 We are tired of your grave
A poem for Mother's Day and Koby's Hazkara [memorial] I would like you to leave it, The dirt did not dance Nobody could bear to touch The second-class fallen
Even the headline in the Jerusalem Post gets it wrong ... Remembrance Day to honor thousands of servicemen and servicewomen. Those who were killed in war. But there is no mention of the thousands that have been murdered in terror attacks. Even though this day is officially for families like ours as well, the Post doesn't mention it. Which racist state?
The states and organizations behind The Durban II so-called Anti-Racism conference and in particular Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are vociferous in their outlandish claim that Israel's policy toward the Palestinians is racist and, more, that Israel, in its very essence, is a racist state. But recent actions by the Palestinian Authority tell a different and opposite story. That the truly racist state may be ruled by the Palestinians. Last week Ynet reported:
A hatchet job
I belong to an "elite" group of mothers of children who were bludgeoned to death by Palestinian terrorists. Murdered cruelly, intentionally, and in cold blood. Murdered because they were innocent. Murdered because they were Jews. Targeted by cowardly terrorists because they were defenseless kids. My 13-year old-son Koby was beaten to death with stones. Now the Nativ family from Bat Ayin has joined our group. Their 13-year-old son Shlomo was murdered last Thursday by a Palestinian terrorist wielding an ax. The family has a passport into the never-ending pain of losing a child. 8 Mothers in Gaza: A Response to Caryl Churchill's Play
Don't send him to the men who will tell him that death is for the holy, who will tell him that he will be revered, that Allah himself will clap for him. Keep him by my side. and that a martyr never dies. Don't tell him that death is holy. The children of GazaThe Jerusalem Post recently featured an article about a series in Lancet, a British medical journal, describing an increase in health problems among Gazan children. Experts cited a rise in malnutrition and higher infant mortality rates since the Israeli border closures and, said a Medicines Sans Frontiers spokesperson, a significant increase in premature births during Operation Cast Lead. Israeli spokesman Mark Regev called the report "propaganda in the guise of a medical report" and blamed the Gazan health situation on the Hamas regime. Of course, the core issue that needs to be addressed is the suffering of the children, and I hope and pray it can be solved. However, I agree with Regev that the root cause of the problem is Hamas. "Instead of investing in public health," he said, "they've invested in violence and conflict." Hating Haman(tashen)Confess. You hate them too. Believe it or not (and I don't), a newspaper reported that 25 million hamenstashen are sold in Israel for Purim. That's over a thousand tons of them. Somebody out there obviously likes them. I know your grandmother baked them when you were a kid and you love their hard, crusty exterior. They bring back memories of rolling out the dough in that sweet-smelling kitchen. Perhaps because I don't have any memories like those, I can't stand that hard hat of a cookie. The Egg and the Wall
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg," said the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami who was in Israel to deliver a speech last week when he received the Jerusalem Book Fair award for the freedom of the individual. He subtly admonished Israel for its "disproportionate" policies during the war in Gaza. With all due respect and appreciation for Murakami's phenomenal talent, just once I would like it if an artist could come here and talk about his art rather than our politics. And there is a line of other authors, the late Susan Sontag among them, who have also come to the book fair to berate us. We are like masochists who invite others here to chastise us and then give them a prize for so doing. For a smart people, I have to say, we are really dumb. Understanding (not) the European mentality
Are you surprised by the Spanish judge who is opening a file against Israeli security personnel for killing a Hamas terrorist in 2002? It's appalling. But let's face it. Europeans have a history of anti-Semitism, though there are exceptions. And these days, Europeans are fueled by their own postmodern ideology, unable to differentiate between moral and immoral behavior. I experienced the shocking equivocation of good and evil in Spain many years ago. I had a German friend who looked up to the Palestinian cause. I didn't identify very much with Israel then, but as a Jew his animosity toward Israel hurt me. I couldn't understand it. And then something happened that gave me a window into this mentality. Fathers, sons and Gaza
Jerusalem Post reporter and columnist Herb Keinon recently wrote a moving article about his son's first tour of duty in a combat unit during wartime. He described the constant state of tension he lived under while his son was in danger. He worried each time the phone rang that it would announce that his son had been injured and dreaded even more an unexpected knock on the front door threatening something even worse. I know that his description was accurate not because my soldier son was in danger, but because at least three times during the first day or two of the IDF's invasion of the Gaza strip a father with a son in Gaza described to me emotions similar to those described by Keinon. Once on a street in Jerusalem, once in a parking lot and once on the way to the synagogue a friend or acquaintance came over to me and out of the blue said something like the following: "Ah. My son just went into Gaza. I'm really worried. Can't sleep at night. Can't get any work done that requires any concentration." |
 |
 
Combined feed for all JPost.com blogsAll Categories
Top Rated Posts
Tags:Blogroll |
Comments (5)