A friend of mine shared my recent post, "Context on the Conflict," with his friends and family, and one of his friends wrote a response to it. Her email was definitely heated, but thoughtful and well-informed in my opinion. It took me a while to sit down and write back to her, but I finally did it. I think it's a pretty solid discourse if I do say so myself. The whole thing is below. If Dana writes another response, I'll share it too.
Dana's email:
Hey Kevin,
So far I have only gotten as far as to responding to your friend's summary of the conflict. I would welcome you to share my response with him, as he seems like a genuine and good person who is sincerely trying as hard as he can to understand the conflict within the context of his life, as am I.
In response to Zach's reference to the IDF as "careful" by dropping leaflets, funneling humanitarian aid, and treating Gazan patients. These are actions done by a country that has completely surrounded and isolated another country. (we can play around with the word "occupation" and what that technically means, but all it means to me is that Palestine lives under Israel's invasive control that prevents it from being a self determining state, which is currently true. See this link:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.
The other situations aren`t even war situations at all. They are terrorist situations. The Christians being expelled from Iraq is the only thing kind of resembling the Israel-Palestine problem and YES. That is SUPER HORRIBLE TOO. I have openly condemned it on twitter and shared a Muslim's response to how "this isn't Islam." But the entire world isn't being demanded to support ISIS's right to defend itself, are they? It is Israel that is asking the world to support it's right to defend itself. So why are you trying to argue your point by comparing Israel's acts to acts of terrorism elsewhere in the world, and then saying how it's not as bad because you are sending out pamphlets first? I hope you see how audacious and self-condemning that is. You are essentially just categorizing Israel as more polite terrorists.
Also, who exactly is it you are referring to that is blaming Israel for Hamas' rockets or Hamas' storing of these rockets in civilian places? People are blaming Israel for responding to these rockets with excessive bombing inflicting damage being described as a "man made hurricane," and responding to rockets being found in VACANT schools to blowing up schools that are FULL OF PEOPLE. (Schools whose location Israel was warned about 17 times....)
How has Hamas prioritized the destruction of Israel over the well being of it's people? Hamas has a working and relatively effective government and has changed very little of the old PA's structure, unless it was out of necessity since most of Fatah boycotted when Hamas took power. (They WERE democratically elected in 2006, as I'm sure you know. So as proponents of democracy we are in a position where we must consider why we don't allow them to rule. Not saying we should, just saying we need to think about it.) Hamas has reduced street violence and has established social charities. They have NOT left Gazans to starve while they spend all their time building tunnels to go and kill Israelis. They actually originally built the tunnels to Egypt in order to get food, because Israel was only supplying Gazans with just enough not to starve to death. (http://www.haaretz.com/news/
You believe that Hamas is a terrorist organization using Human Shields. But Israel has been named a terrorist state as of a few days ago and has also been accused by the UN of using human shields. So where is this moral high ground based?
The term human shield is misleading. Asserting that Hamas admires the citizens who choose to ignore the evacuation notices and stay in their homes is completely valid. They do, I've heard them say it on the news. But suggesting that they are somehow cowardly hiding behind little babies while encouraging the people to sacrifice themselves is misleading and simply wrong. Also, finding rockets in schools is a problem, but few articles mention that both of those schools were vacant. A crime none the less, but considering Hamas is not an army and has to hide any resistance efforts (despite the fact that they are allowed to resist against Israel according to international law due to the fact that Israel is not acting in good faith as their occupying force) it can be seen as extremely irresponsible, but not necessarily as an argument that they have no respect for the lives or wellbeing of children. Also, to quote a colleague Robert Sullivan, "just because Hamas stores weapons in densely populated area does not mean that Israel has the right to kill all of the civilians to destroy said weapons. If a bank robber took multiple people hostage the police would not have the right to kill all of the hostages just to kill the bank robber."
The argument that people who take an interest in this conflict while being relatively silent on other injustices means there is something wrong with THEM really angers me. Heres why I care significantly more about this issue than any other issue in the media right now:
It has an affect on countless other geo-political problems in the world.
It is the only situation where the public is being demanded to acknowledge the occupiers right to defend itself against the occupied.
It is the only situation where the aggressor is rendered the victim.
