The First Son-in-Law

I don’t like Jered Kushner.  There, I said it and I am glad. It’s not that he is Jewish. To dislike him for that would make me a bigot.  I don’t like him because he wears blinders.

Old time farmers in the south used to put “blinders” on their mules when plowing to keep them from being distracted by their context. Little leather flaps hung about an inch from each eye. Thus, without being aware of anything around it, a mule would respond only to the bridle and the sting of the whip.

Kushner, king of the lucky sperm club, was born into enormous wealth and privilege and moves through life unaware of his context.

He supports settlements on what little land Palestinians have left and he has no idea of how settlements on their land takes food from children whose bowl of soup comes around all too seldom and runs out all too soon. What does he care. He is the president’s son in law.

Israel’s blockade, which is in its tenth year has:

            Demolished over 48,000 homes;

            Confiscated over 586,000 acres of land in the West Bank;

            Created 300,000 Palestinian refugees;

Colonized the West Bank with over 600,000 Jewish settlers;

Enacted over 50 laws that discriminate against Israel’s Arab minority; and

Established an apartheid system with civil courts for Jewish settlers and military courts for Palestinians, including indefinite detention without trial and a conviction rate of over 99%,[1] all in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention;

And then there is Gaza. Abby Smardon, who has visited Gaza every year for the past six years says:

On my sixth visit, including a few months after Israel’s assault in 2014, I have never seen Gaza so devastated. Israel’s land, air and sea blockade has destroyed its economy and allowed for the near complete destruction of critical infrastructure.[2]

I can’t imagine being locked up in a land where electricity is available only a few hours a day, usually in the middle of the night, where raw sewage runs through the country side and empties into the sea, where most hospitals and health clinics have been closed due to power outages and  where an 11-year old child attempts suicide declaring that death would be a relief?

As American citizens, we own this occupation and I am grieved by it. On the other hand, Jered Kushner, blinded by privilege and protected by a battery of lawyers, prances around Israel like a rock star undisturbed. He is the chosen of the chosen…at least in his mind. And he is, after all, the president’s son-in-law.

Thomas Are

October 15, 2017

[1] References to these facts are too many to list.  Just google 50 years of illegal  occupation and take your pick.

[2] Abby Smardon, On My Sixth Visit, I’ve Never Seen Gaza so Devastated.,Mondoweiss.net. 10/12/2017.