Criticizing Israel

People will complain. "Say anything negative about Israel, and you're labeled antisemitic."

These people are right.

At the same time, they are also wrong.

It really depends on who is responding to their criticism.

If a right-wing Zionist is responding to the criticism, the critic will very likely be called antisemitic.

If a centrist or progressive Zionist is responding, it will depend on the criticism.  

And it will depend on the mood.

It will depend on the day.  

I'm hypersensitive about criticism of Israel; though I understand some criticism has merit.  

The other thing is. The same group/groups that accuse Jews of weaponizing antisemitism are probably the same groups who weaponize Islamaphobia.  

And vice-versa.

Maybe what we all need to do is learn to distinguish between deserved-criticism that hurts are feelings...because we're hypersensitive.  Vs. criticism that is dishonest, manipulative, involves double standards, etc.  

Offended by Products

If we are offended by products a store is selling, before we launch a loud boycott and pressure the store to stop selling the products; we should ask ourselves if the store sells products that we like that would offend others.  

I’m not going to be happy seeing watermelon-kids clothes saying Free Palestine.  If it’s a small business, I’ll just say it’s not a place I personally want to shop.  It certainly doesn’t need to be boycotted with the intent of pressuring the store to stop selling the product.  

If I’m fine with a small business selling pro-Israel products, I should be willing to accept a small store selling Pro-Palestinian products.  

If it’s a big store….

If it’s a big company selling free Palestine kids clothes, I would want to see them also selling Jewish and pro—Israel products.

If they don’t, I would be mad and offended.  

I’m not sure what I’d do with that anger besides trying not to shop there anymore.  

Well… if I had the time and energy, I’d reach out to the company to request they carry more Jewish products.  

All of this could apply to Christians offended by LGBTQ+ products.  

Or anti-Zionists offended by products made in Israel.  

Another Favorite Māori Word

I forgot one of my favorite Māori words.  

Mātakitaki.

It might be because it's one I have less confidence in.  Not that I have a ton of confidence in the words I listed yesterday.

I had to look up mātakitaki to make sure I knew how to spell it right.

And it turns out, I didn't.

I didn't realize there was a macron.

Now...hopefully I shall always remember that it does.

Mātakitaki as a verb means to watch.

Some simple sentences:

Kei te mātakitaki ia.  She watches/He watches.

I mātakitaki ngā ngeru.  The cats watched.

Ka mātakitaki ngā putiputi māwhereo.  The pink flowers will watch.

What will they watch?

I can't tell you in te reo Māori.  Because to clarify what nouns are doing with the verbs, you need to use either Ki or I...and I'm still confused about all that.

I'm a work in progress.

Please don't yell at me if I've made mistakes.  I'm very insecure.

But please do point out mistakes if in a kindly kaiako kind of way.  

I Watched a Bit of the National Book Awards

Every morning, I use random.org to pick a CSPAN video to watch.  (well, really mostly just listen to)

I don't force myself to watch the whole video.  I can watch as little or as much as I want.

Today I ended up with the National Book Awards ceremony.  

This is actually the second time I landed on this video.  

Because I had read about some antisemitism issues with the National Book Awards, the first time Random.org chose it for me, I could stomach listening to only a little bit.  

I moved the curser of the video somewhat randomly and ended up listening to the youth book awards.

A Syrian woman won and said many things in support of the Muslim experience; talked about Islamaphobia, and declared Free Palestine.

She and I are not on the same team in terms of the Middle East war.  I don't like what she said.  But I believe she has every right to say it.  I support people using their platforms to speak about the issues important to them.

What I wondered, though, is whether that same stage will ever be filled by a Jew and/or Israeli who has written a book about the suffering that occurred on October 7 or what Jewish students have endured on campuses and classrooms.  

Will books like that ever be even nominated?

Will they even be published...I mean by mainstream publishers?  Or will publishers, agents, editors, etc. fear the backlash too much?  Will they fear accusations of Islamaphobia?

On that note, if anyone does know of books being written or published about the Jewish/Israeli/Zionist lived experience regarding October 7 and the time following, please comment below.  I will (probably) add them to my to-read list.

My Favorite Māori Words

 A list of some of my favorite Māori words:

1. Waiporoporo-Purple

2. Pukapuka-Book

3. Tuhitui-Write

4. Waiata-Sing 

5. Putiputi-Flower

Blogging Changes

Besides writing tons of short posts instead of no posts or very long posts...I plan to make other changes.

