No Better

Being Jewish, you're expected to support Israel's actions without question. It's sacriligious not to. The Israelis are automatically right and the Palestinians are automatically wrong.

Well, that's usually how it works, anyway. Personally, I don't see it that way. Maybe it's because I wasn't born Jewish and didn't grow up being indoctrinated into the Jewish mindset, even though I am technically a Jew since I was nine.

It doesn't bother me to say it's wrong of the Israelis to bomb the shit out of Palestinian villages in retaliation for car bombings. It doesn't bother me to say it's wrong of Palestinians to go into a Yeshiva (Jewish religious school) and murder innocent students.

I'm disgusted by what happened in Israel yesterday. A young Palestinian man went into a Yeshiva and opened fire in the dining room, killing 8 boys (including one from Toronto). Apparently he fired more than 400 rounds. He was subsequently shot and killed by Israeli police.

The CBC said he was upset because his home had been invaded the night before by Israeli military, or something like that. The timing is interesting. He gets pissed off about something and the very next day he goes and shoots up a Yeshiva. This person was not acting randomly. He was ready to do something like this, otherwise why would he have had so many weapons and so much ammunition? He was just waiting for an excuse to do something like this.

I am not the least bit hesitant, in this case to support the Israeli side of things. As horrific as some of the Israeli attacks have been, Israelis do not walk into schools and deliberately target and murder children. There is barbarism and there is barbarism, and this shocking and disgusting act, perpetrated by someone from a culture which seems to think that Jews are animals...worse than animals...is the lowest form of barbarism I can think of.

The Israelis are no better than the Palestinians when it comes to the ridiculous, destructive and hopeless back and forth attacks they keep launching on each other. But I have to admit, as fair as I try to be, that Palestinian violence just goes beyond the pale and for Palestinians to celebrate in the street when the children of their enemies are murdered by one of their own...it's despicable.