PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
`
As a Jew I must speak out against Israeli behavior.

After the Holocaust, Jews roundly proclaimed "never again!"
I was proud when I first heard the phrase: it signified a great lesson had been learned, we'd be forever vigilant against genocide. Then I learned about all the genocides since, from Cambodia to Rwanda to Bosnia... and I'm appalled at the silence which supported them, saddened to find "never again" only applies to genocide against Jews.

Now Israel talks openly of "eliminating" and "destroying" Hezbollah, which seems to be loosely defined as anyone in southern Lebanon without the ability to flee. Some Israeli soldiers explained their mission to a reporter:

"Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing." Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see." http://tinyurl.com/r3ncc

Of course, there's also the forgotton story of the southern front, all the bombs falling on Gaza... http://tinyurl.com/k28wn

Back to the northern front: why is U.N. Resolution 1559 [calling for Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah] so sacrosanct over the dozens of resolutions Israel has defied (or triggered by their actions) over the years? Teevee don't mention dem, but Wiki do: http://tinyurl.com/efdqh

How could Lebanon possibly be expected to disarm Hezbollah?

Israel occupied Lebanon for 18 years! Not only was the strongest military in the region unable to disarm Hezbollah, they fucking created Hezbollah! The original 1982 invasion - to rout the PLO - and subsequent 18 year occupation led directly to the formation of Hezbollah! When Israel could no longer maintain occupation, they tucktailed and ran from Lebanon with Hezbollah at their heels... and with the Lebanese people cheering. Seems many Lebanese didn't like living under Israeli occupation for nearly two decades, go figure.

So, the "Party of God" chased out the "Chosen People", and developed quite a following in the process. Israel doesn't take kindly to such humiliation, and now they've manipulated events to allow the wholesale destruction of much of Lebanon's infrastructure (and most structures), not to mention all the lives lost and a million refugees... all under the auspices of "eliminating Hezbollah".

How could this war have started - as the teevee keeps sayin`- with the abduction of the Israeli soldiers, when three days before the first soldier was abducted, seven members of a Palestinian family were killed by an Israeli airstrike while enjoying sunshine on a Gaza beach...

"Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that Friday's deaths had changed what he called "the rules of the game", and that Hamas suicide attacks could resume." http://tinyurl.com/n6olk

Video of a young girl who survived the airstrike - weeping over her family's dead bodies - was shone far and wide across the Arab world. It's pretty disturbing: http://tinyurl.com/pbj4z

That was the end of the fragile cease fire that'd been holding for a while! Again and again, Israel violates a truce, the "terrorists" respond, and all televisions refer to THE RESPONSE as the beginning of the conflict with nary a mention of the truth.

The bush crowd? They WANT armageddon! That's not conspiracy theory, that's their fucking worldview! That's the plan Stan. A wise man named Isaac, the first guy to ever tell me who karl rove was - warned me soon after bush took power that in the end, the administration would abandon Israel. Think about it, if you want to finish what hitler started, what better way than to have Jews all gather in one small space. Zionists never seemed to consider, even after the into-the-ghetto-then-off-to-slaughter scenario they'd just been through, that grouping together in one spot perhaps wasn't wise.

Why Jordan doesn't have to give up any land though is beyond me. It only seems fair, they've got more than half of the pie from the original split, shouldn't they have to cede some? Why is that never on the table? Shouldn't a monarchy have to give up some land for two democracies? The king and queen are supposedly so wise and just, so why don't they just help out and ensure both sides of the two state solution have enough land for their people. Then we could have peace, perhaps.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times Israel destroys Lebanon, the situation won't change. They can nuke Iran, but they cannot beat Hezbollah. Hezbollah is an idea, which is strengthened by every arrogant Israeli action. And its roots go way back...

A peculiar man named Abraham married his half-sister, Sarah.

"And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife."~ Genesis 20:12

For some reason (go figure) the siblings had a hard time conceiving a child. So, Sarah offered her handmaiden Hagar's womb to Abraham, and Hagar bore Abraham's first son, Ishmael. Then, as luck would have it, Sarah got pregnant afterall. From that point on, Sarah's son Isaac was favored. Jews are descended from him. Ishmael, on the other hand, was shunned...

"Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."~ Genesis 21:10

Ishmael and his mother wandered the desert and nearly died of thirst, until they found a well near Mecca which is now one of the holiest sites in Islam. Muslims from around the world drink from it when they pilgrimage to Mecca, and it has yet to run dry. Mohammed is said to've been directly descended from Ishmael.

As for Abraham, a voice (attributed to God) in Abe's head told him to kill Isaac (although the Islamic version says it's Ishmael who was nearly murdered). The voice changed it's mind at the last moment, and Isaac (or Ishmael) was spared. What would you do if you witnessed Abraham almost kill his son based on a voice in his head?

The guy was crazy. The voice ended up deciding it would be a good idea to cut off part of all Jewish penises, and there was no last minute change of heart, unfortunately, on this one. It must've been one powerful voice, because my foreskin was sliced off thousands of years later. Not exactly fair. Neither is the stock justification: "Babies are so young, they won't even remember the pain." As if that degree of trauma to a newborn's penis leaves no scar on the psyche.

Anyways, Isaac married his cousin and they had 12 sons, the twelve tribes of Israel. "Laws" were instituted to assure intermarrying within the family. There was a reason for this - remember that one of the complaints of anti-Semites is that Jews will do anything for money - the reason marrying within the family was "commanded by God" was to keep inheritance within the family! Don't take my word for it, it's in the Torah:

Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe must marry someone in her father's tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits.' ~ Numbers 36:8-9

Fast forward a few millennia...

