Not Anonymous

It's ironic like rain on your wedding day to wake up on Israel's national Holocaust Remembrance Day and read this:

A retired Italian bishop has sparked a furious row after quotes attributed to him suggested claims of sexual abuse in the Catholic church are a Jewish conspiracy, a British newspaper reported on Monday.

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is, the Guardian daily reported.

There aren't enough hours in the day I swear.

Expect more posts about Antisemitisim, the callous use of History and Saturday's Doctor Who episode before this day is done.

I'm reading this (quite long) article in the NYT titled: "Can Animals Be Gay?.

What an absurd thing to ask.

That question simply reflects science's own human biases.
Who said the life sciences were objective?

Nothing can be spoken about without subjecting it to human categories. We're so used to everything being about us, that we've forgotten that we're a part of it.

Evolution is a tricky beast. It's the reason why it's so interesting, fascinating and ultimately, the only way you can explain the diversity found within animals (human included).

The biggest misconception regarding Evolution is that we're going somewhere with it. That the changes that have gone on for billions, millions and other large sums of years, are progressive. There is no proof, nor is there any way to prove, that our gradual changes, that the fact that we have retained an appendix and Wisdom teeth - commonly known as vestigial organs, as far as this lay person is aware - are positive changes. That is, we have no way of knowing whether we are actually better equipped for "survival" than we used to be.

"Survival of the Fittest", "Natural Selection" - possibly the two most disastrous terms to ever be written and adopted into human functionalism.

I'm digressing.

Are humans animals? ( Come on in and find out )

I come from a family of history nuts.

We all adore history, we have different ideas of what history means, but we all love it, learn it and think memory is one of the more important things in life.

I recall the one time I looked my history in the face, when I was 17 and went on the class trip to Poland. I don't think I would have gone without my mother, who insisted, because I seriously hated my peers.
It was an odd time, of false camaraderie and a whole lot of national zeal. I still feel weird thinking about those ten days in Poland, in which the only time we saw something "fun" was in Krakow - where we went shopping in the square and travelled down the salt mines (which is used as a wedding hall, these days... or at least back in 2002).

In Majdanek, which is the concentration-death camp next to Lublin and has a fucking huge ash mound - yeah, seriously, there are reconstructions of the housing blocks, which have been converted into museums. There is a block that has nothing but shoes in it, there's a red high heeled shoe there that I'll never forget.

One of the blocks is an information archive, it has documents, SS uniforms, prisoner uniforms (those stripy "pyjama" things), ID cards for the well known Nazi commanders who did their duty there and a wall with badges.

Badges explaining what each one meant and who wore them.

I had only ever heard of the yellow star of David. When I saw the pink triangle I was shocked. What was a symbol I associated with Gay Pride doing here!?
I read the info and discovered what it meant and why it was reclaimed by gay people.
(I was 17, in a relationship with a boy and was only beginning to understand my own queerness).
I saw the black triangle and saw that it was given to Anti-Socials - which included gypsies, anarchists, the mentally ill and Lesbians.

This confused me.

Surely the Lesbians should be with the pink triangle.

Lesbian women were "Anti-Social", not because they had sex with women, but because they refused to marry and "breed" for the Reich. This I discovered not long afterwards when I realised that my country only counts the 6 million as victims and the rest as incidental - never mind that there are, you know, Jewish queers. So I read up on the other victims of the Holocaust.

Why am I writing this?

Because history continued to rely on the fact that men are more important than women.

As many of you know, Berlin has Holocaust Memorial instillations. A huge Jewish one and across the road from it, a Gay one. It was installed in 2008 to commemorate the gay victims of the Nazi regime. It includes a continued video of two men embracing and kissing. Very sweet.
I remember back when it was installed how happy I was that this piece of history, general and gay, was being recognised and promised myself that when I was in Berlin I'd go (as though I wouldn't any way). It was also stated that every two years the image would be replaced and this year it would be two women embracing and kissing.

Woe.

