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nickyhemmick · 3 years

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A Very Stressed American Jew here again,

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)

I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.

I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.

I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.

It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.

I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.

Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians

Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis

Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.

Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed

There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.

I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.

Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,

A Very Stressed American Jew

Hi anon,

I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer.

I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds.

(Super long post under here guys)

You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years.

I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular.

This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated. Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated.

This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering?

I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.)

Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years.

On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).

Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices.

Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).

Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.

In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?

Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.

I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.

My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!

I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.

I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you.

As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.

I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime.

Free Palestine.

#palestine #israel #west bank #tala gets asks #anon #whew this ask took me like 2-3 hours to respond to #pls read it even if ure not the anon #lots of good links and info #palestine tag #anon there are more reading lists in my #to read #and palestine tag tags #check my likes on twitter too if u decide btw not just what i retweet #like also: imagine palestinians around palestine and the world who are simply waiting to hear if their relatives are dead or alive or #have been striked from a rocket. like i can see my father worried abt his friend in gaza rn like any day #now he can just never hear back from him and have to guess hes dead somewhere beneath the rubble #and israelis are anxious at the rocket sounds? good for them but again that shows the asymmetry in #palestinian vs israeli suffering #and by ‘good for them’ i mean good that thats what theyre worried abt compared to palestinians #my aunt is in sheikh jarrah #my cousin lives right by the al aqsa square #again theres so much more i couldve mentioned and talked abt but theres just so much #theres so many LAYERS i wld say but not that its complicated #and definitely theres more i need to learn and read and watch dont get me wrong! i am not a fountain of knowledge by all means!!!!

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girlactionfigure · 3 years

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There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation.

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College, finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual.

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars.

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me, it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well.

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead?

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world.

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you.

Doniel Katz

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qtheallpowerful · 3 years

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I’m copying this from my Facebook page, because I feel strongly about it. I’ve had a lot of conversations recently that have been less than comfortable.

: I support Israel. I support a two state solution, that allows Jews and Muslims access to their holy sites. I want peace. I acknowledge that the governments of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank do not speak for all their inhabitants. I recognize that there have been, and continue to be, big issues with how many things have been handled.

What I do not support is terrorist organizations being in control. I do not support civilians being attacked, and countries under siege.

The issues are large and complex. I do not support nor appreciate people only caring when Israel defends itself while under attack. I do not appreciate people saying that Israel needs to give the land back to the Palestinians, leaving us no where to go.

If you believe that the country of Israel as a whole belongs to the Palestinian people and the Jews and Israelis should ‘give it back’, you are saying that the Jews have no right to a home.

If you condem Israeli use of force, but say nothing against the constant barrage of rockets sent daily from Gaza into Israel over the last 15+ years, you are saying that you support terrorist tactics, and that you are okay with attempted murder - so long as it is done by the ‘underdog’

My family are under attack. They are not oppressing people. They are trying to go to work, the park, eat dinner. If you side with hamas and their rockets you are telling me that you are okay with my family, and by extension me, being killed.

I don’t need that kind of friend in my life. I’m happy to discuss the issues, but only with those willing to see the nuance in the situation. Anyone else is welcome to defriend me both here, and in person, at their leisure.

#real life stuff

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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With Trump as President, the World Is Spiraling Into Chaos https://nyti.ms/305ERbG

With Trump as President, the World Is Spiraling Into Chaos

Trump torched America’s foreign policy infrastructure. The results are becoming clear.

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist | Published August 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

Earlier this week, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan, visited The New York Times editorial board, and I asked him about the threat of armed conflict between his country and India over Kashmir. India and Pakistan have already fought two wars over the Himalayan territory, which both countries claim, and which is mostly divided between them. India recently revoked the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of the part of Kashmir it controls and put nearly seven million people there under virtual house arrest. Pakistan’s prime minister compared India’s leaders to Nazis and warned that they’ll target Pakistan next. It seems like there’s potential for humanitarian and geopolitical horror.

Khan’s answer was not comforting. “We are two big countries with very large militaries with nuclear capability and a history of conflict,” he said. “So I would not like to burden your imagination on that one, but obviously if things get worse, then things get worse.”

All over the world, things are getting worse. China appears to be weighing a Tiananmen Square-like crackdown in Hong Kong. After I spoke to Khan, hostilities between India and Pakistan ratcheted up further; on Thursday, fighting across the border in Kashmir left three Pakistani soldiers dead. (Pakistan also claimed that five Indian soldiers were killed, but India denied it.) Turkey is threatening to invade Northeast Syria to go after America’s Kurdish allies there, and it’s not clear if an American agreement meant to prevent such an incursion will hold.

North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missile testing continue apace. The prospect of a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine is more remote than it’s been in decades. Tensions between America and Iran keep escalating. Relations between Japan and South Korea have broken down. A Pentagon report warns that ISIS is “re-surging” in Syria. The U.K. could see food shortages if the country’s Trumpish prime minister, Boris Johnson, follows through on his promise to crash out of the European Union without an agreement in place for the aftermath. Oh, and the globe may be lurching towards recession.

In a world spiraling towards chaos, we can begin to see the fruits of Donald Trump’s erratic, amoral and incompetent foreign policy, his systematic undermining of alliances and hollowing out of America’s diplomatic and national security architecture. Over the last two and a half years, Trump has been playing Jenga with the world order, pulling out once piece after another. For a while, things more or less held up. But now the whole structure is teetering.

To be sure, most of these crises have causes other than Trump. Even competent American administrations can’t dictate policy to other countries, particularly powerful ones like India and China. But in one flashpoint after another, the Trump administration has either failed to act appropriately, or acted in ways that have made things worse. “Almost everything they do is the wrong move,” said Susan Thornton, who until last year was the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, America’s top diplomat for Asia.

Consider Trump’s role in the Kashmir crisis. In July, during a White House visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Trump offered to mediate India and Pakistan’s long-running conflict over Kashmir, even suggesting that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to do so. Modi’s government quickly denied this, and Trump’s words reportedly alarmed India, which has long resisted outside involvement in Kashmir. Two weeks later, India sent troops to lock Kashmir down, then stripped it of its autonomy.

Americans have grown used to ignoring Trump’s casual lies and verbal incontinence, but people in other countries have not. Thornton thinks the president’s comments were a “precipitating factor” in Modi’s decision to annex Kashmir. By blundering into the conflict, she suggested, Trump put the Indian prime minister on the defensive before his Hindu nationalist constituency. “He might not have had to do that,” she said of Modi’s Kashmir takeover, “but he would have had to do something. And this was the thing he was looking to do anyway.”

At the same time, Modi can be confident that Trump, unlike previous American presidents, won’t even pretend to care about democratic backsliding or human rights abuses, particularly against Muslims. “There’s a cost-benefit analysis that any political leader makes,” said Ben Rhodes, a former top Obama national security aide. “If the leader of India felt like he was going to face public criticism, potential scrutiny at the United Nations,” or damage to the bilateral relationship with the United States, “that might affect his cost-benefit analysis.” Trump’s instinctive sympathy for authoritarian leaders empowers them diplomatically.

Obviously, India and Pakistan still have every interest in avoiding a nuclear holocaust. China may show restraint on Hong Kong. Wary of starting a war before the 2020 election, Trump might make a deal with Iran, though probably a worse one than the Obama agreement that he jettisoned. The global economy could slow down but not seize up. We could get through the next 17 months with a world that still looks basically recognizable.

Even then, America will emerge with a desiccated diplomatic corps, strained alliances, and a tattered reputation. It will never again play the same leadership role internationally that it did before Trump.

