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Knesset Members from Across the Spectrum View the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

(Las Vegas Review-Journal) Ira Stoll - A group of members of Israel's Knesset, visiting a Boston-area synagogue, were asked, "I want to know what you are doing to make peace with the Palestinians....Where is the compassion and the justice?" Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin of the Zionist Union (formerly Labor) party recalled that her first childhood memory was of an alarm going off marking the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. And now, "my children's first memory is the alarm going up and down in Tel Aviv because of the missiles going over...from Gaza." As for the Palestinians killed in Gaza, Nahmias-Verbin told the questioner that they had been used as civilian shields by Hamas. "So please take a deep breath before being so judgmental." Rachel Azaria of Kulanu, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, responded: "My four children are going to join the army. It terrifies me. To think that we enjoy living with terror, and enjoy living with our rifles? We hate it, we all hate it....When you are thousands of miles away, it looks simple, and it is not. I think you have to trust us that if it would be easy, we would be there." Amir Ohana, the first openly gay member of parliament from the ruling Likud party, replied with a quote he attributed to an earlier Israeli prime minister: "When the Arabs would lower their guns, there will be no more war. When the Israelis will lower their guns, there will be no more Israel." Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid had two brothers killed in the conflict. He told a story about two of his sons who, during a period of frequent suicide bombings, were both enrolled at the same high school: "I said to them...'When you come home, don't take the same bus.' Do you understand why? I didn't want to lose both of them."
2017-04-03 00:00:00
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