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prismatic-bell · 2 months

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Levant history/present situation question: do you know why Egypt isn't taking in refugees from Gaza? Thanks for offering to answer questions

Hey! Sorry this took so long for me to answer; I just had a 72-hour work week and my brain was spaghetti. Let’s see what I can do here.

So first, I’m going to say a lot of this is going to be educated guesses because there’s a lot that’s unknown. With that said, I don’t think any of these guesses are unreasonable.

To begin with, Egypt’s stated reason is that they think if Palestinians are allowed to settle in Egypt, they’ll never be able to go back to Israel. I think this is true, as far as it goes; that’s certainly a valid concern about the current war.

With that said, I don’t think that’s the only reason. Until 1967, Egypt actually controlled the Gaza Strip; it lost possession thereof in the Six-Day War, which Israel initiated after Egypt blockaded all shipping to Israel. What it discovered during that time is that Palestine is difficult to maintain, manage, or rule; Israel offered to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt after its victory in the war but didn’t include Gaza in this offer, and Egypt didn’t fight for it. I suspect at least part of the lessons they learned before 1967 lead to their reluctance now. (Incidentally, Jordan also learned this lesson. They expelled their Palestinians and stopped trying to retake the West Bank around the same time.)

Palestinians also have a tendency to bring terrorism with them when they move. They’ve been expelled from several countries as a result, including Kuwait, where they backed Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation attempt. I’d imagine this plays a role, as well; the big players in Gaza (mostly Hamas these days) are open admirers of terrorism. Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel, and taking in a group known to commit pogroms and to have endorsed genocide of the Jewish people would probably not go over well for them, especially given the US backs Israel.

The third reason I suspect is at play is one that does disservice to Israelis and Palestinians both, and it’s another reason the UN and UNWRA are hopelessly corrupt. Let me show you three people living in America:

This is Ahmed. His parents were targeted in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda in the 1990s, and fled to America. Here, Ahmed put down roots, and applied for citizenship when he was 22.

This is a second Ahmed. His grandparents fled Iran when the Ayatollah took power. His parents were born in the US, and so was Ahmed.

This is a third Ahmed. His great-grandparents left Israel-Palestine during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Ahmed’s grandparents, parents, and Ahmed himself were all born on US soil. Ahmed has never set foot in the MENA region—not Palestine, not Israel, not Egypt or Iraq or Iran or Sudan or ANYWHERE. He grew up in a middle-class home in Illinois and speaks no Arabic; indeed, the only reason he has an Arabic name is because he was named for his grandfather. His friends mostly call him Eddie. Ahmed has expressed little to no interest in Palestine.

One of the three Ahmeds is considered a refugee by the UN. Do you know which one?

…..yeah.

Palestinians are the only group on earth for whom this is true, by the way. If you’re a refugee from anywhere else, you stop being a refugee the moment you get citizenship in a new country, and only people who actually fled a country—not their descendants born elsewhere—are considered refugees. Hell, Palestinians BORN IN GAZA OR THE WEST BANK AND STILL LIVING THERE are considered refugees. You literally cannot be of Palestinian descent and not be a refugee.

So my suspicion for the actual biggest reason is this special treatment Palestinians receive from the UN. Egypt would be in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation in which giving the Palestinians citizenship would be seen as “ceding to Israel” but not doing so would be “contributing to the plight of Palestinians,” and no amount of aid they provided would ever be considered enough. Frankly if I was the leader of a country I wouldn’t want to take them in under those conditions either. (Hence why I say the UN is doing a disservice to the Palestinians with this—they’re disincentivizing countries that might otherwise help.)

So there you have it: their stated reason and also what I think are some reasonable suppositions as to further reasons.

#you ask nina answers #Nina blogs Judaism

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joshuamartian · 8 months

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I’ve posted before about most of the student body of Clone High outside of the main-cast hardly get a chance to speak in season 2.

Weird (see ‘bad’) choice for a show which is built around gags about historical figures.

But we missed out on the foster parents too!

Why did we get so few new foster parents for the new characters?

The big exception is Topher's mom. I love this blank-eyed 50s housewife who Topher communicates with solely by screaming and using her first name.

The s1 foster parents weren't deep characters but they added to the feeling of a lived in world populated by a whole community. The clones home-lives were another setting the show could use away from the school itself. Sure, some of the foster parents were stereotypes, no point denying that but at least they were lovable wacky stereotypes? You could feel the show was being slightly tongue-in-cheek by choosing as many diverse kinds of parents as possible but as broad as they played, I still thought it was cool that Ghandi's parents were Jewish and JFK had two Dad's.

I think they trusted the audience to know that irl alcholic parents are no laughing matter and that blind people aren't constantly walking into walls but in my mind, I can forgive that because it was funny! Toots is an mvp of season 1 and I miss him so much. Not just for the Mr Magoo shit but he also had a sweet relationship with Joan. Just one of many examples where S1 could have little moments of sincerity without it turning into feel-good treacle.

I think Lord, Miller's and co's hearts were in the right place and sincerely wanted to create a show that felt less edgelordy weith fewer problematic charcters but they nerfed half their cast and replaced them with nothing. The new clones were a great chance to introduce fun new foster parents and they just didn't! The lack of parents compounded the weird empty feeling of the new season, a show about six or seven main cast in a vacuum, surrounded by side-characters who won't be saying anything or doing anything.