It is the only situation where I feel controversial for condemning the murder of little children.
It is the only situation that has led me to look up Martin Luther King Jr. quotes just to remind me to stay calm and peaceful and patient when the entire world seems to accept an injustice as just.
Maybe you are the one who needs to ask yourself why I can sit and bear it when I hear about countless other injustices in the world, but this one makes me, and so much of the rest of the world, so sick and disheartened that I quite literally can not shut myself up about it. Maybe Israel needs to sit down and think about why this issue is causing so many people to take a stand, instead of just assuming it is because all of these people are irrational and unfair.
This is a war, as you say. But it is a very uneven war, considering that one side has an army and the other doesn't. I sincerely ask you to step outside yourself for a moment and just consider that the tactics Hamas is using that you scoff at as barbaric or ruthless are simply common strategies of guerrilla warfare. Because that is the people you are choosing to attack. Poor people. If you want pretty brochures and perfect public relations teams that will calmly explain to the public why the killings are actually totally justified and okay, why don't you try attacking the United States. (I am obviously being sarcastic to prove a point.)
Furthermore, Israel has NOT been committed to ending the occupation. Re: In one week of December alone, Netanyahu’s government pushed forward plans for 11,000 homes beyond the Green Line that marked Israel’s 1967 border — nearly as many settler homes as were approved in the previous 10 years combined. The explosion in activity has made 2012 the Year of the Settlement, inspiring a new level of war-themed rhetoric from settlement opponents. “Unprecedented Planning Strike on East Jerusalem,” says the Peace Now website, “6,600 units in 4 days,”
Time Magazine, 2012
In a statement late Wednesday, Israel’s housing minister, Uri Ariel, published bids for the construction of nearly 1,500 housing units in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling them “an appropriate Zionist response to the establishment of the Palestinian terror government.” He said he believed this would be “just the beginning.” In addition, the authorities revived plans on Thursday for 1,800 more housing units.
New York Times, 2014
Furthermore, the argument that the continued settlements is not really an impediment to peace, because most Palestinians would choose to free their prisoners from prison before choosing to enforce laws against settlements is like saying that starvation is not really an impediment to surviving a famine because most dying people would choose to drink water before choosing food. Just because they pick another important issue before this one doesn't mean the issue doesn't matter. I certainly hope that if you were locked up in prison, your country would bargain to get you back before worrying about land.
Also, these arguments that Palestine "never misses the opportunity to miss an opportunity" are so incredibly offensive. Maybe Palestine is missing opportunities because they are ALWAYS on Israel's terms and because they are busy trying to find enough food to put into their bodies. Are you seriously scolding them for not getting their stuff together to form an infrastructure while they are so hungry and oppressed that they need to dig underground to sneak in food?
All in all I found your summary extremely biased while trying to pass for being objective and sympathetic to both sides. I think that a bias towards Israel is so engrained in our public policy that we often don't even notice it anymore. If you are as interested in finding peace and truth as you seem to be, I hope you will think about and respond to my arguments. I have a lot to learn as well and I think debates such as these are an effective and peaceful way to do so.
Sincerely,
Dana My response:
Hi Dana,
I appreciate your email and I’m sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I totally agree with some of the points you made, but I also would like to dispute a few of your claims. Many of the things you said and the way you framed things were the first time I've heard them, and they made me think differently. You are obviously knowledgeable on the subject and I appreciate you giving me your perspective.
I think the link you shared is a good one and if I had more time I would try and engage every point separately. I reluctantly agree with the #10, #11, and #8. I think #7 and #1 are taken out of context, and I totally disagree with #2 and #5 as I’ll talk about. For now, the best article I’ve seen for “the other side,” in terms of disputing specific talking points is this one.
People from both sides of the political spectrum praised my post for being fair and balanced, and I stated my personal positions from the outset. So I don’t agree with you that my post is "extremely biased while trying to pass for being objective and sympathetic to both sides.”
