A Message To My Beloved Israel

Oh my beloved Israel! You could be a beacon of hope to all of mankind, as a magnificent example of what peace, love, forgiveness and charity could accomplish. Your rebirth was the culmination of a dream in the hearts of the Jewish people, a dream we as Jews carried with us for nearly 2,000 years.

Born from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, one of the worst calamities ever inflicted upon a people, you welcomed the horrifically traumatized remnants of European Jews and to those who came, you gave them a home. And you began to build what now is one of the most technologically and scientifically advanced societies in the world. What you have accomplished against incredible odds make Jewish people throughout the world proud of you and proud to be Jewish.

But my dear Israel, while claiming it was necessary to defend yourself from your enemies, you also created one of the world's most powerful and lethal military states, heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. And what do you do with those weapons? You threaten to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, a strike which could have terrible, even unintended consequences, under the unsubstantiated premise Iran may create a nuclear weapon.

In response to Iran, are you willing to commit your own form of Holocaust, your own Hiroshima or Nagasaki? What if tomorrow your enemy is not Iran but some other nation? Would you also target them for the full brunt of your wrath?

And my dear Israel, what about the Palestinian men, women and children? Are they not entitled to statehood, much as you were in 1948? You say the Palestinians don't negotiate in good faith, even as you build new settlements in their territories and find reasons to evict them from east Jerusalem.

By far, your biggest threat is not from outside but from within, by responding in bitterness and fear. Oh Israel! You could become such a great nation, one whose actions capture the imaginations of all of mankind and are emulated throughout the world if only you will see the light of love burning brightly before you. If you believe Jews are God's "Chosen People," you must live that premise by your actions, being the living embodiment of the magnificence of God, as you touch the hearts of God's children everywhere.

Dick