This, some say, is not historically accurate:

[..]Alexander Zinn, a board member of the foundation that maintains the former Nazi concentration camps near Berlin, said such a move would distort history as there were no known Holocaust victims targeted for being lesbian.

"Historical truth must remain the focus," Zinn told AFP.

He has banded together with other Holocaust experts and fired off a letter of protest to Culture Minister Michael Neumann and Berlin's openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit.

Neumann defended the plans as true to the original concept of the memorial in addressing present-day discrimination against lesbians and gays as well as the plight of homosexuals at the hands of the Nazis.

"The option of using a lesbian film motif in the memorial is in no way meant to put on the same level the persecution of homosexual men and women under the Nazi regime," he said in a statement.

Yeah, gay women didn't suffer enough under the Reich.
That's basically what's being said.

I'm not saying that Lesbian women were persecuted in the same way. Obviously, they were not. Mainly because, women's sexuality doesn't exist without the presence of a penis. That's the crux, these "anti-social" women refused to marry, continued to wreak havoc on the ultra-masculine, misogynistic and fetishistic society that had managed to infect Germany during Weimar.

Regardless, Lesbian women were persecuted for being gay, just, as mentioned, not in the same way. To deny this, is to erase an important part of War World 2 history, the history of the Holocaust and the history of queer women, who are erased from history with fervour any way!

Lesbians Locking Lips on the memorial for the persecution of gay people during the Nazi Regime is just as important as gay men doing so. It is different. The outcome may have also been different, but the motivation was not.
How could it be historically inaccurate?

This is what happens when I read the news on Peach eve.

...I'd tear down a bunch of oppressive and ethnocratic institutions.

Israel does not have civil marriage. All marital laws fall under the various religious institutions, the Rabbinical Court and their Christian and Muslim equivalents. The Rabbinical court is also in charge of who is Halachically Jewish, which cosmologically speaking is whether you're born of a Jewish mother, or via (in Israel) Orthodox Conversion.

It's the Nuremberg laws that apply as to whether you're counted as a Jew through secular law... no really, that is the litmus test through which Jews can immigrate and claim citizenship in Israel.

Shocking.

Now, the thing is, this wouldn't be such a huge deal (though having no proper immigration laws are a pain and help retain the "Demographic War" against those dangerous Non-Jews who live among us) is all Jews (according to "Nuremberg") were treated as equal citizens under the law and were allowed to marry who ever the fuck they wanted.

But they can't. In fact no person of one religion can marry a person belonging to another religion.
If you're registered as having no religion, as many "Nuremberg" qualifying Jews are, because they come from former Soviet countries (in which the State "religion" was Atheism).

With that background knowledge, you'd think a civil marriage bill would be a good thing.

Wrong.

The civil marriage bill, as it stands, applied only to those registered as having "no religion" and the best part is... they can only marry each other!
Unlike what the political party pushing the bill, Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) says, this bill will not help topple down the Orthodox monopoly.
It will do the exact opposite! Now the Rabbinical Court doesn't even need to deal with those sub-humans (and make no mistake, any non-Jew, i.e. a Gentile, is considered a lesser human by these people) and still be able to control who people marry!
I mean, what's the point of it?
So now, there's yet another class of people and another court which will control people's relationships.

And hey, guess who doesn't get marriage and equal rights under this new law... that's right, same-sex couples get to keep their unregistered cohabitation and have fewer rights than other couples in the Holy Land.

This is a good time to mention, I actually oppose the privileged status of marriage and couple-hood in general, seeing as the basic unit of society is the individual and two individuals who decide to create a household should not get more perks than other housing arrangements or families not of the nuclear model.

Yeah, I'm that radical.

The day marriage and the stupid contract of "serious relationships" is abolished will be a day I'll be doing my "Dance Dance Revolution".

One of the most lauded attributes the IDF uses to promote itself as an enlightened and ultimately is the egalitarian treatment between female and male soldiers.

