Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I sent this to Glen Greenwald from Salon.com. He is a brilliant political commentator and one with whom I agree most of the time. This time, though, I did not agree with parts of what he said. I related that to him and posted it on my blog appending the link to his site below.

Mr. Greenwald: I Saw you on CNN’s Dylan Ratigan and read your post on Salon.com. Your commentary, as always, is excellent. Still, you, the political left and I diverge on Israel. I am NOT anti-Israeli. I think Israel faces threats no one can understand without living there. You are correct Iran has not bombed anyone BUT it has been involved in arming regimes which are hostile to Israel and which support the spread of world wide Islamic fundamentalism. IF they could I firmly believe Iran, along with other forces, would eradicate the Jewish state.

I am a generation very closely related to the years of the Holocaust. I missed it – thankfully -- by a very little. I was born in the year Israel was founded. I believe most who are Jews cannot be unmindful of our history no matter how removed from the Holocaust one gets. Benign reticence for the Jewish people spelled our near doom. We are unlike, I believe, now any other people on earth. Israel and Jews will do what Israel and Jews must do to reinforce our existence as Malcolm X said about HIS people "by any means necessary." We have paid a high price -- TOO high a price -- to let our destiny depend on the wishy washy sentiments of others all over the globe. It cannot be so ever again.

Furthermore, I do believe there is a cultural difference between much of the Arab world and the Jewish state. As the US Supreme Court said about another matter “I know it when I see it.” Likewise, I know an advanced, free civilization when I see it. Israel is such a country.

Iran, despite doing nothing to hurt anyone YET, will, I believe, when and IF it can, eradicate the Jewish state as it has promised to do many many times. You may say words are merely words but, I believe, words mean something. They did in Hitlerian Germany just before the Holocaust and, I believe, they do now. I agree with you, however, there must never be a George W. Bush preemptive war based on nothing again. That does not mean that nothing should ever be done. Something must be done with respect to Iran's attempt at securing a nuclear arsenal in that dangerous part of the world and I thought the President’s call on that was quite correct.

I am assuming you are Jewish and wonder if it ever gives you pause to laud a religious tyrannical state which you know would destroy Israel and our people if it could or support one who even SAYS it would. If you are a Jew, I submit, you will be a Jew to them no matter how understanding your thoughts may be. You will be, I believe, a Jew first, last and always whether you want to admit it or not.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/29/iran/

NOT ANYMORE

  I wrote this last week and for the most part sat on it because I did not want my writing to imply anything against Israel. As stated agai...