This essay may appear to be addressed to the majority opinion onsite, but it’s not. It is strictly a matter of convenience. Without both “sides’ in the discourse, “we’re” just talking in an echo chamber…
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So this is how it happened, I’d been thinking about how to write about all this Israel stuff, and I was joking around on some racey little thread, silly sexy jokes. So I went to youtube to find a song about wishful thinking but I didn’t know any in particular. And one of the first hits that came up was a song I’d never heard of called “Hiroshima” by a band named Wishful Thinking. It was strange because when I think about the state of Israel in relation to recent history, far more than the Holocaust Hiroshima is my central image, and I’d planned to explain why somewhere in this series… Stranger still because I’d just posted , examining the fact that children who are abused by their parents often abuse their own children and others as adults, and studying in particular the childhood of Adolph Hitler, postulated what she termed alliance with the agressor. Surprisingly, she felt that the roots of the phenomenon were existential, that a psychological mechanism of a kind of giving a seal of approval to the parents by taking on their role, prevented them from having to face an existence which would otherwise be too cruel and meaningless to bear. It is also well-known that torture victims often abuse their children, or anyone else they can get their hands on. As fate and the four winds of history would have it, the Israelis have the Palestinians.
Zionists will claim that the Palestinians have also committed depredations upon the Israelis, and they are correct. In actual fact, even before the massive immigration of Jews following World War II, unprovoked violence had been perpetrated against the settlers.. However, the particulars of who threw the first stone are unimportant to me.. It is only natural that in such a situation, both parties have thrown many first stones. I am only concerned with the present, and at present it is an incontrovertible truth that Israel is top dog, .has far more military might, is backed by the most powerful country in the world, and uses excessive force. Israel has allied itself with the aggressor.
This is something very difficult to face for a people who have suffered so much , who have one of the greatest ethical traditions in the world, and who believe so fervently in their nation. But there is nothing shameful in shame, and this collective shame must be faced by Zionists if peace is ever to be achieved. Almost all humans desire peace above all else, and. once clear progress toward peace begins, shame will rapidly turn into pride. Due to my upbringing and previous beliefs, and my failure until recently to have been proactive enough, I have a share this shame. But Truth and Reconciliation is the only hope. And in the current climate, this process can only be initiated by Israel.
And well, now you too will say to me this and that. You will talk about American Imperialsm and how Israel is the pitball and is the tail now wagging the dog? and the war economy,and I will say yes, it is true, I know, it is terrible. You will tell me about the “Holocaust Industry” and I will say yes, you are absolutely right (but what about the “’Holocaust Industry’ Industry”?) About rotten Zionist terrorist leaders who were in Palestine way before the Holocaust. You will say many things, say this particular and that, and probably I know them and probably I will agree. But for me, this “Nazi State of Israel”, as some of you so love to call it, remains first and foremost a state of mind. It is the coalescence, the densest manifestation, of where we have arrived in our evolution, and human evolution must always be toward greater consciousness, greater Mind. Otherwise it is devolution.
Thus Israel embodies the great question of whether we are to transcend patriarchy,. which will determine how we survive as a species. Israel is our great challenge. I believe Iran shares this pivotal role. But in Iran the problem manifests itself primarily in tthe emancipation of women the breaking away from patriarchal religion, while in Israel it manifests as the relinquishing of territorial claims and the laying down of the weapons themselves. And so when I see these two nation states yapping at each other like dogs, it doesn’t really surprise me. And when I think of the words of the prophet Isaiah inscribed before the United Nations and written out of praise for the Achaemenids, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,” this does not surprise me either
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So the question of Israel is The Question, The Problem, has been for decades and will remain so for some time to come. For as long as we go on our little vacation indignation junkets now and then when the big shit hits the fan, and relax doing our laundry during the long lulls between ceasefire and explosion .
How we cope with Israel, how we tame her and how we ultimately will have to judge her will shape in no small part I think the direction of our future.Because Israel is Enola Gay’s darkest daughter, but we are all the children of Enola Gay.. And our father is the gruesome 20th century, is patriarchy itself. In judging Israel, we judge humanity itself. And if we forget that for one moment I personally believe our future is hopeless.
That is my opinion as one of many non-Zionist Jews.For the rest I cannot speak.
