I can’t stop thinking about them: the women and girls of the Israeli kibbutzim, who were raped on 7 October, less than 8 weeks ago. Raped so brutally and so repeatedly that in some cases their pelvises broke from the weight of so many men. And then their throats were slit or they were shot in the forehead. I can’t forget the semi-naked corpse of Shani Louk, paraded around Gaza on the flatbed of a truck, as hordes of men cheered on her rapists and crowded around the jeep to spit on her body. I can’t forget the young woman, arms bound behind her back, hobbling from a slit Achilles tendon, a large bloodstain blossoming across her jeans where she was bleeding profusely from her vagina and anus, being led away, a prisoner of her rapists.
I've been trying to fathom the pain in this conflict while that pain is being nearly instantly co-opted and turned into a battle-cry, by people on both sides of the conflict. Gili Bar-Hillel has been writing some of the most grounded stuff I've been reading, in part because she embraces the portion of this that is just a long, hopeless moan for her homeland. We can say, bring the hostages home, but who are we saying it to? We can say "cease fire now" but are we saying it like a prayer to a God we aren't entirely sure is listening? We can say "justice" but who is the judge who can deliver it, if not the God that everyone is sure is on their side? We Western educated elites are not used to the sense of horror our ancestors felt as they saw the enemy riding over the horizon, but even more the pale rider who seems to not be on anyone's side but his own. We don't know what to do when the spirit of war catches seemingly everyone around us. All the raped, all the dead, all the lost, all of the people who have chosen to do this. Sometimes it feels like weeping is just the correct response.
That was sorrow beautifully written. I grieve for these young women, I grieve for the parents forced to watch the intentional damaging of their children, I grieve for humanity as death eaters spread their vile hate. I will imagine the children and young women floating on gentle swells, gently rocked as the pain is cleansed away by the water.
The Israeli left is now in turmoil. It lost much of its credibility after it placed the whole blame on Israel for the failure of peace talks in 2000-01 and justified Ararat’s decision to allow the outbreak of the Second Intifada while the U.S. was about to present plan (the Clinton parameters) calling for the creation of a Palestinian in nearly all the occupied territories. It lost even more credibility after it refused to blame Abbas for rejecting Olmert’s peace plan in 2008 as well as the Kerry/Obama principles of 2014. They made spurious excuses again to deny or justify Abbas’ lack of courage.
As a result, most of the supporters of the Israeli left migrated to centre or the right wing of the political spectrum. The Israeli society’s shift to the right was quite ugly. Many Israelis found virtue in racism, ethnocentrism and irredentism. The Israeli left reacted to this radicalization in a very childish way. Instead of acknowledging that the Palestinians were not angels but that nothing justifies expansionism, they called on the world to punish Israel, and began to live in Israel as aliens in their own country (many of them even called for the dismantling of the state of Israel).
But Western intellectuals who hailed Hamas for this massacre (more than the massacre itself) seem to have struck a chord. All of a sudden, the Israeli left discovered that no matter how much they try, their Western colleagues will never accept them. They want them dead. The refusal of Western feminists to take a clear stance against the misogynistic character of this massacre is by far what shocks them the most.
I don’t expect the Israeli left to collapse again, as it did in 2000-01. On the contrary, I expect the Israeli left to rid itself of the desire to be accepted by Western leftists and to repudiate postcolonial/woke neo-Stalinism once and for all. This awakening might actually lead to a revival of the Israeli left (which has already began after Netanyahu’s attempt to neuter the Supreme Court last year). Until the late 1960s, the Israeli left, with its Kibbutzim, was seen as a beacon of democratic socialism (for those who opposed Communist authoritarianism). It can now become the stronghold of a genuine liberal, patriotic and universalist left that will challenge the insanity of the radical left that is plaguing the Western intellectual life.
I’m done with criticizing Israel all the time as if only Israelis had agency in this part of the world. I won’t be a good Jew anymore. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash of rights and those who deny it are just a bunch of left-wing fascists who believe that Jews should have died rather than building a home for themselves while they had nowhere else to go.
And by the way, Israel is the only place in the Middle East where women and homosexuals have genuine rights. Leftists can call this pinkwashing. It’s just the plain truth!
Please consider researching these areas for future articles
The script needs to be flipped. How to do that?
Industry is all about the widget. Do you sell your widget to 15 million Jews or 2 billion Muslims?
Mainstream media needs to sell their widgets to 2 billion Muslims. CNN Reuters etc., do not care about selling their “News” to 15 million Jews. They want to sell in and to all 30 Muslim countries still at war with Israel since 1948. So of course their stories will be Muslim sided and Hate Jews.
Colleges are suffering with lower enrollment. If they allow “hate the Jews “ protests on campus it will result in more Muslims seeking to attend US schools and paying the highest tuition rate as foreign students. And then they have them as future Donors and no longer need the Jewish Donors.
Muslims kill Christians. Why would any Christian support Muslims?
Muslim slave traders have killed over 10 million black Africans.
Muslim slave trading is still going on today.
The Muslim genocide of Black African Christians has killed over 10,000 Christians in less than the last 2 years.
Yet there is no industry outrage.
There are no main stream media articles about Muslim genocide of black African Christians.
There are no protests on college campuses about Muslim genocide of Christians.
