I’ve had various versions of this post in draft for months; it’s not that I have nothing to consider or say on what’s happening in Gaza, it’s just that anything I’ve written seems so insufficient in scope and understanding. Equally, I feel my words are just a whisper in the wind especially when so many are speaking forcefully against the war to apparently little effect. However, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about the nature of evil in the world; it’s so commonplace now and those who commit even the most egregious crimes face few consequences (or are promoted and lauded instead). I have to say something. It may not alter one bit of what’s going on elsewhere; but, if for nothing else, it’s for my own spirit and the few people who read this who might take a moment more to consider.
What is actually happening in Israel and Palestine? Unrest, conflict, struggle, upheaval, war? All these terms have been used for the situation over the past decades. All have subtle shades of intensity and meaning that communicate different things to different people. The same scripted language is used each time there is an intensification and all these terms are used interchangeably as it seems we’ve run out of descriptors to talk about what’s happening. The weight of words like colonisation, occupation, terrorist, invasion and especially right now genocide are slowly eroded away from overuse to the point where horrible things are happening in plain sight of all with seemingly little reaction or import to those of us watching. The attack by Hamas on Israel was not just another incursion and Israel’s invasion of Palestine is not just another response; the observations we make can’t readily reference what’s happened in the past. This is all at a new level of intensity and, potentially, has far greater ramifications outside the region itself.
Our daughter was born the day that Russia invaded Ukraine and though I was obviously occupied with her birth and care in those days following, I was equally concerned with Ukraine and avidly following the news about what was happening. What’s more, I spoke about it with my wife, Rosie and was open about my concerns. However, though I’ve followed the news out of Israel and Palestine in these past months, I’ve not discussed it as freely. Rosie has asked me why this is and challenged me to consider my own preconceptions and response (this touches on her directly as she is Lebanese). I have to check my ego at the door on all this as well; I’m coming from a position of privilege where I can, at arms length, voice some opinion without much fallout. It’s fairly safe for me to say something along the lines of “what Hamas has done is so bad…Israel’s response is bad; people are suffering all round. Let’s all just think about it.” Equally, I can just say that I’m not qualified to speak on it and cop out from the whole discussion. I think though there is a third action that is perhaps, personally, a harder path where, instead of offering up some opinion or just reflexively reacting to what I’m seeing on social media, I try to actually understand the history and reasons behind the situation as it is. I think the more difficult path for me at least is to begin a journey to understand the perspectives involved so I can be in a position to better inform and challenge people beyond the superficial responses they may have to all this.
As I unravel what my thoughts are, I’m aware I’m in a situation where I have the luxury of doing so. People are literally dying as we sit and ponder, while politicians justify and dither, while aid agencies run out of supplies and have to evacuate. Israel is, to my understanding from what seems apparent, responding to a terrible attack on their people with a far deadlier disproportinate invasion of Gaza. (An invasion that has lead to the deaths of many thousands of innocent Palestinian people and I would think ultimately backfire by inciting yet more violence. It’s this kind of thing that, for both sides, turns over another generational cycle of fear, hatred and violence.)
The first thing I want to say is that nothing I’m considering in any way justifies the actions of Hamas some months ago. This seems to be the immediate shutdown of any criticism of Israel’s response; that if one speaks anything ill of Israel, it’s supporting terrorism or that one is somehow antisemitic. It’s just not; sorry, that’s not even a line of argument I would pursue. There are obviously people in Israel that don’t agree that the solution is ‘wipe Gaza off the map.’ It’s idiocy, for those of us away from all this, to think we can’t have other options and have to support some kind of black and white solution when it’s an ongoing debate within the people directly involved. Are Israelis voicing a dissenting opinion themselves antisemitic? Hamas, the organisation, is using the situation of oppression to their own advantage with the flimsy facade of Jihad out in front of them. However, the situation is so much more complex than ‘sides’ or even two clearly opposing forces (which it keeps getting boiled down to in the media and online). People who understand this far more than me would have to chart out all the parties in the region and world who have some hand in the economies, religion, arms and resources pulling in different directions. It’s like a chessboard with all the squares filled with pieces and no room to move. It’s also like a chessboard in the sense that people are getting categorised into white and black pieces. Life isn’t a grid of squares and two opposing teams.
