“Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbors it is called an antisemite.” Wikipedia
I have no hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. Not one scintilla. I have never uttered one word that could be considered antisemitic, yet in recent weeks I have been accused of hatred for the Jewish people. Evidently, unless you blindly and without reservation support the military, political, and religious objectives of Israel, you are guilty of antisemitism.
Defenders of Israel love to use the “antisemite” label to cut off all discussion about Israel’s eight-decade-long apartheid practices. During the United States’ immoral wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, President George W. Bush famously tried to cut off all discussion and debate by saying “You are either for us or against us.” Who wants to be considered un-American during a time of war, right? This is exactly what is happening now with Israel’s war against Palestine. Either you are on Israel’s side or you are an enemy of the Jewish people.
I am against all war. As a pacifist, I see war as a failure of human imagination; an inability to solve conflicts without violence. While I grudgingly admit that self-defense is, on rare occasions necessary, few wars are prosecuted for self-defense reasons. When nation-states wage indiscriminate war, the result is always failure. There are other ways to settle conflicts, but we humans tend to take the easy way out by using violence, bloodshed, and carnage to settle our disagreements. That’s what Hamas did, and that is what Israel is currently doing.
Peace in the Middle East is possible, but until the West sees Israel as part of the problem, peace is impossible. Israel must be held accountable for their crimes (as must Hamas), and as long as they are given a pass, blood will continue to flow in the streets. Driven by Bible verses, Israel will not stop until they take ALL the land God promised to Israel in the Old Testament. There’s no room for a two-state solution, and as long as that is true, Palestinians will continue to push back against Israel’s apartheid practices.
As long as dead children keep piling up in Gaza, I will not turn a blind eye to Israel’s murderous behavior. Further, I hold the United States and President Joe Biden responsible for the war. As long as Israel has the U.S. standing with them and funding their military, they will continue to do what they are doing. Cut off the money and tell Israel that we will NOT defend them if they expand this war to Lebanon and Iran. As long as their bully big brother stands behind them in support, the bloodshed will continue and could lead to the deaths of American soldiers.
Call me an antisemite all you want, but I will continue to care about the deaths of children and other innocents far more than I care about being labeled a Jew-hater.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Over the weekend, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a stirring speech to the Israeli people about Israel’s war against Palestine. Netanyahu made it clear that the conflict is a religious war.
“The biblical reference to Amalek is genocidal,” noted one theologian after the prime minister invoked an ancient enemy. “The Bible commands to wipe out Amalek, including women, babies, children, and animals.”
Human rights defenders on Monday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an “explicit call to genocide” after he delivered a televised address calling Israel’s imminent invasion of Gaza a “holy mission” and invoked an ancient mythical foe whom the God of the Hebrew Bible commanded the Israelites to exterminate.
Declaring the start of a “second stage” of Israel’s war on Gaza—which he described as a “holy mission”—Netanyahu said that “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.”
According to the Hebrew Bible, the nation of Amalek was an ancient archenemy of the Israelites whose extermination was commanded by God to Saul via the prophet Samuel.
Netanyahu believes that Israel must do to the Palestinians what the genocidal God of the Old Testament commanded Saul to do to the Amalekites:
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (I Samuel 15:3)
Is this not exactly what Israel is presently doing in Gaza? How then, does their slaughter of Palestinians not constitute genocide or war crimes?
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Children have always suffered the most from human thirst for dominance, power, and control. Governments and political leaders regret their deaths in war, but see them as necessary collateral damage in their quest for real estate. Fundamentally, the war between Israel and Palestine is about a promise the Jewish God allegedly made to a storybook character named Abraham. Thousands of years later, Israel demands the world accept as fact that God gave them all the land (and more) that currently makes up Palestine and Israel. Countless people have died and will continue to die as Isaac and Ismahel continue to fight over whom the land belongs to.
Israeli and Palestinian children bleed and die without difference. Yet, for some reason, many Americans think Palestinian children “deserve” suffering and death; that they must pay the price for the sins of others. Of course, this should not surprise us. The Old Testament is a written record of God commanding his chosen ones — Israel — to slaughter his (their) enemies. Why should we expect Israel to do anything differently today? Hamas can be brought to justice without destroying Palestine, but Israel has no interest in doing so. Much like the United States did after 9-11, Israel plans to kill anyone and everyone — including children and civilians — who stands in their way of destroying Hamas (and by extension, Palestine).
