And here we are, back at the old crumbling trails of a challenged world. Rocks and hard places galore, leaving very little room for safer paths to tread. Now the questions are whether or not we can find or attempt to build paths of and to safety, if we can warn enough people that falling rocks remain a source of peril, and if we can find and motivate enough to roll those boulders out of the way. Might we be able to build upon that clearing of roads and actually arrive at a point where bridges can be built to deny the power of those boulders, as we bypass their obstructions and negate their damage. Beautiful thought, but percentage of reality and actuality ......
To the point, take a look at some of those designated as immovable boulders. The United States continues to give comfort to the enemy as it tells Israel that she has done all that she might within Gaza. Give it up, Israel is told. Hamas hears encouragement, rescue, and victory, snatched from the Israeli soldiers and nation and has been handed to them on a silver platter bespattered with the gore and the agony of the dead and slaughtered, the tortured and the missing. The echoes of their suffering continue to resound in the air, from the sands, from the bloody and violated homes belonging to them.
Israel is to cede victory, hand it over to the beasts of Hamas and even apologize for the unavoidable consequences of a war purposely waged by Hamas within populated areas and compromised infrastructure. Israel cannot do that, for in so doing she cedes all further rights of self-defense against inevitable attacks and attempts to destroy her and her citizens. But Israel cannot do that.
Part of her very core is to provide an assurance to the Jews of the world that here is a home for them whenever they return. Here is a place of safety for them. That promise is now in danger for even as she is attacked in that very homeland and fights for her life, those for whom she represented safety are now themselves endangered within their current homelands, declared unwanted, deserving of death - awful echoes of a past never denied.
Think of the danger and the angst it engenders as the home of refuge is now in acute danger, her very right to exist denied. Historical truths ignored and new myths created instead. A sense of danger grows within Jewish communities around the world. Perversely, the massacre of October 7 seems to have invigorated the haters who now stand and shriek insanely calling for the complete extermination and erasure of Israel, her citizens within and while they are at it, the Jews of the world. There are even deluded, self-denying Jews who collaborate with those calling for their demise!! A rather rusty bloodstained mantra of old never ever dying away is revived, "You can't live here. You can't live there. In fact, you can't live anywhere." Here is a representative statement, from a British Jew, but the sentiment is the same round the world Jewish communities.
"The silence was deafening. From the distress of bullied children to the cold shoulder of colleagues or the parade of friends who turned out not to be friends at all, testimonies from the Jewish community in Britain reveal the same bleak experiences.
It wasn’t just the world that changed the day Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year. The world of British Jews did too, as mutating strains of anti-Semitism worked their way beyond smashed shopfronts and violent protests and into the domestic and everyday. And each witness uses the same expression. The silence was deafening."
Boulders galore. Defying all removal. Ideas? Anyone? Someone?
These immovable boulders proliferate around the world. They move of and with their own momentum. The results are rather ugly. Unfortunately, more rocks and hard places for Sunday, so accursed is this world of ours. As a bit of a preview. here is a piece. that you might want to chew on.
"...his remarks began with a promise to focus on some “big facts and very substantial truths”, as so often they more than strained the definition of both. ...He claimed, once again, that some countries are emptying out their prisons and “insane asylums” to flood the US with illegal migrants, despite there being no data on the prison history of migrants crossing the border or their mental health status.
And he repeated – without any evidence and contrary to government data - that 100% of new jobs have gone to migrants, while regurgitating false claims about having won the 2020 election."
And this deranged, vastly incompetent man might most frighteningly be the chosen candidate to win the office of President, again? Yet another unthinkable, disastrous, dangerous. term in office!!! How can this be? Simple, and while I speak for myself, I do know that my dilemma is shared by many others. How much can we possibly overlook and discount when faced with this awful choice? Which danger is more imminent? Is it the existential danger to Israel? The existential danger to the United States and its democratic foundation? And what then would be the effect upon Israel? These questions and concerns go round and round and round, pounding away at head, heart, and soul.
One candidate is banking on the fact that many Jews traditionally have voted the Democratic slate finding its platform planks more to their liking. However, the unease grows as the present candidate Kamala Harris, appears to be drawing closer and closer to a rather ugly cohort of Arab/ Palestinian/ Muslim who have managed to set aside their intramural hatred and competition and replaced it, at least for now, with hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews. How far will she go? How long will Israel stand if she's deserted by her major ally and all those who will follow.
On the other hand, what is the choice? Trump is a danger to all. He and his supporters speak of the elimination of America as she is - from democracy to authoritarian. Frightening. This is a man who is cognitively damaged. Quite openly so and is out of control, always willing to throw any and all who displeased him under the wheels of the bus. That ever-present bus he drags along with him. He speaks in demented manner, makes accusations out of left field, perhaps out of space. He has shown some favor to Israel, but he can change in a moment of mercurial temper, and then, where are we at that point?
What the hell!!!!!
Rocks and hard places aplenty!
What to do?
Damning deafening silence.
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Yitzy, I so miss your goodness and your warmth. Always and forever. Always and forever.
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