The Israelis must be laughing at these guys racing to prove who is loyal to Israel. Jews need sincerity and not duplicity to feel secure.
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| Cartoon Courtesy of Sherif Arafa |
was another cartoon, where the candidates were in a competition, "who licks the most" while Netanyahu was enjoying the service.
A genuine security is like a child in mother’s lap; safe and free from fears. Israel needs security and Palestinians justice; one does not happen without the other.
We the Americans, and the Arabs have screwed up peace for them (both) by supporting one against the other, instead of getting them to sit down face to face and work it out. We give them funds and we have earned the right to ask Israel to be serious, and Arabs have the right to ask the Palestinians to be serious.
Our aid should be dependent on peace they achieve. No fits and tantrum from Netanyahu should be acceptable to compromise long term security of Israel. No progress no monies, period. We owe it to the people of Israel and Palestine and not their bad leaders.
We need to be prepared to explain the short term rioting by the right wingers, who will jump all over, and the responsible parties need to get them involved and have them see the long term security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians, and not the short-term appeasements.
We must protect Israel, our ally; however, if that protection is based on injustice to either Palestinians or the Israelis, our integrity becomes questionable, and solutions would be unsustainable. We need to be above reproach and seek justice for one and all. If we are a sincere ally, we need to be tough on our ally to put them on the path of security. The Palestinians will yield for peace if they see our sincerity.
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I am please to add a few pieces of conversation from the face book:
- Najma M. Adam Salam Mike. Long time since I've commented on your blog, though I do keep up with your wonderful and necessary work. Agree with you on the above and love the cartoon. It may be a trivial detail, but I take issue with the sentence "We must protect Israel, our ally;...." WHY are we all socialized to think of Israel as our ally? WTH is Israel doing for us, really? If you get a chance to read or hear Mearsheimer and Walt's work on AIPAC and Israel, I'd highly recommend it. I'd like to advocate a just perspective -- that we protect both our allies, Israel and Palestine. And, I'd go one step further and say let's strive toward more allies internationally. This isolationist existence and sleeping with Israel while they continue instigating, murdering, and colonizing another nation and its people is what has partially led to extremists rising, IMHO. Long and short of this, Mike, is let's not say "our ally Israel" as if it is a fact. If you look at the billions of aid given to Israel (for?), it's much more accurate to say "Israel our burden".Mike Ghouse Dear Najma M. Adam, Salaam to you as well;
Thanks for sharing your perspective, I deeply respect it. Indeed, I have kept up with the Israel-Palestine conflict fairly closely - both the people have been a victim of our (the world) bias.
Indeed, our aid must be tied to progress in peace and justice, like you, I have shared that in the original note above. The ally comment is below.
We did nothing till the tail end of the Holocaust, and that burns me, the scene where Jews (children, women, seniors) were pushed to the edge of pits and fired to death has been hard on me. The looks on their faces haunt me about the inhumanity in us (all of us) - where are you my friends? They silently endured the pain. In my college days, I helped a friend with answers in the exam and was caught and sat in the principal’s office… those friends did not even come by to see me. That betrayal is gnawing, I am sure all of us have been betrayed from time to time. When I see the helplessness of rape victims, when I hear a child being abused by his or her loved ones… it puts a pause in my life and I seek solutions.
The Palestinians were thrown in to wretchedness for three generations, we (the world) kept blaming every one and but did nothing, and that burns me. They don’t have a home land in their own land, they don’t have a passport, they don’t have an identify, how humiliating that must be! Of course there are a lot more tragedies out there, but you get attached with some and they become a part of you without dimuniting the other tragedies.
Israel is our ally, when the Arabs were out to annihilate them in 1967 (it’s a war thing and every damned warring nation is guilty of that including us). Israel needed us, and we did the right thing in supporting them, and that bondage has grown over the years. If you recall the Presidents before that did not support Israel. But our allyship does not mean that we should be unjust to the Palestinians, absolutely not. I am in the front supporting the rights of the Palestinians and Jews.
I have been not kind to Netanyahu. Netanyahu is not Israel, he is an opportunist politician, he is not for Jews or Israel, and he is for himself like Madoff. But we cannot shirk our responsibility to Israel and Palestinians because of Netanyahu or Abu Mashaal.
I have always stood up for the people who are wronged. I have been chewed out by a few right winger Jews for standing up with Palestinians on the Gaza massacre, held prayers… and have been chewed out by right winger Muslims for commemorating Holocaust every year. Right wingers do not represent humanity, they are for themselves and we don’t have to mirror them. It is about humanity and not politics. I feel the pain for both people and if we fail to feel that, something about humanity is missing in us.Mike Ghouse Carol Duff, it has happened after the war as well. I felt the same pain when the Rohingis were returned back to ocean by Bangladesh, if they went back to their home Burma, they would have been slaughtered.. All people have suffered, we need to see them as fellow humans and feel their anguish and pain, that completes the humanness in us, makes us a better being.
www.IsraelPalestineDialogue.com
www.MikeGhouse.net
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