War Without End
“Blood for blood. It has to stop sometime.”
– Gaius Baltar
Although I am Jewish, I tend to shy away from discussing political issues regarding Israel, because I don’t trust myself to look at any situation therein with any semblance of objectivity. I remember getting hoodwinked by the infamous “Iranian yellow star” hoax perpetrated by the Toronto National Post a few years back, and vowing I wouldn’t let that happen again.
It also disgusts me to watch how international opinionators, bloggers, journalists, and so-called “experts” reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to simple black-and-white digestible chunks. If you’re a progressive, Israel is the big nasty bully, the evil empire terrorizing the oppressed Palestinians fighting for their right to what they consider their ancestral homeland. If you’re a conservative, Israel is the strong ally of the U.S. defending itself against those nasty terrorist suicide bombers who want to perpetrate another Holocaust. These positions become litmus tests, recyclable cliches’ that people of all sides spout like they’re watching some giant game of football, only the ball is a bomb and the playing field is the Holy Land.
It makes me sick, frankly, and so I avoid talking about it. But there comes a point where you simply can’t avoid the bitter truth in front of your face, and I think the Israeli Air Force attacks on Gaza this weekend have brought me to that point.
I picked a quote from “Battlestar Galactica” to kick this off because of the marvelous way this series makes you question your assumptions about what is good and what is evil. When your heroes are under the thumb of an oppressive Cylon dictatorship, they’re still heroes–but when they start using suicide bombers to instigate a rebellion, is that still heroic? When one side can effectively obliterate the other, and the other side resorts to using humans as living weapons, who is truly in the right?
As a wise man once said, terrorism is what the big army calls the little army. How different is bombing civilians from the air from a suicide run into a cafe or a school? Why is one considered an acceptable, desired part of modern warfare, while the other is considered barbaric and inhumane? Is it because air attacks enable distance for the supporter as well as the pilot? Can we make ourselves feel better about the carnage if we can’t see the faces of those whom we kill?
Each side thinks they are ordained by God to fight or defend the land they claim as theirs, given to them by blessed, bloody sacrament. Hamas’ Khaled Meshal has said that the “time for the third Intifada has come” in response to the bombings, ordering the militia to attack Israeli targets and soldiers in response. Israel, which was apparently plotting this operation even as it was negotiating a cease-fire with Hamas, seems bound and determined to do a big solid for the major oil companies with its continuing bombing runs, showing not even the slightest sign of remorse.
Where does it end?
People have a tendency to forget that statewide sanctioned violence against Jews and Judaism didn’t begin with the Holocaust. That was not an outlier, sadly, but the apex expression of millenia’s worth of campaigns designed to utterly exterminate Jews as a people. Unless you are of a particular tribe that has been through similar circumstances — and many have been — you can’t really understand it.
But I can. My Hebrew name is Mordecai T’svi Baruch Kochba. I was named for the historic Mordecai, who helped Queen Esther expose the plot of Haman to execute all the Jews living throughout Persia. Bar Kochba was the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, who established an independent state of Israel for two years before being conquered. He was originally deemed a Messiah, but was later called “son of the deception” because he had the temerity to fail and fall in battle, and 580,000 Jews were killed with him. To give you an idea of the scale, that’s equivalent to the entire native population of the District of Columbia. Imagine every living man, woman, and child in this city suddenly ceasing to exist, and you have an idea of the carnage Rome created to break the revolt — and this is before such modern marvels as gas chambers and acid showers. So I carry the weight of the legacy of defending Jews’ right to their own sovereign state every day. It’s literally done in my name.
But at what point does defense become vengeance? Does God truly sanction the killing of innocent people in his name? When does our collective consciousness, as Jews, take a look in the mirror and realize that we’re becoming the very evil we despise? That by bombing Gaza, we’re bearding the lion in his den, goading him to strike back in fury and pain, not realizing that he may devour us as he dies?
