As the slaughter of the innocents over the past months continues in Palestine/Israel, I’ve tried to stick to my resolution not to write any more about that very un-holy land. (Use the topic search on the left side of this page to search for previous blogposts.) Alas, I feel the need and have made the judgment to break that resolution. There will be nothing new in what I say here, but the urgency is great.
So first, yes, what Israel is doing is genocide. And of course what Hamas did and continues to do is terrorism, barbarism, a betrayal of Palestinians, an incitement to war, and so on.
Yet I assert here that being Anti-Israel in the present, calling it genocide, hoping for a real ceasefire…none of these positions constitute anti-Semitism.
If there are Jews anywhere so identified with Israel that for them being anti-Israel is the equivalent of being anti-Semitic, then it’s their problem, their delusional nationalism.
There are some Jews whom I despise, one crook and an arrogant rabbi among others. Yet I continue to admire Jewish intelligence, morality, sense of citizenship (in this country and others). I’ve had and have many good Jewish friends and colleagues. And so on.
I have no wish to justify Hamas’ evil, yet I believe it can nonetheless be understood as a extreme response to what Jimmy Carter rightly called Israeli apartheid – its subjugation of a long oppressed people: from the moment the State of Israel was established by Jewish terrorists and their ethnic cleansing of the land (with the British looking the other way) unto today.
And on our dime. Damm Joe Biden, however many rosaries he carries in his pockets. It’s increasingly clear that he is a totally unrepentant cold-warrior. Never a military budget he wouldn’t support. Never a bombing raid he won’t approve. Never enough billions in military aid for the IDF. Paying for the murder of Palestinian children with our bombs and jets and missiles. Damm him. I not only voted for him last time, but gave $$ for his campaign. I was deluded. Not this time around.
So I’ll stop. More ranting won’t do any good.
I will read any responses anyone wishes to share. Just as I try to keep up with news and analysis from many sources. Little good that it does.
What hope I have for this world comes from prophets like Francis, and from hope that the kingdom Jesus announced will (and is being) realized through the power of His Holy Sprit. Even though I see its presence mostly in little things, and in glimmers around the edges of the so-called big picture.