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My general position on most Israel/Palestine conflict
If anyone's interested:
* I like peace. A lot. I dislike death, injury, and any situation in which innocent people cannot live safely and healthily.
* There are lots of innocent people in both Israel and Palestine.
* As far as I can tell, Israel and Palestine as national entities are both being idiots, each spending time during "cease fires" doing things in bad faith with the immediate or eventual goal of harming the other.
* Lots of friends of mine disagree with half of the above statement. They're all more intelligent and much more informed about this situation than I am. And they're all right, whichever side they're on.
* I'm an easily persuaded person in general; especially so with issues I'm much less informed about than the person trying to persuade me is. When I get into discussions about this issue, I almost always come out agreeing with whoever spoke last.
* Israel is much less important to my life than it is to most of the people I'm in Jewish communities with. I don't think Israel, as a land or a modern state (rather than as a concept or a history or a people), is particularly important to my life as an American Jew. And most of the individuals I know personally in Israel are both there temporarily and out of harm's way. (I worry about the rest, but I have fewer such people I know than most of my friends do.) I have even less invested personally in Palestine; I don't know anyone there at all.
* Therefore, I choose to stay relatively poorly informed about the issues going on in the region. Short term, I plan to continue to be persuadable about the issues, but long term, I plan to continue to stake out this moderate and apathetic stance. Frankly, there are other issues I care about more. How about the awesome poverty situation here in the country I live in?
* The one thing I'm sure about is that any opinion on the Middle East issues that disregards nuance and subtlety is automatically wrong.
Clear? Cool. Any questions?
* I like peace. A lot. I dislike death, injury, and any situation in which innocent people cannot live safely and healthily.
* There are lots of innocent people in both Israel and Palestine.
* As far as I can tell, Israel and Palestine as national entities are both being idiots, each spending time during "cease fires" doing things in bad faith with the immediate or eventual goal of harming the other.
* Lots of friends of mine disagree with half of the above statement. They're all more intelligent and much more informed about this situation than I am. And they're all right, whichever side they're on.
* I'm an easily persuaded person in general; especially so with issues I'm much less informed about than the person trying to persuade me is. When I get into discussions about this issue, I almost always come out agreeing with whoever spoke last.
* Israel is much less important to my life than it is to most of the people I'm in Jewish communities with. I don't think Israel, as a land or a modern state (rather than as a concept or a history or a people), is particularly important to my life as an American Jew. And most of the individuals I know personally in Israel are both there temporarily and out of harm's way. (I worry about the rest, but I have fewer such people I know than most of my friends do.) I have even less invested personally in Palestine; I don't know anyone there at all.
* Therefore, I choose to stay relatively poorly informed about the issues going on in the region. Short term, I plan to continue to be persuadable about the issues, but long term, I plan to continue to stake out this moderate and apathetic stance. Frankly, there are other issues I care about more. How about the awesome poverty situation here in the country I live in?
* The one thing I'm sure about is that any opinion on the Middle East issues that disregards nuance and subtlety is automatically wrong.
Clear? Cool. Any questions?
no subject
I absolutely disagree that Hamas is more to blame - Israel has more power, and thus more responsibility/implicatedness. Also: Israel is a government. Hamas is not. Palestine does not have a military. Israel has a seriously kick-ass one, funded by Uncle Moneybags USA [and our billions of tax dollars every year]. And as US Jews who have a relationship with Israel [you and I - I covet Desh's position of feeling less connection with it, a healthy position I believe], it's our job to hold Israel [and the US] accountable - they are governments, accountable to their people [and funders - which is all of us who pay taxes in the US]. Hamas is not directly my problem. Do you know what I mean?
Also, Hamas hadn't killed anyone until the past few days [right? I think this is right], while Israel has killed 700 civilians. So who's really escalating the violence?
Jeff, I'm excited to discuss this with you. Thanks for the opportunity. Wheee.