My last text to Kamala Harris

Madam,

It’s taken me 24 hours to recover enough from the spectacle of the Democratic National Convention to be able to write this. The naked Islamophobia was sickening. I woke up in a state of grief. 

You may proclaim yourself “heartbroken” about the loss of life in Palestine, but your actions, your rhetoric, and the Democratic platform say otherwise. The behavior of some of the delegates toward peaceful anti-genocide protestors was just despicable.

You have not been and you still are not willing to take the one step needed to be in compliance with U.S. and International law, with basic morality and ethics, and with the will of the majority of Democrats throughout this country: Stop sending arms to the genocidal, colonialist, apartheid state of Israel.

You are on the losing side. And NOTHING you do will prop up Israel forever. Those who know better than you—people more in touch with what is happening in Israel—agree that it is imploding from the inside. It is a weak, rogue state, economically bankrupt, riven with dissent and unmendable internal contradictions and now condemned by many of the world’s governments and people.  It cannot survive on its own and likely will not survive even with any amount of U.S. aid.

Netanyahu is a mentally ill fascist wannabe dictator who cannot be controlled by the U.S. He has proved that time and again. So even with all of your money, you have not bought him. You cannot buy crazy. You need a very different strategy.

You also seem to have no idea how outdated you and the party sound. I felt I was watching an episode of the original Star Trek where the pomposity and supremacism were on full display.

We are so sick of the narrative of U.S. exceptionalism and all of the self-congratulatory self-definitions and hearkening to some imaginary past to inform our vision for the future. Wow. So incredibly sick of this.

The actual behavior of your administration and the Democratic party are out of line, out of touch, outside of the law, and just outside of any human norms that I would vote for.

I just left the Democratic party this morning. I’m of Jewish ancestry and 68 years old.

I’m not sure who I’ll vote for, but you would need to undergo a massive change of heart and re-education if you want my vote.

I have learned so much during the 300+ days of this genocide. And many others have also learned and gained clarity about the U.S., American democracy, the occupation of Palestine, the history of Zionism and so much more. Our eyes are wide open now.

And I can say this with utter confidence: you and your neoliberal capitalist colonialist friends are the past. That is if the human race actually manages to survive you.

I pray that we do and that we have a chance to create an actually compassionate and just global culture for all of the beings of this world.