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.