The Palestinians Have the Right To Hate Us

If you’re Jewish, the purpose of this post is not to hate on you; it’s to show you why others hate you.

Knowledge is power. And with the knowledge of why you’re hated, you can make changes… and stop being hated.

I hope that by the end of reading this, you’ll understand that the Palestinians’ hatred of our people is not irrational – and they are not irrational. And since they’re not irrational, dialogue is possible. Diplomacy is possible.

If they were simply “savages, animals, beasts with no hearts or brains, created with hatred in their DNA”, then there would be no possibilty of healing the relationship with them.

But they are not that. They are rational. And that means there is a way to reason with them, and to resolve the conflict without further bloodshed.

If you truly knew what it’s like to be them, you’d see immediately that their hatred is not genetic, not random, and not “taught.”

So I’m going to give you a glimpse of what it’s like to be them.

Imagine you were being kept in a dungeon, being tortured by a cruel and sadistic tormentor, day in and day out, for years on end.

Unspeakable physical abuse, and psychological as well. They humiliate you. As you cry out in pain, they laugh at you, and tease you. They force you to renounce what you hold sacred.

They torture your friends and family in front of you. And tell you not to cry. If you cry, they punish harder.

They gaslight you. They say and do things, and then 30 seconds later deny having done them, and accuse you of being insane and a liar for accusing them of what they just did a moment ago.

Every now and then, you manage to get a message out, to the outside world, begging for help, begging to be rescued. But few people believe you, because all that speaks for you is a series of scribbled notes, while your tormentor has all the time they need to talk to the public and refute your accusations and explain why you’re a liar.

They have social standing, and respect. So most people believe them over you. And many consider it offensive that you’d even make these accusations about such a respectable and productive and honorable person.

You’re the villain. No help is coming.

But once in a while…

…once in an exceptionally long while…

…you find your tormentor’s guard is down, and you get a sudden chance to retaliate. Maybe they’re standing too close while they whip you… and you have an opportunity to lunge forward and bite them on the ankle.

They howl in pain. And for once, the cry of anguish echoing throughout the dungeon is not yours… but theirs. 

And this tiny morsel of justice, this fleeting ray of light, fills you with joy. And for the first time in ages, you feel a moment of happiness.

You have a right to feel happy.

But then your tormentor goes to the public, and presents the bite mark, along with a video clip of your happiness, as evidence that you’re a savage, an uncontrollable subhuman, and that they’re right to be keeping you in that dungeon, because otherwise you’d just run around town biting everyone, because that’s your nature as the beast that you are.

And furthermore, all the horrific torture that they’ve been inflicting upon you all this time was justified, because you deserved it, because you’re such a savage, and because it’s the only way to tame you.

Just before now, your tormentor was denying that they were inflicting the abuse on you – and the public believed them.

And now, your tormentor freely admits that all the abuse was real all along, and claims that it was always appropriate and necessary. And the public now believes that too!

You watch your tormentor change the story from “I’m not doing that, and you’re evil for accusing me of it”…

…to “of course I’m doing that, and it’s appropriate, because you’re evil.”

In other words: “I’m not doing that, AND I’m totally right to be doing that.”

The Seamless Pivot™ strikes again.

You watch the story pivot 180 degrees, with no acknowledgement that you were even right about it the first time.

And the public doesn’t notice the hypocrisy.

Or maybe notices, but just doesn’t care. Because your tormentor is so charming. They wear nice clothing. They produce slick advertisements. They have respect in the community. They’re well-fed and groomed.

Meanwhile, you’re so filthy and wretched, from all the abuse inflicted on you. And your tormentor uses even that as more evidence that they’re superior and you’re inferior, like a beast, and all the abuse is justified.

Your tormentor even claims that the abuse they’re required to inflict on you is psychologically taxing to them – that they are suffering from the duty of taming you – and manages to convince the public to sympathize with them for their carrying of this heavy burden.

Layer upon layer, your tormentor keeps developing new ways to humiliate, gaslight, abuse, and torture you. Each day’s abuse is more brazenly sadistic than the last. They keep tightening the screw, tightening the screw, more and more, and more, with no end or limit.

And once in a while, you manage to land a blow, and hear them scream.

You’re right to enjoy it.

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My fellow Jews, the people we’ve been horrifically tormenting have the right to hate us, and they have a right to celebrate during those rare moments when the tables are turned for an instant.

Every horror from “that famous day”, both real and imagined, was first inflicted on them a thousandfold before they ever crossed that fence. We never needed to retaliate. We’ve already spent 8 decades retaliating.

We caused this.

And introspection is not a sin.

The only way to create peace in this conflict is for us to acknowledge that we are the villains – and unchain our victim, without conditions – and then beg for their forgiveness.

To be a Good Jew means to recognize this.

I never said anything about letting other people abuse us.

What I am urging, is *after the fact*, after something has *already* happened, contemplate the reasons *why* it happened.

That’s not a crazy thing to ask. That’s how normal people solve problems.

October 7th already happened. So ask why.

The expulsion from England in 1291 already happened. So ask why.

The other 100+ expulsions throughout the centuries already happened – so ask why so many nations independently came to the same conclusions about us.

And introspection is only really introspection if the asker allows for the possibility that the reason is THEMSELVES.

If it only looks for how others are to blame, then it’s not introspection.

Introspection looks inward for the causes.

Recognizing the truth here does not make you weak – it makes you honorable. And the cultures you keep coming into conflict with are all highly honor-based cultures – and they respect honor, and disrespect dishonor.

And what they need to see is Jews acting honorably.

When they see us acting honorably, they will respect us, and not hate us anymore.

They hated us because we, the Jewish People, were not acting honorably. We’ve been doing a whole host of bad things to the nations that have hosted us, and when confronted about it, we have refused to introspect, and instead turned around and accused the accuser of being “antisemitic” – which is a one-size-fits-all “card” to do anything we want to others and never have to hear them complain about it.

If we as a people can acknowledge the truth about the horror we’ve been perpetrating in Palestine, and most of all, recognize that our victims have a right to hate us, then the world can see that we are fucking **human.**

That our souls actually work the way other people’s work.

That we have the capacity for humility, and introspection, and honor.

The qualities that make a human being a real human.

We didn’t have these qualities. Maybe we did as individuals, in personal and local affairs – but we didn’t as a people, as a collective. We shut down any conversation about how we might be to blame, even partially, for anything.

And that’s extremely dishonorable.

And that’s why they hated us.

But if we show them that we do have honor and introspection, then they won’t hate us anymore.