Just spoke at the Oxford Union -- a thoughtful crowd. I shared my thoughts on human rights abuses in Palestine...on the stories that you here helped to unveil to the world...and on why it is a misreading of scripture to say that we are the chosen people and God gave us the Holy Land for our exclusive use. There was silence and thinking rather than wild elation but I think it was the silence of processing....I feel good about it. Incredibly two of our community members Zoe and Katerina DID drive down, DID professionally videotape my talk -- they will share it here -- and then sent me and a friend Proseccos at the bar till we all met and all hung out together! A gorgeous couple. two activist women, one from Italy one from Australia -- this crazy thing The Internet makes us all old friends in an Oxford restaurant. Then we heard the formal debate Hamas is a greater threat to peace than Israel -- and Rabbi Boteach was charming, charismatic and also simply as is his method, making s--- up right up out of whole cloth. He also implied that the eloquent vice president of the Union, a brilliant young Pakistani woman named Marinisa, had embraced ISIS when she had simply defended human rights in Palestine -- which made me feel oddly better as he had accused me (in the Jerusalem Post) as falsely of embracing Hamas when I had simply -- defended human rights in Palestine. But it is not a kosher debating method. Some craziness from a right wing radio host named I think Dennis Prager (?) claiming that Mali was not as advanced a civilization as Britain -- that not many people died in Britain from WW II compared with Germans -- and that putative democracies never commit aggression (he overlooked the US). Both made hay out of Muslim beheadings, ignoring our own death penalties and leading Maranisa to note that Israel does not behead, it just kills civilians by the hundreds. This she said to a vast round of applause. Crazy night. I was lulled by the strong security into almost joining the group afterward for drinks -- but wiser heads prevailed as there have been several direct threats today; nice men with earpieces in black outfits got me safely back to the hotel. Never a dull moment... Happy Thanksgiving! I feel I have completed a task assigned to me by the universe...for whatever that means...have fun with your families and friends dears. Enjoy....
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 22:53:24 +0000
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