Brushing Feathers: Letters To A Human (Part I)
This letter is born from several years of internal debates that I have had since I entered the world of marijuana, in California and Oregon, as a trimmer. I am going to focus on the subject of Palestine and Israel, which precisely serves me to touch on all these issues, which are: migration, diasporas, tourism, spirituality and land. I am going to approach it from a personal point of view because I think it is essential to expose myself, to be vulnerable, because I believe that nowadays it is important to do things this way. I do it as an exercise for me, but also to contribute (not to take away) a grain of sand in the collective of which, in some way I am part, the trimmers that, although many are no longer dedicated to it, I like to keep calling us so. If this non-article goes further, I hope that it will serve to transmit security and that it will be an open space in which to generate a more compassionate dialogue.
It seems to me that the internal and emotional process of each person is as important as the ideology of each one. And that one does not define the other. Just as I believe that the past (our personal and collective history), the present (how we act and think) and the future (our goals and manifestations) are equally relevant. We cannot exist if one of the three is missing and that is why we are unique beings. Although the feeling that we exist is much stronger when we are present, I believe that accepting our past and knowing where we are going helps us to be present. I also defend that the subconscious (imagination, dreams) and the ordinary reality (what the hell is reality?), should be at the same level, so we can heal and generate consciousness, always individual and collective.
I have chosen the theme of Palestine and Israel because it is the current theme and in our community there are Israelis and it is being somewhat complicated to understand them. This is not an exercise to try to convince anyone of anything. As I said, it is simply a contribution, from which I intend to understand and learn.
There is one thing that is clear to me and that is that I cannot be in favor of a genocide and I do not want to be silent or afraid to say what I think, which I am. I am because judgment, wherever you go, is heavy and also a reflection of the judgment that I myself practice. It is the little bastard of impeccable double judgment.
I know I speak from a privileged position, as I am neither from Israel nor from Palestine and therefore, all the information I have gathered, I have looked at it with an open mind and always with the intention of understanding the Israelis in the community when, for example, they get so offended when we do charity events for Palestinians. I would like the exercise of tolerance to be mutual because what we have to say and what we feel is equally important. These are human issues, even if sometimes they don't seem so.
We live in a technological civilization where being on one side or the other is easier and more radical than ever. The cookies of the devices only send you the information according to your ideals, sometimes making the other realities totally invisible and therefore, making the generic opinion something very superficial. Judgment, haters and bigots grow every day precisely because each individual lives in their own little cyber bubble, (Israelis are no exception) making it increasingly impossible to talk about any subject and talk about it, above all, with respect. If you speak out you are arrogant and if you don't speak out you are judged for keeping quiet. Therefore, thinking on our own has become more confusing than ever. And while technology is winning this battle, we are moving further and further away, not only from ourselves, but also from what is essential, from what is simple, from what is human. The distance between people, marked by a small screen, makes us colder and more apathetic than ever. That is why, from time to time, it is necessary to pause, breathe, observe and, if possible, remember why we came here, without being too cruel to ourselves.
Here are some questions I ask ourselves:
What is wrong with us as a society, that we also fall over and over again with the same stone? Why do we forget? How do we remember? What do we give importance to today? Why is hatred so easy? What is Good? What is Evil? Is there good and evil? What have we come here for? What is the meaning of life and of being alive on this Earth?
This letter is written from the depths of my heart. I hope no one is offended.
To the Pro-Palestinians:
(An exercise of empathy with Israelis).
To understand Israelis, I have had to read Zionist articles, Zionist interviews, Zionist debates, Zionist everything. But “Zionist” is a very ambiguous terms and behind that ambiguity there is a little person, as innocent, manipulable and malleable, as you and me. As I said before, you have to separate the ideology from the person. Ideology is an idea and I agree that when that idea is imposed without consent, it ends in catastrophe. Regardless of whether one is in favor or not, one must understand where the idea of Zionism (the project to create a Jewish State) comes from.
