Debra Sweet | October 13, 2023
We are in the midst of madness.
While Hamas has seized 150 Israelis and is holding them hostage, attacked noncombatant civilians and killed them or threatened to kill them — criminal acts by the fundamentally reactionary Hamas, mass media news reports, including expressions of indignation by the rulers of the U.S., are aimed at programming people in this country to fixate on this outrage without providing the context of 75 years of Palestinian occupation, the apartheid nature of Israel and the exponentially greater outrage that Israel (with the backing of the U.S. government) has now fully taken all of Gaza hostage (beyond the blockade which has gone on for 16 years). Right now over two million Gazans, overwhelmingly noncombatants, are under an Israeli total siege that has cut off electricity, food, fuel and water, threatening to starve everyone in Gaza to death. Israel has now ordered 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to flee to southern Gaza within 24 hours which the United Nations says will lead to “devastating humanitarian consequences.”
Rabbi Brant Rosen writes with both great emotion and historical detail of the need to seek understanding at this time.
Those it may seem more painfully difficult than ever, let us hearken to
this voices that have so long been crying out from the ground. Let us
respond with understanding, compassion and action. Even amidst the
terrible grief, let us shine an unflinching light on the true roots of
this violence – and on the vision of a future based on justice and
equality for all who live in the land…
Thoughts?