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Originally posted by piqué:
Cindy, I agree I was unfair (as I posted earlier), for all the reasons you stated, and for other reasons.

I felt the same about this event that you did about the ones that were meaningful and hurtful to you. I remember one event in particular--when Philando Castile was murdered by the police. I was outraged that no one here posted about it, so I did. I remember your response saying it had mattered to you and also bothered you that it had flown under the radar. This current event is the same for me.

It is precisely because of past disussions here about Israel that I felt the silence about this horrific attack was telling. I am upset in general about the Left's tacit anti-semitism that they keep insisting is not anti-semitism. I find it deeply disturbing, even frightening.

Today a FB friend posted a map of "Palestine" from 1947 that she assumed meant there had once been a state called Palestine (there wasn't in 1947, but I'm not going to get into that now). To post such a thing in the context of the current atrocities is offensive because it says (to many people) that Israel has no right to defend itself against attack. Thankfully among her FB friends are scholars of the Middle East who know a helluva lot more about this than I do. They swiftly advised her of her mistake. Here is a quote from one of them, a FB friend of hers who majored in Middle Eastern studies at Stanford and who lived in Israel and Jordan to further his studies and knowledge. He expressed something that I have found it very hard to express:

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One of the interesting aspects of the ongoing, heartbreaking situation is that I am not sure if I have ever seen White, Christian-Cultured, European descendents wonder something like, "Hmmm...the Jews, back in the late 1800s obviously needed a 'Homeland', that is, a safe and sovereign place to be since....you know....WE (white, christian-cultured, Europeans have been murdering, and ghetto-izing and exiling them (Jews were exiled at one time or another from over half the countries/territories in Europe) for 17 centuries...and, HEY!...let's give them a nice chunk of England or France or Italy or Sweden or Russia so that they might live as full citizens safe from the endemic hatred and capricious whims of...us!!!"
History sure did prove those late-1800s Zionists (when the movement began) kinda right in the early 1940s, huh? And thousands of time before that, for example when my famiy fled for their lives in Ukraine in 1905.
And so I wonder - as a VERY liberal Jew and Zionist (yeah, look up the word) who has been against the Settlements since they began and hates Netanyahu like I hate trump)...where the **** are all the comments from now-American, white, christian-cultured, European descendents owning THEIR People's place at the very inception of the heartbreaking situation. GIve me a break....

...my comment was more-or-less directed to the Liberal/Progressive folks I know of White-European-Christian-Descent who seem to feel free to comment on the situation without a fundemntal knowledge of the history of Isreal/Palestine over the last 100 years and with - in my mind - an abdication of responsibilty (and, likely, knowledge) of what "their people" were doing to help the Jews of Europe gain freedom from the terrible injustices they faced in Europe from about 400-1946 AD...

...."Palestine" was not a state in 1947, it was labeled by the British as the "Palestinian Mandate" for their own reasons) on a day when, for example 250 young people were murdered at a music festival. And, as a reminder, I have always fully supported a complete Palestinian State and been deadset against Israeli settlements.

I also am no expert on Middle East affairs, Cindy. I also only have enough expertise to say it is terrible that people are dying. But as a Jew, I am also upset that in the face of these atrocities, people *who should know better* are saying these attacks, bombings, kidnappings are justified. They stop short of saying Israel should be wiped out, but that is what their sympathies lead to. Exactly.

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Originally posted by Nina:
@piano_dad, apparently the screenshot you posted is from an unverified BLM account that has nothing to do with the actual BLM Chicago group.

Thanks, Elon. Twitter is a cesspool.

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this land is mine
God gave this land to me.
This brave an ancient land to me.

* * *

Until I die, this land is mine.

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I’m not on your team because of anything having to do with the current conflicts. I am on your team because Jews risked their lives in the civil rights movement to help my people, and I will never forget it.

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What I am trying to figure out is: (1) why would American students at places like Harvard be coming out against Israel?; (2) why did the U.S. take the position of being Israel's strongest ally?; and (3) what does it mean to be a settler in Israel, 'cause it seems mighty risky to put down roots in what has always seemed to me to be akin to a war zone?