We whisper to each other, but not to you.
As I made my way back to Los Angeles from our Colorado Ski Vacation, the news of Israel retaliating with a Ground Invasion brought my vacation to an abrupt end. I find it startling that Bloomberg (the Mayor of New York City) is boarding a plane to the Middle East but Condoleeza Rice is silent. Israel has been bombed 90 times in the past few months, they’re hitting back. Hurts, doesn’t it?
I’m a Jew and a woman and the child of an immigrant. Not just any immigrant, but a German Jew born at a particular time. Is he a survivor? I don’t know, that’s his call to make, but I am the child of a refugee and the Granddaughter, Niece, and cousin of survivors. I thought everyone had family members with numbers tattoed.
I know that there are groups that want me dead, simply because I was born. I know that Hamas is one of those groups.
I have family in Israel. We have money in Israeli Defense Bonds. I’ve not made Aliyah, but simply because I am a Jew, Israel is mine. Israel is all of ours. It’s the cradle of civilization, and most of our stories begin there.
Do I want peace in the Middle East? Of course I do. Everyone reasonable wants peace everywhere, just sometimes there’s a little work to do first.
Let me give you the Operation Cast Lead scenario in Mommy Terms Script and then maybe it will make sense to you.
HAMAS: Hey Israel, take that! [and a bomb is sent into the south]
ISRAEL: Ouch, that hurt, stop it or I’m going to kick your ass.
HAMAS: No, you can’t because we’ll get the EU and the UN on our side [and then 88 more bombs are sent into Israel]
ISRAEL: Dude, I’m not kidding, I’m going to flatten you if you f*ck with me one more time. I’ve been working out, and it’s going to hurt.
HAMAS: Whatever, I’ll hide in a Mosque or a School House and then if you hit me, you’ll have to hit my wife and kids too. I’m going to make you look like a bully and then I’m going to tell on you.
ISRAEL: That’s your choice, I sure hope you decide against….. *bomb*
HAMAS drops the last bomb
ISRAEL brings out the army, which we all know is a force unlike any other.
HAMAS snivels that women and children are dying but never mentions that their “men” are hiding behind said women and children.
HAMAS asks for help from the International Community. The International Community has somehow forgotten their vows to never negotiate with terrorists and sends the President of France to advise HAMAS on the ins and outs of tailoring your uniform and baking baguettes in winter.
Okay, maybe not the baking.
Monday I’ll buy more Israeli Defense Bonds. Tomorrow morning I’ll explain to my children why war is sometimes necessary.
Bravo to you. I saw the news reports from Gaza begging the Israelis to “end the assault.” My immediate reaction? Stop sending bombs across the Israeli border. A no brainer, eh? To the day he died, my grandfather never carried a Roosevelt dime in his pocket. Why? Because my grandfather lost his entire family in the ovens while FDR was looking the other way. Israel has a right to survive.
Wow, how narrow minded some Jews are. Decreasing the land owned by the Palestinians, by force, killing as you wish, has brought about this hatred, hence the rockets that have rained down on Israel. There needs to be an “ADMISSION OF GUILT” of what has been happening for the last 40 odd years, with no retaliation, (only the last few years have been filled with retaliation) before there will ever be some sort of respect between the 2 groups. Only then will peace be possible. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
I pray for both sides, Israel opens its mind and eyes & the Palestinians kick ass
May I never see the day I become this condescending, this mired in Hollywood action-picture mentality, this blind to the fact that having suffered atrocities does not innoculate a people against the capacity to go on to commit horrors, this justified in presenting to my fully-trusting child some rationalization for why grown-ups should, in some instances, cause other children to suffer pain and loss, starve or die.