And so Israeli and Palestinian children will continue to die.
Thousands of miles away, Ukrainian and Russian children will continue to die.
Syrian children will die.
Yemeni children will die.
African children will die, both from war and starvation.
The world says it cares about children, but the actions of major world powers and militia leaders alike suggest that children are an inconvenience; their deaths are a necessary consequence of humankind’s endless fight over real estate.
Americans wept over the children killed on 9-11, yet when it comes to Afghan, Iraqi, and Palestinian children, their deaths are considered necessary consequences of the war.
As long as the blood of innocents flows in the streets, don’t tell me about the justness of your war and the greatness and rightness of your God. All I see are bloody hands.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Earlier today, an Israel Defense Force (IDF) official said that the Israeli plan to level and destroy Gaza and kill countless civilians — including children and babies — is meant for the “good” of the Palestinian people; that once Hamas is defeated, all will be well for Palestine (both the West Bank and Gaza). What will this “good” look like once Hamas is defeated and removed from power? A free Palestinian State? “Good” requires putting an end to Israel’s apartheid practices. “Good” requires turning the electricity and power back on and ensuring that Palestinians have sufficient food. “Good” requires access to medical care. “Good” requires rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure and family dwellings. I have not read one word from Israel’s military and political leaders that suggests that they have any interest in “good.” Motivated by rage, vengeance, and retribution, Israel is poised to cause untold harm and carnage. Hamas will most certainly respond, adding to the blood of combatants and innocents flowing through the streets.
The idea that bombing and killing people because it is “good” for them is a common delusion of the powers that be in the West. The United States told the citizens of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq that our invasions of their sovereign states were “good” for them; that clap-happy freedom and democracy awaited once their lands were bombed into oblivion and hundreds of thousands of civilians were wiped off the face of the earth. Fifty years later, a unified Vietnam has returned to some sense of normalcy, but Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries that we have bombed with “good” munitions remain shadows of the countries they once were.
Americans wrongly assume that our “good” is what every nation needs. Who doesn’t want to be just like the good ‘ole United States of America, right? For those blinded by American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and Christian nationalism, the only “good” they see is the continuance of the “American Way” — whatever the hell that is — and laissez-faire capitalism. No introspection, no repenting of our national sins. We’re #1! We’re #1! We’re #1! We never seem to stop for a moment to consider whether our quest for “rightness,” dominion, and power is “good.” If I asked one hundred residents of rural Northwest Ohio whether the United is “good,” all of them would unequivocally say YES! Ask one hundred residents from Europe, Africa, South America, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East the same question, and I suspect most of them would have a very different definition of “American Good.”
As long as we continue to use military force — either directly or through proxies as we are doing in Ukraine and the Middle East — to expand the American Empire, we should not expect the world at large to think we are “good.”
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Evil is a word bandied about these days, used to describe people, groups, and institutions that commit violent, vile, abominable acts against innocents. The word evil is also used to describe offending political and social beliefs. In Evangelical circles, the word evil is used to describe human behaviors that run afoul of their interpretations of the Bible or standards. Thus, two people of the same sex engaging in sexual intercourse are evil. Both the person and the act are evil.
Scores of Evangelicals have emailed or messaged me to let me know that I am “evil.” Never mind the fact that I have never committed evil. My beliefs and/or behavior offend these riders of the high moral plains, so I am given the “evil” label.
Evil is used so often that the word has lost a lot of its power and meaning. There was a time when we reserved the word evil for Hitler and Stalin. Today, a person is evil just because he wrote a blog post that denied the existence of God.
Israel and Hamas are currently at war. Hamas attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 people, many of whom were innocent men, women, and children. Hamas’ wanton slaughter of innocents certainly meets the qualifications for the label “evil.” I have listened to and watched a lot of programs over the past two days where Hamas was called evil. I have yet to hear a podcast host, news anchor, or Middle East expert, say the same about Israel. Oh, I heard the voices of people who recognize Israel’s barbaric response to Hamas’ attack, but none dare utter the word “evil.” To do so would be professional suicide.
