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The law is not the same as justice
I just checked very fast out of my other social media because it is (not) astonishing how many people cannot criticize Israel without stampeding straight for the anti-Semitism, but what the hell is the U.S. doing blocking council statements and sessions in the UN? The previous administration were a bunch of Evangelical Christian Zionists who would have been glad to see molten glass from the river to the sea if it sped up their Rapture timetable, but I expected less Armageddon from the people I voted for. Unless there is some back-channel diplomacy at work with an actual chance of succeeding if given the extra time, I don't get it. I hope there is something obvious I am missing.
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And yet!
(The word below was typed by Autolycus as he left my desk, but I am letting it stand as valid comment on the political situation.)
ass
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Thank you. I wasn't personally threatened, just exhausted, and I wasn't sure what had caused the local spike until
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https://cpj.org/2021/05/israeli-air-strikes-destroy-buildings-housing-more-than-a-dozen-media-outlets-in-gaza/
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*hugs*
It isn't new, especially in the last five years, but it is wearing. I imagine you understand the problem.
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Just on the cynical level of optics, I don't understand the benefit to this admistration of sitting on the sidelines. I want someone who is a diplomat or a political analyst to have a much better plan than I can guess at.
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In my lifetime it looked as though a peace would be possible. And then Rabin was assassinated and it hasn't looked that way since—every year it feels it has looked less like it—and I hate it.
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Rabin's assassination was certainly convenient for Likud, which opposed the Oslo Accords and of which Netanyahu was already the leader; I don't know that I believe in a grassy knoll outside of Kings of Israel Square. But it's one of the places I think the world broke, and Netanyahu has never been interested in healing it.
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I don't think Andrew will mind my sharing this:
https://andrewducker.tumblr.com/post/651146525666312192/how-to-criticize-israel-without-being-anti-semitic
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It's a reblog of the post I linked to. I am glad it's being shared; it is useful that it exists; I hate that it needs to.
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You'd think that Americans of all people would understand what it's like to be unfairly blamed for things that are being done by SOME OTHER VOTER'S FUCKING GOVERNMENT. But no.
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The last five years certainly made me much more aware of left-wing anti-Semitism. It's not like I hadn't known it existed—I certainly hadn't managed to avoid it personally—but it was still kind of impressive how many self-declared anti-fascists were raring to punch Nazis so long as they didn't have to do it in defense of living rather than historically invoked, unproblematically victimized Jews.
I have been sitting on a variety of posts over the last few days and rotating between being angry at a wide variety of people on the international stage who should know better, and feeling afraid and worried for Jewish friends who are caught up in the middle of something no one asked for.
I mean, that's a legitimate set of emotions.
You'd think that Americans of all people would understand what it's like to be unfairly blamed for things that are being done by SOME OTHER VOTER'S FUCKING GOVERNMENT. But no.
It's not even like I voted for the other guy! I can't vote for the other guy! He's in a country I don't have citizenship, residence, or voting rights in! (And yet I have to care about the politics of said country, because they affect how safe I am in the country I live in, and none of it is by my choice. And if it weren't Israel, I truly believe it would be something else. Conspiracy theories are shape-shifters. All that matters is that you don't have to change who you hate.)
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Yeah. :((( I think you're right about that, and I hate that it just won't stop and I'm sorry.
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I've been thinking, but still figuring out how to articulate, how clear it is that so many of these people have no experience of being expected to have an opinion on this conflict since before they can remember. (Which is, I think, different from the experience of Jews who talk about learning a sanitized narrative.) There is a degree of convert zeal and bandwagoning, and while it's good that more people are aware of the problems and care about them, they also don't understand (charitably) or care (realistically) that for Jews, this isn't a trendy cause that we can dip our toes in or back out of whenever, and that "numb yourselves to eliminationist rhetoric and violence to prove your fidelity to the cause" is not a reasonable ask.
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That's a very well-written thread, I hadn't seen it, and I depressingly don't disagree.
I've been thinking, but still figuring out how to articulate, how clear it is that so many of these people have no experience of being expected to have an opinion on this conflict since before they can remember.
I was talking a little about this with a non-U.S. friend last night. He was familiar with the phenomenon from seeing Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg constantly pushed to state her opinions from all sides of the discourse, but it's not because she's a public figure, it's because she's a visible Jew. I was trying to explain that it's difficult to have even meta-conversations with non-Jews. Any expression of awareness of Israel/Palestine is itself instantly scrutinized for ulterior motives, but any silence is taken automatically as full endorsement of Israel; either way it's open season and good faith does not enter into it. And you don't know who's safe to talk to until it's either fine or it's too late. Which you know, but it wasn't even something I articulated for myself as such until 2017. I find myself likening it to radioactivity. Nothing to see, but you end up poisoned just the same.
(Which is, I think, different from the experience of Jews who talk about learning a sanitized narrative.)
(I think it's different, too. Not least because being taught a particular version of a narrative is giving you an opinion to hold about it.)
and while it's good that more people are aware of the problems and care about them, they also don't understand (charitably) or care (realistically) that for Jews, this isn't a trendy cause that we can dip our toes in or back out of whenever, and that "numb yourselves to eliminationist rhetoric and violence to prove your fidelity to the cause" is not a reasonable ask.
Yes. And the purity tests especially have sharpened in recent years.
If you do manage to articulate this matter to your satisfaction, please let me know.
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Also, concern about antisemitic rhetoric and violence is both-sidesism and derailing! Fun!
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I will leave my posts from 2017 and 2018 here; after that I don't think I devoted entire posts to the subject, because it was an established constant.
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*hugs*