#us Americans doesn't mean Christian Israel doesn't mean Jewish

[dragonlights]

I'm feeling Some Type of Way about other Jewish folks being like. "They're chanting to Kill Us" about "from the river to the sea". Like.

It feels the same type of way as usmericans (I am one, for context) getting afraid for calls to return the land to its native inhabitants. That doesn't mean kill???

Also, do they just think that because Israel exists, Palestinian Jews just.... All got up and left? Nobody stayed? With their families, their friends, their Homes???

I find that. Unlikely.

And FURTHERMORE. It's not free of Jews! It's free of Israel!!! It doesn't even imply the people of Israel getting hurt!

And look. I do believe that there are lots of folks here in the US who can't tell when their activism maybe crosses the line into antisemitism. But. Just saying "X thing is antisemitic" with No Further Conversation???? Like people don't have a right to go "how? Why do you think it means what it does? Have you considered you might be wrong?"

It's frustrating. People getting arrested and harmed for protesting a Fucking Genocide that we're complicit in and like.

Even if you as an individual believes it's fine for Israel to exist and it has a Right To Defend Itself like... Can we use critical thinking here? That maybe actions of The State have Ulterior Motives for killing 30k people, even while retaliating an act of terrorism???

It's like being like "well, I think the United States has a Right to defend itself" to protestors against the war in Iraq and such. And it's like. Okay! Cool. Conversation to be had after the civilian casualties slow down, ya?

Like. I have Thoughts about violent resistance against oppressive regimes and how people like the Idea of it but not The Reality. And that there are harms that are done to relatively innocent individuals but that sad fact doesn't necessarily mean that the method isn't necessary, but moreso what steps were taken before, and how can we solve these systemic problems with oppression and colonial power being inherently abusive Before it reaches this point.

Like. Maybe we can look at the bombing, the mass casualties, and go "isn't Israel supposed to be some kind of powerful military- who not only has been offered their hostages back in exchange for Palestinian hostages, at a rate consistent with the ratio of Palestinians Taken hostage, so why do they not use this method instead? How can they be sure they aren't killing their own citizens when they bomb areas like this?? Can you think of any Ulterior Motives a colonial state may have for bombing a region and then trying to develop real estate???? Any at all????"

And idk. I'm not A Great Wordsmith who can get these ideas out in an evocative and thought-provoking way. I'm just tired and mad. And want less oppressive regimes in the world.

[hero-israel]

Let me tell you being a former Christian this shit goes so much deeper than a lot of born Jews realize. The Christian worldview (specifically Calvinist/Puritan) seeping into and pervading all of modern leftism is honestly frightening. But also it's very funny.

They believe that there are Good people and Bad people, and that any mistake or lapse in judgment or instance of not being educated is a Mask Off moment, showing who is a member of the Elect and who is not. If you fuck up, that's not just a fuck up, it's Revealing. You are damned, were always damned, you were just good at hiding it, and now we know the truth and are doubly angry because not only are you evil, you lied about it. The only recourse is to shun you, and if that leads to your death, so be it. Anyone who's seen any micro celebrity get canceled saw this in action.

And the only way you can prove you're a member of the Elect is to operate as if you have nothing to hide. You have to loudly and proudly proclaim your righteousness. If you don't have anything to hide why would you be worried? Privacy is suspicious. You Must Speak on everything they deem important or else you obviously agree with the Bad People. There is no room for discussion or healthy debate. There are no loopholes or subclauses or other points of view to consider. You're with us or against us. If you don't constantly go around saying you're with us, you're probably secretly against us. The only way to convince your neighbors, whom you inherently distrust, that you're one of the Good Ones, is to perform righteousness, parrot righteous words. The only way to redeem yourself is by grandiose acts of self flagellation, perhaps being the right demographic, or by accusing others of Heresy.

The goal is not to bring good into the world, it's to recruit more people into the same thought patterns (that's kind of all Christian denominations though). Because if you can convince your community that you're one of the Elect, that means G-d preselected you for Heaven, and you're golden. No repercussions or consequences baby. The only material benefit for you is that you "get" to proclaim you're going to Heaven and everyone has to agree with you. If anyone doesn't they're probably going to Hell anyway. You're on the right side (of history), so why should you ever self reflect or grow? Why should you question anything? Why should nuance or empathy exist? This is about Right and Wrong. We know where we stand, where do you stand?

Every single aspect of American culture and politics, right and "left" alike, was planted by the pilgrims, and it is so fundamentally antithetical to true Leftist thought. Remember all the actually successful Western Leftist movements were started in Europe (and Israel cough cough)... because they kicked all their fucking psychotic Calvinists out. Those people went to America and that's a big big big reason why we don't have any near as much of a robust Leftist movement as even socially conservative European countries (and Israel cough cough). And what's funny is I still find myself slipping into these thought patterns, which is so not compatible with Jewish philosophy or theology. It's been years and I'm still not done.

It's a hell of a drug to kick, so I definitely don't trust white goysiche college kids who've been antitheists for about 6 months since they left their Republican parents' homes to have any great success in unlearning and unprogramming from this. Which is kind of obvious in that I see them acting just like their conservative Christian parents every day on every social media platform, swap out a gun toting white Jesus with some noble savage idea of Palestine, absolving the West of its sins against the Global South.

It is a cult structured around spiritual isolation, antisocial behavior, and it is inherently against any kind of political movement that centers and celebrates the Community. It is designed to tear communities apart and foster obedience to whatever authority can force itself on them. And this has been going on for almost 500 years, there is nothing we can do about it.

Thank you for the insightful look. Their "purity culture" approach definitely had to come from somewhere.

[callimara]

Important PSA

Criticizing Israel is NOT antisemetism or an attack on Jewish people because

ISRAEL =/= ALL JEWS

And while I am not saying that there is no antisemitism because there is plenty of that too, this is not a case of that. But grouping all Jews together as Israeli and presenting them as a monolith erases their individuality and identity. It's like calling all Asian people Chinese, and that if you criticize China, then you hate all Asian people. It doesn't make sense.

I am so frustrated seeing people who are trying to raise awareness about Palestine be called antisemetic and disgusting by people who cannot perceive Jews and Muslims as anything but a monolith. That's the reason why so many people are having trouble distinguishing between Hamas and Palestinian civilians, because to them, they're all the same.

And that's why they don't see an issue with collective punishment.

And you know what? Palestine is NOT just the Jewish holy land. It is also the Christian holy land, and the Muslim holy land. Palestine wasn't even the first choice for a Jewish homeland because it was heavily contested by Jewish rabbis at the time.

Turning Palestine (I say Palestine because the entirety of what is now Israel used to be Palestine) as an exclusively Jewish ethno-state means that people of Christian and Muslim faith all over the world are stripped of their holy land. The oldest church in the world, dating back to the times of Christ is located in Gaza, and who are the ones protecting it? Palestinians.

And you know who bombed it? Even though it had 500 refugees of both Muslim and Christian faith inside? Israel.

