But I had to get armed with my own conclusions.
I thought, family is bunk if one interloper can destroy it. Family is bunk if some stranger can root out the weak link.
I concluded: the interloper is the instigator. The interloper helps the weak link pierce through his wrong thinking.
And then, Mom and Dad, the weak link strikes back.
The weak link makes a choice.
The weak link is always going to lean toward the future.
The weak link does not subscribe to meek, clannish thinking.
The weak link won’t play nice and conciliate.
Conciliation, Mom and Dad, is charity. Charity is the saviour fantasy.
Reconciliation, on the other hand, is hard fucking work – inner work – with penalties.
§
The schmuck drank five mini-bottles of vodka on the plane. Barbra guzzled wine. I used headphones, watched Homeland. My gut cramped up with chicken-breast gas.
In the middle of the flight, I awoke with the schmuck’s claw on my flank.
‘Would Leila Khaled like to blow up this plane?’
In the plane’s dim abyss I got spooked and recoiled. I thought, what matters is that Leila Khaled did not kill anyone.
Going to Israel with that girl is highly dangerous, my mother messaged me before we boarded.
I unbuckled my seat belt and limped to the back of the plane.
My mother’s second message lit up as soon as we landed: Dangerous for your abusive dynamics.
Since my mother had turned into a West Coast professor, she said that Indigenous peoples in this world bore the full brunt of violence qua structural inequality. My mother said that Palestinians were Indigenous and that we were the settlers with all the abuse and domination that colonization brings.
‘Jewish people need to stand down,’ my mother said. ‘Right their wrongs. Clean shop. Take responsibility.’
‘She makes no sense,’ my father raged. ‘What about Arab Jews? “Clean shop”? Gimme a break. And can your mother explain to me why the Moroccans are the most right-wing?’
‘A society that colonizes has no conscience,’ my mother responded. ‘Military rule is the only way to keep a people amoral. It is the only way to make teenagers killing machines.’
‘Killing machines? Jesus Christ, Ruth. What’s in your soup? We need soldiers because it’s war. It’s war when you’re surrounded by enemies. This is not rocket science. Israel is communal. Jews work together to make sure that we’re safe. If you lock your door over there in Portland, that’s called security, yes?’
‘Israeli kids have nightmares,’ my mother said. ‘Palestinian kids lose their entire beds.’
‘My God, what part of this equation don’t you understand? The Jews are protecting themselves from extermination.’
‘The ceiling erupts,’ my mother continued. ‘Kids with rubber bullet holes in their foreheads.’
‘Oy, I am begging you,’ my father lamented. ‘Why does your mother hate herself?’
Jewish self-hate is a false-flag operation.
Leila Khaled is still out there:
radical and alive.