Let me introduce you to my friend Greg. Not only is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met on the Middle East conflict, he’s also a really great guy who has given his life to working for peace. While Greg’s an American citizen living in the States, most of his family still lives in the small Palestinian village of Beit Sahour (The Shepherd’s Fields), just outside of Jerusalem. After his family made us an epic feast of biblical proportions, I asked him to help us understand a bit of what life is like in Palestine these days. This is just one snapshot, but you’re not going to believe it…
Watch the full (4.5 minute) interview here.
You can see why the Settlements are such a big issue these days. Israel believes that they are vital to their national interest and security…but the entire international community calls them “illegal.” Even Israel’s closest ally (America) calls settlement building “not helpful to the peace process.” Two different Palestinian leaders told us that building Israeli settlements on Palestinian (or even contested) land during peace talks is like “two people arguing over how to split a pizza while one side continues to eat the pizza.” I’m not an expert on the complexities of both sides of this issue, but here’s what I do know:
Loving, generous people like Greg’s family continue to lose their land and livelihood.
They and many others ration their water while looking across their fields at swimming pools and green lawns.
While governments rage and stall and grandstand, families just like yours and mine pay the price.
Truth begins in calling things what they are. The German’s believed that putting jews in ghettos was vital to their national interest and security. That was wrong, and what the State of Israel is doing to the Palestinians is very simply wrong as well. Calling the issue complex or complicated confuses the situation. Calling it what it is brings truth and clarity.
Comment by Scott — December 2, 2010 @ 10:09 am
Scott,
I really connect with your desire to call wrong “wrong” – no matter the context or situation. But being committed to calling things what they are, I think that it’s not accurate to compare the current Palestinian situation to the Holocaust. One of my friends (who is more committed to the Palestinian cause than anyone I’ve ever met) says it this way:
“Bethlehem is in a very tough situation. But it’s not the Warsaw ghetto—as you know from Yad Vashem. Almost the entire population of the Warsaw ghetto was shipped to concentration camps and murdered there, their skin turned into lampshades. Bethlehemites are not awaiting their deportation and extermination.
Now, that doesn’t mean that what’s happening in Bethlehem or Gaza is okay, just because it doesn’t rise to the level of sheer radical evil we saw in the Holocaust. But I don’t think anyone is served by making that comparison—not the people who lost their lives in Hitler’s evil rampage, not Palestinians who are trying to get their story heard, and not Israelis—pro-peace or otherwise—who need to hear that story.
They are two completely different situations, in my opinion.
After all, there are many lovers of Israel and proud Zionists, like Danny and other you met, who would be mortally offended by such a comparison—but who nevertheless believe what is happening to our Palestinian brothers and sisters is beyond the pale.”
I personally find this perspective really helpful. hope you do to! blessings!
aaron
Comment by aaronieq — December 2, 2010 @ 1:26 pm
Shalom All,
Aaron wrote:
“You can see why the Settlements are such a big issue these days. Israel believes that they are vital to their national interest and security…”
Israel has frozen settlement building and more over the past 10 years with absolutely no counter offering or positive movement toward peace by Palestinian leaders/negotiators.
http://bit.ly/hNsWtj
Aaron continued:
“but the entire international community calls them (the settlements) ‘illegal.’ ”
Sadly, the moral currency of the “entire international community” which holds Israel to a standard that none of their neighbors are held to (nor any other nation in the world for that matter), is suspect to say the least.
Aaron continued:
“Even Israel’s closest ally (America) calls settlement building ‘not helpful to the peace process.’”
See the link above for much needed perspective. Re America being Israel’s closest ally, Israelis by a wide margin see this administration as being ineffective and naive at best and hostile at worst.
http://bit.ly/g3MREl
The real sadness here is that families like your friend’s in the video are held captive by their leaders’ unwillingness to even sit with Israel at the negotiating table, no less actually talk peace with them.
Wholeness,
Jordan
PS Thanks for your response just above to Scott. It was “spot on” and provided much need moral clarity. Wrong is wrong and not all wrongs are equal.
Happy Hannukah to all of us,
Blessings,
Jordan
Comment by Jordan — December 2, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
Hey Aaron, thanks for the response and not deleting my comment. Seriously. My point was not to compare the evil of the Nazis to the evil of the Israeli government. My point was to compare the justification of that evil by the people of Germany with the justification of evil by the people of Israel. I believe, one day, the people of Israel will look in shame at what their government has done in much the same way the people of Germany look in shame at what their government did. But, of course, that day will not come until people call things what they are.
Comment by Scott — December 3, 2010 @ 9:04 am
Jordan,
As always, thanks so much for your comment and friendship around this issue. I’m glad you are really engaging in it. However, can I push back a little on your comment? It seems like in your desire to keep the conversation balanced, you’ve swung pretty far to a rather narrow view. If I heard you correctly, you believe that:
(1) Israel has bent over backwards for peace, but it’s been the Palestinian’s stubbornness that is primarily responsible for the stalemate.
(2) The reason the entire world agrees that settlements are illegal is that the entire world is of suspect morality. Israel is the one state on the moral high ground.
To be honest, that doesn’t line up with almost anything I’ve seen or experienced. Have the Palestinians made some terrible decisions in the peace process? Of course. Has Israel? Of course. To say that one side has been “the good guys” and the other side has been “the problem” is just not looking at the whole story. There is so much blame to go around, but I think the primary question needs to be: How do we move forward from here?
One of the most encouraging things we found on our last trip was that many, many Israelis are more committed to peace than the headlines ever show. (Like we see in American politics, the extreme voices get most of the press). We met with a number of people who love Israel deeply, but think that many of their government’s policies are really unhelpful. Tomorrow’s blog is actually going to be all about this.
By the way, just yesterday I stumbled upon this perspective from a peace-loving Jewish professor/writer. It seems helpful in this conversation. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ira-chernus/hamas-and-israel-trade-ha_b_790861.html
Blessings, my friend!
aaron
Comment by aaronieq — December 3, 2010 @ 10:44 am
Aaron…
I just read the article in the Huffington Post that you posted. I appreciate the comments that Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, made at that press conference, but I can’t help but consider some of the previous comments he’s made. For example, in 2006 he stated, “We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem.” He also said that the policy of recognizing Israel was “irreversible.” I would be much more abt to trust statements like the ones Haniyah made at that press conference if he also coupled it with a retraction of previous antithetical statements he’s made, as well as with a denunciation of the Hamas Charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel.
Comment by Justin Kron — January 27, 2011 @ 12:48 pm
[...] A video from my friend Greg – talking about settlements while standing on his property in the West Bank…looking at the Settlement in his family’s back yard [...]
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