It's well known that the book which claims the land of Israel was promised to the Jews, was WRITTEN BY JEWS!!! Worldwide, few people - other than politicians, pro-Israeli Jews, and hard core Christians who believe the bible is the unquestionable word of god - actually believe Jews have some godgiven RIGHT to land they keep taking from people. Sure, it has been taken from them too, but they, well, started it. Land of Canaan? Ever wonder what the Hebrews did to the Canaanites to get their land? In a word: genocide. In fact, over and over through the torah, Jews committed genocide...

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.' So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land." ~ Numbers 21:34-35

Especially heinous is what the Israelites did to the Midianites at the behest of the God of Moses, according, of course, to what Moses SAID God told him [how very george bush of him]. The Midianites were a tribe the Hebrew hierarchy didn't approve of, the story goes that Hebrew males cavorted with Midianite women, and it seems Moses didn't like the usurping of his control, so...

"...they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males... And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, And they burnt all their cities..." ~ Numbers 31:1-11

But that wasn't enough for Moses. When the Hebrew army returned to base camp, Moses was mad at them for not killing the women and boys, so the order was given:

"'Have you allowed all the women to live?' he asked them. 'They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.'" ~ Numbers 31:15-18

Now, I wonder if the plague the Midianite women brought was metaphorical - perhaps they enticed the men to worship pagan goddesses and turn their back on the strictly enforced word of yahweh - or maybe it was literal, perhaps a venereal disease. In either case, it's a bit of an overreaction to massacre all the men, women and boys. Not to mention the idea of taking all the virgin girls as spoils of war. Hard to put down Muslims for a violent past when that's in your history.

Of course, when most Jews tell the story of the Jews, it's all about "The Long Storied Oppression of the Jews" and "Woe is The Plight of Us Poor Oppressed Hebrews". I've been hearing it all my life.

Turns out there's more to the story than Jews always being victims. And now - with one of the most heavily armed militaries in the history of the planet methodically destroying people who's most sophisticated weapons have practically no guidance systems and fall into open fields more often than not - for Jews to dare play poor oppressed victims is shameful!

I heard a Rabbi call into a radio show from Israel the other day. When asked how things were going, he said: "We're returning the fire." Really?!?!? Is that what's going on? Bullshit. This time the Jews are Goliath, and Hezbollah/Hamas are David. David doesn't have much of a chance on paper, but this shit's fo` real this time, this ain't bein` fought on paper. Nukes may very well fall one way or another before this is done.

The fact that so many Jews are ignorant of the root causes of anti-Semitism is a main cause of anti-Semitism! Just a bit of humility, just a touch of humbleness, some sense of responsibility once in a while would be nice. The Palestinians need a homeland. The Jews, who were relocated onto Palestinian land after the holocaust, MUST offer a fair deal to the Palestinians for the "two state solution" to actually work.

The process of working out a fair deal came pretty close to succeeding in the mid 1990's... until the Israeli prime minister, Yitzak Rabin, was assassinated in 1995. He was killed because he was trying to offer a fair deal... just like Abe Lincoln being killed before reconstruction. The hardliners didn't want to make a fair deal, so they had to eliminate the leader who was trying to do so. After Rabin's death, his successors repeatedly offered unfair deals, which they knew would never be accepted by the Palestinians. As for the United States in the late 1800's, well the 40 acres and a mule didn't exactly pan out, now did it? New president Andrew Johnson - senator from Tennessee, the only southern senator to not resign during the civil war - made damn sure the good ol` boys did pretty good for themselves in his version of reconstruction. Seems assassination pays pretty well.

As for the war at hand, offering someone 93% of their half while refusing to even discuss the right of return or compensation for the houses taken from them is NOT a fair deal. Yet, that was the best deal offered. It would've meant a Paletinian homeland divided by walls, protected roadways, and checkpoints. And everyone knows movement between the Palestinian areas is forever limited by Israeli security concerns.

But Israel refuses to go back to it's pre-1967 borders. They'er so stubbornly against it that Saudi Arabia got the entire Arab world to agree to recognize Israel's right to exist if they'd just go back to those borders, and they won't. There'd be peace if they did, but they won't.

The Israeli position that "right of return" would mean the "end of Israel" could be resolved by simply paying the Palestinians for the houses and land Jews took from them! It's not like Israel can't afford it. This was a compromise the Palestinians were willing to entertain, but Israel simply won't discuss it. Israeli hardliners, emboldened by U.S. neocon warprofiteers, have no plans to work out a fair deal. They want complete victory over Canaan yet again.

It's an often repeated Jewish mantra that "The fighting will stop when Arab mothers love their children more than they hate Israel." This grossly misleading catchphrase sickens me. It smacks of such moral superiority, as if the true cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is uncaring Arab mothers. Such salt in the wounds of women who are suffering so horribly under such merciless bombardment and strife.

Much of the world sees the double standard of the greater value of Israeli lives - and the lopsided casualty ratio - which only serves to inflame anger towards Jews around the world. If Jewish behavior (a flurry of prominent Jews demanding the blacklisting of Mel Gibson over a drunken rant while Beirut burned, for instance) doesn't change, anti-Semitism won't go away.

You can't just move into someone's neighborhood and say "I think we'll take the coast, why don't y'all move back behind the Jordan river. Your holy city, well, we'll take that as well, didn't think we'd share it, didja? It's our holy city, and we're more important than you."

It must be recognized that the Palestinian people have legitimate anger over the way they've been treated. The results of relocating Jews to their biblical homeland after the holocaust must be examined with a critical eye focused on the truth of the matter if we're to ever move towards peace in the region. Jerusalem must become an international city. A three member governing body: one Christian, one Jew, and one Muslim, could govern Jerusalem, if it was done right. If it was done FAIRLY.

Ok, now perhaps my optimism runneth over...

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." - John Lennon