Trigger Warning
To the woman who came to the door asking that we take down our "End the Occupation/Free Palestine" sign because she found it triggering:
Warning: This poem might trigger you.
Because when I say “Free Palestine”
You hear “Kill the Jews”
Because when I say “Nakba”
You hear “Krystallnacht”
Because when I say “Stop the genocide”
You hear “Support Hamas”
Because my sympathy for Gazans makes you uncomfortable
Because you think being uncomfortable is the same as being in danger.
Warning: The keffiyeh that this poem is wrapped in might trigger you
Might make you uncomfortable
Because when the poem sees children in Gaza burning
You only see Jewish children burning
Because this keffiyeh asks you to be aware of others, to care about others.
Warning: This poem might trigger you
Because for you the conflict started October 7
Because you know your army is the most moral
Because you see genocide as self-defense
(And, besides, the only genocide ever was the genocide of your people) (my people!!)
and you’d rather not have your convictions challenged.
Because you planted a tree in Israel every Tu B'shvat
Because you didn't know the trees were planted to hide bulldozed Palestinian villages
Because you knew it was your land given to you by the British, the UN, and God
Even though it was never theirs to give.
This poem might trigger you
Because you want two million Gazans to disappear and killing them one by one
Is too slow --
And makes you Uncomfortable. Lil Blume, December 1, 2024.
Great poem, lil. Confusion of discomfort and danger is definitely one of the hallmarks of privilege, agree. The pro-Israel, vehemently anti-Trump contingent of American liberals will never make sense to me. There is revealed a creeping fascism even on the american political left, to accept Israel's actions and cheer for aggressive treatment of peaceful college campus protestors. Ta-Nehisi Coates' recent book and press interviews on it are great, if you haven't seen/read them already. And the US seems headed for an apartheid of its own. I hope you are well. I'm alright :).
Thanks Am I checked hubski today to see reactions to the election, and then thought to send the poem. I haven't noticed pro-Israel and anti-Trump together. But I can imagine, because Liberal Zionists are basically progressive and liberal for everything except Palestine. So sad. F'g psychopath Netanyahu was the first world leader to congratulate Trump. Thanks for the recommendation Ta-Nehisi Coates. I haven't dug into him too deeply, but I'm aware. I've been reading and watching Timothy Snyder. I am reading his new book On Freedom and of course On Tyranny
Masha Gessen is really good too, re: fascism and human rights, would recommend some interviews of them.
Al Franken, in one of his books, answered the "why Israel" question with "because it's the only democracy in the middle east and that ought to count for something." That said, it has become an increasingly illiberal democracy since Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and, if we're being honest, has been about Israel first, last and always from the drop. Israel has great PR, though, is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world from a lobbying standpoint and has goals that have traditionally aligned with the US often enough for us to let them get away with murder. Should you question this decision they remind you of their PR and lobbying and that's it for you. Lemme show you a li'l movie about terrorists and terrorism: From a simplistic, uninvestigated standpoint, the Middle East is full of hook-nosed stereotypes we'll never understand, all of them hell-bent on annihilating those poor people Hitler tried to finish off. Question that narrative and find another line of work.The pro-Israel, vehemently anti-Trump contingent of American liberals will never make sense to me.
I’ll have to be fair to their argument though. The reason Jews are so gung ho about Israel and so willing to do anything to defend it it’s basically about hundreds of years of Jewish history. Jews got kicked out of their homes, exiled, pogroms everywhere, often for things that they had nothing to do with. And of course there’s the holocaust after all of that. From that perspective, Israel is basically the only place where Jews can at least to some degree control their own fate. And that’s not something they’ll give up, obviously.
Except that there have been incidents of antisemitism in the USA as well. It’s not something that you can easily guarantee because Jews in NYC are at the mercy of the rest of us, and like most in NYC are not allowed to be armed. I really don’t have a good answer, but as I said, the history of Judaism when Jews don’t have an Army and Navy is pretty bleak. Even leaving aside the Nazis, Jewish history pretty much shows why they need an ethos Tate somewhere with an army and navy under their control.