NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
First and foremost, I apologize for making a stupid error in yesterday’s message.  For those of you who do not know Tel Aviv, it won’t make much difference, but for those of you who do, it makes a huge difference.  I remarked that the Ministry of Defense is located across a street from Shalom Towers, which in fact are in any entirely different area.  The tower that the Ministry is near is the Azrieli Towers.
The 6 items below begin with a depiction of one person’s not very positive impression of Birthright.  I recommend that instead of Birthright young people should opt for Birthright Unplugged.
Item 2 reports on the demonstration tonight, which brought out many more people than the left can bring to its demos.  The cause was the desire among many reservists and others for universal draft.  The idiotic thing is that instead of calling on Israel’s leaders to get on with making peace, these guys (and probably most Israelis) want every Israeli 18 year old to enlist.  They have it all wrong!!!! They should be shouting: ‘release us all.  Make peace not war!’ and refusing to fight when Israel attacks.  Idiots!  We have to continue ‘sacrificing’ our kids. For what???
Item 3 is the first sane take on the subject of universal draft that I have seen till now. Aluf Benn at least sees and describes the fallacy of calling for a universal draft.
Item 4 is an open letter to the president of the EU opposing EU implementation of the EU-Israel Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial products )ACAA) agreement with Israel, and also opposes research funding for Israeli companies that contribute to and profit from the occupation.
In item 5 Lenni Brenner furnishes information about Zionist connections with the Nazis during WWII.
Item 6 is 2 years old, but is as apt today as it was then.  It’s an open letter to Young, Jewish, and Proud.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1 Forwarded by Ruth Hiller
 
The Illuminations of Birthright

[Instead of Birthright, Jewish Americans and others would do better to select Birthright Unplugged—a very different experience from the one below. Dorothy info@birthrightunplugged.org • www.birthrightunplugged.org  ]

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/7/6/israel-trip-sylk/
 
By SANDRA Y.L. KORN
 
Friday, July 06, 2012
This summer, I left North America for one of the first times in my life. On an El-Al jet surrounded by dozens of other Jewish college-aged students, I flew across multiple continents before landing in the Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to embark on my “birthright”: an all-expenses-paid ten-day trip across Israel.
Unlike Crimson editorial writer Samuel Doniger, my compunctions about travelling to Israel were not about the safety of public buses or the loneliness of Israel’s desert terrain. Rather, I feared what I would learn on the trip: Taglit-Birthright Israel, the organization that currently sends 40,000 students and young adults per year on ten-day tours of the Holy Land, is notorious for its role in influencing the political ideology of American Jews. (After all, Birthright gets much of its funding from the right-wing Israeli government and right-wing American Jews like casino magnate and Romney supporter Sheldon Adelson.)
At first, I was surprised to find that my Birthright trip was less explicitly political than I had feared. Our tour guide, a young Israeli who is also a reserve officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, gave us a thorough and objective history of the Israeli border and otherwise seemed to focus on describing Israel’s tourist attractions, ruggedly beautiful landscape, and Jewish culture.
However, I soon realized that a trip around Israel aimed at fostering Jewish identity cannot avoid politics. From its name—“Birthright” implies that all Jews have the right to the land of Israel, while ignoring the Palestinian refugees who have been prevented from returning home for decades—to its itinerary—which includes ventures into the disputed Golan Heights, where participants gleefully take pictures of the ruined shells of “abandoned” Syrian homes—Birthright advances the political agenda of the Israeli and American right. The fact that it does so in an insidious way makes its messaging all the more dangerous.
 
As all Birthright trips do, my group travelled to the Holocaust history museum, the Yad Vashem. Most of the museum is centered around a long, dark tunnel with exhibits on each side detailing the horrors inflicted on Jews in Europe. The “light at the end of the tunnel,” the symbolic conclusion of the Jewish saga, is a balcony overlooking Jerusalem. The tour guide at the museum asked us, “Why did God let the Holocaust happen?” One American on my trip dutifully responded, “If it weren’t for the Holocaust, there might never have been a state of Israel.” The existence of a political state hardly seems to justify the extermination of over 10 million innocent people, but this was the message conveyed by the architecture of the Yad Vashem and seemed to be the narrative our tour guides desired us to understand.
 
