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Here's where I stand on Israel
First of all, I would just like to say that I'm very surprised, and a little disappointed, that no one has posted comments on the previous two day's posts.
Doesn't anyone have any thoughts on who will throw their hat in the ring to run for office this year? Doesn't anyone have interesting anecdotes about getting a call from Scott Johnson on a Thursday evening?
Perhaps the dearth of comments is because I was on vacation for too long, and the reading public has forgot that I'm out here, blogging away for you.
One thing I forgot to mention in Monday's post is that yesterday afternoon something happened for which I was not prepared, and which shocked me to the point of speechlessness.
Dave Bronner is known to anyone who frequents city council meetings as an opinionated and passionate resident, vocal about his dislikes. Around here, he's best known for calling to take issue with things he disagrees with, and to complain when he feels we've misrepresented an issue.
Well, yesterday afternoon he paid me a compliment, and I just about fell out of my chair.
He was calling in response to a story I wrote Sunday about Skidmore Professor Kate Graney, who was in the Israeli city Beersheba when Hamas started shooting rockets into the city.
"Good story," Bronner said to my voice mail. He continued to take issue with Graney's reluctance to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but the compliment stands!
Dave, thanks for the compliment.
Speaking of Israel, I've decided to take the City Desk overseas for the evening.
I want you to know that I think Israel has taken the wrong approach in this latest fight with Hamas.
Sure, Hamas was the first to start lobbing bombs last week when the six-month cease fire ended, but lets not forget that the reason the rockets flew is that Hamas is still sore with Israel for stealing land back in 1948.
Lets not mince words. There was a real need to put the Jews somewhere after World War II, and it became apparent very quickly that DP camps were not a long-term solution. In fact, that need had been recognized for several decades previous to the war, but I have never understood why Balfour thought it would be a good idea to parcel off what was already a flash pan in the middle east by ceding portions of British-controlled Palestine to the Jews.
I defy any member of any ethnic group to say that you would be OK with a foreign nation telling you that part of your country was to be given to another ethnic group, and -- should you choose to stay in your ancestral home -- you would now be subject to their rule.
To me, this smacks of other historic events that have since been decried as atrocities by history. For exampe: the arrival of Europeans in the Americas resulted in the near-eradication of at least two indiginous peoples (the Aztecs and Incans), to say nothing of the current state of the various tribes of Native Americans. To me, nothing says "conquistador" like a bomb lobbed near a UN-operated school. Who cares if the students worship Allah, it's still a school!
Israel, and the problems related to it, are not as simple as one group of people throwing bombs at another. To say that a larger, more powerful country is right and just in wagging war against its smaller neighbor -- for the purpose of exacting revenge on a group of terrorists -- is not a statement that should ever be made lightly.
As the larger, more developed nation, Israel should have been -- during the previous six months -- working around the clock to engender positive relationships with Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Of course Israel can't take a mortar attack lying down, but the response did not need to be military. It should have been diplomatic. The only boots on the ground should have been those looking to draw the Palestinian people into the bonds of friendship.
The idea here is simple: make friends with the majority of Palestinians so that Hamas, a group of extremists no different from extremists in any religion of culture, becomes an organization without relevance and without the mandate of the people for whom it purports to fight. Then no one has to die.
Finally, as a Jew whose ancestors survived pogroms in eastern Europe during the first half of the 20th century, I view my life as a gift. I could very easily not be here, had my great, great-grandmother not taken her children by the hands, and hid them in a farmer's field back in 1919.
To think that a Palestinian woman could be running from her home, children in tow, to avoid a falling mortar -- a mortar fired by someone whose family has likely survived similar atrocities to those which mine survived -- makes me sick. The victims of history should not repeat the trespasses visited upon them. The victims of history, artificially elevated to a status of power, should know better than to inflict such suffering on another people.
Doesn't anyone have any thoughts on who will throw their hat in the ring to run for office this year? Doesn't anyone have interesting anecdotes about getting a call from Scott Johnson on a Thursday evening?
Perhaps the dearth of comments is because I was on vacation for too long, and the reading public has forgot that I'm out here, blogging away for you.
One thing I forgot to mention in Monday's post is that yesterday afternoon something happened for which I was not prepared, and which shocked me to the point of speechlessness.
Dave Bronner is known to anyone who frequents city council meetings as an opinionated and passionate resident, vocal about his dislikes. Around here, he's best known for calling to take issue with things he disagrees with, and to complain when he feels we've misrepresented an issue.
