Taking Violence out of the Fight for Israel

Is it possible to support the Palestinian cause without supporting, or calling for violence? Yes, but it is difficult. However, it is also the only way to get things accomplished in a country where the land is seen as something that God specifically gave to one of the people living there, not the others. It also takes great patience, endurance, and something that demonstrates that we are better than those perpetuating violence against those who are being oppressed, just as those who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. supported the long march rather than the quick solution seemingly offered by riots and violence. King recognized that violence would only result in more hardship for black people across the United States; it would not advance their civil rights, it would diminish them, causing them to take a step back rather than a leap forward.

Supporting  peaceful solutions is sometimes seen in today’s paradigm of instant gratification as being impractical – it does not bear fruit quickly enough in the minds of some who would rather see the oppressors simply be overthrown with violent swiftness; but, in the case of Israel that is both impractical and, in psychological terms, something akin to magical thinking. The problems in Israel, in Palestine if you will, are being compounded by violence: they will not be, cannot be, solved by them. When we trick ourselves into believing that the solutions to our problems are to be found on the other end of a bullet, or a bomb, or a guided missile, it is time to step back and reassess the situation before we are further led down the garden path of deception.

Violence, as seen on the level that is currently taking place in Israel, and which Israel may respond with, cannot resolve any of the issues facing the Palestinians as a people. Threatening to send in a ground force of 75,000 troops, on the other hand, is not a way to find a handful of terrorists that aerial bombings have been unable to stop. How does the Israeli army expect to stop these attacks? Will they go door-to-door like the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, clearing out the insurgents? If they do the one thing that can be counted on is that there will be a massive amount of civilian casualties, and it will all be justified because rockets were fired into Israel.

People will always be divided about the Palestinian cause so long as there is ammunition for the Israelis to use as propaganda against them – that ammunition comes through the use of violence against the oppressive regime they are trying to defeat. But there is one question that deserves being explored for it reveals a great deal that may not be understood about this situation and the way it is perceived in the west, particularly in the United States (and similarly in Canada): Why does Israel maintain the support of so many in the west when there is so much evidence against them in the way they have treated the Palestinians?

The answer is quite simple, as we see with the present situation in Gaza: it is not because they break out the videos of violence perpetrated by blood-thirsty Palestinian terrorists, self-described as ‘freedom-fighters’ (that’s what they always call themselves, regardless of their cause), and they have their rationale for every retaliatory action, including the amassing of seventy-five thousand troops on the border of Gaza, in search of a handful of Hamas rocket installations that Israel has not been able to eliminate through aerial bombardment. That’s more than a subtle response to the rocket attacks and anyone who happens to be crazy enough to approach the armed juggernaut the Israeli Defense Forces represents. The reason that Israel receives such support from the west goes back several thousand years can be summed up with the term “Christo-Zionism” which is a conjunction of “Christian” and Zionism.

When exploring the issue of Israel and American politics it is impossible to not notice how important that tiny country seems to be compared to the United States, a much larger nation in every respect. The recent presidential election was a very easy way to demonstrate just how important the “Jewish vote” is to both political parties, even though it does not represent a large number of votes; both the Republicans and the Democrats spent a tremendous amount of time courting the Jewish vote even though Jews make up a very small part of the population. Yes, there are many wealthy individuals who happen to be Jewish, so there were was much money do be had, and as a demographic it is a very influential group of people, but, regardless of that, they still have only one vote per person.

The real reason that politicians in the United States are so interested in preserving their relationship with Israel, and have sought such close ties with the nation since 1948, is because of the misguided notion that Israel represents the prophetic fulfilment of the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. There is an idea that Zionism is something that the Bible meant to be, when in fact it is a new ideology ... new in the sense that it emerged at the end of the 19th century and had nothing to do with the Bible. Zionism is a construct that ignores the historical facts regarding the background of Israel. It ignores the facts that are recorded in the books that Jews revere as being Holy and inviolable, but that does not bother Zionists – like all good fundamentalists the facts are irrelevant – they just don’t matter.

It became fashionable for Christians to begin adopting the Zionist ideals when the state of Israel was established in 1948, believing that this heralded the beginning of the End Times. It became part of what was known in theological circles as a teaching called “millennialism” and quickly became associated with teachings about the Rapture of the Church which would occur, according to some teachers, after the Great Tribulation. Christo-Zionists became really excited when Jerusalem was captured after the 6 Day War in 1967, believing that this was truly the final piece in the puzzle, completing the fulfilment of the new Israel, spoken of in the Book of Revelation. The clock was ticking ... the Rapture was imminent ... the Mayan calendar was winding down and they didn’t even realize it existed. They were mistaken.

