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To the girl who stands with "Freedom Fighters"

On Friday, pro-Hamas groups on my campus started an encampment. I, along with a few Chabad peers, decided to stick around to keep an eye on things and be aware of the situation.

In that time, a non-Muslim, non-Arab, non-Palestinian girl approached us, and in the conversation when Hamas were brought up, she said she "stands with freedom fighters".

So this is to the girl who stared me right in the face and said she stands with "freedom fighters".

"Freedom fighters" don't cut off a woman's breast and toss it around like a plaything. "Freedom fighters" don't steal babies from their homes and keep them in dark tunnels for months on end. "Freedom fighters" don't take women hostage to hold them at gunpoint and command them to perform sexual acts. "Freedom fighters" don't gang rape civilians attending a music festival for peace, recording the whole thing with pride. "Freedom fighters" don't parade the naked bodies of their victims along the streets and pass out candy in celebration.

Maybe for you, girl who stands with "freedom fighters", this war is just some fandom to follow. You bought your cheap keffiyeh on Amazon and decided you're a revolutionary. Decided to set up camp illegally on campus and deemed yourself a rebel.

But did you stare at your screen in shock as your heart and hope and trust shattered into twelve hundred bloody pieces, trampled in the dirt? Did you frantically text friends to make sure they were home and safe and alive? Did your hands shake as you realized what was being done to your brothers and sisters?

Did you ever stare at a "missing" poster and miss people you've never met, because they're family all the same? Did you stare at graffiti scratched on a baby's face on the walls of your school's Chabad and realize that this is how little your lives and theirs mean to your peers?

Have you ever read the news and seen a Jewish brother murdered in your home city? Felt your heart drop to see another brother dead, so far from the war and yet somehow never far enough?

No, you haven't. Because you think you're such a rebellious revolutionary, standing in front of me in your keffiyeh, supporting your "freedom fighters".

Because you never had to hear your mother say she used to live on one of the kibbutzim that were attacked and realized that this could have been your future.

Because you have never had to look in the eyes of someone who has lost friends and family to your "freedom fighters" and struggled to find what to say to offer even a shred of comfort.

To you, this war is a trend. A fandom. A quirky little phase.

To so many others, it's a fucking nightmare come to life.

#Israel #Hamas #Gaza #Operation Swords of Iron #Arab Israeli Conflict #college #Anti Semitism

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in light of Columbia University including ashkenormativity -- albeit defined poorly -- in their dictionary or DEI words, here are some things that people (jews and non-jews) say that are ashkenormative.

"All Jews are white european colonizers!" - While this doesn't even apply to Ashkenazim (who are not white and are not colonizers), it especially doesn't apply to Mizrahim, most of whom's families never stepped foot in Europe.

"Falafel, shawarma, hummus etc aren't Jewish/Israeli foods!" - This erases this culinary traditions of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews by claiming that the only Jewish foods are Ashkenazi ones. Hummus is just as much of a Jewish food as Babka is.

"Jews should just go back where they came from." - While an Ashkenazi Jew might (but not definitely - ie Ukraine) be able to go back to where our recent ancestors lived, most Mizrahim and Sephardim definitely could not.

#Anti Semitism

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One of the many, many, many reasons why seeing "Antizionists" claim that "Israel is acting just like the Nazis!/Jews are the New Nazis!/Israel is committing a genocide!" and other forms of Holocaust inversion is so incredibly offensive is that these claims undersell the horror of the Holocaust itself.

Let me just give two comparisons to show why the claim of "Zionists are genocidal!" is flat-out wrong.

First, it's been about (as of this writing) 200 days since the Hamas mass murders in early October--just under seven months. In that time, 34,262 Gazans have died according to the Hamas-run Gazan health bureau's official statistics. They are not distinguishing between Hamas' own combatants and civilians (by design), but that is the current death toll as of 29 April, 2024.

And this is a number that is claimed to be proof that Israel is attempting, with intent, to wipe out the Palestinian Gazan population.

Meanwhile, historically, 33,771 Jews were murdered in two days at Babi Yar in what is now Ukraine, near Kyiv, on the 29th and 30th of September, 1941. Three weeks later, on the 22-24th of October, 1941, another 34,000 Jews were killed in Odessa.

Those are just two massacres, each of which was accomplished with 1940s technology, while in the middle of a war with the USSR, each with a death toll comparable to the current death toll of Gazans, including Hamas combatants, each of which took two or three days to do all of the killing.

Compare that to Israel, with far greater technology for killing at its disposal, a civilian populace that is packed into a smaller area, and not having to fight against a technological peer...

And their death toll, while tragic, is at under 1% of the Nazis' own genocidal efforts. And that's because, as hard as it is for people to accept, they're not trying to kill all of the Gazans. They are, in fact, taking tremendous efforts to minimize the casualties (although there are legitimate criticisms to be made about their thresholds for what constitutes acceptable collateral damage to get at Hamas fighters).

But clearly, since they're (((Zionists))), they're the epitome of evil and must be worse than the Nazis.

And all the Jews hear from those claims is a slap in the face to both our dead and the efforts by the IDF to not kill, despite how easy it would be.

The thing is...

If the IDF did want to kill all of the Gazans, they could have easily done a Babi Yar or Odessa level massacre every day starting from October 8. At 33,000 deaths per day for 200 days, that's 6.4 million, or three times the total population of Gaza.

Instead, 98.5% of the Gazan populace is still alive.

But that apparently counts for nothing, and, in fact, "antizionists" are upset that more of them aren't dead, and are instead inflating the numbers...

Because it's more important to them to defame Israel than it is to actually improve the lives of Palestinians.

#Anti Semitism #Israel #Hamas #Gaza #Operation Swords of Iron #Arab Israeli Conflict

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by watarase

#hydrangeas #flowers #trees #fog #mist #nature #photography

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“You can take away my suits, you can take away my home, but there’s one thing you can never take away from me: I AM IRON MAN.” 

#Tony Stark #Iron Man #MCU

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tony second guessed everything he did. but the one thing he didn’t second guess was picking you.

#Iron Dad and Spider Son #Spider Man: Homecoming #MCU #Tony Stark #Peter Parker #Spider Man #Iron Man

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#colors #gradient

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#colors #gradient

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#Rick x Evy #The Mummy

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MARIA ALEKSEEVA Dress if you want to support this blog consider donating to:ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

#wedding dress #fashion

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Ke Qinqin, 2024 Chinese National Championships

#Ke Qinqin #Gymnastics

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Zhang Qingying (Zhejiang), 2024 Chinese National Championships

#Zhang Qingying #Gymnastics

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There’s something special about you.

#Bellarke #The 100

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#Bellamy Blake #The 100

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Yu laik ai kru.

Happy birthday @stilinskikissme!!

#Octavia Blake #Indra #The 100

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ANT-MAN (2015)

#Ant Man #MCU

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AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) dir. Anthony and Joe Russo

#Clintasha #Avengers: Endgame #MCU