Israel October 7, 2023
POSTNOTE 6 FEBRUARY 6, 2024: Followup posts: Nov 4, Nov 8, Nov 18, Dec 10, Dec 25, 2023, Feb 5 2024
POSTNOTE 5 October 24, 2023: I continue to seek some kind of reasonably reliable information about what, exactly, Gaza is. Here’s something from NBC News which seems reasonably reliable and helpful.
POSTNOTE 4 October 13, 2023: Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune headlines “Gaza evacuation ordered”. The subhead says “Israeli military tells 1.1 million Palestinians to move south within 24 hours”. Gaza’s size is equivalent to a square 12 miles on a side, including over 2 million people. It is, literally, a prison. Gazan’s cannot move in or out as Ukrainians still can. Try to imagine….
There are many points of view. Today, Joyce passed along a very meaning filled post from Rabbi Daniya Ruttenberg. You can read it here.
October 10, a years long friend on one side of the issue sent a copy of his letter which asked a former U.S. president for “courage” to take a stand. (I have friends on both ‘sides’ – I will not identify the ‘side’ of this friend, here). My personal stand: I empathize with the vast majority on both ‘sides’ who have no interest in anything but peace, and no interest whatsoever in what amounts to a religious war. I don’t accept violence as a solution from either perpetrator or in retribution. But I am not naive about human history. Zealots who achieve power, regardless of means, or ‘brand’, are a huge problem, and have always been. This includes supposed religious leaders. I speak as someone who considers himself ‘religious’, and things like the Inquisition, and the Crusades and Slavery itself were important and reprehensible components within my own religious tradition in the not too distant past.
There is and has always been and will always be evil, and it resides among us, and it will never be eradicated. It manifest in many ways. It needs fuel to grow, and that is where we, in a democratic society, come in, for good or ill. We can choose our fate by how we vote.
Going forward: Saturday is one week since the current crisis, which is compared with 9-11-01, began. I will next post on this issue at this space on the one month anniversary of October 7, about Nov. 4. This is about the time lapse between 9-11-01 and the bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001…. I’m watching, and I’ll continue to watch, not only the actions, but the conversations about this terrible crisis.
POSTNOTE 3 Oct. 11, 2023 Minneapolis Star Tribune commentary by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer: Nelson-Pallmeyer Oct 10 23 STrib. Disclosure: I have known and respected Jack and his work for many years. Sue commented: “Thank you, Dick, for referring us to the Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer piece – very solid. Based on what used to be called “critical thinking,” which has gone out of style in this era.”
Also relevant, my good friend, of Syrian ancestry, commented on this link I’d asked him to comment on, about the Balfour Declaration, which he feels is the root of the problem. Here was his comment on the link: “It is relatively accurate, but the most important thing written is the statement that I extracted and pasted below. The protection of the Palestinian Arabs’ political rights has been completely ignored, as well as the rights of the Jordanians and parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The British are and have been very evil people. They are the people that we fought our Revolutionary War against.
“The British government acknowledged in 1939 that the local population’s views should have been taken into account, and recognized in 2017 that the declaration should have called for the protection of the Palestinian Arabs’ political rights.”
A 2014 release from Pax Christi was forwarded by one of you, and seems worthy of attention at this time.
POSTNOTE 2: As noted yesterday, the internet is awash with disinformation about circumstances surrounding this tragic situation. It is difficult to separate truth from fiction…. As noted at this space yesterday: “In the near future I want to take a stab at communication insecurity in this age of AI, etc. Skepticism about anything visual or verbal is warranted, especially if you don’t know well, the exact source. More later.”
POSTNOTE Oct. 9, 2023: I have a lot to say, but my opinions are like any other opinions from anyone, whether expert or not. At the end of this post, I share my limited direct experience with the country and the people of Israel, and that’s about all.
Here is a little geographic perspective: I am always interested in geographic context. Gaza is almost exactly the same size as Ramsey County (St. Paul and environs), with four times as many people in its bounds. Ramsey is one of Minnesota’s smallest counties. Israel is about a tenth the size of Minnesota, about the same size as New Jersey. It has about twice the population of Minnesota; about the same population as New Jersey. More or less three-quarters of Israels population is Jewish.
Gaza is about 141 sq. miles; Ramsey Co, 152 sq. miles; populations about 2, 250,000; Ramsey Co 550,000. Israel 8,550 sq miles, 9 million people; Minnesota 87,000 sq miles, about 5.7 million people.
It is less than 50 miles from Gaza to either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
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Originating post: The news is that yesterday in Israel was its 9-11-01. The attack began about 6:30 a.m. local time in Israel. That was 2:30 local time here in Minnesota; 24 hours ago as I write.
I am not numb to this carnage; neither, unfortunately, is this unusual in our world. Nonetheless, the narrative for what is, now, is being set by every picture, every interview, everywhere. This will be a test for discernment of ‘information’, much of which will likely be disinformation.
Back in the awful days after 9-11-01 I pleaded for some perspective in the U.S. response to the heinous actions of 19 people who killed themselves so that many more would die.. The tone of our country rapidly became retribution.
