An open letter to Russell Brand

Russell Brand. Source: Wikimedia

I never met you Mr. Brand.

I saw you in a bunch of silly movies, and thought you were a pretty decent actor, quite funny actually. You’ve got some personal problems and you’ve struggled with alcohol addiction, but like every good Hollywood movie the story has a happy ending.

Unfortunately, your acting skills do not yet deem you qualified to make any sort of educated statement regarding the Middle East conflict. You see, things don’t always have such happy endings the way they do in the films you act in – in real life there is no stuntman to take the hits for you each time the going gets tough.

You want some sad examples? Think of the hundreds of thousands who have been killed in Syria over the last couple of years. Or of the 3 million girls worldwide currently subjected to the threat of genital mutilation.

Please sir, step down from the comfy chair you are sitting on, in what I can only assume is a gold-plated ivory tower, and come join the residents of Sderot for just one afternoon.

Hopefully that has sobered you up a bit, so we can proceed in this discussion without belittling the gravity of the situation, as you are often wont to do. In your video, you try to explain away Hama’s rockets, tunnels and terror tactics as just being part of “their language”.

Really Mister Brand? A language? I thought language was about communication. Is killing people a form of communication? Is it a good way to bring peace?

You chastise Sean Hannity in your video for raising a figure at the beginning of his debate. If this is not civilized conversation in your eyes, where does repeated attempted murder fit in?

I want to share with your how “their language” has become a nightmare for us, three and half million Israeli civilians currently under rocket fire. We would run for the bomb shelters every day, and have only 15 seconds to get there. People getting killed. Schools, houses, playgrounds getting hit with explosive missiles. This is the “language” of Hamas.

Sderot is the bomb shelter capital of the world because of this “language”. If the 12,000 missiles had already been launched at your home, would you still refer to this as a language? A “pinprick”, as you refer to it?

Hamas deliberately targets civilians. They hope to sow chaos, terror and fear amongst Israeli citizens. They seek to accomplish their goals by killing the women, children, and the elderly.

In the English language, this is called terror, and as far as I know, terror is not a language. And if it is a language, Mr. Brand, it is not one that you have ever heard spoken. You do not understand the language of terror because you have no idea how miserable life under rocket fire can become.

So please sir, step down from the comfy chair you are sitting on, in what I can only assume is a gold-plated ivory tower, and come join the residents of Sderot for just one afternoon.

After that, we can keep on discussing this language of terror, if you still want to call it that.