I have reached personal peace about Israel and Palestine. I think Gaza and the election solidified my thinking. I still consider myself a pro-Israel Jew, but I am against Israel's Palestinian policy in toto. I have reached that place where these positions can peacefully coexist in my mind. The only way to be for Israel is to be for peace, and Israel is not moving towards that goal.
This has been my position for some time; only my feelings about it have changed. And this doesn't mean that I think Palestinian violence is justified. There is real suffering on both sides, and real horrors committed by both sides.
All of which is preface to my diary.
Democracy Now had two stories today about this subject. The first was and interview with Amira Hass, a reporter for Haaretz who is in Gaza. She was describing the killing of civilians confessed to by IDF soldiers which are leading to a criminal investigation, and also describing what she herself witnessed. The investigation is a positive sign. Interestingly, Haaretz today has an article about the horrible images and captions Israeli soldiers are having printed on unit t-shirts when they graduate from training, or return from battle. I hope these first criminal investigations lead to convictions where indicated, and a decrease in the dehumanization of the Palestinian people.
The second tells of the shelling of the apartment of a Palestinian doctor who often appears on Israeli TV, which killed three of his daughters and a niece. The shelling happened when he was on the air, on the phone with a reporter, and you hear him screaming and describing the scene. The reporter soon left the stage to call an ambulance. Two weeks later, the doctor took a crew through his apartment. This is graphic, and I do not recommend viewing it if you have something to do immediately afterwards. I was in tears by the end.
I do not want this to become a vehicle for the usual I/P rants. Keep comments respectful. This is serious stuff, and worthy of serious discussion.