Netanyahu Does NOT Speak For Me...

[kpete]

SUN JUL 20, 2014 AT 09:20 PM PDT
Not in My Name, Netanyahu
by David Harris Gershon


........................................

No, he does not speak for me.

When Netanyahu said on CNN that Palestinians benefit from "telegenically dead" civilians killed by Israel, that images of carnage helped Hamas because journalists would then ask about Israel's actions, he did not speak for me.


A doctor cries while standing among the bodies of dead children at Shifa Hospital's overflowing morgue. (Note: journalists have captured countless disturbing images today, though I've chosen not to show them here.)



When he said that Palestinians "don't give any thought" about their children or their welfare, and that Palestinians use their children as though they are inanimate objects, he did not speak for me.


"Palestinian women react during the funeral of four boys, all from the Bakr family, killed during Israeli shelling, in Gaza City." Image via Time.



When Netanyahu blames Palestinians for their own deaths, dismissing them as "human shields" – including the over 100 children who have been lost – rather than note Israel's choice to obliterate homes in dense, urban areas when it's known innocents will die, he does not speak for me.

When Netanyahu dehumanizes Palestinians by saying their society celebrates death, whereas my people, Jewish Israelis, only celebrate life – while sending soldiers to war after calling for vengeance – he does not speak for me.



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Author's Note:

As a preemptive strike, let me also say this, since the original post was directed toward Israeli policy and Netanyahu: I view Hamas as culpable as well for the firing of crude rockets into Israel (itself abhorrent), and for putting civilians in danger by provoking military responses Israel is currently eager to make.

Perhaps I can sum up my views in this way:

David Harris-Gershon @David_EHG

To those in #Gaza, from a US Jew: I'm so sorry.
To Netanyahu: this war of choice is inimical & a miserable tragedy.
To Hamas: go to hell.
1:33 PM - 17 Jul 2014

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/21/1315291/-Not-in-My-Name-Mr-Netanyahu

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. I think they said the same thing about Asians during Vietnam and the Korean War

I remember hearing commentators on TV saying that Asians didn't really value life like westerners did and that dying for them wasn't that big a deal. It was a convenient attitude for Americans considering the thousands of enemy soldiers and civilians who were dying at our hands in those conflicts.

[deurbano]

12. I actually thought that myself.

When I was 14, I won a prize in a state (CA) poetry contest for an anti-war poem I had written. (The awards ceremony was at the Ambassador Hotel, one year after RFK was assassinated there.) I'm sure everyone assumed my poem was inspired by the ongoing war in Vietnam, but in reality, it was in response to a documentary I had seen in my 9th grade Social Studies class. The film documented the horror of World War II in Europe... with victims who looked like me. (Something I could finally relate to.)

Soon enough, I began to realize that people who looked a bit less like me were no less human than I was, but it is kind of chilling to remember watching the devastation on the evening news and thinking it wasn't so bad for "those" people because suffering wasn't as big of a deal for them. (I don't know... I guess I thought it was just their lot in life?) I lived in a very white area at the time, with few Asians, and I was unspeakably provincial and ignorant. (Now, I live in San Francisco, and the schools my children have attended have always had more Asian kids then any other demographic group...and my two younger kids speak Mandarin.)

When I went to Vietnam to adopt my younger daughter, I learned the Vietnamese call that horrific conflict the "American War." And when I look at my daughter (who will be 12-years- old this Wednesday), it's almost impossible to understand the limited scope of my empathy back in the day. (But at least I have the excuse that I was a child... and I grew up.)

[kpete]

14. Thank you for that beautiful story deurbano

We can learn from our life-experiences
WE MUST EVOLVE!

peace,
kp

[upaloopa]

2. There is hatred on both sides taught to young people

by the elders on both sides. Stop the teaching of hate and you will stop the war. So I say to hell with the elders on both sides who preach hatred.

[kpete]

3. I second

your emotions....


peace,
kp

[nikto]

17. I agree

[malaise]

28. So how do you kick people out of their homeland

then pen them in like animals and slaughter them at will when they fight back and then expect them not to hate?

