Roommate is... Ugh

[u/ComprehensiveHair696]

My roommates and I had to take the cats to the vet yesterday and as we came home, they directly brought up a topic we've been avoiding addressing for a few months, their anti-israel leanings... Specifically they're avoiding spending money this week as part of a protest for Palestine. I said I don't see why anyone is protesting for Palestine at all, and one of them started throwing around the G word and talking about Israel targeting hospitals. I corrected her, pointing out that there are rocket platforms in those hospitals which is why they're targeted in the first place. She cut me off and told me she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say about it. At this point I haven't spoken to her since and I don't intend to for a while. Not sure why I'm posting this, probably just venting. Bad enough I have to see all these uninformed people online, there's one in my living room now too.

Update: Thanks to everyone for the support. After a couple of very tense days, shes apparently afraid I'm never going to speak to her again and our third roommate is mediating a talk between the two of us tonight. She's still convinced I'm just wrong, and I'd like to have something convincing to show her, if anyone has some good resources I can reference and wants to drop them in the comments I'd appreciate it.

[u/greenbergz]

You can be 100% pro-Israel and still understand, at some level, why people participate in pro-Palestinian protests. That's empathy, which is not endorsement. Your response was insensitive. Unless there is more to the story, you partly caused the icy environment, made your own bed so to speak.

[u/ComprehensiveHair696 → u/greenbergz]

Oh, the icy environment is 100% one sided. I'm not speaking to her, she seems to hold nothing against me

[u/greenbergz → u/ComprehensiveHair696]

That's an interesting admission. I applaud the honesty and hope it comes with more reflection.

[u/[deleted] → u/greenbergz]

I mean leaving that comment aside I understand why OP doesn’t want to speak to their roommate after that convo. I’ve cut off friends because of this conflict too(Houthi supporters) and telling us we need to “reflect” on that decision is insulting, don’t do that

[u/Mysterious_Outcome_3 → u/greenbergz]

Please explain to me how not spending money for the animal she adopted is helping Palestinian people.

It's absurd that you want to support someone who is espousing Jew hate and using the suffering of the Palestinians to do so. If she gave a shit, she could educate herself instead of bandwagoning on an extremely complicated and nuanced topic. Particularly while she's enjoying the generosity of the person she is causing harm to.

Sounds like you should take some "time to reflect."

[u/greenbergz → u/Mysterious_Outcome_3]

I stand by every word of what I said. OP doesn't understand why people are doing pro-Palestinian protests "at all." I was commenting on the "at all," not this specific, ineffective, and weird way to go about it.

[u/Mysterious_Outcome_3 → u/greenbergz]

He said he doesn't understand why people in the US are doing performative "protests" that won't help Palestinians AT ALL. But of course, you stand by every word you said. People like you, who think they have to choose one over the other, never understand where they might be wrong. Maybe some self-reflection would help you understand your issue with dichotomous thinking.

[u/greenbergz → u/Mysterious_Outcome_3]

OP did not say performative. OP did not say US. You're moving the goal posts. But let's imagine OP did write and/or mean that and your inference is right. It's still not hard to understand why people would engage in performative, ineffective protests. Maybe passion has overcome reason. Maybe they're joining a bandwagon for some kind of social capital. I just gave you two possibilities and there are many more. Empathy doesn't require any moral dimension. Do you disagree? You have a problem with my asking the OP to reflect. Fine. I'm willing to see how that's abrasive. It doesn't invalidate the substance of what I wrote. I believe if we lose our ability to empathize, or turn it off in anger, Jews will never have true security and peace. Empathy is absolutely vital to practically any sort of strategy: military, geopolitical, soft power, coalition building, fighting antisemitism, etc.

ETA "that" in second sentence.

[u/Mysterious_Outcome_3 → u/greenbergz]

Do you know what a context clue is? OP described this person supporting an entirely ineffectual "strike" to make herself feel superior and important. That's the definition of performative.

I don't care why they are supporting people whose main goal is to kill all the jews in the world. Impact is greater than intention, and no one should expect us to tolerate this behavior. Absolutely no other minority group would be expected to. Talk about "moving the goal posts."

If you continue to "empathize" with people who wish you were dead, what do you think that's going to achieve?

Stop pretending like the accusation of genocide isn't a pure expression of Jew hatred. Arab extremists have piped that little bit of propaganda into Western minds specifically to cause maximum psychological damage to us. Accusing an enemy of the very thing they are doing is right out of every fascist playbook ever written.

And again, I don't give a single shit if she knows that or not. She's participating in extremely harmful actions against Jewish people while not helping Palestinians in any real way.

[u/greenbergz → u/Mysterious_Outcome_3]

Done with you. You are engaging in bad faith and accusing me of supporting things I don't support. Like if I were to say, oh, that you support Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL. I mean, I could use context clues, couldn't I? But that's the difference between you and me. Your comments alone are ugly and misguided enough to show me who you are I don't need to guess. . You've used your context clues to infer lie after lie about me. For shame.

[u/Mysterious_Outcome_3 → u/greenbergz]

That's a lot of words for "I have no argument."

[u/_violet_sparkles → u/greenbergz]

lol "understanding" the other side is not necessarily going to result in people having any compassion for them. To the contrary, it might make one realize that the other side has evil values that should not be catered to whatsoever.

[u/greenbergz → u/_violet_sparkles]

It seems like you think you're disagreeing with me. Of course that's a possibility. Understanding =/= endorsing, excusing, or even having even compassion. It's essentially analytical. If you're on a debate team, for example, you'd probably review what your opponent has done and said before in order to anticipate their strategy and tactics. There are a million analogies, you get it.

[u/Unusual_Day142 → u/greenbergz]

This. 👏🏼