It is too easy to devolve into an Us vs. Them mentality. I sometimes sense this happening even among nonviolent peace groups and activists that I respect and admire. True, they do not come anywhere close to the extremists' "us vs. them" ideologies in which "them" equals evil and less than human. But they, in their frustration with the situation they are in, can focus more on the welfare/rights/justice for one group of people to the extent that a hint of "them" or "other" creeps into their rhetoric: never hateful, never violently, but simply by omission. By omitting the viewpoint(s) of the others, by NOT telling of the challenges and suffering faced by the other side, they essentially fail to embrace the other side as fellow human beings. And this is a problem.
Two organizations which do not (as far as I can sense) commit this failure of omission at all are the Parents Circle Families Forum and Rabbis for Human Rights. The first succeeds because its mission, its very reason for existence, is to bring grieving Israelis and Palestinians together to share their stories. Thus, by definition, they tell the stories of both peoples equally. The latter, Rabbis for Human Rights, is a group of lovely and deeply spiritual people who fight, day after day, for the humanity of us all. They stand beside Palestinians when the Israeli government wants to confiscate their land. They petition and lobby their government (Israel) to treat all people equally and to end its unjust policies toward the Palestinians. But of course they also love their own people, their own country, and know fully the suffering and fears of the Israelis.
I used to rely heavily on groups such as CMEP and HCEF (Churches for Middle East Peace and Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation) for my information on Israel and Palestine. I still respect them and read their email updates. But lately I have become far more rooted in Rabbis for Human Rights (see my previous post). I have become convinced that if Israel's policies are to change, then it is the Israeli people who need to prioritize this and demand it of their government. This does not mean that I should just sit back. Our government is quite culpable. I will continue to try to advocate with our own U.S. leaders. But at the end of the day, a critical mass of Israelis must advocate with their own government for change. As well, Rabbis for Human Rights has become my conscience in issues of Israel and Palestine, and their suggestions for how I (as someone living outside of Israel/Palestine) can help give me focus and guidance.
Here is how Rabbi Arik Ascherman, president of Rabbis for Human Rights, says we who live outside of the area can help: sign international petitions (RHR is currently asking people to sign a petition to stop the Israeli government from evicting the Bedouin from their land in the Negev); visit, lobby, and sanely and compassionately speak to our leaders about Israel; invite a member of Rabbis for Human Rights to come speak (Rabbi Ascherman lists the dates he will next be traveling to the U.S.).
While Rabbis for Human Rights does plenty of lobbying and political advocacy, the core of their work is to bring people of different sides together. Rabbi Ascherman says we need to be able to feel as much pain when something happens to the "Other" as when it happens to "One of Our Own." A Palestinian organization that does this is Holy Land Trust (I did get the privilege to meet with them on our trip over there), a group based in Bethlehem that, among other things, trains people in nonviolence. I still vividly remember a member of Holy Land Trust talking to us about how he traveled to Auschwitz so that he could better understand the suffering and pain of the Jewish people. It made me happy to read on RHR's website how they are working together with the Holy Land Trust. These people, these organizations, are the visionaries for peace. We must follow their lead. With them, there is no "Us" and no "Them": there are only human beings.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Grounded in Rabbis for Human Rights
This post will contain lengthy quotes from someone else, because his quotes have inspired me and he has written his thoughts far better than I can articulate mine. Also, he is living, at this moment, in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. And he is a rabbi. A member of Rabbis for Human Rights, to be exact. I absolutely love those guys. They are one peace organization over there that we did NOT meet on our trip to Israel/Palestine, and I have always wished that we had. Feeling lost and adrift this morning, I went to their website and immersed myself in their views and writings.
This morning, driving home from Bethesda after dropping the girls off at Imagination Stage for the first day of their musical theater camp, I listened to my White Flag Project cd. White Flag Project is a group of Israeli and Palestinian musicians who came together in 1998 to form a band. For many years (during the second intifada) they could only perform outside of their countries. And after that one of their members was essentially locked inside Gaza and unable to perform live with the other members. They are wonderful. And listening to the cd of their music made me wonder what they were up to these days. I had the great privilege to see them perform live here in DC in 2009 -- minus the member stuck in Gaza -- which was when I picked up the cd. But searching for them online, I could find nothing about them after 2009. Their website had not been updated since 2009. and as far as I can tell, they just disappeared after 2009 (at least on the internet).