Also, I specifically tried to talk about historical context because that is sometimes lost in the debate, and you didn’t really engage a couple of my arguments. I’m curious what you think about the fact that Palestinians are the only refugees who are not resettled and how this perpetuates and festers the conflict over time. I also wonder what you think specifically of the 2000 peace process I wrote about, when the deal was more "on Palestine's terms." I also ask what your opinion is on the original Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which occurred before the blockade. (the blockade which was a result of Hamas’ election win, yes, but also its violent overthrow of the PA and subsequent violence against Israeli civilians.) Do you think if Gazan leadership had handled it differently, when handed a piece of land completely free of Israelis, there might have been a process towards an independent Gazan state?
As for your points. First I want to talk about where we agree:
I agree with you that I don’t think Netanyahu or his government is a partner for peace. Netanyahu is committed to security first, which resonates with many Israelis, but this isn't productive towards the peace process. And some of the government policies, officially or unofficially, make me really mad. And the actions of some of the settlers on the west bank, from threats to “price tag attacks” make me ashamed.
Israel’s economic restrictions on Gaza — including calorie counts — is just one example of misguided policy that attempted to weaken Hamas but actually just made life hell for the people of Gaza. There are many other examples of these types of brutal Israeli actions in the West Bank over the past decades. I don’t dispute that at all.
What I was trying to say about Israel's commitment to peace is that in the past two decades, the two sides have been very close to making peace on a few occasions. Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish terrorist was a tragedy, but that was a time when the Israeli gov't was indeed open to peace. Same thing with Barak in 2000, which I discussed in my last post...After Arafat’s betrayal in 2000, when the Israeli public learned how much Barak was willing to offer for peace and STILL was turned down, people became a lot more cynical. (although my girlfriend Adi has just informed me that this wasn't so black-and-white, and there were a lot of misunderstandings going on at the time, and it wasn't completely Arafat's fault). Olmert supposedly was pretty close to peace with Abbas, but he had too many problems of his own with scandal, mismanagement in the 2nd Lebanon War, lack of public trust, etc. Which is part of the reason we are where we are now. Maybe Tzipi Livni could have made something happen when Kadima won the elections in 2009, but she couldn’t form a government and that’s why we’re stuck with Bibi now. So I stand by what I said that Israel has “sometimes more and sometimes less” been committed to peace.
And I in no way meant to downplay the issue of the settlements, because they’re a huge impediment to peace. But to weigh in on your point: the expansion of existing settlements, especially those in parts of East Jerusalem that would become part of Israel in any conceivable land swap, should not be given the same weight as brand new settlements deeper in the west bank. When Obama naively called for a “full settlement freeze” early in his presidency, it put Abbas in a tough position because he couldn’t push for anything less than what a U.S. president demanded. Yet everyone knew that those settlements in East Jerusalem are not disputed in the peace talks, and everything including repairs to existing homes are now stuck in limbo. I’m not condoning the new settlements called for by right-wing politicians, but it’s a lot more complex of an issue than just the number of housing units.
As for innocent civilians. According to British Col. Richard Kemp, “No other army in the world has ever done more than Israel is doing now to save the lives of innocent civilians in a combat zone.” This is corroborated by Richard Goldstone’s backpedalingon his own report after the 2012 fighting, which originally accused Israeli of targeting civilians. But the report didn’t hold water once the facts were revealed. When the lopsided casualty counts (which are fed to the UN directly by Hamas) are further analyzed for this current conflict, we might be looking at much different numbers, as happened in 2012.
Regarding the targeting of innocent civilians in this recent conflict: Like I said in my earlier post, the specific events in which Israel allegedly killed innocent civilians need to be investigated. My girlfriend does PR for the New Israel Fund (a group of left-leaning Israeli non-profits), and they are calling for an independent investigation into these events.
My buddy served in the IDF, and I asked him specifically about this after reading your email. He said: "The claim that Israel targets citizens is simply untrue. I have sat through countless IDF briefings and there is always the highest stress placed on the need to limit civilian deaths. Every civilian death in Gaza has been a success for Hamas' military strategy and an unfortunate price to bear for Israel to protect its citizens from rocket fire and terrorist infiltration. Israel is all too aware of the scrutiny it faces and every civilian death places additional pressure on Israel to halt its activities when it has a serious and lengthy mission ahead of it: to obtain a quiet border with Gaza.” But still, I saw what you saw with those kids on the beach getting gunned down. That’s unacceptable, and you should know that many Israelis are calling for an external investigation.