Let me be clear, Hamas is evil; its murderous actions against Israel are evil. What I refuse to ignore is the fact that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is evil too; that its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is every bit as evil as the violent, murderous actions of Hamas insurgents. The West seemingly wants to give Israel a pass on its war crimes, much like they did to the United States when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan — killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
Fundamentally, war is evil. How can it be otherwise? The goal of every war is to inflict maximum violence on your opponent, hoping that the bloodshed, carnage, and death will cause them to surrender. There’s no such thing as a “good” war. As a hypocritical pacifist, I recognize that war is inevitable; that as long as humanity is divided by race, ethnicity, economic status, resource availability, and geographical borders, men and women will kill each other, hoping to either maintain the status quo, gain power, or financially profit. That said, there’s no moral high ground when it comes to war. Calling a war “just” as Christians often do doesn’t change the fact that the machinations of war run contrary to all that is just, holy (for the religious), and good.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
U.S. President Joe Biden informed the American people that he personally contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, reminding him that Israel must play by the “rules of war” when they attack, level, and destroy Gaza.
The “rules of war?” Really? There are no rules of war. Oh, there are conventions, treaties, and agreements, but nation-states rarely abide by them. When it comes to war, there are no rules. States agree to abide by rules until they don’t.
In the present conflict between Hamas and Israel, both parties have already ignored the “rules of war” and committed horrific war crimes. It is certain that both Hamas and Israel will continue to commit war crimes in the days and months ahead. As of today, Israel turned off the electricity and water in Gaza. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are under siege. Told to flee the rage bombing of Israel, Palestinians literally have no place to go.
Let’s stop with the talk about the “rules of war” and “war crimes.” Such rules may exist on paper, filed somewhere in the bowels of government, but practically speaking, these rules are ignored with nary a thought. War crimes? Let me be clear, “war” itself is a crime against humanity. The governments of the world have spent most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries slaughtering one another. And to what end? Hostilities cease for a time, something will provoke a military response, and war returns with a vengeance, with no thought given to the rules of war or whether their actions are crimes.
To President Biden, I ask, “Israel has already committed war crimes and will continue to do so as God’s chosen people turn Gaza into a rubble-strewn parking lot. Will you commit to holding them accountable for their crimes against innocent men, women, and children?” No need to respond, I already know the answer. It’s no; it is always no. The United States has a long history of committing war crimes — both intentional and accidental. We have no moral high ground on this issue — or any other, for that matter. If President Biden wants to do something that will save lives in Palestine, how about ending U.S. military funding to Israel? Instead, the President plans to give Israel billions of dollars more in military aid. The United States is funding multiple wars across multiple fronts. According to Reuters, the U.S. is the largest arms exporter in the world — $206 billion in 2022. In 2021, that number was $138 billion. War is certainly good for business, with no thought about the war crimes men and women will commit with these weapons of mass destruction.
Rules of war? There are no rules of war, only carnage and death. There are no winners, only losers.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Horror on all sides. What is there to say on the conflagration consuming Gaza and Israel? As the US and much of the Western world denounce the Hamas “terror,” millions more acknowledge its savagery but painstakingly insist we see nuance and context in desperate acts of resistance by a people who have long had done to them what they, now, have done in turn – in the only way they feel they can avow, “Palestine will not be buried.” The awful lesson: “Ultimately, the dispossessed will rebel.”
Hamas’ armed Al-Qassam Brigade said they launched their largest rocket attack against Israel in over 15 years, and its unprecedented, accompanying infiltration by land, sea, and air “deep into the heart of Israel,” in response to “the crimes of the Occupation.” After firing up to 5,000 rockets toward Israel in the first 30 minutes, they urged all Palestinians to join the battle, declaring, “Today the people are regaining their revolution.” In what’s been widely deemed “an intelligence fiasco,” the “Al-Aqsa Flood” took Israel’s “invincible army” and famed surveillance system by surprise, leading to clashes in up to 50 locations even as sirens sounded across a stunned Israel and Palestinians in disbelief freely walked around abandoned IDF bases. To date, Israel’s death toll has climbed to 900, including 260 young people at a music festival; Israeli strikes have killed 700 Palestinians in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people with nowhere to flee; thousands more are injured on both sides; Hamas has taken over 100 Israelis captive, reportedly including many officers of Israel’s Southern Command; and, in an ultimate irony, video showed thousands of Israeli settlers running away in helpless terror of the kind of violence often experienced by Palestinians at their hands.
