Earlier this month marked the anniversary of the Hamas terrorists’ attacks on the people of Israel.  In remembrance, Nebraska’s state senators authored a letter that supported the Israeli people in their fight against terrorism.  Unfortunately, that letter received less than unanimous support from its members.

Our parents’ generation was supposed to have “peace in our time.”  A very well-meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words.  But this gentleman was afflicted with the worldly disease of insufferable optimism.  He and his fellow humans kept polishing their rose-colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off.  They sacrificed reason and reality for a brief moment of peace.

What appeasement bought then was the most horrific slaughter of a people ever perpetrated by mankind. Noted author Rod Serling was part of those armed forces who liberated the Nazi death camps, and the memory haunted him throughout the remainder of his life.  He once wrote that the Dachaus, Auschwitzes, Belsens, Buchenwalds should all remain standing, so that they would remain a “monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard, into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all their conscience.  And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the grave diggers.”

It took the Greatest Generation to rid the world of such horror, but now, only two generations removed from those atrocities, we see an uptick of antisemitism. Our children’s generation has succumbed to the party propaganda machines of persecution and violence, and chosen to openly criticize the Jewish people for “crimes against humanity.”

By not signing that letter, those senators, some of whom have been most vocal in support of LBGQT rights, in fact give aid and comfort to government and terrorist organizations that openly discriminate against LBGQT populations and deprives women of their dignity.  Their refusal to support Israel is a direct contradiction to their legislative efforts and gives lie to their ramblings about rights and values and social justice for the people of Nebraska.

It is sad that any of our state senators would willingly refuse to support the Israeli people in their struggle against an enemy who uses civilians as human shields.  I’m sure they have their reasons.  Perhaps they even believe their reasons are noble and just.  But are those reasons more deeply founded on prejudice and bigotry?  Only they will know.  Regardless, there is no place in civilized society where the hatred of a people can be condoned, no matter their creed, culture, gender, or their race.  Actions encouraging such hatred must be called out every time.  Too many will shamefully excuse those actions as being “merely political.”  Such excuses serve only to forgive the behavior.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/10/28/antisemitism-in-nebraska/

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