The one who made the concept popular was Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, political activist and writer, who saw in Zionism an opportunity for the Jews of the world to finally have a place free of anti-Semitism. A place where it was ensured that they could never again be expelled from anywhere. A place where they would not be second-class citizens. As we already know, Jews were always minorities and diasporas scattered around the world because they were never wanted, at least in Europe and Russia. Some of these expulsions were:
about 2000 years ago, when they were expelled from the promised land, by the Christian Romans; in 1492, the same year when the Spanish colonization started, where they were massively expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, there are still Jews who keep the keys of the houses they inhabited and speak a language called “Ladino”, which mixes the old Spanish of the time with Hebrew; and the great migration of Jews with which we are all familiar, the one caused by the Holocaust. Knowing this helps to understand where the idea of Zionism came from and subsequently, the urgency to apply it.
In dark times, when you are presented with such an idea, it is very easy to become excited. It is an excitement that perhaps you and I will never experience, but I imagine it as when a woman gets out of the worst relationship she has ever had in her life, in which she has been humiliated, raped, ravished, manipulated and treated worse than an animal, in short, dehumanized, and suddenly finds an intelligent man, with good intentions, hilarious, who cooks great food, who knows the path he is walking and who promises to take care of her for life. And she falls madly in love like a teenage schoolgirl. And that's why, in the beginning, when Zionism started to become popular, the great majority of Jews were Zionists (sorry for not giving a less tawdry example). But, like any illusion, this one can only be born from a disillusionment. When we become illusioned, it is very easy to fall into idealization. And that idealization, when we cling to it because everything else sucks, always ends up with another disillusionment. Should we blame them? I don't think that's fair.
What we can do is to think that maybe the first disillusionment was caused by our ancestors and maybe, nowadays, it is even us. It is very easy to be ignorant because we are ignorant of almost everything, almost all the time. But if there is interest in getting to know our neighbors, I would like to think that we can come to understand each others.
During the time before deciding whether the Jewish State should manifest itself or not, there were many debates about whether it was moral or not, whether it was necessary or not, how it should be, where it should be created - the options were: Uganda, Ethiopia, Argentina and, finally, Palestine - and, in short, there were debates where all the relevant issues and different points of view and ideologies regarding Zionism were touched upon. Despite warnings from the Jews themselves that it might be dangerous to end up like any other settler state, many made the decision to leave for Palestine. Many more left for the Americas. After all, those intellectual and political debates were just that: debates between intellectuals and politicians. Ordinary people just wanted to live in peace and recover from the trauma of the Holocaust and the pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Israel was created out of fear, insecurity, but also out of excitement. At the beginning it was a purely secular Zionism, that is to say, purely practical and political. But obviously the fact that in the end it was executed in their past and beloved promised land, added a touch of romanticism to the matter. Even if they had left there 2000 years ago, the idea of returning home, (one that they had never been able to have peacefully almost anywhere in the world) was like a dream come true. The problem, as we all know, is that some of the Israelis were not very tactful with the native population. Some bought the land, but others simply stole it because they claimed it was theirs. This gradually unleashed violence on the part of the Palestinians. And when the rest of the Zionists (the ordinary people) heard about any of these violent reactions, and with the weight and suffering of generational and personal trauma, they still thought first that it was due to anti-Semitism; second, that all Palestinians were terrorists; and third, that they urgently needed defense.
The more territory Israel gained, the more violence the Palestinians exercised. The most pertinent example is when in 1947, when the territory was under British mandate, the UN Plan for the partition of Palestine into two states came out. Israel was granted 55% of the territory and Palestine the remainder, the Palestinians being the demographic majority. The Palestinians saw this as a full-fledged provocation, took up arms and began a series of attacks on the Zionist population, which fed the idea that they (the Zionists) needed more security. The Zionists were also not very happy with the resolution because it is said that they were hit by more desert areas, but they accepted it out of sincere gratitude to be able to have their own state and to finally be able to live in peace. They have always thought that if the Palestinians had also accepted it, there would be peace today. Israel's reaction was to bring out the military army and defend its people. One could see for the first time, the great military power of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), at that time, the Hagana. The Palestinians, frightened, left and were expelled from their homes to save their lives, and that is how the Nakba, the great catastrophe, in Arabic, began. Shoah, in Hebrew, means the same thing. It was the word used by the Juws just 2 years ago, when the holocaust ended. For me it is a clear example of what a traumatic response means. The fear of the Jewish population was real and always has been. And that fear can be exploited very easily.
