I wouldn't have used the word Confused in the title of this blog if I were certain about things. This whole situation is confusing. I can ignore it to a point, take the easy way out and express limited outrage, then go about my day. But that wouldn't be fair. Now, I'm not under any illusion that what I say matters to anyone but myself, but for the sake of my own soul, my own cherished principals and moral world view, isn't it time I wrote about the war in Israel and in Gaza?
But it's complicated. Even using the term War means I'm taking a side. Because how can it be called a war when one side loses hundreds of people and the other loses four? How can it be called a war when one side has incredible missiles shooting off fighter jets while the other side shoots primitive rockets?
And ignoring terminology, how do I feel about it? Truth is I hear about the Hamas leader killed by Israeli missiles, and I can't feel sorry for him, because he called for suicide attacks on Israelis.
But what does that mean?
I pride myself on being a pacifist, and not just a pacifist, but an informed one, because I was in the Israeli military for three years and have earned the right to lose faith in the military and in the Israeli government. I saw death and destruction and people losing the best years of their lives for goals that could have been achieved with diplomacy years earlier. Israeli soldiers died in Lebanon for no reason. Israeli soldiers died in the West Bank and in Gaza to stop Hamas, only to watch it from a distance gain even more power when American citizens elected an idiot who insisted on Palestinian elections when conditions on the ground favored a hard-line, anti-Israeli government. And I watched strike and retaliatory strike, where civilians on both sides died in the streets and in their homes for no reason.
But I hear about the Hamas leader, and I hope he rots in hell, because my cherished pacifism can take a break for a while. And I hear about this guy's wives who died with him in the attack, and I think, Well, they knew what they were getting into. And I hear about his dead children, and I think, Isn't that a shame... Isn't war a horrible thing...
And I realize--I'm not really a pacifist. Just another fraud who had been led to believe that some people need to die, and some people don't, but die anyway, because that's the way the world is.
More to the point, because I might as well get there. I don't believe the Israeli government cares about its soldiers. I don't believe the Israeli government cares that my 7-year-old niece's school bus takes an alternative route to avoid Hamas rockets. I don't believe the Israeli government cares that the traumas of Israeli children mean another generation of hopeless dreams of peace.
Because we do this shit in Israel when we're in kindergarten. We sing songs of peace and wave the flags of all nations, and smile because we believe in our tiny selves. But we grow up to a situation that makes us think the outcome is out of our hands.
And don't get me wrong. I put more emphasis on criticizing Israel but--and I'll avoid the who's more wrong here--the world will be a better place when Hamas dismantles and its leaders descend into the hell kept for those who sacrifice the lives of the helpless among them.
And I wanted to get to the point, but now it seems like I'll just continue going in circles.
Because there's so much there.
Sure, it's tragic to see Gaza destroyed and people lying in pools of blood. But it's tragic to see Israelis die, and the difference shouldn't be about the numbers of casualties.
It's tragic to imagine my niece even thinking about the possibility of a fucking rockets hitting her school bus, but it's also tragic to imagine a generation after generation of Palestinian kids who are born to little hope and grow up to none.
And the most fucked up thing about it is that even if I manage the impossible task of being objective about it all, if on the one hand I see the that pain of four Israeli families is just as horrible as that of four hundred Palestinian families, because numbers are meaningless when you mourn a loved one; and if I see on the other hand that my niece's trauma is just as tragic as that of a Palestinian girl born into an endless war, and if I see all of these children, Israeli and Palestinian children who think their generations will fix it all, only to grow up realizing they're all just meaningless pawns in God's joke... Well, even if I see all that I still know nothing.
There's a war going on. Or maybe there isn't.
People die. Some of them deserve it. Or maybe they don't.
There will be peace in our lifetime. Or maybe there won't.
27 comments:
You kind of answered one of the interview question I asked. I do hope you got them.
Death and deserving have nothing to do with each other. Everybody does die someday. I don't understand how people can say some people deserve to die when we all do. Is this really an euphemism for "I'll kill the bastard"?
I think you find more to criticize about Israel because you've lived there. You have pretty much summed up the situation. Hopefully the Bush comes back in the next election and we see more people getting their "deserved" deaths.
The world is fucked up.
I've read this twice in my reader and maybe three times here now.
I have no idea what to say.
Your confusion is very understandable, I just hope all the best for your family back home.
SJ, I did get them. I'm sorry I didn't write back. I'm always behind on my email. Thanks for the questions.