#clone high #long post

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snowviolettwhite · 4 months

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I just need to rant about the antisemitism in leftist spaces and the erasure and re-writing of Jewish history and heredity from people who claimed to be for marginalized and oppressed people. Because I have no where to let it out. I feel betrayed by the leftists and libels, like I can no longer trust them or feel safe around them, they claimed to care about me and Jewish people but they lied and are out for violence.

You can be for a free Palestinian without antisemitism. Some people are being disgusting with their hatred for Jewish people and wanting the annihilation of the only Jewish state. You can be against corrupt governments but innocent people shouldn't suffer.

People are using what is happening as an excuse to be vocal about their antisemitism. What is more upsetting is the fact the people who consider themselves goodhearted and for the oppressed being disgusting to Jewish people and refusing to see them as human than the right wing conservatives. Because at least I know they are dangerous and they are not hiding behind fancy words and trying to erase and rewrite Jewish history and identity.

The only reason Jewish people are considered "white" is because for thousands and thousands of years the been forced to leave their homes, forced to convert, be raped or be murdered. Another reason is to erase the historical oppression which has been going on for over three thousand years.

Jewish people have not even been considered white for hundred years and depending on where you live in the world Jewish people are still not considered white. In their legal documents it was literally listed that they were Jewish, not Russian. My parents are not even old, they are only in their early 50s. My family is from Soviet Russia and immigrated to the USA in the 1990s. My parents were not considered white in Russia, they would sometimes experience hate crimes and bullying because of their Jewishness multiple times a day. One of the reasons my parents moved to the United States was because it was one of the safest places for Jewish people. After the collapse of the soviet union the violence and antisemitism was a lot worse.

Your blatant antisemitism in the free Palestinian movement is scaring Jewish people away from it and the from left. Fyi, after Black Americans, Jewish Americas are the largest group to vote democrat and be involve in activism according to statistics and history. People are not calling Black American people or Native American people white or mixed even though Christian Europeans did similar things to those groups as well.

Frankly, I personally feel conflicted when I have to check white in a box because it means European descent, my family has no European ancestry. It is most Middle Eastern, West Asian and North African.

Also, we can talk about how Christian Europeans stole the term Caucasian. The actually Caucasus region is in West Asia and Eastern Europe.

Also I want to state Judaism in a ethnoreligion. People who convert to a different religion can still experience antisemitism. People who have Jewish ancestry but raised as a different religion can still experience antisemitism. Non practicing Jewish people can still experience antisemitism. You can change religion but you can not can your ethic background and your family history.

More than one group of people can be indigenous to a certain place.

Jewish people can not talk about just being Jewish without antisemitic comments, recently saw someone claim an anti-Jewish protest was actually a pro-Palestinian protest despite the the leader of the event literal said it was an anti-Jew protest. A pro Palestinian group wanted to hold a protest at the Holocaust Museum and the antisemitism has been on the rise for years.

My grandparent are Holocaust survivors my grandpa was almost killed by a Nazi in his hometown twice, my grandma almost died from the same thing the killed Anne Frank, I had family that was buried alive.

It has not even been hundred years since the holocaust happened, so stop claiming their is such a thing as Jewish privilege. Jewish people are still being murdered and bombed and all these terrible things for being Jewish.

#jewish history #antisemitism #jewish #leftist antisemitism

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r3starttt · 3 months

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CALL ME BY YOUR NAME | 01

fic M.list | read this or dni

Somewhere in northern Italy.

It was summer, it’s been hot, unbearable hot the last few weeks. Your family, all Jewish, have a not so small cottage with the most gorgeous landscape ever, and that’s where you all spend any vacation or holiday that appears. Which is the current case.

Your mother’s and anthropologist, meaning she adores places with history like the small town you’re at, and teaching people since she can always learn new things as well. Your dad on the other hand, he’s just doing what a housewife would do, he’s a professor as well, just doesn’t really work since you were born, that’s the agreement your parents made.

So with that on mind you well knew this summer wouldn’t be any different, your mom with some new student who died to live the whole leaving in Italy experience and your dad being the perfect parent. Perfect family in a perfect place leaving and teaching the perfect live.

Not that you mind it though.

Coming to Italy means getting to see old friends, having new situationships with hot Italians and of course, visiting extravagant places your family likes going to and learning something new, whether it’s from reading another book like you’re used to, visiting museums or just going to somehow new anthropological areas that your mom adores taking you to.

It’s nice, and you never get bored even you do this at least twice a year. There’s always something new to experience.

You were currently in your room with what you considered an old friend, pretty close one. Curly hair, pretty, and stupidly in love with you. Marzia. The hot breeze that came from the window in your room filled the emptiness between both. You currently changing your clothes and her eyes purely fixated on your body.

That until the wooden floor of the house started to resound and vibrate, accompanied by the loud engineer of a probably old car. That was it “l'usurpatore” as you and Marzia called the new student your mom brought every holiday to your house.

