queer, she/her, Jewish&Israeli and fucking proud. block me if you have a problem. call me mari if you wanna call me anything โ๏ธ ืื ืืขืืจืืช ืืจืื ืื ืกืืื || pfp is a picrew by ummmmandy || header image is galaxy IC 5332 (which is over 29 million light years away!) as photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope (which I am in love with)
I think the essence of what drives me crazy about current Enlightened Online Leftist Discourse Regarding My Life Personally And Whether This Time Killing Me Is Morally Correct (as in, commentary about the latest episode in i/p violence) is this:
I want a free Palestine.
I don't personally know a lot of people that don't! They might bristle at the tagline, because it's co-opted by people who do in fact want them dead, but as soon as I lay out why it's in literally everyone's best interest, how a non-free Palestine is horrific both to the people of Israel and to the people of Palestine, how pragmatically ridiculous the occupation of the west bank and the siege upon Gaza are (and I am a very pragmatic person), they get it. And I don't mean I debate people online about it - this, too, is a ridiculous concept - I mean having, time and time again, the deradicalization conversation with my friends, and colleagues, and my family. Obviously not only now - I've always been a very principled and argumentative Jew, ever since I became an adult - and I've been alive for, I don't know, a dozen flashpoints and operations and wars at this point, and I don't stop being argumentative and loud in peacetime either, but especially now.
But that's not what "from the river to the sea" means.
When you, gentle soul from across the sea, echo this slogan, you are either:
By apathy or will, ignoring that the sentiment cheers for the mass expulsion and killing of Jews. Indeed, any non-Muslim present from the river to the sea. This doesn't even begin to cover how even Muslim arabs still will not be safe under Hamas rule - and trust me, I don't care if a Hamas apologist told you different. A victory for Hamas (And we're ignoring the fact they do not have the military capacity for it - I hope you are aware of the privilege inherent to not understanding military conflicts) means exactly that. No "rule by the people". No socialistic, Palestinian utopia to be had, which is a fantasy I'm seeing alluded to a lot recently. Just an extension of the horrific power structure in Lebanon and Syria, where Hezbollah - friends and allies to Hamas - have been playing a tango for decades of both refusing to participate in actual government and betterment of civilian lives, while still draining their resources and controlling them with no real contest. "From the river to the sea" is not a sentiment for freedom fighting - it's a sentiment for a final solution to the people living here who are either Jewish, or for some Very Strange And Weird Reason would rather not submit to Hamas rule. You know - Israeli Arabs, secular and Muslim and Christian, Druze, Circassians, Bahai, take your pick. Their suffering, and my suffering - you know, a person who made the strategic error of being born in Israel while Jewish, which is inherently problematic and not okay of me - don't matter to you. Just the fantasy of an easy, morally correct cleanse of the land.
Are well aware of all of the above! You just don't care. You either smugly chuckle that I, and anybody else who will die, deserve it - or that it's an acceptable loss for the aforementioned fantasy. "Decolonization is an inherently violent process", you'll say to me, chillingly, before implying I have a summer home in Brooklyn I can just retreat to when things get tough. Israel is basically Rhodesia, a very popular blog here mentioned flippantly, so what's the issue with all of those lily-white Jews fucking off back home before the righteous freedom fighters strike them down? Well. This might be the part I urge you to open a book, or even Wikipedia or any god damn thing that will explain to you these upsetting, dense things you clearly struggle with.
It's easy for me to discount islamophobes. Like, very easy. It's very easy for me to discount insane evangelistics who "advocate for me" simply because I'm a pawn in their religious rapture. It's easy for me to fight against Israeli and Jewish fascists - I have been long before this news item came across your feed, as did the insinuations that some civilian deaths are okay, actually.
It's easy for me for me to see promotions for BDS, and donations to non-political aid in Gaza. It's easy for me to see the sentiment that hey! Palestinians deserve safe, healthy lives. That they have deserved an independent state, and were unfairly denied one, for decades. It's easy for me to see people saying "You know, the Israeli government is shit, actually, and their actions endanger and promote to the misery of innocents". Because that's right! I wouldn't be voting and protesting and donating for all of these sentiments otherwise!
