That got your attention, didn’t it?
Not unlike the article in the Guardian, written by someone who calls himself Dani Dayan (whom I assume to be a cross between the head of the Israeli armed forces and their next attempt at Eurovision).
This kind of thing is what we call ‘click bait’: publish something you know will raise the hackles of most of your readers, thus engaging their rage while luring them into scrutinising you over the coming weeks to ensure that you toe the party line.
The piece in question is below contempt, consisting as it does of a single assertion, “Our communities stand on moral ground… “ which acts as a sort of iron dome for a number of lesser – if no less execrable – assertions.
For instance, that the “settlements” (the quotation marks are his) are “… an integral part of any future solution.” Substitute ‘final’ for ‘future’ and you can see where he’s going with this. Perhaps Mr Dayan could use an advertising strap-line from the (I think) sixties: Settlers bring express relief.
My favourite is this one:
“… because the right of Jews to live in Shiloh, Hebron or Beth El is inalienable. These sites are the cradles of Jewish civilisation, the birthplace of Hebraic culture. Negating the right of Jews to live in these historic parts of the Jewish homeland would be morally wrong.”
Which means of course that all Christians should have an inalienable right to live in Bethlehem, all Buddhists could go back to their roots in north east India and Muslims to Mecca (or any branch thereof).
Being a Son of the Devil myself (or to us atheists, an atheist), this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Not as bad an idea, for instance, as basing your outrageous claims for (somebody else’s) land on a book of fairy stories written thousands of years ago.
Personally, and maybe ever-so-slightly controversially, I do believe that all Jews should go home. Home to Russia, USA, Britain, France… you know: where their families and communities come from. And I think the rest of us should welcome them back into the fold and allow them the freedom to believe whatever they like… as long as it doesn’t mean kicking other people out for the sake of those beliefs.
And there I go, making up my own fairy story.
But it does have a happy ending for all concerned.
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