On a sunny, hot day in New York City, following a bizarre Zoom session with progressive peace-loving CODEPINK members, where one of the participants was booted out because she objected to the use of violence against Israelis, I go out for a walk. “Perhaps,” I say to myself, “the folks off-Zoom, flesh and blood, are less cruel.”
When I reach East 86th Street and Lexington Ave. on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I see a guy and a girl, both in their 20s. They are dressed in the yellow uniforms of Amnesty International, and they distribute flyers to passersby.
“You have a moment?” the guy asks me.
“For you, always,” I answer, like a well-bred New Yorker.
“We would like to talk to you about gun violence,” says he.
What he really wants, in a good NY spirit, is that I transfer some dollars from my bank account to Amnesty’s.
“I am more interested in Palestine,” I tell him, “than gun violence in America.”
“Oh, Palestine,” he says, he knows well, even more than gun violence. “I’m Palestinian,” he brags loudly and proudly.
“From what city in Palestine?” I ask him in Arabic.
“Could you repeat what you just said?” he asks.
“You didn’t understand what I said?”
“No.”
“I asked you, in Arabic, what city in Palestine are you from? Don’t you understand Arabic?”
“No.”
“How come that a Palestinian like you don’t know Arabic?”
He looks at the girl, who looks back at him, and says: “I’m not really Palestinian; I’m a Palestinian supporter.”
“Why?”
“Palestine is an ancient culture; it exists for many centuries!”
“How many?”
“Many! And then something happened.”
“What?”
“The Jews came and stole the land!”
“Where did those Jews come from?”
“All over! And they deported the Palestinians.”
“How did they do it, with tractors?”
“Worse! They oppressed the Palestinians and expelled them.”
“When was that?”
“Some years ago.”
“How do you know all this? “
“It’s all over in Google and social media. You didn’t see that?”
“I’m not into social media, but I have a colleague who is. He lives in Texas, and he told me that the gun violence in the USA is not because of lenient gun laws, as Amnesty might say, but because non-whites are violent people.”
“There’s no gun violence, he says, only violent, colored people. You’re not white, right?”
“You think he’s right?”
“I don’t, but he does. I asked him how come he says such things, and he said: ‘Everybody knows that; it’s all over Google and social media.’”
“I didn’t see that!”
“He watches different social media, I guess. You watch one kind of social media, and the Texan watches different social media. What do I know? Maybe both of you are right: Jews oppress Palestinians, and colored people shoot whites.”
He looks at the girl, who stares at him, and stops talking. Then, after a moment of silence, he says: “I get you. If I’m right, your colleague is also right. Is that what you’re driving at?”
“Maybe.”
“I have to check more.”
“Tell me, where are you from?”
“Ecuador.”
I bid the Ecuadorian well and go to Harlem.
What’s there? Marcus Garvey Park.
I’ve never been to that park before; but today, so I heard, they will have a “Gaza Kitchen” there, and I’m ready to join the party.
Yes!
Joining the Gaza Kitchen
I’ve lived in NYC most of my life, and for all those years I’ve known New Yorkers to be quite neurotic folks. But lately many of them seem to have found a purpose in life other than capitalism, namely Palestine, which makes them happier than they have ever been, and I want to be happy too.
And, to top it all, as far as I know they will have free food there. Free Gaza food – wouldn’t you like to join?
I enter the park and look at the people around. Here’s a white lady, or perhaps a man, having kind of a feminine face, but a little beard is growing out of this creature’s chin.
Next to her/him is another creature: a white woman with a Palestinian flag on her head, and a mask on her mouth. And look here: a fat lady wearing a big T-shirt that reads: “Fatties for a Free Palestine.” Isn’t it something?
The people here, mostly of the young variety, are Blacks, Hispanics, whites, and Asian, practically everybody, and quite a few of them wear the keffiyeh. They think, it seems to me, that the keffiyeh is a unique Palestinian scarf, which is not really the case. But they enjoy wearing it, even on this very hot day, almost 90 degrees, and who am I to object? It makes them happy; I can tell.
Now the question is: Where’s the food?
Oh yes, there it is!
I approach the food table, but it seems that it’s just a take-home food. Here’s a box of matzah ball mix, some cans containing crushed tomatoes, a few cans of sweet peas, and one can of diced tomatoes.
“Is that it?” I ask a lady who has all kinds of metals drilled into her face, with a keffiyeh on top.
“We have veggie burgers and some hot dogs, and they will be ready soon.”
A guy standing near me starts singing “Free Palestine,” and a chorus of keffiyeh-wearing youngsters sing back. They love Palestine!
There are some literature and posters, free for the asking, on various tables. America, I read in one of them, has by now given Israel $300 billion. In a free brochure on one of the tables, I read that the author demands that Israel cease to exist “by any means necessary.”
At a table to my right, I see a person who calls himself “E,” and he’s all for Palestine.
“What’s the story of this Palestine?” I ask him.
“Do you know the Balfour Declaration?” he asks me.
“What’s that?”
“Many years ago, a man named Balfour gave Palestine to the Jews.”
“How could he do it – did he own the land?”
