Monday, November 20, 2006

Israel, McCain, etc.

I am very supportive of Israel's Jewish statehood. It is the only predominantly Jewish country in the world and it deserves world protection. However, I am severely critical of their policies toward Palestinians and so this is why I'm not voicing dissent about the Al-Jazeera network (yet).

I see that internationally focused network as the first to offer a voice to 3rd world atrocities that the first world is very much responsible for--whether or not there's another side to the story. To me, violence is no excuse for institutional violence.

Nothing teaches me about how we are all responsible for each other like my Jewish faith, and I think that even a skewed showing of how Israel treats Palestinians will help put pressure on Israel to act with peace as it's goal, not constant war.

In my mind, we need to stop the cycle of violence NOW. Israel's only peaceful choice is to immediately stop extrajudicial killings, concede predominantly Arab areas to Arab control, build the strongest and smartest defenses, and hunker down for peace. I also believe that Israel has a historical and moral responsibility to help build Palestine so that Palestine offers a viable economy for its people--so those people have a choice between a better than barely-sustainable-life and war with Israel. Israel is outnumbered by hostile Arabs, and even though the Arab world profits mightily off of the existence of Israel as their scapegoat for any number of abuses to their own people, the Arab world will have the full force of world judgement if they refuse to help Israel build Palestine.

If this seachange of attitude of Israel toward her neighbors doesn't happen, nothing will change. If such a seachange changed nothing in the Middle East, Israel would be a shining example of a country that espoused peace with the enduring support of the civilized world.

My husband and I both believe that its too late for John McCain to run for President. He drank too much Bush kool-aid and he's all BS. We saw his speech before GOPAC and many of his points about problems went unanswered by him. He also made a very good point about Republicans, "We believe the government should only help those who can't help themselves." My assumption being that if you can't pay for it, they won't.

This made me think of this, "Yeah, we Republicans have no problem with that CEO making 800 times his part-time administrative assistant, but f*@k that assistant thinking that the government should pay for her kid's health insurance."

2 comments:

Vigilante said...

Ditto.

Valley Dude said...

I think this is right - while I've heard many of my friends and family say things like "the Arabs will never let Israel alone", the fact is that someone needs to hold out the olive branch. I think that should be Israel, and in fact it must be.

I am firmly behind the solid defense of the Israeli state. But we bury our heads if we ignore the original cost, that people had to leave their homes to create one for the Jewish people. Why not reach out and offer to repair infrastructure. Why not reach out and share the holy land of Jerusalem. Why not offer to bring our fellow humans back into fellowship with us. Jewish philosophy talks about "tikkun olam" -- repairing the world. It's hard to repair the world when we are at the point where missles are the required policy to save the state -- missles don't exactly repair the world.

Our emphasis should be building the bridge, both literally and figuratively with our brothers and sisters. I'm not a biblical scholar, but Isaac and Ishmael are brothers. It's time for us to welcome our brothers home.