Saturday, January 10, 2009

A letter to the Bangor Daily News condemning the Jews of Maine

No more free passes for Israel


By Nancy Oden

Every day I look for letters from the Maine Jewish community condemning Israel's genocidal bombing of trapped, starving Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The Israelis are even bombing schools and hospitals.

Such barbarism must surely be repulsive to many in Maine's Jewish communities, but I search in vain for a word from them.

I am so sickened by what the Israeli government has been doing since 1947 to the Palestinians, who have lived there for thousands of years, that I can scarcely bear to read or think about what's going on now. But we must speak out when we know something is wrong, or we lose our humanity.

No more free passes for Israel.

Israel has caged in the Palestinians, cut off their food and electricity, smashed down people's houses, killed United Nations and other aid workers, built a wall separating farmers from their land and built illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian lands. Now it is attacking with white phosphorus (causing terrible burns), fully armored troops, and U.S.-built bombs dropped from U.S.-supplied fighter jets.

The American government gives Israel billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars every year. I say not one penny more until they act like a civilized nation and stop killing their neighbors-- the Palestinians and other Arabs with whom they share that region -- who are their close relatives, after all.

Israel brags that it runs our country, especially now that Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship. Where do his loyalties lie?

If American Jews do not speak out against the slaughter of children in schools and in their beds, they are complicit in those acts. The Israeli government purports to act for world Jewry, so Jews have a special responsibility to condemn atrocities committed in their name.

And yet we wait for Maine's Jewish community to speak out.

While not a Jew, I'm on an e-mail list for Tikkun magazine, edited by Rabbi Michael Lerner. He is also a voice for Interfaith Spiritual Progressives and has inveighed against this invasion and slaughter, www.tikkun.org.

I urge everyone to read that Web site and the Web sites (listed on the Tikkun site) of Jewish peace groups in Israel. They're speaking out more openly than American Jews, who seem afraid to do so.

Read what these Jewish peace people are saying. Then say what you know to be true: that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is wrong, wrong, wrong, and deserves to be condemned.

Nancy Oden lives in Jonesboro. Her e-mail is cleanearth@acadia.net.

I am sure those reading this blog can well imagine the response from this Maine Kohanim. Let's see if the Bangor Daily News publishes it.

5 comments:

Pastorius said...

When does Israel "brag that it runs our country"?

This woman's letter reads like a Nazi tract from the 1930's.

She asks, when are Jews going to speak out against the slaughter, and then she names Tikkun as being a Jewish group which does. Truth is, there are many Jewish groups who do speak out against the Israeli government's policies. Many Jewish people do not agree with the actions of the IDF, and they do express themselves openly and freely.

But, there is a group of people in this world who do slaughter people all over the world because those people do not adhere to their religion. Of course, I'm speaking of the Muslims.

Why is it that Nancy Oden is not asking why Muslims do not speak out against the atrocities done in the name of their religion? Nancy Oden would not ask that question, because she is afraid.

Try speaking out against the Islamic community, the way you speak out against Jews, Nancy. Come on, baby, you can do it. I know you're a big, brave fighter for human rights. Come on, Nancy, do it you ignorant slut.

andre79 said...

This is what too much tree hugging and grass smoking did to you, Nancy. I have a suggestion about what you should do to minimize your carbon footprint but I have a feeling you won't like it. :(

midnight rider said...

Epa, you can always post your repsonse here.

Anonymous said...

Tell that woman to shove it. Remember the slaves of Allah's shooting rampage in Bombay? Remember that their main goal was to seek out and kill Jews in Bombay? Where were the worldwide demonstrations against Pakistan and these killers throughout and after the rampage?

Anonymous said...

And while we're at it, a swift kick in the butt to the "Jewish peace people" at Tikkun and elsewhere who are encouraging suicidal groveling before the enemy and enabling their propaganda to flood the media. Lerner and his cohorts much imagine they'll be the last dish in the crocodile cafeteria. Meanwhile they are just encouraging ignorant nitwits like this woman to spread Pali poison and Jew-hate.