Big D's Tumblr

It's difficult to be in left wing/liberal spaces (online and off) at the moment because the conversation always seems to drift to Israel/Palestine and there is a huge assumption (in left wing spaces among left wing people) that because you are (for example) an environmentalist or a supporter of trans people you are automatically pro-Palestine and anti-Israel too. I find myself having to ignore A LOT of hatred toward Jewish people these days from places and people I used to feel almost completely onboard with. I am not Jewish but I can vividly imagine, if I were, how devastating this realization would be. How suddenly unwelcome I would feel. How it would make me think "wow there really is nowhere besides Israel that is safe to be Jewish".

I have found myself switching to donating to Israeli environmental organizations and Israeli LGBTQ spaces because the UK-based ones I used to support keep posting about Palestine and the evil of Israel and I just can't with that.

The feminist spaces, the environmental spaces, the LGBTQ spaces, musicians I used to love.. I've stopped going, I've unfollowed. It's depressing. But I will NOT support anti-semitism. I will NOT support terrorism. I will NOT support Arab Muslim colonialism and expansionism. I will NOT support revisionist history or fundamentalist Islamist ideology. I will NOT infantilize Palestinians and regard them patronisingly as simply poor helpless victimized brown people that righteous white people must defend. I just won't. I don't care how trendy it becomes in left wing circles. I won't do it. I support my Israeli friends and Jewish people at large. I sympathize with them. I agree with Israelis right to defend themselves, their right to exist as a country and their ancient connection to the land. I even understand their anger. And no that doesn't make me a "genocide apologist" or a "baby killer" or a "zio-nazi" (ffs) no matter how many times those accusations are repeated. Good grief.

I'd say 'I despair' but truly I do not. I do have hope. I hope some of my former friends and peers will eventually come around. I hope they'll be embarrassed and sorry. I don't expect it but I hope. I will continue to be an environmentalist. I will continue to be a feminist. I will continue to support LGBTQ rights. I will not be pushed out of those spaces or away from those things by another subject I disagree with. I understand enough about propaganda and history and peer pressure and group think to endure and try to be forgiving (in advance.) But lord I'd be lying if I said it wasn't disappointing and disheartening and occasionally terrifying seeing and hearing people I know (thought I knew) and love (loved?) suddenly donning keffiyehs and waving signs with the Star of David crossed out on them (or re-drawn as a swastika.) And the utter lack of willingness to even try to see things from another perspective.

I could have written every single word of this myself - it’s been an incredibly disheartening experience seeing people and organisations I had so much respect for, who have done and continue to do amazing work in other areas, lose the plot completely and forget and betray every single one of their own ideals when it comes to Israel and to Jews in general. It’s like this monstrous antisemitism was lying dormant in so many people, just waiting to be awakened and the fact that it was a massacre where Israelis were the victims that did it disgusts me on so deep a level I don’t have words adequate to describe it.

They can pretend all they like that it’s the war that they’re protesting, that it’s because they care so much about the Palestinians, but it’s all bollocks. Innocent Israelis were being raped and tortured and massacred and kidnapped and these fuckers were celebrating while it was still happening and they were rallying in the streets protesting against Israel before they’d even fired a single retaliatory shot and before their dead were even cold. They pretend to give a shit about Palestinians, but where the fuck are they when the people of Gaza are rising up against Hamas and being tortured and murdered by their favourite terrorist idols for daring to oppose them? If they can’t blame the eternal scapegoat, they don’t give a shit.