Whoa

Somehow, mysteriously, haloscan just decided to let me see the comments on my blog again.

I am agape (though not completely surprised) at the level of animosity in the comments to my last few posts, and disappointed at the number of people who called each other's opinions "crap" and such. That is so sad. I hate it when that happens on my own blog.

And let's not even get started with the fact that one of the first and most heatedly argumentative commenters is my own sister (I love you, Rivka, kissy-kissy from your sissy!)

Still, better a heated written argument on a blog than bullets on the field, that's what I always say (actually, I never said it until just now, but it has quite a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)

To the person who wondered, after a post of mine about a week ago, why I don't give my reasons for being "thinly pro-disengagement," this is it! Because if I got this kind of flack for writing about something as seemingly "something we might agree on" as children's participation in the anti-disengagement movement, imagine how much I'd have to monitor the comments if I actually forayed into talking about why I think disengaging makes sense!

Yeah, I know, if I had more guts I'd just go for broke. But I don't have time to monitor the comments like that, OK? My blog, my decision. On the blog, I'll do what I feel like, when I feel like it. Maybe that will be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe never. I'm busy. I have a Kotel to go to and a country I love very much to worry about. If I ever run for political office I'll be more conscientous about making my opinions more transparent. Meanwhile, I'm just a blogger.

Meanwhile, here's one thing I do have to say against Sharon's decision: Is it just my imagination, or did he (Sharon, that is) never give a strong, public statement about why he thinks disengaging makes sense? I mean, those of us who happen to think it's not a bad idea might have our own opinions about why, but maybe my idea about why is not Sharon's idea about why. It would have been considerate of him to let us know why, and why now, don't you think? Doesn't do much good for national unity if even those of us who are "thinly" behind him don't really know what he's thinking. It makes it much harder to make a case for what he's doing in the face of something tangible like entire communities of our own people being emptied and turned into rubble.

I've been hearing a lot of criticism to the effect that "even those who are pro-disengagement are against how the disengagement is being carried out" and in many ways I agree. Not all ways, but many ways. The Israeli government hasn't been good about hasbara (PR/ "explaining our side") when it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians (or, as some commenters might prefer, "the Arabs living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza" - whatever you want to call them, there they are), and now it's not doing a good job of hasbara when it comes to uprooting beautiful communities full of fellow Jews.

At least with the Palestinian conflict, there is the obvious reasoning that we have terrorists to worry about and deal with. But with the disengagement, much more hasbara is called for, because the big question is why now? If we do not understand why now, then we cannot understand why.

***UPDATE***
Thanks to Renegade Rebbetzin for remembering and finding my original post about the disengagment (now with update!) Interesting to see which parts of that post still resonate for me, almost 6 months later, and which do not (most of it still does). I never would have bothered to find the URL without her. Thanks, Ren Reb.