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matan4il · 26 minutes

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For the Nonnie who asked me to share some of the response to the performative "all eyes on Rafah" campaign, I hope it's okay if I add to the two images you sent me, and turn to the people sharing that AI generated image...

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing Hamas' abuse, torture and even killing of its own Gazan civilians?

("Resistance is justified when people are occupied!" Cool cool, but what kind of a "resistance" attacks its own people?)

If all eyes are on Rafah, where were your eyes on Oct 7?

If all eyes are on Rafah, 'coz Gazan kids being burned alive (by Hamas, even though Israel got falsely blamed for it) is so unacceptable, then where were your eyes when our kids were burned alive by Hamas? In the pic: 2 years old Omer Siman Tov, who was deliberately burned alive by Hamas terrorists together with his entire family, his parents and two older sisters, in their own home.

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If all eyes are on Rafah, do you see Kfir Bibas, kidnapped at the age of 9 months together with both his parents and his 4 years old brother Ariel? Kfir is the youngest hostage in the world ever (second youngest ever was Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., who was kidnapped at 20 months old in 1932).

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing our other molested hostages?

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing Hamas' rocket launchers which continuously operate and target our civilians from there? (note the dates vary from Dec 7, 2023 to May 26, 2024)

If all eyes are on Rafah, where the IDF did strike and kill two senior Hamas leaders, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar, near (but not at) a shelter tent camp, are you seeing that Hamas deliberately chooses to risk its own civilians by having its leaders carry out consultation meetings so close to regular people?

If all eyes are on Rafah, why did you see the rescue of two of our elderly hostages (and the killing of the terrorists who tried to prevent the success of this operation) as a massacre? And why did you claim this was Israel invading Rafah back on Feb 12 already, when the actual ground operation in that city only started in May?

If all eyes are on Rafah because you care about the Palestinians so much, where were your eyes when Palestinians were endangered and killed by fellow Arabs?

If all eyes are on Rafah, where almost a million people have been evacuated by May 20 already, then whose eyes are on Sudan, Congo, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Ukraine among other places, where the murders of hundreds of thousands in each (and altogether, millions) is being carried on unchallenged? Where are the campaigns for the people whose slaughter you can't weaponize against the Jewish state?

If you shared that graphic, but didn't do anything about any of the other things listed in this post, you don't actually care. You just want to seem as if you do.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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matan4il · 2 hours

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what do you, as an Israeli, think of Standing Together? asking entirely in good faith because I see things supporting them a lot, but it's always from American Jews and (no offense to us), I don't totally trust that we're informed enough to know what we're talking about and what their perspective and usefulness truly is in the way that someone who actually lives there would. so many orgs are untrustworthy or covertly antisemitic and it made me curious for your perspective. thank you for everything. <3

Hi Nonnie!

Sorry it took me a moment to reply, but I hope my answer can still help you!

As an idea, Standing Together is a movement that I should have been all for. They are pro-coexistence, and so am I. There's no doubt in my mind that Jews aren't going anywhere, and neither are Arabs, and we are all better off working together for a good future for all. Supposedly, that's ST's message, so they absolutely should be an organization that I would be all for.

BUT from everything I've experienced, the narrative that they adopted is way more one-sided than their official stance, they're closer to being anti-Israel than balanced, which makes them problematic for me. Especially when you look at the individual actions and statements of many of this movement's leaders, it's evident that coexistence to them comes at the expense of historical facts, as well as certain Jewish rights. Obviously, the leaders' personal positions influence the movement's stance and actions.

For example, in this interview from Nov 2023, a Jewish leader of the movement falsely calls Israel's 2014 operation in Gaza against Hamas, "a war against Gaza and its people" (brief summary: Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers in Judea and Samaria, Israel launched Operation Brother's Keeper during which it arrested some of Hamas' terrorists in that area looking for intel on where those 3 kids were and what happened to them, Hamas fired rockets from Gaza at Israel to get its terrorists released and used terror tunnels, including ones that crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, to kill and kidnap our people. That's what Israel ended up fighting against in Operation Protective Edge), while an Arab leader of ST defines their way as one which rejects "maintaining violent military control over millions of people," but says nothing against the terrorism that's used against millions of Israelis and Jews.

In terms of the recent war, since Oct 7 they have come out calling for a ceasefire now very early on in the war (I can't remember when they started it, but I know by Dec 7, 2023 they'd already put out a vid calling to stop the war, when really the ground operation only started about a month earlier, before it could possibly achieve anything), meaning this call was undermining Israel's right (and duty!) to defend its citizens, and asking us to surrender our goals of returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas' rule (only the latter can prevent Hamas from fulfilling its promise to carry out more massacres of the type that started this war, and has claimed so many lives on both sides). Another thing you can see in that vid is ST participating in spreading the false narrative that Israel is intentionally starving the Gazans (you can see the same thing in this poster, which says in Hebrew, "Thou shalt not starve." It's a poster for humanitarian aid they were supposedly bringing into Gaza, as if the IDF would ever let anyone bring anything they want unchecked into a war zone, or as if the amount of aid a few Israeli cars could bring is more than the hundreds of trucks Israel has been allowing in, checked. ST's just posturing and spreading an anti-Israel libel). Helping to spread a libel against one side is NOT being pro-coexistence. Imagine if they were spreading a libel that all Gazans are Hamas terrorists, and took part in the massacre! I think it's clear that, even if it's not simple to tell them apart, there are people in Gaza who are complicit, and people who are uninvolved and innocent. So if ST were spreading such a libel against Gazans, I'd oppose them. I am not going to do less when ST is spreading a libel against my own people.