In my dismay over the apparent loss of this group (I had been hoping to find new cds of theirs I could purchase!), I turned to Rabbis for Human Rights. And there I found nurturing, inspiration, spiritual direction, and a renewal of purpose.
Here's my first quote from Yonatan Shefa in his essay "Feelings from the Front: Reflections by Yonatan Shefa":
"In the face of the current violence, I feel useless, powerless, naive, a little lost. But I'm not naive; it's just that I know we are capable of more, of being better than we are right now. I know that we are, I just don't know what to do in order to help move us from where we are to what we could be. Each step, every possible effort seems futile, insignificant in the face of the monstrous brutality we appear capable of. While I may be gazing towards the far horizon of our truest potential, it's also true that if I turn 180 degrees and look the other way, I will see children being burned alive n my backyard.
What do we do? What do I do in the face of this?
Mohammed Abu Khdeir was murdered, pretty much literally, in my backyard... So much hatred, so much darkness, so much enmity, rage and blind hostility came so close to home.
What do I do? I have been living in this country, now, for about five years, and I have spent most of this time striving to bring people together, Israelis and Palestinians, to encounter one another, to see each other, to listen and to share. It is, at times, magical work. Each time I stand with a pair of people who have never once in their lives had a conversation with someone from the "other" side, each time I bear witness to those first words, to that first shuddering destabilization of the scaffolding of fear, prejudice, preconception, I can literally feel lives shifting in their orbit. What was all mind, story, label, narrative, considered to be that, other, them...suddenly becomes flesh and blood, a name, a you."
Hello, it's me, Hilary again. So wow, aren't those some powerful words? It was in encountering people like that on my own trip over their that I felt my own life shift in its orbit. And I didn't witness first time encounters; I merely heard people's testimonies of their first encounters. But those were transformative enough. Rabbi Shefa goes on to recount a conversation with his sister about the Israeli government. Shefa explains that the government, while needing to guarantee security for its people, could and should be doing so by working to bring the two peoples together, through such things as the media, funding joint business ventures between Israelis and Palestinians, and through education (educating each group about the other) and facilitating opportunities for them to come together. But instead, it does all it can to separate them and feed the fear. But back to more of his own words...:
"But in the face of this dark act, perpetrated by members of my own people, carried out in my home, such small births of new lives seem just that -- samll, tiny, insignificant, drowned in an ocean of darkness, less than a drop in the sea of hatred.
So what do I do? Keep on meeting, one-by-one? Keep on gathering, group-by-group?
"There is no structural reason that this (the government supporting programs that bring them together rather than divide) could not happen. The only reason is fear and resistance, resistance which is itself ultimately rooted in fear. There is no reason that, instead of borders and the release of prisoners, the pre-conditions for resuming peace talks can't be the massive and dedicated education of and experimentation with co-existence.
We don't know how to live together. But the only we are going to bring about a halt to the disastrous acts of the minority of people who want hate and fear, who want to drive the other into the sea, on either side, is to deprive them of oxygen.
To deprive them of oxygen, we must make it infeasible for their views to sway and encourage. To deprive them of resources, people and energy, more and more of us must know, in our blood and in our bones, that we can actually do this, that we can actually live together without hating each other, and without doing our best to harm one another and deprive the other of basic needs and rights.
This, the government is not doing. Neither government. The governments of Israel and Palestine are not depriving these toxic minorities of their oxygen.
Right now, if I was to look to anyone for hope, it would be the people, one both sides. It would be to the hundreds of Israelis who have poured in on buses to Shu'afat to pay their respects to the Abu Khdeir family. It would be to the parents all across Palestine who felt horror and sadness for the loss of the Jewish parents of Eyal, Naftali and Gilad.
