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=== about my name and the middle east
i have hindu loved ones, and a heritage touched by predominantly secular judaism. i know there is rising anti-semitism going around, but i do not support right-wing zionists.
really the best take i can offer you on this is to watch michael rubenfeld, a polish jewish youtuber, because we seem to have an essentially identical take on it.
he supports israels right to exist- but like many left-leaning jews, he is against the recent atrocities. this is not the same thing as supporting hamas. the people who conflate international human rights with supporting hamas are the very far right that monopolises the discourse on this issue.
im not writing this to try to change anyones mind. however, i think its the right thing to do to address this.
i certainly didnt choose my name based on the company that shares it. the novelty would ordinarily appeal to me, and i would love to try their cosmetics, but not at this time.
in 2021, the lead designer for zara made some extremely hateful and unjustifiable comments towards a palestinian model, about palestine. the company took the right stance on the issue, but did the absolute minimum they could have done about it- that probably wasnt enough to satisfy most people calling for a boycott at the time. at the time, i did not hear about this.
more recently, zara pulled some advertisements that were extremely questionable- id prefer to use more colourful language here, though a goal for this particular gemlog is to avoid that. pulling the advertisements was the right thing to do, but they really should not have passed approval in the first place. i am not calling for, but nonetheless support a boycott of the company over this.
my position on the conflict doesnt require a great deal of nuance- the situation calls for that, to be sure. my position however, is simple. in 1948, albert einstein and hannah arendt- with a number of other left-to-possibly-centre-leaning jewish intellectuals, wrote an open letter to the new york times condemning right-wing zionist political figures, comparing them to fascists.
this world we live in may not be the sanest possible, but sadly it is the sanest world we have. as such, the job of every "pro-israel" fascist is to conflate the notion of pro-israel with far-right policies. its not like ive never lived in a country that made the same sort of mistake.
im with einstein and hannah arendt on this- no more, no less.
im with the jewish left and the palestinian civilians on this. im with the people who turned their backs on michele taylor. but i reject the fascist notion that this means im against israels right to exist. it does not bother me that israel exists. it bothers me that it has long been run by the far right.
it bothers me, but does not surprise me, that the far right shirks its duties to both the international community and humanity. it bothers me that all of this is a great injustice to jews and non-jewish people alike, and i believe it is both acceptable and correct to question the merits of zionism- at the very least in this context.
i do not have a palestinian flag to wave, or any flag (i would wave a trans flag of course, if i had one) and i see this as a human rights issue more than an issue of palestinian statehood. it may of course be both, but where im coming from is simply anti-apartheid, pro human rights.
i feel the same way about israeli civilians, and these injustices and lack of safety are perpetuated by an extreme imbalance of power that has yet to be rectified. with that said, i dont pretend to have all the answers to such a vital question.
the people that einstein and arendt condemned in 1948 are still in power today. this is not a general take on all israeli government, it is a take on the far right leadership that has remained in power for all this time. even so, you do not have to take my word for it that i am not writing this to tell you what to think about it. i am writing it to state my own position, and just that.
i will boycott zara as long as their lead designer remains their lead designer, or remains at a similar or higher rank in the company. she is a hateful right-wing bigot, and the company appears to have spread propaganda against civilians already subjected to terrible atrocities. this is not a promise that i would ever do business with them if the designer left the company.
at any rate, this is the minimum that zara could to do have me as a customer.
as to why i chose the name i did, i looked at popular indian names, and looked for a name that was used as both a hindu and muslim name. zara is an arabic name that may be influenced by hebrew sarah (as one of the meanings of zara is "princess", which sarah is hebrew for) or a feminine form of zechariah, which is also hebrew.
in some ways its an ideal name, but of every name i looked at it was my favourite.
im not yet convinced that the company is as much of a problem as the sole designer. the fashion industry does abhorrent things to get attention and thus money, and seems to follow the maxim that "theres no such thing as bad publicity." i strongly disagree. the company itself may yet reach a similar conclusion.
i would be happy if zara manages to rectify this in the future. for now, i am done with the company before ive even started. i had more hope for them, simply because its fun to see your name up in big bold letters, and associated with helping people express their beauty- even if they are a big ugly corporation.
they certainly have a big ugly reputation right now, with those concerned for the future of palestine. i sympathise with all the innocent people, no matter where they reside geographically, whose lives are touched by unjust wars they never asked for, and never deserved. there is too much death, and too much injustice.
namaste, salam alaykum, shalom and good luck.
this work can be freely reused: (cc by 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
<3 zara