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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 12, 2009 / 16 Teves 5769

Eyeless in Gaza, heartless at home

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Creeped out: That's the best way I can describe my response upon stumbling into an anti-Israel protest one recent Sunday in Manhattan. Ranting picketers carried signs that made light of the Holocaust, children dressed up as Hamas militants dotted the crowd. I wanted to have a more profound response, a deeper analysis, but "creeped out" is how I felt walking away from it. Days later, a colleague, military historian Victor Davis Hanson, expressed a similar reaction to accounts of way too many similar scenes: We're living in "creepy times," he wrote on National Review's Web site.


It is indeed creepy that any protester, even understanding his anger and hurt, would minimize the Holocaust, and that the leader of Iran would hold a conference dedicated to denying it. It's creepy that Hamas would use a U.N. school for weapons storage and a shooting base, during the continuing battle with Israel for the Gaza Strip. It's creepy that the United Nations equates Israeli nationalism — a constitutional republic's struggle for its right to exist unmolested — with racism. It's creepy that few people can see the difference between Israel, which goes out of its way to avoid killing innocents, and Hamas, which displays a bloodlust for Jewish civilians.


But nothing is black and white, not even in the fight between Israel and Hamas. In a place many consider the holiest of lands, perpetual violence and hostility boil constantly. Humans hate easily; it's forgiveness (often understandably) that they have a tough time with. Out of those poisonous seeds grows vengeance. And while I don't hesitate to see a bad and good side politically and culturally in this issue, it remains true that Palestinian children are still children who deserve a shot at a decent life, even when — driven by vengeance — their guardians exploit them.


Israel seems to be able to recognize the moral complexity involved, even in spite of the countless, grievous wrongs it has suffered, and the world isn't giving it enough credit. Israelis, too, however, need to take a step back. For one thing, not every skeptical look at Israel's aggressive retaliation to Hamas missile attacks in Gaza stems from anti-Semitism. A lot of them, maybe even most of them — are. Anti-Semitism has long been a particularly prevalent evil about which, despite "never again," we seem particularly desensitized in the West even as it is embraced enthusiastically in the Middle East and the Arab world. But this doesn't give Israel a carte blanche when it comes to military action or diplomacy. Though it may be difficult, cool heads need to prevail on all sides of this debate.


The tragic demise of Cristina, a 15-year-old Christian girl, was reported by an Internet news service, zenit.org, which covers the Vatican: "She died of a heart attack after days of cold and lack of sleep due to the bombardment." The Rev. Manuel Musallam, the parish priest of the Latin parish in Gaza, recently read an account of her death to Christian leaders in Jerusalem, urging peace. The Zenit report continued: "Cristina is one of the 600 Palestinians to have died in the 11-day Israeli offensive, in which U.N. and Palestinian officials report that nearly half of the dead are civilians."


There's nothing wrong with focusing on such blunt facts. I think we need to do so, whatever the nationality of the children involved; it keeps us aware of the human costs of war. Prudence and justice must be kept in mind at all times, whether actively engaged in fighting a war, or merely attempting to help negotiate the end of one. And while the Vatican, too, is receiving criticism — for not fully weighing in on the conflict until violence had spiraled out of control — we should remember here, as well, who the good guys are. The Vatican has rejected "anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism as a more recent manifestation of anti-Semitism."


I see little question that Israel is the good guy. It's not aiming to kill Cristina. It just wants its own girls to have a safe home. And, unsettlingly all too often, its opponent wants those girls (as well as its other citizens) dead, not as an unfortunate collateral casualty of war, but just to make a point. This should creep us all out — and we should say as much. Isn't admitting a basic, unpleasant truth one of the Twelve Steps? That is, after all, a roadmap with some record of positive results — very unlike the same old creepy pattern of hatred, resentment and vengeance now on display in the Holy Land.

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