I just need to scream into the void about my unwanted, unasked for, and unnecessary Genocide-Perpatrated-For-My-People's-Alleged-Safety Emotions. Please don't engage with this if you do not want to, it is neither important to acknowledge nor should it be the focus of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. I just. Need to put it somewhere, and Cohost feels less naked and cruel than my other options.
Part I: Propaganda For The Persecuted
I keep thinking about my aunt, who led peace delegations to Palestine for over a decade, trying to bridge what seemed like an unbridgeable gap. I saw her three weeks ago- She flew in to be with her friend from Gaza as he got married. None of his family could attend.
I was spoon fed propaganda from as far back as I can remember, and even now I see things in split view, slip into a "we" that does not include me.
When I went to Spain to see where my family came from, before they were expelled in 1492, the modern museums talked about us in past tense. All that was left of us were rooms and rooms of gravestones.
I can’t stop thinking about my dad sitting me down and explaining that the IDF drops flyers on civilian areas to warn them to leave, that they don't want to hurt innocent people. He told me that Hamas uses schools and hospitals as shields, though, so we have no choice but to bomb them. I remember thinking how cruel it was that “we” were forced to do that. How at least “we” were being as kind as possible.
Last week I visited Rhodes, the final place my grandmother's family lived together before they were exterminated. They were the very last group of Jews to be deported to camps, the longest journey (nearly a month, from Greece to Auschwitz). Of a community of 1615, dating back to the 12th century at least, 90% were murdered over the course of 3 hours. Only 1 (gone now) returned to the judería after the camps.
I used to lie awake at night and plan out where I would go when they came for me next. I mentally packed and repacked my backpack- a change of clothes. running shoes. coins saved up in my piggy bank, sewn into a skirt. nona’s menorah. teddy bear. pokémon cards.
No wonder I was afraid to let go of the notion of a safe and just place that I could run to. Mighty but fair. Surely a place like that would be kind.
Part II: A Weapon For Whom?
Part of why a I had such a hard time letting go of the myths that had been central to my childhood is because I could not fathom how a people - how MY people - who had lived through unspeakable dehumanization and eradication could willingly do the same to another.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the hugeness of not only my grief, not only my anger, but my sheer inability to grasp how we could do this, given our history.
I am not Israeli, I am a diaspora Jew. I am vocally pro-Palestinian liberation. I am demonstrably anti-Zionist. So why do I feel responsible for the atrocities being committed halfway around the world, by people I despise? Why do I feel as if I need to crawl on my hands and knees, begging wailing and pleading forgiveness for something I am actively fighting against?
Having any emotions other than pure rage while the Israeli government is preparing to commit ethnic cleansing coats my insides with an oilslick of shame. But my confusion, my grief, my despair, the enormity of it all is ballooning in a way where I can't focus on anything else. Clearly I must be selfish, callous, culpable.
How stupid I must've been, to believe in the inherent goodness of people.
Whether I want it or not, who I am is a tool to be used right now. There is no room for me to be anything but a cudgel, and so I need to wield myself in defense of the people facing genocide rather than let the fascist Israeli government use me to beat them bloody.
But I have never made a good weapon.
Part III:
How do I touch this grief without breaking apart?