Palestinians, the conflict, and the shared future.
“The Israelis” “The Palestinians”
I looked for two sides
I found only one side
The side of humanity, life, and love
8 billion human beings and counting, created in the imago dei
I appreciate your support for some of us
But I invite you to leave your world behind
Support all of us
Because there is no them
שאלו את שלום ירושלים
I’m the only person I’ve ever met who wants both equal citizenship with Palestinians and a halakhic state. 🤷
Right/left politics are banal. 😂
You can say I support genocide and apartheid all you want…
You can say I support terrorists and am a naive traitor all you like…
But you live in a movie and every day I devote my thoughts, words, and actions to doing my part to build a better world for my children’s future children, a home for Israelis, Palestinians, and anyone who wants to join the party as full and equal citizens of this amazing country in this beautiful land, with all the rights and responsibilities that come with being members of civil society in the 21st century.
Full stop.
The future is Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Humanity.
Don’t pick a side.
This post is definitely politically incorrect but I’ll be honest…
I have a problem with the 🇵🇸 flag.
For me, it represents a history of exclusionary Pan-Arabism and organized violence against innocent people.
I have seen it used, again and again, as a symbol of the denial of legitimacy to my country. The denial of humanity to my people.
People waving the 🇵🇸 often mean harm to me and my family, and sometimes it’s hard for me to separate between the flag and the waver.
BUT.
I am painfully aware that many people could say much the same thing about the 🇮🇱 flag.
For them, the flag represents a history of exclusion and marginalization, dispossession and disenfranchisement; it is the flag of the organized violence of gangs, militias, and armies, directed towards them and their families, in their homes and communities.
For them, it is a symbol of conquest and invasion, of disruption and dislocation, of erasure.
It is a flag waved by too many people who deny their struggle, their history, their rights, their humanity, their very identity. People who at best are indifferent to violence committed against them, and who, disturbingly often, are the ones committing the violence.
While waving the flag.
What for me is a natural expression of the historic prayer to return home and build a country where we can be free to live as God intended – is for too many people a painful reminder of all that they, their parents, and their grandparents have endured and continue to endure to this day.
What for me is a symbol of fear and trauma, a pervasive and overwhelming denial of who I am and my right to be me – is actually for many people a symbol of connection, family, peoplehood; of defiance against injustice and of the ability to flourish in spite of it.
There are two sides to a flag, two sides to what it means and what it represents. Two sides to Alex Sinclair ‘s (in)famous kippa. Two sides to the story of this country.
It is natural to see one’s own side of things, at first. But it is crucial that we learn to see other sides – and to catch glimpses of ourselves through others’ eyes.
Especially through the eyes of the vulnerable and the violated in a society where we wield real power over the lives of others.
Honestly, I don’t think two states is the right solution to the problems we face… but a flag is not a solution; ultimately, it’s a symbol of the hope that solutions can be found, if we work together to build a better country.
A kippa – which itself symbolizes the life-affirming awe of the Creator of all things big and small, together – is certainly an appropriate garment with which to express that hope.
Putting a 🇵🇸 flag next to a 🇮🇱 flag on a kippa isn’t promoting one solution over another (although I’m aware Alex does have ideas on the subject) – it’s doubling down on that hope.
Doubling down on peace.
In the name and to the glory of the Creator of us all.
Can I get over my complicated feelings about a flag – and get on board with that ethos?
I should hope so.
I don’t know if I’ll wind up getting a kippa like Alex’s; I happen to like my current big black knit kippa… and I certainly am not interested in getting into unprovoked altercations with racist, fascist police officers.
But I gotta say…
I’m sorely tempted.
After years decades centuries of being hated as a Jew, there are few things more life-affirming than celebrating the founding of this country together with my fellow Israelis.
That we finally have a country again, where we can just be our Hebrew selves and live our lives freely the way the good lord intended, does not excuse any harm done to Palestinians in the last 78 years – nor in itself does it justify the existence of our state or our society.
As a nation, we’re about more than just building a home for Jews, in the land of our ancestors.
But good lord, what a gift that home is.
Hi! You may be a new friend of mine. While I really like sharing poems and pictures of my baby daughter, and while I also hope to work together to help build the WordPress community in Israel, we’re living in interesting times, so you may have noticed a certain political tinge to some of my posts.
Don’t worry, I promise you no rants.
But I thought a little Q and A might benefit the newcomers in getting situated, and remind the oldtimers that things are more complicated than pop media would have you think.
Q “Why don’t you support the war?”
A Because I don’t trust Bibi to wage it morally, strategically, or effectively. Let alone the current POTUS.
Q “Don’t you want the missiles to stop?”
A Yes but I’m not willing to pay any price for safety; there are reasonable, moral limits to what I am willing to support in exchange for my own skin. While I trust the moral conscience of the majority of IDF soldiers, I think they are constrained and compromised by leadership, policies, and a system that in too many cases positions them to violate those limits. Also, I have no guarantee that even if I sold my soul to pay the price, I’d actually be safe.
Q “But they killed Khameini, doesn’t that matter?”
A I’m glad that wicked man can’t order any more attacks on innocent people but I would have rather he faced justice in an Iranian court of law.
Q “What about Hezbollah?”