And that’s the best-case scenario. The most powerful country in the world is being run by a sundowning demagogue whose oceanic ignorance is matched only by his gargantuan ego. The United States has been lucky that things have hung together as much as they have, save the odd government shutdown or white nationalist terrorist attack. But now, in foreign affairs as in the economy, the consequences of not having a functioning American administration are coming into focus. “No U.S. leadership is leaving a vacuum,” said Thornton. We’ll see what gets sucked into it.

If You Think Trump Is Helping Israel, You’re a Fool

By barring Representatives Omar and Tlaib, Netanyahu made the president happy. But he has poisoned relations with America.

By Thomas L. Friedman, Opinion Columnist | Published Aug. 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

I am going to say this as simply and clearly as I can: If you’re an American Jew and you’re planning on voting for Donald Trump because you think he is pro-Israel, you’re a damn fool.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Trump has said and done many things that are in the interests of the current Israeli government — and have been widely appreciated by the Israeli public. To deny that would be to deny the obvious. But here’s what’s also obvious. Trump’s way of — and motivation for — expressing his affection for Israel is guided by his political desire to improve his re-election chances by depicting the entire Republican Party as pro-Israel and the entire Democratic Party as anti-Israel.

As a result, Trump — with the knowing help of Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — is doing something no American president and Israeli prime minister have done before: They’re making support for Israel a wedge issue in American politics.

Few things are more dangerous to Israel’s long-term interests than its becoming a partisan matter in America, which is Israel’s vital political, military and economic backer in the world.

As Dore Gold, the right-wing former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and once a very close adviser to Netanyahu, warned in a dialogue at the Hudson Institute on Nov. 27, 2018: “You reach out to Democrats, and you reach out to Republicans. And you don’t get caught playing partisan politics in the United States.’’

Trump’s campaign to tar the entire Democratic Party with some of the hostile views toward Israel of a few of its newly elected congresswomen — and Netanyahu’s careless willingness to concede to Trump’s demand and bar two of them, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, from visiting Israel and the West Bank — is part of a process that will do huge, long-term damage to Israel’s interests and support in America.

Netanyahu later relented and granted a visa to Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, for a private, “humanitarian’’ visit to see her 90-year-old grandmother — provided she agree in writing not to advocate the boycott of Israel while there. At first Tlaib agreed, but then decided that she would not come under such conditions.

Excuse me, but when did powerful Israel — a noisy, boisterous democracy where Israeli Arabs in its parliament say all kinds of wild and crazy things — get so frightened by what a couple of visiting freshman American congresswomen might see or say? When did Israel get so afraid of saying to them: “Come, visit, go anywhere you want! We’ve got our warts and we’ve got our good stuff. We’d just like you to visit both. But if you don’t, we’ll live with that too. We’re pretty tough.’’

It’s too late for that now. The damage of what Trump and Bibi have been up to — formally making Israel a wedge issue in American politics — is already done. Do not be fooled: Netanyahu, through his machinations with Senate Republicans, can get the United States Congress to give him an audience anytime he wants. But Bibi could not speak on any major American college campus today without massive police protection. The protests would be huge.

And listen now to some of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — you can hear how unhappy they are with the behavior of this Israeli government and its continued occupation of the West Bank. And they are not afraid to say so anymore. As The Jerusalem Post reported on July 11, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose presidential candidacy has rallied in recent weeks, told two Jewish anti-occupation activists ‘yes’ when they asked her for support.’’

But who can blame them? Trump is equating the entire Democratic Party with hatred for Israel, while equating support for Netanyahu — who leads the most extreme, far-right government that Israel has ever had, who is facing indictment on three counts of corruption and whose top priority is getting re-elected so that he can have the Israeli Knesset overrule its justice system and keep him out of court — with loving Israel.

How many young Americans want to buy into that narrative? If Bibi wins, he plans to pass a law banning his own indictment on corruption, and then, when Israel’s Supreme Court strikes down that law as illegal, he plans to get the Knesset to pass another law making the Supreme Court subservient to his parliament. I am not making this up. Israel will become a Jewish banana republic.

If and when that happens, every synagogue, every campus Hillel, every Jewish institution, every friend of Israel will have to ask: Can I support such an Israel? It will tear apart the entire pro-Israel community and every synagogue and Jewish Federation.

Then add another factor. By moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — and turning that embassy, led by a Trump crony, Ambassador David Friedman, into an outpost for advancing the interests of Israeli Jewish settlers, not American interests — Trump has essentially greenlighted the Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Again, should Netanyahu remain prime minister — which is possible only if he puts together a ruling coalition made up of far-right parties that want to absorb the West Bank and its 2.5 million Palestinians into Israel — Israel will be on its way to becoming either a binational state of Arabs and Jews or a state that systematically deprives a large and growing segment of its population of the democratic right to vote. Neither will be a Jewish democracy, the dream of Israel’s founders and still the defining, but endangered, political characteristic of the state.

Don’t get me wrong. I strongly oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — which Representatives Omar and Tlaib have embraced — because it wants to erase the possibility of a two-state solution. And I am particularly unhappy with Representative Omar.

I know a lot about her home district in Minnesota, because I grew up in it, in St. Louis Park. Omar represents the biggest concentration of Jews and Muslims living together in one district in the Upper Midwest. She was perfectly placed to be a bridge builder between Muslims and Jews. Instead, sadly, she has been a bridge destroyer between the two since she came to Washington. But anytime she is legitimately criticized, Democrats automatically scream “Islamophobia’’ and defend her. That’s as disturbing as Trump.

I know that more than a few Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, who face so many challenges — from gang violence to unemployment — are asking why is Omar spending time on the West Bank of the Jordan and not on the West Bank of the Mississippi?

I love Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs — but God save me from some of their American friends. So many of them just want to exploit this problem to advance themselves politically, get attention, raise money or delegitimize their opponents.

In that, Trump is not alone — he’s just the worst of the worst.

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betsynagler · 5 years

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The Four (Thousand, New) Questions

When I was growing up, I didn't really have to think too much about what it meant to be a Jewish American. A large part of that was living in New Jersey, where being a member of the tribe isn’t exactly an anomaly. In Newark, pretty much all of my friends were Jewish or Black, until I spent 2nd grade in Catholic School. You’d think that might make it weird, but even then, it wasn’t. All my new friends just had Irish and Italian names, and I got to sit in the back during mass and read, which is the dream of every second grader. And when we moved to the suburbs, things became, if anything, more Jewy. We joined Temple Israel and actually tried going to services every once in a while, and I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays. At my suburban public grade school, I learned the term “Jappy” something my friends and I called other girls that we considered spoiled, regardless of whether or not they were Jewish, and in junior high, the school bus that came from the most wealthy, Jewish neighborhood in town was sometimes referred to as “The Jew Canoe.” Who did we learn these terms from? Other Jews. We were the ones trading in the laughable stereotypes, because that’s American Jewish culture all over: we joke because we can. It’s never been in doubt in my lifetime that we belong here, to the degree that we are comfortable poking fun at ourselves, enough that while we are very aware that we aren’t and will never be the majority — and if you forget that, you always have the 30 to 60 days of Christmas to remind you — we are perfectly okay with that; and enough to feel safe in the knowledge that the past is the past, because in the Tri-State Area in the 1970s and 80s, anti-Semitism was about as real to me as Star Wars: something that existed long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The same thing with Nazis. Nazis were the movie villains nobody got upset about. Nobody ever said, “Why do the Nazis always have to be the bad guys?” Why? Because they were the bad guys.

