Image Source: Washington Notes
I do not believe there is a person alive today that has not heard, read or experienced the tragic conflict that has occurred for centuries between the Jewish and Palestinian people.
While this entry is not a debate on which side is right or wrong, I do wish to point out that this conflict is an example of how difficult it is to stop deep-rooted animosity and hatred between opposing groups. In this case, the conflict goes back thousands of years.
Not long ago I was in Israel on business when I took a ride in a cab around Jerusalem. The driver happened to be a Palestinian and we struck up an interesting conversation. He had a nice family with young children and was working long hours to provide for them and to hopefully make a better life for his children than what he had, similar goals to what most of us have. At one point in the conversation I asked him if he thought the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians would ever be resolved. He drove silently for a few blocks as I sat there nervously wondering if I had asked the wrong question. He then took a couple of quick turns down a few side streets that were unknown to me and seemed out of place with our route. My nervousness started turning into fear as I wondered if I had irreparably opened my mouth. Suddenly, we turned down a street that had a very nice view on a hillside overlooking beautiful Jerusalem neighborhoods. He stopped the car and then pointed to sections of the homes we were viewing. He said ‘that section over there is Jewish. This section over here is Arab. [he would point as he spoke] and finally this section over here is Christian. You tell me, if the Palestinians are allowed to have our own State, what neighborhoods would give up their own land to us? The Christians or the Jews? Similarly, if we are to give up some of this land, to whom shall we give it, the Jews or the Christians?” I clearly understood as I recovered from my unfounded nervousness. His point was similar to the law of cause and effect; if one group were to gain ground, some other group would have to relinquish that same ground.
One of my favorite books is “No Boundaries” by Ken Wilbert. In his book Ken talks about the impact that boundaries tend to have no matter what that boundary might be. He uses an illustration to make his point that I will paraphrase. Question: Is a contact lens concave or convex? Answer: both, depending on your perspective and what side of the lens you are on. Similarly, Israel feels that God has granted them their land of “milk and honey” while the Palestinians have always felt that their land was unjustly taken away and is rightly theirs. It is interesting to note that, based on history, both the Jewish God Yahweh and the Palestinian God Allah are supposedly one and the same.
And now to my scapegoat question in the title. This past Friday, the 8th anniversary of 9/11, Osama Bin-Laden issued another one of his audio lectures. In it, Bin Laden said Americans had failed to understand that Al-Qaeda carried out the attacks in retaliation for U. S. support for Israel. He goes on to say that if America reconsiders its alliance with the Jewish state, Al-Qaeda will respond on “sound and just basis”. Clearly Bin Laden is using Israel (and consequently the Palestinians) as scapegoats. If not, then Bin Laden should have just as much concern over the Shia-Sunni conflict as he does with the Palestinian plight. Better yet, let’s add the Kurds in northern Iraq to the volatile mix. The Arab nations for centuries have hated and fought one another. It seems rather hypocritical for them to focus on the Palestinian plight if sectarian violence goes unchecked all over the Arab world. Yes, be saddened that a Palestinian family has perhaps been stripped of their homeland, but you’d better be just as upset at a market place bombing of Sunnis by a Shia, perhaps even instigated and supported by Iran. The same might even hold true for Israel, we should all be appalled that 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, but we should be just as angry at the slaughtering that takes place elsewhere in the Middle East and in portions of Africa.
I do believe that for years the Jewish/Palestinian conflict has been used by both sides to perpetuate their own earthly agendas, irrespective of similar tragedies or atrocities that are committed elsewhere. Until we realize that all humans must live together despite religious, economic, political or geographic differences, these types of conflicts will never cease to exist and many of us will use particular conflicts to advance our own agendas, thereby fueling and perpetuating additional violence.
The Middle East stain on our human history is not because of Israel or Palestine, rather it is deep-rooted in our inability to coexist regardless of the differences of who it is we are coexisting with. Perhaps one day we will see a peaceful Middle East.
If not, then it is more evidence that hatred is one of the foundations of The Audacity of War.
theaudacityofwar
