queer, she/her, Jewish&Israeli and fucking proud. block me if you have a problem. call me mari if you wanna call me anything âď¸ ×× ×ע×ר×ת ×ר×× ×× ×Ą××× || 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.
Are we interpreting the original meme as âearth would be heavenly if we didnât have bugs, which are evilâ? Bc i interpreted it as âi would lie down in the grass constantly if i werenât afraid of bugs crawling on meâ
I donât think youâre obnoxious, youâre fighting the good fight. And itâs worthwhile for people like me with bug anxieties to be reminded the grass is only there thanks to the labor of bugs, and that if the cost of all that lush grass is that we are harmlessly tickled by some ants sometimes, we bug fearers gotta grow up and accept that.
I mostly was just asking if i was interpreting very differently from others seeing this image cuz i do that without realizing sometimes. I love u story you donât need to back down on this đđ˝ i apologize for putting a damper on ya! đđđđŞ˛đŚđˇď¸đŞł go bug protecting armada
đđđđŞ˛đŚđˇď¸đŞł You could NEVER PUT A DAMPER ON ME MY BEAUTIFUL FRIEND!! I love hearing all of your thoughts and opinions always : ) đđđđŞ˛đŚđˇď¸đŞł
the role of the person in the passenger seat is not only navigator but secretary as well. you have to type up the drivers messages to random ladies on facebook about cbd cream & google whether that billy joel song was the theme song for that show or not
Back in the day I worked at a certain very famous and very high caste art museum in the US as a junior curator. Part of my job was to catalog the objects in the museum database. This includes details like provenance, measurements, and a visual description of what the object looked like.
Like I said, the museum was a pretty snotty institution. Itâs got a LOT of objects itâs way famous for possessing, but nobody knew about the absolutely massive collection of Moche erotic pottery it had because the curators were totally embarrassed by this stuff.
Some examples:
Pretty hot shit, right? They never, ever put any of this stuff on public view or published it in any catalogues but - we legit had like several hundred pieces of Moche ceramics in the âdirty potsâ category. Anyway, I was left alone to just do my job with regard to the database for several years, ok? And I figured, well, theseâre accessioned objects in the museumâs collection - better get down to bidness.Â
I catalogued every goddamn bestiality, necrophiliac, cocksucking, buttfucking, detached penis, and giant vulva drinking cup in that collection. Iâd be like,Â
A drinking vessel in form of a standing man wearing a tunic and cap. He holds an oversized erection in his hands and stares into the distance (note I did not say âlike heâs hella-constipatedâ). The vessel has a hole at both the tip of the penis as well as around the rim of the figureâs head, thus forcing the drinker to drink only from the penis or risk spilling wine all over themselves from the top of the vessel. Red and orange slip covers the surface of the piece.
Pretty straightforward, right? Apparently the deep seated fear of these objects that the curators exhibited was meant to spread to me as well, but - no one ever gave me that memo, because I guess Midwesterners reproduce asexually. When the curators understood that I had catalogued all of these objects in addition to the other, non-sexy pieces in the collection, they were apparently livid, but knew they had no legs to stand on in terms of getting pissed at me for it.Â
I visited the museumâs online public access database a few years back and - every single description I wrote of these pieces has been totally neutered to say something like Male figural vase.Â
Long story short? Just call a dildo a fucking dildo. Itâs all gonna be ok, I swear.
Museums should have sections dedicated to artifacts like these with a warning that says âThereâs a lot of private parts in here but weâre dedicated to displaying history so we wonât censor these. Enter at your own riskâ or something. Itâs prudish to deliberately hide history because of some ding dongs.
What Iâd give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when youâre in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and youâre not weak if you canât escape by yourself
Iâve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into âprincesses is saved by a prince and nothing elseâ, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because sheâs a strong female character! (Implying if youâre in a bad situation, itâs because youâre not strong enough to get out)
Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like⌠a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella going from âHaha nice I really like youâ to âoh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UPâ  itâs good shit  âI have just met you but ON GOD Iâm gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery womanâ  cinderella makes desperately yelling into the night âhow can I find you again!??!â when sheâs taking off that much more poignant really
#okay this is genius#I love this#love at first sight is a tough sell#but âI just met you but you are so clearly in desperate need of help that I am already planning where to hide the bodiesâ#is a trope I absolutely love#going from hello to ride or die in a matter of hours#isnât a âyouâre hotâ thing#itâs a âmy fellow human is trapped and suffering and every instinct I have is screaming its need to helpâ thing
