Why do I march? Why do I protest? Why do I help to protect my community? In part, I’m driven by the inhumanity I see all around me. I cannot close my eyes to it. I cannot pretend that masked agents aren’t snatching people off the street. I cannot pretend it is not happening. There’s also a part of me that’s fighting the demons that committed sins against my father and his family during World War II. My anger about our deportations, and my involvement in countermeasures is, to some degree, a way of acknowledging and healing the generational trauma that created who I am. I’m also driven by anger towards a few of my family members who praise Trump and ICE. I’m angry and disappointed that they are not willing to address the trauma that shaped their own lives. Instead, they choose to wallow in it and wear it like a magical halo that they believe bestows on them infinite wisdom, infinite foresight, infinite innocence, and infinite victimhood. This magical thinking has been used to great success by the Israeli Right. Similar to the way Republicans justify anything they say or do by invoking the “Biden legacy,” the Israeli Right justifies anything they say or do by invoking the holocaust. Because Jews were the focus of the holocaust, this makes them “expert” in defining who is or is not the “real” victim. As the ultimate victim, they parlay that into “holocaust guilt,” that is, the guilt felt by other countries who did not act to stop the holocaust. (This is most obvious in the case of Germany but many other countries harbor guilt to various degrees.) This guilt acts as both sword and shield. It can stab anyone who questions what the Israeli Right is doing. How can you question the actions of the victims of the Holocaust? It also shields them from scrutiny. This is their real Iron Dome. It protects and justifies the actions of the fascistic right-wing Netanyahu government, much like the invocation of the “Biden legacy” protects and justifies the actions of our fascistic right-wing government.
So why do I fight? It is probably too late for my own children to escape some form of trauma caused by our homegrown fascists. Still, I must fight because I believe that it’s the accumulation of small victories that makes a better future possible, even if it is a future I might never see. I believe that we “must take our share of responsibility for the moulding [sic] of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished.” (Source: “Letters and Papers From Prison,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer.)
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