I’ve avoided putting word to ‘paper’ on this deeply upsetting topic for the good part of a week now. As an American (non-religious) Jew, I’ve spent a lifetime learning/knowing about many details of the conflict over land and spiritual/religious dominion/claims over Israel/Palestine by both Jews and Muslims discussed in the Old Testament. When I say ‘discussed,’ I mean it’s been in oral/written history for approximately 6,000 years, who knows, maybe longer. Let’s just say it’s literally been millennia.
And what has the stance been, for millennia? Thousands of years where the Tribe of Esau and the Tribe of Jacob have, though at times in periods of détente, generally been in a rabid argument of literal brothers over this grain of sand and that hill and this strip of coastline and that swath of land. And on and on. Erupting into periods of intense rhetoric, and often brutal violence. The ‘land’ has changed hands or seen ebbs and flows of one group or the other on it, especially as groups of Jews have fled slavery, inquisition, persecution, and violence, nomadically wandering the world from place to place, stumbling into more pogroms, the occasional Inquisition, and an unspeakable Genocide-the Final Solution being an almost complete wipeout, an evil the world has rarely seen before or since, from the Third Reich.
Why am I writing this? I’m sick and tired. And tired of being sick and tired, especially in this place in 2023, where people who barely know anything about the conflict are emboldened social media keyboard warriors and interweb Ph.D’s on why one side or the other is supremely right and the other side is the monster. Good on you for being curious, I’m all for research and self-education. But the agents of mis/disinformation are mighty. I am going to use a phrase that I REALLY hate, one that defines one of the most insidious traits of the Mainstream Media—which is to ‘BOTH SIDES’ almost every issue in this world, giving equal weight, for example, to MAGA Fascism and the general fecklessness of an institutionally-obsessed and corporate funded Democratic Party establishment (btw, in the spirit of BOTH SIDES, the GOP is drowning in corporate, theocratic, and billionaire corruption, but I digress…)
My point is, I am applying the ‘BOTH SIDES’ argument to the one issue the Lamestream Media should ACTUALLY apply it to, which is the 6000 year old Israeli-Palestinian saga. What do I mean? There have been major atrocities and policies, cheered on by the FAR RIGHT on BOTH SIDES, that are unconscionable and have led to a never-ending loop of pain, violence, and unspeakable horror. Am I being too charitable? No. Here’s a short list, in no particular order:
1. Far Right Israeli Settlers brazenly and in true gaslighting inflammatory in-yo’-face fashion, making incursions into the West Bank with the tacit approval of Far Right elements of the Israeli power structure, and the incendiary shitshow of escalation and violence on loop this has inflamed for decades.
2. Bombing and other IDF-institutionalized killing of incalculable numbers of usually poor Palestinian civilian men, women, and children, who especially have nowhere to go when it’s in Gaza, ‘collateral damage’ that is just as innnocent as any civilian human life, (rarely recognized and acknowledged as such by Lamestream Media and other circles of public discourse), as an Israeli civilian blown apart in a Hamas or other Palestinian-cause supporting group in a terrorist attack, whether mowed down, brutalized, tortured, and mutilated at a music festival, in a kibbutz, in their homes, on a scale of cruelty, evil and depravity right up there with the worst of terroristic, genocidal mania the world has seen over the millennia. Yes, HAMAS IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. NO, I said it, Not all Palestinians, in fact the vast majority of Palestinians are NOT Terrorists. Of course. Yea, but Gaza voted Hamas in, you say? True. Don’t get me started on that. Discussion for another time.
3. Again, Hamas is a Terrorist Organization. Full Stop. For a recent, and perhaps the most graphic example, please refer to #2 above and all the events from Oct 7th last week and the slaughter of Israeli civilian men, women, and children. Or glorifying torture and beheading of dead Israeli soldiers. And no, we don’t call it barbarism to deflect the inexcusable crimes and killings initiated by the Israeli Far Right, Right Wing Israeli settlers, the IDF either. Terrible behavior must be called whether it is a Jew or a Muslim. Either way, it does NOT give anyone the ridiculous bullshit fake moral standing to justify away evil.
4. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad are terrorist organizations that deny the right of the nation of Israel to exist. That is an untenable position that cannot be overstated enough. Additionally, most Arab nations still do not have diplomatic relations with Israel and either explicitly (or tacitly) deny Israel’s right to exist. Not sustainable or acceptable if peace is ever to be attained.
5. 6000 years of hatred and entrenchment. I’m an American Jew, I support Israel, I support the right to a free nation of Palestine, and always condemn terrorism and bad faith actors, and call out those on the Israeli Right who are part of the problem, not the solution. Sure, call me an armchair quarterback because I’ve never been on the front lines, I’ve never walked in an Israeli or Palestinian’s shoes. But I can firmly say,
6. THIS WIIL NEVER END BY FORCE AND THE NEVERENDING LOOP OF HATRED AND VIOLENCE
7. Only a diplomatic, humanistic, and mutually conciliatory effort will ever end this. Land must be shared. Resources must be shared. Economic Investment must be made. On BOTH SIDES. And that goes for the proxy allies of Israel and Palestine, too.
There, I said it. Two things can be true at the same time. Love Israelis, Love Palestinian innocents who are suffering, all caught in the crossfire of political, religious, and dogmatic corruption, terrorism, and subjugation. I am not under any illusions that this will occur during my lifetime. But it’s really not hard to do, we do it everyday with our neighbors, family, friends, Jew, and Muslim, living side by side in (relative) harmony here in the USA. We know how to do this. If only it were probable on a larger scale in Israel/Palestine. We know it’s not impossible.