For a year and a half, we’ve all been watching the horrors that have unfolded in Israel and Gaza, and social media has been saturated with calls for people to declare unequivocally where they stand on the matter:
In fairness, this IS a tough one. In retrospect, I think it was a rather bad idea to put Israel smack dab in the middle of a Muslim-dominated region, surrounded by a multitude of hostile neighbors. I understand the historic significance of that location, but it may have been better off on an island off the coast of Europe.
Netanyahu is horrid, Hamas is horrid, both are grasping at power at the cost of harming the very people they claim to want to protect. Between them, they had squandered every single bit of progress toward a peaceful coexistence made by their predecessors.
I have friends and some family in Israel. A former classmate lost her daughter-in-law in the October 7th attack - at that youth music festival. I look at the whole thing and I don't see how it gets resolved at this point.
Please accept my prayers as well. You're right. Each should have their own space. Historical meaning of Israel for Jews didn't take into account that it was where Palestinians had lived for decades.
I have never, or will never understand why people all over the world cannot accept people for who they are and what they believe! As much as I believe in my Higher Power, who am I to say I am right and someone else is wrong! We are all going to hear about this someday, our day of judgment, no matter what or who we believe in now!
I am so sorry for the loss of your friends daughter-in-law. May her memory always be for a blessing. I pray with all my heart and soul that there will be a peaceful outcome to this horrible situation.
Remember back in the day (the Sixties) this anti-war slogan: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" Still holds true today. Still an unfulfilled dream of unrepentant idealists and peaceniks, and I count myself one.
And yet -- and here's the tricky part and the reality -- when you see something terrible happening, something brutal and violent, isn't it a primary & primitive impulse to jump into the fray to help whomever is being viciously attacked? God help me, if anybody attacked my kid, I'd be in there in a hot second. And that's how I feel about Ukraine, too. I wish I were young enough to get over there and somehow help out. Conflicting feelings? You betcha! Despite my longheld commitment to a path of nonviolence.
But yes: Jews and Muslims getting along together -- I too think it's possible. And yes, John, yes -- it is possible to choose (the side of) humanity over loyalty to one's country or religious doctrine or tribe or politics. Always choose goodness and kindness and benevolence. Always choose love.
Thank you for what you said. I bleed for Ukraine too. And Trump screwed them! Cruelly! I'm like you, goodness, kindness, and love. It can be done. Bless You!
Good points, and I can't help hoping that we might widen the lens you've used to view current events, enough to take a good long look at what we ourselves did in committing genocide over a period of 200 years, via war, exile, robbery, rape, land-grabbing, murder, forcible erasure of culture, language and spiritual practices of our Native Peoples, who in many ways resemble the Palestinians who first object to being pushed aside by immigrant Jews bent on escaping bias and genocide themselves in Europe. What a tragedy that the two sides of that ongoing conflict could not have bridged their differences and learned to live peaceably together before we've entered this terrible excrescence of the whole lamentable process.
Yes. Our history is full of wrongs. Stop sending arms to Israel! Work to towards finding peace for all. I grieve for both communities, but I have to admit I think the Palestinians have been wrongly dealt with by the US.
"When we imagine that righteousness is anywhere but with innocent lives, how are we offering anything redemptive to the moral arc of the universe?" Nailed it. We've got a long way to go.
i lived in the balaata camp on the west bank outside nablus before the first intifada with my sufi sheik. that was in the late 70's. there's suffering everywhere. there's suffering here in the u.s. and that has my attention right now. i am sorry for the situation in the middle east but as soon as it is recognized as it is and people are able to access food water and peace there may be hope. right now the four alarm fire is in DC as far as i can tell. if that isn't remedied it won't matter what happens in the mid east imho. (it's amazing how all these abrahamic religions hate each other isn't it, does this have something to do with the inflexibility of monotheism?)
I don't think the inflexibility of monotheism is a main culprit. I believe it's more to do with tribalism combined with patriarchalism. The inflexibility of monotheism is just one way these elements can manifest in some cases. Witness Rwanda: same country, same genetics, basically same cultural & religious practices -- just that one group are Tutsis (the minority) and the other are Hutus. The Tutsis had been favored by the Dutch colonial regime, which caused long-standing anger and tensions with the not favored Hutus. When the Hutus seized power, they vented their rage all over the Tutsis, and Tutsi sympathizers, slaughtering 800,000 to 1 million of their neighbors, friends, community members and co-workers over a 100-day brutal bloody rampage. Many many many rapes and horrific atrocities were committed. And the world stood by and did NOTHING to intervene. NOTHING. WTF, Clinton??? I'm still gutted to the core over this decades later...
Look at modern day gangs. It's mostly about turf. Look at all instances of war in all cultural groups over millennia that arose out of simply this: You are not us. You are "other." Ergo you are bad by default. Thereby, we're justified in doing hideous things to you. So it's less to do with religion and precisely everything to do with "You are not us. You are other." Whether religion-wise or ethnicity-wise or territory-wise, etc., it always seems to boil down to that.
For those of us who appreciate and WANT diversity, this extreme loyalty thing -- whether to one's tribe, country, high school clique, religion, gang or football team (GO TEAM! KILL THE MOTHER-FUCKERS!) -- is just crap, and I'm so utterly damn weary of that simplistic and intolerant mindset and its egregious fallout.
It is important to refer to the perpetrators of this violence as Netanyahu and Hamas and not Israel and Palestine. The people of Israel are not Netanyahu - many are opposed to his actions and see his actions as less about the hostages and more about his personal political agenda. The people of Palestine are not Hamas - most Palestinians, if they had the choice, would not want Hamas in Gaza, particularly as Hamas has shown zero care for their well being and placed them in danger.
We can also condemn Netanyahu’s actions without being allegedly anti-Semitic, and be pro-Palestine without allegedly supporting terrorism.
I am against Netanyahu. I am against Hamas. I am on the side of all the innocent people in the middle trying to live their lives, Israelis and Palestinians both. People far smarter than I am still haven't figured out how to solve this age old conflict, so I don't know how my opinion is going to help anyone.
Pamela, you just made my comment for me. Netanyahu wants genocide of the Palestinians. To me, he's the Jewish version of Hitler. His ideology is extreme. He must be removed from office. He's just itching to keep bombing everywhere.
I don't know how you stop Hamas or any terrorist group, but I am moved by memories of the Holocaust and what the Jews went through, however trying to grab land that has been Palestine occupied isn't right either. Palestinians deserve their right to live without the fear of constant harassment and killing. How can a child grow up under those kinds of circumstances without it changing them forever?
There are no winners in war. The loss of life on both sides is horrendous. The leaders need to negotiate a deal if peace is ever to come to the region.
I feel compassion for all those who are not promoting more bombing and fighting, and I think the United States should stop supplying armaments to Israel. Supply aid to both Jews and Palestinians. Work to promote peace, but stop giving them ammunition.
John, you have stated this so beautifully. There are not just two choices in any particular situation. We do not have to reject groups of people and decide on who are the good guys and who are the enemies. We can choose to love the poor and disinherited, just as Jesus taught us.
The slaughter of the innocents on both sides should be condemned.
I’m my small opinion I believe that both sides need to recognize the right of both sides to be in the region.
The problem is that there is no clear government that the Palestinians have to negotiate a settlement with. Hamas became the default representation of Palestine in which I’m sure most Palestinians would reject.
Hopefully leaders on both sides will recognize the inhumanity of the current course and change the situation.
Michael - It is my understanding that Israel backed off a number of years ago and "allowed" Gazans to elect their leaders. They believed the lies Hamas told them (much like MAGA in the USA). And now they are paying for choosing criminals for leaders, just like we will in the USA. At the same time, the Israeli Zealots are just as criminal. Two extremes trying to "out-extreme" each other, to the detriment of innocents, as John notes. As the Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, "Without forgiveness there is no future." Seems, in that light, neither Israel nor Hamas has a future. There is only continued killing. The End.
That, I hope, is not what is going to happen. You're giving up on everyone. There would be a way to peace if you removed Netanyahu from office. He doesn't want peace. He wants complete control of all the land and the Palestinians gone. That's not right. The right people in office, with the right people engaging in peace, would be perfect. Trump isn't supportive. The US needs to butt out.
Yes, we can do what you're suggesting. Grieve equally the loss of lives and misery on both sides. This conflict, more than any other, proves that man is insane, doing the same thing over and over yet expecting the outcome to be different. I've long declared that both sides in this are equally right and also equally wrong. The question now is what to do going forward. The answer from the parties as always is, the same thing, only more so. Until the world demands that this stop, it will continue. There is only one side now, to me. This must stop.
In fairness, this IS a tough one. In retrospect, I think it was a rather bad idea to put Israel smack dab in the middle of a Muslim-dominated region, surrounded by a multitude of hostile neighbors. I understand the historic significance of that location, but it may have been better off on an island off the coast of Europe.
Netanyahu is horrid, Hamas is horrid, both are grasping at power at the cost of harming the very people they claim to want to protect. Between them, they had squandered every single bit of progress toward a peaceful coexistence made by their predecessors.
I have friends and some family in Israel. A former classmate lost her daughter-in-law in the October 7th attack - at that youth music festival. I look at the whole thing and I don't see how it gets resolved at this point.
Your personal connections make this a more complicated dilemma than most of us experience. My prayers are with you.
Please accept my prayers as well. You're right. Each should have their own space. Historical meaning of Israel for Jews didn't take into account that it was where Palestinians had lived for decades.
