Nobody says it quite like Meryl Yourish. And by “it” I mean, basically anything regarding Israel. Her candor is enviable, and her wit is razor-sharp. I’ve heaped praise on her before, but this time I just wanted to throw in a quick quotation–a little “rule” of sorts that I think applies here just as well as on her blog.
I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel is a racist state. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel has no “right” to exist. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that the Jews of Israel are a bunch of European colonials who “stole” the land from the “indigenous” population (utterly ignoring the 3,500-year history of Jewish communities in the land of Israel, up to and including ignoring the Hebron massacre of 1929, which erased the millennia-old Jewish population of that “West Bank” town).
Damn straight.
Keep up the good fight, Meryl Yourish! And know that we non-Jews aren’t just “Christian Zionists” either, who want to use the Jews for the second-coming. I personally couldn’t care less about the second-coming. I see Israel as an ally, an ideologically in-tune state surrounded by dictators and maniacs, right smack in the middle of a hotbed of religious madness–that particularly deadly infusion of Islamism into nationalism or the other way around perhaps. Israel is a beacon of democracy, civility, modernity, and justice. I will support her forever.
I am not interested in hearing the same, tired, over-the-top shrieking against a state that is protecting its people from having brainwashed children blow themselves up in the middle of a restaurant, or a bus, or a market. I am tired of hearing the Israel-bashers attack Israel on every single point while utterly ignoring the barbarity of the so-called “victims,” the poor, poor, pitiful pals.
There’s a note to end on….
E.D. is a writer and the editor in chief at NeoConstant. He works and writes in Arizona where he lives with his wife and daughter. He also writes at 
on Jun 16th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Israel is my archetype for Iraq in the years ahead.
A dynamic, prosperous, politically free, and democratic state, directly in the heart of the Middle East. Israel is precisely the ideal state model we should be encouraging throughout the Middle East. Democracy can flourish in the Middle East. One has to look no further than Israel.