Indigenous Judean, former Cllr/Mayor, @omdimbeyachadUK #FreeWestPapua, Whovian, gigs, cycling, sailing. Tweets personal etc... she/her ✡️🕊🎗 ✌️ ☮️
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Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
This is not the kind of Shabbat message I usually want to share, but I feel compelled to share an experience I had today.
I am currently in Scotland visiting my mother, and today I went for a haircut at Westend Hair in Glasgow.
I mentioned to the man cutting my hair that I was visiting from Israel. He immediately asked whether I was worried about Israel, given that it had, in his words, alienated the entire world.
Within about ten minutes, he had told me that Israel was responsible for the worldwide tsunami of Jew-hate, that 7 October was an inside job, and implied that the massacre was a reaction to 80 years of Israeli actions. He also claimed that the attack at Bondi would never have happened without the war in Gaza, and responded to Jew-hate with the equivalent of “all lives matter”.
I shut down the conversation, but it was an extremely uncomfortable and depressing experience. What made it worse was that he was in the middle of cutting my hair. I couldn't simply get up and leave.
I am so utterly sick of non-Jews presuming to tell Jews what Jew-hate is, what causes it and how we should understand our own experiences. The confidence with which some people dismiss Jewish experiences while insisting that their own understanding is more legitimate is astonishing.
I could not be more glad that I made Aliyah. Experiences like this remind me why I am so happy to call Israel home.
Shabbat Shalom. May we all find some peace this Shabbat.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Several centuries ago the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy.There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community so the Pope offered a deal.
He would hold a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy. If the Pope won, they'd have to convert or leave.
The Jewish people met and picked an aged and wise rabbi to represent them in the debate.
However, as the rabbi spoke no Italian and the Pope spoke no Yiddish, both sides agreed that it would be a "silent" debate.
On the chosen day the Pope and rabbi sat opposite each other.
The Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.
The rabbi looked back and raised one finger and shook it at the Pope.
Next the Pope waved his finger around his head.
The rabbi pointed to the ground where he sat.
The Pope brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine.
The rabbi pulled out an apple.
With that, the Pope stood up and declared himself beaten and said that the rabbi was too clever. The Jews could stay in Italy.
Later the cardinals met with the Pope and asked him what had happened.
The Pope said, "First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up a single finger, shaking it to remind me there is still only one God common to both our beliefs.”
"Then, I waved my finger around my head to show him that God is all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God is also right here with us.”
"I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin.”
"He beat me at every move and I could not continue."
Meanwhile, the Jewish community gathered to ask the rabbi how he'd won.
"I haven't a clue," the rabbi said. "First, he told me that we had three days to get out of Italy so I shook my finger saying no.”
"Then he tells me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews and I told him that we were staying right here."
"And then what?" asked a woman.
"Who knows?" said the rabbi. "He took out his lunch so I took out mine."
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Aber Kawas was born in New York to Palestinian Muslim parents. She grew up hating America and openly supports Hamas (she publicly waved a Hamas headband) and Islamic jihad, saying that America deserved 9/11 because of ‘Islamophobia.’
She has just won her race for the New York State Senate.
/
Darializa Avila Chevalier was born in Florida to Dominican parents.
She became so wrapped up in pro-Palestinian activism that she ended up converting to Islam and is now dating a former al-Qaeda defense lawyer.
She claims that she only got into politics because Palestine is the most important issue in her life.
She openly hates the U.S., calling it a disgraceful country, and says she uses the American flag as a napkin. She was part of an organization that calls for the eradication of America. She also supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She has just been elected to Congress.
The enemy within has won. A very dark day for America.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
For all time: There is no such thing as a Semite. It refers to a group of languages, not a people. And the word antisemitism was invented by a Jew-hater called Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s in order to make it sound scientific. Only anti-Semites argue otherwise.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Iranian-born Canadian activist Parishad Kavyani, who spent more than two years marching in support of Palestine, has publicly broken with the movement, accusing former allies of hypocrisy, discrimination and selectively defending human rights.
Kavyani said she had experienced more homophobia, racism and sexism from left-wing activists over the past nine months than ever before.
Kavyani, who grew up under Iran's Islamic Republic before moving to Canada at 14, criticized pro-Palestine activists for advocating women's rights while remaining silent about Iranian women fighting against compulsory hijab laws and other restrictions imposed by Tehran.
She also accused some activists of defending the Iranian regime and sharing material supportive of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Kavyani said Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was a turning point, explaining that she could not support the killing, rape, torture or hostage-taking of civilians simply because they were Israeli.
She argued that human rights should apply equally to everyone, regardless of nationality or political beliefs, and accused parts of the movement of prioritizing ideology over protecting innocent people.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Yeah, that's all it is. Everyone was scared of his "progressive" views.
Like when he said China basically did Tibet a favor by colonizing it because Tibetan culture is bad. Or when he mocked Russia's war on Ukraine with the good old "What about Crimea? Cry me a river. A Russian River."
