Peace in Our Time

This week the Israeli court came to the preconceived conclusion that the Zionist state had nothing to do with the 2003 bulldozing death of US activist Rachel Corrie, thus ending her parents' long fight to force the apartheid state to admit guilt. The Corrie family was seeking $1 plus legal expenses in damages. The BBC reported that Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev said, "It's clear by the Corrie family's own expert - they nominated an expert to come to the court - he himself, their representative, said that it was impossible for the driver to see her." Israel also scored big at the GOP convention with various Republican speakers extolling the virtues of our ally in the Mideast and vowing to aid the country in its endeavors to stop Iran from attaining nuclear capabilities. Senator John McCain expressed the party line best by saying, “We can’t afford to stay on that course any longer. We can’t afford to cause our friends and allies – from Latin America to Asia, Europe to the Middle East, and especially in Israel, a nation under existential threat – to doubt America’s leadership.” According to Wikipedia Existentialism holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together do not suffice to understand human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence. The facts have nothing to do with Israel's fear of Iran and neither does Sartre or Camus, for Dawlat Isrāʼīl can only exist in a constant state of war in order to protect itself from the real and the imaginary.

Of course the only true peace available for Israel is a retreat to the 1938 borders, but no one in Israel is contemplating this destiny. After all their lease is written by Yahweh. For ever and ever.

My Uncle Carmine had the best solution for the Middle East, which also solved the Cuba Question for the USA.

"What we do is propose normalization of relations with Cuba. We call off the embargo and offered Castro a major league franchise, but only on the condition that he change the name of Havana to Miami, so all the Cubans in Florida move back to Cuba, then we change the name of Miami to Jerusalem and get Disney to built a new Israel, so the Chosen People can live in peace in the Promised Land. What could be more simple?"

I do miss Uncle Carmine.