You are the racist, actually, not me
December 30, 2016, 12:13 am
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I am an Orthodox Jewish settler
raising seven children in the West Bank. I’m also an American citizen
and I voted for Donald Trump. Yeah, I’m that lady. I opened a local
business here, and I did so on purpose — to respond to BDS anti-settler
activities by encouraging Jewish West Bank residents to work in the West
Bank and keep their own businesses local in the West Bank. I believe in
annexation and I do not support a two-state solution.
And that makes me a peace-loving, Palestinian-respecting individual. I’m not the racist. You are.
You, my liberal, anti-settler, anti-Trump
friends who hate my views — if not me (yet) — are the racists. I have
spent a lot of time particularly in the past three months being told by
US Democratic voters and UN supporters what a monstrous racist group of
people we are, those people “like me.”
I’ve finally had enough. I’ve invited so many
of you to engage and hear from real people instead of judging, and you
show no interest. Apparently, it’s preferable to let television and the
New York Times inform your views on my little corner of the world.
I want to start with the US elections. I have
read post after blog after article telling me why Trump voters voted for
him. What we think, how we feel, what matters to us (and what doesn’t,
like women and/or minorities), and who we are. With some serious name
calling. But you didn’t ask me. And you don’t actually know what I think
or feel or want or why I voted. So you are pre-judging me. Based on a
whole lot of stuff. But it’s prejudice, no matter how you slice it. And I
have tolerated — just barely — eight years of a president who not only
told me what to think and feel, but told the world assumptions about me
as a white person who grew up with “privilege” that just aren’t true. I
watched as my life choices and values as a person living in the West
Bank of Israel were summarized, judged and assumed by the leader of the
free world in a way that is just false, and offensive to my sense of
fairness, justice and humanity. I have been misjudged and
mischaracterized, in fact penalized, without a proper understanding of what reality looks like over here.
I have watched a president grab executive
power while Congress screamed and the citizens ignored it. I watched a
president on the political left, who was democratically elected and is
entitled to his views, create a culture of demonization of the Right in a
way that is unprecedented in my lifetime. I saw policies that moved the
US towards socialism. And I voted against any more years of that. Not
that you asked. But when you — or he, or Hilary — call me a misogynist
or a racist or a pig or “deplorable” for voting the way I did, you are
judging a whole band of “them” that isn’t you. And I know how much you
hate it when other people do that.
As for being an Israeli settler? I live and
work with and among Palestinians. They are my neighbors, my colleagues,
my friends, and yes, my threat. They, their dignity, pain, reality and
families are in my face and consciousness daily. I don’t presume to
claim to know what all Palestinians as a group think or believe. What I
do know is that there is a very wide spectrum and a whole lot of shades
of gray without much black and white. Let me start by asking you: do YOU
know that?
While the world watches Aleppo burn and Syrian
children slaughtered in the thousands every year without so much as
single protest or call to action, the same world is out to show that
Israeli occupation of another people is the true evil in the world.
And that same prejudiced world has been living
with democracy for so long that I think maybe you have all forgotten
what it really means not to have it. Here is the problem I need you to
grapple with for a moment: there is no Palestinian leadership option
that will give people a voice, empower and educate women, create and
build freedom for the individual. Palestinian citizens of Israel today
(many of whom call themselves proudly Arab Israelis and not
Palestinians, but not all, it’s part of the shades of gray and a
different blog post) have access to subsidized education, universal
health care, can open a business, sit on the Supreme Court, and be
members of Israel’s Parliament. They can fight the system lawfully and
from within and stand up in our parliament, the only democracy in the
Middle East, and explain why Israelis need to improve the situation
today for Palestinians.
