Although I'm not considered a Jew by Orthodox standards (I am by Reform Judaism standards) since only my father and his side of the family is Jewish, not my mother's... the bottom line is if I lived in Germany during the 1940’s with my last name as Cohen, my ass would be rounded up and put in a concentration camp before I had time to eat a latke. So, I write this with some semblance of authority.
After last week’s horrific slaughter of 60 Palestinian protesters (including 8 children) by IDF members, I’ve finally decided to speak my mind on the issue of Israel and Palestine. The entire debate has very simple solutions, and indeed, always had. One can certainly say that the way Israel was established in 1948 was the wrong way to go about it: bringing in displaced people to a land already occupied... but here we are exactly 70 years later, and it doesn’t look like either side is going to magically disappear anytime soon.
Quite honestly, this constant conflict is kept in place by the most degenerate representatives of the Abrahamic faiths. Not any one faith or its people in general, mind you, but the Jerry Falwells, the Benjamin Netanyahus, and the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads. One of these groups, the nationalistic Netanyahu faction, refuses to remedy the situation by simply assimilating the displaced Palestinians into Israel as citizens or even producing a two state solution. The idea seems to be that if the Palestinians became Israelis, that they would somehow corrupt the "Jewishness" of Israel, which is a bigoted and baseless thing to say. I mean, Israel is a secular democracy and isn't supposed to operate as a theocracy in the first place.
Then you get the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian factions which refuse to even admit the fact that Israel exists. I suppose this type of idiocy is best summed up by Iran when they’ve said they will "wipe Israel off the map." This rhetoric is all well and good if you're a radical Islamist that lives in the palace from Aladdin, but it doesn't give any reality based solutions to all the Palestinians that endure unspeakable poverty. The U.N. has said a while back that Gaza's conditions will officially be "unlivable" by 2020... which is, you know, just a year and a half away. The Middle Eastern coalition couldn't beat Israel militarily in the Six Day War in 1967, and they sure as hell won't now with tanks and planes from the Soviet era. Islamic countries need to stop swinging their dicks around and sit down at the negotiating table with Israel.
Finally, the worst bunch: Us. Or rather, far right Christian extremists in the United States. I’ve taken to calling them the American Taliban with business suits and a smile. Pastors like Jerry Falwell (who's now thankfully very dead), Jerry Falwell Jr., Pat Robertson, John Hagee, and Franklin Graham, as well as moronic politicians like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, don't give half a cross about the West Bank... or Israel and the Jews for that matter. They believe in a modern form of the End Times, as popularized by Tim LaHaye and the literary dumpster fire that can only be the Left Behind series. They actually think that if Israel builds the so-called "Third Temple" in Jerusalem this will spark a biblical end of the world which will lead to Jesus Christ's second coming.
Every time Jerusalem is mentioned in the news these gentle Christians are dancing a jig hoping that their rapture to Heaven is close at hand, and that the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, and yes, even the Jews, will apparently wallow behind in blood and shit under the furry hoof of Satan. Their foreign policy is literally chaos. Should we really pay serious attention to what these delusional clowns think is best for the region?
These three elitist groups don't give a damn about anyone other than themselves. They are living definitions to the trait of selfishness. Their philosophy is essentially Ayn Rand with a prayer thrown in. They deserve our laughter and nothing more. Ordinary Jews and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis, humans and other humans, are going to have to fix this humanitarian crisis themselves. When a man is starving, does it truly matter what label he has before you feed him? If there is a God, surely compassion and reason are gifts to be used.
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