Unconditional on Condition
Some of my best friends actually are Jewish. By and large they are brighter and funnier than most people, and those are two significant talents to bring to the table of life. My grandparents on my father’s side were non-practicing Jews, and my father eschewed the whole thing; he and his brother changed their last name in 1943.
I say I’m Jewish only when people are being anti-Semitic, and recently there’s been of lot of ugly religious politics regarding Jews that bears a look-see.
It’s the charge by some in political life who suggest that anyone who doesn’t swear an unconditional allegiance to the government in power in Israel is not a true supporter, and, as an aside, may be an anti-Semite. How ironic when so many people are openly anti-Semitic.
The problem for most pols today is that they are reluctant to qualify their support for Israel. Anything less than a blank check and they’re looked at askance.
In point of fact, any pol who doesn’t provide qualified support is doing a disservice to the process of peace; what dim hopes for it there are. Israel’s continuing to build more settlements on Palestinian land is an affront to basic human decency. Following almost a half-century of ill-treatment of the indigenous people, the deplorable conditions inflicted on the people of Gaza, and now for all too long Israel has otherwise blocked any serious attempts to figure out a solution to that part of the Middle East.
Every one of my Jewish friends with whom I’ve spoken about the situation abroad and its cancerous affliction here in the United States agrees that those who refuse to separate Israel from Judaism are showing either ignorance of disrespect.
Of course Israel survives, and having to say it is specious. So let’s defuse the whackos and extremists and figure out how the region can live in peace. People created the problem, people can create the solution.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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