Peace not Apartheid
(Cross-posted on my main blog.)
Today I’ve seen a number of statuses pop up on Facebook regarding Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s official Memorial Day. The wording of a lot of these status confused me, and left me wondering: why do we celebrate holidays in which we thank people for dying, rather than mourning their loss? Yom Hazikaron is a day that, like patriotic holidays in the US, teach us to honor martyrdom and war–it upholds those killed in brutal, senseless wars as heroes, and turns those victims into national blood sacrifices. Today I commemorate the loss of Israelis and Palestinians alike–but I will not post a Facebook status or blog thanking soldiers for dying in defense of a Jewish homeland, nor will I pretend those lives are any more important than Palestinian lives.
If Jewish tradition mandates an obligation to save and preserve life, there is no true Jewish state as long as Palestine is occupied.
