In the previous writing, we declared our firm opposition to the military overreaction, responsive to the barbaric and truly sadistic surprise Hamas attack by Israel’s current government under Bibi Netanyahu. As tactically planned, the wily aggressor fled to tunnels previously constructed under Gaza Hospitals, in order that Israeli retribution would, of necessity, be wreaked against their pathologically intended “shield,” the innocent citizens of Gaza; thus strategically incurring an international loss of standing. The extent of the anticipated military retribution has proven to be tragically immense and thus we oppose the continuation of military action against innocent Gazan civilians. Our present theme, nonetheless, relates to an understandable perception of the defensive context of the Israeli government’s over-zealous scope of reaction.
Jewish people, worldwide, have recently completed their perennial observance of Passover, a Biblical holiday (“Exodus”) celebrating the liberation of the Hebrews (“Israelites”) from 116 years of Egyptian slavery. The holiday is universally celebrated by a symbolic family dinner, featuring sweet wine (usually Concord grape) “bitter herbs,” representing the bitterness of slavery, and “charoseth” (a sweet-tasting mixture of walnuts, cinnamon, apple and sweet wine), to contrastingly signify the sweetness of freedom and liberty. Unleavened bread (Matzoth) is eaten for the week in lieu of bread, to signify the Hebrews’ need for haste during their flight from Egypt. It is customary at such ritual dinners to contextually articulate the declaration that, “Until everyone is free, no one is truly free.” This latter declaration of appropriate principle and the signature reverence for humanistic charity (“tzedakah”) provide the motivating catalyst for many Jews to participate in the causes of Civil Rights and Women’s full emancipation.
It is a matter of empirical history, that Jews have been universal targets for hate and prejudice since the 4th Century Holy Roman Empire; presided over by the evangelical tyrant, Emperor Constantine (See: ”Constantine’s Sword” by James Carroll, and our, “Gaza Geometry” # M.60), followed by a worldwide, eternal experience of inquisitions, centuries of pogroms, maximally illustrated by what is referred to as the “Holocaust,” in which Adolph Hitler orchestrated and conducted the efficient and programmic murder of six million innocent people found guilty of the “reprehensible crime” of being born Jewish.
On May 14, 1948, the British Mandate over Palestine over the territory of “Palestine” expired, and the geographic territory was divided into Arab and Jewish States. Within hours after its declaration of independent Statehood, the tiny unarmed Nation of Israel (the only available safe haven for the European death camp survivors and other displaced and Stateless Jews,) was attacked by five Arabic Nations, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. The Mufti of Jerusalem issued the following official edict: “I declare a holy war; my Muslim brothers (referring to Israel) “Murder them all.” Following a truly miraculous victory over the Arab Legion (the latter, professionally trained by Britain) and its Arabic allies, tiny Israel has defensively developed an efficient and dedicated military capability which has proven itself successful in overcoming a virtual plethora of attempts at its destruction.
Knowledge of the historical and existential context of the recent Hamas-Gaza-Israeli tragedy may well be lacking in many young, sophomorically idealistically driven participants in the Nation’s numerous University demonstrations. The Hamas attack should, fairly and be understood within the context of the eternal existential struggle for sustained life of the World’s Jews. Morally, there can be no conceivable justification, for the distorted student support for the recent chapter of reprised genocide by the terroristic Hamas. Neither is there rational justification for assigning a commonality between American Jews and Israel. The Nation’s Jews, inarguably, are American, not Israeli citizens, am empirical observation apparently lost on the Nation’s seemingly inexhaustible horde of reductionist anti-Semites.
It may be instructive to note that there is an absence of history of student uprisings concerning the genocidal Hutu-Tutsi, Turkish-Armenian, Serbian-Croatian, and Russian-Ukraine, factually accurate, genocidal wars nor, back in the 1940s, American “carpet bombing” of Dresden, the wrongful wartime imprisonment of innocent ethnic Japanese Americans, or the shameful nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. It is contextually observable, that none of these horrific events involved “Jews” as named protagonists.
While we affirmatively oppose the harshness of the military policies of the Israeli Prime Minister, we can empathically comprehend the presumed background of his historically based, etiology of ethnic paranoia.
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