That doesn’t mean that my Jewish identity was 100% uncomplicated, mostly because I was raised to figure stuff out for myself. Mine were the kind of parents who took us to fancy restaurants and said, “Want to order the escargot? Have at it!”, perhaps not realizing that they’d end up with a seven-year-old who liked to try every appetizer on the menu but had a stomach the size of a golfball – which led to my parents gaining weight in the 70s, which led to their joining the exercise craze in the 80s...See how history happens? Being able to make my own decisions meant I could quit Hebrew school after one year (I was already a well-practiced quitter of stuff I didn't like, such as wearing dresses and learning the violin). I felt a little guilty about it, so I was definitely Jewish in that way, but one of the reasons I couldn’t get behind religious school was the fact that Judaism was supposedly my religion, but – go figure – our family was not religious. My parents don’t agree on which type of not-religious they are, since my mother describes herself as an atheist and my father calls himself an agnostic, but that’s only if you push them, since neither of them cares enough about it either way. They still identify as Jewish, and therein lay the confusion for me: Judaism is kind of an ethnic identity as well as a religion, but in a weird way, because you can convert to it, which you can’t do with, say, Slavic, and because it’s not one where we all come from one specific place, since Jews were basically driven out of everywhere. Sure, my family were all driven out of one country, Poland, but that didn’t exactly make them feel Polish. No, we were definitely Jews, just the secular kind, which is actually a thing — although I didn’t know anyone else like that in high school, the result being that in my group of friends, a mix of Jews and non-Jews, I was in my own category of Jewish, But Doesn’t Know When Any of the Holidays Are.

When I went to college on the West Coast, where I was meeting new people all the time, it was common for people tell me I didn’t “look Jewish,” which seemed to just fit right in with every other confusing part of my Jewish identity. You might think that, as a stealth Jew, I’d finally be privy to negativity about us, but that never happened. That was around the time of the rise of the religious right, and there were a lot of born-again Christians at Stanford, my freshman dorm was full of them. But while they may have believed I was going to hell, most of them still seemed happy to hang with me while we were alive – one of them even took me out for fro yo once (that’s short for “frozen yogurt,” and eating it together at Stanford in 1987 was called “dating”). If anything, being Jewish around them was an advantage, because they never tried to rebirth me the way they did other Christians, like my poor freshman roommate – I would come back to our room to find her surrounded by a group of them, looking uncomfortable, like she was getting hit on by Jesus. Mind you, I know now that my school was a liberal bubble inside the liberal bubble that was Northern California, and that protected me from a lot of things. But while we were definitely dealing with racism and sexism on campus at the time, anti-Semitism? That just wasn’t a thing.

Neither was being a Jewish person who didn’t support Israel. I didn’t know all that much about Israel growing up. I knew that it was the Jewish state, where I had once had some relatives, and that my cousins and eventually my brother — who finished Hebrew school — went to visit because they felt like it was an important way to learn about who they were. I didn’t. But when, in college, I had my first conversation with someone who’d lived in Israel about the way that Israelis felt this constant existential threat to their existence that justified their defensive posture when it came to negotiating peace with the Palestinians, even though they clearly had vast military superiority, I didn’t necessarily agree, but I got it. I understood why Israelis felt that, in a visceral, six-million-dead-just-because-they-were-like-you way that I think most non-Jews can’t.

That was probably as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone: that, on some level, in spite of not looking Jewish, or being able to speak Hebrew, or knowing what Sukkot was (if it wasn’t about eating or presents, it didn’t make it into the Nagler Canon of Holidays), I actually still somehow just was Jewish. And that part of my identity might never have really sunk in if I hadn’t become a New Yorker. Moving here didn’t just mean that I discovered Zabars, or that I was a bagel snob, or that I would be able to have lox at catering pretty much every day (and occasionally take some home if it was really good), although those things did indeed happen. New York was able to absorb and assimilate Jewish culture in a way that allowed it to flourish as one distinct flavor of the whole that is this city of many flavors. New York is a Jewish city – in same way that it’s also Italian, Irish, African-American, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Dominican, Pakistani, Caribbean, Mexican, and the list goes on depending on who’s arrived recently and who’s coming next. And so, from the way I relate to food, to my sense of humor, to my analytical and intellectual side, to how forthright/tactless I can be, to my overall worldview: living here enabled me to recognize that I just wouldn’t be this way if I weren’t Jewish.

Everything feels different in 2019 in so many, surreal ways, but what exactly it means to be Jewish in America is definitely a big one. I’ve felt some vulnerability and uncertainty as a woman for most of my life, as you do, but I’ve never felt that way about being a Jew until now. To the point that I can’t call myself “a Jew” any more, because suddenly, that’s an epithet. How the hell did that happen? When did we allow them to take that word away? Then there’s the realization of, Wait, we can’t make those jokes any more because there are people who actually still think that shit about us? And they’re telling other people? Fucking internet. Add to that the fault lines within the American Jewish community over Israel and the ground really starts to feel like it’s swaying under your feet. How much we should continue to support this country that seems increasingly unrecognizable to me, that is so racked by fear and sectarianism that it appears to have given up on peace and democracy, that votes for a leader who has demonstrated time and again that he is both racist and corrupt? Well, now that I’ve put it like that, okay, maybe this is something that Israel and the United States have in common right now, but that doesn’t make it any better for those of use who are trying to stay on the sane side of it all. I’m lucky that most of my family is in agreement with me on these issues, but my mother has some cousins with whom she is close that she had to ask to stop sending her political emails, because their conservative views about Israel seemed to have somehow spread to abortion and immigration, despite that fact that they live in San Francisco. Jewish Trump supporters? From the Bay Area? What the hell is the going on?! Come on, this can’t be us. When an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition cheers when Trump says “Our country’s full. You can’t come in,” don’t they hear the eerie echos of what the American government said to the boats full of Jews they sent back to be slaughtered in the holocaust? Don’t they know that we are supposed to be sharp, and educated, and fucking liberals? Oh, wait, is “liberal” now a bad word not just among conservatives but for some on the left too, as in the “liberal elite who control everything” that they’re always talking about? But, double wait, wasn’t that just another way anti-Semites used to say “the Jews” without saying “the Jews”? But triple wait, aren’t Bernie Sanders and Glenn Greenwald Jewish? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Of course, this about when all of your older Jewish relatives shake their heads at all of this and say, “See? This is exactly the shit always happens to us. Somehow, when things go bad in the world, and people start believing crazy conspiracy shit, that always turns back on the Jews.” I never believed that before, so to see it sort of happening right before my eyes is really something. But at the same time, I’m sure as hell not going to let that make me just silo up. Yeah, there are the swastikas, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and “Jews will not replace us,” but can we honestly say we have it worse than everyone else who’s under attack in this country right now? What’s the point of joining a grievance competition that just gives the people who are trying to divide the left exactly what they want? It’s how, when the new questions that confuse and divide us just keep coming — What do we say or not say about Ilhan Omar? What about the schism in the Women’s March? What about the Senate bill that would allow state and local governments to withhold contracts from those who boycott Israel that Chuck Schumer supported? — they just get us to go after each other.

Let’s not do that. Sure, maybe this is just another case of me getting older and less able to accept how the world is changing — sort of a, “Damn Nazis, get off my lawn!” type of thing – and maybe I should just go along with this new normal. But that's one thing I know is definitely not me. MoTs like to talk shit out, sometimes too much, but eh. Let’s bring that tradition of analysis and argument — and I mean the kind where you’re forthright and emotional, but you still know how to listen — to bear on the questions we’re having both on the left and in the Jewish community about how we move forward, instead of fleeing back into our fears from the past.

