Tuesday 28 April 2009

Independence Day Ramblings On the way to the office today my mind wandered to a quote in the rear window of my aging jalopy from the Book of Peter, the Book of Paul and yeah, the Book of Mary. This Land is Our Land. Zo Artzenu. And it occurred to me that, indeed, they verily did Overcome, presumably becoming multo richo in the process. And so, undoubtedly, shall we (overcome, that is). But would they and their friends recognise our right to do so? Even though one of them is Jewish? It was no less than Martin Luther King who said, "Anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be. What is anti-Zionism? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the globe. It is discrimination against Jews... because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism." (http://lady-light.blogspot.com/2009/01/anti-semitism-martin-luther-king-and.html) The late Mr King did not of course remain with us to see how Israel at 61 has become everybody’s excuse to hate the Jew (and by extension, the religious Christian too). From his speeches it seems clear that he knew his end was not far off. But I like to think that he at least would have remained true to his beliefs, although I fear he may well ultimately have been sidelined by history, which is of course whatever the media of the day wishes to make of it. I am reminded of that disastrous emperor whom we were taught, fiddled while Rome burned. Does anyone really know much about Nero? Well, he converted to Judaism when the media was pagan (that much hasn’t changed). And became persona non grata forever. Independence Day. Yom HaAtzma’ut (or, as the wife’s aunt used to say, Yom HaAtzbanut, which I shan’t translate). It hasn’t somehow been quite the same these past few years. Perhaps we’ll have to put a little more effort into it next time. Pinhas

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