Last night, I was responding to a diarist who was frustrated by the whole I/P conflict. After posting what turned into a very long post on the historical background, and reflecting that I'd done so often over the last few days, it occurred to me that it might be good to provide some historical background on the conflict.
THIS WILL NOT BE COMPREHENSIVE. I hope, of course, that many of the most important points will be included; but with so many incidents, over a century and a half even at the narrowest reading, I can't even hope to include most of the most important points, let alone all of them. If you feel this has left out some vital occurrence, please include it in your comments. That is why you're here. Please contribute.
And, God forbid: Listen. Listen with respect. If you're honest, you'll know that there is pain on both sides. If people feel disrespected and hated, treated with contempt, that is far more painful, more lasting, and more impossible to overlook in the interests of peace, than any beating or even murder. This is only my opinion, speaking from a comfortable armchair, but having known what it is to be hated and treated with contempt and disrespect.
I respond, of course, to the recent diaries about the Mavi Marmara disaster. If 9 people died, I hope we can all view that as a disaster. I know that, no matter what I do, I will probably seem biased here. What if I show a video of conditions in Gaza, created by those with sympathy to the people of Gaza?
What if I DON'T show it?
Should I show the other side? What happens when Hamas' rockets hit Israel?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? Or grieve?
Was it All Their Fault? All the Jews' Fault? Why, they should have left the country, and gone somewhere where they wouldn't be endangered, though the parents and grandparents worked this land for the last couple of generations.
The problem is that, as we'll see below, some early Zionists were saying exactly that same thing to the Arabs, in 1920, though the Arabs' forefathers had worked that land, and the Arabs responded with the first massacre between Arabs and Zionist settlers. So, aha, it was All the Arabs' Fault.
I really hate the meme that it's All the Other Side's Fault. Flame away, I know I won't get through this diary without a little flaming.
Yet the current events aren't the point of the diary. The question of how we got there is the point of it. I only hope that I have given equal time to all points of view here. That is what the comment section is for. Use it. Use it with respect for others, please. But know that I do not mean this either to say "only Israel is wrong" or "only the Palestinians are wrong." I am doing my best, and I have my own biases, I'm sure.
I am half Jewish. I have Jewish relatives in Israel, and I do NOT have any sympathy for those hurling rockets in their direction, nor their apologists, when they kill children. I know that the Palestinian body count, against this, is far higher. I find Israel's recent actions during the blockade a disaster, even if you only view it from a cynical, "what's best for Israel" point of view, which I don't. The world now thinks of Israel as murderous monsters. Nice going, Barak and Netanyahu. Nor do I agree with the ridiculous idea of prohibiting chocolate and coffee or other basic foods from being delivered to Gaza, as Amnesty International has said the Israeli blockade is doing. But I do not know how to interdict rocket parts without a blockade, either. I don't want the blockade to continue; it's been a disaster. But will Iran not respond to a break in the blockade by supplying Hamas through Gaza?
My father's family fled Nazi Germany having known such hatred and disrespect, and many of his uncles, aunts and cousins were slaughtered for remaining. Yet he returned to Germany in a peaceful time, and his brother and sister made German friends, as I do, today. This can be with Israel/Palestine as well. I believe it will.
In the Beginning, There Was Man's Inhumanity to Man
And no, I'm not even going back to the VERY beginning, to the Jewish diaspora that was one of the things that started the whole problem. Well, okay, I will go there, but not for long; modern history, not ancient history, is what I want to address.
The Jewish Diaspora
So, yes, I AM going back to the Jewish Diaspora, but just briefly. At a time when the last of the little children that Jesus suffered to come unto him were passing away, in about 70 AD, an event occurred which would be of monumental significance to Jews: the siege of the fortress of Masada. When the Romans looked ready to starve out the Jews in the fortress of Masada, the Jews of Masada killed themselves en masse, rather than submitting to Roman rule. After this, the Romans drove the Jews out of the Holy Land, as the link above says, beginning the Jews' time in the wilderness. Masada remains a required stop for Jews coming to the Holy Land today, who visit Masada with reverence.
