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One night, I was walking a random side street in my neighborhood and found a long hopscotch game drawn in chalk on the sidewalk. It started at one corner and went most of the way up the block. There were skull spaces, "take a break" spaces, even chalk dragons blowing fire which obstructed some of the squares. Each square was numbered, made with a seemingly random color of chalk. There were 450 in total, not counting the aforementioned skull spaces. I imagine what the kids were doing when they made it. One of them finishing the course with ease, prompting others to make it longer and harder. An argument breaking out because it was too hard now... I wondered how long it must have taken them, to draw out each square as they made their way down the block, to draw in the numerous skulls, dragons, and other characters. Will they try and remake it after the warm summer rain washes it all away? How long did it take for them to grow bored of playing and expanding it? What did they do after moving on to something else? Will they even remember having done this when they are older? Will their parents even remember?

One night, I was walking a random side street in my neighborhood and found a house with a sign: "We stand with Israel".

I am reminded of the faces of countless dead children I've seen; their lifeless faces covered with streaks of dried blood forming a Star of David that some solider had carved into them. A video I had seen of a girl flashes into my mind. She was carrying flour to bring back to her family, only for an eruption of dust to obscure the camera, slowly dissipating to reveal her mutilated, dead body covered in flour and debris. Another video plays in my head: two boys, no older than ten, are playing soccer in the distance. The subtitled Hebrew saying to wait for them to stop moving. And when they do stop, a shot is fired and cheering erupts while one of the boys falls to the ground. I recall an interview with an IDF soldier, a veteran of the Nakba. He gleefully talked about how beautiful the girls of Palestine were. How they lived like Europeans. How they raped them. And with a chuckle, he explained that when they were done they wrapped them in barbed wire, grabbed their flamethrowers, and burned them alive.

I pause... Should I do something? Open their gate and rip apart their sign? Knock on their door and confront them? Scream at them? Should I do anything?

I continue my walk. Nothing good will come from starting a fight that will just become a story of the violent antisemitic tranny that attacked them for being Jewish.

It is weird to think, how if the world was a little different maybe my neighbors with the Zionist sign would celebrating while watching the kids playing hopscotch get bombed... shot... raped... maybe they'd be the one's doing those things. It saddens me to know that my hypothetical isn't actually that far-fetched. A 6-year-old, Wadee Alfayoumi, was stabbed 26 times by a Zionist in Illinois. Synagogues have routinely been used to raise money to send people to Israel to serve in the IDF, and those who do so are praised as heroes -- those who condemn this are declared antisemites. In fact, the "We stand with Israel" sign is sold to raise money to buy weapons for settlers. There is just so much violence that we don't question, pretending that it is normal and okay. Violence that is allowed because of who is enacting it. I can't help but cry.

I want to believe in rehabilitation. That the people who support this genocide can be somehow healed. Maybe one day they will recognize what they've supported and try to make their misdeeds right. But I don't know. It just feels so heinous: to watch the death and destruction live; to celebrate and cheer it on; to threaten anyone who opposes it. My guts tells me that if they truly had the capacity, the empathy, to change then they never would have done those things in the first place. Or at the very least they would've changed their tune at some point before now.

I have been told that I am not Jewish so I could never understand; that I can't know what it's like. They claim that Zionism is a topic only Jewish people can comment on. They tell me that I couldn't imagine the need to have a country that is "safe" for you to go to if needed. That I wouldn't know what its like to be vilified for who you are, to be the group targeted in the Holocaust. The irony is certainly not lost on me¹, but part of me wonders if they seriously believe that or are they just too cowardly to admit that they are grasping for any excuse to justify their bloodlust. Does it really matter? I am not sure. Regardless, even if I could "understand" I don't think I would ever want to.

I have also been told that I need to have empathy for Jewish people. They've been told their entire lives that Israel is for them, a safe refuge from the antisemitism of the world. They might even have family in Israel which apparently makes it more complicated. It takes time to unlearn all the teachings of Zionism, so we must be patient. To that I ask: what about having empathy for Palestinians? Why should Palestinian Americans have to put up with people "trying" to unlearn their biases while their family back home is starved and slaughtered. Why are Jewish feelings more important than Palestinian lives? Why should we tolerate people who celebrate pager bombs that maim and kill children? Why should we be patient with people who preach how their bombs are liberating women in Iran by killing them? Why should we be civil to people who will get out lawn chairs and party while watching their rockets descend on Gazan hospitals, schools, mosques, apartments, ...? It is disgusting that this even needs to be said.

Fuck everyone who can look at the bodies of so many children and then talk about how complex the "situation" is. Fuck everyone who talks about the rise in antisemitism. Fuck everyone who called me a Trump supporter for begging for change. Fuck everyone who decided that "Never Again" was too politically inconvenient. Fuck everyone who made me feel like demanding an end to this is somehow betraying my trans sisters. Fuck everyone who tries to make me feel like it is radical to want the people who supported this genocide to have consequences for their actions. Fuck everyone who made me feel guilty for caring. Fuck everyone who has enabled this to continue.

There will never be justice. When the genocide is over — when everyone who isn't Jewish, who isn't a "savage", is removed from Palestine — that's when they will take down their sign. They will pretend to have never supported it. They will claim they didn't know how bad it was. They will proclaim that Netanyahu took it too far. They will assert their family members that served were just following orders. No one will challenge them. No one will punish them for their endorsement, their support. And just like the rain pouring over the sidewalk, erasing all evidence of the chalk that once marked it, their complicity will forever be washed away and forgotten.

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