At the end of our trip, our tour guide brought us to Mount Herzl cemetery, Israel’s national cemetery. At the area of the cemetery reserved for civilian victims of acts of terror, our guide told us why it was important for us as Jews to support Israel: because “Arabs are different from us,” and teach their children to hate in school. As members of my group supplied other examples of “Arabs” killing innocents—“Syria.” “Iran.” “Al-Qaeda, 9/11.”—we reflected on the necessity of defending Israel from the Palestinians, who, after all, have plenty of Arab brothers and sisters to support them, right?
 
Throughout the rest of our tour, we spoke to young IDF soldiers who dismissed human rights abuses against Palestinians as a forgivable consequence of a Jewish state. We spoke to older Israelis who informed us that Israel was the only place in the world safe for Jews, invoking the racism that seems to run unquestioned through Jewish Israeli public discourse—one told us, “there could be another Holocaust in America any time. Jesse Jackson, or another one of those black people…” Our trip leader supplemented these interactions with a quip about Israel’s thriving biotechnology industry: “Israel doesn’t have many natural resources, but we do have the Jewish mind.” We posed for a picture atop an old tank, shouting, “Israeli power!” And meanwhile, throughout the entire tour, we were encouraged to return to Israel, to make aliyah.
 
Zionists look to Birthright Israel as a way to inspire Jewish pride among largely assimilated, ethnically Jewish college students. Even liberal Zionist Peter Beinart, when he came to speak at Harvard last semester, critiqued Birthright only for failing to expose participants to a Palestinian perspective (it’s true: we didn’t speak to a single non-Jew during a full ten days in the Middle East).
But Birthright’s idea of engaging with Israel means supporting an illegal and oppressive military occupation, claiming citizenship to a state that deports African immigrants, glorifying “the Jewish mind,” and decrying all Arabs collectively for their hateful terrorist tactics. Simply introducing a Palestinian voice could not begin to correct for the fact that Birthright is firmly entrenched in right-wing rhetoric, from racism to militarism. If liberal American supporters of Israel truly hope for their children to engage with global Jewish politics in a meaningful way, they should stop sending them on a trip to Israel called “Birthright” and start teaching critical thinking about the role of Jews in promoting justice around the world.
Sandra Y. L. Korn, a Crimson editorial executive, is a joint history of science and studies of women, gender, and sexuality concentrator in Eliot House.
TAGS Op-Eds COMMENT
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2 Ynet
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Universal Draft
Protesters in Tel Aviv rally Photo: Yaron Brener
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4252361,00.html
Ynet reporters
Signs reading ‘Universal draft’ Photo: Moti Kimhi
Protesters call for equal burden
Some 12,000 people hold mass rally in Tel Aviv urging government to enact universal draft legislation. ‘Equal draft – social justice,’ call activists. Diskin: Something is rotten in our leadership
‘One people, one draft’ – Some 12,000 people including IDF reservists, disabled veterans, social activists and politicians gathered Saturday night in Tel Aviv Museum Plaza in order to call for universal draft and an equal distribution of the burden.
The protesters are calling: “One people, one draft” and “Barak, you promised – now live up to it.” Some activists are waving Israeli flags and holding signs reading “No army – no allowance” and “equal draft – social justice.”
Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz, who arrived at the rally, was greeted by shouts from protesters demanding that he “go home.”
Mofaz arrives at rally (Photo: Ofer Amram)
Former head of Shin Bet Yuval Diskin addressed the crowds, saying: “I enlisted into the army at the age of 18 and completed my service last year, at the age of 55. I served willingly for 37 years and never felt like a sucker.
Diskin added: “Despite my age and experience, I am excited to stand here today. I see a plaza full of people who care for this country, who love it and who are willing to sacrifice for it.
‘Something rotten,’ Diskin at rally (Photo: Yaron Brener)
“There is something rotten in our leadership; we must demand that public officials not escape and not avoid acting here and now about the situation… We finally have an opportunity to fix the injustice,” he said.
Former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi made a spontaneous appearance on the stage, saying “I’m happy to be here, I salute all of you.”
Ashkenazi said he had come from a family event, because he “couldn’t not be here.”
Made a spontaneous appearance. Ashkenazi (Photo: Ofer Amram)
