Tag Archives: Palestinians

April 10, 2015

Time to Change the Liberal Discussion

By davidgroen1

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I am not a Liberal.  Maybe I was once, but with my views on foreign policy as they are today I just don’t fall in line with what has become the “liberal” way of thinking.  Sadly, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the liberal way of thinking has been hijacked by those with self-serving devious agendas who have no willingness to truly advance a liberal viewpoint.  What they are doing instead is manipulating the minds of those who think being liberal means listening to anything new, even if it means hurting the innocent.

I’ve been very bothered in recent weeks by one question.  When did the Palestinian cause become a liberal anti-Israel cause?  If a liberal is to say that all they care about is peace at all costs, and they are against anyone who opposes or obstructs that peace, I would be happy to accept any logical conclusion that might come from that position. But when looking at Israel and its ongoing conflict, a true analysis of the situation should result in that liberal being anything but against Israel’s position.  To be liberal is one thing.  To be partisan at all costs, or even worse to be ignorant and stupid, doesn’t justify a misguided stance on a very serious situation.

There are both Liberals and Conservatives out there that are outspoken and loudmouthed who consider themselves smarter than everyone else.  If a Liberal is to take a strong stance on the situation in Israel and oppose Israel, he or she may think they’re smarter, but their very position shows stupidity and ignorance.  Anyone who looks at the situation with a clear and open mind will see 67 years of evidence to prove that Israel has always wanted peace.  Just because that desire has translated more often into strength than weakness does not mean that desire is not there.  A liberal stance may be to back the weak, and that is fine, but does that mean it should oppose the strong, especially when the strong are doing more to pursue good than bad and more often than not merely defending their right to live in peace?

The Palestinians are weak. But is it really Israel’s fault?  Money has been plundered by Palestinian leaders for decades.  Yasser Arafat, “the statesman”, died a very wealthy man.  Statesmanship clearly has its privileges, especially when you take billions of dollars meant for your people and keep it for yourself.  Similar “privileges” have been taken by the leaders of Hamas.  Meanwhile the Palestinians are taught by their leaders to hate Israel and the Jewish people, to some extent at least to make sure the profit remains in “statesmanship”.   After all, if you teach Palestinians to hate Israel, they may never realize where the money is really going and who it is that is actually keeping them down.

If I am to be as objective as possible I would say I have compassion for a people who don’t know better because their leaders keep them from the truth.  But people in the western world need only to open their eyes to see the truth, and the truth is that Israel’s government’s may not have always done everything right, but they do not hold most of the culpability for the Palestinians’ plight.  Yet somehow organizations like the BDS Movement and terrorist groups like Hamas have hijacked the narrative and led those either too lazy to research the truth, too dumb to understand, or far too willing to distort it into believing Israel stands for everything intolerant in the world.  That distortion of reality doesn’t make it a true liberal position, it makes it a destructive one.

If you are someone opposed to right-wing governments, and you are a liberal in another country, than be sincere about your efforts. Realize that as right-wing as you might conclude Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is still a democratically elected official in a free society.  If you have chosen to stand against Israel in favor of its enemies, you have somehow come to a choice that is diametrically opposed to one of the most important things you claim to believe in, the right to a free society.  I always thought that to be liberal meant to be tolerant, sometimes to a fault.  If the debate of the Conservative against the Liberal is over what one should be tolerant of or not, that is fine, but both sides need to be true to their position. Israel is a country where women are treated as equals, where gays can live openly and politicians are elected democratically.  Israel had a great woman as Prime Minister before many young people with the new distorted liberal stance were even born.  To oppose Israel in favor of totalitarian governments and societies just because you believe what is written and said by devious manipulators doesn’t make you a Liberal, it makes you a fool.  If you really want to forward a liberal agenda than do so with some semblance of intelligence.  Not all will have the brilliance of an Alan Dershowitz, but that doesn’t excuse the stupidity of so many today who claim to be liberal.  We all have a lot more to gain if the argument is between the Conservative and the Liberal as opposed to what some want to turn it into, a debate between the educated and the ignorant, all to suit their ultimate goal of dividing what would otherwise be primarily decent people.

