I was going to take the weekend totally off of being on my laptop, as I finally finished a project at work on Friday, which I've been working arduously on since 6/16/2023. The project involved overusing my "mouse hand" so much, and I really want to give it a well deserved and needed rest this weekend. No computer mouse, no trackpad on my personal Chromebook here, nothing, just rest and recovery. Yet here I find myself on Sunday, unable to take care of myself the way I was hoping to, as I'm unable to stay off this dang thing for even one weekend right now. Why?
Because I'm so horrified, dismayed, frightened and furious.
I watched a recording of this past week's City Council meeting last night, in which quite a few, mostly quite young, and 100% extremely ignorant of history, and clearly antisemitic people stood up and demanded that the City Council rescind a resolution it passed a few weeks ago, which was against antisemitism. The resolution was proposed and passed a few weeks ago, after a local synagogue received a threat, and was in response to that and to the rising tide of antisemitism in our city (and country, and the world). These people, which horrifyingly, disgustingly and infuriatingly to me included the minister of the local UU church, stood up one by one and asked Council to rescind their resolution against antisemitism. But that's not all. They also asked them to rescind another, subsequent resolution, passed in response to the horrific October 7th Hamas terrorist attack/massacre/kidnappings, and that resolution which they also asked to have rescinded was in support of Israel.
One by one, I saw people stand up and rail against Israel, and call it a bunch of horrific names which I refuse to even give oxygen to by listing here, but they are all FALSE, and based on a very clear and shocking ignorance of history and facts. So let me just say this:
1. Israel is not a colonizer. You cannot colonize your own home, from whence you originate. Both Jews and Palestinians come from the same place. We are cousins. There is genetic evidence of this--scientific proof: "Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian peoples in ancient times. Thus, Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences." (Source: NIH National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, readily accessible with two seconds of Googling). Repeat: we're cousins. Therefore:
2. Jews are not, as I just said, "colonizing"/"colonizers", and are not "white supremacists". We are from the land, just as our cousins are.
3. We didn't just decide to leave, we were driven out by *truly* colonizing, occupying powers.
4. Fast foward to 1948, the then British territory which they dubbed Palestine was going to be split in two, between the Jews and the Arabs, but the latter said no, we want it all and we will drive the Jews into the sea. So the original boundaries of the modern state of Israel instead were larger than what they would have otherwise been, had the Palestinians accepted the original, fair, two-state partition plan.
5. In response to being attacked in later years, by neighboring states going to war against Israel, and the subsequent self defense response of Israel, yes, Israel's territory expanded. Because Israel won those wars which they did not start.
6. Israel is still a tiny nation, geographically, surrounded by enemies (except Egypt, which has been living in peace with Israel for some time now, although clearly they are still not huge fans).
7. I had a great, very wise teacher in college. She told us that, often in life, people will try to tell you that a given situation is "either/or". But really it's "both/and". To be for Israel, you do not need to be against Palestinians. And, please hear and understand this, to be for Palestinians, you do not need to be against Israel. The two are cousins. The two are both from the same land. The two both have the right to live there. No one is some "colonizing" group of "white supremacists" and no one is, or is doing, the other horrific labels and words I heard flung around City Council chambers by clueless mostly 20-somethings in this horrific and frankly seriously traumatizing City Council meeting, after which I personally will never be the same. I've now gone completely tribal and no one is going to hurt my tribe if I have anything to say about it. But I digress. Wait, no, actually, I don't digress, because that's precisely the point of this post: I DO have something to say about it: stop all the ignorant, history-denying, antisemitic, LYING disinformation and misinformation! Israel and Israelis have a right to exist, to be there, to be HOME. So do the Palestinians. We have to find a way to shut out all the noise from ignorant, hate-inciting, clueless, history-altering outsiders such as those speaking (and yelling) at the City Council meeting I saw the recording of yesterday, and we, Jews and Palestinians, have to find a way to realize that we are family. We have to start from realizing we both have a right to be there. Then, somehow, we have to figure out a way to make it safe and rights-infused and healthy and wonderful--let's aim for the stars--for us to be there. Together. There's no other way but together. We have to get it together, literally.
I'd love to end this post there but, honestly, realistically, I have to add that I know it is going to get a whole lot worse before we get to that much better place--if we can--that I just dared hope for in that last paragraph. Frankly, this ex-flower child doesn't want a ceasefire right now, and I don't think it is right that some are asking Israel to "consider a pause". Frankly: eff that, Israel was attacked and massacred and the attackers and massacre-ers, namely Hamas, MUST BE TAKEN OUT OF THE EQUATION. Now. Also, Hamas took 210-ish hostages and we must try to get them out of there alive, if possible, too. Do I want innocent Palestinian civilians to be hurt in the process? NO, but that is the fault of Hamas, they (Hamas) created this untenable situation in which Israel has to act in self defense.
There is a difference, I have concluded after decades of wrestling with this, between self defense and violence. Not that the former doesn't unfortunately involve the latter sometimes, but they are not the same, morally. If you walked into your house and saw someone there murdering your child, would you stage a non-violent protest? Would you "take a pause" and try to work it out? Or would you stop the killer from killing your child by any means necessary? That is self defense, which in my strong and long-thought-about opinion extends out from one's self to one's family, and really to one's people/country/tribe. Are we all one human tribe? Yes. But do we have "families" within that? Also yes. And no one is going to hurt my Jewish family without me speaking up and saying: we have the right to exist, we have the right to exist in our homeland, and we have the right to defend those two rights. And anyone who says we don't, and who further decides to hurl a bunch of horrific, ignorant of history/facts/reality, inaccurate and attacking labels and names at us, doesn't know what they are talking about, and is also WRONG.
Am Israel chai!
