I’m going to try to justify my existence. Please give me a moment for that.
This is certainly not how I had planned to start this blog, but now it’s happened, and there is no way to avoid the topic.
I’ve written and re-written the first post many times, but none of those drafts contained the words “genocide” or “Jihadism” or “Schindler”, but there’s no avoiding that now.
Okay, let’s begin at the beginning: Captain’s log. Today is 25 December 2023. (Stardate -299016)
You don’t know me yet, but I am a guy from Georgia. To be clear: that’s the US state of Georgia. I’m not a Kartvelian, not a Gruzini. In the cosmopolitan social life of Jerusalem, that detail causes confusion. I’m glad we’ve gotten that out of the way here at the beginning.
You might call me a Southerner; you might call me a Redneck.
I grew up as many, if not most Southerners do: in a small-town mentality, born and raised and baptized in Christian churches and schools. (Southern Baptist or Fundamental Independent Baptist: something in-between. We’ll get to that later.)
But I don’t live in the American South anymore. I’ve moved to a foreign country. I’ve done this a few times in my life, because it’s fun, but this time I actually immigrated.
And now there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Islamists, Jihadists, and Islamic supporters who want to kill me and my family.
Why? You may ask.
Because we live within the borders in the State of Israel. So long we are physically located within the borders of that state, our lives are not safe.
Today is Day 80 in an absurd war, in which we are caught, with no recourse but:
* to try to not be killed,
* to try to make sense of the cause and outcome of the war, and most importantly
* to try to make an end of it.
On 7 October 2023, a group of marauding terrorists and looters crossed the national border between Gaza and the State of Israel and committed a massacre. I doubt I need to remind anyone reading this of the details of what I just said.
I would really prefer not to, but I can if I must. There are many individuals at this moment (I see them at every moment on Twitter, which I refuse to refer to by Elon Musk’s porn site name) who are in denial – just as those who deny the Moon landing, the round earth, or the Holocaust.
Since then, there has been war. And information about the war. And disinformation about the war.
Back to the point of this post, which is an appeal for you please not to murder us:
Why am I and my family under the constant threat of death?
Not because of religious or political beliefs. (We actually don’t agree on all of those.)
Not because of the legacy of my ancestors from the British Isles, who may fairly be accused of being European colonizers – that is: of North America, not of Israel (none of them were Jewish).
Not because of the legacy of my wife’s ancestors, which is completely different from that of mine.
But just because we are located right here, right now. Just like all the other foreign immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Christians, foreign workers, and tourists of all different origins and religions and political philosophies and opinions who are physically located right here right now.
Rockets launched from Gaza or Lebanon don’t discriminate between origin, religious beliefs, wealth, immigrant farm worker status, Sunni or Shiite. Neither do random bus stop shootings or intentional car crashes.
So in conclusion, I would like to ask from the world: please don’t kill me, or my family. We haven’t actually done anything to be part of an indiscriminate massacre.
Is that too much to ask?
As this blog continues:
I will continue to explain how a redneck from Georgia ended up here in Israel.
I will explore differences between religious and political beliefs.
I will attempt to explain how learning languages can aid in the understanding of many problems in the world.
And I will encourage everyone to stop killing each other.
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