Words of the Week

Another week has begun; here is another installment of words I am compelled to share with you.

From Elliott Hamilton’s “Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook,” on The Times of Israel:
“It should not be politically correct to give anti-Semites a voice and an outlet to call for murdering Jews. It should not be acceptable for a social media service to allow such blatant Jew-hatred, or any hatred for that matter. This is not a matter of allowing open dialogue and fruitful discussions on a conflict that has troubled the region for decades; this is a matter of common decency and human dignity….

So Mark Zuckerberg, if you read this letter, I hope that you take my words to heart and do the courageous thing. Do the humane thing. Do the right thing. Remove all Facebook pages that call for the death of the Jewish people.”
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From Liel Leibovitz, in the first of Tablet’s “Ding-Dong Derby” posts:
“Enough. All reporters make mistakes sometimes, and we all occasionally churn out stuff of which we’re not exactly proud. But the Ding-Dongs go way past that. They have allowed their basic sense of morality, their basic capacity to observe and analyze reality, to atrophy. They should therefore not be taken seriously, now or at any later date, about Israel or any other topic. We cannot afford their complacency, laziness, and sheer mindlessness. We give you, then, the Ding-Dong Derby, a weekly round-up of the worst of the worst.”
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From Philip Gourevitch’s “An Honest Voice in Israel,” on NewYorker.com (NB: As Gourevitch makes clear, the “honest voice” in this piece belongs to Amos Oz, in an interview we have previously spotlighted here–not to Rashid Khalidi):
“Khalidi…hasn’t got a bad word for Hamas. He says, ‘We might not like Hamas or some of its methods, but that is not the same as accepting the proposition that Palestinians should supinely accept the denial of their right to exist as a free people in their ancestral homeland.’ Right—of course it’s not the same. But that doesn’t negate the fact that Hamas doesn’t accept, or even nominally recognize, the right of Israelis to exist as a free people. As Khalidi says, we should pay attention when Netanyahu tells Israelis about controlling their security on the West Bank. So shouldn’t we also listen when Hamas tells Palestinians that they should never accept the existence of Israel—and that victory will not come until they have wiped out not only the Jewish state but all the Jews?”
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From Michael Oren’s “In Defense of Zionism,” in The Wall Street Journal
“Never mind that the Jews were natives of the land—its Arabic place names reveal Hebrew palimpsests—millennia before the Palestinians or the rise of Palestinian nationalism. Never mind that in 1937, 1947, 2000 and 2008, the Palestinians received offers to divide the land and rejected them, usually with violence. And never mind that the majority of Zionism’s adherents today still stand ready to share their patrimony in return for recognition of Jewish statehood and peace.

The response to date has been, at best, a refusal to remain at the negotiating table or, at worst, war. But Israelis refuse to relinquish the hope of resuming negotiations with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. To live in peace and security with our Palestinian neighbors remains the Zionist dream.”
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Galaito Kasahun, widow of Sgt.-Maj. Baynesain Kasahun (z”l), quoted in “Newborn Baby Will Never Meet Fallen IDF Soldier Father,” Ynet:
“‘I don’t know how to go on from here. It will be difficult. Nothing can fill the void, the gap that has been created. But God willing it will be fine.'”
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