Michael Shine – HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY THE SAME THING BEFORE THE WORLD HEARS?
I was brought up and lived most of my life in the UK. I was, and am, quite unpolitical, agreeing with many of the sentiments that came from both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ of the political spectrum, and if they are honest, many of my contemporaries were pretty much the same as me. Being Jewish was a matter of pride in a people that I belonged to, but not much more, and I firmly believed in ‘ Live and Let Live’ as a basic rule for living in harmony with my neighbours.
This attitude to life has served me relatively well but I now find myself questioning it. How does one live in harmony with neighbours that want me dead? How does one live in harmony with neighbours, whose children, from a very early age, are taught to hate me, to injure or kill me if they can, and to, by whatever means they can, get me to leave my home which I have every legal right to live in.
Now, these very same neighbours have enlisted the help of people that I once considered to be my friends. Friends who in the past had acknowledged my right to live where I live in peace because they knew that where I lived has been bought and paid for, and that generations of my forebears had lived here before me, but now, those once friends have forgotten all that went before and have decided to help my neighbours because it has become politically correct (for those whose world opinion seems to be entrenched in the ‘left’) to do so and because that political left has decided that the people to whom I belong, i.e. the Jewish people, should not have the rights that all other people, wherever they are, have, that is, to exist and live in Peace.
Not too far from where I live there is an area of land (Judea & Samaria) that never belonged to anyone other than my original forebears, but had been promised to me and mine again by my then friends and acquaintances, but in 1948, after a fight, was taken over by another belligerent neighbour (Jordan) and was controlled by him until 1967, when, after a fight which he forced on me and that I did not want, I, and my people, managed to get back under our control. We have controlled it since then and lot of our people have moved there and made it into quite a nice area to live in. But those ex-friends, the ones who once were 100% in favour of me and mine having that area that had always been considered to be the birthplace of me and my people have erroneously decided that I have no history there and I should move out and give it back to the belligerent neighbour that stole it in 1948.
My people and I have multiplied since 1948 and have become stronger. We still would rather have peace than war. We want to live in Peace and bring up our children in peace as well. But our neighbours? They still want to kill me and my people. Instead of teaching their children how to live and prosper in peace, all they do is continue to teach their children hate and instill in them the desire to kill me and mine.
Although I firmly believe that the piece of land called Judea & Samaria rightly belongs to me and mine, I, and many like me, would be happy, no, ecstatic, to give some, if not all of it to those same neighbours who want to kill me, if only they would accept that I have the right to exist and live in my home in peace.
The problem is, and always has been, that they hate me and want me gone – and me, I still hope that one day they will come to understand that they could have a better life for themselves and their children if only they could get away from their hate.
