Monday, August 4, 2014

.....Perhaps you haven't seen this, but it says what I'd like to say...

 

Okay. Don’t Cry for Us Israelis
By Naomi Ragen
 
I’m sitting here in Jerusalem after a week of heartbreak over three murdered teens, followed by  two weeks of sirens, bomb blasts, and finally, the funerals of young IDF soldiers, of whom one-third are students who should be taking their final exams, instead of risking their lives.  I’m  reading on the internet
about what a horrible person I am as an Israeli and as a Jew, and what a terrible, immoral country I live in.
 
All this criticism comes mainly from the European press: The Guardian, the BBC, papers in Italy, Norway, France, and don’t forget America: The New York Times, CNN.  And I’m thinking: Gee, the British should understand.  After all, they lived through the blitz, Nazis raining bombs indiscriminately down on them, the
way Hamas is raining bombs down on us.  And when the brave pilots of the RAF aimed their bombs at Dresden killing 300,000 men, women and children, they didn’t throw down leaflets telling people to politely evacuate; didn’t send their soldiers to knock on doors to see if they’d followed the leaflets instructions ( as CNN complained Israel failed to do at an UNRWA school, which was probably hit by a Hamas bomb anyway.)
 

And I think of the rest of Europe, who rounded up our  grandparents and great-grandparents, and relatives –men, women and children—and sent them off to be gassed, no questions asked.  And I think:  They are now the moral arbiters of
the free world?  They are telling the descendants of the people they murdered how to behave when other anti-Semites want to kill them?
 
As for Americans, represented by the New York Times, that bastion of high-minded hypocrisy and mediocre journalism parading as the “newspaper of record,” one has only to read the article by Professor Auerbach in the New York Observer (Two
Weeks of Shallow, Facile Moral Equivalency From the New York Times) to see how Jodi Rudoren and other Times apparatchiks have learned to close their minds and love Hamas.  After all, there are CHILDREN DYING.  It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have educated an entire generation to be little Nazi-wannabes, who worship death and hate Jews, murdering their  souls, and are now callously putting their bodies in harm’s way to use for touching photo ops.  We shouldn’t be shocked by this omission by the Times. After all,  The New York Times was one of the last news outlets to bring to the attention of the reading public the Nazi atrocities in Europe.  Read the Times during the nightmare years, and see if you can’t find a pattern here.
 
And so, as an Israeli, brought up with Jewish values, and an American, taught to love freedom, justice, democracy and fair play, I have to tell all of you- Europeans, Americans, and last of all Muslim terrorist sympathizers and barbarians,  that what you are saying no longer moves anyone of good moral judgment and intelligence. The current crisis in Gaza is so morally clear-cut,
so absolutely a case of self-defense, that I must say to you, as someone finally said to Senator McCarthy: “Sir, have you no shame?”
 
I prefer that you - writers of these lies and libels-- hate me and my country, if it means that you can save your tears for other peoples dead. We aren’t greedy for sympathy.  After all, we got so much after the Holocaust, we prefer other people to have their share now. These days, we prefer to live, rather than have people cry over us and the injustices done to us.
 
So by all means, cry for the Palestinian people - men women and children- whose duly elected leadership has callously left them without protection from just retribution for their terrorist crimes. Who took their aid money and are living in Qatar in five star hotels building shopping centers for themselves. Who built
terrorist tunnels under their homes, mosques, hospitals and schools, and recruited their sons to die for Allah, while they sit in bunkers waiting for the U.N. to rescue them.
 
Don’t cry for us, or our families, or our children, or grandchildren. Not  this time. Not ever.  Not  if we can help it. Because this time, thank God, we have a country.  We are armed.  This time, with God's help,  we know how to protect ourselves from Nazis and their high-minded media cheerleaders.
 
I would like to end this with an expletive and a hand gesture towards the people I’m addressing.  Please choose one you think would be fitting.  I can think of many.

8 comments:

  1. ruth.grimsley@virgin.netAugust 5, 2014 at 8:23 AM

    Yes, well done, Ms Ragen, especially with regard to The Guardian which is turning itself into an Islamist rag. This in itself isn't the problem - no-one needs to read the Guardian. What's really worrying me over here are the demographics. We have a huge Muslim population, and a tiny Jewish one. This problem can only get worse. It's a demographic time-bomb. Opinion is bound to sway towards Islam: and the Guardian is merely in the vanguard with regard to this. THAT'S the big worry. Sometimes I think I'll give up on the liberal project and emigrate to a right-wing South or Central American dictatorship where they've got a short sharp way with people who can't behave themselves. No, this isn't a joke. Cuzzin Ruth

