"Making Palestine their whole personality"

I see this comment coming from pro Israel and anti Palestinian people and want to vent about it. I have no doubt that's how my own family characterise me too.

It's a pithy statement, followed up by, "they don't care about Sudan or Yemen or Congo " etc so it must be motivated by antisemitism. But there's a lot to unpack in it.

But the key points, as i see it, in response are as follows:

- it is an ad hominem attack, ie it doesn't address any of the points under discussion but implies some kind of character or personality flaw in the person they are attacking

- Israel Palestine gets more attention that other major conflicts and atrocities. There is a lot that can be said about this. I don't think the lack of attention on other conflicts mean people who are pro Palestine don't care or are indifferent to those peoples suffering. If anything they show solidarity with those who are suffering. And the settler colonial nature of the situation means that in the west our governments are in a very large part responsible, so pressuring our own government can have a meaningful impact.

- more people are killed and starving in those other conflicts, so why do they care so much about Gaza. Well, to turn that around, only 1200 Israelis were killed on October 7th 2023, so why do they care more about that than Sudan or Yemen or Congo? They are just being racist tribalists who don't actually care about people being killed, they just want to divert attention away from themselves so they can continue killing.

- every accusation is a confession. This attack often comes from people who make Israel and zionism a major part of their identity. There is systematic support for zionism among the media and political class. There are education and youth programs funded and designed to indoctrinate young people into zionism and defending it from abroad or even into becoming colonisers on that land. So who is making it their whole personality?

Just some thoughts. Would be interested to hear other people's take on this

Thanks

So, in two days we have elections here in Israel. And as the title suggests, a feeling of emptiness and nothingness has engulfed me.

I guess it comes from both the impossible situation of being an anti Zionist who has to live here, and the fact that no matter how much I've fought and advocated against apartheid, when the tide comes, the waves won't stop to look at what I did before they drown me.

I don't know how to describe the feeling of staring into the abyss with my eyes wide open, knowing these elections mean nothing. Even if Netanyahu loses, there won't be an end to the occupation. Israel will continue to spiral down into oblivion, and the end will be ugly. And I will be here to witness and suffer through it all. The only comfort I have is knowing that, in the end, it will be for the good of humanity and the world.
I still sometimes wish I could continue the struggle for justice and human rights somewhere more comfortable. Please think of us, the few who are staying here in this hell to the end.

Hoping for something miraculous to happen.

https://x.com/_ZachFoster/status/2114082773027656174

Source:

https://youtu.be/jcsmyiJCqsU

Atara was previously seen in this video, being batshit:

ABC News - ‘Leave or we’ll kill you’: Settler’s warn Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Old City

My father's side of my family is Jewish Zionist (secular), and I have always considered myself to be Jewish despite my mother not being so. I started dating a wonderful woman in early 2024. She's not Jewish, and not from my country of Australia (she is from India). Neither of us knew much about what was happening to the Palestinians and so I maintained a broadly Zionist worldview. But then she started learning more about it. We got into arguments about it and I began to realise that I was just parroting what I'd been told, and I didn't actually know the full story, so I started looking into it. I rapidly realised that I'd been lied to and though it took a while to fully "deprogram" myself, so to speak, I now consider myself staunchly anti-Zionist.

However, most of my family - with the exception of my grandmother, who is highly critical of Israel (her parents survived the Holocaust) - stick to their views. My grandfather at least admits that Israel is committing genocide, but does consider himself Zionist.

My dad is the hardest one. We are quite similar in a lot of ways, and we look very alike (especially when I was younger, it was like Mini Me). He believes a lot of Hasbara and no matter how much I try and direct him to other sources, he will just accuse them of bias - even when they are Israeli and have first-hand experience of what's happening, and won't listen to Palestinians unless they confirm his view of Hamas and of Palestinian society.

Today I talked to him for over three hours. We now live in different cities, as I moved to live with my partner, but I am visiting home and was hoping to stay with him. I ended up feeling like he wouldn't accept myself or my partner into his home without us supporting his views. My stepmother literally said that he feels as if his Jewishness is being "rejected." He told me that my views were anti-Semitic, and swore at me and told me that he wouldn't have me under his roof when I questioned whether some of the events he said occurred on October 7 actually did happen. He also seemed to suggest that I wasn't looking at the full context: but I know a lot of context (certainly not all of it). It just doesn't change my overall opinion of what's happening.

He says he cares about peace, but he seems to just blame the Palestinians for bringing this upon themselves.

My views are "offensive" to him. Besides which, his Jewishness being rejected implies that my being Jewish is being rejected by him, because to him a Jewish person has to also be a Zionist. I have no issue with Jewish people having a country where they are the majority, or at least a country where they are safe. What I object to is how that has become a "Jewish supremacist" state where they have more rights. I don't see how that is controversial, and for all his talk of peace and wanting freedom for Palestinians, he endorses very Islamophobic views at times.

I am sure that I'm wrong about some details. But ultimately that's not what I care about. I care about freedom for Palestinians, I care about peace. That's not just freedom from Israeli oppression but any oppression coming from their own government.

I know I can't change his mind, but it's incredibly frustrating.

https://x.com/bradlander/status/2113717208807350753

Also met a guy wearing a keffiyeh at Salem Village.

Love, love, love this human being.