Rant time

[sabotabby]

Okay, ridemycamel has requested the following:

Unrelated, but I want you to rant about any aspect of the Palestinian conflict and your involvement as a Jew demon in human form. Bitch about Palestinians, Israelis, other Jews, whites, etc. You can direct it anyway you want, and of course, bonus points if you use racial slurs.

'Cause I haven't ranted about that, ever. Oy. Actually, I suppose I haven't ranted on it for awhile, since it has a tendency to not change very much, despite what the media seems to think. But we just had Israeli Apartheid Week here in Hogtown, so the timing's good. The aspect I'm going to rant on specifically is the Palestinian-Israeli debate on campus, since that's where I was all last week.



The following rules are now in effect:

Before bringing up suicide bombing in an argument, you are now obligated to explain why it's automatically worse than any other sort of bombing. Make the explanation good.

When someone's giving a lecture and you want to take issue with what he or she says, wait for the Q&A session. Why don't people understand that?

"Accredited media" means "accredited media," not "some schmuck with a video camera." If someone doesn't want to be videotaped, it's polite to not videotape them. Also, no one actually believes that you're making an independent documentary.

"Questions" mean exactly that, not "long-winded statements describing in detail how your party is going to solve the conflict." STFU.

The latest atrocity is not "the worst [blank] ever." Newsflash: It probably isn't, and it's all a matter of perspective anyway. I don't care if Desmond Tutu says that Israeli apartheid is worse than South African apartheid; it's bad political rhetoric to rank your suffering in comparison with someone else's. Your situation is dire enough without exaggeration.

Zionists are no longer allowed to tell pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Zionist Jews: "You should be ashamed of yourself." Wow, no one's ever told me that before. I'm now totally ashamed of myself. I think what convinced me this time was how you shouted it in my ear. Asshat.

White people must now pass an IQ test before being issued keffiyehs.

The only person who's allowed to call me a kike is brownfist. No, I don't care if you called yourself a kike first.

The phrase "a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine" is now banned from political discourse unless you're being deliberately ironic.

Palestinians are not responsible for anything the President of Iran says.

Stop coming up with conspiracy theories. Don't you have enough to worry about without making shit up?

No, I don't hate myself. I probably hate you, though.

If you've prefaced your statement with "I think we can all agree..." I probably don't agree with what you're about to say.

Supporters of a secular, democratic, one-state solution do not believe that Israelis should be sent back to Europe. Therefore, telling me to go back to Europe since Canada is on First Nations' land is not a very effective argument.

This is official notice that Jonathan Jaffit is kicked out of the Tribe. But he should never be banned from campus events because he makes them far more entertaining than they otherwise would be.

Anyone have anything else to add? I have a feeling I'm leaving stuff out.

Comments

[ex-melimeli728.livejournal.com]

also to quibbly silly-ly with a jokey post,

the mandatory draft includes option for civil service instead of army service, not just for religious. people who do civil service might work in kids shelters, all sorts of social and community work. Palestinian Israelis do not go to the army, and Druze and Bedouin are more and more deciding not to enter the army. The Haifa bombing a few years back killed a bunch of very sweet Druze waiters. They had not been to the army, and one can't be sure they would have gone. Is every woman necessarily a mother and a wife? Is every Israeli necessarily a soldier? People are always more complicated than certain ideologies would make them out to be.

there is also army work that does not involve occupying the west bank, like patroling the northern borders.

Finally, one can certainly read the ideas of Hamas, but that does not make the ideas of Hamas true. One can read documents from the Israeli Army explaining the purity of arms and the highest degree of humanity that the army practices. They, Hamas, the Israeli army, whoever, they can write, and we can read. While reading is good, it is also important for us to use our brains. The Israeli army can say that everyone killed or wounded in Balata camp a few days ago was a terrorist or a militant or was carrying a toy gun that was really real and so are valid targets. Hamas can write that everyone in the "Occupied Territories" of 48, if you prefer to call them that, "is or will be a soldier", and so they are valid targets. Kahane can write that all Palestinian Israelis are a threat to Jewish Israelis, man woman child or womb, and so all are valid targets. They can write, and we can read.

We can do more than that, too. We can criticize. And sometimes, we should. I dont really know when. But there must be times, there must be things so wrong, that they call out to be criticized. I dont know if suffering gives someone a free card to play in terms of criticism of immoral things. Maybe it does. Maybe I will try to pray on that. It's a big question, I guess.