Who is Jack? Just a name that rhymed with facts. Jack is the man in the street. Jack is the woman chanting and shouting with crazed eyes in support of those who would erase her from society. Jack is all of those, all of us, who simply refuse to see the facts and create their own facts - which never were, never will be. Here are some facts with explanation:
542,570-tons of aid: 28,255 aid trucks: 2.3 million Gazans out of whom a claimed, never documented 31 were victims of malnutrition and dehydration in 7 months of a war instigated and perpetuated by Hamas, enabled by Egypt's refusal to allow fuel trucks in or Gazans out: Keren Shalom - a gate for aid under constant barrage by Hamas: 89 possibly live hostages remaining out of 136 continuing imprisoned hostages - criminally held, tortured, sexually, emotionally, physically abused civilians from infant to elderly.
Are those facts sufficient, powerful enough to allow at least a tiny bit of truth and common sense to penetrate your minds, brains, hearts and souls immured, paralyzed in fossilized muck and detritus of hate? Here are a few more statements which might, against great odds, penetrate the thick high walls of your mind, bore a hole in the walls built high and thick so as to prevent such any truth from penetrating and making a difference.
The words of the ICC itself are criminal in its false words and accusations, demanding arrest, issuing warrants enabling arrest, of figures of Hamas and Israel. How and why is there any equivalence? How are their deeds conflated? Two opposing sides - one a gang of terrorists bent on cold blooded murder and mayhem and the other a government defending its integrity, its citizens, against that enemy desirous of its permanent elimination and erasure from the history and memory of mankind. How, where is there any room or reason for equivalence? In fact, there is none. The facts, the numbers, the reality refute that statement of the ICC that Israel "is intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population.”
How did this all come to such a state of being? Frankly, I believe, along with many others. that the problem begins within our educational system. Over the past few decades, it has grown weak. and inefficient, failed to teach students how to think, to discern truth from falsehood, to resist temptations of evil, to understand morality, to understand the responsibilities, the duties they owe to humanity. Instead, we have allowed others, enemies of people, enemies of a good, proper life, to infiltrate and take over our classrooms and fill the minds of our poorly educated undergraduates with lies that provoke violence and vocalized mad enthusiasm and support for murderers. In this new world engendered. by our faulty education, values are skewed and skewed behavior follows in tandem. Sinwar becomes a hero for murdering civilians, for using hostages as human shields while Netanyahu defending his nation becomes a pariah. Equivalence? The same? Never.
Were Israel to redeploy, pull out its forces, October 7, its awful horrors, would be replicated time and time again. If Hamas were to put down its arms, Israel would rescue hostages alive and dead, arrest Sinwar and his fellow criminals. and the rebuilding of Gaza would begin, properly, with new buildings, with a rebuilt economy, a revitalized educational system minus the hate once taught there.
I ask where is justice in this world? Where are the lessons of history we ought to learn? There is in a museum in Barcelona an exhibit “The Lost Mirror: Jews and Conversos in the Middle Ages”, described as "an illuminating exhibition examining. how medieval Spanish art helped fuel prejudice against Jews prior to their expulsion in 1492. The artworks gathered together bear silent witness to the cultural vicissitudes and the dogmatic zealotry that turned a pluralistic society into a bastion of intolerance". When the leaders of a nation are chosen for their deficiencies. for their incitement of citizens to rampage and ignore morality, it is then "Jews beware!" Troubles ensue, particularly when church and government combine in evil synergy, and it is ever and again "Jews Beware". Be it 1492 or 2024 or 2234, though I hope not, I pray not, though I despair not.
Salmanl Rushdie, not a particular favorite of mine, but still a brave man, stated in an interview on May 19th that “... right now one has to be distressed by what is happening in Gaza because of the quantity of innocent death. I would just like some of the protest to mention Hamas because that's where this started. And Hamas is a terrorist organization and it's very strange for young progressive student politics to come to support of fascist terrorist group... it's very problematic” - an understatement. The deaths in Gaza are regrettable. But Hamas has enabled those deaths, in fact, desires those deaths. Israel and its armies are the ones who have been trying to limit the collateral damage and have been ruthlessly hindered and blocked in those attempts. By Hamas.
Would that the world would face the facts and accept them. Then, perhaps then, progress, true progress, would be possible. Maybe.
We have allowed marauders to board our boats to break. the helm and to misdirected into dangerous oceans. High waves are threatening to topple us all, to drown in our own mess that we have created. We need to reject those marauders. We need to retake the helm. We, not anybody else. We are the ones who allowed this. We are the ones who must fix it. Will we wake up in time? Perhaps only God knows that and I'm afraid perhaps that He does not really care anymore.
------------------------------------------------------------
Yitzy, sweet boy, such evil odorous thoughts are foreign to you in life below as they are in life above. Would that we there were more of you in this world. Would that you were here with us? We miss you so
Always and forever. Always. and forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment