You've got hate? Fuck you, I've got chicken soup.
Full disclosure: I'm Israeli. An Israeli of Jewish descent (though I don't believe). If you want to read those sentences and judge me based off that alone, that's your decision. It says more about you than it ever will about me.
Israel does a lot of blameworthy and utterly despicable things. On the balance of things, that seems very true and thus (in my eyes) not exceptionally controversial. We can clutch at our pearls and talk around our dinner table about how horrible all these things are, but fine talk doesn't stop bombs from falling.
Some people seem to believe that because we have evidence of Israel doing bad things, Israel must also be responsible for anything a non-Israeli thinks Israel did. To hell with the evidence, we have an agenda to push here! 9/11? Israel did it. Paris attacks? Israel did it. Your toast's a bit burnt? You guessed it, Israelis have a vested interest in...mildly inconveniencing you. Forget paying rent and making a living, our real concern is spoiling random people's breakfasts.
As you can see, this very quickly gets ridiculous. Let's politicise it and make it even more ridiculous. Lots of people think that ISIS is an Israeli creation, because ISIS is evil and Israel is evil so Israel must be behind ISIS. This is a bit like arguing that because chocolate is delicious and strawberries are delicious, chocolate is made out of strawberries. Anyway, I can use lots of nice shiny facts and analogies, but the people who argue this aren't particularly interested in facts. For its part, ISIS hates Iran and...you guessed it...thinks Iran is controlled by Israel. Using the exact same logic. Of course, depending on who you listen to, Israel also controls the US and UK. And presumably your toaster. Damn Israelis burning toast.
Hold up! If you listen to everyone, Israel ends up controlling most of the world - including groups that hate each other and are accusing each other of being Israeli creations.
Now, it's very sweet and flattering that these people think we're so powerful, but we're a tiny country in the Middle East and most Westerners couldn't place Israel on a map. Come on, the British Empire was the largest in history and even then it only controlled a quarter of the world. How do you expect a tiny, disputed strip of land to do more than that - and with less oil to boot?
I'm taking the piss because that's all I can do. Because honestly, people may hate me purely for being born in the wrong set of arbitrary borders - and that's all it is - but in the West, a lot of these people are too scared to do anything. Not all. But most. A lot of these people, I'm betting, have never met a real live Israeli before and tend to other us, to see us as demonic creatures. I'll bet good money that if I sat down and talked to someone who believes Israel is the root of all evil over a nice cup of tea, they'd come to realise that we're just as human as they are - which in some ways is the scary part. It opens up the possibility that if they'd been born under different skies and raised differently, they'd have done unspeakable things.
I'll be honest: I've tried to reason with these people online and it hasn't worked. It's more difficult if they don't realise that there's a human on the other side of the screen. Frankly, I don't care to meet them either, because I don't particularly enjoy associating with bigoted cowards (although I'd still make them tea). So I laugh at them instead. I laugh because really, it's funny ascribing that much power to a country they can't point to on a map. I laugh because it's funny that they turn ordinary people into supervillains. I laugh because they do stupid things like try to post their addresses publicly.
I laugh because ultimately, when reasoning fails, comedy is not only bloodless but also absolutely devastating in the right hands. Forget insults or aggression; humour can destroy a group's reputation forever.
These people, who think Israelis are irredeemably evil, expect me to respond like a thuggish brute. The best thing I can do is to rise above that, to show them that while I think they're awful people I can still respond with kindness and love, to confuse them. And then to laugh at them, because they don't deserve to be taken seriously.
They may have hate. Fuck them, I've got chicken soup.
Israel does a lot of blameworthy and utterly despicable things. On the balance of things, that seems very true and thus (in my eyes) not exceptionally controversial. We can clutch at our pearls and talk around our dinner table about how horrible all these things are, but fine talk doesn't stop bombs from falling.
Some people seem to believe that because we have evidence of Israel doing bad things, Israel must also be responsible for anything a non-Israeli thinks Israel did. To hell with the evidence, we have an agenda to push here! 9/11? Israel did it. Paris attacks? Israel did it. Your toast's a bit burnt? You guessed it, Israelis have a vested interest in...mildly inconveniencing you. Forget paying rent and making a living, our real concern is spoiling random people's breakfasts.
As you can see, this very quickly gets ridiculous. Let's politicise it and make it even more ridiculous. Lots of people think that ISIS is an Israeli creation, because ISIS is evil and Israel is evil so Israel must be behind ISIS. This is a bit like arguing that because chocolate is delicious and strawberries are delicious, chocolate is made out of strawberries. Anyway, I can use lots of nice shiny facts and analogies, but the people who argue this aren't particularly interested in facts. For its part, ISIS hates Iran and...you guessed it...thinks Iran is controlled by Israel. Using the exact same logic. Of course, depending on who you listen to, Israel also controls the US and UK. And presumably your toaster. Damn Israelis burning toast.
Hold up! If you listen to everyone, Israel ends up controlling most of the world - including groups that hate each other and are accusing each other of being Israeli creations.
Now, it's very sweet and flattering that these people think we're so powerful, but we're a tiny country in the Middle East and most Westerners couldn't place Israel on a map. Come on, the British Empire was the largest in history and even then it only controlled a quarter of the world. How do you expect a tiny, disputed strip of land to do more than that - and with less oil to boot?
I'm taking the piss because that's all I can do. Because honestly, people may hate me purely for being born in the wrong set of arbitrary borders - and that's all it is - but in the West, a lot of these people are too scared to do anything. Not all. But most. A lot of these people, I'm betting, have never met a real live Israeli before and tend to other us, to see us as demonic creatures. I'll bet good money that if I sat down and talked to someone who believes Israel is the root of all evil over a nice cup of tea, they'd come to realise that we're just as human as they are - which in some ways is the scary part. It opens up the possibility that if they'd been born under different skies and raised differently, they'd have done unspeakable things.
I'll be honest: I've tried to reason with these people online and it hasn't worked. It's more difficult if they don't realise that there's a human on the other side of the screen. Frankly, I don't care to meet them either, because I don't particularly enjoy associating with bigoted cowards (although I'd still make them tea). So I laugh at them instead. I laugh because really, it's funny ascribing that much power to a country they can't point to on a map. I laugh because it's funny that they turn ordinary people into supervillains. I laugh because they do stupid things like try to post their addresses publicly.
I laugh because ultimately, when reasoning fails, comedy is not only bloodless but also absolutely devastating in the right hands. Forget insults or aggression; humour can destroy a group's reputation forever.
These people, who think Israelis are irredeemably evil, expect me to respond like a thuggish brute. The best thing I can do is to rise above that, to show them that while I think they're awful people I can still respond with kindness and love, to confuse them. And then to laugh at them, because they don't deserve to be taken seriously.
They may have hate. Fuck them, I've got chicken soup.
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