Stop saying you're "pro-Palestine" when you really just hate Jews. in Those Public Entries

Originally written as a FO entry on April 23rd, 2024. Updated with some corrections, and expanded a little bit, in light of, well… //gestures wildly at everything//

Also, I feel like this probably goes without saying, but CW: Antisemitism, racism, sexism, misogyny, and discussions of the Holocaust and the Palestinian genocide.

Finally, please note that antisemitism, anti-Palestinian sentiments, pro-genocide comments, and the like will not be tolerated. I have had it up to here //draws line across forehead// with all of that shit. I have Had It™ with peoples’ bigotry. I don’t care if I “look like you,” and I especially don’t care if you can’t be fucked to read what I’m writing because you have a pop-psychology/mid-2010s Tumblrina understanding of the word “triggered” and think that any/all of the following are your “trigger words”: Palestine, Israel, Jew, Muslim, Jewish, Islamic, genocide. As I said before, I am not here to make you feel better about being a bigot; if you want that experience, the Joe Rogan Show is still widely available, as is Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and Ben Shapiro’s podcast. Go seek those out, if you want someone to tell you that your bigotry is “valid uwu” just because you think Jews are an acceptable target. If that’s the case, from the bottom of my heart: I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you, now get away from me and get bent.

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It’s kind of early in the morning (for me, anyway; I started this at about 7:30) and some of this may not make sense. But I’ve been thinking about this for months, and I want to get it, or some of it, out of my head. After I post this, I may have to go on an unfriending and blocking spree. I’ve already blocked one person over their “pro-Palestine” line just being an excuse to hate Jews (they kept leaving antisemitic comments on the one post I made about how much I hate Netanyahu, and their Instagram stories are one post away from just being “go back to Poland,” which tells you all you need to know), and believe me when I say I won’t pull my punches. “Pro-Palestine” doesn’t need to mean “antisemitic,” and if you think it does, go fuck yourself. Zionists and anti-Zionists alike. I have no time for this idiocy.

Before I go on: I am actually pro-Palestine. I think that Israel’s existence is both antisemitic (here’s a brilliant idea, let’s corral nine million Jews in one place, when nine countries have nuclear warheads, and it would only take one and about four seconds to murder 30% more Jews than Hitler did in four years! Zionists are fucken stoopit, so much so, they don’t deserve the correct spelling for how fucken stoopit they are¹) and colonialist; just Manifest Destiny with a Star of David, almost literally, in Israel’s case. Palestinians deserve to be self-governing and autonomous, and they deserve a better and more representative government than Hamas or Fatah. Palestine deserves to be free. Palestinian children deserve to grow up and not live in a war zone and open-air concentration camp.

All that said and agreed with: I’m half-Jewish. I know for a fact I lost Jewish relatives during the Russian Revolution and its attendant anti-Jewish pogroms, and I definitely lost some in the Holocaust as well. I also know that Israel was founded mainly because of the Holocaust and Jews who’d been through it now having, in most cases, no right of return to their former home countries. The “go back to Poland” line I’ve been seeing on “pro-Palstine” accounts, especially, makes my skin crawl: Up to 99% of Polish Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and even after the camps were liberated, they weren’t welcomed back. Ever heard of the Kielce pogrom? That happened in July 1946. Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945. And even those who had the illusion of a right of return often had nothing to return to: Their homes and villages were destroyed and everyone they knew and loved were dead. It was not at all uncommon for entire generations of Jewish families to be wiped out, or to have only one survivor. And since no other country in the world wanted to take these refugees because they were Jewish?