It is my hope that those Conservative Republicans who are vehemently opposed to anything Liberal and Democrat will be put into a position to battle them based on issues that really are issues of how much tolerance is acceptable.  I believe both sides should be fighting against this for the following reasons.  Conservatives who love Israel more than partisan politics should want the discussion to change because it will unite people in support, and Liberals should realize if the discussion does not change, not only are they losing a lot of support, they are basically aligning themselves with evil forces that ultimately want their destruction.  So you see, it benefits everyone to change the discussion.  We just need to help everyone see how important it really is.

 

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November 18, 2014

Sadly, it’s about Killing Jews

By davidgroen1

ShowImageThis isn’t the face of a military man.  This isn’t the face of an oppressor. This isn’t the face of a politician. This is the face of a Rabbi. The face of a Jew. And tragically today, a murdered Jew. I did not know Rabbi Moshe Twersky, but since I know that everyone is flawed, I am fairly certain he was as well.  Despite whatever flaws he may have had, if the enemy was truly only fighting what they consider to be oppression and occupation, this would not be the face of their enemy. What this is, is the face of a Jew.

Whenever something horrific takes place along the lines of today’s terror attack in Jerusalem, I try to find a different angle.  Every normal human being is saddened, angered and horrified by what took place.  To write about those feelings would certainly be appropriate, but it has been and will be done by so many others, and rightly so, that for me to write something today I needed to feel something more specific, more personal.  That happened as soon as I saw the picture of Rabbi Twersky.

In 1940 when the Nazis invaded Holland, my mother had what would be considered the face of a Jew.  I partially based the title of the book I wrote about what my parents experienced during the occupation on the fact that the Germans identified what they saw as a Jew and murdered them.

It’s very simple albeit tragic and frightening. This is not about an occupation, oppression, naval blockades, land grabs or the building of settlements.  This is about the hatred of Jews.  This is reminiscent of the hatred and murderous ways of Hitler’s Nazis.  The term “two state solution” is just another way of saying “final solution”.  In Amsterdam in 1940 the typical face of a Jew was my mother, with her dark hair and dark complexion.  In 2014 Jerusalem, Rabbi Moshe Twersky is not the face of a soldier, an oppressor or a politician.  He is the face of a Jew.  The enemy’s purpose, their goal is not to live peacefully together with Jews.  Their purpose and goal is to not only rid Israel of Jews, but to rid the entire world of Jews.  In that way they are exactly like the Nazis.

Don’t tell me this is about occupation, oppression or land grabs and then storm a place of worship and brutally murder 4 Rabbis.  Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, 43, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, and Rabbi Calman Levine, 55, and the man in the picture Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59.  Take a look at the face of this man and recognize the truth.  This is not about helping innocent Palestinians or living in peace.  This is about killing Jews, and Never Again is here.

 

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November 3, 2014

Open Letter to Hypocrites Everywhere

By davidgroen1

hypoDear Hypocrite,

You know who you are.  You’re the person who screams and shouts against injustice when it’s fashionable.  You take a stand against those you know won’t hurt you.  You somehow manage to miss the obvious, stay quiet through the worst atrocities, and pick on the people you don’t like, not the people who actually do something wrong.

I admit I will never be completely objective.  I am a Jew and a Zionist.  I am also an American born of Dutch parents.  This means that I will always hope to find the positive when assessing the behaviors of anyone Jewish, Israeli, American and Dutch.  I also have a particular fondness for Canadians and I feel a strong connection to the British.  I actually like a lot of people.  What I don’t like are manipulators, thieves, imperialists, and most of all murderers.   I admit there are many grey areas in the first 3 categories and therefore some of it could be left open for interpretation, but a murderer is a murderer and I therefore won’t ever defend one.  What is important here is that this is the category in which you specialize.  You don’t look at the facts and determine who really is a murderer, you use your personal biases to change the terminology and manipulate the narrative.