It would be to the people who know, in their hearts, that this is not the way, that enough is enough; who know that the killing, and the fear and enmity that underlay it, must stop. It is tho those of us who know that we must stop teaching our children to hate, so that, despite their differences, God willing in our backyards we will no longer turn to see children burning children, but laughing and at play."
I say Amen to that. I want to help deprive the voices of fear and hatred of their oxygen.
This morning, driving home from Bethesda after dropping the girls off at Imagination Stage for the first day of their musical theater camp, I listened to my White Flag Project cd. White Flag Project is a group of Israeli and Palestinian musicians who came together in 1998 to form a band. For many years (during the second intifada) they could only perform outside of their countries. And after that one of their members was essentially locked inside Gaza and unable to perform live with the other members. They are wonderful. And listening to the cd of their music made me wonder what they were up to these days. I had the great privilege to see them perform live here in DC in 2009 -- minus the member stuck in Gaza -- which was when I picked up the cd. But searching for them online, I could find nothing about them after 2009. Their website had not been updated since 2009. and as far as I can tell, they just disappeared after 2009 (at least on the internet).
In my dismay over the apparent loss of this group (I had been hoping to find new cds of theirs I could purchase!), I turned to Rabbis for Human Rights. And there I found nurturing, inspiration, spiritual direction, and a renewal of purpose.
Here's my first quote from Yonatan Shefa in his essay "Feelings from the Front: Reflections by Yonatan Shefa":
"In the face of the current violence, I feel useless, powerless, naive, a little lost. But I'm not naive; it's just that I know we are capable of more, of being better than we are right now. I know that we are, I just don't know what to do in order to help move us from where we are to what we could be. Each step, every possible effort seems futile, insignificant in the face of the monstrous brutality we appear capable of. While I may be gazing towards the far horizon of our truest potential, it's also true that if I turn 180 degrees and look the other way, I will see children being burned alive n my backyard.
What do we do? What do I do in the face of this?
Mohammed Abu Khdeir was murdered, pretty much literally, in my backyard... So much hatred, so much darkness, so much enmity, rage and blind hostility came so close to home.
What do I do? I have been living in this country, now, for about five years, and I have spent most of this time striving to bring people together, Israelis and Palestinians, to encounter one another, to see each other, to listen and to share. It is, at times, magical work. Each time I stand with a pair of people who have never once in their lives had a conversation with someone from the "other" side, each time I bear witness to those first words, to that first shuddering destabilization of the scaffolding of fear, prejudice, preconception, I can literally feel lives shifting in their orbit. What was all mind, story, label, narrative, considered to be that, other, them...suddenly becomes flesh and blood, a name, a you."
Hello, it's me, Hilary again. So wow, aren't those some powerful words? It was in encountering people like that on my own trip over their that I felt my own life shift in its orbit. And I didn't witness first time encounters; I merely heard people's testimonies of their first encounters. But those were transformative enough. Rabbi Shefa goes on to recount a conversation with his sister about the Israeli government. Shefa explains that the government, while needing to guarantee security for its people, could and should be doing so by working to bring the two peoples together, through such things as the media, funding joint business ventures between Israelis and Palestinians, and through education (educating each group about the other) and facilitating opportunities for them to come together. But instead, it does all it can to separate them and feed the fear. But back to more of his own words...:
"But in the face of this dark act, perpetrated by members of my own people, carried out in my home, such small births of new lives seem just that -- samll, tiny, insignificant, drowned in an ocean of darkness, less than a drop in the sea of hatred.
So what do I do? Keep on meeting, one-by-one? Keep on gathering, group-by-group?
"There is no structural reason that this (the government supporting programs that bring them together rather than divide) could not happen. The only reason is fear and resistance, resistance which is itself ultimately rooted in fear. There is no reason that, instead of borders and the release of prisoners, the pre-conditions for resuming peace talks can't be the massive and dedicated education of and experimentation with co-existence.
