Category Archives: Israel/Palestine

Don’t Believe Ridiculous Ideas

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“Did you get your coffee at the espresso cafe next door?” I asked my hair stylist. Seemed like an innocent question, but she leaned down and whispered that she got her drink at Starbucks. “Is that a bad thing?” I asked? “Well, you know, Israel,” she replied. 

Now I was confused. What did Starbucks have to do with Israel? Do they have cafes in Israel? I know they have cafes in Saudi Arabia, and I suspect they have cafes in other Arab countries, though perhaps not Yemen. Perhaps they source something from Israel, though what would that be? 

Well, in any event, my hairdresser fits in well in Olympia. “Free Palestine” signs are everywhere. Every other woke cause is represented as well. I could switch hairdressers, but how far would I have to drive to find one who’d be even neutral on Israel? Maybe if the price of gas comes down? 

So mostly I keep my mouth shut unless there’s a chance of a real conversation, which usually there isn’t. But I do search for opportunities for genuine conversation. Which led me to our Senior Center. It’s just two blocks away and has a conversation group once a week. The group’s leader has a set routine: first, the word of the day, its history, its evolution; then, what’s happened on this date in history; and then current issues. 

Most of the current issues lately are Trump-related, and there’s a lot of grumbling. Today, we talked about the recent chemical spill at a Longview pulp and paper mill in which 11 people died. One member of our group had worked there during summers when he was in college. As bad as the incident was, it was an implosion of a tank instead of an explosion, which could have been much worse. It’s horrible to say that an event in which eleven people died could have been worse, but the environmental impact could have been much worse. In any event, no one had anything cheerful to say about that bit of news.

Discussion then turned to the war in Iran, which led to Hezbollah, which led to Israel. Turns out there’s another weekly event at the Senior Center, a history class that some attend. I haven’t attended that because it’s hard for me to do one regular activity a week, much less two. In any event, I won’t be going to the history class because in the discussion of Iran, Hezbollah, and Israel, people who do attend the history class claimed that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is analogous to American history with Indians. Israelis are settler-colonialists, they starve the Palestinians, they bomb hospitals, and yes, if the New York Times says that Israelis train dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, then it must be true. Genocide? True. Apartheid? True. Even Jews say all the bad things are true. So, it must all be true?

Jews are free to disagree with each other. Are Palestinians free to disagree with each other? No. They will get killed for saying things comparable to what Israelis say about their country. So the fact that some Jews say one thing and some say another proves nothing to me. Listen to all sides, please, before you take up arms.

Sorry, (not sorry) but I’m finished with that group. One new person said she taught Middle-East history at Baylor, so she knows what she’s talking about. Yeah, and every woke professor knows the truth about everything. So, no, I really don’t need to hear any more from these folks about Israel. 

If you have any room in your head for another point of view, consider reading this recent article from Quillette (Quillette has saved my sanity since it’s first appearance online with thoughtful journalism.) You can subscribe for free, but pay for a subscription if you can.

Anti-Zionism as Redemptive Racism by Shalom Lappin

Is Israel to Blame for Everything?

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Few people I encounter on a regular basis are pro-Israel. Few understand how seriously biased the UN is when it comes to anything related to Israel. It breaks my heart. I don’t think another Holocaust will necessarily occur in my lifetime (I’m 81), but I fear that Jews could be extinguished within the next century.

Recently a guest on Joe Rogan asked him to estimate the numbers of Jews and Muslims there are worldwide today. He thought there might be a billion or more Jews. Is that about what you would guess? Actually there are about 15 million Jews, half in Israel, half in the diaspora. There are close to 2 billion Muslims and 2.4 billion Christians. That’s right. The Muslims who are freaking out about the Jews taking their land actually outnumber them 2 billion to 15 million.

Here’s a ChatGPT breakout of the world population by religion:
Christianity: ~31%
Islam: ~24–25%
Hinduism: ~15%
Buddhism: ~6–7%
Judaism: ~0.2%

Most Jews are more optimistic about their future than I am, thank goodness. I guess they are used to being the scapegoat for anything that’s gone wrong over their long history. I think people overestimate their numbers because of their overrepresentation culturally. Certainly they are overrepresented in the news. The fixation on Israel makes no sense to me given the atrocities happening elsewhere in the world.

Well, in any event, I offer you a dialogue between Coleman Hughes and Glenn Greenwald on the matter of Jewish influence in the US. I actually listened to the whole thing even though it’s really hard for me to listen to Greenwald. You might hear a reasoned argument, but to me his voice comes across as screeches! In any event, I listen to all of Coleman’s excellent interviews that appear now on The Free Press website, so consider subscribing if you haven’t already.

Coleman Hughes and Glenn Greenwald on Israel’s Influence in Washington

The Arab Case for Israel

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Until the start of the latest war in Iran, I didn’t know that The Foundation for Defense of Democracies existed. But since then, I’ve listened to several videos of theirs. This one is not specifically on Iran. But given that a major focus of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the destruction of the state of Israel (the little Satan as opposed to the US which is the big Satan).

Hussain Abdul Hussain, the interviewee, is the author of The Arab Case for Israel. He is one of the few Arab natives of the Middle East willing to openly support Israel, but that was not always the case. I love this interview because Hussain discusses how his views evolved as he and his family moved from one country to another and met children from many different backgrounds.

Enjoy: The Arab Case for Israel
47 min.

Sadness, Confusion, Possibilities

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Too many stories, not enough time.

Sadness

Sadness is the only word I can come up with on this second anniversary of the pogrom that shocked us all on October 7, 2023. Horror is the only word that conveys my feelings about the celebration of that massacre that erupted that same day. Please, may the people who have been calling for a ceasefire recognize that Israel has accepted Trump’s proposal; Hamas has not. Hamas needs to release the remaining hostages and relinquish power.

