I’ve been debating about whether or not to write something about this for a long time. The biggest item in the “against” column is that the genocide in Gaza is so horrific that to spend any energy on this issue that isn’t directly focused on ending the genocide as quickly as possible seems like the wrong focus, especially when it’s writing something that could be construed as undermining the efforts of people who also want the genocide to stop. Ironically, this essay is going to be about how the left eats its own, and in writing this I’m also creating yet another instance of the left eating its own. My style is usually about doing my own thing and letting others do theirs. I don’t like to split hairs about tactics. If people agree with me on the big things, then let them go about solving them however they like. We don’t need to publicly argue about whose methods are the best when the real enemy is out there causing real harm.
On the other hand, there are more and more instances of organizations and communities that are close to falling apart over disagreements on this issue, including a community I care very much about and whose leaders are my dear friends. People are demanding not just that their cities, school boards and elected representatives call for a ceasefire (which I totally support, and which feeds into a real political strategy about pressuring the people in power in our government) but also the bakery they work at, their regional theaters, their music venues, their rave scenes, and their kinky/weirdo/sex clubs. These entities are all providing vital community spaces for the people they serve and many of them are already barely surviving. They are also, for the most part, organizations with very little political power and very little funding. I’m genuinely worried that in the inspiring upswell of Pro-Palestine sentiment, criticism and outrage are being improperly channeled in a way that threatens the integrity of the already threadbare cultural security blanket upon which many of us depend.
So, here’s my take. As always, this is a take in process, and one of the main reasons I decide to write about something is that it helps me figure out how I actually feel. After writing this and sitting with it, I might feel differently and write another essay later. But for now, here’s where I’m at. Comments and discourse are welcome. Let’s figure this out, friends.
We're in an interesting moment of renegotiating the norms of political discourse and I’m all mixed up about it. I’m simultaneously feeling inspired, relieved, concerned and frustrated, all, of course, with the backdrop of feeling waves of grief and horror about the actual topic of this political discourse: the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
On the one hand, I'm moved, happy and relieved, because supporting Palestine and being critical of the Israeli occupation, a view that I've held as long as I've been aware of the issue, a view that used to be so marginal it was considered rude to even say the words “Israel” or “Palestine” in polite company, (even if no one in the room had a personal stake in the matter) has become, in countercultural circles, the expected stance. Finally! It's always seemed obvious to me, and boy does it feel good to be able to just casually mention the brutality of the IDF in conversation and get nothing but nods and agreement in the room. (Do note, however, that people are still actively getting fired, dropped from contracts and facing real financial and political consequences for stating this view publicly, but still… in the weirdo leftie circles, it’s finally safe to say “Free Palestine!” Hallelujah.)
But on the other hand, I’m experiencing some whiplash at how quickly this has all changed, and I’m a little confused at the demands of this sudden Pro-Palestine majority that all of their leaders, favorite artists, companies and affinity groups all issue statements condemning the genocide. Did all these people just start supporting Palestine in the last 8 months? If so, why do they assume that the rest of the world must necessarily have arrived at the same conclusions in the same way and at the same time? Or is this new Pro-Palestine majority made up of people who ALWAYS felt this way but have been weirdly silent for the last two decades? If that’s the case, why do they feel they can cast judgment on people who might support Palestine but are silent now? Granted, the scale of the violence that’s happening in Gaza right now does make anyone’s inability to condemn the genocide quite the head scratcher, but it’s clear to people who have been in this movement for a long time that what’s happening in Gaza right now is merely an escalation in scale, not in kind, and it’s new and frankly a little disorienting to have so many loud voices around us suddenly stating how obvious all of this is, when it’s been obvious to many for a long time.
When I was a kid, my dad received threatening voicemails and hate mail for being a Jewish person willing to speak publicly against Israel's policies. At that time there were very few Jewish people who spoke up about the occupation. Jewish Voice For Peace hadn’t started yet. And the Arab activists who were mostly the ones working on this would face charges of anti-semitism for criticizing Israel, so it was really valuable to have a Jewish person willing to speak publicly (though, he also got accused of anti-semitism. He was called a “self-hating Jew” more than once. My favorite response to that charge was Larry David’s “I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with me being Jewish!”) My parents were activists who organized with anti-war groups of all kinds, and when they talked to me about it as a kid, the situation in Israel and Palestine was presented as a clear case of unjust military occupation, funded by our government, which morally obligated us to speak up about it and participate in organized efforts to stop it, just like the invasion of Iraq. These were the values in my household and I hold them still.
