#us: people in gaza are starving and we're scared for them

[starlightomatic]

Why is it that it never seems to occur to y'all that Jews who oppose the war in Gaza, or name the Nakba or the apartheid system in the West Bank as things that exist and are bad, or oppose Zionism, are doing it out of actual sincere desire for justice and ethics?

Why do you always assume we're doing it to be "good Jews" or to save our skins or for social media clout? It's never occurred to you that we oppose the war in Gaza because people in Gaza are suffering and we actually sincerely care about that?

Honestly the level of false motives you ascribe to us would be antisemitic if it was coming from goyim.

And it's just disrespectful. Feel free to disagree with us. But please for half a second assume that we're not doing this to try to earn cookies from goyim.

[jewishvitya]

Do you live in Israel or are you just from there? If you do live there, is it scary to be pro-Palestine? I am kind of unclear on what the long-term plan would be when we free Palestine and that seems like the sort of thing you would know, can you help me out? Would settlers continue to live there?

I live in Israel, yeah.

It can be... Isolating. Sad. Horrifying. I lost friends, I can't speak to family members. Scary is... I don't know if that's the word?

Living in a reality of violence is scary, and I do have trauma from the things I experienced. Thunder sounds too much like explosions, if I don't expect it I can get panic attacks just from that. But being pro-Palestine isn't really a factor there.

Yesterday I spoke to an Israeli Palestinian and we spoke about Gaza. We spoke about how I'm worried for several people I personally talked to, how I'm worried for their families and friends and all the fear and grief they're dealing with, how he's been crying every day. We talked about how unnecessary this all is. About how "getting rid of Hamas" is such a useless goal when the destruction will just create the next generation of fighters, and we're killing so many people and ruining so many lives for nothing. We both have children and talked about how we can't imagine having to starve just to make sure the bits of food we have go to them, because children succumb to death from starvation and dehydration first.

He told me, "If a police officer heard us now, we'd both be arrested." He told me he wants to keep his head down, make money to take care of his children, go back home, live his life. And he told me "You know how strong the racism is, because they're racist to you for caring about us." And I wouldn't really put it in these terms, they're not racist to me. But I'm in the splash zone, in a way, by positioning myself close to Palestinians through sympathy and through trying to align myself with their liberation as best I can. And I do feel it. I'm worried about how I might get treated sometimes. It can impact so many things in my life.

But the person I talked to, being in his position is scary.

Me, I'm heartbroken. I'm furious. Seriously, I'm so fucking angry. Not really scared. That's privilege, I guess.

I'm not sure I can answer that too well. Palestinians write about what liberation looks like for them, and my reading process is very slow. So I can't give you any clarity.

If I'm speculating, I'd imagine Palestinians will want their lands back. I don't think we should get to just keep what we stole. This doesn't mean there will be no place for us at all. But I'd imagine a lot of things will have to change and move.

I mean, I spoke to a person from Gaza and I told him what city I live in. He didn't say "Get out of there, how dare you." He said something along the lines of, "I wish I could visit. My close friend is from there. He should have been your neighbor."

The desire to visit came up in conversations with multiple people, it genuinely breaks my heart.

Obviously I can't control what the solution will look like, and the long term will depend on so many factors. But conversations like this one are where I get my picture of what I should be aiming for, if that makes sense. Until I read what I need to and I'm better informed about what Palestinians want this to look like.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

https://www.tumblr.com/aspiringwarriorlibrarian/757025186400894977/thank-you-for-proving-my-point-care-to-prove-it

Honestly, I view Israel and Palestine's leadership as being the most culpable for these atrocities. Hamas has shown how willing they are to use their own people as meat shields and cannon fodder, while Netanyahu's government are simply too brutal in their methods of trying to fight the former. Not to mention that Hamas is as much an oppressor of their own people while most of said leadership is hiding out in Qatar far away from the danger, while Netanyahu (if I recall correctly) is likely using this war as a means to stay out of prison because his government was immensely unpopular and doing some less than savory things before this all started. And just the simple reality that the Israel/Palestine situation was already a messy, complicated and difficult to resolve mess with a lot of difficult history on all sides of the conflict, which makes any "simple" solutions more akin to fantasies by people who know nothing about this situation.

And in the end, it's regular Israeli, Jewish and Palestinians who are paying the price for their cruelty and arrogance. The rampant antisemitism hurting Jewish people and causing them to feel unsafe among people who they thought were family and friends, if not outright putting them in serious danger, Palestinians having to deal with idiots co-opting their pain and misery for clout and self-serving tomfoolery and treated more like a prop than people while they're being killed, Hamas likely to use this in order to radicalize people to their cause and ensure even more suffering and death...

What a mess is the biggest understatement I can give because I can't think of a good phrase for it at the moment.

Right on all accounts. It's thought that one of the instigators for Hamas' attack was a protest by Gazans in July after Hamas has suspended elections for 18 years. And there's even rumors that they're dragging it out to get more foreign sympathy because their plan is to get as many civilians killed as possible.