We don't know how to live together. But the only we are going to bring about a halt to the disastrous acts of the minority of people who want hate and fear, who want to drive the other into the sea, on either side, is to deprive them of oxygen.
To deprive them of oxygen, we must make it infeasible for their views to sway and encourage. To deprive them of resources, people and energy, more and more of us must know, in our blood and in our bones, that we can actually do this, that we can actually live together without hating each other, and without doing our best to harm one another and deprive the other of basic needs and rights.
This, the government is not doing. Neither government. The governments of Israel and Palestine are not depriving these toxic minorities of their oxygen.
Right now, if I was to look to anyone for hope, it would be the people, one both sides. It would be to the hundreds of Israelis who have poured in on buses to Shu'afat to pay their respects to the Abu Khdeir family. It would be to the parents all across Palestine who felt horror and sadness for the loss of the Jewish parents of Eyal, Naftali and Gilad.
It would be to the people who know, in their hearts, that this is not the way, that enough is enough; who know that the killing, and the fear and enmity that underlay it, must stop. It is tho those of us who know that we must stop teaching our children to hate, so that, despite their differences, God willing in our backyards we will no longer turn to see children burning children, but laughing and at play."
I say Amen to that. I want to help deprive the voices of fear and hatred of their oxygen.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
The Spread of Hate Across the Internet
So I have been really taken aback and thrown completely off my feet by my recent encounter with hatred of one or the other -- Israelis or Palestinians -- in comments on the internet. These hate-filled, vitriolic comments come mostly from people NOT living in Israel or the Palestinian Territories. Such people are fanning the flames of hatred, and thus violence, and I just don't understand it. To me, this is simply unconscionable.
I am not a social media person. Really, holistically, I am not a very social person at all. I really like the idea of retreating into the woods with a good book; and that's an old-fashioned paper book of which I can turn the pages, not an e-reader. So perhaps my usual avoidance of all things social media is the cause of my shock.
This all began when a priest at my church asked some of us to write letters (to politicians and editors) and speak out on social media (and comments to online news articles) around Pope Francis' visit to Israel and Palestine. To be honest, most of the hatred I encountered in the comments online was aimed at Muslims. (Though The Economist, which I trust, tells me that ISIS -- now IS -- is very active in social media, so I know the hatred online goes both ways.) In posting some comments in response to articles about the pope's visit (I mostly cheered the pope on and lauded the articles for writing about his actions toward reconciliation in the region), I inspired some very passionate hate. Of course, the articles themselves inspired plenty of hate all on their own before I made my comments.
One commenter branded me (as if it were the pinnacle of depravity) a "Muslim lover." Well, yeah, okay, I am. But I am also a Jew lover, a Christian lover (I happen to be Christian), a Hindu lover, a Baha'i lover... I am even (gasp!) an atheist lover. That being a lover of people of a different religion could be issued as an insult, a curse, is devastating to me. This is, in fact, fanaticism.
Another person called Pope Francis a moral leper. Really? The reason why? Because he reached out to the Palestinians on his recent visit, and the Palestinians are majority Muslim, and as every reasonable person must know, Muslims are by definition evil. So the pope, in extending a hand to them, is a moral leper. And these statements are always uttered as if they are the essence of rationality; no person of reason could possibly deny them. They say things such as: "if you are honest with yourself, you know this to be true" (that all Muslims are terrorists, that all Palestinians will try to slaughter all of the Israelis if given half the chance...). Really? I don't think so! I am always wary of arguments that end with such a statement. Clearly I am irrational beyond hope.
And this was all before the recent murders. I shudder to think of how hot the conflagration of hate across the internet has become now.
Islam is not perfect: no religion is. Religions are governed by human beings, and we are flawed by nature. I do understand that out of Islam have risen some truly frightening terrorist sects. IS, formerly known as ISIS, is a nightmare. Moderate Muslims are slaughtered by them as well as everyone else. The problem is, if we in turn label all Muslims as terrorists, then we are guilty of the same sort of mentality. And it is a mentality that breeds violence. Once we allow ourselves to hate an entire group of people, for any reason, we open up the gates to Hell.
