I feel like everyone's eyes glaze over whenever anyone talks about Palestine now.
With some people it's because of fatigue; constant news and images of death and destruction on a level far beyond Hitler's concentration camps coming out of the killing fields like a faucet that's been jammed open.
With most others, it's because they turned off their brains and ate from the prolefeed trough on day one; "Israel has a right to defend itself," "Hamas should stop hiding command centers in civilian populations," "It's their own fault for doing 9/11."
They call it the "Israel-Hamas War", as though there's an actual war. Oh, it feels better to call it a war, certainly. Images of troops marching off to battle, making plans, discussing strategies, both sides each vying for a victory over the other. But that's not what's happening. That was never happening. No one wants to face the fact that Israel is not at war, Israel is conducting a genocide. There are no battles, no casualties on both sides, no strategy; there is only one strategy here, only one side taking any losses, only one culture being destroyed every hour of every day. The strategy is complete extermination of the Palestinian people and eradication of anything resembling a society that they ever created.
Now that Palestine is in a shambles, now that the hospitals have been destroyed, now that the journalists and doctors and aid workers are all fleeing or dead, Israel is setting its sights on the whole of the Levant. Lebanon. Syria. Possibly even a push down the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
All the while, American evangelicals and ashkenazim alike are collecting money in the plate every week to send to Israel.
"We Stand with Israel" says the banner inside what used to be my synagogue. So much for "taking care of our own"; the congregation's icy glares made it quite clear, I'm not welcome there anymore. No one who isn't firmly committed to zionism is welcome there. All I asked was for the rabbi to do the bare-ass minimum and say mi shebeirach for the innocent civilians whom Israel bombed out of house and home.
But that was too much.
Just like it's too much to ask the US federal government to do the bare-ass minimum and stop sending money and weapons to Israel.
Not asking to rebuild everything that was destroyed, not asking to recreate the Palestinian culture from brass tacks and baling wire, just stop sending them anything.
I'm so tired. I'm not even in danger and I'm tired. How must the Palestinian families who have been under constant attack for an entire year feel? No rest, no food, no comfort, and no help. How would YOU feel?