“He’s a great humanitarian; he’s a great philanthropist,
He knows just where to touch you honey, and how you like to be kissed.
He’ll put both his arms around you,
You can feel the tender touch of the beast.
You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.”
- Bob Dylan – “Man of Peace” (1983)
Last night I got the following e-mail from someone here in Emporia. There’s no reason to identify the person; it’s just best to consider him or her “concerned citizen for justice.”
The note began ominously. About the only people nowadays who address me as “Mr. Dillon” are solicitors or politicians, both of whom call with hats in hand. Thus, as soon as I saw the salutation I proceeded to tie down some the things I consider valuable in this life – my dignity and my conscience.
The note follows for your enlightenment:
Mr. Dillon:
“Below is my query of Dr. Bernard Weiner regarding an article he wrote a few days ago for the American Politics Journal. (That question is at the bottom of the message).”“Next is his capsulized comment. I thought after your comment in the Gazette you might be interested in the historical aspects of Dr. Weiner's text.”
“Israel is an arbitrary creation, one made through the offices of Great Britain and the United States in 1947. In its making land was taken away from rightful owners and given to the new-born Israelis and the specific territorial lines were drawn. Since then Israel has continued to encroach upon Arab lands. Is it any wonder that, after the havoc Israel has wrought on their “neighbors” they have indeed angered some of those neighbors? And the guilt of the West has caused even more problems for the Mideast, and will continue to do so until Israel is returned at least to their 1947 boundaries.”
“Perhaps if all efforts at peace fail, we can give the Jewish people the state of Texas. (Under present conditions, that would seem most appropriate.) We could except that Mr. Bush insists we make no sacrifice in pursuit of “democracy” for all, especially no sacrifice for the “haves” of the United States. Imagine the anguish of the Texas oil folks if they were inundated with Jewish people!”
At the heart of his note was a question he previously asked of the aforementioned Dr. Bernard Weiner, which follows:
“Perhaps you or someone in your audience can explain to me why it is the Jewish people must have their own personal nation when most of the rest of us don't and probably don't expect to. I mean, where is the nation to which all Christians can demand that no one else enter? Or where Christians can expect to relentlessly settle their next door, once-upon-a-time-owner's territory?”
I read the note a couple of times to be as certain as I could that I had the intended message correct. I think it was pretty close to unmistakable, a piece of rank anti-Semitism. About the only thing missing was a reference to the “truth” of the rhetoric of the vile forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
I sent the following response:
I read through your note and I'm not sure whether or not to be amused or offended. I think I'll maintain the latter.
I could try to reason with you on what you call the artificiality of the formation of the State of Israel, but I think it would be a waste of time I could spend profitably elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the nation of Israel is recognized internationally, in the same way that my title to my house is recognized by the state of Kansas, the folks down at the probate court, and my neighbors.
In addition, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Jews purchased large tracts of land in Palestine from absentee landlords living in other Arab countries (see Alan Dershowitz's “The Case for Israel”).
My position on the matter is that the world needs to find a two-state solution, with Israel and the Palestinian people living within secure borders. Your option is Palestine for the Palestinians and the Jews to Texas. Quite clever. One “artificial” solution to solve another. For you to say that Israel is “artificial” is nothing more than a veiled way for you divert attention away from the rank anti-Semitism I see mounting in this country. I saw it in Europe back in the nineties, and I'm sure that as things continue in the Middle-East that sentiment will grow here too.
Let me put my feelings succinctly. I do not subscribe to prejudice, whether its adherents claim to be “educated and well informed” or whether they wear pointed hats and robes and burn crosses.
One last thing. I consider any avenue of communication that might have been open between us closed. As I said earlier, I have better things to do with my time.
I have since put this “concerned citizen for justice” on my spam list.
Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t have a spam list that will effectively do away with the terror that’s been surrounding them for over half a century. There have been times when it appeared that peace and secure borders might actually become a reality, but each and every time the bubble of expectation was burst by terror in one form or another. Nothing has worked. Land for peace hasn’t worked. Concessions haven’t worked.
There’s a reason for this. The Jewish people are hated. Israel’s enemies, and many “concerned citizens for justice” see this one body of human persons as the root of the problems in the Middle-East, if not the world. The language may be scholarly and, paradoxically, vitriolic, like these words from Professor M.Shahid Alam of Northeastern University:
“But this has been the particular burden of Zionists as they conceived their plan for a colonial-settler state in Palestine, as they went about executing this plan on the backs of imperialists powers-with wars, massacres and ethnic cleansing-and, later, as they have persisted in their plans to dispossess the Palestinians of the last fragments of their rights and legacy whose Canaanite roots were more ancient than Isaiah, Ezekiel, David and Moses.”
Or, they may have a populist strain, as the words of “concerned citizen” penned last night demonstrate. The net effect is the same. Jews are bad for the world, and we’d all be better off without them. The Palestinians, Hezbollah, and their puppet masters in Tehran and Damascus don’t want them and now there’s a mounting body of “concerned citizens” in this country who don’t want them, or only want them far away from where they themselves live.