Many Israelis and Palestinians understand this. Many of them have suffered much at the hands of the other group, and yet they continue to choose each day to reaffirm their love of the other as a fellow human being. They have been working hard to stop the cycle of hatred and violence with love. And in the end, that is the only way. But their voices are not loud enough. They need amplification. Groups such as JustVision (a nonprofit media group) help amplify their voices by telling their stories to the rest of the world. But the voices of hatred are still louder.
My husband tells me that I should not look at or respond to such comments, that I should just ignore them. He says that responding only ignites the hatred of fanatics. But silence cannot be the answer. Moderates staying silent and passive while extremists shout is part of the problem. Truth be told, I would much rather run off into a corner with my book, or into the woods. But I simply cannot. Because I have heard the voices of those fighting for peace and reconciliation, no matter the cost (and the cost can be high), and their tears have become mine.
I am not a social media person. Really, holistically, I am not a very social person at all. I really like the idea of retreating into the woods with a good book; and that's an old-fashioned paper book of which I can turn the pages, not an e-reader. So perhaps my usual avoidance of all things social media is the cause of my shock.
This all began when a priest at my church asked some of us to write letters (to politicians and editors) and speak out on social media (and comments to online news articles) around Pope Francis' visit to Israel and Palestine. To be honest, most of the hatred I encountered in the comments online was aimed at Muslims. (Though The Economist, which I trust, tells me that ISIS -- now IS -- is very active in social media, so I know the hatred online goes both ways.) In posting some comments in response to articles about the pope's visit (I mostly cheered the pope on and lauded the articles for writing about his actions toward reconciliation in the region), I inspired some very passionate hate. Of course, the articles themselves inspired plenty of hate all on their own before I made my comments.
One commenter branded me (as if it were the pinnacle of depravity) a "Muslim lover." Well, yeah, okay, I am. But I am also a Jew lover, a Christian lover (I happen to be Christian), a Hindu lover, a Baha'i lover... I am even (gasp!) an atheist lover. That being a lover of people of a different religion could be issued as an insult, a curse, is devastating to me. This is, in fact, fanaticism.
Another person called Pope Francis a moral leper. Really? The reason why? Because he reached out to the Palestinians on his recent visit, and the Palestinians are majority Muslim, and as every reasonable person must know, Muslims are by definition evil. So the pope, in extending a hand to them, is a moral leper. And these statements are always uttered as if they are the essence of rationality; no person of reason could possibly deny them. They say things such as: "if you are honest with yourself, you know this to be true" (that all Muslims are terrorists, that all Palestinians will try to slaughter all of the Israelis if given half the chance...). Really? I don't think so! I am always wary of arguments that end with such a statement. Clearly I am irrational beyond hope.
And this was all before the recent murders. I shudder to think of how hot the conflagration of hate across the internet has become now.
Islam is not perfect: no religion is. Religions are governed by human beings, and we are flawed by nature. I do understand that out of Islam have risen some truly frightening terrorist sects. IS, formerly known as ISIS, is a nightmare. Moderate Muslims are slaughtered by them as well as everyone else. The problem is, if we in turn label all Muslims as terrorists, then we are guilty of the same sort of mentality. And it is a mentality that breeds violence. Once we allow ourselves to hate an entire group of people, for any reason, we open up the gates to Hell.
Many Israelis and Palestinians understand this. Many of them have suffered much at the hands of the other group, and yet they continue to choose each day to reaffirm their love of the other as a fellow human being. They have been working hard to stop the cycle of hatred and violence with love. And in the end, that is the only way. But their voices are not loud enough. They need amplification. Groups such as JustVision (a nonprofit media group) help amplify their voices by telling their stories to the rest of the world. But the voices of hatred are still louder.
My husband tells me that I should not look at or respond to such comments, that I should just ignore them. He says that responding only ignites the hatred of fanatics. But silence cannot be the answer. Moderates staying silent and passive while extremists shout is part of the problem. Truth be told, I would much rather run off into a corner with my book, or into the woods. But I simply cannot. Because I have heard the voices of those fighting for peace and reconciliation, no matter the cost (and the cost can be high), and their tears have become mine.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Why should an American care about the Israelis and Palestinians?
