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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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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.