From then on, the Palestinian resistance was growing and clandestine. They had the support of other nearby Arab countries. This increased the fear of the Israeli population, that if they didn't work with the Hagana, they didn't see very much or very well what was really going on. But what they heard constantly, as they were building a so-called democratic society, was about Palestinian violence, but above all, about the hatred of Arabs towards Jews.
Fear is something that has not yet passed (and here i’m talking about the generations of jews that have born in Israel). Like when we are children and we imagine that there is a monster in the closet that is going to eat us. Fear is the instinctive emotion that precedes death. And death, until we are dead, is nothing more than an idea. But an idea that is scary, because we do not know what is behind death. Jews are one of the world's ethnic groups who, generation after generation, have experienced this fear. The fear of ceasing to exist because of the monster of anti-Semitism (which is real), which can end in a very violent death. An anti-Semitism that today has taken on another dimension. Not only because Israel exists and ignorance about the conflict makes many people choose to hate, but because today, “anti-Semitism” is a term that Israeli intellectuals and politicians (especially those on the right) are using excessively to manipulate their own people. Indeed, there is now a Jewish State in which it is being debated whether being anti-Zionist is the same as being anti-Semitic. But I will talk about this at the link below:
Jews differ from us precisely because of this vulnerability. This insecurity, which is so easily reactivated, is an integral feature of the Jewish collective identity, which must be taken into account and treated with tact and respect. Because Israelis, most of whom are Jews, see the world through this prism. It is essential that we can create safe spaces for them, away from judgment and with a compassionate approach, which in no way means that we cannot express our views on the conflict. But if we are not sensitive, it will be impossible to have any conversation and, ultimately, a process of personal and collective growth.
Insecurity strikes. It is a mental response that comes from feeling naked, vulnerable and unprotected. Israelis, despite having a good military defense and state-of-the-art technology, most of them are still Jewish and vulnerable. Israelis may not be victims now, but they could become so at any moment. The US is said to be increasingly weakened and Arab countries such as Iran, Syria, Yemen and the armed forces of Hamas, Hezbollah (Lebanon) and the West Bank Palestinians should not be underestimated. No country is more threatened to be wiped off the face of the earth than Israel. And Palestine, of course.
Israel has a very unstable internal political landscape right now. You have anti-democratic extremists like the messianic supremacists, who are very much in favor of genocide; you have the ultra-orthodox, who don't work for or want anything to do with the IDF, who collect taxes from Israelis, and who keep talking shit about Zionism and are therefore also a threat to Israel's existence. In short, there is a destabilization of the significant society and economy. All this adds up to the vast majority of leftists around the world, along with anti-Semites, questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish State and protesting for the liberation of Palestine in historic ways, ranging from small strikes to self-immolations, such as the one just carried out by the American active service member, Aaron Bushnell. It is normal that Israelis feel alone, that they can only count on each other, and that they have a defensive attitude when we take a stand on Palestine. At stake is the home where generations have already been born. In addition, the October 7 massacre has totally broken Israeli society. They felt it as an incalculable loss, both because of the lost faith in the IDF and with their government. If they have been told all their lives that they need defense because the Palestinians want to kill them all, you can understand that the fear they feel since then is more real than ever. What happened on October 7th was a massacre and, even if you are on the Palestinian side, Israel is not the same as the Israelis, and they also need to be accompanied in their pain.
For those of us who want the liberation of Palestine, we must make an effort with the Israeli comrades not to judge them too much. They are not the first generations of Zionists who had the opportunity to choose whether or not to create a Jewish State, in a territory where there was already a native population.
They were born with a fully-fledged Jewish State, and what they feel for Israel is exactly the same as what you feel when, after traveling the world, you come back home and can once again bathe in your Mediterranean, smell your grandmother's food, go for a beer with your mother and feel the hugs of your loved ones. In fact, perhaps they feel it more intensely, because the fear of ceasing to exist and losing everything is constant. And if another expulsion were to be repeated, for them it would be reaffirming the idea that no one loves them.
In reality, the only thing they are asking from us since October the 7th, is a little compassion.
To be continued…