This is bullshit, but it is an image that it quite convincingly manages to throw around - persuading us that through service social equality is gained - yeah.

Combat units in which female integration have supposedly worked the best are the border patrol units. Many women serve at the check points and in the units that patrol the West Bank.

I've blogged about Breaking The Silence (BTS) before, which is an NGO that collects testimonials from soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories and publish it for public knowledge and consumption.
Obviously, they and other organisations critical of the IDF are quietly persecuted and spoken about in the most Antisemitic and anti-Humane terms I've ever heard - "Self-hating", "deluded", "bleeding hearts", "self-destructive".
As though loyalty to the IDF is the litmus of being loyal to the notion that our lives are worth something.

Any way.

BTS published on Friday the 29th of January (yesterday) a new testimony booklet. This one is testimonials of female soldiers.

"A female combat soldier needs to prove more…a female soldier who beats up others is a serious fighter…when I arrived there was another female there with me, she was there before me…everyone spoke of how impressive she is because she humiliates Arabs without any problem. That was the indicator. You have to see her, the way she humiliates, the way she slaps them, wow, she really slapped that guy."

This is a quote from the article (which is problematic and essentialist. Then again, it's YNET) and a woman in this "feminist" army needs to prove she's as good as any man.
She must be violent towards the population the army is policing.

I always find it hair raising when I hear women who serve in the IDF call themselves feminists. It is a kind of feminism. A feminism that only focuses on her own career trying to gain the privilege allotted only to men in that position.

Not too long ago, I had a class in which the discussion of whether the use of the word "feminist" wasn't shooting ourselves in the foot because of the negative connotation.
It's an old and tried debate in my opinion, so I won't regale you on what was said - but one classmate said that as a reserve pilot she refused to consider her gender when she put on her uniform and flew - then, she was just a pilot.

Related though tangential, I have a friend who participates in sexist jokes in her workplace in order to have an environment that she isn't considered a stick in the mud and "one of those" women. Yeah.

Back to the IDF.
Female soldiers in order to show and prove that they are as good as any man, have to be "worse" than their male fellow soldiers.
Prove she's got the "balls", so to speak.

All the people who give testimony to BTS bear witness to the Occupation from the vantage point of those who actively perpetrate it. These soldiers are the nuts and bolts of the Occupation and they come back into "civilian society" with this baggage.
People wonder why Israel can't let go of trauma.
We're all infected with PTSD.

The testimonies are hard to read. They were harder for me to read than previous ones by men, because alas, I am socialised to view men as violent. And women who are violent are aberrant.
Not the case.
So very much not the fucking case.

If this is the meaning of an egalitarian army and this is the means through which Israeli Jewish women gain more power later in life, then the very basic notion of a human being is, is utterly, completely and foundationally twisted in the hegemonic Israeli mind.

Here are the links to the PDF file of the testimonials: In Hebrew and in English.

I was wondering if I should do a recap of 2009.

It is soon to end and thank god for that.

It would appear that 2009 was, collectively, a crap year all around the world. I suppose I should have realised it wasn't going to be good when it started with a war.

I don't know about you, but my 2009 included cancer, a war, homophobia and a death in the family. It also included a wedding and my first long-term relationship.
Not all was bad.
Just compounded with the bad stuff.

Maybe there will be more of this to come, in which case I don't know if I want to be involved in 2010.
Maybe it's the decade giving us a jolly fare-well and our Teens will see a better world.

It's been a hard year friends.
A decade I'm glad to see over.

Just before the end, The Arbeit Macht Frei sign was found. I didn't write about when it was stolen, because I had no doubt that it either never be found or would be found quickly.
Symbols are often deemed more important to find than actual perpetrators of crime.

There was outrage in Israel when the sign was stolen.
The shooter at the gay youth club hasn't been found yet, nor will he ever, I despair.
The POW/Hostage (depending who you talk to) Gilad Shalit has yet to be released along with the other Palestinian Political/Security (again, depends who you're referring to) which are used as a bargaining chip.
A piece of scrap metal bearing words in German was found and returned over the weekend.

