By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO-Lebron James has decided to return to Cleveland and play for the Cavaliers. Inspired by James’ change of heart, Edward Snowden plans to return to the United States and work for the CIA.
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Israeli Civilian Prayer: Adonai, please keep my home safe from missiles.
Palestinian Civilian Prayer: Allah, please keep my home safe from missiles.
Natanyahu Prayer: Adonai, please let us build settlements instead of negotiating a settlement.
Hamas Prayer: Allah, please give us better guidance systems for our missiles.
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There has been an increase in prostitution in Silicon Valley. One of the prostitution rings operating there calls itself the Silicon Implants.
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You know partisanship is out of control in Washington DC when John Boehner sues the President for postponing the implementation of a law he voted against and has voted to repeal and for refusing the President’s request to implement an immigration law Republicans supported when George Bush was President.
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Sarah Palin has called for the impeachment of President Obama. When asked if there is anything the President can do to avoid impeachment, she replied,”Resign like I did.”
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.
Shalom,
Your brief response encapsulates a whole world of notions and premises, assuming a reality here in Eretz-Yissra’el and its vicinity, sharply different from the one I know of and live in. Due to the limitation of the scope of a talkback I’ll make do with one instance merely. Instance, taking one phrase of the first line:
The conflict is not ‘Israeli-“Palestinian”‘. It is rather ‘Israeli-Arab’. The very invention of “Palestinian” people, has all been fabricated just as a sting to drive Jews out of their land. This is widely admitted and documented by a variety of Arabs ever since the sham of “Palestine” has been concocted (Yasser Arafat in 1964. I may readily elaborate later on). It has been an ‘Israeli-Arab’ conflict, since its eruption, at the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the mass return to Zion. However, it has recently evolved into a Jewish-Islamist conflict; a rather irreconcilable religious conflict. The return to Zion and the resurrection of Jewish independence threatens the very foundations of Islamist theology. Extremist Islamists – those that increasingly take the lead in contemporary Islam, have been idolizing those verses of the Quran that state the “wrath” God has “cursed” the Jews eternally, and that He will debase them and punish them incessantly, and turn them into monkeys and swines. One who is not well aware of this culture cannot imagine the extent this percept, and the ubiquitous incitement that follows, do etch the mind of the common Arab-Islamist. Incitement that only gets more heinous and more terrible. Incitement, that had stirred Arabs of Eretz-Yissra’el to burst in occasional pogroms against their neighboring Jews ever since 1920. Pogroms, that reached a gruesome peak of bloodshed in the 1929 slaughter of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron.
But naturally this is a drop in the sea.
Gadi Eshel, Nofit, Israel
Although the majority of Arab states would prefer if Israel didn’t exist, the fact is that since the Camp David Accords, no Arab state has been willing to mobilize its army on behalf of the Palestinians. In the current hostilities, Egypt tried to broker an armistice (something it also did in 2012 when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power) and the Arab League supported this initiative. This is now primarily an Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the arms for Hamas coming primarily from Iran and the Shiite Hezbollah.
In areas once were ruled by multinational empires like the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian empire, modern nationalism arose in the l9th Century. In the Ottoman Empire, local nationalisms were a response to the victors of World War One carving out the former Ottoman Empire into countries and mandates. This does not mean that the residents of the various Ottoman administrative districts did not previously feel an attachment to the places where their families lived and worked. Palestinian nationalism evolved in tandem with Arab nationalism and in reaction to Zionism and European imperialism. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt viewed all or parts of Palestine as extensions of their territories, but relinquished those claims at the 1974 Rabat Conference. And Israel has recognized Palestinian national aspirations since the Oslo Accords.
To deny a people’s desire for its own state is particularly ironic coming from committed Zionists. After all, modern Zionism emerged in the last half of the 19th Century as a reaction to both the assimilation of Jews after emancipation, the rise of modern anti-Semitism in Western and Central European, and the plight of Jews in Eastern Europe. To be sure, it drew on Biblical history, but that was a passive Zionism which required the coming of the Messiah as a prerequisite for the reestablishment of a Jewish state. When Herzl wanted to hold the first Zionist
conference in Munich, reform and orthodox German rabbis protested because it violated “the Messianic promises of Judaism” and the Jewish precept of Jews serving the country where they lived. Arab opponents of Zionism have maintained that Judaism in a religion and not a nationality. What Herzl said of Zionism is true for Palestinian nationalism: “If you will it, it is no dream.” I understand why some Israelis assert there is no such thing as Palestinian nationalism, but it is a reality that Israel eventually must come to terms. The alternative is sporadically repeating the current vicious circle of terrorism and counter-terrorism.
This not-so-funny humor is rather a clear tongue-lashing against Israelis under perfidious “Palestinian” rocket attack. However, it should be slightly rectified to take some of its deceitful venom out:
– Israeli Civilian Prayer: Hashem, b’rahamek’ha, please save our people and our country from perfidious “Palestinian” bombardment and leftist self-haters delegitimization.
– Palestinian Civilian Prayer: Allah, please do bring more death upon us, make us all Shahids and blast us ASAP to meet the 72 virgins waiting impatiently for us. This prayer holds for Hamas “activists”, and/or Fatah , Islamic Jihad, PFLP, PLO, etc., and all other death craving anti-Semites.
Netanyahu’s Prayer: Hashem, b’rahamek’ha, please guide us to build our land, cultivate it and redeem our brethren back into it from Diaspora around the globe. This is of course the millenniums old Jewish prayer and fundamental faith, rather than “Netanyahu’s prayer”(!)
This response illustrates why the Israeli /Palestinian conflict is so difficult to resolve. Israelis are just protecting themselves and Palestinians want to destroy Israel. Self–hating Jews seek to delegimize Israel. There’s no room here for concerned Jews in Israel and the Diaspora who want Israel to remain both Jewish and democratic and worry as many Israel security analysts and voters do that these two goals can’t be maintained if Israel permanently occupies the Territories or annexes them.
My column does not praise the firing of missiles on Israel but it does see a cause and effect cycle between Israel’s policy of creeping annexation through settlement building and Hamas’s ability to exploit the frustrations of many Gazans that the peace process has failed to improve their situation since Oslo. The more Israel builds settlements while negotiating, the more Palestinians will turn to Hamas and other extremist groups rather than support the protracted and painful process of ideological and territorial concessions both sides will have to make. Otherwise they are doomed to prriodic eruptions of violence like the one currently taking place.
Laurie Baron
Laurie,
The comments in your reply are measured and well spoken. You put the situation in a nutshell for those love Israel but fear that it’s own policies undermine its security and Jewish values. Thank you. I hasten to say that we all bitterly know there are those who only want an end to all of Israel.
Your column is in the best tradition of Jewish humor in the face of pogroms, disasters, and expulsions. I am afraid there will be many who think using the defense of humor to help us navigate this world is unacceptable. Alas. No more lines like “God bless and keep the czar…………very far from us.”