Protesters in Santa Monica
Seen on the corner of Lincoln and Santa Monica Blvd.
A protestor, an older woman in a sun hat, holds a sign that reads “LET THE JEWS LIVE IN THEIR HOMELAND IN PEACE.”
And I think “Well, there’s a measured yet impassioned response to the current crisis.”
She turns the sign around. The reverse reads “AND TELL HENRY KISSINGER TO SHUT UP AND STAY THE HELL OUT OF IT THIS TIME.”
And I think: “Well, okay, she’s only half-crazy.”
Meanwhile, there’s this piece from my favorite living author, David Mamet.
*sigh*
I wish I had words.
It’s times like these that I lay back and think of England.
Total Digression!
Best. Icon. Ever.
IGNORE ME!
I saw this sign last night on one of the churches down the road that said something like:
“Israel is God’s timeclock. And it’s counting down.”
Or possibly “winding down”. Either away filled filled me with dread that people are really encouraged to think that armageddon is on its way.
Read the book Forcing God’s Hand if you want even more dread. It’s all about the ties between radical right-wing zionists who want to rebuild the temple on temple mount and the radical right-wing American fundies who want the temple rebuilt so they can speed up armageddon.
No more dread, please. I’m full. May I be excused?
Letting the Jews live in their homeland would be challenging since very few modern Jews are anything close to pure Israelite. Would the average Jew have to work out some baroque time-share plan where he divided the year between Palestine, Germany, Russia, Poland, and perhaps Spain?
I started to write a quick (but lengthening) critique that article, realized the issue deserved a lot more attention than I could afford it, and gave up.
This is why I mostly limit myself to slapdash jokes.
I think that Mamet article was disturbingly reductive – especially for someone who has based his livelihood on being a LOT more subtle than that. Anyone who criticizes Israel for ANYTHING is an anti-Semite – period. It’s as simple as that, apparently.
*Sigh* Attitudes like that are one part of why it’s so hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion on this topic. It’s like saying anyone who criticizes Bush “hates America.” Not only is it blatantly untrue, it just doesn’t help.
Yep. The real enemy is extremism.
I recently wrote a letter to the local newspaper saying that several countries haven’t achieved freedom without a little blood being spilled. Unfortunately, the Jewish population in Cedar Falls is nil so no one is saying anything but me.
But excellent article by Mr. Mamet none the less.
Mamet needs a proofreader… “central tenant of statehood”??
That essay contains more strawmen than all the cornfields in Iowa.
“No, we are told, it is not that Jews, somehow, need Christian blood for their nefarious ceremonies, they need Arab blood, and, for some reason, delight in murder. And much of the Liberal West, thrilled to have a Victim to worship, nods along.”
Who the hell is saying Israel delights in murder? People, including citizens of Israel , are upset at the way the country is conducting its current campaign. They aren’t criticizing in order to paint Jews as Monsters, they’re doing it because they believe that too much Israeli and Lebanese blood has been shed over this.
Geez louise, he’s writing like a wingnut saying that criticizing the way America “is defending itself” in Iraq equals treason. Actually, the sweeping generalizations in that essay remind of the sweeping generalizations in his writings about acting (and I like his writings about acting). What can you do, the man is a polemicist.