Inability to speak about Palestine

[john_b_cannon]

I'm sure I've written this post before, touching another world event. I wonder if I can find that post

Comments

[ext_1339105]

Yeah. This. As one of your nice Jewish friends (well, Jewish friends anyway), the whole thing fills me with sputtering rage, and I compose and delete outraged responses to drek like this that one friend posts with the comment, "Not sure I can add anything, but this is something to think about." I have the added burden of feeling implicated, like because I'm Jewish and because my second-cousins-in-law actually raise money for the IDF I should really be doing something to counterbalance that.

I end up doing the bare minimum so my friends -- and my cousin who's posting Netanyahu quotes -- can figure out where I stand, but yeah, it's a real gut twister this one.

[paranoid_monkey]

This is a great post, and articulates so well a state of mind I share to at least some extent but haven't been able to articulate (which is, ha - grim humor - the inability to articulate). As you know I've finally (after many years of fb silence) begun commenting on Israel/Palestine on facebook, but with what I see as extreme caution - trying to stay away from anything that seems too rabidly put, trying to limit the number of things I post in a day, trying to comment as little as I can on articles I repost (for instance, that repost of the revolting set of IDF instagram self-portraits). Worrying the entire time about the reactions of friends who read my news feed who I know are pro-Israel, and wondering about other friends (both Jewish and non) who may be reacting to anything anti-Israel as anti-semitic, and wishing I didn't feel that worry, that I could shake that feeling you mention, the one about how Israel was created (or supposedly created) to protect a horrifically oppressed group, and the attendant feeling that if I'm