Added note: A lot of people will ask why groups like CAMERA and AIPAC and what I am doing here seem to only address the Israeli side… For me, it is not all the time but often, and the answer is clear… because few too many people are discussing the Israeli side… few too many people are raising their voices and demanding to be heard… and sadder still, few too many people are discussing the truth. I am all for negotiations if they are in good faith and honest… I am all for moving forward, if history is looked at with facts not fiction… and I am all for a two state solution, if the Palestinians and Arab countries will recognize, with word and with deed, that Israel is a Jewish State and he has the right to exist. Without this so simple and seemingly ridiculous step, there is nowhere to go. Yet they WILL NOT DO it… They will not speak it, so how will they ever act on it??? Every Arab country is essentially a Muslim State… Every Arab country has expelled the majority (if not all) of its Jews. Israel is a democracy, founded as the one Jewish State in the world. Let her exist, acknowledge she has that right, and then let the talking begin. This should not and cannot be a point of negotiation… We demand you give us things, but we don’t acknowledge you exist??? Really??? We acknowledge the Arab states exist… so must they recognize Israel. There is no moving forward without this… and there is only ONE side to blame for the stalemate. One. Do not be fooled by rhetoric and frustration… look to the truth… look at the facts… find them for yourselves, not in what one side wants you to believe. They are right there, and they will surprise many of you. Establish the truth, then move forward. It is the only way. Opinion is multi-sided, fact is not.
It has been a while since I have posted here… Not because I have become unpolitical, but because my music blog has pretty much taken over and become a daily endeavor.
While it is true that I am burnt out on American politics and deeply saddened with our representatives on both sides, that does not mean I do not think about things on a daily basis. Sometimes I think about them too much, becoming depressed and resigned to being dragged along our seemingly fast path to self-destruction. I take it to heart, perhaps too much.
I know that is why many people shy away from even having the discussion. It is too easy for friends to avoid the topic, or dismiss certain goings ons, saying it does not affect them… or that there are too many domestic issues to worry about… and while the latter is true, the former is not… and it is a most dangerous stance to take either way. Sadly we do not get to choose one over the other. There are things that affect our daily lives and beliefs and actual existence and must be dealt with. Ignorance is not bliss, it is dangerous. This is proven on a daily basis, in a scary and very real fashion.
What is happening in the world, and in particular at the United Nations right now, at this very moment, affects all of us. I speak because I fear that too many do not. I speak because it is time to set the lies and misdirection aside. I speak because if I don’t, silence will surely equal death.
People say that when those like Ahmadinejad are given a microphone his words are just words… He is dismissed as a crazy person, an agitator, as someone who is harmless. Yet Iran is trying to get a nuclear weapon. This very same leader wants to be armed with the most deadly and destructive weapon of all time. Hitler spoke with words. That is how he started. Hs words went into the ears of a people… and suddenly his words were put into a plan and set into action. His words, sadly became misguided truths… People heard them so often that they became real, at least in people’s minds…
Words can hurt us… words lead to actions… and actions lead to the flinging of sticks and stones, and shattered bones. Words lead to the launching of rockets and mortars and at some point, will lead to the launching of a nuclear device. History proves that.
As a writer I am deeply affected by words… those used and those not. Anyone writing a speech is deeply aware of the meanings and nuances and weights a specific word can and often does have. Abbas and the Arab world refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state… Refuse… His words are spoken on the stage of the UN, his audience is global and he speaks about how Israel is home and the birthplace to Muslims and Christians… he most purposefully leaves out words… and thus Jewish identity. He manipulates history to suit his own arguments, and picks and choses passages from UN Resolutions that fit his plan and his agenda… even if they are resolutions he and the Arabs once rejected wholeheartedly. Israel is the smallest of nations, surrounded by enemies on every side… the hatred has spread across the globe in the form of blame and anti-Semitism. Israel is fingered for the woes of the world. While Israel is not perfect, she has the right to exist, she has the right to be acknowledged, she has the right to be a Jewish State.
Yet the Arabs refuse to even utter these words, refuse to speak them, refuse to believe them. They use the language of mortars and rockets and suicide attacks. They use the language of hijacking and crashing jets and human beings into buildings. They use the language of train bombs, roadside bombs, and human bombs… So what makes you think they will stop and not use a nuclear bomb.
But the world takes Abbas at his words. Suddenly they take everything he says as being true and accurate. History and fact be damned. The hate for Israel and Jews is one thing… using this hate to deny reality and truth is another… a sad, and dangerous and reprehensible other.
The Arabs use words to talk about how they have been waiting for a state for 63 years. They ignore the words that were spoken by Israel in offering them just that. They ignore their own words and the wars that they started, causing not only Palestinian refugees, who other Arab states refused, by the way, but Israeli and Jewish refugees, also never mentioned.
We can no longer ignore what they ignore. We can no longer allow our desires to be even-handed and “fair” to cause us to ignore the truth. There is right and wrong on both sides, but there is also a history… there are also hard, cold facts, there is also an actual truth.
Today I wrote about John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. What that must teach us is that spirituality and love are essential. Love is what motivates all human beings. Period. And while sometimes this can be misguided and manipulated by others, we are all just trying to be loved and find love and give love. What is equally essential is recognizing individuality and respecting those who are different. This is what makes us human beings and not machines.
Our differences should be celebrated. They are what make us. That is what the Dalai Lama spoke of when I saw him. Peace must be worked for, but sadly, sometimes it must be fought for. There is not a hypothetical evil in the world, there is a very real evil in the world. We must recognize that. We must understand that.
We must go beyond words to see what people’s true meanings are and we must define them for ourselves, using truth and history and facts as our guides.
If the Arabs refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish State… refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist… refuse to use words for anything other than hate, how can we possibly move forward. It is time to see the truth. It is time to speak the truth. It is time to use our own words to speak out and speak up and stop the rhetoric and the lies.
If we do not honor our words on paper and those spoken then we have no place to go and the world is condemned to repeat the same mistakes it has made for centuries. These are my words. I hope that others will use their own.
