I just finished reading a diary titled "Today I end my support of Israel" by diarist "Chilean Jew", which inspired me to give you my own thoughts on the issue.
I have for decades traveled to ... let's be politically correct and say "the historical land of Palestine" numerous times, have befriended people from any background available, at one time living in a Kibbuz (Gan Schmoel) and at one time with a Jewish girl in the Negev (Yeruham), lived with an Arab family in Gaza while under curfew, did at one point consider volunteering for the IDF and at another point was arrested by the IDF under martial conditions during Gaza riots. In have heard and felt thousands of stories and dreams, among them the most powerful ones you can find in this world.
And I got really angry reading the abovementioned diary, which I consider the most ignorant thing I ever read on Kos.
"Chilean Jew" starts his diary with these words:
I'm Jewish and descendant of holocaust survivors. Moreover, I've been a Zionist all of my life. I went to a Zionist school, I was active in Zionist youth groups.
Well, different for me. I am of German descent, and my grandfathers both were killed in action while serving as officers in the ranks of German Wehrmacht in World War II.
"Chilean Jew" goes on:
I've always been a fervent supporter of Israel as a refuge for Jews around the world who seek a place to exercise their traditions and embrace their identity in peace. I sang the Israeli anthem in the train rails of Aushwitz-Birkenau and I pledged to fight every day of my life to make sure the savage crimes that had taken place there would never happen again. Every year I pledged: Never Again. Remember and Never forget.
Well, I have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau several times, during my last two visits even guiding groups there. There is no place on earth that has ever had a stronger impression on me. If you have never been there, let me tell you that if you walk there alone and calm inside, you can FEEL what pure evil and pure horror is, it is invisibly raising from the ground you walk on. I have no words to describe it more eloquently, if you want, go there and feel it for yourself.
It is from this background that I will never hesitate to stand by the people of Israel.
But it is for many other reasons as well.
Among these reasons is the tradition of civilisation and enlightenment we share with the people of Israel. All the values we share, not least among them humanity, rationality and democracy.
But the most important of these reasons is the nature of the enemy of the people of Israel.
You dont't have to be with me on my fundamental assessment of the Arab culture, which I consider the least humane and least progressive society the face of the earth has ever seen. A society which is built on placing ridiculously overblown egos of its male members as the one value above all other values. A society which even invented a "religion" in Abrahamitic tradition, the only theologial "invention" of which was to spread it with the sword, and the "laws" of which are built around a single purpose, namely providing an apologetic framework for a society brutally dominated by males with a narcisstic personality disorder.
But you cannot look over the simple fact that Palestinian Arabs and Arabs as a whole, as well as each and every member of these societies (sic!), has never considered stepping even one small step away from their one and only attitude towards Israel: Total annihilation of the people of Israel. If "Chilean Jew" actually believes that there ever was even a drop of will on the Arab side to "make peace with the people of Israel", he should just try to read the the speeches in Arabian language their leaders gave upon returning home from signing "peace accords", or talk to any (sic!) Arab in private. Or he might choose to study the great peace accord of Munich in 1938.
There are people in Gaza which I feel personally related with and whose hospitality I deeply appreciated. But they, like any of their fellow Arabs who force hundreds of thousands of people to live in "refugee camps" for more than 60 years as a symbol of their unmitigated desire to, some day when opportunity will arise, totally annihilate the people of Israel, deliberately chose and choose to fight a fight for mutual live and death with the people and the state of Israel. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing "unjust" (or even "inhumane", as "Chilean Jew" suggests) about the people of Israel defending their very existence with ultimate means.
It makes me plain speechless when "Chilean Jew" decries the anti-terrorist Israeli West-Bank barrier that virtually ended years of horrifying suicide killings of innocent civilians in Israel as a "brutal annexation wall". Just wow. How deep can one sink in search of applause by anti-semites?
I know about Nazi Germany from what my grandmothers and other relatives tell me and from what I read from people who lived there and then. I know "Palestine" from my own experience. And I can tell you that the hatred and desire to annihilate the people of Israel as found among Arabs today makes Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Nazi Germany's horrifying crime of industrial genocide look like a starter for a main dish you cannot imagine.
So may "Chilean Jew" get happy with his coins of "rec's" here as Benedict Arnold got happy with his coins of silver. And may the decent people be happy that they can fight the eternal fight for humanity and enlightenment without that Quisling in their ranks.
However, one wish I have: "Chilean Jew", never again dare to insult the term "progressive" again by attributing it to your person.