Thread by @ankahajkova

My social media channels show too many decolonial colleagues celebrating Hamas violence as Palestinian anticolonial resistance. They seem undisturbed or don't comment on the hostages, children and the elderly murdered, sexual violence, female corpses undressed, paraded, spat on.

I am one of those historians of the Holocaust who has been publicly critical of the occupation. We are a minority; voicing this stance comes at a steep prize.
So yes, it is the violent and oppressive Israeli occupation that is a major factor for the events we see now.

But, and this but carries a lot here, I ask myself, who rejoices at these images? at the news of parents who perished protecting their child; at a lifeless naked young woman, displayed in the streets as a trophy?

It is a delight in Jewish suffering, sorry, there are no other words.
It is antisemitism.

I had an ugly warning in May and June, when I called out the antisemitism in motion 5 of my union, and endured a barrage of antisemitic abuse.
Back then, I was shocked.
Now I just watch and think "and this one, s/he is a disappointment that they don't know better," over and over.

There was this woman who courageously wrote about #metoohistory, but now she has no solidarity for women who went dancing in the Negev, girls half our age, who died a death that freezes the blood in my veins.

That doesn't mean that decolonization has failed. Just that some people fail at it when it comes to Jews (and Eastern Europeans).

I want to end on a conciliatory note. Do better, friends and colleagues! Jewish civilians are civilians, Jews are people. Collective guilt is a racist concept; to rejoice at murder, kidnapping, and rape (and to frame it as some kind of heroic resistance) is just revolting.

https://x.com/joshualeifer/status/1711173940423401795?s=20