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nijjhar · 3 years

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At the End Times, the Tares will burn and kill each other as you can see... At the End Times, the Tares will burn and kill each other as you can see between the Jews and Palestinians, both unfaithful to Abraham of the Semitic race and not Jew or Muslim outwardly. https://youtu.be/R1aTsgC3Nhk Hi, Hello RAJINDER NIJJHAR, Thank you for registering for Sabeel-Kairos UK Conference and AGM. You can find information about this meeting below. Sabeel-Kairos UK Conference and AGM Date & Time Sep 25, 2021 10:30 AM London [email protected] www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk |Sabeel-Kairos: Seeking a just peace for Palestine | Facebook | Sabeel-Kairos (@SabeelKairos) / Twitter | I am a member of the Oxford Branch and attended a few meetings. You are doing a great job but you need to have Biblical knowledge to understand the situation. I was trying to apply that knowledge but you weren't happy and threw me out. That is normal. Matt 13v24-30 is getting fulfilled now in which Tares, the people who are unfaithful to Abraham, the Father of the faithful only, are killing each other. Jew and Muslim are spiritual selves, inwardly that are never born and they never die but the tribal selves such as Judah, Benjamin, Levi, etc. are born and can build their covenant with Abraham to prove "faithfulness" capable of living in Peace in Israel that belongs to the sons of Isaac only. To the sons of Ishmael belongs the Egyptian land and they have morality and that is why Baby Jesus was sent under their care because the Jews outwardly of appearances in collusion with Herod wanted to kill Him as He came to End the Era of Priests in Moses and introduce to us the Royal Priesthood of our Supernatural Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. in which you are solitary capable of entering into the Royal Vineyard of our Supernatural Father, the Celestial World of Sadhu Melchizedek in which the quality of your soul in merciful deeds count and not the physical tribal body. That is why in Jesus, the Royal Priests have One Father Elohim and we represent Him as the sons do represent the tribal father (surname). In the Royal Kingdom of God, we exercise the Divine Love "Agape" and hate none. Much more, I can tell and I will make a Youtube Video on this topic; channel nijjhar1. I know it is above your head as the Gospel is by His grace only to those who can think logically and not by what this man or the other says. My Brother Omar Haramy was interested in my views and I would appreciate it if you can pass on this email to him, please. I very much support the noble Palestinians and their nobility is displayed by the Samaritans that the Mammon worshipper greedy Jews hated very much. Here is a link to St. Photina, the Samaritan Woman at well - John 4:- For protection from the Coronavirus, why not enter the Fold of our Supernatural Father-St. Photina https://youtu.be/INh9N3FmwY0 Holy Martyr Photina (Svetlana) On April 2nd (March 20th by the old calendar) the Church commemorates the holy martyr Photina (translated into Russian as Svetlana). St. Photina was that same woman from Samaria. whose meeting with the Lord of the Sabbath, our Anointed Elder Brother/Bridegroom because He was the Son of Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. at the well of Jacob is described in detail in the Gospel of John (chapter 4, verses 5-42) and is commemorated by the Church on the fifth Sunday after Pascha. The Samaritan woman speaks with the Lord of the Sabbath, our Anointed Elder Brother/Bridegroom, the very Son of Elohim The Gospel tells us of how the Lord of the Sabbath, our Anointed Elder Brother/Bridegroom once came to a city in Samaria called Sychar, where there was a well given by Jacob to his son Joseph and his descendants. Fatigued by His journey, the Lord of the Sabbath, our Anointed Elder Brother/Bridegroom providentially sat down to rest at this well, while His Labourers/Talmidim went into town to buy some provisions. At that moment a woman from that town came to the well to draw water. The Lord of the Sabbath, our Anointed Elder Brother/Bridegroom asked her to give Him to drink. The woman was surprised by the request, since the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, a Nation of Prophets. Jesus said to her: if only you knew with Whom you are talking, you would ask Him to give you to drink, and He would give you living water. The woman of Samaria was even further bewildered, thinking of how Jesus could give her living Nero ordered all of them to be brutally tortured, especially St. Photina, but by the grace of God they did not feel any pain. Full description:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/photina.htm Omar can give me more information, please. My ebook has been published by Kindle. ASIN: B01AVLC9WO For a full description, please visit my website:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Rest.htm I need IT Graphic help to finish my Books:- ONE GOD ONE FAITH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf and in Punjabi KAKHH OHLAE LAKHH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/pdbook.pdf John's baptism:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/johnsig.pdf Trinity:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/trinity.pdf

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arab-gurl-posts · 7 years

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The Robbery of the Free People ; Palestine!

Mariam, Aisha, Dam Il-Izz, Fatma, Sabha, Ahlam, Taghreed, Nawal, Dalal, Leila, Asma and thousand others died FIGHTING for their country. They went as martyrs.

Does your religion allow you to burn someone alive? I asked one of the Jews. They said never….. so how do they accept to burn a child alive? I only ask God to give me patience… Hasbiya Allah w ni’ma Alwakeel 3alehum.

Many mothers suffer everyday for their children. Every Palestinian suffered in war and is still suffering. They are obliged to live under an unfair

regime. It seems like their land is being robbed from them, their future taken from them, their freedom stolen from them, the unfairness they live in is not enough. They have to be tortured, bombed, and killed.

This problem has been going on now for about 100 years. The problem is called the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Or as I call it the Robbery of the Free People. The Palestinians have lived in unfairness for a such long time. The problem is still going on with no resolution. If you haven’t realized, I stand in strong affirmation that the Palestinians should be free and the land belongs to the Palestinians!

The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews is conflict dating to the end of the nineteenth century. Although the two groups have different religions (Palestinians include Muslims, Christians and Druze), religious differences are not the cause of the problem. The conflict began as a struggle over land. From the end of World War I until 1948, the area that both groups claimed was known internationally as Palestine. Following the war of 1948–1949, this land was divided into three parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip. The whole area is a small area—approximately 10,000 square miles.

The Israeli people view the conflict as a matter of security and defense. They believe in their right to the land of Israel due to their history and identity tied to it. Israel is constantly defending themselves from hateful terrorist attacks produced by the Hamas terrorist group and Palestinian people. Due to this, they view themselves in a constant state of defense for the security of their citizens, sovereignty, land, and identity.

One of the main reasons why the Israeli people believe the land to be theirs is due to their history. Historically, the ancient Jews from Biblical times called their land Israel, Canaan, Judea, Samaria, Galilee and other long-ago names. Modern Jews, and quite a few Christians, believe that in the days of the Bible and the Torah, God gave this land to the ancient Jews (also known as Hebrews), led by men such as Abraham, Moses, David, and others. About 2,000 years ago, the Roman Empire ruled this area, and in overpowering several Jewish rebellions, the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in the city of Jerusalem, killed large numbers of Jews, and forced many others to leave their homeland in an exodus called "The Diaspora." Some Jews remained in the area, but large numbers of Jews did not return until the 19th and 20th Century, especially after World War Two and the Holocaust. This history makes the Jews think that Israel is theirs.

However, The Palestinians claim the land is heirs based on continuous residence in the country for hundreds of years and the fact that the majority demographic is theirs. The argument of the Jews getting Palestine because of biblical-era kingdom is in valid. If the Palestinians would believe the same thing they can say the biblical argument then it would also apply to them because Abraham's son Ismail is the forefather of the Arabs so Gods promise of land to the children of Abraham includes the Palestinian/Arabs as well. Palestine also does not believe that they should give up there land to make up for Europe's crimes against Jews. 3000 years ago an entire population was removed to there homeland and so the land was simply taken over by other people. Now all of a sudden those people have returned and they want to kick you out and get their land back. This is what it's like for the Palestinians , and they think it's crazy that one population can simply replace another. The Palestinians never had anything against the Jews, they would be just as unhappy if the occupiers were Muslims, French, etc. To them this conflict is about the land and justice. Palestine has now been a home for many Arabs and it was mostly operated by Arabs until the Jews came in and now that is all gone. The argument of Palestine belonging to the Jews because their ancestors ruled it for a period of time is like saying that England belongs to the Vikings only.

