As a Jew, I was raised to maintain an instinctive vigilance, as if at any moment, the political winds could shift slightly and the purges, pogroms, and ovens would all come roaring back, while mobs cheered. No matter where your Jewish friends are politically, they're feeling that primordial terror.

@stevesilberman

I can’t engage empathetically with this 👆 feeling without also being able to engage with the primordial terror being felt by a million children and their parents, raised in the world’s largest refugee/concentration camp, dislocated, disrupted, deprived of basic necessities of life and bombed mercilessly. This terror will live in them all their lives, for decades if they are lucky, and for days if they are not.

War crimes are never a solution to anything.

@DavidM_yeg @stevesilberman Disappointing to see this kind of whataboutism response here. What war crimes is Steve supporting here? None that I see.

@franktaber @stevesilberman

No, not whataboutism. I am not criticizing Steve for his feeling, and I do engage with what he is talking about (as best I can). But that invokes the same imaginative faculty that also currently fills my heart with pain at the terror being experienced by a million children. Both are awful.
I felt the need to comment because one is a fear about what *might* happen, while the other is *currently* being done to people *right now*

@DavidM_yeg

It is, in fact, the very definition of whataboutism.

Steve is not hurting anybody. Steve is just trying to live his life. Like other Jews, he has to do that in constant fear of violent attack. Right now, all over the world, Jews who have done nothing wrong are being attacked. Your response to that was "whatabout some other thing that someone else is doing."

That's sickening, David. There's something very, very wrong with you.

@franktaber @stevesilberman