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Yes, the Israeli responses are out of all proportion. But I think if you look at the situation through the lens of real-politik it is necessary to create a solution which accommodates both sides.

I think that given the October attack by Hamas, it was inevitable that there would be a reaction by the IDF, and that it would be harsh. How harsh I don’t think anyone could have predicted, it is like the old Roman practice of decimating, killing every tenth man of a captive army but instead applied to a whole population. Setting back civilisation by two thousand years.

Nevertheless I don’t feel you can leave the Palestinian attitude out of it entirely and just pardon them because of the historical and current wrongs they have suffered. There are still old men in the Palestinian Territories holding on to old ownership papers for land in Israeli villages and hoping and planning for a return — some of them were interviewed for television here. This isn’t feasible and there is no political path for it to happen, the modern state of Israel is just a fact.

Anti-terrorism laws are really strict, both here and in Israel. They are the reason for the checkpoints and fences and travel restrictions. How many cases they really prevent I do not know, and perhaps they are more there to show Palestinians the superiority of Israel. But if they weren’t there, how many young Hamas loyalists might go out and stage a mini-October attack every Saturday night? Without that show of force would Hamas violence increase?

@Shoshin1 said:
Palestinians have long said they want peace, peace with dignity, freedom, and equality. That is the truth too often erased.

This is not what I’m seeing if I look at events and at the media coverage back then. Support for Hamas remains high among the population, and Hamas planned and carried out the October 2023 attack. It looks to me like the ‘Palestinians want peace’ narrative is a piece of spin fed to the Western media for the express reason of getting the worldwide public to support them. Although perhaps the population of Gaza want peace a lot more now that it’s becoming clear how bad things can get.

At the root of the conflict are Buddhist mental states — greed, desire, hate, anger. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said “the line between good and evil runs through every heart.” And it is education and propaganda that feeds the fire. The lessons of Nazi Germany are still reverberating down the ages.

In order for a solution to have a real chance, the behaviour and embedded education on both sides has to change. And honestly, I don’t hold out much hope for a workable solution. Maybe in another few hundred years people will come to their senses.

@Jeroen said:

@Shoshin1 said:
This morning, I, along with hundreds of locals, attended a massive rally and march in the Auckland CBD. The ferry over was full of keffiyeh-wearing, Palestinian flag carrying locals.

I can understand the urge to want to do something about the genocide in Gaza, but there is a difference between supporting a peaceful local government in Gaza and supporting the so-called “Palestinian cause”. The Palestinian people seem to be pressurised socially into supporting Hamas, which tries to get its way with violence, hostage-taking and terrorism. There haven’t been free and fair elections in Gaza since Hamas had a conflict with the Fatah party in 2006.

For me, peace is non-negotiable, and violence should stay out of politics. But because Hamas is the only government Gaza has known for nearly 20 years, I don’t feel I can support the Palestinian cause. Until I know that the Palestinian people are going to throw out the war-mongers, you won’t see me at one of these rallies. I’ll be happy to support causes that call for an end to the violence instead, what the Israeli’s are doing is a disgrace.

This post, due to its lack of information, is supporting a genocide. Hamas have no relevance to anything under International Law because Israel is an Occupying Power under International Law, which forbids Occupying Powers making war against Occupied Territories and allows Occupied People a right of resistance. Try reading this link: https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204170

As for Hamas, it has always been questionable who they work for because Israel helped place them into power and continued to lobby countries such as Qatar to fund them. But, as i posted, even if Hamas was a genuine resistance group, Israel has no right to take military action against an Occupied Territory under both International Law and Dhamma Law.

Under law, I cannot trespass in your home and, if you try to defend yourself and I kill you, I cannot assert self-defense as an intruder in your home. This is the same as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in WW2. Nazis cannot claim they acted in self-defence.

It is not possible for a Buddhist with Right View to blame Hamas in any way for the genocide. The genocide is contrary to International Law and the perpetrators of the genocide are the Zionists and particularly their primarily supporters, namely, USA. UK, Germany, etc.

We can compare Gaza to what happened with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah started destroying Israeli military facilities in northern Israel in response to Gaza. Israel had a right under International Law to take military action against Lebanon and Hezbollah because Lebanon is not an Occupied Territory of Israel.