Even the slogan used for the founding of Israel itself, "A land without people for a people without a land." Is blatantly revisionist and erases the existence of Palestinians already living there. It erases all the historic religious sites that stand there and are frequented regularly by their respective devotees. Or worse, does not consider the Palestinians as 'people.'

Some people tend to forget that religious belief is NOT the same as race, and so you CANNOT claim indigeneity just because you are a certain religion. I am an Indonesian Muslim. Born Muslim, raised Muslim, and every generation of my family have been Muslim. That doesn't mean I can say I'm indigenous to Saudi Arabia. Let alone that Saudi Arabian land is my birthright.

If a white American woman born and raised in Seattle decides to convert to Hinduism, can she then say she is now indigenous to India? Or if she has a child, and that child had a child, and they were all raised as a Hindu, but have always lived in the US all their lives, can they claim that they are indigenous to India?

No.

And the fact is, the first Jewish settlers during The First Aliyah (great Jewish migration to Palestine) came from Eastern Europe and are genetically closer to Russians and other Slavs than they are to the Jews who remained in the Middle Eastern region after their exile (and I guess some people forget that you can convert into Judaism even if you didn't come from "The Promised Land." Like for marriages and stuff.) That's why they feel the need to distinguish themselves from the word "Arab."

Granted, there were also Yemeni Jews that migrated with them (whom I would say have stronger claims to indigeneity), but even in the transition camps, there was a clear divide between the European Ashkenazi Jews and the Yemeni Jews, who literally had their kids taken from them to give to the Ashkenazi Jews.

And let's not forget that when Jewish migrants from Ethiopia came, they were given contraceptives without consent to make sure they didn't impact the "desired" population.

Wake up. This isn't a religious war. This is European colonization.

[ayoungchristian]

How to be a good ally for Jews as a Christian.

I need to preface this that I’m writing this as a non-denominational Christian, and I’m not a church pastor or a scholar in Christian and Judaism theology. This essay is compiled from a variety of sources, including through discussions with Jewish friends and mutuals on Tumblr, and is written towards Christians as a whole, regardless of sect.

I have to thank @jewishlivesmatter for inspiring me to write this, and @cree-n-jewish-thoughts and @chicocabs for looking through this piece.

It's a fact that a majority of Christians support Israel. Especially the American Evangelicals and self-proclaimed "Christian Zionists". It's likely that you, like me, have been raised to support Israel as an integral part of the Christian faith. Your church would have at some point claimed that Christians have a deep "spiritual and cultural" connection to the Holy Land, and hence we have a moral obligation to support Israel. But, unfortunately, being a supporter for Israel doesn't necessarily mean being an ally for the Jews.

Why do you support Israel?

First, question yourselves: why do you support Israel? Is it because:

"you want the Jews to all be in their ancestral homeland to facilitate the final holy war where they die in the rapture" or

"Jews deserve to be able to live safely in their ancestral homeland and the sole Jewish state"?

If your reason is the latter, then congrats! But it's only the first step to being an ally.

The former reasoning is particularly very concerning and likely drummed into you during your Christian upbringing. You probably heard of “a holy war to end all wars”, and only the Jews and others who accept Jesus as their savior will survive. In fact, it's likely you heard of these from the teachings of Revelation and the end of days.

That is actually core to the ideology of "Christian Zionism", which, by the way, is very different from "Zionism". Despite what others are now saying about Zionism, Zionism is a movement by the Jews to establish and support a homeland (Israel) in historical Judea, or today's Palestinian region. On the other hand, Christian Zionism is basically a duty to support the State of Israel because of its supposed role in the end times – Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at the end of days, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And all of that would come at the expense of many Jews (and Muslims) in that “holy war”. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory. In return, those who support Israel would be blessed by God.

Doesn't that sound very familiar? It's very much like how some Islamist “Jihadists”, like Hamas, Taliban and Al-Qaeda, would call for a "global holy war" against "infidels". But this time, it's on the opposite end of this "holy war", as the Republican Party of America and their evangelical supporters rally to support Israel out of mere political and religious duty. Given the way how many right-wing evangelists acted and justified their actions "in the name of God", it's no wonder you might have heard criticisms of how they're no different from the terrorists the US fights against.

I'm not saying you are a right-wing Christian fundamentalist like the evangelicals. But you need to look into yourself and question why you support Israel. So, if you support Israel because it would facilitate a holy war and the return of Christ, then you aren't a Jewish ally. You only see the Jews (and Muslims) as pawns and sacrificial lambs.

Antisemitism in Christianity

You would be surprised, but yes, antisemitism exists in Christianity. The next step to being an ally for the Jews is recognising the antisemitism that remains inherent in the teachings of Christianity. No, I'm not saying you should renounce the Christian faith to be an ally. Being a Christian doesn’t make you inherently antisemitic. But it's important to discuss and acknowledge the antisemitism exist in Christianity, and what to do about it. So, let me discuss the two common antisemitic tropes in Christianity: Jewish deicide and Christian supersessionism.

Jewish deicide

Jewish deicide is the theological position that the Jews are collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus (i.e. "the Jews are Christ killers!"). Thankfully, this is no longer in the doctrine of many mainstream sects I know. However, I need to address the root of it, how it came about, and how Christians used it to justify massacring Jews throughout history.

You probably have read the Gospel of Matthew, which, while serving as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments by tying references to many Jewish traditions, was very critical of the Pharisees and often highlighted the conflict between the Jewish community and Jesus and the Apostles. At the end, we know Jesus was betrayed by Judas (one of his disciples), hauled to the religious courts and condemned to death for blasphemy.

From Matthew 27:24–25, the Roman governor Pilate, when he gave the approval for Jesus' cruxification (given according to the gospels, the religious leaders could not execute Jesus without the Romans' approval), he washed "washed his hands in front of the crowd" and claim Jesus' death was the responsibility of the Jewish mob. This then became the foundation of the "Jewish deicide".

There is an entire debate among historians whether or not the Jews even had any involvement with Jesus’ death, particularly because Jesus was cruificed, which was exclusively a political punishment by the Romans ruling over Judea at the time. Even if the Jews were marginally involved with Jesus’ death, he would have just been stoned based on religious charges alone. In fact, the Pharisees and the religious leaders were shown bringing to Jesus an adulteress and asked Him whether to stone her in John 8:1–11 (where Jesus proclaimed: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”). If they didn’t have political power to execute people for religious crimes, why would they still bring her to Jesus and challenge Him about it? But it’s not my place to further debate, and I shall link Rootsmetals’ blog essay on her perspective: https://www.rootsmetals.com/blogs/news/no-the-jews-did-not-kill-jesus

Of course, you might say, we aren't now blaming Jews as a whole for killing Jesus! It doesn’t matter who killed Jesus! It's part of God's plan for Jesus to die! Still, claiming or emphasising that the Jews had any degree of responsibility for Jesus’ death was the excuse used by various church denominations and communities to seek revenge against Jews as a whole. And that began a long history of Christianity antisemitism, from the crusades to the spread of blood libel against Judaism, and it was only very recently when many churches reformed their attitudes towards Jews. Heck, it was only in the 1960s when the Catholic Church rescinded the teaching of Jewish deicide.

