I guess you can attribute most of it to our advancing age, surely, as we grow older we face, see and hear around us more deaths, and people disappearing into the great unknown . Lucky them if something exist and now they know for sure ... Ahead of all of us stuck here.
Lately, and within couple weeks, I've heard of the death of three good friends, all within few days of each other, unexpectedly, no early warning, Sam , Oussama and Jean-Pierre, and the decades long wife of a dear friend, Abdullah, you'd have to get used to thinking of him alone now . Then came the news of the departure of Hanna Meineh, a Syrian novelist, poet and thinker, whom I met more than once and had few shots of cognac together while exchanging quick philosophical ideas and concepts.
Couple days ago, it was the turn of Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist, and an excellent and courageous columnist, famous, appreciated and hated simultaneously in his home country and abroad . For his unbiased reporting , his clear opinions and visions, his humor daring and condemning the very quick metamorphosis of Israelis and the transformation of their State into a very oppressive and closed State and society.
His courage defying his zealot compatriots, and the new reigning settlers mentality and narrow fascist fanatic visions, were astonishing to say the least. I for one, on several occasions while reading his articles, couldn't but smile sadly predicting his possible violent death . Luckily he crossed peacefully at almost 95 years of age .
Another Israeli of the same caliber and courage, and one of not too many , is Gideon Levy, who declared openly to Haaretz, a leading publication in Israel, "Let's admit it, the settlers have won, we have lost."Again daring the entire political/religious institution of nowadays Israel.
Many Jews all over the Western world, and other parts as well, were deeply convinced for the last few decades, that Israel has been called by God to be the Messiah of the nations, that will invariably spread truth, virtue and compassion on earth, a concept that will elevate and reform Judaism. A country whose duty was to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve on the basis of justice and righteousness the problems of modern societies and their contradictions. And by proclaiming justice, set an example for a world in need of repair.
Unfortunately the Zionist movement, the Orthodox Jewry and the ultra right Neocons in Israel, totally deviated and veered way into a different path. Stepping on every principle of fairness, goodness or compassion, all for hegemony, greed and arrogant supremacy, perpetuating a form of hateful apartheid and animal brutality, all leading to a total annihilation of all other non Jewish minorities, natives of the land .
Surely, every Israeli family has an immigration story of its own, based on flight from war, persecution, Holocaust, poverty or fear of hopelessness. What is happening in Israel nowadays reminds us of an incident that took place lately here in the US. Whereby a senior White-House staffer, Stephen Miller, was publicly shamed by his uncle, David Glosser, a retired clinical neuroscientist for his part in shaping Trump's immigration policies, against Musslems and later Latin Americans at the Mexican borders. While forgetting himself the flight of his mother, a Jewess herself, and others from his family from pogroms ravaged areas between Belarus and Russia .
Israeli Zionists today are behaving themselves in exactly the same ways of ignoring their past while reenacting it on others. Where in the US. actually more than 500 seized children, are being orphaned at the different military camps, an article in Politico, the uncle David Glosser, wrote; "I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew who is an educated man and well aware of his heritage , has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundations of our family's life in this country." What would Mr. Glosser comment on how Israel's policies and tactics are being shaped and applied, I wonder.
My usual thanks to all my readers all over the world .
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