Exhausted

Max Stearns

For those of us who are centrist, or center-left, and who support Israel, life is exhausting. It’s like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, except unlike with an arcade game, there’s this constant sense that walking away, or more simply silence, implies endorsement of the worst things said, the unfounded allegations, the you-mustn’t-wait-to-respond claims all at a rate requiring super-human cognitive agility.

I imagine that even if one had that capacity, responding to the constant flow of anti-Israel and blatantly anti-Semitic incidents, even tirades, would be far more than a full-time job.

Over the past week or so, we’ve seen anti-Israel protesters march through Brooklyn, NY in what some on social media have characterized, rightly or not, as a pogrom; a Nicholas Kristof column leveling the claim that Israel has an official policy of sexual torture of Palestinian inmates despite raising serious issues of sourcing, veracity, and perhaps even plausibility; and a possibly non-coincidental near simultaneous publication of a study running over 300 pages of amply documented and corroborated claims of sexual abuse of Israeli and non-Israeli captives taken hostage in Gaza on October 7, 2023. We've also witnessed the NYC Mayor post a video honoring Nakba Day, which although commemorating a tragic event in the history of the Palestinian people presents a clearly one-sided rendering of profoundly contested history.

I’ve also caught other postings this week: Trevor Noah interviewing Ta-Nehisi Coates, who insists, with no pushback, upon claiming a neutral anti-Apartheid view, yet clearly conveying that those who disclaim Israeli Apartheid are themselves somehow justifying Apartheid; Orthodox Jews lauding Donald Trump, “whether you like him or not, this is rather cool” for admonishing all Jews to celebrate Shabbat; and a more than 300-page Begin-Sadat Center (BESA) Report pushing back against claims of genocide in Gaza. And then there’s the complicated account of Bernie Sanders endorsing Graham Platner, Maine Senate candidate bearing a tattooed Nazi police symbol on his chest, initially disclaiming having known the association and saying he planned its removal, yet most recently resisting the ascription, claiming “skull and crossbones are things that Marines get.”

For much of my professional life, I have been told, and have been sympathetic to, the idea that Black Americans have no obligation to constantly educate white counterparts on the extent to which the latter routinely miscomprehend the deep-seated racist aspects of American history. Doing so, Black leaders rightly claim, is simultaneously exhausting and personally painful. It is not up to persons who are Black to set the record straight, over and over and over again. Somehow, however, it is clearly the responsibility of Jewish persons to do exactly that. Over and over and over again. And although it’s true that racism certainly doesn’t sit only on one side, I do think it’s fair to observe that anti-Semitism is more prevalent and more dominant at the extremes on both sides.

In addition to observing events in the media, I have experienced statements among professional acquaintances and former friends that, for the first time in my life, make me rethink and better appreciate experiences my father conveyed to me when I was a child. I tended to viscerally recoil when he responded to something that didn’t go as well as he or I had hoped with “anti-Semitism.” I generally continue to believe my reactions in those moments were sound, but I’m now compelled to acknowledge that my likely insensitivity to the lived experience of an earlier generation was naïve.

I hope someday my grandchild (perhaps also someday others) might share the same dismissive sentiment in a world that looks far different from our own even as I fear more for them than for myself. I see the hatred growing, not waning. And I take no comfort knowing that a considerable number among those who all too often have especially troubled me are Jewish. Quite the opposite really.

One deeply disturbing implication of the pattern becomes Jewish people are entirely acceptable . . . . Provided, that is, that they aren’t quite so Jewish. Or quite so connected to Israel. Or quite so skeptical when confronted with accusations so many immediately accept as verified fact. Or quite so willing to press back. Or quite so punctilious on matters of history, culture, a past documented record of lying, and, well, of anti-Semitism itself.

I’m tired of arguing against Jews-turned-MAGA imagining that the solution is to embrace whatever he happens to spew out. I do not need Donald Trump of all people to tell me how to live as a Jew. I most assuredly don’t find it cool. I don’t need Trump to tell me to celebrate my own holidays. GOP Jews aren’t better Jews. Orthodox Jews aren’t better Jews. My Judaism counts as much. My concern for our democracy—and thus against Donald Trump—is a vital part of my Judaism. I too know something about history, and specifically the history of the Jews. Autocracy has never served us well.

I’m tired of my skepticism being cast as extreme. I’m tired of once-precisely defined concepts retrofitted in ways uniquely tailored to Israel. I’m tired of feeling that if I don’t post to point out that Kristof relied on non-credible sources, presented dubious claims, and did so with suspect timing that I’m letting my side down, or that if I do point these things out, I’m risking some facts that might later be corroborated even if they ultimately prove sanctionable criminal activity rather than official Israeli policy, somehow implying I’m discounting potentially serious, indeed brutal, human rights concerns. I'm tired of the enthusiastic conflation of war crimes, a tragically universal phenomenon, with official Israeli policy.

I’m tired of claims to “whataboutism” when I or others point out the never-ending singular focus on Israel despite so many examples of amply documented contemporary genocides, when the history of Jewish expulsions across the Arab world genuinely illustrate Apartheid, when observing that the 2.1 million Arabs living and generally thriving in Israel proper belies such claims, when pointing out that explaining why Israel isn’t engaged in Apartheid neither defends Apartheid nor Netanyahu. All of this when I am convinced that those shouting whataboutism are the self-same progressives who would scream “equal treatment” if any other group, one they genuinely cared about, were systemically singled out with such relentless hate.

I’m tired of being told I’m uncompromising despite criticizing Netanyahu and so many Israeli policies, calling out Israeli war crimes, yet pushing back—hard and consistently—against claims challenging Israel’s legitimacy, insisting it’s a genocidal and Apartheid state, and demanding it somehow be ended, all despite the virtual certainty that this necessarily means the inevitable demise of half the world’s Jewish population.  

I’m tired of ignorance. I’m tired of being diminished. I’m tired of being exhausted by a world that despite admitted pushback, far too often celebrates anti-Semitism. I’m tired of thinking about a United States soon rendering me politically homeless despite my own dedicated efforts to enlist those protesting their choices by not voting or voting third party all while fighting in every way I know how to make our nation a genuine democracy.

I'm tired. I’m exhausted. But I won’t stop. Not yet. I still care. Sadly, too much even to really let myself be tired.