TL;DR. I got into an argument with someone who justified murdering Arab children with “the sins of the father…” She has a whole family. She doesn’t realise that all children are the same. And that they are all our children.

I guess what made me feel the need to wirte that last post was the fact that I got into a bit of an argument with someone who I thought was a friend. I’m Jewish, but I have Christian friends. She wanted to take me to a gospel hall for a gospel meeting (she’s non denominational) and after checking in with a rabbi I liked, he said it should be fine.

She was driving me home. I was in the backseat. Another friend was in the passenger’s.

The idea of imperialism and colonialism came up. We’ve had little political debates before. Some of them to do with religious stuff; some not religious at all. We did that as friends. I was sort of a case of “agree to disagree” on a lot of things because I felt like she was arguing in good faith and we were never seriously mad at each other by the end.

But this is the first time we got into a debate about imperialism, and anti-war stuff. Israel and Palestine wasn’t brought up specifically that much. Other eastern countries came up. Like, the plight of Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Vietnamese. And current Venezuelans. And also how the extremism of places like Saudi Arabia weren’t entirely not linked to America. Cue those pictures of the Saudi royal family shaking hands with American politicians.

I approached it by eventually stating how western intelligence agencies don’t always have the best track records of telling the truth about foreign countries.

The CIA for example seems obsessed with destabilising any country that won’t economically benefit them if independent. And that isn’t even a far leftist idea. Most black Americans are familiar with thiet dishonest tacticts and memes about it are everywhere. But the main emphasis being on how these places are left in absolute ruins by the time the west pulls out of them.

And then she got annoyed at this and basically said “well I think they were already destable before that because of Islamic organisations trying to End Western Civilisation™️ and their toddlers holding AK-47s and threatening to decapitate the soldiers that came into their land to help liberate them “

Obviously I’m paraphrasing. But yes, she did bring up those cartoonish points. After just this first response from her… I already had like 20 million problems with the thing she just said.

Once someone starts to so unironically use the term “western civilisation,” I just sort of want to clock out of the conversation intuitively.

I tried to give arguments as to why I think that United States soldiers and also British soldiers walking into these Arab countries (and some non-Arab) and taking over the place is… First of all, not actually helping deliberate women or liberate Christians or bring about the values that she care so much about . And secondly I don’t think these western troops coming into those Arab missions is even done with the intention of doing any of that in the first place.

But she basically argued that British and US soldiers actually made life for women in Afghanistan so much better. And that our only mistake was eventually pulling out of the land because then the Taliban got worse.

This went back-and-forth for ages. I can’t tell you about every single argument point we made.

But the things she was saying started to get scary after a while.

I was basically explaining how self sovereignty is a good thing. All that means is that people of a nation get to have control over themselves.. meaning they get to become their own politicians and they get to elect their own politicians of their own nationality.

Self sovereignty also means that if there are issues like the oppression of women, the oppression of LGBTQ people or the oppression of Christians, people can protest against their own government or commit dissent against the government. They’ll have to account for persecution in return, but it will not the threat of foreigners invaders or colonisers layered on top of all these worries.

There is a dignity and being able to fight your own fight without the west coming into “save you.” There was a level of dignity in that, even if that fight is terrifying and costs you your life.

And it’s worked in some Middle Eastern in Arab countries. Lebanon is doing pretty well in terms of tolerant mindsets. It just needs more momentum, you know?

And then she was like in response: “well, no, it’s not so much that I care about social justice, it’s just that I care about Judaea-Christian values.

These places like Afghan and Iraq and Palestine are filled with evil, Islamic people. They want to revert the entire world to Islam, and they don’t understand the first thing about civilisation, democracy, or the true G-d’s values.”

So then I pivoted because that’s an absolutely insane thing to say and if I didn’t just move on and make an argument, I would’ve gotten too stuck on what she said, and absolutely spiral, because that’s an absolute insane thing to say.

So I sort of played apologetics for a little bit . I pretended that I was in support of this relentless spread of introducing Judaea-Christian values to the whole world. Big mistake.

I argued that storming into countries, beating up women’s husbands shooting at people, searching their houses, accusing average citizens of hiding bombs, threatening their children, taking people into black sites without trial, and stopping the distribution of aid in hopes that will make the leaders behave… well, none of those things is going to bring about Christian or Jewish values to a country.

In what world does someome walk out of all of that, and think “I believe in Yeshua now”??

She made some other argument in response. I can’t remember what it was but it made the light leave my eyes. It sounded evil.

I tried to remind her of the fact that these soldiers do not even have Christian or Jewish intentions. Especially not the government who knew what they were doing much more than these soldiers who were drafted, and always seem to be there for oil and resources and just whatever economically benefits them.

She just shrugged her shoulders and was like “well it’s hardly our fault that these countries all happen to have oil 🤷‍♀️ If we invade the country though and we win a war against them, well of course we’re going to take what’s on the land and use it to your advantage to help our own citizens.. Don’t you want the people of our country like for example you and I, to prosper?”

Insane thing to say.

Then she brought up my earlier point about sending aid. She asked me to remind her what I said about “the aid thing again.”

So I reminded her of the fact, by asking the question again.

“How do you know what to do when it comes to war times? How do you know cutting off aid, like the U.S. and U.N. have done before many times and are currently doing in Sudan, actually helps? Who are you to even decide that? In fact, punishing thousands of civilians with the excuse that they think somehow it will make Arab and African war generals behave themselves, has over and over again proven itself to do nothing but make children and women suffer.”

And her response? Do you want to know her response to this? Her genuine, honest to G-d, deadass, response to me getting all teary eyed- eyed about tiny brown and black children being deliberately staved?

She started off with “but the sins of the father… “

And after that point of the conversation I just had to clock out. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

I wasn’t there anymore.

I was miles away. In a tiny place called Gaza. Seeing Hind Rajab. A tiny girl with wavy hair. Stuck in a car with her dying family members. Being shot at 355 times. Talking on the phone with adults who were sending an ambulance on her way. Quick, but not quick enough. Saying with a voice much too small for the problems she was facing: “please come get me. Please come get me. Please come and get me.”

That’s where I was for the rest of that ride .

I felt alright. Or maybe just numb, I’m not sure. But I pretended to listen.

That “friend” and her entire family supports Israel blindly. I don’t understand it. They have their own children. How do they not see it? That the kids in Palestine look just like their saviour? Or that their mothers love them jusr like her mother loves her?

All children are the same. And they are all ours. Treat then like it.