israel – Mental Break Town

I keep trying to explain this Israel-Hamas war to my kids, and it’s really so caught up in the past, both near and distant. Repeatedly, one side’s autonomy, safety, and identity is violated by the other. And it’s piled up over time to the current conflict.

The Daily tackles this history in their 1948 episode, describing an “arsenal of memory” that gets “chiseled in stone” to define each side’s grievances.

When you go to the Middle East, you see immediately how people are imprisoned by history, the especially in Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Daily

It’s understandable but tragically and obviously unhelpful.

Yes, the past is full or pain and terror. Don’t get stuck in it – move past it like any wise person would do.

Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.
Tryon Edwards, theologian

And yes, it can be done.

Ireland put a similar conflict behind it: a centuries-old conflict of two intertwined groups of people involving religion, culture, territorial disputes, terror, violence, and injustice.

They ended up with a two-state solution: Ireland and the UK. There is peace and prosperity. People move freely between the countries. There are no checkpoints, walls, vengeance deaths, or bombings.

There are pubs and museums, a peaceful countryside, and a booming film industry.

The past is recognized and understood but no longer used to justify self-destructive, violent behavior. The “Troubles” are gone, but not forgotten.

The world needs to step up and make this happen in the Middle East. Doing so will require setting aside some fear, which is just a mind killer, but a peaceful solution can happen because it has happened elsewhere.

I talk about the news sometimes with my daughter, who is in middle school.

Today I told her that Israel was attacked, and hundreds are dead. I played the The Daily for her in the car. It described unarmed people being indiscriminately mowed down by gunmen, people being abducted, families being intentionally ripped apart.

And that’s just day one.

It was a hard thing to have to play for my daughter, but I want her to know what people are capable of at their worst.

She listened silently for about 20 minutes. When we stopped the car, you could tell she was moved and deeply saddened. She pretty well boiled it down in a few words.

That’s a sad story. I don’t understand the purpose of war.

Well said, my friend.

She asked why this happened, and I tried to explain it: all the history and terrible conditions and politics and religion and blah blah blah blah blah. Here eyes glazed over.

Because it didn’t make sense to her.

Because, it really just doesn’t make any fucking sense. Nobody wins this thing.

Intentionally killing scores of unarmed people at a music festival is not a military operation and can never be justified no matter how twisted your logic is, Hamas, you idiots. By now most of the people who did killing are dead too, certainly burning in hell if there is such a thing.

Sometimes a war is necessary, but this one seems to have gotten off to a really shitty start even with that framing.

Good luck, everyone in Israel and Gaza.

I really hope there is a Good Friday Agreement somewhere in your future so you can one day make some sweet tunes with your family instead of cutting off the water supply and burying bodies.

Tag: israel

“When you go to the Middle East, you see immediately how people are imprisoned by history.”

“I don’t understand the purpose of war.”