House Declairs Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism, Dividing Democrats Headline in the New York Times.
Were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world that is safe. President Biden
Calling for genocide of Jews doesn’t violate school policy, university presidents tell Congress headline in JewishInsider.
#BREAKING United States vetoes Security Council draft resolution that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and immediate and unconditional release of all hostages Tweet by UN News. We are the official United Nations News Service, a one-stop shop for all info related to the @UN and its agencies.
This has been a strange Holiday Season. For me, at least, but, I suspect, for a lot of people. I think the Israel/Hamas – I don’t want to call it a war, but no other name fits except massacre, so I’ll go with war – war has made everybody, especially politicians, but everybody who’s paying attention, slightly crazy. A couple of days ago, IfNotNow, a progressive Jewish group, shut down the 110 Freeway in the middle of LA to get a ceasefire in Israel/Gaza. Why? How can they think this will help their cause?
It seems to me that, if they are lucky, all they are doing is pissing people off. In this case, if any minds were changed, it was probably people changing from backing a cease-fire in Gaza to a position of “bomb those arrogant bastards.” It got me thinking about groups or individuals doing things that will probably result in the opposite of what they want.
To slightly change the subject, I’m sort of surprised how many young Jewish people, especially in the United States, are against the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. One answer, as pointed out by Ezra Klein on his podcast, is that different Jewish-American groups grew up with different Israels. The older Jewish Americans, like President Biden, grew up with an Israel that was the underdog. Outnumbered, with Muslims all around the tiny state, that Israel had to struggle to stay alive.
But, sometime after the Six Day War, in June of 1967, in which Israel beat the snot out of the Arab aggressors and greatly expanded its territory, Israel became the dominant power in the region. Younger Jewish Americans grew up with that Israel, the dominant Israel. They grew up with an Israel that had nuclear weapons and the most potent military in the Eastern Mediterranean. They also grew up with an Israel who is an abusive neighbor steadily taking away Palestinian land while touting a two-state solution. The result is that many, maybe the majority, of younger Jewish Americans – who were raised on a doctrine grounded in a deep commitment to justice and dignity for all people, to quote IfNotNow – look upon Israel as the oppressor in this conflict.
I also don’t understand what President Biden was trying to say when he said, “Were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world that is safe.” He can’t mean that the United States will not protect its Jewish citizens.
Speaking of changing minds in the wrong way, I don’t understand the Republican House impeaching – or sort of impeaching – President Biden. Everything I’ve read says that both President Trump’s and President Clinton’s ratings went up when they were impeached and not convicted.
Anyway, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah – or Hanukkah, if you prefer – Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Solstice. As dark as the days seem now, the light is coming. It always does.
Re Were there no Israel, I think it’s just one or those politico-sentimentalo-stupido remarks politicians make. If I think on a personal level, and my travels throughout this world, and my life in Portugal and now in France, it’s even more bizarre and plain wrong.
It’s been driving me crazy too. Why don’t they see (on both sides) that their actions only create a bigger divide and more hatred. If it’s not Hamas it’ll be another antisemitic group. And invading like Hamas did will always create this kind of response- staggering destruction. And it doesn’t work. Even if one side “wins” – the destruction is so complete there is nothing to win. Thousands have died for nothing. Maybe this has always been true? War doesn’t work.
I commented on my blog about growing up admiring Israel [as all Americans were taught], having friends who lived on kibbutzes in gap years, “making the desert bloom” without being told how the Jordan River, returned to its banks after agricultural diversions, was rendered a polluted trickle if anything, buying into all the other propaganda/shit despite mounting evidence of how badly behaved the country was as a political entity until the late eighties when Luz studied the origins and original documents his first year in high school woke me up up to the reality, cruelty, cynicism and hypocrisy of the entire program from its Zionist inception. Not the Jews’ fault as the whole deal was inherent vice incarnate, leading to one corrupt lying government after another which have gotten more corrupt, cynical and hypocritical with each iteration. Admittedly fanatical belief systems don’t help much, either, nor a lying worldview of their history [eerily analogous to our own parallel realities of the “lost cause” or Trumpism]unless one is looking to perpetrate a genocide. Anyway…Happy Solstice!