”Being Queer, Transgender, And Hispanic, I’ve Had My Share Of Slurs Thrown At Me.

There is a massive historical discourse issue when it comes to Israel-Palestine and yeah it pisses me off, firstly as a Jew, second as someone who is pursuing a degree in Jewish history.

You can see a part of it by looking at the historical narrative presented by a very popular source, DecolonizePalestine. This source has been shared widely by celebrities, by activists. It has been quoted to me on this website. It was even in the instagram bio of one of my TA's. It is considered a helpful and trustworthy source on Israel-Palestine.

The website has a Palestine 101 section, which includes this helpful module:

okay lets take a look:

I've never heard of the Peselet tablet, so let's do a quick google.

Huh. That's weird.

There actually is a 3,000 year old Egyptian tablet (stele) that talks about the levant though.

Oh no! Anyways. Lets move on:

I'm sorry but how do you mention the Assyrians without mentioning that they destroyed the ancient Kingdom of Israel. And the Persians without mentioning that they allowed for the end of the Babylonian exile and the building of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem . And the Romans without mentioning what they named their province in the levant. Judea. This is where the name "Jew" comes from. There isn't a J in Hebrew.

wait the ottomans???? We already got to the Ottomans??? We just skipped literal centuries.

There's clearly a narrative being created here, not by the inclusion of historical facts, but rather the purposeful omission of historical facts. No serious scholar would be able to discuss the history of the levant and COMPLETELY LEAVE OUT THE JEWS.

This is the dominant historical narrative in discourse on Israel-Palestine and it is harmful. Not only because its untrue, but because it involves the destruction of Jewish history and the right of Jews to steward our own history.

Where we come from is and has always been a huge part of Jewish identity. I cannot stress this enough. It is wrong and yes, it is antisemitic to warp and erase Jewish history for your own political purposes.

and here's what gets me: it is completely unnecessary.

You can recognize all the horrors that the zionist movement and Israel has inflicted upon Palestinians without denying Jewish history. You can demand Israel take accountability and stop what it is doing without denying Jewish history. You can advocate for Palestinian freedom, statehood and self determination, without denying Jewish history.

But people don't want to *just* do that. In the minds of many, the only acceptable Free Palestine is a Palestine Free of Jews or Jewish autonomy.

And for that, fuck you. Palestinians are indigenous to the levant. They know their history and where they come from. Jews are indigenous to the levant. We know our history and where we come from.

No one is going anywhere.

Be better.

Free Palestine and Am Yisrael Chai.

Of course you don’t. Free college might hinder the school-to-prison pipeline your  prison owning donors depend on

I could really use some help signal boosting my shop right now. I'm a disabled artist with no other income, and I'm in a bit of a situation because I haven't had a sale in nearly a month. I'm almost completely out of money, my phone broke last week so I can't update my shop or share WIP pics until I replace it, and I'm running low on some necessary meds. I've had to ask my parents for help paying for my storage unit for the second month in a row. There are projects I really want to be working on and sharing with y'all -- like a tapestry loom I'm making but am still short a few small parts for store -- but I can't do so until I get some sales or commissions! Reblogging this, or any of my other sales posts, would really help me out

My current inventory -- which includes shawls, hats, doilies, jewelry, kippot, bookmarks, and more -- is all available in my ko-fi shop, as are several customizable options for commissions. I am also happy to take commissions and custom orders aside from those options though! Just message me if you're interested!

I currently only offer shipping within USA in the shop, but if you need something shipped elsewhere, feel free to message me and we can get that sorted out.

I’d never really gotten a chance to look before, but I had the urge to look at the AIDS quilt after remembering Duane Puryear, and I was just browsing around when one caught my eye in particular on block #2336.

I’m a sucker for the night sky, and upon further inspection…

Greg Kyper would have been 70 years old today, February 2nd 2024, if not for AIDS, and ohhhhh I’m gonna cry. I can't believe the chances of me stumbling upon his name today of all days. I'm going to try finding out more information about him and his life if possible.