We need to realize the depth or history of the deicide libel and the impact inflicted upon Jewish life and history. In honesty, it wasn't any better to even pin any blame on the selected few Jewish religious leaders at the time. It's still an element of Jewish deicide that the Jewish leaders forced Pilate and the Romans to have Jesus crucified, painting another antisemitic narrative of Jews being corrupt, "hypocritical" and "stiff-necked" religious leaders. This wasn't unique to just the Gospel of Matthew, by the way, but generally how the Jewish religious leaders were described at the time in the New Testament, which shaped our negative perceptions towards Jews and Judaism as a whole.

Christian supersessionism

This brings me to the topic of Christian supersessionism. To begin with, I suppose you all heard of the Prince of Egypt, right? Of the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. Now, many people would say the movie is based on a Christian story. Unfortunately, if you think that, you are wrong. It's still first and foremost still a Jewish story. In fact, to the Jews, the exodus took place thousands of years before Jesus was even a thought. Yes, yes, we know the Old Testament is part of the Bible and hence they are also an essential part of our narrative.

But hold your horses and take a moment to understand the Jewish perspective of Christianity. To them, we misappropriated and rewrote their texts (the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament) to line up with our unauthorized sequel (the New Testament) and universalised bits of Judaism to preach our religion to everyone else. We all love to pat ourselves on the back, to think we are enlightened and earned our way to Salvation through Christ, while the Jews remain in their "backward Kosher ways" because they didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah.

In fact, as a whole, Christianity is supersessionism. We claim ourselves to have superseded the Jewish people and assumed their role as "God's covenanted people". That we, Christians, are now people of God and replaced the Jews as their chosen people. This, by the way, has been used to try convert Jews by force en masse to Christianity, especially what the Catholic Church did to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. We have seen such sidelining of Jews even in literature, like Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, when Shylock the Jewish banker was eventually forced to convert. And there are also a great deal of theological jokes which are inherently antisemitic.

This is despite the fact that even Jesus claimed he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. In fact, Jesus as a Jew continues to commend those who teach the Law accurately and hold it in reverence: “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). We Christians consider that Jesus came to embody the Word and to fully accomplish all that was written. Through his fulfiment of the Word, Jesus obtained our eternal salvation. That doesn’t necessarily render Judaism and the Old Testament as no longer valid.

It still remains a debate in Christian theological circles whether the Mosaic Laws still apply to us, which parts of it, and so on. Paul’s letters have not been very helpful as he doubled down on Christian supersessionism, saying that a believer in Christ is no longer under the Law. It has also been argued that if the Law is still binding on us today, then it has not yet accomplished its purpose – it has not yet been fulfilled.

But in the end, as far as the Jews were concerned, the Tanakh was written as a historical record of their people, and was never intended to be used outside of its intended cultural and tribal context. On the other hand, we had rewritten and misappropriated their texts and practices for our own purposes (as you can also read from the Gospel of Matthew). The Jews did not consider Jesus as the Messiah for a variety of reasons, and to them, as Christ has not come, the Law has not been fulfilled and is still in effect. To us, we might not consider the Law as applicable to us under the new convenant by Jesus.

I suppose, however, we put the theological debate to a stop here, and recognise we have differing perspectives on whether Christ has come. We still need to recognise the idea that Judaism has had its entire belief system misappropriated by us, and then Jews have been punished over and over for daring to adher to Judaism and claim their history as their own, and we treat them as fools for refusing to submit to our religion.

So, what can we do?

If you managed to reach to this part, then I say you have made another step to learn about the inherent antisemitic biasedness in Christianity. Again, however, this essay is not for you to disavow Christianity and that we should all convert to Judaism to be an ally, but to recognise and reconcile with the fact that not only have Christianity long been (mis)used to harm Jews, but that antisemitism exists in Christian religious texts.

(And yes, I know you would be tempted to say: but Islam does it too! But it would be the case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’. Every movement has its inherent antisemitism, and Christianity is no exception. This essay is more about how Christians can be genuine allies for the Jews.)

We need to recognise that we Christians are privileged. In fact, we are the largest religious group in the world (including Catholics and so on) at about 2.4 billion, which is about 30% of the world population. On the other hand, the Jews are a very tiny friction. Ever since our mass conversion attempts, pogroms and the Holocaust, they only stand about 15 million people, half of whom are in Israel. We also don’t speak for the Jews, nor should we speak over their concerns.

Nevertheless, even with numbers, we need to stop thinking of Christianity as the superior religion over Judaism, that we must convert all the Jews into Christianity so that ‘they would be saved’ like us. In fact, it would be greatly offensive, since it had been source of intergenerational pain and grievances among Jews towards Christianity as a whole. To proslethyise to the Jews is basically eroding their identity, like how we have done by taking their culture and practices for our own ends.

We also need to assume good faith when they express curiosity of the Christian faith and want to know more, but bear in mind the previous paragraph: the point is not to convince but for them to understand. Never come down their throats about how Judaism is "outdated" or debate about the Law or the Tanakh. In fact, this generally applies when talking with non-Christians about our faith. We should keep an open-mind and welcome questions about our theology. Even if we don't have all the answers (like the Trinity and the Holy Spirit), it’s fine to say we don't know.

Most importantly of all: Treat the Jews as fellow people worthy of respect. We shouldn’t be using Jews as vehicles and tokens for our own ends – that would be exploitative and dehumanizing. At the end of the day, if we believe their God to be our God, that means they are still God's chosen people and they must be respected. We shouldn't dismiss them and their religion which we claim to supersede.

I also recommend, if you have the time, to research further on Jewish culture, history and traditions. I suppose some of us would have acquired some basic knowledge because of the Passover and so on, but we also need to acknowledge and understand what we had taken from the Jews, and what those practices really mean to them.

Ultimately the main points are: acknowledge the inherent antisemitism within Christianity and treat the Jews as people to be respected, not as pawns of a holy war.

Sources:

https://antisemitism.adl.org/deicide/

More resources:

[vergess]

Choosing you as the most likely to give a honest and detailed answer. Feel free to delete, however.

When people are calling Israel a colony, what do they mean? The way I understand that word, a colony is land, controlled by some other country that's elsewhere and run by citizens of that country. That doesn't seem to be the case here, since most Israel citizens are only citizens of Israel, not something else, and there's no "main" country they're representing and can return to. Or are people using "colony" metaphorically here?

Before Tumblr mobs me - I don't like Israel and don't support it.

Israel began as a British colony of Palestine in the post WW1 era, around 1920. The people responsible for the genocide are almost entirely of European origin who were moved to Palestine after WW2 (in the 1940s and 1950s) to avoid returning to the homelands where they'd been given up to the nazis by their neighbors.

Today, however, the bulk of the colonization effort is managed by the US military industrial complex.

