Comments on: On Gaza: speaking as a leftist, American Jew

By: Richard Jeffrey Newman

Richard Jeffrey Newman — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:48:27 +0000

Hi, Not sure exactly how I clicked through to here, but I like this post, and I thought you'd be interested in what I'm writing about on my blog, It's All Connected: What We Talk About (And Don't Talk About) When We Talk About (And Don't Talk About) antisemitism. Cheers!

By: belledame222

belledame222 — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:32:14 +0000

“Many Americans see Israel more as a colony than a separate state”

Yes, thank you. This. I don’t know what to do with that either. Especially when people-Jewish or otherwise-assume I must have this strong affinity with the place, on discovering that I’m not only American, I’m -gasp- *Jewish.* I’ve never been there, you know? No one in my immediate family lives there or has much affinity either afaik. Well–parents, anyway, I’m sure more distant relatives do, but well we don’t talk about it much…

By: belledame222

belledame222 — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:22:30 +0000

Oh fuck yes. Well, my way of dealing with it has been to resolutely remain largely uninformed of the details, as best I can, anyway. Sort of the equivalent of sticking fingers in my ears and going LALALALALALA. And I mean, I don’t feel I need lots of details to hold onto my general feeling that um yeah, well basically what E. Bernstein just said, and that there’s a gross imbalance of firepower here, and it is hard for me to hold onto the idea of the bigger guns being the more “oppressed” in THIS context, even if they’re a) historically oppressed (otoh who -isn’t- at some point?) b) oh, the fun part, as you say: all the hectoring from relatives and mailing lists and friends of friends of and well people just -assume-, don’t they: that they’re supposed to be -my team-.

plus, 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 eleventy+infinitude, and yeah, I was in New York, too. Islam is bad mkay; Israel is the one beacon of sanity and democracy in the ME, without it holding down the fort THERE GOES THE WORLD. That’s the narrative, right? And then of course, well -yeah- there are a lot of really really irate fundamentalist types who’d like us wiped off the map for reals, yes, -too-. But. My head.

and Palestine wasn’t exactly one of the more fundamentalist places -before-, I don’t think…

By: E. Bernstein

E. Bernstein — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:14:12 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I think you speak for a lot of people who feel similarly but are afraid to speak up and potentially be seen as “incorrect” on all sides. I’m not a zionist and have never felt like I have a “birthright” to Israel (or even half of one, since I’m just half Jewish!)…I recognize the fact that Jewish people who chose to move there after lethal oppression have a very PTSD mindset and need a place to live, but I have never felt comfortable with the idea of evicting everyone else who had lived there for thousands of years! Now what remains is the legacy of oppression: one group of oppressed, traumatized people turning around and doing it to another group of people. There’s a lot more I could say but then I might as well take the time to write my own essay (and not monopolize your page!).