And yeah, I absolutely agree that Netanyahu is dragging out the war because as soon as it ends, his trial for corruption resumes. Hell, now that we're getting close to a ceasefire he went and picked a fight with Hezbollah, who are much better armed and can drag it out much longer. Not to mention trying to give himself "special judicial powers" like your average dictator.

He says he plans to "demilitarize" Gaza, but the difference between Gaza and say, Germany, was that Germany had a civilian population that was somewhat sheltered from the war, and so could accept the demilitarization as a condition of defeat. Meanwhile, Gazans are starving and scared and watching their families get killed, and are then expected to just accept the opposing power occupying them and lecturing them on how killing is wrong. Even if Hamas is completely destroyed (which I doubt), a new group will just rise in its place, radicalized by the violence and oppression that creates such groups.

Israel and Palestine are ideas. You can't bomb an idea, and in trying you usually just make it stronger.

[brick-van-dyke]

Jews deserve love so I'm gonna side eye this since Zionism wasn't mentioned. The political movement of Zionism is the problem, not Jews or Judaism.

This all being said, it is also important that we all, as those who aren't being starved, murdered or imprisoned in this genocide stay informed and, yes, that does mean being aware and actually seeing what is happening and thinking about why it's happening. I understand being overwhelmed and I understand the emotional toll that takes. However, if we are not actively having our safety and welfare harmed to the same extent as Palestinians are currently with being bombed every single day and not having enough food or medicine to know if they'll see tomorrow, I think being supportive and present is the least we can do. Solidarity to our Jewish brothers and sisters, but we all have to do our part as we show solidarity to our Palestinian brothers and sisters too.

Many suffer due to the decades long siege on Gaza and the West Bank and the consequences of it; antisemetism (specifically the collective blaming of all anti-Zionist Jews for the Zionist colonialist project) and Islamophobia (collectively blaming all Muslims for the suffering of Jews, which is pushed by the anti Muslim and anti Arab propaganda that labels all middle eastern people as "terrorists"). I understand that is exhausting, so yes, if Jews AND Muslims and Arabs need to rest and a reminder they're loved? Yeah. We should say it. We just can't forget that it's not just Jews, but the Palestinians who are bearing the brunt of the far right Israeli government's Zionism and aggression.

Division of the shared struggle of Palestinians and Jews caused by Zionists is reductive. What we need to push for is solidarity for a problem caused by a common enemy; Zionism/ imperialism and western intervention. Which, yeah, is precisely why I want Jews to remember they're loved, but also that staying educated and informed is so so important. Zionism is dependent on propaganda and raising children in western ideals of colonial expansion ("the culture of surrounding nations needs to be fixed and erased for the greater good" or "because those around us are so savage and evidently are so sexist and homophobic and bad we have to fix them" or "Arabs colonised Jews so the Arabs need to die" are often used to try and create a target out of groups that are actually really progressive and/or not at fault for what the Romans did to the ancient Kingdom of Israel, but are labelled as evil by the west due to how they're in the way of resources and advantageous areas). If you've ever heard of the US's "cop cities", I'd compare Israel, a place built on Zionism, as one of those. The way it pushes militarisation is very similar and essentially teaches Jews to fight or die from a threat that is actually not even there until it's made to be there; Palestinian resistance groups that then prove all their worst fears when they resist after previous attacks by the IDF.

October 7th wasn't the first and it won't be the last as long as Israel antagonizes the countries and people around it until an attack happens. Which, again, is exactly why it's so important for Jews to know what sort of system Israel is and that getting far far away from that system is important for Jews and their literal safety. That's what I mean by a shared struggle, because so much of the antisemetism we're seeing? That's not from pro Palestinian protesters or the Palestinians themselves who are scared (rightfully so) of an attack from Jews who could be Zionists, that's from the conflating for Zionism (again, something that's been used to justify terrorist attacks towards surrounding groups of civilians for over 76+ years if we're only asking about Israel and not even the militias before it). And it is that system and that ideology that is to blame for the Palestinians' suffering.

I know I rambled a lot here and, honestly, there's so much to this that it's hard to summarise. But it's important; Jews aren't our enemies and are fellow victims ofa Zionism. Yes, Zionism began as an ideology centring Judaism that was then merged with western ideals of imperialism. No, that doesn't make it antisemetic to criticise as it is still a far right extremist ideology that calls for the establishment of an ethno-state using methods copied from Germany and actively has killed Jews in that westernised political pursuit, even before the establishment of modern Israel.

To every Jewish person:

I hope you are remembering to take care of yourselves.

I hope you are eating well. Staying hydrated. Getting plenty of rest.

I hope you are remembering to take a break from everything. Turn off social media and the news and find some joy.

I hope you remember how strong your people are and how far they have come.

I hope that you remember that you are also strong. Being strong doesn't mean you have to face everything alone.

I hope you look at the sky once a day and find beauty there.

I hope you remember to sing.

I hope you remember how much you are loved. Every single one of us is a gift. We will do what we do best and continue on.