Now, there are many other people living in Israel, of many faiths and many ethnicities. The Israeli people, be they Jews or otherwise, are also not fans of the genocide, in much the same way the American people are not fans of US genocides.

But the israeli government exists almost entirely as a puppet for US and European colonial goals, and has done since the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in the 90s.

Prior to that, there was a brief period wherein the rightfully elected leaders of Israel sought peace in the region after throwing off the shackles of British colonialism, which again founded the country and only "ended" (on paper) in the 1950s.

Israel has been a colonial effort for about 2/3s of the century it has existed, including today.

Now, this is a simplified explanation, of course. For example, although it was was a colonial effort, the "return" of Jews to their "homeland" was also a refugee effort, and a repatriation effort.

Jews never really "stopped" being indigenous to the levant even in diaspora. This is extremely obvious if you've ever lived in a Jewish neighborhood, but may come as a shock to a lot of people used to thinking of the assimilated mask Jews wear in Christian societies as our "true" selves.

My family were nondiasporic Jews until me, which I gather is an... unusual perspective that many people don't see often. You'll have to take me at my word, I think, because it's difficult to explain. But Jews never actually "became white" the way people so desperately want to believe. Some jews learned to pass for white, yes, but that isn't the same thing.

Jews, even the Ashkenazim (the "white european" ones) have a right to return home the same as anyone. And not just because I'm a fan of open borders.

But here's the deal.

Mizrahim (Jews who remained in the middle east rather than living in diaspora) are literally treated as inferior, as "arabs" (a colonial term) regardless of religion or ethnicity. To be a Jew is not enough. You have to be the right kind. This is true of other Jews of Colour in Israel as well, often to an even greater extreme, as any Ethiopian Jew in Israel damned well knows.

This also... well, I've talked about it a bit before, but this summary is also casting a very cruel light on the concept of Jewish citizenship being automatically granted in the case of Jewish descent. Which isn't fair of me at all.

In a world without all the goddamned genocide, having a reduced immigration process for the children of emigrants is perfectly fucking common and normal and many countries do it, including the US.

And this also doesn't touch upon the critical political reality that Israel exists as a place for bigots to throw their jews away instead of straight up killing us.

So, okay, this got away from me.

Basically, Israel as a state is a colony of the US (today) and UK (historic), which is armed almost entirely by the US, and which attacks targets the US deems "of interest." The fact that the colony is populated by repatriated indigenous peoples doesn't really change that.

If anything, it deepens the horror, because many of the Jews involved in the genocide against Palestine genuinely (and fairly) believe that this is the last place on earth where a Jewish person can reasonably expect religious safety. Genuinely, and fairly, believe that it's a choice between "the genocide of all Jews globally or the elimination of a single '''Arab''' city."

They're wrong, but not irrational.

In a way, the existence of global antisemitism is the justification that fuels the ongoing palestinian genocide.

Though in practical terms, it is "fueled" by US weapons. The US wants to own Israel and use it as a launching off point for US violence in the region, without the US having to take the blame.

"See? It's all just poor, innocent Israel defending itself*!"

*(entirely with US weapons and often on US orders, often with weapons given to Israel rather than purchased, solely to further destabilize a religiously and financially significant region and furthermore to instill a sense of fear of Israel's neighbors and gratitude to the US)

For another example of a colony-of-the-repatriated, you can check out the history of civil war in Liberia, after the US just dumped a bunch of freed slaves there instead of killing them. Unsurprisingly, it went fucking Badly. However, because Liberia was not considered a "valuable" colony, less study tends to be done into the complexities of that.

Or, I mean, there's always "the life history of Osama Bin Laden" which is kind of like a one man speedrun of what the US is doing with all of Israel.

Support: Patreon - Paypal - Venmo - Ko-Fi - CashApp

[cleoselene]

had a thoroughly lovely and sociologically fascinating Christmas Eve. look, I ain't no Christian, I'm just an American with atheistic tendencies who was raised celebrating American Christian holidays, but it was never religious, just you know. Holidays. For fun. To enjoy. That was always my concept of every holiday. Like, absolutely opposite of "Jesus is the reason for the season" because we never ever went to church, ever. My mom is vaguely Christian/loves to talk about "the angels"/also believes she was Jewish in a former life. Which is to say she's a new age flake with American Christian seasoning. And she was like, SO SHOOK when i told her I didn't believe in God or anything. I was like, Mom, if you wanted to indoctrinate me, maybe you should have... tried? lol

So my old friend who goes all the way back to middle school invited me to go to dinner with her and her husband for Christmas eve. Our familial traditions have always been that Christmas day is the important one, that's the feasting and presents. Christmas eve was never a solid tradition and actually most of growing up i went to a friend's house for Christmas eve because her parents had banger parties for it. i did that from like, ages 11-23 and my mom always did something with her friends. Christmas eve is traditionally my social holiday outside of the family.

So when she said, "let's go to Shula's, my treat," I was like WORD, because I have always wanted a 90 dollar steak but could never actually AFFORD a 90 dollar steak. but I guess I missed in the ask a couple months ago the "we'll do church first part" and yeah, lol. The last time I was in a church was my father's funeral 24 years ago. THC lozenges got me through that service and got me nice and munchied for Shula's after word (yes, the 90 dollar steak was excellent, I got it with chimichurri sauce, and had this thick cut maple bacon with tomato jam appetizer, hnngh). So it wasn't until a few days ago that I realized I would be going to church, and like, intense church, because these are super churchy people. I realize it is actually the very first time I've ever gone to church on a holiday? Like I used to totally joke about how I couldn't think of a better way to ruin a holiday, but given that I've become a sociologist since the last time I was in a church, it was a way more fascinating experience. No, I was not moved by the spirit but as a student of human ritual and human behavior and human group activities, I was pretty riveted. It was your pretty basic nativity reading/Christmas songs combination with a short sermon that had a very South Florida message, lol, because the pastor made very certain to tell us that just because Jesus was born in a manger doesn't mean he was POOR, as Joseph was a carpenter and that was a good job!! And some lady called out "AMEN!" and i was like, just riveted at the exultation of "Thank God Jesus wasn't really a Poor" roflcopter. They also had an Israeli flag hanging and I asked my friend what the connection was there, and she said there was a Biblical mandate to support the state of Israel, and I was like, but isn't the concept of the nation-state way newer than the Bible? And then she said it was something related to the 'end times' and I was like ohhhh. Okay then. Everyone was friendly, though, it wasn't overly long.

They also did a communion, which. Honestly, Christians, ritual vampirism and cannibalism is fucking fascinating. I find the whole virgin birth story horrifying and ghoulish, but the ritualistic vamprism and cannibalism is FUCKING METAL. So goth. This wasn't a Catholic place so they invited us all to join in and the goth in me couldn't resist joining in.

