Well, many here were so excited about the Arab Spring(!) and so you have it...

[PCIntern]

95. I fully expected this response,

And so I shall tell you why I posted the OP.

Someone suggested that I take the time to think about what I had written. I have spent the better part of sixty years ruminating upon my lost families; both sides utterly incinerated in the Holocaust. I have correspondence from that era in my possession,sent to my families here in the US, and they spoke of those go so quickly jumped on the bandwagon of hatred of Jews, of the exceptionalism of the necessity to denigrate and destroy the Jewish population, and the complete joy of many, nay almost everyone, who watched and participated in the rounding up and execution of the plan to eliminate the Jews from the society and of course, from the Earth. They were truly Hitler's Wiling Executioners. This included many intellectuals of all stripes and ranks and of course they were wildly successful in their endeavor.

So with nearly everyone dead, the relatively small band of survivors and help-mates were granted bythe United Nations, a portion of a tiny strip of land among all the potential enemies, yes enemies: the Egyptians, the Syrians, and all the rest, and given just one more chance to survive against all odds. From the first moment of her Independence, Israel has had to fend off those determined to destroy her and her people. It has often Ben said that if the Arabs laid down their weapons, as Egypt and Jordan have done so far, there would be peace, which there has been. If the Israelis laid down their weapons ther would be no more Israel and no more Jews.

Now of course, many of you will be sputtering your anger and protestations, and you know what? It doesn't matter to me or to most that you are so outraged by what you perceive, or believe that you perceive. There are many reasons why it behooves Civilization to maintain the Nation of Israel and those reasons transcend all your arguments. Your anger is lopsided, you disappeared from the Board here when cafes were bombed in Tel Aviv, when buses were blown up, when thousands of rockets poured into Israeli neighborhoods. You tend to re-emerge when some Israeli action is contemplated against terrorism of this sort. You found solace in this Board after 9/11 if you were here all those years ago, writing of th horrors of mass murder, I rarely read many posts when the bombings in Jaffa and Tel Aviv were almost weekly after Sabbath ended.

Well my friends, my family was mass-murdered and as I posted upthread, I am not going to just sit here quietly whilst there is a pile-on against Israel. There are folks who post here who are afraid your raining-down of outrage, of frustration, of anger, of vitriol, but many here posted responses to my OP hasd their pendula swing all the way Ither other direction. Nowhere in my post did I a vouch for the Mubarak Regime, nowhere did I say that these folks had no reason to riot, nowhere did I posit that it was ht inevitable. All I really said as that this is what many were excited about, and then it fell rather short, didn't it? This was enough for some to make me into a villain, a scapegoat, a hated enemy of all who are for the rights of the down-trodden. The anger, the personal viciousness of several of the posts was palpable. Perhaps you should hear a story, and then you might better understand....

Many years ago, when my parents had split, my mother of blessed memory got a job up near Trenton NJ and we moved to the idyllic town of New Hope, PA, known for its artists and writers colony. What you may not know about central Bucks County in those days was that it was a hotbed of racism and antiSemitism. From the first day we moved there, we were ostracized by the working-class inhabitants, I was called Jewbastard at the school bus stop, I was routinely pounced upon and hurt badly at times, and almost unbelievably, and it happened many times, the Police cars would see what was happening and keep on driving, even thought they knew exactly what was occurring because the cops were neighbors too, and their kids were involved. I never told my mother because we couldn't afford to move from the apartment to anywhere else. I suffered at the hands of these working-class thugs and their offspring for years, until I grew big enough to defend myself. As with all bullies, you only have to take one down and the rest cower in fear, for they are cowards at heart. All I had to do was take one do was take one down to the sidewalk and slice his ear against the concrete and the volume of blood was enormous. They left me alone after that, more or less; the bloodstained sidewalk was evident for years at the school bus stop, a reminder of what the Jew did to their buddy. I never had a major incident again.

So why the relation of the story here? Not to impress you with my fighting prowess,but to assist you in understanding that all I did was show up, and that was enough to be hated. All Israel did in 1948 was to show up and the Egyptialn dive bombers began that day and the war has not stopped since. Many of you will argue this point. Fine. But understand this: My OP had nothing to do with this conflict, but the knee-jerk response was certainly interesting. As to those of you who say you normally respect my opinions, perhaps you might take a moment between gasps and think that there might be something else going on here with which you are not entirely aware. Perhaps there is more to this than the propaganda form both sides would have you believe. I said "both sides" not for equivalency, but for fairness and equality and egalitarianism. Perhaps there are issues, stories, and other developments which are not within your ability to know about or to grasp given a limited range of experience. Perhaps before jumping down a poster's throat, a poster who has been righteous over many years here with respect to the need to expunge the Conservative members of the duly-elected government might have a valid point of view, or an opinion which, although it might differ radically from yours, may be well-conceived and worthy of some merit. It is the fashion of the Rethugs to blast those who don't agree in toto with every facet of their viewpoints. It is not necessary here, nor is it a valid intellectual exercise.

As a rejoinder, I am disappointed in many here who decided, because of my avatar and posting history, to exorcise me as a Demon of Zionism. Someday, many will come to understand what has really been occurring and what might have been able to be achieved if only there were peace over there. If your stand is that the only way there can be peace is for Israel to capitulate to her enemies, then thata is your opinion and you are entitled to it. As I am entitled to mine.