The Massacres of 1929 and 2001

Where were you August 9th, 2001? Most don't remember. Myself, I was attempting to return a rental cellphone because I was flying back to the United States from Israel that night. I couldn't return the phone because it was a little store five minutes walk away from Jaffa street where the pizza store, Sbarros, had just been bombed. The area had been closed off. Ultimately, a friend returned it for me the next day.

I didn't know the extent of the devastation until I returned to the States. Thankfully I hadn't thought to have a slice of pizza before I returned the phone. To look at these faces, the names, the ages. An entire family wiped out. These innocent people in the "wrong place" enjoying their food. These men, women and children - all people the murderer saw clearly with his own eyes - and then went ahead and murdered them anyway. Their young lives cut short because of a monster. Not a monster of a horror flick, but something much worse.

72 years ago, also this month, there was another massacre. 67 Jews murdered in Hebron in 1929. King David's first capital city before moving it to Jerusalem. Again, Jewish men, women and children murdered - by their neighbors. People they lived among, whom they trusted.

1929. Before the 1967 Israeli "occupation" of the Jewish land of Judea and Samaria. Before 1948, the establishment of the Jewish State on ancient Jewish lands. A time when both Jew and Arab were called "Palestinians" because they lived in British Mandated "Palestine", which included both what is now the countries of Israel and Jordan.

What's the difference between the two massacres years apart? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Innocent Jewish souls living their lives. The Hebron massacre wipes away all pretense. Jews are murdered simply because they are Jews. Not because of "nationalism" or some other hollow excuse for murder.

Call these murderers "monsters". Real-life monsters. That's what they are. Celebrating in the streets every time another Jew is wiped out. Handing out candy and dancing. Rewarded with cash... every Jew has a price on his head. Teaching their children to hate and murder. Happier to destroy than to build a future.

How do you make peace with monsters who celebrate your demise?

You can't and you don't.

President Trump and the North Korean "Crisis"

North Korea is a disaster and an embarrassment to the world community. The fact that such a terrible, dictatorial regime is still in place after so many years - where millions live without dignity, or at the least, basic human rights - should leave everyone at the United Nations, (where they pretend to care about human rights), hiding their collective heads in shame.

Now, all of a sudden, there's a crisis. President Trump has decided to call their bluff. Instead of ignoring the long-range missile tests, he's decided to send a nuclear submarine to South Korea to give a strong show of support for our ally. A show of support that we and the world haven't seen for years.

News stations talk of a "crisis". Our generation's "Cuban missile crisis" - who will blink first? But what's the true crisis here? That we will have World War 3 on our hands? No. Rather, the crisis should center on the lack of action on behalf of the North Korean people. A people enslaved and slaughtered on the capricious whims of the government - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - the name itself is a cruel joke on those who live there.

This week we spent time memorializing the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, both exterminations of millions of people - the mass murders that happened while the World watched and sat on their hands. Instead of gnashing our teeth and wringing our hands over what will happen next on the Korean peninsula - while the situation is certainly different, we must wonder how things might have turned out better for the Jews and Armenians if the world powers at the time would have shown some backbone and perhaps a show of force on their behalf. And perhaps, we will learn from history this time...