Friday, November 20, 2009

Palin: "Jews Need a Place to Live"

I would say that it is scary to think of how little Sarah Palin understands about Israel, except that the chances of her ever being in a position of real power are about as great as Netanyahu becoming the supreme ayatollah. But her claim on ABC that "Jews need a place to live" as the reason for continued settlement construction demonstrates her lack of understanding that the construction being promoted is for natural growth from within the community, not immigration from without.

BTW, the current controversy concerns building around Gilo,which for over 40 years has been part of Jerusalem, not what Israelis and most American Jews would even consider a settlement. When it was being shelled 400 times by Palestinians from Bet Jala a few years ago, it was hardly considered a settlement.

The Wikipedia entry states: Gilo lies within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and is geographically contiguous to surrounding Jewish neighborhoods that pre-dated the Six Day War. Some media outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Associated Press, Boston Globe and CBS News, have described Gilo as a "neighborhood".[22] A CNN memorandum to its staff stated that "We refer to Gilo as a 'Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem'... We don't refer to it as a settlement."[23] The United States government also refrains from classifying Gilo and other East Jerusalem locales as settlements, instead referring to them as neighborhoods.[24]

Many of us have visited Gilo, particularly when it was suffering from those traumatic attacks. I was amazed at how the people were able to stand up to them.

So maybe Sarah Palin was speaking of the people of Gilo as Jews who need a place to live.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Rabbi,

I would like to say that I feel your opening comment "the chances of her ever being in a position of real power are about as great as Netanyahu becoming the supreme ayatollah" is very belittling, mean spirited and unbecoming of a Rabbi.

Yes, some will call me politically incorrect for saying this, but I'd rather tell you how I really think!

You state in your most current post about health care, your disdain for outfits like MSNBC or FOX News, but you make a comment that Keith Olbermann would be proud of!

Your criticism is based on Sarah Palin lack of knowledge about the purpose of Israeli settlements, but you ignore the larger picture of her support for Israel.

Instead you make a comment calling her "scary for how little she knows", but that's okay because she has no chance of ever amounting to anything.

I don't know if you read jstreet.

http://www.jstreet.org/campaigns/dont-let-sarah-palin-speak-you-israel

You seem to echo everything they said. Do you believe that Palin's remarks really put the State of Israel in danger?

How do you feel about jstreets solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict?

Thanks!

Sheldon Katz