Vigil - a new truth telling sign

 

This sign that I made a few months ago is going to be returned to service at my vigil tomorrow. It is a nightmare that the slaughter of the last year was given the full go-ahead by the country that once proclaimed liberty and justice for all. I have never heard that phrase voiced by our new president or the departing one, a war criminal along with Netanyahu. The hatred and contempt for the Palestinians that the Israeli war on them has revealed is epic, yet it fails to move many Americans. Now there is to be a ceasefire, but as any student of Israel's history knows, it uses ceasefires temporarily before going on to grab more land. This is nothing new, it began in 1948 when the first Palestinian refugee camps were created, tent camps just as we see now in Gaza and, as in Gaza, Israel refused to contribute a shekel to their maintenance. The UN responded with the creation of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) the very same humanitarian agency that Israel rails against today. Things must change. Reader, have you thought of what you might do to bring change? It will not be coming from Washington DC.

Vigil - Now is not the time for timidity

I visit many sites online and comment frequently. What follows is a comment that touches on an important point, we can't be afraid of name-calling when butchery is going on in our name.

On my vigil in front of a synagogue I have found that the overwhelming response is sympathy for "Palestinian lives matter". It isn't that Americans are all-in for Israel, it is that those who oppose Israel are completely intimidated by the thought that if they speak out they will be (falsely) labeled an antisemite.

Those who, like me, believe in liberty and justice for all and are opposed to ethnic cleansing by anyone, have to accept that they are going to get attacked by the wealth and political power of Zionism in the US with the weapon of choice being the false charge of antisemitism as seen in action by Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL and Alan Dershowitz. This should not stop the citizenry of the "land of the free and the home of the brave", but it does.

America has been made an accomplice by our war criminal President who on his own and without a moment of hesitation declared himself a Zionist and made the unwarranted assertion that "we" stand with Israel. As Americans who do not stand with Israel, it is necessary for us to speak up and say so, just as the members of Jewish Voice for Peace are speaking up saying that they are not covered by Netanyahu's incredible claim that he is the leader of world Jewry and that Israel is the one and only place where Jews are safe. American Jews are living testimony that this is not true.

American Jews and Palestinian Americans live in peace as equals, putting the lie to the foundation of Zionism. Biden and Netanyahu want the world to think that Israel is doing right when it is committing atrocities protected and aided by the United States. This is a horror, this "special relationship", that has brought my beloved country down to the lowest moral level it has ever had.

The fear of job loss and doxing is well founded; Bill Ackman, Zionist, has declared no pro-Palestinian campus protester will ever have a job with his company, so it is primarily the retired, like me, who have an obligation to use their freedom of speech to speak out forcefully for liberty and justice for all even as Trump is about to take the country down even lower in supporting Israel at the behest of Zionists like Miriam Adelson (to whom he gave the Medal of Freedom!) who surround and support him.

Stop trembling in fear and make some noise in defense of the equality of all human lives and the right of natives to retain their land, homes and lives. Silence in the face of atrocities when a "leader" is making claims for you is assent. Speak up in defiance of what has been said in your name.

Vigil - don't be afraid to comment!

Comments are welcome here. As an example of the quality one can find, I refer you here, (scroll down to see them) in response to a post I made way back in 2011. The comment thread is very much worth reading in the light of how things have deteriorated in the ensuing 14 years.

Vigil - the weather

 

Here you see me in full winter gear late in the day with the sun very low. The temperature was 18F so a balaclava is a must. Under it is a hood from a sweatshirt I wear under my coat. The signboards provide some shielding from the wind. As I am always on duty for over a hour and my movement is limited to turning 90 degrees to face one or another direction of traffic, I am essentially sedentary, so body heat isn't enough to keep me warm. I use a couple of battery powered hand warmers and heated socks. It works. The greatest challenge is keeping my feet from going numb, thus the heated socks. They do not keep my feet feeling warm, but feeling them at all is good enough. My body temperature still drops, so a nice hot cup of coffee is much appreciated after I am done for the day.

