Open Letter to Israel

                     

I am an American woman and U.S. citizen – a staunch supporter of Israel. 

I’ve admired the Israeli people for years -- long after I got over my teenage infatuation with Ari ben Canaan (Exodus, 1958).  For years, I fervently believed in the courage and fearlessness of the early underground, Haganah (IDF), the inherent romantic ideal of the Sabra and the immensely sensible structure of the Kibbutzim.  

Your people brought forth a veritable garden from the dry and rocky Negev Desert.  You elected the miraculously astute Golda Meir as your Prime Minister long before most countries would take their women seriously as political leaders.  And, you allowed your women to fight.  This is a country to be proud of, I remember thinking – you were resourceful, brainy and courageous.

But then, you elected Benjamin Netanyahu as your Prime Minister and I began to doubt.  Netanyahu appears to have no desire for the peace process.  I believe that he hates the Arabs and thinks the only thing they understand is force; to wit, the long-standing wars and the continued illegal settlements. He is pompous, he is arrogant; he is a destroyer, not a builder.  

I have come to despise his muscle-flexing and his interminable fear-mongering over Iran.

And now, after his duplicitous behavior in concert with our Speaker of the House of Representatives, I believe he is not only careless, by his reckless interference in our political system, but is a danger to our country as well as yours.

Bradley Burston in a recent piece in Ha’aretz, says of your prime minister  “. . . he has poisoned his country. Israel is broken and battered and weak with fear... His legacy is decay."

If you re-elect Benjamin Netanyahu, he and his bellicose defense minister, Avignor Lieberman could take us ALL to war with Iran, as we Americans will never be far from our greatest ally -- you. However, I do not want more war and I do not believe that the majority of your people want war. 

And that is why I feel I must speak to you.  I do not wish to interfere in the internal politics of Israel – I speak only because your decision has a direct bearing on my life and the lives of my children.

Please do not allow Benjamin Netanyahu and his war-mongering party this opportunity. Please remind me and the rest of the world that Israel is made of sterner stuff.  Show us the gutsy, courageous and dynamic people you have always been.    

Make the change!