Victims should unite and heal
The concert by Matisyahu was not canceled because he is Jewish, as Mayor Alan Webber and others have alleged. Many of us who are Jewish are horrified by the actions of Israel toward the Palestinians. The boycott of his concert was not an act of antisemitism
I was born in 1949, post Holocaust. Growing up in a Jewish family, I had nightmares of Nazis, heard stories of friends who lost family in the holocaust and have and still do experience antisemitism. My father secretly built planes for Israel and has an award that hangs on my sister’s wall. As a young teenager, I saw the movie Exodus and believed that the highest thing I could do was move to Israel and help create a state. I heard that the expulsion of the Palestinians was acceptable because they are a “dirty” people.
Later in life, I saw a documentary. It was a an interview with four generations of Israeli women. One was a woman who was there in the 1940s and part of a political party that believed the only way forward was a joint Israeli-Palestinian state. She and her colleagues were imprisoned. Since then, I have learned more about the horrors of how the Palestinians, who first welcomed Jewish refugees, have been treated.
On a psychological level, what is going on is the unresolved trauma of a victimized people who have now become perpetrators. On a political level, it is hard for me to believe Israeli intelligence did not know of this attack and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t doing such a brutal attack as a way of diversion. He wanted to draw attention from the protests that were going on in Israel against his policies as well as grab all the land of Gaza and the West Bank. I watch as his soul and the souls of the military leaders blacken.
Years ago, I was told, do not make separation between the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Muslims. They are cousins. It is time that the slaughter of the Palestinians stops. This does not make me antisemitic. Nor does it mean I justify the violence of Hamas. It is a call for two people who have been victimized to come together and heal.