Case in point, “the militant” or “freedom fighter”.  You somehow establish a moral equivalency between the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian terrorist. You try to make the case that the fight is equally justified on both sides, when in reality Israel’s fight is not against an established army of a credible nation, it it is a war against terror.  You may or may not work for the United Nations.  If you do, and I’ll be fair and not make any assumptions, you may be in favor of investigating Israel for war crimes or you may not.   If you are, do you realize that your hypocrisy is contributing to the destruction of the planet?  Your agenda is one that attacks the one democracy in the Middle East and ignores the wrongdoings of those committing acts of murder.  You speak of human rights yet you give a pass to those most guilty of human rights violations.  It makes no sense to the unbiased person, but makes all the sense in the world to those with a certain very dangerous and cynical agenda.

Then there’s the hypocritical Liberal.  I personally hold some viewpoints that would only be described as liberal and subsequently  am not blanketing all Liberals in this letter by any means.  The one’s I am referring to are those who claim to fight for tolerance and understanding and then turn around and attack and defend the wrong people.  Case in point, the academic that puts all their focus on boycotting Israel because they claim Israel has apartheid views and is persecuting the Palestinians, but says nothing about those nations openly and aggressively persecuting certain groups within their citizenry.

It’s always easy to distinguish between the sincere defender of the innocent and those who are tainted by personal bias.  The most objective statement a genuine person would have said about the war in Gaza if all they cared about was human life and not the political aspects and causes would have been, “I wish they would stop fighting so innocent people no longer get killed.”  I’ve never criticized one person who said they wanted peace for both Jews and Palestinians.  There truly is nothing wrong or hypocritical in wanting that. What is wrong is to claim you want this and put the blame on Israel.  You make excuses for the bad behavior of terrorists causing the conflict and concern yourself more with their rights than you do for the rights of not only the Israelis fighting it, but the Palestinian people being used as pawns by their very people.  Your behavior is not unlike the activist that focuses more on the treatment of a criminal in jail than on the rights of the victims they hurt.  You may define it as Liberal, but to me it is at best the epitome of misplaced Liberalism, and at worse devious hypocrisy.

If you are someone who claims to be a fighter for women’s issues and gay rights why are you not fighting against those governments or terrorist organizations that abuse both women and gays?  Why are you more focused on Israel building houses in areas most of you can’t even find on the map? And if you care so much about dead babies, why do I never hear your loud voice when it comes to Jewish or Christian babies?

You may also be that wealthy celebrity that speaks out against capitalism and inequality in western society while living off of the success you achieved from the very structure you so vehemently criticize.  Personally I’d rather you just shut up and give a huge donation to people who need help.  Otherwise all you’re doing is attempting to make yourself look like someone who cares.

Hypocrisy isn’t a Conservative or Liberal thing, it’s not a Republican or Liberal thing, and it certainly isn’t only an American thing.  It’s a self-serving cowards thing, and it’s becoming rampant.

I could go on and on because we live in a world overflowing with hypocrisy, but you get my point and most importantly, you know who you are.  You may pretend to care about right and wrong but in the end you just want to make an impression or push an agenda, and you are causing irreparable damage.

Sincerely,

David Groen

 

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October 14, 2014

And Another Open Letter to Russell Brand

By davidgroen1

russell-brandDear Russell,

I wasn’t going to write to you again, seeing as I did not want to contribute to the possibility of even one additional sale on the dribble you call a book, but since you just won’t go away and subsequently may be on the verge of actually being dangerous, I felt I had no other choice but to share my feelings and intentions.

I lived in London between 1976 and 1980, and if anyone had told me then that I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the Sex Pistols’ lead singer Johnny Rotten on any issue, I would have laughed in their face.  But when I heard that Rotten, whose real name is John Lydon called you a “Bum Hole”, I realized that this man who once was the loudest musical voice of anarchy hit it dead on.