Ignoring her basically eye fucking you, you decided to go and have a preview of this new person, just by the way its arrival sounded you could have an idea of how they would be. Probably on their thirties or forties, rich and a bit sophisticated because otherwise they wouldn’t have pay for this type of experience.

So you ran to the nearest window, not in your room to of course to one, avoid Marzia, and two, avoid the obviousness of your presence while criticizing whoever new guests you’d have to live together with for the next month.

The floor was old, and it was as loud as that engineer that kept sounding, until both stopped in unison, right on time so you could have a proper view. Interrupted, of course, by Marzia and some strings of her hair moving along with the air, right behind you but enough striking to catch the slightest of your attention. “E' fiducioso, eh?” you whispered once you hear It’s voice, she sounded pretty confident, loud.

There she was, a tall blonde woman with what it looked like a perfectly made braid ruined by both the unbearable heat of this place and the breeze that besides doing nothing but sending the hot of the air everywhere was also annoyingly loud.

She said something inaudible to both your parents, you could hear their voices but not loud enough to catch a word they said. By the way they shook hands and the way she kissed them on the cheek you assumed it was just a boring greet.

That meant two things, Marzia leaving and you having to take care of the guest for the rest of the week at least until they catch their pace. Yet before you even excuse yourself properly from Marzia the loud voice of your dad calling for you took you out of your thoughts, turning around and giving your curly haired friend a polite kiss on the cheek. “Devo andare giù” you said, letting her know you’ll be downstairs if not completely gone the moment your parents made you socialize with the woman.

Running and tryin your best to properly put on your clothes you went downstairs, accompanied by the loud sound of the wood along the whole floor and your sandals hitting the floor. There she was.

They were just coming inside the house to your moms office, now your own library too. Your dad motioned your hand so you would come in as well, murmuring a quiet and repetitive “come here”.

You made sure everyone was inside before coming in, getting a small peak of what this woman’s car looked like, again. It was fancy, clean and covered in a very shiny dark green. Suit her, you thought.

The moment you pass the door frame there it is, taller than you, stronger than you and with the most exquisite style you’ve ever seen someone wear. Maybe it was the way she knew how to combine both texture and color, or just her whole appearance, but she was by far the best looking guest you’ve ever had.

“This is our daughter” your mom said, stepping aside with a glass in hand, always so elegant. You said your name, the blonde woman smiled at you, extending her arm towards your direction to shake hands “Abby”

“You must be exhausted” she nodded, not as confidently as you saw her when she first arrived “may I bring your things up to your room?” a small "uhh" brushed past her lips before she ultimately agreed “my room?” you turned around, facing your dad who’s orders you already knew, followed by a silent nod. You replied the same way, slightly crouching to help Abby carry her bags to your room.

“follow her” some pats were heard after you turned around, probably your mom patting her somewhere in her body to do as she told her to, follow you to her room. After that you could only hear the silent footsteps behind you, until they overlapped with ones even louder. Marzia.

You exchanged looks with her, pressuring to go upstairs again and passing by her completely. Until the silence was broken by a kiss on someone’s cheek, making you turns around to see both and just running your eyes at the ironic scene that thankfully didn’t last much in front of you.

Once in your now old room, the door slapped loudly, making the woman jump by the abruptly echo in the room. The light had gone darker, letting in a blue ish color to fulfill the whole room. The bags fell in the floor for you to finish cleaning the room you’ve just made a mess in while changing clothes, picking them and placing them disastrously in your closet.

Last thing you saw was her body lying on your bed shamelessly. Her white t-shirt wrinkling as she did “you have my room now, I’ll be next door” your would probably sounded like mumbled to her at this point but you were doing the usual protocol. She hummed a tiredly ‘mhm’ looking you from the corner of her eye.

“We’ll be sharing the bathroom, hope you don’t mind it” you got on the floor to pick one last pair of jeans you’d left in the room, smiling at the random appearance of quiet snores behind you. She’d fallen asleep, probably exhausted as your parents just said.

That made you wonder where was she from, that was usually information your parents didn’t share with you.

Hours passed by, the sky was alredy tainted dark blue fading into almost completely black. It was one of those evenings where you could hear the crickets chirping loudly in the outside, the air even though was warm it wasn’t annoying, it was refreshing enough, quiet and peaceful. Sooner you should be called for dinner.

Currently you were sitting at your desk, hand facing the cold of it as you kept staring at the score with some notes previously made with a sharpened pencil that had left some annotations impossible to erase. The low music coming from your headphones however wasn’t enough to silent the bell that, as you thought, made sure everyone knew and got ready for dinner.

So you stood up, placing everything displayed on your desk decently enough to give the look of tidiness. Grabbing then the sandals randomly placed on the floor and quietly walking towards the door that lead to your original room now occupied by Abby. Knuckles hitting the cold and tough wood that adorned the door, three times, no answer at all.

Getting inside, as the door squeaked loudly you took a glance of the inside. Eyes falling immediately on the still sleepy body of the woman. A giggle escaped your mouth as you noticed, she’d woken up sometime since the last time you saw her since the braid wasn’t there anymore, replaced by her natural long hair that somehow you didn’t see when she first arrived.