In highschool and college, I remember being disheartened and confused and feeling extremely alienated by the fact that my friends who would so easily express anti-war sentiments about Afghanistan and Iraq but wouldn't "feel qualified" to weigh in on Israel and Palestine. They would kind of check out whenever it came up. I didn't see a substantive difference between all these wars and instances of US Imperialism, and I didn't understand this concept of "not feeling qualified" to have an opinion, especially on an issue that was actively and urgently playing out with our government's dollars.
I traveled to Palestine in 2012, and even though my politics were well-established at that point, I was still shocked with the clarity of the injustice of the situation. The situation bore clear resemblance to South African Apartheid, the colonization of the Americas, the Jim Crow South, and the Nazi Holocaust; all of which were characterized in my public school education as horrible, unjust systems of unimaginable horror. Yet here was this modern-day violent oppression, happening right now, in the present. An indigenous ethnic group was being occupied by a terrifying, lawless and violent military who demolished their homes, destroyed their farms, arrested, tortured and killed children with impunity, denied them medicine and medical equipment, illegally built settlements, subjected them to daily harassment and abuse, and prevented any possibility of economic viability. When people in the US claimed that there was some kind of historical context that was needed to understand the situation fully, I couldn’t wrap my head around what they could mean. What story from the history books could possibly make any of this ok? What could I read that would make me go, “Oooooh now I get it. You’re right. Denying them clean drinking water totally makes sense.” How was this “complicated?”
What was complicated was that the pro-Israel lobby (made up of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, the Jewish Federations, Hillel and others) had done an incredibly good job of equating criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-semmitism. This took a lot of work. Back at the beginning of the Zionist movement there were, in fact, many Jews who saw the movement of Zionism itself as anti-semmitic, because the goal of these Jewish communities at the time was to prove that they were NOT a separate people in need of a separate land but were actually just like everyone else and just as deserving of rights in whatever country they lived in as anyone else who lived there. A lot of Jewish communities wanted nothing to do with this mission of convincing the Jewish diaspora to move to Israel. So how do you convince a bunch of Eastern European immigrants who are trying to blend in and avoid discrimination and persecution in the U.S. to give a sh*t about some tiny country in the Middle East? So much so that they will spend virtually all of their organized political capital on ensuring its prosperity? To make American Jews invested in the project of Israel, AIPAC spent enormous amounts of money on cultural programs that inserted various Israel-centric ideas into Jewish summer camps, JCC's, and other Jewish institutions. Free trips to Israel (not to mention hassle-free immigration) for American Jewish youth, and a cool, co-opted Arab ethnic identity were successfully used to indoctrinate generations of American Jews with the idea that Israel WAS their identity. How neat! They had this exotic country over there that was kinda, like, theirs! Fun!
(By the way, a great example of this infusion of Israeli culture into American Jewish cultural DNA is the word "shabbat" which is now what you'll hear most American Jews say instead of "Shabbos." "Shabbat" is actually the Sephardic word for sabbath, and since Sephardic Jews are the ones with closer ties to the Middle East, Israeli Jews replaced a lot of the Yiddish terms that Ashkenazi Jews used to use to more closely match the Middle-Eastern ethnic identity they were taking on. Most American Jews are Ashkenazi, and come from Eastern and Northern European ancestry, and their grandparents probably used the term "shabbos," but the Jewish summer camps and other institutions they grew up in replaced that term with the more Middle Eastern-identified one, "shabbat" and now American Jews all feel another form of kinship with Israeli Jews. "They have shabbat too! Just like us!")
I saw the way my Jewish identity was being used as a colonial propaganda tool very clearly when I was courted by the atheist-Jewish branch of Birthright, whose marketing materials said "Israel is the most secular country in the world!" as a way of convincing me that if I moved to Israel I'd feel so at home! Meanwhile, I had no relationship with my Orthodox Jewish family, because they had disowned my dad for marrying a "shiksa," an unforgivable sin in fundamentalist Judaism. (My dad was told as a boy that "shiksas were for practice.") So was I Jewish? Who's to say? My relationship to my own ethnic identity was too fraught by this cognitive dissonance for me to have clear feelings about it. My own Jewish family members didn't think I made the cut, but the Israeli government seemed to think I was Jewish enough to emigrate for free, and my hippie Jewish friends were so unknowingly brainwashed with Israeli propaganda that I didn't really trust any of their ideas about what Judaism even was, let alone feel drawn to engage in their new-agey reinterpretations that I feared would rope me into yet more shades of problematic cultural appropriation.
