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   100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:36 JST 100% OPSEC

   I don't know if gentiles have are aware of this, so I feel a need to speak. You've likely noticed lately the extraordinary and harsh repercussions that people criticizing Israel face, even if they are Jews. I want you to know this also happens within Jewish communities and families. Probably every anti-Zionist Jew can tell you a story of alienation from some Jewish group for their politics.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:35 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     As a recent example from my own life, three weeks ago (after October 7), my mom texted me. I didn't respond immediately. The next day she said she was afraid that I had been kidnapped by Palestinians... while I was sitting safely at home in Chicago. My mom has been saying wildly racist shit about Palestinians, and other racialized peoples, my whole life. It's one reason I wasn't enthusiastic about responding to her text immediately.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:38 JST 100% OPSEC

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     We must resist Zionism for Palestinians' safety as well as our own. Our fates are inextricably bound with those of our cousins. Israeli propaganda claims that Israel makes the world safe for Jews. I have heard this trope from my family. But is precisely the opposite. No Jew anywhere in the world is safe while the state of Israel oppresses Palestinians in our name. Israeli violence fuels anti-Semitism everywhere.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:40 JST 100% OPSEC

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     It is imperative for Jews to reclaim our identity, our faith, and our traditions from Zionism. It is such a tragedy that these are conflated with a settler colonial state committing genocidal violence. We must not let them win in defining Jewish identity.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:42 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     In the same meeting, a younger Jew told her story of telling her dad about challenging Zionism. Despite her dad rarely expressing their Jewish identity much her whole life, her dad was so enraged that he threatened to never talk to her again.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:43 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     Last night in a meeting of JVP, an elder told her story of visiting the West Bank in the early 2000's soon after the Second Intifada. She saw the occupation of Palestine herself and saw the city of Jenin in ruins. When she came home, her synagogue refused to even let her speak about her experience.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:44 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     The only Jewish organization I've ever felt comfortable in is Jewish Voice for Peace. Just about any other Jewish organization, I can count on it being Zionist, and facing harsh backlash and/or exile if I speak up for Palestinians. Sometimes even saying the word "Palestine", even acknowledging that Palestinians exist, is enough to trigger severe backlash from other Jews.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:45 JST 100% OPSEC

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     I don't know if you've ever talked to a Palestinian, but in my experience, and the experiences of my Jewish friends, Palestinians tend to be extremely kind. I recall once the Palestinian man who owns a restaurant in my neighborhood giving me baklava with my food for free, just to be nice. My friend has had similar experiences at another Palestinian American restaurant. To suggest these people want to kidnap me is ludicrous.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:47 JST 100% OPSEC

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     It is up to Jews to challenge our own, and our fellow Jews' active support and passive complicity in settler colonialism, not only in Palestine, but everywhere. My grandfather changed his name to avoid anti-Semitism and assimilate, and now my mother identifies as white. Many Ashkenazim, particularly in the US where most Jews live today, identify as white and are happy to benefit from white privilege. This too must be challenged.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:48 JST 100% OPSEC

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     Many Jews support Zionism not only ideologically, but also materially. The Jewish National Fund collects money from Jews around the world, especially the USA, to colonize Palestine. I went to high school with a Jew who volunteered to fight Palestinians in the IDF, and I don't think he was an Israeli citizen who was conscripted. These must be challenged.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 04:43:50 JST 100% OPSEC

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     It is anti-Semitic to conflate all Jews with Zionism. But it is anti-Palestinian to say this without acknowledging that many, if not most, Jews do support Zionism. I say this not to invite anti-Semitic attacks on Jews, but as an invitation to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

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     Rozalia Sofia (redrozalia@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:44 JST Rozalia Sofia

     in reply to

     • zeh

     @be
     @zeh
     it is little-discussed history that deserves more attention, i agree with that. but the element of the analysis i was criticizing was the "challenging the conception of ashkenazim etc. as proletarian because of assimilated whiteness", the claim that the class character of a group changes because of how they change their self-identification.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:44 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • zeh
     • Rozalia Sofia

     @redrozalia @zeh The point isn't their self identification. It's the privileges they are rewarded with for actively oppressing other racialized groups and how that changes their priorities.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:46 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • zeh
     • Rozalia Sofia

     @redrozalia @zeh I'm not sure I entirely agree with the analysis presented in Settlers, but regardless, the historical evidence it uses to back up its arguments is important. I am learning a lot by reading it. It's also important that white people downplay and are often ignorant of this history.

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     Rozalia Sofia (redrozalia@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:47 JST Rozalia Sofia

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     • zeh

     @be
     @zeh
     i really must warn you about this book. the error is in redefining peoples *class* in terms of their *race identity*, which is placing the cart before the horse: it puts the idea or the identity of whiteness as the causal factor that allows a worker to have the same interest as their own boss.

     i agree that the identity of whiteness forms part of the ideological complex that keeps workers isolated and impedes their ability to relate to one another. but this is also true of "manhood" and of "straightness", and sakai doesnt do much to unpack those problems.

     but going by "settlers", its not that white workers lack class consciousness, its that they are literally bourgeois themselves, lost causes that have no place in a revolution. going by "settlers", the revolution is a racial one, because there really is no "white proletariat" at all. so i recommend you take this book with a hefty shaker of salt.

