Two days ago, I wrote a blog entry, A Moment for Taking Sides, in which I expressed my sympathy for Israel as the victim of vicious attacks by Hamas, and urged anybody with influence over current affairs to side with them in taking Hamas down. "First things first," I said. First get rid of Hamas, then get on with the business of putting right the injustices perpetrated on the Palestinians by what I am convinced are misguided and self-defeating Israeli policies. But I'm afraid I left unsaid why I think Nethanyahu's policies are self-defeating, ultimately. And, Nethanyahu is hardly the only Israeli leader responsible for bad policies; he's merely the latest and, I happen to think, the worst of the lot.
Every time - every single time - the topic of Israel/Palestine comes up in discussion with friends, we get bogged down with competing historical narratives. My first exposure to the history of Israel/Palestine was probably the Ashkenazi Zionist perspective I swallowed whole from the 1960 movie Exodus, based on Leon Uris's book and starring Paul Newman, a fictional account of heroic efforts by European Jews to get around the British efforts to limit emigration to Israel. That film went a long way to establishing American sympathy with the Zionist project. Only much later, after developing leftist political sympathies, did I begin to get the view from the other side.
This leads me to underline the importance of understanding something about the sociology of knowledge, how much of what we know is accidental and arbitrary. How we can err in thinking we have a grasp on reality when in fact what we know, true and factual though it may be, is only part of a bigger picture. That's why the metaphorical tale of The Blind Men and the Elephant has become one the guiding lights of my understanding of the world.
Another aspect of this thing called the sociology of knowledge is the fact that you can't say everything at once. One of the dangers of the modern day is our willingness to take bumper-sticker wisdom too seriously. Another is our impatience: we like our summaries to be limited to one page. Sometimes we have to check and make sure we have the whole story. For whatever reason, I didn't get it all out the other day. When I said that I wanted to stand with Israel, I failed to add my hope that they don't make the horror of this attack worse.
I fear that is what they are about to do. They have the attention - and the sympathy - of decent people around the world at the moment. Few will be surprised to see them strike back, hit Gaza as the launching place of the attack, for all it's worth. OK, so there will be collateral damage, they will say. What do you expect us to do? We can't sit on our hands and let the hostages be abused; we've got to get them back. And we can't let the leaders of Hamas get away with murder; we've got to take them out.
It is at highly emotional moments like this one when we are most likely to go off half-cocked, when politicians worry more about how they are being perceived than about doing the right thing. America did it when George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condaleeza Rice and company took us into Iraq after 9/11. They made a mistake the whole world will be paying for for a hundred years, destabilizing the Middle East in a whole new way. I can't tell you how often I have wanted to lose my lunch as I watched Michelle Obama speak of W as a personal friend; I see him as a war criminal. And how I squirmed over the fact that Dick (ditto war criminal) is the father of Liz Cheney, one of my heroes.
But let's leave this discussion of cognitive dissonance for another day. My point here is that I believe Israel is about to commit an error equivalent to the Iraq War misadventure. By killing thousands of innocent Palestinian residents of Gaza, as we killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, I believe the Israelis will only generate further sympathy for the terrorist attackers. Increase hatred. Add fuel to the flames.
Politicians are not all evil. Nor are all of them stupid. The reconciliation approach taken by Mandela, Desmond Tutu and other South Africans who resisted the temptation to take revenge on and slaughter the leaders of the apartheid regime illustrate this point.
One of the main reasons, possibly the primary reason, for the timing of the attack was the prospect of Saudi Arabia and Israel forming a pact with the United States. If they manage to do this, its is likely other Arab states will follow. And part of the deal would very likely be that Israel would have to grant meaningful concessions on their hardheaded anti-Palestinian policies. Saudi Arabia would gain enormous prestige, but so would Israel. And the Palestinians would not be thrown under the bus, as many are claiming; they would be in a much stronger position, with Arab/Israeli tensions lessening. The only losers would be Hamas, which derives its strength from hatred and division, which, in turn is derived from their all-or-nothing approach to the land of Palestine. Hamas, remember, wants nothing to do with anybody who is moving toward a two-state solution, or any other suggestion that the land of Israel/Palestine might be shared.
Instead, I am afraid, because Nethanyahu remains in control, the use of military force, and all the killing of innocents in the line of fire, will continue.
It's why people of good will are currently in despair.
I don't believe in miracles. But I do believe that a sense of human decency can prevail if and when people bring it to the fore. I know it looks like the naive Christian notion of turning the other cheek and many will oppose it for that reason. But sometimes the moral approach and the practical approach coincide. I believe if Palestinians see the Israelis turn from violence to a rational long-term peace-keeping strategy, they will find the strength they need to muster to rid themselves of Hamas and whoever might succeed them once they are wiped out. Remember, it does no one any good if Hamas is removed and somebody just as bad takes their place.
In the long run, wouldn't a new peace-oriented approach have a much better chance of succeeding?
Wouldn't it at least be worth a try?
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