I don't know how this ends.

[upaloopa]

38. If there is ever to be peace you have to stop

living in the past and start living for a better future.
It is one of the hardest things humans must learn to do but in many things in our lives we have to let the past go. The future depends on it.

[maddiemom]

35. I raised mine as you advise. But I feel sadly outnumbered. Listening to Cheney spouting off

recently really increased that feeling. I'm glad, at least, to have been a teacher and possibly influenced a few more kids than just my own. Of course you have to get them to think, you can't preach.

[2banon]

4. Thanks for posting..

too bad he felt compelled to add the qualifier. but whatever. I appreciate the essence of his OP and points he makes are spot on.

[villager]

5. Netanyahu's election was in fact a *ratification* of the assassination of Rabin

He was murdered by far-right Israelis who, in fact, succeeded in killing the peace process.

Rather than resist such extremism, the Israelis yielded to it, by electing Netanyahu.

Not dissimilar, I suppose, to America electing Nixon after two Kennedy brothers had been murdered.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Nor me

Sums my views up too:


To those in #Gaza, from a US (or in my case British) Jew: I'm so sorry.
To Netanyahu: this war of choice is inimical & a miserable tragedy.
To Hamas: go to hell.

[99Forever]

7. This spiral of inhumanity is the fault of both "sides."

But the ruthless inhumanity currently being perpetrated by the Israelis upon innocents, is nothing short of Crimes against Humanity. They are now, almost exactly what they claimed their persecutors to be. They have become pariahs to civilized society.

[Peacetrain]

9. Israel is a goverment.. Judaism is a faith

You can be true to your faith.. and not support governmental policies
==========================================================
Iran is a government.. Islam is a faith.

You can be true to your faith.. and not support governmental policies.
================================================================
The United States is a goverment.. Christianity (the most prevalence faith in the US is a faith)

You can be true to your faith.. and not support governmental policies
================================================================

and so forth and so on for all religious arenas in any country.

How we got this all mixed up is beyond me.. (And I am talking about all faiths )

[klook]

11. Thank you. I was thinking about this today.

Jews live all over the world, not just in Israel. Arabs and Muslims live all over the world, not just in Gaza and the West Bank. Buddhists live all over the world, not just in India. And so on.

The current government of Israel and the current government of Gaza are at war over ideology and territory. Innocent people are being slaughtered as a result -- overwhelmingly in Gaza. People of faith on both sides, including people of many different faiths, oppose this slaughter.

As an atheist, I am completely baffled by the idea of people dying for a religion. But as a humanist, I support the right of people to believe in a religion if they choose. And I categorically oppose killing in the name of religion.

[Bohemianwriter]

23. It's mostly about the land...

Religion and ideology are just convenient words to defend atrocities...

And religion is like nationalism: the measles of mankind...

[Peacetrain]

25. I have read a number of ops today

sourcing different writers who are Jewish, but do not support what the state of Israel is doing right now..

I am a devout Christian.. but faith has no place in secular government .. which all governments should be secular .. the second you tie religion into a goverment you are on the road to dictatorship and bastardization of the faith what ever it is..

And it has been on my mind today too..

[99Forever]

18. The GOVERNMENT of Israel is perpetraing these war crimes.

Just in case you didn't notice.

[Peacetrain]

20. You apparently missed the point..

You can be a faithful Jew and not support the activities of the goverment of Israel.. just like you can be a faithful Muslim and not support one or any Islamic government.. or be a faithful Christian and have disagreements with how the US government is run.. (not that the US is all Christian, but it is the biggest faith body in the country by far) KAPISH?

[99Forever]

26. I didn't miss anything.

If ever I've seen a more convincing display of why religion is the worst idea humans have ever had, I'd be hard pressed to name it.

As far as I can tell, "faith" is just a convenient reason used to hide behind when doing evil things.

[Peacetrain]

27. Yeah you missed the point..

Its not about supporting any religion.. but supporting people who think independently of governments who use religion as a base of coercion..