I doubt you will ever address me directly because besides the fact that you think you are too smart for me, I know this because you think you are smarter than everyone,  you also have a Messiah complex.  This is what you don’t realize.  If there ever will be a Messiah, and one can only hope that there will be, this Messiah will truly be about the well-being of others, not about their own personal gain.  Anyone with half a brain realizes this is all about you Russ. You realize the one thing you have, an iota of charisma, is enough to cloud the judgment of those who aren’t all that sharp.  After all, why would anyone reasonable listen to a man who is campaigning against the very system that gave him a good life.  If this “revolution” you feel is so warranted would have taken place prior to your fame, you most likely would have been a heroin addict sleeping in the bus station.

You somehow seem to think that all the democracies of the world are the problem.  America, England and Israel are the guilty parties in your bizarre fantasy land, while those who openly commit acts of evil appear to be exempt from your rantings.  Why don’t you just put on a black ISIS cap and a t-shirt that says “Jihad’s little helper.”  Maybe you need another lesson from the intellectually superior John Lydon who also said the following a few years ago when he was being pressured to boycott Israel:  “If Elvis-f**king-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”

You see Russell, a true rebel won’t feed into the masses’ ignorance.  Instead he will try to give his solution to that ignorance.  Whether that solution is right or wrong, the one thing the proposal will be is sincere.  Your solution is anything but sincere.  It is self-serving, financial, delusional and dangerous.

My intention is to be a thorn in your side in any legal non-violent way I possibly can.  I also intend to get as many like-minded people to do the same. You see Russ, I know our governments are not perfect, but I have enough decency and intelligence to know they are by far the best thing going, and that especially in today’s global climate anyone trying to destroy them is either ignorant, deviously selfish or evil.  John Lydon aka “Johnny Rotten” wants change too, but the whole reason he called you a “Bum Hole” is because he wants that change to come through people voting, while you encourage people not to vote.  I’m not sure I would want the change he wants, but at least he respects the people enough to give them a choice.  All you respect is yourself and your pathetic need for attention.  I will do my best to convince people you don’t deserve any attention, even if in the meantime it means giving you more than I would like to.

Sincerely,

David Groen

 

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August 29, 2014

For the Ignorant and Complicit history only Started on July 8, 2014

By davidgroen1

Operation-Protective-Edge-square-564x400July 8, 2014 was the day Israel began Operation Protective Edge.  After countless missile attacks with no end in sight and the kidnapping and murder of 3 Yeshiva students by Hamas, Israel finally had enough.  It began with airstrikes and turned into a ground operation.  Once Israel discovered the terror tunnels, they were committed to staying in Gaza till each and every one was destroyed.  Over 2,000 people died during the operation, a large percentage of which were Palestinian civilians.  Awful.  Just awful.  Especially if the first day of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was July 8, 2014.

However, despite what Palestinian leadership, the Turkish President, Russell Brand, Bryan Adams and millions of Muslims everywhere want you to believe, this conflict did not begin this past July 8th.  If you are  to look at the events that took place from July 8, 2014 without going back further, you may see Israel as being a lopsided aggressor.  Even then you need to choose to ignore how Hamas uses its people as human shields.  If however you look at the months, years and decades leading up to this operation you see a completely different story.  The true story.

I could go back to 1929 and speak of the Hebron massacre when Jews were slaughtered by Muslims prior to any establishment of a Jewish state.  We could talk about how after the United Nations in 1948 partitioned land for the new Jewish State of Israel, of which the West Bank and Gaza was not included, and how all the surrounding Arab nations attacked it in am attempt to wipe out the Jews and finish Hitler’s work.  We could talk about how the West Bank belonged to Jordan but Jordan didn’t want it back because they didn’t want to deal with the residents.  We could also talk about how Egypt controlled Gaza and never wanted it back for the same reason or how Israel withdrew from Gaza and gave it every opportunity to develop into something special, but instead allowed Hamas to take over and drive it into the ground.

We could  talk about the civilians Israel killed while aiming at missile launchers or we could talk about the thousands of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks.  We could talk about a blockade or bombing of a hospital shielding Hamas missiles, or we could talk about how entire families were blown up in Pizza places and malls by people who were proud to kill as many Jews as possible.  I could go back to Yasser Arafat, the Godfather of terrorism and hijacked planes, murdered passengers and the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.  I could go back to 3 murdered Yeshiva boys.

