I have writer’s block.
It’s not that I don’t know what to write about; it’s just that I’m speechless. I just finished reading a blog on the Washington Post/Newsweek website written by Arun Gandhi, grand son of the famous Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi. He is president and co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, at the University of Rochester in New York.
His blog is on the On Faith section with international religious leaders commenting on the PBS series The Jewish Americans.
Rather than focus on the great contributions Jews have made to American society – in the arts, civic, and medical arenas, Mr. Gandhi preferred to make up commentary about Jewish aggression in the Middle East. Apparently, he won’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument. Nor does he explain why he focuses on Israel and not America.
His vitriolic diatribe maintains two points. Israel’s existence plays too much on the Holocaust and that Israel should lay down its weapons, take down its wall so it will get along well with its neighbors.
I can’t even call this anti-Semitic. It’s just horribly, horribly ignorant and misguided.
Just today the New York Times ran a front page story detailing how “Sderot…has been hit over the past four years with some 2,000 rockets of improving range and explosive power — 22 in the last eight days.”
Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t a real big fan of the Jews. He felt that we should not resist the Germans nor use force to protect Israel. That may have worked with the English. Not so good with Nazis or Muslims.
His grandson stakes out some horrible opinions:
“Apparently, in the modern world, so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept. You don’t befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity.”
But, reading the comments posted by readers are even more frightening. While I don’t feel threatened physically as a Jew in this world, I am saddened by people’s uneducated perceptions like “while Israel has WMD that we helped them get...and they use them against their enemies who have become our enemies (remember the axis of evil?).”
Not to mention the mere fact that Israel and India are close economic and military allies.
I have writers block on how to comment to these people. You?
Comments
Well written, Andrew.
I am shocked that WashPost would allow this content to be published at one of its featured blogs. Scary. Even more scary are the whacko anti-Semites who came out of the woodwork in hoards to support the post. I guess its no longer at taboo to be openly and inanely anti-Semitic—in fact it looks like its a popular sentiment these days.
Never lay down your weapons Israel, it looks like you’ll need them more than ever.
Posted by Adam R. on 01/09/08 at 05:33 PM
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