Perfectly Average Blog

Okay, sure, let's have it out. I imagine I'll pretty much piss off everyone with this.

First: the only confidence I have in my understanding of the political situation of the Middle East is that I have no fucking understanding whatsoever of the political situation in the Middle East. Sure, I've read plenty. I have friends of many many stripes. But I'm not a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect here, folks: I know enough to know how much I don't know, and how much I know is tons.

Second, you say that person is a "zionist." There are three things I find pretty annoying about this as a defense attorney. One is that the term is not defined, and the other is that there is a complete lack of evidence. The third is the implicit assumption that being a "zionist" is enough to wholeheartedly condemn anyone.

Let's tackle these one by one. And, once again, I am neither a scholar of Jewish history nor Middle Eastern history nor anything except American criminal law.

First: definition. There are many possible meanings of zionist that I see people use. One potential meaning of "zionist" seems to be "is Jewish, but fails to disavow Israel as fast and loud as I personally want them to." Sometimes the meaning of "zionist" is just "is Jewish." Sometimes it's "a Jewish person who wishes for a return to a very distant ancestral homeland." Sometimes it's "wholehearted supporter of Israel's war crimes." A lot of pointless arguing, it seems to me, is centered around someone saying they are zionist, i.e., they would like Jewish people to someday have a nice homeland where they don't feel like a strange political chunk in another country, and another person hears that they are zionist, i.e. they enjoy wholesale slaughter of civilians.

Second: No evidence. Self-explanatory. You are an anon. I don't know why I'm supposed to trust your word. I read police reports for a living and I am supposed to be able to trust them, and let me tell you how many lies they contain.

Third: the assumption of condemnation. I literally defend the human rights of sex criminals in court. I defend murderers. What we are talking about, right now, at best, is a human person expressing an opinion, however potentially damaging and offensive (depending on definition of zionism and truth of accusation). Do you think I'm gonna say that Jewish people who express an opinion are inhuman and deserve segregation from the rest of us?

Do you think I'm ever going to stop reaching out my hand to people who use violence? Do you think I'm ever going to lose the hope that someday they will lose the fear that makes them resort to violence?

Finally, now that I've spent some time listing my problems with your case, so what.

Let's use an example closer to home. I'm an American, and I do in fact believe that America is a nation and will continue to be so, and that tearing down all government to give it back to indigenous people (something that is, to be clear, to my understanding, not comparable with any kind of political situation in Israel) is not possible as things stand. And yet nobody's here interrogating me about Donald Trump and his bombing of Iran or whether I support ICE's jackbooted thuggery.

A little further from home? If I met a Russian person, my first ask would not be "Tell me in detail your thoughts on Ukraine and Putin."

And in those two examples, I myself and this hypothetical Russian person are actually members of the country in question that is doing the thing. A Jewish person who is not Israeli isn't even that.

Listen. I think there's a lot to be unpacked about how the insularity of Jewish culture and the separateness of it from the countries where it lives is both in the interest of continuing the Jewish ethnicity and in the interest of the people who want Jewish people exterminated, and how the double-pull of those two interests maintain a tension that otherwise might dissipate. I think there's something real to be analyzed about how modern anti-semitism isn't a recurrence of medieval anti-semitism but a different thing, a sign of fascist thinking.

I think there is a horrific tragedy for everyone involved that the group who was decimated beyond belief in the blackest events in human history now has a very loud and visible nation channeling their survival into rage and violence.

I think that there are lots of Arab nations around Israel that would gladly see every person in it subject to that same rage and violence, and I'm not down with that shit either.

I think the history of who colonized who and when and what pogroms did what and how violence and why are all too fucking complicated to untangle.

I think the only way truly forward for Israel and Palestine is some kind of truth and reconciliation type thing and that Israel as it stands is too scared to see all their atrocities come to light.

I was raised atheist with college professor parents, so you can bet Jewish people in academia were part of my life from an early age. I don't understand antisemitism literally at all. It's completely incomprehensible to me. I also think Arab culture is gorgeous and studied Arabic in college. I don't discount the idea that I have subconscious biases; I've done my best to unpick them, but it's lifelong work.

The whole goddamn clusterfuck is a great example of why violence begets violence begets violence. I reject the idea that One Final Ass-Kicking on anyone's part will solve any one of these problems. The only thing that ends violence is not choosing violence. And that can't happen until enough people in and out of power want the violence to stop. There. Not here. There. It can't be imposed from outside. It has to come from within.

And that's a decision -- I must add -- that I seriously could not have less to do with. White Americans should not be making any of the related decisions.

Here endeth the essay, with one final note.

It is best for the civilians caught in the middle to not encourage the continuatiin of violence. And it is best for those of us drowning in the splash effect as the whole world (minus you and a few others) have gleefully turned on Jews.

You are also giving a sign of hope, which has been rapidly disapearing, about the possibility of being able to safely live in the US.

and how the double-pull of those two interests maintain a tension that otherwise might dissipate

this was tested already. it is called the shoah. german Jews were THE most assimilated. they were germans first, jews second (moses mendelsohns jew at home, german in the street thing, and many of them were barely jews at home).

Zionism is the acknowledgement that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people (historical fact) and that we deserve to live and to have self-determination in our homeland.

And for any would-be linguistic descriptivists out there who want to say that if enough people start using a word to mean something new, the meaning just changes because the only "correct" meaning is in how people use it: that might apply to common words like 'meat' (which used to be a generic term for food and then specialized to refer to animal flesh considered as food) or 'awesome' (which used to specifically mean 'awe-inspiring' but now is just used as an expression of strong approval), but it does not apply to specialized words like scientific or legal terms where the meaning is fixed by the usage of a much smaller community of experts. It also does not apply -- or should not apply -- to culturally specific terms which originate with a particular cultural group in reference to some aspect of their identity or experience. The meaning of the word 'Zionist' is determined by how Jewish people use it in reference to their (our) national aspirations; its authoritative meaning does not -- must not -- depend on how outsiders misappropriate it.

And just a note with regard to assimilation: again I am not an expert and y'all undoubtedly know more about history, but the undercurrent here feels like y'all anticipate me blaming Jewish choices for anti-Jewish violence. This is not how I roll. Violence is the fault of the perpetrators. Causation -- why the perpetrators did the violence -- can be a topic of discussion without ignoring that basic reality.

So when I talk about 'assimilation', it's not with any assumption or judgment: that shit is not by default good or necessary, and it's not an automatic goal. I'm not the Borg.

I also did not know it was called a hakenkreuz?

What I am saying is that there genuinely is not legit causation to jew hate. Ever. It is ALWAYS another excuse which is simply used as a (bad) cover up for the simple "cause" of hating Jews.

Funny how nobody attacking dems mentions this part.

-XYZ is Catholic

-XYZ is bisexual.

-XYZ is Muslim.

also wikipedia:

-XYZ is of Jewish descent.

-XYZ has Jewish parents.

but later on they clarify that she freed herself from being “ethnically charged” so it’s all good now

That said: this isn't really a Jew-specific thing as a general principle? I searched up a random selection of people (my 'name a public figure' skills are about to be put on trial) and like, Tom Cruise's bio says "had a Catholic upbringing" and it names the descent of his parents, similar to this. Same with most people. You'll sometimes see "identifies as" (Lupita Nyong'o's page says "identifies as Kenyan-Mexican", after stating the countries where she holds citizenship). Guillermo del Toro's "parents were of Spanish descent" and he "was raised in a Catholic household". Pete Buttigieg's doesn't actually specify his parents' ethnicities at all, aside from mentioning that his father was born in Malta.

Me: