Sober words for all to ponder over the Hamas-Israeli War
An adaption from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
I am a Palestinian. Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Jew or Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Palestinian wrong a Jew or Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Jew or Christian wrong a Palestinian, what should his sufferance be by Judeo-Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Israeli founder and prime minister David Ben Gurion: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Nahum Goldman, The Jewish Paradox, p. 121.
I appreciated your remarks on the recent Ralph Nader podcast. In the podcast extra chat, you were asked if the "2-State Solution" was viable today, and your response was to ask for a better alternative. In the discussion on that point which followed, you asserted that the Israelis would never incorporate the Palestinians into their state and thereby lose their majority - a rational observation given history and where we stand. Mr Fein, on that point: How is that working out for Israelis?
Under what scenario of potential outcomes does Israel's security improve or become "secure"? How is any of this violent response from Israel going to foster peace and justice, and, if any, for how long? Actually: what is the criteria that describes the next level up for Israel in terms of living secure lives?
Addressing problems with violence is always a catastrophe. Only if we learn something helpful that reduces or eliminates suffering does violence become mere tragedy.
There are probably many examples in history we could use to define the criteria for troubled people in conflict to come to live together and no longer subjugate or fight or kill each other. What comes to mind for me is South Africa, which finally found an agreeable path out of conflict and injustice toward a way to live together as equals (close enough to stop the violence, have everyone working together).
Politically speaking, how will Israel as a people ever come to terms with Palestinians, on whose land they live and possessions they've appropriated? Guns, bombs, fences? Again: How's that working for them? They are forever tied together, like U.S. white people and African Americans, entwined destiny. If Israelis want to be secure, they have to be just and be equals, and that doesn't use force or violence. That requires reason and consent; and if you cannot find that within yourselves, but you want peace, you have to look outside your thinking and accept help, to ask for help. Making decisions together for everyone's well-being. Hard but honest work. Earning trust. Healing.
Otherwise, you want something else than peace.
...So, why bomb Gaza at all? -k