HAMAS MUST BE DESTROYED

That's what my sign this past weekend said.
I thought it was a nice middle-of-the-road slogan that everybody could get behind.


But I was wrong. In the Bay Area, a sentiment supportive of eliminating a murderous gang of thugs who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map and impose an Islamic dictatorship is too extreme.

Apparently Hamas is considered moderate and reasonable by the standards of some people here.

And my sign advocating erasing them is extremist.


I already knew that some of my thinking was out of step with some of my fellow citizens here in the heartland of the urban and coastal enlightened crust (as contrasted with the interior of the country, which is stark-raving trailertrash bonkers, according to many). I just did not know how far out of step my thinking was. I've been told that I should not publicly say that Hamas must be destroyed. Because it offends some people.

So I'll keep that sign in reserve for whenever we are angrily screaming across the barricades at Amelek in front of the consulate, which is bound to happen again sometime this summer. And use kinder, gentler signs for when we're trying to persuade the good people of Oakland, who are marvelously enlightened and unignorant besides, to cast away at least a modicum of their praeconceptions about Israel and the Middle-East. We're in this to hearts-and-minds them, and should not assume that they have a clue. I keep forgetting that. They are very blissful.


Major difference between Americans and Europeans: Americans are not very well informed, Europeans are sometimes too opinionated. And this is a balanced and deliberately inoffensive way of expressing this opinion. Understated. Middle-of-the-road, in fact.