But none of the matters if you want Israel to look like the aggressor, because when you do you only go back as far as July 8, 2014.  If you go back any further you might have to admit that Israel has every right to defend itself. Something it has always been forced to do and has become so good at doing it now gets criticized for it.  It’s the greatest lie of omission you will ever see.  It pretends nothing ever happened before July 8, 2014.  And too many people are believing it.

 

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August 26, 2014

My Summer of Gaza

By davidgroen1

img65649The summer of 2014 was set to be a great one.  I had slimmed down from the year before, had recently moved into a better home closer to the beach, the World Cup had started and I was all set to enjoy the next few months. Although life always presents its challenges, nothing had come up that was so important that it would change my priorities significantly.  Then something happened that changed everything.  3 Yeshiva boys were kidnapped.

I still remember that ray of hope we had that Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal would somehow make it back safely.  The motto “Bring Back our Boys” was everywhere as we all prayed that somehow God would see them back to their homes unharmed.  I have seen many bad actions taken against Jews and decent people everywhere, but somehow I found myself more involved now than I had been for at least 13 years since 9/11.  I related to these boys.  I remember being a Yeshiva student myself in my late teens, in Israel, and knew that even if I wasn’t like these boys, I knew guys who were.  So it hit home and I found myself caring more than usual.  It wasn’t till they were found dead, murdered brutally at what we all knew immediately was the hands of Hamas terrorists, that something truly snapped in me.  That was when I, David, had finally had enough.

When tragedy strikes one never knows exactly how they will react.  Although I related so significantly to these three boys, I did not know them personally. Had I known them personally, maybe I would have been so distraught that I would have had trouble functioning.  So when I say I had finally had enough and I snapped, I felt an anger I had rarely felt in my life and I turned to my weapon of choice, the written word.  And my position as a moderate was now a thing of the past as well, as I realized that moderation is something that needs to be saved for the reasonable and fair, not the racially bigoted and brutally violent.

When the Israeli cabinet met on how to react to the boys’ deaths, I knew one thing.  As a Jew and a Zionist living in New York, unless they did nothing, I would support the Israeli government.  I committed myself to not only stating my feelings, but in rallying as many people as possible to the cause.  Not my cause, not merely the Jewish people’s cause, but in truth what should be seen as the entire world’s cause.   Before this would happen I would call someone a piece of garbage for being anti-Semitic, and occasionally even write something about it, but now it felt more personal than before.  It became so clear to me as it is to almost anyone with an unbiased desire for a peaceful world.  So now I decided to go further than I had ever gone before.  As I state on my Twitter profile, “no longer am I happy not being part of the problem. Now I want to be part of the solution.”

When Israel first went after Hamas with airstrikes in Gaza, no one really knew how serious the situation would turn out to be.  The terror tunnels they discovered were designed to carry out mass murders of Jews, and the intelligence they gathered indicated that it was going to be as soon as this Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year which falls towards the end of September. Israel’s incursion by ground troops into Gaza was used to uncover and destroy these tunnels.  However, while this was happening the situation took an ominous term.

I almost typed unexpected as well, but as a Jew paying attention, anti-Semitism is never completely unexpected.  I’ve been accused of being slightly over-sensitive to comments, but no one has ever accused me of having a persecution complex.  At least not to my face.  So when I say I was not totally shocked by the global spike in anti-Jewish words and behavior, this is not coming from someone who makes declarations that “everyone hates the Jews”.  I know better.  What we’ve seen this summer however has been epic.  Even by the usual standards of hatred.  Gone is the requirement of logic and fact.  Merely wanting to hate the Jews became enough.  Telling half of the story so that the part that exonerated Israel was conveniently missing became the strategy of the vocal and clever anti-Zionist/anti-Semite.  And gone forever is the notion that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not two in the same.  When  you have two signs at a protest that say “Free Gaza” and ” Hitler was right”, you have lost the argument that they are different.  When pogrom style attacks took place on French synagogues by people claiming to do things in support of Palestinians it was made abundantly clear that this was about hating the Jew at least as much as it was about opposing Israel.