The impact on political discourse that this successful Israel-Judaism association had was a cooling effect, and in many cases, a censorship effect on discussion of Israel and Palestine on college campuses. This was the first wave of what I noticed as a new emphasis on "emotional safety" of students on campus. Groups like the Anti-Defamation League would erroneously cite instances of criticism of Israel as incidents of anti-semmitism, creating a feedback loop of legitimizing the concerns of Jewish students by telling them and the public that anti-semmitism was on the rise, thus putting academic institutions on the defensive, and creating an air of caution, lest an academic institution be accused of allowing the next Hitler to speak at their campus.
To clarify: Am I saying that there were never ACTUAL instances of anti-semmitism? No. But I am saying that the statistics on the prevalence of these instances is totally untrustworthy.
I’m going into all this to hopefully explain why a lot of Pro-Palestine folks are hesitant to give too much weight to the feelings of Jews who claim to feel unsafe in discussions of Israel/Palestine. How someone feels has a lot to do with the ways they’ve formed their identities, and identities can be based on all sorts of things, including immoral political ideas. As my dad wrote in a recent article and elaborated on in a tik tok video, many white southerners probably do actually feel personally attacked by the destruction of Confederate statues because they’ve built their identities around a political ideology (racism) that includes celebrating those Confederates as heroes. As my dad said “It’s unfortunate if you’ve constructed your identity around injustice,” but that doesn’t give you the right to shut down discussion that is critical of that ideology or block policies that have to do with issues of social justice and the outcomes for marginalized groups of people.
But if we don’t believe that we should censor speech because of the feelings of Jews who are experiencing anti-zionism as anti-semitism, or the feelings of white southerners who are experiencing the Black Lives Matter movement as anti-White, or the feelings of men who feel attacked by songs like “It’s Hard To Be A Feminist And Still Want Dick” (a song that has been repeatedly taken down from Tik Tok and Instagram for violating their hate speech policies) then we’re in a bit of a bind. Because if feelings aren’t a sound basis for deciding what’s allowed to be talked about, then we can’t simply cite our own feelings as a basis for shutting down pro-Israel views either. We can’t tell our leaders that our emotional safety is enough of a reason for them to take a political stance, or to censor a view we don’t like.
But, you might say, there are some views that amount to hate speech that simply have no place in modern discourse. There are questions that are no longer up for debate. Are black people people? Should women have rights? These are questions that just shouldn’t be asked anymore. And it would be insane to, for instance, host a debate about one of these topics on a college campus today. As a woman, I would feel personally attacked, offended, and possibly unsafe if I knew that the question, “Should women have rights?” was still up for debate in the institution or organization I was a part of.
But I’m living in 2024 right now. If I were alive during the suffragette movement, I think I’d feel differently, because even though the truth of the statement “Women should have rights” was exactly the same 1,000 years ago as it is today, it wasn’t as accepted of a belief and some crucial political victories protecting women’s rights had yet to be won. I think if I were alive at the time, I’d recognize that the burden of proof for the statement “Women should have equal rights as men” was still on my side, not because that’s fair, but because, practically, a lot of work still needed to be done to convince the people in power that they were wrong and to change the dominant view.
Let’s hope that 2024 is the 1919 of Palestinian rights and the question of Palestinian sovereignty is about to be obvious, and this cultural shift is predicting a policy shift as well, that will result in real wins for Palestinians. Answers to questions like “Should the Palestinians have freedom from Israeli occupation?” or “Should the U.S. continue arming Israel?” or “Should there be a ceasefire?” are in the midst of becoming just as obvious to many people as the question “Should women have the right to vote?” But we’re not actually there yet. Not by a longshot. We haven’t won. Not in terms of cultural consensus and certainly not in terms of policy.