When he was a child in Romania, Elie Wiesel, like so many Jews, faced a daily onslaught of anti-Semitism. He even came to accept it as “endemic to our condition.” “But,” he also said:
“During the darkest times, I would ask myself simple, perhaps simplistic questions. Why do they hate us? Why do they persecute us? What did we do to arouse such cruelty?”
I have the same questions. Why are the people of Israel so hated? What have they done that is so poisonous that the very thought of them brings a sense of revulsion to some living here in the idyllic Flint Hills? What is it about them that’s made them exiles, unwanted in just about any place they’ve ever tried to call home? Why is it that so many “humanitarians and philanthropists” so demonize this one body of people? Why is it that so many would prefer that they lie passive in the face of assault after assault? Do they have no memory of the Warsaw Ghetto? Do they have no memory of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, or Dachau?
I could go on asking questions for hours and the answer for each question would inevitably be the same. Hate, when nurtured, is powerful beyond words.
Technorati tags for this post:
Alan Dershowitz
Anti-Semitism
Elie Wiesel
Israel
At the heart of his note was a question he previously asked of the aforementioned Dr. Bernard Weiner, which follows:
“Perhaps you or someone in your audience can explain to me why it is the Jewish people must have their own personal nation when most of the rest of us don't and probably don't expect to. I mean, where is the nation to which all Christians can demand that no one else enter? Or where Christians can expect to relentlessly settle their next door, once-upon-a-time-owner's territory?”
I read the note a couple of times to be as certain as I could that I had the intended message correct. I think it was pretty close to unmistakable, a piece of rank anti-Semitism. About the only thing missing was a reference to the “truth” of the rhetoric of the vile forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
I sent the following response:
I read through your note and I'm not sure whether or not to be amused or offended. I think I'll maintain the latter.
I could try to reason with you on what you call the artificiality of the formation of the State of Israel, but I think it would be a waste of time I could spend profitably elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the nation of Israel is recognized internationally, in the same way that my title to my house is recognized by the state of Kansas, the folks down at the probate court, and my neighbors.
In addition, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Jews purchased large tracts of land in Palestine from absentee landlords living in other Arab countries (see Alan Dershowitz's “The Case for Israel”).
My position on the matter is that the world needs to find a two-state solution, with Israel and the Palestinian people living within secure borders. Your option is Palestine for the Palestinians and the Jews to Texas. Quite clever. One “artificial” solution to solve another. For you to say that Israel is “artificial” is nothing more than a veiled way for you divert attention away from the rank anti-Semitism I see mounting in this country. I saw it in Europe back in the nineties, and I'm sure that as things continue in the Middle-East that sentiment will grow here too.
Let me put my feelings succinctly. I do not subscribe to prejudice, whether its adherents claim to be “educated and well informed” or whether they wear pointed hats and robes and burn crosses.
One last thing. I consider any avenue of communication that might have been open between us closed. As I said earlier, I have better things to do with my time.
I have since put this “concerned citizen for justice” on my spam list.
Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t have a spam list that will effectively do away with the terror that’s been surrounding them for over half a century. There have been times when it appeared that peace and secure borders might actually become a reality, but each and every time the bubble of expectation was burst by terror in one form or another. Nothing has worked. Land for peace hasn’t worked. Concessions haven’t worked.
There’s a reason for this. The Jewish people are hated. Israel’s enemies, and many “concerned citizens for justice” see this one body of human persons as the root of the problems in the Middle-East, if not the world. The language may be scholarly and, paradoxically, vitriolic, like these words from Professor M.Shahid Alam of Northeastern University:
“But this has been the particular burden of Zionists as they conceived their plan for a colonial-settler state in Palestine, as they went about executing this plan on the backs of imperialists powers-with wars, massacres and ethnic cleansing-and, later, as they have persisted in their plans to dispossess the Palestinians of the last fragments of their rights and legacy whose Canaanite roots were more ancient than Isaiah, Ezekiel, David and Moses.”
Or, they may have a populist strain, as the words of “concerned citizen” penned last night demonstrate. The net effect is the same. Jews are bad for the world, and we’d all be better off without them. The Palestinians, Hezbollah, and their puppet masters in Tehran and Damascus don’t want them and now there’s a mounting body of “concerned citizens” in this country who don’t want them, or only want them far away from where they themselves live.
When he was a child in Romania, Elie Wiesel, like so many Jews, faced a daily onslaught of anti-Semitism. He even came to accept it as “endemic to our condition.” “But,” he also said:
“During the darkest times, I would ask myself simple, perhaps simplistic questions. Why do they hate us? Why do they persecute us? What did we do to arouse such cruelty?”
I have the same questions. Why are the people of Israel so hated? What have they done that is so poisonous that the very thought of them brings a sense of revulsion to some living here in the idyllic Flint Hills? What is it about them that’s made them exiles, unwanted in just about any place they’ve ever tried to call home? Why is it that so many “humanitarians and philanthropists” so demonize this one body of people? Why is it that so many would prefer that they lie passive in the face of assault after assault? Do they have no memory of the Warsaw Ghetto? Do they have no memory of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, or Dachau?
I could go on asking questions for hours and the answer for each question would inevitably be the same. Hate, when nurtured, is powerful beyond words.
Technorati tags for this post:
Alan Dershowitz
Anti-Semitism
Elie Wiesel
Israel
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