Oh my GOD! HE SAID THE CHARGED WORDS! ATTACK!
Note: yes, I just talked about Jesus and used the words "Holy Land," and no, I'm not wanting to start a side-trip into "Religion is all nonsense!" vs. "Respect All Religions!" vs. "Respect only My Religion!" However, although I'll try to keep it brief, there can probably be no discussion about the Holy Land without an acknowledgment that it is, for the three Abrahamic religions, Holy, and this is what has charged the area with significance and made people feel that they must possess this particular place, above all others. For the Jews, Jerusalem is where their Holy of Holies, the Temple of Solomon, was made, the remnant of the Second Temple of Solomon being their Wailing Wall. For Muslims, Jerusalem is the third holiest place, where the Prophet Mohammed was taken up to Heaven. For Christians, this is where Jesus came to preach.
So, if you can, please don't lunge at me or any religious or non-religious here with a knife, for mentioning the religious significance of Jerusalem. It can't hurt to say simply and respectfully, instead of disrespectfully, "this is what I think should happen, as an Atheist/Muslim/Jew/Christian." If you think that religion is the problem, I think we've all heard people say that already. If I might suggest it, then, instead of saying "religion is the problem" or "THEIR religion is crazy, but mine is right," and leaving it at that, please say what, exactly, people of the varying religious beliefs or lack of them should do or consider, as a positive way forward. We've all seen what happens when disrespect is used instead. It simply degenerates the discussion into something unproductive, and destructive. I refer to the Prophet Muhammed by saying "Peace be Upon Him," out of respect to any muslims among Kos's readership, and because peace should be upon the prophets, as it should be upon all of us.
I want to show respect to all these faiths, as well as to those who think honestly that it is the very fact of faith that causes all these problems. This is difficult for me, and I think that if it weren't a difficult question, we'd have solved it by now. Again, I want to respect all of you. If I am disrespecting you, whether you be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, or any other, please show me how to do better. And please, please--don't disrespect each other here. Speak as if you were speaking to someone who's lost a family member. Because you are. We all have.
From Early Islam to the Ottomans
I'll try to keep this brief as well, but for further reading, consult the book A History of Islamic Societies, by Professor Ira M. Lapidus; it's a great, encyclopedic work. As mentioned, the Prophet Muhammed (570-632 AD, Peace Be Upon Him) walked in Jerusalem too, and charged the City with significance for Muslims. During a time when the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire had been fighting with the eastern Sasanian Empire for control of the Arabian Peninsula, the Prophet Muhammed was able to gain control of local tribes because of a power vacuum left by these two empires. After he'd done so, rulership passed to the first four Caliphs (literally "deputies," 632-661 AD; the first four Caliphs were known as the "Rashidun," or "rightly-guided" Caliphs, and the fourth of them was Muhammed's son-in-law, Ali), then to the Umayyad Caliphate (661 to 750 AD), then to the Abbasid Caliphate (750 to 1258 AD, when the Mongol invasions occurred).
The Abbasid Caliphate's very long, gradual breakup (it took a couple of centuries, after 945 AD, when their defeat was assured, for the nail to be put in their coffin) coincided with the Crusades, as Latin Christians, as they saw it (when they weren't out for their own gain, as many undoubtedly were) came to the defense of pilgrims for the sake of the ailing Byzantine Empire, which called for help. Again, a power vacuum, on the part of the Abbasids and the Byzantines, allowed the Crusaders to establish themselves; however, they became only one of several ephemeral powers, such as the muslim Kurd Saladin's, or the Mongols, who took Jerusalem for some decades, a century perhaps, only to lose it again.
