Today in Israel is Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s official remembrance day dedicated to fallen soldiers, and civilian victims of terrorism (numbering 23,928 and 3,158 respectively).
A group called Combatants for Peace have bastardized the day, injecting a memorial for palestinian Arabs killed by Israelis (which would necessarily include actual terrorists) into proceedings.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for peace and understanding. But I find it highly offensive to somehow draw this equivalence. And for a people always accusing us of co-opting things from them, they sure are trigger-happy (for want of a better expression) when it comes to co-opting things from us.
If they want to have their own day, let them. But let us grieve and mourn for those they have killed.
Having said all this, Combatants for Peace held an online ceremony last night Israel time, with a guest appearance by actor Richard Gere, looking rather frail. He spoke for a few minutes, and I was sure he was going to urge us all to get together and sing Kumbaya.
But for all of this fluff, I found these words of his to be rather ominous, as if justifying terrorism:
He really is like a palestinian-supporting gerbils Goebbels.
