OPERATION CAST LEAD

SO ISRAEL is attacking Palestine again. And as a Jewish person, and an American it seems to affect me. Why American you ask? Well for some reason the USA is involved. People are burning American flags.

I'm used to being hated for being an American. That's a dull hated, unspecific and when people think about it it's usually not logical to hate a person because of their countries government action. The anti-American sentiment has been with me wherever I go; Australia, Ireland, UK, Europe. It was kind of refreshing to be in America, where the same anger is actually directed at the government, instead of me, but oh well. At any rate, it's nothing too strong, and I am used to it.

As for the anti-Israel sentiments; that's completely different. Being Israeli, and being Jewish are linked. I am not an Israeli. I have never been there, I have only met a handful of Israeli people. Am I a Zionist? I think I might be. The whole issue is obviously extremely complicated. I am for a Jewish homeland, but for reasons that I have personally never suffered for.

A lot of criticism of Jewish people is because they always bring up past wrongs done to them. Yes, they have had a pretty bad run over the last three thousand years. Not much luck. So they do deserve to be treated extra nice. And part of that means that Israel exists, and exists as a haven for persecuted Jews around the world. I read yesterday that before Israel was established Britain controlled Palestine, and during The Holocaust the British wouldn't allow Jews into Palestine and they died in concentration camps. So WE need Israel. There are plenty of other important and Holy places in the Muslim world, let us have this one place. PLEASE.

But back to the point; we tend to rely on guilt to get our way. And I am not happy about that. And as I said, I have never personally experienced these injustices. So what gives me any right to stand up and defend Israel? I don't have any right. I have no reason to stand up, other than the fact that I am a Jewish person and we should stick together. But do I agree that we should use guilt to convince countries to ignore going to far in retaliation? Or that Israel is justified by our past in treating resistance with an overly heavy hand? No.

Israel has it's purpose, and it stands for something that cannot be expressed. Hope? Safety? Home? I don't know. But don't we already have enough enemies in the world? By retaliating in this way are we not just making things worse? We are not able to destroy all of our enemies, so what are we to do? Even if we destroy the entire Gaza strip, and the West Bank, and kill every single person, then what? Syria, Egypt, Lebanon? The governments of those countries are the least of our fears.

I fear for the worst. I fear that Holocaust could happen again in my lifetime, but it won't be goose-stepping Germans leading us to the camps. It will be enraged Arabs and Muslim people from around the world who are sick of us dredging up the past, and using an extreme branch of Islam as a justification. I fear that America will take sides and Australia will too, and they will support Israel but Muslim people in those countries will not be happy about that and be looking for someone to blame. And that person will be me.

I fear that the only way to protect myself, and the people I care about is with high-powered automatic weaponry, and equal measures of anger, pride and terror. I fear that I will have to kill or be killed, and that WW3 is coming and it will all start very soon.

I can only keep my head down and pretend everything is ok for so long before I'll either have to chose a side, give up, or pick up a gun to defend myself. And Australia doesn't sell guns anymore.

IESSO

PS> I might be over reacting a bit. Maybe I should stop watching the news.
PPS> The post immediately below this post makes me look insane, like some sort of hyper-sensitive nut. But it also illustrates that Anti-Semitism as acceptable again, and being anti-Anti-Semitic, or being sensitive to Anti-Semitism is being crazy.