#Gratitude | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

onservantswings · 6 hours ago

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Anon probably won't take the time to thank you, so I will.

Thank you for the time and clearly detailed responses you prepared. I've lost so many friends to the bullshit they're spouting. Reminders that I'm not insane for rejecting their claims make it easier for me to endure a complete transformation of my communities.

I recently read Dr. Einat Wild quoting Achad Ha-Am's half-consolation that blood libel was so ridiculous that Jews would recognize it as a lie, and thus realize that the entire world could be wrong. I grieve that we have reached a place where Jews not only believe the libels about us, but are actively spreading them.

you're right, i am in pain. my partner and i (and others) decided to leave our synagogue last year after leadership ignored a vote that lacked a majority and released a statement supporting israels actions anyway. there arent any other synagogues in our city. saying i dont know my jewish history is incredibly hurtful, in fact you came across as very patronising.

im not going to answer point by point, because i think your beliefs in some areas are entrenched and it would be meaningless and hurtful to us both.

i would like to apologise for my wording that accused you directly of things that dont apply- though your bolded quotes arent actually quotes from my message, which is misleading about my points. i wasnt necessarily talking directly about YOU for some statements, just what i have witnessed in this debate in our community.

and to address that, i bought up my jewishness because in the past i have instantly been called an antisemite or even a nazi for being upset about palestinian deaths. it wasnt an etempt to manipulate you, i have to state it in every conversation on this topic now or i am attacked (and i sometimes am anyway, being called a self hating jew and once even a kapo which was fucking awful). that was my argument about conflating the government (and actions) of israel with the jewish people is harmful, because my family, community, and loved ones dont live on the same continent but are being tarred with the same brush. and yet when i criticise the government thats meant to represent me somehow, im a bad jew. antisemites will always be antisemites, im not saying this is new or of anynes creation. im saying they are being handed ammunition, and i have been hit with it.

but yes, i apologise for not making it clearer i was not accusing you directly of having all the beliefs in my post, but you clearly disagree with a lot of what i said.

firstly, the "hamas run" health ministry is propoganda to make you not believe the number of deaths. the GAZA health ministry, which yes is run by the government, just like the garbage collectors and people who write birth certificates, is taken as a valid source by human rights watch, the UN, and many other organisations. in fact, we likely ARE getting incorrect information, and human rights groups estimate that the death toll is much higher, and have been saying that for months. "i dont believe that that many people have died" with the only evidence you have being "the other guys said it" is either bad faith or willful blindness. of course, israel COULD let in impartial investigators, aid groups, and journalists in so we could get completely reliable information, but they refuse to do so.

saying there isnt credible evidence that the israeli government is purposefully starving gazans is laughable. there are quotes of genocidal intent from every level of government, but i dont want to get into the details because searching for recent quotes isnt how i want to spend my time. i can however link you to 74 statements that legally fall under "genocidal intent" made by israeli legislators in the first FOUR MONTHS after oct 7th alone. i know there are other databases like this, if you are interested in looking them up. https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2-Database-of-Israeli-Incitement-to-Genocide-15th-January-2024-LEGISLATORS.pdf

i dont need to say that the israeli government doesnt care about the hostages- their families have done that for me.

saying that civillian casualties are awful but are to be expected is just false. in no war in modern history have civillians been killed to this extent, and legally israel is responsible for that. if hamas was hiding the hostages under tel aviv, do you think the IDF would have used the same tactics and flattened it? no, because israeli lives matter to them, but palestinans dont. in fact, they have been going for maximum damage to destroy all infrestructure to support life and culture (a check in the legal genocide box). also "human shields" is not, and has never been, a legal excuse to kill a civilian. even if terrorists are embedded in civilian populations, it is NOT LEGAL to kill the civilians en masse as colateral damage. it sounds like a great argument, but put it in any other context or situation and its clear it's unacceptable. and yes, hamas hiding under civilians is unacceptable too, but that doesnt excuse mass murder in retaliation. two war crimes dont cancel each other out.

nearly every human rights group, hundreds of legal experts, many genocide scholars (including from inside israel), and holocaust survivors themselves have said this is a genocide. it is not antisemetic to say that. ive read the legal arguments and papers. you may wish to bury your head in the sand and believe that netanyahu, ben gvir, and other people like them havent used their power to create these circumstances that have lead to genocide, but they have.

