Heritage, Not Hate, You Guys

 

There were lovely peace marches today around the world only somewhat marred by counterprotests and, you know, antisemitic hate messages under the guise of liberation. I'm a simple human, so I have to ask you all: if you knew that for Israeli Jews, and for the founding statements of Hamas and as was actually dropped from the PLO platform back in the 1980s, that "from the river to the sea" actually was literally intended to mean "throw Jews into the sea because this is Arab land"--would you be shocked if many people interested in peace thought that slogan was uniquely unhelpful? Would you try to retcon it to mean something different? Can we make that statement more "All Lives Matter"-ish? 

Sure, it's got a rhyme and a good marching cadence, but would it be helpful? Would people chanting about "intifada" be helpful, or no? If it literally antagonized the people you want peace with who also have a fear of genocide? What does the chant "Palestine 48" mean to people? Why throw red paint like blood at the White House? 

See, I get that for people who have gotten deep into this conversation, anti-Zionism means a lot of different things, but Israel is as old as my dad. To me, 75 years old is old enough to have earned the right to be acknowledged. If Zionism is basically the thing where there is a Jewish state in the Middle East: here it is! There are people there! They have a government and guess what: the people know that what the Netanyahu government is doing is wrong and are protesting it. They want to acknowledge human rights and Palestinian dignity--not all Israelis are right-wing settler colonialists. Like, we can't at this point argue about Jews living there. They do. The alternative to that is a war crime. 

Tilting at Windmills all Day

It would strain the credulity of any person living a mere five or six years ago to imagine the kind of extraordinarily and bizarrely stupid day we have had the exceptional weird fortune to witness, and it would blast right past every firewall of the belief system of those people to imagine that, of all the unfathomable sheer stupidity witnessed today, so much of it would be just another fucking weekday under the ruling auspices of Mad King Donald that we'd just shrug it off.  It wouldn't be a DEFCON 1 emergency. Helicopters wouldn't be circling overhead at the White House. It's just....

Tuesday.

It's just a fucking Tuesday around here, anymore. Not even Thursday, people. Not even newsdump Friday.

It's just one of those days when the orange-tinted dingus is in rare form and accuses two congresswomen of being profoundly anti-Semitic, mocking one of them for tearing up because she will not be visiting with her grandmother due to a profound personal principle regarding the dignity of her kin. It's one of those days when he then turns around and accuses US Jews of being "disloyal" if they vote for Democrats.

But gosh, he sure said a lot of things today (recorded in this thread by Aaron Rupar, who at this stage, has seen an awful lot), such as reiterating that he really could have ten million Afghanis killed, if he so minded ( he still is not so minded) and offered a repeated belief he has that Afghanistan is why the Soviet Union is now Russia, and that Russia should be in the G-8, and it's only a G-7 and not a G-8 because Putin "outsmarted Obama" which I guess is a weird way to phrase "annexed Crimea" but fuck it, he was rollin'. He also offered an opinion about Kashmir (it's complicated).

Uh, and he's not going to do the background checks thing because the NRA owns his ass (still!) and also the economy is just fine, so people should stop saying it isn't, but in the meantime, yes he would very much like a payroll tax cut, maybe lowered interest rates, you know--a spiff. Which doesn't sound half nervous at all!

And any of those things would have been "Wow! He does not know what he's talking about and says things anyway--is he ok?" Except this is the new normal, right? And then he does this:

He cancels a meeting with the PM of Denmark because she is not going to let him buy Greenland. And if he's not going there to buy Greenland, what is he even going there for? To look at windmills? Because he's Donald Fucking Trump, and he hates windmills. Everyone knows that!

Andy Kaufman never had such dedication to a cringe bit. If this is a joke, damn. 

But if this is not a joke....

Also, damn. 

Petty Tyrants and Their Enablers

Despite previous statements from Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer to the effect that Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar would be permitted to visit Israel, and WH Spokesperson Stephanie Grisham to the effect that it was "fake news" to suppose that President Trump would pressure Israel not to allow their entry, today Prime Minister Netanyahu effectively banned the entry of the US's only two Muslim congresswomen to that nation. 

The record (Twitter) will show that Trump definitely did exert just a little pressure:

It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2019

and one has to ask--if there had been no change in what Reps. Omar and Tlaib stood for last month, or even additional information revealed about them during that time, what in the world changed? Is the weakness that Israel (Netanyahu) would have allowed these US Reps in, or is it rather that, instead of doing so, and possibly correcting any incorrect ideas they may have had or trying to promote a dialogue, he knuckled to the petulant social media demand of the US president because he might be facing a difficult election? (It certainly could be interpreted the latter way).

Of course, Trump's intention, as it has always been, was to demonize the two congresswomen as anti-Semitic because  he's regularly called racist (as I think he should be) and slamming Muslim congresswomen is very much his shit (because he's terrible) and now Netanyahu's spokepeople have to also demonize the two a bit to justify his decision, even though even worse people have totally been let into the country.

That's the thing about enabling petty tyrants--it sometimes does carry a benefit (like Netanyahu appeasing Trump and satisfying hardliners) but you also end up continuing doing their bidding for a loooonnng time. Sometimes people even catch on that you're doing it, And that? Can be some of the weakest shit of all.