It's not easy for me to see people, who I honestly held in high regard and saw having well thought out opinions on important matters, inadvertently echo the sentiment that my death is acceptable. That a terrorist organization, who rule over their own territory with fear and violence, are righteous freedom fighters, vox populi, only out to establish a free state. Like hey, their manifesto said otherwise, so it must be all there is - right? That Jews are just hysterical, they can easily live elsewhere - ever since that nasty holocaust business everything's fine abroad. Besides, it was just so long ago who even cares stop talking about it. Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Ayatollahs in Iran, the fucking Islamic Jihad - are not interested in freedom. They aren't, and echoing their slogan tells me you are either ignoring that, or support them anyway. If antisemitic rhetoric, half truths and lies by omission work on you today, they would have in any period of time. I'm sorry this makes you uncomfortable. I'm not, not really.
So finally:
Know what your fucking words mean. Have a cursory glance at the history of the MENA and why it's so fucked, one that doesn't boil down to "The Jews, with American help, rolled into where they don't belong". This isn't even a joke. I've seen this braindead, history-revising sentiment repeated so many times, both online and in actual textbooks, that I feel I'm going insane. So many well-meaning people handwringing and assuring each other that repeating genocidal slogans is fine, that calling the i/p conflict "a simple problem" (which means it has a simple solution, right? Just kill the Jews.) is a well-adjusted and intellectual take. That "only the Zionists should die! The rest will be fine :)" I dare you to say that and also give me a correct definition of what Zionism is. Why I, a Jew that advocates for Palestinian statehood and rights and safety and always have, won't also face the wall in your little fantasy.
Freedom to Palestine. Peace in the middle east, fucking yesterday.
A curse and a plague on those who don't want either of those, and just want to cheer on the death of "the other side".
A curse and a plague upon you, when you tell me, smugly, from somewhere safe and far away, "from the river to the sea".
@bithcy I'm so glad you understand I mean well, bless your heart.
I'm telling you this is a slogan that calls for my death. Mine, personally. It calls for the death of my family. It calls for the death of my brothers and sisters and cousins of any ethnicity you like, so long as we happen to live here (and remember, most of the time just from making the crazy mistake of being born here). It is chanted by a terrorist organization that would have no qualms over shooting me dead or worse, and have tried to do so on numerous occasions since I was born. An experience you, and you will allow me this assumption, did not have. I would be a trophy to them, a cause for celebration (with chanting of the same slogan, of course!). It is chanted by people abroad, of any political affiliation you like, who make light of my death, and of Jewish suffering, since they were told it's fine and that Jews are hysterical and it's just the filthy Zionists who should be worried.
If Jews, Israeli and in the diaspora, telling you that this is a call to kill them and their families, cushioned as it might be - I don't know what to tell you further. It tells me for certain you would ignore other dogwhistles, and ignore the people they actually threaten, so long as you feel safe enough doing it.
And I hope you question it, I really really do, but I think right now it feels safe to not question it. I think it feels fine and righteous to ignore me. I'm sure you feel fine with that.
When I was training to be a paramedic, we had one student ask the instructor what to do in the event of a marijuana overdose. The instructor said "Tell him to take two twinkies and call you in the morning."
How many minutes is more than a few? Greater than twelve. No, I don't think we've hit twelve, but it's been three to five a dozen times. Yeah, he's solid in the three to five, I get that. Anyone's great in three to five.
recs mostly! a lot from friends offline but also from beloved mutuals, and also i am in a fan server for the Nine Worlds series by Victoria Goddard and while i almost entirely lurk, there is a channel for talking about books and tv and such and i got a lot of recs from there that I've enjoyed :D
28. Goodreads or StoryGraph (or something else)?
definitely storygraph :D i actually did try goodreads a good few years ago now and didn't like it enough to use for longer than a couple days, but my cousin introduced me to storygraph maybe a year+ ago now and ive been really enjoying it :)
39. Do you read reviews before picking up a book?
not usually tbh! i do always look up the official summary but since i mostly get books from recs i either know that the person who recced it to me knows me and my tastes (aka friends<3) or had a similar enough taste to me to like the same stuff (aka the NW discord or mutuals<3)
