Fucking Apes

Sooo...Jerusalem, huh.

My pet theory is that everybody secretly or openly hates Jerusalem. I think everyone really wants some adult to step in and say, “If you two can’t share then no one gets it!” Because we’re trying the King Solomon version where everyone gets half and it’s just getting more people killed.

People have been fighting over it for 3500 years or something, and the past 1500 has been all Christians, Muslims, and Jews killing each other. People say it’s in the name of religion, but I’d argue we’re more in Hatfield and McCoy territory. They’re just fighting over Jerusalem cause that’s what their parents did, and their parents before them, all the way back and back to people who thought a box held a contract they wrote up with the creator of the universe. For real. Lotta people dying over some dumb shit. Jerusalem is like if we were still fighting in Vietnam and Nixon was president for life/God King.

Israel’s a weird situation to talk about because what we’re really talking about is how do you apologize for genociding?

The answer to that question regarding Native Americans is obviously “fuck them over and steal their land forever and ever and sometimes apologize by giving them more land but then fuck them over again by taking it back.” I hate America. I mean, I don’t.

A lot of the issue with talking about Israel is how quickly and how often anti-semitism is in the mix. So to clarify my position: I hate religion as a whole, I don’t hate Jews, but I do hate Israel’s government. Netanyahu and his band of assholes have created an apartheid state. The people of Israel didn’t. Trump and his band of murderers have committed every atrocity they think they can get away with and apparently that’s all of them, Americans didn’t.

But enough people voted to give these two men power, so aren’t they responsible, too? If you voted for Trump, aren’t you responsible for increasing the number of civilians killed with drones (same for Obama)? If you voted for Netanyahu, aren’t you responsible for the systematic murder of Palestinians? I really don’t know.

Does it matter what the motive is? The people who voted for Trump are all either stupid or evil, are both equally responsible? I don’t know.

One thing I do know is that the Jerusalem situation we’re in now follows the same pattern the Jerusalem situation always, always has. Jerusalem is the worst of human government. Jerusalem is the dangling keychain held in front of the poor by wealthy men robbing them blind.

The story always goes, “It was a time of unrest. It was a time where the difference between those with and those without could not have been higher. The people felt betrayed by the leaders that put them in this situation. They needed the situation fixed. Then a man arose who said that he can do it. And then he fucked it up because it was never his intention to do a god damn thing for them. But then he says there’s an even stronger man who can fix it and all you have to do is trust him. So everyone starts killing each other.”

Who’s responsible for this? Isn't our real issue is that we are apes, incapable of rational thought when we’re afraid? Are we ever going to be capable of advancing past our Jerusalems, our Meccas, our Flags?

The question I really want the answer to, though, is why aren’t we all these apes? Why is it that I, and probably you if you’re reading this, don’t have these prejudices and fear-based reactions? If we are capable, is everyone? Or are we doomed to die by half the population's inability to evolve?

I suppose what I’m really saying is fucking apes are running global foreign policy.