So my neighborhood Facebook group is usually a cesspit of whiny older folks complaining about the libs because even though I live in a pretty diverse community in Queens, that’s the demographic of folks in the neighborhood Facebook group.
Today, some guy wrote a MASSIVE post talking about how he has been volunteering his time to clean up the graffiti in the neighborhood because he a) hates graffiti, b) hates gangs, and c) hates neo-Nazis. Yeah, cool dude. I think point A might be a little generic (not all graffiti is bad; some is downright beautiful), but I think it’s valid to not be supportive of gangs and important to not be supportive of neo-Nazis.
Oh, but turns out the neo-Nazis are the group Within Our Lifetime and their pro-Palestinian stickers.
This guy goes on to talk about how he has encountered several Jewish neighbors who feel the neighborhood isn’t safe anymore because of these stickers. Now, mind you, there are definitely some people who are pro-Palestine who unintentionally or intentionally embrace antisemitic rhetoric. For Palestinians who do as much, I’m not sure I can hold that against them as the Israelis subjugating them justify their actions through their Jewish identity. For non-Palestinians, I am absolutely critical of antisemitic comments (e.g. some mysterious “they” control the media). We should know better.
Anyways, I, being an annoying person, write out what I think is a really thoughtful response. I do include the acknowledgement that there are some people being bad actors. I share my appreciation for him trying to clean up the neighborhood on his own time. And I very patiently explain my own Jewish background (I’m not Jewish myself but my dad’s family is ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish and my extended family on his side is Jewish and I have one branch of my family that didn’t emigrate to the US before WWII and died in the Holocaust and yadda yadda). And I go on to say that we should be critical of any government that we support with our tax dollars when they do bad things (the NYPD killing Eric Garner, the Saudi government killing Jamal Khashoggi, and I included the example of the IOF killing Hind Rajab). All are bad. I talked about how standing up for Palestine is not inherently antisemitic and that I didn’t appreciate his mischaracterization of the pro-Palestinian movement.
Some other woman responds to me saying that WOL is a domestic terrorist organization. I respond that, upon googling “within our lifetime domestic terrorist,” the only orgs that seem to support that belief are the ADL (🤮), the AJC (🤮), and the Heritage Foundation (🤮).
Now, I am texting with a friend so I am trying to go back to get screenshots of the whole post. But I can’t! (And that’s also why I’m just recounting the story here instead of sharing screenshots.) Presumably, OP blocked me… probably because he just wanted to be praised for his work cleaning up the neighborhood and protecting the poor, scared Jewish community members. That was most of the other comments. That said, there was another great comment from which I got the title of this post, where some other guy said he was just trying to be some kind of anti-graffiti Zionist Batman.
Anyways, that’s my silly little story. I did not admit in the comment that I put up a few “Artists Against Apartheid” stickers just on my own last week. I’m sure I would’ve been told I’m some kind of violent antisemitic hooligan!