I think more than the idea of this person deserving to die, I have a problem with not caring about it. The idea that I'm a pacifist only when it's comfortable bothers me.
Xbox, thank you. I have no idea what to say either, but it takes me two pages to say that.
The lack of glibness is refreshing. I'll take honest confusion any day.
Indeed it is a very hard thing to write about. I struggled with it too. I don't think you're a fraud because you were happy that the big time Hamas guy got taken out. I wasn't sad for him either. Did you know that the IDF apparently called his place to warn him that the bomb was coming to his place? Very strange. I don't get this war. I really don't. And I am amazed at how out of touch many of my fellow American Jews are with the situation. A lot of them were saying the other night that Israel should go into Gaza on foot!! They actually think this will solve the problem. It will slow Hamas down for a month and go right back to square one.
And I agree, the world will be a better place without Hamas. But this will not stop them. You and I know this.
As far as the Israeli government goes. I don't know what they're doing but elections are coming up. Something to think about there.
I find myself torn between pacifism and loyalty like you.
I gave you a mention on my blog.
Wow. I'm speechless. I can't even imagine what kinds of emotions you struggle with on this issue. It frustrates the hell out of me and I have no connection to it whatsoever except as a passionate and sometimes over-logical human being who doesn't understand why 2 opposing sides can't compromise for the sake of humanity.
Ok, not entirely speechless.
For me, the confusion comes from exhaustion, "What, another war?" In the 18 years I lived in Israel there were wars, there were operations, there were suicide bombers, there were rocks, there were shootings, there were curfews, and seizures, and closures--there was never an end to the killings and the oppression.
Thousands of people have received PhDs and well-paid jobs analyzing and talking about and proposing solutions to the Israel-Palestinian (what?) relationship. And still the same thing. People in power on both sides need to just look back and see what's there, and look ahead and see what's potentially there, and come to some decision about what life is. And, yes, there are conflicting worldviews here--of the leadership, those who puff themselves up with their importance--but people, they want their pita and their kabobs and their hopes for their children's future. Okay, obvious oversimplification here, but really, let's just recognize each other's validity and stop the bloodshed.
Thank you.
I'm so sorry. Every single time I see something on the news about it, which is a lot, I think of you and your family. I wish that were enough. I want peace there, too. I have hoped and prayed for peace there for as long as I can remember, too. I don't claim to understand it at all, so maybe my hopes and dreams for peace in Israel are childish and naive, still. But. It certainly doesn't do any harm to pray for it.
People in the sin, There is one thing that unites us all, our humanity and our will to live a normal life. Give Gaza a chance to live and there will be no war. Give Jews a chance to coexist with Palestinians and there will be no war. The issue ofcourse is more than Gaza as we have the West Bank, Palestinians in Diaspora across the world and ofcourse Palestinian refugees in lebanon, Jordan, Syria who are ready today to cross the border to Israel and go back to their lands and homes they were forced to leave in 1948 and 1967. As much as I call for Peace and a One state solution as much as the situation gets complicated.
i've always tended to think of things in terms of numbers of causualties but you make a good point. the fewer families in israel have experienced the same pain as the more numerous palestinian families. i'm not gonna forget that now.
Hands down, this is the best, the absolute best post I have read on the topic and I've read many.
I agree about the soldiers. I would hate to be an Israeli soldier right now--even if he believes in what he is doing.
I also loathe how Hamas chose violence and locked Gaza into a nightmare.
You said it so well here.
Like Xbox, I've had this in my reader for days. I've been trying to wrap my head around it all, and I just don't think I can. And I can't get the vision of a 7 year old girl on a school bus that dodges bombs, out of my head.
I'm sorry. For you, for your family still there, and for every damn person in Gaza.
Man, I've been tuning this latest flare up/war/whatever out. I just don't know what to think any more. I'm an optimist generally, but even I don't think that there will be peace in our lifetime anymore.
You've written about this incredibly. Well done.
For the more confused, the following are an eye opener to what is going on in the middle east
check the following books and links:
A Peace to End All Peace (by David Fromkin)
Bible and Sword (by Barbra Tuchman)
http://www.ifamericansknew.com/
http://alidahmash.blogspot.com/2009/01/israel-is-not-targeting-civilians.html
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-rotten-state-of-egypt-is-too-powerless-and-corrupt-to-act-1220048.html
http://qassami.blogspot.com/2009/01/truth-about-sderot.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=1052057
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story11960.html
http://www.allaboutpalestine.com/massacre.html
mark, thank you. And thank you for your words on BlogCatalog.
