Chak Bamu
RETIRED MOD
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2013
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A friend of mine has been visiting Israel and Palestine the past few days. He has been sharing remarkable and brilliant posts on Facebook. I have decided to share one of those on PDF with his permission:
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My experience here in Israel and Palestine has been playing out over the backdrop of three missing Israeli youths, now found dead. The story has been a constant presence in the news and in conversations, while in the meantime my travels in the West Bank have been constantly disrupted by Israeli military operations there in a purported effort to find the youths. Given that over 1,500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel since the year 2000, and that Palestinian teens as young as twelve are regularly arrested with no charges by Israel Defense Forces in the dead of the night in an effort to scare them into becoming informers, it is strange to see such emotion for one side and not the other.
To paraphrase from the Qur'an, when you kill one person, you kill the world. Every death is a tragedy, but not counting the dead is a recipe for more tragedies and disproportionate responses. Psychological studies have demonstrated that we actually care more for smaller as opposed to larger numbers of suffering individuals. The face of the one hungry child evokes a stronger response than that of several, even than that of several faces alongside statistics about the millions of hungry children. This makes it hard for us to bring attention to really big problems like world hunger and climate change.
So, there is something natural in grieving for these three innocent looking teens, especially when you can identify with them. But the whole thing has at the same time appeared a bizarre exercise is national unity and closing off to the other. The youths were deep in occupied territories, in a settlement, which like most settlements, demands a strong Israeli military presence. The settlements in the West Banks are everywhere, making the thought of removing them seem fantastical to ordinary Palestinians, and hence inordinately complicating the hopes of a two-state solution. Palestinians often reject offers of a state because the offers are unviable, and they are unviable because they include so many settlements, hence demanding the military presence, with all of its abuses, and breaking up the contiguity of any future Palestinian state. To speak of the the Israeli teens while ignoring the background conditions in which their deaths took place and the disproportionate death toll between the two sides is profoundly morally amiss. The settlers are the advance guard in a clash of civilizations, fueling the hatred between Muslims and Judeo-Christians worldwide through their occupation. For this reason, they are some of the most dangerous people in the world, even as many of them are almost certainly peaceful religious people, wanting to be in what they perceive to be the Holy Land.
The parents should be blamed for sending their children into the forefront of a social and military occupation. And the Israeli Defense Forces should be blamed for engaging in collective punishment. And so also should the kidnappers of the teens be blamed for killing the innocent. But what is interesting here and seldom mentioned is that teenagers regularly hitchhike through this occupied zone in which settlers are for good reason hated. Anyone wanting to harm them need only drive for some time before an opportunity to do such harm will arise. The standard policy of the militant Hamas is to kidnap Israelis and then offer them in exchange for prisoners. Israel immediately blamed Hamas but offered no proof. So, all of this looks like an effort to use a tragic situation to go after the enemy Hamas, when really it was a sloppy and senseless murder, something we are much more likely to see in America than in a war zone.
And yet, the three teens are real amidst all of the ********, real human beings, with flesh that burns when injured and hearts that ached for life. To even engage this truth, though, is to give them disproportionate attention. Even writing about this critically has meant I have given it more attention than my friend who was shot by a settler in an argument, the man whose pregnant wife aborted twice after being twice beaten by settlers, the man whose gay cousin was shot by a settler, the farmer whose lands were besieged by settlers, who was forbidden from digging wells and building dwellings and thus had to live in caves. This is far from a case of moral equivalence. Israeli abuses vastly outnumber those of Palestinians. So, how to grieve for both sides when everything is stacked up so as to make us favor the primary abuser and ignore the side that is most abused?
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I befriended Theo when I used to actively comment on various The Economist articles a couple of years ago. Being a Paksitani Muslim one can well imagine my sympathy with Palestinains' plight. As I read comments on a particular article on The Economist, I was struck by a very balanced, factually correct comment that was unusual for its depth of understanding and intelligence. As I interacted with Theo, I was awed by his humanity and good sense. His was a very learned and nuanced approach. As we commented a bit and found that we had some convergence of views, we exchanged e-mail addresses. What followed has been a long-distance on-line friendship that I seriously value.
These past few days, Theo who is a writer, has been visiting Israel and Palestine. His view has been remarkably clear as he posted on facebook.
I have selected a post of his and am sharing here for the benefit of both sides. I have decided to with-hold his full name just so he does not have to put up with any extreme reaction in case someone wishes to troll him for his honesty. I will share his identity if he so wishes.
