If you prick us, do we not bleed?

The issue I put to words in my last blog had less to do with ethnic judgement and more to do with the double standard that exists among many so called “Liberal” countries. Call it my “Answer in question form” if you will.

Lately I’ve been coming to terms with my identity, both as a Jew, an Israeli and as an Israeli-Jew.

Growing up as an Anglo in Israel I was raised by my parents with strong Jewish and Western beliefs.

These beliefs all hold that any death is a tragedy.

That every death is a tragedy.

This is the core of western cultures truth is it not? the foundation, our firm belief that all life is sacred?

Then why are Israelis excluded?

When did the difference between defending yourself and Apartheid became connected much less blurred? When did we become so open-minded that our brains fell out?

The question everyone kept asking each other when I was a child was “Where were you on September Eleventh?”, that was the first time I experienced an event that unified the world, brought people together.
The world came together on 9/11 and again at the horror of the Brussels attack, the Boston Bombing, the terrible events at San Bernadino all brought moral outcry, support and empathy from around the world.
All through this I saw my friends and family suffering the exact same trouble, buses burning, orphans crying, missiles falling.

I still get a dropping sensation every time I hear a siren, even on days when I am forewarned like Holocaust remembrance day. But where was this unity when Israel suffered a wound? When our Soldiers were taken? When children are murdered in their sleep?

Is what is good for gander no longer good for goose?

Maybe it’s crazy, to be asking for a little logic in this mad world. Maybe I’m asking for too much when I ask for people to stop flinging accusations at one another long enough to see the human casualties…

and maybe even notice the Jewish ones…

I don’t claim to have some moral high ground, I’m not some saint who can stand on a hill alone casting stones. I’m just a man wondering why people keep saying life is sacred and then casually ignoring it. I’m just a man confused by Hypocrisy.

Why are we so different because we are Jewish? Because we are Israeli or perhaps it’s Both?

As an Israeli Jew I find myself yearning for that answer, yearning to be understood, for some logic to take hold and people to remove the scales from their eyes, but all I see on western media is more blind anger towards Israel. More spite.

Again I find myself forced to ask the world a question, although this one is far older than myself and has been asked by men far greater but received no proper nor fair answer:

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?”