about me

I've been thinking about interventionism lately. I've been thinking about how no one would have saved the Jews from the ghettos and camps if Hitler hadn't invaded nearby countries. We would have watched his regime kill every single Jew in the country without batting an eye.

I don't want to advocate for war because the cost is so high - but I can't keep acting like interventionism does not often save lives in the long run. I can no longer deny that interventionism may be the only way some parts of the world have accountability, the only way many people will ever have rights in the parts of the world that deeply hate women, the LGBT, and religious and ethnic minorities. I can no longer deny that it is evil to watch and do nothing as people are slaughtered and forced to live in slavery and destitution.

Is anyone else in a similar mental headspace as me these days?

This is a tough pill to swallow for liberals and would-be pacifists, but it's so plainly self-evident that if you have any sense you have to reach this conclusion eventually. The only alternative is willful denial and de facto support for authoritarianism and atrocities, which is to abandon the very liberal values that make this hard to swallow.

transphobic music fans be listening to he or she might be giants

“Humans are inherently selfish--" Then why do so many cultures value hospitality, to the point of dictating it in their religions? Why is it so common for hosts to offer their visitors their best food, and as much of it as they can? At some point, multiple cultures decided that they knew what it felt like to be alone and vulnerable, and promised each other to never let those who stay with them feel that way. That doesn't sound very "inherently selfish" to me.

"humans are the plague"

No. Humans are animals as much as the fish and the bear. We are pack animals who have survived by strong bonds and community.

Do not buy the lie that humans are inherently evil. Societies can trick you into believing this, but it's not the truth of humanity.

Humans crave being together, sharing together, and thriving together.

Capitalism just wants you to believe we're destined for selfishness.

This is Shanidar 1, affectionately nicknamed 'Nandy'. He was a Neanderthal living between 60,000 and 45,000 BCE. He was born with deformities in his ears, a withered arm, and paralysed legs. This would've left him almost entirely deaf, unable to use one arm, and with an almost debilitating limp. Not only that, but during his lifetime his left eyesocket sustained a severe fracture, which most likely would've left him completely blind in one eye.

He lived to between 30 and 45. An incredible age for an ancient hominid. This man couldn't have been a 'sTrOnG pRoViDeR mALe' and yet he lived to the Neanderthal equivalent of mid-80s. Why? Because his family must've taken care of him. His broken eye showed signs of healing, and his withered arm was amputated (perhaps one of the earliest examples of surgery). Despite his existence providing no 'logical benefit' he survived. Because he was loved.

Compassion and love are deeply rooted aspects of human existence. Don't let anyone trick you into thinking otherwise.

And to everyone going "Oh, but he probably had other qualities", you're kind of missing the point. Sure, he could have been a storyteller, a philosopher, world's best babysitter, a genius at thinking up dirty jokes - but he could also have been grumpy old uncle Nandy who never really enriched anyone's existence and he still had value as a person.

The first sign of civilization is a healed femur.
The first sign of humanity is an old scar.
The first sign we were people at all is the grave
Of a child
Laid to rest as though sleeping
With flowers all around.

People feel extremely entitled to the Holocaust

I have a lot of issues with the way "Holocaust envy" as a term is used but it is absolutely fucking bizarre the way non-Jewish and non-Roma people want to center themselves in the Holocaust and act like anyone pointing out that Nazi ideology was centered on antisemitism at its core are like, gatekeeping??

Not letting those quality tags go to waste.

"Jews Praying at Wailing Wall in Jerusalem" by Johann Martin Bernatz, 1868

There is this separation of Israel and Judaism that a lot of goyim (and some jews) do and it's just extremely weird.

And im not talking about the state of Israel/the government of israel.

Im talking about culture.

With any country and its diaspora, not just Israel and jews, there will be differences in culture. However when it comes to non-jewish cultures, they're still tied to each other. For example Chinese Amercian, Korean Brittish, Hindu kiwi, etc etc

But when it comes to jews, suddenly they are separate. Its Israeli culture *and* jewish culture. Its jewish amercian and israeli amercian.

And i do understand why. There are a lot of jews who have never been to israel, it feels wrong to say your culture is Israeli amercian when your family has never lived in Israel.

But at the same time, when jews returned en masse to the levant, they brought their diasporic culture with them. Jewish amercian, jewish Indian, Jewish African, jewish middle eastern, jewish European, jewish Asian, etc culture all converged to see what we do in Israel. (And Arab culture also plays a part but in this post im focusing specifically on the jewish part as that makes up most of it).

There is still that jewish tie to Israeli culture. The foods you expect to see in a bakery, what days of the week are deemed the weekend, etc are all tied to jewish culture.

This is also why the push to remove Israeli culture from being visible is the diaspora is considered by many to also be antisemitic. Because if you label something all jews do as Israeli culture, then people deem jews who are partaking in it to be doing so not because they're jewish, but because they're loyal to Israel. Which furthers the antisemitic dual loyalty trope. The idea that jews are inherently equally as loyal or more loyal or Israel and jewish interests than the interests of their host country.

And im not saying we should push for diaspora jews to call jewish culture israeli culture. I just wished people stopped treating jewish culture differently than they do any other culture.

I've been to Israel 4 times in my life. The first and second time I was baby and a toddler. The third time I did it instead when I was 12 and the fourth time was in my early 20's.

I have no recollection of trip 1 and 2. I know that trip 1 my parents were still married and we went as a family. Trip 2 happened when my maternal grandparents were having their home in Israel built. There is a picture of me on sitting on the foundations of their home and you can see the water in the background. Something that is no longer possible anymore because it has really grown in the past 20 years.

Trip 3 was instead of having a second Bat-Mitzvah party since I had one that my dad did I went to Israel with my mom. We stayed with her parents in that very house. We were there for a week.

It was unreal because I couldn't really speak the language. When I tried I sounded ridiculous because I could only speak a few sentences in archaic Hebrew. The culture was very different from the USA. It was nothing like what I used.

And yet I felt like I was home after being away for a long time. Even the air smelled like home to me.

I wouldn't be back to Israel for another 10 years which was trip 4. And that was my early twenties. I was supposed to be there for 5 weeks in order to get a certain type of dental procedure done, but unfortunately due the way my roots grow it couldn't be done and I couldn't handle staying with my grandparents for the whole time. So I came back after about a week.

But again there was that feeling of being home that I felt before. Even though I was very unfamiliar and unused to Israel and Israeli culture. It still felt like home.

I don't know if anything that I'm saying applies or fits to what you were saying.

But I do know that I've never felt the way I felt when I was in Israel. Even when I was standing by myself in my grandparents garden I felt a sense of belonging and rightness and home that I have never felt anywhere. And it wasn't because I was at my grandparents because I wanted to get away from them.

There is a reason why I hope that one day I can live in Israel and that at the very least I plan to ensure that I will be buried in Israel even if I never get to live there. Because I want my bones at least to rest in home.

Israel still felt like another country to me and I still felt out of my depth the way I have when I've been to other countries. And I also felt this sense of being home that I've never felt anywhere including the USA which is where I was born and lived my whole life.

So I don't know make of that what you will.

sorry but after watching two plus years of israeli doubletaps on palestinian men, women, and children, every missle that hits tel aviv leaves me feeling like this

cool meanwhile israelis