{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "The thing that really set my thinking on Israel was\u2026 wait I guess I really even first noticed it in the 90s via the first...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/169500556333/", "html": "<p>The thing that really set my thinking on Israel was\u2026 wait</p><p>I guess I really even first noticed it in the 90s via the first intifada, when the Palestinians still had the benefit of a solid Cold War-era propaganda apparatus, like the IRA and Mandela\u2019s terrorists</p><p>And they did a good pose of taking their licks and still biting <i>hard</i>, the rock-throwers AND the suicide bombers, you gotta respect that</p><p>So okay, but the thing that really set my thinking on Israel was an article in maybe 2003, later 1st or early 2nd term of Bush the Younger.</p><p>And it was like \u201ctoday\u2019s settlements tilt religious and conservative, but in a milder way Americans would recognize, these commuter suburbs of Tel Aviv aren\u2019t hilltop messianic outposts anymore\u201d</p><p>and I was like oh my god, you\u2019re doing this occupation <i>to cultivate culdesac-dwelling JAG viewers</i>?!?</p><p>I wouldn\u2019t approve of petting a kitten to that end!</p><p>But then the article continued, and as it did it reversed everything I knew and hated about that kind of person</p><p>they were like \u201cyeah SUVs and soccer and middle-class jobs but also everyone comes together to prepare for the real possibility of defending this street with rifles\u201d</p><p>they were like \u201clocals disdain gratuitous jingoism, because they appreciate they\u2019re the ones to catch pushback from provocation\u201d</p><p>someone was like \u201cyou know you can\u2019t get too pissy about someone painting his shutters the wrong color and letting his yard overgrow when he literally has your back in a firefight\u201d</p><p>and I was like</p><p>OH MY GOD</p><p>it is the 21st century and these guys get to live in the Wild West</p><p>OH MY GOD</p><p>So, as a capital bolded-A <b>A</b>merican, settler-colonial solidarity. If Alaska is America\u2019s wild frontier, Israel is its bloody frontier. Respect. And if Long Islanders head over there to do that, fuckin\u2019 A, it\u2019s an improvement.</p><p>So my regards, until and unless they get it together to explode in your preschools again, or at least until they kidnap another soldier and you trade away the store under pressure from some snotty-faced dam all \u201cWAAAH, WAAH, MAH BAAABY, YOU GOTTA SAVE MAH BAABY!\u201d, that\u2019s unrespectable</p>"}