> > The following was received from an unknown source in Israel. It is a
> > quick read, and sends a very strong message that is inherent in the
> > attitudes and approaches of what is now the majority in Israel.
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear World,
> >
> > I understand that you are upset over us, here in Israel. Indeed, it
> > appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?) Indeed,
> > every few years you seem to became upset over us.
> >
> > Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians;" yesterday, it
> > was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in
> > Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that
> > Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most
> > extraordinarily.
> >
> > Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we - the Jewish
> > people - upset you. We upset a German people who elected a Hitler
> > and we upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we
> > upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Lithuanians,
> > Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians and others.
> >
> > And we go back a long, long way in the history of world "upset." We
> > upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of
> > us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the
> > Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers
of us.
> >
> > We upset for centuries, a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to
> define our relationship through Inquisitions, and we upset the arch-
> > enemy of the Church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the
> synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian
ecumenical spirit.
> >
> > And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world,
> > that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish
> > a Jewish State. The reasoning was that living in close contact with
you,
> > as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we
upset
> > you, irritate you, disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave
you and
> > thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home -
to
> > the same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by
a Roman
> > world that, apparently, we also upset.
> >
> > Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left
> > you and your pogroms and Inquisitions and Crusades and Holocausts,
having
> > taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little
> > state - we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the
poor
> > Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give
up
> > the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle
> > East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are
> > upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.
> >
> > Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In
> > 1920 and 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede
> > peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to
upset
> > anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians
> > slaughtered tens of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron.
> >
> > Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron - in 1929. Dear
> > world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one
day
> > in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in
1967?
> And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered
> > in Arab riots between 1936-39?
> >
> > Was it because of Arab upset over 1967? And when you, world,
> > proposed a U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a
> > "Palestinian State" alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried "no"
and went to war
> and killed 6,000 Jews - was that upset caused by the aggression of 1967?
And,
> > by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of upset, then?
> >
> > The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs
> > and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the
> > territories they now demand be given them for their state - attempted
> > to drive the Jewish State in to the sea. The same twisted faces, the
same
> > hate the same cry of "itbach-al-yahud" massacre the Jew! - that we hear
> and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same
dream -
> > destroy Israel. What they failed to do yesterday,
> > they dream of today - but we should not "repress" them...
> >
> > Dear world, you stood by during the Holocaust and you stood by in 1948
> > as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to
> the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by
wild
> > mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into
the
> > sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.
> >
> > And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians daily dream of that
> > extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own
> > land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times
in
> > the past you bothered us.
> >
> > In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in
> > Israel who could not care less.
> >
Dear JMDL members, sorry if this letter upsets you.
Laurent
.