I never met you Greg, but I love your quilt design. It's beautiful.

More useful links -

Articles

White phosphorus found in mortar shells fired from Gaza

Media Falsely Blame Israel for Rejecting Hamas’ Ceasefire “Proposal”

Unearthing the Story Behind the Gazan Mass Graves

Media Ignore Quietly-Revised UN Figures of Hamas-Reported Civilian Deaths

Terrorists Attack US Humanitarian Pier Construction Site Off Gaza: Report

Tweets with resources (some may contain graphic content) -

HAMAS/UNWRA stealing/destroying aid -

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HAMAS hurting/killing their own people -

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Misc -

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Writing Tips: The School Setting

The school setting trope is a narrative device that places the story's events within an educational institution. This trope capitalizes on the nostalgia of school life, leveraging the structured environment to explore a variety of themes, character dynamics, and conflicts.

Pros:

Familiarity: Readers easily grasp the setting, streamlining the introduction of complex plots.

Diverse Characters: Abundance of character types, from supportive friends to minor/major bullies to wizened mentors.

Natural Conflicts: Built-in elements like coming-of-age growth, exams, social dynamics, and extracurricular activities provide ample conflict.

Cons:

Formulaic: Due to the commonality of this setting, there's a potential for the narrative to become predictable.

Classroom Limitations: Often, the most interesting events occur outside the classroom during field trips or special events.

Contrived Stakes: The school, being a structured and safe environment, may struggle to convey a real sense of danger to the students.

Common School Tropes:

Late!: Scenarios involving characters running late.

Group Project: The teamwork and exploration of relationships through collaborative challenges.

Social Conformity: Exploring themes of individuality versus societal norms.

Prom Night: The buildup to and climax of a social event such as prom, as a backdrop for drama.

Academic Struggles: Plot points related to bad grades and their consequences.

Bullies: Delving into the complexities of bullying, from both students and teachers.

Sports and Games: The buildup to and climax of high-stakes events, as a backdrop for drama.

Vacation Time: Navigating challenges and relationships during vacation periods.

Detention: The conflicts and breaking of rules, leading up to detention.

Field Trips: Exploring the wider world and lore, while encountering conflict.

Tests: Showcasing the skill and growth of characters, while tackling the anxiety surrounding tests.

Social Structures: Examining the dynamics of school groups and hierarchies.

Graduation: Feel-good denouement, when the characters celebrate their successes and reflect on their journey together

Types of Bullies:

Goons: Unpleasant, hostile characters functioning as easy obstacles, typically following a Bigger Badder Bully.

Reasonable Bullies: Characters with legitimate reasons for their dislike of the protagonist, such as family rivalries or personal ambitions.

Villainous Bullies: Truly evil individuals collaborating with external threats or evil organizations for nefarious purposes.

Magic School Subgenre:

Adventure Within the Walls: The school itself becomes the focal point of the adventure.

Specialization in the Supercool: Schools where the subjects are about magic, monsters, superheroes, or even robots.

Wish Fulfillment: The reader is projected into a world beyond the mundane.

Trials and Tests: Incorporating trials, duels, and fights as rites of passage.

Secrecy and Intrigue: The school and its knowledge are usually secluded and hidden from the world.

Building an Alliance: The protagonist has to win over a diverse cast of characters to aid them in their fight against a great threat.

Rival from Nobility: One of the main antagonists is usually a scion of a high-status, wealthy family.

Outside Threat: The school is usually a focal point for a greater conflict taking place in the wider world. And comes under attack later in the story.

Outside Adventures: Characters sometimes leave the safety of the school for adventures in the wider world.