I hope one day they correct course, but I can't currently support them. Give me REAL solidarity between Jews and Arabs, which sees and recognizes the humanity of both, not a repeat of the de-humanization of Jews, and a surrender of Jewish rights to an anti-Jewish narrative. That's not real peace, it's not real coexistence, it's a return to the way that we Jews have had to live for centuries in exile: always dependent on the good will (or lack of it) of the majority under whose will we lived, forced to bend ourselves, our rights, our dignity, too often even our very lives, to our subjugators, in the hope (and without any guarantees) that they will show us some kindness.

Many of the movement's leaders have not only expressed themselves in a way that reflects an acceptance of the anti-Israeli narrative, and took one-sided positions I can't agree with, they also acted in ways that have left me feeling quite unsafe.

For example, one of ST's founders, Yeela Raanan, joined and supported the violent Palestinian riots on Israel's border with Gaza, organized by Hamas, meant to breach the border fence, which started in 2018. Today we know these riots were a part of Hamas' preparations for the Oct 7, 2023 massacre, as they were getting the IDF used to them coming closer and closer to the fence. TBH, those of us listening to the statements of Hamas' leaders, we didn't need to wait for the border to be breached in order to know that it would be a bloodbath if they succeed. Sinwar's promise that they will reap out the hearts of Israelis with spoons from our chests was enough. Also, the repeated use during these riots of flags and kites with swastikas was pretty telling. So yeah, I can't trust anyone who supported that.

The movement is also financially supported in part by funds, such as the New Israel Fund, which finances a lot of good causes, but also many anti-Israel ones, and the German fund Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which supports the antisemitic BDS movement (it's antisemitic first of all because one of its stated goals is to put an end to Israel as a Jewish state, another reason is their use of antisemitic tropes in characterizing the Jewish state).

The ironic thing is that, despite how imbalanced against Israel ST is, it was still the so-called pro-Palestinians who actually started a campaign to boycott the organization. Not because of anything specific ST said or did. It was simply for being an Israeli organization, showing the diversity of Israeli society, which is apparently bad 'coz it "normalizes" Israel's existence. That shows you the anti-Israel nature of this opposition, that no amount of willingness to cooperate with the de-humanization of Jews and erasure of our rights will ever be enough for people whose real motivation is antisemitism, that wishes to see an end to the Jewish state.

I hope this helps, Nonnie! Once more, my apologies for how long it's taken me to reply. Be well!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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matan4il · 6 hours

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matan4il · 11 hours

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Sending hugs and love, too! It's okay not to watch, it's normal to feel crushed by it anyway, it is so good that you are turning to our community to not be alone with the pain. It's easier to carry it when we're all together. xoxox

i'm not okay and I don't know what to do. i was doing better for the first time in months i'd found a way to distract myself and find some semblance of joy in my day, and then this video came out and even tho i didn't watch it, even though it's nothing we didn't know already, i can't breathe anymore.

I'm so sorry. I hear you. I get it. Just the stills were enough to level me too. I don't have an answer. None of us are okay.

But I'm glad you reached out because I can tell you that what's saved me this whole time is being with my Jewish community, and doing so in person as much as possible. What's keeping me together is being together: grieving together, finding moments of joy together, and taking action together.

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matan4il · 13 hours

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We Jews, we ARE one family. That's exactly why what you said resonates with me completely.

Like honestly it's the most surreal feeling to have Israeli friends and know that an alarming number of people all around me have very strong opinions about how these smart and kind and talented people that I personally know, should dissolve their entire lives and society or literally just die.

Millions of people around the globe, obsessively fixated on punishing your friends and casually condemning them to death over a conflict they understand only through Instagram.

They don't know shit about what's actually happening, they don't know the actual history or details, and they don't know the actual people. They just know Those are the Bad People. You don't need to know facts! You just need to look at the pictures! (Ignore those other pictures though.) You don't need to know about Shira's new baby, or Oz's woodworking hobby. You don't need to know about Gavriel's new charity, or Hila's wildlife research.

They're not people to you. But I know them.

Why do you refuse so hard to see what I see?

Why do you feel so comfortable judging people you don't even know?

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matan4il · 15 hours

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An incomplete "there's a good chance the icon you love and support is a Zionist" list

🌟 Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, whose family was murdered during it. Lemkin is responsible for coining the term "genocide," and for every legal provision that exists today against it. His work against genocide was inspired by his Zionism.