The more Jews were attacked, whether in Israel or outside of Israel, the more committed I became, expressing my commitment through articles and letters to those expressing damaging sentiments towards the Jewish people, while also writing articles acknowledging our supporters.  Every time I heard “Free Gaza” I felt more and more compelled to shout to the world that the people of Gaza needed to be freed from Hamas not from Israel.  Every time the United Nations revealed its bizarrely obvious bias against Israel I wanted to write something to expose it.  Why?  Partially because it was cathartic, but even more because I wanted to make sure everyone I could reach would know the truth, and once I began to do that, there was no turning back.  With every missile fired at Israel, with every fatality including the 64 members of the IDF fighting to preserve Israel’s survivor, my commitment grew stronger.

Recognizing the need for unity with more than just the Jewish community, I created the Global Coalition for Israel on Facebook as a means of showing a cohesive support for the State of Israel. One month later the group is at 1300 and growing daily.  When the summer began I was worried about when I was going to get to the beach, lay in the sun and get to barbecues.  I’m not saying that I didn’t do those things to some extent during the summer of 2014, but they all took a back seat to something more important.  My new activism.  Watching CNN and FOX on a daily basis to get the news coming from the region, researching websites and news sources online, and meeting people with stories to tell from Israel and Europe, the summer of 2014 became something I never expected it would become, it became my Summer of Gaza.

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August 20, 2014

The Truth Matters Only if You Value it

By davidgroen1

liesClearly I am not objective.  I love Israel and hate Hamas.  I believe Hamas is to blame for the deaths of not only Israelis but Palestinians as well.  I believe Benjamin Netanyahu is a great man and Khaleed Meshaal is an evil man.  I agree with Netanyahu when he says, “If the Arabs put down their weapons there would be no more war.  If Israel put down her weapons, there would be no more Israel.”  Clearly I am not objective.

I make no claims to be objective.  However, despite my lack of objectivity I do seek the truth.  So much so that I acknowledge that Israel has made mistakes and done some things they should not have done over the past 66 years.  But there is no truth that justifies the attacks Israel has had to endure, be they violent attacks from terrorists or verbal attacks from anti-Semites.  If presented with factual evidence of a certain truth, even one that opposes my views, I would address it honestly and make every attempt to be fair in my assessment.  The question is, why won’t my enemies do the same?

It’s because the truth has no meaning to them.  Most anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment is not based in truth.  It’s either based in ideology or communal involvement.  People like to be part of something.  Even something motivated by hate.  The ideology however is what drives everything.  It drives terrorism, stirs up the masses, allows the leaders to make statements they know are not true, but justify with their beliefs.  A friend once said to me, “people buy with emotion and justify it with logic.”  Once the masses buy the bill of goods sold to them by the mini-dictators popping up all over the world, they search for the logic to back it up.  For example, the number one lie being told is that Israel is committing genocide.  Once that message is sold to the Muslim masses by the Imans, all they need now is a complicit al-Jazeera or CNN to show a man holding an injured or dead child in his hand in Gaza and the people have their “logic” to back up the sale.

Here’s the problem with that.  When you use that method the truth is irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is pushing your agenda.  Even visual evidence won’t matter anymore.  You passionately sell an ideal, even one of hate, show one image, maybe only make one ridiculous claim that can be used to back it up, and its sold.  Russell Brand goes on a hateful diatribe against Israel on his online channel he calls the Trews, claiming it is True News, and people who like the movie star buy into it, even though he sits there and blatantly obstructs the truth from his listeners.  Hamas sells the idea that Israel is indiscriminately bombing Gaza, targeting women and children, and those who have already bought into anti-Zionism and Jew hatred see a blown up building and they’ve seen enough.  We could have a 10 page document and 100 pictures proving that Hamas put those innocents in harms way by using them as human shields and it would make no difference.  They’ve already decided what they want to believe.  The truth doesn’t matter anymore.