I still keep his clothes and the newspaper that published the news of his martyrdom… and today my happiness is great because he comes back to me again ….. 34 years I awaited his return, and the return of his body means he came back to us alive. In what world? In what book is it okay for death to be happiness? Where does it tell us to torture people and kill them? Where do you get all this selfishness from ? How can you sleep and put your kids to bed as you wish them a good-night kiss s , while knowing kids are looking for their dead parents under the rubble. What is their mistake? What did they do to you?

Can you just please explain to me this how a population dying could be causing terrorism. These people living under unfairness, being tortured, bombed, and killed are the ones causing terrorism. Because I can’t see where the Israelis are being bombed, killed, and tortured. Israelis believe that all this torture they are doing to the Palestinians is in response to the hateful terrorist attacks. However, how can the Israelis be so blind to think they are the victims here. Because I can’t find one terrorist attack from the Palestinians against the Israelis. But what I can find is a massive number of dead innocent Palestinians. According to BBC news poll 510,000 thousand Palestinians have died over the past 5 years. So you tell me now who are the terrorists here the Palestinians or the Israelis? Right now while you are reading this article a house is being bombed , a family is being torn apart, and kids are dying.

Even if Palestine wanted to attack it doesn’t have the weapons nor the means to do so. Israel has a huge supporter the United States. The United States agreed to provide Israel a record $38 billion in new military aid over the next decade. The agreement, which equates to $3.8 billion a year, is the largest two-sided military aid package ever and includes $5 billion for missile defense, additional F-35 joint strike fighters and increased mobility for its ground forces. Does Israel need all these weapons to destroy all those innocent people? It will destroy their body yes, but not their souls nor their beliefs nor their hope.

One of Israel’s main motives to take the land is because of their religion. They believe that Judaism/God gave this land to the ancient Jews (also known as Hebrews), led by men such as Abraham, Moses, David, and others. They seem to care so much about religion, the whole government is based on Judaism. Where in the Torah does it say kill and torture? The Torah clearly states (Exodus 20:13) Thou shalt not kill, meaning you should not kill. The Israeli/Jews are not only killing a person but a whole population. 510,000 thousand people have died over the five years. If god really promised you the “Holy Land” he also stated in the Torah "God announceth to Jerusalem that they [Israel] will be redeemed only through peace." Deuteronomy Rabah 5:15. I see no peace all I see is the Israelis killing, torturing and bombing awhole population. They can’t even stand with their beliefs. They don’t even understand their right from wrong. Even the Jews don’t agree with their state. There have been many marches where hundreds of Jews went out protesting against their state to give back Palestine to its people. What I see the state as not a state following its religion but a state hungry for power and money. The state doesn’t even know what it’s religion said then to know if its their land or not.

Adding to all of this the Palestinians were robbed from their country. Imagine you invite a dying running-away refugee over to your house. What he ends up doing is taking–over your house sending you out and killing you. This the same thing the Israelis did to the Palestinians

Before Israel’s creation, Palestine willingly accepted s 700,000 Jewish refugees escaping World War I and the Holocaust. This is a massive number considering Palestine’s Muslim population in 1947 was only around 1.2 million. Palestine did not vote for the creation of Israel. Instead Israel’s creation was imposed on Palestine by the United Nations. We often hear the talking point “no country on Earth would tolerate rockets raining down on its civilians.” This is true, but in fairness we must also accept that no country on Earth would tolerate being split in two without the right to self-determination or a say in the matter. If you disagree, imagine if tomorrow the United Nations decided half of your country would go to another nation of people — while you have no say in the matter. What would you say? I would be the first to disagree? Because where is the fairness here? Palestine served as a haven for Jewish refugees before Israel’s creation. The Palestinians accepted the Israelis who had no home. But what they ended up doing is taking over and killing the population. This is true robbery, instead of the Jews taking their right from the Europeans. They came to torture the Palestinians.

Till now we suffer. Every day we lament how we were and what has become of us, how much we suffer, everything we had is under the rubble; the clothes, the mattresses, belongings. The kids screaming “ the books, the clothes, the mattresses, everything we had mama. No one cares for us mama?” We still suffer, the children still suffer. … Where are the human rights? Where is humanity? Where are the women rights? Have they all disappeared? When will this unfairness end? When will this torture stop? What kind of heart do they have? Do they even have a heart? They send off their children to school to learn how to care? Do themselves know how to care ? Because no one is caring! They live the happy luxurious life while they sit at home ordering the bombs to kill us. All we are asking for is our piece of land back. Is that too much to ask? Isn’t our rights important!

Mariam, Aisha, Dam Il-Izz, Fatma, Sabha, Ahlam, Taghreed, Nawal, Dalal, Leila, Asma these sacred names connect us to Jrash, Bisan, Haifa, Naqab, Deir Aban, Safad and all the villages and towns that were Palestinian and will rise up again Palestinian from under the rubble, from under the fake parks and from under the cancerous colonies. These sacred names preserve the heritage, the history and the culture. These sacred names plant in the spirit of resistance, keep it burning, shining in our hearts, leading our way, telling us that only through resistance will we be liberated, only through our sacrifice will Palestine be free and future generations will enjoy justice and true peace.

These sacred names bind us forever to their mother Palestine; telling us that we have no mother but she, no home but hers’, no existence without her. They carry Palestine in their blood, in their hearts, in their souls!

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the-record-columns · 5 years

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May 29, 2019: Columns

Amazing talent, missing tables...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

With our 14th Annual ChickenFest behind us I do want to take just a moment to mention two especially talented young people who were kind enough to play for us this past weekend.

First is 13-year-old Libby Harbour, a fiddle player who just gets better and better. At our opening ceremonies, after the VFW Post 1142 Honor Guard had placed the flag at half mast and played Taps, Libby stepped up and played the National Anthem on her fiddle. It still gives me goose bumps to think about it today. Later she played on the Tut Taylor Spotlight Stage to the delight of everyone.

Another of the many wonderful people who played was a young lady of 16 named Cali Johnson. I first heard Cali play guitar and sing during a couple of the Open Mic events at the 1915 Artisan Center in Wilkesboro. One evening she began with a CCR tune, played a couple of originals she had written, and ended by singing the Coat of Many Colors song by Dolly Parton - and nailed them all. She also performed at ChickenFest on the Spotlight stage and had folks mesmerized.

Speaking of ChickenFest, it is always something of a ritual to put our hands on all of our tables and chairs-what with them being periodically loaned out. This year it was easy, but it still reminded me about the "table" story for the ages.

It involved my dear friend Max Joines

Not too long after we built The Record Park, Max, and his wonderful wife Jane, were planning some kind of soiree for one of their sons who had graduated from college. Max called me to see about renting my tables for the event-note I said rent-he doesn't know how to accept a favor-yet he will do anything for anyone-anytime.

He finally agreed to borrow them and picked them up on the appointed day-12 of them which he securely strapped to a trailer and was on his way.

The event was a great success, and I can personally attest to the food being amazing. The next week Max called to set up a time to return the tables and I went to the park to meet him.

I waited. And waited. Then I got worried-Max is always early, not late. I was about to call Jane to check on him when he finally drove up-looking like his last friend had deserted him. It seems as though while loading up the tables, he only had 11, not 12. He drove the route he had taken with the tables hoping to find the one that had somehow blown off. He made that trip about three times before deciding to give up and come on.