This is part of my Writing Tips series. Everyday I publish a writing tip to this blog.

a collection of custom Jewish tattoo designs, 2020-2023

reminder: custom tattoo designs are for client use only. it's disrespectful to get an artist's work tattooed without permission, and incredibly so to steal a design that was made for someone else. if you're inspired by these, you can commission me to create something for you!

descriptions & details below

as a Jew with (Jewish) tattoos, i'm delighted whenever someone commissions me for a design that speaks to some core aspect of their personal relationship with Judaism. the first of these is an angelic meditation on the phrase "hineni" ("here i am") & its connection to fearless self-embodiment, the next two are illustrations for passages from the Talmud (one about being self-made, featuring the miraculous "first tongs", the other about the life cycle of Jewish demons), and the last is a more traditional tree of life with torah scroll.

if i had the time/money for a tattoo apprenticeship, i would love to learn & be able to do this work myself - as it stands, i'm honored to be part of it as a designer & grateful to the talented tattooers who have inked or will ink my pieces!

image descriptions:

an ink line drawing of a black heart with four angelic eyed wings, over a ring of flame around it and the word הנני

an ink drawing of a pair of tongs, with flames wrapping around them that contain the words ועשיתם אתם

an ink line drawing of a hyena skull, surrounded by thorns with a pair of bat wings above it and the letter ש

a vector drawing of a stylized tree with a torah scroll below it and the words עץ חיים היא

sorry if this is a dumb question and i understand if you don't want to answer but do you have links to posts explaining why israel isn't an apartheid state? i swear i read posts like that on your blog before but i don't know how to refind them

Israeli Arabs have legal equality with Jews. Same restaurants, same pools, same seats on the bus, same voting rights. I would favorably compare the treatment of Israeli Arabs with that of any minority group in any country on Earth.

The West Bank has a military occupation, with (pretty fast) checkpoints and no right to vote about the government running that military. Military occupations are bad and some of us have been against this particular one for decades. The anti-occupation movement hasn't gotten anywhere, they've just been stuck. Being stuck in a military occupation for X more years doesn't make it apartheid, just like being stuck in a bad marriage for X more years doesn't make you divorced. Meanwhile, the 2020 Abraham Accords showed that multiple Arab states were willing to accept this unchanging status quo and deal with Israel as it is. Those two factors - the stagnant, unchanging nature of the occupation, and the clear loss of interest in the Palestinian cause - combined to have the latest crop of awareness-raising college interns at some shifty NGOs try to force change by abracadabra'ing together a new concept of "apartheid" that exists solely for Israel. And it is working, just like "Christ-killer" and "stabbed Germany in the back" worked.

In 2010, Human Rights Watch published an extremely critical report on Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Dragged them up one wall and down the other. Yet there was no accusation of "apartheid" there. In the report, page 33, they cited a lawsuit by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel that had said it was apartheid for the West Bank military occupation authorities to ban Palestinians from driving on Highway 443 after repeated firebombings / shootings against Israelis. The Israeli High Court ruled that it was inappropriate to ban Palestinians from the road, and it re-established their equal driving access - they have had it ever since. The court also said that the accusation of apartheid behind that now-ended ban was dishonest, because the security concerns were not based on race; there were and are no "Jewish-only" roads anywhere, even when WB Palestinians were denied road access, Israeli Arabs could and did drive there. The HRW 2010 report included a long summary of that finding, without challenge. As bad as they saw Israel, they agreed it wasn't apartheid.

Then in 2020 came the Abraham Accords, so while nothing at all had changed in the administration of the West Bank, in 2021 HRW said it actually was apartheid. It really is that simple. The most famous legal convention banning apartheid specifies that it is race-based. HRW instead went with a different legal convention on apartheid, one that says it could be based on national origin if it involves discrimination among citizens of the same country.... and then they up and added their own twist to that, saying they will consider it apartheid if there is discrimination based on national origin AMONG PEOPLE WHO AREN'T CITIZENS OF THE SAME COUNTRY. In a very real sense, HRW declared Mexico is an apartheid state because Americans can't vote in its elections.