Israel exists as a nation that has more than one population: a population that existed before the Jews arrived, a population that was there long before the nation was established in 1948, and long before they arrived for the first time, when they were led by Moses and Joshua. When Joshua lead them to the “promised land” the people were given an opportunity to take possession of the land, without sharing it with anyone, as was decreed by the Lord. However, the people were disobedient. In essence, God gave the people permission to commit genocide, to eradicate the people living on the land that he had promised them, but they refused. Instead of killing, they made a contract to share the land. I’m not making this up, you can find the entire account of this in the ninth chapter of the book of Joshua. At the end of the chapter the people with whom this “treaty” was made are, in essence, turned into Temple servants – a fancy word for a slave. At that time it seemed preferable to survive as a slave than to face genocide at the hands of an army that carried the Ark of the Covenant.

The ramifications of that contract continue to this day: you do not get a “do over” to commit the genocide that you failed to commit a few millennia ago, it just doesn’t work that way; and no, it does not matter that you were tricked into making the contract. That, as the saying goes, is your problem. We don’t commit genocide in order to have more “breathing room” ... or don’t you remember when that was done a few generations ago? Don’t you remember when your home is were taken out from under you, your land was stolen, your families were hauled off without due process, their property stolen, never to be seen again. Lives destroyed all because somebody had decided they were sub-human? It is astounding that the people who grew up hearing the stories of the Holocaust would not be willing to learn its lessons and reach out to the people living on the land that they call their own. Yes, the land was promised to the Jews by God (or by Moses, depending on your point of view); but there were strings attached to that promise and that is something that has to be lived with; it is something that has to be recognised, and that is something that is being ignored when ever the Palestinians are oppressed by the present Israeli government.

Of course, it takes two to tango and what is going on right now in Israel is not the result of one hand clapping. There are two parties to blame in this craziness, but one of them can choose to stop it: one group is overreacting and another group is actively antagonising, making things worse for both themselves and for the Palestinians in general. When has violence ever solved a problem that should have been addressed politically, through diplomatic channels? We may argue that there have been justifiable wars: wars against despots and against fascism, but random violence has never solved anything, especially when it is aimed at innocent civilians. In fact, unless you manage to utterly destroy your opponent with an overwhelming first strike, the likelihood is that you are only going to make your enemy more intent on eliminating you than they were before: an attack begets a response, the response begets another attack, and so on, until everyone is dead or dying. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood that they will retaliate against the population in general, with innocent lives being lost, women and children, for what causes? There are many causes in the world, but are they worth the death of children, are they worth the loss of future generations? Consider this: if you and your children die for your cause, who is left to enjoy what you may have gained through your sacrifices? Nobody.

The point is, Israel has a far superior military and will have no problem destroying anything in its path, including the civilian population of Gaza if it so chooses. The rocket attacks that have been occurring of late have been coming from a small number of terrorists backed by Hamas, not by the citizens of Gaza (I am unapologetic about referring to those launching the rockets as terrorists: they cannot represent the best interests of the Palestinian people so long as their principal tool is violence). There is no reason for Israel to send in 75,000 troops to find a handful of terrorists. Please, do not get me wrong, I do not condone the actions of Hamas at all: I abhor violence on any level, especially unprovoked violence that is designed to provoke more violence and strike out at innocent civilians, which is precisely what these rocket attacks are designed to do: Hamas has to know that by supporting these attacks they are only adding to the suffering of the population they claim to love. It only demonstrates that fundamentalists are fundamentally warped and utterly illogical in their approach to conflict resolution. Adherents of fundamentalism are always, at their core, mentally unbalanced.

The question remains: how might it be possible for the Palestinians to resort to non-violent protest? How can they hope to stand against the policies of the Israeli government without appearing provocative? If they refused to take up arms against their oppressor would the world see the truth about how Israel had been treating them, about how Israel had been violating the treaties that it had signed with them? Would it change the way the United States supported Israel? There have been many examples of the brutality and even war crimes committed by Israel, as evidenced and documented in the Goldstone Report, but this “evidence” ends up falling on deaf ears for the simple reason that the United States government at the United Nations, and Christo-Zionists in general will not allow for any sort of criticism of Israel to stand. If you try to criticise Israel the Christo-Zionists will accuse you of being an anti-Semite, or say you are anti-Semitic.