As you can see, traffic is heavy and this is true of all four directions. I'd estimate many hundreds of vehicles pass and see my messages. I am amazed that anyone would curse me as a few do, as I am simply asking for human life to be respected. But Zionism is a fanaticism, required in order to take the land from fellow human beings, killing them to do it starting in 1947, and with no limit in 2024-5, while failing to understand why there is violent resistance (HAMAS). I am on this vigil because my country, the United States, is fully backing the atrocities being committed and far too few Americans are showing any objection. The positive responses are very gratifying. Note the Palestinian flag flying at left. I look forward to warmer weather when people will stop on the sidewalk to talk as they did before cold weather hit.

Vigil - It's liberty and justice or ethnic cleansing

The choice is simple - one either supports liberty and justice for all, the traditional American creed, or one supports ethnic cleansing. One can't support both, yet a great number of people in America do which is epic hypocrisy. A low point in American history was reached when President Biden declared he is a Zionist without the slightest hesitation. The mainstream press did noting to question this traitorous hypocrisy.

There is no approved version of ethnic cleansing. It was wrong when the United States did it to native-Americans, wrong when the Nazis did it to Jews in Europe and wrong when Israelis have been and are doing it to the native Palestinians.

What is astounding is that Zionism has taken such a grip on the government of the United States that liberty and justice for all is forgotten and even US presidents are standing with ethnic cleansing as if there were nothing wrong with it, encouraging it and supporting it in any way that the Israel's prime minister, Netanyahu, decides is right. Even the might of US armed forces, the state of the art weaponry of the US and the diplomatic veto of the US in the UN have been pledged to ethnic cleansing.

How is this possible? It has happened by way of the corruption of Congress by wealth and the effectively unlimited amount of wealth possessed by Zionists in America. America has been bought, AIPAC even boasting about it.

I am ashamed to be an American when we the people are pledged by our government to support the opposite of liberty and justice for all. I proudly display the Palestinian flag on my vigil because they are in the right as they refuse as best they can to yield their native land to colonizers.

The grip of Zionism on America must be broken. The next president, Trump, shows no indication that he will do anything to "make America great again" with a renewed pledge to liberty and justice for all. Instead he is threatening the Palestinians with "hell" even as they are already in hell living in fear for their lives as members of the Israeli Knesset make statements worthy of the Nazis, Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister stating that letting all 2 million Palestinians in Gaza die of starvation would not be immoral.

With American political leadership falling all over itself supporting Israel, it is up to you and me to start loosening the Zionist grip from the bottom up. I state it on the sign shown here, worn as I stood at the entrance to Northwestern University.

Vigil - Jews are just people, no more or less.

Before any of one of us are part of any group, before we have any identity that distinguishes us as individuals, we are all equally human. 

This is very important to understand as we watch what Israel is doing, and has done, to the Palestinians along with the view that Israeli Prime Minister expresses about Jews and non-Jews. 

As anyone knows, or should realize from an examination of human behavior, the very last thing that any individual or group should have is unlimited power. This was a fundamental concept in the formation of the United States; of the separation of powers among the three branches of the new government. It was also a guiding principal in European history - the balance of power. Countries might not like each other, but would ally with it if it looked like one country would overawe all. No group, no nation wants to be subservient to another.

The opposite of absolute power is absolute powerlessness. This was the situation of the Jews in Europe. At about 2% of the German population at the time of Hitler's rise to power, his use of the Jews as a target for abuse is a perfect example of the misuse of power, of the ease with which those who have it can do anything they wish to those who lack it, while feeling superior all the while. It is on open display with Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. How is it that America is supporting the oppressor without limit, a modern army with US weapons openly killing people who are powerless?

A significant reversal of power has come about as a direct result of the horror of Nazi Germany and the holocaust. The Jewish State, with the sheltering it has received for being that from the United States, has created a monster by protecting Israel's power and aiding it as the US has done both militarily and diplomatically for decades. Even the respect that the US had for international law, so well expressed by the urgency and design of the United Nations after WW2, along with the additions to the Geneva Conventions that came in response to Hitler's assertion of power are set aside for one country in the world - Israel, the US making it so.

