F has told a relative that she does not want to receive any more forwarded jokes about the Israel/Palestine situation. She said she doesn't want anything that makes a joke of the violence, or even about the propaganda about the violence.
The networks of world wide disinformation and jokes through email is amazing. I've never really thought about the propaganda potential of forwarded attachments... not really.
I didn't even realise there were these kind of jokes going around, though I guess it makes sense, now that I come to think of it.
I was chatting with K about Israel, the problem it has, almost inherently, and about post-Holocaust Jewry. Israel is a post-Holocaust State. Not just in the fact that it was set up by the UN, in response to the Holocaust, but that the majority of its founder members were survivors of attempted genocide. Many many Jews needed a State of Israel after the Holocaust so they would never have to face a non-Jew or live in a non-Jewish world where the goverment could turn on them ever again.(see Hannah Arendt,Eichmann in Jerusalem)
These are not the principles of the State but the attitudes of some of its founders, people of the generation to which Ariel Sharron belong.
Post-Holocaust, there is 2 distinct ways that Jews face the non-Jewish world. One is the 'Don't draw any attention to yourself and they'll leave you alone' principle. Kind of blame the victim, where Jews are responsible for the levels of anti-semitism in the world. Or, if not responsible, then they can influence it by how they behave.
The other approach is the belief that the world is anti-semitic, we can't rely on anyone else to look after us so we'll do it ourselves and frankly, who cares how it appears to the rest of the world? They hate us anyhow.
To me, Ariel Sharron belongs to the latter group. All he sees is Jews dying. And he believes it is his responsibility to smash the perpetrators. He doesn't care if he pisses off George W. or the Muslim world. They hate him (and his kind) already.
For the record, I do not, in any sense, condone what Sharron is doing. I believe he is perpetrating his own set of war crimes. I am just trying to understand it.