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  2. I don’t remember falling into the rabbit hole and finding characters that would do justice to Charles Dickens. The realization that something is amiss arrived, when my TV set showed a smug Cheshire Cat, a Hamas Negotiator, espousing that Jews used childrens Christian Blood to mix with their matzohs, attributed to one of the most heinous anti-semitic literature in history,” The Elders Of Zion.” I personally like jam on my Matzoh.
    Ok, not funny. I’ll try not to display my wry and distorted humor. I can’t promise, but I’ll try.
    The Middle East conflagrations, the U.S. border, Ebola, my wife leaving me, saddled with the mortgage. I’ll forgive that last transgression. It wasn’t her fault. The World going to Hell in a Bread Basket. Perhaps, if I go to bed earlier than usual, and get a good nights sleep, I’ll awaken to a saner world. Can this be a bad dream? In all my 83 years of living, I can’t remember when so many problems existed at one time.
    I don’t have a window to shout from that I won’t take this anymore, so I’ll try to utilize my good friend, The Red Baron, to air my plaintive cry on his blog. If I have to use a bribe, I do so shamelessly. He is officially back on my FaceBook as a friend. I rescind the banishment. Of course, there is a probation clause that I insist on, that carefully monitors his actions. Perhaps, if he picks up the next restaurant dining check, I might restore all priviliges.

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  3. How does an Atheist manage with a Loved One’s Ashes?

    If my confession of Atheism shocks you, one only has to look at what’s happening on our globe. If you think there is an entity like a caring benevolent, caretaker overlooking our lives, I suggest you clean your glasses. Holocausts, famine, wars and all human suffering should give you the hint, that we are the product of evolution and not of a Supreme Being. Call it Nature, if you will. I capitalized Supreme Being, just in case I'm wrong.
    When my wife of 51 years passed away a few months ago, The Cremation Services asked me what I wanted to do with her ashes. Since my belief, or in this case, non belief, urged me to shrug my shoulder and say, I don’t care, I realized that I may be putting people to risk, and shocking them so much to perhaps have them wring their hands, not understanding, or worse, causing their little hearts to stop. So…I held my gesture off, and had Helens ashes delivered to my condo. Now I had to find a place for the neatly tied box with a ribbon. Where to put (her?) I keep the package in the kitchen and am acutely aware now that I sometimes want to direct a comment to her. Wait a minute. It would be a kind comment, like how much I miss her. Don’t you dare think it would be an unkind thought.
    I know of friends and acquaintances that keep their loved ones ashes near their beds, and have a conversation with the contents. I admit, that for the past few days, I’ve been shouting “Good Night, my darling, from the bed room. ( Loud enough for her to hear?)
    Ok, I settled on this system of communication. Once or twice a day. I didn’t want it to become a shrine, where we all know someone, who is perfectly content to carry on long conversations with the remains.
    I just had to admit it.

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  4. Mike: With thoughts and words such is these, you should begin your own blog.

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    1. Joel, Thank you for your kind words. Since retired, I enjoy NOT having a schedule with a time line. Randomly, when confronted with a thought that I would like to share, I'd prefer leaning onThe Baron's generosity for allowing my rant. Also my threat to banish his name from my list of friends, seem to work, AND perhaps he will pick up the dinner check one day. Regards....Mike

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  5. ruth.grimsley@virgin.netAugust 9, 2014 at 12:01 AM

    Mike dear, may I refer you to Thomas Hardy's sonnet "In the Cemetery?" I quote: "As well cry over a new-laid drain/ as anything else, to ease your pain!" You go do with your dear late wife's ashes ANYTHING that gets you through being a recently-bereaved widower, anything at all that comforts you!
    Here's a jolly story. My best friend's husband died of cancer and that was sad, because we all liked him. Except her, because he hadn't exactly been a model husband. Anyway, he had wanted his ashes scattered over a beautiful hilltop in Somerset. So we went there in accordance with his wish. Unfortunately, just as we were scattering the ashes, the wind suddenly changed direction and blew them all over us. "There you are, Sue," I said, "He's STILL getting in your hair!" Actually, the bloke had had an ironic sense of humour, and we all thought he would have liked that one! And we went back down the hill singing, "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair" from "South Pacific."
    Using upper case for the Supreme Being "just in case" is an interesting manifestation of Pascal's Wager, so if you haven't come across THAT yet, do have a look at it on Google. When I'm in the USA, I do notice that public discourse is quite strong on God: but you won't shock anyone in the UK by a declaration of atheism. Except perhaps the Muslims. Much love, and thinking of you, Cuzzin Ruth

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    1. Thank you, Cuzzin Ruth. I enjoyed your tale about the scattered ashes. I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in this world with a distorted sense of humor. Be well......Mike

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  6. ruth.grimsley@virgin.netAugust 11, 2014 at 12:18 AM

    No, dear Mike, you're not alone in having a sense of humoUr (English English spelling: yar, boo and sucks to Noah Webster!) but I would dispute the "distorted" bit. Frankly, the state of the world is such that if we didn't laugh, we'd cry! Cuzzin Ruth

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