![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dani has been posting almost nothing but Zionist dreck on Facebook for a year and a half. It is more and more painful to read. We had two huge fights about Gaza last year, both prefaced by me being unwilling to debate it scholastically with gem. I had HUGE PTSD flashbacks to fights with Andrew Hoerner, similarly bullying and avid to "change my mind" on something I told him I had no intention of changing my mind about (in that case, the need for an end to capitalism) via endless citation of sources blah blah blah.
I told Dani I refused to do that debate with gem, because gem's approach was exactly the same, piling on the minutiae of gem's "research" online.
But I finally caved and wrote a response to gem's last Zionist pile of steaming manure. Here it is.
* * * * * * *
I appreciate what [redacted] wrote, and I enjoyed the measured grace with which she demolished that troll. Just now, I was also very glad to read [redacted]’s contributions.
I cannot say the same for what you wrote, and have been writing, Dani. I have avoided commenting for months now, because it is so painful to see you absolutely not engage with either nuance or context, but solely raise antisemitic attacks (which of course are horrible and vile) and rail against Hamas (which of course is not an organization I support), and solely amplify the very few “Palestinian voices” (about four or five people, whom you cite over and over) which you believe are legitimate representatives of the hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced, traumatized, and dehumanized in this war. They don’t seem legitimate to me, and I have a lot of life experience with judging political writing and political positions. Hamza Howidy has a very, very small Google footprint for an actual community leader. And you never cite or pay attention to people like Bisan, the Palestinian woman journalist whose videos over the past sixteen months have often started with “I’m still alive”. Not that I am terribly au courant with social media, but she has more than 4 million followers.
The current underestimate of Palestinians dead is around 49,000, and the British medical journal Lancet (hardly a wild eyed leftist organ) suggests that the toll, over and above the doubtless thousands buried in the rubble that Israel has created of Gaza, would have been nearer 186,000 LAST JULY (from the Lancet, July 2024: “In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.” You never, never acknowledge this pain.
You have also viciously slandered the student anti-war movement, accepting every claim about what pro-Hamas positions they hold, asserting your interpretation of what “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means, informing me that Jewish Voice for Peace is some kind of a scam, run by non-Jews. I urge you to look at what Sacramento JVP has been doing for the past year and almost a half. They’ve had amazing events and book groups. If you want to read reputable sources that are not your internet go-tos, I recommend Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years War on Palestine.
None of this stuff is easy. My cousins and aunt are Jews, and are in pain about this war, and talking about it together is not easy. We did, a little bit, on the weekend of my father’s memorial. But I personally know activists who participated in different student encampments last year – encampments which were brutally taken down, harassed, and punished by cowed university administrations (the University of Wisconsin and Columbia’s Hind Hall) (speaking of tragedies you have never, noted, the vile targeting and murder of a whole family, with one five year old, Hind Rajab, left crying over a phone until she died too, while the Green Crescent ambulance trying to get to that car was ALSO destroyed by Israeli tank fire) and violently attacked by, yes, Zionists and diaspora Israelis (since you like that term) at the University of California at Los Angeles. You say derisively “It's been so frustrating to see posts with complete disinformation get thousands of notes. Or to watch so many encampments demand things that have zero effect on Gaza. End the school's contract with Hillel? Stop all foreign exchange programs with, and speakers or visiting scholars or research work with, any school in Israel?
If even some of that energy had been going into fundraising for people in Gaza, or demanding that Egypt stop war profiteering by charging $5k-$12k per person to cross the border, it seems like it would have gone such a long way.”
PLENTY of people have been fundraising for people in Gaza. I don’t know how much money I (and my nieces, and my sister and my brother-in-law and my stepmother) have donated to Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. BDS is supposed to have an effect on ISRAEL, not on the rubble left by Israeli bombings in Gaza. And what have US citizens to do with Egyptian policy? Our government is sending weapons to Israel to prosecute this war. That’s where our tax dollars are going, from Biden to Trump.
That’s the other thing about nuance and context. I was a part of my university’s anti-Apartheid/divestment movement, in 1985. The parallels hold. Parallels with other anti-colonialist struggles also hold, and you know what? The tactics of those people struggling against colonialism, against being dispossessed of their land, their rights, and their lives? Sometimes they were brutal and tragic. Native Americans, Algerians, Irish nationalists in the six counties, uMkhonte we sizwe (the armed wing of the ANC)... every accusation you hurl at Hamas, or the PFLP, was hurled at those groups. Plenty of people, Ronald Reagan, for one, were furious about the anti-apartheid movement’s call for boycotts and divestment, including cultural boycotts, claiming that “constructive engagement” was what was needed. But international sanctions and boycotts took down Ian Smith’s white Rhodesian government, and helped free Nelson Mandela.
When I read your posts these days, I feel like Alice in Wonderland being dragged painfully and bloodily through the shards of a broken looking glass, where almost every sentence is only true backwards.