Well, yesterday afternoon he paid me a compliment, and I just about fell out of my chair.
He was calling in response to a story I wrote Sunday about Skidmore Professor Kate Graney, who was in the Israeli city Beersheba when Hamas started shooting rockets into the city.
"Good story," Bronner said to my voice mail. He continued to take issue with Graney's reluctance to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but the compliment stands!
Dave, thanks for the compliment.
Speaking of Israel, I've decided to take the City Desk overseas for the evening.
I want you to know that I think Israel has taken the wrong approach in this latest fight with Hamas.
Sure, Hamas was the first to start lobbing bombs last week when the six-month cease fire ended, but lets not forget that the reason the rockets flew is that Hamas is still sore with Israel for stealing land back in 1948.
Lets not mince words. There was a real need to put the Jews somewhere after World War II, and it became apparent very quickly that DP camps were not a long-term solution. In fact, that need had been recognized for several decades previous to the war, but I have never understood why Balfour thought it would be a good idea to parcel off what was already a flash pan in the middle east by ceding portions of British-controlled Palestine to the Jews.
I defy any member of any ethnic group to say that you would be OK with a foreign nation telling you that part of your country was to be given to another ethnic group, and -- should you choose to stay in your ancestral home -- you would now be subject to their rule.
To me, this smacks of other historic events that have since been decried as atrocities by history. For exampe: the arrival of Europeans in the Americas resulted in the near-eradication of at least two indiginous peoples (the Aztecs and Incans), to say nothing of the current state of the various tribes of Native Americans. To me, nothing says "conquistador" like a bomb lobbed near a UN-operated school. Who cares if the students worship Allah, it's still a school!
Israel, and the problems related to it, are not as simple as one group of people throwing bombs at another. To say that a larger, more powerful country is right and just in wagging war against its smaller neighbor -- for the purpose of exacting revenge on a group of terrorists -- is not a statement that should ever be made lightly.
As the larger, more developed nation, Israel should have been -- during the previous six months -- working around the clock to engender positive relationships with Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Of course Israel can't take a mortar attack lying down, but the response did not need to be military. It should have been diplomatic. The only boots on the ground should have been those looking to draw the Palestinian people into the bonds of friendship.
The idea here is simple: make friends with the majority of Palestinians so that Hamas, a group of extremists no different from extremists in any religion of culture, becomes an organization without relevance and without the mandate of the people for whom it purports to fight. Then no one has to die.
Finally, as a Jew whose ancestors survived pogroms in eastern Europe during the first half of the 20th century, I view my life as a gift. I could very easily not be here, had my great, great-grandmother not taken her children by the hands, and hid them in a farmer's field back in 1919.
To think that a Palestinian woman could be running from her home, children in tow, to avoid a falling mortar -- a mortar fired by someone whose family has likely survived similar atrocities to those which mine survived -- makes me sick. The victims of history should not repeat the trespasses visited upon them. The victims of history, artificially elevated to a status of power, should know better than to inflict such suffering on another people.
posted by The Saratogian City Desk at
9:38 PM
12 Comments:
Your comments are like a breath of sanity. My father liberated Dachau and then was stationed there for over a year in its aftermath and cleanup. Being Roman Catholic and Irish American he was well versed in the evils one country can perpetrate on a weaker neighbor, but nothing could prepare him for Dachau it left him very retrospective and inward looking.
He cheered for Israeli during the Six day war and was frightened for its survival in the Yon-Kippur War. But something changed in his attitude during the eighties as he came to realize Israeli had become the aggressor, the bully neighbor just like England was to our beloved Ireland. I can still remember his despair as he repeated “They will never learn”. The victim had become the perpetrator. By the time he died he had pretty much lost his faith in mankind and became more trusting of God.
I feel Israeli has lost its way. Its aggressive and many times illegal actions always claiming self defense seeing itself has above all international law all seem counterproductive. One only has to look into the faces of the children of Gaza to see the faces of tomorrow’s suicide bombers. Just as the Jews cried never again after the holocaust the children of Gaza see there dead sibling and parents and quietly mouth to themselves “When I grow up this will never happen again”
Sharon laws
Under Sharon's tenure as prime minister from 2001, new forms of discriminatory legislation were passed, including the now notorious Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, which bars Israelis who marry Palestinians from bringing their spouses to live in the country. The legislation applies solely to Palestinian husbands or wives. Hassan Jabareen, a lawyer and director general of Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, challenged the law before the supreme court. He told the judges there was a parallel with a landmark case in 1980s South Africa - the Komani case - which successfully challenged the pass laws that broke up black families by preventing spouses from joining their husbands or wives in towns.
