When I read the news this morning, the first thing I did was open twitter for the first time in 2 weeks and retweet a bunch of tweets celebrating the Iranian attack on Tel Aviv. It felt cathartic and deserved, like they were finally getting what had been a long time coming and like the genocide might finally stop. And while the Iranian missile attack hasn't even done a fraction of the unimaginable destruction the Zionist entity has inflicted on any of its neighbors, there's still something gnawing at the back of my mind: "Don't ever become like them."
Israel has shown us some of the absolute worst that humanity is capable of. The cruelty and sadism even normal Israeli civilians have displayed towards the Palestinians has been appalling and shocking. But I don't want to believe that the majority of people in Israel are ontologically evil, irredeemable psychopaths, I want to believe that they are normal people at their core. The inhumane hatred they feel for the Palestinian people isn't some unique phenomenon exclusive to Jewish settlers or Republican congressmen, but something any of us could experience for another group of people under the wrong circumstances.
And while it's nowhere near that level, I can't deny that what I'm feeling right now and what I've been feeling for the past 20 months is hate. I hate Israel, I hate everything it has done and continues to do, I hate its fascist leadership, I hate how my own country's government makes me feel like I'm going insane by unconditionally supporting these rabid nazis, and I won't lie, I have developed a certain hatred for Israel's population as well. A part of me would love to see videos of Israelis being thrown out of their stolen homes and suffer even half of what they made the people of Palestine suffer. A part of me wants to see Tel Aviv razed to the ground just like the Gaza strip was.
But I don't want to be like that. Right now the damage done to Israel is negligible, but should it experience serious devastation, I do hope we can remember our humanity. Let it never get to the point where we take our families on a hill and watch other families get massacred for entertainment. Let it never get to the point where we cheer for some IDF general to get murked alongside 7 members of his family. I want to still be able to feel empathy (though not necessarily forgiveness) for people who have lost everything, even if 6 months ago they were supporting ethnic cleansing.
I don't wanna chastise anyone for joking about Tel Aviv getting nuked or for telling Israelis going "oh noo bomb shelterinos" on TikTok to pound sand. It's one thing to say that while Israel is still the dominant force and receiving unconditional support from the West. But when the point comes where the Zionist entity has been defeated (inshallah it will be soon), I hope we can restrain ourselves from indulging in cruelty and sadism. Nobody, not even Benjamin Netanyahu or Itamar Ben-Gvir, deserves having to pick up a family member's remains and stuff them in a plastic bag. Even the most despicable Zionist you can think of deserves better than what the Palestinians are going through.
Sorry for the ramble, this has been going through my mind all day. Also main I guess.
IMO it’s not losing your humanity to say that settlers and perpetrators of genocide not only deserve to be fought tooth and nail, but NEED to be, and it should be celebrated when they take hits as it is a step towards decolonization and the end of genocide. If the zionists don’t want to be in harm’s way they can always go home to Brooklyn or wherever and stop occupying. Once the state of “israel” is gone and a secular, just Palestinian state created, then we can talk about reform, reeducation, integration of settlers and their descendants. For now though I have no empathy for anybody there but the children and draft dodgers.
I 100% agree. You don't need to feel sad for settlers scrolling through TikTok in their bomb shelters right now. I'm talking about a time when the war is won. When people are at their lowest and experiencing genuine misery. That's when we will need to remember empathy and to treat them with dignity, exactly what they are not displaying towards the Palestinians right now.
I think this is the key of the issue. I come from a country that's been at some kind of civil war or another for decades, almost a century now, with thousands of atrocities being committed, and that now it's working its way out of constant war. For most of the victims, people who in my opinion have every right to want to see their perpetrators suffer, justice never took the shape of revenge, it was something different.
I've done some work with a local Palestine supporting org, too, and they're in contact with people in the occupied west bank. Not once have they mentioned wanting to take revenge for what they've suffered, either.
I'm under no illusions that the liberation of Palestine will be accomplished through non violent means, but in my experience, and what I've seen from peace processes all over the world (after which my country took inspiration), most people want the violence to stop, and after that, they want justice. Justice isn't always retaliation.