Comments on: Voice of Sanity and Wisdom: Arthur Waskow

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:09:25 +0000

Hi Liz, your Rabbi is a very wise man. You are wise to listen to him. It’s always a risk for a gentile like me to interject himself into something like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Note Samuel Wuerzelbacher’s – aka Joe the Plumber – latest effort to make an ass out of himself by becoming a “reporter”. I would like to make a couple of points. There is a great documentary/commentary called the Fog of War in which Robert Mcnamara who was defense secretary during much of the Viet Nam War talks about the lessons he learned. I’ll point out two. #1 A country certainly has a right to defend itself but the response must be proportional. Pearl Harbor was an awful attack on our military. But later in the confilct the U.S. killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians by fire bombing cities made primarily of wood. THen we dropped the nukes. McNamara noted that if the U.S. had lost that war, we could have been accused of war crimes. #2 Have empathy for your enemy. Not Hamas per se. But the Palestinian civilians have suffered tremendously. There has to be a better way to do this. Use a scalpel not a chain saw. I suppose I could say more but I just hope at least things can get better over there than they are now. Hope is a powerful feeling. David

By: HS

HS — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 01:10:44 +0000

Knew it was going to happen-the perfunctory anti-Israel swipe. Israel is a country the size of New Jersey and lives an existence which would be paralleled if Pennsylvania, New York and the Atlantic Ocean were all unendingly committed to destroying the state of NJ and all former NJ residents wherever they might live. Hamas and Hezbollah are both religiously committed to the destruction of both Israel and Jews. They believe that Jews are the descendants of “apes and pigs”- obviously skipped those evolution lectures in science.

6 million Jews- almost half of the world’s current Jewish population were killed by the Nazis less than 70 years ago. As you well know declaring oneself an agnostic did not produce a “get out of jail” card from the Nazi’s. Among those who died were ships filled with Jews who were turned away from what is now Israel,but was then controlled by the British. If Israel existed then those people would have survived.

Israel has chosen a path which is difficult, but insures its’ own survival. Making peace with neighbors who guarantee your destruction is foolish- especially when they use “peacetime” to load up on better weapons.Your solution is?

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:00:38 +0000

The Mideast is so frustrating. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. I like what Rabbi Waskow has to say. With the upcoming holiday in mind, I think the Palestinians need a Martin Luther King, Jr. figure to show them how to peaceful but defiantly react to Isreal’s abuses. Hopefully they will realize violence brings more violence. Isreal is compelled to defend itself, right or wrong.