In 2022, Amnesty International followed with their own report, saying that not only was the military occupation now "apartheid," but that Israel itself had been an apartheid state ever since it was established in 1948. This moral perversion had the effect of saying Israel literally INVENTED apartheid since in May 1948 it didn't even exist in South Africa yet. It also said that Amnesty International - founded 1961 - had been looking at an apartheid the whole time but never recognized it. To make things even more dishonest, Amnesty said they "are not claiming Israeli conditions are analogous to South Africa," meaning anything that shows how Israel is different from South Africa doesn't count. They're using the South African word for the South African policy but it's actually not like South Africa at all so be quiet, neener neener no backsies.

I shouldn't have to take that seriously. Neither should anyone. Palestinians and their advocates should be ashamed to have to lean on such an obvious bad-faith lie.

Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013, never once accused Israel of apartheid, and instead repeatedly said he supported Zionism and a 2-state solution. Mandela's lawyer, still alive, says the accusation is a lie. Mansour Abbas, leader of the Arab Islamist party that joined Israel's governing coalition in 2021, says the accusation is a lie. And if people want to bandy around NGO business cards, here is the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2017:

“The Red Cross was very familiar with the regime that prevailed in South Africa during the apartheid period, and we are responding to all those who raise their claim of apartheid against Israel: No, there is no apartheid here, no regime of superiority of race, of denial of basic human rights to a group of people because of their alleged racial inferiority. There is a bloody national conflict, whose most prominent and tragic characteristic is its continuation over the years, decades-long, and there is a state of occupation. Not apartheid.”

There's a lot more you can see about the shifty terminology, unreliable sourcing, and longstanding culture of antisemitism and racism within Amnesty International. People who can cite chapter and verse of why the Salvation Army, Autism Speaks, Chik-Fil-A and Harry Potter are problematic should not be shocked.

People are claiming Israel is blocking baby formula from Gaza. Do you know where this rumor comes from and is there any basis?

Hi Nonnie,

I searched through journalistic sources, and while I have found a few reports in Amrican media, which say that baby formula is hard to find in Gaza (which is no surprise if Hamas steals about 60% of all humanitarian aid entering Gaza (this was happening even before the war, that donations were being stolen by Hamas), in part to sell it to Palestinians for much higher prices (again, something that happened before this war as well), in part to produce anti-Israel propaganda, that allows Hamas to falsely claim Gazans are being deliberately starved (but divert the blame away from themselves), but as far as I can tell, there's no fact checked source that says anything about it being completely blocked. My guess is that this rumor is exactly what so many of the other anti-Israel ones are: a libel, meant to help demonize the Jewish state.

Where did this libel originate? It might be tied to the reports about the baby formula being hard to find, once again using demonizing hyperbole (stretching it from 'hard to find' to 'none is being brought in') and taking it out of context (leaving out that humanitarian aid in general, including baby formula, is hard to find in Gaza, because Hamas steals it). Another option is that they're simply relying on the horror of the story. I've found a few cases with the same claims about babies not having food / baby formula in Gaza dating back to 2017, 2010 and 2009.

It seems like COGAT, the unit in the IDF that exists solely in order to coordinate help for the Palestinians, has already heard about this rumor, and has posted its own date about this, which refutes the rumor and specifies how much baby formula has been allowed in, and that there are no restrictions on any humanitarian aid (posted Mar 21):

But what if people don't trust the IDF's word? Well, then how about that of organizations which are def pro-Palestinian, ones which have been asking for people's donations to provide Gazans with humanitarian aid, and who claim that they've delievered baby formula inside Gaza? Since Israel approves of anything going in, this couldn't have happened (or be posted about publicly) if Israel were blocking all baby formula from entering Gaza.

Or how about the word of the Jordanians, fellow Arabs, who reported that their air drops of humanitarian aid in Gaza include baby formula? And again, nothing gets air dropped in Gaza without Israel's approval.

I hope this helps!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)