I know better than to go here, but what the hell?

Flickering Flames,
Unforgotten Names

--by Kathy Lonstein

This piece of art is hanging in my living room, courtesy of my youngest, while she wanders like a good little Jew. She is the most Jewish person in the family for generations. We are from the culturally Jewish-religiously agnostic branch of Judaism. In every religion there are libertines like us who drive the true believers nuts. (This bit secretly gives me glee, and it's a hat-trick. I am an equal opportunity offender to fundamentalist followers of all three major monotheistic religions. Yippee!!!)

I tend to avoid Toxichall Townhall*dot*com. But on occasion one of those clownservative mouthbreathers says something so outrageous, so over-the-top, so hateful and vituperative that I have to say “Whoa, Nellie!”

Today, it is Ben Shapiro. (I am not linking to that snakepit, I don’t want their ilk over here from Technorati or anywhere else.) Apparently, from what I can tell, not-so-gentle Ben is about this close (holding fingers about one mm apart) to proposing a “final solution” for the Palestinians.

As I was reading, my blood began to run cold at the awful, hate-filled screed, and then it just got worse:

The problem runs deeper than a few figureheads. The Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core. There are many to be blamed: Yasser Arafat, who lined his pockets with cash and subsidized murder while playing the victim of oppression. An Arab world that refused to absorb the Palestinian population, preferring to use it as a political pawn against Israel. The United Nations, which suckled the Palestinian Arab population into dependency at the international teat. Israel, for emboldening the Palestinian Arabs by conceding to them.

But in the end, the blame must lie with the Palestinian Arabs themselves. They have accepted their role with relish. They are as responsible for their government's longstanding evil as the Germans were for the Nazis'.

Mr. Shapiro goes on to rail that Israel and America just don’t get it – and actually advocates for collective punishment of the entire population. (What were those boycotts and embargoes that were levied against the entire group for voting wrong, if not collective punishment?)

I don’t know what the solutions are – but I can identify some of the problems – and one big one is people like Ben Shapiro, who would diminish an entire group of people, as our people were diminished before, while simultaneously lighting the candles every Friday night.