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If you're wondering how Israel is going to come back after all this, I suspect you already forgot how it managed to come back after 2006. I'm not sure how that makes me feel. On the one hand, I have completely checked out. The people in charge are utter villains. The settlements, the cutting down of trees, the terrorizing, the things one reads in the news if one cares to look are in a vague but emotionally crushing and morally grinding way similar to how the territory of the US was built on rape, murder, land grab, death marches and reservations. On the other hand, I think we cannot let that hold us back from seeking a better future. We must not stare at the bloody entrails left behind on this road to war. Yes, the news is grim. We must look past it, however. What comes after that? Where will we be in forty years? In twenty years? In five years? In two years? Next year? How will it be better than this?
> “The disparity in conditions in the north and south is clear evidence that aid restrictions in the north are costing lives. UNICEF and WFP malnutrition screenings in the north in January found that nearly 16 per cent - or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age - are acutely malnourished. Similar screenings conducted in the south in Rafah, where aid has been more available, found 5 per cent of children under 2 years are acutely malnourished.” – Statement by Adele Khodr, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa
And if you think a solution is impossible, then take heart. The world has managed to come back from two World Wars and countless other brutal wars. Peace is possible. People are not inherently evil. Most people want peace. Those in power and the people surrounding them and supporting them often don't want peace, however. And once the slaughter starts, it's hard to stop. Peace is hard.
Often the people arguing for war just can't imagine peace because of this detail or that detail. And the details are hard to get right, for sure. But they are not impossible. Imagination is required. How else are people going to make plans for after the war? The war will end one day. And those who survived will be following plans that somebody imagined. It is important to imagine a happy, prosperous future and then to make plans of how to get there.
I remember how I was a German speaking kid in Portugal in the eighties and sometimes I'd be greeted by an angry "Heil Hitler!" from kids my age. And Portugal wasn't even in the war! But all the killing takes generations to forgive and forget. The longer it takes us to get to peace, the longer it will take to forgive. And once there is peace, we must not squander it. We need to work for it. We need to keep aiming for that happy, prosperous future and stick to plans that go there. Don't follow leaders without a clear plan. If they don't have one, they don't care or they're unwilling to listen. There are many people with plans for peace. It's just that the road is hard. And yet, that is the road we have.
Stop the killing.
Respect human rights.
Implement justice.
Yes, it's hard. But the alternative isn't looking good. And we know how to do this. We have negotiated countless peace treaties. We have found solutions to thorny issues all over the world. This is not an impossible task.
#Israel #Palestine #Palestine
"We laugh so we don't cry," I heard Sarah Taber say in her Farm to Taber podcast, either in Season 4, Ep. 7: The History of US Agriculture: How Jim Crow paid off for the Midwestern family farm or in Season 4, Ep. 9: King Cotton, Jim Crow, and Pellagra.
Season 4, Ep. 7: The History of US Agriculture: How Jim Crow paid off for the Midwestern family farm
In that spirit, Existential Comics 527: Fantasy Morality has this note at the end:
> Since the good guys always win in the end, and are typically outnumbered, this becomes pretty important. The orcs will brutally, savagely kill a few dozen elves, and the elves will respond in a very civilized fashion by wiping out the entire orc civilization. You can even still see this kind of justification in contemporary colonialism (*cough Israel cough*).
@Sandra@idiomdrottning.org and many others recently posted a link to a great comic where the author wanders the streets in the US, bombarded by posters about the kidnapped victims, the use of the posters in Israel and the US to construct a message, and how it all mounts up: Put Up, Take Down.
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