Truly, is there anything more progressive than calling Jews, "inbred?" Or calling a Jewish person in your chat a "bloodthirsty pig-dog?"
If Hasan is progressive, then I am a pomegranate.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Sweden's 🇸🇪 parliament has voted to make Holocaust denial a constitutional offense, starting in January 2027.
Not a single MP signed up to debate it.
I applaud Sweden for this decision.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
I am a gay Jew. I understand intersectionality. I understand that we can belong to multiple minority groups, that our identities overlap and that we can experience different forms of discrimination because of them. My Jewishness and my gayness are both fundamental parts of who I am.
But I also understand that there are approximately 15 million Jews in the world, compared with hundreds of millions of gay people. Jews represent just 0.2% of the global population. We are an extraordinarily small people, and that has to inform how we understand our responsibilities to one another.
The gay community is much larger than its Jewish members, and it has millions of allies beyond the community itself. Jews have allies too, but the last few years have demonstrated just how conditional much of that solidarity can be, particularly when it comes to Israel, Zionism and our right to define ourselves.
As a gay man, I know there are millions of people who will stand up for my rights. As a Jew, I am much less confident that those same people will stand up for me when my Jewish identity becomes politically inconvenient.
This is why I prioritise Jews when I vote. It does not mean I care less about gay rights or the rights of other minorities. It means I recognise that my people are a tiny minority in a world that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to abandon us. I cannot assume that someone else will defend Jewish interests, Jewish safety or Jewish self-determination.
Intersectionality does not require me to give every part of my identity equal political weight. I can stand alongside other communities while recognising my particular responsibility to my own people.
Other minorities are encouraged to organise politically and advocate for their collective interests. Jews should be no different.
I am a gay man. I am a Jew. I am both, without apology. But when I vote, I think about our history, our present and our future. I think about what happens when Jews depend on the goodwill of others to protect us.
I will stand up for other communities, but I will not put their interests ahead of my own people.
Jews are allowed to put Jews first. I do, and I make no apology for it.
Gay people can put gay people first. Women can put women first. Black people can put Black people first.
And yes, Jews can put Jews first.
If you struggle to understand why Jews should be entitled to the same solidarity, self-respect and commitment to our own people that you so readily accept in others, I suggest you have some serious questions to ask yourself about your own Jewish identity.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Shaimaa Rabah is a newly elected councilwoman in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, and a member of Fatah, who was part of a limited set of local municipal elections inside Gaza back in April. After Al Jazeera aired a documentary featuring exclusive footage from Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades about the life of slain military leader Mohammed al-Deif, Shaimaa Rabah shared a Facebook post condemning what she viewed as the glorification of Hamas, which she blamed for Gaza’s devastation. She described the program as “a rich meal of animal feed for the Muslim Brotherhood” and criticized Al Jazeera’s efforts to portray Hamas as heroic despite the destruction and suffering that followed its rule and the 10/7 terror attack.
In response, Hamas and its supporters pressured members of Shaimaa Rabah’s clan with a wave of threats and harassment to compel her to delete the post and issue a public apology, which she did. Even that has not satisfied her critics, who are now demanding her resignation from the Deir al-Balah municipal council, arguing that her status as the council’s first elected woman does not entitle her to disparage the memory of those they regard as “martyrs.”
This episode is a reminder to those who believe elections can produce meaningful political change while Hamas retains effective control over Gaza. Democracy is not the foundation of a free society but the product of one. It depends on the prior existence of independent civil institutions, a free press, freedom of expression, and mechanisms for holding power accountable.
I have shared this concern with Dahlan-affiliated Fatah reformists, EU officials, Arab ministers, and others who advocate elections as a solution to the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy crisis and the search for an alternative to Hamas. In today’s Gaza, any non-Hamas voice can be rapidly silenced, making meaningful reform, let alone a challenge to the entrenched “resistance” narrative, nearly impossible.
Before any credible democratic process can take place, Hamas’s system of control must be dismantled. Until then, the most realistic path forward is a transitional administration focused on restoring basic services and rebuilding a truly free civil society while removing the coercive structures Hamas and its patrons have spent decades creating.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Truly remarkable 1 hour @BBCPanorama documentary last night.
What stood out very plainly was the sheer evil of this regime. The pure, unadulterated cruelty of the massacre in January after an order by the Supreme leader.
It records how it unexpected it was. We’ve seen the depths of what this regime is capable of, but never like this. One person says that what transpired in those two days “will be talked about for 200 years”.
It also captures the lies the regime spewed after. The very next day the Supreme leader declaring that Israeli and American insurgents “killed peaceful protesters - sometimes in deeply inhuman ways” - showed gaslighting on another level.
This is what was needed to be seen and what the world was prevented from being shown by the 3 month regime-imposed internet blackout.
