You know how it is. There you are walking along the road, your head miles away, and the corner of your eye picks up a pattern.
Well, there I was, approaching a local roundabout when my brain registered a Star of David on the ground at one of the approaches. There is, however, only one triangle here. The other one is merely suggested by the middle of a corrupted YIELD sign.
The symbolism was overwhelming.
I am tempted to stop writing now, and let the picture just speak for itself. But I feel some little interpretation is required to avoid landing myself in serious international trouble.
I say Jews in the title of this post. Not Israelis, not Zionists. These last categories are already past the crossroads phase. They have already crossed. They have chosen. And the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank are a testimony to that shameful choice.
The challenge is now for Jews of good faith to bear witness. Do they support the war-mongering Israeli state in its illegal oppression and collective punishment of the Palestinians, or are they willing to shout stop and work to cut off financial and military support to Israel.
That is the message of my simple roundabout, which, after all, was originally built to accommodate the seamless merging of traffic from all directions.
On re-reading the above post I think some qualifications are in order.
ReplyDeleteNot all Israelis support the genocidal policy of their government, but that government is effectively elected by a majority.
It is not always incumbent on members of an ethnic or other group to come out denouncing the actions of some of its headbangers. However, when the headbangers claim to act in their name and when the group as a whole is in danger of being tagged or stereotyped as a result, it is a help to those outside the group who are attempting to support them to be able to refer to such denunciations.
I am thinking here today in particular of the Charlie Hebdo affair of last week. It is not fair to the rest of the world to leave the field to those who claim that Islam is a warmongering religion which demands destruction of the Infidel.