THE MIDDLE EAST’S DESCENT INTO MADNESS—A GLIMPSE OF HUMANITY’S FUTURE?

“We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow must be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.”  David Ben-Gurion, 1937.  Eleven years later, Ben-Gurion would become the first President of Israel.

“Israel is a disgraceful blot and the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, upon assuming the position of the 6^th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2005

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” from the Preamble to the Hamas Charter, 1988

“To me, the Palestinians are like animals, they are not human.” Israeli Knesset member Eli Ben-Dahan, 2013.

“You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and throw you all out in 1948!”  Israeli Knesset member and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, 2021.

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“An eye for an eye, and one day the whole world will be blind.”  Mahatma Mohandres K. Gandhi, Hindu Leader and Pacifist, whose philosophy of non-violent protest inspired, among others, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Gandhi would soon be assassinated by a radicalized member of his own faith. 

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“The Eastern world, it is explodin’/Violence flairin’, bullets loadin’. . ./And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’/And you tell me, over and over again, my friend/You don’t believe, we’re on the eve, of destruction.”  From Eve of Destruction, by P.F. Sloan, 1965.

There are no words to describe the horror of what is currently happening in the Middle East.  Terrorists from the Hamas faction entered Israel and brutally murdered over a thousand Israelis.  Hostages were taken.  Lives were destroyed.

Those murdered were not soldiers.  These were civilians who’d done nothing wrong.  Many were women, children, and babies. 

This terror was unleashed from Gaza, a tiny strip of land where over two million Palestinians are packed into what some have described as an open-air prison, with inadequate water, power, health care, and opportunity.

In response, Israel unleashed a massive arial bombardment of Gaza.  Over a three thousand Palestinians have been killed thus far.  Most are not soldiers.  These are civilians who’ve done nothing wrong.  Many are women, children, and babies.

Additionally, Israel has shut off all food, water, and medicine to Gaza.  Who will suffer most?  Women, children, and babies.

Let’s be clear.  No baby deserves to be killed by Hamas machine guns.  No baby deserves to be killed by Israeli bombs.  No baby deserves to be killed by Russian missiles, in Ukraine, Syria, or elsewhere.

But it’s happening.  And the world seems powerless to stop it.

A thirst for revenge.  It’s among mankind’s most powerful and deadly motives.  The notion that “I’ve been wronged and by-God I’m gonna get some payback!” has probably killed more humans down through the ages than anything else.

But whose getting revenge against whom?  And what if each person in a fight is absolutely convinced that they and they alone have been wronged by the other?  And with each blow that’s struck, each combatant becomes even more convinced that anything they do to get revenge is justified.

Which brings us to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Many readers will have their own ideas, passions, and beliefs regarding the events of history, and I’m not one to say you’re right or wrong.  But here’s a brief recap of how we got here.  It’s intended to be very general. But for some, even these elements may be open to debate, as is anything that carries religious overtones.

So here goes.  According to Jewish tradition, the area surrounding Jerusalem is the ancestral Jewish homeland. Is this indeed true?  Beats me.  Sometimes history and religion coincide, sometimes it doesn’t.

But Jews have dreamed of going back there for centuries.  And a few did.  Some Jews have remained in the region for years, though they were in the minority compared to Muslims and Christians.

By the 1800’s this began to change.  Modern transportation allowed more Jews to come to a portion of the Ottoman Empire known as Palestine.  They were viewed by the local Arabs as immigrants.  The Jews viewed themselves as the rightful owners.

This presented an obvious conflict, and from time-to-time crimes were committed on both sides.  But nothing like today.  By and large, the two groups eyed each other warily, but mostly co-existed.

The question for many Jews was whether living as a part of a larger Arab-majority region was acceptable, or whether they should be a part of a Jewish-only entity they wanted to call Israel.  Most Jews favored the latter, but not all.

At the end of World War I, the German-allied Ottoman Empire was dissolved.  In its place, the countries we now call Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq were created, all under the control of either France or Great Britain.  So, too, was Palestine.

As more Jews entered the region, tensions with the local Arabs grew.  Those who desired to establish a Jewish state (called Zionists) became more aggressive and violent in their tactics (go back and read the first quote that opened this piece). 

Gradually, the make-up of the region began to shift, but still remained majority Arab Muslim and Christian.  But then along came Adolf Hitler.

When the war ended, and the world saw the shocking devastation of 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, it seemed understandable that many Jews would want to get the hell out of Europe and establish a Jewish homeland.  Suddenly, what had been a trickle of Jewish immigration turned into a torrent.  Conflict with regional Arabs, and especially occupying British troops, increased.  And as always, terrorism and atrocities abounded.

