Haviv Rettig Gur
Ahmed, I'm sorry. As any Jew will tell you, Jews can be a royal pain. Especially the self-righteous ones. Why does a Palestinian - an actual Gazan with skin in the game - have to face harassment and idiotic gatekeeping from loudmouth "progressive" Jews when he tries to speak to Jewish communities? How dare you gatekeep, you who represent almost no other Jews but yourselves? Feel free to disagree with him, feel free not to read him, but the idea that a Palestinian should be harassed for the crime of speaking to the mainstream majority of Jews - is a weirdly counterproductive form of erasure of those Jews. And when a Jew does it, like this clown in the screenshot for example, it's only adds the insult of self-abnegation to the original bigotry.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
Progressive hearts, narrow minds: I regularly hear from “progressive” Jewish allies that while they like my message and what I have to say, they often have to be covert and secretive about that so as to not upset some of their other Palestinian and pro-Palestine partners. On some occasions, leftist Jews and even some Israelis regularly warn me that if I keep saying what I’m saying, it’s going to make it hard to make me “palatable” to even some Jewish audiences. This is part of a disturbing and consistent trend in which some “progressives” give themselves the right to define what is an “acceptable” Palestinian and what views are tolerable to be considered a “real” Palestinian. Sometimes, it’s measured by how anti-Israel one is; others, it’s measured by how little one rocks the boat within their community. The infantilization of Palestinians, gatekeeping Palestinians out of “progressive” spaces, and telling them you’re “too controversial” is just as racist and bigoted as those who deny the existence of Palestinians altogether. What these individuals in the screenshots are saying is that I am so desperate to share a message that I found the first group of Jewish people I could get my hands on and said here, publish me. They don't realize that preaching to the choir is the last thing Palestinians need; talking to more “progressives” isn’t going to reach new audiences who need to develop empathy for the Palestinian people’s cause and suffering. These individuals assume that a Palestinian is unable to understand the nuance within Jewish communities and choose to speak to right-leaning audiences who are seldomly engaged by Palestinian voices. As for the comment about the Jewish Currents, well, I rest my case. It’s not the job of “progressive” Jews to police the speech of Palestinians who want to challenge harmful dynamics within their community.
