My opening salvo

I took a while considering what topic my first blog post on the Times of Israel should be. After all, there are a million things that need addressing and I’m determined to address them. I’ve been a long time commenter on the blogs here and have admired those that take the energy to put their thoughts, feelings and analysis into a published document. The resulting mayhem that ensues for many of the posts in the comment section certainly require at minimum a thick skin on the part of the author. So I’ve grown a few more layers and am ready to take my fair share of abuse, while hopefully bringing a few minds around to a different point of view.

What took me so long to join the party? Well, it takes a while to get the “lay of the land” and after 4 years of living here I feel I’m ready to add my two cents. The incidents in my life of the last two weeks have pushed me to try to do more. I’m not under any illusion that I’m going to write about a subject and have any mass reaction to it, however, I just may be able to move a few people in the right direction and get them to do what they can also. It begins with one person. I am that person, we all are.

Two weeks ago I finally made it up to Har Habayit (Temple Mount). What I experienced there will be the subject of another post, but it had an impact on me. Then came the brutal murder of Eden Atias by a member of our “partners for peace”. That pretty much did it for me. I was very angry and it showed in my comments in several posts here in the TOI. The real anger wasn’t with his killer. We should deal with him justly, by executing him, after his trial and conviction of course. The real anger was with us. Our actions in the world today perpetuate this idiocy.

Now most of you that have not had any interaction with me are probably thinking that I’m going to go off on the well worn “it’s the occupation” mantra. You couldn’t be further from the truth. And that lack of truth is exactly what the problem is. We don’t tell the truth to the world, we don’t tell the truth to our enemies (yes, enemies – there’s the truth for you) and we don’t tell the truth to ourselves. I will expand on this idea of truth in future posts.

As a parting shot to our shared bane on these blogs – I spoke with your paymasters and convinced them to whitelist my blog so you don’t have to come troll here. See, I’m helping the world already!