Nothing would do but he wanted to buy me another table. I tried to assure him it wasn't that big of a deal, but he kept insisting. After a bit we unloaded the tables with Max apologizing all the way.

Then I saw it. The 12th table. It had never left the building because it was so covered up in junk that we both missed it. I thought about trying to get Max out of the building without telling him, but soon thought better of it. The simple fact that he never had 12 tables to begin with took a bit to sink in, but relief took over aggravation and he was soon smiling as only Max Joines can.

We decided to end the day by agreeing that "...sometimes you simply cannot see the forest for the trees."

Words to live by, eh Max?

Truth is on Israel's side

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

Israelis are very good at many things but public relations is not one of them. It seems they are always defending themselves rather than pointing out their positives and this is largely due to the way mainstream media reports any and all news about Israel.

One of the major charges of the anti-Israel media is that Israelis are hate-filled, evil people who live in a perpetual state of animosity and fear. Of course, if these critics were to visit Israel, they would see that the people of this special little nation go about their daily tasks with great freedom, purpose and enthusiasm. Public places are bustling with active and smiling people, none of whom seem intimidated or fearful. Ben Yehuda Street in downtown Jerusalem is alive with people from around the world visiting the many shops and restaurants, enjoying the music of street musicians and engaging in activities which underline Israel’s freedom and sense of safety and security.

The young nation of Israel enjoys great freedom of speech and movement which cannot be found in any Arab or Muslim nation in the Middle East. In Israel there is also less crime — whether robberies, rapes or killings — than in any other country of the world.

The international media consistently attempt to paint Israel as undemocratic, discriminatory and racist — even going so far as to accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. Of course, everyone in the country knows that they have a well functioning democratic government, quite different from all the surrounding, authoritarian Arab and Muslim governments of the Middle East. Every Israeli adult, including women, has the right to vote; and what many do not know is that there are more than a million Arabs who are Israeli citizens with the same rights and privileges as all other Israeli citizens — including representation in the Knesset.

Furthermore, most Israel bashers do not realize that more than a million Arabs live in the Jewish cities of Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth and others without fear of being harmed or discriminated against. And they don’t realize that in the Galilee, dozens of Arab villages are mingled among Jewish villages, with the Arabs free to come and go and do as they please. Half of the Old City of Jerusalem is inhabited by Arabs, and all Arabs have free access to the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount however the same is not true for Jews and Christians. The Temple Mount is controlled by the Jordan-based Waqf which is an Islamic trust that governs the Temple Mount compound. Jews and Christians are forbidden even to pray on the Temple Mount.

Now, like any other nation on earth, Israel is not perfect; but its critics will have to look long and hard to find discrimination or apartheid. Yet they report such untruths without blinking. Another charge on the list of the anti-Semitic media is that Israelis are hateful and violent people who react with disproportionate force to any small Arab or Muslim provocation. If these critics would honestly compare the actions of the Arabs to the reactions of the Israelis, they would see a great difference.

Palestinian Arab terrorist groups have regularly attacked innocent Israeli civilians ever since Israel was restored as a nation. They have fired explosive rockets into civilian villages, and they have sent suicide bombers on to Israeli buses and into Israeli gathering places. Their leaders have urged people in their mosques and children in their schools to hate and kill Jews.

In response, Israelis have refused to descend to the same level of depravity as their enemies. Only when their patience has been exhausted have they reluctantly retaliated in self defense; and even then, they have been extremely careful to avoid harming innocent civilians — especially women and children.

Through it all, the Jewish people have proved beyond any doubt that God has miraculously brought them back to their ancient homeland, He has justifiably restored their nation, and He has divinely preserved and prospered it. Israel has fulfilled the Torah promise that it would be a good land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The God-given innovation of the Jewish people, along with their indomitable spirit and high ethical values, has made modern Israel a great wonder of the world … in spite of what the anti-Semitic international media think or say.

Stop. Just stop…

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

"Happy Memorial Day!"

Does anyone besides me want to rip down the signs with that phrase off of business windows, and give a good tongue lashing to anyone who says it?

Discussing plans to sit by the water and barbecue, because "you're so stressed out from of life in general and need a break" isn't showing respect for the Fallen. Let’s discuss their “day at the beach” on June 6, 1944, compared to your lovely long weekend, shall we?

Yes you have a first amendment right, but please don’t be thoughtless- no one says “HAPPY anniversary on the day your momma died” so why would you make the appellation to Memorial Day?

Let me put this into perspective:Just last year hundreds of us in several counties lined the highways, standing in silent respect for local State Trooper Samuel Bullard, who gave his life to fulfill his oath "protect and serve."

The summer before that, thousands of us lined the highways from Wilkes County Airport all the way to Ashe County for Dillon Baldridge, who gave his life trying to protect his friends and comrades, and the freedom we hold so dear.

Putting up American flag window clings, lining your yard/business with tiny flags (that are made in CHINA) that have gotten rained on and knocked over and are lying in the grass, is NOT showing respect for those that gave all. Not to mention against flag code, but that’s another column.

What this is, is a long weekend to reflect on those who are no longer with us. Our Veteran parents and grandparents who fought perhaps; and especially Chris Thompson, Larry Bauguess, Sam Bullard and Dillon Baldridge.I am never happy about the loss of life, but I am eternally grateful, and hold a space at my table on such days to the fallen, and the families left to grieve their absence.

The local VFW Post is holding a traditional ceremony, on actual Memorial Day, May 30, (this Thursday) starting at 10 a.m. I encourage you all to be there, to give thanks to the men and women who gave everything for you.

A Dipper Full for Everyone

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

I’ve been spending more time in the garden lately.

It all started at Kindred Gallery at Rosemary House Bed and Breakfast in Pittsboro. It was during an interview with noted folk artist Cher Shaffer.

We were coming to the close of our second on camera visit when I asked her what she would recommend as a good thing for all of us to do in order to have greater peace and happiness in our lives. That’s easy she replied, “Play in the dirt and do it often. It will help you connect with the earth and life.”

I listened as she explained on her thoughts. It seemed reasonable but it would be on my drive home that my mind would give it a good thinking over.I had already done a bit of planting in the garden. However, I had not thought of it as playing in the dirt.

At the same time, I could tell that Cher was serious with her words. So, I committed to the idea. I knew it would be a challenge because it had been many years since I had done anything resembling playing in the dirt. So much so that I honestly could not remember ever playing in the dirt.

While it has been a busy time for the show, I decided that working time in for dirt play was now on my must do list, even though I had no idea how it was going to work out. We had already planted some tomato and cucumber plants; however, I knew we needed more plants.

I decided to visit some new greenhouses in hopes of inspiration for new plants and to question plant people on how they play in the dirt. I soon found out that I was not alone in how I thought about gardening. To some it’s a lot of work and not playful at all. That however was not the case with most of the people I spoke with. As it turns out the smell and feel of dirt brings happiness to many people.

With this idea in mind I purchased a wide variety of tomato, pepper, okra, and other plants. I like dill so I decide that an herb garden might also be a good idea. I may have gone a bit overboard.

As I drove home I though about all those plants and the task ahead and the more I thought about it the less playful I become.

Unloading the car, I realized that I had almost 150 new plants. The first day I planted and watered one flat, the next day I did the same and within a week I had them all planted.

It was on the third day of this process that as I was bending over planting pepper that I become a bit dizzy, so I took a knee in the dirt. For the first time during this process I was feeling the dirt. The smell was sweet, and the dirt was becoming playful.

