Why I do This - Why I talk so Much About Gaza's Genocide

As an Israeli, it would be much more convenient to shut up. But I can't

As most who’ve read anything I’ve written know, I’m an Israeli. I was born in an Israeli hospital to Israeli parents, went to an Israeli kindergarten and schools, served in the Israeli military, voted many times in Israeli elections, and earned my bachelor’s degree in Haifa University’s English Department. I have lived in Israel most of my life and for all of my formative years.

I soaked up and internalized Israel’s crazy hatred of Arab people and the violent dehumanization of everything and anything Palestine.

Some fifteen years ago a deep change started in me. I gradually went from being generally Zionist and anti-Arab to neutral and curious, and then to becoming very non-Zionist, and now anti-Zionist.

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No part of this journey was regarded favorably by my society or family, but I didn’t care much. None of this was ever rewarding in any way, except for the knowledge that I’m doing the only thing I can and want to do: being true to what I understand to be the truth.

This is a very concise version of events, but for this text, it’s enough. What I do want to explore, however, is why I am so outspoken during this genocide, and why I repetitively cover so much of it. By writing about this I may give a better sense of who I am not only emotionally, but also where I come from philosophically.

I don’t think in grand abstract terms, otherwise known as ideologies. I am quite allergic to those. I think simply and always try to root my thoughts and words in authentic emotion, which is really the only way to be genuine and relevant in this life (the opposite is artificial and disingenuous, and that’s what we mostly have in our culture).

When I come across a situation that invites my understanding, my first instinct is to look at how I feel about it, how people feel experiencing it, and what drives the people who caused it in terms of their emotions or psychology.

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Being anti-Zionist, and especially during this time of ultimate unquestioning and fervent national mobilization of every individual, as I’ve said, is not particularly rewarding. I am not sure it is even conducive to my general health. But I still do it. And I want to tell you why I do it.

A simple vision guides me, and you will get it immediately

What I envision (and it may cause you to scratch your head at how easy and lightweight this is) is a time and place where I could meet, for just a moment, someone who has been a child, a parent, or a sibling in Gaza during this genocide (or any other time since Israel’s establishment, for that matter).

I don’t know where or when this meeting will take place: it may be in Barcelona, Hong Kong, Oakland, New York, or Cairo. It could be a year or twenty years from now. I don’t know who I’ll meet either: a young or old man or woman, someone still broken by what they experienced, or someone who made a beautiful healing journey.

All I know is it will happen, and I will meet them, and shake their hand. And when I do, at that moment which I know will happen, I want to be able to look them in the eye and say, without words: my brother, my sister, I tried. I did not remain silent. Your pain and sacrifice, and the pain and sacrifice of your people do not mean nothing, and I share your pain and your humanity.

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You could say: I cannot let go of a feeling of basic human dignity, and will risk a lot to not lose it. For it is only my own gaze that I will meet that day, and not the stranger I imagine. They will not know me, and will not know whatnot what goes through my mind.

But I will know. And I am not willing to live when I cannot meet my own gaze. My own Gaza.

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I could have chosen a much more comfortable way of life: I could have been half-assed about it, and only nominally pretended to care, and stayed safe within the marginally allowed, though seldom used, ‘safe‘ humanity in Zionism. But I chose and choose not to do that because I need to be able to meet myself and look myself in the eyes and I, as opposed to that unknown stranger, will know I have lied if I have.

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You will make a big mistake, dear reader, if you read this as a personal whim, or passing obsession. What I told you here is one of the most important and fundamental philosophical and political principles you’ll ever come across.

It is not the flag of the country, the collective or the community, the religion, or the myth that counts most in your life. It is not what’s widely acceptable. It is the unmistakable, unforgettable, indelible thing that is you and what you truly are when you meet yourself, or an unknown future stranger who will also be a different, or just the same, you.

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The way to fight the organized, mechanized evil that we’re facing today is not a counter-ideology (though the current one is an abomination). The way to fight for a better world is to insist that our integrity and emotional truth should always come first. To defeat any evil ideology, and to defeat all of them, we need to lay the groundwork for a community of people where no one ever agrees to participate or remain silent when a crime against their conscience takes place.

Solving everything else will be a child’s play.