I wrote about the genocide in Palestine, and how tech has been silent and complicit.
I can't sleep. I'm lying in bed every night, and images of Gaza are running through my head. Fathers holding their babies, dead, caked in dust. Bombs dropped on homes [1], on hospitals [2], on schools [3]. Tens of thousands of dead [4] in indiscriminate bombings [5]. Children crying, pulling
Please read and share - I don't want to have torched my career for nothing
I can't sleep. I'm lying in bed every night, and images of Gaza are running through my head. Fathers holding their babies, dead, caked in dust. Bombs dropped on homes [1], on hospitals [2], on schools [3]. Tens of thousands of dead [4] in indiscriminate bombings [5]. Children crying, pulling
Wow, deeply, deeply personal. Thanks.
βI wasn't ready to see that my friends are Brownshirts. That they actively cheer on the genocide. The anger, the desire β the need even β for retribution against innocent civilians. I wasn't ready for my friends being camp guards, party officials, propagandists.β
βThe propaganda is real, and organized, and obvious. Posting about antisemitism in universities to cover indiscriminate bombing of civilians -- have you no shame. Repeating Israeli claims which have no proof, and no credibility. Keeping the discussion anywhere except on Palestinians being murdered in Gaza. Denying the number of dead because the numbers are reported by Hamas.β
I can't sleep. I'm lying in bed every night, and images of Gaza are running through my head. Fathers holding their babies, dead, caked in dust. Bombs dropped on homes [1], on hospitals [2], on schools [3]. Tens of thousands of dead [4] in indiscriminate bombings [5]. Children crying, pulling
@paulbiggar @Migueldeicaza yes, thank you for writing this up. I feel powerless and alone, and it helps with at least the latter part.
But why do I feel alone? In private conversations, 90% of colleagues agree. Because we feel intimidated to post anything on the topic. Nobody wants to be accused of antisemitism (even if definitely not true).
I tried not to post anything to not offend my close Israeli friend, I know he is suffering, but he stopped talking to me anyway, so whatever. Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
@anildash @paulbiggar People like that don't really care what you think, as long as they think you can still make them money.
Andreesen and his ilk will have power as long as the Tech Heterodoxy requires that the rest of us beg them for money so we can try and build.
@anildash @paulbiggar I have my own biases here (raised Jewish and living my whole life looking for signs of the next Shoah). And yet I look my ignorance in the face, when supplied contradictory information.
Intellectual honesty seems all too rare these days. It's small wonder that the world is so fucked.
@anildash @paulbiggar For so few to acquire so much, many, somehow, must pay for it.
Statistically, some number of those must pay in blood. Some number do not pay by choice.
Wealth should never be granted at such a cost.
@paulbiggar "Is this what Israel is?" yes.
for those of us who have been attached to the struggle for palestinian self-determination (to greater or lesser extents over the years), you may not see us posting much about it. all our followers already know and the sense of powerlessness is so extreme that posting about it feels like stabbing at an open wound that we can't figure out how to heal.
(my family is originally from ukraine too, so there's too much pain to even say much of anything. all that said, i'm glad you're speaking about gaza, because what's going on is an ethnic cleansing.)
Re-boosting as this message is important.
@paulbiggar
Beautiful writing. You have my thanks and support, for what it's worth.
My grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, cried when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered and Netanyahu climbed to power over his corpse.
Militaristic ethnocrats stole the Jewish identity and exploit my grandparents' suffering to inflict more suffering. I hate them with all my heart, but most of all with the part of my heart that I consider to be Jewish values.
@paulbiggar @aral Thank you for writing about Khan-Yunis. I learned something.
Also, there was no accountability for these soldiers, was there?
@paulbiggar Othwr atrocities occurred as well: rockets and suicide bombings of Israeli civilians sponsored by various Arab monies and powers. And a nation under constant threat from its neighbors. And a huge subset of a people who have been unwanted, hounded, enslaved, and murdered en masse for hundreds and thousands of years: a people who have historically been, at best, tolerated.
The shame of it is that, for decades, the Palistinians have been as the Jews have been for so very longβand, in so many ways, Arabs and Jews are so much alike, as people's. There have been so very many failures of compassion.
All of it is awful.
@paulbiggar thank you.
You told the truth.
@paulbiggar It's probably not torched, though it may feel like it now.
How do you sleep with this? It's not the only genocide going on in the world. It's not the only mass of atrocities. You might try https://traumastewardship.com/inside-the-book/ It's not easy.
@paulbiggar
Really detailed research and history lesson for me. Might be helpful in understanding why people like me feel so strongly about the bombing and occupation of #Gaza and use strong triggering words like #genocide to describe the actions and goals of those currently in control of the #IDF. @mdyshel
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