I have an intense love for the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the pain and violence they experience at each others hands weighs heavily upon me. Why this should be, I have no idea. They live in a completely different part of the world from me (I live in the U.S.); I have no kinship with them, other than humanity. Perhaps it is that common humanity. But then, I share that with every human on this planet, and I have a great deal more in common with many of them than with the Israelis or the Palestinians. And yet, my heart breaks more for the Israelis and Palestinians and their unending conflict than for any other people in the world. I pray for peace for them, for them to be able to live side by side in two states, but lately all I feel is despair. And so I am writing this blog, because I don't know what else to do, in an attempt to put into words my thoughts, my feelings, my hopes. My hope is that through the process of writing this, I will find clarity and further steps to take. Because right now prayer alone does not seem to be enough, and I honestly don't know what else to do.
I feel a little crazy sometimes for caring so much about these people, and this one issue, when there are so many worthwhile and important causes closer to home that one can get involved in. But I just can't let them go. I can no more step away and ignore the situation than if my own two daughters were trying to claw each others eyes out. When I heard about the murder of the three Israeli youths, I wept. When I heard about the murder of a Palestinian youth in retaliation, I wept again. And I continue to weep as I read about hatred flaring up on both sides toward the other.
There are Israelis and Palestinians who see in each other fellow human beings. When I traveled to the West Bank and Israel five years ago with a group from my church, we met and talked with a lot of them. It was in listening to these people -- people who have lost loved ones to violence who meet and pray with bereaved families from the other side; Israelis and Palestinians working together in solidarity to prevent home demolitions; and many others -- that something quickened inside me. Some of them were initially afraid to reach out and open up to the other, but once they did they found that peace and reconciliation was possible. But these people have to go to great efforts to meet and get to know each other. Their governments, as well as some of their fellow countrymen, have erected numerous barriers precisely to keep them apart and make dialogue between the two peoples challenging . The political situation has been such that it is extremely difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to get together; and therefore it is very easy for them to refuse to see each other as human. And this is what breaks my heart. This, to me, is the tragedy. For peace to happen, those obstacles must come down. And with the recent murders, this goal seems more remote than ever.
How can we tear down those barriers? And what can I, an American citizen, do to help bring them down? This is the question I seek to explore, and hopefully answer, in writing this blog. Because I love both of them with all of my heart.
I feel a little crazy sometimes for caring so much about these people, and this one issue, when there are so many worthwhile and important causes closer to home that one can get involved in. But I just can't let them go. I can no more step away and ignore the situation than if my own two daughters were trying to claw each others eyes out. When I heard about the murder of the three Israeli youths, I wept. When I heard about the murder of a Palestinian youth in retaliation, I wept again. And I continue to weep as I read about hatred flaring up on both sides toward the other.
There are Israelis and Palestinians who see in each other fellow human beings. When I traveled to the West Bank and Israel five years ago with a group from my church, we met and talked with a lot of them. It was in listening to these people -- people who have lost loved ones to violence who meet and pray with bereaved families from the other side; Israelis and Palestinians working together in solidarity to prevent home demolitions; and many others -- that something quickened inside me. Some of them were initially afraid to reach out and open up to the other, but once they did they found that peace and reconciliation was possible. But these people have to go to great efforts to meet and get to know each other. Their governments, as well as some of their fellow countrymen, have erected numerous barriers precisely to keep them apart and make dialogue between the two peoples challenging . The political situation has been such that it is extremely difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to get together; and therefore it is very easy for them to refuse to see each other as human. And this is what breaks my heart. This, to me, is the tragedy. For peace to happen, those obstacles must come down. And with the recent murders, this goal seems more remote than ever.
How can we tear down those barriers? And what can I, an American citizen, do to help bring them down? This is the question I seek to explore, and hopefully answer, in writing this blog. Because I love both of them with all of my heart.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)