Something I keep thinking about: everyone focuses on that part, but what really is so objectionable about saying “Palestine will be free”? It’s not “From the river to the sea, Israel will not exist.” It is, at face value, a chant for FREEDOM. I genuinely don’t get how people are so triggered by it. There’s always like, “well, someone once used that in a way that MEANT they don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.” I really don’t think most people who chant it mean it with that darker, deeper meaning
Nu. No one is seriously arguing that Israel shouldn’t exist. Yes, people have brought up salient points about its founding and the myths we’ve told ourselves for decades (“a land without a people for a people without a land,” for one…) and many, many, many people all over the world, and in Israel, are crying out for it to leave Gaza alone. How can you even begin negotiations for peace if you don’t believe the folks on the other side of the table have the right to be free?
I guess this is my ass-backwards way of saying peace HAS to happen. I want it so badly: for Israel to have peace. And I see how such a completely defensive response to these desperate chants, and to the desperation the war (now wars..? My word.) causes will absolutely not bring understanding , let alone peace. It’s a way of passing the buck, and making a false equivalency. Saying words is not the same as dropping bombs.
In the last two weeks, I had two different students both girls of Middle Eastern descent show up for their classes in pro-Palestinian shirts. One was a third grader a very cute T-shirt with a watermelon on it with flowy script. “free Palestine” above it. The other was a highschooler with a Nike sweatshirt with the I replaced with the shape of the state of Israel, but completely filled in with the Palestinian flag. In both cases, I was not worried about antisemitism, and in both cases, the style was fresh. But they really got my brain going. This is youth culture in so much of the world, but especially to be a young Middle Eastern girl in the United States right now, it’s pretty freaking brave to wear that.