But I think you know you missed it, and now you have a mad on and you are not going to back down one inch..

[99Forever]

30. Oh goody, another know-it-all with a crystal call.

How freakin' lame.

About standard for this place anymore.

[Bohemianwriter]

24. Though, the illegal settlements...

Are mostly done by religious zealots, thinking that Yahweh gave them the right to stump on others to take something for themselves...

[kpete]

29. speaking of Yahweh

I think he needs an extended vacation.................


All three believe that their God is the God of Abraham. Jewish people believe that Christians believe in the same God that they do and Christians also believe that they believe in the same God as Judaism. Similarly, Jewish people believe that Muslims believe in the same God that they do and Muslims also believe that they believe in the same God as Judaism. However, Christians do not believe that they believe in the same God as Muslims and many Muslims do not believe that Christians believe in the same God as they do.

peace,
kp

I don't often recommend books, but this one written by an x-nun is now my go-to book on religion:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3873.A_History_of_God

[Bohemianwriter]

21. The blame lays primeraly on the Brits...

Who insisted on getting Palestine from the Ottoman empire as spoils of war after WW1, acting like gods when they unleashed the Zionists into areas inhabited by peasant farmers, and small towns people in 1947/48.

Then we can start looking at the motives of why the Zionists first committing ethnic cleansing, and collectively punishing the people they once stole their homes from making them all prisoners, or fish in a barrel...Then we can start looking at blame, and also the motives of why Palestinians are having this seemingly "irrational" hatred of Jews.

Put it simple: If it was Russians, or Brits, or French, or Americans, or Persians doing the same thing as what IDF and "Bibi" is doing now, the hatred would be directed at them.

And come to think of it, the vast majority of the Israeli citizens are immigrants or children of immigrants coming from...Europe, Russia, and America.

Hence, I consider what is happening in the historical Palestine, also called "Israel" an old fashion style WASP colonization, making decisions affecting millions of lives. Lives who apparently have no say with regards to their own future or lives whatsoever....

[sabbat hunter]

8. a better wording would have been

that Hamas benefits from telegenic dead civilians. It gives them great propaganda.

[jaysunb]

10. Americans do not get the same coverage of this

conflict that the rest of the world sees. Here lies the problem.

[4now]

13. But he speaks for the Israeli people.

[nikto]

15. Netanyahu DOES speak for some...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9wHx_6kxL8s/U82gSl3LdgI/AAAAAAAAAac/P-nhdu8SULY/s1600/satan-netanyahu+speaks+4+me.jpg

[George II]

16. Can someone explain how this is a "war of choice" on the part of Israel or Netanyahu?

[randome]

19. Israel takes land that isn't theirs. Then acts surprised when Palestinians fight back.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[kpete]

22. Exactly Right............ad nauseum

An animated recounting of the various holders of Palestine
http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/

and from the DU front page:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025268139

[George II]

32. What land is that? This conflict is between Gaza and Israel, who withdrew from Gaza...

.....nine years ago.

[Comrade Grumpy]

36. ...and turned it into an open air concentration camp. A ghetto.

Can I fly into Gaza International Airport? Can Gazans fly out?

Can I take a boat to the Gaza coast? Can Gazans take one out?

Israel sits on land that used to belong to those Gazans they're bombing now, in their very own little ghetto.

[Blue_In_AK]

31. Netanyahu is a bloodthirsty bastard,

and I can't even stand to look at him.

[PatrynXX]

33. right now Hamas is shooting out missles

whereever because they know that iron dome will take out 99.9999 % of them.. but Ben is giving them what they want. like Bush did with UBL hell he handed the keys to Iraq to UBL

[Roy Serohz]

34. DUly RECommended

[Duppers]

37. Indeed

"Hamas as culpable as well for the firing of crude rockets into Israel (itself abhorrent), and for putting civilians in danger by provoking military responses Israel is currently eager to make."


It's a sad, sad miserable mess.

[stevenleser]

39. Netanyahu doesn't speak for me either. I await the next Yitzhak Rabin. nt