🌟 Martin Luther King, Jr., who did not only support Israel and its right to security, a fellow participant at a dinner with MLK shortly before his assassination quotes him as having stopped a student attacking Zionism, and replied, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism." He also encouraged Americans in 1967 to support the Jewish state, as Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, endangering Israeli citizens by cutting the country off from its oil supply.

🌟 Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet, whose words ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free") are engraved on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, after they helped raise the money needed for its completion. Drawing from the value of Jewish solidarity, she also wrote, "Until we are all free, we are none of us free," adopted as a slogan by intersectionality (while many in the movement exclude Jews from it). She was a great supporter of establishing a state for Jews in the Jewish homeland, having argued for this idea years before the word "Zionist" was even coined.

🌟 The 14th Dalai Lama, the leader of the fight against the occupation of Tibet, who was invited in 1994 to Israel, at a time when China's communist regime did its best to prevent his visits anywhere in the world, and who came to Israel more than once, talking about the 2000 years long Zionism of Jewish culture in exile as an inspiration and role model for Tibetans. "Among Tibetan refugees, we are always saying to ourselves that we must learn the Jewish secret to keep our traditions, in some cases under hostile circumstances."

🌟 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who spoke more than once about how her pursuit of justice is a continuation of that very same thing in Jewish tradition. She had repeatedly referred to American Zionist Jews as sources of inspiration. For example, in 2018, during her fifth visit to Israel, in a speech she gave when receiving the Genesis Award, she mentioned two such women, Emma Lazarus and Henrietta Szold.

🌟 Nelson Mandela had an ambivalent view of Israel, but repeatedly recognized its right to exist, which makes him a Zionist, he also called upon Arab states to do the same, and was favorable towards the Zionist Jews who supported him during his underground days. Mandela being critical of Israel and still a Zionist is an apt reminder that criticizing the Jewish state and opposing its very existence are NOT the same thing, and only one's antisemitic.

🌟 Felix Salten, the Jewish author of Bambi (the book Disney's movie is based on). The tale was originally a metaphor for Jews suffering antisemitism, something Salten personally had to cope with. He was also an ardent Zionist, feeling the self-liberation at the core of this ideology suited his idea of how to deal with Jew hatred.

🌟 Sun Yat-Sen, who helped end the rule of China's last imperial dynasty, was its first provisional president, and is nowadays honored as an important Chinese leader in both China and Taiwan (sometimes referred to as "Father of the Chinese Nation"). He was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism. Among other instances of expressing that, he wrote in a 1920 letter to a leader of the Jewish community in Shang Hai about Zionism that it is, "one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserves an honorable place in the family of nations."

🌟 Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexologist, nicknamed among other things "The Einstein of Sex" and "The Father of Gay Liberation," because his medical and scientific work on human sexuality, as well as social advocacy for women's, gay and trans rights, was nothing short of pioneering. He was persecuted by the Nazis to the point where he died in exile. They broke into his institute of sexual research, where the world's first clinic performing sex reassignments surgeries was located, and burned down the institute's library. Hirschfeld had attended a Zionist conference following the Balfor Declaration of 1917, and his work on sexual liberation found inspiration in young socialist Jewish Zionist workers he met during a visit to the Land of Israel in 1931-2.

🌟 Marcia Langton, a professor and prominent Aboriginal rights activist from Australia, who has been leading the fight against racism and for her community. She spoke out against the hijacking of native rights movements by terrorist sympathizers and antisemites, and has clearly stood against all loss of life, including that of Israelis.

🌟 Felix Zandman, a Holocaust survivor whose work on resistors is integrated into many smartphones, laptops, cars, satellites, hospital ventilators (saving many Covid patients), airplanes and more. Whenever the anti-Israel crowd is scrolling social media on their phones, they're enjoying the work of a Zionist, who enthusiastically supported the State of Israel, and even introduced an important improvement to the Israeli Merkava tank, which has likely saved many Israeli lives, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, and others like him, since Israel's high tech is considered only second to Silicon Valley (going back to at least the 1990's). If they truly wish to boycott everything that's been "contaminated" by Zionism, they should probably just boycott technology.

🌟 Rosa Parks, an African American leader of the civil rights movement (and someone who personally demonstrated how one can resist without turning violent). She was one of 200 notable black American leaders who publicly organized to express their support and respect of Zionism as the Jewish right to self-determination, and Israel as the manifestation of that right.

-> Like I said, this is VERY incomplete, even just in terms of how the overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionist, and have been since the inception of Judaism, which is itself Zionist. Over the years, this led to many non-Jewish human and native rights champions to be supportive of Zionism, too. Take note of who is being vilified, when the term "Zionist" is ignorantly used as if it means anything other than belief in the equal right of Jews to liberation and self-determination in the Jewish ancestral land. Especially when it is used as being inherently evil.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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matan4il · 17 hours