When I first joined left social movements, I was eager to call-out “antisemitism on the left.” Then I realized my assumptions were rooted in my own conditioning. I realized how superficial my relationship was to antisemitism and how little I knew.

Rachel Corrie was not a Jew. She died trying to prevent a Palestinian home from an IDF bulldozer, determined to give the home to fanatical settlers. Her parents, Craig and Cindy, turned their grief into action and continued her work. The Palestinians deserve their solidarity.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu fought apartheid in South Africa. He used his public role in that struggle to speak out for the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians deserve his solidarity.

Christian Peacemaker Teams walk young girls past rock-throwing settlers in Hebron. CPT members live in a spartan apartment in town, sing kumbaya before dinner, and live their values. While they do the work, peacefully, you sit on this website deriding them as “white goyim.”

There’s Angela Davis, Dr. Vincent Harding, Mairead Macguire, dream defenders, water protectors, people of conscience around the world who are not required to jump through hoops to prove to you their motives in defending Palestinian lives.

I’ve met some people doing this work who I don’t respect, but the people I’ve worked with, overwhelmingly, are decent and interested in helping Palestinians. Jews don’t really factor in. Usually, when there is someone anti-Jewish, they are exclusively online.

If your work is mostly online, then you will encounter antisemites who confirm your biases about the left hating you or the whole world hating you. But how much do you know about who they are? Why are you ascribing their views to whole social movements?

The Palestinian scholar Nada Elia wrote the following article years ago that I wish I had read when I was starting my own journey. Hope some of you will read it. Palestinians choose their allies, not us. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/understand-solidarity-privilege/

Nada wrote another article. This is the one I meant to post : https://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/it-is-time-to-stop-celebrating-jewish-dissent-in-the-palestine-solidarity-movement/