Chairman of the National Student Union Itzik Shmueli addressed the crowds saying: “Netanyahu, decide – are you a politician, or a leader?
“Look around you – the silent majority is no longer silent. This time we won’t give up. We are not up for sale,” he said.
Protesters in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yaron Brener)
MK Yoel Hasson (Kadima) told Ynet that “it’s heart warming to see so many people came here and relate a clear message: We must not compromise; we must not give up.
“Kadima has raised the flag for equal distribution of the burden. We must not miss this opportunity; we will accept nothing less than the Plesner Committee recommendations,” he said.
‘Suckers’ camp’ at protest rally (Photo: Yaron Brener)
Likud MK Carmel Shama, who also attended the rally, said: “We can all march and protest but only one person can lead and make the historic change. (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu won’t miss the chance to make history and ensure the future of the State of Israel.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said he was happy to see such a large protest: “It’s time things are clearly stated. Equal draft for all is a value in of itself, and its time that decisions are implemented and clearly stated – equal service for all the people of Israel.”
Former Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res) Amos Yadlin told Ynet that “First of all, we must support those who serve, and then look ahead to where we want to bring Israeli society and what we want to change.”
“The vision of universal service is important, and that’s why I’m here,” Yadlin said.
‘Equal draft- social justice.’ Protesters in TA (Photo: Yaron Brener)
Former Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni also joined the protesters, saying that “this is a battle over principles and values. If Israel wants to remain democratic, it must make a decision. As a citizen of the state and a mother of a soldier, I am here with you tonight.”
Boaz Nol, one of the protest leaders, told the crowds that it was “the beginning of a hot summer.
“We are a new generation fighting for its right for equality, for a different, better and more just society. An entire generation stands here united against all your manipulations, Mr. prime minister,” he said.
Tzipi Livni at rally (Photo: Yaron Brener)
Protesters march for equal burden (Photo: Elad)
MK Orit Zuaretz (Kadima) added: I came here with my partner, with my nephew and parents. We came to protest the fact that we are being trampled over time and again. I have no faith in Netanyahu. We have no choice but to leave this bad coalition and connect with the people.”
Meanwhile, the police reported that some 400 social justice activists blocked Tel Aviv’s Kaplan road and staged an unauthorized protest.
Some social justice activists blocked Allenby street and set on fire the signs they were carrying. Earlier, they disrupted traffic on Rothschild Avenue.
Yair Lapid prepares for rally (Photo: Yaron Brener)
Prior to the beginning of the procession, Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid said “we feel as though we are being cheated by the prime minister, and we have to deal with that.
“Netanyahu has to understand that his old political games won’t work anymore. He needs to give answers and enact a legislation that forces everyone to serve,” Lapid added.
Hours before the rally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will convene the Likud faction on Sunday morning to discuss the Plesner Committee’s recommendations regarding a universal draft legislation, even though he had ordered the dissolution of the commission earlier this week.
If the faction members agree to the recommendations, Netanyahu will meet with Mofaz to discuss the formation of a committee that would draft the law.
Activists for an equal share of the burden responded to Netanyahu’s statement saying that “(The prime minister) tries a new spin every day.
“There’s nothing to talk about – there are recommendations that need to be passed into law immediately,” the activists said.
“We don’t need more members of Knesset to deal with this issue – we need leaders to make a decision. Netanyahu, we are no longer suckers. We won’t accept any announcements – only actions. Tonight the Israelis who serve in the IDF, our parents, teenagers and all of us will send a clear message – there is no Tal Law 2, there is universal draft,” the activists added.
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3.  Haaretz
Sunday, July 8, 2012
IDF reservists demanding equality in national service are inciting against Israel’s minorities
Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn says politicians who propose ‘equality in bearing the burden’ know that there is no scenario which will lead to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox and Arab youths donning IDF uniforms.
 