This is not only patently ridiculous, it makes it impossible to pursue any sort of dialogue that advances the issues of the Palestinians. There is a great difference between criticism and anti-Semitism. Consider this: can you criticise the government of the United States and still love the country? Can you “disagree with the congress”, but still call yourself a patriot? Of course you can; many people would expect you to do so, it’s part of life. Or, on the other hand, can you be a proud American even if the man living in the White House is not someone you voted for? If you live long enough there are probably going to be several presidents that you do not necessarily adore, but that would not stop you, or it certainly should not stop you, from being a “proud” American. Your identity should not rely on the identity of one single politician.

As someone who was born to Jewish parents, who grew up learning about the rich tradition of “my people” there are many things that resonate when certain things are heard, but “Promised Land” and “Israel” are not synonymous for the simple reason that the illusion was not reinforced by the fictions that so many blindly accept. At the same time, the idea of “Palestine” and neighbours living together in peace was something that seemed so natural, it surprised me tremendously that this was not a common idea as I grew older, especially when the lessons of history became more evident. Criticising the government of a nation does not mean you hate the people of that country, it means you disagree with the way that country is being run: disagreeing with the government of Israel, with the policies of the Zionists, does not make you anti-Semitic, it makes you anti-genocidal. That is not racist, it is humane.

What is the likelihood of an Israeli politician having any desire of sitting down and discussing the concept of peace with the Palestinians if there are rockets being launched from Gaza? I would hazard that it would be far more likely that they would not want to talk, simply because they would feel that they are in a de facto state of war. However, if one side stops using violence, if they lay down their arms, how might that impress the others? What sort of message would that send to the rest of the world? Of course, people will ask “why should the Palestinians stop using violence first, the Israelis started this?” Or “why don’t the Israelis lay down their arms?” All good questions, but it does not matter. What matters is that violence must come to an end.
Did Israel start this? Did Hamas start this? Did Palestinians start this? Does it matter? People have died; people are dying: it’s time to stop the madness and put an end to the violence that has been plaguing the region for far too long.

Israel should not invade Gaza, and, as a gesture of good faith they should withdraw their troops and stand down their alert status. The terrorists in Gaza, the “freedom fighters”, must cease firing there are rockets at Israel immediately. Reciprocity does not accomplish anything when it comes to violence, that must be understood more than anything else or nothing will ever be accomplished. Israel must also be prepared to honour the agreement is that it has made with the Palestinians, especially those relating to the settlements.

Peace is possible, moreover it is essential: without it we cannot live.

Much Ado about Helen

A tremendous amount has been made over the words uttered by Helen Thomas recently, words spoken on May 27th, interestingly enough four days before the attack by the Israeli Defence Forces against a flotilla of unarmed civilians bringing humanitarian aid to besieged refugees in Gaza. Nine innocent and unarmed civilians were slaughtered by the defenders of the Zionist state, but it’s not okay to criticize them, is that what we are hearing? I listened to what Helen Thomas said and listened carefully; she understands history and is more than capable of reporting her stories without bias.

When asked if she had anything to say about Israel she said, ‘tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.’ When asked if she had ‘anything better’ to say, Thomas continued, ‘remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land; it’s not German [sic], it’s not Poland.’ Having heard this answer Rabbi Nesenoff, the man conducting and filming the interview, proceeded to ask a loaded question that indicated he fully understood that Thomas was discussing contemporary immigrants, not Jews who had been born Israel.

When asked, ‘where should they [the Jews] go’, Thomas replied, ‘go home, Poland, Germany, and America, and everywhere else.’

This answer lies at the crux of the controversy causing many to label Helen Thomas as an Anti-Semite who is insensitive to history; even her colleague and co-author, Craig Crawford, has announced that he will no longer be working on future book projects with Thomas as a result of this comment, but is that an over-reaction? Was Helen wrong? Was she taken out of context?

Under the ‘Right of Return’ law Jews are allowed to become citizens of Israel by virtue of being Jewish, even if they were born in America. Someone born in the ‘Holy Land’ who is not of Jewish descent, on the other hand, is not allowed to live in the home of their ancestors as it has been stolen and turned into a ‘settlement’, all so the ‘Jewish State’ can reclaim its Biblical borders.