I would love to share more of his facebook posts, in case he agrees.
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My experience here in Israel and Palestine has been playing out over the backdrop of three missing Israeli youths, now found dead. The story has been a constant presence in the news and in conversations, while in the meantime my travels in the West Bank have been constantly disrupted by Israeli military operations there in a purported effort to find the youths. Given that over 1,500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel since the year 2000, and that Palestinian teens as young as twelve are regularly arrested with no charges by Israel Defense Forces in the dead of the night in an effort to scare them into becoming informers, it is strange to see such emotion for one side and not the other.
To paraphrase from the Qur'an, when you kill one person, you kill the world. Every death is a tragedy, but not counting the dead is a recipe for more tragedies and disproportionate responses. Psychological studies have demonstrated that we actually care more for smaller as opposed to larger numbers of suffering individuals. The face of the one hungry child evokes a stronger response than that of several, even than that of several faces alongside statistics about the millions of hungry children. This makes it hard for us to bring attention to really big problems like world hunger and climate change.
So, there is something natural in grieving for these three innocent looking teens, especially when you can identify with them. But the whole thing has at the same time appeared a bizarre exercise is national unity and closing off to the other. The youths were deep in occupied territories, in a settlement, which like most settlements, demands a strong Israeli military presence. The settlements in the West Banks are everywhere, making the thought of removing them seem fantastical to ordinary Palestinians, and hence inordinately complicating the hopes of a two-state solution. Palestinians often reject offers of a state because the offers are unviable, and they are unviable because they include so many settlements, hence demanding the military presence, with all of its abuses, and breaking up the contiguity of any future Palestinian state. To speak of the the Israeli teens while ignoring the background conditions in which their deaths took place and the disproportionate death toll between the two sides is profoundly morally amiss. The settlers are the advance guard in a clash of civilizations, fueling the hatred between Muslims and Judeo-Christians worldwide through their occupation. For this reason, they are some of the most dangerous people in the world, even as many of them are almost certainly peaceful religious people, wanting to be in what they perceive to be the Holy Land.
The parents should be blamed for sending their children into the forefront of a social and military occupation. And the Israeli Defense Forces should be blamed for engaging in collective punishment. And so also should the kidnappers of the teens be blamed for killing the innocent. But what is interesting here and seldom mentioned is that teenagers regularly hitchhike through this occupied zone in which settlers are for good reason hated. Anyone wanting to harm them need only drive for some time before an opportunity to do such harm will arise. The standard policy of the militant Hamas is to kidnap Israelis and then offer them in exchange for prisoners. Israel immediately blamed Hamas but offered no proof. So, all of this looks like an effort to use a tragic situation to go after the enemy Hamas, when really it was a sloppy and senseless murder, something we are much more likely to see in America than in a war zone.
And yet, the three teens are real amidst all of the ********, real human beings, with flesh that burns when injured and hearts that ached for life. To even engage this truth, though, is to give them disproportionate attention. Even writing about this critically has meant I have given it more attention than my friend who was shot by a settler in an argument, the man whose pregnant wife aborted twice after being twice beaten by settlers, the man whose gay cousin was shot by a settler, the farmer whose lands were besieged by settlers, who was forbidden from digging wells and building dwellings and thus had to live in caves. This is far from a case of moral equivalence. Israeli abuses vastly outnumber those of Palestinians. So, how to grieve for both sides when everything is stacked up so as to make us favor the primary abuser and ignore the side that is most abused?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I befriended Theo when I used to actively comment on various The Economist articles a couple of years ago. Being a Paksitani Muslim one can well imagine my sympathy with Palestinains' plight. As I read comments on a particular article on The Economist, I was struck by a very balanced, factually correct comment that was unusual for its depth of understanding and intelligence. As I interacted with Theo, I was awed by his humanity and good sense. His was a very learned and nuanced approach. As we commented a bit and found that we had some convergence of views, we exchanged e-mail addresses. What followed has been a long-distance on-line friendship that I seriously value.
These past few days, Theo who is a writer, has been visiting Israel and Palestine. His view has been remarkably clear as he posted on facebook.
I have selected a post of his and am sharing here for the benefit of both sides. I have decided to with-hold his full name just so he does not have to put up with any extreme reaction in case someone wishes to troll him for his honesty. I will share his identity if he so wishes.
I would love to share more of his facebook posts, in case he agrees.
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