Next day you woke up to your usual routine. The heat that filled the room accompanied by the unbearable sun that came trough the window woke you up early in the morning, before you could start sweating you took a usual shower with the coldest water possible, that also came warm due the ambience being hot and the sun naturally warming everything.

Red t-shirt and a pair of shorts with some white tennis shoes, that was today’s fit. It was basic, not elegant or fancy at all but it looked good and was just right for the climate you were still getting used to.

Breakfast was ready before you even went downstairs so you took your time before doing so. Yet the moment you sat and took the first bite of the food the lady that helped at that house made just for you, there she was. Amazingly energetic compared to yesterday but talkative as you remember, greeting your parents with her loud voice and just murmuring a small ‘hi’ to you, which you replied the same.

As they spoke about how much Abby had slept yesterday and some other stuff you naturally ignored she mentioned something about a bank account, feeling the heavy look of both your parents directed to you “I can show you around” the warm smile you received from them made you pay attention back. This is when your job started, showing the town to every new usurpatore.

“That’ll be great thanks” probably the hunger combined with the energy she’s gotten from sleeping so much the day before is playing her dirty, because such woman can’t be so ignorant. She broke the egg, the simplest food to eat. Of course the silent chuckle that passed her lips and the way her cheeks noticeable tainted in a rose tone made you say nothing about it, or do something as you would done with any other person.

She looked nice, that played part on it too. She had a blue striped blouse and a pair of white shorts, everything perfectly well-off and suiting her toned body just right. Shirt opened enough to show a but of the tank top she was wearing under, showing also a collar, you couldn’t really tell what it was but it looked like it was something religiously. No judgment though.

After breakfast you took her out, to see the town, have a small tour and get an idea of where things were so she could move in her own later. You originally suggested bicycles but she’s apparently too sophisticated for that. So she took the two of you on her car, the one you saw yesterday when she arrived.

It took you two some minutes to get to the main town square, she wanted to get something fresh because of the hotness that was everywhere. There was a pretty famous bar nearby, so she basically dragged you there, naturally having some small talk with everyone inside the whole time you were there.

It didn’t last long though, she wanted to get back outside to “live the whole experience” so you’re currently sitting with her on some bench she found, covered by some trees yet still warm. “So, what does one do here?” she had what seemed like some random sheets with something related to your mom’s job. You’ve seen her work your whole life and being a very visual person you could always tell when there was something anthropology related.

You were reading a book, accompanying her in her small trip quietly and so far doing nothing but small talk with her. So when you heard her you took a moment to process her words, too focused on your own world. Closing and placing the book on the bench, between the two of you and letting out a heavy sigh before answering. “Wait for the summer to end” she chuckled, that’s when you saw her.

She had some front stands of her hair now loose from her slicked braid, gracefully dancing over her cheeks due the breeze. Her cheeks were slightly red and there was some not so visible sweat covering the entrance of her hair.

She did the same as you, placing her sheets down and covering them with your book so they wouldn’t fly away. Her eyes met yours probably for the third time since she first met you. “Yeah?” her tone clearly sarcastic elicited a smile on your face, fading before she let you say anything “And what do you do in the winter? wait for summer to come?” tilting her head to the side she rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, not breaking eye contact once at all.

Your words came out almost as a reflex, feeling her gaze piercing your whole body “We only come here for Christmas and other holidays…for vacation” your voices overlapped, yet none of you stopped “Christmas? I thought-“ “like Easter as well-“ “I thought you were Jewish”

“Well we are Jewish, but, also American…Italian, French, somewhat a typical combination” you responded once she finally shut up, thankfully, you thought. She didn’t speak again, just stared back at you, nodding and letting out a very inaudible ‘mhm’ “besides my family you’re probably the only Jewish that’s put a foot in this town”

Her face changed, she looked relaxed now, even let out a small laugh “oh so you noticed?” you nodded as an answer, proud of your gossipy self “Im from a small town in New England, I know what it’s like to feel different” so, she’s from England. That says a lot about her.

“So what do you do around here?” She’s been dying to ask that. Abby felt that you, being so young and just about to star your adult life, had lots of free time, and she needed to know what you did in such place like this town. She had no clue about you but she felt like you knew everything about her, she wasn’t so wrong on that though. “Read books, transcript music, swim at the river, go out at night, I dunno” you finally answered, unsure on what to say since deep inside you there was a craving for her acceptance “sounds fun”

After that she just casually putted together all the sheets she’d been reading or writing stuff on. “Thanks kiddo, see ya’” and she left.

You were confused, unsure on how to get back home with this painful weather and on why she randomly left after having a proper talk with you for the first time. You didn’t hesitated or anything, naturally waving at her as she left.

It’s not like she owned you anything after all, the plan was for you to show her the town and that’s all. Now you knew she took things literally.

Or that’s the impression she gave.

It’d been a whole day after that, you didn’t see her when she came back home. You spent all day in your room, finishing those music sheets you’ve been working on, reading and spending some time before dinner with Marzia.

At this point she basically lived with you as well, and honestly you never got why your parents let her. Maybe they were being a little too supportive.

Or you two were a little too obvious.

