RE: Why It's So Tough to Write About Israel By http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/why-its-so-tough-to-write-about-israel/254649/
Dear Editor,
It really has all been said- but at the end of the day, as things are, Israel, right or wrong, is and remains a strong sovereign nation state empowering many loyal citizens and supporters to weigh in every where they can, whereas Palestinians remain harshly oppressed and impoverished and increasingly disenfranchised.
Religious extremism on both sides is on the rise. Is it really reasonable to ignore the Israel/Palestine conflict and the very real plight and suffering of Palestinian men, women and children because various pro-Israel and anti-Israel pundits and polemics tend to pull the conversation into a thousand distracting directions?
Our Fourth Estate is supposed to help guide America away from being bamboozled... Get down to the basics: As an American, are you really comfortable with the fact that Israel funds one religion?
Do you think religious scholars should be subsidized by the state?
Does it bother you that America's Congress (and thus all American taxpayers) are essentially coerced into financing Israel's religious scholars and settlement projects in the illegally occupied territories? Should American charities be given a free pass to invest in enterprises that clearly violate international law and universal basic human rights?
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES
"This [Israeli] occupation humiliates us, destroys our economy, causes demographic changes and deprives millions of the freedom of movement and their right to decent lives, in addition to the confiscation of land... These are the main ways Christians are persecuted in Palestine." Faysal Hijazeen The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
A Spider Silk Cape... a series of three poems by Anne Selden Annab in Growing Gardens for Palestine
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor Roosevelt
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