At that very moment I was flooded with memories of childhood times in the garden with my grandmother. It was as if I was there again walking with her as she was giving each plant a dipper full of water.

I could hear her say, “A dipper full for everyone.” I could see my Dad picking green beans in the summer. I was flooded with warm comforting memories of family now gone but still in the garden. Every morning I get up early and go play in the dirt. I water the plants; everyone gets a hello and full dipper of water.

They are all doing well, and I have learned how to play in the dirt.

And I can tell you one thing for sure, it’s a good thing.

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pocinperioddramas · 7 years

Note

Some of the things you said in reference to Wonder Woman - Gal Godot specifically - really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not Jewish, but it's my understanding - re a post by a Jewish person on the way antisemitism crops up in discussions of Israel and how to avoid it - that 'Zionism' is just the belief that Israel should EXIST, not something that has any connection to support/lack thereof of Israeli politics/military action. (1/2)

Unless you really do think Israel shouldn’t exist - in which case, please be clear on that so I can unfollow. If it was a case of mistaken terminology (I’ve been there too!) please clarify or edit. I’d be happy to send you a link to the post in the messaging or something if you’re interested, or reblog it and tag you! (Also, it might be good to look into the Godot thing a little - she may be problematic, but a lot of the criticism I’ve seen of her is actually anti-Semetic dogwhistling.) (2/2)

Hello there! I am finally getting around to answering your question, after around 2 weeks of being absent from this blog. As you said that you don’t mind me posting my response publicly, I will do so in order for people to be clarified about my views regarding the issues on the table.

I understand your reservations. You linked me to the post you were referring to in your response to my own ask to you (the link did go through BTW). I actually saw that post a few years ago, I believe, and while the OP’s concerns about anti-Semitism cropping up in the process of defending Palestine are definitely valid (and they have every right to be concerned, as there have been some infamous figures who were pro-Palestine but also turned to be very anti-Semitic - there were at least 2 people I remember reading about, but I can’t remember their names at the moment), not every Jewish person shares their particular view about Israel/Zionism. There is, in fact, a website known as the New Jewish Resistance founded and run by anti-Zionist Jews (and they explicitly identify as such) through whom I learned a lot about anti-Semitism and Zionism and how to fight both forms of oppression (in this article, they discuss about what they stand for and in this other article, they tackle about how being anti-Zionist isn’t equivalent to being anti-Semitic). But understand that this definitely shouldn’t excuse from any possible anti-Semitism (as citing that could make me sound like one of those “I’m not racist, I have [insert race/ethnicity being discussed] friends” or in this case, “I’m not anti-Semitic, I have Jewish friends” and I definitely don’t want to be like that), so please do call me out if I have been anti-Semitic, whether subtle or explicit.

But you do bring up the issue of whether Zionism can be considered a legitimate ideology that started out with good intentions (a la how communism and socialism can be interpreted by many people too), which is the view held by the OP of the post you shared, or if it is an inherently flawed or oppressive ideology. To be honest, I’m still very conflicted about that. The important thing here has always been to center both Jewish and Palestinian voices speaking out on the issue, and while most Palestinians identify as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, Jewish people are divided on it. Of course I definitely think that people who actively support the policies and actions of the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces are reinforcing oppression, but Jewish people who bring up the point about Zionism being interpreted as an ideology with good intentions should be taken into account too, as people do think that Jewish people, despite centuries and even millennia of being in the diaspora, have an ancestral claim to their homeland in the Middle East.

But that also begs the question: if you support the ideology of Zionism while opposing the oppression of Palestine, do you think the two can be brought to life (i.e. Israel - or at least a Jewish state - and Palestine coexisting peacefully) in a way that do not contradict each other? Because as far as I know, Zionism is founded on the belief that the Jewish people have the right to a state of their own in the region of Palestine, where millions of Palestinians have lived for centuries too. Could a Jewish state exist where it does not have to oust these Palestinians from their own lands and it does not have to be a colonizer, and how can it be (realistically) put into practice? Or does Zionism and the right of Palestine to exist as a state directly contradict each other and thus you cannot actually support both? I would in fact hope for a two-state solution, but I do not know how it could be truly brought to life without involving any oppression or bloodshed. (Most of these questions are actually brought up too in the post you shared, but I am still curious about them and now that you asked me about it, it’s made me realize how sorely lacking my knowledge is on the issues and has made me want to learn more now actually. This is actually a good wake-up call for me, so I thank you for that, as your criticism has made me realize it’s important to evaluate my knowledge about issues in social justice - Zionism included - before speaking out.)

Now, with regards to Gal Gadot, most of the criticism I’ve read about her - from the people I follow on social media who have been vocal about being anti-Gal - with regards to her support of the IDF seems valid to me, but as it is said, anti-Semitism can still insidiously seep into conversations where people are defending Palestine, so maybe there truly was anti-Semitism there but I didn’t notice it. I did recently read an article from a Palestinian woman that discussed Gal’s Zionism/support of the IDF that might have had anti-Semitic undertones, though the author did make very good points about other aspects like the cruelties inflicted by the Israeli government and the IDF and the oppression that the Palestinians face from them, so maybe that’s an example of criticism that has anti-Semitic dog-whistling. What other examples have you seen of such criticism with anti-Semitic undertones?

But my point about Gal still stands: she may be a good actress and apparently progressive in other aspects, but her active support of the IDF and her praise of Shimon Peres alone are enough for me not to want to support her in any of her work, even “Wonder Woman”, despite my admiration of the character, her importance as a strong female superhero presence in pop culture and media, and the appeal of the movie due to the rave reviews it received, and I firmly believe that she wasn’t the one best suited to the role as there are plenty of other female actors who are even more progressive and whose personality, behavior, and views embody Wonder Woman and what she stands for more than someone who is an IDF supporter. I hope you understand.

Maybe you know more about these subjects, so if you have any more information, you can share with me so that I can learn too and if I am wrong in my views, I can rectify them and become more understanding and careful on these topics.

I am in no way an expert on Zionism, Israel’s oppression of Palestine, anti-Semitism, and Jewish and Palestinian experiences, as I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. In fact, I only heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict relatively recently (I might have heard about it earlier had I been living in the West, but I don’t and I learned about it entirely through social media - that’s no excuse for me though, and I’m trying to catch up). I have conflicted feelings about Zionism and Israel in general, as I am not always certain about all the information I learn about these topics. But in recent years, I have tended to think along the lines of ‘Zionism is oppressive’ and ‘Israel (at least the way it was created and the state in its present form) is a colonizer/colonial state’, thanks to the articles I have been reading and whose views make sense to me. However I do get that I may have unconsciously appeared to be making assumptions with regards to the issues of Zionism and Israel, despite not being super knowledgeable about it as I’d want to be (although I definitely do think that what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians is wrong). So I apologize for that, and please do not be afraid to criticize me for any faulty information or stances that I hold, when I air such information and stances. I actually encourage my followers and even non-followers to do so, so that I may continue to learn too (but that doesn’t mean I should rely entirely on other people to call me out - I am trying to educate myself as well by reading up on more articles, thinkpieces, and books discussing such issues as well as listening to the voices of the people at the center of such issues - I’m simply saying that it’s perfectly fine to call me out too in addition to me calling out myself while I am learning in my own way).

(Now, I will tread more carefully and be more specific when referring to Zionism and Israeli colonialism and make less assumptions as well.)

You are still free to unfollow me if you want, of course. I do hope we can reach an understanding, and thank you once again for your thoughtful ask. I really appreciate it.