Israel was a weak, limp-wristed “sorry for not doing anything even though we knew, as early as 1933, what the little Austrian freak wanted to do to you,” so no, I don’t approve of Israel’s existence or the US and Britain’s revisionist history on the topic. What the US and Britain should have done, what it would have been far more beneficial for them to do, was lead the way in passing laws against antisemitism and welcoming displaced Holocaust survivors with open arms. Again, this has been revised in our history, but Americans overwhelmingly did not like Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, with 72% of respondents to a Gallup poll responding “no” when asked if the US should take in a larger number of European Jewish exiles. Even after the war and the atrocities of the Nazis were revealed, 64% of Americans still held strong anti-Jewish beliefs. So, how do you solve the problem of Jewish refugees that no one wants to take? Apparently, you yoink land from Palestine (which was, at the time, part of the British empire) and tell the Jewish refugees you don’t want dirtying up your country, “here, it’s yours, we call it Israel,” and then… What? Just let the Jewish problem solve itself by causing a perpetual war and blaming the people whose land was stolen, and then silencing them and your critics as “being antisemitic” and “hey, you did the Holocaust and Vichy, and you killed all the salmon; don’t preach to us about morality.”² Yeah, when I said I don’t forgive the US and Britain for how they keep handling the problem of antisemitism, I wasn’t fucking kidding.

Also, miss me like a Stormtrooper with that “bUt sEmItIc mEaNs Arabic!” line. In the first place, once upon a time, yes it did; and once upon that time, the swastika was, to quote Robin Williams, “just a Tibetan good-luck symbol.”

I think that today, because we don’t learn how the Holocaust happened (i.e., how ordinary people were convinced that Jews were a legitimate threat, how the Nazis perfected propaganda techniques, and how the history of antisemitism merged perfectly with economic fears and woes in the 1930s and 40s), we also forget just how much it fucked up literally everything. Our current miasma of transphobia and homophobia? Caused by the Nazis burning the works of Dr. Magnus Hirschfield, a Jewish doctor who did groundbreaking research into gender and sexuality. The Holocaust did a number on the LGBTQIA+ population of Europe, and they justified it by claiming that being gay or trans was a “Jewish plot.” Germany’s disabled population was almost entirely eliminated, as well; ever seen the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Allegedly (and by that, I mean I read it on IMDB, so I don’t know how true this is), the producers couldn’t find enough little people in West Germany to play the Oompa-Loompas, so they had to go to other countries to fill the roles. I don’t have any problem believing this, because like I said, disabled people were also subjected to the camps. All of this was done by the Nazis, during and in the lead-up to the Holocaust. And while they were at it, the Nazis changed the definitions of “semitism” and “antisemitism” to how we understand them today.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with having a specific word to describe hatred towards Jews, just like I don’t have a problem with words like “transmisogyny” and “transmisandry” that specifically describe hatred towards trans women and trans men, respectively. Because while hatred towards Jews has some similarities to racism, there are features of it that differentiate it from “normal” racism. When you talk to a racist, they’ll say things like “welfare queen” or “I don’t want Mexican immigrants taking jobs from white people”, just way less polite.

Now, listen to some of the things people specifically say about Jews: “The Jews control the banks.” “Jews run Hollywood.” “Jews are the Illuminati.” See the difference between this and racism? If not: Racism is rooted in the belief that you are superior to that person. Antisemitism is rooted in a fear that you are inferior to Jews. There are only fifteen million Jews in the world (yes, million; that’s not a typo), and we are over-represented in finance and entertainment. While that’s a whole post of its own, the short and sweet version is, “laws prevented Jews from working in most industries besides finance and entertainment.” Yes, even in the US of A. Like I said, most Americans didn’t like Jews during WW2, and that wasn’t a drastic change from the 1800s and early 1900s. There is a reason the Nazis pushed the idea that Jews are an “inferior race”. It’s because of this idea that Jews “control” the financial system and the entertainment industry, two of the most important and influential societal forces. The Nazis wanted Germans to “take back Germany” from the Jews, who they insisted were the reason German money was worthless and why they lost WW1.

Finally: There are Arabic Jews. Ever heard of Mizrahi Jews? Literally they are Middle Eastern Jews. [Statement that “most Israelis are Ashkenazim” redacted here; I was wrong, I didn’t do my due diligence on this topic, I am sorry, and I will correct my original statement two paragraphs from now.] Mizrahim are Lebanese and Iraqi and Iranian and, yes, Palestinian. Mizrahim are also Afghan and Turkish and Tajik and Armenian and Azerbaijani. So yeah, if you’re gonna go ahead with “semitic means Arabic,” then literally, by definition, “semitic” means Middle Eastern Jews as well as Arabic peoples in general!

