May 12th
Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 58.2 of Digestable, your thrice-weekly mouthful of things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
Today’s news, fermented:
Today, of course, I would be remiss to not write about escalating violence by Israeli forces.
As an American Jew, I have long been taught/told/suggested at that the ‘Israel-Palestine conflict’ is untouchable, in a way. Jews have always been persecuted, and wanted a place to be safe, now we have Israel, so on, so forth.
But Israel is a settler state. Coming back to land that might have been home to your ancestors can be just fine, but displacing the people who have called that same land home in the meanwhile is violent and unnecessary, and exactly what the Israeli state has been doing.
This interactive map of how Israel has furthered occupation and division of Palestinian people and land was helpful to me. Alongside my wariness about misrepresenting the nuance of this situation is an understanding that colonizing in the name of freedom is never acceptable.
News coverage about unfolding events in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood where Israelis have been most actively trying to displace Palestinians in recent weeks, is often biased. I’ve seen a lot of headlines that talk about Palestinians throwing rocks before they mention Israelis dropping bombs, which is just neither helpful or accurate. (The article I shared on Monday was one of these; for this I am sorry.)
Here are some clarifying statements I’ve seen in the last couple of days:
In the US, we should know better than to believe what I am inclined to call ‘rebranding’ that Omar Sakr mentions in the above tweet. Governments, news outlets, and other entities often misrepresent political situations to protect the seat of power; this is not new. Peaceful protests in the US turn violent when the police show up. This is our truth too.
As in the cases of almost any movement for justice, anywhere in the world, it is possible to tell the story of challenging a power from the perspective of that power or the perspective of those harmed by it. Generally speaking, the truth lies with those directly impacted by violence, and beyond that—the truth demands that we hold nuance.
I’m not sure I agree with everything in this thread, but it’s a useful example of holding that nuance. It’s written by a self-identified Zionist, and acknowledges that regardless of one’s support for the Israeli state, what’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah is not acceptable.
The US has long been an ally of the Israeli state, and now is a crucial moment for American Jews and others to stand up for the rights and safety of the Palestinian people.
There’s a call tomorrow evening with If Not Now, a Jewish organization dedicated to ending the Israeli occupation, about how to support the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah. They’ve also got a list of organizations in Palestine/Israel that you can follow for more information on the occupation.
That’s all for now; here is to continued organizing that will cascade, like this panda off their slide, into a turning upside-down of existing systems.
*Hot Goss*
Back on Monday from the superb Latifah Azlan.