Also, as I said at the start, the expression of evil should have consequences. I’m not saying there should be no account for the incursion Hamas made into Israel that caused the deaths of so many there. I would say though that, in its response, Israel has managed to push that incident so far into the background that it’s unlikely any resolution of it will come other than the whole of Gaza indiscriminately covered in blood. Where there could have been a call to the international bodies who are supposed to resolve these matters collectively (anaemic as their response often is), Israel has actively undermined them and placed themselves squarely in the sights of the International Criminal Court facing the charge of war crimes. I would imagine that whomever planned this within Hamas, if they are even still alive, could not be more satisfied with the result. They knew full well they would not somehow manage to invade or occupy Israel and what the response would be; they were completely satisfied to sacrifice the lives of however many thousands of Palestinian children in the aftermath.
In the middle of all this are just ‘normal people’ literally caught in the crossfire; That’s where we, as ‘normal people,’ have to focus our thoughts. I think one of the things I was blocked on in all this and why I wasn’t talking much about it was that ‘I’m just a normal person.’ I’m not a high level politician or someone who can make decisions to change the situation. People in power (especially people who encourage conflict to remain in power) rely on the fact that, once a major conflict begins, there is little normal people can do to alter the situation. The machine of war, once the gears start turning, is difficult to stop. So normal people fall silent in the background amid all the noise, either by not speaking up from a distance or tragically they are silenced under the weight of broken buildings falling down upon them and their families.
Also, especially in the Middle East, we are so conditioned to respond with ‘well there those people go again.’ It’s normalised; it’s those people. That’s deeply ingrained in my psyche; though at least I’d like to think that I’m aware of it. I’ve had extensive cross cultural training, have led trips abroad, I was even involved with a youth exchange that brought Palestinian kids to the EU. Yet, frankly, I think I was shocked when Russia invaded Ukraine because somewhere inside there was something amiss when this was happening to…white people. Wait, it’s not those people, this is in Europe! This is something that I know is happening in me; it’s conditioned and something that, as a person of privilege, I need to constantly assess (something also for a future post).
I’m just a normal person; I don’t have broad influence in the world. However, if you are reading this, I have some connection to you either personally or through the whims of the internet you’ve come here. Please consider what you, as a fellow human being, must face when you read the news today. Truly, there probably isn’t much you can overtly do to change things. But you can, by some small degree, each day make decisions that collectively push things in a direction where we are not separated as us and those people. There is a conversation at dinner with family where you can either choose to overlook the comment an uncle makes about Arabs (or ‘the Jews’ for that matter) that you could challenge and use as an opportunity to unify rather than further divide.
Some years ago, the day before the exchange I mentioned above began, I wrote this while sitting in a plaza in Antwerp.
Antwerp is a place where, in the heat of European wars between Catholics and Protestants, icons and people alike were burned for what they stood for. Massive churches and cathedrals stand beside each other in peace now; the conflicts of long ago remembered now only in pub names and the engravings on grey statues. Can we somehow look forward to such a future after our current conflicts? Last night, outside the church pictured above, a man juggled knives. That seems to be the history of God in the hands of man; it’s an impressive feat to put all those blades in the air, but make one slip and the wound can be fatal.
Knives are falling all about on the guilty and innocent right now; we don’t need more martyr’s blood to end this. We need better ideas and less fuel to the fire that will just burn civilisation to the ground if we let it keep smouldering underneath. Unfortunately, as happens over and again, conflict comes down to who has the biggest guns or who can kill the most people—who can cause the most terror or who can rule with the power of fear. Carl Jung had a theory about individuals transforming into their own opposite which I think also applies to nations. It was based on an ancient theory called Enantiodromia which states that when something swings to an extreme, like a pendulum, it tends to hurl back to the opposite. This, I think, is amplified by the addition of power, weapons money and fear and all it takes is a little push to send the weight crashing into the most delicate and vulnerable between the two extremes of the arc.
