The City of Seattle commissions a crazed, incitement-filled antisemitic article on its government website.. Two days later a synagogue is desecrated.

Front Porch is an online magazine run by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, part of the City of Seattle.

They write, "In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, we invited journalist, Luna Reyna, to curate a series of stories to amplify and honor the people and experiences of Seattle’s Native American community." At the end of the article they write that these stories were commissioned - meaning almost certainly that seattle tax dollars were used to pay Luna Reyna toi write these articles.

One article, "Land Back from Turtle Island to Palestine," drew analogies between Native Americans and Palestinians - and is filled with antisemitic lies. 

It includes these three astonishing paragraphs in which every single sentence is a lie.

Israel is a settler colonial state that has embraced erasing the people who inhabited the pre-colonized land through violent resource extraction, environmental desecration, displacement and genocide. Israel has accomplished this through widespread dehumanization. Palestinians have been called “human beasts” and “children of darkness” who live by the “laws of the jungle,” while settlers are told they have the “right” to the land based on the Book of Genesis, resulting in at least 120,286 Palestinian people being murdered by the Israeli government and settlers in just the last 15 years.

It’s important that we acknowledge the throughline of settler colonialism globally and the impact that continues to have on the Land that each of our nations stewarded since time immemorial.

Being in solidarity with Palestinians who want to remain in their homelands does not equate to condoning the actions of Hamas or any violence. Context is also important. Hamas was created after decades of violence by the occupying Israeli government. The cruelty, violence and bloodshed of Palestinian people by the Israeli government has been unconscionable for over 75 years. It’s this occupation, the tactics of a colonial military backed by world powers, and now the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza, that many Native people connect with. There is a direct correlation with the tactics used by the occupying Israeli government and the U.S. government to the Indigenous people of what is now the United States.

Where to begin? Israel is not settler-colonialist. Zionism is an indigenous rights movement. It is not based on promises in Genesis but on the very deep emotional  and historic attachment of Jews to the Land of Israel. Even if you accept the most absurd accusations of the Hamas government, Israel hasn't killed anything remotely close to 120,000 Palestinians in the past 15 years - or the past 75 years, for that matter - and most of those who were killed were terrorists. The ""context" given indeed justifies Hamas violence. And even the context is wrong, since anti-Jewish violence in Palestine was there long before modern Zionism. 

All of these lies are pure incitement against Jews and Judaism which centers our prayers and practices on Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish homeland that pre-dates Arab control of the area (and, indeed, Islam) by many centuries. 

If these lies and incitement were published in a college newspaper, it would be bad enough. But despite the article's disclaimer that "the opinions expressed and information contained herein do not necessarily reflect the policies, plans, beliefs, conclusions, or ideas of the City of Seattle," the fact is that this article officially commissioned by the City of Seattle is incitement against Jews and Jewish beliefs. it makes it open season on proud Jews. 

And this is not theoretical incitement. Seattle's anti-Israel rhetoric directly leads to antisemitic violence in the area.

The day after this article was published, the City Council in Seattle had a five hour meeting in which the main topic was bashing Israel. 

The day after that, a synagogue in Mercer Island right outside Seattle was desecrated and covered with anti-Israel, antisemitic graffiti.

This isn't "anti-Zionism." This is antisemitic hate. This is a hate crime against Jews. And it is all supported by the incitement that the City of Seattle not only allows but directly encourages.

Jews in Seattle are simply not safe. And instead of protecting them, the city is encouraging the attackers by justifying their hate of Jews. 

(h/t Mike Report)

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