If all Jews are white Eastern Europeans, then explain Mizrahim. And while you’re at it, also explain African Jews, and Indian Jews, and Sephardic Jews (Mediterranean and North African). Explain nonwhite people who converted to Judaism. “All Jews Are Ashkenazi” is a stereotype, and an incredibly racist one at that, so let’s lay it to rest, shall we? And that’s not even including the fact that, if I were to take one of those 23 And Me tests, I would literally be marked as having “Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity,” meaning that, by a lot of definitions, even Ashkenazim aren’t considered white. Which, I really shouldn’t have to tell you by now, is because of the Nazis.

And as it turns out, most Israelis are not Ashkenazim; most Israelis are Sephardim and Mizrahim. That is, they are the descendants of the Jews who lived in Palestine before 1948. Jews have lived in Palestine, historically, as both natives and migrants (there was a lot of Jewish migration to Palestine during the Russian Revolution and civil war, for example), for quite a lot of our 5500+ years, but we do not have an exclusive right to that land, and we absolutely do not have the right to commit genocide against the other indigenous groups that were already there. Which, hey, a lot of Jews agree with me on that front. Especially if they know their Torah.

According to the Torah, the Israelites lost Israel because.... Well, basically, being “the Chosen People” is less us being God’s golden children, and more being God’s redheaded stepchildren. Theologically speaking, Jews are the representatives of humanity, and when humanity disappoints God, we take the punishment for it. One of those punishments was losing Israel back in the day and being forced to be good citizens of whatever land we found ourselves in. Jews who study the Torah and believe in it are generally anti-Zionist, because being good citizens in our adopted countries is lit’rally a command from God. The Balfour Agreement and the formation/existence of Israel is apostasy. Zionists can ignore this all they want, but ignoring a fact does not make it less of a fact.³

That said, I think blaming today’s Israeli citizens for the wrongs of the past is absurd, as much as I think blaming today’s Americans for the wrongs of the Founding Fathers is absurd. I also think it’s absurd to blame everyday citizens in any country for the wrongs of their government. Remember how hard most of us cringed when we had to think about the Orange Shitgibbon being “our” president, just because he was the president? Yeah, that’s a mild version of what I’ve been seeing out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem lately. Israelis are pissed at Bibi and the government, and they’re not being quiet about it. 1200 people were murdered on October 7th, and over 200 people were taken hostage. Of those 200 original hostages, over 100 are still being held by Hamas. The hostages’ families and loved ones want answers, and they want their loved ones back. Bibi had to be reminded that there were hostages in the first place. Israelis aren’t stupid and they’re not brainwashed. They’re human beings who’ve just been through a major trauma and are hurting. Just because I support a free Palestine doesn’t mean I give carte blanche to Hamas, or think that their actions are justified just because I don’t support Israel. To quote John Oliver, “any conversation around this has to begin with empathy or we’re just fucked.” There are human beings on both sides of this conflict, and they are suffering, and they will suffer even more if we can’t get some kind of ceasefire and peace agreement in place.

(Also, that person I mentioned I had to block? Believes, and told me so, that “Israelis all support the government, because compulsory military service.” First of all, Sweden has compulsory military service, too, but I never hear anyone say “Swedes all support the Swedish government b/c they have to serve,” so maybe your real problem belongs in triple parentheses. Second, do you know absolutely zero Jews besides me, comrade? Have you never read the Bible, or at least the Old Testament? Have you never seen Fiddler on the Roof or Yentl? Jews literally argue with God! And you sit there, arrogant in your American privilege, thinking that Jews just blindly, blithely follow some dude who happens to be the Prime Minister of a country most Jews didn’t want to exist in the first place, because you think all Jews are Zionists? STFU. No wonder you’re on the “go back to Poland” train, you fucking “soshul wustice” poser. And did I mention that they said all of this and, when I called them out, said “I missed the part where you said you were Jewish”? It was lit’rally the second thing I said in that post! And I’ve never been secretive about my Jewish ancestry here! I’ve mentioned it many times! I’m not fuckin’ stupid, peeps; I know when you don’t read what I write.)