-Admin Dawn

#theserpentsadvocate #answered ask

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swawesome-wow · 7 years

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If you wanted people to be informed, you'd have mentioned Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. You'd have mentioned the suicide bombings and hundreds of murdered innocent Israelis. You'd have mentioned the Palestinian leadership that first declined coexistence in 1948 and rejected every offer of peace since then. You'd have mentioned lies and propaganda and blood libel against Jews, thought in Palestinian schools. You care about playing the victim. But it's an old game. And you'll lose.

I wasn’t going to take the time to respond, but it’s summer break, and I refuse to let you hide behind anonymity and not learn a little something while you’re there.

1. “If you wanted people to be informed, you’d have mentioned Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. You’d have mentioned the suicide bombings and hundreds of murdered innocent Israelis.”

Oh yes, how could I forget to talk about Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. The thousands upon thousands of innocent Israelis killed. Wait, what’s that? 1,213 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000. 9,478 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000. I have never claimed that Palestinians have not killed innocent Israelis. Those numbers are only since the year 2000. Israel has occupied Palestine for 50 years, give or take, as you yourself aptly admitted by bringing up the conference in 1948. There is immense loss on both sides, though one has lost nearly 9x as many lives. However, comparing it numerically is extremely reductive, not only are you wrong numerically, you’re ignoring why people have been slaughtered on both sides, and what brought everyone to this point. There is no “justifying” the murder of Israelis by Palestinians, there is only understanding why these killings happened, holistically, and understanding the context.

People refer to it now as the Israeli-Palestinian “Conflict, Divide, etc.” But before recent, heavy political and monetary support of Israel, it was called the Palestinian Genocide, for good reason.

2. “You’d have mentioned the Palestinian leadership that first declined coexistence in 1948 and rejected every offer of peace since then.”

Let me make this very, painfully clear.

Palestine does not owe coexistence to Israel. Israel is an occupying state, an oppressive state, and one that has committed genocide against the Palestinian people.

To bring it down to your level of understanding, the Palestinians were there first. Palestinians of EVERY religion, including Judaism, though I’ll touch on that later. The Palestinian leadership has been lamentable, no one is denying that. But let me put it this way:

Let’s say America was invaded today, by, say, Canada. (Sorry Canada, you were the first country to pop into my head, since I owe half my citizenship to you.) After things calm down enough for the leaders to meet, Trudeau says to *shudder* Trump (or even Obama, in this fake scenario, would make the same decision), “Hey man, I know you were here first and everything, and I know we bloodily invaded you, but like, let’s just coexist, like on that bumper sticker you guys are so fond of.” Do you honestly think the President of the United States of America, would EVER agree to something like that? Seriously? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Even 50 years later, America would still be fighting for its freedom from its maple-drenched oppressors. So why are you holding Palestine to such ridiculous standards?

I am truly saddened by the violence that has stemmed from this entire situation, but until Israeli soldiers stop wrongfully arresting, imprisoning, and killing Palestinians, even children, I don’t think you can possibly hope for “peace.”

My grandmother, a few years back on a return visit to Palestine after she fled so many years ago to Canada, was stopped at the border wall (yes, there is a wall there, in case people were unaware) for eight hours, for no reason. She was not charged with anything, neither were her daughters, my aunts, that were with her. Her crime was being Palestinian. I wonder what that sounds like.

Oh yes, and because of that wall, the already pitiful economy of the Gaza Strip has crumbled, and they have no way of rebuilding it. Even if Palestinians find jobs in Israel, they’re backed up for hours each day just trying to get processed through the wall in either direction. They’ve been economically choked off from the rest of the world, yet Israel continues to receive monetary aid as if they’re in desperate need.

3. “You’d have mentioned lies and propaganda and blood libel against Jews, thought in Palestinian schools. You care about playing the victim. But it’s an old game. And you’ll lose.”

Once again, I need to make something crystal clear. So listen up. \

Palestinians do not hate Jews. They hate the Israeli government. Not Israelis, not Jews, the Israeli government, because that is the body that is responsible for Palestinian suffering.

Since I was in elementary school, any time someone found out I had Palestinian parents, they immediately made quips or even stated directly that I must hate Jewish people. I had someone say “oh, so you’re anti-Semitic.” I’ve had people ask me if myself or my parents are terrorists (and I used to be Christian, now I don’t practice anything, my point being that I can’t imagine how hard it is for any Muslims). This misconception is so widespread that it’s toxic, killing any reasonable discourse on the subject by people stamping me with the anti-Semite sticker. So, I’m sorry, I haven’t had the chance to play the victim. Let me know how that goes for you.

What I said earlier, about all religions coexisting? Let me elaborate.

For the thousands of years that Palestine has existed, Christians, Muslims, Jews, ~whatever~ lived side by side, happily and comfortably. Another misconception is that the Israeli movement came from within Palestine, which is just plain misinformation. This is a very, very reductive explanation of what actually happened, forgive me for not being more detailed:

When the second World War ended, there were thousands upon thousands of displaced European Jews (mostly German as you might imagine, but elsewhere as well). When Europe (and America) tried to figure out where to help these people relocate, no one wanted to take them in, deciding it would be too difficult to reintegrate. Palestine had the room and the kind heart needed to take them in, so that’s where many were relocated, en masse. But it was a finite time that Palestine agreed to host these refugees as refugees, they would eventually need to either integrate with the Palestinian people (gain citizenship, etc), or decide where they would want to move, if not stay there. But the relationship began to change, as some began to perpetuate the idea that they belonged there all along, and that the Palestinians were the ones that needed to leave or integrate elsewhere. As with most conflict, religion took a match and set it to kerosene, as suddenly Jerusalem was the center of the occupier’s claims to the land. While I won’t try to argue about it as I’m not informed enough on religious history, I will say that it is entirely possible to create a religious homeland without literally invading the country and creating a religious state. Church and state are separate for a reason, and have to cooperate, not override one another.

So there are plenty of Palestinian Jews that understand and are outraged at the Israeli government, though they have been left out of intentional eviction, arrests, torture, and killings.

COMIC RELIEF BREAK that is actually somewhat related but I promise it’s funny:

One time my mom was telling me about something that happened over in Palestine to friends of our family so word made it back to us. Like I said, the three major religions were living pretty happily together, especially where these friends lived. The IDF was evicting all the Palestinians from a neighborhood to allow Israeli settlers to take over. Our friends were one of the families kicked out, and they were best friends with the Jewish family next door! So when the IDF came knocking on the Jewish family’s door to offer them the keys to their best friends’ house, (they were Jews so they were allowed to stay with the new Israelis coming in), the husband of the family was FURIOUS. He started to back-talk, offended at the very thought, but his wife (the really clever one in this story) shut him up and took the keys. The husband couldn’t believe his wife would betray their best friends like that, but she just rolled her eyes in a “you idiot” fashion. They had the keys now, and they promptly gave them back to their best friends so they could reclaim their property! I always thought that story was hilarious :D

While I am disgusted at the thought that you could somehow compare this entire subject to a game, if that’s the only way you can comprehend such a vast discourse, I’m happy to oblige the metaphor: The only “loser” here is the one who can’t think for themselves and hasn’t done a little goddamn research, you soggy walnut.

Speaking of research! Here are a couple of resources for those who have been following along! I honestly can’t say that the second is an unbiased source, however if you’re looking for straight statistics and numbers, check out the first link! It’s where I got the exact numbers I used above. If you want the international law/human rights perspective, check out the third link. Thanks y’all!

http://ifamericaknew.org

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-genocide-towards-palestinian-arabs/5591341 (thanks canada)

https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective (really good source explaining the international law and human rights perspective on the issue)

#palestine #israel #palestinian #palestinian genocide #israeli occupation #international law #human rights #anon #swawesome is pissed right off

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