Israel-Palestine: Finding another way forward

Dear CrossLeft Community: With regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict - There is no way to right all the wrongs of the past.  Israel, long the oppressed, cannot find deliverance in the act of being the oppressor; neither can it find long-lasting security and peace by pursuing a policy of collective punishment. As my former professor Rosemary Radford Ruether writes, “Continually targeting Palestinians in the name of security, not only subjects Palestinians to a life of radical vulnerability, but does not actually contribute to the security of the Israelis.”  If it did, that would be another story.  But history has proven this to be the path of death not life.  And so we must find another way.   Paulo Freire wrote, “Although the situation of oppression is a dehumanized and dehumanizing totality affecting both the oppressors and those whom they oppress, it is the latter who must, from their stifled humanity, wage for both the struggle for a fuller humanity; the oppressor, who is himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, is unable to lead this struggle.”  If Freire is right then we must side with the oppressed, the least of these, as they struggle to regain their humanity, even as we understand the plight of those once oppressed and now oppressors.   I have long heard it said that Israel has the right to protect itself.  True enough.  I have very rarely heard it said that the Palestinians have the right to protect themselves. And yet, we know that they do. So, because Israel has the right to protect itself and because the Palestinians have the right to protect themselves, we are left with the following structure:  They attacked us, so we attacked them, so then they attack us, so then we attack them, so then they have to attack us, so then, of course, we have to attack them, then they attack us again, so we have to attack them again, so they attack us… ad infinitum, ad nauseam. But what if protection for both came not through attack, death, and destruction and the bloodshed of the children, but through another way?  What if, as Tanya Reinhart states, “Saving the Palestinians also means saving Israel?”  This would mean that if we helped to save Palestine then we would also be saving Israel. What if that other way meant Israel and Palestine reaching out to each other in love? What if it meant turning the other cheek and what if it meant not judging?  What if it meant looking beyond the far right on each side and really focusing instead on all the good work that is being done in the middle?   You may ask if this is even possible when both sides have grown so fearful and ever more vengeful, aggressive, and dehumanized.  Well, much greater minds than mine are working on solutions.  But one thing I know for sure is that the people of Palestine - Israel want peace but they are fearful and weary and they need our help. It will take the collective will of the world to live up to our own humanity and help bring peace to the Middle East.  It is going to take the collective will, especially of the American people, to stop keeping a moral accounting of who is more wrong and who is more right and to stop trying to decide which people God loves more.  All are God’s children.   Therefore, humanization for oppressed and oppressor must be the goal.  Peace must be the way.  Nurturing each other is the first step.  At the personal level, when someone cries out in pain about the plight of the Palestinians, we cannot counter with, “Well, what about the Israelis? They’re in pain too, you know.”  This negates the humanity of the one crying out.  When someone else cries out in pain about Israeli deaths, we must not counter with, “Well, what about the Palestinians?”  This does not acknowledge their pain.  Can we instead say, “I acknowledge your pain.  What can I do to help?” We must seek, in our humanity, to be there for both sides.  For both sides form a whole and that makes them One. Our hearts go out to innocent Israelis killed by indiscriminate bombs.  Our hearts go out to innocent Palestinians who are the targets of collective punishment and who are killed in the name of security.  Our hearts go out to the oppressed and the oppressor, as they are both hurting.  We cannot stand by in our apathy and let them kill each other.  Let us seek, in our humanity, to find a way to love them both and to love each other.