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Let me set out a couple of things from the get-go: I'm not going to glorify Israel and I'm not going to vilify Hamas. I'm also not going to vilify Israel and I'm not going to glorify Hamas.
I could and would do that, if I really thought it would make a
difference. But if people haven't learned by now just how little it
matters to speak extremely about one party or the other, then they must be prepared to be considered part of the problem. The conflict in the Middle East right now is the textbook definition of complex, and anyone who continues to be one-sided isn't showing an
interest in wanting to be part of the solution.
Expression on behalf of one side? Reasonable, understandable. But one-sided blaring? Not so much, because it doesn't lead to resolution - unless you want more death. I don't know about you, but that's not something I want more of. And if you are of the opinion that more death is either what we need or what must happen - on either side - then you are not going to want to keep reading this post because I will never agree with that and I won't promote it.
[Speaking of which, has anyone else thought about how, in American culture, when you call someone a martyr, it's a putdown or an insult? It signifies something beyond, extreme, and past the point of just doing something good or kind or helpful for someone. How does that compare to the concept of martyr that we hear being expressed by some, not all, and most likely only Muslim Palestinans? This point isn't relevant because you think it's sane or insane. It's relevant because of what it implies and what we may infer about a person's perspective as they make choices about their behavior and goals and means to an end. Really. Think about that. Again - not because it's something to embrace or reject - but because of how it impacts what a person will do to accomplish what they've come to value as a goal. So when you read op-eds that talk about how maybe Israel "finally" gets it, they're talking about how this concept of martyr, different from culture to culture, impacts the fighting tactics and rhetoric of Hamas.]
Let's also get some other semantics out of the way:
I could have titled this post, "Palestine and Israel," or
"Arabs and Israelis" or "Muslims and Jews." Some people think the land is all Palestine, some think it's the state of Israel and Occupied Territories, some interchange Arab and Palestinian, some people realize that people born in Israel are Semitic, the same as anyone else born in that region and therefore are Arab Jews (I personally never use this phrase). There are 1.7 million Arab Israelis - some people call them Palestinians too.
And yet, there's probably a statistically significant portion of the global
population that would object to any one of those monikers as referring to the human beings who live in what Professor Kim very wisely
referred to as The Holy Land in her post less than a week ago about
Israel's response to rocket launches into the Negev Desert,
post-ceasefire with Hamas. So, I'm sticking with G before I, Gaza and Israel.
Finally, I want to state upfront that I suffer from multiple personality disorder:
In writing about the conflict, I could be a good lefty and give you my bleeding heart
liberal chat about absolute disgust for the death tolls and
devastation, for the cultural hardening on both sides that these
conflicts incur and how that is the real damage, and why, regardless of
the long-term uselessnss of an immediate ceasefire with little else
achieved, we nonetheless must demand a ceasefire.
Or, I could
be a good Jew and write about how Hamas, as an Islamist group does not
represent the Christian Arabs or the Druze Arabs or perhaps even many
of the Muslim Arabs and that those groups must choose for themselves
and write about how weak the Arab League is because they can't agree
among themselves and how, in fact, some of those members claim to hate
Hamas as much as Israel is assumed to hate Hamas.
Or, I could
be a good former resident of Israel (1984-85) and recent visitor to
Israel (August 2008) and tell you that Hamas needs to reccognize the
right of Israel to exist or this battle will never end and tell you
about the desires of Israeli Arabs to achieve full parity with Jews in
the state of Israel, which they do recognize because they do not want
to live under
