Being neither Jewish nor Palestinian, idk what to think about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. It doesn’t seem entirely like the typical oppressor-victim, privileged-oppressed dynamic- while the oppression of the Palestinians is indefensible, Jewish people are also “victims”, and for many Israel was the only place they could be safe.

solacekames:

I’m on the outside too but I never felt a second of hesitation about being pro-Palestinian and against the Israeli occupation. Maybe it’s easier for me because here in the US we have the clear example of whacko Christian Zionists who are basically everything any moral person DOESN’T want to be: they’re pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic and anti-semitic and anti-Christian (because Palestinian Christians are on their shit list too). 

So I believe criticizing the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a moral imperative for US citizens (since so much of our money goes to Israel’s military), and is not in itself anti-semitic. Many Jewish Israeli citizens have harsh criticisms of the occupation too! That being said, a lot of people use Palestinians as an excuse to be anti-semitic and equate all Jewish people with the actions of the Israeli government. Conversely, a lot of people also use Israel as an excuse in order to hate on Palestinians and all Muslims in general. And some far right people even do both of those things at the same time. There’s massive amounts of disinformation going around. 

But even if there wasn’t such a ton of disinformation, the conflict still wouldn’t fall under a neat “oppressor-victim dynamic” because a neat oppressor-victim dynamic only exists in textbooks and abstract models, not in the real world. Yeah, it’s complicated, but all large-scale geopolitical conflicts are complicated. 

I think what makes it especially complicated is that Middle Eastern countries have expelled their own Jewish citizens to Israel numerous times, essentially making most Jews of MENA descent in Israel also refugees or descendants of refugees. In their case it was “go to Israel or die.” The Holocaust survivors essentially became stateless refugees also and many were massacred when they tried to return to their home villages. “for many Israel is the only place they could be safe” has quite a bit of truth to it. But I think there’s a difference between a people living someplace and them occupying another people’s place and controlling their way of life. I get Zionists telling me “aha you think Israelis should have a place to live that means you are one of us!” which kind of reminds me of when people used to say “feminism is equality between men and women therefore anyone who thinks women and men are equal is a feminist.” It’s a tactic movements use to try to broaden their appeal but it runs up against reality and when I say…pretty much anything else about the occupation, Zionists don’t like it.