The Other Elephant In The Room
Shoshin1
Veteran
The horrendous situation in Gaza...
( I know the history of Palestine and the issues faced by its people (both Palestinian and Jews) there is a complex one and dates back many years...)
Yes the attack on Israeli settlers by Hamas and the amount killed and the taking of hostages was horrendous and my heart goes out to the families who have lost loved ones, but Israel's response, the indiscriminate slaughter of over 15 thousand mostly innocent Palestinian civilians, including over 5,000 children and more than 3,000 women was uncalled for , it's barbaric, yet most Western governments do nothing but pay lip service...to the heart wrenching scenes from Gaza...
From what I've seen there are many Jewish people around the world (including Israelis) who are appalled at the heavy handed use of force by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) and strongly voice their opposition...and if non Jewish people voice their concerns about the more often than not brutal tactics used by the Israeli military toward Palestinian civilians, they are labelled anti Semitic ...which is ridiculous, but it has become a weapon used by the present Israeli government against non Jewish people who have concerns about how the Palestinian people are being treated...
I have nothing against the Israelis people who want to protect what they call their homeland, but sadly the use of extreme violence by the Jewish state will no doubt lead to a backlash where more cases of Jewish people being targeted around the world, even the Jewish people who oppose Israel's present government and their polices when it comes to the treatment of Palestinian people...
And as usual the first casualty of any conflict/war is the truth... but in the case of the suffering of thousands of Palestinian people at the hands of the IDF the Truth is undeniable ...
Sadly this is what happens when hatred, anger and greed AKA ignorance clouds the mind....
May all involved find peace soon.... 
...but I won't hold my breath....
Comments
To reply to violence with more violence just means peace gets further away for everyone. The children in Gaza who watch their playmates get killed are tomorrow’s hardened Hamas supporters. I don’t think that what Israel is doing is a measured response… it is an emotional response.
I remember once seeing Thich Nhat Hanh giving a retreat on peace to a mixed group of Israelis and Palestinians. I thought it was beautiful, a life changing beacon of hope for those involved.
Every time I start to write about this. words fail me. The senselessness and sheer brutality bring tears to my heart. It is not enough, but my prayers go to/for the people impacted by this war, by all the wars raging upon this planet of ours.
Prayers for compassion
Prayers for mercy
Prayers for peace
Peace to all
I thought that was a very well stated OP @Shoshin and I agree with everything you've written.
I read a Guardian "Gaza diary" and cried after reading a newspaper for the first time in my life. It is very well written, just daily living and facts, a diary.
Might write more later, gotta go now.
There is no such thing as a 'JUST' war.
A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk. “Monk,” he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, “teach me about Heaven and Hell!”
The monk looked up at this mighty warrior and replied calmly, but with utter disdain, “Teach you about Heaven and Hell? I couldn’t teach you anything! You're pompous! You're loud! You’re dirty, and you smell! And do you call that a sword?! Your blade is rusty! You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the Samurai class! Pah!! Get out of my sight, I can’t stand even to look at you!!”
The samurai was furious. He shook, grew red in the face, and was speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword and raised it above him, preparing to slay the monk.
Without flinching, the Monk softly said, “That, is Hell”.
The samurai was stopped in his tracks, and froze in mid movement. The calm, benign compassion and surrender of this little man who knelt quietly before him, unmoved and serene, was a thing he had never before encountered. He dropped his sword, knelt with gratitude, and was suddenly peaceful.
“And that - is Heaven,” smiled the monk softly.
~Zen
All it takes, is for one side to just stop.
Just stop.
THAT - is Just.
The thing is, the media spreads stories of how awful the attackers are, how unjust they were to kill and take hostages. It made it politically impossible to go softly with a response. Without Buddhist media it is impossible to generate a Buddhist response to aggression. Instead a hawk of a prime minister was empowered to make a large scale attack on Gaza.
I came across this....
He is very articulate when he talks about what is happening in Gaza...
Norman Finkelstein "I'm not pro Palestinian"....
...Being interviewed by Candace Owens on Daily wire, a right wing media organisation ...
And for the most part all what the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West bank are doing is resisting unjust laws which eroding their human rights....