my "probably killed hundreds of thousands" was sourced from a lancet paper published in july last year estimating the deaths to be 180,000, due to the lack of counting of those who are missing under rubble, or died of illness or starvation that would otherwise be preventable. seeing as that was a year ago, and 700,000 people are currently suffering accute starvation, and the fact that everyone agrees the gaza health ministry numbers are low, i dont feel like i am wildly over-exaggerating with my statement. but to be fair, you are right in that those numbers have not been confirmed, and won't be for what will probably be a long time, so i'll retract that.

and im sorry, but your section about moral distinctions disgusts me. because those moral distinctions /dont apply/ to the civillians. an IDF soldier who snipes a child through the skull for target practice repeatedly is JUST as evil as a hamas militant murdering children on october 7th. and your talk of "winning" as if there is anything to be won here, or that its asymetric, which yes IS MY POINT. this is a terrorist militia vs one of the best funded militaries in the world. this level of death and destruction on the part of the IDF is entirely unwarrented, because they have the capability to have done a better, cleaner job and chose not to.

and "who started the war" is such a bad faith argument, because no, the war didnt start on october 7th. there was operation pillar of defence, operation cast lead, operation protective edge (also known as the gaza war (2008), the gaza war (2012), and the gaza war (2014). y'know, mowing the lawn. if we were to try and argue who started this war, we'd be going back over a hundred years. thats how cycles of violence work. but yeah, when one group is the occupied and one is the occupier, they tend to have more power.

i have been following this as closely as i have been able to when it started. i am willing to admit that some of my knowledge may be wrong, or outdated, but that doesnt mean i havent read the articles, the papers, the quotes, etc. to back up what im saying. and im sorry that i dont have the capability to find every quote and every source and get into an academic debate with you.

honestly i shouldnt have messaged you in the first place because it was an impulsive action from being triggered and this is a topic i have been trying to avoid for my mental health. i have been pretty successful in avoiding situations like these- i have been off all social media since march last year because the number of dead children i was seeing caused me to have a mental breakdown. i still use tumblr though, and found comfort in some of your posts about judaism outside this general topic. unfortunately i wasnt prepared to see so many arguments that i believe are false and impulsively responded with a lot of pain. you are right there. so i am sorry, because i dont want to hurt you with accusations in response to my hurt. i want you to know that my messages come from a place of deep hurt and frustration with the world, and i know that taking that out on you isnt fair. so im sorry.

Okay, we're continuing from here.

Again, I can see that you're hurting, Anon. I won't dismiss that, but your pain doesn't make your false claims true or your contradictions coherent.

Claim: No modern war has seen this level of civilian death

Just false, and by a huge margin. Civilian deaths in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Rwanda were far higher.

We don't disagree, child. You're just provably wrong and presenting a falsehood as if it's a proven fact.

Claim: The Gaza Health Ministry is a neutral source

It's controlled by Hamas. UN and HRW cite it because it's the only available source, not because it's independent or verified. It has repeatedly been caught lying and presenting obviously bad data.

Claim: Israel blocks all aid and wants starvation

Untrue. Aid is restricted, but not stopped. Other factors like Hamas, Egypt, and logistics are also responsible. The idea that Israel wants mass starvation an accusation, not a fact. And it's an accusation you can't support. I agree the GHF and IDF failed to solve the distribution problem, but there's literally no evidence that Israel has sought starvation.

Claim: Genocide is undeniable

Incorrect. The ICJ has not ruled that genocide is occurring. Your opinion being settled is not the same as a legal definition being satisfied.

Claim: 180,000 Gazans have died

This is not and never has been a fact. It comes from a letter, not a study, published in The Lancet. It was not peer-reviewed. It did not rely on body counts, health records, or eyewitness testimony. It used a speculative mathematical projection based on indirect indicators and assumptions, many of which are unverifiable or contradicted by other sources. Experts across the spectrum, including critics of Israel, have noted that this letter is not reliable evidence of actual deaths.

Claim: 74 quotes prove Israeli genocidal intent

The law4palestine.org document you linked is a political advocacy tool, not an objective legal analysis. It compiles statements (many of them mistranslated, decontextualized, or rhetorical) from Israeli officials and claims they prove genocidal intent, but genocidal intent in law isn't proven by inflammatory soundbites. It requires sustained evidence of a state policy aimed at destroying a people as such. No court has found that standard met. You wouldn't accept a partisan anti-Palestinian compilation as proof of genocide by Palestinians. You shouldn’t apply a double standard here, but you do. Why do other Jews call you antisemtic or self-loathing? This is why.

