At the family picnic last Sunday, one of my cousins told me about a book he was reading called The Mayflower, about which story the Washington Post said this in its review (as posted on Amazon.com):
The famous Mayflower Compact that they [the Pilgrims] wrote and signed during the Atlantic crossing did contain a few of the seeds from which the United States and its democratic system eventually sprang, but the settlers were not especially democratic themselves. They disliked and suppressed dissent, enslaved Indians and shipped them off to brutal conditions in the West Indies and clung with such stubborn rigidity to their belief that they alone understood God’s will that they were incapable of comprehending the Indians’ very different culture.
In a very real sense, in their conviction that they were God’s chosen people, they became just what they imagined their enemies to be.
Between then and now, similar scenarios have played themselves out, with various peoples, convinced they were God’s Chosen, using that conviction an an excuse to terrorize, murder, and try their best to eradicate the “non-chosen.”
HItler’s Nazis, of course, continue to stand out as the model of such ignominious behavior.
And here we are again, as Israel takes its cause to the extreme, becoming what was once their own worst nightmare.
Non-blogger myrln put it well in an email:
“Without approving the homicidal tendencies of Muslim terrorists, I urge you to look back in history to learn about the modern hypocrisy of Israel (and the US).
Do this: google “irgun” then read the Wikipedia entry about it and learn (if you don’t already know) about the terrorist beginnings of the Jewish state, actions and tactics we all approved after WWII because of the deserved sympathy for the horrors inflicted on Jews (and many others). Yet, we can’t deny that without terror tactics by those early Jews, there likely may never have been an independent nation of Israel. So the wholesale condemnation of “terrorism” seems hypocritical: it’s all right if your “side” does it but not if the “other side” does it.
And I also have a bone to pick with news media. I hear every day about how many rockets have been launched into Israel, but I don’t hear how many missiles, bombs, artillery shells have been dropped into Lebanon.
Also today, after repeated assurances to the UN that it’s border outpost would not be attacked, Israel bombed it, killing at least 2 UN observers and maybe 4 total. They also continued small arms fire as rescuers tried to get to the victims.
I’m sorry, but my moral compass, while condemning all parties involved, tilts more heavily against Israel, which I’ve supported for many years. I can no longer do so. They have lost their moral way, justifying civilian casualties by saying accidents happen in war. Right: accidents.
The most used word in the Israeli vocabuary these days is, Oops.
Look up irgun.
Do this: google “irgun” then read the Wikipedia entry about it and learn (if you don’t already know) about the terrorist beginnings of the Jewish state, actions and tactics we all approved after WWII because of the deserved sympathy for the horrors inflicted on Jews (and many others). Yet, we can’t deny that without terror tactics by those early Jews, there likely may never have been an independent nation of Israel. So the wholesale condemnation of “terrorism” seems hypocritical: it’s all right if your “side” does it but not if the “other side” does it.
And I also have a bone to pick with news media. I hear every day about how many rockets have been launched into Israel, but I don’t hear how many missiles, bombs, artillery shells have been dropped into Lebanon.
Also today, after repeated assurances to the UN that it’s border outpost would not be attacked, Israel bombed it, killing at least 2 UN observers and maybe 4 total. They also continued small arms fire as rescuers tried to get to the victims.
I’m sorry, but my moral compass, while condemning all parties involved, tilts more heavily against Israel, which I’ve supported for many years. I can no longer do so. They have lost their moral way, justifying civilian casualties by saying accidents happen in war. Right: accidents.
The most used word in the Israeli vocabuary these days is, Oops.
Look up irgun.
And then we have the RIGHTeous of Amerika, who are guiding us down that well traveled road to historical ignominy.