Since being Pro-Palestine is just one of the marginal, radical views I hold, (I’ve also always identified as an anti-capitalist and an atheist.) I've gotten used to the fact that I cannot assume that the people I'm surrounded by share my views. “Women deserve rights” is just as obvious to me as “Capitalism is an unsustainable destructive system” and “The U.S. should stop bombing, ya know, everyone” and “The Israeli occupation of Palestine is immoral.” But most people around me agree with the first statement and not the others. Do I wish that everyone else saw these issues as clearly as I did? Absolutely. Do I feel a sense of relief and relaxation when I realize I’m surrounded by people who share these views? 100%. But for most of my life, whether I’ve been at Burning Man, or accompanying migrants at the US Southern Border, or in a college classroom, or at a bar, I’ve had to contend with the fact that a lot of people don’t agree with truths that seem blatantly obvious to me. And that enrages me and discourages me and more than anything else, makes me feel incredibly lonely.
I remember in 2014 how horrible it felt to be the only person I knew outside of my Jewish Voice For Peace friends who posted on Facebook about the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed. Close friends of mine didn't bat an eye when I emotionally shared how upsetting I found this. They felt so removed from it and so confident that the issue was "too complicated" that it literally didn't affect them to hear that hospitals had been blown up, children massacred, peaceful protestors shot. Still, it was a feeling I was used to, and I responded to the atrocity with a mix of public writing, private conversations, grieving with people who got it, showing up to a protest or two, giving money to good organizations, and avoiding disagreements when I didn’t have the bandwidth or didn’t think it would be productive. This has been the life of a passionately radical occasional activist that I’ve been leading, and I assumed it would pretty much go on this way for most of my life.
But in 2021 something changed. I was shocked and encouraged to see that for the first time, my instagram and facebook feeds were FULL of pro-Palestine sentiments in reaction to the bombing of Gaza that had just happened. It indicated to me that there was a real shift in consciousness occurring, where activists in the U.S. were starting to see the connections between the Israeli occupation and domestic issues of police violence and racism. This was no accident. Organizers in Ferguson did a lot of education about the increased militarization of police in the US and how that's tied to contracts with the Israeli military. When Trump threatened to build a wall, a lot of people noticed that there was a pretty f*cked up wall separating Israel from Palestine and started questioning where the hell that came from. Jewish Voice For Peace, an organization that used to have a radical and negative reputation within the Jewish mainstream of the US had nonetheless done tireless, diligent work within the Jewish community to provide resources, talking points, and alternative rituals to help Jews disentangle their cultural identity from Zionism and Israel.
This seachange, these mass protests, the passion and the compassion of millions of people all over the world who are calling for an end to this genocide, it all inspires me so much that sometimes I just weep about it. When Macklemore released his video Hind’s Hall and a few days later posted a video of an entire stadium chanting “Free Palestine!” I lost it. I honestly never thought I’d see something like that; that many young people, a mainstream musician like that, unabashedly waving Palestinian flags. It’s amazing.
As an artist myself; a public figure, a person with an instagram and a newsletter, and a literal microphone in my hands, standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine feels like an issue of integrity. To not say something would be inauthentic. Also, social justice is part of what I make art about. If I didn’t speak up about Palestine it would be an odd omission, and could actually undermine my political message (and maybe even undermine my artistic message? There’s a fun philosophical debate for ya). So it feels appropriate, important and aligned with my values for me to speak up. It’s also how I actually feel as a person, so it doesn’t require any effort from me to speak about Palestine. I already have well-formed, clear views about it.
But some leaders, some artists, some institutions aren’t there. Why? Well, I think it’s a mix of factors. For one thing, a lot of these institutions are dependent on wealthy donors. And the donor class overwhelmingly supports Israel. There are often real financial consequences for issuing a statement on this issue. And some leaders, Executive Directors, CEO’s, artists, etc… are legitimately fearful of financial ruin for their institution if they do it. You might call that logic cowardly, but I look at it in a slightly more nuanced way. I think that given this reality, those who do speak up about it should be legitimately praised as courageous. But that doesn’t mean that not speaking up about it makes you a coward. Some of these people feel forced to be pragmatic, and in terms of net outcomes, they might be correct in their analysis. We need theater, and music venues, and educational non-profits, and weirdo affinity groups to continue to exist, regardless of what happens in Palestine. What good does it do anyone if these institutions crumble? It might feel temporarily good for the people who are distraught about what’s happening in Gaza and who now feel validated by their organizations, but if the organization then falls apart, will that have been worth it?