The Ottomans Take Jerusalem
The Ottoman Empire, then, took control in a whirlwind of a time, during which many factions and empires were rising and falling. Why them? It's a question that could exercise us for many diaries, but again, it's beyond our scope. So let me simply direct you to the great further reading, which is An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, by Halil Inalcik, with Donald Quataert. That's the best text I've found on the subject, and it's readable enough, while being a good specialist's text as well (that's rare!).
The Ottomans took Constantinople, the last remnant of the Christian Byzantine Empire, in 1453. By the early 1500s, they ruled Jerusalem, as well as Mecca and Medina (Islam's two holiest cities, known as the Hijaz, collectively). For the next 400 years, they would rule Jerusalem. Although brutal WHILE conquering, the Ottomans were extremely generous to their subject peoples AFTER they'd conquered. They knew that, as rulers of a very heterogeneous empire, they needed the help of those they'd conquered, and they didn't want to try to rub out everyone who wasn't Muslim or Turkish. In this way, they avoided Hitler's mistake, which was to hate and murder everyone who wasn't of his ethnicity.
This is why I scream, whenever people sloppily wave off the Israel/Palestine question with "oh, they've been killing each other for centuries." No they haven't. For 400 years, the Ottoman Empire included Orthodox Christian Greeks and Armenians and Jews instead of suppressing them. It is true, of course, that after the breakup of the empire began in the 1800s, this changed, and I do NOT deny or excuse the Armenian genocide. It is also true that Jews and Christians under the Ottomans were considered below the Turks and the Muslims as a whole. However, to say that the former groups were viciously repressed, PRIOR to the breakup of the Empire (which began in earnest after their military defeats throughout the 18th century), is false. The Sephardic Jews, who fled TO the Ottoman Empire following their repression by the Spanish during the 16th and late 15th centuries, are a testament to this fact.
Zionism
In the late 19th century, a Viennese Jew named Theodor Herzl suggested a solution for the problem of violence against eastern European Jews: Zionism. Those with Jewish ancestry from Poland or Russia are probably aware of the Pogroms. During the time after the assassination of Czar Alexander the Second, anti-Semitic propaganda blamed the Jews (aren't they always to blame for every bad thing that happens?) for the assassination. Jews in areas under Russian control (this includes much of what is now Poland, as well as much of what's now western Russia) were murdered, from 1881 on. This gave an urgency to Jewish emigration that can hardly be overstated.
Jews emigrated by the boatload to the United States, and to Germany (the latter emigration, with fateful consequences during the Hitler years, of course). In Poland, Jews fleeing the Baltic States had been derided, even by indigenous Jews, as "these Litwaks" (a term for Lithuanians that came to have derisive connotations); Polish Jews now emigrated to Germany, where even indigenous Jews derided them as "these Polaks."
However, western Europe and the United States could only take so many. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Jews wanted to escape Russia and Russian-dominated eastern Europe. Millions of Jews lived in what would become Poland. Not all would leave, but many were terrified of the pogroms, and couldn't stay in eastern Europe, where they were being slaughtered at whim. The numbers of Jews killed was small, compared to what would come later, but the writing was on the wall. Where would they go?
In 1896, Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat, positing a Jewish homeland, and Zionism, and the emigration that would bring Zionism about. In this time, nationalism had emerged as a unifying principle for those not finding a place in communism or socialism, in royalism, or in liberal democracy's strange mix of ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism, couple with its bourgeois class distinctions and lines of exclusion. This, then, would be a Jewish nationalism, which would put an end to the animosity between Jews and Gentiles in their host countries. A country of one's own.
The Friction Begins
However, Zionist Jews had a combination of bad timing, bad luck, and (only for some of them, by no means all of them) bad attitudes.
In the first place, they began to emigrate to the Holy Land just at the time when the Ottoman Empire was finally losing control of it. They bought land from the deedholders (at this time, there wasn't the problem of "land theft;" see below for the paragraphs on the Holocaust. But the idea that "the Jews stole the land from the Arabs" is a myth, as far as the EARLY Zionists were concerned).
