Tikkun Olam, I Scream
No person of conscience cam stay silent.
I have dear, dear Jewish friends. My maternal grandfather died in the Holocaust. I've been wrestling with myself over how to talk about Palestine.
I've lost some of my Jewish friends. And I understand why. The dream of the Holy Land, the promise of "a land with no people for a people with no land" has been taught for five generations. Some of my friends have spent months at a Kibutz, helping farm the land. I've heard songs about Israel that have moved me to tears.
And yet.
And yet the land was never without people, was it?
The more I have learned about the Nakba, about Sabra & Shatila, about the six-day war, about the first and second Palestinian uprisings, about the many-month long PEACEFUL uprisings in 2018-2019 (and the HUNDREDS maimed for life by Israeli violence), the more my conscience is SCREAMING.
IDF snipers shoot Gaza teens FOR FUN. FOR PRACTICE.
IDF tanks are burying dozens ALIVE. Some of the people *may* have been Hamas. Some, who knows. Think of the 1968 My Lai village—TIMES A THOUSAND.
The IDF do not know who's a civilian, who is an enemy. When you kill families, when you murder children, you make new enemies by the thousands. This is what Americans did in Vietnam. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza.
And the West Bank does not even HAVE a Hamas presence. And the IDF arrest kids and teens by the hundreds, with no due process, and hold them for years.
Our of 36 hospitals in Gaza, ONLY THREE REMAIN—and they're barely operational.
Thousands of children are STARVING TO DEATH. Not due to a natural disaster but by design. And now Israel has barred UNRWA, the United Nations Relief Agency, from doing relief work in Gaza.
Where is the bottom?
When is it enough?
At which point do we stop turning away?
What needs to happen for us to react?
This is 2024. This 79 years after the world, Jewish people especially, uttered the words NEVER AGAIN.
And yet, This IS "again."
THIS IS AGAIN. AGAIN IS HERE.
I think the biggest tragedy to ever befall the Jewish people was not what the Nazis did to them — it's what the Shoa turned some of their children into.
And if you're Jewish, and kind, and caring, and compassionate, I say to you—NO, I SCREAM AT YOU, with a torn, agonized scream, "Tikkun Olam."
Tikkun, for the love of all that is Holy, tikkun for humanity's sake. Tikkun olam, please, tikkun now.
And if you’re Jewish, and a Zionist, I can only say, at this point, ATONE FOR YOUR SINS.