The idea of restraining power has been turned on its head with the result in the powerless Palestinians being denounced while the supreme and unquestioned power of their oppressor, Israel, is praised with unlimited money and weaponry provided eagerly by Congress along with an outrageous lack of condemnation of this by the American people. How has this come to be?

The holocaust is learned about in the United States, holocaust education being required in several states to be taught before high school. In addition there are holocaust museums, memorials, movies, TV productions, books and many plays that deal either directly or indirectly with the holocaust. An American who doesn't know about the holocaust would have to have been a hermit his/her entire life. It is critical that this holocaust education ends with the event and does not mention what I am illuminating there, that the holocaust set the stage for the restraint of power to be turned on its head for Israel alone.

Nobody can learn about the holocaust without feeling remorse that it happened and sympathy for the survivors, few as they were. In Jerusalem, the Yad Vashem memorial is a place that all visiting diplomats are expected to visit. Netanyahu has referred to the 1967 borders of Israel, before it occupied the land it took in the war of that year, as "Auschwitz borders". He has said regarding the current slaughter Israel is conducting that he is leading the "forces of light against the forces of darkness" and has compared the situation in the US (2024) as similar to Nazi Germany in 1938.

Clearly the image is being put forward that the victims are the Israelis, that the world should recall the Jewish victims of the holocaust and transfer their innocence to the not-at-all innocent Israelis. The powerful emotional impact of the holocaust is used by Israel to claim defense in any operation it decides to undertake against any other country or in particular against the helpless natives over which Israel holds absolute and unquestionable power. It is a false vision that hides the reality of unending oppression, eviction and now outright slaughter by the party holding unlimited power, thanks to the black check issued by the United States.

I was asked by a person the other day how I could stand in front of a synagogue with my signs that oppose what Israel is doing. How dare I ask American Jews where they stand regarding Israel.

This is nonsense. As I have explained in a previous post, as an American, along with all the members of the synagogue who are Americans like me, I am responsible when our leader, the president, says "We stand with Israel" to declare that he does not speak for me. If I am silent, he speaks for me. In exactly the same way, When Netanyahu says he is the leader of all Jewry worldwide as the head of the government of The Jewish State that flies a flag with the Star of David on it just as is often displayed on a synagogue, it is the responsibility of Jews worldwide to say if he truly is speaking and acting for them or not. Silence is approval and anyone is free to ask the question about support to break the silence. There is a move on campus to forbid asking the question of Jewish students.

The outcry that there is rampant antisemitism in the US by supporters of Israel is absurd. Prime examples of those doing this are Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Greenblatt. It is a bold attempt to distract from the atrocities of Israel under a blanket of sympathy that Jews have received for the holocaust and the undeniable antisemitism in America in the past. It seeks to hide the reality of an oppressor behind a feeling that has nothing to do with that reality, masking the oppressor with the image of victim. The proof of it is in the outright denial by the antisemitism chorus that anyone might think poorly of Jews due to the bloodbath that Israel has been conducting for well over a year now. It is an attempt to say that Jews can do no wrong, and that is precisely what Netanyahu is trumpeting to the world as he slaughters with no end in sight. The effort is to associate a sympathetic feeling for Jews with Israel, that has nothing at all to do with Israel's behavior, is irrelevant to it.

I end where I started - there is no special group of people. All human beings, Jews included, are capable of the worst and the best human behavior. There are a multitude of examples of Jews exhibiting the best of human behavior. Israel shows a multitude of examples of Jews engaged in the worst.

Vigil - "Whatsoever is true"

This is one of the signs I was wearing prior to the presidential election, stressing that when it comes to Israel, Americans would have no choice if they considered only the major party candidates, both of whom were beholden to Zionism. I displayed this sign at the entrance to Northwestern University. I was near the NU entry arch that features the university motto in Latin: "whatsoever is true". Because NU has shut down the truth about Zionism/Israel I wanted to display it on my sign.

I have since realized that the more one puts on a sign, the less likely it will be read. This not only because of TLDR but also because the lettering must be small if many words are used. Since most of those passing at the entrance to the university were walking, they could take the time to read all of it, not so with passing cars. Also, letter size determines how far away the sign can be read.