Discovering cognitive dissonance on #IStandWithIsrael

I was cooking dinner last night when I saw this tweet:

Which led me to this:

which led me to say this:

and then this conversation ensued:

Which would have been the end of it, if I hadn’t noticed the bit about his grandfather being in the Irgun.

That needs to be said. If you “Stand with Israel” in this context, you’re supporting the bombing of whole families in their homes. (Yes, I know this is not new, I know this was done crudely with hand grenades in 1948. F16s are so much more efficient)

This too is important, there is too little introspection on both sides. You can usually spot a logical fallacy in an argument you’re making if you just switch Israel with Palestine, Hamas with Irgun and see if your view changes.

And I’m sure Jeff is proud of his grandfather. Though the group he was in was responsible for numerous terrorist bombings of civilian areas (hotels, markets, bus stops), and massacres of civilians during the Israeli “War of Independence”, what Palestinians consider ethnic cleansing and rightfully call the Nakba.

In my defense, I knew what I was saying was probably hurtful to Jeff. No one wants the cherished memory of their freedom fighter grandfather sullied. So I did reach out with an olive branch (which was snapped in two).

For some reason, he wanted to talk about the KKK. I have absolutely no idea why, since the appropriate US analogy is the treatment of Native Americans and the various “Indian Wars”.

That was fine with me, since dinner was ready and I could have a wonderful meal with my wonderful wife while our wonderful daughter was asleep. Mindful, of course, that thousands of families in Gaza and Israel and many other war-torn places are not so lucky.