Ricardo, but you see, I know it has to be wrong to kill him and his family. After all, we've been there before. A few years ago, becoming the head of Hamas meant a self-imposed death sentence. I wasn't happy, but I couldn't be upset when one after another Hamas leader was killed by fighter jet missiles. Even knowing many innocent people died when those supposedly accurate missiles exploded didn't make me rethink my position. But if all these people died and nothing has been achieved, then what good did it do? About the elections in Israel, I commented on Lirun's blog that I hope the positive thing that comes out of this is that Bibi Netanyahu won't be elected. Already, in a supposedly war-time unified political atmosphere in Israel, he has distinguished himself by saying that while Barak and Livni want to stop the rockets, he won't stop until he dismantles Hamas. His political ambitions have endangered that whole region for years. (and thanks for the mention. You know I was just joking, right?).
Jeff, I don't know why they can't compromise. Put an Israeli and a Palestinian in a room together and they have more in common with each other than with anyone else. Put five and five, and they'll be dancing and drinking coffee together. Put a nation of Israelis next to a nation of Palestinians and you get the same bullshit war for over a century.
Laura, those people with their PhDs don't seem to help too much. They all seem to bring to the table the same sensible but faulty idea that even when you finally negotiate, you have to come from a position of power to get as much as possible. And to make sure you maintain that position of power you need wars and operations with ridiculous masculine names, and suicide bombers, and intifadas. And then when you have sensible people on the left, like me, for example, who say that war is a terrible thing but it had to be done, then you know we must be doomed. This whole planet must be doomed.
Shelli, but you see, the childish and naive thoughts are the only ones making sense here. Sure, there are legitimate issues, like future security, control over limited resources, the right of return, the identity of Israel as a homeland for Jews, the fight between Hamas and Fatah, Jerusalem as the capital of both countries, and a lot more. But these are all negotiable issues, and only by saying naively No More can anything be done. As long as war (and rockets and suicide bombers) is an option, nothing will be achieved.
Ali, that's what I told Shelli. These are all legitimate issues. As is the fear of many Israelis that a Palestinian Right of Return would make Israel a Palestinian country. Just like Palestinians have been brought up learning about a history of oppression, Israelis have been brought up learning that with or without the US aid, Israelis can only trust themselves, and a return of millions of Palestinians makes Israelis legitimately afraid. But these are all issues that can be solved. It's complicated, but it can be solved.
(and thanks for the links. They were very interesting. A lot of moderate, peaceful opinions. I also look at B'Tselem site).
Bluestreak, thanks. I see that issue of proportionality in Israel's response a lot. I mean, what did Hamas expect, for Israel to answer one rocket attack with its own rocket attack? Those rockets target civilians. Should Hamas be forgiven for missing?
Enemy, hey, thanks. I've been trying to avoid it for a few days. And I still avoid the TV coverage. I mean, what can CNN tell me? And as for Hamas, it keeps waving the "We're mainly a political organization" flag, but it's still an extreme organization that shoots rockets at civilians.
Praying, thank you. For now, from what I understand, the bus doesn't dodge bombs. It only had to change the route. But it's the idea of growing up knowing people out there are hoping to kill you that bothers me. On both sides. How can you grow up to this situation and have anything but hostility?
Freeman, I was tuning it out for the first day or two, hoping it would end by the time I opened my eyes. But really, I've been doing it since I was born. I remember being a kid, talking to a friend of mine about the military, and we asked each other what we wanted to do in the military, and one of us suggested (don't remember who) that maybe there won't be an Israeli military by the time we grow up because there will be peace. True story. I wonder how many kids have been thinking the same thing all these years.
Please don't call me "A Spokesman for Hamas" but I found this link in a Jewish Blog. I realy don't know what can justify this.
http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2009/01/israel-at-its-best.html
You know, there are times where I wish nothing more than to be inside your head when you're writing. And that's not a way for saying "your stupid baffles and frustrates me," far from it. What baffles and frustrates me is this perennial war as you so expertly articulated.
If I may be so honest, in 2006 I was all up in arms about the war in Lebanon but between then and now I've gotten so tired of it all and on some level it's so hard to care about it anymore. It requires an almost monstrous level of detachment from human suffering to say that but it's true; maybe I'm a monster. With the powers that be on all sides interested only in preserving the status quo through war that didn't work ten years ago, doesn't work now, and won't work in another ten years, what's the point? Their interest in keeping the conflict going indefinitely is very Orwellian in some respects.