Amidst the chaos, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu raged that Israel will “take mighty vengeance,” that we “will strike them,” “will annihilate terrorism,” will turn Gaza “into cities of ruins” in a pitiless war that has “only started.” Of such rhetoric, along with its barbarous actions, was the current carnage born. “These developments did not occur in a vacuum,” noted the Palestinian observer to the U.N. The violence is a “chilling reminder that occupation and oppression bear a price,” the “apotheosis of what happens at the end of a road of exhausted options,” the inevitable result of a decades-long Israeli rule that “demanded the unquestioning surrender of its victims, refused to accept defiance in any form, and produced a generation of Palestinians who have lost faith in nonviolent resistance.” It’s also a likely “turning point” in the struggle between Israel’s apartheid system and the Palestinians who live under it. Years after creating “a pressure cooker” in the world’s largest open-air prison and periodically “mowing the lawn” to keep its lid on, writes Mitchell Plitnick, “Israel would have us believe it was because Hamas are just vicious killers who have a bloodlust for Jews. In reality, it was the actualization of what anti-apartheid activists have been warning about for many years.”
Tipping the balance, many argue, were “the provocations of the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history.” This year has been deemed the deadliest for Palestinians since the height of the Second Intifada, with 248 civilians (40 of them children) killed this year (almost the same number as at the music festival). The number of IDF raids, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions, random shootings and killings, settler mobs left free to burn villages, evict civilians, and attack holy sites has soared as far-right Israeli officials call for Palestinian genocide and expulsion. In the West Bank, 3.5 million Palestinians live packed into segregated cantons between Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land, an “Apartheid Wall” and new “Apartheid Road,” and endless checkpoints. In Gaza, over 2 million survive in cramped refugee camps under unlivable conditions, constant air strikes, and a suffocating 16-year-long blockade with contaminated water, sporadic power, and so few jobs that 80% depend on international aid. A recent report found that four of five children say they live with depression, grief, and fear, and yet Israeli officials have seemed intent on perpetuating a brutal, longstanding, counter-productive, doom cycle: “Cage, smother, subdue, repeat.”
They were evidently so intent on upholding their status-quo oppression that they missed what media have called “Israel’s 9/11” in the most catastrophic intelligence failure since the last October surprise, almost precisely 50 years ago, of 1973’s Yom Kippur War. Both times, observers charge, Israeli hubris played a part. Then, its leaders ignored peace offerings from Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and intelligence of an attack; now, Israel’s “invincible” military remains overly confident, somewhat disorganized, and beholden to an ultra-nationalist government incapable of choosing any alternative solution to any problem except military violence – and secure in the knowledge a complicit U.S. will fund their bad choices. Thus did their American friends leap to condemn Hamas “terrorists,” rushing to declare their support for “our incredible ally” “defending” itself against what J Street called “murderous” Palestinians. The GOP rushed to blame Biden’s “weakness,” but none came close to a rabid Stephen Miller’s “Straight-up Seig Heil shit” as he raved Biden “turned calm into calamity” with his “rules-based international order” – like no genocide – in contrast to Trump’s “clear-eyed realism (and) raw projection of national strength” when “our world was at peace.” (What the Goebbels-loving fuck).
Democrats joined in to condemn Hamas; so did Bernie Sanders, but at least he recognized that “innocent people on both sides will suffer hugely” as a result. His former foreign policy aide Matt Duss also noted the attack destroyed the idea that “we can just bottle up the Palestinians and it won’t matter,” insisting the right of people to live in security “includes Israelis and Palestinians.” Declaring “there is no excuse (for) what Hamas has done,” he added, “Palestinians have continued to suffer under an occupation and blockade that is decades old. That is absolutely necessary context.” Startlingly, CNN also let Palestinian advocate Dr. Mustafa Barghouti cite the context of “the longest occupation in modern history” and a system of apartheid that has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. The U.S. “cannot say that Israel has the right to defend itself, but we the Palestinians don’t have the right to defend ourselves,” he said, citing 560 Israeli military checkpoints, 5,300 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the charge that any Palestinian who resists occupation is terrorist, violent, provocative, or anti-Semitic. “We should all have equal life, we should all have peace, we should all have justice, we should all live in dignity,” he said. “The way to achieve that is to end the occupation.”
