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I am Israeli

September 15th, 2015

Awake Goy

Elliot – good responses – and I too missed the exchange. Sometimes, great things happen in the comments section but are missed by many who do not necessarily read all the articles.

As you know I second your experience and then some. And you are right about the process of peeling off the brainwashing layers being a long and oftentimes a painful one. When great prejudices are implanted in young minds, they grow roots and the branches grow out to touch and intertwine with the building blocks of identity itself. One prejudice wraps itself around another in a seemingly seamless tapestry, becoming effectively one. Trying to undo them uncovers endless knots some laden with moth balls, others hardened into a tumor like shell that lodged itself in vital organs.

Perhaps the most obvious example is the way anti-palestinianism (which can start out as a relatively “simple” process of obliterating records of the indigenous people – at least the way this is taught to children), morphs in adulthood into general racism against people who are darker, and/or islam as a religion. Tackling one prejudice in an attempt to slap it down only leads to another popping up that one did not even realize was there.

To me this became quite obvious when vising israel before Obama got elected. The prejudice against him as a black man (even if mixed) went really deep. I heard some of the strangest and sometimes viciously racist comments offered, unsolicited, from the mouths of the most civilized and educated people in Israel at the time. Comments that the most conservative republican in the deepest of the deep south would be ashamed to make aloud. Comments that the vast majority of jewish Americans (at least the non-orthodox) would not be caught dead uttering. But in Israel those epithets and snide comments rolled off the tongue, with nary a thought given to the fact they might be offensive. Yet, these were all “nice” people, who would be horrified to learn they share commonalities with the Ku Klux Klan.

I may be further ahead of you, Elliot, in this process, but the place where I am now is kind of barren. De-programming cannot unfortunately be done successfully without nipping off some healthy tissue along with the diseased ones. Where there was a tumor once, there is now a scar, which refuses to heal. In rediscovering compassion for the Palestinians, I seem to have lost for example, some of my empathy for the jews of israel. I look for it sometimes, trying to feel a sense of spiritual “balance” but all I find is the cold surface of a hard shell. As I’ve written about before, the main casualties for me were my good memories of growing up in israel, and being happy enough much of the time. I lost almost all my original friendships and what’s left is a field of humpty-dumpties where one walks on egg shells trying not to stir up dust blowing in from dark attics.

Still, despite the losses there are gains, I should say. One discovers new people, new histories and makes new friends with fresh eyes, so the overall effect may be an enriching one. May be I just need to set up an appointment with Avigail Abarbanel. She might have a good apothecary for me to rummage through…..

Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/i-am-israeli