Learning tolerance from Arabs and Israelis

My friend, Peter Hellman, the notable writer, is a committed defender of Israel to the same extent as many New Yorkers who equate criticism of the Jewish state with anti-Semitism. On the whole I think their attitude mostly stems from shame, that so many of their ancestors went to their deaths so complaisantly. But it's also due to anger over their families having been abandoned to their tragic fate by Western powers that knew the score.

Anyhow, whenever Peter and other friends say "never again," I know that without having said so, out loud, their pronouncement has been qualified to apply solely to other Jews. So, it surprised and confused me too, when Peter said unexpectedly, "of course if I were an Arab, I would do exactly as they are doing..."

Self defense? Has President George Walker Bush's success at hoodwinking the world -- his deliberate, self-serving, destructively reckless claims of tax cuts for the affluent, enriching the poor, "mushroom clouds" and "WMD" -- so completely suspended our respect for reality? Has Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's policy of stop, arrest and even shoot, likely poor suspects, who just might commit crime, gained such currency? Or, perhaps instead, it's we who over the last eight years, have all completely changed?

Maybe, if our child's school were taken hostage now, we'd respond differently than we might have in years past? It could be, that through uncontrollable tears of anguished frustration, we would not plead with authorities, "Whatever it takes, please, don't let my kid get hurt/"

Sure, in this post 9-11 era, something more selfless, on the order of, "Well officer, naturally I'd like for my only child to survive, but as that allows the criminals to fire on our forces, by all means, shell the school and if you must, blow it to bits. Just make sure you get them all! Cause even our kids' lives are little to give if we can finally get those punks."

Had Adolph Hitler fulfilled his obsession and murdered every Jew alive, killed or reformed all homosexuals and lesbians, enslaved any people of African and Slavic decent, would he have somehow gained inner peace or contentment then? No, sooner or latter his mania would have demanded some new 'enemy' to hunt, to subdue, to root out.

Some say, for economic, political and military expediency, Israel must maintain a distracting enemy too. Surely they have an ample supply of belligerent neighbors. Yet I don't believe they perpetuate hostilities purposefully. But even if they did, it doesn't matter really.

For no more than the Nazis can Israel beneficially sustain a mania of persecution. However well it may play with fearful voters who favor neutralizing Palestinians, Israelis can neither kill enough Arabs to remain safe nor avoid the irony of unintended consequences.

For "self defense," which kills 100 of the enemy for every victim on your side and putting off brokering a just peace agreement today, only guarantees more, not less, unrest and sorrow tomorrow.

That said, the state of Israel is legitimate and well justified. We who dare to be critical of it's government are compelled always to recall not merely the Holocaust or endless centuries of Jewish strife but a bloody struggle to become established. 

Indeed, the harshest detractors of Israel sometimes seem to resemble those who attack Africa unfairly. Africa's shortsighted critics only acknowledge the current dysfunctional politicians and despotic authorities, while neglecting to acknowledge how they have imitated their colonial masters by enriching themselves while undermining their peoples' welfare.

True enough, even in relatively stable nations, like South Africa, this dire evaluation is deplorably too apt. But these difficulties by no means tell the entire story or its most important aspects. Who born before 1965 ever imagined we might live to see apartheid end in South Africa? Who could have predicted that South Africa would legalize same-sex marriage, just as in Catholic Spain, before the U.S. did?

In Africa as well as in America, people are still marveling that a man with African heritage could become President of the United States. But this and these other modern miracles have all occurred. So it's possible to hope for peace with mutual prosperity in the Middle East as well.

But to achieve this worthy aim we cannot become bogged down by attributions of blame. Neither can we ignore the mistaken judgments of those involved, any more than we ought to minimize an intricate history of loss and hurt.

Paradoxically, by establishing a viable Palestinian state, Israel will assure, as never before, its own viability. Allowing their current sworn enemy, to live, to learn, to trade, to flourish freely, Israel too will flourish to a degree, that otherwise, is impossible.

How might this utopia be achieved? Our children and their posterity demand, that we achieve it, post haste, by any and all means necessary.