Its black & white under International Law; here: https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204170 There is no argument from a Buddhist point of view. Buddhism is clear in the sutta DN 31 that a Buddhist does not act out of prejudice. Israel has breached International Law countless times since its creation and there are no excuses from an unprejudiced point of view.

@Jeroen said:
Certainly you are welcome to practice Dharma as you see fit 🙏

But I think one Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh has an impact far overshadowing most boycotts or pickets, and perhaps it might be worthwhile to write letters to Buddhist worthies calling on them to support the practice of peace in word and deed…

I do what I do, and what others choose to do is entirely up to them. Some are actively involved, while others choose not to be, and that is their path.

For my part, I attend peaceful solidarity rallies and marches each week and have written numerous letters to my local newspaper. These have been well received by the community, with many readers now actively involved, advocating for an end to the violence and accountability for those responsible.

From what I understand, Thich Nhat Hanh was deeply involved in anti-war activism during the Vietnam War. Through his philosophy of “engaged Buddhism,” he demonstrated that spiritual practice and social action can go hand in hand.

This morning, I, along with hundreds of locals, attended a massive rally and march in the Auckland CBD. The ferry over was full of keffiyeh-wearing, Palestinian flag carrying locals. Thousands came from around the country to join the march for humanity, and no doubt many Buddhists were among the crowd.

I think the argument that since social media algorithms manipulate what gets seen that makes them an editor and a publisher and responsible for what gets seen on their platforms is right. They hide behind the fact that the posts are user generated content to get away with the enragification of the world.

I check in to read pretty often @Jeroen, always good to "see" familiar folks still here!

😂 I'm just finding Facebook frustrating today. I am pretty careful about my friends list, which is limited to family and people I know well. It's hard to have lgbtq loved ones, including one of our kids, and seeing family defend someone as a "good person" who did nothing but harm that community. But at the same time, I don't condone what happened to Kirk and it makes me equally sad to see the amount of hate flung at the shooter's family right now. The world just feels hard a lot these days, and FB seems to exacerbate that. So I come here for some levity and sanity

Most people are firmly entrenched in their label-identity and work really hard to defend it, no matter which "side" they might be on. The same people are almost all "guilty" of the same behaviors that they accuse their supposed enemy of. People do so little introspection into their own minds, hearts, and behaviors that they just enjoy accusing someone else of doing something while they do it themselves...and they truly don't see it because they are so entrenched in the importance of their assumed identity labels that they feel justified in defending those labels no matter how hateful they have to be to do it.

I live in MN where our democratic state legislators were attacked and killed in June. People who I know actually said things like "That's what you get for being a liberal." And now when someone says the same thing about Charlie Kirk, they say "You are a horrible person, NO ONE should die for their political beliefs." And they absolutely refuse to see how they are exactly the same thing. And there is no hope to point it out to them, even if you screenshot it side-by-side they do mental gymnastics to convince themselves they are not the same.

What frustrates me the most right now is that our politicians and political activists (on all sides) seem to believe it is ok to say whatever you need to "stick it to" the other person, but that they believe themselves to just be playing a game, that words don't matter, that they are just campaigning and that's how it works. They don't accept that their words have consequences, that they contribute to devaluing people and creating desperation and desperation always breeds violence. Then they say, "Political violence should not exist, people shouldn't die for their beliefs!" As if the games they play during fiery speeches don't have very real world impacts on people's lives.

The older and more curmudgeony I get, the more I think social media is the worst thing to happen to humanity. It allows people to immediately share the diarrhea of their thoughts (most of which do not deserve the power of a voice) and cement it as real. Then they are shown algorithms that reinforce the collective mind diarrhea. The amount of hate hiding in people's minds is astounding.

I am endlessly grateful for my meditation practice and my time spent in Nature, which, as Mary Oliver said, "they save me, and daily."

I guess you could say I consider myself a radical Buddhist, not “radical” in a violent sense, but radical in that I challenge systems of oppression through peaceful protest, boycotts, and pickets, which on a personal level are part and parcel of my Dharma practice

I have heard, you should be concerned with achieving for yourself the ending of suffering before you try to help others.

Thus have I heard : practice itself is the expression of enlightenment, not a means to attain it. In striving to alleviate the suffering of others, we practise enlightenment itself, in its pure and natural form.