Around times like this people usually say "if only Gandhi/MLK/Mother Teresa/whomever were still with us." Well I'll bet the $168 in my wallet that if even all three of them were still around and giving their all to Palestinian peace they would be rocketed by Hamas or shot by a hardline Israeli loon.
ali you are a spokesperson for hamas..
It's all so complicated and sad and it has been going on for so long.
Ali, earlier today I saw on a blog a video of Hamas people supposedly using children as human shields. I left a comment there that even if it were true, it shouldn't make any difference. The argument here is not about Hamas but about Israel. Very few people think Hamas has the moral upper hand here. The outrage and the protests are not for Hamas but against Israel's reaction and exactly against its attempts to justify everything. This is all just to say I don't think criticizing Israel makes anyone, including the Israeli protesters, pro-Hamas.
Woozie, when I took an Israel-Palestine Conflict class in College Park, someone asked how come the Palestinians never had a Gandhi calling for peaceful resistance. The two teachers (Israeli and Palestinian) had two answers. One was an example of a Palestinian Gandhi (I don't remember his name) whose voice was silenced by the louder voices of extremists and whose movements were limited by the Israelis. So that didn't work. The second answer was strange. They called the first Intifada a peaceful protest that showed the world the pain of the Palestinians by using rocks. On the one hand, it might be true that the world became more sympathetic to Palestinians during the Intifada, but on the other hand, I don't think anyone in Israel looked at those rocks, Molotov cocktails, and brick ambushes as peaceful.
And if there ever were a possibility of an economic solution, when Palestinians who were used as cheap labor in Israel could go on strike, that was solved by Israel bringing in foreign workers, mostly by turning a blind eye to illegal immigration and to the bad conditions illegal workers were then facing, and then every once in a while, when they have enough workers, they deport a few.
Lirun, na... You need a beard to get that job.
Marilyn, I'd like to think it's not that complicated; that there's no solution just because there hasn't been a leader powerful enough on both sides to fight the extremists on his/her side and solve this mess. But maybe that's even more depressing.
Someone posted this in my blog
(American has left a new comment on your post "Who is PCRF ?":
Ali, you need to ONLY mourn the death of Israelis so the so called "moderates" like you. Come own man, please say you hate Palestinian babies and women to satesfy the poor souls who think they are "peaceful". )
Strange that Lirun wants me to ignore the killings of children, women, elderly civilians and acusing me of being the spokesman for Hamas. Send me links to Israeli civilian casualties and I'll post pictures of killed children and women in my blog.
War is bad, so accept it!
Ali I don't think Lirun was serious when calling you the spokesman for Hamas. I think he's just trying to get the better of you.
People, Bibi Netanyahu does not want to just dismantle Hamas he wants to take over everything and blow as much stuff up as possible in the process. He is a classic war hawk. He's almost the other side of the Palestinian extreme. I am not crazy about him.
Yes, I knew you were just joking. :-)
Ali, I'm with Ricardo. I'm sure Lirun wasn't serious. And I'm sure he wouldn't have said that if he thought you were going to take him seriously.
Ricardo, since your comment here a lot has happened, hasn't it? The situation is getting worse every day, the weapons get further away from the Geneva Convention, and the more people die, the more this thing disappear from the public mind. But that wasn't my point. My point was that as this thing gets worse, I don't see Kadima as a centrist party anymore. They seem to out-Bibi Bibi, at least as long as Bush is still President.
And the biggest tragedy, even to the point of absurdity, is that Ariel Sharon could have been the solution.
Hey, I just heard yesterday that the US will provide Irsael with 3000 Tons of artilary, because Irsael is low in supply, is that true, did any of you hear about this?
I didn't hear about it, but it doesn't mean it's not true. It's a strategic decision. It's not based on any love of Israel or Israelis. When the US has more countries in the region that will support it 100% like Israel, they will give them weapons. I hope things will change soon. More weapons for anyone doesn't help either side.
Matt sent me over here and I'm glad he did.
I struggle with the pacifist thing as well. Yet I think fighting for the right to take a bus to school in safety is worth it. And on the other hand, fighting for a homeland is worth it also.
Still, no one wins. Seems like one side conceding, giving in, compromising, is the only way to peace.
Hey, thanks for coming over. I know what you mean. All of these seem like valid reasons to die for, maybe at least until it's no longer a theory. I wonder if in the last moments, those warriors for peace rethink it all.
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