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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Inner Peace: Getting grounded at North Mountain Park ... Woman files sexual harassment lawsuit against Ashland Elks ... As It Was: America Butler's diary a window into 'women's work' ... Inner Peace: Getting grounded at North Mountain Park ... Woman files sexual harassment lawsuit against Ashland Elks ... As It Was: America Butler's diary a window into 'women's work' ... RELOCATIONS Herb Rothschild Jr.: Two hateful men Comment DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Apr. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM Posted Apr. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News Two county health inspectors figured largely in William Finnegan’s article on the San Bernardino shootings in The New Yorker of Feb. 22. One was Syed Rizwan Farook. Along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, Farook killed 14 people in the Dec. 2 attack on a county workers’ holiday party. The other, Nicholas Thalasinos, was among the victims. A few years before, Thalasinos and his wife had joined Shiloh Messianic, a congregation that seeks to unite Christianity and Judaism. Its pastor preached an imminent bloody Armageddon. After joining, Thalasinos regarded himself as a Messianic Jew. He wore a Star of David and tzitzit, the knotted tassels. Often Thalasinos would rage on social media against liberals, Democrats, Barack and Michelle Obama, Planned Parenthood, gun control, terrorists and Muslims. More than once he was banned from posting on Facebook for violating rules regarding hate speech. On Oct. 30 he tweeted, “Islam — the CULT OF RAPE, PEDOPHILIA, ANTISEMITISM AND MURDER.” He advocated “nuking” Iran. Farook didn’t publicly vocalize his hate. He did something much worse. But he and Thalasinos were not only co-workers in the health department — which seems terribly ironic after the fact. They also worked together to continue poisoning the relationship between the peoples of two faiths who, for centuries, had lived in harmony. Unfortunately, they represent far too many of their co-religionists. The Muslim-Jewish conflict is recent. Its origin is in the migration of European Jews to Palestine beginning early in the last century, which entailed crowding of Palestinians off their ancestral lands. Before that, Muslim countries were havens for Jews persecuted by European Christians. Jews weren’t given equal legal status with Muslims in Muslim countries, but they were safe and were free to prosper economically and culturally. Actually, it’s more precise to call the conflict the Muslim-Israeli conflict, although many Muslims and many supporters of Israel, for different reasons, conflate criticism of Israel and anti-semitism. What keeps the conflict intense is Israel’s maintenance of Gaza as a concentration camp for 1.75 million people, and its military occupation of the West Bank with the ongoing theft of Palestinian land there and in East Jerusalem. Apologists for Israel always cite threats to its security, which are real. But it’s impossible to explain the confiscations of Palestinian land and water in terms of security. Apologists don’t try, and they remain silent about the real motive — from the beginning of Zionism until now, large numbers of Zionists have believed in a divine right to all Palestine. In Netanyahu’s Israel, it’s becoming increasingly hard for Israelis or Palestinians to advocate a peace based on justice (cf. New York Review of Books, April 7). That development was inevitable. No nation can oppress millions of its near neighbors and remain an open society. When the five presidential contenders addressed the convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C. on March 21, four told the audience exactly what it wanted to hear. Only Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, refused to attend. Instead, he spoke from Utah about the plight of the Palestinians and their right to an independent and viable state. He made me proud to be a Jew. I’m convinced the time will come when those of us who have sought justice for the Palestinians will be regarded as a faithful remnant, and those who condone Israel’s behavior will be seen as having mistaken loyalty to Israel for service to Israel’s God. Herb Rothschild's column appears in the Tidings every Saturday. DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Apr. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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