Reading this diary affected me today. As an American, it upset me that my fellow American citizens could be treated this way. As a Jew, it upset me that my fellow Jews could treat others this way.
Abraham Lincoln said:
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Being the occupier of a hostile people dehumanizes both the occupied and the occupier, just as slavery dehumanized the master as well as the slave. When I was in the Navy during the Vietnam war, all Vietnamese, and, eventually, all Asians - Fillipinos, Thais, Okinawans - were "gooks".
I never used that word, but I heard it constantly. Americans were human, gooks were not. When you dehumanize others, they are easy to oppress, easy to beat up, easy to kill. It's easier to kill a dog than it is to kill a human. The Israeli occupation has dehumanized the Israelis. Over the decades, Arabs have ceased to be human, they have become "gooks."
Rabbi Leo Baeck endured 12 years of increasing hell under the Nazis, spending the last two years in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After liberation, he was flown to Britain on an American military plane. Enroute, an American officer (Patrick Dolan) approached him and said, "Rabbi, look down, it's the Rhine River, we are leaving German air space. You will never have to step foot on German soil again." Rabbi Baeck replied, "Patrick, do not hate in your heart. Have only mercy and justice."
If Israelis are to become the children of Rabbi Baeck and of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose family was murdered by the Nazis and who himself left Nazi Germany just before escape was cut off, and who survived to march with Martin Luther King and the Berrigans for civil rights and for peace in Vietnam, if Israel is to become a light among nations, then Israel must end this occupation now. Not to save the Palestinians, but to save themselves.