It is so obvious what is happening in the Levant if you just step back from the US and European media, who have all truly failed us and done irreparable damage to whatever shred of credibility they maintained. I can stomach a lot of garbage journalism, but I cannot stand the truly disingenuous and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian fight for liberation.
First, there is no context being given about what is happening. We are not being told that those are illegal Israeli settlements that Hamas attacked. We are not being told that those who settled there after Palestinians were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes knew they were not just moving out to a suburb: they are the ones who dragged children and their elderly onto an active war front knowing that it was the frontline. There is nothing innocent about the people on those lands.
And while it is truly awful what happened at that all-night rave, who in the hell thought it would be chill to put on an all-night rave near the heavily militarized perimeter of Gaza? At best that rave was sheer hubris, but there is a clear unspoken note here of antagonizing those Palestinians the Israelis have caged into Gaza. That is how terrorism works in part, just like in the US white supremacy was and is experienced through small acts of aggression that aren’t so egregious they are able to maintain an aura of plausible deniability.
We in the US aren’t hearing the Israeli officials openly speak of killing Palestinians as “mowing the grass,” just as once Spartans would send out bands of young men to terrorize the surrounding villages, whose subservient food-production kept them fed.
And isn’t it just fascinating that our police forces are being trained by Israeli security forces. Where did the militarization of our peace officers originate? In the Levant, where fascist policing is a fact of everyday life. If you’re against the militarization of our civilian police forces, then you’re against Israeli fascism—not Israelis in general, but nationalistic fascism among them.
We aren’t hearing a damn thing about Palestinian resistance fighters; these are just “terrorists,” we’re being told. Except… There has been an ongoing war for decolonization in Palestine since the British took the Levant for its colony long ago. Those now called Israelis were inserted in the place of the British, and are now a settler-colonial power perpetuating an ongoing genocide.
No one wants to talk about the everyday dehumanization of the Palestinians, especially those imprisoned in Gaza. No one wants to stop to think about how is it that Israeli authorities have control over the electricity of Gaza, the water of Gaza. No one wants to talk about the fact that Gaza has already been under a “total blockade” for over a decade. No one wants to talk about the war crimes being committed against the Palestinians every day.
Don’t you dare call yourself antifascist until you know full well that the only humane thing to do is support the Palestinians. This isn’t difficult, at all. It’s really not. We don’t need to get into quibbling arguments to understand why the Palestinians have been fighting the same war since their homes were stolen from them and what they are fighting for. To sit by passively is to reperform the tacit approval given by the silent majority of Germans who allowed a genocide to take place, and even to participate in it, as any US taxpayer does whether they know it or not.
For real information (mixed in with a light sprinkling of Qatari propaganda, of course), see Al Jazeera.
Also, here’s an important episode of the Red Nation Podcast
And this episode of Revolutionary Left Radio is appropriately fiery, but here’s an episode of Rev. Left Radio about what is happening, without Breht’s rage.
If you see the word “terrorist” applied to Palestinian liberation fighters, you are audience to imperialist, genocidal propaganda. It is absolutely absurd that Vladimir friggin Putin is telling the truth about Palestine while US leaders are scampering around clouding the air with lies. But here we are. We must demand better from our leaders.
On My Palestinian Flag, Part 3, No Fair-weather advocacy
When I woke up on Saturday, I knew immediately people would be extra attentive to the fact that I haven’t rescinded my support now that Palestinians have ‘committed terrorism’—as most everyone, including apparently AOC, is going around saying. But what is missing here is that this was no “terrorist attack” by “terrorists.” For godsake it was an act of war in a protracted war against a colonialist, genocidal takeover, against total dispossession. I do not support war, but I support Ukrainians against a colonialist, genocidal assault. I do not support war, but I support Palestinians against the exact same assault. But what makes what is happening in the Levant so much worse, to my mind, is that a formerly oppressed people against whom genocide was perpetrated—along with any LGBTQIA+ and nonwhite individual they could get their hands on—are now the perpetrators of genocide themselves. It is an unspeakable betrayal to me as a fellow oppressed person who would have shared a bunk and a gas chamber with Bibi in former days.
It ought moreover to make you pause that I, an openly gay genderqueer individual, whose existence, we’re told, would not be tolerated among Palestinians, nonetheless advocate for Palestinians and will continue to do so. No people deserve oppression, dispossession, apartheid and genocide, period, no matter what those people think of me. I will always stand against the kind of colonialist violence experienced by Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Native Americans, among so many other suffering peoples, because it is the only humane response. (But also… (1) it isn’t like I grew up in some kind of bigotry-free wonderland! No no! I grew up constantly terrorized by a certain actively militant white supremacist group and the everyday violence of bigotry. And (2) notice the reverse-pinkwashing against the Palestinians.)
Another Neurodivergent Queer Writes A Blog! 
Leave a comment