He seems very civil and not a hate filled person.

However, history is history. Our problems are not with individuals, but with national movements such as the palestinian movement.

Many people lose in such situations. War is terrible. Many Jews have died. Many Arabs have died. It is awful.

But I can’t give up my national home & rights to Dr. K.

Because this will mean death for my people.

Sorry

While I empathize with the personal feeling of loss that Dr. K. expresses, his story can be multiplied by the 800,000 plus Jews and their descendants who were forced to leave behind, in the lands of their ancestral births (Arab lands), bank accounts, business and ancestral homes and adjacent lands. Is Melody Bormaster ‘APPALLED” at those 800,000 plus individual Jewish losses and stories?

My best advise to Dr. K. would be to join together with Jews and Arabs in his community who have similar stories, in order to listen to each others saga. Perhaps then the individual, personal pain and grief would melt away in the knowledge that you are not alone, and that one side is no more damaged or culpable than the other. The victims of war are always to be found on both sides of the fens.

And then I hear people around me (Jews and non Jews) clucking their tongues in judgment over a situation that they cannot possibly begin to comprehend. The comparison is laughable: one attack on the U.S.in 2001 has justified an 8 year war, no end in sight, tens of billions spent, and the attempted mobilization of the entire globe against the threat. Israel has faced orders of magnitude greater proportional pain, and yet when she defends herself, is pilloried by those same people who scream for al Qaeda blood over what happened here. What happened here was horrific, and I was in my city that day and have never been the same since. BUT. But I can’t stand that too many people here don’t see the parallels between that situation and Israel’s. And rather than laud Israel for unbelievable restraint in the face of unimaginable provocation, the world shakes its head and judges. Harshly.

The way I see it, if you’re in the schoolyard, and you are constantly being attacked and jumped on by a perceived smaller weaker child, most children react by squashing the smaller child, regardless of the level of provocation (see US v Afghanistan/Iraq). And that is ok to people here. But that was one attack. What if it’s dozens – hundreds – thousands of attacks over decades, the retaliation to which was mostly handled justly and with enormous restraint? How do you then condemn the child from once in a while losing their temper and striking back harder than they usually do (the recent Israeli self defense in Gaza). The answer is that no one would ever fault that child for defending themselves, or for losing it the one time. They would be commended for their restraint and the other kid would have “had it coming”. How does that thought process not happen here?

There were an equal number of Sephardi Jews in Arab lands displaced after Suez as there were Palestinians in Israel. And? They picked up, moved away, and started fresh. Never in the thousands of years of our civilization’s conquer-and-occupy history has a turn at the gaming tables been allowed to be turned into an eternal do-over. How many times have these people stepped up to the wheel and placed everything on Black 27 (attack Israel, grab for the land, try and wipe Israel out), and then when they fail, ask for their money (land) back and then GAMBLE AGAIN!! This has never ever happened before. You gamble, you lose, you leave the casino. Period. Yet they ask for the money back over and over and the world thinks they should have it. But they don’t want the money to pay bills, send their children to school, or buy food, they use it to step right back into the casino and gamble again. In our society, people who act this way are sent to 12 step programs and pushed to change their ways. In the Palestinian’s case, the world says, “Yes, yes, give them the money back. And if they come back into the casino, Israel should deal with the aftermath but be gentle in how she defends herself.”

I just don’t get it.

My father had this house built in 1932,and I was born in Jerusalem in 1937. My family left Jerusalem because of the state of war that occurred in 1948. Regardless of why we left (it was not voluntary), why should we lose title to our home because of that war? The Israeli govenrment did not allow us to return to it (nor to pay taxes on it!) after May 1948. To this day we have never been offered compensation nor any acknowledgement by any party for our loss.

My original purpose in communicating with Dr. Gordis was to try and connect with another human being who can help provide me a sense of connection with my home and land of birth. I am a realist and not stuck in living in the past. Yes, I was shocked at the changes that have occurred but who wouldn’t be?

I am intrested in a dialogue and not in having people talking at me and telling me how I should be feeling or behaving. I hope we can talk about ourselves and not lecture others. Is this possible in this forum?

Strip any emotion from it. In practicality has he maintained the place? Paid taxes? If somebody left you property that long ago and you didn’t assert your claim previously well than sorry…
Yes I know in truth he’s talking about the law of return. As Jews do we have that right where we’ve been driven out? Do aboriginal people have this right? Yes Israel is an exception but where does one stop?