Breathe
By Gabriela de la Riva
Since the famous pandemic and my complicated and unwelcome long covid I have been in this generous and talented group without daring to write.
However, yesterday something happened that made me jump out of my lethargy, and reflect a little more about a situation that has me worried, sad but also very angry.
Faced with a terrible and unthinkable aggression against two friends and colleagues of Opinion 51 (Silvia Cherem and Adina Chelmisky) at the FIL in Guadalajara and commenting it with concern and courage to a very close woman and colleague in several battles, she answered me with a phrase that left me cold: "don't take the side of the Jews... Don't you see that the educated people, the feminists, the universities are now the ones who support the Palestinian cause? There must be a reason..."
Was she trying to tell me that today the cool thing to do is to support the supposedly "Palestinian cause" and to badmouth or attack Jews? I couldn't believe it! I was being told this by a red-boned feminist who has participated with me in some marches and signed petitions. I have always said that I am not a feminist, but that I defend, accompany and am in favor of many women who are violated, murdered or not respected for being women. And so the causes that I consider just.
Is it real that an anti-Semitism is emerging that I refused to accept as something possible in this era? What is it that is moving feminists, LGBT+ advocates, university professors or young people with a certain level of culture to support terrorist groups and refuse to make a more cold and neutral analysis of what is happening in the world?
Is this possible when on the other hand we see facts where precisely the Palestinians are the main victims of terrorist groups among them Hamas... which has dedicated itself to indoctrinate their children, to perpetuate terrorist attacks, to keep their women subdued, to use them as human shields against Israeli attacks and to lie and simulate deaths, especially children and women, which are more shocking for the media?
But it is not a matter of analyzing facts that can be consulted in any reliable media or to see if it is justified because its founding charter assures that Israel should not exist... But neither should Jewish, Christian, atheist or Palestinian infidels who do not comply with its doctrine and Muslim precepts to the letter.
It is not about understanding why these terrorists take refuge in subways under schools and hospitals, or how women in a fundamentalist context are victims of forced marriages, polygamy, prohibition to education, or to have an opinion on any subject. And how there are still women who have protested and have been killed for defending their fundamental rights. And they still want to dress and speak like any other woman in Mexico, and have minimal rights over their bodies and minds.
No...!!!! I could go on but I am not an expert on the subject and neither am I a politician. I am an ordinary Mexican-Guatemalan woman who has had the opportunity to live in Israel, meet Jews, Arabs and Palestinians and count on their friendship.
Who knows how in Israel Palestinians and Muslim Arabs who want to study, work and live in peace have coexisted with Jews. And how all have been victims of suicide attacks, stabbings, or missiles that daily and for years have endured Israeli citizens of different origins and not all Jews by the way.
We forget that this war was provoked by Hamas terrorists (not "the Palestinians") when they entered and committed the most gruesome murders I have ever had the opportunity to see because they filmed them and celebrated them with their families. They killed, burned, slit the throats, raped and dismembered babies, children and young people who were enjoying a peace concert in an area where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs who liked music lived together.
I don't want to think what I would have done if terrorists came into my house and burned one of my grandchildren in an oven, raped and slit the throat of my daughter or tortured and killed my parents. I would go out and kill without thinking about those who did it! But on top of that, they are going to accuse me of genocide, and they are going to remind me that the murderers are the victims!
I would like my Jewish friends to feel that we are not all emulating Hitler and attacking them for practicing a religion that is not the same, living in Tecamachalco or speaking Hebrew.
I would like Silvia and Adina, who are just two women who are living what thousands of Jews in the world are living, to be sure that there are many closet non-antisemites who do not dare to come out and defend them because they are afraid of not being on the cool side of history. But there are others of us who are friends and we will always stand up for them, defend them and love them.
I find it absurd that many feminists, gays, lesbians, trans, are defending Hamas. I just wish they could imagine what could happen to them if they went to live there for a few days and tried to express or do what they do here every day without fear of being stoned to death, tried in a day, imprisoned or shot.
I stand in solidarity and defense of my friends who want to publish or defend their political stance in the current war.
I give a hug to friends like Tzachi, Meyrav, Alon, Ariav, who live in Israel, their children will go to the army and will continue to attend music concerts where there is no question of what religion or citizenship the attendees have. To Esther, Deborah, Isaac, who live and work in Mexico and who are feeling how their Mexican friends are trying to distance themselves so as not to look bad in the eyes of society.
I can't tell you right now how I feel and how my stomach churns.
The book of Anne Frank that I read in my adolescence comes to mind, or the book by Victor Frankl that told his story in several concentration camps during the Holocaust and gave me so many life lessons (Man's Search for Meaning) that I want to read again.
Is it possible that we are allowing Mexico to experience the same unusual history of the Second World War? Yes! Although it may seem exaggerated, these are the same initial signs ...
Am I to believe that the huge capital invested in universities and the media to support the destruction of Jews is paying off?
....
People are not good or bad, they are capable of the best or the worst.
Anne Frank
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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