A Boxing Day Reply to a Friendly Reader about Israel

He wrote, "F*** You!" so I wrote him back

Friends,

Thank you so much to all of you who read my Christmas/First night of Hanukkah Substack last night or this morning. Most of the mail I get from Jewish Americans is filled with much sadness and is supportive of what I'm writing. A few are not. One of the most frequent angry letters I get is like this one from last night, and they are often as brief:

I decided to write Aron back and am sharing my response to him with you…

Dear Aron -

Because you’re smart and you know the truth, one day you will write to me and say you are sorry for sending me this on Christmas. But you don’t have to. You wrote me this note because you were upset. You were assured by many people throughout the years that Israel would always be there as a place of refuge and safety for you. And that we non-Jews would always be there to protect you, protect Israel and ensure that never again would there be another Holocaust perpetrated upon the Jewish people of this planet.

But never in a million years did we think that the greatest threat to Israel would be its own leader who would not only turn to fascism and genocide, but he would actually see to it that Hamas received secret funding in the billions of dollars — and that he, Benjamin Netanyahu, would pull the Israeli army back from the Gazan border in the days before October 7, 2023 — and leave thousands of Israelis unprotected in their kibbutzim thus making it possible for Hamas to attack these unprotected Israeli areas. And while these innocent Israeli citizens were being massacred, their cries and phone calls to Israeli police and authorities went unanswered — some for up to 14 hours! — as they desperately tried to fend off the attack. I know people who live in these kibbutzim, an area full of peaceniks and anti-Netanyahu sentiment. Netanyahu’s criminal activities had months earlier led to his multiple felony indictments — and he was scheduled to stand trial just weeks after the slaughter. This preventable Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli-staged one-sided "war" was just what Netanyahu needed to halt all proceedings against him, to declare a sort of martial law to distract the citizenry, and to form a new “War Council” that would rule Israel and do something his right-wing Likud coalition had wanted to do for decades: Conduct a full scale annihilation and/or forced removal of the Palestinian people in Gaza — complete with carpet bombing the areas where 240 Israeli hostages were being held! Who would bomb and kill their own people? Half of those hostages are now dead!

The whole thing is sick. It’s utter madness! Aron, you will reluctantly realize this some day. That the Israel that was supposed to last forever came to be something else, not at the hands of terrorists or its sworn enemies, but rather at the hands of its own leader and his cabal of fascists, right-wingers, ethnic cleansers, religious fanatics and their American Christian nationalist allies — the Original Masters of Genocide: The U.S. military-industrial complex.

Aron, I want you to know that when you do get this all figured out I will be here as your ally and friend — and grateful to you and your ancestors who for many millennia provided a powerful moral compass to the world insofar as how we should live our best lives and how we must all stand for justice and conscience. Thank you for writing me on this first night of Hanukkah. You’ve made me realize that to help save and protect my Jewish sisters and brothers, I must say more and perhaps share what I've learned from my Jewish friends over the years, from my travels to Israel and Palestine, from the people I've met by belonging to Jewish Voice for Peace, and perhaps a few personal stories, including the one of my niece’s bat mitzvah at Masada where a rabbi assured me in advance that all of us jumping off the cliff would not be part of the ceremony.

Michael

(Hebrew for “he who is like G-d”. Nice.)

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

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