Received on
June 14, 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues of the Arab Israeli community:
In the past two weeks I’ve had several talks with Roney Seour about the webinar that had been planned from Blindness to Insight but as you know in respecting the call for boycott I did withdraw from participation in the webinar. I wrote a letter to the Jewish Israeli participants but I wanted to communicate to you in a different vein. After all, of course the matter for you isn’t being blind to what is being perpetrated in Gaza —rather it is having to carry the knowledge while still interacting with the majority of people, Jewish colleagues neighbors others, who do not see or acknowledge, who deny the reality or even support the violence . We do hear about how painful and frightening this is in alternate media—how much repression there is right now, the new McCarthyism we see all over, as well as how much aggression you see everywhere and is often directed at you.
Witnessing the horrific violence and destruction visited upon your people in Gaza must be a daily agony, multiple times more than for us who wake up every day facing more of the same news images and stories. And of course here in the US Palestinian voices have been silenced, people have been fired for refusing to sign statements against BDS or for criticizing Israel. In fact the vortex created by those who defend the war against the Gazan people grows more intense as our progressive leaders in Congress are under vicious attack, those of color but also Jews who defend Palestinian rights. The rightwing forces in America, in Europe as well as Israel have gathered up Palestine as another weapon in their armament against equality and justice, affecting all of us, but your own specific oppression and the splits you must deal with in daily life shouldn’t get overlooked or minimized. It is traumatic. I hope when at least some of us have a chance to talk together under other auspices that we can talk about your situation and the solidarity that we all need to give to you and provide for each other. I know this is only the least we can do but I wanted to make sure that we find find ways for your experience to be honored and shared.
With my warmest regards and solidarity,

Jessica Benjamin.