Okay, I swear I'll bring back the funny soon. I just had to get all of this off my chest......


For weeks, ever since the crisis in the Middle-East has gone from bad to "oh my fucking God" bad, I've wanted to post something. Almost every day something new happens or I read something and except for the occasional attack on France, I've held back. Too much to say, too much to get upset about. It's all so sad. Not to mention scary as all hell.

In a strange way, the whole thing kind of makes me wish I wasn't Jewish. That way it wouldn't upset me so much. Somewhere in me, there's a part that thinks that the correct attitude to the whole thing is the "pox on both your houses" attitude. But I am Jewish so I care. And I've had just enough Zionist indoctrination to know what Israel means to Jews and why it's so important. And just enough Zionist indoctrination to know about a lot of the shit that goes down there- to know what Israel is up against and to know what the stakes are. I also know enough to know what a bunch of naïve twits the leftist, anti-globalization, pro-Palestinian bourgie white protestors are. Children off on a crusade they know nothing about. Stuff like how for years both the Arab and Palestinian press has been spewing virulently anti-semitic stuff. Or that Yasar Arafat has always said one thing English in front of a foreign press but then go off and say the complete opposite thing in Arabic to an Arabic press.

The whole thing makes me too upset to write about it. I'm already one paragraph in and I'm already cursing up a storm. There are, however, people out there who are far better writers than I am and who know much more than I do. So as a way of summing up how I feel, I turn it all over to them. Here's a collection of articles about the subject that pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole, unbelievable mess.



Mideast Ending the Deadly Tango of Terror: 1967: Six days that are still shaking the world
First, this is how we got into this mess. A history lesson for those who don't quite know what the cause of it all is. Must reading for the twits out there holding signs and banners. This is how and why the Six Day War started and how Arafat pushed everyone into the war, only to see all the Arab countries get their butts kicked. The article also points out that Israel offered peace then, way back in 1967, but got nothing back for it. Over thirty years later, the Arab countries have finally gotten around to maybe, possibly, somehow recognize that Israel does have a right to exist.


Needing Israel
This article is about why Israel is so important to Jews. And why, when the chips are down, Israel (and a lot of Jews) don’t' care about what the world thinks because when the chips are down, the world usually never cares anyways.

Suicidal Lies
From the excellent Tom Friedman (who if I was President would make Secretary of State cause this guy knows his shit), an article about why it's important for the world to make a moral stand against suicide bombers. That to hem and haw and to give excuses, like the Europeans are, or to "wink-wink" condemn like the Arabs do is to forgo moral responsibility. And that fighting against it really is a battle for civilization.


A plea to the Palestinians for help: 'There is no one else to ask
While I don't agree with the nasty anti-Israeli viewpoints of the writer, I think he's right about what he says. The truth is that if Arafat was really smart, he should have been a Martin Luther King, a Gandhi, not a terrorist. If the Palestinians would have used non-violent measures, they would have had almost everything they wanted years ago. That's the biggest shame of it all, that as noble as their cause is (and it is) they keep on fucking it up by going about things the dumbest way posible. Not that the blame lies entirely with the Palestinians.
Israel has also done their fair share of bad things. The Palestinians, for instance, wouldn't be so upset with Israel if it weren't for Israel continuing to build settlements on the West Bank. The problem is that most anti-Israeli essays are either inflammatory, hysterical, or naïve. There are, however, ways of writing articles that aren't. Of saying what the truth is but also realizing, unlike a lot of the anti-Israeli articles do, what the reality really is.

Aiding the Enemy
This one wonders what Sharon thinks he's doing and raises the point that Sharon is only making matters worse

A Brave Voice in Israel
I like this one because it's based on an editorial in an Israeli Newspaper. It not only points out that Sharon is notorious for overreacting to things with a brutal hand (which is what I'm fearing is happening now, but also points out that Israeli's salvation can come from the fact that it is a democracy. That the fact that it has free elections , a free press and the right to speak freely is why it will eventually figure out what to do. Something you can't say for the tin-plated, punk-ass dictators ruling Arab countries.

The Bush Doctrine R.I.P
Of course, none of this mess would have started if we didn't have a President who was too afraid to get involved. Probably too complicated for him. And now, he's in deep-shit. The Israeli's won't listen to him, the Palestinians won't, the Arabs won't, and the Europeans are only kicking back and laughing at the whole thing.

This guy, Frank Rich, is one of my favorite columnists on the NY Times. He's one of the few commentators who isn't afraid to rip into smirk-boy whenever smirk-boy needs to be ripped into.

Finally, two more things. Probably the scariest aspect of it all.

There was a particularly ugly protest in Berkeley last week. Besides taking over a building, the Pro-Palestinian protestors took over a college building (that's soooooo '69), they were doing really nasty things. Oh, and they staged the protest on the day that commemorates the Holocaust, which, was, ummm, kind of tactless.

Rob Morse of the Chron describes the scene and adds a few snide comments of his own:


Demonstrations of ignorance dispensed here

Incidentally, I saw one of the guys Rob Morse was talking about. I saw this (white) guy in his mid to late 40's walking around SF with a sign that said "Sharon=Hitler." I wanted to smack him upside the head. And I don't even want to get into any Jews who protest against Israel either. If one of them gets accidently hit by a baton during a protest, I'm not going to be that upset.

Criticism of Israel escalates into a 'New Anti-Semitism'
This one, my last one, is the scariest part of it all. It's about what I've been talking about above and all through this, how it's often hard to tell anti-Israel comments from anti-Jewish comments. Especially in Europe, a place with not exactly a great reputation for it's tolerance towards Jews (see Holocaust). This is the one that makes me the angriest. Hell, my mother, who isn't exactly known for her Jewishness, is now sending out e-mails about how the whole world is anti-semitic.


What can I say. It's a pretty scary time to be a Jew. It's a pretty scary time in general.

All I know is I think I'm hitting Jdate. Keep the Tribe Alive.