It has to stop. No, I amend that. That’s too passive. We have to stop it. We have to stop letting armchair warmongers like AIPAC dictate for the whole of American and the world what foreign policy towards Israel should be, especially when the vast majority of American Jews are considerably more dovish and progressive. We have to stop letting Rapture-ready Dominionist psychos agitate for the Final Battle in the Holy Land, wherein all us Jews will be converted into good little Christians or die with all the other heathens. We have to recognize that even though Israel is waging a brutally asymmetric war against Hamas, with nukes on one side and carbombs on the other, that such asymmetry doesn’t absolve Hamas and its fellows of their responsibility to end the killing and do what they can to work for peace.
Most of all, we, as Americans, need to stop playing kingmaker, bully, and greedy mercenary in the Middle East, continuously demonizing everyone who isn’t Israel as if they were all pawns of bin Laden, while simultaneously feeding Israel billions in aid and goading them to take the hardest stance possible while we sit safely across the ocean. This is a struggle that has been going on since before Western civilization existed, and the best thing we can bring to the table is new ideas, new perspectives, and a fresh optimism. Instead, all we do is bring more war.
The guys at J Street have the right idea for starters:
The need for diplomatic engagement goes beyond a short-term ceasefire. Eight years of American neglect and ineffective diplomacy have led us directly to a moment when the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hang in the balance and with them the prospects for Israel’s long-term survival as a Jewish, democratic state…
This is a fundamental American interest as we too stand to suffer as the situation spirals, rage in the region is directed at the United States, and our regional allies are further undermined. Our goals must be a Middle East that moves beyond bloody conflicts, an Israel that is secure and accepted in the region, and an America secured by reducing extremism and enhancing stability. None of these goals are achieved by further escalation.
But we can go farther still. We need to envision Israel as a multi-tribal nation, where Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike all have a seat at the table in determining the future of the Holy Land. Every major religious faith, every ethnicity, every tribe has felt the lash of genocide in its history. No one has a monopoly on the victimhood of extermination, and no one has the right to say that they, and they alone, should be granted exclusive access to the center of faith for millions of people around the world.
We need to commit to an immediate ceasefire of all hostilities on both sides. We need to force Israel and Palestine to the table and make each side commit to giving each other something of value–be it a lifting of the blockade, unfettered aid to injured civilians, or recognition that each side has a valid claim to the Holy Land.
Israel has the right to exist as a sovereign nation. But just as America (which has more Jews than Israel does now) is a nation of many faiths, many colors, and many beliefs, so too must Israel be if it is to survive.What’s the point of being the ones to claim that we have control over Jerusalem, if none of us are alive to worship?
Is this really what God wants for us? Is it what we want for ourselves? For our children?
Think about it.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
One thing is ALWAYS certain about this conflict. While Israeli military might harm civilians, they have NEVER TARGETED THEM SPECIFICALLY. Palestinian terrorists have always intentionally targeted civilians and not military targets.
The unintended result of civilian deaths is far different than intentional killing of them: morally & ethically.
And it is also CERTAIN that negotiations will be for naught unless Hamas is gone and this will only happen if the Palestinians realize this for themselves. At current, they’re too dumb and ideologically screwed up to do so.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Brandon,
How do you know that for a fact? Were you in on the planning sessions? Can you say with certainty that civilian targets were never on the table?
Whether it’s a carpet bomb or a surgical strike, the possibility of collateral damage always exists. People are packed into Gaza like rats or sardines, so the possibility increases a hundredfold. It may be that Barak simply decided they were acceptable losses.
These things are near-impossible to equivocate, even on a sliding morality scale. Right now, Palestine has no–zero–motivation to give up Hamas, because in their eyes, Israel deliberately assaulted them while they were claiming they were suing for peace. They see it as a brutal sneak-attack performed as the worst example of two-faced politics.
Maybe Israel felt that it was justified to do this. I wasn’t there in the planning sessions either, so I don’t know. But from where I sit, it looks shady at best, indefensible at worst.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I wonder what would happen if Obama’s administration decided to cut off all aid to Israel? I mean, they are now capable of standing on their own feet, it would seem. Why are we funding all of this nonsense? I’d love to hear this from the incoming administration:
“OK, y’all- you’re on your own- we have a deficit to replenish, and the US Jews can pass the plate for you from now on…”
Yeah, right. One can dream, though…
December 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Even though I am known for my capacity (and desire) to quibble on almost any point, I am going to take a pass here and simply agree with you Martin.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
To Sunfell, however:
Its never that simple. Personally, I have always erred on the side of assuming Israel has primary responsibility… for the same reason that when two children fight, the parents blame the older one… They should know better, are smarter, more adept etc.
