Online, Tears and Empathy for Israelis
Online, Tears and Empathy for Israelis
By DINA KRAFT
Israelis are giving voice to their thoughts and fears about
the latest Middle East fighting through Internet blogs and
forums.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/world/middleeast/23blog.html?th&emc=th
..................
Lest there be any misunderstanding as to where I personally stand on Israel/Palestine, I teach in a port of entry college. My classrooms are populated by students from virtually every part of the world. These include both Jews and Muslims. I care about them all. At the moment I most likely have some vacationing in Israel and dodging rockets from Hezbollah which I see as a brutally misguided offshoot of an otherwise decent religion -- army of God, indeed! What a shameful and hateful heresy.
My own personal wrath, thus, lies with our own national leaders who have arrogantly diverted our nation from peace-keeping to war-making. One of my daughters was proud to be a member of our military during the Clinton years, bringing peace as best we could to conflict ridden communities. She (and I) was relieved that she had changed her plan to do her medical training with the military prior to 9/11 and resigned and, thus, was spared the potential horror of leaving her young children behind to engage in the madness in Iraq which she (as I) despises -- how many "insurgents" -- or their kids -- did we kill today?
My response, then, to the younger generation is my hope that we can restore the U.S. to basic humane standards of conduct before it is too late, before too many lives are needlessly shattered by our crazies. As I said in a response to a former student (of many years ago) in a post a few minutes ago who was querying my apparent lack of concern for Israel -- the Bush administration has left Israel totally stranded to go it alone and the upshot is what we are seeing today. I would not know what to advise Israelis, facing rockets from above and increased hatred from the ground nearby. We should have carried through with the peace efforts in process with Clinton rather than launching a destructive and distracting war in Iraq.
--
"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://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
By DINA KRAFT
Israelis are giving voice to their thoughts and fears about
the latest Middle East fighting through Internet blogs and
forums.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/world/middleeast/23blog.html?th&emc=th
..................
Lest there be any misunderstanding as to where I personally stand on Israel/Palestine, I teach in a port of entry college. My classrooms are populated by students from virtually every part of the world. These include both Jews and Muslims. I care about them all. At the moment I most likely have some vacationing in Israel and dodging rockets from Hezbollah which I see as a brutally misguided offshoot of an otherwise decent religion -- army of God, indeed! What a shameful and hateful heresy.
My own personal wrath, thus, lies with our own national leaders who have arrogantly diverted our nation from peace-keeping to war-making. One of my daughters was proud to be a member of our military during the Clinton years, bringing peace as best we could to conflict ridden communities. She (and I) was relieved that she had changed her plan to do her medical training with the military prior to 9/11 and resigned and, thus, was spared the potential horror of leaving her young children behind to engage in the madness in Iraq which she (as I) despises -- how many "insurgents" -- or their kids -- did we kill today?
My response, then, to the younger generation is my hope that we can restore the U.S. to basic humane standards of conduct before it is too late, before too many lives are needlessly shattered by our crazies. As I said in a response to a former student (of many years ago) in a post a few minutes ago who was querying my apparent lack of concern for Israel -- the Bush administration has left Israel totally stranded to go it alone and the upshot is what we are seeing today. I would not know what to advise Israelis, facing rockets from above and increased hatred from the ground nearby. We should have carried through with the peace efforts in process with Clinton rather than launching a destructive and distracting war in Iraq.
--
"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://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 7:19 AM
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