I have never, or will never understand why people all over the world cannot accept people for who they are and what they believe! As much as I believe in my Higher Power, who am I to say I am right and someone else is wrong! We are all going to hear about this someday, our day of judgment, no matter what or who we believe in now!
I am so sorry for the loss of your friends daughter-in-law. May her memory always be for a blessing. I pray with all my heart and soul that there will be a peaceful outcome to this horrible situation.
Beautiful. Thank you for this. I want to be on the side of life and humanity and mercy. Always.
Yes. Jews and Muslims getting along together. It sounds like a dream, but I think it's possible.
Remember back in the day (the Sixties) this anti-war slogan: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" Still holds true today. Still an unfulfilled dream of unrepentant idealists and peaceniks, and I count myself one.
And yet -- and here's the tricky part and the reality -- when you see something terrible happening, something brutal and violent, isn't it a primary & primitive impulse to jump into the fray to help whomever is being viciously attacked? God help me, if anybody attacked my kid, I'd be in there in a hot second. And that's how I feel about Ukraine, too. I wish I were young enough to get over there and somehow help out. Conflicting feelings? You betcha! Despite my longheld commitment to a path of nonviolence.
But yes: Jews and Muslims getting along together -- I too think it's possible. And yes, John, yes -- it is possible to choose (the side of) humanity over loyalty to one's country or religious doctrine or tribe or politics. Always choose goodness and kindness and benevolence. Always choose love.
Thank you for what you said. I bleed for Ukraine too. And Trump screwed them! Cruelly! I'm like you, goodness, kindness, and love. It can be done. Bless You!
Good points, and I can't help hoping that we might widen the lens you've used to view current events, enough to take a good long look at what we ourselves did in committing genocide over a period of 200 years, via war, exile, robbery, rape, land-grabbing, murder, forcible erasure of culture, language and spiritual practices of our Native Peoples, who in many ways resemble the Palestinians who first object to being pushed aside by immigrant Jews bent on escaping bias and genocide themselves in Europe. What a tragedy that the two sides of that ongoing conflict could not have bridged their differences and learned to live peaceably together before we've entered this terrible excrescence of the whole lamentable process.
Yes. Our history is full of wrongs. Stop sending arms to Israel! Work to towards finding peace for all. I grieve for both communities, but I have to admit I think the Palestinians have been wrongly dealt with by the US.
Extremely well-stated. All points made are spot on. Thank you.
"When we imagine that righteousness is anywhere but with innocent lives, how are we offering anything redemptive to the moral arc of the universe?" Nailed it. We've got a long way to go.
i lived in the balaata camp on the west bank outside nablus before the first intifada with my sufi sheik. that was in the late 70's. there's suffering everywhere. there's suffering here in the u.s. and that has my attention right now. i am sorry for the situation in the middle east but as soon as it is recognized as it is and people are able to access food water and peace there may be hope. right now the four alarm fire is in DC as far as i can tell. if that isn't remedied it won't matter what happens in the mid east imho. (it's amazing how all these abrahamic religions hate each other isn't it, does this have something to do with the inflexibility of monotheism?)
I don't think the inflexibility of monotheism is a main culprit. I believe it's more to do with tribalism combined with patriarchalism. The inflexibility of monotheism is just one way these elements can manifest in some cases. Witness Rwanda: same country, same genetics, basically same cultural & religious practices -- just that one group are Tutsis (the minority) and the other are Hutus. The Tutsis had been favored by the Dutch colonial regime, which caused long-standing anger and tensions with the not favored Hutus. When the Hutus seized power, they vented their rage all over the Tutsis, and Tutsi sympathizers, slaughtering 800,000 to 1 million of their neighbors, friends, community members and co-workers over a 100-day brutal bloody rampage. Many many many rapes and horrific atrocities were committed. And the world stood by and did NOTHING to intervene. NOTHING. WTF, Clinton??? I'm still gutted to the core over this decades later...
Look at modern day gangs. It's mostly about turf. Look at all instances of war in all cultural groups over millennia that arose out of simply this: You are not us. You are "other." Ergo you are bad by default. Thereby, we're justified in doing hideous things to you. So it's less to do with religion and precisely everything to do with "You are not us. You are other." Whether religion-wise or ethnicity-wise or territory-wise, etc., it always seems to boil down to that.
For those of us who appreciate and WANT diversity, this extreme loyalty thing -- whether to one's tribe, country, high school clique, religion, gang or football team (GO TEAM! KILL THE MOTHER-FUCKERS!) -- is just crap, and I'm so utterly damn weary of that simplistic and intolerant mindset and its egregious fallout.
Yes.
We are teetering on the edge of a dictatorship. Yes, we have huge problems!