The world fucking sucks.

Good morning.

Talk to y'all later.

It was actually "Hoomin Rongs, Ur Doin it Right".

That's what happens when a bunch of geeks who have just come from a Human Rights March and speak fluent LOLcat say to each other.

Yesterday was a busy day.

On the day of Israel's first Human Rights March; 21 activists were arrested in East Jerusalem for demonstrating against the eviction of Arab families in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood and bringing in Jewish families in their stead; Settlers vandalised a Mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf, burning Korans and spraying graffiti to prayer rugs.

Just to contextualise the day for y'all.

My day was much better.

I got up early-ish in order to get to Tel-Aviv by 11 AM because that's when all the people were supposed to be gathering at Rabin square.
At first there were no contingencies I knew or felt a part of were there, so I was all awkward and just standing there.
Luckily a friend - who for the sake of this post I'll call "Phill" - arrived and he was also very surprised that our contingencies were lacking.

Then at around a quarter past 11 I suddenly saw multiple rainbow flags which made me happy, but they went to stand next to Meretz¹, the Party I felt utterly and completely sold out their voters in order to widen their base and get more supporters.

Yes, we're all very factional... well, at least I am.

Then a few minutes later more friends of mine from campus arrived along with the red flags, yep, I stuck around in my "This is what a feminist looks like" tank top, my Keffiya and picked up a red flag!
( This is where I ruminate on boring Leftists - sorta - party politics in Israel )

At around half past a friend with whom I hang out with at Uni - we'll call him "Jon" - arrived and I was so happy to discover that he brought his Pride Flag with him!
Some ass told him to not wave it around because there were other contingencies (that Hadash might not identify with) were also waving around rainbow flags.
"Jon" looked at him as though he's grown another head.
I snorted loudly.

It so happened that I ended up carrying the Pride flag because "Jon" ended up carrying a huge banner with another person and I handed the red flag I'd been carrying to a future Member of the Party (some eight year old kid, I'd say) and "Jon" and I ended up marching the whole way together.

Someone brought a solar powered boom-box and there was music in the streets!

Well you know what's attributed to Emma Goldman, right? A Revolution without dancing and a Revolution not worth having!, or rather: If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
Same-Same...

We finally got to the plaza outside the Tel-Aviv Museum - which right across the street from the IDF HQ (I laughed, it's just too sad) and there were huge amounts of people that joined for the speeches.
It was vast.

( About boring speeches and being moved by them )

Then there was music, more speeches, even more music, I found some geek friends, we ate doughnuts because it is Hannukah and we began to LOLcat.

( Footnotes )

Hey, did you know that Yesterday was International Human Rights Day?

No?

I'm not surprised.

I mean, Human Rights, those are for people who aren't ME, right?

I'm being facetious but you have to admit that that seems to be the attitude.

Over the past few months The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has been working on, planning and today will finally be executing Israel's first Human Rights March.

I've marched for human rights multiple times over the years, but they always seemed to have a different moniker like: anti-war, anti-poverty, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, anti-occupation, pro-immigrant rights and more.

Today, it's All Of That.

I wonder... is anyone going to care this time as well?

Quoted and copied from Coterest: News, Analysis and Opinion from the Israeli Hebrew print and electronic media:
[Under the cut] is a rush translation of Ha’ir’s ("The City", a local urban mag that covers Tel-Aviv happenings) cover story.
No complicated conspiracy theories. Only a long catalogue of de-legitimization.

So here is one, small ask, do what progressives are the best at. Communicate. Get this story out.

( Anti-Semites:How human rights activists became public enemies )

I've obviously lived a very sheltered life.

There was a buzz at the door and my Mom went to answer. A minute or so later, she calls me and tells me to come see what she was given.

A pamphlet. The front cover of which is a pastoral picture of a field with a cabin, a moose, pumpkins, apples and a man and a woman of unknown non-white origin (they could be African, South East Asian, Aborigine... it's a tad inconclusive).
Emblozened on this pretty if somewhat saccharine scene are the words:
All Suffering
SOON TO END!

