Ian MacLean

ANSWER THE QUESTION, SPENCER.

I find myself in a quandry. I have come to fully believe that Israeli society has crossed a point of no return. I don't know the extent to which Israel is capable of destabilizing the world. I know that as a society, we are morally bankrupt. No solution is to be found in optimistic dreams about coexistence. "Peace" is meaningless im genocide. Israeli outrage at Israel's genocide is a moot point. There is nothing Israelis can "say" that makes it right. Israel does not deserve the same place at the table as the Palestinians. Israel does not deserve a place at any table. On the other hand, I have no other place. I am Israeli. I do not think Israel can be "disbanded". Israel is here. It is ceaselessly committing crimes against humanity as well as against human decency (not just within a legal framework, that is), debasing its neighbors, its supporters and itself. But it cannot simply be revoked. Israel must suffer the consequences of its own actions. It must be stopped and humbled. In its current supremacist form, it has no legitimacy, but I would not wish for it to disappear. More wrongs do not make a right. Right makes right. I find I must speak out in defense of this right and this good. But what relevance do my words have? What is the point of being serially outraged? I don't feel myself entitled to be heard, certainly not in serial fashion. The genocide is being carried out in my name. What weight do my words of anger and condemnation carry? My presence confers neither comfort nor effect on the fight against genocide and ethnic cleansing. I must speak, but to what purpose? It certainly isn't redemption. There is no redemption for my society. I am not claiming its potential virtue. Human beings are never devoid of virtue, but that does not really matter now. Israel has wronged so much, taken and despoiled and killed, has paid it forward even in the Palestinian and Lebanese gene pools. One voice should be heard right now, and that is the voice of Israel's victims. There is not a single attack on Israel that is not grounded in an Israeli attempt to uproot and destroy ar this moment. The only other voice permissible belongs to international tribunals, leaderships and institutions (with the hope that they choose to use this voice). When I write or speak I do so from the most particular (selfish, perhaps) aspects of my existence. I feel as though I have no other choice. But I have no illusions about changing Israeli minds or even about my own virtue. My heart breaks daily still over the myriad ways in which overt genocide shapes my present and my future. This heartbreak deserves no pity or consideration. My words are gray and deflated, sad as lonely, little wrinkled balloons. That is as it should be. I have no wish to be a strategic analyst. There are many wiser and more capable than I am. I am outraged all the time, angry and sad and shaken as a basic stance towards life. This isn't an equal and opposite reaction to actions taken by Israel. This quagmire is my life as an Israeli Jew. The desperate wish I do have is to maintain my humanity in the most literal sense, a framework that will allow me to delay my disintegration as a person. Is that enough?

😂Sperm is made between the rib and the spine according to Islam.