Monday, August 11, 2014

Israel Gaza

Last week was the 69th anniversaries of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I've never struggled much with the morality of dropping the bomb. Less than a week after Nagasaki Japan surrendered and the War in the Pacific was over. In March before the bombing nearly 7,000 Americans lost their lives in the invasion of Iwo Jima, a small island east of Japan. It is said that the invasion of Japan would have cost 100,000 American GI lives. Between 130,000 and 250,000 were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without doubt almost completely civilian, non-combatants. There was no point to the bombing except to kill as many citizens of Japan as possible in order to convince Japan to surrender and it worked.

Last week in a discussion about Israel Gaza with Jewish friends, men of moderation I respect and like, the argument was made that killing Palestinian civilians while not intended, collateral to killing Hamas leaders, would convince the Palestinians to give up Hamas and terrorism. My belief is that the death of three Israeli civilians does not justify an invasion that killed 1800 people mostly civilians.

The argument that is strongest for me is my firm belief that violence begets violence, that the abuse of the Palestinians stokes hate on both sides and strengthens the hand of Hamas and any group that resists Israel, and that the State of Israel cannot survive by killing as many Palestinians as possible and depriving the survivors of any human rights.

I have to admit it is not a rational argument that moves me against the State of Israel, it is visceral. My visceral reaction is based on the memory of the USS Liberty and the 34 American GIs killed in the Israeli attack on the US Navy vessel monitoring the Six Day War in 1967. My job in the Air Force one year later was the same as the sailors, we monitored everybody, and I identified closely with the Liberty sailors.

Around the same time I was in the UK when the Troubles started in Northern Ireland in 1968. As an Irishman I identified with the Palestinian victims of colonialism in an insoluble problem similar to Northern Ireland. I grew up in the American spirit of support of the new state of Israel and the hope it held for the Jews of the world to finally have a homeland again. Later seeing the brutality of the Zionists against the Arabs in the West Bank converted me to a dissident to the Jewish occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I stopped short of supporting the Palestinians, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. I sent my check, the only thing I could do, to Yesh Gvul, a group of Israeli soldiers resisting service in the occupied territory.

The violence that created Israel was as much Arab as it was Jewish, fundamentalists and nationalists on both sides justified brutality in an intransigence that ended in stalemate that continues to this day. But if the violence in Israel is to end it's the Israelis who have to end it. Unfortunately there is no Palestinian Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King.

Things I know, judgments about right or wrong, the rights of return for Israelis or Palestinians are not the basis of a solution. While a large number of Americans acknowledge that the land grab and genocide against the Indians was wrong, no one is considering giving back anything our ancestors fought so hard to attain. They may have been wrong but they are still heroes of the American imagination.

I know that a one state solution, where Jews would eventually be a minority, is impossible for Israel to accept. I know that peace between the two parties as they currently stand is impossible.

I believe if peace is ever going to happen between the Palestinians and the Israelis, that the aggressive settlement of the West Bank by Israelis has to stop. I believe that the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have to be treated with respect and their basic human rights respected. Important first steps would be fair water rights for everyone in the West Bank and freedom from harassment and violence. The Palestinians will have to accept that Israel can protect the border of Israel Palestine and stop the inflow of weapons to be used against Israel.

I believe the United State should stop supporting Israeli aggression and stop all military aid to Israel; and Egypt and Saudi Arabia while we're at it.

I don't know how the conflict between Arabs and Israelis in Israel can ever be ended. But I do know that bombing and killing civilians is the problem and not the solution. I also know that civilian casualties on either side do not justify killing civilians in revenge.

Both sides need to stop the senseless killing, stop the revenge for past wrongs. Is it going to happen soon? No, but we need to condemn the murder of civilians by both sides and stop our unquestioning support for Israel to murder civilians. It's ironic that there is more criticism of the Israeli government in Israel than there is in the United States. In the United States we need to discuss our support for Israel.

I think if Israel stays on its current path led by Netanyahu and the Likud Government world opinion will eventually turn against Israel, may have already done so, and Israel's brutality more than anything else threatens the continued survival of Israel.

I started this essay with Hiroshima and Nagasaki because my argument is against violence but I have to admit to not having the same problem in a far worse killing of civilians.  I think we have to acknowledge that we have different points of view even within ourselves and that this is not an easy topic to discuss.  It is a discussion we have to have because what is happening now is not leading toward peace and the United States is an active partner in the problem.