Israel has no right to exist...no nation has!

We hear often in the Israeli talking points that 'Israel has a right to exist,' and 'Israel has a right to defend herself,' which sound quite reasonable when phrased in that manner. But let us examine what that is really saying. What is being done, in a subtle manner, is to give rights normally associated with people and transfer it to an abstract state apparatus, which really only exists because people believe it does. In the second quote, it becomes less subtle that the intent is to assign human qualities to an abstraction that is neither human, nor in this case even humane; of course, the female gender is always used, in a clumsy, but effective, attempt to reinforce the victimhood of the Israeli state, which is arguably its raison d'etre. I ascribe all rights as arising from individuals and not from groups; to say otherwise would imply that some individuals would have more rights than others, by virtue of belonging to one or more groups. This sort of group-think is partly responsible for the catastrophe that is unfolding in Israel/Palestine, a catastrophe not only for the Arabs, but for the Jews as well, and all of humanity. On a personal note, I am deeply saddened by a group using the suffering of a group of people 65-70 years ago as justification for another genocide, one carried out with my forced financial support, and done partly in my name and that of my ancestors. Particularly since members of my family are survivors of genocide, I do feel that I thus have a duty to speak out when I see the same scenario unfolding again, even though some of these same members of my family and their descendants now would see me as a traitor.

Anyway, I don't expect to convince very many people with my ideas, but I have only my ideas to offer. We should all be working on constructive 'solutions' to this seemingly intractible problem, since if we do not work actively on moving toward a solution that respects life on all sides, then we are part of the problem, and must share in the blame someday by our children, who will surely ask what we did to stop genocide. I hope against hope to somehow play some small role in moving things in a direction that will not dehumanize us all, one that will hopefully prevent the 'human' race from going down a path that could conceivably lead in the not-to-distant future to its own extinction.