Mista Trick

Sad times…. Though raised Jewish, I long ago abandoned the religion entirely, as it - like all religions - is at best, beguiling gibberish, and at worst, deadly nonsense. Passover this year, the three thousand year old, annual, ceremonial retelling of a supposed slave-exodus from Egypt and subsequent conquest of the “promised land”, will be harder than ever to stomach. Religion is dumb. Historical resentment is unhelpful and dangerous and biblical revanchism is a ludicrous thing to defend in our supposedly modern world. Israel was described as the land of milk and honey in the ancient texts i was made to read as a child… it seems now simply to be a dangerous, contentious, wantonly hypocritical war-zone and it is tragically, cementing its status as a global pariah as it’s human rights record goes from bad to worse. Its current leaders seem to think that the goals of “showing strength” and “nullifying regional threats” justifies any actions it deems expedient. This is not new for Israel but it is beyond heartbreaking to watch it is doing. I know Israeli’s are scared and they want to live in safety… but man…. No. I know many, many Jewish people, i know many Israelis… I have Israeli family… but i must say… and most of them won’t like me saying this…. But the truth is, it has never been this hard to defend the religion I was born into. As i say, I abandoned it years ago… but it just makes me sad that the land of Israel, which genuinely is the spiritual cornerstone of the Jewish faith, has become something which is run by people who are happy to commit atrocities of this scale… For context, Hamas has indeed lobbed thousands of rockets at Israel over the last 20 years… so you can understand Israeli’s wanting to end the threat… but it must be said, that Israel, in response to the brutal 2nd Intifada, walled Gaza off, and has been laying siege to it, bombing it, not letting it’s citizens leave, and all the while, casually encroaching on the west bank with illegal settlements and draconian, stifling, often violent and dehumanising authoritarianism. For all Israel is good at and can reasonably claim for its democratic credentials, it has become something I do not recognise as the place rhapsodised about in my youth. What they have done to Gaza these past few months is brutal and murderous and beyond any moral justification. I’m out. I am an atheist and a rationalist and a humanist and I want nothing to do with this stupid, murderous, indefensible, biblical barbarism. There, I said it…. And to clarify… Hamas are not good… they are very VERY bad.. Oct 7th was a barbarous campaign of murder and savagery… BUT levelling an entire region and killing and starving tens of thousands of innocent women and children is not a morally defensible response. It is a tragedy and a disgrace and if you really wanted to call it a genocide it would be pretty hard to argue against that terminology at this point. What’s more, the citizens of the west bank do not and have never deserved the treatment they go through every day….. I hate this situation… and i hate that many jews I know will reprimand me and/or stop talking to me now… but there are many jews who i know will agree with my feelings on this horrible situation. Sad times. I’m just so sad… hope ur all okay…. Urgh. Depending on the pile-on this warrants i may delete this later… ugh… i hate this world… …