A Hezbollah is better armed, trained, and funded than Hamas was on Oct 6. They have survived decades of war with Israel. Despite the pager attack (which btw was not nearly as clean as it was championed to be, many innocents were harmed), Hezbollah is still sending missiles against Israelis (and Palestinians). And the week before Bibi ordered the attack on Tehran, the IRGC took over all Hezbollah units, so now they’re all operating under Khameinist annihilation/suicide orders. They need to be addressed with serious, effective strategy in coordination with Lebanese forces and European allies, not doubling down on a demonstrably failed approach with a massive citizen evacuation order that’s producing its own refugee crisis as we speak. I have close friends who served and are serving in Lebanon, they – not to say nothing of the Israeli and Palestinian residents of the north, let alone the residents of southern Lebanon – deserve better than the status quo.
Q “So you don’t support Israel?”
A I support Israelis. I support Palestinians and Iranians and the Lebanese, too. I support everyone trying to make a good life for their kids and be a good neighbor and contribute something of value to the human species. I think our state is far from perfect, with a history and structural problems that we have not but desperately need to reckon with, and I think this government is criminal and incompetent. But every Saturday night at habdala I pray for the success of this state – that it become a true flowering of the Zionist dream, a country of justice, law, and holy order, a safe haven for all who need it, an integral and integrated part of the regional and human tapestry of spiritual enlightenment and material abundance.
Hope that helps.
It’s all one struggle.
For Jewish rights. For Palestinian rights. For Black rights. For immigrants’ rights. For women’s rights. For the rights of every oppressed, disenfranchised, and/or persecuted group of human beings.
Not because those people are all the same or their exact challenges are identical.
But because the social system of wicked injustice that keeps each of them down is the same system.
Across all divides.
The same system presents us with the same struggle.
So we can post funny memes and baby pictures and inspiring quotes on Facebook, and we absolutely should, because life is more than just struggle.
Life is about creation, joy, love, the transformation of darkness into deeper light.
But alongside all that, don’t ever forget that it’s all one struggle.
I see your “Palestinians/Israelis are a made-up people” and raise you “Palestinians and Israelis are both made-up peoples descended from second commonwealth Israelites”
Zionism for Palestinians?
I’ve been having great discussions with listeners to The Z Word ‘s first episode, my conversation with Palestinian author Mo Husseini .
A central point of not conflict nor disagreement but, rather I would say, creative tension, between Mo and I was in the relevance of Zionism to Palestinians.
Mo represented an honest perspective: Zionism can mean different things to different people, granted, but beyond dealing with the localized (and often adverse) effects of Zionism on Palestinian lives, why should Palestinians care about Zionism? Isn’t it just something that the Jews are doing “over there”?
I, in response, made a brief argument for Zionism’s relevance to Palestinians.
I want to elaborate a bit more on why I think joining the Zionist discourse is not just relevant to Palestinians but, suggesting as a non-Palestinian, possibly desirable for them.
Firstly, I think that being subject to the localized effects of Zionism – whether under the current conditions of occupation and discrimination or in a situation where a future Palestinian state must partner with the Israeli state – is sufficient to make developing an active concern with its voices, institutions, policies, and direction a priority to Palestinians not just in the West Bank but “Israel proper.” From this purely pragmatic perspective alone, I think Zionism – as an irreversible fact of life not just in the modern Levant – is clearly relevant to Palestinians.
But beyond the pragmatic level, I think that the Palestinian national aim – to establish a just and autonomous society on this land of their ancestors, free from foreign colonialism and imperialism – is so closely aligned with the Israeli national aim that their attainments mutually coincide. Far from being an ideology of foreign invasion and exploitation, Zionism was and is a liberation movement of indigenous de-colonization, which for Israelis included an explicit process of leaving socio-political exile and reestablishing traditional society in their homeland. The intersection with Palestinian liberation and de-colonization is obvious – as is the shared dream of a just, democratic society. (Shared by most – obviously both Israelis and Palestinians deal with their own internal fascist demons and reactionary religious conservatives.) Zionism, in this sense, can serve Palestinians equally well as a vehicle and vector for realizing their national dream, as it does Israelis.
Furthermore, in my personal (controversial) opinion, while Palestinians and Jews are two separate peoples, we are actually majority descended from the same nation of Israel (which, again in my personal and controversial opinion, was called Palaistine in both Jewish and non-Jewish Hellenistic sources). The Romans did not succeed in driving out the entire nation, and many Israelites remained in this land after the Roman conquest. In the face of waves of colonization over the ensuing centuries, many Israelites eventually chose to adopt Christianity and/or Islam and an independent consciousness of peoplehood emerged among their descendants here in this land. While many foreigners came and joined them over the years, the exact same thing can be said of every Israelite community in the diaspora. This historical narrative makes a lot more sense to me than competing narratives which position either Palestinians or Israelis as essential interlopers in the land, based on superficial demographic markers and what I contend amount to the effects of colonization. Accordingly, Zionism – in its pursuit of Israelite autonomy – is as much the heritage of Palestinians as it is of Israelis, and the cultural dimension of Zionism (including the Kookian revivalism and renaissance of Israelite culture in all its spiritual and creative depth and diversity) may itself be further accessible to and expanded by the unruptured relationship with land (as well as the Christian and Islamic elements, redeemed of their imperialism and supremacism) of the Palestinian (-Israelite) people.
So there you have it:
We share the same roots.
We share the same land.
And I would go so far as to say that we share the same future.
Can we share the dream of Zion?
The Z Word – open and honest conversations with Palestinians and Israelis about Zionism, the land, the conflict, and the hope for a shared future…
These are going to be an amazing series of convos. Barukh Hashem, I have some great guests lined up.