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I've been trying to figure out how to write about this history-saturated week. I'm going to start with last week.
Last week I went to a GLBT academic conference called An Other Sex.
I went there with my friend Aviv who asked me why the Gay Pride Parade was so important, and why wasn't there a People Parade, or a Palestinian Pride Parade. I replied that as long there is shame in the Gay Parade it is necessary. As for the "People" Pride Parade I told him that every time a heterosexual couple holds hands or kisses in the street they are showing their subconscious "pride" in their sexuality.
There are Palestinian Pride Parades, and there are two kinds, ones with Kalashnikov's and face hiding galabiyas, and then Israeli security forces disperse. And other in which they is a small amount of people and they are marching for the freedom of their land, with little support from their government and from mine.
I'm inclined to believe that if, from within Ramallah, Palestinians began to march for peace and called for talks with the Israelis, they'd be shot by M-16's and Kalashnikov's, because both the government of Israel and Hamas and Fatah couldn't give a rat's ass about the actual people that are trying to create a change.
This long and fairly convoluted exposition was to show what it is I'm actually thinking about, because this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War*.
So there's this strange dichotomy going on in my head which goes something like:
Yay, Israel won! We weren't decimated in a huge barrage of enemy hostility!".
And...
"Fuck, ever since we've won we've been treating the people living in the Occupied Territories** as though they weren't people in their own right and keeping them as downtrodden as a face with a boot stomping on top of it***.
This is how I, personally, feel, I won't presume to know how others feel, though I know some share my feeling to a certain degree there are also those who don't.
I have a big problem with being told (and I have been) that I sympathize more the Palestinians than with Israelis. I don't. I sympathize with the suffering they must endure to the military occupation in both in Gaza and the West Bank and the Settlements (bane to Israeli society that they are) in the West Bank.
Does that mean that I feel nothing for the people in Sderot who are bombarded with Quasam rockets day in and day out? Fuck no.
I dislike suffering.
I especially dislike it when my people suffer because the militia of an extremist group that currently controls the Palestinian fires rockets at them day and night.
Basically. Two sides, both are to blame. One suffers badly and the other suffers more, but both suffer and it'll do well to remember that on both sides there are people.
People who just want to live with dignity and because of religion, territory and politics they fight and bleed and die.
And that does no one any good.
Notes:
* If you don't know anything about it, just Google it, there is a plethora of information about the Six Day War and the issues surrounding it.
** Same as above.
*** A little Orwellianism never hurt anyone.
In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.
וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.
Last week I went to a GLBT academic conference called An Other Sex.
I went there with my friend Aviv who asked me why the Gay Pride Parade was so important, and why wasn't there a People Parade, or a Palestinian Pride Parade. I replied that as long there is shame in the Gay Parade it is necessary. As for the "People" Pride Parade I told him that every time a heterosexual couple holds hands or kisses in the street they are showing their subconscious "pride" in their sexuality.
There are Palestinian Pride Parades, and there are two kinds, ones with Kalashnikov's and face hiding galabiyas, and then Israeli security forces disperse. And other in which they is a small amount of people and they are marching for the freedom of their land, with little support from their government and from mine.
I'm inclined to believe that if, from within Ramallah, Palestinians began to march for peace and called for talks with the Israelis, they'd be shot by M-16's and Kalashnikov's, because both the government of Israel and Hamas and Fatah couldn't give a rat's ass about the actual people that are trying to create a change.
This long and fairly convoluted exposition was to show what it is I'm actually thinking about, because this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War*.
So there's this strange dichotomy going on in my head which goes something like:
Yay, Israel won! We weren't decimated in a huge barrage of enemy hostility!".
And...
"Fuck, ever since we've won we've been treating the people living in the Occupied Territories** as though they weren't people in their own right and keeping them as downtrodden as a face with a boot stomping on top of it***.
This is how I, personally, feel, I won't presume to know how others feel, though I know some share my feeling to a certain degree there are also those who don't.
I have a big problem with being told (and I have been) that I sympathize more the Palestinians than with Israelis. I don't. I sympathize with the suffering they must endure to the military occupation in both in Gaza and the West Bank and the Settlements (bane to Israeli society that they are) in the West Bank.
Does that mean that I feel nothing for the people in Sderot who are bombarded with Quasam rockets day in and day out? Fuck no.
I dislike suffering.
I especially dislike it when my people suffer because the militia of an extremist group that currently controls the Palestinian fires rockets at them day and night.
Basically. Two sides, both are to blame. One suffers badly and the other suffers more, but both suffer and it'll do well to remember that on both sides there are people.
People who just want to live with dignity and because of religion, territory and politics they fight and bleed and die.
And that does no one any good.
Notes:
* If you don't know anything about it, just Google it, there is a plethora of information about the Six Day War and the issues surrounding it.
** Same as above.
*** A little Orwellianism never hurt anyone.
In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.
וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.
