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Listen Up, My Jewish Cousins
You are about to relearn Israel and it is going to hurt.
I carry with me good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first? Did I hear you say ‘the bad news’? I agree, let us get that part out of the way.
To be clear, I write this to my Jewish cousins. Please look around you; I do not want anyone else peeking in on this conversation. You do recall that we are cousins, right? Stupid question, sure you do. That common patriarch of ours, Prophet Abraham, really did us in. After having two sons, Ishmael, the older, and Isaac, here we are, their descendants, barely able to have a civilized conversation, so many centuries later. You know the region’s culture and norms as well as I do; as a descendant of the older of the two, I feel an obligation to tell it to you like it is, with the caring love of cousins, of course.
Before I get on with the news, let me first be more precise about who I am directing my words to. I send this out to all of Isaac’s offspring, every Jew, as well as every Jewish community worldwide, almost. There are some exceptions.
This is not meant for that rapidly growing number of Jews who already know what I’m about to explain and have either already seen the light — think Ilan Pappe, Amira Hass, Jeff Halper, and Gideon Levy — or who are currently in this…