Thomas’ reply was not insensitive to history, it was correct in every way to the political realities of the warped ‘Right of Return’ law and how it discriminates against non-Jews living in the Holy Land. When asked, ‘where should they go’, she replied, ‘go home, Poland, Germany, and America, and everywhere else.’ She did not say they should be killed or expelled, which is something that Israel routinely does to the Palestinians living within the borders of the state, but that can be dismissed as an ‘inconvenient truth’ that nobody wants to discuss.

As a result of this honest answer the website that interviewed her, ‘Rabbilive’ asked the pointed question as to whether or not Helen Thomas could be trusted. They posted, at the end of her ‘interview’ that six million Jews ‘were killed at home … In Germany and Poland. Does Helen know that Jews have lived in Israel way before the Holocaust?’

Yes, I’m sure Helen knows this fact, however, does that mitigate the fact that Israel has been carrying on a war against their neighbours? That they have been using criminally devious tactics, including the use of White Phosphorus artillery shells, against civilians living in Gaza while stealing land in order to continue with the development of the settlements that have been condemned by many civilized nations on this planet?

The most outrageous part of this ridiculous episode has come from, of all places, the Administration of the United States President. Press Secretary Gibbs should have made no comment about Helen Thomas’ comment for the simple reason that she is NOT part of the Administration. Of course her comments are not a reflection of the official policy of the government; even after Israel murdered nine innocent civilians the government has sat on its hands as though it were afraid to say anything nasty, as though it might offend the mighty Jewish State and send them into a whirlwind of retaliation against the United States.

Excuse me, but when did the State of Israel become more powerful than the United States of America? I’m sorry, but I just don’t ascribe to that crap about the Jews controlling that much power: they control as much as you allow them to control. If you stop listening to the AIPAC lobby they have no power. AIPAC can only influence people when they are listened to; otherwise they are a Zionist tool that should be expelled for sedition. They serve the interests of a foreign state, not the United States.

President Obama may stand up and say that Israel should stop building settlements and that Jerusalem should be a city for all, but the truth of the matter is that the Zionist State of Israel is a nation guided by a policy of institutional racism. Anyone who has lived through the Civil Rights Movement in the United States or has studied the fall of Apartheid in South Africa, or has any inkling of the history behind the Holocaust should be able to see this as clearly as the rising of the sun in the morning and the rising of the moon at night.

What we must also understand is that it is NOT Anti-Semitism to criticize the policies of the State of Israel. To be against the ideals of Zionism is not to be against the Jew just as being a Democrat in the United States does not make you ‘unpatriotic’. The idea that this is so is one of the lies perpetuated by the Zionists to defend the indefensible; they know their policies lead to the deaths of innocent people so they hide behind the label of ‘Anti-Semitism’, knowing that anyone labeled with it will be stigmatized and will have to shrink away.

I am a Jew. My mother is a Jew and my father is a Jew … and my father lives in Jerusalem. Branches of my family went to the death camps during the Holocaust. Go ahead, call me an Anti-Semite; you won’t be the first.

As for Helen Thomas, BRAVA! It’s about time people in the press started speaking out against the atrocities being committed by the State of Israel … and just in case you missed it, her comments were made on May 27th; Israel attacked a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza on May 31, killing 9 unarmed civilians.

Proper Criticism vs Anti-Semitism

During the first day of an anti-racism summit at the United Nations a number of nations walked out during the speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because he called the State of Israel a “cruel and repressive racist regime” to a conference on race. Now, before we get carried away by the rants of the Iranian President, who may need a medication adjustment, take one moment to consider this: the United States decided to not attend this conference when some nations proposed that “Zionism” be considered as a form of racism. Canada joined several other nations who were too cowardly to consider this truth, including Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands ... oh, and Israel.

The important thing here is that Ahmadinejad made his comments, prompting about forty of the delegates – mostly from western European nations – to leave their seats in protest, but his message was still heard by many and reported to the world. Unfortunately, the reporting of this event is coloured by President Ahmadinejad's past comments in which he has denied facts about the holocaust. The walkout was prompted by Ahmadinejad's description of the relationship between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people, “They resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering.”

Another thing that was said seemed to be just about as concise an observation of the situation taking place in the State of Israel as anything else that has been said in the past sixty years: “... [I]n compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.” Not unexpectedly, the United States condemned the comments as being “vile and hateful” while the Vatican, an organization with 2,000 of human rights atrocities as their gift to humanity called the speech “extremist and unacceptable.”