In 1948, after much controversy and hundreds of deaths in terrorist attacks, British forces withdrew, and Israel declared itself to be an independent Jewish nation.  Nearly a million Arabs were forced to flee or were killed.  To Israelis, this was the culmination of a centuries-old dream.  To the Palestinians, it became known as the Nakba—“the catastrophe.” 

War ensued and Israel expanded its territory.  Then came more wars, more atrocities, and the cycle kept repeating.  And each time, Arabs native to Palestine wound up in ever-shrinking regions of Gaza or the West Bank region of the Jordon River.  Often, this meant being consigned to live in abject poverty.

It’s not hard to understand the hardening of positions.  To Israelis, it was “the world’s been trying to kill us off for centuries, and we’re going to by-God establish our own country and defend ourselves, and the Arabs just need to deal with it.”  To Palestinians, it was, “you’ve stolen our homes, our livelihoods, our land, our identity, everything—and we had nothing to do with the holocaust.  Hitler was a damn German, not an Arab.  We don’t deserve any of this.”

You can understand each view.  Over the years, I’ve trained doctors from all over the world.  Many were Jewish or Muslim.  Some were Israeli.  Some were Palestinian.  All of them were kind, honest, sincere human beings.  Each had their own story.

An Israeli doctor who talked about his family’s suffering during the horrors of the holocaust.  A Palestinian doctor who told of her parents being forced to leave their home and business because of death threats when Israelis moved in.  Another who spoke of non-Zionist Jews who were killed by Israelis for not supporting a Jewish state.

With each death, each threat, each deprivation, a zeal for revenge grew on both sides.  Today, it would be hard to find an Israeli who hasn’t had a friend or loved one killed by a Palestinian.  It would be even harder to find a Palestinian who hasn’t had a friend or loved one killed by an Israeli.

For each, revenge feels justified, no matter what course it takes.  It’s an eye for an eye—and soon we’ll all be blind.   

Which brings us to today.  An inhuman mass killing in Israel, and what will likely be an inhuman mass killing in Gaza.  Already, an Israeli missile has struck refugees trying to flee Gaza along what was supposed to be a safe corridor, once again killing women and children.  If this was deliberate on Israel’s part, it was an act of terrorism, no different from the Hamas massacres. 

Israeli tanks and troops are massing at the border in preparation for an invasion.  Over a million Palestinians have been ordered to leave Gaza with less than 24 hours’ notice.  But there’s no place for them to go.

I can’t imagine the town I grew up in being successfully evacuated in 24 hours.  And it was only a thousand people, less than one tenth of one percent of the affected Gaza population.

Americans have been killed in Israel, and some taken hostage.  Americans have been killed in Gaza, as well, and the homes of their families reduced to rubble.

Make no mistake, terrorism is terrorism, and must be punished.  Hamas must be held accountable for what they have done.  But just as Hamas had no right to kill innocents in retribution for the wrongs Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israel, so too does Israel have no right to kill innocents because of the actions of Hamas.

But that’s not what’s going to happen.  Thousands of Israelis will carry the memories of the Hamas murders with them for the rest of their lives, teach it to their children, and demand revenge.  Thousands of Palestinians will carry the memories of the Israeli killings and the obliteration of their homes with them for the rest of their lives, teach it to their children, and demand revenge.

An eye for eye, until all the eyes are all gone.

During my residency training, I worked with a young doctor from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  His parents were Mennonite farmers.  He was raised in the Pacifist tradition of his people.

I once asked him, “You say you’re a Pacifist, but if someone was going to kill you or someone in your family, and you knew it, couldn’t you kill that person to save your family?”

I remember he paused a moment, then shook his head.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I really don’t think I could do it.”

I am neither a Pacifist nor a Mennonite.  But at this point, I wish there were a lot more of them around. 

My heart breaks for the mothers and children of Gaza and the West Bank, just as it breaks for the mothers and children of Israel.

Just as it breaks for the mothers and children of Syria, the Ukraine, Haiti, and Afghanistan.    

Where are we headed as a human race and a civilization?  What will become of each of us?  Perhaps we should remember the words of Nietzsche, “Be careful how you fight a dragon,” he said.  “Lest you, too, become a dragon.”

And be warned.  The next eye you pluck out may turn out to be your own.

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“Can’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say?/ And can’t you feel the fear that I’m feelin’ today?/ If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away/ There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave/ Take a look around you, boy/ It’s bound to scare you, boy/ Yet you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend/ You don’t believe, we’re on the eve, of destruction.” Eve of Destruction, P.F. Sloan, 1965.  In many parts of the country, the song was deemed too controversial for airplay, and was banned by many midwestern radio stations in the 1960’s.

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Further reading:

 Opinion | I’m Going to War for Israel. Palestinians Are Not My Enemy. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)