i’ve been fairly quiet on social media about what’s going on in much of the world right now, and while i’m very vocal and opinionated in person and everyday life, i learned last year during BLM protests that getting into disagreements or being made to constantly explain myself to people who had already made up their minds about controversial issues and weren’t actually looking for a real discussion constantly popping up in my DMs were not only mentally exhausting but eventually physically taxing. despite not wishing to attract that kind of energy and interaction into my social media accounts, i actually have a lot to say on the matter, not all of which i can even detail below because it would just go on indefinitely.
what’s happening in occupied palestine is abhorrent and has been an ongoing nightmare for palestinians for several decades. it has been really disheartening to witness my wonderful jewish friends recoil or lash out at any mention of palestine, accuse their friends of anti-semitism for speaking up about the conflict, and angrily attack the concept of “performative action” in total deflection of the actual issues at hand. moreover, i find that most defenses focus entirely on perceived israeli rights to “exist” (see: “occupy”) or “defend” (see: “repeatedly bombard”) and rarely if ever even mention palestine or the palestinian people. the denial of palestinian existence feels so deeply internalized that its complete absence from the argument goes unnoticed by the defendent. i want to address many of the accusations and deflections i’ve witnessed over the last several weeks.
firstly and perhaps most importantly – acknowledging what palestinians are being subjected to and the immeasurable losses they continue to face in the ceaseless nakba is not automatically anti-semitic discourse, and i have been immensely disappointed to see friends and acquaintances alike fail to make this distinction – the two are not mutually exclusive. and yes, settler colonialism has happened all over, including in the U.S., but drawing attention to that in defense of the “state of israel” and away from the ongoing ethnic cleansing and displacement in palestine is a textbook logical fallacy that ultimately only serves to deflect any sense of responsibility to what is now (and relatively newly, i might add) referred to as the “state of israel” for this process of settler-colonialism. pointing out that it’s happened in canada also does not make its presence in palestine any less pervasive or volatile. the diaspora is real.
as the descendent of both african slaves and their white settler rapists, i have my own respective experience and understanding (while of course not fully comparable) of how difficult it can be to tend to your own ancestral grief and trauma while attempting to simultaneously reconcile the inner conflict that exists with the role your own bloodline has played in displacing another entire people. however, we have to find ways to separate these complex feelings into their appropriate compartments. we can both acknowledge the wrongs that have been done to us AND acknowledge the wrongs done to others on our behalf that we are still currently benefitting from and acknowledge the immense harm in that.
i’ve also seen the argument coming to israel’s defense because the UN established the state, making it a supposedly “international decision.” however, the initial partition plan for palestine was understandably rejected by all arab leaders, and despite this the jewish agency went ahead with occupation anyway, with military backing by other countries. when everyone else makes decisions about a land occupation and displacement against the wishes of those living there, it certainly cannot be called a unanimous or harmonious decision. additionally, the partition was initially proposed to allocate 56% of palestinian land to israeli rule (already outrageous), and today over 85% is occupied and increasing. the issue of religion or any so-called covenant as to who the land “rightfully” belongs to is moot – whatever the answer could possibly be, it doesn’t justify the murder and displacement of millions of palistinians over decades any more than “manifest destiny” justified the murder and displacement of millions of indigenous people of turtle island. we retroactively condemn american imperialism, but are afraid to acknowledge the parallelism within palestine. can we only call something what it is hundreds of years after its start when it feels too late to stop it and after all the benefits have been reaped?
again, acknowledging the objective realities that have come to pass are not inherently anti-semitic statements. while we’ve seemingly come to the collective acknowledgement that european settlers in america led to the oppression and exploitation of a multitude of indigenous peoples, africans subsequently brought over and forced into hundreds of years of servitude, as well as the exploitation of asian immigrants made to build our railroads for meager earnings and then attempted erasure from the history books and depriving them of due credit, and a number of other grievances against multiple ethnicities and peoples in our 500+ year history of the ongoing settler-colonialism of turtle island – we seem to have a much harder time acknowledging the similarities in displacement and ethnic erasure occurring in palestine in just the past 70 years. we shout black lives matter, we shout stop asian hate, we condemn politicians for separating mexican families – but when it comes to criticizing israel, too many have hesitated, and i’m having a hard time understanding why. the role of israel is not as unique as many would try to have you believe, and it is not exempt from the responsibility of enacting a genocide not entirely unlike the one that it sought to protect its own people from.