Today’s morning went as usual, the typical routine you’ve been repeating for some weeks already. Along Abby now, who spent some hours with your mom debating on some random stuff you didn’t even tried to pay attention to and debating on some etymological definition for some word.

Which only made both of your parents more exited about her presence since no other student had ever try and correct your mom. It made you smile, it was interesting to see someone like her interact with someone like your parents, like your family.

The plan for today was to spend some time with your friends, something your parents suggested when Marzia was present someday and that made you say yes to it because how could you deny anything to her?

Later have a small dinner, outside on the beautiful garden your dad loved to take care of. And of course Abby was included in everything, whether she decided to be there or not, the invitation was there.

The climate today wasn’t the most adequate for what you planned to do, it was hot, as it has never been before. The sun burned and the air wasn’t fresh, no shadow could bring comfort, no breeze or drink could get rid of the warm that was everywhere.

So when Abby took from you the glass with ice and cold water that you needed to drink it didn’t make you smile exactly. And she noticed your unpleasant expression, laughing at you. “Why’re your mad mhm? Don’t be so tense” there was something about those words that made you want to rip your skin. It was painfully annoying to hear people say anything about how you didn’t look so happy.

Maybe it was only you but every time those words were hear there was a context of someone purposely annoying you. And maybe it was the way you were raised and how this woman kept on ruining every opportunity she had to know you better but you just couldn’t take it.

So you shocked your head, feeling overwhelmed by your friends loud cheers to someone playing volleyball and the warm that was slowly consuming your body, almost burning every cell in your body.

“Yeah you are, here, take this” she returned the glass you were about to drink some seconds ago, too disgusted to mix saliva you hold it, trying to find comfort at least by holding it. And it wasn’t until she pressed her hands on your back that you realized what she intended to do.

A massage. So you would be so moody and tense and annoyed.

So you tried push her away, but besides she kept being insistent and her body was though er and stronger than yours you didn’t really care, not if she was the one giving you a whole massage session.

“Stop moving” she hissed, practically manhandling you and starting to move her palms on top of your back, pressing right on the muscle “Marzia, come here” you heard right next to your ear, naturally rolling your eyes and straightening your back. Why Marzia and not her?

“Don’t you think he’s rude when he says ‘later’?” you sat right in front of your mom, already changed into some more fancy clothes, still fresh for the hot that was somehow still in the air even though it was night and the stars were already shining in the sky, lightening everything along the moon. “Arrogant”

Your dad spoke, pouring some liquid you assumed was juice with some alcohol in it or frutal water into what seemed like your glass “l don’t think that’s the word” he extended the glass to you, which you took with a slightly fake but polite smile.

“That’s how she’ll say goodbye, with a stupid ‘later’ and then will never come back” maybe your mistake was your creativity because you could picture her like it, too real and accurate for someone like her “Well, we still have to be with her for six long weeks. Maybe you’ll grow to like her” your mom said, standing from her chair to grab something that was on your side of the table. “or maybe I’ll grow to hate her” your mom took advantage of her closeness, hitting your hand.

It was clear you were annoyed. It felt like everyone in that table knew something you didn’t and was making fun of it.

I could be Abby’s absence, but the idea of her presence fit better with your ideas. You hated how she was so confusing and impossible to read, how she ignored you and only played with you whenever she was in fact around. How she seemed always busy and only had patience and interest for your parents but also made you feel like an adult whenever she noticed you.

You hated all the mixed signals and shit she’s out you trough in so small amount of time.

You hated her.

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daphnasworld · 2 months

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I have enough of those fucking racist "it's just anti-zionism, I'm not antisemitic or racist" assholes.

If you would only have a problem with Israels politics, that would be fine. Nothing wrong with that. But if people have to be afraid in fucking europe or america to openly show that they are jewish, to visit a Synagoge, to speak hebrew or to tell you that they or their parents were born in Israel, than that is not just because of critique of a countries political decisions - it's because of racism and antisemitism.

If you only had a problem with Israels politics you wouldn't get angry upon hearing someone speak hebrew. A moslem palestinian, born in the west bank now living in germany, wouldn't have to be afraid to speak hebrew on german streets. Yes, you heard that right. I know a moslem palestinian that now lives in germany. He and his siblings speak multiple languages, one of them being hebrew. The language they know who the least people here in germany understand is hebrew. So when he and his siblings are outside and want to talk about something without people understanding them, they talk to each other in hebrew. They can't talk to each other in hebrew anymore since october 7th, because so called pro-palestinians would start to harass and attack them on open street, calling them all sorts of names (zionist, nethanyahoe, bitch, murderer,...) and claim that they support genocide. Yes, they would literally attack actual palestinians, whose parents still live in the west bank, simply for speaking hebrew. (Btw they regularily visit their family there. They fly to Israel, rent a car and then drive to the westbank. They say they never had a problem with the idf, only the (illegal) settlers in the westbank were problematic. ).