And the reason I feel like I have to say any of this? Because I do think antisemitism is on the rise right now, and that way too many people are using Palestine as a way to be antisemitic and get away with it. It’s hard to tell who’s doing it because they’re ignorant to how antisemitism and anti-Arabic sentiments and Islamophobia are interconnected, or who’s doing it because they genuinely believe they’re speaking on behalf of Palestinians (and that is just the absolute peak of white privileged narcissism, to me, any white person thinking they have the right to speak for an entire country full of brown people), or who is genuinely on the side of “I hate the Jews.” I mean, the last one can be easy to tell, but I also think that a lot of people, especially Gen Z and Millennials, are unaware of their own bias against Jews. Considering how few of us there are in the world, it’s entirely possible for a person who doesn’t live in Israel or New York City, or any other place with a large Jewish population, to live their entire life and never know anyone who’s Jewish, or even Jewish-ish like me.

Remember the kangaroo court that got three women, including a Black woman, dismissed from the presidencies of Ivy League colleges? I know that whole thing was a racist and misogynistic farce, but as I was reading and watching some of the coverage, I kept having this thought: “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. The worst people on the planet are making a really good point.” Not the point they wanted or intended to make, but a good point nonetheless. Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Sally Kornbluth all visibly and audibly hesitated when they were asked if, as Elise Stefanik (Hiss-NY) put it,“calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the colleges’ codes of conduct. The fact that they hesitated at all speaks volumes. And it’s not just about Jewish students, either: There are plenty of Zionists out there who are overblowing and overstating reports of antisemitism on college campuses. But the fact that anyone, especially highly educated people, hesitates when considering whether calling for a genocide against ANY group of people violates the college’s code of conduct is deeply disturbing to me.

The point these kangaroo jurors made that they didn’t intend was this: If you can equivocate on the humanity of one group of people, how little will it take for you to equivocate on the humanity of any group of people?

I was not put on this planet to decide who “gets” to live where, or who gets to live at all. I am not that important. I feel like if you’re on this planet, wherever you are, you deserve to live in peace and comfort. There is nothing you can do that will make me think you don’t deserve these things. You are here, that’s enough to make you “worthy”. And it doesn’t matter who “you” are. I don’t care if you’re Israeli, I don’t care if you’re Jewish , I don’t care if you’re Palestinian, I don’t care if you’re part of Hamas or Hezbollah, or even if you’re a Zionist. It doesn’t matter. You’re a person and you exist, that’s enough. I may disagree with your ideology. I may even think your ideology is destructively nihilistic and could, under the right circumstances, result in a loss of life that would make the Holocaust look absolutely fuckin’ cute. But I will never, ever, in a million years, equivocate on anyone’s humanity. No group of people should experience genocide. No group of people should even have genocide considered for them. No one. Ever. Anywhere. When I learned about the Holocaust, and when I understood that me merely having Jewish ancestry and Jewish relatives meant that I likely would have been killed, along with my family, during the Holocaust, I immediately believed that “Never Again” means “Never Again For Anyone.” I oppose the genocide in Palestine, on those grounds.

But I’m also going to speak up in defense of Jews, too. If you really think I should “go back to Poland,” that’s on you. (And it’s also wrong, because my Jewish ancestors were from the Russian empire; specifically, the Pale of Settlement, which is in modern-day Ukraine.) The Jewish diaspora is no more responsible for Bibi’s malignant narcissism and nihilism, any more than Palestinians and the Arabic diaspora are responsible for Hamas and Hezbollah. Again, there are fifteen million Jews on this planet, and believe it or not, we’re not a hive mind. We don’t agree on anything, almost, except for food, and even then, everything is up for debate. (Personally, my favorite Jewish food is gribenes.) Not all Jews are Zionists; political Zionism is a controversial idea, and always has been within the global Jewish community. Even Jews who believe Israel will come to them “one day” oppose political Zionism, because it’s in defiance of God’s will. You know how Christians generally believe the Rapture will happen “someday”? That’s how most Jews believe in their right to Israel, “when God wills it.” Also, there are 100 million Evangelical Christians in the US alone, and nearly all of them are Zionists. …Because they believe that the Rapture will happen when the Jews are wiped out. So, yeah, maybe don’t automatically equate Zionism with Jews? Is that a reasonable request?