The Ottoman Turks were alarmed by Zionism's apparent aim of a separate Jewish state (as were even Ottoman Jews; most of the Jews of Salonica, which became Greek Thessaloniki, which was the biggest Jewish community under Ottoman control, didn't join the Zionist movement, because they didn't want to antagonize the Ottomans, and wanted to reassure them that the Ottoman Jews were Ottomans, and didn't want their own state, to break away from the Empire). They restricted land purchases in Palestine by foreign Jews, but the Zionists got around this by transferring money to Ottomans, who then bought the land for them, as Charles D. Smith points out in his book, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents (Bedford St. Martin's, Boston and New York, 2007). The Arabs who had worked the land, in some cases for generations, were instantly dispossessed. Though they held no title to the land, and hadn't paid taxes on it, they were confronted with a new phenomenon: the Jews, formerly a second class of citizen under the Muslims in the Empire, were now dominating, monied and dispossessing.
No Arabs Need Apply
Did the Zionists need to be viewed as arrogant people, simply because they were dispossessing the Arabs? Here, I'm afraid, one must identify the error of SOME (not all) of the early Zionists: for, as Professor Smith's book points out, there was a certain number of Zionists who advanced a Jewish-only hiring policy. It might seem to make sense (apparently, it did to these particular Zionists) that if you only have a few jobs to offer, you're going to offer them to your own, your fellow refugees and those of your community. But this, of course, was a disastrous, abrasive, and damaging policy. These were simply bigoted hiring practices.
Many Zionists, as many Israeli Jews today, remained happy to hire Arabs for any work they needed done. Even if all of them had, there would probably have been some resentment from the have-nots to the haves. But to refuse to hire Arabs was a dreadful, hurtful policy, which increased this resentment considerably.
The War, the Confusion, and the Young Turk Revolution
In addition to these movements, World War One brought changes. The Ottoman Empire's subjects were already unquiet, and in 1908, the Committee for Union and Progress, better known as the Young Turk movement, took over effective control from the Sultan Abdulhamid II, and from then on, the Sultans were relegated to figurehead status.
This occurred just in time for World War One. World War One, for the Turks, lasted twice as long; for in 1912 and 1913, the Balkan Wars broke out, and after World War One, of course, Ataturk's armies were retaking Anatolia from the victors. Therefore, Turkey entered World War One in an impoverished, if not a bit desperate, state; by the War's end, famine had taken hold, as the Smith text says.
Meanwhile, during World War One, what would become the victorious British had been promising different things to different people. The drawbacks of having a democratic instead of an autocratic government were unfortunately seen here, as those to whom authority was delegated promised different things, and as changes in the British government brought different people to power, who promised still further, different things, to different people. The Arabs of the Mideast were encouraged by the British to revolt, through the Hussein-McMahon correspondence (from 1915 to 1916, Sharif Hussein of Mecca discussed an Arab revolt with Britain's Henry McMahon, who expressed "British willingness to have the caliphate in the hands of 'a true Arab...'", as he referred to Sharif Hussein); the Jews were encouraged in expecting a Jewish state in Palestine, through the Balfour Declaration, which expressed British support for a Jewish homeland; and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, between the British and the French, promised the French certain concessions in the area. None of these were defined strictly enough, and each group believed that it had been promised--indeed, with good reason--that theirs would be the group that would rule Palestine in the end.
Therefore, one can easily see that, at the end of World War One, there was great strife over the question of who would rule. This strife soon turned to rioting and murder.
The Nabi Musa Riots of April, 1920
In what would become the first of decades' worth of dueling riots, massacres, and murder, Arabs attacked the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. Jewish tone-deafness and arrogance were, in my opinion, aggravating factors for this; the Smith text mentions that Zionist newspapers were, at this time, calling for the forcible relocation of local Arabs to what would become, what in fact was just then becoming, Syria. On the other hand, author Tom Segev reports that Arabs chanted "Palestine is Ours, the Jews are our Dogs!" (Segev, Tom, 2001, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, Owl Books). Mr. Segev's work is not uncontroversial, and it is not impossible that he might be attacked as biased from both sides; however, the right-wing Michael Oren, Israel's hawkish ambassador to the US, has criticized him for being TOO forgiving to the Arab view.
However all that may be, the fact remains that, in this case, the Arabs seem to have shed the first blood.
NOTE: this is the first massacre between Arabs and Zionists of which I'm aware; if you know of another, please link to it. I do not know of any previous to this, but in this exhaustive history, there may be another. Please link. I am also aware that the preceding paragraph makes editorial judgments, so let me acknowledge this paragraph as having done so. I also know that highlighting anything means making such an editorial decision, so, again, if you have further facts to add, please do so.
For their part, the Arabs, now viewing their position to the Zionists as by now being adversarial, thought that King Faisal of Syria could also be counted upon to take Palestine in as part of an Arab state. Five Jews were killed, and four Arabs, during this rioting, with over 200 Jews and over 50 Arabs injured, according to the Smith text (the Wikipedia page offers different figures).
Further Murders, or The Shortest Chapter for the Deepest Horrors
In the decades to come, following the 1920 massacres, Arabs and Jews would settle into the mutually antagonistic relationship, now devolved into open, occasional bloodshed, under the British Palestine Mandate. For brevity, I won't go into all of these, but the Smith text offers a good overview, as unbiased as I've seen.
The vast bulk of the most horrifying murders during these decades, however, were ones for which the Palestinian Arabs didn't bear the responsibility: the Holocaust. This gave Zionism, reeling from decades of these dueling massacres, a fresh, desperate load of boat people, without food, without money, and without homes. Where could they go? Their homes were destroyed, and the local populations had proved to want to murder them; the wealthy, western countries didn't want to accept them. Where could they go?
What Would You Do?
If you're Jewish or a Zionist or an Israeli, imagine this: you're an Arab, whose family worked the land in Palestine for decades, if not centuries. Zionist settlers have come, bought the title to the land, and forced you off of it; now it's 1920, the Muslim Turks who've ruled here for 400 years have been defeated, and the settlers are talking about forcibly relocating you to an area (Syria) you've never seen before. You have seen years of famine, which have rendered you desperately hungry, and you've tried to find work for those settlers, but they've refused to hire Arabs, and now want you gone entirely. What will you do? Perhaps you won't revolt and massacre them, as was done in the Nabi Musa massacre of April 1920, but What Will You Do? How will you ensure you can live peacefully, and provide for your family, in the face of a group of settlers who mean to take over administration of the land in which you, your parents, and your grandparents were born, and throw you off of it, along with those very grandparents? No glib answers; pretend you're that Arab family. What should you do? Many of the Zionists want you just to leave, though many don't, and are defiantly happy to hire you (though they may be a bit quieter about it after the massacre).
Should you be forced to leave your homeland, to let these Zionists take over?
What Would You Do?
If you're a Palestinian, outraged at the Holocaust survivors taking over the Holy Land, imagine this: What if you're a Jew? Your ancestors feared death at every turn, and most of your family WERE murdered by the Nazis, the Poles, the Russians, or other eastern Europeans. Your home was bombed into rubble by the World War II combatants. There is no place for you here. Nor will the United States or Britain take you and all of the hundreds of thousands of refugees like you. You're the captain of the Jewish refugee ship the Exodus 1947. This boat will hardly make it across the Mediterranean, let alone to America, Britain, or some place like it. There is, however, a colony of other Jewish refugees across the Mediterranean, at least. Should you steal every bit of Arab land, and take it over and declare statehood in 1948? No, that will be bad (and it was bad). Should you commit terrorism to end the British Mandate? No, that would be bad. Should you take the Holocaust out on the Palestinians? No.
