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Amazing little country
May. 24th, 2006 11:56 amI was going to post about gardening, but my internets went down last night, so I couldn't upload my photos. So this is the Palestine/Israel post, although it's really more about my fucked-up family than anything else.
See, I don't really talk to my father's side of the family. I see him about once every few years or so. Sometimes he e-mails me on my birthday, sometimes he calls. On occasion, he sends me a card or a present. Often, he forgets—despite the fact that his birthday is two days after mine.
I have other relatives on that side too—uncles, aunts, cousins. I've seen a handful of them once in the past two decades. Last time, they gossiped to me as though we were an actual family, and we smoked pot and got drunk. They are all wankers.
Every so often, my father gets all uber-Zionist and sends me an e-mail like this one. On my birthday, which happens to be the day after the anniversary of al-Nakba.
( Cut for bollocks )
Besides the fact that I don't think inventing the cell phone, voice mail, or Windows XP or having a huge airforce is anything to brag about, I'm sick of seeing this forward every gorram year. So I sent a forward of my own. I was pretty restrained, I think. I cc'd everyone my father had cc'd. And my mom, because she always finds this sort of thing interesting.
( My response )
I was most happy to get three responses.
( They were all shorter than mine. )
I'm writing about this family drama because a) I found it funny, as I really have no emotional connection with most of my family, and b) because I think there's a lesson to be learned here.
As far as I know, none of my blood relatives is actually Israeli. My mother's side of the family is from Poland and Russia, and she grew up in Montréal. My father's side is also Ashkenazi, although I don't know where they're from. He and his sister grew up on Grace St. in Little Italy. Few people in my family have even been to Israel.
My mother's side of the family, for the most part, is very religious and isolates itself from non-Jews (she and her brother bucked the trend by very much embracing Canadian multiculturalism). My father's side of the family isn't quite so isolationist or religious, and they're more politically involved, but I highly doubt any of them have ever met a Palestinian before.
You'll notice from these e-mails that neither my father nor my aunt were actually able to refute a point I made with a logical counter-argument. It's a matter of tribal identification, not reality-based thinking. Us = Jews = Israelis = Zionists, by my aunt's logic, but it conflates ethnicity, nationality, and political identity in such a way that I don't see how it can describe a left-wing atheist living in North America. I feel like I'm being told to root for a certain football team because some of the players might share a few genes with me.
These aren't new thoughts by any means, but this recent exchange reminded me of why a debate on Palestine and Israel based on facts and reason so seldom happens. I know why I believe the things that I do. I don't think people in my family can say the same.
By the way, I was thinking of responding:
The only side I've ever taken has been that of justice and human dignity. If that offends you, perhaps you should examine why.
See, I don't really talk to my father's side of the family. I see him about once every few years or so. Sometimes he e-mails me on my birthday, sometimes he calls. On occasion, he sends me a card or a present. Often, he forgets—despite the fact that his birthday is two days after mine.
I have other relatives on that side too—uncles, aunts, cousins. I've seen a handful of them once in the past two decades. Last time, they gossiped to me as though we were an actual family, and we smoked pot and got drunk. They are all wankers.
Every so often, my father gets all uber-Zionist and sends me an e-mail like this one. On my birthday, which happens to be the day after the anniversary of al-Nakba.
( Cut for bollocks )
Besides the fact that I don't think inventing the cell phone, voice mail, or Windows XP or having a huge airforce is anything to brag about, I'm sick of seeing this forward every gorram year. So I sent a forward of my own. I was pretty restrained, I think. I cc'd everyone my father had cc'd. And my mom, because she always finds this sort of thing interesting.
( My response )
I was most happy to get three responses.
( They were all shorter than mine. )
I'm writing about this family drama because a) I found it funny, as I really have no emotional connection with most of my family, and b) because I think there's a lesson to be learned here.
As far as I know, none of my blood relatives is actually Israeli. My mother's side of the family is from Poland and Russia, and she grew up in Montréal. My father's side is also Ashkenazi, although I don't know where they're from. He and his sister grew up on Grace St. in Little Italy. Few people in my family have even been to Israel.
My mother's side of the family, for the most part, is very religious and isolates itself from non-Jews (she and her brother bucked the trend by very much embracing Canadian multiculturalism). My father's side of the family isn't quite so isolationist or religious, and they're more politically involved, but I highly doubt any of them have ever met a Palestinian before.
You'll notice from these e-mails that neither my father nor my aunt were actually able to refute a point I made with a logical counter-argument. It's a matter of tribal identification, not reality-based thinking. Us = Jews = Israelis = Zionists, by my aunt's logic, but it conflates ethnicity, nationality, and political identity in such a way that I don't see how it can describe a left-wing atheist living in North America. I feel like I'm being told to root for a certain football team because some of the players might share a few genes with me.
These aren't new thoughts by any means, but this recent exchange reminded me of why a debate on Palestine and Israel based on facts and reason so seldom happens. I know why I believe the things that I do. I don't think people in my family can say the same.
By the way, I was thinking of responding:
The only side I've ever taken has been that of justice and human dignity. If that offends you, perhaps you should examine why.
