Did That Make You Feel Any Better?

After waking up at 10:30 today I went straight for my daily dose of Punks, naturally reading the first and only article I assumed it would simply another perfectly legitimate attack on the disengagment. For the most part I was right except for 6 words "Still happy, Moishe? Personally, I'm sickened." Yeah, that was refering to me, I go by Moishe, Moshe, Moishele, Crazy Moishele and Elder Punk of Zion. But lets cut to the chase, I'm not exactly "happy", I dont like to see the Dream of Greater Israel rolled back and thrown down the tubes, but that doesnt prevent me from seeing that the "occupation" of gaza is no longer tenable. Look, to Dina and all my other friends who don't agree with me, and thats a lot of you, I am not jumping for joy to see Israel do this. This isnt going into my book as one of the greatest moments in Israeli history, but that doesn't mean its not the right thing to do in this situation. Just curious, would you like to repeat those six words to half of the Israeli population? Dina, did you serve in the territories? have you ever killed someone? Would you be willing to bury your dead child (G-d forbid, may we never have to deal with such things) who was blown up by a roadside bomb in Gaza? Honestly would you? Because if can't answer yes to that last question you shouldn't be mocking me for saying that perhaps a different approach is necessary to a situation which has involved a lot of maimed Jews (not to mention palestinians, but heck undermenchen dont deserve human rights and those sort of trivialities). Would you like me to go on about the right to National Self-Determination? Is Democracy a four letter word to you? Do the rights of 8,500 people take precedent over the rights of roughly a million, none of which recieved government subsidies to live where they do? Come on Dina analyze this rationally please, or at the very least respect my position. We like to lecture the world about the Holocaust, however 6 million lost souls doesn't give us the right to lecture anyone unless we have a significantly higher standard of behavior than the people we are lecturing. While I am by no means defending the behavior of ANY country in the world, I do think we should maintain those higher standards that we set for everyone else, lest we get it thrown back in our faces. Whereas I utterly revile that little sign we have all come to hate, and believe it is Holocaust Denial on all levels, I do see that Holocaust lecturing as well as Israeli policy in the territories has brought us to these comparisons. Israel has acted no WORSE than any other nation in a similar situation, but has it acted sufficiently BETTER to warrant the lecturing us Jews and supporters of Israel give to the rest of the world? So on one level the gaza plan is about practising what you preach, but it is by no means the only understanding of the plan, but it is something you should think about before you blast the rest of us. Perhaps I am just overreacting from what was probably Orange overkill on tisha bav, I heard more about Gaza than the destruction of the house that Solomon built.

A fundemental flaw in your article was that its discussing the rants of a few palestinian intellectuals. Jewish intellectuals have said some pretty nutty things too, that doesn't mean they represent the Jewish concensus. As far as Hamas goes, no kidding, their goal is to destroy all of Israel, no ones gonna tell you otherwise. I'm rather surprised they didn't say they want all of historical palestine restored from the sea to the river. Don't expect the PA to come out saying that they will wipe out Hamas, especially if Hamas is a lot more popular in Gaza than Abbas's PA is. Well not unless Abbas wants to find himself 6 feet. I'm in the middle of reading Six Days of War by michael Oren, and one of the things I'm noticing is that Arab rhetoric means absolutely nothing. When Arab leaders speak rhetorically it means absolutely nothing as far as policy goes. One should recall the death threats made to Israel by Hamas after the assasinations of their leaders Yassin and Rantissi, the fact is that those threats were only hot air. Words don't count, only actions do, we have to wait and see.

I was once a Religious Zionist like most of you seem to be for better or worst, if the disengagement happened a few years ago I probably wouldve taken the Orange side. My world as far as Israel went was that it was a total no brainer, I assumed that Israel must hold on to as much territory as possible in order protect eretz yisrael. I didnt care about the arabs, I assumed that their situation was their own fault and everything was fine and dandy. I always assumed that every Israeli policy was to be defened and that the Arabs were always in the wrong. I knew who to support and who to hate. the truth is that that was extremely comforting. If your world is that simple it is much easier than to have to sort through everything to make the right decision, sometimes those decisions aren't as nice to your little picture of the world as you would like them to be. But that is the price I have to pay to be honest with myself. But please don't launch some personal attack on me because the perfect and clear world view that you thought you hold isnt as simple as you think it is, othe people can experience pain and suffering too, that includes: evicted settlers, palestinians, israeli arabs, israeli terror victims etc. Nothing is simple but to simplify it and hide behind some seemingly "perfect" understanding, is both naive and extremely dangerous. I stand by what I believe is the right thing to do, I believe it is the right thing for many more reasons and on many more levels than I can mention or even attempt to articulate here. Could I be wrong? Perhaps, I am certainly no prophet. I can only do what I think is right and pray to G-d that the results are what is optimal for the Jewish people as well as all Mankind. I have been told that even Dina believes in G-d, the question is does my friend have any faith?

Nachamu Nachamu Ami...