But its not that simple.
For one reason, the US would never pull out all stakes is because Israel is the only democracy in the region, and its neighbors refuse to recognize its fundamental right to exist. That is one of our foreign policy hotbuttons.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Religion is all well and good, but it’s not worth a single human life. I wish people could distance themselves when they look at their history. So many people look there for answers, when they should pull themselves out of their self-induced trances and start coming up with their own solutions.
History does not repeat itself, we repeat it.
Humans are enraptured by the narrative of their past, it can envelop us and subjugates our identity. Some have never truly had an independent thought because they’ve been so completely brainwashed by their culture.
William Burroughs compare language to a virus, and he was right. The past 2000 years have been a series of proxy wars building up to some anticipated eschatonic climax, all because language preserved the ideas of people so utterly inferior to modern man that they were indistinguishable from apes.
I think its time we take a long hard look in the mirror. We have a financial crisis on our hands because civilization has romanticized momentum, neglecting the fact that our trajectory is leading us to the edge of a cliff.
Humans are special because we possess the ability to extrapolate our actions, perceiving consequences before they happen. We can predict the future, thanks to the frontal lobe nature so kindly gifted us. And yet, people never seem to use it; the frontal lobe doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25. Perhaps our youth worshiping culture has been emulating that quality at the expense of their future.
It is time to stop gazing into the rear-view mirror and start fixing our attention upon the broad landscape before us.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Thank you for that eloquent and
heartfelt commentary, Martin/Mordecai.
As far as one state for all, my fear
is that Israel would feel compelled
to submit everyone it allows out
of Gaza into Israel to a thorough
background check that could
last six months to a year.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Sunfell and Nick,
One reason why the U.S. has such an insanely dogmatic, horse-blinder policy on Israel is because much of our dialogue and policy on Israel is controlled by insane right-wing cabals like AIPAC. Groups like these funnel thousands of dollars into Congressional and Presidential campaigns to ensure that politicians espouse only the most hawkish, militaristic, and extremist views on Israel. Even though (as I said) the vast bulk of American Jewry is very open to constructive dialogue and peace settlements with Hamas and the like, the discourse is distorted by those who have much to gain from feeding the war machine for Israel.
Don’t forget, we don’t just give them money, we sell them weapons, up to and including nukes. Keeping tensions high in the Middle East assures the profits of the defense industry.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Jason,
That’s one of the most incredibly profound things I’ve ever read. Well put, sir. I can’t add anything else, and won’t even try.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Russ,
Oh, absolutely. Israel’s security state is so oppressive it makes post-9/11 America look like Guam.
If a multi-state solution is implemented, we can’t let the immigration procedure become as burdensome and deliberately frustrating as it is here in America–that’s the very thing that drives people to jump the fences and cross the borders here, and it’ll be the same there.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Sunfell:
I was there, working at the DC Convention Center, when Barack made that speach, just prior to Clinton bowing out of the race. He won’t bring any change,
and Palestine know it.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:12 am
It is an established fact, verified in U.N. records, that in the 1948 war, Israelis poisoned the water of several Palestinian cities with germ materiel. Israeli terrorism caused Palestinian populations to flee their ancestral lands. Ben-Gurion admitted privately to aides that he didn’t blame the Arabs for their actions. The state was founded from the start as a crime, and this crime has been perpetuated again and again to annex every-larger areas of land in the name of defense, just as the Roman Empire was forced to grow into the world’s largest state for defensive purposes. As for the Palestinians, what people could hold up its head and look itself in the eye in the mirror if it didn’t resist this repeated loss of land?
- Charles, a non-observant Jew
December 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am
@ demonfafa
Ah, so the University in Gaza, which was specifically and deliberately targeted by bombs from jets, must be a huge Hamas stronghold, nu?
