Blimix

There's a lot I want to say about Israel, and the long versions have all been said.

So let's just try to break this down to its essence.

There is no such thing as a terrorist country. There are no populations who deserve to be killed due to the actions of their governments. There are no populations who should be denied humanitarian aid due to the actions of their governments.

There is no "Israel versus Palestine". The eight main players here are: Two fascist governments; populations in Israel and in Gaza who want peace; populations in Israel and in Gaza who want violence; media constrained by death threats; foreign governments funding war. There are of course other, smaller players. If you want to see sides, see them in those who want peace versus those who want war.

Netanyahu and Hamas are each others' greatest allies, in their fight to get away with oppression and murder. (Netanyahu has explicitly cited bolstering Hamas as a political strategy.) Both are responsible for the oppression and murder of Gazans and Israelis. They don't care about "their own people". People are fodder to right wingers. They want war: War is good for the fascism business. War is also great for silencing the protests of "their own people" who have been loudly objecting to all the oppression and corruption and crime and murder and power grabs.

When someone says, "Boycott Disney* because they sent humanitarian aid to Israel!" that is an antisemitic dogwhistle, and an attempt to silence concern about the ongoing war crimes against Israelis.

When someone says, "Palestinians support Hamas' war crimes!" that is a bald excuse for war crimes against Gazans. (It also demonstrates how poll results are skewed by disingenuous questions and selective sampling, and how extremism is overrepresented by exposure. Here's a large, simple approval poll.)

By the way, if you're going to argue that Israelis or Gazans deserve bombings because "they elected terrorists," then you're also arguing that Americans deserve it. Our government has never let up on its crimes against humanity, under any administration.

Here are the longer takes:

Siderea's insight on contributing factors and perspective:
https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1828323.html

The American left is being bamboozled about Israel (mine from two years ago, and still perfectly apt):
https://blimix.dreamwidth.org/165037.html

If reading is hard, John Oliver can explain to y'all that mass murder is bad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8

* Disney is also not a monolith. The more you pay attention, the more you can see Disney as a bunch of workers trying to do right, ruled by a group of backward, patriarchal autocrats. This scenario is uncomfortably common. If you like categorizing things as "good" and "evil," some organizations oblige, but others have to be seen as power structures with competing interests between the top and everyone else. Just like countries.

In 2014, I wrote a post explaining why it is problematic to silence the people who complain about police murdering Black people. A random commenter took great offense at my defense of "criminals".

We all know what this is code for, but let me say it out loud: If you learned of the killing of Eric Garner and decided that you have a problem with someone selling cigarettes outside of the packs, but not with someone committing murder, then you don't have a problem with criminals. You have a problem with Black people.

My lefty friends: I love you. And when you have a problem with the Israeli government's war crimes but not with Hamas' war crimes, do you know what that sounds like you do and do not have a problem with? Yeah, that.

It's tiring. But in this case, I know it's not your fault. What's happening here is an engineered Dunning–Kruger effect.

Hear me out. I'm not pretending to be an expert. I merely know enough to be aware of how much I don't know, because I've at least had the privilege of listening to experts, and I'm awfully good at recognizing patterns. (Just like nobody but a Black American is an expert on the experience of being Black in America, and nobody who isn't Autistic is an expert on autism, nobody who hasn't lived in the Middle East is an expert on the situation there.)

The biggest thing that you're missing is that you're hearing less than half of the story. This article explains it:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/

In short, international reporters in the area, and their editors, are aware that they are in danger of being murdered by Hamas. So they can print anti-Israel stories with impunity, but they have to leave Hamas alone. "Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff — and the AP wouldn’t report it." "Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying."

There is much more that I could quote, but my purpose isn't to turn you against Hamas or the reporters. I merely want to let you know *that* you aren't seeing the whole picture, and *why* you aren't seeing it. You're good folks, and most of you are willing to open your mind to the idea that you have been systematically lied to.

We're used to that. From the whitewashing of American history to the erasure of women in STEM, we keep learning that we have been indoctrinated since childhood with unnecessary prejudices. We do what we can to counter and unlearn those. A friend created a video (no longer available) detailing various antisemitic tropes, and I was stunned by how many of these I had internalized as harmless. I still enjoy the loving self-mockery of 2 Live Jews, "As Kosher As They Wanna Be," but it's good for me to be aware of how the tropes they use for humor can also be problematic. Just as Black people here are raised with internalized systemic racism, I (named Levy) was raised with some amount of internalized antisemitism.

