jsyk the op of the post about jewish music you reblogged is a zionist
Okay, sure, let's have it out. I imagine I'll pretty much piss off everyone with this.
First: the only confidence I have in my understanding of the political situation of the Middle East is that I have no fucking understanding whatsoever of the political situation in the Middle East. Sure, I've read plenty. I have friends of many many stripes. But I'm not a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect here, folks: I know enough to know how much I don't know, and how much I know is tons.
Second, you say that person is a "zionist." There are three things I find pretty annoying about this as a defense attorney. One is that the term is not defined, and the other is that there is a complete lack of evidence. The third is the implicit assumption that being a "zionist" is enough to wholeheartedly condemn anyone.
Let's tackle these one by one. And, once again, I am neither a scholar of Jewish history nor Middle Eastern history nor anything except American criminal law.
First: definition. There are many possible meanings of zionist that I see people use. One potential meaning of "zionist" seems to be "is Jewish, but fails to disavow Israel as fast and loud as I personally want them to." Sometimes the meaning of "zionist" is just "is Jewish." Sometimes it's "a Jewish person who wishes for a return to a very distant ancestral homeland." Sometimes it's "wholehearted supporter of Israel's war crimes." A lot of pointless arguing, it seems to me, is centered around someone saying they are zionist, i.e., they would like Jewish people to someday have a nice homeland where they don't feel like a strange political chunk in another country, and another person hears that they are zionist, i.e. they enjoy wholesale slaughter of civilians.
Second: No evidence. Self-explanatory. You are an anon. I don't know why I'm supposed to trust your word. I read police reports for a living and I am supposed to be able to trust them, and let me tell you how many lies they contain.
Third: the assumption of condemnation. I literally defend the human rights of sex criminals in court. I defend murderers. What we are talking about, right now, at best, is a human person expressing an opinion, however potentially damaging and offensive (depending on definition of zionism and truth of accusation). Do you think I'm gonna say that Jewish people who express an opinion are inhuman and deserve segregation from the rest of us?
Do you think I'm ever going to stop reaching out my hand to people who use violence? Do you think I'm ever going to lose the hope that someday they will lose the fear that makes them resort to violence?
Finally, now that I've spent some time listing my problems with your case, so what.
Let's use an example closer to home. I'm an American, and I do in fact believe that America is a nation and will continue to be so, and that tearing down all government to give it back to indigenous people (something that is, to be clear, to my understanding, not comparable with any kind of political situation in Israel) is not possible as things stand. And yet nobody's here interrogating me about Donald Trump and his bombing of Iran or whether I support ICE's jackbooted thuggery.
A little further from home? If I met a Russian person, my first ask would not be "Tell me in detail your thoughts on Ukraine and Putin."
And in those two examples, I myself and this hypothetical Russian person are actually members of the country in question that is doing the thing. A Jewish person who is not Israeli isn't even that.
Listen. I think there's a lot to be unpacked about how the insularity of Jewish culture and the separateness of it from the countries where it lives is both in the interest of continuing the Jewish ethnicity and in the interest of the people who want Jewish people exterminated, and how the double-pull of those two interests maintain a tension that otherwise might dissipate. I think there's something real to be analyzed about how modern anti-semitism isn't a recurrence of medieval anti-semitism but a different thing, a sign of fascist thinking.
I think there is a horrific tragedy for everyone involved that the group who was decimated beyond belief in the blackest events in human history now has a very loud and visible nation channeling their survival into rage and violence.
I think that there are lots of Arab nations around Israel that would gladly see every person in it subject to that same rage and violence, and I'm not down with that shit either.
I think the history of who colonized who and when and what pogroms did what and how violence and why are all too fucking complicated to untangle.
I think the only way truly forward for Israel and Palestine is some kind of truth and reconciliation type thing and that Israel as it stands is too scared to see all their atrocities come to light.
I was raised atheist with college professor parents, so you can bet Jewish people in academia were part of my life from an early age. I don't understand antisemitism literally at all. It's completely incomprehensible to me. I also think Arab culture is gorgeous and studied Arabic in college. I don't discount the idea that I have subconscious biases; I've done my best to unpick them, but it's lifelong work.
The whole goddamn clusterfuck is a great example of why violence begets violence begets violence. I reject the idea that One Final Ass-Kicking on anyone's part will solve any one of these problems. The only thing that ends violence is not choosing violence. And that can't happen until enough people in and out of power want the violence to stop. There. Not here. There. It can't be imposed from outside. It has to come from within.
And that's a decision -- I must add -- that I seriously could not have less to do with. White Americans should not be making any of the related decisions.
Here endeth the essay, with one final note.
My Jewish friends are safe on this blog. My Arab friends are safe on this blog. That's all.
Okay you might not be a scholar on the conflict, but this is unironically the best take that someone not a party to the conflict itself can take right now. To call for peace and stability and not be an accelerant to the conflict.
It is best for the civilians caught in the middle to not encourage the continuatiin of violence. And it is best for those of us drowning in the splash effect as the whole world (minus you and a few others) have gleefully turned on Jews.
You are also giving a sign of hope, which has been rapidly disapearing, about the possibility of being able to safely live in the US.
As a Jewish American, and a Jewish woman I can't emphasize enough how reassuring this response was and how grateful I am to see it.
My attitude is definitely not unique. Always remember: idiots who have the certainty of being right are always the loudest, and those whose first response is curiosity and grace are much harder to hear. In fact, mostly the people who are genuinely kind don't feel the need to display that at all unless asked.
Unless they have chronic can't-shut-the-fuck-up disease, like me.
I hope that... helps? A little? It seems to me there's generations of pain yet to go in this conflict, one way or another, even if healing started right now. No one can carry all that. I think all we can do is bring what light we can.
Your attitude is not unique but it is the very small minority of who we see.
The US Golden Age of Jewry is over. It is something us American Jews are acutely aware of.
In a time where we have to worry about attacks on our synagogues, being beaten in the streets, being gunned down at our festivals, and our homes and schools being burned down, someone speaking aloud that the mentality that leads that violence is wrong is both a rare and valuable thing.
The piece of this answer I would like to invite reflection on is the claim that "Israel as it stands it too scared to see its atrocities come to light".
Israelis have been bringing Israel's atrocities to light the whole time. In November 1948, when Israel is 6 months old and in a desperate war for its survival, Natan Alterman published the poem Al Zot (for this) in which he describes an elderly Arab couple being murdered by a young Jewish soldier. How did the infant government of this fragile state react to this deep critism? Was Natan arrested, his paper siezed? Did thebpublic denounce him as a traitor? No! Ben-Gurion, a leader with the weight of Israel's future before him, ordered over 100,000 copies to distribute it to all the soldiers in Israel, declaring Natan " a pure and moral voice for the human conscience ".
There are many other places where Israel has continued this tradition of self-critic and reflection. Some of which ate explored in this episode of Unpacking Israeli History. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M8iPG_R2VKg
It is because of this very tradition that Israel's atrocities are well known. Lacking this public critic process, it is easy to be ignorant of the atrocities of Hamas, the PLO, and Palestinians going back to one of the founders of Palestinian Nationalism (Haj Amin Al-Husseni) who was paid by Goebbels to translate Nazi propaganda into Arabic.
There are many painful things that all peoples who call this land home will need to face. But Israel is not lacking in the courage necessary to do so. Jewish tradition is built on centuries of critique and argumentation. All that is necessary to bring that skill back to the table is to remove the Nazi-era rhetoric of extermination from the conversation. Am Israel Chai, because of our courage to face our mistakes.
