Thinking Citizen Blog — Israel Bombs Iran — What Does This Mean? What Is The Context? What Have You Learned At Home And In School?
Thinking Citizen Blog — Friday is Education and Education Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Israel Bombs Iran — What Does This Mean? What Is the Context? What have you learned at home and in school?
How does what you have learned at home and in school help you make sense of the news that Israel has bombed Iran?
Did you learn that Israel is a genocidal country, the incarnation of evil in general, and a pawn of the great Satan (the United States)? Or did you learn that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, and a defender of liberty in a region of autocracies?
To me, three charts provide the necessary historical context. And one analogy is supremely apt.
Agree? Disagree? What three charts would you pick? What analogy?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
CHART #1 — can you find Israel on this map? The purple countries (150) are Christian, the green countries (50) Muslim.
1. Although there would be no Christianity and no Islam without Judaism, many deny the Jews the right to one little, resource poor country of their own.
2. A country that is to Jews as Mecca is to Islam.
3. The Wailing Wall is to Jews as the Kaaba is to Muslims.
NB: Iran is pledged to the destruction of Israel.
Chart #2 — the 1948 expulsion of Jews from Muslim countries where many had lived for over 1000 years.
1. True of Morocco and Algeria!
2. True of Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia!
3. True of Iran!
NB: The Jews were welcomed by Israel. Palestinians have not received a comparable welcome from Muslim nations. Why? Is it convenient for rich, powerful Muslim autocrats to have a scapegoat (Israel) as it was for Hitler to have the Jewish people itself prior to the birth of Israel?
CHART #3 ANTI-SEMITISM HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG, LONG TIME — SCAPEGOATS ARE USEFUL!
1. Ingratitude is the root of all evil.
2. Anti-semitism is rooted in ingratitude.
3. The lesson of the story of Adam and Eve. And of Cain and Abel.
NB: It is also the lesson of World War Two. Another lesson of World War Two — making a deal with Hitler was a very, very bad idea. Is Trump about to try to make the same mistake?
FOOTNOTE A — See the third and fourth attachments below for two handouts from past What Matters Table discussions on Israel-Palestine. Please share links to the best articles you have ever read on the subject.
FOOTNOTE B — Best quote ever on the Israel-Palestine question? My pick: Eric Hoffer (1968) What’s yours?
“The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey drove out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese — and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield, dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated, survive, and recover, but should Israel defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June 1967, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway. The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us.”
Thinking Citizen Blog — Israel-Palestine — Historical Context Matters — Three Indispensable Charts…
Notable & Quotable: Eric Hoffer on Israel, 1968
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IP5ATbqCWPv0WKC4dCDgAiidbFVOaqR_
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to education or education policy. Or the coolest thought however half-baked you had.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to education or education policy that the rest of us may have missed.
Or just some random education-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something that is dear to your heart.