I’m just a regular guy. What do I know? And yet here I am, writing about Israel and Hamas.
I did in 1992 write a music-theatre piece about the region. And I went on a two-week trip to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza for research, sponsored by The Earthsteward’s Network (godliness bless Danaan Perry and his team). But that was a long time ago.
Recently a friend posted the following statement on Facebook:
It seems to me there is much to say about this statement, and I will say a bit below. It echoes a thought I had the other day. When I’m being casual, I believe Hamas wants to kill all the Israelis. But if all the Israelis simply packed their bags and left, I don’t think Hamas would chase them around the world to finish the job.
Of course these kinds of thoughts beg the questions, “To where will the Israelis go?” ”Who will approve their immigration applications?” ”Who will pay for the transplant costs?” Think of all of the companies that would need to be disbanded and then reformed. And the infrastructure that would need to be rebuilt. And on and on….
The dislocation and relocation of humans has been going on for thousands of years. When we discuss Israel and Hamas we need to arbitrarily choose a date range, which immediately colors our statements. But since I’m just a regular, ill-informed guy: if it was up to me, at the end of World War II; after roughly six million Jews were exterminated (and I suspect, yes, it was rough), and after Germany lost the war, I would have carved out a chunk of Germany and re-named it Israel and invited the Jews to settle there. It seems to me, in the short term at least, and ignoring the threat of European anti-semitism, that that action would have created some karmic balance.
But all of these imaginings are simply a waste of energy. The Israelis are not leaving Israel any time soon.
Bill Maher did a marvelous “New Rule” segment on the subject. I’ll put the link below.
He begins by noting that in 1950 Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was 86% Christian. Now, he claims, it is overwhelmingly Muslim. But you don’t see Christians mounting a crusade to take it back.
Things change, Maher says. Deal with it. Countries; boundaries; and empires change. Byzantium became Constantinople, which became Istanbul. Ireland was all Irish, until England took the northern part.
And what to say about the British colonizers of North America, and what used to be called “the Indians?” Maher somewhat sheepishly chose to omit the Americans and their transgressions from his piece. He also probably should have talked about the slave trade, but it was only an eight minute segment.
Wars are fought over these things. Sometimes long wars. But, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, the 75 year battle over Israel has to be one of the longest conflicts in recent history. In most cases eventually folks come to the negotiating table, draw some lines on a map, move some wampum around, and get on with their lives.
Maher goes on, “Was it unjust that even a single Arab family was forced to move upon the founding of the Jewish state? Yes. But it’s also not rare. It’s been happening all throughout history all over the world and mostly what people do is make the best of it.”
Maher then goes on to list several examples of large-scale movements of refugees around the world. It is truly disgraceful. Humans, as he says, are not very nice people sometimes.
Discussing the phrase “the river to the sea” Maher pulls up an old map of the US and Mexico:
He then says, “[You don’t hear] any Mexicans [these days] chanting, ‘from the Rio Grande to Portland Oregon.’ ”
His point: you see the writing on the wall, you negotiate for what you can get, and then you go on with living: with building cities and hospitals and schools and tech sectors and so on. At one point Maher says if the Palestinian leadership had accepted one of the many peace deal proposals over the years, the West Bank and Gaza could look like Dubai rather than how it looked several months ago. In my view it’s an over-statement, but you get the idea. (Just to lighten the mood, I’ll share a link below to the 2024 Dubai New Year’s celebration. It’s quite something. Don’t mess with Dubai.)
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least wave my hands at the possibly-real unseen factors possibly influencing the mess in Israel. Is the war there an outer expression of the centuries-old conflict between the Illuminati and the Church? Are there extraterrestrial influences at work here? What to say about the multi-party multi-dimensional inner-world war among the mystery schools on the planet? Or the fight for dominance between the EMF-based control technologies and the nano-based tech. Let’s not forget the mega-bucks being made by the military industrial complex. If all that doesn’t deserve an “OY!” I don’t know what does.
There was a time when I would have said the Hamas leadership simply needs to drop their desire for the whole enchilada and come to the negotiating table to create a two-state solution. But now Benjamin Netanyahu is on the scene. And, again, what do I know, but my sense is he wants to annex Gaza and eventually the West Bank too. There have long been Israelis (to wit, those who have supported settlements for all of these years) who want a Greater Israel. And in my opinion Netanyahu is one of them. (For more on this point, have a look at the podcast with Sam Harris and Yuval Noah Harari — see link below.)
So the more moderate Palestinians may have missed their chances. They may become the next “people without a homeland.” They may join the over 12 million Syrians displaced over the last 13 years. Or the 12 million Germans thrust out of Russia and Eastern Europe after WW II. Or the one million Greeks shoved out of Turkey in 1923. Or the one million Ghanaians expelled from Nigeria in 1983. And on and on…
If I could, I would engineer a leadership change in Israel, so that a member of Peace Now (a long-standing Israeli group advocating for peace and a two-state solution) could run the table. And I would create a sea-change in the minds of the members of Hamas, so that they would stop all the “river to the sea” nonsense and get real about building a future for their people.
But I cannot do any of these things. I can barely get out of bed in the morning. So we are left with what we are left with. Will my utterances fall on deaf ears? Probably. But all things considered, at least I can tell my niece I put out my thoughts and longings for peace and a two-state solution in a public forum on January 1st, 2024.
Happy New Year, to one and all!
Click here for the Bill Maher segment.
Click here to watch the New Year’s show in Dubai.
Click here for the Sam Harris podcast. (Go to 16 minutes 30 seconds in for the relevant segment.)
(Note: at no point in the writing of this essay was AI used. It’s just my little old brain at work here, and whatever signals my tin foil hat is picking up, and whatever un-invited lotions and potions are influencing my bio-chemistry. Unless we are all living in a computer simulation, and I am just a piece of code. LOL. Not.)
*******
Postscript, added three days after writing:
I’ve been watching Return to Space on Netflix.
The astronauts speak so tenderly about the loss of seven crew members (Columbia shuttle) and how they are striving so hard to prevent the loss of even one more life.
I can’t help but hold that in my head next to the images of Gaza and the reports of thousands of men women and children who have been killed. As well as the hundreds of Israelis dead. What to say about all of the other war-dead and murdered people around the world?
The astronauts also spoke of seeing the Earth from space, without any lines like the ones found on maps. It is one little ball floating in the void, fragile, and all humans live on it. One man said something like even the most cynical space men, after they have flown, are changed by the experience. Is anyone willing to buy a ticket for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership? Would they fly if given the chance?
*****
Edit, added Feb 2, 2024:
I found it a worthwhile activity to create a free ChatGPT account, and then to ask the following questions (and read the answers): 1) from 1890 to the present how did jews acquire land in palestine? 2) please say more about the “land reclamation projects.” 3) please say more about the “1936-1939 Arab Revolt” 4) please provide a summary of the rulers of Palestine over the last 300 years. 5) say more about what caused “the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians”
Whoa. I just discovered a share button on ChatGPT. I think if you click this link you will be able to read the entire dialogue. Click here.
Musings of a Disciple 