A feminist response to the ‘feminist response to the silence around October 7^th‘

I was going to write about this event. I watched the video, I took notes, I asked for help and a friend with better ears than me gave me her notes. I thought about the sisters sitting there, about the sterling work they’ve done on other issues, about what we have done together in previous years, about how I had gone away from previous conferences feeling a bit sad because so few of them would take our lefty ideas and campaigns seriously. I wondered if that is what they mean by feeling silenced.

I thought about the things they said, some true and some not, I thought about what evidence we could present to clarify those issues, and about why that wouldn’t work. I thought about how we needed a confrontation this year, we needed this divide challenged head on, and about how conference had been designed to send the two tribes off to different meetings.

I thought about their feelings, about what they want us to say and do, what they need us not to say and do. I was going to start writing, but a friend invited me to a film night, and one of the films we saw was

Seven Jewish children

So I took a break from thinking how the Sam Hill do we stop all this killing, and about what Israel is doing to the minds, bodies, homes and land of Palestinians, and thought instead about what the Israel / Palestine situation is doing to Israeli heads, and thought about how much we do think about that, and about how those women at that meeting think we never think about that.

And I thought about them, and all the people over the world who have fallen for the Israeli spell.

After watching Seven Jewish Children, we all turned our chairs around, and talked to each other – assembly style – about what we were thinking. Across the room were Jews and non-Jews, British born and other nationalities, putting their heads together and telling each other what they were thinking. It wasn’t easy, but it was good. It’s what should have happened at FiLiA.

My group talked about how we’d been brought up to think about Israel, and what stuck, hard and sharp and clear in my head was the number of people of all types, from different religions, cultures and countries, who have been taught to see the Holy Land, Palestine, Israel / Palestine, The Palestinian Territories and Israel – that place of many names, whatever you call it, how we’ve been taught to see it with no Palestinians in it, making decisions.

That is the spell Israel has cast, a spell which has been amplified by US Christian Zionists, British and American arms dealers, and EU and Israeli politicians, the spell which has lasted since the inauguration of ‘the land without a people for a people without a land’, that spell is at last wearing off, and I thought that’s what those women at that meeting were really upset about.

They asked did we not care about the Israeli women. Yes, we did.

They asked had we forgotten about October 7^th, 2023? No, we haven’t.

We remember. We care. But that’s not the problem, is it? The problem is that we’ve also learned to see Palestinians, so we know that October 7^th 2023 was a day of atrocity in a long, long line of days of atrocities, and we can’t grant your wish that we keep our minds on October 7^th 2023, because every day our hearts and minds are full of what can we do, to stop the terrible suffering and dying that’s going on every day, that has gone on every day, before, including, and since, October 7^th, 2023.

In short, the day you want us to think about was terrible, yes, but it’s one terrible day among many, and it wasn’t the first terrible day. For you, it was the first day of Israel (apparently) losing control of Hamas, and therefore the first day of real danger – Was it the first day of you realising the spell was broken, and that we could see the Palestinians?

‘Obsessed with Palestine’? ‘Hating Jews’? ‘Glorifying Hamas’? ‘The Islamoleft’? I see you’re well on the way to convincing yourselves that we’re devils but you know, our two camps are not really firing at each other. I don’t know these people you describe, but our enemies are Zionists, militarists and military-industrial corporates. Our enemies are the UK politicians who are paid to maintain genocide. That’s not you, is it? We think we’re enemies because FiLiA tried to keep us safe by sending us off in different directions to talk about each other, instead of talking to each other.

Oh and, that banner

Why on earth would anyone think such a thing could be needed at a feminist conference? Surely it’s a near-universal opinion amongst feminists that if you apply a male-led, military ‘solution’ to a political problem, that force will include some men who think they can seal their dominance over the enemy by attacking ‘their’ women.

Are you seriously claiming that we don’t know that? Do you think Hamas, or the IDF, or the forces currently wreaking terror and destruction in Europe, in Africa, in South America don’t include men like that? Some men think rape can be a tool of resistance (or attack). Most women don’t agree – so what’s the banner for? So you can accuse us of thinking a terrible thing, so you can get upset more effectively?

What’s really eating me is not so much that you’re failing to think sensibly about us (by us, I mean the feminists who’ve joined/created/supported the #FreePalestine movement) but that you really believe that we don’t think about you.

We think about the Jews who escaped to Israel for sanctuary, and about the horrors they were escaping from.

We think about the Jewish and non-Jewish settlers who have joined them since, many of whom seem to be trying to re-enact the founding of the USA (which was also a genocide).

We think about the Israeli children who appear to have been born with guns slung on their shoulders, and who can’t appear to think with anything but their guns.

We think about the people who watch UK and US TV, and are left confused and without hope.

We think about Palestinians, how they have been evicted, abused and killed for years and years and years and what the hell we need to do to stop the killing – for their sakes, and for the sake of the whole world’s sanity – and we think about why it is, unquestionably, our business to stop it…

Why it is unquestionably our business to stop it:

Click here to read Complicit: Britain’s role in the destruction of Gaza

This is the video of the meeting I was supposed to be writing about today:

… and now I find I have a few things to say to those women. They were, most of them, UK women. They are, most of them, relatively safe – but they don’t feel safe, they feel frightened and hurt so – here you go…

If you’re a UK woman who’s frightened of the swastika-daubers and synagogue shooters. Yes, the rise of the far right and the various stripes of nationalist and fundamentalist cultism is, as you say, terrifying. We’re all scared. Let’s stand together and push back.

If you’re a UK woman who’s frightened and hurt by the #FreePalestine movement, well, please try harder to understand. Talk to us, not about us, and you might understand us.

If you can’t do that well – all I can say is, please don’t worry. This is not about you.

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Click here to read why are we ‘obsessed’ with Palestine

Click here to read what would you do?

Click here to read about our fringe event, Palestine Liberation is a Feminist Issue

Click here to read about Jewish not Zionist, the story of Marilyn Garson’s journey away from Zionism, and her battle with the IHRA.

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