But what SHOULD you do? Tell me. The fact is that there is now war brewing and simmering between Arab and Jew, and there have been many decades of dueling massacres, Jews killing Arabs, and Arabs killing Jews, by now. There's no glossing over it: you're a refugee from a place where everyone wanted to kill you, and DID kill your relatives; and your only possible refuge is a place where, at least, there is a group of other, like-minded refugees. What should you do? Where should you go? Uganda? Sorry, the boat won't make it, and neither will you--you're starving, remember? And penniless.
Where will you go?
What Would You Do?
Since Then
Here begins what will seem, to those of you best informed about recent history, the most unforgiveably thin part of the diary: recent history.
Why, you ask, would I give so little attention to recent history? Firstly, because this is where your own knowledge will probably begin to supersede mine. Probably, more of you have specialized knowledge of the modern day, than of the days before World War II. Secondly, my intention with this diary, as mentioned, was not to give an exhaustive history of the Mideast, even over only the last century or so, but simply to give a quick summary (far too long, nonetheless) of how the conflict began. In my opinion, the conflict was well-enough established by the 1948 declaration of the forming of the state of Israel, so barring a short, very incomplete skimming of the events since then, I'll leave it there.
I have focused (and even there, I've had to leave out so very, very much of importance) on episodes from 115 to 60 years ago; the 60 years since will seem to many of you to have been given short shrift here. Please be forgiving; this is a lot of ground to cover. Enter your own opinions if you feel something's been left out.
In 1948, following many acts of terrorism to force the British out (some Jewish leaders, notably the Stern Gang, were so adamantly anti-British that they even treated with the Nazis in their efforts against the British occupation), a State of Israel was declared. Almost immediately, Arab countries, their rulers vying for position as leaders of the formerly Ottoman Muslim peoples, went to war with Israel. Israel proved the victor in this conflict, as in future ones.
At the end of 1973's Yom Kippur War, wherein Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, the Nixon (notable earlier quote from Nixon, caught on tape: "it's the Goddamn Jews!") administration and Henry Kissinger brokered peace between Egypt and Israel. Having ended the prospect of Arab countries taking over Israel, Israel then began to face other problems.
The Lebanon, as the British call it for some reason instead of simply Lebanon, was always a curious case. Their demographics caused their government to assign certain high government positions by religion. Maronite Christians would, for example, always be given the Presidency, and Muslims and other sects and confessions would divide the rest of the high government offices, which were strictly assigned according to the constitution. This, of course, was a recipe for eventual breakdown, and the Lebanon dissolved into a civil war that turned Beirut from the Paris of the Middle East into, well, Beirut. Ariel Sharon had the ability to stop the Sabra and Shatila massacres, but allowed them to go on instead.
Why do we mention Ariel Sharon and those massacres here? Because he will show up again soon, at the Second Intifada. The First Intifada, beginning in 1987, was a Palestinian resistance movement, which occurred in reaction to the fact that Egypt, Syria, and other Arab countries were no longer prepared to go to war against Israel. Palestinians, here, first began to take up their own self-defense, or offense, depending upon who you talk to.
At the same time, Iran's revolution of 1979 gave it a government that eventually found it good to fund Palestinian militant movements, and Lebanon's Hezbollah, against which Israel would wage a successful, but politically disastrous, war in 2006. Although this is contested by Iran and others, that Iran eventually began arming Hamas, the Palestinian militants who now control Gaza.
Sharon, though, re-emerges in the Second Intifada, beginning about a decade ago, which he brought on by (editorializing on my part here again, alert) doing everything short of taking his clothes off in front of the Dome of the Rock, which is the mosque most holy to Muslims in Jerusalem. For this act of spite, which--can you believe these people?--brought on rock-throwing, Sharon was rewarded not only with the Second Intifada, but with high office.
Peace efforts with Bill Clinton, though well-meaning, ended inconclusively, against bloody-minded opposition from (the Other Side, and certainly not from Our Side).
