Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
It’s wrong to blame the Gaza genocide on Jews. It isn’t wrong because antisemitism is a major danger in our society (it’s not), nor because there’s a risk that people will start loading Jews onto trains again (there isn’t), nor because Jewish Israelis and their supporters are blameless (they obviously are not).
It’s wrong to blame this whole thing on Jews because it lets the rest of us off the hook.
This is our genocide. This is our crime. To blame it all on the Jews is to say that our society is perfectly fine and healthy and that none of this would be happening if not for the Machiavellian manipulations of a small Abrahamic religion. It’s to deny the reality that the middle east is on fire right now because of everything this perverse civilization is and always has been.
It is not a coincidence that the tendency to blame all society’s ills on the Jews is much more prevalent on the far right than anywhere else. Rightists are ideologically inhibited from seeing western civilization as a uniquely pernicious blight on this world, and from seeing capitalism and imperialism as the driving force behind the injustices and abuses it inflicts. If you have an ideological need to view all those things as fine and good, then you need to come up with some other explanation for why everything is shitty and evil. So they buy into this infantile narrative that western civilization would be just peachy if it weren’t for those darn Jews.
But western civilization is not peachy. It is a profoundly sick dystopia built by genocide and slavery and fueled by human blood. This would be true with or without Israel, and with or without Judaism.
The genocide in Gaza is happening because the western empire wants it to happen. Biden could have ended this with a phone call at any time. Our leaders are not being reluctantly pushed into this. They’re slaughtering innocent human beings as casually as they slaughtered them in past western military interventions which had nothing to do with Israel, and for the same reasons.
The western empire is constantly working to bludgeon the world into obedience and submission, aggressively targeting any population which insists on its own sovereignty. We’ve seen it in Latin America, we’ve seen it throughout Europe and Asia, we’ve seen it in Africa, and we’ve seen it in the middle east in the same way. Israel is a member state of the western empire and plays a pivotal role in helping to beat down disobedient populations like Iran, Ansar Allah, Hezbollah and Hamas who don’t submit to the will of the empire. I used to list Syria among those who stand against the empire, but the west and Israel have succeeded in smashing it down and absorbing it into the imperial blob.
The empire uses Zionism as one of many tools for enacting its will in the middle east, but if it wasn’t Zionism it would be something else. The violence would play out in different ways under different narratives, but there would still be a continuous violent bludgeoning of disobedient populations in this crucial strategic region which is rich in resources and critical trade routes.
This is just what we are as a civilization. A murderous, thieving, tyrannical empire constantly bullying and abusing the earth’s population into obedience and submission. Some people try to make Jews into the problem because they don’t want to face reality. And the reality is that the problem is us.
Look at Gaza. Really look at it. Watch the videos. Listen to the screams. Read the harrowing stories. This is who we are. This is what we have become. Not because of the Jews. Because of us. The sooner we own this, the sooner we can move toward healing all the entirely home-grown illnesses within us which gave rise to it. And the sooner we can start becoming something better.
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CJ>>"The empire uses Zionism as one of many tools for enacting its will in the middle east, but if it wasn’t Zionism it would be something else. The violence would play out in different ways under different narratives, but there would still be a continuous violent bludgeoning of disobedient populations in this crucial strategic region which is rich in resources and critical trade routes."
THIS! THIS is what people NEED TO UNDERSTAND thoroughly! It ISN'T Jews, or Judaism (or any religion) that perpetrates such atrocities. It is a minority (the POWER ELITE) that have successfully brainwashed/indoctrinated the masses over ages using ideologies/narratives to do their bidding. And all those that do are THE BIGGEST SUCKERS there ever were (and this includes Zionists and all the people that still haven't realized that CAPITALISM (in any form, especially late stage and neoliberal capitalism) directly leads to such behavior and atrocities through imperialism, neo-colonialism, exploitative and slave labor, debt bondage, etc.)
From MLKJr:
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.