Coming Out
I am particularly sensitive to the situation of the Israelis because so many of my friends, students, and neighbors have deeply committed loyalties to this refuge for Jews who have been persecuted over the millennia, most recently slaughtered by the Nazis in the Holocaust, driven out of most Arab countries, subject to the always lurking anti-Semitism stemming from the letters of St. Paul directed in context against the competitor religion claiming Yahweh as its g-d, but later utilized by Christians to justify their contempt for Jews at a minimum to murderous pogroms in virtually every setting where Jews had sought refuge in the diaspora. I have nearly always found myself defending Israel in particular and Jews generally against oppression from the time I outed the Yale anti-semitism reflected in its anti-Jewish admissions policies and almost total exclusion of Jewish faculty in my undergraduate days in the mid 1950s.
Having said all this I am deeply bothered by the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis today which I follow with discomfort in the daily reports of peace workers there -- the various Israeli women's peace groups, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and others working to alleviate the horrendous conditions to which the Palestinians are being subjected in the name of curbing terrorist attacks.
It is pretty obvious that our recent attack on Iraq was stimulated by an unholy alliance of neocons bent both on controlling the oil emanating from the Middle East and in protecting Israel from the threats of attacks far more dangerous than just suicide bombing. Bush's claim that Hussein was supporting terrorism was nonsense so far as Al Qaeda was concerned. Hussein was offering small bounties sometimes to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He offered no direct threat to the U.S. and so our invasion and subsequent slaughter of so many Iraqis was done both on behalf of the oil interests -- and our Israeli allies. The most recent threat to nuke Iran follows this same dual standard pattern. Needless to say the Iranians would be mad to direct a nuclear attack at Israel with its reputed 100 at least atomic bombs ready to annihilate Iran should it launch an obvious direct attack thereupon. Shia is a self-punishing version of Islam, but the real threat along those lines from Muslim quarters lies with Pakistan which possesses both the bombs and the means to send them long distances per the most recent reports. Should our guy be displaced therefrom -- and we have put him in embarrassing positions that might stimulate a coup or assassination -- more than India would have to worry about possible supplies of weapons to terrorists as well as direct attacks from that quarter.
Having said enough above, my own bottom line here is that Israel and its supporters had better wake up to the fact that oppression of the Palestinians now carries with it the massive threat of the destruction of Israel by horrible means down the line. It is time that the Israelis stopped counting on a wall to protect them from the inevitable and got to it making peace with their nearest neighbors across the Green Line.
Henceforth I will be sharing information as it comes in from my peace friends on both sides of the Green Line. My sense as one who once trained for the foreign service, has been a journalist as well as a political philosopher, is that we who know the facts had better start spreading the word.
Along these lines I will share my sources of information here, there, and elsewhere. As a starting point I suggest that all read daily the reports coming in from other sources than the New York Times and Washington Post which are not adequate in this department. I keep up with a much wider array including but not limited to:
http://news.google.com/
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/
dailyemail@bbc.co.uk
Needless to say real peace in the Middle East mandates that it we achieve it ASAP in Israel/Palestine.
I don't think the 'Zionist Lobby' is running U.S. foreign policy, but the U.S. and Israel together have been straying into dangerous territory and we all need to be well-informed as to how very dangerous their joint conduct has become. So far as my Israeli friends are concerned, I am also worried about a right wing turn about in this country as our nut religionists prepare for Israel's destruction so that they can assure themselves a front row seat in heaven. Bush and Co. are not necessarily a guaranteed security blanket! It looks from here that oil is now increasingly front and center in their attention and dumping Israel rather than nuking Iran might just be a 'diplomatic' option this next few years. I am all too familiar with WASP anti-Semitism and Prescott Bush (grand dad) was most friendly with Hitler's Germany.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
Having said all this I am deeply bothered by the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis today which I follow with discomfort in the daily reports of peace workers there -- the various Israeli women's peace groups, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and others working to alleviate the horrendous conditions to which the Palestinians are being subjected in the name of curbing terrorist attacks.
It is pretty obvious that our recent attack on Iraq was stimulated by an unholy alliance of neocons bent both on controlling the oil emanating from the Middle East and in protecting Israel from the threats of attacks far more dangerous than just suicide bombing. Bush's claim that Hussein was supporting terrorism was nonsense so far as Al Qaeda was concerned. Hussein was offering small bounties sometimes to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He offered no direct threat to the U.S. and so our invasion and subsequent slaughter of so many Iraqis was done both on behalf of the oil interests -- and our Israeli allies. The most recent threat to nuke Iran follows this same dual standard pattern. Needless to say the Iranians would be mad to direct a nuclear attack at Israel with its reputed 100 at least atomic bombs ready to annihilate Iran should it launch an obvious direct attack thereupon. Shia is a self-punishing version of Islam, but the real threat along those lines from Muslim quarters lies with Pakistan which possesses both the bombs and the means to send them long distances per the most recent reports. Should our guy be displaced therefrom -- and we have put him in embarrassing positions that might stimulate a coup or assassination -- more than India would have to worry about possible supplies of weapons to terrorists as well as direct attacks from that quarter.
Having said enough above, my own bottom line here is that Israel and its supporters had better wake up to the fact that oppression of the Palestinians now carries with it the massive threat of the destruction of Israel by horrible means down the line. It is time that the Israelis stopped counting on a wall to protect them from the inevitable and got to it making peace with their nearest neighbors across the Green Line.
Henceforth I will be sharing information as it comes in from my peace friends on both sides of the Green Line. My sense as one who once trained for the foreign service, has been a journalist as well as a political philosopher, is that we who know the facts had better start spreading the word.
Along these lines I will share my sources of information here, there, and elsewhere. As a starting point I suggest that all read daily the reports coming in from other sources than the New York Times and Washington Post which are not adequate in this department. I keep up with a much wider array including but not limited to:
http://news.google.com/
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/
dailyemail@bbc.co.uk
Needless to say real peace in the Middle East mandates that it we achieve it ASAP in Israel/Palestine.
I don't think the 'Zionist Lobby' is running U.S. foreign policy, but the U.S. and Israel together have been straying into dangerous territory and we all need to be well-informed as to how very dangerous their joint conduct has become. So far as my Israeli friends are concerned, I am also worried about a right wing turn about in this country as our nut religionists prepare for Israel's destruction so that they can assure themselves a front row seat in heaven. Bush and Co. are not necessarily a guaranteed security blanket! It looks from here that oil is now increasingly front and center in their attention and dumping Israel rather than nuking Iran might just be a 'diplomatic' option this next few years. I am all too familiar with WASP anti-Semitism and Prescott Bush (grand dad) was most friendly with Hitler's Germany.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 12:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home