What do the inflammatory comments by the recently-retired preacher of Barack Obama's Chicago church have to do with peace - or its lack - in Israel and Palestine? My blogging colleague, Rabbi Daniel Jackson of Israel, offers some insights.
Why is this so germane for Israelis? Because similar statements are made in this part of the world daily, such comments made by political figures and religious leaders are taken seriously. Those who hear them are inspired by them and then use these words to justify violence and murder. While it might be no big deal in the States to Damn the government, it is a big deal else where. ... Israelis have seen this silent affirmation of racist and divisive culture grow in recent years in very interesting and peculiar ways—their Foreign Minister forced to use the side servant entrance to the Annapolis conference. Secretary of State Rice used her personal narrative of growing up Black in the Old South to identify with the plight of Palestinians forced to stop at check points. No mention was made that the check points were instituted to prevent the very acts southern racists carried out against Black religious establishments, not unlike the homicides and murder perpetrated against Israeli parochial schools or religious ceremonies.There's a lot more.
Leave a comment
Here are some quick tips for adding simple Textile formatting to your comments, though you can also use proper HTML tags:
*This* puts text in bold.
_This_ puts text in italics.
bq. This "bq." at the beginning of a paragraph, flush with the left hand side and with a space after it, is the code to indent one paragraph of text as a block quote.
To add a live URL, "Text to display":http://windsofchange.net/ (no spaces between) will show up as Text to display. Always use this for links - otherwise you will screw up the columns on our main blog page.