If you are only against a countries politics than you won't feel the need to erase a whole religious group. If you feel the need to claim that Jesus was palestinian instead of saying that he had been a judean jew you are erasing jews. If you feel the need to put a palestinian sticker over the star of david that is seen on Amy Winehouse statue in camden market you are erasing jews (yes, if you haven't heard: Amy Winehouse, a JEWISH woman, has a statue of her on camden market. Her statue is wearing a necklace with a star of david. The star of david may be on the israeli flag, but it is also a kind of religious symbol for the jews. So she - as the statue - isn't wearing it as a symbol for Israel, but as a symbol for judaism. And someone put a palestine sticker over the star of david. Which makes it antisemitic, not anti-zionist).

If you feel the need to draw or repost pictures of superman or captain america ripping the israeli flag or wearing the palestinian flag while knowing that both characters had been created by jewish men and as symbols against the Nazis AND antisemitism, than that too is a form of erasure of jews (And also blatantly disrespectful. If you don't think that superman or captain america would have immediately tried to save the israeli hostages, than you really don't know these characters).

And how could you be anything but racist when you claim that black people can't be jewish or israeli just because of the color of their skin?!

And if you were for an actual ceasefire, than you would also be angry at hamas for repeatedly rejecting ceasefire deals made by Israel and egypt. You would be angry at hamas for breaking the ceasefire on october 7th. If you only ever look at israel while demanding a ceasefire, you are not actually demanding a ceasefire. A ceasefire would mean that everyone would have to stop shooting. What you are demanding is for Israel to cease fire, while Hamas is allowed to continue to shoot rockets. That is in fact racist and antisemitic (looking at you Mark Ruffalo). Also I don't think that demanding the release of hostages - including children! - is too much. If you believe that the demand of the release of an one year old or an 18 year old is too much, than I don't believe that you actually care for one single child in Gaza.

If you are saying that Hitler was right or are okay with your friends saying that, than how can you be anything else but a racist? Everyone knows that Hitler and the Nazis were huge racists. Those are facts. So by logic if you think they were right than you think that racism is right. Than you think that antisemitism is right.

And yes, claiming that all Israelis are settlers or colonizers or white is racist and antisemitic. Claiming that jews should "go back to europe" is racist and antisemitic. Claiming that Israel isn't a real country is just stupid. If you have to even change other nations or peoples history simply so that your arguments against Israel are "valid" than you are a racist and an antisemite and an idiot.

Yes, claiming you don't trust jews in general is antisemitic and racist.

Yes, claiming that there are no civilians in Israel is racist, antisemitic and stupid. What else can a fucking newborn be?!

If you are not a racist and not an antisemite, then people wouldn't have to be afraid to tell you that they are jews. People then wouldn't have to be afraid of wearing a kippah or a necklace with the star of david on it. They wouldn't have to be afraid of speaking hebrew. They wouldn't have to be afraid of booking a fucking hotel room when they have a jewish sounding name or an israeli passport.

Stop pretending to be against racism if you have no problem with jews being afraid simply because they are jewish.

Stop pretending to be a good person if you enjoy someone being afraid because they are jewish.

Stop pretending.

Finally start being the good person you claim to be.

#antisemitism #i/p #i stand with israel #racism #stop racism #amy winehouse #captain america #superman #stan lee #jerry siegel #joe shuster #joe simon #jack kirby

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jawz · 4 months

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i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way my ethnicity affected the way i was gendered as a child, my drive to transition, and even my detransition…

as a hispanic growing up with my white mom and white stepdad and white brother and white extended family in scandinavian hell (minnesota), i always felt different, always felt wrong. (my parents divorced as a baby, and my dad and his family, cuban and italian, all live in florida.) my neighborhood wasn’t so bad; it was way more diverse than the metro area itself. growing up i had mixed friends, i had friends with curly hair… but us trailer park kids were only a fraction of the population of our schools and district. a sea of blonde hair. there were times in elementary school i would literally pray to god to make my hair straight, make my eyes blue. grown-ups touched my hair and always asked “is it naturally curly?”. my classmates urged me to straighten it and by age 13 it was part of my ridiculously time-consuming “feminizing” beauty rituals.

much earlier, by the age of 8 or 9, i already had thick, dark hair growing on my legs. other kids, boys and girls alike, called me “gorilla girl”, faked gagging when i wore shorts, insisted i was actually a boy. that one became more and more common as i came into my personality: bold, class clown, competitive with the boys. (always wanting to charm the girls, but i didn’t recognize that back then.)

my mustache was there by 8, as well. just a little peach fuzz above my lip but dark enough to notice. are you even a girl? my mom would spread wax over her own face and soon began waxing my stache as well. it hurt so badly. i put up with it because she said it would make the kids stop teasing me. of course i was a girl- she was a woman and she had peach fuzz too!… but i felt self-conscious at the fact that my body hair was so much more noticeable, even as a child. my mother’s hair is very thin, straight, lighter brown; her complexion is warmer than mine, pink where mine is olive, green and yellow. i worried you could see the strands about to burst through. i was worried that to be a girl- a woman- i must hide parts of myself every day. i must cover the shoots of grass, the weeds that reveal that i’m not fit for society, that whisper i’m wild and untamed.

