applesandpomogranantes - Tumblr blog

[applesandpomogranantes]

Palestine et Ukraine flags as cute pixel hearts. Commissioned from @/roxas_1 on fiverr. Peace.

[applesandpomogranantes]

https://www.gofundme.com/f/v77vfk-help-my-family-escape-war-in-gaza?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet-first-launch&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&cdn-cache=0

hi everyone, my dad and his siblings have been desperately trying to get my aunt and her whole family out of gaza. I’ve watched him have multiple breakdowns over seeing the conditions they’re living in. they haven’t seen each other in person in literal decades. my aunt’s home in gaza city was completely destroyed and her family have had to repeatedly flee from the devastation. they deserve a better life than this, her kids deserve a better future than this.

it costs an insane amount to get over the egyptian border. please, donate if you can or rb this, it would mean a lot. thank you

[applesandpomogranantes]

[applesandpomogranantes]

Some of you haven't been to the darkest depths of ao3 and it shows

[applesandpomogranantes]

I don't write a lot for them, but I am genuinely in love with erasermic. Like every good and beautiful thing exists within them. They've loved each other since they were kids, they've gone through loss together, taken in kids together.

Just like the overwhelming love and tragedy within them and everything they've been through. I want all of them - romantic, platonic, whatever as long as they're together and the most important person to each other in some way.

[applesandpomogranantes]

Motaz continues to show us what Israel truly is, yet there are still people who deny it. If you still support Israel, may you burn in hell a long with every zionist and every person with a "neutral" stance.

Trigger warning: Just look at your own risk

[applesandpomogranantes]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that. (Plain text version)

I kept getting "needs pt" tags on the original post, so here's the plain text version:

Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with several Jewish people who told me how hurt and scared they are right now.

To my great regret, some of that pain came from a poorly-thought-out post of mine, which – while not ill-intentioned – WAS hurtful.

And a lot of it came from cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of people who claim to be advocating for Palestine, but are using the very real plight of innocent Palestinians to harm equally innocent Jewish people.

Y’all, we need to do better. (Yes, “we” definitely includes me; this is in no small part a “learn from my fail” post, and also a “making amends” post. Some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past.)

So if you’re an advocate for Palestine who wants to make sure that your defense of one group of vulnerable people doesn’t harm another, here are some important things to do or keep in mind:

Ask yourself if you’re applying a standard to one group that you aren’t applying to another. Would you want all white Americans or Canadians to be expelled from America or Canada?

Do you want all Jewish people to be expelled from Israel, as opposed to finding a way to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in peace?

If the answer to those two questions is different, ask yourself WHY.

Do you want to be held responsible for the actions of your nation’s army or government? No? Then don’t hold innocent Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and government.

On that subject, be wary of condemning all Israeli people for the actions of the IDF. Large-scale tactical decisions are made by the top brass. Service is compulsory, and very few can reasonably get out of service.

Blaming all Israelis for the military’s actions is like blaming all Vietnam vets for the horrors in Vietnam. They’re not calling the shots. They aren’t Nazis running concentration camps. They are carrying out military operations that SHOULD be criticized.

And do not compare them or ANY JEWISH PERSON to Nazis in general. It is Jewish cultural trauma and not outsiders’ to use against them.

Don’t infuse legitimate criticism with antisemitism. By all means, spread the word about the crimes committed by the Israeli army and government, and the complicity of their allies. Criticize the people responsible for committing and enabling atrocities.

But if you imply that they’re committing those crimes because they’re Jewish, or because Jewish people have special privileges, then you’re straying into antisemitic territory.

Criticize the crime, not the group. If you believe that collective punishment is wrong, don’t do it yourself.

And do your best to use words that apply directly to the situation, rather than the historical terms for situations with similar features. For example, use “segregation,” “oppression,” or “subjugation,” not “Holocaust” or “Jim Crow.” These other historical events are not the cultural property of Jews OR Palestinians, but also have their own nuances and struggles and historical contexts.

Also, blaming other world events on Jewish people or making Jewish people associated with them (for instance, some people falsely blame Jewish people for the African slave trade) is a key feature of how antisemitism functions.

Please, by all means, be specific and detailed in your critiques. But keep them focused on the current political actors – not other peoples’ or nations’ political or cultural histories and traumas.

Be prepared to accept criticism. You probably already know that society is infused with a wide array of bigotries, and that people growing up in that environment tend to absorb those beliefs without even realizing it. Antisemitism is no exception.

What that means is, there’s a very real chance that you will screw up, and get called out on it, as I so recently did.

If that happens, please be willing to learn and adapt. If you can educate yourself about the suffering and needs of Palestinians, you can do the same for Jewish people.

Understand that the people you hurt aren’t obligated to baby you. Give them room to be angry. After I made a post that inadvertently hurt people, some were nice about it, and others weren’t. Some outright insulted my morals and intelligence.

And I had to accept that I’d earned that from them.

I’d hurt them, and they weren’t obligated to be more careful with my feelings than I had been with theirs.

They weren’t obligated to forgive me, trust me, or stop being mad at me right away.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I got defensive. I shouldn’t have. And I encourage you to try not to, if you screw up and hurt people.

I know that’s hard, but it’s important. Getting defensive only tells people you care more about doubling down on your mistake than you do about healing the hurt it caused.

Instead, acknowledge that they have a right to be angry, apologize for the way you hurt them, and try to make amends, while understanding that they don’t owe you trust or forgiveness.