There are no black African Christians being awarded scholarships to our elite colleges.
Flip the script to: Muslims kill Black Christians; Industries which support Hamas do not care about their Jewish or even Christian customers or black customers
Celebrities who support Hamas do not care about the genocide of black christians.
Main stream media ignore Black christian genocide.
I've been trying to fathom the pain in this conflict while that pain is being nearly instantly co-opted and turned into a battle-cry, by people on both sides of the conflict. Gili Bar-Hillel has been writing some of the most grounded stuff I've been reading, in part because she embraces the portion of this that is just a long, hopeless moan for her homeland. We can say, bring the hostages home, but who are we saying it to? We can say "cease fire now" but are we saying it like a prayer to a God we aren't entirely sure is listening? We can say "justice" but who is the judge who can deliver it, if not the God that everyone is sure is on their side? We Western educated elites are not used to the sense of horror our ancestors felt as they saw the enemy riding over the horizon, but even more the pale rider who seems to not be on anyone's side but his own. We don't know what to do when the spirit of war catches seemingly everyone around us. All the raped, all the dead, all the lost, all of the people who have chosen to do this. Sometimes it feels like weeping is just the correct response.
That was sorrow beautifully written. I grieve for these young women, I grieve for the parents forced to watch the intentional damaging of their children, I grieve for humanity as death eaters spread their vile hate. I will imagine the children and young women floating on gentle swells, gently rocked as the pain is cleansed away by the water.
The Israeli left is now in turmoil. It lost much of its credibility after it placed the whole blame on Israel for the failure of peace talks in 2000-01 and justified Ararat’s decision to allow the outbreak of the Second Intifada while the U.S. was about to present plan (the Clinton parameters) calling for the creation of a Palestinian in nearly all the occupied territories. It lost even more credibility after it refused to blame Abbas for rejecting Olmert’s peace plan in 2008 as well as the Kerry/Obama principles of 2014. They made spurious excuses again to deny or justify Abbas’ lack of courage.
As a result, most of the supporters of the Israeli left migrated to centre or the right wing of the political spectrum. The Israeli society’s shift to the right was quite ugly. Many Israelis found virtue in racism, ethnocentrism and irredentism. The Israeli left reacted to this radicalization in a very childish way. Instead of acknowledging that the Palestinians were not angels but that nothing justifies expansionism, they called on the world to punish Israel, and began to live in Israel as aliens in their own country (many of them even called for the dismantling of the state of Israel).
But Western intellectuals who hailed Hamas for this massacre (more than the massacre itself) seem to have struck a chord. All of a sudden, the Israeli left discovered that no matter how much they try, their Western colleagues will never accept them. They want them dead. The refusal of Western feminists to take a clear stance against the misogynistic character of this massacre is by far what shocks them the most.
I don’t expect the Israeli left to collapse again, as it did in 2000-01. On the contrary, I expect the Israeli left to rid itself of the desire to be accepted by Western leftists and to repudiate postcolonial/woke neo-Stalinism once and for all. This awakening might actually lead to a revival of the Israeli left (which has already began after Netanyahu’s attempt to neuter the Supreme Court last year). Until the late 1960s, the Israeli left, with its Kibbutzim, was seen as a beacon of democratic socialism (for those who opposed Communist authoritarianism). It can now become the stronghold of a genuine liberal, patriotic and universalist left that will challenge the insanity of the radical left that is plaguing the Western intellectual life.
I’m done with criticizing Israel all the time as if only Israelis had agency in this part of the world. I won’t be a good Jew anymore. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash of rights and those who deny it are just a bunch of left-wing fascists who believe that Jews should have died rather than building a home for themselves while they had nowhere else to go.
And by the way, Israel is the only place in the Middle East where women and homosexuals have genuine rights. Leftists can call this pinkwashing. It’s just the plain truth!
Please consider researching these areas for future articles
The script needs to be flipped. How to do that?
Industry is all about the widget. Do you sell your widget to 15 million Jews or 2 billion Muslims?
Mainstream media needs to sell their widgets to 2 billion Muslims. CNN Reuters etc., do not care about selling their “News” to 15 million Jews. They want to sell in and to all 30 Muslim countries still at war with Israel since 1948. So of course their stories will be Muslim sided and Hate Jews.
Colleges are suffering with lower enrollment. If they allow “hate the Jews “ protests on campus it will result in more Muslims seeking to attend US schools and paying the highest tuition rate as foreign students. And then they have them as future Donors and no longer need the Jewish Donors.
Muslims kill Christians. Why would any Christian support Muslims?
Muslim slave traders have killed over 10 million black Africans.
Muslim slave trading is still going on today.
The Muslim genocide of Black African Christians has killed over 10,000 Christians in less than the last 2 years.
Yet there is no industry outrage.
There are no main stream media articles about Muslim genocide of black African Christians.
There are no protests on college campuses about Muslim genocide of Christians.
There are no black African Christians being awarded scholarships to our elite colleges.
Flip the script to: Muslims kill Black Christians; Industries which support Hamas do not care about their Jewish or even Christian customers or black customers
Celebrities who support Hamas do not care about the genocide of black christians.
Main stream media ignore Black christian genocide.
Colleges ignore Black african christians genocide
How do we flip the script