About Israel bombing schools: First, one of the school bombings was a misfire by a Hamas rocket, revealed by a reporter once he was away from Gaza and free from Hamas intimidation and censorship.
The second instance was Israeli fire that hit an empty courtyard, and then Hamas moved corpses onto the scene to stage the events. And I’m not sure what argument you were making by saying that rockets were found in vacant schools. I don’t think it’s ever ok to house rockets in schools, or to base your headquarters at a busy hospital, or to store weapons caches in civilian houses, or to arrange dead children near schools for the cameras, or to use UN ambulances for war purposes, or to pretend to be dead at a staged funeral.
The analogy about the bank robber is accurate as far as it portrays normal Gazans as hostages caught in a horrible, horrible situation for which Israel shoulders some of the blame. But the analogy would make more sense if the bank robber was just quietly looking to steal some money and move on. But the bank robber is launching rockets into civilian areas from behind the hostages. IDF soldiers have reported seeing terrorists charging with a child in one hand and an AK47 in the other, because their operation manuals instruct them that this is the best way to throw an IDF soldier off his guard in a volatile situation. The Hamas manuals also explicitly state that IDF soldiers are instructed to limit civilian casualties, and instruct terrorists how to use this to their advantage. Confirmed by CNN, “The manual reveals that Hamas recognizes the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians and explains how civilians can be used against it.”
But beyond all this is the simple point that Hamas has plenty of open areas away from the neighborhoods from which to fire their rockets, but they don’t, because Israel would have an easier time neutralizing those weapons. Israel has a much harder time destroying rocket launching sites when they are nestled in civilian neighborhoods, precisely because it requires the IDF to carefully navigate civilian zones. The IDF puts its own troops at greater risk in its efforts to limit civilian casualties, because like I said, Israel suffers hugely in the international PR arena when Palestinians are killed. It’s Hamas's strategy and it unfortunately works.
Regarding your claims about Hamas’s governance: Yes, Hamas was democratically elected, but that doesn’t change Hamas’ objectives towards Israel, as stated in their official charter. For all the bombastic comparisons of this current conflict with actual genocide, we can’t forget an important point. When a group actually states - when it officially commits in their charter - that they want to commit genocide against us, we should believe them. This is Hamas’ stance towards Jews and nothing Hamas has done would make me think differently.
And I disagree with your claims that Hamas has made things better for Gazans and has an “effective government.” I have never been to Gaza, but I have heard and read about it. Hamas has cracked down on freedom and self-expression, and has ruled as anyone would expect from an Islamic fundamentalist regime. Yes, Hamas built tunnels to smuggle food in from Egypt, (forcing children to work and killing 160 in the process) but Hamas taxed those transactions to enrich their leaders. The leaders also siphoned off billions of dollars from donations for their personal fortunes. And I’m sure you’ve seen the news about Hamas’ brutal killing of suspected collaborators without trial. Contrast this with Leftist Israelis that freely protest against their own country without fear of retaliation by their own government.
And while we’re on tunnels: The tunnels into Israeli kindergartens and houses were most certainly NOT to smuggle food. They were to kidnap and murder Israelis.
And of course Hamas could stop lobbing rockets and mortars at Israel, and agree to one of the past 6 cease-fires that Israel has agreed to (all but the first one proposed). That would be helpful for its civilians too. But Hamas refuses to demilitarize in exchange for 1) a new seaport, 2) the lifting of the blockade, and 3) enough economic development aid to make Gaza the next Singapore. Because demilitarizing would mean Hamas can’t attack Israel anymore and - most likely - eventual moderation of its extremist stance. What we're seeing is a desperate terrorist group on the verge of irrelevance, being more interested in its own power and Israel’s destruction, than its citizens.
