leading to the director John Blanford to lose his job. Since then, no further attempts have been made.
Furthermore, the UNHCR only defines refugees as people who have actually fled from their homes. Meanwhile, the UNRWA broadens that definition to "people who lost their homes in 1948 and their descendants".
- Israel is the only country that won all their wars for their survival and in self-defense yet had to have the coniditions for peace dictated by the defeated enemies. Even more paradox, this was supported by countries which all defined their borders after winning wars over these territories -- like, look at an old map of Europe and you will see what I mean. Btw Europe, Germany and Poland drew their finite borders in 1990 but I guess Israel is the only ''''artificial'''' state
- One of Hamas' conditions was that no jewish people were allowed to live in Gaza, so for the first time in centuries if not more, there are no Jewish people living in Gaza. Weirdly, it doesn't seem enough because these people are still living somewhere else and not all dead, I guess.
- Hamas literally uses children and families as a shield, regularly raises palestine flags with swastikas and calls protests of throwing rocks, burning tires and attacking soldiers 'peaceful'. It's a terrorist organisation and literally has the destruction of Israel as a defining goal, yet we always expect Israel to work with them. Hamas wants to build a state based on ethnic purity and cleansing of the territory, but somehow everyone thinks it's okay.
- By the way, when the two state solution was on the table, it was refused because they didn't want Israel to even have a bit of Jerusalem, the capital city with which the jewish people has been connected for over 3000 years. Even weirder, this connection is widely known (famously written into the most read world book in the world, the Bible) and yet every country refuses to acknowledge it as the official capital city because they're afraid that terrorists will riot
- Israel is the only country which is continuously attacked by three organisations in the UN which only exist to represent the Palestine agenda and to defame Israel (they're three comitees and I can't remember their exact names even in German, but they're about realising Palestinian rights, researching the Israeli actions in regard to palestinian rights and there's something in the UN-department for politic agendas or somth)
- Every year. Every year, Israel is targeted by more UN-resolutions than all of the other 192 member countries together. No-one can tell me that this number is justifiable in the least, but it is a reality and it paints the picture of Israel in the media.
- Israel is also the only country in the UN that continuously has to defend its existence against other UN-members and that suffers threats from other members all the damn time. And not just any threats, Iran for example continuously threatens to wipe out Israel and supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both of which are terrorist organisations with the goal of destroying Israel. And destroying Israel means killing all their Jewish citizens.
And we continuously forget that Israel is the only liberal democracy in that area, they're currently conducting investigations into Netanyahu and his regime and it's a country with a rich and vivid discourse nature. They just refuse to let their existence be up to debate, and frankly, neither should any of us.
So, does this mean no-one is allowed to criticise Israel? Absolutely not. It is a functioning democracy and like any country, it is not a moral entity and there is a lot of room for debate. But when looking into the arguments, you should keep in mind that there's a lot of antisemitism hidden as 'Israel critic' when it's just the same old shit. There's a test called "the 3 Ds" (in German) that can function as a broad test to see if you're reading legitimate critics or antisemitic shit:
- Demonisation (are they demonising Israel, for example by comparing Israel to the Nazis or the palestine refugee camp with Auschwitz)
- Double standards (are they criticising Israel for a behaviour or an act that they ignore or belittle when it's different state, for example how is it that Israel suffers resolutions for hurting human rights but China, Iran, Kuba and Syria don't)
- Delegitimisation (when they're arguing against Israel to exist; it's also a double standard bc it's refusing to allow Jewish people to have a state in which they can live a safe life)
I realise this won't directly answer your question and I easily get side tracked, but I feel like knowing about these difficulties and critically reading your sources will help you more than just drawing a timeline of events. Because there's a lot of anti-Israel propaganda even on Wikipedia, on seemingly normal internet platforms and even our big Western media liberally use Hamas material while refusing to show the Nazi swastikas blowing on burning kites they shoot over to Israel ground. And it's hard to be neutral about this topic, because it is a democracy which is never flawless against a terrorist organisation which demonstrates great finesse in painting the picture the way they want it. I don't think we should all be neutral about it. I am firmly pro Israel because I need my Jewish friends who are currently worrying about anti-judaic sentiments on the uprise everywhere in Europe to have a safe haven. I am pro Israel because it is a country with huge efforts and contributions to our world and advancing medicines etc every day. It's a LGBTQ friendly country (contrary to Hamas policy in which gay sex means 10 years of prison). It is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and deserves our support more than a terrorist organisation using their children as human shields. Yknow. Maybe that's not actually a topic to be neutral about.
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