Claim: 700,000 Gazans are experiencing acute starvation

This figure comes from a March 2024 IPC projection warning that 677,000 Gazans could face famine-like conditions if aid was not scaled up. It was not a measurement of real-time starvation, and the IPC clarified that these categories refer to risk, not confirmed deaths or clinical starvation cases. Conditions are dire, but no international body has verified that 700,000 people are currently starving.

Claim: Civilian deaths shouldn't happen in war

They do. Especially in urban combat against embedded militants. That doesn't make it moral, but it makes your framing historically and legally absurd.

You say you value all lives equally, but treat Israeli victims as abstract and Palestinian victims as sacred.

You say criticism of Israel isn't antisemitic, then blame Israel for global antisemitism.

You say you weren't attacking me, then say my moral distinctions disgust you.

You say you're open to being wrong, but refuse to check your own claims or engage with sources that challenge them.

You say the war didn't begin on October 7, yet you demand Israel behave as if it did...as if there were no rockets, no kidnappings, no attacks, no trauma, and no history before thatday.

You say collective punishment is wrong, yet apply it rhetorically to all Israelis while excusing Hamas because they're weaker.

Anon, you're overwhelmed with grief and outrage, absorbing unverified claims and activist messaging as if it is settled truth, and mistaking moral intensity for clarity.

I don't hold your pain against you, but your pain isn't a suitable substitute for evidence.

Here's what I see in both your asks:

You confuse emotional impact with factual clarity.

You accept anti-Israel claims uncritically and reject Israeli claims reflexively. The accusations against you of antisemtism have, therefore, a basis.

You demand Israel be perfect, but excuse Hamas as inevitable. The double standard is antisemitic.

You can't separate the horror of war from the legal definitions you're invoking without understanding war or the terms you're using.

You admit you can't verify your claims, then double down on them.

Your overwhelmed moral outrage isn't truth, Anon. Your belief that you're somehow a victim because other Jews don't like your antisemitism is, I'm sorry, absurd.

You don't know Jewish history, and it's okay with me of I come off as patronizing to you.

Your arguments are that clueless, that unsupported, that ignorant, and that sloppy.

"yet when i criticise the government thats meant to represent me somehow..."

WTAF, Anon? Do you see the layers of falsehoods here? You've gone far beyond criticizing government policies, nobody has claimed Israel represents you but antisemites, and Israel didn't invent antisemtism. I criticize Israel's government daily, and that's perfectly fine - but that's not what you do.

You spew unsupported nonsense and then play hurt victim when others point out how unsupported and nonsensical it is. You can't seem to differentiate between a fact and an assertion/accusation. You spout moral judgments absent any moral reasoning.

You're probably in your 20s or 30s, Anon. It's past time to move beyond this sort of adolescent bullshit and learn how to disagree like an adult.

You have strong opinions about a topic you claim to have followed closely, but prove this false by routinely misrepresenting reality with provable falsehoods and unsupported accusations which presume a priori that anything Hamas says is gospel truth and anything Israel says is a lie. You're called self-hating because you have deeply embedded, reflexive Judenhass at work. It's an unexamined, partly unconscious bias you need to unpack.

Look at what you wrote: "...IDF soldier who snipes a child through the skull for target practice..."

Either support this kind of accusation with evidence or shove it back into the ignorant piehole from which it sprang.

Listen to the dreck you spout: "if hamas was hiding the hostages under tel aviv, do you think the IDF would have used the same tactics and flattened it? no, because israeli lives matter to them, but palestinans dont."

Israel doesn't hide weapons under schools or hospitals for the explicit purpose of creating civilian casualties.

Blaming Israel for the consequences of Hamas using civilians as shields flips the moral logic. Israel warns civilians, Hamas traps them.

Expecting Israel to value Palestinian lives more than Hamas does is a rigged double standard.

What I'm saying, Anon, is that the problem here isn't how you're treated by other Jews.

The problem is you.

The Jews who know you irl and accuse you of being self-loathing, an antisemite and/or an aspiring kapo have a strong argument...while you have no argument at all.

Your mental breakdown isn't the fault of Israelis, Bibi Netanyahu, your local synagogue, or the tragedies of war. Please unpack these cognitive distortions with your therapist. If you don't have one, find one.

You're right. You shouldn't have submitted the first Ask in the first place, and I shouldn't have given either Ask this much of my time or patience.

You're not making any moral arguments, you're just doing some emotional dumping which reveals your unexamined biases very clearly.

Your hurt and your frustration are real, but they don't justify/excuse your dishonesty, laziness, and sloppy thinking.

Your partner may have to tolerate the emotional dumping, but I don't.

Take care.

#I/p #War #Gratitude #Blood libel #Internalized antisemitism

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