But is that all there is to this? Should we dismiss the comments of Ahmadinejad simply because we want to think of him as some crazy Islamic fanatic? No, that is not how it ends; it cannot end here. The problem is, Ahmadinejad is right. No, the Holocaust happened, of that let there be no doubt, but the idea that the State of Israel is supposed to be the representation of God's promised land to His people, that is a myth that must be dispelled, along with the idea that the Zionist agenda is anything less than a form of racism with the genocide of the Palestinian people as the ultimate goal in order for the Zionists to ultimately cleanse their “Holy Land” of all non-Jews.

Before going any further into this discussion and allowing any confusion to set in, lets establish something of a foundation as to the difference between being critical and voicing that opinion and being hateful towards something or someone. Ask yourself this question: can you be critical of something or someone without hating them? Be honest, now, can you look at someone you love and tell them that you disagree with them and then explain why? What if one of your friends, or a relative, committed some heinous crime, would you encourage them to turn themselves in – to do 'the right thing', even if it felt like a difficult thing to do? These are difficult things to ask, but they go to the moral core of who we are as people. As moral beings we learn from the mistakes we make through life and from the critiques and criticisms that we receive from the teachers and others around us who care enough to point out what we can do to improve ourselves, to make us better members of society and better citizens.

Could you imagine for one second that when your mother or father corrected you, dare I say criticized you, as a child, did that diminish their love for you? Of course not – in fact, people usually only take the time of criticizing things that they really care about, otherwise they wouldn't bother taking the time to do so. If you were critical of the United States during the Bush administration (or any presidency) does that make you an anti-American or are you merely in opposition to certain policies of the government of the nation? Personally, I am a Canadian and I have been in disagreement with the policies of the Canadian government on many issues over the past several decades, but that does not change my love for this country, nor would I want to live anyplace else; it merely means that I want this country to be better than it currently is, I want Canada to live up to the promise that could be, if only the politicians would stop their partisan bickering and started putting the people first rather than the special interests that put them into power.

If you are honest and are able to say that you are at odds with a particular government and not the people then you are well equipped to judge between authentic anti-Semitism and the vile rhetoric used by many to protect inherently evil positions. It is important to understand that this is the true foundation of democracy; knowing that you are allowed the right to voice your ideas and opinions about the laws, leaders and the operation of the government without fear of reprisal for having an opinion that may be contrary to the official beliefs of the government, and that you, as an individual citizen, have a voice in the choosing of that government through your vote. Any nation that cannot suffer the indignity of facing criticism or being examined for its domestic policy, a policy that includes apartheid-like activities, active military oppression of a civilian population living within their borders, and multiple incidences of civilian “collateral damage” taking place during “defensive” operations, should seriously consider the century in which they live and the actions which they have been taking for the past several decades. There is no place in this wired world in which we live for the type of secrecy that allowed tyrants like Hitler and Stalin to carry out their malicious acts under a curtain of silence. It is no longer possible to control the flow of information as was done during the time of the Second World War and the cold war when people transmit news to websites and blogs at the speed of “twitter”, virtually as quickly as it happens. Propaganda has become something that once was called “spin”, often pathetic attempts by “official spokespeople” to put the “cat back in the bag” after the world has already seen the live images from several sources. It does not work.

If the State of Israel, and those who profess to be Zionists (or their supporters), had their way in regards to the flow of information at the U.N. conference in Geneva, Ahmadinejad would have been stopped in his tracks: the uttering of anything that could even be remotely interpreted as being “anti-Israel” would automatically be classified as being racist and, as such, would not permitted in a U.N. conference, let alone a conference on the elimination of racism. However, the glaring truth of the matter is that Zionism IS, in fact, a form of racism in several ways and, particularly in light of the recent events in Gaza, it has been demonstrated as an ideology devoid of anything but self-interest in their agenda coupled with a near manic defense of their “right” to protect their homeland from the people from whom they stole that land.

There is a serious problem when you begin to examine the Zionist position of “defense” of their land as a justification to use violence against the Palestinian people. It seems difficult to argue against the desire to retaliate when someone has launched a rocket into your settlement and it lands in your backyard or crashes into a school. These are terrible, tragic events that must be stopped; innocent lives lost are never things that seem justified, and they can never be compensated, nor can any act repay the loss that the survivors may be feeling. While some may desire revenge that can only lead to more acts of aggression and that, in the end, only leaves more innocent lives ruined, more people mourning, and more people seeking some sort of retaliation. Ultimately, if you follow the saying “an eye for an eye,” the entire world is left blind. It is time to restore the sight to the blind.