A) I'm going to be writing some posts on my phone...which is part of the reason for B and C.

B) I think I'm going to stop using blue font for quotes. I've outgrown that. And I think it's going to be hard to do via my phone.

C) I'm going to do less linking.  Refer to A. Also: From what I've seen on Statcounter for the last 16 years, people rarely click on links. I think in most cases, if someone is interested in something, they can simply Google or go to the preferred app on their phone.  For example, if someone is interested in learning more about Liz Cheney's book, they can easily Google or search for it on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.  

There may be more or less linking depending on my mood, what the material is, if I'm on my phone or laptop, etc.  

I saw a Video Featuring Tom Cotton

This morning, the top post on my Instagram feed had a video of two Pro-Palestinian women having a confrontation with Tom Cotton.

The women were politely trying to convince him not to support a bill regarding nonprofit organizations. And he was less-eloquently telling them that their organizations are antisemitic. 

If I was a non-biased person judging the confrontation on performance alone, I would pick the pro-Palestinian women as the winners.

But I’m very much NOT unbiased. 

 I’m biased in multiple ways.  

I’m not on the so-called pro-Palestine side, because I believe they are pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and supportive of terrorism.

Yet I also have prejudices against Tom Cotton.  I knew he was Republican and that left-wing people are supposed to hate him. But left-wing people have also been pushed to hate Israel.  So….

Since I’m reading Liz Cheney’s book, I currently have it strongly in my mind that A) Some Republicans are very courageous defenders of Democracy and other lovely things B) Some Republicans have sold their soul to Trump.

I Googled Tom Cotton and Jan 6 and quickly got the sense that he was on team sold-soul-to-Trump. He was not on my team. 

And neither was the Instagramer propping Tom Cotton up as a hero to Jews.  

I unfollowed the account and also looked at the gushing comments to see if I was following any of them.  

I was glad to see I was not.

And THIS is what it’s like to be a woke/progressive Jewish Zionist post October 7.

I tend to do a lot of following, unfollowing… re-following, re-unfollowing.

I am following too many people, though. I want to have a smaller number made up of people who are against both Islamic terrorists AND white-supremacist terrorists.  

I want to follow more people that view both October 7 2023 and January 6 2021 as very bad days rather than inspiring, wonderful, or justified.  

As a Jew….

 One of the shows I’m currently watching is St Elsewhere.

So far, my favorite thing about watching the show is seeing all the guest stars.

For example, the boy needing leg surgery looked familiar.  I looked him up on IMdb and saw he was Jeremy Licht.  I scrolled down to see what I know him from.  

It turns out he played the infamous, wishful Anthony in the Twilight Zone movie.

The episode I’m watching today features David Packer who played Daniel Bernstein in the V miniseries. 

I think if social media had been a thing back in the (1980’s) V universe, Daniel would have started all his posts defending the planned genocide against humans with: As an Earthling….

Different Kinds of allies to Jews

This is something I've thought about before, but after listening to a podcast with Jonah Platt and Van Jones, I was inspired to think about it to an extra degree.

It's that...

I do appreciate white, right-wing people who support Israel. But I can't give them a lot of admiration.  Being pro-Israel is very popular in their groups, so it shouldn't take a lot of courage for them to express pro-Israel sentiments.  An exception might be if they're in the artistic community.  But if that's the case, they're probably already used to going against the tide.  I'm guessing they've already built up some tough layers of skin.  

I appreciate people who standing with Israel.  But my admiration goes to the people who are part of communities where the more popular thing is hating Zionists;  

Van Jones scoffed at Jews who whine that Black people should stand for Jews, because Jews protested for George Floyd.  He talked about how it had been popular to stand with George Floyd. There was no threat of being ostracized.  In fact, it was the cool thing to do.  In contrast, Black people are taking a big social risk/sacrifice by standing up for Jews.

I think Van Jones made a very good point, and I hope it will stop some Jews from whining about that.  

But, I think it only applied to those of us Jews on the left.

Being for BLM wasn't popular on the right.  So if a right-wing Jew did speak up against the killing of George Floyd and/or other victims of police brutality, they would have likely faced a lot of backlash.

