I confess, I spend too much time in the bathroom. On the loo, specifically. This was something that probably started when I had a bunch of little kids invading my every speck of personal space, using my body as a hangout and snack bar, not to mention overusing my role as general purveyor of food, entertainment and transport, sometimes 24/7. So where does one retreat in order to be away from the clamour and the needs of others? Where is there someplace private but not too far away, a place where there is peace but not so distant that I could respond in an instant to any cry of distress, like a superheroine, pulling up her tights in a microsecond? Right, you got it. (Although it would only be a few minutes before they started pounding on the door.)
Now the kids are grown and married and no longer noodging me in quite the same way, I guess I don't really need to retreat into the throne room, but there is a definite peaceful place there. And I can think. I can let the house phone go to voicemail. I can reflect on the state of the world.
AND I can be a cyber-warrior.
Yes, when I take my phone in to the loo with me, I do play Words with Friends. I do. And Scramble. Not as much, but I need the sound on to play well, and all the cheering ('Excellent!' 'Genius!') annoys my spouse no end, so it's only natural that I make myself scarce.
But what I really do a lot of is fight for Israel. My right thumb is powerful.
I am so horrified by the blatant open raw anti-Semitism that flies around cyberspace, I can't let it go. And it is a real education in the fact that being anti-Israel is actually exactly the same, but exactly, as being anti-Semitic. And in this I include many Jews; I'm looking at you, JVP (Jewish Voices for Peace). Martin Luther King Jr famously said that anti-Zionism was anti-Semitism, and he was right.
Every anti-Israel demonstration without exception, references Nazis and blood libels. There's really nothing more to say. If people can parade around with placards and banners displaying mockups of the Israeli flag with the Star replaced by a swastika, they are anti-Semites. Hitler didn't fight against Israel: his war was against the Jews. Ergo, any reference to Hitler in any forum pretending to be about feeling sorry for Palestinians, is actually raw, blatant anti-Semitism. The End. And anyone who marches with such folk while holding their own dumb placards ('Free Gaza!' Idiot, Israel withdrew in 2005, why don't you finish the sentence? 'Free Gaza- from Hamas!' would actually make sense.) is a fellow traveller and thus an anti-Semite too. Yes, Ms Lee Rhiannon, Greens senator for NSW, with your made-up surname, I'm talking about you, marching away there in Sydney, maybe no placard, but plenty of talk about Israel's war crimes. And all around you, swastikas and Holocaust references.
Today was the 17th of Tammuz, a fast day which commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple, and the beginning of the 3 weeks of mourning, culminating in the fast day of Tisha B'Av. These are sad and difficult times, and have been for 2,000 years. As I have said before, the recognition of these dates and the commemoration by fasting and mourning practices proves the deep and true link that the Jews have with Jerusalem; the mourning for the loss of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel, in Judea and Samaria, in Jerusalem, is real. It is not propaganda, it is not manufactured, and if every Jew knew this, then we would be united in our desire to be in Israel, with Israel, and not be like these self-hating idiots of the JVP, and other groups. We would not be parroting those phrases 'Occupied West Bank' and 'Arab East Jerusalem' and all those weasel words which undermine our sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael.
Words have power. And, here's the thing, if anyone was occupying Yehuda-Shomron, it was Jordan, (manufactured after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by the British Mandate), which occupied it until 1967. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1948 until 1967; where were the cries of 'Free Gaza' then? Of course there weren't any, there was no Palestine and no Palestinians: there were Arabs and not that many. The population of Arabs rose in Israel from the minute Jews started buying land there in the 19th century; Arabs came from all over, for jobs and a better life in that backwater of the Ottoman Empire. And there was always a Jewish presence in Jerusalem, until the Jordanians came and kicked out the Jews in 1948. Suddenly it was 'Arab East Jerusalem', or better still, 'Historic Arab East Jerusalem', my arse. And let us not forget the pogrom in Hevron in 1929, where Arabs turned on their Jewish neighbours and killed 67 Jews. What 'occupation'? There was no Israel then; a Palestinian was a Jew who lived in Ottoman or British Palestine. My grandfather was a Palestinian.
I could go on and on about this stuff, I'm quite a bore. And I'm trying to educate a fence-sitter or a well-meaning ignoramus from time to time, because you can't educate an anti-Semite. A Hater will always find a reason to hate.
So I sit in a quiet, small room, my thumbs flying on my phone, trying to refute the egregious lies of the 'Palestinian Narrative', which have replaced historic truth in most people's minds, and frees some of them to spew the worst hate-speech and anti-Semitic slurs imaginable. Come to think of it, a toilet is the best seat in the house from which to be reading that shit.
At this time, as Operation 'Protective Edge' seems to be heading towards some sort of cease-fire, despite the persistence of Hamas' missile attacks, let us pray that Hashem will protect the People of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF who risk their lives to protect the people. We all want peace, but it's hard when the other side just wants Israel destroyed and all Jews killed, isn't it. Let this coming Tisha B'Av be transformed into a joyous Yom Tov, let there be a true and lasting peace brought by the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, now.
Disclaimer: The above post was written on a laptop while seated at a desk. Germophobes have nothing to fear from reading it.
