Israel Turning 60

As Israel reaches its 60th anniversary, we really have nothing to celebrate. Anti-Semitism is as present as it ever was. Instead of providing protection for Jews, Israel has lulled us into a false sense of security. People still hate Jews and now they have a new justification: the actions of the state of Israel.

Anyone who criticizes Israel's actions is called anti-Semitic. There are certainly anti-Semites who criticize Israel, but this blanket accusation gives them cover. We must listen to the criticism and then decide who is bigoted and who is simply a critic.

After 60 years, we care more about the state of Israel than for our people. The most important sentiment should be the well-being of the Jewish people, separate from that of Israel. If anything, Israel's military actions and racism has exacerbated anti-Semitism across the world instead of softening it. We need to change our attitudes towards Arabs and Muslims. We need to strengthen relations with those groups and we need to hold a bit more skepticism towards Zionist Christian fundamentalists.

We need to learn from our tortured history. We have known repression. We should have learned better instead of using this turn of history to repress others. Hopefully at some point we will learn the hard lessons of the last 60 years.