speedyslothboi - Tumblr blog

speedyslothboi · 30 days

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Yes, there is antisemitism in pro-Palestinian conversations. Yes, there is antisemitic criticisms of Israel. But framing this as "killing high numbers of civillians" is misleading. This isn't just "high numbers" of civilians, it's record breaking numbers. The number of children killed in Gaza in the past 177 days is more than in the past 4 years of all other global conflicts.

Israel has consistently targeted civillian populations (or accepted hundreds of civillian deaths as "collateral damage") as well as targeting infrastructure. Israel has targeted previously designated safe areas and refugee camps, which have become the most densely populated places on earth (ie Rafah). Israel has targeted hospitals. Israel has blocked humanitarian aid, manufacturing starvation. Israel has utilized chemical weapons. Israel has murdered journalists and hostages they are supposedly rescuing. Israel has murdered people waving white flags. Israel has committed countless atrocities and war crimes. This is not a "war" with "high civillian casualties", this is brutality, violence, and if genocide is to strong a word for you, by definition ethnic cleansing.

It hurts to see antisemitism masked as anti-Zionism and there is valid critique of antisemitic rethoric but now is really not the time. You are so blinded by your need for "🌟nuance🌟", to your both-sidesism, to your "it's complicated"s that you can't see reality. The obsession with nuance is damaging. This is not a two sided issue. There is no equality in this. The presence of antisemitism has no bearing on the reality of genocide. Your nuance is unhelpful in stopping the violence. And when you frame this as "Israel is doing bad things but is being criticized unfairly", you distract from reality: a genocide is occurring. Stopping it is priority number one, not the optics of criticizing Israel, not unpacking everyone's internalized antisemitism and the prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes, tropes, and language in society at large or within pro-Palestinian circles; stopping a genocide.

(some) Sources:

https://turkiye.un.org/en/263401-gaza-number-children-killed-higher-four-years-world-conflict

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/israel-targets-infrastructure-in-gaza-to-ramp-up-civilian-pressure-on-hamas-report-claims

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-opt-new-evidence-of-unlawful-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-causing-mass-civilian-casualties-amid-real-risk-of-genocide/

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/12/israel-working-expel-civilian-population-gaza-un-expert-warns

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68006126

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/18/bloodbath-israel-keeps-hitting-gaza-hospitals-amid-international-uproar

https://theintercept.com/2023/12/03/netanyahu-thin-gaza-population/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-refugee-camps

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/15/1233158434/rafah-gaza-population-crowding-israel-hamas

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-hospital-strikes-worsen-health-crisis

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-malnutrition-famine-children-dying-israel-palestinians-2f938b1a82d7822c7da67cc162da1a37

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/18/israel-starvation-used-weapon-war-gaza

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/lebanon-evidence-of-israels-unlawful-use-of-white-phosphorus-in-southern-lebanon-as-cross-border-hostilities-escalate/#:~:text=The%20Israeli%20army%20fired%20artillery,2023%2C%20Amnesty%20International%20said%20today.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/questions-and-answers-israels-use-white-phosphorus-gaza-and-lebanon

https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-troops-killed-hostages-mistaking-their-cries-help-ambush-military-2023-12-28/#:~:text=JERUSALEM%2C%20Dec%2028%20(Reuters),the%20best%20of%20their%20understanding.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-palestinian-israel-white-flag-shot-dead-killed-rcna135419

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-hostages-killed-mistakenly-gaza-were-holding-white-flag-official-says-2023-12-16/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/3-hostages-killed-in-gaza-by-israeli-troops-were-shirtless-and-waving-a-white-flag-official-says

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68679482

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-expert-warns-new-instance-mass-ethnic-cleansing-palestinians-calls

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/05/wv-israel-hamas/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/middleeast/israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza-un-rights-expert-says-intl/index.html

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam

I think it would be helpful for everyone to acknowledge that "Israel is killing a high number of civilians in Gaza AND THAT IS BAD AND WRONG" can and does coexist with "other countries also do pretty much this exact thing and worse literally all the time but Israel gets a much more aggressive response because of antisemitism and that is a legitimate problem". One does not negate the other. This is called

✨nuance✨

#israel #discourse #free gaza #free palestine #stop the genocide #anti zionist jews for palestine #jewish #jewish voice for peace

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speedyslothboi · 1 month

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I spent an hour making a flower crown today. I'd never made one before. It didn't turn out very good; clumsy knots and and sticky fingers and broken petals but I still put it on and smiled. I never got that kind of childhood. I wondered if this is what healing feels like: sitting on a picnic table, gently warmed by the sun, breathing in the world. I have so much to do (an ap psych test in three days, ethics bowl nationals and science olympiad state to prepare for, a read through for the play on Monday) and instead I went outside and listened to the birds.

