r/JewsOfConscience Jul 10 '24

AAJ "Ask A Jew" Wednesday

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

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u/boogboi15 Non-Jewish Ally Jul 10 '24

In regards to the conflict (I do not want to disrespect you folks) in Gaza, do the Anti Zionist Jewish collective sees Gazans or Palestinians lives as statistics only or do you folks see them as a people also?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

I think it’s safe to say that all of us anti-Zionist Jews view Palestinian lives as just as important and special as any Jewish life. We fight for the dignity of Palestinian lives just as we would for Jewish lives.

Some of us get very angry and outraged, because we see how Palestinian life is being treated over 76+ years. It’s exactly how we learned about Jews being ethnically cleansed and discriminated and genocided during our ~4,000 year old history. It’s even worse when we come to understand that Palestinians are Bani yisrael who just converted to Christianity and then Islam…. Some Arabs comment on how us anti-Zionist Jews speak up on Falisteen more than the Arab nations. Well this is because there is such tremendous emotion when we start listening to our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

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u/ArmyOfMemories Jewish Anti-Zionist Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

I mean, I'm not going to speak for anyone but myself but this is, to me, common sense.

I see them as human beings - not a statistic.

I do think that the life of a Palestinian has been de-valued tremendously (even past the point of imagination, post-10/7) by the American media and by pro-Israel advocates like the ADL who seek to criminalize Palestinian existence and center pro-Israel Jewish safety above the physical life of a Palestinian. This is something groups like the ADL have done for years:

Notably, after Israel’s 11-day attack on Gaza and the West Bank in May 2021, in which at least 282 Palestinians were killed, the ADL worked to redirect the discourse to center Jewish victimhood rather than Israeli brutality. (It was at this time Greenblatt made his “Charlottesville every day” comments on television.)

The FBI has not tracked anti-Arab racism and violence for 20 years.

For nearly two decades, anti-Arab violence was omitted from hate crime data.

When the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program developed its hate crime data collection guidelines pursuant to the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, it included a category to record anti-Arab incidents. But, according to the Arab American Institute (AAI), the FBI quietly removed that code from the data collection program in 1992. It remained missing until it was reintroduced in the 2015 report.

NPR reached out to the FBI, but did not receive a response.

Movies and television continue to portray Arabs, Muslims, and especially Palestinians in an Orientalist fashion at best and at worst, terrorists or religious fanatics. When Netflix announced a Palestine-centric curation, pro-Israel ideologues raged online. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL equates the keffiyeh with terror. Biden echoes Israel's atrocity propaganda against Palestinians. Trump uses 'Palestinian' as a put-down during the presidential debate. Etc.

There have been multiple stabbings and shootings of Palestinians. A six-year old was killed in Chicago. An exchange student was paralyzed from the chest down in a shooting. Etc.

It's common on political shows for popular figures to make remarks about Palestinians that reeks of classic antisemitism - ie Bill Maher claiming Palestinians are 'not like us'. So on and so forth. There's so much to talk about here.

So yea - I can't speak for all anti-Zionist Jews or Jews in general, but I can say that I see all of this happening and I'm against it.

I've been against this shit for 20+ years. My whole adult life so far.

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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Jul 11 '24

They're people, what else would they be?