I wrote the following recently to a friend who invited me to a candlelight vigil in support of Gaza:
Dear A--
I have been very troubled by Israel's criminally disproportionate response to Hamas' criminally reckless attacks. However, I do not think that in good conscience I can attend a rally that does not begin and end with the recognition that BOTH sides are murderously at fault and BOTH sides need to change their behavior. I am not suggesting that the number of deaths and destruction suffered by Israel due to Hamas rockets is in any way equivalent to the havoc wrought on Gaza. Such calculations are obscene. The phrase "moral equivalence" suggests a weighing of the value of human lives that I find repugnant. Who destroys a life, destroys the world.
But it is not a matter of who has suffered the most, or who has committed the worst crimes, or who started it. That debate lasts forever. This cycle of hurt and retaliation will never stop until both sides admit they are wrong and both sides whole-heartedly resolve to seek another way.
That said, I do not see in your invitation to vigil any recognition of the hundreds of missiles aimed at Israeli lives and property, the Israeli dead and injured, the lives of Israeli soldiers squandered or damaged in this feud - for they are victims, too. It is not enough to witness the suffering of one side. A true witness for peace comprehends all the victims, all the destruction, all the crimes. Otherwise, it is just another opportunity for propaganda.
In response to the above, my friend sent me a number of clippings and references to articles detailing the horrible suffering the residents of Gaza have experienced, and describing U.S. collusion in Israeli crimes. I wrote back:
I agree with everything you say, but I draw different conclusions. There is no "right side" and "wrong side" to this conflict. Significant numbers of people on each side of it persist in seeing the other as an existential threat, even though that is crazy. Until that stops, the killing will go on. In the meantime, demonstrations which support one side or the other serve no useful purpose. They just stoke somebody's inflated sense of victimhood. The point is, everybody who lives in that miserable part of the world is a victim.
Eventually sanity returned to Northern Ireland, and it will return to the Middle East as well. But I believe that one reason it took so long for sanity to prevail in Northern Ireland is because of all the people on the outside rooting for their favorite faction. That problem is much worse in Palestine, and I don't care to contribute to it.
Just because the U.S. has played a pernicious role supporting bad Israeli policies does not mean that the solution is to support the "other side," in the hopes of counterbalancing it. That doesn't save lives, but it encourages the crazies. The solution will be when the people who live there wake up and realize there are no sides, just suffering people. I'll gladly contribute to that, but a vigil in support of one subset of victims does not seem to me the way to do it. If somebody wants to hold a vigil for ALL the suffering, terrorized, hurting people in that part of the world, I'll attend. Otherwise, count me out.