The idea that Israel is carrying out the violence against Palestinians to defend their land is laughable on several levels, especially if you have seen any of the photos or videos that were taken from the most recent Gaza conflict. What weaponry did the Palestinians have to threaten the Israeli Army and Air Force with? With what could they have hoped to shoot down an IAF F-16 or F-15, planes that can fly faster than the speed of sound, drop laser guided munitions (stand-off weapons – the plane does not even have to be near the target to drop the bomb), and other “smart” weapons that land within a few metres of their targets? An AK-47? Even if there were thousands armed with the ubiquitous AK, they could not scratch the air force; unlike the movies, it is not possible to shoot down a jet with a machine gun (unless the bird is flying about 500 feet off the ground and you are the luckiest shot in the world).

Let's face it, if you are critical of the ACTS of the Israeli government that does not make you someone that hates Jews. An anti-Semite is, by definition, someone that hates Semites. Semites are people of Semitic descent: Arabs and Jews. In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a Semite is defined as 1a “a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b: a descendant of these peoples 2: a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language.” [Aramaic, Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew] Now, if you hate Arabs for whatever reason, you are an anti-Semite (don't say, “but, I have an Arab friend ...”). You cannot hate some and like one as a token. Hatred is hatred, it is insidious, entering our being until it controls our every thought and action, guiding our lives until we our its slave. This is the root of Zionism: hatred of the Palestinian people.

The lessons of the Holocaust came at such a terrible price, the highest that could be paid, but what value are those lessons if they are squandered by those who have inherited that which came out of the ashes? The idea of creating a place – a safe place – for those Jews who wanted to leave Europe after the Holocaust seems now like an idea that may not have been the best conceived idea. One must ask, why would people who had just escaped extermination merely for being who they were not want to live in peace with their new neighbours? Why would they choose to adopt national policies that seemed more related to what they had just escaped rather than aiming at developing a true democracy in which every person living in the State was granted equal rights under the law, all the rights granted to a Jew: anything less is something called institutional racism and, quite frankly, is disgusting as it mirrors what was done in Nazi Germany after the Purification Laws were passed. Jews were denied all basic rights as German citizens, even if their families had been living in Germany for generations and had served in the military during the First World War. With the stroke of a pen, and a crooked cross, they were all disenfranchised. They became un-people.

This is the case, today, in the State of Israel. As a result of the placement of the settlements throughout the land that was promised to the Palestinians it is virtually impossible for these un-people to travel freely without being harassed by the countless Israeli checkpoints. They cannot travel to their jobs, to school, and there have been several cases where patients have died because they were denied access to essential medical care. Does this sound like the actions of a modern democratic nation or like some monstrous, “cruel and repressive racist regime.”

Image 'copyleft' by Carlos Latuff
Ultimately, the criticisms of Israel must not be dismissed under the flag of racism by labeling them anti-Semitic. There happen to be many Jews out there who do not agree with the actions of the State of Israel, we are not being anti-Semites ... I do not hate myself. As for President Ahmadinejad and his remarks, we must be careful; he was correct in what he said, but he is also someone who plays to the extremist movement in his country and is running for re-election in June and has been receiving criticism for the floundering Iranian economy. All of the anti-Western and anti-Israel rhetoric is fine for the press coverage, but it hasn't done a thing for the global isolation of Iran, resulting in high inflation and unemployment. For Ahmadinejad to earn the votes of the most radical voters in Iran he must continue to spew his invective and racist brand of anti-Semitism, if only to show that he is a leader that should not be underestimated. Unfortunately it only turns him into a caricature.

More than that, because a world leader mixes legitimate criticism of Israel with such highly charged language and denial of such historical things as the holocaust it makes the job of criticizing Israel all the more difficult for the rest of the world. We must show that our criticism is based on facts, not emotional reactions to things. Calling people names does not accomplish anything, save for demonstrating the level of maturity that is not present at the time.

Now we must find a way to clearly communicate to the world that the message is not about the Jews, nor is it about Israel, the message is about the way the government of the State of Israel is handling (or mishandling) the situation with the Palestinian people. Why are Palestinians not allowed the right of return when they have lived there for generations? Why are their homes seized and destroyed, without appeal, to make room for illegal settlements? Why to so many questions ... and so few answers. Ultimately, the answer is: things must change. They must. Not, “yes, we can”, but, “we must change, we must”.

Ultimately, there comes a point in time where something either change its ways and adapts to a new way of life which allows it to move on and survive, or it fails to adapt to change and it subsequently dies. We must change, we must.