In 2005, Israel, in an act that was [incredibly generous and an unheard of concession from any state you can think of, and met with violent ingratitude by the Palestinians, who then began shelling Israel {or} incredibly insensitive, and undertaken without consultation with Gazans, in order simply to establish a Jewish demographic majority in Israel, and to provide cover for an obnoxious redoubling of settlement activity], withdrew from Gaza. In response to Hamas' shelling of Israeli territory, Israel blockaded Gaza. This blockade, and Israel's shelling of Gaza, as well as Gaza's of Israel, has been attended with accusations of war crimes by figures such as Justice Richard Goldstone of the UN (Hat-tip to a Kossack, whose name I've sadly forgotten), who, though Jewish, was happy to indict Israel as much as he did Hamas.
And here we are.
What the?? This Diary SUCKS! How Could You Have Left Out THIS?
Forgive me for leaving it there. This history is, as I said, woefully incomplete; but that gives you SOME of the background on the matter. There is more to write, and I hope you'll fill in what you consider the worst omissions; but that gives enough detail to show some of the grey areas, and some of the backstory.
But I live in fear of pressing "Publish Diary." This will seem a horrible over-simplification to many of you. Few among you are really without some skin in the game. Your desperate, penniless father lost his wife in the Holocaust, and had nowhere else to go but to Israel, and you never knew your mother, whose loss you still grieve. Your grandfather was an Arab who lost everything he'd worked for to the Zionists. He had Jewish friends for whom he'd risked everything, but his house and olive grove were taken from him, and all he has left is the keys.
So it is not only the one-sided propagandist who will say "but what about the OTHER Arab massacres?" "But what about the OTHER incidents that have inflamed us LATELY?" "But what about...?" I am sure this diary is incomplete. Please help me to complete it.
So, Where Are We Now?
Some six years ago, I went to a screening of the film "Promises," by the wonderful Justine Shapiro and BZ Goldberg. This film interviewed children, Arab and Jewish both, who had been touched by the violence. Justine and BZ said that their film had been seen by many as simply deluded, though well-meaning. It seemed to me that this was because it gave credit to both sides, instead of blaming just one. In the question and answer period following, a Jewish man with the most grating, grinding, Gilbert Gottfried-style voice you could imagine, denigrated the "touchy-feely" sentiment of the film, and attempted to place blame squarely on the shoulders of the Arabs. On the Palestinian side, of course, many blame Israel; they have a professional military, so they look like the worse offenders.
As to current events, I believe that neither side is without innocent victims, nor without cynical manipulators killing them. I reject arguments that "well, it's regrettable, but you see, the problem is with the Other Side's leadership; Our Side's leadership is deeply concerned with the Other Side's loss of life, if only their leaders would listen." The record, I think, shows the cynical unconcern with the dead on both sides, and this unconcern comes FROM both sides. But the focus of this diary is on how we got there. History is important.
Again, if you have facts of your own to offer, please do so; provide links. And, again, please: show respect for the dead, on the Other Side, as well as your own. They're just as dead, and just as wrongly so. These were human lives. If there's one thing I know about Jews and Muslims both, it's this: though there are Jews and Muslims who sneeringly offer hate, each community also has a section with the capacity to look at the individual human being and say: "You matter. Your life matters. You are worth something." This is Judaism, for me. Islam, for me, is the Islam for which Charity is among their main Pillars. Islam, too, looks at the individual as worth something. The guest is a gift.
It is not a pollyanna's thinking to acknowledge that each side has innocents dying, and each side has cynical manipulators causing it to happen. It's the truth. Nobody's hands are clean.
But What Would You Have Done? In the scenarios above.
Yet that's not the important question. The important question is this: can you show respect to the side that's drawn your side's blood? When you can, there is a chance for peace. When you can't, there isn't. Do it. Show respect. Put out the hand again. When you're ready. But don't step on the other guy, while you're waiting to do so.