And I actually have been to the West Bank a couple times. I made friends with a Palestinian man at the King Hussein Bridge Border Crossing when I was coming back from Amman, and he offered to give me a lift through Jericho and Ramallah to Jerusalem. He drove me in his model year BMW SUV. He told me about his anger with Israel, his thoughts on the conflict and the peace process, etc, and it was fascinating, but he most certainly wasn’t starving. The fact of the matter is that Palestinians have “gotten their stuff together” and formed an infrastructure quite well in the West Bank, sometimes with help from Israel, often in spite of Israel's oppressive policies. I have been to Ramallah, which is a culture capital with cafes, universities, a strong feminist movement, and intellectual clubs, where the PA and Israel perform joint operations. The Palestinians have “gotten their stuff together” enough to participate in a peace process, and to deny this is just playing into the Palestinian victim mentality, which - yeah - I totally believe exists, when I see how the Druze and Arab Christians are thriving and are safer in Israel than anywhere else in the middle east, and their sons and daughters are serving alongside Jews in the IDF, and they have unparalleled upward mobility, all while the Islamic State rapes and decapitates their brethren across the border in Syria and Iraq.
As you said, this is an uneven war. One side has an army and has successfully, miraculously, defended itself time and time again from the armies of its neighbors, whose objective was to annihilate it. Then more recently, its army has - also miraculously - defended its civilians from bus-bombings, synagogue-bombings, school-bombings, targeting of mothers with their children. This side has deployed advanced technology to defend itself from rockets aimed at civilians. And sometimes its soldiers falter, and sometimes the army makes mistakes or acts unethically. And some Israelis cheer when their army kills civilians, but most lament it, even if only because this hurts Israel’s public image. And everyone - EVERYONE - hates to see its soldiers die in the battlefield. And when a group of Jews killed an Arab teenager as revenge for the kidnappings, the entire country spoke out against it, and the murderers were prosecuted under the law.
Contrast that with the other side. The other side has been a hotbed of innovation for terrorism — the first suicide bombings, the first plane hijackings, the murdering of olympic athletes. And now, the mastery of a sinister PR strategy. When terrorists kidnap three innocent Israeli teenagers, some civilians celebrate and take selfies of themselves holding up three fingers. And one of the kidnappers’ mothers says how proud of him she is. This side teaches its children hate. It’s asymmetrical warfare alright. But its moral asymmetry.
I want to refer to several instances of non-violent resistance actually being far more effective than terrorism and violence. The Black civil rights movement in America. Ghandi in India. South Africa. And yes, the Fatah (PA) renunciation of violence, the boycott movement (which I don't like, because I think it has anti-semitic elements, but I do see a cause-and-effect bringing Israel back to the negotiating table) and of course the threat of going to the International Criminal Court. The difference with these non-violent protests is that neither African Americans nor Indians nor the South Africans wanted to completely kill all of the other side. Hamas's M.O. is to exterminate and expel the Jews.
I will clarify my argument about those who "take an interest in this conflict while being relatively silent on other injustices.” I'm not saying something is "wrong with them." I'm saying Israel is held to a double standard and it’s fueled by anti-semitism. China occupies Tibet and Taiwan. Russia is occupying part of Georgia and Crimea, and may take even more of Ukraine. Turkey is occupying Northern Cyprus. The US occupied Iraq, and may have to again. Great Britain is still technically occupying Northern Ireland.
But the protests you see all over the world that quickly devolve into anti-semitic taunts, into attacks on Jewish neighborhoods and stores and synagogues that have absolutely nothing to do with Israel, into boycotts of Jewish-owned shops, and into cold-blooded murder, is above and beyond. The leaders of Turkey, which has its own sordid history of genocide against Armenians, are so quick to condemn every Israeli move and equate Israel with Nazi genocide. It’s ironic and clearly due to anti-semitism.
I would go even further and say that this anti-semitism, this revulsion at the idea of the Jews having a tiny sliver of land where they can have self-determination and safety, is why this conflict has perpetuated this long. I already spoke about this in my original post.
Lastly. The notion that Israel "has an effect on countless other geo-political problems in the world” is a drastic oversimplification. It’s so easy to think that “if only Israel would go away, everything would be fine.” But as the middle east erupts in turmoil, Israeli society remains stable. Yeah, Israel has an effect on the region, and some would argue that it has a stabilizing effect. You could argue against them. But the country can’t and shouldn't be blamed for everything.
Phew. I tried to cover as many of your arguments as possible. And I just summoned way more righty-right-winger than I thought I could muster, while my girlfriend yapped over my shoulder disagreeing with basically everything I wrote. So I will end with this link, which most accurately sums up how I feel.
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