Do we combat this with lies of our own?  I say no.  But I do think we need to be a little less concerned about whether or not we are unfair to those allowing those lies to be spoken and should be spending less time defending those who only express an (anti-Semitic) opinion.  Tolerance is a very charitable trait, particularly in war time, and as we all know charity starts at home.

As I responded in social media when someone criticized my letter to George Clooney, “Never Again” does not mean Never Again unless we insult George Clooney.  Never Again means recognizing the signs and doing all we can to prevent it.  I believe the truth is always the right way, but being tolerant at our own expense is not.

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August 9, 2014

Israel’s Way or the Hard Way

By davidgroen1

Israeli-FlagOne must ask themselves this question.  Should Israel continue to fight fairly? Ever since the U.S. started fighting in Iraq we’ve heard a lot of talk about fighting a clean war, a moral war.  War by definition is not moral.  It is killing and destruction and no one decent is ever happy when it takes place.  To quote my mother, “When there is a war, no one wins”.  My mother Sipora Groen, is a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor from Holland, very pro-Israel, and very aware of the need to destroy the enemy.  Her statement is based on the understanding that even the victorious suffer pain and loss no one should ever have to endure.  Even with self-defense and survival forcing good people into war, war never becomes a good thing.  With that being said, she understands, as so many do, that Israel is exercising its right to self-defense, which makes its mission a vital and moral one.  What has made Israel’s behavior during this war so remarkable is that it has not sunk to the depths of the enemy, an enemy with no moral restrictions.  This has ironically given the enemy some advantages on the battlefield and on the world stage.  Seeing that the defeat of the enemy is crucial, should Israel sink to the level of Hamas?

Simple answer is, only if it is the difference between victory and defeat.  The levels in which this war is being waged most unethically are primarily twofold. First and foremost is of course the manipulation and use of the civilians of Gaza, either through exploiting their injuries in the press or even worse, causing the casualties through the use of human shields.  The second is through lying, either through transparent omission or blatant distortion of the facts.  The fact that those unwilling to support Israel will not do so regardless of what the truth is, is clearly stated  by the same facts they use to attack Israel in the media.  Israel has allowed full disclosure to the press, has clearly stated its objectives, and has provided open information on all incidents that have taken place since the start of the operation.  Other than providing blueprints for its attack strategy, Israel could not do any more than it has.  Hamas on the other hand hides from the press, intimidates the press, and consistently makes statements contradictory to its actions.  A very logical assumption would be, if what you are doing is right, you want the whole world to know about it.  So from the media standpoint the answer is simple.  If Israel is going to be attacked by those that hate it, there is no benefit in sinking to that level of lying the enemy has been using from the very beginning.

However, militarily speaking, if Hamas continues to attempt to draw Israel into a war of attrition, Israel may have no other choice but to change tactics. It comes down to one very simple point, one I have no doubt is in the heads of everyone in Israel’s cabinet.  If protecting Palestinian civilians puts Israeli civilians in more serious and prolonged danger, Palestinian civilians will no longer be considered in the strategic assessment.  As long as Israel can maintain its high moral ground it will, but ultimately unless something happens to stop Hamas, Israel will be left with no other choice but to inflict damage in Gaza that will make Hamas and the residents look back at the situation on the ground today as a relative picnic.  It is a choice Hamas and the Palestinians need to make, and in my estimation one they need to make soon or suffer dire consequences.

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August 3, 2014

Why Israel Doesn’t Take off the Gloves

By davidgroen1

Israeli-flagEven the most blatant liar portraying Israel as the brutal aggressor is aware that Israel is showing tremendous amounts of restraint. They just won’t say that publicly.  It doesn’t fit with the Public Relations smear campaign so central in their war strategy.  But let’s face it.  They know that if Israel really was targeting civilians and committing Genocide as they’re accused of doing, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be dead by now.  So why does Israel show the restraint that it does?

