Why should what happens “there” concern us “here”? Haven’t “they” always had wars and chaos in the “Holy Land”?

Well, actually, no. For centuries, Jews and Arabs lived in harmony. When 19th Century Zionists, facing the pogroms of Tsarist Russia and the ghettoes and discrimination of European life–when these Zionists hitched their wagon to European nationalist struggle and expansionism, they brought a lethal virus into the ancient religion of the Jews, then exported that virus to the lands controlled by the Ottoman Turks, and, following World War I and Balfour, the British Empire.

Why should any of that concern hard-working Americans, struggling to pay their taxes, worried about healthcare, lousy education for their kids, crime, pollution, lost jobs and foreclosures? For one thing, over 10,000,000 American dollars per day, 3-5 billion dollars a year, are earmarked to the state of Israel to support its arsenal of nuclear weapons (about 200), huge military assets, and its occupation of Palestinian territory. Indeed, the relatively wealthy state of Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. “foreign aid.”

The managers of the American economy have been running the world’s foremost economy into the bloody ground with military adventurism and credit schemes based on inflated–and even non-existent–paper money. (Or is it cardboard money–as in a house of cards?).

Beyond the “Economics-101″ considerations of knowing where our money is going and what it’s value constitutes, there are the moral questions to be asked of a nation founded upon the principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Fine words, but rather poorly applied when countered with “vital interests” or “military necessity.” And, outside of Bill Moyers’ “Journal,” fine words unlikely to get traction among the over-paid, immoral and amoral pundits who sum up our mass-media “news.”

Yet, aren’t these moral questions the basis of our human life on this fragile planet? And if we cannot work out our moral relationships now as the world shrinks and globalizes, what can such inability auger for this already blood-drenched century?

Mary’s comments above also provide scope and resonance to Odetalla’s timeless piece on beauty and loss, home, courage and tragedy.

Thank you, Mike Odetalla, for telling these hard-earned truths, and thanks to Dissident Voice for bringing them before its important readership.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975647.html

The soil from which the almond blossoms grew is being richly fed by the blood of its captive people.