it wasn’t actually until i was 18 at least that i actually started to consider myself latino. i had sometimes said ‘hispanic’ growing up, as that’s what my family in florida called themselves; they referred to themselves as “spanish”, which i found out was not quite true after compiling my family tree and discovering that those ancestors emigrated from havana. in their minds they were white: “descended from spanish royalty” (as if!!)… i had spent my youth constantly trying to claim solely whiteness, confused as to why everyone was asking me “are you mexican?” “are you jewish?” “are you middle eastern?” - even though inside i think i knew. i knew my family didn’t look like me. i resented my surname being changed to Lind when i was five, my stepdad’s name, in order to give me the same name as the rest of them. despite my apparent envy of swedes and norwegians i knew it wasn’t my name; i still stood out terribly. i glared at myself in the mirror every day, i never could move past how the kids at school said my eyes were the color of shit, that my hair looked like pubes, that i must have had a sex change without being told because that would explain the mustache, the aggression…

by the time i was fourteen i was entirely primed to accept an alternative explanation to what was “wrong” with me. my sexuality was becoming more and more apparent but before i could ever come out as lesbian or even bi, i had discovered what it meant to be trans. i was so immediately certain that this was the key, THIS was why everyone said i didn’t fit in, THIS was why my behavior wasn’t girly, THIS was why i wanted to date girls. it was 2011, still deep in the “brain sex” era of the trans community, and i was sure without a shadow of a doubt that i was physically female, mentally male. all that needed to be done was to “correct” my body and bring it in line with my brain. despite the fact that very few people knew what transition actually was back then, i genuinely assumed it would make sense to everyone else, too: they had told me i wasn’t ‘really’ a girl so many times i had no trouble believing it.

transition, of course, did not suddenly de-latinize me LOL. first i became a total Other, outside of both the minnesotan ethnic norms and the gender+sex norms; eventually, with hormones and surgery at a very young age, i was able to pass as a boy, but by the time i could grow actual full-on facial hair, i realized i was still the pan-latin american enigma to people around me. multiple times someone would call me “sanchez” as some sort of attempted insult or joke. police looked at me differently than they had before. shop owners followed me, accused me of shoplifting. and sometimes, the white girls i dated told me that i was way cooler than all the boring white boys they knew. one girl even called me “exotic” to my face. it was, apparently, a compliment.

when i was 21 i heard that my girlfriend had referred to me to others as “a POC who identifies as white”. it felt as though she didn’t even know me at all. i’d never claimed either of those things to her.

moving to the west coast (socal specifically, where being latino/a is not considered ‘abnormal’) illuminated a lot of the bizarre and unnatural racial expectations of my midwest upbringing; i think by this point i was beginning to realize what so many things from my childhood had meant. that they weren’t really saying i was a boy. they were saying we don’t like girls who look like you, and we’d rather not have you included in our category.

it took me another three years to fully reckon with this. by the time i decided to detransition i had a much better understanding of the circumstances of my life; conversations with close friends who are also latina and have walked similar paths to me, heard similar insults, similar “compliments”, opened my eyes to the fact that i was not alone. i no longer feel weird for thinking the race/ethnicity boxes on government forms are hopelessly reductive. i know who i am and who i am not.

(around this time, i happened upon some old pictures of my dad’s side of the family. beautiful and glamorous women: adela, my uncle’s mother, the piano player; melanie, my aunt, the wife, hostess, and addict; lauren and andrea, my cousins, the restauranteurs; stella, my dad’s mamma, the widow and matriarch. and on all their faces, thick dark eyebrows, and, yes, that ever-familiar peach fuzz. i swear it healed something in my soul. despite my lack of beauty and glamor, we are not so different after all.)

that’s not to say all things are easy now. i’ve spent three years living as a GNC woman and if that wasn’t enough to confirm most all of my hypotheses on people’s perceptions of me, i don’t know what is.

detrans spaces (like most trans spaces) are overwhelmingly white- or at least that’s who dominates conversation. i see SO much downplaying of the things that naturally hairy women go through societally. i see trans allies who purport to be “okay” with detransitioners, saying “what’s the big deal? if you took testosterone you can just go off it and get laser hair removal!! :)” as if laser isn’t expensive as hell, painful as hell, and also WAY more of a process for a woman with dark curly hair than it is for one with straight blonde hair lmfao!!! i see detrans women obsessed with removing all traces of hair from their bodies (even though most of them clearly don’t have a neverending five o’clock shadow like some of us do! my lower face has a constant blue-green disturbance under the surface which makes female spaces incredibly daunting) and insulting the rest of us for being ugly and hairy and making no effort to look like women or what the fuck ever. basically, a lot of people who claim to support us are just racists and essentialists and believe that sex is visual and not biological…🤨

anyway… i guess my main takeaways from all this are:

1. please stop acting like detransition is an entirely internal process and that it’s easy for all of us to be seen as our sex again (some of us like. actually transitioned and passed as the opposite sex), or that potential physical interventions aren’t incredibly invasive and difficult

2. stop assuming all transition and detransition journeys follow your own experience of lifelong whiteness and hairlessness

3. it is a distinct experience to be regularly de-gendered or denied your sex, PRIOR to ever thinking of yourself as literally trans. many trans/detrans people had this happen to us (we were once the vast majority of trans people). but many did not, and generally shock others when they begun breaking gender norms. i really think people from the second group often have trouble understanding that for the first group, changing gender expression is basically a bandaid over an abscess… we have lived entire lifetimes being denied our sex, being told our bodies are not “truly” ours, that there is someone else inside trying to break out. kicked out of the bathroom, the changing room, alienated from single-sex peer groups. transition just flips this experience and instead separates us from our preferred gender group, reinforcing the feeling that we have no place, anywhere.

race/ethnicity, being homosexual or bisexual, mental illness stigma, disability, and low economic class all play an additional role in this. stop perpetuating this and denying us our biological sex.