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/idf-reservists-demanding-equality-in-national-service-are-inciting-against-israel-s-minorities.premium-1.449393
 
By Aluf Benn | Jul.07, 2012 | 8:07 PM |  4
 
Protesters at he reservists’ protest in Tel Aviv, July 7, 2012. The Sign reads ‘Ben Gurion made a mistake.’ Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
 
The “reserve soldier rally” on Saturday night at the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum was a demonstration of incitement against the minorities of Israeli society – the ultra-Orthodox and Arabs. Those crying out “I am not a sucker” are not looking to integrate these minority communities, alleviate the intergroup antagonisms, and save the Israeli economy from collapse. The protesters only want one thing that “the others” also suffer and be punished for being different.
 
The politicians that are now proposing “equality in bearing the burden” know that no equality will be achieved. There is no scenario which will lead to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox and Arab youths donning uniforms and enlisting to a three-year military service in the IDF, as the secular and nationalist Orthodox youths do. The state will not force service on them. Neither is this the intention of the proponents of the “reservists protest.” They don’t want to convert the military kitchens to Glatt Kosher, nor segregate women soldiers into separate units so that the ultra-Orthodox are made to feel at home. The Arabs are seen by the protesters as state enemies; they don’t want Arab youths to join the IDF’s elite infantry units or become military aviators.
 
Arabs and ultra-Orthodox youths are being offered an alternative to military service –”civilian service.” The report published by MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima), last week, offers the ultra-Orthodox two alternatives; a two-year military service or a year-and-a-half long civilian service. Plesner is offering Arabs a vague “service for all” and calling for another committee to be formed to fill this empty aphorism with content, assuming that the Arab community is interested in a civilian service and not military service.
 
What is this “civilian service”? This is a euphemism for forced labor or state-sanctioned slavery. The ultra-Orthodox youth making an appearance in a fire station twice a week will not become a professional fire fighter, nor will the Arab youth drafted into the MDA become a paramedic overnight. This brief and partial service will not constitute real vocational training; those drafted into it will take menial positions in administration, cleaning and cooking. The same will happen in hospitals, schools and social services.
 
Imagine a young man from Umm el Fahm drafted into forced labor in the Hadera municipality. What will he do there? Naturally, he will not be given the position of managing the Planning and Building Committee. He won’t even be charged with giving out traffic tickets. He will be asked to mop floors, empty trash cans and make tea for civil servants. Those with the right contacts or just heightened brownnosing abilities will get the sought-after jobs as drivers and secretaries.
A protester at he reservists’ protest in Tel Aviv, July 7, 2012.Tomer AppelbaumColonel Dr. Reuven Gal, which was head of the Civilian Service Administration, warned in a article published in Haaretz two and a half years ago: “Military service and civilian service aren’t comparable entities, they aren’t even similar. Military service – certainly when compulsory – is an extension of an existential threat to the state… Civilian service isn’t an extension of an existential threat. The activities of the 13 thousand serving in civilian service – in schools, hospitals, the fire department, and the police – serve to meet vital needs, but have nothing to do with the survival of the community. It is debatable whether it is ethical to demand of those released from military service to serve in another kind of service. They should definitely not be imprisoned as draft dodgers if they refuse to do so. Will we lock up ultra-Orthodox or Druze girls, whose customs and traditions prohibit their serving?”
 
But even if this just warning is ignored, and the model proposed by Plesner is implemented, equality will not be achieved. Even the most downcast slave in a municipality or a hospital won’t work as hard or take on as much risk as a solider serving in Golani. He will not become more attached to the Jewish state or come closer to Zionism, as the proponents of “equality” claim. It will only waste precious time, in which he could obtain a profession he can use to support his family and will contribute to country’s economy.
 
Plesner, it can be learned from his report, is a diligent student that wrote an extensive Wikipedia article on the ultra-Orthodox evasion of military service – but his solutions are more convoluted than the search for the Boson-Higgs particle. He plans a complicated bureaucracy that will oversee the implementation of the law and the “personal sanctions” for those who evade the service it demands. And it is all for another ultra-Orthodox infantry regiment – a “Netzah Israel” to add to the already extant “Netzah Yehuda” – and special service and scholarship programs for ultra-Orthodox soldiers, as well as, tracking down institutions that will employ this forced labor, which in itself is an opening for corruption.
 