Secondly, some of these people; artists, leaders, Executive Directors, etc… simply don’t have a well-formed view on this issue. Is that confusing? Yes. Is it ok? No. I think anyone who struggles to call for a ceasefire at this stage is showing a real moral failing as a human. And does it bum me out when people suck in this way? Totally. But I also don’t think that I can change their mind by strong-arming them into making a statement that doesn’t actually represent how they feel. That isn’t how minds change. Don’t ask me how minds actually do change. I have literally no idea. I’m more of a preach-to-the-choir kinda gal.
If you’re outraged about Gaza, I fully understand and I’m with you. And I’m grateful and happy that you’re outraged, and I applaud that you’re doing something rather than nothing. My gentle proposal is this: If you want to pressure people/organizations/etc… join the efforts that are part of the official Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement. Here’s an excerpt from the website, https://bdsmovement.net/
The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide.
We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling large, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”
Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective.
Pressuring institutions/companies/etc… that you’re a part of or patronize, might feel rewarding in the short-term because you’re having an impact in a realm where you have some power, but that doesn’t mean they have any power to do anything meaningful. Our actions are only effective at changing the on-the-ground impact on Palestinians if they are part of a larger strategy. The mass student protests across the country are, in fact, part of this organized strategy. Many universities have investments in Israeli settlements and arms companies. The students were leveraging their power at their own institutions to force their campuses to divest from Israel, which has been a stated goal of the BDS movement and Pro-Palestine activist organizations for years. That’s a real goal and real power was built around that shared goal. And it is making an impact.
One aspect of the BDS movement is the cultural boycott. So if an artist were to play a show in Tel Aviv, I think it would be very legitimate to target that artist and pressure them to cancel their show. Similarly, if your local regional theater were to bring a production to Israel, that would be a legitimate thing to organize around.
But asking artists, companies, theaters etc… who aren’t on this BDS list, who haven’t done anything to support Israel, and who aren’t actively doing harm to the pro-Palestine movement, to make a statement about what’s going on in Gaza might be a waste of energy in this critical moment.
On the other hand, in the recent instance that prompted me to write this article, I ended up having the most in-depth conversations about Israel and Palestine that I’d ever had with the leaders who were being pressured to make a statement, and I think I probably changed their minds a bit. That conversation wouldn’t have been possible without this pressure. So who knows, guys. Maybe there’s some merit to forcing the issue.
I just know this. We shouldn’t be ok with organizations falling apart over this. At least, not if we feel we need them. I think it’s fair to ask anyone why they have a hard time calling for a ceasefire when it ought to be a no-brainer. But if we’re not willing to take the time to help them understand, and we’re not willing to accept being in spaces where people don’t share our views, I think we risk isolating ourselves even more and cutting ourselves off from the connections that could ultimately make us more powerful.
In debaucherous camaraderie,
🪶Rachel Lark
What you can expect from The Larkstack
Every Monday, I’ll be sharing a weekly essays that will be free to everyone!
On Fridays, I’ll be sharing ✨Bonus Content✨ as a separate post. This ✨Bonus Content✨ is only available to paid subscribers and patreon supporters. It might be 📝 more writing, ✅ content recommendations, 🎙️a voice memo, or 🖼️ a piece of art I haven’t released anywhere else yet.
These posts are all thoughts in process. Expect my views to change and morph and solidify and stray and evolve.
I’ll also share announcements about life as an artist; things like show announcements, music releases and new merch.
Becoming a paid subscriber or supporting me on patreon is SO DOPE! It’s what allows me to not only keep writing these essays but also create all of the music, theater, film and experiences that I create. So if you’re not signed up yet, and you get value out of the stuff I put out in the world, just think about it :)
Announcements
I don’t have any shows or new music to share right now, but the genocide in Gaza is still unfolding, so I am continuing to share these two small ways that you can help.
1. This week I’m encouraging everyone to donate to Democracy Now! which is some of the best, most un-biased news in the country and depends on donations to survive.
2. Jewish Voice For Peace has a very straightforward call scriptto use when calling your reps and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel, which is truly the only thing that will end this violence.
Thank you all for being here!
