War of the Worlds

I wrote this for my Patreon, but I decided to post it here as well because it reaches a bigger audience. So…

Hello! My name is Brigid, and I am a white, American, middle-aged woman with Irish heritage! Naturally, I am aware of my privilege and vantage point, and as such likely have no business speaking on what I am about to speak on. However, in the tradition of many white American middle-aged women, many who seem to be coincidentally named Karen, I don’t really care what people think about my ability to share my opinion, and will do it loudly and unnecessarily despite that privilege and vantage point, or perhaps due to it

So let’s talk about the Middle East, shall we?

Growing up, I went to Catholic school, which taught a very important lesson about Jewish people, and that was that they were our brothers and sisters in faith of God. We were both of Abrahamic faith, so there was plenty in common, and of course the Old Testament is completely about the Jewish people of the time, as the Christian values were not introduced until the New Testament when Jesus came down to play. So, I was taught to study the Old Testament in the same way Jewish children learn to study the Torah, which is essentially the same book. I was also taught in geography classes about Israel, and while they did not spend much time on it, it was told to us that this was the land promised to the Jewish people in the Bible.  Now, since I was in a Christian school and the Bible was treated as a legitimate historical document and set of rules to follow, we were also taught to believe that Jewish people deserved the land that they were living on.

Fast forward to freshman year of high school, when I took my first Global Studies class and learned about Islam. Mind you, I will still in Catholic school, but they did teach us about other world religions that year, and I found that to be quite progressive given the circumstances. When I discovered that Christianity was not the most popular religion in the world, I was very surprised. Until that point in my life, I had only ever known folks from Christian backgrounds and had assumed the only other religion was Judaism. It was a very eye-opening experience for me, and I became interested in other religions at that point.

Fast forward two more years when I am a junior in high school, and I am directing a show at a local theater. I’m assigned a stage manager whose skin color is significantly different from mine. While this did not rattle me, her religion surely did when she explained that she was Muslim. This was still pre-9/11, so there was no bad connotation in my head to a Muslim person. In fact, it only hearkened back to my Global class and my interest in world religion. Ergo, I found this girl interesting and decided to befriend her, and it was one of the best decisions of my life, because in the end she became my best friend.

Sahar was not born in Palestine, but her parents were, and her family lives in Jerusalem. She has traumatic memories of time spent over there visiting her loved ones, all due to the Israeli government. Knowing this information, and knowing the scrutiny and abuse that her family faced post-9/11, I have always taken her side on any Middle Eastern world event, because frankly she is smarter than me and knows better. And then came the current conflict in Israel.

When I saw the first reports on the news, I was immediately concerned for her family and texted her, and she said she was pretty sure they were safe from the fighting and the attacks. This was a relief, but this did not make me feel any better about the population of the Gaza Strip, especially considering that it is 50% CHILDREN (caps so you remember this stat.) Now, as I do when things interest me and become important in my frame of mind, I did some researching. I learned that Hamas was a terrorist group that has overtaken the Gaza Strip and is effectively ruling them despite Palestinians’ desire to be a free people. Their techniques are abominable, and they are hurting innocent civilians and people who are not even Israeli. But of course, I had to figure out why they were doing it, and then I became pretty outraged.

Of course, I do not condone any terrorist group, and especially any extremist groups of any kind. I take that to homegrown folks as well, like the FLDS or Westboro Baptist Church. To me, those people, despite claiming Christianity, only stand for discord and destruction. And, as I feel about many factions of society, at the core, I believe my problem lies with them thinking they are better than others, or more deserning.  Which brings me to Zionists.  

I didn’t know what that was until this all went down, but my research is leading me to believe that Zionists are Jewish folk who believe Israel has the right to exist on the land that they claimed 100 years ago. Of course, it’s not like no one was living on that land. So what they did, through military tactics even, was move the folks that were living on that land into a small area on the southern border called the Gaza Strip. Now, in doing so, some Zionists simply moved into Palestinian’s homes while they were away on vacation and then never left. Other Palestinians were met with bloodshed when they tried to resist and fight to maintain their homeland. Now, my ancestors were Irish Catholics who came over on boats in the 1800s, and since they got here so late, I’m pretty happy to report they had nothing to do with the colonization of America when we came and did exactly to the indigenous folks what the Israelis did to the Palestinians. However, I’m also not a complete jerkface, so I have compassion for the situation of the Native American, and I carry guilt that I don’t even deserve to have regarding it. So it surprises me not at all that people who were kicked out of their homes and moved to an essential reservation are mad about it, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries.

What really angers me is that during Adolf Hitler’s reign, he often referred to Jewish people as dogs and animals- which is what Zionists refer to Arabs as. Where in the hell do you get off? Just because you have been oppressed does not give you the right to become the oppressor! In fact, you should be fighting injustice against all people, the way people fought for the injustices taken against you. I have seen people claim that if I sympathize with the Palestinians, I must be antisemitic. Get over yourself. I care nothing about your religion, I care only about the war crimes I have seen committed against folks who had nothing to do with their own displacement. I do not believe any of this should be motivated by religion because I truly believe there is no place for God in government. I understand that things are different over there, so of course, the government is part of the religion and vice versa, but both religions practice peace- so why is it so difficult to have peace talks? My research has shown me so far that it is the Israeli government that has been immovable with thier stance on this, and as far as the Palestinian side goes, they seems slightly more open to talks but I can still understand the animosity they feel towards working with a government that has persecuted them for so long.

But what the hell do I know? Again, I am a white middle-aged woman from America with Irish heritage and the ability to Google. Nobody wants my opinion. Except maybe my best friend, who knows I will always stand with her when I see injustice being done to her kind and kin.