Saying Hello

I want to thank Dusty for inviting me to participate with you guys here at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers. I am a long-time pro-Israel blogger who usually goes under the name of "Karmafish," although I am becoming more and more inclined to use my real name, which is Michael Lumish. I am a PhD in American History who has taught at Penn State University, San Francisco State University, and City College of San Francisco.

I also have my own blog, Israel Thrives, which I invite you guys to come visit and participate in according to your will. My partners on that blog go by the names of "Doodad" and "oldschooltwentysix." Doodad, School and myself do not necessarily agree on everything, but my major focus is as a liberal critic of the progressive-left when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict. I come out of that movement, and out of that party, and believe that we have every right to object to what is going on within it... even as we distance ourselves from it.

I generally have two themes. The first is that the progressive-left, as a movement, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party have, essentially, betrayed their Jewish constituency by welcoming anti-Semitic anti-Zionists as part of the larger coalition. Anyone who reads Daily Kos (which was at one time my home blog) or the Huffington Post or the UK Guardian, knows that when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict (I-P) not a day goes by wherein Israel is not demeaned, defamed, and dehumanized. Those on the progressive-left who speak the loudest as critics of Israel tend to not so much criticize that country as drag it through the mud at every possible opportunity.

This development, the rise of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism and the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Jewish state (BDS) is exceedingly dangerous to the Jewish people for the obvious reason that they want Israel to be dissolved as a Jewish state and toward that end they are endeavoring to delegitimize that country to western audiences. It is our job, as people who care about the Jewish people and the Jewish state, to counter their efforts by any means necessary.

My other major theme is that the Palestinians do not want a country in peace next to the Jewish one, for if they did they would have accepted any one of the numerous offers for statehood which they have consistently rejected from 1937, with the British Peel Commission offer, to Olmert's 2008 offer a Palestinian state comprised of 100 percent of Gaza, well over 90 percent of Judea and Samaria (which the Jordanians dubbed "the West Bank") in a contiguous area, and the Arab sections of Jerusalem as a capital.

It should be obvious that if the Palestinians wanted a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one then perhaps they would have accepted precisely that at some point over the last seventy plus years.

In any case, I want to thank you guys for welcoming me into this community because reaching out to one another is our only option in this struggle.

You have my thanks.

Oh, and by the way, I would very much recommend not voting for the Democrats this cycle. Another theme that you will be hearing from me is concerned with the failure of the Obama administration's Middle East policy and the need to make certain that Democrats do not take their Jewish constituency for granted.