Jerusalem Day

On the eve of Jerusalem Day, I thought I'd hang with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. We sat outselves down on the edge of the sidewalk, being nudged occasionally by two small kids sitting besides us, repeatingly asking for our names and this goddamn bee that kept hovering over our heads for 20 minutes. I thought this was THE big parade but it was the "fruits and vegetables" parade - kitschy floats and your usual police/army marchers and some dancers. No bagpipes. I felt like I was somewhere off in dinktown, Wisconsin (minus all the blonde hair) watching it all. The funniest part was at the beginning of the parade - when Natan Sharansky (the Member of Parliament (I don't know if he still is one - I can't keep up) and the former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience), was the first person we saw riding a vintage tractor with his green cap. Following him were all sorts of vintage plowing things. You had your orange-ribboned Gush Katif sympathizers in this parade as well. With alot of smiling Jerusalem residents wearing bright orange streamers hanging from everywhere these days, it seems more like a Color War of summer camps than a desperate plea to hang on to the beautiful strip of land inside the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, though, I received a serious e-mail. It got me thinking that serious people are reading this crap I write. Well some of it is crap with my personal rants and raves and I guess some of it isn't. Some of my rantings are a plea to be listened to because this place needs to be a haven of peace, nothing else. But it looks like someone out there wants Uncle Sam to help. Do you think he can?



Dear jerusalemgypsy,

I wanted to bring to your attention an initiative in which I thought you might have a particular interest. The Campaign for American Leadership in the Middle East (CALME) is a nonpartisan effort which seeks to attract public support for sustained American leadership to bring about a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The initiative was launched at the National Press Club on April 14, and has attracted the support of more than 130 political, former governmental, military, business, academic, religious and community leaders from throughout the United States. Thousands of Americans from all walks of life have signed on to our Web site -- www.mideastcalm.org -- since then.
CALME itself brings together individuals from many organizations, each of us lending our efforts in our individual capacities to help publicize this effort and maintain the Web site. During this critical time , I believe our petition can play an important role in helping build American public support for a two-state solution.

I'm attaching a press release (originally sent to you last week), and hope we might have an opportunity to talk. Josh Marshall has already written about us and posted a link to our site on "Talking Points Memo". Your blog readership is significant in size and reach, and we'd be grateful if you were willing to let your readers know about us and about our initiative.