the cognitive dissonance displayed in some posts about palestine by white americans etc is absolutely fucking astounding. i really really need you to understand that the horrific genocidal process of land expropriation we are witnessing in sheikh jarrah is how all of israel was settled, how every settler colony was established, and that that violence and theft are ongoing not just in occupied palestine but where you live. in the united states and canada and australia and new zealand and new caledonia and french polynesia and the french antilles and and and. and that if you don’t understand settlerism, the ideology behind it and the mechanisms through which it is enacted; if you do not see the material connection between standing rock and gaza, you cannot be effective allies to palestinians because you do not actually understand what is happening in palestine. that the dispossession and murders have an end goal, and it is the establishment of a colonial state that looks like yours. of a country where natives don’t exist, or exist in such minuscule numbers that large scale resistance becomes impossible. the end goal is annihilation. what appears like “senseless” brutality does have a purpose, and it is a purpose that is fundamentally incompatible with the existence of palestinians. and when you see pictures and videos from jerusalem, you need to remember that the land you are standing on was and continues to be settled through the same processes. not so that you can feel useless guilt, not to derail from the urgency of the situation in palestine; but specifically so that you can contextualize the genocide of palestinians and where it fits in the colonial timeline. so that you can understand talks of two state solutions and nuance and “both sides” the same way you understand manifest destiny and unceded land and one-sided treaties. and so that you can finally develop an internationalist political approach to indigenous struggle and liberation and imperialism, and start fighting the correct enemies where you live in the belly of the beast, because that is what you have to offer and what will help colonized people everywhere.