Andrew: you are a fine writer and reporter and your work is appreciated.
I laughed out loud when I read that
Bronner complimented you. I hope you saved that voice mail so he can't deny it. ha ha
yours truly,
Dorian Gray
genocide in Gaza
If the world could see what is happening in Gaza I know somebody would try to help those poor Palestinians. I watch Aljazeera 0n you tube and the pictures of the women and little kids being slaughtered is horrendous. It breaks my heart to see a mother or father bury a little baby who is innocent of all the hate that comes from that area. Our American tax dollars are paying for Israel to kill. More than 700 deaths so far and thousands of injured that Israel won't let doctors or the United Nations in to help. Even the schools are being bombed. If the U.S. won't stand up to Israel, the rest of the world should. All this is doing is creating a good solid reason for people to become anti American and anti Israel.
palestinians need to go a long way to garner international support.
Andrew, you can't compare what happened to Jews to thwat's going on in the Gaza Strip.
The Muslims have plenty of countries to choose from in the Middle East. The Palestinians can go there if they can't control their antics. They've had many opportunities for peace and refuse to put a stop to the Hamas dirtbags.
Israel has a right to defend its borders and its citizens from being attacked.
Meanwhile, Israel remains the only real democracy in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan are not quite there yet) and we have an obligation to defend her.
Palestinians have the support of the world. The only support they don’t have is in the bush administration and we know were he and his failed polices are heading. There’s a new Sheriff in town and is name is Barack Hussein Obama. Change is coming to America.
While you're accusing the Israelis of "stealing land," don't forget that you're sitting on real estate that wasn't always part of the State of New York. For 10,000 years, it was the homeland of the Iroquois nations. Then it was acquired by European settlers (partly by purchase, partly by treaty, but mostly by conquest) who proceeded to occupy the best locations and force the natives onto the least desirable parcels.
Whenever you think about the rights of the Palestinians, think also about the rights of the Oneidas, Mohawks, Senecas, Onondagas, and all the other tribes that are only now regaining control over small portions of their ancestral homelands while still suffering the occupation of prime real estate (like 20 Lake Avenue) by descendants of European conquerors (like you).
Take a good look in the mirror and decide just how hypocritical you want to be before you start criticizing the Israelis.
anon 7:15:
Please read my whole post. I've offered the same example you cite as an atrocity in the history of the world that should not have been repeated in Israel.
Yes, the Europeans stole land from numerous indigenous peoples, and yes, it was wrong, just as the creation of Israel was wrong. My saying that we should have learned from past mistakes does not make me a hypocrite.
Andrew J Bernstein 1201 pm -
You're so full of baloney.
As soon as you start advocating the return of Saratoga Springs to the Iroquois you'll be justified in criticizing the Israelis for "stealing" land claimed by Palestinians. Until then, you're nothing but a hypocrite if you write about what's wrong on another continent while you do nothing to address the injustices that persist right under your nose.
anon 10:48:
Here's why I'm not a hypocrite:
In connection to current events taking place in the middle east, I write about my feelings on Israel.
I would be more than happy to write about my feelings regarding the treatment of native Americans here, especially if there were some kind of a news hook.
Since you seem to be involved in, or, at least aware of, activities relating to native Americans and their efforts to become better established in this area, perhaps you'd like to give me a call, so we can talk about, and get something in the paper. The reason that I'm asking you to call, is that I am not currently aware of any such efforts, and I do stay abreast of these types of topics.
I can be reached at 518.583.8729, x219. I hope to hear from you soon so that we can begin to spread awareness.
Andrew J. Bernstein:
If you really want to "stay abreast of these types of topics" read Jim Odato's story, "Seneca nation prepares for 'the worst' in tax dispute," in the Albany Times Union:
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=759655
According to Odato, the Iroquois are preparing for armed conflict with the State of New York and on Tuesday "people were spotted along the Thruway in Irving starting a big bonfire along the highway" that was reminiscent of violent clashes with the New York State Police that closed the Thruway in 1992 and 1997.
I didn't see anything in the Saratogian about this story. Maybe you can help to "spread awareness."
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