I turn it over, not bothering to open to read any of the content, and in a bright yellow box on the bottom of the page it says:

Would you welcome more information?
Write Jehovah's Witnesses at the appropriate address below.
[Various addresses in various countries - Israel is not among them]
www.watchtower.org

Inside are various unrelated quotes from from the Christian Bible (the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures edition) regarding the End.

I'm genuinely stoked! I've never seen a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet before. Most of the Jews for Jesus stuff that I've gotten over the years looked pretty haphazard and not really serious.

My Mom says that in South Africa she's get knocks on her door every week!

Proselyting is forbidden in the Jewish faith, it's all about strengthening the faith in those who are already Jewish!
But it never hurts to be available if you do want to convert I guess.

This is just special.

The two women who came to the door were Philippine, Israel has many a work immigrant from that part of the world.
Philippines work in care-taking - my great aunt and uncle have a woman who lives with them, she has a degree in computer science.
Thai people work in agriculture and the Chinese work in construction.

I'm sliding to a subject that has nothing to do with the entertainment value of getting a pamphlet of this kind.

I'm skimming through it and I can understand why so many seem to go to religion, any religion.
I'm not judging anyone's faith, I'm deeply critical of religious institutions, is what I'm going for - because I know I have some people of faith on my f-list and who may be lurking around.

Having all the answers, or at the very least know that someone or something has all the answers is incredibly comforting.

Judaism is a religion of question and debate and interpretation, but I've always understood that doubting the authority of the Torah, the other Books and the other scriptures: Talmud, Mishna, Etcetera.

I suppose being Jewish gives me that edge on the whole "special snow-flakeyness", being an Agnosto-Atheist I can't help but think it's all too ridiculous.

Last night was a big mess when it came to be trying to deflect racism, homophobia and sexism.

I dunno what was in the air, but it was irritating.

I had to tell people to stop codifying Islam with "terrorism". I had to tell people that gay people in the States do not want "special rights" when it comes to same-sex marriage. I had to defend this "assimilationist" strategy - when I personally would like to see marriage abolished - because the "LGBT Community" isn't campaigning for separating the 1000+ rights automatically given with marriage and would rather just reproduce straight ideals - this is all coming from straight people by the way.
I had to tell people to stop using racial slurs when describing a black service person - and then went on to "Politically Correct" the language by instead of using racial slurs to say "African" in a very un-ambiguous way while looking at me in irritation.

Thank you for being an asshole.

Someone tried to convince themselves that going to a strip club wasn't contributing to the sex industry in the same way going to a prostitute.
I was shot down time after time when I tried to explain that the only thing you're doing by not going to a prostitute is not paying for sex with a prostitute. Going to a strip club is still contributing to the industry.

Then I'm told that some women chose to work in the sex industry.

I did not mention anything about who chooses to do what! Honestly, sex-work is real work! Just because I'd rather see it sans exploitation and sans human trafficking doesn't mean I am anti-sex work or anti-sex workers!

I think the main issue isn't the fact that women chose to do sex-work (and should be paid accordingly), but the fact that the sex-industry is so bloody duplicitous when it comes to what is legal and what isn't - more accurately, the law regarding the sex-industry is so duplicitous and because there is such a problem of comprehending the difference between legalisation (which often causes just as many problems as it being illegal) and decriminalisation.

Actual sex workers have better and more info on the subject.

All in all, it was an irritating evening in which my family and friends made me feel like a bloody fuddy-duddy, a Politically Correctness-Fiend and an anti pro-sex advocate!
Arrrgh!
But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that I'm pro-porn (which I am, though I'd rather, like other sections of the sex-industry, had a little more respect for its workers and consumers).

*sigh*

Such is the life of the pro-sex, anti-racist, queer feminist student of Literary Theory and Women's studies, I suppose.