Let’s examine what might happen if Israel took off the gloves and waged this current war without concern for civilian casualties. World opinion would be overwhelmingly against it, the United Nations would condemn it, enemies like Iran and Turkey would try to rally nations to destroy it, the United States administration would be shaky in its support, Israeli Soldiers would die, missiles would be fired at cities, anti-Semitic crimes and demonstrations would increase worldwide , and violent protests would increase in the West Bank. That’s what would happen if Israel took the gloves off, right?.  But wait just one second.  That is what is happening now.  So realistically we can conclude that the situation wouldn’t be much worse for Israel if it used the full extent of its force and wiped out significant portions of Gaza to achieve its objectives quicker and with a greater degree of success.  So why don’t they?  The answer lies in one word, morality.

It is the most infuriating irony of the past month that terms like “War Crimes” and titles like “Nazis” are being thrown around to describe Israel when the very facts being used to justify those terms are the very facts that destroy that argument.  Israel isn’t holding back for fear of consequences or for concern of world opinion.  What you would think Israel would endure if they weren’t showing restraint, is indeed what it is enduring while showing restraint.  That means that if put in a position where it has no choice but to take off the gloves, the blood of the civilians in Gaza won’t be on Israel’s hands, but on a world ignoring the truth that exists today. Instead of lauding and supporting Israel for showing respect for human life,  too many people with power are attacking it and obstructing it, behaviors that may at one point force Israel to intensify the operation to a point where tens of thousands do get killed.  If that happens, the hypocrites and the corrupt of today will be able to look back and see that they were the cause of the increasingly higher death toll, not Israel.  But that’s not what will happen.  Instead they will say what they are saying now, just with more passion and conviction.  Even if it isn’t genuine and honest.

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July 24, 2014

A Missing Plane and a Frightening Scenario

By davidgroen1

Swiftair_-_Boeing_737-301(SF)In some ways it feels like we are watching the first 45 minutes of an epic disaster movie.  Of course we all know about the war in Gaza.  Israel, a free and democratic country fighting a government controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas.  That in itself is bad enough.  But my friends, when you look at today’s events, and what tomorrow is on the Muslim calendar, it could get a lot worse.  It is not in my nature to be alarmist or sensationalist, but we also live in a time when all things need to be considered, no matter how frightening they may be.

Earlier today we get word that Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the spiritual leader of Iran made the following comments regarding Israel:  “As said by Imam Khomeini [the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran] Israel must be destroyed…However, until that time with the help of God for this cruel and murderous regime to be destroyed, strong confrontation with steadfast armed resistance is the only solution against this destructive regime.”  He also stated, regarding the United States: “The anti-American and anti-West view in Iran is a logical view based on experience and a righteous calculation.”

His sentiments are not news.  We know he feels this way, as do millions of his followers.  What is different is the timing, and hopefully not, but possibly another difference is the biggest news story of the day.

First the timing.  Tomorrow is “Quds Day”.  Quds, Arabic for Jerusalem, is a day created by Iran since its revolution in 1979, celebrated on the last day of Ramadan, as a day to express solidarity for the Palestinians against the State of Israel.  Comments made by any Muslim leader today are at least partially designed to motivate and instigate the people into not only protesting and demonstrating, but to do so as violently as possible.  There is no question that Khameini is looking to incite as much violence against Jews as possible,  not only in Israel, but throughout the world.

And then there is the biggest news story of today.  A plane taking off from Algeria has gone missing.  Yes, you  read correctly, gone missing.  Algeria, a North African Muslim nation that donated money made in the World Cup to Hamas and a people who make up the majority of France’s Muslim population committing brutal acts of anti-Semitism.  It is from that country that a plane has gone missing on the eve of Quds Day.  It’s an awful day in world history when one must say, let’s hope the plane only crashed.

It is possible that tomorrow comes and goes and is a repeat of many of the days of the past few weeks.  Awful, but not catastrophic.  But the days of underestimating the enemy’s brutality and capabilities are behind us now.  We no longer have that luxury.

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