I've mostly stayed out of the current I/P debate, at least the diary side of it, because I frankly don't want the headache from either side. The last diary I wrote on the subject, right after Hillary Clinton's threat to "obliterate Iran" if Iran attacked Israel, garnished me nothing but T.R.'s, hate email, some guy who claimed to be Ex-IDF spamming jpegs of beheaded bodies, and real life death threats.
My life is complicated enough. This is grief I do not need.
But today a comment from KnotIookin in another I-P Diary got me thinking. Not so much about the Israel or Palestine, but the our collective mindset and outlook on the world. And how that mindset is going to have to change if the Mideast and the World is ever going to see real peace.
The part of the KnotIookin's comment that got me thinking was this (my emphasis):
People claim "i didnt mean it to be anti-semetic" or "Jews always cry anti semetism when anyone dares comment on Israel" but to many JEWS they are quite offensive and put us in a position of choosing to stay silent, leaving DK (for now) or defending Israel only to be bombarded and attacked.
My first response is why? I always ask why, even if it's just to annoy and poke at people's preconception of the world. I used to pester my teachers in Christian School with Whys until they ran out of nonsense and struck back with "Because God Made it That Way!" Probably why I am an Agnostic today.
Anyway... Why would a Jew in the United States feel compelled to "defend" Israel? You're not Israeli. Sure, you may share a belief in a particular Invisible Man in the Sky with certain people in Israel, so? You may share certain ethnic and cultural touchstone, so? Those commonalities should not obligate anyone to defend egregious human rights abuses of someone else half way around the globe.
I've never been attached to one ethnicity or culture other than "Pop" and Americana. I'm a bit Irish, a bit British, a lot Czech, and some other smaller bits. But I've never seen myself as a allied with any of those ethnic groups and as I have gotten older I don't even think of myself as particularly "American" (as if being American means anything).
I see myself in bohemian terms. Even though it sounds Junior Year Abroad cheesy, I consider myself a citizen of the world. Just a Human from Planet Earth.
Those Palestinians being murdered in the streets of Gaza aren't "Hamas" or "Arab Terrorists" or "Palestinians", they're human beings. The kids in the IDF that are being sent to die in a pointless war against peace, they aren't Israelis or Jews, they're human beings.
Distinctions like "Jew" and "Palestinian", "American" and "European", "White" and "Black" are meaningless Scategories we willfully file ourselves into to give our lives some context. The only thing we are is Human.
And our ultimate obligation isn't to our own ethnic group, or to our own religion, or to our own country even. Our ultimate obligation is to ensure the human rights of everyone everywhere.