Then I got home and cried. Because 30,000 people will never get to make a flower crown again (and how many never had? It took me 17 years. That's more time than many of them ever got). I haven't breathed clearly in 6 months; a weight on my chest and a pit in my stomach but for one hour, I felt like I could breathe, the smell of grass unfamiliar but comfortable (and how many died in that time? Trapped under rubble? The weight on their chests real).

I feel like I've been sitting Shiva for strangers halfway across the world but I'll die before I finish mourning (575 years is a lot to ask of this body). I'm not doing a very good job. But what else can I do but remember? I don't know know what to do with myself. I'm heartbroken and horrified and I am so angry. I go to school and hear kids talk about tik tok drama and I want to grab them and shake them and yell "how can you think about anything else? How can breathe around your guilt well enough to speak?" I feel like I know to much and too little, never informed fast enough. I feel like I'm grieving and like I have no right to grieve. I'm tired. I'm not doing well (I can't remember the last time I brushed my teeth and I still need to schedule my fillings and do my laundry and change my sheets) but I feel so selfish doing anything to make myself happy, like I'm stealing joy I don't deserve. And I know that I'm burnt-out (years into it) and that I have to take care of myself too but I just don't know how to carry all this grief. And this isn't about me (I'm making it about me, aren't I?)

This will be the first presidential election I get to vote in and I can't vote for him, I can't. And I'm scared. People keep saying it's selfish not to but I'm the one who will face the consequences. I'm one of the "vulnerable" people (does that make it self-sacrificial? Does that make it okay? To risk my communities if I am at risk too?)

Paul Alexander died three weeks ago. I can't stop thinking about him. (Most of the articles won't tell you why though; that one of the most vulnerable members of society was abandoned to a disease that has killed 3 million). I keep seeing inspiration porn articles about how he didn't let his disability "stop him" (I feel like I'm "letting" mine stop me). None of them mention "I love the sun, but I haven't felt it in a long time. It's lonely." (I feel lonely all the time but I didn't feel lonely at the park, with dirt in my fingernails. I don't really believe in heaven but I hope it exists so Paul can sit in the sun again). I think of Paul and I am filled with rage. 5,000 people die of covid every week; that's one person every five minutes (how is that okay? how could you abandon us for "normal"?) and I'm one of three people out of 2200 at my school who still wear a mask. I got the most recent booster two days ago (the one only the "vulnerable" can get as if long covid isn't becoming an increasingly documented mass disabling event. And the genocide is one too. And what about the countries we blocked from getting vaccines with patents. How dare we condemn the global south to suffer without vaccines only to stop getting them). And I need to buy more masks (yet another expense to exist while disabled) and they aren't free anymore so it's another 3 hours of work. Cases keep rising despite the lack of testing and wastewater doesn't lie. And whats the new variant? News isnt reporting on it anymore because "no one cares" (I care. I need to believe others would care if they knew. Maybe thats just wishful thinking) I still have at home tests but their negatives feel like taunts (a positive is a positive though, I remember)

I don't really have any friends. I have acquaintances and people I work with for projects but I don't want them to be my friends. My mom and my therapist keep telling me to reach out and do things with them (I know it would be good for me to socialize but doing so would put me at risk. They can't even wear a mask, and I'm supposed to choose to spend extra time with them?) Neither my mom or therapist wears a mask. (My mom fought for me when doctors didn't believe anything was wrong. Fought for 7 years to get a diagnosis and now she won't protect me.) I go to the doctors and even they aren't wearing masks (didn't you learn your lesson?).

I've seen people complain about "boycott fatigue" and I'm just wonder how you are surprised? I lost faith 2 years ago when people decided that disabled people's lives weren't worth discomfort (I used to value the nuance, how it isnt that simple. Now my compassion is shot. My empathy used up on three million deaths. But it is, isnt it? Simple that is. You just dont care enough). When the accessibility we begged for for years that had been "impossible" was suddenly "easy" when everyone needed and then taken away just as quickly. The second you could leave us behind, you did. So how could I be surprised people would do the same for Falastin? I love theatre, and I'm excited for too much light. But half of them will walk in with Starbucks on Monday (and none of them will be wearing a mask) and I know these people will never truly be my people (I resent them and love them but mostly I'm disappointed.)

I've been crying alot. I never used to cry. Sometimes I feel like that means I'm healing (some of the time I wonder if I have the right to heal right now). It's like this grief keeps overflowing but the world keeps turning (and how can everyone keep living right now?) and homework keeps coming and the genocide keeps happening and I need to get back to making my magma composition notes. (I left the flower crown at the park. I felt guilty about picking the flowers; that must be bad for the environment, right? How selfish, to kill things just to make a silly crown, and I didnt even do it very well. It fell apart within a minute. An hour of work crumpled in my hands. A moment of enjoyment stolen at the cost of life, what a bad vegan I am. Anyway, i left the flowers there, to decompose where they were born)

#free palestine #from the river to the sea #free gaza #covid #long covid #wear a mask #poetry #?#does this count?#poem #i guess #vent #also the 575 year number is real #i did the math and started crying #and then i wrote this

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