So. As an educator out of the Language Arts classroom and a lifetime of voracious reading from the backs of cereal boxes to scholarly treatises, I have been fascinated by the living language. That involves the constant. changes made to language. Words disappear and then reappear with different meanings. New words are created. Words become passe, meaningless. Connotation and denotation change. At times language is confusing, perhaps purposely so. Finally, language can be used for positive or negative goals even as the words to describe those goals are constructed and employed to confuse, mislead, and cloud the area with obfuscation meant to hide truths. Language and its interpretation are extremely critical. Too often we forget how difficult it is to properly interpret and properly discern the message sent.
Depending upon your conversational partner, the policy decisions of Kamala Harris, re Israel, its survival, its defense, its behavior, its warfare, its everything, are either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian or the opposite. The same words. However, however. the understanding, the interpretation of those words are rooted in the minds of the listeners. They hear what they wish to hear. They speak via the same parameters as they hear. The policies of Kamala Harris face the same interpretation effect.
I am not nearly completely satisfied with her policy toward Israel. Frankly, I'm not quite sure what that policy is, what it actually means. As an aside, I do believe she will provide a steadier approach than would Trump so deeply enmeshed is he in a deepening voyage into the last goodbye. I believe she is committed to the emergence of a new Middle East, emerging from the horror of this past year and ongoing. I see her as a woman with an understanding of other women and will build upon that to try to bring about some peace even if fragile, to this eternally challenged area. There is no pain like that of a woman who says goodbye to her children, to her son, her daughter, not knowing when that child will return. The voice, the scream of 'Ima shekula', a mother bereft of child, cuts the air with its keening sound. It drives nails into the hearts and ears of those who hear it. The sound resonates, forever, the pain eternal. And yet...
Taking the above paragraph into account, I therefore wonder about the Arab mother whose son is borne back home only to be taken away and consigned to the ground. How does this mother, in the midst of grief so deep it cannot be expressed in words, nor ever be expunged from the soul, how then does this mother celebrate the death of that child and wish for her other children to follow that same deadly path. I simply cannot wrap my head around that. Golda Meir said that "peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us". That is one of the saddest statements ever made. That is one of the most telling statements ever made. And it offers a crucial, critical sharp understanding into the mindset of those who call themselves "Pro Palestinian" or for 'justice', or "Uncommitted", when actually they are committed. Words are betrayed by actions. Words cannot mitigate the violence, and the hate found in other words, particularly when that hate is neither canceled, nor ameliorated, nor tempered, and these words/actions carry bloodstains unable to be cleansed.
The truth in this situation is that all these committees actually are committed. To support murderers. To support the extermination of Jews. To support those who wish to make Judenrein the 'land from the river to the sea' even if they have no idea what river, what sea! Clear beneath the attempted obfuscation of the truth is that their words and goals drip with blood and venom. They are indeed committed to hate and slaughter, to gross inhumanity. These protesters now scream for Intifada, a period of rampant ugly terror focused on the killing of civilians. They follow the hate of Sinwar, now dead and gone to his just desserts! Children in schools and pizza places and bars. People standing at a bus stop. Or walking in the street. Or strolling in the mall.
No, the uncommitted here definitely are committed. Kamala Harris has rejected their support. Does that mean that she sees the situation via Israeli eyes? No. She sees through the vision of American eyes. Eyes of one who proposes to lead this nation and in so doing. also do the best she can for the rest of the world. We are part of that world. Contrary to Trump we cannot shut the gates, lock the doors, seal the windows, put fingers in our ears and intone lalala. The world is too complex for that. It is an understanding, that is difficult for many to accept. But be that as it may, I do not believe that Kamala Harris as president of the United States of America, would throw Israel under the wheels of a heavy-duty bus. I believe as a woman she feels the pain of other women who have lost sons, daughters, family members. She sees the loss of life in Gaza as well as the destruction of northern Israel.
While we would understandably wish the world to see and hear through our eyes and ears, that is unrealistic. She is an American with responsibility towards America and her citizens. They are primary, as it should be. However, I do not believe she holds any hatred in her heart for Israel, for Jews. She will attempt to do the best and the fairest that she can. While she is not my ideal pick, at least she will defend democracy, for only within a democratic state can Jews thrive. Jews do not do well under authoritarian government. That is a fact of history.
We will not do well here nor in Israel should she lose this fight. While we wish more of her vision were via our eyes, we must understand reality. I do believe that she feels the pain and horror of war and would do the best to fairly adjudicate and move peace forward. I think she knows that this cycle of war was not at our behest nor instigation. Not in Gaza, nor in Lebanon. The situation of "permanent ceasefire" was violated by our enemies. Israel and the United States share that enemy. I hope that wise heads will be able to employ the proper language to make that very clear. I hope that clear and distinct immutable language will present the truth that those who begin wars cannot pick and choose the battlefields upon which that war will be fought. All collateral death, all collateral destruction is upon the shoulders and the souls of those who began this war.
We are living in a time of great uncertainty. We are living in a time where language is not clear nor is it always properly employed. Unfortunately, too many are committed to kill and destruction, to the rule of hate. The rest of us must combat it together. We must void our differences or ameliorate them to the point where we can cooperate and do what must be done. We must cherish and protect both Israel and the United States of America and any other right-thinking nation. To do otherwise is anathema. We have a choice. We must make a choice Even if we do not like either candidate. We must choose the better one. At least there is one who will strive to keep this nation a democracy and can be trusted to keep a steady hand on the helm, even if we sometimes have to nudge that hand just a bit. To keep our other country, Israel, safe, alive, well, thriving, prosperous, productive, committed to world safety.
That is the choice- like it or not. No shouts, no threats, can change that choice. Reality is as reality does. Follow those threads. Think. Think again. and vote.
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