Of course we can condemn Netanyahu and still be fair and reasonable and compassionate. If you listened to Senator Bernie Sanders' speech from April 25, it was full of exactly that. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-responds-to-netanyahus-claim-that-criticism-of-the-israeli-governments-policies-is-antisemitic/
Love Bernie Sanders. He's always the voice of reason. It was a huge mistake not to make him President when we had the chance!
It is important to refer to the perpetrators of this violence as Netanyahu and Hamas and not Israel and Palestine. The people of Israel are not Netanyahu - many are opposed to his actions and see his actions as less about the hostages and more about his personal political agenda. The people of Palestine are not Hamas - most Palestinians, if they had the choice, would not want Hamas in Gaza, particularly as Hamas has shown zero care for their well being and placed them in danger.
We can also condemn Netanyahu’s actions without being allegedly anti-Semitic, and be pro-Palestine without allegedly supporting terrorism.
Absolutely perfectly said. 100% agreed on all points. Thank you.
Thank you 😊
I am against Netanyahu. I am against Hamas. I am on the side of all the innocent people in the middle trying to live their lives, Israelis and Palestinians both. People far smarter than I am still haven't figured out how to solve this age old conflict, so I don't know how my opinion is going to help anyone.
Pamela, you just made my comment for me. Netanyahu wants genocide of the Palestinians. To me, he's the Jewish version of Hitler. His ideology is extreme. He must be removed from office. He's just itching to keep bombing everywhere.
I don't know how you stop Hamas or any terrorist group, but I am moved by memories of the Holocaust and what the Jews went through, however trying to grab land that has been Palestine occupied isn't right either. Palestinians deserve their right to live without the fear of constant harassment and killing. How can a child grow up under those kinds of circumstances without it changing them forever?
There are no winners in war. The loss of life on both sides is horrendous. The leaders need to negotiate a deal if peace is ever to come to the region.
You just spoke my heartfelt feelings and so beautifully too. God help us all.
I hate the "sides" people take. I keep hearing that our taking sides is destroying the ability to find and develop peace.
Why is it so difficult to feel compassion for all the people who are suffering?
Yes! Stop the vilifying of each side. We all need to stop politicizing this heartbreaking situation.
Thank you John for reminding us that while sometimes difficult, it's our humanity, our moral compass, that we need to follow.
I feel compassion for all those who are not promoting more bombing and fighting, and I think the United States should stop supplying armaments to Israel. Supply aid to both Jews and Palestinians. Work to promote peace, but stop giving them ammunition.
YES!!! Just unequivocally yes!!!
I believe that we can mourn the murder of the young couple in DC, and the thousands of deaths in Gaza.
Violence never solves any problem.
Violence only increases the need for more violence. It doesn't stop it. We must stop it.
John, you have stated this so beautifully. There are not just two choices in any particular situation. We do not have to reject groups of people and decide on who are the good guys and who are the enemies. We can choose to love the poor and disinherited, just as Jesus taught us.
The slaughter of the innocents on both sides should be condemned.
I’m my small opinion I believe that both sides need to recognize the right of both sides to be in the region.
The problem is that there is no clear government that the Palestinians have to negotiate a settlement with. Hamas became the default representation of Palestine in which I’m sure most Palestinians would reject.
Hopefully leaders on both sides will recognize the inhumanity of the current course and change the situation.
Michael - It is my understanding that Israel backed off a number of years ago and "allowed" Gazans to elect their leaders. They believed the lies Hamas told them (much like MAGA in the USA). And now they are paying for choosing criminals for leaders, just like we will in the USA. At the same time, the Israeli Zealots are just as criminal. Two extremes trying to "out-extreme" each other, to the detriment of innocents, as John notes. As the Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, "Without forgiveness there is no future." Seems, in that light, neither Israel nor Hamas has a future. There is only continued killing. The End.
That, I hope, is not what is going to happen. You're giving up on everyone. There would be a way to peace if you removed Netanyahu from office. He doesn't want peace. He wants complete control of all the land and the Palestinians gone. That's not right. The right people in office, with the right people engaging in peace, would be perfect. Trump isn't supportive. The US needs to butt out.
I agree with you. My statement is not one of “giving up.” I'm simply stating what I see happening.
No, I am not giving up. I'm just stating what I am observing.
With all due respect I think there is more to this than the Israelis stepping back.
Gaza has been under a blockade for the better part of a decade.
The Palestinian leadership is corrupt, and Hamas' pursuit of violent means has been disastrous for Israel and for the population of Gaza.
I sincerely hope you're right!
Excellent article. Something i struggle with during any conflict.
Yes, we can do what you're suggesting. Grieve equally the loss of lives and misery on both sides. This conflict, more than any other, proves that man is insane, doing the same thing over and over yet expecting the outcome to be different. I've long declared that both sides in this are equally right and also equally wrong. The question now is what to do going forward. The answer from the parties as always is, the same thing, only more so. Until the world demands that this stop, it will continue. There is only one side now, to me. This must stop.