Be aware that some antisemites are using legitimate complaints to “Trojan horse” antisemitism into leftist spaces. This is a really easy stumbling block to trip over, because most people probably don’t look at every post a creator makes before sharing the one they’re looking at right now.

I recently shared a video that called out some of the Likud and IDF’s atrocities and hypocrisy, and that also noted that many Jewish people are wonderful members of their communities.

I was later informed that, while that video in particular seemed reasonable, the creator behind it is frequently antisemitic.

I deleted the post, and blocked the creator. I encourage you to do the same if it’s brought to your attention that you’ve been ‘Trojan horse’d.

EDIT: Important note about antisemitism in leftist spaces:

While it's true that some blatant antisemites are using seemingly reasonable posts to get their foot in the door of leftist spaces, it's also true that a lot of antisemitism already exists inside those spaces.

This antisemitism is often dressed up in progressive-sounding language, but nonetheless singles Jewish people and places out in ways that aren't applied equally to other groups, or that label Jewish people in ways that portray them as acceptable targets.

If you want to see some specific examples, so you can have a better idea of what to keep an eye out for, I suggest reading this excellent reblog of the original post.

Fact-check your doubts about antisemitism. Depending on which parts of the internet you look at, you’ve probably seen people accused of antisemitism because they complained about the Likud and/or IDF’s actions. So you might be primed to be wary, or feel unsure of how to tell what counts as real antisemitism.

But that doesn’t mean antisemitism isn’t a very real, widespread, and harmful problem. And it doesn’t mean many or even most Jewish people are lying to you or being overly sensitive.

So if someone says something is antisemitic, and you aren’t sure, I encourage you to:

A. Look up the action or thing in question, including its history. Is there an antisemitic history or connotation you aren’t aware of? For best results, include “antisemitic” in your search query, in quotes.

B. Understand that some things, while not inherently antisemitic, have been used by antisemites often enough that Jewish people are understandably wary of them. Schrodinger’s antisemitism, if you will.

C. Ask Jewish people WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP EDUCATE YOU. Emphasis on WHO HAVE OFFERED. Random Jewish people aren’t obligated to give you their time and emotional energy, or to educate you – especially on subjects that are scary or painful for them.

@edenfenixblogs has kindly offered her inbox to those who are genuinely trying to learn and do better, and I’ve found her to be very kind, patient, reasonable, and fair-minded.

Understand that this is URGENTLY NEEDED. In one of my conversations with a Jewish person who’d called me out, they said this was the most productive conversation they’d had with a person with a Palestinian flag in their profile.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen, apologize for my mistakes, and learn.

Yes, it feels good to be acknowledged. But I feel like I’ve been praised for peeing IN the toilet, instead of beside it.

Apologizing, learning, and making amends after you hurt people shouldn’t be “the most reasonable thing I’ve heard from a person with a Palestinian flag pfp.”

It should be BASIC DECENCY.

And the fact that it’s apparently so uncommon should tell you how much unnecessary stress and fear Jewish people have been living with because of people who consider themselves defenders of human rights.

By all means, be angry at the Likud, the IDF, and the politicians, reporters, and specific media outlets who choose to enable and cover up for them. But direct that anger toward the people who deserve it and are in a position to do something about it, not random people who simply happen to be Jewish, or who don’t want millions of people to be turned into refugees when less violent methods of achieving freedom and rights for Palestinians are available.

Stop peeing beside the toilet, people.

[applesandpomogranantes]

Palestine et Ukraine flags as cute pixel hearts. Commissioned from @/roxas_1 on fiverr. Peace.

[applesandpomogranantes]

"you're too young to understand what's happening"

i've been on this godforsaken earth for more than a decade. i've grown. if a baby in gaza, not even a day old, is old enough to get killed by a fucking rocket, i'm mature enough to know what's really going on.

[applesandpomogranantes]

Gonzo: "Come on, Kermit! It'll be fun! Just like Muppet Goncharov!"

Kermit: "I keep telling you that never happened! Scorsese turned us down, remember?"

Gonzo: "It happened in my heart, Kermit."

[applesandpomogranantes]

Gotta love all the Palestine support here

I only properly started using tumblr yesterday and I am surprised at the amount of free Palestine posts here and I genuinely appreciate it!

On October 7th, the media depicted Israel as the victim. THIS IS NOT WHEN THE WAR STARTED. It started when illegal settlers occupied Palestine, many decades ago.

I was on Deviantart to see a "#peaceforisrael" post and art and other bullshit.

I repeat, ISRAEL IS NOT THE VICTIM HERE!!!

Don't stand for gen0cide. Stand for peace.

Free Palestine! 🇵🇸🍉

[applesandpomogranantes]

How we feeling this fine evening?

[applesandpomogranantes]

the universe is so fucking funny for this. imagine being born for a job. you having that job can only happen if your mom dies. and you wait 73 years for that to happen. and when you finally get that job, you get diagnosed with cancer and quite possibly die within the first five years. absolute legendary move on the universe’s part. lol. anyway, activate the crabs.

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none of y’all so called punks and leftists have done as much to dismantle monarchies as trisha paytas did by just getting pregnant twice

[applesandpomogranantes]

January 22, 2023

[applesandpomogranantes]

anyone who has a platform and an audience but is choosing not to advocate for Palestinians is guilty. anyone who's turning a blind eye to the genocide is guilty. anyone who thinks what's happening in Palestine and Yemen is not their concern and does not affect them is guilty. this has far surpassed the stage where it was okay for influential people to not speak up. because frankly, it never was. whoever is choosing to be silent about what's happening is guilty.