History is complicated. Geopolitical conflicts are highly complex, opinions are diverse and contradictory. I often think that I have lived all these years in Israel without understanding really anything. But sometimes all you need to read is
one story, or see
one image to get it all in a nutshell. This is such an image - that of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza:
All the thousands of people slaughtered, all those 2,000 pound bombs, 15 months of mayhem and horror; the destruction of schools and hospitals, the criminal proceedings against Israeli decision-makers, the assassination of regional strongmen, the duplicity and complicity of Western leaders, a second invasion of Lebanon, the linked overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the near-war with Iran and developments in Yemen, and of course the initial act of violence that set all of this in motion as well as the holding of hostages that fueled the continuing conflagration - all of these seismic events and human tragedy as a backdrop to a single image showing that while the earth had shook and so many things had changed, the issues remain intractibly the same.
It doesn't matter who actually started it - the important lesson is that you cannot end this by warfare, by population transfer, nor by antagonizing the other side by lesser means.
Palestinians will return and live in tents on the rubble of their former homes, and they will prevail. Some will nurse their anger and hatred. Some will resort to futile, wrong-headed acts of revenge. Mostly they will cling to their stark existence and attempt to rebuild their shattered lives and dreams.
Israelis too will have to live with the PTSD of returning soldiers, the moral blindness or
moral injury felt by the broader population, the harm to their economy, the steady destruction of their democratic system and growing power of pyromaniac leaders, the vilification by people around the world and the re-animation of latent anti-semitism, as well as the ongoing conflict that simply cannot be solved by repeating or doubling down on the same wrong moves.
The conflict will only end when there is a willingness to see the other side as equals, deserving respect, and when both peoples understand that since they cannot beat each other into the ground, they will need to reach an accommodation one with the other. Ali Abunimah who was
arrested and deported from Switzerland this week wrote the same in his book, "One Country". Whether a binational state or two inevitably interdependent mini-states is the solution, it is clear that Palestinians and Jews do not get to choose whether-or-not they get to live together, only
how.
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palestine #
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gaza