Will one be able to get out of civilian service on grounds of being mentally unfit, like in military service? How many officials will deal with this possibility and with limiting its application? And how could one get service close to home as opposed to in northern Israel or the border with the Gaza Strip?
 
It is a waste of money and effort. The Plesner’s army of workers will not achieve equality or integration. The national effort should be exerted towards answering one question: How can we introduce the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities into the Israeli employment market. How to remove impediments, create opportunities, enact incentives, and educate the public against racism and prejudice. The speeches of incitement in Saturday night’s rally aren’t the way to achieve this.
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4  Sunday, July 08, 2012
 
An Open Letter to the President of the European Commission,  President Barraso
opposing EU implementation of the EU-Israel Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial products (ACAA), and opposing research funding for Israeli companies that contribute to and profit from the occupation.
 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/99435269/Letter-to-President-of-the-Europen-Commission
Dear President Barroso,
We are a group of Israeli citizens who are dismayed by our government’s flagrant violations of international law practiced against the Palestinian people. Such violations include an ongoing colonization project in the occupied West Bank, a siege and its economic strangulation of the occupied Gaza Strip, and constitutional discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.
 
[Please click on link to read the rest]
 
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5  Forwarded by the JPLO List
—–Original Message—–
From: brennerl21@aol.com [mailto:brennerl21@aol.com]
 
***************************************
The Death of Yitzhak Shamir, pro-Nazi Zionist
By Lenni Brenner
Every major American daily newspaper ran an obituary upon the June 30 death of Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s 7th Prime Minister, 1983-84 and 1986-92. Many said something critical about him, but none fully dealt with the most disgraceful period of his career. He was passionately for a Zionist alliance with Hitler in 1940-41.
 
In 1983, a British publisher, Croom Helm, produced my first book, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. They had given me a wonderful
command: “You are about to write the most controversial book imaginable. Your opponents will look for the slightest error and magnify it. So there can be no errors. Give us a photo copy of anything you quote, or it doesn’t get into the book.”
 
I was in Jerusalem when Shamir, a villain in chapter 26, “The Stern Gang,” was appointed Prime Minister, just days before I was scheduled to lecture in London, and impress skeptics by showing them the complete texts of the most incriminating documents. Among these was the
 
“Proposal of the National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany.”
 
Shamir had been a founder of the group that the British called the Stern Gang, so I had their Proposal printed in an English language Jerusalem PLO weekly. But no Zionists responded to it. Disappointed, I left for Britain.
 
When I got to Heathrow airport, I bought the October 21 issue of The Times and discovered that foreign journalists asked Shamir to discuss their Proposal.
 
Shamir “denied that he had any part in the efforts by Mr. Abraham Stern, the original commander of Lehi… to establish contact with the Nazis…. I opposed this… but I did join Lehi after the idea of contacts with the Axis countries was dropped.”
 
(They had been in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi. When they split off, they claimed to be ‘the real Irgun.’ Later they called themselves Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, Lohamei Herut Yisrael, acronym Lehi.)
 
I rushed to The Times with a letter and showed an editor the Proposal in German and English. I told him that I couldn’t prove then and there that Shamir had been a founder. “Well you certainly didn’t make up their Proposal in German. We’ll take your letter.” It ran on November 4th.
 
“As an American, away from my files, I cannot be certain exactly when in 1940 Shamir joined the group. But… isn’t he confessing that he knowingly joined an organization of traitors which had offered to ally itself to the archenemy of the Jews? Nor can there be any doubt that he joined… before December 1941, when the Sternists tried to send Nathan Yallin-Mor to Turkey… with the same proposal.”
 
I found my source for Shamir as a founding member in the British Museum Library. Gerald Frank’s 1963 book, The Deed, is about their 1944 assassination of the British High Commissioner for the Middle East.
Frank, a pro-Zionist, had Shamir giving a speech to the ranks of the rival Irguns under his born name, Yizernitsky, shortly after the September 1940 split. “He spoke tersely, summing up the reason behind Stern’s decision to walk out of the Irgun.”
 
