Fear Itself

True confession: earlier tonight I wound-up into a righteous rant about Israel, the Rafah sister city project, Israel's atomic bomb, the murders of NGO volunteers and journalists, and the Sharon regime's disrespect for human life. I waxed hyperbolic. Not everything I said was factual, but all of it was true. And then I unplugged the post. I watered it down. I was afraid and I edited out the juice because I was afraid.

Maybe I was afraid because I've been attacked lately by a fictive red-neck. Maybe I was afraid because my tendency to see a different political reality from my neighbors has blossomed into a full blown case of paranoid delusion. But what I was really afraid of in my heart was Israel.

I'm afraid of lawless people who know no bounds. And when they came for Eichmann I applauded them. I'm afraid of lawless people who know no bounds, and when the Mossad was forming in the Uris novel, I understood them.

It wasn't the athletes from Finland who were murdered at Munich in 1972. It wasn't the people of Tenerife who had their middle class fantasy life cut short by suicide bombers from across the border. It wasn't six million Jainists who died in Germany's camps. It was Jewish athletes. It was the people of Jerusalem. It was Jewish people from all over Europe in those death camps.

And admissions quotas in American universities were a 20th century problem. When they couldn't be mandated, they gerrymandered. And the right wing Republican elitists in America have been among the worst kind of holocaust deniers, certainly Reagan's visit to Bitburg proved that. The situation in Israel and Palestine has roots in the Renaissance. The Pope put the Jews in Rome in a Ghetto in 1555. They were still there in the 19th century. The Ghetto in Frankfurt was established in 1462.

Few groups in history have encountered more prejudice than the Jews. In Europe, the hatred of Jews has its origins in Christianity, a religion rooted in Judaism. For centuries, the Jews were the only religious minority in Christian Europe, often misunderstood and eyed with suspicion by the population, suppressed by the Church and exploited by the rulers. Religious intolerance led to discrimination and isolation. A climate developed in which many legends and myths about Jews and Judaism seemed credible. Some are still believed today. But despite of persecution and discrimination, Jewish communities kept their religious, their social and cultural traditions alive.

I understand the pressures on the people and the state of Israel, but I'm not Jewish. I can't experience that depth of feeling that has so hardened hearts against the people of Palestine. But tonight, when I wrote a post that was over the top - to make a point - about the state of Israel, I was afraid. I was afraid to speak out against the evil of the wall, afraid to speak up about the state terrorism, the oppression in Rafah, afraid of the Mossad and the JDL and ADL.

And why should I be afraid? Who's going "to disappear" me? I'm nothing... gar nichts... gornish... What do I have to fear, me, a lowly blogger? I think I'd have less to fear if Israel had less to fear. I think Israel will have less to fear when Palestine has less to fear.

FEAR. Fuck Everything And Run.

Comments

[K!]

The people from 'Crest Toothpaste' have a lot to learn from the the people who created this great advertising campaign for Jewishness in United States.

In America you can't say anything against Jewishness for fear of immediately being labelled a Nazi. Pavlov dog's response doesn't even come close to the velocity of attack one would receive from the average American if they smelled your criticism of Jewishness. It may seem that the average Amerikan, if he is not jewish, would immediately attack you for fear of himself being attacked if he were to listen to your criticism and doing nothing about it. This seems to have been ingrained in american culture because when Nazis were exterminating Jews the world was silent. This 'Silence' is in fact the greatest charge against the world that Jewish Nation has. Hence 'We will never forget' campaign rolls on. Jews are afraid that the world will forget and The Silence can never happen again.

This is a terrible pathology of great Jewish Nation - that it cares only about itself. Cares only about 'REMEMBRANCE' for itself and denies it to others. For the others it has THE SILENCE. The Holocaust was a terrible thing but it was a part of a Greater Tragedy of Humanity. Six Million Polish people died in a war. Twenty Million Russians died in a War. Millons of other nations. Yet REMEMBRANCE is reserved for Jews.

And today Palestinians get THE SILENCE. Famine in Sudan gets THE SILENCE. Those nations are not worthy of REMEMBRANCE.

What about homeless children in United States, raped by pedophiles, left to die in the coldness of city lights? Can they get the Army together and GET EVEN with the WORLD because it is SILENT and does not speak in their defense?

Can the Famine stricken Children of Africa organize, purchase guns, tanks and some bombers from France, Germany or Russia and start destroying farmer's homes and their crops to GET EVEN for their SCREAM of pain of hunger was not heard and the world was SILENT.

Palestinians have a PR problem. They need to hire somebody from a good advertising agency to fix their image. Only then the world will LISTEN. I would be willing to find a guy who worked on 'Crest Toothpaste' commercials. Maybe he can do for Palestinians what some other great adverts did for the Jews in America.

...and now for a disclaimer because at this point I better say something nice about Jews. Here it comes. Fuck you. Get over it. Stop using your Jewish specialness cause it makes you look like Nazis who emphasized their blond hair and blue eyes. There are 6 billion people on this planet and most of them don't know why they are here and most of them are doing their best to get along and help others get along. Can you please join in. Right now would be great. We can learn a lot from each other.

[K!]

Disclaimer #2.
Somebody may get a wrong idea that I wrote the above comment because I don't know what it's like to be a Jew. Well, I am a Jew and I still say 'Get Over it and stop denying the REMEMBRANCE' to others.
I am also an American, Palestinian, German, Iraqi, Indian, Mexican, Polish, Russian, Sudanese, South African, Rwandan etc... You can't fool me with your adjectives. I know them all for I am Human. Loving and Hating. Stupid and Vicious. Just like you.

[Bruce]

Or, as my two-year-old daughter says: I'm a kitty. Talk to kitty.

[fp]

Amy Wohl sent me the following note and gave me permission to share it here:

Frank, I love the puppy pictures.

But I loved much more your righteous rant about the Jews and Israel. I am a Jew and I am ashamed about what is going on in Israel and Palestine. Jews have a right to live without fear, but not a right to kill innocent people to accomplish that end. It says in the Old Testament that the Jews are the Chosen People. That doesn't mean they are better than others, but that they are chosen to endure the trials sent to them and to be held to a higher standard. We are not doing that. I don't know how to fix that. I'm not sure anyone does. But I do know that until honest people admit that what we are doing - and witnessing - doesn't work, we can't find a way out.

I personally believe that much of the American problem in the middle east - Iran, Iraq, the terrorists - traces itself to our inability to solve this problem. It does bear thinking about.

Don't give up your wrath. If we all get angry enough, maybe we'll find the answer.

Amy Wohl

[K!]

from Harpers
http://harpers.org/WeeklyReview2004-05-25.html

"Israel's justice minister, Yosef Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who lost his father and grandmother to the Nazis, denounced the Sharon government's latest round of home demolitions in the Gaza Strip and said: "When I saw a picture on the TV of an old woman on all fours in the ruins of her home looking under some floor tiles for her medicines — I did think, 'What would I say if it were my grandmother?'" The comment was criticized for its implied comparison of the Israeli army to the Nazis. "We look like monsters in the eyes of the world," Lapid said. "This makes me sick."