Saturday, January 03, 2009

Israel.

I wonder if the Israeli/Hamas fighting of the last week will lead some of us to wonder why we're so unequivocally pro-Israel. Now, I'm not saying if we should or shouldn't be. But it seems odd that of all the many, many things politicians in Congress argue about, Israel is not one of them - it is taken for granted that of course your stance will be pro-Israel if you're running for office. It's a no-brainer; how many times have you read about a politician being told if he's not pro-Israel he/she is committing "political suicide"?

Meanwhile, we can't get anyone to agree on healthcare, or education, or Social Security. We can't even get everyone on the same page when it comes to SAVING THE PLANET. Yet Israel, for some reason, is not open to debate. All of our leadership is pro-Israel, yet I don't really know anybody who knows or cares about it's goings-on. And I live in Brooklyn. Yes, I'm sure there are many people who DO care, but how many times have you heard "gee, I hope they work things out over there" vs. "oh, let's let everybody blow themselves off the planet over there"? Yet from coast to coast, we kind of numbly nod along "oh sure, Israel, of course we're on their side." The adamancy of Congress about this issue is in almost inverse proportion to the public's interest or sentiment, but nobody seems to really work up a sweat about it. Interesting to me.

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