People know now. Watch for yourself on catch up and understand what our fellow human beings in Iran have been up against for the last 47 years. bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0…
Important doc film on Iran protests in January that led to massacres (my pinned tweet says 43,000 but many of the 350,000 injured now confirmed dead). @BBCOne at 8pm. I’ve been critical of British journalists reporting from inside Iran but this one focusses on those who got out. Must watch TV tonight bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3qj…
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Some key points from the interview:
🟢AR says he backs Zack Polanski and isn't calling for him to stand down.
🟢He says party at a "cross roads" and needs to focus on its core values of climate, nature and how that relates to the cost of living, rather than "divisive" issues.
🟢On the Zir motion, says Zionism isn't racism and Israel "of course" has a right to exist. But he agrees with Zack and others that what is happening is Gaza is "appalling".
🟢Says party needs to find a way of changing ZIR sooner than 2028, possibly in reforms to party structure expected to be brought before the spring conference.
🟢On claims of entryism, says there's been a membership growth from 60k to 200k members and "you can't call that entryism".
🟢But he does say a "small number" of members have joined "from the very hard left" after the failure of Your Party and those members are “seeking to change the direction of the party”. Says party leadership needs to reassert the way of working which is "about consensus building and much less highly factional and tribal politics".
🟢On his own future, Ramsey says he joined the party as a teenager and "isn't going anywhere".
Many people online are reacting to media speculation, not to what I actually said in the interview. You don’t have to agree with everything I say, but some of the portrayal of my interview has been, frankly, absurd. I’d urge everyone to listen to the interview in full: youtube.com/watch?v=-5S6vYv5…
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Avi Shlaim, an Oxford professor, says Israel “made it impossible” for Jews to keep living in Baghdad. My mother’s family is from Baghdad. Here is what he left out:
Jewish life under Arab rule was never equal. For centuries Jews lived as dhimmis, a “protected” minority, and the protection came with rules:
• A Jew could not testify against a Muslim in court.
• A synagogue could not stand taller than a mosque.
• Jews could not ride horses or carry weapons.
• Jews paid a special tax for the right to exist.
• Jews wore identifying marks on their clothes, a thousand years before the Nazis.
Then in June 1941 a mob in Baghdad killed almost 200 Jews in two days. My grandmother hid in the back of a café while a man shot a mother’s seven children in front of her. Israel did not exist yet.
In 1948 Iraq made Zionism a crime punishable by death. In 1950 it let Jews leave only if they gave up their citizenship. In 1951 it froze their bank accounts and took their homes. My grandparents arrived in Israel that year with nothing. In 1969 it hanged nine Jews in a public square and invited crowds to celebrate.
None of that was Israel. That was Iraq, doing it to its own citizens.
Shlaim knows all of this. He is one voice in a bigger project, and the project has a purpose. If you can convince people that Jews lived happily in Arab lands until Zionism, then 850,000 Jewish refugees stop being refugees. They become people who left for no reason. The Arab governments that robbed and expelled them get a clean record. And Israel, a country where most Jews come from the Middle East, can be sold as a European colony that has no business existing there. Even though ALL JEWS are indigenous to this land, no matter where in the diaspora we lived.
That is the point of the trend. Erase the Mizrahi story and there is only one refugee story left in the region, and only one side with a grievance.
It takes a Jew with an Oxford title to make that erasure respectable. There is a market for it, and he is not the only one selling.
Share this with someone who has never heard the word Farhud.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Many people online are reacting to media speculation, not to what I actually said in the interview. You don’t have to agree with everything I say, but some of the portrayal of my interview has been, frankly, absurd. I’d urge everyone to listen to the interview in full: youtube.com/watch?v=-5S6vYv5…
Horrific
I lived in Stockholm. I lived in the house of a Holocaust survivor. Six years a prisoner in three different extermination camps. Sweden was a safe haven for many survivors, not everything went well, but it was a home for those who lost everything.
It is with sadness and outrage that I see posters in the shop windows of Stockholm as if we were in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.
Photograph of the door of Green Laces – a shop for vegan shoes and accessories at Götgatan 28, Stockholm.
ALT #Stockholm #Sweden #Antisemitism
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
Life is not fair.
For years the anti-Israel crowd, Owen Jones and his ilk, raged against the “liberal Zionists”, an oxymoron and anathema to them, insisting that we don’t exist.
Now, in the aftermath of the Israeli election, the two Arab/Palestinian parties are deep in negotiations with those same nonexistent liberal Zionists, Golan, Eisenkot, Bennet, Lapid, toward a better future for all Israelis.
Talks are firmly anchored in the negotiating parties’ decisive Knesset majority.
If accomplished, I’d say that the new Jewish-Arab coalition not a bad day’s work. Especially for people who don’t exist.
Left to right: Mansour Abbas and Yair Golan, yesterday.
Elise Benjamin 🇺🇦 retweeted
הצבעתי! כערבייה פלסטינית ונבחרת ציבור בישראל - זו זכות אדירה ובלתי מובנת אליו להצביע ולהשפיע. יום טוב להעיף את הפאשיסטים הביתה, ולהמשיך לבנות מקום שבו לכלנו יש זכות לעצמאות, לביטחון, ולצדק.
