A couple of weeks ago, I did something I don’t do very often; I looked at my Instagram feed. (Full disclosure: It’s one of the most boring Instagram accounts in the world because I only use it to follow my company, Capstone Education, and a few other accounts of interest.) Lo and behold, I found a meme that read, “Praying for Israel and Palestine.” Great, I thought. An enlightened institution with a historically accurate message. The “people of Gaza” are in fact Palestinians.

Wanting to confirm what I had seen, I checked back only to see the above meme. Within a few seconds, voilà, they had eleted the original version and uploaded the politically correct one in a US context. Obviously, someone emailed or, more likely, frantically called the university’s administration and told them to get with the historically revisionist program, or else.

A lie, or at least an obfuscation, prevails over the truth – again.

I’ve noticed some Facebookers using “Pray for Israel” and “I Stand with Israel” avatars. Why can’t prayers be more all-inclusive? (I touch on the issue of inclusiveness in this 19 October 2023 article Let’s ditch the binaries and join the ‘all of humanity’ club.) It reminds me of “God bless America,” which always makes me think “God bless the world.”

For the record, I stand with the victims, the oppressed, and the exploited, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality. Let’s dispense with this parochial and binary view of the world – good/evil, us/them, in-group/out-group – in favor of one that is truly all-inclusive. The club to which I belong and to which I am loyal is all of humanity.

Shalom (שלום), MAA