Barry Rubin and many others have spoken forcefully, eloquently and spiritedly about the absolute and undeniable rights of Israel to exist and of the Israelis to live peacefully and securely within the borders of their own country.
As a person who totally subscribes to those tenets; as a person who has Jewish roots and ancestry; and as a person who has seen a great number of his ancestors—almost an entire generation—murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, I hardly need to be convinced of such rights for the Israeli people.
I will also gloss over accusations by some “defenders of Israel” that brand anyone who dares to criticize some of the more controversial Israeli actions or decisions as being anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.
Those accusations roll off the backs of the real Israel haters quicker than water rolls off a duck’s back—and probably intensify their hatred.
However, it is those who objectively, honestly and anxiously question some of Israel’s policies and actions whom we must convince that Israel is trying to act in good faith and in its own self-defense, even though sometimes things don’t look so kosher, or even when mistakes are made.
It is exactly those who today genuinely question and wonder, who tomorrow may be Israel’s staunchest supporters.
Sadly, it is exactly these “undecided” (and this includes nations) whom we turn-off for ever when we call their questioning, their criticism “anti-Israeli,” ant-Semitic” or worse—and Israel’s security suffers.
With all due respect, Mr. Rubin, when I read statements like “The next key question is this: Will the United States and EU countries support a UN-led lynch-mob investigation [of the Gaza flotilla incident] or not?” (Emphasis mine), I do not find that helpful towards convincing the undecided (nations).
I don’t want to speak for others, but I spent much more time pondering and reflecting on the words I read last week by “jdledell,” than I did on Mr. Rubin’s article, although Rubin’s article prompted me to write this piece.
The words and the man I am referring to were introduced by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés as:
[O]ne of the most informed persons I know who has relatives coming down on all sides of the modern Israel /Palestine issues, offers a ‘pro-Israel-building’ soldier’s view from his grandfather’s war diary in the 1940s, showing amidst all the blood and brutality, the state of Israel did not, as some moderns assume, begin to be formed post World War II, post Holocaust. In this account, in this family, the state of Israel as a dream to be built for real, began in the 1500s in Croatia… and in any country in Europe or Russia, Asia or Africa, where Jews were murdered for the fact of their existence. And some eventually turned to do the same to others. But some… not without lifelong cost to mind and heart.
The title of jdledell’s essay is “My Father Was a Terrorist.”
If you haven’t read it yet, please read it here.
If you have already read it, you may want to read it again.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.