The other morning was like any other one of my mornings these days until I came across a series of garish yellow stickers with two ghoulish words in black:
H X M X S R X P E
Now, if someone had felt the need to put these up in October, I would have left them alone. If someone had felt the need to put them up in November, I would have left them alone. In December. Probably left them alone. In January. Maybe. I don’t know. But definitely not now. Definitely not after six months of genocidal madness and wave upon wave of the kind of mass gaslighting that would make even George Orwell shudder. That’s a hell to the nope from me.
So I started tearing them off one by one. By the time I was halfway through, a swarthy gentleman with rough stubble and broad shoulders who instantly gave off “cop vibes” walked up to me and mouthed something in my peripheral vision. I sized him up for a good 10 seconds before adjusting my headphones to hear what he had to say: “You don’t agree?”
I gave myself a couple more beats, still scratching away at the stickers, then spat: “Do you?”
He said a few things; I responded with a few more. He offered to show me videos; I politely declined. It all kinda blurred as my blood seethed before he started performatively decrying how I support terrorism. So I calmly told him that he should take off that scarf he had on. He was wearing an olive green kufiyyeh knockoff that probably every veteran of the “War on Terror” had bought at some point in Basra or Kandahar. He leaned over and asked: “Why?”
“You don’t deserve to wear one,” I replied. “This is a sudra,” he replied, “it’s a Jewish thing.”
It’s a Jewish thing. Maybe the most goyish way to say it, but okay.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I would love to chat with you one day,” I replied, interrupting his response with “but today is not the day.”
He tried to say something and I said “have a nice day.” He tried to say something else and I once again said “have a nice day.” I was done ripping the stickers.
The saddest part for me about this weaponizing of SA allegations is that I was equally appalled by them in the early days of October. And I was very dissatisfied by how Hamas responded to them in their “Our Narrative” statement that came out months later. Heavy “mistakes were made” vibes without getting into any specifics.
But justice will now never be served. The truth of what happened that day will never be known. Israel made sure of that. Israel made damn sure.
So why did I take down those stickers? Because I refuse to platform the upside-down war is peace reality the U.S. and its vassal states are shoving down our throats. Palestine is complicated when they want it to be and reducible to two hateful words on a yellow background when it serves them. And more lies are going to be legislated as the empire doubles down on doublethink – they’re not waiting for Trump to do it.
How are we going to respond?
I don’t support Hamas just like I don’t support Hezbollah or the Party for Socialism and Liberation, for that matter. They are problematic as hell. But so am I.
I don’t need to support anyone to know what I stand for and against: I am for the liberation of Palestine. I am against the empire of lies.