* * * * * * *
Dani's response? Privately, to tell me I have no room to tell gem I disagree with gem because I have two friends who are TERFS, in Britain. Does gem think I haven't told THEM I disagree with them? Publicly, on FB, to ignore any substantive point and once again plow into internet research gem has done, which tabs gem currently has open, etc.
I told Dani I refused to do that debate with gem, because gem's approach was exactly the same, piling on the minutiae of gem's "research" online.
But I finally caved and wrote a response to gem's last Zionist pile of steaming manure. Here it is.
* * * * * * *
I appreciate what [redacted] wrote, and I enjoyed the measured grace with which she demolished that troll. Just now, I was also very glad to read [redacted]’s contributions.
I cannot say the same for what you wrote, and have been writing, Dani. I have avoided commenting for months now, because it is so painful to see you absolutely not engage with either nuance or context, but solely raise antisemitic attacks (which of course are horrible and vile) and rail against Hamas (which of course is not an organization I support), and solely amplify the very few “Palestinian voices” (about four or five people, whom you cite over and over) which you believe are legitimate representatives of the hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced, traumatized, and dehumanized in this war. They don’t seem legitimate to me, and I have a lot of life experience with judging political writing and political positions. Hamza Howidy has a very, very small Google footprint for an actual community leader. And you never cite or pay attention to people like Bisan, the Palestinian woman journalist whose videos over the past sixteen months have often started with “I’m still alive”. Not that I am terribly au courant with social media, but she has more than 4 million followers.
The current underestimate of Palestinians dead is around 49,000, and the British medical journal Lancet (hardly a wild eyed leftist organ) suggests that the toll, over and above the doubtless thousands buried in the rubble that Israel has created of Gaza, would have been nearer 186,000 LAST JULY (from the Lancet, July 2024: “In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.” You never, never acknowledge this pain.
You have also viciously slandered the student anti-war movement, accepting every claim about what pro-Hamas positions they hold, asserting your interpretation of what “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means, informing me that Jewish Voice for Peace is some kind of a scam, run by non-Jews. I urge you to look at what Sacramento JVP has been doing for the past year and almost a half. They’ve had amazing events and book groups. If you want to read reputable sources that are not your internet go-tos, I recommend Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years War on Palestine.
None of this stuff is easy. My cousins and aunt are Jews, and are in pain about this war, and talking about it together is not easy. We did, a little bit, on the weekend of my father’s memorial. But I personally know activists who participated in different student encampments last year – encampments which were brutally taken down, harassed, and punished by cowed university administrations (the University of Wisconsin and Columbia’s Hind Hall) (speaking of tragedies you have never, noted, the vile targeting and murder of a whole family, with one five year old, Hind Rajab, left crying over a phone until she died too, while the Green Crescent ambulance trying to get to that car was ALSO destroyed by Israeli tank fire) and violently attacked by, yes, Zionists and diaspora Israelis (since you like that term) at the University of California at Los Angeles. You say derisively “It's been so frustrating to see posts with complete disinformation get thousands of notes. Or to watch so many encampments demand things that have zero effect on Gaza. End the school's contract with Hillel? Stop all foreign exchange programs with, and speakers or visiting scholars or research work with, any school in Israel?
If even some of that energy had been going into fundraising for people in Gaza, or demanding that Egypt stop war profiteering by charging $5k-$12k per person to cross the border, it seems like it would have gone such a long way.”
PLENTY of people have been fundraising for people in Gaza. I don’t know how much money I (and my nieces, and my sister and my brother-in-law and my stepmother) have donated to Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. BDS is supposed to have an effect on ISRAEL, not on the rubble left by Israeli bombings in Gaza. And what have US citizens to do with Egyptian policy? Our government is sending weapons to Israel to prosecute this war. That’s where our tax dollars are going, from Biden to Trump.
That’s the other thing about nuance and context. I was a part of my university’s anti-Apartheid/divestment movement, in 1985. The parallels hold. Parallels with other anti-colonialist struggles also hold, and you know what? The tactics of those people struggling against colonialism, against being dispossessed of their land, their rights, and their lives? Sometimes they were brutal and tragic. Native Americans, Algerians, Irish nationalists in the six counties, uMkhonte we sizwe (the armed wing of the ANC)... every accusation you hurl at Hamas, or the PFLP, was hurled at those groups. Plenty of people, Ronald Reagan, for one, were furious about the anti-apartheid movement’s call for boycotts and divestment, including cultural boycotts, claiming that “constructive engagement” was what was needed. But international sanctions and boycotts took down Ian Smith’s white Rhodesian government, and helped free Nelson Mandela.
When I read your posts these days, I feel like Alice in Wonderland being dragged painfully and bloodily through the shards of a broken looking glass, where almost every sentence is only true backwards.
* * * * * * *
Dani's response? Privately, to tell me I have no room to tell gem I disagree with gem because I have two friends who are TERFS, in Britain. Does gem think I haven't told THEM I disagree with them? Publicly, on FB, to ignore any substantive point and once again plow into internet research gem has done, which tabs gem currently has open, etc.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
