La Femme Nikita (1990)

To be a fly on the wall during the Vatican Conclave Watchparty

“Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.”

— Blaise Pascal

I've noticed that zionists, especially Israelis see themselves as perpetual victims and are thus blind to whatever privileges they have in reality and the harm they cause or are capable of causing. They've created this narrative where the persecution of jewish people throughout history can be linked to criticism of the modern state of Israel, causing them to invoke the plight of their ancestors in 1800s Russia or feudal Europe or whatever.

To illustrate, I've seen a comment from a jewish zionist which compared the destruction of Gaza to the ten plagues of Egypt in the Exodus. The OP mentioned the concept of "Midah k’neged Midah" or "an eye for an eye", implying that like the Egyptians from the Exodus, Gazans brought their suffering on themselves for attacking the jewish people like how the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. They also said that such chaos and that the Torah states the Israelites celebrated Seder while the Egyptian firstborn were dying.

It brought me to mind an article I read sometime ago about how Purim can be used to teach people to reflect on their privilege, how rather than automatically seeing themselves as the good guys of the story Esther and Mordechai they should question what they have in common with the bad guys as people in positions of power and privilege. So maybe, jewish Israelis should reflect on what they have in common with the "bad guys" of the Torah.

Zionism has created this nationalist narrative where the ancient Israelites from biblical stories and history are the same as jewish people today, with Israeli jews being their modern direct descendants, so the idea that Israelis can be the oppressors and gentile Palestinians the oppressed becomes an unthinkable notion. But if you let go of identity politics you'll see that in reality, the modern state of Israel is built on jewish supremacy and dehumanizing Palestinians as "the other".

During slavery, enslaved black people saw their struggles and yearning for freedom in the Israelites in the Exodus, and Pharao as their slave masters. Palestinians have suffered nearly 8 decades of occupation, being forcibly displaced, massacred, having their homes stolen and being terrorized with impunity. They would not the Egyptians in the Exodus metaphor.

@stoptheantisemitism

@autistic-ben-tennyson

ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) | dir. David Leitch

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

— Marcus Aurelius

ANNE PARILLAUD as Nikita in La Femme Nikita (1990) (dir. Luc Besson)

“Your dad’s gonna be okay, Kid. You’ll see.”

Erotic fresco at the House of the Vettii in Pompeii.

I feel so bad for myrcella like imagine you're a 10 year old chess prodigy who only wants to be cute and hang out with her friends but you end up losing like half of your face because your boyfriend's hot sister convinced your newest father figure that you would be a good president (you would)

AND ALSO you and your siblings are doomed to die in childhood because your dumbass loser mother who you haven't seen in like 2 years received a cursed prophecy from a circus magician when she was a child (???) free myrcella man wtf