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     zeh (zeh@mstdn.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:48 JST zeh

     in reply to

     @be
     humm. not familiar with that. when i say proletariat i'm talking about the exploited class as a whole ("working" class including those on the margins of employment). as such, all these people align in various ways with the interests of the bourgeoisie, including discrimination of all kinds (racial, ethnic, gender, etc). i'm a proletarian that still aligns with whiteness in ways i don't understand, i'm sure. there's no purity, just the aim to do better, together.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:48 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • zeh

     @zeh I've been reading Settlers this week and I think it's shifting my perspective in good ways. It is answering a lot of lingering questions I've had about US history that I never found satisfying answers for before.

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     zeh (zeh@mstdn.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:51 JST zeh

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     @be
     yes, i got that you're aware and i believe you when you talk about the feedback cycles of racism into the new ethno nationalist zionist project. my point was to think of it as another instance of capital using and twisting any national and identitarian expression to pit proletarians against each other. but maybe splitting hairs here. the main point was that it's not an accident ("tragedy"), it's really fueled to create division.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:51 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • zeh

     @zeh I'd challenge the conception of Ashkenazim, and others who have assimilated into whiteness, as proletarian. By aligning with whiteness, they have chosen to align with the bourgeoisie against the racialized proletarians. The 1968 NYC Teachers' Strike I discussed above was an example of that. https://readsettlers.org/

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:52 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • zeh

     @zeh While Zionism and the colonization of Palestine started decades before the Holocaust, the influx of refugees from the Holocaust, and earlier from Nazi persecution in Germany, was critical for the Zionist colony to have enough population to establish an ethnostate by force.

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     zeh (zeh@mstdn.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:54 JST zeh

     in reply to

     @be
     thanks for this, very informative.
     i think i may disagree with your depiction of zionism as a "tragedy" and "misguided response". zionism is a specific kind of fascist nationalism and it was engineered. it's rather part of the larger tactic to divide the proletariat along identitarian and ethnic lines.
     i've also just listened to this podcast which contains perspectives from jewish people, maybe you'd like it: https://rss.com/podcasts/the-antifada/1196863/

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:54:54 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     • zeh

     @zeh I'm aware that Zionism was a fascist colonial project from the start. It is a tragedy how much it has caught on, and how much damage it has done to Palestinians. If you don't see it also as one response (of many) to anti-Semitism, you're missing the wider context.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:08 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • Joseph Riparian 🏳️‍⚧️

     @holyramenempire The guy who first introduced me to JVP years ago told me about how his Birthright trip was what led him to question Zionism. While he was in Israel, there was fighting going on, but he felt unsettled by how safe he felt on the tour. Later he studied abroad in Jordan, staying with a Palestinian family. A Palestinian there told him that he was the first Jew they had met who wasn't holding a gun.

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:09 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • Joseph Riparian 🏳️‍⚧️

     @holyramenempire I was also pressured by my mom and a Jewish friend in high school to go on Birthright, which I never did. I've aged out of that now, so at least I don't have to deal with that anymore.

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     Joseph Riparian 🏳️‍⚧️ (holyramenempire@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:10 JST Joseph Riparian 🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @be I really appreciate you talking about it. My partner's parents are Modern Orthodox, and he was raised in a deeply "cult-y" sect; like, they tried HARD to get him to be in the IDF and be a settler. He's been to Israel several times, and said it was awful, even when he was at the peak of his teenage Zionism.

     It has been a really difficult time, interpersonally. Not even a week before everything happened, his dad mailed him a freakin' biography of Bibi as his ONLY birthday present from the family. (My partner said "As a Jew, it pains me to throw out a book, but...")

     (I hope this isn't me dumping on you when you're already going through so much - I hope that it backs up the points you're making, that even from way outside the religion, I can see the strain that anti-Zionist Jews are experiencing.)

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:12 JST 100% OPSEC

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     • Greenpete

     @greenpete > Do you feel that a lot of Jews/Israelis support their state in attacking Gaza the way the are?

     Many do, and many do not. I think more now than ever do not support what is going on in Gaza. Recently there have been protests against it in Israel, especially from families of hostages taken on October 7.

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     Greenpete (greenpete@lor.sh)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:13 JST Greenpete

     in reply to

     @be I don't know about relate, but I can understand I think.
     It seems a lot of Jewish people all over the world are against the Israeli state doing what they are doing.
     Do you feel that a lot of Jews/Israelis support their state in attacking Gaza the way the are?

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     100% OPSEC (be@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 15:55:14 JST 100% OPSEC

     in reply to

     It's a strange feeling to be afraid to associate with others of your own ancestry for reasonable fear that they are fascists. I don't know if non-Jews can relate.