It was SO lovely to go out and do grown up normie things. I never go out to dinner, let alone at a place like Shula's (still undefeated like Shula -Pitbull) so it was a rare treat. We got hot chocolate afterward and went to this neighborhood in town that is super fucking intense about their Christmas lights, like it's in the HOA that you have to put up holiday lights and each street is given a theme. It's a Southwest Florida thing. People sit in their parking lots and project movies on their garages around a bonfire and kids stand through sunroofs in pajamas as they slow-cruise the neighborhood like they're drunk bachelorettes at a party, it's cute.

My friend and her husband are lovely, kind, generous people. She was my lab partner in science class and it was a great deal for me because she was willing to do all the gross dissection that made my stomach churn, lol. She asked if I wanted to split a calamari appetizer and i was like, nooooo, remember in science class when we had to dissect them???? And then we deep fried them??? And the portable smelled like fried fish for two weeks???? I haven't been able to get that horrible rotten fish smell out of my mind every time I see calamari.

And she was like, "that was when I became a fan!" rofl. Everyone who's grossed out in science class should have a lab partner like her.

I also got to meet her two cats which, spectacular. one of them jumped on my lap and headbutted my hand. Excellent experience. I am grateful for her friendship, she has been so kind and friendly and warm all our lives, really.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy first night of Hanukkah! It's after midnight where I am so we're on to both. I hope whatever you're doing for your holiday season is comforting and peaceful. I have been in a major depressive funk the last couple months since the election and Ernie's death happened in the span of a week, so it was nice to get out of my routine and put on jewelry and do my hair (I don't do make-up).

Just ate the rest of my steak. Sylvie got my little pieces of gristle. She still has mad separation anxiety and my roommate's said the first hour I was gone was rough, that she made both of them cry because she was crying so hard. Just wailing :( But she settled after an hour and then bonded with both of them even more, when I got home and they went to bed and I went to my room, she was like, "no, but mom, can we go back out and hang out with our friends??" She is still just a baby.

[naradreamscape]

Hey um. I have a theory about why far-right and accelerationist Christians are so in support of the colonization of Palestine, especially with the statement, "Israel is our ally/friend". In short, filling "Israel" with mostly White and White-passing settlers means a televangelist can point to a person with Eurocentric features, and say, "He's descended from Jesus!" to a child who's only seen Jesus looking like Obi Wan Kenobi.

I don't wanna throw this onto peoples' dashes with the safety off, so further exploration under the cut:

Deep down, non-Jewish zionists are basically following the "Palestinians are just people who wandered into OUR houses" sentiment of Kahanism, but in a way that "protects" the Evangelical & pay-to-pray Christian subsets' perception of a White Jesus. The mass murders of innocent civilians is then shrugged off, believing "they're just invaders".

For years, people have scoffed at the White Jesus depictions, since there are actual reconstructions of the body wrapped in the Shroud of Turin - but since that's the only physical artifact we have of what Jesus the Man looked like, some have been trying to debunk its authenticity as a death cloth. Beyond that, the Levant and its political history are well-documented, so we know what communities lived in that territory, from the Romans to the different local Jewish Palestinian communities - where Yeshua ben-Yosef was born, so we know historically he was a Palestinian.

Palestine is one of the oldest cultures on earth, and one of the fewest that hasn't been Americanized to any extent. The Palestinian Jesus grew up in Palestinian culture - which doesn't match the tourist-friendly ideal of Americans standing around in tunics, quoting the New Testament. It's hard to sell hotel and theme park packages in Jesus's hometown when the local population doesn't want that at all and just wants to live on their own - and they're serious enough about it to take up arms against this.

In Short: I very sincerely think far right American religious organizations are encouraging the Palestinian genocide because the Israel Colony Project will provide them with a White Jesus. The IOF is being encouraged to be as destructive as possible so more landmarks and traces of ancient Palestinian culture cannot be used to debunk the existence of Americanized Jesus, after which, they will be "rebuilt" by the colony according to whatever their own designs may be. In the meantime, far right Christians - and to an extent, Mormons too - are funding the genocide under the guise of "Israel is our ally".

It's white supremacy being purported by two far right religious factions. I'm ashamed of all the people who claim to share my religion, still thinking they've gotten this far because they're correct. They're running on the money of white supremacists. I am ashamed to be Jewish most days, but I refuse to abandon my faith. I will not let this mutated version of Judaism represent us any longer.

[lordhavemercyyyyy]

just brought myself to tears with the shortest prayer of my life just trying to ask God for help for the people in Gaza and Palestine right now, highly recommend to my fellow children of God to actually do something good and support victims of genocide and now I'm gonna rant about why it doesn't fucking matter whether you (directed towards Christians, specifically American Christians) side with the Gazans and Palestinians or if you side with Israel, genocide is just that: genocide.

“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39).

The Bible itself tells us to show love and compassion for others regardless of who they are. All humans are children of God, whether they believe in the Jewish and Christian God or if they believe in another, or even if they follow no god. The Lord in Heaven created us all in His image, so we are all the same deep down. Meaning, how about we actually stop giving a fuck about taking sides and start praying for the victims of genocide, start advocating for victims of oppression. Push all accusations of antisemitism or racism aside, GENOCIDE IS GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE IS MURDER, AND MURDER IS SIN. If you truly consider yourself a righteous believer in the Lord, then act like it. Advocate for His law. Show kindness to all others, as Jesus preached.

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44). It does not matter who they are, they are people deserving of love and compassion.

[agam-shel-barvadim]

Re: https://www.tumblr.com/agam-shel-barvadim/772927609001721856/same-goes-to-europe-israeli-right-wing-is-nothing <- this post.

I want to preface this that I don’t know everything about the Israeli right wing or politics, mostly cause I am a little young to be dealing with politics right now though this war has forced it.

But to my main point, I am an Armenian Israeli, Armenian mother, Jewish father, and I hate recently that users like mossadspysomething and other people on tumblr have been glorifying of the Israeli right wing on tumblr.

The Likud party, which if I stand corrected is the party bibi and ben-gvir are a part of has caused damage to the minorities of Israel and has been discriminatory against said minorities. The best example I can think of is my own personal one is that I can no longer live in the Armenian Jerusalesm quarter because settlers kept destroying and attacking it and it was becoming dangerous for my family, and the Israeli right wing and the “socialist” in it did nothing to stop it. I mean their almost all pro settlement, so not surprised, but I digress. It just, I don’t think we should openly excuse an openly racist and damaging party because it’s not the same as American and European ones.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-jerusalem-old-city-armenian-christians-6c1b4d324bd4a657be4836c092077e39# <- link about the current situation in the quarter.

Like stated above the right wing did nothing to stop this and nothing to protect us, so I don’t care about the socialists.

Hope you have a good day though, Shalom!

(P.S: I am open to correction about Israeli politics.)

(P.P.S: I just wrote this in English to reach more people because this is a major issue I’ve been seeing raise up so I wanted to address in the language most can understand.)

I've been trying to think of the right way to respond to this. I'll start by saying that I'm sorry that this is tour experience. It shouldn't be that way. I apologize in advance if my answer is a bit insensitive, as I (as always) try to present nuance.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "glorifying the Israeli right-wing". What I do know is that I don't want to judge a movement by its extremists. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are not the Israeli right-wing, they're right wing *extremists*. And BiBi is just a selfish just-stay-on-office type of politician.