I let The Times know about Frank’s book. A few weeks later The Times phoned me. “Edward Mortimer, our Middle East specialist, had been there when your letter ran and just returned. He would like to meet you.” I gave him a copy of my book, and we had a deep discussion about Zionism.
 
After my lectures, which attracted a lot attention because of the letter re Shamir, I returned to the US. There I received the February
11 issue of The Times. In it was “Contradiction, collusion and controversy,” Mortimer’s review of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators:
 
“Zionism itself encouraged and exploited self-hatred in the Diaspora.
It started from the assumption that anti-Semitism was inevitable and even in a sense justified so long as Jews were outside the land of Israel.
 
It is true that only an extreme lunatic fringe of Zionism went so far as to offer to join the war on Germany’s side in 1941, in the hope of establishing ‘the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich.’
Unfortunately this was the group which the present Prime Minister of Israel chose to join.
 
That fact gives an extra edge of topicality to what would in any case be a highly controversial study of the Zionist record in the heyday of European fascism by Lenni Brenner, an American Trotskyist writer who happens also to be Jewish. It is short (250 pages), crisp and carefully documented.”
 
Later, we met in New York when Mortimer became the UN’s Director of Communications (2001 to 2006). I asked if Israel’s delegation ever publicly objected to him because of his review of my book. “No, they didn’t dare to.”
 
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators is out of print . But its in major libraries around the world. And those who want to read the complete Proposal in English can find it in
 
51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis
 
which I edited in 2002. Look for it in the best library or bookstore in your vicinity. If it isn’t there, you can get an autographed copy from me for $22.00 plus postage. Send your snail mail address to
BrennerL21@aol.com
I’ll tell you what the postage will be. Then send me cash or a check or postal money order, and very soon thereafter you will be so much the wiser.
————————————
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6  Forwarded by Alice
An Open Letter to Young, Jewish, and Proud (http://www.youngjewishproud.org/) from human rights activist Naomi Paz Greenberg:
There are many Jewish Quakers in the US.
It means different things to different Jewish Quakers.
For me it means that I am culturally a Jew. That is where my roots are and where my DNA derives. And for as long as there is political controversy swirling around Jewish people, I am a Jew. I cannot deny that.
But my faith is Quakerism.
As to the defense of a homeland. I read somewhere that the state of Israel was something like an affirmative action plan by the members of the UN – mostly western countries at that point – in the aftermath of the holocaust.
I have always believed it was quite the cynical gesture. How much easier for Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands to name just a few of these western countries, to give an ‘empty’ (people of color weren’t really human) malarial swampland and a few miles of desert to ‘The Jews’ than to give my grandparents’ farm in Germany back to them or their descendants. Didn’t cost them a thing. My grandparents wanted their farm. Not some mosquito infested patch of land in the middle of nowhere – from their perspective.
And while the Jews and Palestinians fight over that land over there, maybe nobody will notice the wholesale theft of land and property, and transfer of wealth that took place behind the curtains of the ‘civilized’ western world.
If the United Nations had instead spoken for the people who had been injured by nations, Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Poland, etc., would have their own political geographies disrupted and those in the middle east would not have to fight over the crumbs falling off that table.
I know. I can dream.
But understand that if I borrow money from someone and cannot pay it back, I have no right to give them your house just because borrower and lender can’t quite recognize your humanity, (you don’t really feel pain, you don’t really love your children, you mistreat your wife, you steal) and yet this is how the Palestinians are treated.
So now to add insult to injury, when you wish to defend your home, the person I’ve given it to calls you the enemy.
The question is not whether you or anyone has the right to defend ‘one’s homeland.’
That question would point us along the harrowing trajectory that killed our grandparents in the camps and kills our grandchildren on the battlefield. How much of our great grand-children’s blood are we really willing to gamble with?
Rather, the question is: What are you, are we each, willing to sacrifice to make peace; how much are we each willing to bleed for the dream of our great-grandchildren never having to shed blood?

In Peace and Friendship,
Naomi Paz Greenberg.

November 18, 2010
###
Alice Diane Kisch
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
bambi323@sbcglobal.net
 
“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”  
                  –James Baldwin (1924-1987)