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After reading Anne's analysis, I replied back to Elliot that I felt it was a reaction of a paranoid right winger suffering from a persecution complex. To me Obama merely stated that it was undeniable that Palestinians had suffered, not that their plight was equal to that of the Holocaust. As any talented speaker should do he tailored his speech to his audience. But I believe he did it without sacrificing the truth.
Elliot then responded with this:
“John, I don’t disagree with you. Sometimes, it pays to be paranoid. And when someone tells you over and over that they want to kill you, you should listen.
One more thing, John, please remember that everything we think we understand comes from the mental models that make up our world. I am a paranoid Jew (sometimes) because 11 of my grandmother’s 13 siblings were killed in the Holocaust. No one believed that Hitler really meant what he said – or inferred before he actually said what he planned to do. My children don’t have the visceral memory that I do – and the pain that my grandmother felt every day of her life after the Holocaust.
It is important to keep all pieces of this, including the suffering of the Palestinians, in perspective.
My prayer is that President Obama does not have a Machiavellian plan in mind – one that really will sell Israel down the drain. I don’t believe that – but I will be vigilant in my assessments.
Elliot
Those of us who have no frame of reference for matters like the Holocaust or Palestinian displacement just can't relate. Yet we all have a huge stake in this conflict. There will never be peace for the U.S. until there is peace in the Holy Land. We can only try to understand and I am sooooo trying to understand how supposed people of faith can speak and act in such hateful and violent ways and even use their faith to justify it. But I just can’t seem to get there.
My perspective on these dichotomal essays comes from my middle class, white, American place in society. I see both Obama’s speech and Mr. Gershensen’s analysis as thoughtful, insightful, and balanced. I see Ms. Bayefsky’s views as coming from a perspective that is suspicious and skeptical at best, hateful and vengeful at worst, leading to an uncompromising position that negates the possibility of coming to any peace conference with an open mind.
Perhaps I can sum this up with this simple quote from an unknown source: “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” Unfortunately, realizing that will not bring us peace either.
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