The way that I see it, we haven't had real Israeli right-wing for a while now. This is why I said that "right-wing" originally means a very different thing to us than to the West, but it's become more and more similar which concerns me.

I personally prefer to view the concept of Israeli right-wing through Menahem Begin. Now THAT was an Israeli right-wing leader. Israeli right-wing is meant to be not about being against minorities (🤢) but about not trusting enemy nations, preserving a more independant military state, etc.

As I said in the past in another post, I like to sum up the Israeli political spectrum as such: the question asked is "how much can we trust our enemies to mutualy retain from fighting?" and the left-wing says "yes", and the right-wing says "no", and everything else is nuance.

And anything that doesn't have to do with this one question is neither inheritly right-wing or inheritly left-wing, imo. What you're describing here isn't right-wing, it's just bigotry. and unfortunately, our current leading right-wing parties are FULL of bigots.

I have a lot of strong thoughts about some Israeli left-wing politicians as well, but maybe this post is not the place for that.

idk what posts of other people you're refering to here, all I know is that as far as I've noticed, the people whose posts I interact with are not really fond with BiBi either.

The bottom line of my answer is, try not to judge a movement/collective/"side"/whatever by its extremists.

I feel like all of us need to remember this sometimes. Me included.

take care will ya? and remember that even if nobody in the Knesset gives a single shit about you, there are always people who do.

[a-queer-seminarian]

Puerto Rican Jewish poet & activist Aurora Levins Morales speaks on solidarity & the history of antisemitism

From her poem "Red Sea":

...We cannot cross until we carry each other, all of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history's wheel, trying to collect old debts no-one can pay. The sea will not open that way.  This time that country is what we promise each other, our rage pressed cheek to cheek until tears flood the space between, until there are no enemies left, because this time no one will be left to drown and all of us must be chosen.  This time it's all of us or none.

I was deeply moved by an article on Levins Morales' website in which she examines modern-day Israel through a zoomed-out lens of millennia of antisemitism:

‘Long before that state was founded out of the ashes of genocide and at the expense of a colonized Arab people, Jews were the shock absorbers of Europe's class societies, "Middle Agents" drafted into being the local representatives of distant and definitely Christian ruling classes who alternately exploited and persecuted them while squeezing the life blood out of Europe's peasants and workers.'

People are often confused by anti-Semitism. They see many US Jews accumulating wealth, moving up, gaining positions of influence, and they say, "What oppression?"... 

The whole point of anti-Semitism has been to create a vulnerable buffer group that can be bribed with some privileges into managing the exploitation of others, and then, when social pressure builds, be blamed and scapegoated, distracting those at the bottom from the crimes of those at the top. Peasants who go on pogrom against their Jewish neighbors won't make it to the nobleman's palace to burn him out and seize the fields. This was the role of Jews in Europe. This has been the role of Jews in the United States, and this is the role of Jews in the Middle East…’

Levins Morales explains those “buffer” roles in detail, describes how Latin@s are often put in these roles as well, and then brings up an author who said of Israelis, “given all they’ve endured, they should know better.” She responds to this with this insight:

‘Trauma doesn't make people into better human beings. Most of the time, trauma just makes people terrified and easier to manipulate. It makes starving Irish tenants fleeing a devastating famine willing to own slaves or homestead Native American land or police the ghettos they used to live in. It makes the formerly kidnapped and enslaved willing to set up shop in Liberia and hold their African kin in contempt. It makes the survivors of Hitler's Final Solution be willing to become harsh colonial masters, agents of US oil greed and militarism, to bulldoze the villages of Palestinians to make Jewish settlements, torture and kill those who resist, and still insist they are the victims here. People who have faced destruction don't necessarily know better.’

While naming that trauma doesn’t make people “better,” just leaves them terrified and grasping at any sense of security they can, Levins Morales is also sure to note how Jews have always been “disproportionately present in movements for social justice wherever [they] have landed.” To her, fighting antisemitism means supporting Jewish integrity, the Jewish commitment to justice and compassion. 

Furthermore, solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine alike depends on our clear stand against antisemitism in our own communities, because, she says, 

'The central justification for Israeli militarism and the subjugation of Palestinians is the belief that Jews are alone in the world, that no-one will fight for us, that the next time Jews are blamed and attacked, most of the world's people will stand by and watch.'

Only through all of us standing up to antisemitism and standing side by side with our Jewish neighbors, she says, can Jews feel secure enough to “abandon the middle agent role and get the backs of other peoples, knowing that they also have ours."

It is this vision of interdependence and mutual aid that Levins Morales brings into her poem “Red Sea," which imagines the kind of liberation when Moses parted the Red Sea happening today — but only if we support one another.

[sunspira]

this reminded me I feel we need to make clear that settler colonialism is not the same thing as migration and immigration. The difference of which is many but the point being that indigenousness really only matters in terms of violent displacement and genocide. in context of international power dynamics under imperialism colonialism and exploitation. migration can be a natural human thing and not at all immoral or condemnable or deserving of violence.

this is very important in the israel and palestine discussion and in all genocide denialist conversations. being indigenous did not give german gentiles a right to massacre jewish diaspora and other immigrants. because those immigrants got there as normal immigrants. which is entirely different than the kind of casualties that can befall settler colonists who by virtue of their role are not civilians, they are military outposts that very intentionally recruits family units with inadequate military training put in the line of fire on purpose as a PAWN for sympathy and because family units are the most effective way to root a permanent colonial settlement as proven by the genocide of north america. and who may lose their lives when we resist violent colonialism with violence.

perhaps just as importantly, ashkenazi jewish germans WERE and ARE indigenous to germany, because being the oldest and only ethnic group to a land is a bit of an anthropological myth that doesn't exist. ANYONE who got there through the natural and timeless means of human migration is indigenous, at least in the meaningful contexts of imperial violence and stolen land. ashkenazi jewish people were always indigenous citizens of germany.

similarly, palestinian arabs who trace their earliest recorded ancient origins to the middle of the arab peninsula and migrated to the north of the peninsula to the coastal Levant region are considered indigenous. indeed the hebrews of judea were just as indigenous, if not with even older records to the lands along the coast that are now called palestine! many palestinian christians trace their origins as well to the pre-abrahamic phonecian people and the assyrians. during the abrahamic era, the canaanites who were there just as long as the hebrews were likely arab, phonecian, assyrian and SO MUCH MORE in ethnicity. many of which are non abrahamic ethnoreligious groups i failed to mention and perhaps fall beyond the scope of the hebrew jewish vs muslim arab claims. palestinian jewish people and other levantine jewish people matter just as much as the other indigenous ethnicities such as the palestinian/levantine christians and palestinian/levantine muslims.

and while christians jews and muslims born and raised in other lands do not have AUTOMATIC and TOTALITARIAN CLAIM to palestinian land. they do have every right to IMMIGRATE to palestine. to actual palestine. as equals. under the state of palestine and become citizens.

see jewish americans or russian polish jewish people wanting to move to palestine because it was once the home of their hebrew ancestors is NOT wrong in the slightest. people moving to palestine and having ashkenazi jewish communities and enclaves is NOT the problem. it would be wonderful. but that's not what isreal is. dear god i wish that was all that Israel was or is. that's what the first holocaust refugees to the land WERE. regular immigrant civilians seeking a new home under palestinian law. and as such they were welcomed with open arms. but you know, as equals. not as a siege of viking conquerors literally raping and pillaging because like the manifest destiny english before them and the norse seeking valhallah before that, they believed they were given a divine right to do so. that is not immigration that is an act of war. normal immigration is not war. normal immigration is not a problem. least of all to a place your ancestors used to live. that's lovely. it was the decision to enact an american military organized and funded hostile takeover and murder and enslavement of the other civilians that is the fuckijg problem. hello.