When injustice becomes law,
Resistance becomes duty
- Thomas Jefferson
Gabor Mate, of whom we have already been talking about, is on a spree talking about this issue on Youtube. I watched the one below and thought it was very good. He is Jewish but very much against the current and historical policies.
I am no scholar of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but my thoughts are:
Here are the UN requirements for the term "genocide":
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
As far as I can tell, Israel is already doing numbers 1, 2, 3, not doing only number 4, and proposing to do number 5.
Gaza is, to my mind, a geto. Clear and simple. It is heartbreaking that the descendants of those from a geto would create a geto.
I am NOT anti-semitic and intend wholeheartedly to remain that way. I consider the Nazi extermination of the Jews to be certainly the biggest crime in recent history of which I know and have nothing against and all in favor of any individual Jew I might come across, including those from Israel. I come from a war-torn region and know something about being "anti-x-nation". It is NOT the same to criticize the policy of a certain state/entity and to criticize all members of a group as being X. I do not think that the Jewish people are any X. I think, however, that the State of Israel is a lot of X, and that X ain't good, currently more so.
On the other hand, it IS true that the historical conditions in the region led to a 70 year clusterfuck which I certainly cannot hope to understand. So, I have compassion even for the hawks in Israel. It ain't easy living there or being a politician there, and that's probably an understatement.
I observe the global order through a lens of the slow downfall of the US and the West as the global superpower and the rise of China with its current and future allies. From that lens, it seems to me that the US, which would ordinarily restrict the atrocities of Israel, considers itself only strong enough to prop up its ally in an important region, and does not have the strength any more to uphold its own virtues and values. That, I find sad.
Thanks for the well thought out post @marcitko ...
It's true that one can still have compassion for the oppressors, bearing in mind that one would not commit atrocities if one is not experiencing some form of suffering oneself..
Sadly it is such that hurt people, hurt people and so the tit for tat vicious cycle continues...and many innocent lives are lost on both sides...
I grew up in a city that was something of a Jewish enclave, I knew a lot of Jewish people growing up and as a kid I just assumed that was a normal experience. So I think my natural inclination is pro Israel, but I recognize there is ample blame and suffering to go around. If I really want to trace back to the original sin, I like to blame Britain for botching the handling of the country's founding. It feels relatively guilt free in comparison.
I was listening to the popular historian and author Yuval Noah Harari talk on this. He's an Israeli citizen and critical of Netanyahu. He has his long history perspective and is a serious meditator, so what I got out of it was an honest discussion on the subject without the anger and hatred that tends to infuse a lot of the conversation.
What I took from it was how Netanyahu and the conservative party had wanted extremist Palestinian factions like Hamas and Hezbola rather than more moderate forces in charge, so they could avoid peace talks where they'd have to compromise. This way they could continue expansionist and militaristic policies with the excuse that they can't work with such factions. Or something to that effect. And that they've actively taken actions to encourage extremists and discourage moderates. In many ways the October 7th attack was a consequence of his strategy.
I think listening to Harari talk also maybe highlighted why some people feel the pro Palestinian faction has an antisemitic element. They hear angry rhetoric directed at Israel and it feels very similar to antisemitism they've heard over the years. At one level a lot of that impression is on the hearer. On another level there have been actual antisemitic tropes mixed in in some circumstances, "gas the Jews" was chanted at a protest in Sydney, a Brooklyn protest was called "Brooklyn Flood" a name inspired by the attack, a Chicago protest had a hang glider as a symbol. Though that is far from the majority. At even another level, claims of antisemitism get thrown around in bad faith in an attempt to silence opposition rather than engage with the actual arguments. An all too common tactic these days.
Smarter and way more involved people than me haven't been able to untangle the spiral of violence there, I have nothing really to add. It seems to me though that the extremist forces in the region need to be marginalized and moderate forces need to be championed. People that are willing to talk rather than flip the table over if they don't get everything they want. There are several cross faction groups in the area that are focused on reconciliation. I can't remember the names off hand but one was a group of Palestinian and Israeli mothers who have lost children in the conflict.
A case of history repeating itself...
There, fixed it for you. By adding BUT to a statement, you unintentionally (or maybe not, I won't presume to speak for you) indicate one is deserving of the horrors they have suffered. And I really don't think that's fair.
As someone who has both Jewish and some Palestinian friends, I know from what both sides have said that the general public at large are not being shown the whole truth. I don't care what side you view it from, no one deserves it and while Israel are being demonized, Jews globally should not. If it's really about Israel, why attack, firebomb synagogues and schools of Jews in Europe and Australia?......
It seems a lot of the Palestinian diaspora has been heavily affected by images of the Israeli offensive…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/27/war-gaza-lesson-western-hypocrisy-international-community
Sorry if it came across that way to you, my intention was to highlight the heavy handed actions of the Israeli "government" and its "military" towards the Palestinian civilian population and not 'demonise' Israel...
There is no question that 'Hamas' committed horrendous war crimes against Israeli civilians, men, woman and children and should be held accountable for what they have done ....
However the coverage of Mainstream Western media outlets over the last month or so, has been quite one sided when reporting what is actually happening now in Gaza, but social media and its easy access has changed the dominance of mainstream media outlets, people are now seeing firsthand reports from civilians on the ground who are using their phones to document the carnage...This phenomena of videoing events firsthand using ones phone (before the mainstream media censor what their reporters see and report on) is now becoming popular...this is not to say that manipulation can not occur with such use...
It is sad that anti Semitism ( both Jews and Arabs are Semites...a thing we tend to overlook) is on the rise again, and due to what is happening in Gaza, those who hold strong anti Semitic views ( a strong dislike for both Arabs and Jews) will use this conflict to target both Moslems and Jews living in the West......
Minority groups in the West and elsewhere always tend to suffer collectively (regardless of their personal views) when a situation occurs involving members of a group of those affiliated with a particular minority group and is publicised by the dominant media outlets of both the left and right wing ...for example in the West, minority ethnic groups, such as people of colour, Moslems, Jews, and members of the LGBTQI ....
And as I mentioned before...
(the Jewish state=The Israeli government and not all the Israeli people-I know Israelis and other Jewish people living on the island who strongly oppose the Israeli government's actions )
If the US, the UK and the European Union had immediately stepped and used their influence to stop the bombing of the civilian population in Gaza by Israeli forces, when the extent of the bombing first came to light...anti Jewish sentiment which we are seeing now may not have risen to the extent it is rising to now, they have opened the door for the true anti Semites to come out of the woodwork and more innocent people both Jew and Arab will suffer... they ( the US, the UK and the European Union ) and the present Israeli government have a lot to answer for when it comes to the present situation...
Studies have shown that traumatic experiences can be pass down from mother to child....So just image the impact on the mental health and well being of "all" those in war zones who are suffering...
Hurt people, hurt people...
1,200 Israelis killed, mostly civilians and almost 20,000 Palestinians killed, mostly civilians
There are no winners in war...
What it comes down to is that somewhere there are bitter old men entrusted with the work of government who have the gall to command enthusiastic young men to go fight when they should know better. In fact what they should be doing is seeking therapy, and both the Hamas and Israeli commanders are of this type.
There is a good case to be made that anyone wielding political power should be subjected to rigorous psychiatric examinations at regular intervals. The system should be doing a better job of removing psychopaths from public office.
I couldn't agree more ....
Speaking of elephants.
So many different groups, focusing upon the imagined differences between themselves and others, use those examinations as dodge away from facing how similar they actually are to each another.
The old are just the young at the ending of that journey, the governments are just average folks under power's seductive touch.
Too often, those who cry the loudest for others to change, are the very ones least willing to change themselves.
I appreciate the sentiment that we want wise, stable leaders. I think this solution isn't a very good one. At one level I think its undemocratic to have an individual or panel tell citizens who their leader can or can't be. I also worry about the politicization, and thus ruination, of psychology. For example, the personality trait of openness to experience is correlated with progressives and the personality trait of conscientiousness with conservatives. A politicized psychology might pathologize close mindedness or carelessness according to whoever has the power to do so.
The Goldwater episode in 1964 may be of interest…
https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/goldwater-rule
I'm sorry if in my post I came across as accusatory. It wasn't my intention. But I truly do appreciate your reply
No worries @SuraShine ...Thank you ...
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder who's in Gaza
This is not a war on terror, it is looking more like an all out terror attack by the Israeli government itself, terrorising and massacring innocent men, women and children....whilst the world stands by and lets it happen...
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
~Mahatma Gandhi~