I found myself repeating this way too often lately, specifically in defense of jews.
I do not want to get into the history because the information is out there if you care …or not. Since people who know this history still point the finger at jews, to my horror. But anyway, not all jews are Israelis nor are they all zionists. Not all Israelis are jews or zionists, though the majority are, but not by choice. Some people are zionists by chioice and most aren’t even jews. And an increasing number of jews are against zionism.
During my recent trip to Swiss, I realized that people who have always had resentment towards jews but couldn’t express it for fear of being called anti-semite, use Gaza as a pretext to do just that without actually caring for Palestinians.
What worries me is that people who know that Israel does not represent all jews though they claim so, blame all jews for what Israel is doing. I know a lot of jews who are taking action against Israel because they know that what is happening there is not right. I know because they were my primary source of information about Gaza in October 2023 when the genocide reached my consciousness. Or when I was ready to see things for what they are which isn’t easy because it is contrary to everything I knew about history. Not everything, since the true shock came with the realization that Romanians enslaved Romani people for 500 years, which I found out a year before. But the realization of the genocide in Gaza hit harder because the jews have been through a lot and they are protected to some extent by law. This is why I listened to jews speaking about Gaza for a long while before actually listening to Palestinians themselves. It seemed at a superficial glance that jews were doing all the horrors. And I am sad to see that a lot of people are content with this view. They take it as proof that the aggressed becomes aggressor. I do not think this is what has happened here. Actually, I think that this notion is false. I think aggressed people would rather not aggress others. Many holocaust survivors are horrified by what Israel is doing.
However, we are socialized into responding with aggression, especially men. So many cultures hold revange and honour so high, one does not stop to think what would be best, but how would one look if they do not take revange. Also, most societies further victimaize the peron being aggressed by not offering compassionate support and expecting the victim to just get over the aggression, even make peace with the aggressor without any accountability from the aggressors’ side especially for colonial aggresion which we are lead to believe has stopped, but which actually only changed form.
Israeli are educated to hate and want to kill Palestinians since they are children. Since before they have developed critical thinking. It is what they were acusing Palestinians of doing while distributing photos of children with weapons, which turned out to just be propaganda. They acused Palestinians of everything they were doing. But are Israelis even doing anything or are they just pointed in one direction like a weapon?
By whom? Who benefits from this? That’s who.
Soldiers killing innocents aren’t benefiting by destroying their own mental health and spirit, consciously or not. Jews definitely do not benefit as hate for jews has sky rocketed in the last two years and people who would have spoken for them might no longer do so.
Why am I even doing this?
Because someone has to stop perpetuating hate. Blaming, shaming isn’t constructive. Yes, keep people accountable, but can someone raised in hate since a baby be held accountable for their hate? Yes, some wake up. But that is so hard and it depends… how far into the hate you are. Some chose hate. I know this too. But not all. And it sounds like “not all men”. However, I am sure that the blaming, particularly blaming the jews for the genocide on Palestinians, is exactly what the zionists want. Accountability has to come from within. It cannot be enforced from exterior.
Instead making the jews outside Israel feel safe would be a good start. It takes at least three generations of consistant work from our side though…
Actually, we should do that for everyone irespective of ethnicity, culture, gender or sexuality or any other difference. The hardest part is that white people who decide to do that are ofended by the disbelief or lack of gratitude from the people they wronged for so long, which, if you would be dettached a little, would be expected since being nice after being aggressive seems to hide a different kind of exploitation. This has happened. We are still exploiting the people we colonized, but we do it under the pretence of making their life better. Their life was better before white people showed up.
Also, white people are afraid of losing their culture, but our culture is based on theft and greed. At least since ancient times. We need to go back before that to find our true roots, but for that we need to let go of what we have appropriated and believe so desperately it is ours.
So, even if we try to make people feel safe, it will take time before they actually feel that and they might even resist our attempts since the mistrut runs deep. We need consitancy and a true belief from within that all life is equaly valuable. We need to chose to no longer be aggressive even if we receive backlash aggression fron others. This should be a continous choice which is hard and tiring untop of a quite exhausting and individualistic life-style encouraged by the system.
Any constructive solution I can imagine takes time which Palestinians and the countries surrounding Israel do not seem to have…
Nonetheless, hate and aggression isn’t going to solve this issue. Not when a country with nuclear weapons and a fall back plan to fuck it all is involved…
Isolating Israel socially and economically seems to be the least aggressive thing to do, but a person isolated by their community will only get worst. Not belonging breads violence. However, a state based on religion or ethnicity is not acceptable in this world though superficially we seem to only blame the islamic states. The people who support the existance of a jewish state are those who do not want to deal with them on their own country. It is hard to send Romani people anywhere since they do not have one specifically theirs. They belong anywhere they are and people will eventually, for the most part, accept than. Some won’t. No matter. I see the jews the same way. They belong anywhere they are. Same for Palestinians. Problem is, they are displaced in the second case, and forced to believe the belong somewhere else in the first.
I remember a friend who is so detemined to build a more compasionate world, telling me two years ago that it is up to Palestinians to save themselves like people in South Africa did. She said we can’t help them…
It is hard to have hope with people like this around …smart, well informed, but ignorant …I a particularly have a hard time feeling compassion for this kind of ignorance
…..
The joy of creating 