Confusion

Congratulations to trans activists who have conflated gay conversion therapy with exploratory therapy that is not sanctioned as “gender affirming therapy.” These are not equivalent, but now the Supreme Court is being pulled into this quagmire. The result is likely to be the resurrection of gay conversion therapy – despite its proven harms – with exploratory therapy, which is what confused young people need in this era of trans madness. Perhaps states should stop trying to legislate solutions to LGB and TQ matters? I don’t know. I feel for gay people who have been harmed and confused young people who are being harmed. Sure, guarantee rights to housing, jobs, education. Then let medical professionals get their heads straight about treatments that are based on actual evidence rather than ideologies.

Possibilities

In the war between cancel culture and billionaires, the latest battle has the billionaires coming out on top, again. Remember when Musk bought Twitter and reinstated accounts that Jack Dorsey had cancelled? That was a good day for free speech. (No, I don’t love everything that Musk has done, but undoing censorship was a good deed.) The thread now is David Ellison… Skydance Media… CBS… The Free Press (aka Bari Weiss)… free speech?

I know that most of my friends paid little attention when Bari Weiss left her position as an opinion columnist at The New York Times in the summer of 2020. Wasting little time, Weiss began publishing “Common Sense” on the Substack platform in January of 2021. Common Sense rebranded as The Free Press in 2022. It now boasts 1.5 million paid subscribers who want a source of information that is neither far right not far left.

I’ve read/watched/listened to The Free Press since its Common Sense days. It has published voices that were shunned by the MSM (mainstream media), voices that I appreciated. Yes, there’s a pro-Israel bias (that mirrors my own), but otherwise, it offers viewpoints that I don’t find elsewhere. Actually, I don’t find pro-Israel voices elsewhere much either. Why is that?

Well, good news for the curious: The Free Press has dropped its paywall this week. Go to thefp.com. Spend some time there and see what you think. Then tune in to CBS News once Bari has had an opportunity to bring in some balanced coverage. Let’s pound cancel culture into dust!

Three Cheers for Two States

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Hoopla abounds regarding declarations from France, England, and Canada about their intents to recognize a Palestinian state “soon.” 

Each country has some qualifications embedded in their statements. Those qualifications differ, but their desire for a two state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is clear. I share a desire for a two state solution, but I would not award the status of statehood to Palestinians anytime “soon.” And I doubt that any Palestinian leader would accept the offers that are on the table. Why would they turn down this opportunity? The countries behind the hoopla assume the continued existence of Israel, and that is simply unacceptable to the most vocal Palestinians. 

Palestinian statehood is not being offered in lieu of Israeli statehood. European countries that recognize or plan to recognize a Palestinian state do not have the intent of terminating the Israeli state. Had any past leaders of Palestinians been willing to accept the continued existence of the state of Israel, they could have had a state long ago, imperfect though it might have been in their eyes. 

Israel did not begin with their conception of perfection. From the time of the 1917 Balfour Declaration on, Jews have known that they would not get as much land as they wanted, nor would they get to choose lands most important to them. Rather, they knew that they would get what others offered them. Meanwhile, Palestinians opposed every proposal that included land for a Jewish state.

Over the past 40 years, many people, myself included, have considered the Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be a major obstacle to achieving a two state solution. “Just Say No” to those settlements, and peace will ensue. I’ve read or listened to legal explanations of why the settlements are legal. I’ve offered links to those arguments for those curious enough to wade through history. But I’ve also thought that it doesn’t matter if the settlements are legal, they still might not be wise. Legal and wise are not synonymous.

This year, stories of “settler violence,” I.e. settler attacks on Palestinians, have been in the news. In one story, settlers even attacked IDF soldiers who were returning from dismantling a bomb making factory in a Palestinian town in the West Bank. That was shocking, not just to me, but to many in Israel. Other incidents of settler violence have appeared in western media. But I don’t trust accounts in most western media regarding anything happening in the middle east. 

Then today, I stumbled across a podcast called “Unpacking Israeli History” that focuses specifically on the issue of settlements and recent stories of settler violence. I’ve listened to other episodes of “Unpacking…” but this is an especially good one. I can’t construct an adequate summary of the whole West Bank settler issue, so I’m suggesting that you find time to listen to it yourself. Especially listen to it if you, like me, have long felt that the settlements are an ongoing impediment to a two state solution. 

The protracted war in Gaza is horrible. But releasing Israeli hostages might go a long way to ending the war, and it’s frustrating to hear all of the Hamas slogans – “From the river to the sea,” “Globalize the Intifada” – etc. and not “Free the hostages!” How did this get so one-sided? And how is it that the press that promotes the Hamas version of events can continue to neglect to mention that the goal of Hamas is the extinction of Israel. Is that detail not important? 

I would like to see peace between Israel and the Palestinians before I die. As I am now in my 80s, and nothing resembling peace is on the horizon, I’m not optimistic. Since October 7, 2023, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to this part of the world. One thing I’ve noticed is that Jews, both  Israelis and those in the diaspora, are open about their disagreements about Israel, whereas Palestinians seem only to speak the party line. It makes a difference if you believe that you put your life in danger by disagreeing with that party line. Jews, on the other hand, are raised to argue over everything. This stark cultural difference is a big factor in my support of information about the war that comes from Israeli sources. I’m confident that if it is not accurate, a truer version will be out shortly. It is shocking to me that so many colleges are scenes of students and faculty uncritically spouting Hamas’ propaganda. Is thinking not allowed on campus anymore?

Well, this rhetoric about a Palestinian state is unlikely to bear fruit, IMHO. But life is full of surprises, though I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile, here’s a link to the podcast and transcript.

Settler Violence: Hard Truths with Haviv Rettig Gur