Forever enemies
Fifteen years ago in 2010, I stopped spending mental energy on the Middle East “problem.” I caved to its intractability and decided I needed to free my brain from thinking about it. I gave up on the bankrupt idea that thoughts and prayers, and the occasional op-ed, would make any difference.
I was at the time on my way to a heart attack, which a few years later would ground me. The cause came via coronary veins clogged by the accumulated stress of worrying about unsolvable problems. Israel and Palestine, of course, weren’t the only stressors in my life, but they were ones I could ignore. I had no dog in their fight to intimidate and dominate one another. I’m not an Israeli and not Jewish, and I’m not a Palestinian and not Arab.
But here I am now, heart healthier, but evidently not any smarter. The Middle East has come to bug me again. But I’m taking all the pills and doing all the exercises to keep another heart attack at bay. So I’m feeling a little easier about venturing back into the seriously misnamed Holy Land.
Since the start of the latest deadly war between these two enemies, I’ve rejoined the issue, but without betting on one side over the other. I’m just sort of fascinated by the fates and fortunes of the millions of people caught in the middle. I think about how in the tiny land of Israel and the would be land of Palestine, there are so many suffering.
The news coming out from there is riveting in the way war porn can be. I’ve read of the back and forth actions of these two enemies. Hamas launching its satanic assault on Israelis just enjoying themselves and then taking hostages letting many of them die in captivity. And Likud’s equally satanic attempt to rob Gazans of any present or future possibility of living the “good life.” Two foes intent on being as shitty as human beings can be to one another.
During the ongoing hostilities the two sides have spread their hatreds for each other more widely. This ensures, if there’s ever a conclusion to the current conflict, that generations to follow will maintain those hatreds. It still looks intractable into the far future. So why is this human disaster, watching it from the physical distance of West Virginia, so riveting?
There’s at least a couple of reasons. One because I’m curious how the “brands” of these two peoples are being damaged. Another is because I speculate on the danger of our own political polarization here at home. Are we maybe heading down the same road?
Maybe it’s human nature when two sides don’t get along, that each tries to inflict pain on the other. Israel has doled out decades of microaggressions to Palestinians. In turn, Palestinians periodically inflict macroaggressions or intifadas on Israelis. It surprises me that either side doesn’t anticipate the reactions of their antagonisms. They each must know the brutality that will follow and the greater pains that they will inflict on their populations. Israelis would like to enjoy a stress-free coffee at some outdoor cafe. Palestinians would like to just walk around without being hassled.
In this battle of wills, the Israelis obviously have defensive and offensive competitive advantages. But for the harassment and pain Israelis cause the Palestinians, they pay in the psychological pain the Palestinians cause them. Both societies are weakened. Palestinians are confined and beaten and Israelis are bunkered and fearful of stealth attacks. Both peoples are brutalized and both societies come to expect only depredations from the other. Getting along seems no longer in the cards. It’s only hurting one another that matters.
Okay, it’s time to stop and admit that I know better. There are in fact “let’s all get along” movements on both sides. Or at least there were, because now that’s not a popular position. One of these peace makers, the author David Grossman, has been an advocate for detente for decades. But after the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023, during which 1,200 Israelis were killed, he looked inside himself, considering if his position had changed.
He wrote his piece eight months after the attack, at which point tens of thousands of Palestinians, equally as innocent as the Israeli victims, had been killed in retaliation. In his short article, Grossman contrasted the budding despair of his wife against the spirit of retaliation rising in his son. Grossman himself didn’t admit to any sense of despair nor express any inclination to fight. What comes across in his article is only his intense sorrow and disappointment.
His disappointment is a feeling I share. I see two unintended outcomes. The first draws parallels between what happened to European Jewry during the Holocaust and what’s happening to the Palestinians in Israel. The scale and the inhumanity of the Nazi genocide bought Zionists an abundance of worldwide good will, which justified the creation of the Israeli state. That goodwill is seriously being spent down now as the world is viewing the methods Israel uses to “defend” itself as reminiscent of the methods Germany used to “defend” itself against Jews. Is the oppressed now become the oppressor?
Israel now seems to be actively losing friends and winning antagonists. It’s evident in United Nations votes. And perhaps it’s also evident in the attention the current United States government is devoting to heading off anti-Semitism here. Although my government has got it wrong in confusing being anti-Israel with being anti-Semitic.
On the other side, the Palestinians have shoveled mud on their cause as well. There was an unmistakable blood lust in the October 7th attack that brought up images of wanton, indiscriminate slaughter. Something you expect of savages. It begs the question of whether such people can be trusted to be good actors or good neighbors.
But as happens in any armed conflict, it’s overwhelmingly the innocent people who suffer. So you have to be careful to lay the blame for why conflicts start and persist on the actual perpetrators. In my reckoning that would be Likud on the Israeli side and Hamas on the Palestinian. The leaders of these parties are driven by ideology more than by the welfare of their people. But both have their adherents in the general population.
Both ideologies are bound up in the common phrase “From the river to the sea,” these being the Jordan river to the east and the Mediterranean to the west. If you’re a Likud supporter the phrase is taken to mean that all of present day Israel including the occupied territories should and will be Jewish. If you’re a Hamas supporter that all of it will and should be Palestinian/Arab. No two-state solution, in other words, with the further ugly implication that one group of people or the other will have to be removed. And we’re talking millions of people removed.
It seems then that any solution to the present conflict needs both sides to give up their pure ethnic interpretations of “From the river to the sea.” Since this is wrapped up in two head-butting ideologies, the people who adhere to those ideologies have to be persuaded to abandon them. That’s going to be tough, of course. It would likely require both Hamas and Likud to go down to defeat in popular elections. Another uncertain possibility.
I intimated earlier than there’s a lesson here in the States about the dangers of political polarization. We’re now very much in a situation where the competing ideologies of progressivism and conservatism are showing the same kind of inflexibility as the Jews and Palestinians. And it’s undeniable that the rancor is high enough to be concerning.
We’re on the edge of violence, apparent in the level of threats citizens face for their views. Will that violence ultimately materialize on a scale to wreck the country? Will innocent citizens, wishing to hell that both sides would cool it, be caught in the crossfire? It’s head-in-the-sand thinking to brush off these questions as unlikely. Intolerance is on the rise here and that’s how it all started in Israel.
I’m convincing myself at this point that I should go back to my original resolve and ignore Israel and Palestine. I hope though from my safe distance here in West Virginia that the 14 million people living there come to understand the moral obligations that life in the so-called Holy Land imposes on them.
I’m less comfortable, though, about ignoring the problems here at home. They’re already finding their way into West Virginia. Country roads and Blue Ridge Mountains notwithstanding. I’m inclined to believe though, like David Grossman, that peaceful coexistence is not just an idealistic, hippie-dippy pipe dream. It may take effort, but it’s worth it.
Also on Medium.com https://medium.com/p/b3d577d4b6ca/edit