Israel sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli soldiers, and the creation of the state, promoting false Zionist narratives that:

1) The Holocaust justifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
2) Jews need a militarized, colonial, apartheid state to keep us safe.

1/13
Israeli leaders intentionally designed the sequence of these fabricated, secular holidays, timing them to fall just after Passover on the Jewish calendar.

First, Israel uses Passover to establish a mythical pattern of Jewish history as recurring cycles of oppression and freedom.
Then, the holidays between Passover and "Independence Day" secularize and modernize Passover's oppression-to-freedom story.

Each year, they tell Israelis that Jews, especially in diaspora, are doomed to persecution — but a Jewish apartheid state with a strong army can save us.
Israeli leaders made this forced Zionist narrative explicit. As PM Eshkol said, "With our exodus from Egyptian bondage, we won our ancient freedom; now, with our ascent from the Holocaust, we live once again as an independent nation" (that is, a settler-colony on stolen land).
One week after Passover, Israel's Holocaust day serves to suggest that European antisemitism and the Nazi genocide of Jews represent our modern period of oppression.

And Israeli statehood — and the horrific violence against Palestinians it required — represent our redemption.
Unlike other Holocaust days, Israel's "Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day" celebrates Jews' *justified* armed resistance to Nazism and, disturbingly and wrongly, connects it to the *inexcusable* mass murder and expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist militias, i.e. the Nakba.
This contrived, sinister connection between the Holocaust and the Nakba is cemented one week later on Yom HaZikaron.

This day memorializes soldiers killed in the 1948 "War of Independence" and ever since — that is, while perpetrating the Nakba, which continues to this day.
The Zionist state-building narrative reaches a climax the next day on Yom HaAtzmaut, or "Independence Day," which commemorates the creation of Israel in 1948 and was originally celebrated on May 15.

Each year, Palestinians mark May 15 as Nakba Day with protests around the world.
By pairing its memorial to “fallen" soldiers with its statehood celebration, Israel reinforces the myth of Jews as perennial victims who need a militarized state to protect us.

It even victimizes Israeli soldiers, obscuring the power and violence they wield against Palestinians.
We don't buy any part of this Zionist narrative.

We reject the Israeli state's distortion of our religion's liberation story into an ahistorical myth of endless Jewish persecution.

We refuse the idea that we are doomed to victimhood unless we accept militarism and nationalism.
We don't want the memories of ancestors murdered in the Holocaust to be instrumentalized to justify the murder and expulsion of Palestinians.

And we want the stories of our ancestors' resistance to Nazis to inspire oppressed people around the world — not valorize oppressors.
We don't need a militarized, colonial, apartheid state to keep us safe at Palestinians' expense.

We want to live in a world with freedom, justice, and dignity for ALL, and we're building it through solidarity with other communities targeted by racism and white supremacy.
Sources:
State Ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance Day and Independence Day by Handelman and Katz
The Memorial Ceremony in Israeli Schools: Between the State and Civil Society by Lomsky-Feder

#YomHaShoah #YomHazikaron #yomhaatzmaut

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More from @jvplive

May 6
2,400 Palestinians face imminent homelessness after yesterday’s Israeli high court ruling, which paves the way for the Israeli military to take over their land.

These families have inhabited this land for 13 generations — long before Israel and Zionism even existed. Image
The pretense for this colonial theft and destruction? That the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta are “illegally” living in a military “firing zone.”
But Israel baselessly declared this “firing zone” in the 1980s, after the people of Masafer Yatta had lived there for centuries, with the explicit purpose of expelling them to colonize their land. Former PM Ariel Sharon brazenly discussed this ethnic-cleansing strategy in 1981. Image
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May 2
The Palestinian working class can’t be free until Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler-colonialism end — which can’t happen without resistance of Palestinian workers and international workers in solidarity.

How workers have united in and behind Palestine this past year ⬇️
In May 2021, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers — in multiple different industries, and across Gaza, the West Bank, and ’48 — all went on general strike to protest Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, bombing of Gaza, and military and police violence.
Their strike led to hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for the Israeli economy, demonstrating Israel’s dependence on Palestinian labor and the liberatory potential of a unified Palestinian working class.
Read 8 tweets
Apr 28
As we mourn the Jewish, Romani, disabled, and queer people murdered in the Nazi genocides, we also draw strength from their resistance (see examples in thread).

May the memories of the murdered be for a blessing 🕯

And where there is oppression, may there thrive resistance❤️‍🔥
Jews light Hanukkah candles in the Westerbork transit camp, en route to concentration camps in the Netherlands.
A Jewish resistance fighter preparing a bomb on train tracks in Nazi-occupied France.
Read 10 tweets
Apr 25
@m7mdkurd is a brilliant young leader who mobilized hundreds of millions to end Israel's forced displacement of his family and his people.

His criticism of Zionism, which has always entailed violent expulsion of Palestinians, stems directly from the suffering it has caused him.
And it is not only Mohammed who views ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah as a feature of Zionism, not a bug.

Israeli settlers and state officials also view it as "a continuation of the Zionist project." For consistency, the @ADL should profile them, too.
@ADL's Canary Mission-style smear against @m7mdkurd admits Mohammed's criticism of Zionism is the result of its material harm to his life and the lives of those he loves.

But it tries to obscure the actual violence he describes by policing the language he uses to describe it.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 20
Elderly Palestinians sit defiant and unfazed in the face of Israeli violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

They've been enduring this violence for most of their lives — and they are #not_budging, refusing to let it affect them or keep them from taking up space at Al-Aqsa. ImageImage
For days, Israeli forces have clubbed Palestinians with batons and fired tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring more than 300 people and arresting more than 400. Israeli settler mobs have invaded, chanting genocidal slogans like "death to Arabs." Image
Palestinian resistance to Israeli state and settler violence has taken many forms, including throwing stones at the heavily armed forces or creating loud noise to disrupt settlers.

The chosen form of resistance for many elderly Palestinians has been #not_budging. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 19
Israeli forces have detained 500+ and injured 170+ Palestinians at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem since the beginning of Ramadan.

These Palestinians were simply congregating and praying at the mosque, which is one of the few remaining public spaces for Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Israeli forces’ weapons of choice have included sound grenades, tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and batons. Their Palestinian targets have included children, journalists, paramedics, and women and men simply existing as Palestinian in public.
Here are some examples, via @theIMEU, of the blatantly one-sided Israeli violence against Palestinians at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Remember that this isn’t a “conflict” or "clashes" between two equal parties — despite Western media’s claims to the contrary.
Read 4 tweets

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