Quite often I’ve used a short article from early October, 2001, which deserves rereading. Simply substitute Israel for the U.S.; Hamas for the 19 who flew the planes into the Twin Towers. Here’s pdf of the below photo: Afghanistan Bombing Oct 10 2001
The long war predicted in the above article came through: Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Afghanistan again…20 years, four presidents.
Still, the tendency is revenge against a word which most of us know little about: Hamas. Everything else regardless of expertise of the narrator is sheer opinion.
War (retribution) always seems like the first option; it is also the worst option, in my opinion. But if only one side. is for peace, a negotiation is fruitless.
Take some time to learn more than the headlines or early visuals.
If you wish: three articles about Gaza; Hamas; Hezbollah. I hesitate to define exactly how Gaza fits into Israel, politically. The State Department article linked above might help a little. Gaza isn’t an independent country.
Personal Experience:
4 years later, late April, early May, 2000, we were with a group of about 40, half us Jews, half Christian, who did a Pilgrimage together to holocaust sites mostly in Czech Republic and Poland. We walked into Birkenau from Auschwitz, literally along the railroad tracks. It was an indescribably powerful experience. Quite certainly our colleagues from that trip have their own opinions at this moment in history….
COMMENTS:
from Carol: extract from Tom Friedman, NYTimes, Oct 7 2023: “Hamas was conducting what appeared to be practice maneuvers for just this kind of attack all along the Gaza border — right before the eyes of the Israeli military.
from Fred: Thanks for the “comparative geography” lesson! I’ve read several histories regarding Israel’s wars and studied the maps, as always. The map scale of the area never really sunk in. This will help me remember.
from Harry: a commentary from a group called “Friends of Sabeel”
Heather Cox Richardson “Letters from an American” October 9, 2023. (Here is the October 7 post to which Dr. Richardson refers.)
from Dick: Some snippets of history:
from New York Times Digest, aboard a cruise ship in the Baltic June 7, 2003. Note right hand column: New York Times Digest Jun 7 2003
From National Geographic “Lands of the Bible Today”, December, 1967
from Molly: Thanks, Dick, for the helpful posts.
I have worked and traveled in both of the cultures. There is overt hatred and extreme paranoia not limited to Hamas or Hazbollah or those who identify as Jewish. During a two year work experience in Riyadh in 2000 I was reminded more than once to never mention Israel and the world map in my office noted countries of origin for staff on the hospital unit I managed…..the ‘country’ of Israel was immediately blacked out in permanent marker. Peaceful coexistence is a long way off but to support mass murder to accomplish this objective is not acceptable. I regret that so many of those making the loudest noise to retaliate are not ever going to experience more than anecdotal effect. We all have rights, we all have responsibilities.
I agree. The dilemma is the eternal one: whoever you consider to be the enemy, considers YOU to be the enemy as well. There is never a good outcome. Destroy the opponent, and the remnants will be intent on destroying you, later. There is not good and evil. There is only evil as viewed by each side.
What is happening now has a very long and not at all simple history, though all sides establish their own narratives in support of their own grievances.
I remember you came home and were at the Twin Towers about a month before 9-11-01. I also know you have worked all over the world with people of every circumstance and a multitude of cultures on public health matters. You know better than most that we are all human beings. Every culture is substantially the same – most are just like the people you and I see every single day – just wanting to get along constructively in their communities.
“Hamas” will probably never be destroyed; neither will “Israel”…Etc. People have to figure it out before the “nuke em” crowd becomes the dominant voice on both sides.
A final thought: absolutely there were atrocities, and there will continue to be atrocities. “Hamas” is probably much more complex than a bunch of murderous thugs, as Israel is more than an ultra-conservative government, as it appears to be in recent years. Evil results in both.
I posted the above reply before I knew of the bomb catastrophe at the Gaza hospital. As of this moment, there are claims from both sides of who is at fault, but to the best of my knowledge nothing approaching absolute truth.
I think back to WWII and the liberation of Manila nearing the end of the War. My cousins and their mother sought refuge in a churchyard, which must have been in the crossfire between Japanese and Allies, probably Americans. Then four year old Josephine – 2 1/2 months younger than I – was killed in her mothers arms by shrapnel. Of course, there is no evidence of who was the source of the shrapnel – as if that makes a difference. The fact of the matter was my cousin was dead. I knew two of her three siblings later in life.
Personally, it will take much more evidence than I have seen so far to convince me whose bomb it was that killed the innocents yesterday.
A reader asked how I could have a relative in Manila in 1945. Quick story. My grandpa and the cousin of my to-be grandma were in the same company which served in the Spanish-American War in 1898-99. The cousin returned to the Philippines at the time of WWI and lived the rest of his life there. He was in his late 50s when he married and started his family. At the time his daughter was killed he was a POW in the Santo Tomas prison camp in Manila.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” This is a famous opening sentence from Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities” 12. The sentence is a metaphorical description of the period leading up to the French Revolution. It contrasts two opposing conditions and emotions that existed simultaneously during that time.
This analogy continues – anywhere from a small town in the Midwest to anywhere in the world. Dickens and Bernard just describe it a little different, and both are valid!