Do you actually know what “racist” reality
exists today? Israelis are bound by law, including in the “West Bank” to
obey and uphold the laws. That makes us culpable legally and
financially if we cause harm to anyone or anything. But a resident in a
territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority, just a few miles from
my home can smash into the side of my car, laugh and walk away. A
Palestinian can buy land and build on it. A Jew cannot. In fact, a Jew
cannot travel into Palestinian controlled areas at all, without fear of
lynching, beatings and murder. Which will not only go unpunished, but
when they happen are celebrated in the streets. That makes ME the victim
of racism and apartheid over here in the West Bank. Arabs living in
Israel have more freedom, more education, more democracy, more of a
voice and more opportunity than in the thousands and thousands of miles
of stretches of the many Arab countries in the Middle East. Jews no
longer exist in those countries because of the racism/apartheid against
them that is so rampant, so commonplace and yet, has not warranted a
single speech in the UN or from the White House condemning it.
When I am castigated for supporting the
annexation of land that some of you wrongfully identify as “occupied”
(it’s disputed, not occupied, based on International Law; look it up.),
you are telling me that Palestinians, whose current situation is far far
less than ideal and is causing anger and sadness and needs improvement,
all want to live under an oppressive, dictatorial, thug-like regime
that embezzles, doesn’t provide girls with proper education, trains in
hate, and has no democracy, because it is comprised of Palestinians.
(Picking leaders by ethnicity? How racist of you!)
You are telling me that “they” desire this
over living in 100% freedom and democracy in a “Jewish” state that has
Arab/Muslim religious rights, education, healthcare, and the ability to
make change legally and effectively through serving in the government.
And if you aren’t telling me what they want, you are telling me that you
know that this is what is best for them. That this is the best
alternative of those that are out there waiting for them. It is most
definitely the alternative that John Kerry just laid out.
You are telling me what they want, what they
prefer…. Or at least that you know, sitting over there in Massachusetts
and California (and Herzliya) what they SHOULD want. What’s best for
them. You are taking your Western ideals and assumptions and choices and
imposing them on people here without a true understanding of
peoplehood, of the history. You are swallowing political rhetoric about a
group of people – about them, and about me. And that is your prejudice
— your racism.
Annexation would end the dispute over disputed
territories. It would give full rights to those living in the areas
known as “post 1967” lines. It would allow Jews and Arabs to buy land
and build where they live. And to argue and disagree and VOTE. And make
the system better over time. With a real democracy. It would allow women
to become doctors and lawyers and famous news anchors, just like the
Arab female role models Israel already has! It would allow Israel to
throw out and deport all terrorists. Freeing the Palestinian people of
the terrorists in their midst just as much as it would free Jews. Equal
opportunity banishing of bad guys. Because I believe that non-terrorist
Palestinians don’t want to live among terrorists, or be ruled by
terrorists, or have to shelter terrorists. Or be labeled by the world
because of those terrorists. I think better of them than that. Do you?
Annexation would yes, “water down” my Jewish
demographic. But that doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t scare me. You
have just assumed that it would because of your racist prejudices
against me. I would rather see people of all faiths live on the one
island of democracy, freedom and hope that exists in the middle of an
insanely mad world of violence, death, clitorectomies, child brides and
much worse that is the Middle East today, than hand Palestinians over to
the hands of thug leaders they don’t like or respect, they only fear
and have to obey. Which is what those not blessed to be in Israel proper
today have to suffer from.
The Palestinians living in Gaza are raised on
hate. They have missiles in their kindergartens and children’s bedrooms.
Girls and women can be beaten, as in most of the Middle East, because
of prevailing culture and the leadership. While you seem quite ready to
create an official state in a “Two State Solution,” where that is where the bar is set,
I don’t have such little regard for Palestinian lives. For little
Palestinian girls. I want better for them. Israel can give them better —
because Israel already does, for many.
I think they deserve as rich and wonderful
life as I am blessed to have. And Israel is the only place in the Middle
East that can give it to them. You want to give them Gaza? How about
Aleppo? Or Saudia Arabia, where women can’t drive and there are
tutorials on televison on how to use makeup to cover up their beatings? That’s all you think that they are worth?
If you are fighting so hard for a reality
where that is the best they can get, then take a look in the mirror
because the racist sure isn’t me, it’s you.
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