I have hesistated to post about the remembrance of the Hamas atrocities of October 7 because, frankly, I feel burned when I post even excerpts from people — often people of profound Jewish faith and deep moral insight — about what happened last October...

William Lindsey :toad:

"As Israeli philosopher Oded Na’aman writes, 'Of course, even if the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip were possible it would be abhorrent, but at this moment it is important to understand that many Israelis support the immense use of force for the sake of a goal that upon reflection they themselves admit is unachievable. There is simply no available vision of a tolerable future.'”

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/9

William Lindsey :toad:

"Part of Judaism’s voice comes for me very powerfully in this notion, also in the Talmud, that G-d created Adam, who is not of any race or religion. Judaism does not believe that Adam and Eve were Jews. They were universal human beings before G-d creates a covenant with Abraham."

~ Peter Beinart

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/10

Atoning for the Past Year

For My Sins Against My People and Against The Principle of Human Equality

(peterbeinart.substack.com)

William Lindsey :toad:

"And the Talmud says that one of the reasons that there was one singular person created by G-d was that so nobody could say that my father is greater than your father, which is to say that my lineage, my tribe, my race, whatever, is greater; that we are all descended from fundamentally the same people, and that it is a grave sin to create a hierarchy among human beings."

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/11

William Lindsey :toad:

"And yet I also feel that so much of the discourse over the last year has been saturated with a sense of the hierarchy of human lives, that Israeli Jewish lives, or, for that matter, American lives, or Western lives, really matter. And Palestinian lives just don’t matter as much, or Lebanese lives [don't] matter. Maybe they have some value, but just they’re not as important."

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/12

William Lindsey :toad:

"Some of the most fraught debates this past year in the anti-war camp have been over the politics of mourning, producing a novel and painful lexicon of grief."

~ Naomi Klein

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/13

How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war

A year later, memorials to the 7 October attacks use art, virtual reality and dark tourism to stir support for limitless violence. But there is a different way to remember

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

William Lindsey :toad:

"While many (including me) openly grieved the Israeli civilians killed in the 7 October attacks, many also pointed out that Palestinian lives are systematically treated as 'ungrievable' (invoking a phrase from Judith Butler). In contrast, Israeli lives are, in the words of the historian Gabriel Winant, 'pre-grieved',"

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/14

William Lindsey :toad:

"because 'an apparatus is already in place to take their deaths and give them not just any meaning, but specifically the meaning that they find in the bombs falling on Gaza.'"

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/15

otto

@wdlindsy Talmud is fine but how can they ignore the 36 places in Torah where they are admonished to treat foreigners and strangers fairly?

William Lindsey :toad:

@ottomate Peter Beinart is citing the Talmud to make that very point — he's not ignoring it.

Cat C-B

@wdlindsy thank you so much for this thread. My sore heart required it today.

William Lindsey :toad:

"I want to focus on one particular aspect that captures the heartbreak I feel. I want to remember the children who have perished and otherwise been harmed in this abominable conflict. Because that was the first thing that came to my mind this morning.

There is nothing that captures the depravity of war more than the death of children."

~ Eliot Kirschner

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/16

Thinking of the Children

A heartbreaking anniversary

(elliotkirschner.substack.com)

William Lindsey :toad:

"I write all of this knowing that it is not only Israel and Gaza. It’s also Lebanon, and Sudan, and Ukraine, and all sorts of other places where children are suffering. I think of children lost in the recent hurricane, and to the opioid epidemic, to gun violence, and to horrific (many curable) diseases. ...

If this precious world has any future at all, it will be because of the children."

#October7 #Israel #Netanyahu #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon
/17

William Lindsey :toad:

@megmuttonhead You're welcome. My heart is sore, too. So much suffering, pain, injustice, and so much of it due to the evil, malice, and inflated egos of some men running things in our world.

Godfrey642

@wdlindsy
Thank you for this William.
There's an honest gentleness in your words that we all need in these desperate days.
And a profound grasp of truth in the words and thoughts of all those writers you quote.

I also feel that this is a pointless war between men who aren't leaders for the ppl they claim to represent, but are fighting for *their* ego and agenda.

I too look at the news reports and see the faces of those children. How are they ever going to grow up strong and whole when the world around them is shattered and poisoned.

James M.

@wdlindsy this is the crux of it, the ethnic supremacy that underlies virtually all justifications for the war I've heard. I've asked many people whether they think a Palestinian life and an Israeli life have the same value. I ask this in order to establish a basis for the discussion. When I ask, some are offended just by the question. Very few give a straight answer. It's telling.

We've seen what happens when ethnic supremacy is not called out. We're seeing it now.

Godfrey642

@wdlindsy
I've been reading everything i can find on Judaism and Zionism. I'm beginning to feel the latter is the problem and Netanyahu's government is unashamedly Zionist with Zionist donors and agitators.

All the time this is the case there will never ever be a peaceful fair solution for this region. Zionists want Palestinians out of Israeli territory.

This has been the growing *political* solution since Herzl conceived of Zionism in 1896 as an antidote to the centuries old persecution of Jews worldwide.

EV not Petrol

@wdlindsy The decision of not providing a tolerable future was written on day one and every time they steal land from those who live in the West Bank.

DJH

@wdlindsy

Thank you William. You are a good man in a violent world

DJH

@wdlindsy

For now I think it is three words:
Respect for other human beings
Trust that almost all people want to live in peace with their neighbours
Dialogue to work it out together

William Lindsey :toad:

@jamesmarshall Yes, I very much agree. Thank you for lifting up the phrase "ethnic supremacy." That coupled with nationalism produces such bitter fruits, and I think it's no accident we see these ideologies raising their ugly heads throughout the world right now as fascists seek to destroy democratic polities. Just yesterday, one Donald Trump was spreading Nazi lies about racial purity and gene pools.