‘You are a genocidal maniac’, is one of the first things I say to Moshe Rosenstein, a teacher and rabbi in Israel. Runs a school with 120 Jewish girls.

He told me Israel left Gaza of its own accord and only put a blockade in place after Hamas took over. Goes on to say that lots of folks in Gaza still live in luxury there despite of this blockade.

Wants me to look at a hashtag called ‘the Gaza you don’t see’

You get it, a monster.

Me, who actually cares about humans in open air prisons -whether luxury cars can be bought there or not- scrappy me who will defend the oppressed from any couch, chair, or occasionally, standing in a crowded bus or any place where I have a wifi connection, hit back:

‘I dare you to look at all pictures and videos of Palestinian children dying right now without you getting an erection, genocidal maniac.’

He disengages from our heated Twitter front.

‘Thought so. Muted’, are his parting words.

Maybe all Israelis have a tendency to underestimate their enemies lately, cause I have about ten other Twitter accounts to reengage from.

I log into the first one I can remember the password of and experience a sudden change of heart.

Paul tumbling from his horse on the road to Damascus comes to mind.

I don’t think I would be quite as aggressive if we could be having this conversation face to face. So I offer him to have a video call. I also ask to unmute me.

Moshe responds: ‘Putting my faith in humanity here.’

I take that as a yes.

Two weeks go by and no video call, though we add each other on Whatsapp.

His profile picture is a lovely picture of him and his family.

Half my brain goes: beautiful family picture. The other half goes: whose olive garden did they steal?

Ok, am exagerating, even I am not that radical.

He asks why I want to call and I say I want to hear things from his perspective.

The hashtag with the Gaza you don’t see did not impress me much, but it’s sufficiently different from what I am familiar with and so it does trigger a lot of curiosity about how Israelis are experiencing all this.

The trouble with the pro-Israeli voices that write me on Twitter is that their messages are rather tedious.

They: ‘you have low IQ’

Triggered me: ‘I speak 8 or so languages’

They: ‘I still think you have low IQ’.

Slightly exasperated me sends the IQ tests results of the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg to imply that having a relatively high IQ means very little to me, since it clearly doesn’t stop people from climbing to the top in a regime that promotes pogroms to smoothlessly run 24/7 death factories.

Someone else: ‘You are just an anti-semite’

Exhausted me: ‘Am fairly certain I have read more books on the Holocaust than you.’

Technically not conclusive proof am not an anti-semite, because, let’s face it, I could be reading those books like Ted Bundy read rape stories. You know, to get off on the horror.

That’s not the case though. I can very sincerely tell you that scenes from the Holocaust flash through my head almost daily. Some hitting me so bad I sometimes pinch myself to think of something else. Am having a flash of Jewish children standing in line to be gassed in winter and having to wait so long that their feet freeze to the ground. And then I think of my own son and I just wince in heartbrokenness. 

I was 11 when the teachers at my school let me take over the history class (my being friends with the son of the principle had something to do with it to be perfectly honest) and let me show pictures of piles of dead Jews or emaciated survivors to fellow class mates. One of them, poor Sophie De Winter, I will never forget her name, started crying, sobbing really, but the teacher told her she was obliged to look at what I was showing her. Very questionable pedagogy, looking back, I must say. Moshe teaches 120 girls, I should ask him. Anyway, to me my reading and watching quite a lot of stuff on the Holocaust – I can include a list in an appendix and it’s going to be a long one – absolves me from any accusation that I am an anti-semite.

Since I have been talking to my enemy I am not so sure anymore.

Maybe I have opinions influenced by views, emotions, associations that am not even aware of.

How did I get to be so staunchly pro-Palestinian for example?

(to be continued)