One problem that has come up in my studies is the subject of the Israel/ Palestine conflict. The more I find out about the Israeli government, the more I disagree with it. How could any government be so cruel to anyone? They make such a big deal that the holocaust will never happen again, yet they do the same things to the Palestinians that the Nazis did to the Jews - they round them up and force them into ghettos, they set off sonic grenades into school playgrounds just because some bored soldier feels like it. It's hipocrasy, is what it is.

The thing is, the Israeli government isn't just discriminatory against Palestinian Arabs, they discriminate against any Jew that isn't Askenazic (Jews of European descent). That means Iraqi Jews are still treated as second class citizens. Even other jews aren't treated the same under the government. There is a group of Jewish people in India, and they are totally Jewish, no mistake. But the government doesn't recognize them as Jewish because they don't want Indian people messing up their country. They didn't really want to recognize the Falashis (Jews from Ethiopia) and they have their civil rights infringed upon all the time. Yeah, there's justice for you. It really makes my blood boil.

But there's an even deeper problem. When I speak out against the Israeli government like this, people assume I'm anti-Semitc. This deeply disturbs me, because 1) I am part Jewish and 2) I think the word "Anti-semitic" is innacurate because Arabs are Semitic as well, and 3) Just because I think Israel's government is doing things that are morally wrong (sorry, Sharon) doesn't mean I hate Jews. I have a lot of respect for the Jewish people of the world. It just really puts me off when I meet someone who supports what the Israeli government is doing to the people.

So this puts me in a really bad situation. I'm sitting on the couch watching a Chanuka special about Jewish kids playing basketball and finding the True Meaning of Chanuka, etc, and I feel disturbed because 1) I suspect that these characters in the movie think that kicking Palestinians out of their villiages and cutting down their olive trees is a good idea and 2) I know that they would never make a holiday special about Muslim kids finding the True Meaning of Ramadan, or some Hindu kid finding out about Hari Krisha, or anything like that.

I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here. I don't hate Jews, I just don't like the Israeli government because I think it's unjust and discriminatory.