<<unless I am mistaken, you are Jewish. If that is true, why the viciousness of your statements regarding Jews in Israel?>>
Good question, Professor. Because they make all the rest of us look bad. Because they personify every anti-Semitic stereotype that was ever invented - - greed, selfishness, lack of concern for anyone else who's not in their own little tribe, contempt for the "outsider" and complete disregard of any human life except their own. Most Jews are liberals, concerned for the underdog, because the Jews always WERE the underdog, knowing that the fate of every human being is really tied up with every other's - - if it's bad for him, in the long run it can't be good for me, etc. And these ass-holes don't give a shit for anyone else but themselves. Guys like Rich (believe me, he's a Jew, he just won't admit it) and his ass-hole buddies are creating enemies for me and my grandchildren that a hundred years won't wipe away. In the end, the American people are going to realize that they've been played for suckers and there will be an enormous backlash. I won't have to deal with it, but my grandchildren will.
The Jewish religion teaches us to be kind to everyone, to respect your fellow man (and woman, but the traditional religion, I gotta admit, sorta emphasizes the male role in these things, women are getting a better shake in the more modern versions like Reform Judaism,) NOT to put a man out of his home,not to despoil, not to humiliate. etc. (Rich and his supporters actually glory in despoiling, killing, humiliating their enemies.) Those are the real teachings - - the Old Testament shows a lot of examples of bad conduct, but these are against people who are sworn enemies of the Jews, idol-worshipers (which in those days usually meant human sacrificers, baby sacrificers, etc.) and some really bad people, not innocent farmers and town dwellers being kicked out of their homes. Anyway you can't really use the "Gideon slew the Midianites" argument as a realistic way of approaching real-life problems in the 20th and 21st Centuries, but that's exactly what these guys do.
The most religious Jews, the Neturei Karta and the Satmar Hasids, don't even recognize the State of Israel because it's not supposed to be established before the coming of the Messiah, and they have plenty to say about the atrocious conduct of the IDF and the Israeli government - - they call them "Jewish gentiles," meaning they've abandoned the religion and are just as godless and inhumane as the rest of the world.
I don't think the State of Israel has the right to speak for me, but in the eyes of the world it does. I and my family will be held responsible in the eyes of hundreds of millions of people for the crimes of the Israeli state. That's not fair, it's not even realistic thinking, but to millions of people, my grandchildren's name will be blackened by what is being done today in Israel and the West Bank. I do what I can to stop it, but it's not very much, unfortunately. Nobody pays attention to cranks typing in a newsgroup. But like they used to say in Amnesty, Better to light a single candle than to curse the blackness. It was always our hope that somewhere another candle would flare up, then another, in a slow-motion chain reaction. Sort of like the anti-war movement of the 1960s. Evenutally, from a tiny handful of tiny candles, a mass movement came into being. No matter what the result, at least I'll be able to say, OK, I lit a candle.