#this is a toooootal rant lmao sorry but its been on my mind for a while.#kind of a culmination of two posts ive been wanting to make #detrans #detransition #ok to reblog

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memecucker · 2 years

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The family tree of humanity is much more interconnected than we tend to think. “We’re culturally bound and psychologically conditioned to not think about ancestry in very broad terms,” Rutherford says. Genealogists can only focus on one branch of a family tree at a time, making it easy to forget how many forebears each of us has.

Imagine counting all your ancestors as you trace your family tree back in time. In the nth generation before the present, your family tree has 2n slots: two for parents, four for grandparents, eight for great-grandparents, and so on. The number of slots grows exponentially. By the 33rd generation—about 800 to 1,000 years ago—you have more than eight billion of them. That is more than the number of people alive today, and it is certainly a much larger figure than the world population a millennium ago.

This seeming paradox has a simple resolution: “Branches of your family tree don’t consistently diverge,” Rutherford says. Instead “they begin to loop back into each other.” As a result, many of your ancestors occupy multiple slots in your family tree. For example, “your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother might have also been your great-great-great-great-aunt,” he explains.

The consequence of humanity being “incredibly inbred” is that we are all related much more closely than our intuition suggests, Rutherford says. Take, for instance, the last person from whom everyone on the planet today is descended. In 2004 mathematical modeling and computer simulations by a group of statisticians led by Douglas Rohde, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, indicated that our most recent common ancestor probably lived no earlier than 1400 B.C. and possibly as recently as A.D. 55. In the time of Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti, someone from whom we are all descended was likely alive somewhere in the world.

Go back a bit further, and you reach a date when our family trees share not just one ancestor in common but every ancestor in common. At this date, called the genetic isopoint, the family trees of any two people on the earth now, no matter how distantly related they seem, trace back to the same set of individuals. “If you were alive at the genetic isopoint, then you are the ancestor of either everyone alive today or no one alive today,” Rutherford says. Humans left Africa and began dispersing throughout the world at least 120,000 years ago, but the genetic isopoint occurred much more recently—somewhere between 5300 and 2200 B.C., according to Rohde’s calculations.

At first glance, these dates may seem much too recent to account for long-isolated Indigenous communities in South America and elsewhere. But “genetic information spreads rapidly through generational time,” Rutherford explains. Beginning in 1492, “you begin to see the European genes flowing in every direction until our estimates are that there are no people in South America today who don’t have European ancestry.”

In fact, even more recent than the global genetic isopoint is the one for people with recent European ancestry. Researchers using genomic data place the latter date around A.D. 1000. So Christopher Lee’s royal lineage is unexceptional: because Charlemagne lived before the isopoint and has living descendants, everyone with European ancestry is directly descended from him. In a similar vein, nearly everyone with Jewish ancestry, whether Ashkenazic or Sephardic, has ancestors who were expelled from Spain beginning in 1492. “It’s a very nice example of a small world but looking to the past,” says Susanna Manrubia, a theoretical evolutionary biologist at the Spanish National Center for Biotechnology.

Not everyone of European ancestry carries genes passed down by Charlemagne, however. Nor does every Jew carry genes from their Sephardic ancestors expelled from Spain. People are more closely related genealogically than genetically for a simple mathematical reason: a given gene is passed down to a child by only one parent, not both. In a simple statistical model, Manrubia and her colleagues showed that the average number of generations separating two random present-day individuals from a common genealogical ancestor depends on the logarithm of the relevant population’s size. For large populations, this number is much smaller than the population size itself because the number of possible genealogical connections between individuals doubles with each preceding generation. By contrast, the average number of generations separating two random present-day individuals from a common genetic ancestor is linearly proportional to the population size because each gene can be traced through only one line of a person’s family tree. Although Manrubia’s model unrealistically assumed the population size did not change with time, the results still apply in the real world, she says.

Because of the random reshuffling of genes in each successive generation, some of your ancestors contribute disproportionately to your genome, while others contribute nothing at all. According to calculations by geneticist Graham Coop of the University of California, Davis, you carry genes from fewer than half of your forebears from 11 generations back. Still, all the genes present in today’s human population can be traced to the people alive at the genetic isopoint. “If you are interested in what your ancestors have contributed to the present time, you have to look at the population of all the people that coexist with you,” Manrubia says. “All of them carry the genes of your ancestors because we share the [same] ancestors.”

And because the genetic isopoint occurred so recently, Rutherford says, “in relation to race, it absolutely, categorically demolishes the idea of lineage purity.” No person has forebears from just one ethnic background or region of the world. And your genealogical connections to the entire globe mean that not too long ago your ancestors were involved in every event in world history.

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