Maryam Hand thinks Israeli leaders are the same as Hitler (but she loves everyone else)
The Ville links to this rather naive looking article by someone called Maryam Hand.

She says: “We are failing to care for the earth and for the majority of the world’s people. There are global consequences for this failure that even the most unconscious person can see. Daily, I struggle to cleave to the deeper underlying reality of love and peace in a world of almost incomprehensible suffering.

What is most painful to me at the moment is the United States’ role in supporting Israel in its attempted annihilation of the Palestinian people. What has happened to the moral fabric of our society that we fought to stop Hitler and his attempted annihilation of Jews but we would then fund and support Israeli leaders who would do the very same thing to Palestinians?

[…] Now, most of the time, I experience a deep “centeredness,” a love and peace within my heart and a desire to help others to heal their own hearts and find these qualities within themselves.”

The Ville is “flabbergasted” by this, understandably.

I have attempted to answer her in "her own language", in a way I hope she won’t regard as hate mail. I even hope she’ll manage to read it to the end without it spoiling her inner peace and aggravating her. Otherwise there’s no point writing to her at all, is there? My good intentions will probably backfire. I’ve written some amazingly peaceful letters in my time, and have managed to evoke such venom and hatred from people who believe themselves to be full of peace and love. What the hell, it’s worth a try.

On the other hand, at the risk of sounding dreadfully racist, given Ms. Hand’s Arab sounding name (Maryam), the whole article could very well be a particularly subtle manipulation, aimed at well meaning spiritual people.

So here goes:
An Olive Branch
Your words show you to be a very sensitive person, with deep feelings of personal responsibility for the world and its future. Because you seem to have so much understanding and care, I know you will be able to read this with an open heart.

I hope you don’t mind if I try to show you another way of seeing Israel.

Israel is not attempting to annihilate the Palestinian people. I know this for a fact because I am Israeli. You might find this hard to accept, but there is nothing most ordinary Israelis yearn for more than peace with the Palestinian people and our other Arab neighbors.

Towards this end we were prepared to take a great risk. We were prepared to forgive Arafat and his Fatah brethren. This might seem strange to you, even ludicrous, but if you look at it through our eyes, you might be able to see it as we do. For many years, the professed aim of Arafat, Fatah and the PLO was the destruction of the State of Israel. They killed many, many innocent Israeli civilians in vicious, merciless terrorist attacks over the years. These attacks began years before the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel occupied what was then Jordanian and Egyptian territory. We found forgiveness in our hearts for them (and this was very difficult, especially for the families of the deceased, you can imagine). Not only did we forgive them, we also invited them to come and live with us here so that together we could lead our two peoples to peace, eventually establishing a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

We were so happy that peace was finally coming. We watched proudly as the Palestinians went about building the infrastructure of their brand new state. We tried to help, where we could. We felt like an older sibling watching our young sister finding her way in the world.

But very soon, those opposing peace among Palestinians (mainly the Hamas and other Moslem groups) began to act violently against it. These people began blowing themselves up amongst innocent Israelis, many of them women and children, in Israel’s main cities and towns.

Arafat had promised to fight this, but initially did nothing. It took the murder of Israeli peacemaker Prime Minister Yitshak Rabin for him to start to take action, but it was already too late. And even then he didn’t do enough. Israel eventually had no choice but to halt her side of the peace process and use safety measures, such as checkpoints and closures, to stop the murderers from coming freely into Israeli population centers.

There were also many Israelis who opposed the peace process from the outset. The suicide murders served to strengthen their claims that the Palestinians couldn’t be trusted. In Israeli society, being a democracy with freedom of speech, there is a small, but loud minority who are opposed to sharing this land with the Palestinians for religious reasons. A number of the most radical of these people have sometimes been known to treat their Palestinian neighbors with cruelty. These people do not represent the majority of Israelis, even now that things have become so awful, and life has become so frightening for every Israeli, wherever he or she lives, and whatever his or her beliefs are.

I am the mother of two young daughters. In school my daughters are taught to honor all others, including Arabs and Palestinians. They often write and sing about peace. Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy of peace is taught and commemorated extensively. Even now, with all their fears, the children at my daughters’ school still make peace flags, and draw doves of peace.

I was saddened to discover that this was not the case in Palestinian society. They have not been teaching their children to honor Jews or Israelis. Palestinian children have not been encouraged to wish and pray for peace with the Jews of Israel.

Our leaders are not wicked dictators. We elected them in a free democratic process. We did that because we felt, and still do, that the current Palestinian suicide mass murders, no longer perpetrated only by religious fanatics, but by Arafat’s own Fatah people, threatens our very existence.

When we feel we can trust the Palestinians again, we will elect leaders who will again try to make peace with them, as we have done before.

You seem to have such a capacity for love. I wish you could find some small amount of love for us Israelis. We are not bad people, as you seem to believe. Neither are our leaders. We just want a safe home to share with our neighbors. Wouldn’t you?