[clarabosswald]

If you really did want to help Palestine, you wouldn't be advocating for Israel.

Its not about the few good people in Israel. It's about the fucking genocide.

okay, it's taken a while but we've finally reached an ask that's not completely deranged. so i'm gonna answer this with good faith.

i'm gonna start with one idea - the separation of the israeli government from the israeli people. did the people of israel choose rightwing governments again and again, that have all led to the occupation and murder or palestinians? yes, because, as per democracy, different parties got enough seats to form those governments. but to claim that all millions of israelis (including israeli-arabs - muslims, christians, druze, beduin) have all, 100%, supported everything those governments ever did, is... a really crass misrepresentation of what democracy is. like, the very very basic and simple concept of democracy. you're ignoring the simple fact that it's never 100% of citizens who vote in every election. you're ignoring the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers who don't get to vote. and, of course, you're branding all the people who did not vote for those governments as meaningless.

tell me, when bush was the american president, did 100% of all americans want to see afghanistan eradicated? when trump was the american president, did 100% of all americans want to expel all immigrants? when PiS held the majority in poland, did 100% of polish people want poland to become an "lgbt+-free zone"? did 100% of brazilians agree with bolsonaro that the amazon rainforest should be leveled? i could go on.

it's an insane double standard.

so when you say i'm "advocating for israel" you mean i'm advocating for its government, which i'm not. i'm advocating for the people - millions of lives - because i hold this silly idea that human lives are priceless and should always be protected.

it's the same reason why, outside of tumblr (because one internet blog doesn't reflect my whole life), in my own real life, i advocate for palestinian lives.

because you know what israeli nutjobs are saying?

they're saying that the residents of the gaza strip - all 2 million plus of them - are measured by hamas' actions. their government.

does it matter that the last elections were over 15 years ago? does it matter that the overwhelming majority of gaza's current population were too young to vote then/weren't even born back then? does it matter that hamas took the government power by force, and have led an authoritarian regime in the strip ever since? no, to those people, it doesn't matter. to them, all palestinians are hamas.

just like how to you, all israelis are the government.

it is absolutely surreal how much these two extremist groups are mirroring one another - the pro-hamas bunch and the pro-jewish supremacy bunch. using the exact same vocabulary. the exact same justifications. the exact same justification to minimize and trivialize the lives and values of millions of people. "their leaders are like that, so they're all like that, and they all deserve to suffer and die."

so yeah, it is about the """"few"""" good people in israel (sorry the number isn't high enough for you, it's hard gauging exactly how many humans are "enough"). just as it is about the """"few"""" good people in palestine (as i keep saying on israeli platforms to the people who trivialize palestinian lives).

people don't mean nothing. no one will ever convince me of that.

[jyndor]

for years I have said that the comparisons between the holocaust and israeli occupation are inappropriate and (because people have in my experience generally only made them as a cheap gotcha to all jewish people) antisemitic.

I do not think of the holocaust first when I think of the 75-year palestinian genocide. I think of the genocides of indigenous peoples in the americas, I think of apartheid south africa, I think of the trail of tears and the armenian genocide.

but how am I supposed to see men stripped down to their underwear packed in military trucks and not think of the holocaust?

and the us vetoed that un security council resolution. and the uk abstained. well, genociders gotta stick together, I guess.

land back now. reparations now. free palestine and all the people of the world everywhere NOW.

edit: to be clear comparisons are also always, always just pieces of different things that have similarities. genocides all have similarities and they all have things that are unique to them. I don't love the idea that we can't use comparisons to learn about them - people naturally look for patterns, it isn't shocking that people might see surface level similarities and make comparisons.

that said nazism is not just fascism, and the holocaust isn't just genocide. just because the state of israel is going fascist and is committing genocide, it doesn't mean that israeli fascism is nazism. nazism is about hating jewish people and creating a white christian ethnostate. it's pretty obvious that that is not what israel is on about.

time for another comparison: like us americans after 9/11, most jewish israelis support the war. now I'm not super keen on the results from the polls of israelis bc they have relatively small sample sizes (600 each) but polls are not so much about the exact numbers as they are about finding trends.

personally I think the comparison between the us and israel is far better but again, comparisons are surface level at best and really don't do anything except perhaps help with identifying macro level trends of different stuff. ie: how settler colonialism leads to dehumanization, fascism and genocide.

[frostyreturns]

"God says Israel belongs to the jews"

No God used Israel as a synonym for the jews as a people. They were called Israel long before ever setting foot in the land we now call the modern state Israel. They were called Israel while they still lived in Africa, when they were slaves in Egypt they were called Israelites. Saying Israel belongs to the jews in the context of the Biblical Israelites is a nonsense sentence that doesn't mean anything it's like saying Christianity belongs to Christians.

And if you don't think God has ever been against Israel then you didn't read your Bible, there are many times Israel stopped serving God and God turned against them. Which should show us God's support and endorsement is conditional and not an eternal allegiance to an ethnicity or a government that didn't exist before 1947. Any Biblical account of God's support for Israel is speaking specifically about his followers as a whole who yes at the time were all jews. And yes jews still believe that they are exclusively God's people but as Christians we don't, we believe jews stopped being God's people when they rejected Christ and his fulfillment of the law. Modern day Israel does not serve God, they do not even follow jewish law. The government of Israel on a daily basis violates both Christian and Jewish commands persecuting not just Palestinians and muslims but Christians and jews as well. If ever there was a government not serving God it's Israel, which is why God also warned Israel not to even have a government.

There was also that part of the Bible where Jesus said his kingdom was not of this earth but sure I guess that is consistent with the idea that a certain plot of land needs to be fought over and innocents killed in God's name. Now either God is inconsistent and contradicts himself or you're wrong. It's not God who is being inconsistent it's statist brainwashed conservative Americans who can't tell the difference between religion, ethnicity, and state.