I don’t know how to fix the problem of Israel and Palestine. Frankly, I don’t think anyone in the West has the right to put forth ideas. From the coverage I’ve seen, I genuinely don’t believe that either Israelis or Palestinians wants the other group gone, and they don’t want a war, especially WW3. Both Israelis and Palestinians strike me as just wanting an end to the conflict, and they, the people, are willing to come to the table and hear out all the options, but neither Netanyahu nor Haniyeh will agree to it. Maybe peace needs to start with those two being ousted from power. I don’t know. It’s not for me to decide.

All I know is, I’ve never felt less safe as someone with Jewish ancestry in this country before, especially as a leftist and socialist. It doesn’t matter that I say and believe the “right things,” I’m Jewish, and therefore I’m one of “the bad guys”. Or, I’m Jewish and anti-Zionist, so according to some Jews I’m betraying my people, therefore I’m one of “the bad guys.” And I know I’m getting the flack I do because I speak up. Jewish Voice for Peace has been banned from college campuses, because they’re anti-Zionist Jews who think Palestine should be free, and also because they’re Jewish and not toeing the Zionist line. If you’re in our position, you just can’t win. If you’re Jewish, you can’t win, even if you toe the Zionist line, because even the ones who aren’t saying “go back to Poland” aren’t going to speak up in your defense when the neo-Nazis come to call.

I don’t know. I’ve been thinking all of this for months. I wish I had the answers, because if I did, maybe I’d be able to effect some real change. But I don’t.

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¹Yes, I’m aware that Israel is one of those nine countries. Tell me, what do you think happens when a nuclear bomb goes off in a country that both has nuclear bombs itself and is relatively small? If you said, “The first bomb probably detonates any bomb it touches,” you are correct. That’s one of the reasons people are nervous about what looks like Bibi’s insistence on starting WW3: It would literally take just one strike to set off a chain reaction and eradicate most of the Middle East. And given that Russia, India, and North Korea -countries which do not like Israel in the first place- also have nukes, the idea of it being “just one strike” is laughable.

²I can’t really say what changed, or when, but from the time I heard/saw that clip (which I originally found through, ironically, Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast), the show has gotten super conservative and “bomb Palestine into the ground.” Eretz Nehederet is hard to find outside Israel, so I can only guess that the changes are either the result of an ageing and out-of-touch writing team, or Bibi/his administration had a personal hand in it. I’m guessing it’s a lil’ column A and a lot of column B, since I know Israel doesn’t have a free and open press, and the show’s “swings” at Nutter Yahoo have gotten a lot softer. Honestly, me calling the dude “Nutter Yahoo” is a harsher criticism than anything Eretz Nehederet has been saying of late, which is a crying shame, because the show used to really sink its teeth into him. I’ve been looking, in vain, for their take on 1 Versus 100, which, as Gladwell put it, was a skit responding to a war in which 116 soldiers died. In it, Bibi is the 1 and the solders are the 100, and every time Bibi answers a question, an audience member “dies” (their light is blacked out). If you’re at all familiar with the game show 1 Versus 100, then you’re probably gasping right now. But that’s what I love about Jewish comedy: It’s fucking brutal, especially against authority figures.

³And let’s just say that Jews really do take the heat for humanity; do Zionists ever stop and think, “Maybe all this bad shit happening to us is God being pissed at us for disobeying him, yet a-fucking-gain?” Because, newsflash, Zionists: That’s exactly how we lost Israel the first two times. And now you’re going to piss in God’s face again by bringing it back without him saying it’s time. 🙄 Meshuggeneh, all of you putzes.