I'm glad I know more about that now, and am no longer perpetuating those stereotypes, to the extent possible. I'm glad I know more about Israel and Gaza now, and have stopped accidentally emboldening anti-Semites by being complicit in the telling of a one-sided narrative: A narrative which decries brutality by the IDF against Palestinians while ignoring systemic brutality by Hamas against not only Israelis but also their own citizens.

And... If I'm being honest, my complicity was not just caused by ignorance and perhaps unconscious antisemitism. It was caused by Islamophobia, too. I figured that I could write to people who share my culture, who look and talk like I do, and ask them to curb their violence. These Jews might be reasonable, and I could appeal to their empathy. What good would it do to ask Arabs to not be violent?

Yeah. It's shameful. I don't think I ever consciously thought those words, but the sentiment was there, in the background. If asked, I would have cited the lack of common language and common culture. Why would they listen to me, an outsider? Indeed, there is little reason. Having since read many empathic, caring, and very human essays in fluent English from Gazans, I now know that there were only two reasons that my pleas couldn't have moved the citizens of Gaza — and they were the same reasons that my essays of the time never moved any citizens of Israel. First, I had fundamentally misunderstood their situation. Second, most of them already desperately wanted peace, but those were not the people in power.

As an American, I cried when Bush Jr. invaded Iraq. All of us who were paying attention knew that it was a going to be a humanitarian disaster, accomplishing nothing but to enrich Halliburton and Saudi oil barons. Our protesting had been powerless to prevent it. How much more powerless must the people of Gaza feel, watching Hamas fire rockets from their schools at Israeli schools? How terrified and traumatized, when the IDF fires back?

I'm glad now that I hadn't tried to beseech them for peace. Imagine how insulting that would have been: How utterly invalidating of their lived experiences, and of their basic humanity.

And how insulting — how utterly, ignorantly blind — is it now, to write of the terrified, traumatized people of Israel, who have been fleeing at sirens and feeling the blasts from the bomb shelters built into their homes, and to condemn them for violence? They don't want war! Nobody good wants war. Are there Israelis who do want war? Sure. There were also Americans with "Freedom isn't free" bumper stickers when Bush invaded Iraq, but you wouldn't paint us all with the "fascist" brush, so why do it to the citizens of Israel? When you pretend that killing is their aim, you are calling them evil. And then yes, whether or not it is your intention, you are engaging in antisemitism.

Learn. Do better. You're lefties; that's what you do. You got this.

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p.s. I've noticed an issue with the word "Zionist". It tends to be associated with the militant, xenophobic right wing. But Israelis will also defend against criticism of the word, explaining that it simply refers to the belief that Israel has a right to exist, or to the belief that Jews have a right to live where they will not suffer systemic oppression and murder. What's a person to think of Zionists, then? Consider that we have a word that enjoys a similar double use here in the U.S.: "Patriot". If someone here describes themselves first and foremost as a "patriot," I'll conclude with 98% certainty that they are a cowardly, treasonous Nazi with homicidal fantasies and a subservience to power that would make Stanley Milgram facepalm. Those of us who care to protect and uplift our fellow Americans? We are patriots. We don't crow about it, because being decent toward each other is not something to be proud of: It's simply the bare minimum, that we should all be doing anyway, and we don't expect a cookie just for not being a douchebag. Of course I'm a patriot: No big deal. If someone calls themselves a "Zionist," you may have to read their meaning from context.

p.p.s. If someone explains the causes of the Middle East conflict and doesn't mention British imperialism, they're not informing you. They're just trying to sway you. Also, racial problems there are very different from racial problems here. Comparison of Israeli/Palestinian relations and violence to BLM is a fantasy. If you've followed me for any time, you know I fully support the Black Lives Matter movement. The organization of the same name, like many of my beloved American progressives, espouses a mistaken official line regarding race in Israel.

p.p.p.s. Again, I'm not an expert. If you are one, feel free to correct or clarify anything here. I'm always ready to learn and do better.