December 30th, 2008 at 6:46 am
My two cents as a non-Jew and non-arab. I once had a friend and co-worker who was, I thought he told me from Jordan. His name was Basem. He had a sister named Rose. They were two of the nicest, gentlest people you could know. I still remember Basem’s easy laugh. I remember that once he told me, when I asked him why they left their country, that the Israelis had destroyed their house. This I felt was quite undeserved. Yet he seemed to harbor no grudge about it. Later Rose was betrothed to a fierce nutcase of an “Arab” whom neither she nor anyone else could stand. But she felt she had to marry him as it was some sort of obligation. This taught me that even though people in the west tend to think, I’d say are even trained to think of “Arabs” as all just a bunch of stupid barbarians that’s not at all the case. The crazies who target innocents are hated and feared by majorities of their own people, but they have learned to shut up. People are individuals and we do a disservice to many good people by lumping everyone together.
Now I’m going to play “devil’s advocate”. If you look at Israel’s history right from the Exodus they stole that land from the natives many thousands of years ago. Their God, and his mouthpiece Moses, told them to “slaughter every man, woman and child” that got in their way (example: Numbers 31:17-18). Though they were also to save the virgins for themselves. After the diaspora at around 70 or 73 C.E. they were pretty much absent from the land for 2,000 years or so. In anyone’s book those who stayed that long, the Palestinians, owned the land. Then in 1948 the Jews decided to wrest it back again. Forcibly and violently. Thus the source of the present conflict.
To demonfafa I’d say Google “Irgun” and “lehi”. The latter was designated a terrorist organization by the British and the UN. Also Google “Operation Malonchik”. Nicholas’ comment that Jews “are smarter, more adept” is barely disguised racisism. When I was a kid of about 10 years of age I had a Jewish friend named Allen W. He, my brother and I used to pretend that we were members of the “fantastic four” (comic series). I should say we were friends until his mother told him to stay away from us because we were “goyim”, or unclean heathens.
About the premise of this article which is fairly even-handed my worry is that there is so much bad blood between these two groups that there may never be peace. It’s a rivalry that goes back thousands of years.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:58 am
One last comment to Nicholas. I don’t know if you are aware of it but duing the dark ages the Arab world was virtually the center of culture and learning.
http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Columns/SciFri/SciFri_3.18.05_Light_in_the_Dark_Agesancient_Arab_and_Persian_scholars.html
http://heritage.scotsman.com/heritage/Illuminating-the-Dark-Ages.2497060.jp
December 30th, 2008 at 7:08 am
I want to add one clarification to my previous comments that I fear there may never be peace between these two groups. I do really hope that they can one day before it’s too late grow up and resolve their differences.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Actually, I disagree with JGallagher on a couple of key points, even though I don’t necessarily entirely disagree with his sentiment…
“Religion is all well and good, but it’s not worth a single human life.”
Religion, at its best, is composed of ideals. People fight and die for ideals all the time and are quite often venerated for them. The problem of course, is that in hindsight we celebrate the struggle for some ideals and villify others. But blaming “religion” is too broad a stroke, especially when many of the historical atrocities associated with religion were done for secular gain and simply cloaked in religion.
“all because language preserved the ideas of people so utterly inferior to modern man that they were indistinguishable from apes.”
If William Burroughs said that he was wrong. I can look out my window and see people more like apes than those that language have preserved to us from thousands of years ago. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. Ancient Civilizations were no less civilized than what we pretend to be today… and many may well have been our superiors in every respect – intellectually, morally… all save longevity. It is hubris and a misconception to assume that we are better simply because we came along after.
As for the general idea that we need to look forward, not back, I will grant that perhaps the balance needs to be tilted more in that direction, but there are plenty of pithy truisms to be had for the opposite view as well, starting with failing to understand history dooms one to repeat it.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Byron,
You misinterpreted my comments. Those words you quote if you re-read them were describing the analogy of an older child to a younger child, and why you blame the older one for a fight.
In reference to Israeli-Palestinian conflict, my suggestion is that you have two countries (or pseudo country in the case of Palestine) that are in conflict. One is a modern democracy that is for all intents and purposes, a nuclear power. The other is rubble without running water.
I would argue that the side that bears the brunt of responsibility for finding a way out of this mess is clear. I certainly do not favor the Israelis over the Palestinians in this, as your charge suggests.