Thinking about this has made me feel a little bit more generous towards people who have not spoken up against antisemitism. For some people, depending on which communities they belong to, simply not speaking up AGAINST Israel and Zionism, is an act of courage.  

And yes.  I very, very, very grudgingly admire the people who are antisemitic if they belong to communities where that sentiment is seen as unacceptable. But, of course, I surely don’t appreciate their hate.  

Countries

My heart is split between countries.  Mostly four.

The United States

Israel

New Zealand

Australia.

So...today...for example.

I listened to some of Liz Cheney's very patriotic book about the January 6 horror.

I spent time in our family room where our fireplace mantle is (almost) entirely Australia-themed.  

For my birthday, Tim bought be a whole set of Bluey stuffed animals.  I put those up there and added other Aussie stuff we own—a touristy didgeridoo, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, a book about Australian Prime Ministers, and a Sydney Swans hat.  

(Okay, and we also have the boxes with our cats ashes, because I felt wrong moving them. But besides that, everything else is very Australian)

I listened to te reo Māori music in the morning and spent a lot of time working with a wonderful new Māori app.  I mean it's new to me. I'm not sure how old it is to the universe.  

As for Israel, I listened to podcasts about Israel and antisemitism while doing garden work and housework.

I know this would be a better post if I actually listed the app and the podcasts.  But it's all on my phone and my phone is charging while I write this post on my laptop.

Sorry.  

If anyone feels the need for more specific info, comment below, and I can be more specific.  I mean as long as you do it soon.  In a few months.  Or weeks.  I won't have any idea what app or podcasts I was referring to.  

Dear M (Part 2)

Dear M,

Do you hate Israel?

Do you believe Israel shouldn't exist?

Or are you just against the war?

You might just be against the war and believe Israel should exist.  But if this is true, you should have posted something about October 7.  You should have posted something about the murders, the rapes, the kidnappings.  

Because that's the kind of persona you presented to the world.  A humanitarian.  A woman with compassion for people of all colors.  For mothers. For children.

I saw you as the type of person who would watch the news stories of October 7 and sob. And go to vigils.  And go to marches.  And speak out.

And yes, I would have expected you to turn around a few weeks later to cry for a ceasefire and to cry for Palestinians.  

A feminist, humanitarian, without skin in the game would cry for all and fight for all.  But you are not that.  At least not to me.

To me, you are just an antisemitic wearing the mask of a humanitarian.  

Dear M

Dear M,

I often wish I hadn't unfollowed you on Instagram.

In my better-angels moments (which are rare when thinking of you) the reason for my regret would be in hopes that we could have a dialogue about Israel.  Maybe I would make you less antisemitic and less stupid and you would make me more intuned with the Palestinian struggle and less stupid.

More often, though, I just want to see your feed...to see how often you tokenize antisemitic Jews.

And I want to see if what I remember is true.  Or did I just make it up inside my head.

Did you really post about bread on October 7?  

Or maybe it was the first thing you posted post October 7.

Many Short Ones Maybe

I've decided to return to blogging.

But instead of writing super long posts, I'm going to try and write many, many, many small posts.

Maybe like thirty a day.

If you by chance have me on some kind of email feed, I highly suggest you cancel.

Shit.  Especially if you get loud notifications for your email.

Unless you're trying to look busy and popular.

But I don't think that trick is going to work on most people.  They'll know you're just getting spam.   

 

Dear Republican Zionists

 Dear Republican Zionists,

You might not believe in systemic racism, but are you willing to agree that there is SOME racism in the criminal justice system?  Can you agree that, at the very least, there are some bad apples...some racist cops and some racist judges?

Whether you believe there IS systemic racism in America's criminal justice system or whether you accept there are at least two racist police officers out there, I very much doubt you would align yourself with left-wing people who say ACAB (all cops are bad) or Defund the Police.

I am guessing you are very much against defunding the police.  

I am guessing that if you did agree there is a little or a lot of racism in the criminal justice system, meaningful reform is the way to go.  Rather than defunding or demonizing everyone in that career.  

Could you perhaps be willing to take that same mindset and apply it to DEI and other such diversity initiatives?  I think it would be much more helpful to the Jewish community, and other human communities, if we wake people up to the antisemitism that unfortunately dwells in DEI and work towards reform.