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Erasing Gaza
How Falsely Constructed Narratives are Fed by the Water of Hope
Holy Cow was I wrong. Sorry to Hindus on that one but I’m talking about Palestinians and Israelis who look in eternal combat. I’ve been caught off guard by open response of black Americans in general supporting Palestinians in America and how vocal it’s all been.
I grew up with a general sense the Israelis Jews in Israel were persecuted. I had a Jewish school friend in high school, but, like my mulatto friend or sheikh friend, there was nothing to detect about them any different in their style of talk, dress code, attitude of language pattern. They grew up in this white suburb town I had changed to, majority northeastern white “village”. I felt like the outsider if anything, but I suppose I didn’t look it.
There were, and are, Orthodox Jews who “had to” walk around the suburbs on the Sabbath, even in the snowstorms Buffalo produced, so I saw them sometimes. And there was a Jewish country club, which I understood they formed from not being welcome in the other WASP country club not far away, but they could have started it just to be with other Jews. What did I know? None of this stuff affected my life.
Somewhere along the way, maybe in college or afterwards, I got some awareness, probably from a war happening in Israel, that the Jews were facing an existential crisis. They were…
