On Israel, Australia, And Racism
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has a new article in Haaretz titled “Most of Israel’s Protest Movement Only Cares About the Lives of the Gaza Hostages — Not of Palestinians” where he discusses his frustration and disgust with the massive disparity between the value his countrymen place on Israeli and Palestinian lives.
“They worry about the lives of 20 hostages while ignoring the fact that their country kills 20 innocent people an hour on average,” Levy writes. “For them, humanity stops at the borders of nationality. They’ll leave no stone unturned to help any Israeli but avert their gaze with a lack of interest in the case of a Palestinian whose fate is often much worse. They are enraged at Benjamin Netanyahu’s cold-heartedness, but theirs is no less evident. When it comes to Palestinians, they exhibit the same evil and cold hearts.”
“How can one be shocked at the sight of starving hostage Evyatar David and shrug or even rejoice at the killing taking place in lines for food?” askes Levy. “How can one be shocked at the murder of the Bibas family yet show no interest in the 1,000 babies and 19,000 children killed by the IDF, or in the 40,000 Gazan orphans? How can one lose sleep over Hamas tunnels and show no interest in what goes on at the Sde Teiman or Megiddo detention centers, to our shame? How is this possible?”
And, of course, we know how it’s possible. It’s possible because of racism. It’s possible because Israelis see Palestinians as subhuman savages whose lives are worth far less than their own.
Levy acknowledges this further down in his piece:
“Viewing human beings — children, the disabled, the elderly, women, and other helpless people as dust, as people whose killing and starvation are legitimate, with their property worthless and their dignity non-existent — is tantamount to being Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.
“Opposing total evil, one must stand for total humanity, which is almost non-existent in Israel.”
This is why I always dismiss anyone who tries to defend Israel by citing its widespread protests. They’re not protesting against the genocide, they’re protesting because of Israeli captives and Israeli casualties. It’s a shitty, racist society full of shitty, racist people.
I’ve been thinking about racism more than usual today because of the discourse around anti-immigrant protests this weekend here in Melbourne and around Australia, which were both full of violent neo-Nazis and numerous Israeli flags.
The Zionist institutions of Australia who’ve been shrieking their lungs out about pro-Palestine protests these last two years seem to be pretty chill about actual Nazis marching through their streets.
All the ugliest things about Australia are also the ugliest things about Israel, and our ugly things happen to get along swimmingly with theirs.
To be racist is to admit that you are a dull, vapid person. It’s an admission that you are so intellectually, emotionally and spiritually shallow that you can only enjoy and connect with other human beings in the most superficial of ways. There is no depth to you. There has been no growth in you. You are stunted. You have been wasting your time on this planet instead of maturing and expanding your connectedness with the gift of human life.
If you have been growing and maturing, your ability to delight in other people isn’t limited by skin color, culture, language, national background, or religion. You understand that there are whole universes within us beyond those few superficial differences, and we are able to connect with each other on all those various levels in a limitless number of ways. You don’t fear and shun the differentness of others, you take immense enjoyment from it.
If you have not been growing and maturing, you lack the ability to enjoy and connect with people who are different from you and your family. You are unaware of the universes within you and within others, so you believe your ability to welcome others into your neighborhood is limited to the most surface-level aspects of them like their skin color, their accent, the way they dress, or their religious beliefs. It’s all you understand about yourself, so it’s all you value in others.
This is a symptom of a shallow, uninteresting life. Your mind is boring and superficial, because you set up all these walls around it to stop it from growing. Your heart is hardened and cloistered, because you set up barriers to keep people out. Your spirit is stagnant and impoverished, because you placed too many limitations on its natural outpouring. You’re still splashing around in the kiddie pool of the human condition.
It’s a waste of a human lifetime to live like this. Open yourself up. Soften your heart. Broaden your mind. Make connections. Delight in the myriad manifestations with which humanity can show up. There is just as much dazzling beauty in other humans as there is in the natural world, and if you can’t see it that’s a defect in your own character. If you don’t learn to grow beyond those limitations, you cut yourself off from unfathomable depths of the human experience that you could instead be taking great joy in.
Don’t waste your life on racism. Don’t waste your life on Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, or any of the other crude ways we cut ourselves off from the connectivity and appreciation that we are all capable of. Deepen your roots and grow into a mature human being.
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Doesn’t it seem strange that the anti-migrant protests instigated by far right groups are taking place all over the western world.
Exactly the same rhetoric is being used in U.S, U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany etc.
Almost as if it’s been deliberately planned and is being coordinated!!
"The Zionist institutions of Australia who’ve been shrieking their lungs out about pro-Palestine protests these last two years seem to be pretty chill about actual Nazis marching through their streets."
Hell, Zionist institutions worldwide are just ducky with the literal direct biological and ideological descendants of the people who served as concentration camp guards - in Ukraine.