“No! He was an army man, a fighter.”
“Where?”
“In Britain.”
“How did he manage to give them Palestine while being in Britain?”
“He was a powerful man!”
“Was there, at that time, a country called Palestine?”
“I’m not sure, but there were Palestinian people. Muslims, Jews, and Christians. They lived together, but Britain controlled the land and gave it to the Zionists.”
“Who were the Zionists?”
“Do you know of Herzl?”
“Who was he?”
“Herzl was a Zionist writer and a warrior. He started the whole thing.”
“How did the Zionists get to that land?”
“They came in from Europe.”
“Why did they leave Europe?”
“You have to ask them!”
“Wait a second: How did the Brits get there to start with?”
This detail, sadly, he doesn’t know.
“Who was there before the Brits?”
This, too, E doesn’t know. What E does know is this: Israel is committing genocide, and he’s willing to dedicate his time and resources to fight them.
“On your driver’s license, does it also say that your name is E?”
“No, it has a different name.”
“What name?”
“A state-issued name.”
“What is it?”
A young lady sitting next to him intervenes: “He doesn’t have to answer this!”
At a table on my left, I meet a guy who says his name is Brandy. He’s 22 years of age, he tells me, and last year he graduated from college with a degree in political science.
“Since I’m 11 years old,” he shares with me, “I’m supporting Palestine.”
His table is covered by a green cloth with Arabic writing all over it.
“What is this?”
“This is the flag of Hatam Brigades in Palestine.”
“Hatam? What’s Hatam?”
“Hatam!”
“Do you perhaps mean Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades?”
“Yes, exactly! That’s the one!”
“What does it say on the flag?”
“By any means necessary!”
He might believe this, but that’s not true. What’s written on the flag is this: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” But I don’t argue with the Hatam fan. Instead, I ask him: “Do you support Hamas?”
“Definitely!”
“I heard, tell me if I’m wrong, that in the October 7 war, Hamas men infiltrated Israel, murdered civilians, raped Jewish women, and burned little Jewish children. Do you support that?”
“By any means necessary!”
“You support that?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“Whisky.”
Whatever his real name is, I’m not learning much here. Luckily though, in this Gaza Kitchen everything is free, including a free class, given by a young couple, Olivia, “like in olive tree,” as she says, and Eren, who tells me that he’s an anti-Zionist Jew. I’m happy to make their acquaintance. All together, teachers and pupils, we are 10 souls.
We all sit on the ground as the people introduce themselves. Each at their turn, they say their names and their preferred pronoun. Meaning, SHE, HE, HER, HIM, THEY, or whatever. I choose IT. IT, like a cat. A girl next to me says that “I use any pronoun.”
Perfect. Both Eren and Olivia are climate activists, they tell us, partly because “climate change can lead to fascism.” The purpose of their activities, they say, is “to target Wall Street and private equity companies.” In general, they share with us, “Wall Street is responsible for genocide, for funding colonialism, and for funding projects that cause cancer.” No wonder why, according to them, “Citibank is the biggest foreign financial institution in Israel.”
At this very point a few people pass by us and happily sing: “Disability justice, and Palestine solidarity.”
Lyrically, this is not the most genius composition I’ve heard in my life, but if this makes them happy, who am I to object?
Once the singing is over, Olivia tells us that “the Israeli occupation is bad for climate.”
“How so?”
To start with, “Israel has a trillion-dollar credit card,” provided by Citibank, says Eren.
“What’s the connection between climate, Israel, the environment, and Palestine?” I ask.
“In the 1930s, sorry, in the 1940s,” Eren answers, “some Zionist groups worked with Australian engineers, and they were trying to drain the swamps on these lands. Swamps and wetlands are really important ecosystems because they’re basically traps for dead carbon. So, they’re very important for normalizing ecosystems, and they’re also important for absorbing heavy rain because swamps have a capacity, because of the poor soil, to pull in water. And as Israel was founded, Australian companies came in to dry the swamps in south Palestine.”
I remember, as a little kid growing up in Israel, being told that once upon a time Israel used to be a land full of swamps, with zillions of mosquitoes flying all over, and how happy I was that the swamps had disappeared before I was born. The little I knew!
The swamps, I learn now, were environmental gold mines being lovingly preserved by nature-loving Palestinians. And then the cursed Zionist Jews, armed with Citibank genocidal financing, arrived, and dried the land, turning it into a fascist, climate disaster center.
I get up, trying to collect myself. “What have I learned via my encounters with NY’s Palestinian lovers?” I ask myself. One little lesson, for sure: I will never be as happy as they are. I don’t like mosquitoes and I hate swamps. Period. How sad.
I walk around in the park, looking at all the various “pronouns” in it, and all I can think of is: These people, who know no history and make no sense, don’t really like Palestine or Palestinians. What they share with each other is pure hate for the Jew, and this includes the Jews among them who are Olympic self-haters.
I’ll have to find other ways to make myself happy, I think. How about if I take the Palestinian matzah ball mix with me on my way out? Yes!!■
Tuvia Tenenbom is a bestselling author whose latest book is Careful, Beauties Ahead (Gefen, 2024).