I don’t mind if people think it’s a bit off. I think they should rename it the Emperor’s New Clothes Award.
(If you’re of a sensitive nature, you should probably read the last bit first, the bit headed ‘naturally’ and work your way up to reading the whole thing.)
Why isn’t anti-Palestinianism a thing people get accused of?
There are Palestinians still living who remember the Nakba and anyway, it’s the kind of trauma that passes down the generations, the way they went from living under the trammels of a British colonial mandate to being run off their homes by settler-colonialists.
And it went on, and on. From that day to this the Palestinians have been persecuted – their homes raided at night and their children stolen away, thrown out on the street and their homes bulldozed before their eyes, opportunist immigrants taking over their farms and being treated as heroes for doing it, whilst Palestinians get detained for years without trial, starved, beaten, tortured.
And now, this on-going attempt at genocide.
We should be very sensitive to things that upset Palestinians. Shouldn’t people get thrown out of political parties for saying things that sound anti-Palestinian? Shouldn’t people be taken off the telly for being anti-Palestinian?
When I left the Labour Party, it was the best part of a year before I realized I could now say the words ‘Blairite’ and ‘Zionist’ any time I liked. I had no idea I’d been brainwashed, but I had. Same with saying ‘but those people are men. They are men who’ve put on dresses and make up and come to take women’s places and women’s prizes and women’s bursaries and if women say “but he’s a man” they get told they’re anti-trans.’
Shouldn’t people get into trouble for being anti-women?
No. People are sensitive about anti-Semitism and they are sensitive about ‘transphobia’ but they don’t mind you being rude about, in fact downright oppressive towards, Palestinians, or women. Why is that?
How do we decide who to be sensitive about?
What Helen Thomas said all those years ago that the world is just beginning to understand:
Click here to watch the interview excerpt
Click here to read the story from CNN
She said
‘They didn’t have to go anywhere.’
‘They’re not being persecuted any more.’
‘Don’t take other people’s land.’
And she said, ‘isn’t anyone sensitive about what’s happening to Palestinians?’
There were a couple of points in the conversation where she said ‘Jews’ when I think she’d have been better to say ‘Zionists’ but other than that, I think she said what needed saying so, if no-one else wants the award that has her name on it, I’m a blogger, and I may be small fry but I do my best to spot what needs saying, and amplify and discuss those who are out there saying it. Sometimes, like now for example, contemplating the ‘publish’ button is nerve-racking. That’s journalism, that is. Can I have the Award?
Naturally
Naturally, we should feel sorry for those Jewish people who, exhausted, traumatized and homeless, washed up in Palestine at the end of World War II. Many of them had been mistreated beyond all hope of recovery and those countries that had ‘won’ the war didn’t seem too keen to look after them.
Naturally, we should feel sorry for present day Israelis, who now have a complex and deeply embedded problem to sort out (it’s called racism).
Naturally, we should also feel sorry for Jewish people the world over who are now really worried because, as the world finally learns what’s been happening to Palestinians, those who aren’t deep thinkers are horribly likely to join in with the real anti-Semites and general-purpose thugs – the likes of that Tommy Robinson, for example, will join in on their side.
And on the other topic I mentioned for comparison, naturally we should feel sorry for those men who’ve tried to re-cast themselves as women (for such a variety of reasons) and now find the world doesn’t believe them.
But – here’s the thing about real socialism. We need to recognize and rescue those who are being seriously, systemically, often fatally mistreated. That’s the priority. Gaza is in a crisis of enormous proportions. As the irrepressible Norman Finkelstein has just pointed out, a ceasefire in Gaza doesn’t cut it now.
They need much more. And the same is true of women. Women in prisons, in hostels, women who’ve been rowed out of their politics, their sports, and everything else that used to be theirs. Similarly, girls who took one look at womanhood and its consequences and tried to save themselves by buying into the fiction of a “sex change”.
Those are the people we most urgently need to be sensitive to, and to care for. First, those in Gaza who are in real and immediate danger now of starvation and disease, and the imminent resumption of Israeli aggression; and then all the other people in the world whose needs have been long hidden under a shroud of false sensitivity designed to protect the powerful from the consequences of their predatory actions.
Finger on the button
Should I hit that ‘publish’ button and take the consequences? Yes, I should. Am I sure? I’ve already lost readers for being frank on this topic, and last week I got mixed up with someone else and piled on for supposed anti-Semitism. Yes, I should publish, because my experience in the Labour Party made this point about ‘sensitivity’ clear to me, and I saw what happens when bullies go unchallenged. For a short while, socialism was in the ascendant in the Labour Party and so the rich, powerful people who controlled the party felt threatened and, when the powerful feel threatened, they cast all the words needed to criticize them as ‘abuse’. That’s why it suddenly became illegal to say ‘Zionist’ and ‘Blairite’ when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
At least the Helen Thomas story is an old one, so she won’t get threatened and issue a retraction ten minutes after I publish, like Macy Grey did when I wrote about her truth telling on the women’s rights issue.
********************
Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
********************
Kay Green 