Yeah, October 7th was pretty fucked up, but it’s not like Israelis aren’t under constant threat. What sucks is that kind of fear leads to suspicion and a strange flavor of xenophobia I’ve never really seen from other countries…

But I can tell you that, in a way, Israelis didn’t necessarily see Gazans as Hamas before, but they sure as fuck saw them as an other and a threat. I swear, the things I heard from even my most liberal Israeli family members was shocking. “They just breed like rabbits,” “they want to be in power so they can oppress us,” “they can’t hold their own elections because they’ll just vote for terrorists.” And then the most religious citizens of their country live part of the year in NYC, have so many kids that they forget to vaccinate them, and vote for Trump and Netanyahu in two separate elections.