If you're not going to personally go die for Israel and if you're not willing to personally blow up innocent civilians in the name of a foreign government tangentially related to a religion you do not even follow... having this specific plot of land then shut the fuck up and stop using God's name to support things God specifically condemns.

inb4 hurdur ur an antisemitism and nazi

[marta-bee]

I've been ruminating (some would say obsessing) on that word I keep seeing used to describe the situation in Gaza. Genocide. Long post is long, so let's put this under a cut.

I know there's debate on some quarters on whether it's accurate; I'm not sure it is, but also think that question misses the point, because whatever else Gaza is, it's a humanitarian fuck-show. And it's caused, beside the obvious, by Israeli willingness to risk human life rather than tolerate a risk to their own security (which they're much better equipped to protect themselves from than the people of Gaza are), coupled with Israeli refusal to make lasting peace with their neighbor enabled by American military and cultural support. So yes, this one feels personal to me both as an American and someone with mixed Jewish-Christian heritage. People who claim to represent me are enabling said humanitarian fuck-show, which is nothing if not uncomfortable.

That said, every time I see that word it gets stuck in my craw a bit. Not because it's untrue but because mass human suffering caused by violence against an ethnic minority is hardly limited to Gaza, or to the present moment. So I'm questioning whether the Gaza situation is uniquely terrible. Not that it needs to be; I don't post about it much here because Tumblr is my refuge from the offline world, but I am doing quite a lot in RL to support Gaza, and to press my congressmen to take a stronger stance against Israel. I don't want to give the impression I'm not bothered or lukewarm just because I'm not vocal about it here.

But the fact that this suffering and violence isn't unique makes me really uncomfortable with that word because, let's face it, the language is intended to outrage people. I've been thinking about a phrase Fred Clarke (the blogger "Slacktivist" at Patheos, a moderate Baptist who often criticized Christian evangelicalism and fundamentalism) used to parody fundamentalist stances on abortion. "Satanic baby-killers" - it was how the fundamentalists supposedly described abortionists and pro-life folks; not sure if they really used it or if Clarke invented it to make his point. The point being, even if you believed this was accurate of what abortionists were doing, the real reason to use it was to make abortionists and fellow citizens who happened to be pro-life seem so other, so --well-- Satanic, that it was morally impossible not to support them. It was meant to radicalize their own side and dehumanize the other.

I'm not so worried about dehumanizing Israelis and Jews more generally. I mean, yes, that's a concern, but it's possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic, and this word at least doesn't play into all those old tropes, at least not in a way I can see. I'm more worried about how it shapes the way we think about our fellow Americans. Because America isn't as overwhelmingly outraged by the Gaza crisis as Tumblr and other left-leaning social media would make you believe. A recent Pew Research poll (results published 3/21/24) found that 31% said their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with Israel, and another 26% said they were equally sympathetic toward both groups. There are reasons for this, not particularly valid ones today but historically I understand why so many Americans (particularly older ones and more conservative ones) are primed to support, but for the most part those reasons are outdated, something they need to be encouraged to reconsider and move on from. Accusing them of supporting a genocide only puts them on the defense.

(The short version, based on my personal conversations with family and neighbors: they think of Israel as a democracy in a sea of dictatorships and monarchies, no longer true; Israel is our ally so it's unpatriotic to criticize them, would take more space to deconstruct but if we can't criticize our friends when they do shit like this who can; and they see Israel as a necessary safeguard where Jews can go to escape discrimination, which is vaguely racist and surely a much less humane and effective approach than addressing the anti-Semitism where said Jews actually live. As I said, not valid reasons, but reasons nonetheless I'm trying to help them grow out of through our conversations. Which means they need to feel safe enough to consider they might actually be wrong.)

The bigger concern for me, though, is what this does to the people using that language. That's why I brought up that "Satanic baby-killers" phrase. Because it ratchets up the sense that your neighbors are moral monsters. It dehumanizes them, so you don't see people who are wrong because they haven't educated themselves or even because they have some valid reason to support Israel I'm not seeing (I'm human, I'm fallible, and I always want to hear new ideas I haven't considered because I want to grow). Instead, they see someone despicable, someone who's wholly other from people like them. It dehumanizes them. And, speaking as someone who grew up in the American South in the '80s and '90s, so yes, I did live through that Satanic baby-killer mind set if not the actual language: that shit will mess you up. I'd rather my current friends not have to go through that.

On the other hand: Gaza is still a humanitarian fuck-show. And evil still needs to be opposed. I know that, and I do that. Possibly I should just get over my hang-up over that word and focus on the things that matter more in terms of RL consequences. Still, it bothers me, and -- being me -- I needed to take the time to unpack why.

[vergess]

Anonymous asked: If vergess is willing to answer I’ve been wondering what Zionism even is I keep hearing conflicting definitions

The reason you're hearing conflicting definitions is, there's two definitions you'll hear in general conversation.

Okay, so like 150 years ago (late 1800s), a guy was like, "Ahem, ahem. While we're inventing nationalism all over europe, I notice that Jews are constantly left out of national identities. What if, since y'all shitheads refure to acknowledge our humanity and shared history in Europe and elsewhere in the world, considering us to be middle eastern immigrants regardless of how long we've lived among you as your neighbors. So!! What if we made a Jewish National State where Jews could live peacefully as a politically influential block, ideally in the Jewish homeland to which we are indigenous, ie, Palestine."

From this, came two very different conclusions.

Most Jews will define Zionism as the Jewish right to self-determination in the Jewish homeland. Which is a fancy way of saying, "there's exactly one place on earth y'all will let Jews live, so let us fucking LIVE there instead of being executed en masse by the Christian European Bootheel."

Of course, one should always remember that while some pre existing tensions were capitalized upon, this remains a case of two indigenous groups (Jews, Palestinians) pitted against each other by colonial powers looking to expel one and hope we would both exterminate each other after other methods of eliminating us had failed.

Anyway.

Most gentiles will define zionism as Jewish Nationalism, and they'll say it in the same tone they say nationalist socialism out of fucking spite, because the concept of an indigenous group repatriating to their homeland is somehow indistinguishable from colonizers destroying indigenous populations.

The problem, of course, is that the Israeli Government uses colonizer techniques like "the enemy is both weak and strong" and "kill all their children" etc, and they use them against other indigenous groups, which very, very much makes it look like the second, shittier definition is "the real one."

However, it's important to remember that just because the Israeli government is doing a genocide or six, that doesn't mean the people in Israel, be they of middle eastern or global descent, are to blame.

Zionism is about the right of the people to self determine.

It is misused by propagandistic elements in the Israeli government to justify huge levels of violence, in a way directly copied from the US's use of racial propaganda.

Which means it's especially effective at confusing and muddying American conversations.

So, to put it another way:

If you want to remain ideologically consistent, and you hate "zionism" you must also hate all other nationalist movements, including and especially, nationalist movements focused on re-empowering and re-homing indigenous peoples.

Just because Israel's government is genocidal does not make all Jews who believe in the right to one day return home safely are also evil.

I hope that clarified things! If not, I am turning anon back on for a few days so you can ask followup questions directly.