(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Proud of Chicago Palestinians, worried about Jewish friends, sad about racist murder, hostages back. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-21 It’s totally black and white here in Chicago (sarcastic). I love my city (not sarcastic). We have around 85,000 Palestinians living here and 400,000 Jews in the metro area. 60% of Arab Americans in Chicago are from Palestine. I live in the South Loop which is close to downtown where there have been several peaceful protests by Palestinians. I see cars driving around the city with Palestinian flags and I am proud of them for speaking up peacefully about the threat to civilians in Gaza. We had a horrible murder of a Palestinian boy from his landlord who was listening to conservative radio… WTF My wife’s best friend is Jewish and we are close to their family who have children who are close to our child’s age who play together. The most recent pair of hostages, a mother and daughter, who were released by Hamas were from the Chicago area. I don’t know what to say besides I am grateful for our President who is a leader in trying to navigate this impossible sea of animosity in the Middle East. I support Israel, especially in this case where they were surprise attacked by Hamas, who targeted civilians. That makes Hamas terrorists, period. But, I know not every Palestinian supports Hamas. Most Palestinians I assume are like most people, they care about their families and friends, they want to work and provide for their families and help their friends, and that’s pretty much 90% of what they want. How do I know that? I have never been to Palestine, or Israel. I have been to Russia, at the end of the Cold War. I remember coming to that country with all these ideas about how their citizens would think or view me as an American and they were all pretty much wrong. In the end I cared way more about what their possible political views might be than they did. They were basically completely cynical about their government and just cared about their family and network of friends that helped them survive whatever was going on. I have a feeling many Palestinians have a similar feeling, where they are cynical about their extremist elements running their government, they just want to live and survive like everyone else. And how different is Israel at this point? Most of them protest against Netanyahu's power grabs, hate him for laxing security and allowing the terrorist attack. They just want to live and be free like everyone else. But there ARE extremists, and terrorists. There ARE those that are hell bent on revenge and death. What are we going to do? I support everyone who trying to end terrorism and support not killing civilians, for now, after the surprise attack that seems like Israel, after a while, who knows. I trust Biden who seems to feel a similar way, God (not cynically) forbid someone else gets elected to deal with this. By the way, thanking God. The two hostages Hamas let go are from this area… Maybe he/she does have a say in all this. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/21/2200863/-Proud-of-Chicago-Palestinians-worried-about-Jewish-friends-sad-about-racist-murder-hostages-back?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/