Movingly, Israelis have spoken out to acknowledge blood only begets more blood, to concede their dread “is a sliver of what Palestinians have been feeling on a daily basis.” “We need to act with sensitivity,” said the father of a girl taken captive from the music festival, asking she be rescued but “only by peaceful measures.” “(Palestinians) also have mothers who are crying.” Israeli journalist Orly Noy dismisses the bellicose threats by a corrupt Netanyahu: “Rightfully he is now seen as personally responsible. He seeks to save his own political skin.” She understands a desire for revenge, but fears “the erasure of any moral red line,” arguing “it’s important to remind ourselves that everything inflicted on us now” – shootings to civilians taken captive – “we have been inflicting on Palestinians for years.” “Ignoring this context is giving up a piece of my own humanity,” she writes. “Because violence devoid of context leads to only one possible response: revenge…the opposite of security, (of) peace, (of) justice. It is nothing but more violence.” While “terrible crimes were committed against Israelis this Saturday…in this time of dark grief, I cling to the one thing I have left to hold onto: my humanity. The absolute belief that this hell is not predestined. Not for us, nor for them.”
Still, the devastation goes on. An Israeli airstrike killed 19 members of one Palestinian family in Rafah; said Abu Quta, 57, “There were screams. There were no walls.” As Israelis beg their government for help finding captive relatives – “They are not telling us anything” – the IDF’s “Swords of Iron” operation has fired 3,284 no-warning rockets at “Hamas targets” that are in fact often apartments, houses, mosques, schools where Palestinians huddle in terror: “We do not know what fate has in store for us.” In response to the relentless airstrikes, Hamas has said any time Israel targets civilians in their homes without warning, they will “regrettably” execute one captive Israeli civilian. Israel has recovered the bodies of over 1,500 Hamas fighters, and escalation looms: Gazans try to flee south fearing an Israeli ground assault, Hezbollah militants have been killed at the Lebanon border, as was at least one Israeli commander, among 85 IDF casualties. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador, without irony, accused Hamas of “war crimes…The era of reasoning with these savages is over.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a yet more draconian “complete siege” against Gaza’s “human animals” (see below): “Nothing is allowed in or out. No electricity, food, water. (Also a war crime). And Netanyahu has vowed “the enemy will pay an unprecedented price” from attacks “with neither limitations nor respite.” “What we will do to our enemies,” he said, “will reverberate with them for generations.” True, and tragic, for all of us.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Israel is not “God’s Chosen People.” No one is chosen by God. He’s a myth.
There’s no evidence for the existence of Abraham. Thus, there’s no such thing as the “Promised Land.”
The Cincinnati Bengals convincingly won their second game on Sunday. Joe Burrow is back.
Violence is violence regardless of the race and ethnicity of the perpetrator.
It’s evident that Iran is funding and arming terrorist groups such as Hamas. The United States and its proxy, Israel, want nothing more than to obliterate Iran.
The United States has funded, armed, and trained terrorists over its blood-filled, violent history. Funny how Hamas and Iran are evil, but the United States is virtuous, moral, and Christian.
I finally turned on the furnace, beginning the titanic struggle over the temperature setting. 🤣
It would be nice if MSNBC actually reported the news instead of promoting a pro-military, pro-Israel, pro-Biden agenda. Progressives condemn Fox News for their politics-driven “news,” yet say nothing when MSNBC does the same.
John Oliver did a segment on Sunday about homeschooling in the United States. Thoughtful and balanced, Oliver laid out the good, bad, and ugly of homeschooling. (All six of our children were homeschooled.) I support the right to homeschool as long as it is properly regulated.
I can’t wait to see how long it takes for someone to call me an antisemite.
Bonus: Streaming services continue to raise their rates. I vaguely remember being told “cord-cutting” would save us money. How is that working out for us?
Double Bonus: Just listened to an NSA official tell Rachel Maddow that if the United States was attacked like Israel, we too would slaughter civilians and bomb communities into oblivion. Mess with us, and we will gut you. Of course, he used smooth words to convey this point. No need to do so. Two Iraq Wars and Afghanistan later, we know exactly what the United States will do to innocents if provoked.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
