Those who refuse to be silent
Once upon a time, I never gave Israel a thought. It was just another country in the Middle East.
Those days are gone.
In the last twenty-four hours, I watched Antony Loewenstein’s documentary, The Palestinian Laboratory. You can find it on YouTube. Antony is an Australian Jew and journalist who writes and speaks bravely about how the Israeli Military Industrial Complex is leading the world in weapons that surveil and kill. The grand experiment, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
I have read the testimony of Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, head of Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa, who visited Khirbet Humsa in the West Bank following a settler pogrom in which a 29-year-old Palestinian farmer was sexually assaulted, his family was beaten, and hundreds of his sheep were stolen. The account is horrific.
I have seen the report from B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, called Living Hell – The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Prison Camps. You can find it here. https://www.btselem.org/publications/202601_living_hell
I have watched Francesca Albanese speak of the state torture that is now normal in Israel. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/03/un-expert-warns-torture-has-become-state-doctrine-israel-making-prisons
Finally, I heard, as did anyone listening, that Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has announced plans to take control of southern Lebanon. Take control = occupy. I wonder if the world will become outraged at this land grab. I suspect not.
I will criticise Israel. We must. The cruelty is staggering. I have come to loathe what it stands for. Just as I will criticise Russia for its occupation of Ukraine. Just as I will relentlessly criticise the USA for being an aggressive bully. And for my Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, for being complicit with the USA and Israel. Just as I will criticise the suppression of the rights of people of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or my own country. As I will criticise anyone who uses cruelty, the killing of innocents, suppression, subjugation, brutality, and rape from any background, any religion, any state. I will stand with my brothers and sisters who find themselves at the effect of the wars of men, asking for asylum, getting on boats at extraordinary risk, and being treated as criminals.
But I will not stand silent against genocide, athapeid, atrocity after atrocity. From anyone.
I do not support ethno-nation states like Israel, where rights are only enabled for one group and denied to everyone else. (Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, passed in July 2018. This constitutional law establishes that the right to national self-determination in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.”) I do not support countries that impose their religious beliefs on everyone, like the Taliban in Afghanistan. I do not support Christian Nationalists, Christian Zionists, or Zionists. Superiority and imposition of ideals or beliefs sickens me, in any shade, from anyone.
I wrote about the precessional effects of the actions of our current crop of corrupt leaders. Here. https://syntropic.world/awareness-cannot-be-put-back-into-a-box-of-unknowing/
My once upon a time was ruptured by the men who blood lust for power. This is the precessional effect.
Once upon a time, I never thought about Israel. Now every time I think about Israel, my gut twists, and I wonder how much longer the Western world can continue to support it as it becomes the monster it was supposed to escape.
On a positive note, I did listen to Douglas Rushkoff, also a Jew, and his monologue on Israel, here. I celebrate and honour the many Jewish people who work against the brute of Zionist Israel. https://substack.com/home/post/p-191485116
I turn to human dignity, those who refuse to be silent. Everwhere.
Let us continue to speak, write, protest.
PS. Either everyone has the right to defend themselves, or no one does. All sides commit atrocities. That never makes it right. The asymmetry of power must be spoken about. As with Ukraine, so with Palestine, so with Lebanon. Against behemoths, they fight. Using everything they have. I loathe bullies.
Photo Taken March 25th 2026. Article published March 25th 2026