I had planned to write about the kitchen tonight, but I cannot. It seems so frivolous when held up against the events of this past week. The kitchen can wait.
I grew up with the myths and legends of both ancient and modern Israel. I know about revisionist history, two sides to every story, and how the truth lies somewhere in the middle of it all. But I also know a bit about the long term history of that strip of land, and the most important aspect that too many people refuse to admit is that Jews have lived here continuously for over 3000 documented years. Just as the French have lived in France, the Celts in Ireland, the Welsh in Wales, the Swedes in Sweden....the big difference is we have written history....like the Egyptians in Egypt, the Syrians in Syria, the Persians in Iran. We were a literate people very early on. And if the Five Books of Moses have a lot of improbable tales, it also provides the foundation for law in much of the Western World. Jews built Jerusalem and put the Temple there. In fact, 2 Temples. The place on which the Mosque of Omar sits is, was, and always will be The Temple Mount. Not the Church Mount or the Mosque Mount....the Temple Mount because even the Koran recognizes that the Temple was there first. Before Islam was even created. This is not a mystery shrouded in the mists of time; this is well documented history even without the spin. Of course, it is tough to miss those walls.
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| (Photo: Kobi Gideon, GPO/Flash 90) |
But on the morning of November 18th, as a group of Orthodox men were saying shacharit Amidah in a study hall in Har Nof, on the western...not the eastern....side of Jerusalem, two men came in with axes, knives, and guns. They attacked a group of guys in tallitot and tefillin, standing in prayer. What was their crime? Being Jewish? What about Zidan Sayif? His crime? Being a police officer who rushed in to save lives at the cost of his own. He was not a Jew living in Israel. He was a Druze living in the same land his family has always lived in, living as free citizens of the State of Israel.
Just like every other indigenous people in any other country, Jews have a right to live in their own land. 3000 years of documented history is a clue. That the only sovereign states to have ever existed on that land were three Jewish states....First Kingdom, Second Kingdom, and the State of Israel....is a big clue. Israelis of all kinds have a right to be safe in their homes, safe on their streets, safe in their schools, safe in the malls, safe in their houses of worship whatever they are....as do the Palestinians. Israel affords citizenship and civil rights to Jews, Christians, Muslim, Baha'i, whatever. It's a Jewish state with a Jewish calendar, but how is that different from Italy operating on a Christian calendar, or Indonesia using a Muslim calendar to mark its communal holidays and holy days? It's not.
What is different is that the stated goal of Hamas is to kill every last Jew in Israel. What's another dead Jews amongst friends, right?
What is different is that the stated goal of Hamas is to kill every last Jew in Israel. What's another dead Jews amongst friends, right?
The world will continue to turn a blind eye to the bloodshed in Israel and the Arab world until some madman gets a bomb and threatens to glass over everyone else. We ignore this at our own peril. Throw Israel under the bus, and you no longer have a democratic partner in the ME. Hand over more land to Hamas, and be prepared to add another brick in the wall of the new caliphate.
Why do groups like the BDS movement think that's an okay thing? Do they think they're gonna get a better deal under Hamas? They won't. They'll be treated like Jews and Christians no matter what they say or protest or claim. They don't get it. In fact, most of the world doesn't get it.
We are the canary in the coal mine. If they round us up and shoot us all in the head, it's not gonna stop with us. The Christians will be next. The "other kind" of Muslims will come after that. And the blood will run in the streets.
Reasonable People of the World, Unite! It's past the time to start saying no. Here, there, and everywhere. Y'know, there are a lot more of us than them. If we all stood together, we could change the world.
What we cannot do is remain silent.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Don't go shopping on Thanksgiving Day. That's all.
I agree that no person of reason and conscience can remain silent. Hamas is a political group that makes an appeal to westerners that it is the voice of Palestinian independence but it is also a religiously-inspired terrorist organization. It will never make peace with Israel and has as its sole goal the murder of every innocent person who is not Muslim or not sufficiently Muslim, alike; no different from ISIS in its "ends justify the means" approach to political power, Sam Harris (and Bill Maher) were attacked by many liberals as guilty of "Islamophobia" for raising the issue of the source of the terrorism practiced today by Islamic extremists. The religion of Islam cannot live peaceably with other religions so long as extreme fundamentalists follow the literal writings of the Koran. People in the west have gone through numerous historical periods of reform and liberalization so that most westerners (even the religious ones) do not live their lives based on the literal "truths" revealed in some past book written hundreds or even thousands of years ago when most people thought the world was flat and women were worthless for anything but birthing babies. We in the west are being played by groups like Hamas who appeal to our sense of fairness and morality. When we see the bloody results of the bombing by Israel in the most recent Gaza warfare, we want to see some moral equivalency. Why can we not see plainly that the reasons for Israel's actions are to protect its citizens (all citizens, not just Jewish) from such brutal terrorist attacks on innocent people as you have described and to destroy the tunnels built from Gaza to Israel built by Hamas for the sole purpose of dispensing killers among the general population of Israel?
ReplyDeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, you presented a significant message. I think your fourth paragraph was especially important. Keep up your good work. Lorraine Hertz
Yours, Lorraine Hertz
Hello, I came here via your link on the NYT, and appreciate your calm tone, and also sense of humor. I have a couple of questions:
ReplyDelete1. What would you have to say about the way Rachel Corrie was treated? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie ). If a young American girl can be treated in this manner, how do you think the local inhabitants are treated daily? Could this be a cause for how some of them react?
2. Using the logic of original inhabitants, should those of us who are not American Indians, give up our homes? and go where? Have you driven through some of the reservations out west? Should we not at least treat them slightly better, and improve their conditions?
1) Like Michael Brown in Ferguson, the events surrounding Rachel Corrie's death are not clear. When you put yourself in harm's way intentionally, it's because you are ready to _be_ harmed. The case has been appealed several times, and there is still another appeal pending. The question of whether or not she was seen by the driver of the bulldozer or the accompanying armored vehicle has been debated several times in the Israeli courts, and the prevailing research supports the idea that she could not be seen and this was a tragic accident. Unlike many of Israel's neighbors, this case continues to be heard and there are supporters on both sides. As for the local inhabitants of Gaza, well, their own government puts them at risk daily by using them as human shields and continually firing missiles from civilian locations like hospitals and schools at Israeli hospitals and schools. If New Jersey was lobbing missiles at Manhattan, what response do you think would be appropriate?
Delete2) Well, why not apply the same standard? Non-native Americans have only been on this land for about 600 years. The Native population has been here forever. The Jews have been in the land that is now called Israel continuously for 3000 years of _recorded history. Add to that the indigenous years _before_ writing. There has never been a sovereign state on that land that has NOT been a Jewish state (First Kingdom, Second Kingdom, and Israel) ; all other states have been conquering empires...Greece, Rome, Ottoman, etc. Doesn't that count for anything? Will you next tell the French that they must give up chunks of France to the newly arrived Muslim community to build their own nation?
Israeli Arabs have it better than any other Arab living under an Arab regime. They are citizens with all the rights that citizens have. They vote, they serve in the army, the serve in the Knesset. They go to school. university, can study whatever they want. They have freedom of expression, of the press, all that stuff. And just like Jewish citizens, if the actively engage in terrorist activities, they are arrested and go to jail. Name one Arab country were Jews have those rights. Or Christians for that matter.
No, Israel is not perfect and there is LOTS of room for doing better, but right now, it's the only democratic state in the that neighborhood. And if you don't want to take my word for it....do some reading about Arab Israelis.