We're Not Doing That
Palestinian humanity is not up for debate.
In college I wrote this little ditty in the 5-7-5 haiku format:
Disagree with me /
About what I really said /
Not shit you made up.
And I come back to it now and again when people fill my mentions with gaslighting, straw dogs, random BS in response to a point they don’t want to deal directly with but feel compelled to squawk about anyway.
As a general rule, I don’t debate the value of life, especially not the life of an entire people. It feels dirty, to stoop so low as to even engage with an argument that is inherently, in its heart, bigoted.
I do love a good debate! Just not an absolutely repugnant one. And a lot of the rules of engagement for debate — politeness, decorum, the trappings of kindness even — can just serve to mask a much nastier foundation, which ruins them for everybody. Someone can polite you right into debating whether or not an entire people have the right to exist, and I’m not doing that.
All that’s been on my mind because someone hopped into the comments of my last post with an argument that carried all the trappings of polite, respectful discourse but was in fact deeply dehumanizing and steeped in the bigotry that only ends in bloodshed. And despite my own rule, my impulse was to go in there and get into a nasty debate. Which I didn’t! But I do think it’s useful as an illustration of the kind of discourse that’s better avoided, so I drew up my response:
We are a month into Israel’s attempt to decimate Gaza. The death toll passed 10,000. The UN has called it a “children’s graveyard.” Countless experts on genocide, survivors of genocide, humanitarian commissioners, and people trying to stay alive on the ground have named this a genocide. The Israeli government has declared its intention to commit genocide over and over. There is no food, no water, no gas in Gaza; hospitals are shutting down. And there have been increased Israeli attacks in the West Bank. The Biden administration, most US politicians, and most of the world powers simply nod and smile or utter half-hearted concerns while fully funding the ongoing massacre.
Over and over, we say no. We will continue to say no. No to the dehumanization and mass murder of Palestinians. No to settler colonialism. No to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. No to the notion that anti-zionism is anti-semitism. No to the whitewashing of history. No to the silencing of Palestinian voices and statements of solidarity. No to anti-semitism, and no to anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate.
None of us knows what will happen next, what this moment will lead to. We will keep saying no, even as more bombs fall. We will feel hopeless at times but we won’t give up hope, because we can’t afford to. And because none of us knows what will happen next. The only direction is forward.
Pa’lante.
Links:
The filmmaker Bisan is risking her life every day to report from the streets of Gaza: https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/
Books For Palestine has an auction going on right now that includes some amazing authors, prizes — you can find a query critique and signed copy of one of my books in there from me: https://linktr.ee/books_palestine
Here are some great action links from
, an absolutely crucial Substack to follow.LINKS:
SupportPalestine Action:
https://www.palestineaction.org
/
Dissenters against the War Machine:
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Apply pressure for a ceasefire now:
Take action with Jewish Voice for Peace:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
/
Take action with the Palestinian Youth Movement:
https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/
Take action with IfNotNow:
https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/
Support Boycots, Divestmest, and Sanctions: