Why There is No Right or Wrong in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

The Hamas attacks of October 7^th and the ensuing siege and invasion of Gaza have created stark divisions in opinion across the world.  The USA, with its long history of Israeli military assistance and unconditional support, is seen by much of the developing world as hypocritical and having a double standard.  Those nations believe that Jewish influence in the USA is a major determinant of policy.  Even the European nations, who generally follow the American lead in such matters, have begun to strongly oppose the continuing bombardment and isolation of Gaza.

 

The debate about how Israel should respond to the attacks is fraught, as accusations of antisemitism and islamophobia inhibit freedom of expression.  The weight of history is so powerful that civil discourse is almost impossible.

 

I would like to try to frame the basic conflict between Israel and Palestine in terms of the two opposing narratives.  I believe both have merit, which is why there is little hope for a peaceful solution in either the near or long term.

 

The Palestinian narrative goes something like this:  

 

There were only about 24,000 Jews (< 1% of the population) in Palestine at the beginning of the 20^thcentury.  The Zionist movement started a mass migration with funds from wealthy Jews, and the British turned a blind eye to illegal immigration throughout the period of the Mandatory Palestine (from the end of WW1 up to the UN resolution in 1947).  The British and other WW1 allies had promised Jews and Arabs independence to gain their support during WW1.  

 

The UN resolution that recommended partitioning Palestine was made without Arab or Palestine agreement and was influenced primarily by the British. The USA used its economic power to coerce nations into voting for the resolution.  The UN had no authority to actually implement those recommendations and the recommendations were in violation of the stated UN position that all such decisions should be guided by self-determination of the populations.  

 

The partition gave a much greater percentage of Palestine to the Jews than their percentage of population (which had already been artificially increased by hyper immigration) would justify.  The Arab/Israeli war of 1948-49 resulted in Israel taking over 70% of Palestinian land, much of which had been vacated by expelled or fleeing Palestinians (over 700k) during the war.  The 1967 war, in which Israel did a pre-emptive strike on Arab nations, resulted in all of the West Bank and Gaza coming under Israeli control with an additional displacement of 500k Palestinians. Israel began settling those territories, a clear indication of their long-term goal of colonizing all of former Palestine.

 

The most important concept for Palestinians in the conflict is a ‘right of return’ for all Palestinian refugees.  This right has never been offered by Israel.  The increasingly right wing tilt of the Israeli government and expansion of settlements, as well as the financially-motivated neglect of  Palestinian rights by other oil-rich Arab nations created the conditions under which a terrorist group like Hamas was the only remaining Palestinian champion.  Terrorist acts are historically the only recourse for an oppressed people in an asymmetric military struggle.

 

The Israeli narrative goes something like this:  

 

The Jewish diaspora has suffered untold centuries of oppression, pogroms and, ultimately, an incomprehensible genocide during WW2.  The history of worldwide antisemitism, genocide and displacement justified the creation of a state for Jewish people in their historical homeland.  The UN, the post-WW2 body tasked with creating conditions for a more peaceful world, passed a resolution for creating such a state and a majority of nations approved it.  

 

Since its declaration of independence, Israel has been attacked or threatened with attack on numerous occasions by other Arab nations and by terrorist groups financed by Iran and other bad actors.  The lands that Israel has occupied, settled or put under military control are critical and strategic areas that have the potential to threaten Israel’s very existence and/or its citizens.

 

Israel has made significant efforts to negotiate with the Palestinians, even offering to create a two-state solution with the great majority of the West Bank and Gaza.  The Palestinians have refused to negotiate in good faith.  Moreover, it is difficult to imagine the disparate Palestinian contingents lining up behind and faithfully observing any agreement.

 

Israel’s responses to Palestinian terror attacks and intifadas are legitimate self-defense and are as measured as possible given the dense concentration of people in Gaza and the West Bank and the use of civilian shields for terrorist operations.

 

In my view both of these narratives have merit and deserve careful consideration.  And sadly, they are almost impossible to reconcile.  The Jews deserved a homeland after the horrors of WW2 genocide but the Palestinians didn’t deserve to lose their homeland in the process.  Like so many tragedies in the history of humankind, there is ultimately no good guy or bad guy.  And like so many conflicts, the future is unlikely to offer a peaceful resolution.  And even more sadly, the consequences of this conflict are likely to manifest themselves in even more horrible events in the years to come.

 

 

Henry Kissinger and the Great Man of History Nonsense

 Henry Kissinger finally died at 100.  As expected, a veritable deluge of fawning accolades and breathless wonder at his role in world affairs ensued.  And the sycophancy didn’t stop there.  His celebrity status and long career among the world glitterati was portrayed in depth, including some efforts to paint him as a bit of a Casanova, which beggars belief, but as he once said – power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

As a pleasant surprise, the media onslaught also included numerous pieces assailing his legacy and castigating him for his role in some of the most horrific events of the late twentieth century, including the politically-motivated delays in ending the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, the Pakistan/Bangladesh genocide, the crimes of Pinochet’s Chile and a host of other historical mass murders.

 

I am not an expert on Kissinger, nor do I wish to be.  But his life seems to me a perfect example of the way that power and celebrity status are acquired and how we rush to admire and marvel at those who wield great influence in our world, extolling in rapturous praise the few salutary things they accomplish while excusing or simply not mentioning the hideous results of many of their decisions or actions.

 

And the irony of it all is that the good things they were involved in would probably have occurred regardless of who was in that position because of the historical forces at play, whereas often the horrible things would not have happened if they had not intervened and manipulated events in such an arrogant manner.

 

Take Kissinger’s most revered diplomatic triumphs – the opening of China and the subsequent isolation of the Soviet Union.  Was that really a brilliant strategic move on Kissinger’s part or simply an historic inevitability that occurred because all of the right pieces were in place and Kissinger was simply the only one in a position to move everything forward?

 

Key figures of powerful nations fall in love with the superman personas that they acquire once in their positions.  They become intoxicated in the rarified air of grand strategies and the Great Game, as the British called their battle for world domination with the Russian Empire in the 19^th century.  They forget that they are really silly little men who by various quirks of fate have been given far too much power.  And by wielding that power in capricious and arrogant ways, they often cause much more death and destruction and long-term consequences than they have the capacity to comprehend.

 

I will take Robert McNamara over Henry Kissinger a hundred times.  At least he had the moral strength and humility to question his actions and acknowledge his mistakes.  His career was also an example of ‘Great Game’ hubris, but his intellectual honesty eventually forced him to reckon with the consequences of his tenure as Secretary of Defense and apologize.  He faced great scorn for this honesty.  I applaud him.

 

The Great Man Theory was proposed in the 19^th century as a way to explain the history of the world in terms of the acts of so-called great man.  The theory’s postulate is that the world moves forward due to these great men and that the rest of us are more or less meaningless pawns with only a supporting role (perhaps a slight over-simplification . . . ) .  At the time, Napoleon was a popular example of the Great Man.  Leo Tolstoy did a rather thorough job of debunking the myth of that particular great man in his novel War and Peace, but the general idolization of famous men continued and seems to grow more fervid with each new generation.

 

Our fascination with fame and power has been heightened by the ubiquity of modern Internet media focusing on celebrities.  It reaches a rather telling level of absurdity with the public adoration of British royalty.  Here are people whose only claim to fame is having been born into the royal family – a purely genetic lottery win - yet we gush and fawn over them shamelessly.  

 

Celebrity breeds more celebrity, and power more power.   It seems that there is a critical mass of renown that, once reached, becomes a launching pad for endless new endeavors and positions of influence.  The famous and powerful form a spirited club of mutual admiration that results in them showering opportunities, awards, power and wealth on one another in waves of self-promoting largesse and quid pro quo.

 

Kissinger was reported by some to be the life of every party and a ‘brilliant conversationalist’, though I have read more than a few contemporaries describe him as a colossal bore who would never shut up.  People are so enchanted and beguiled by anyone who has even the slightest fame or power.  They laugh heartily at every attempted clever remark, nod in over-awed agreement at every stated opinion and generally revel in being in the company of such a potentate.

 

For some reason, human beings want badly to believe that there is something special about the people that populate the halls of power and have dominion over so many lives and events.  After a lifetime of observation, I do believe they are endowed with one spectacular attribute: vanity.

 

 

The Coalitions That Make Authoritarianism Inevitable

These days I vacillate between a deep fear that an ever more likely second Trump presidency will usher in a catastrophic change in American society and a more optimistic belief that our institutions are strong enough to withstand the assault that Trump’s authoritarianism will no doubt bring.

For the last eight years I have struggled to comprehend how people can fail to see how flawed and dangerous Trump is.  But he is polling higher than ever in Republican primary polls (60%) and it is important to understand who supports him and why.  What is the coalition that makes Trump’s path to the presidency not only possible, but close to inevitable?

 

The first group is the social conservatives, led by Christian evangelicals and Catholic and Mormon conservatives.  These people are horrified by what they feel is the rapid decline of morality in American society and they attribute this to lower church attendance, liberal educational institutions and cultural degradation in films, TV, music and literature.  They represent about one third of the Republicans likely to vote for Trump.  They believe that Trump is the only candidate, and many would say divinely ordained, who can stem this tide of cultural and religious degradation.

 

The second group is the group that interprets the years since the pandemic as an economic failure caused by democratic policies.  This is the classic ‘vote your pocketbook’ group, but one that has been indoctrinated in the conservative mantras of lower taxes, fewer entitlements, less government and less regulation.  They blame the Biden administration for the post-pandemic inflation and the current economic malaise, even though the USA is clearly less impacted than any other developed nation.  This group has an increasingly troubling percentage of blue-collar workers who no longer see the democratic party as their champion.

 

The third group is the ‘never vote democratic’ group, a traditional republican group that may not be enthusiastic about Trump, but will nevertheless vote for him, knowing that he will protect their economic status and power, and mistakenly believing that he can be controlled.

 

A fourth group is a group defined by their disenchantment, a group that has seen no improvement in their quality of life in the past 3 or 4 years and is willing to vote for Trump out of desperation.  This group may bring in Hispanic and African-American voters that would normally have voted democratic.

 

The final group is a group that is panicked about world affairs – the China threat, the Russian threat, immigration and other somewhat abstract yet foreboding dangers on the horizon.  In uncertain times, a ‘strongman’ can appear to be an asset to those with a weak comprehension of history.

 

The current moment in human history has many parallels to the 1930’s – economic malaise, political turmoil, cultural change and uncertainty.  Democracy and consensual government can appear to be incapable of meeting the challenges of a troubled period.  Paralysis of democratic institutions may appear to beckon a stronger hand at the wheel.  But the consequences of moving toward authoritarian rule and a black-and-white interpretation of problems are inevitably much more pernicious than the illness they set out to cure.

Name-Calling and the Pitfalls of Revenge

People love to label things, and they also love to generalize.  When passions run high, there is a rash of heated name-calling and sloganeering.  The current war scenario in the Middle East is creating just this type of environment.

In my view there is no credible way to justify glorifying what Hamas did.  Indiscriminate violence targeting civilians and children is morally bankrupt no matter what the cause or conditions.  While it is true that terrorist events have been utilized by subjugated and oppressed people throughout the ages, these horrible acts must never be glorified.  

 

The world was deeply moved and rightfully horrified by the Hamas massacres.  The initial responses were almost universally sympathetic to the grief and anguish that Israel experienced.  Tragically, there were no good options for an Israeli response that would satisfy an understandably enraged constituency without killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians.  So Israel did what every nation seems destined to do in such a time – overreact and end up disproportionately killing those ‘on the side’ of the enemy.

 

The Jewish history weighs heavily here.  Even the slightest appearance of weakness or lack of resolve is anathema to the Jewish state.  And in the past, most of the Western world has been supportive of this hyper-vigilance and aggressive action.

 

But as the situation in Gaza has deteriorated to a cataclysmic state and the civilian deaths have grown to five times the casualties in Israel, the support has begun to waver in some areas.  Few deny Israel’s right to punish Hamas, but many find it hard to condone a punishment that is visited on a helpless and desperate population.

 

Now, two weeks after the massacres, a significant part of the world has begun to express support for the Palestinian people.  That does not always mean that people condone what Hamas did, but many believe that Israel at least partly brought this onto itself by the many years of neglect of further peace efforts and the continual extension of West Bank settlements and stranglehold on Gaza.

 

Is this response anti-Israel or antisemitic?  The fact that Israel is a Jewish state makes the distinction hard to discern.  When people are angry and vengeful, they use whatever nasty descriptions of an enemy that they can find.  Every war American has fought has seen our propaganda and public expression go into high gear slandering every aspect of the enemy – race, cultural stereotypes, physical attributes.

 

Jewish leaders who speak of the massacre in terms of antisemitism, modern day pogroms and holocaust comparisons are at risk of crying wolf too often.  Israel is undeniably the most powerful and sophisticated state in the Middle East, and the only one with a nuclear capability.  The world will cry for the innocents killed, but they will not buy the idea of a victimized, vulnerable Israel. 

 

Even with its current extreme right government, Israel is by far the most democratic and stable country in the region.  America is right to unconditionally support its existence and its right to defend itself.  However, we have also turned a blind eye to the underlying problems that years of political neglect have created in the region.  As Israel’s strongest ally, we had the opportunity to influence a course correction in Israeli policy and we failed.  We put our money (literally) on the economically-motivated détente with more friendly regional regimes and failed to see the potential for the socio-political landmines along that path.

 

Israel has only to look at the post 9/11 debacle that the USA raced into to get a sense of what awaits them if they forge ahead now without careful consideration of the likely consequences.  There are no easy alternatives, but the road they are on now is not likely to lead to a good place.

The Danger of Stifling Debate

The merciless carnage unleashed by Hamas has put Israel onto a wartime footing and also initiated a rush to stifle any debate in the USA on the topic.  Groups who have voiced support for the Palestinian cause, regardless of whether they condemn the Hamas massacres, have faced censure, ostracism and even more punitive consequences (job loss?) for merely voicing their opinions.

Any time there is a dramatic and tragic act of violence there is a bloodlust that takes hold and seeks to force all opinions and voices into a single chorus of revenge.  This is understandable. It is, quite frankly, the same thing that drives the other side in their celebration of the murder of innocents.  Once the dogs of war are let loose, there is no humanity, no rationality, no mercy, no kindness.

 

In WW2, we dropped napalm on Tokyo and gleefully cheered the mass murder of over 100,000 people, mostly civilians.  War has no conscience.

 

Palestinians, and for that matter much of the Arab world, have simmered with rage over the disproportionate killing of their people in comparison to the deaths of Israelis over the last 50 years – about a 10 to 1 ratio by most accounts.  Their hatred and bloodlust are kept fresh by Hamas and other groups by calculated means such as the most recent massacres.  To those people, Israel and Palestine have always been at war and no one is innocent.  And now, Israel will slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinians who they deem to be unfortunate collateral damage in their bloodlust to eliminate Hamas, the relatives and friends of whom will harbor lifelong desires for revenge. And so it goes.

 

Is there ever any way to end this cycle of hate and violence?  It will certainly not end if there is no debate allowed on the key issues.  One may argue that debate can come later, once Hamas is eliminated, but that is a tragic fallacy.  We made that mistake after 9/11 and paid for it over the last 20 years in endless, futile wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Sober thinking and open discussion about long term solutions is critical at the outset.  It is noteworthy that Haaretz, the respected left-leaning news organization in Israel, has been more outspokenly analytic and critical in its appraisal of the situation than most American politicians and media.  We do ourselves an injustice and we jeopardize the future by limiting debate and labeling other opinions traitorous or unacceptable.

 

I don’t know what the answer is for the present conflict.  There must certainly be significant consequences for Hamas.  But if anyone thinks that invading Gaza with the attendant massacre of ten times the number of innocents killed in Israel will do anything but create more violence in the future, they are most likely delusional.

My Family Dinner in East Berlin, 1975

I studied at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet) for 2/3 of my junior year.  It was a great experience in so many ways.  My girlfriend Elke’s grandparents and aunt lived in Bonn and I became very close to them, eating Sunday Mittagessen (midday meal) with them almost every week.  I was also able to visit several of Elke’s family friends who lived in cities nearby.

Elke’s parents had left Germany just before her birth in 1954.  Her father had been a Luftwaffe pilot during the war and was fortunate to have survived.  He then completed a doctorate in physics and was recruited by Lockheed to come to the US.  They retained most of their German customs. Visiting them had made a big impact on me, inspiring me to energetically pursue mastery of the German language.  

 

They also had friends who had remained in East Germany.  In January of 1975 the foreign exchange student group (primarily American and French students) at Bonn had a week-long field trip to Berlin.  I took that opportunity to contact one of those friends who lived in East Berlin and they invited me to visit them and share dinner one evening.

 

I had already crossed over into East Berlin a couple times with the other students.  The Ostzone (east zone) held a fascination for us.  It was dramatically different – drab and colorless, with an impressive number of humorless police roaming the streets.  But it was also somehow intriguing in its austerity.

 

I traveled on the S-Bahn past the border control and out beyond the East Berlin city limits into the suburbs where the family lived.  I found the house, situated in a fairly nice neighborhood with well-tended landscaping and window flower pots, and rang the bell.  From within I heard a child cry out “Es ist der Ami” (it’s the American!).  It struck me that the children had probably never met an American.

 

The family had a boy and a girl, ages 11 and 8.  They greeted me happily at the door along with the mother.  After introductions we all sat together and talked about our worlds.  The kids were especially curious and very friendly.  They were very charming and cute.

 

As the time approached for the father to arrive home, the mother moved to the kitchen to prepare the meal.  The kids showed me their toys and we watched West German cartoons – apparently the East German ones were boring (probably too pedantic and moralizing).  

 

The little boy ran off to do some things and the little girl showed me her stamp collection.  She had divided the collection into capitalist countries and socialist countries.  Interestingly, Yugoslavia was placed in the capitalist group.  As we finished looking through the book, she moved closer to me and said conspiratorially, “Weiss Du, Ich bin nicht so sehr Kommunist” (you know, I’m not all that communist).  That knocked me out!  I understood that she was trying to endear herself to this very intriguing stranger from another world and I was totally charmed.

 

The father arrived and he was also very welcoming and outgoing.  We all sat down again to talk and we had some before-dinner drinks and appetizers that all came from the Eastern bloc.  I was fascinated!

 

Both of the parents were chemists, perhaps even with doctorates, and worked in some sort of a chemical plant.  They were happy with their work.  As the alcohol took effect, we began to explore some of the differences between my world and theirs, and this continued through the dinner and late into the evening.

 

The meal was excellent, as almost all family meals were in my time in Germany.  The parents spoke some English but preferred speaking in German, and this also allowed the kids to participate until they had to go to bed.  I hugged them and felt very sad, knowing that I would probably never see them again.

 

Once the kids were gone, we began speaking even more candidly.  They were proud of the accomplishments of their nation, especially in providing more equal opportunities and reducing inequality.  No one was homeless, there was little crime.  But they confessed to being very frustrated with the lack of freedom to express their thoughts and to travel.  They were not overly impressed with the consumer society of the west, but they were eager for the DDR to continue to improve living standards.

 

The evening I spent with them profoundly moved me.  We shared our thoughts honestly and with as little prejudice as possible in people of two completely different societies.  I found them incredibly warm and compelling and was very sad when the time came for my departure.

 

It was mandatory to get back over the border before midnight.  I’m not sure what would have happened if I were late, but I did not want to find out.  The father walked me to the S-Bahn.  As we neared the station, he asked me to be careful talking about our discussions with other people.  I understood and promised to do so.  It had been a night I will never forget.

 

 

 

 

Gaza and the Bitter Fruit of Israel's Palestinian Policies

The surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas last week are heart wrenching – civilian massacres, innocents taken hostage and random missile attacks meant to harm indiscriminately.  Hamas is a hard-liner extremist organization that will only ever contribute to the cycle of violence in the region.

But in our justifiable rush to condemn the actions of Hamas, we must not neglect to tell the other side of the story – the years of brutal repression of the Palestinians, the ever-increasing illegal settlement of formerly Palestinian lands in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the inhumane air, land and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007.

 

Any efforts to create a just peace between Israel and Palestine ceased with the advent of the Netanyahu era.  The increasingly fundamentalist Jewish government that has flourished under his rule has no intention of ever ceding an acre of land or making any effort to negotiate a lasting peace. 

 

Many in the USA are aghast at how the Gaza attacks were celebrated throughout the Arab peninsula and in many other countries.  The knee-jerk reaction is to attribute this to antisemitism.  To be sure, there is still plenty of antisemitism in the world.  But the line between antisemitism and anti-Israel/Zionist policies is a difficult one to draw.  Israel has done itself no favors in the last 30 years with its policies of occupation, settlement and disproportionate responses to Palestinian violence.  A simple tally of Israeli dead vs Palestinian dead is clear evidence that Israel has expanded the biblical eye for an eye to 100 eyes for an eye.

 

One can argue that Israel has done what it had to do to survive.  But there were more visionary Israelis in the past who had a much different approach to finding a lasting peace.  The most remarkable of them was murdered by an ultra-religious Jewish assassin.

 

The attitudes in the USA reflect our typical jingoistic response to any violent act.  ‘Murder them all’!  The same people who weep as they view murdered Israeli families will punch the air when they see air strikes that murder ten times as many Palestinian civilians.  By the end of this war, there will certainly be 10 or 100 dead Palestinians for every Israeli lost.  

 

There is no ‘justification’ for what Hamas did.  But refusing to recognize the historically ironic (the formerly oppressed become the oppressors) brutality of the Netanyahu regime against the Palestinian people will just lead to more heartache and tragedy down the road.