Confronting Humanity's Dropouts

Something about conflict brings out the worst in some people. Extremists on both sides of the latest Israeli conflict crawl from the proverbial woodwork to spew their hateful garbage and propaganda. Those supporting zionist extremism have sunk to the level of excusing and condoning the killing of innocents in the name of self-defense. Those with an axe to grind against all Jews rush to take advantage of the revolting atrocities in Lebanon and Gaza. These dropouts from humanity not only embarrass themselves, they perpetuate the violence extremist mentalities have sown throughout history. Take away the ethnic descriptors used by each side, and their propaganda become impossible to differentiate.

Overzealous champions of injustice such as Abe Foxman surrender their integrity when they become the excuse makers for atrocities. Despite his admirable early efforts as a vanguard, Foxman has blurred the lines between Israel, Jews, Zionism, and Judaism for years. The result of this misrepresentation is an inability for many people to distinguish between the four, which results in misdirected anger towards Jews in general, over the heinous actions of a few zionist extremists. Millions of folks across the globe recently enjoyed the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Many subtle lessons on man's inhumanity to man are scattered throughout Tolkien's masterpiece. The most important of these is the transformation of Saruman the White, a wizard sent to Tolkien's Middle Earth to fight the powers of the evil Sauron: Saruman fell into darkness when he delved too deep into the study of his enemy's ways. The quest for justice and truth is lost when one embraces the same tactics one professes to stand against.

Following are some views detested by extremists on both sides. Israel's apologists call them self-hating Jews, while those embracing Jew hatred ignore these fine writers with the courage to condemn Israel's state terrorism, and instead proclaim such repugnant nonsense as "the Holocaust was a hoax." Enjoy the following excerpts by these Jewish champions of humanity.

Antiwar activist Norman Solomon pulls no punches in his recent piece The Most Dangerous Alliance In the World:

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies. The kind of premeditated action that the U.S. representative in Nuremberg at the International Conference on Military Trials – Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson -- was talking about on August 12, 1945, when he declared that “no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.” [Full article]

Israeli jazz musician, author and anti-zionist activist Gilad Atzmon hands extremist zionists their hats with Biblical lessons in "Learn Math with Israel: 2 = 500,000."

This is obviously the outcome of the newly emerged Hebraic arithmetic laws. For 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers who are still kept alive, 500,000 innocent Lebanese civilians are displaced. For 2 abducted Israeli soldiers, Lebanon, a sovereign state, is brought back down on its knees. Its civil infrastructure is ‘gone’. Some of its capital’s residential quarters and southern villages are already wiped out. Indeed, ‘two equals half a million’ is the new arithmetic the Israelis insist upon imposing on the region. Is it that surprising? Not at all, as predicted by Gershon Sholem already in the 1930’s: once the Jews start to speak Hebrew, it won’t take long before they consider themselves to be God. [Full article]

Few writers can bring truth to the table as well as Uri Avnery, founder of the peace organization Gush Shalom. Here is an excerpt from his recent commentary "Stop That Shit!"

Lebanese children, covered with wounds, in Beirut hospitals. The funeral of the victims of a missile in Haifa. The ruins of a whole devastated quarter in Beirut. Inhabitants of the north of Israel fleeing south from the Katyushas. Inhabitants of the south of Lebanon fleeing north from the Israeli Air Force.

Death, destruction. Unimaginable human suffering.

And the most disgusting sight: George Bush in a playful mood sitting on his chair in St. Petersburg, with his loyal servant Tony Blair leaning over him, and solving the problem: "See? What they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbullah to stop doing that shit, and it's over." Thus spake the leader of the world, and the seven dwarfs - "the great of the world" - say Amen. [Full article]

Our ending tribute salutes two prominent Jewish historians: Raul Hilberg and Norman Finkelstein with a review by Hilberg of Finkelstein's superbly written book Beyond Chutzpah - On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

"When I read Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, at the time of its appearance, I was in the middle of my own investigations of these matters, and I came to the conclusion that he was on the right track. I refer now to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks, and the other claims pertaining to forced labor. I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained political scientist, has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough."

When we witness the senseless loss of innocent life on both sides of this conflict, keep in mind it is normal and healthy to feel angry. The challenge for us trying to hold on to our humanity is to not let one's anger metastasize into hatred.