You can't hang out when you're being bombed
RS:
We don’t do serious journalism here and if we have ever touched global politics, it has been in jest. But my family is from Gaza, so I can’t stop watching the genocide happening against my people. Gaza, a small piece of land blockaded on all sides, is being relentlessly bombed by Israel. Thousands of innocent people are dying. Israel just issued an evacuation order to 1.1 million people with nowhere to go. This is just one example of the pain being experienced by Palestinians, many of them who are just kids:
If we only have a few minutes of your attention today, please direct it towards Gaza. You can follow @gazangirl on Instagram – she is aggregating posts from people on the ground as well as sharing the historical context. I wrote a message to my friends in an attempt to simplify what is too often framed as “complicated.” This piece published earlier this week also does an excellent job of summarizing.
I don’t know what to do that will make a meaningful difference. Israel has been blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. We can tell Congress to stop sending weapons and fueling more violence. We can donate to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, but that won’t stop the bombs. My hope is that by sharing this with you all, we can at least shift a small amount of public opinion against the occupation and towards the liberation of Palestine.
HK:
Very well said. The only thing I’d like to add is that as a Jewish person, I’m disappointed when claims of anti-semitism are levied against those who criticize Israel’s abhorrent treatment of Palestinians. There is a very real and valid fear among Jews that we will be persecuted. The holocaust was less than a century ago. So I am empathetic to those sensitive to the threat of Jewish persecution. I really am.
All of that being said, it feels to me that this fear of anti-semitism is being co-opted (and in some cases strategically weaponized) to allow the state of Israel to continue its unlawful and inhumane treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Lastly, I want to plug the first season of podcast Blowback. It’s a strange rec in this case because it is not about Israel at all, it is about America's involvement in the Iraq war. I want to plug it though because it provided me some extremely valuable context for how American consent for wars and human rights violations happen. I’m seeing lots of parallels.