Gunnar Wolf is Debian Developer, a Mexican, and is a former member of a Hashomer Kibbutz. He has written an essay on his blog entitled “About the recent events and possible outcomes in Israel and Palestine”. I strongly encourage people to read it, since he talks about the historical roots of the conflict (going back all the way to the roots of Zionism) in a way that while it is definitely not pro-Zionism, neither is it as unfair as some of the pro-Palestinian accounts of the period 1947-1949. It’s about as balanced an account of the roots of the whole mess in the Palestinian areas and Israel that I think you can find, although he definitely has a point of view:
All in all, even if I won’t live there again, [Israel] is a country I learnt to love, a society I have long studied…And yes, I keep the political stand I had 12 years ago: The only solution is to dialogue, to treat the current enemies -and not only their governments- with respect, recognizing their dignity and right to life, to self-determination. Only then we will change the status quo.
On this day when we will finally see the back side of George W. Bush’s presidency, I can only hope and pray that more people will be as thoughtful as Gunnar Wolf was in his blog posting. Even if we disagree (and there will be disagreement), it’s only by encouraging more people to learn about all sides of such tragedies such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we can help make decisions that might bring peace to this shattered world. May that day arrive soon!
So…as soon as Hamas changes its charter from “destruction of the State of Israel”, to “We respect and recognize the dignity and right to life of Fatah and Israel”, we’ll be set.
There wasn’t anything in either my or Gunnar’s post which justified the actions of Hamas. At the same time, the existence of extremists does not necessarily justify the actions taken by various countries, including unfortunately some taken by the US and Israel, under the rubric of “War Against Terrorrism”.
As an aside, a friend of mine recently told a story about how he happened to have been on the last flight out of Boston before the 9/11 flights, as well as being in London during the Underground bombing, and he thought that the UK’s response to acts of violence by extremists (they tend to use that word instead of terrorists) was far more adult compared to that of the U.S. after 9/11. Perhaps they had more experience dealing with these sorts of criminal acts, given their experience with the “Irish Troubles”; but most Londoners were bound and determined not to change the way they lived as a result of acts of “extremists” or “terrorists”.
After all, the moment you do, whether it is by pointless acts of throwing piles of water bottles in front of airport checkpoints after confiscating them from travelers, or descending to the levels practiced by Chinese Communists torturing American Servicemen during the Vietnam War (which we denounced at the time as torture which violated international law), and practicing said techniques on prisoners in Guantanamo and Iraq — or using massively disproportionate acts of violence in the Gaza Strip — the terrorists have won.
Just because Hamas and al-Qaeda have perpetrated massively criminal acts and taken positions which are unreasonable and evil does not constitute valid justification to do arbitrary things to fight them; in fact, doing so usually weakens us and strengthens them.
“most Londoners were bound and determined not to change the way they lived as a result of acts of “extremists” or “terrorists”.”
Unfortunately while most Londoners were quite adult and still remember “Keep Calm – Carry On”, their politicians have drank fully of the hysteria, either because they really are that short-sighted or because it’s useful for their political gain.