An anonymous question has arrived to distract me from my unbearable heartache over the daily bombing of my native city of Kharkiv:
I’m grateful for the question but I highly recommend looking at every word in it in terms of how non-vague and specific it is.
Pretty much every word in this question lacks definition, which is why the question itself has no meaning.
Who are Palestinians, for instance? Do you have a definition? Where exactly are “Palestinians” defending “themselves”? Was the October 7 incursion into Israel by HAMAS an instance of Palestinians defending themselves? What were they defending themselves from by murdering kids at a music festival?
And let’s not even get started on “rights”. For rights to exist, somebody needs to provide and guarantee them. Who would that be in the instance of the vaguely defined selves that vaguely defined Palestinians are vaguely defending? Who will guarantee the right to conduct another October 7 again and again? I mean, the way things are going, this sacrosanct right of “self-defending Palestinians” to unpunished Jew-slaughter will be guaranteed by President Biden in no time. But that’s his personal whim, not an actual right.
This question is an ideological manipulation similar to when one says, “online learning doesn’t work in languages” and gets accused of wanting to murder thousands of students (this is a true story that happened to me). Or when one says, “I don’t support removing admission requirements” and gets accused of denying the humanity of “students of color” (this is also a true story that happened to me).
“You don’t want Palestinians to defend themselves! Shame on you, you evildoer!” I want Palestinians and everybody else to live normal, good lives. I even want that for Russians. I want everybody to stop being a gigantic victim and defending themselves from non-existent dangers by murdering people. Is that too much to ask? If only both Russians and Palestinians stopped pouting and started building, that would be great for everybody, themselves included.
Please observe how easily Ukraine could have organized a dozen October 7ths for Russia in return for Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Bakhmut, etc. Three hundred and sixty years of oppression and genocide. The Palestinians’ whining about 1948 is nothing compared to this. But do you see a difference? We don’t rape the enemy’s women, kidnap its babies and slice up its old folks. Because that’s not “defending yourself.” It’s being a genocidal piece of trash maniac who has forever forfeited the right to bleat about self-defense.
I hear that “self-defending Palestinians” are still keeping a baby hostage. Ukraine holds zero Russian hostages. No babies have been kept away from Mommy (and no Mommy was raped and murdered) to defend Ukrainian selves. It’s strange how different selves need a very different kind of defense. I wonder what causes that difference.
And one last thing. The concept of rights that just kind of exist in the ether is a completely Christian concept. It’s a culmination of our Judeo-Christian civilization. It’s our great achievement and our gift to the world together with the nation-state and the concept of “self”. You are trying to squeeze Palestinians into a framework that is alien to them, and that’s why even the question you ask sounds strange.
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