The noble traditions of Judaism –
stressing justice for the downtrodden – are being soiled by the endless
cruelties that Israel and its current leaders heap on the Palestinians,
including the latest slaughter of more than 1,700 Gazans, many of
them children, a moral catastrophe addressed by theologian Daniel C.
Maguire.
By Daniel C. Maguire, Consortium News, August 4, 2014
What is going on in Gaza is a prison riot not a war. A war means a conflict between comparably endowed adversaries. This is a prison riot caused by the crimes of the jailor, Israel. And why are these 1.7 million people enclosed in what Jewish scholar Marc Ellis calls “the biggest jail in the world?” They are in jail because they are not Jews. That is their crime.
Were they Jews, they would be given beautiful homes, ample water supplies, government stipends. The fourth strongest army in the world – and the sixth strongest nuclear power – would be there to defend them. But, no, because the Gazans are not Jews, they are in an Israeli jail.
These jailed people — or at least their parents and grandparents — once had homes and gardens, olive groves and farms and lived peacefully on the land alongside all their neighbors. In the Nineteenth Century, Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population, 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian and four percent Jewish. They all lived peacefully together. The State of Israel changed all of that.
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By Daniel C. Maguire, Consortium News, August 4, 2014
What is going on in Gaza is a prison riot not a war. A war means a conflict between comparably endowed adversaries. This is a prison riot caused by the crimes of the jailor, Israel. And why are these 1.7 million people enclosed in what Jewish scholar Marc Ellis calls “the biggest jail in the world?” They are in jail because they are not Jews. That is their crime.
Were they Jews, they would be given beautiful homes, ample water supplies, government stipends. The fourth strongest army in the world – and the sixth strongest nuclear power – would be there to defend them. But, no, because the Gazans are not Jews, they are in an Israeli jail.
These jailed people — or at least their parents and grandparents — once had homes and gardens, olive groves and farms and lived peacefully on the land alongside all their neighbors. In the Nineteenth Century, Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population, 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian and four percent Jewish. They all lived peacefully together. The State of Israel changed all of that.
Continues >>
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