israel and crazy horse

This may be a crazy perspective but I am going to talk about Israel … and Crazy Horse. Not just so I can type something because I am bored but I actually have a point for my readers to think about.

I have been thinking about Israel and with everything happening in the Middle East and the fact Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon I know there has been a lot of discussion about Israel … and their aggressiveness to proactively <sometimes> protect themselves.

Now.

I believe it is difficult for Americans to grasp the Israel situation because our country is isolated by miles of water on two sides with cheap labor on another side and the world’s nicest people <and some Moose> on the other.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by people, on all borders, who, at minimum, would prefer you not being there and, at maximum, would like to eliminate you from the earth.

Oh. And many of them with guns & rockets.

What I do know is that I am not Jewish so I could never understand the cultural core within Judaism and the spiritual tie to the region.

What I do know is the Jewish people have forged something strong enough to withstand consistent attempts at genocide for thousands of years. And I do know it is stronger than simple borders of a country. And yet … the country … and its holy sites are also stronger than simply symbols.

I also know as I thought about Israel somewhere in my pea-like brain I began thinking about the American Indians.

It probably began when I saw this quote in National Geographic:

“They tried extermination, they tried assimilation, they broke every treaty they had with us, they took away our horses, they outlawed our language, they made our ceremonies forbidden. And yet our ceremonies survived, our language survived.” – Alex White Plume (Oglala Lakota/Sioux)

And, no, I am not an American Indian (native American, Sioux, Iroquois, whatever) and therefore could never presume to understand the true essence of their cultural being.

Yet.

I thought of both as I read a National Geographic article and had a long complex discussion with a friend about Israel and Palestine and the Middle East in general.

Rather than blather on in my own words let me just place a number of quotations from a variety of people and let you think about it a little as you read:

“We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis. There will be no place they are safe … intend to murder jews wherever they are, they will be safe no place.” Hossein Safiadeen told a conference that included the Tehran-based representative of the Palestinian group Hamas and the ambassadors from Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.

“The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like the white men – go to farming, work hard and do as they did – and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway….If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same with many Indians.” – Wamditanka (Big Eagle) of the Santee Sioux

Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Iran’s chief of state, also known as the supreme leader – “The fake Zionist government is a cancerous tumor and the cause of different diseases and political, economic calamity in the region … it is a cancerous tumor that must be removed … Israel is ‘an infidel that should be warred against.’ ”

In 1807, Thomas Jefferson said:  “And … if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or is driven beyond the Mississippi … in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them”.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative.” –Golda Meir, Israeli politician, prime minister

“Whole Indian Nations have melted away like snowballs in the sun before the white man’s advance. They leave scarcely a name of our people except those wrongly recorded by their destroyers. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Tsalagi (Cherokee) land. They wish to have that usurpation sanctioned by treaty. When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Cherokees. New cessions will be asked. Finally the whole country, which the Cherokees and their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of the Ani Yvwiya, The Real People, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the Cherokees, the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed. Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than to submit to further loss of our country? Such treaties may be alright for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will hold our land.” -Dragging Canoe, Chickamauga Tsalagi

It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” – Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League

“We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation where we were driven against our will. We preferred our own way of living … all we wanted was peace and to be left alone.” – Crazy Horse

The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.” – Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister

(testifying to the commission in 1891 after Wounded Knee – 12/29/1890 event)

“There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce … of course it would have been alright if only the men were killed … we would almost feel grateful for it. But the fact of killing of women, and more especially the killing of the young boys and girls who are going to make up the future strength of the Indian people, is the saddest part of the whole affair and we feel it very sorely.” – Oglala leader American Horse

Lastly.

In 1980 the US Supreme Court awarded $106million to the Sioux as reparations for the Black Hills. The Sioux rejected it. They insist the Black Hills will never be for sale. The Sioux asked everyone to think of this insult. Mt. Rushmore is in the Black Hills. “The leaders who broke every promise and every treaty with my people have their faces carved in our most holy place.”

My point in including this last quote was to say that a holy place has no price, in terms of dollars, I would assume it can only be measured in blood if it can not be bought but only taken.

So.

I imagine I have offended a number of people with this post as well as probably shown some naiveté in some form or fashion. I apologize. But I don’t apologize for making anyone think. Maybe open their mind up to different perspectives.

Every day I look around the world, and before I open my pie hole, I try and put myself in their shoes. I know it isn’t really possible but there has to be some value in the attempt.

Anyway.

Israel.

But, in the end, after all the religious & holy & statesmanship words … I believe Crazy Horse summed up why I thought about Israel and the Indians when he said … “We preferred our own way of living … all we wanted was peace and to be left alone.” – Crazy Horse

Isn’t that all Israel is asking?

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Written by Bruce