Celebrating violence
From the JPost (my comments below) –
Gazans celebrate Jerusalem’s terror attack:Hamas on Friday claimed responsibility for Thursday’s terror attack in Merkaz Harav Yeshiva where eight students were murdered. “Hamas claims full responsibility for the operation in Jerusalem. The movement will release further details at a later stage,” the group’s message said.
The terrorist who killed eight students in a terror attack on Merkaz Harav Yeshiva Thursday night used to work as a driver at the institution, according to his family.
Defense officials said the attacker came from east Jerusalem, home to Palestinians who hold Israeli ID cards that allow them freedom of movement.
I’m Israeli, pro-Palestinian peace activist. I have many decent Muslim and Palestinian friends. I’m not the type of person to generalize and put everyone into the same pot…
Yet, today I want to say something about the extremely destructive image some Palestinians give to themselves and thereby to their whole people…
A few days ago, in Jerusalem, 8 young men (15 to 19 years old) were killed and others seriously wounded.
True, the Israeli Army killed many innocent Palestinians in the last days (and before) – and “revenge” was expected… But Israelis NEVER celebrated such things, as the same evening people did in the streets of Gaza – giving candies to children for the “happy event” that Jews have died at the hands of a Palestinian…
Similar celebrations happened before… Israelis may, in the worst case, be “happy” of an Israeli “victory”, but they never celebrate that people have died…
I’m very sad right now – because THIS makes the lives of my decent and “normal” friends in Gaza much harder even than violence itself…
In my view this is much more destructive to reaching something called “peace” than even the murders on both sides. Because it enters peoples mind and continuously give them the input “Arabs are beasts, Arabs are barbaric, Islam is a violent religion” and the like.
I often wondered why such news – like these celebrations – never seem to make it into international news… I thought about this for a few day days and then I understood. There is no need for that!
Look around you! Decent Muslims try to fight for the image of Islam AGAINST the image given by some fellow Muslim-extremist through the many terrorist acts, suicide bombings, 9/11 and the like. For the moment, they didn’t yet succeed, they didn’t succeed “clear up” this image… If now somewhere in Gaza people celebrate the murder of other human beings, it’s nothing but a drop in the already “self understood” image of “Muslims being inhuman”. It just confirms something generally understood by the “regular Westerner”, and doesn’t need any other emphasize…
Here in Israel it’s in fact the same. It’s mentioned once, very shortly, with no other commentary. People “understand” the message anyway. Palestinians are barbaric brutes. Palestinians don’t care about being human. Palestinians don’t have feelings like other humans.
Same with pictures of babies and kids disguised as suicide bombers. Whatever the message should be for other Palestinians and Arabs – to Israelis it says: Palestinians raise their kids to kill. They don’t love their kids like we do…
Don’t misunderstand me. I know that this is NOT true. – But not the mainstream Israeli who just watches the news and therefore never takes a look “behind the Wall”. What for? he’d say… I’ve already seen it – what else is there to see?!
I’ve been told the same evening by a friend from Gaza that people were happy that they succeeded to fool the tight Israeli security and this was considered as a victory… I could understand this, in a way, if … it was TRUE at least!
The killer was a young Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, living in East Jerusalem. The Yeshiva where the attack was taken out was NOT guarded – all he had to do was drive for ½ hour from his home, walk into the school and kill…
And this fact that that the killer was Arab/Palestinian with Israeli citizenship… This is a pure catastrophe for the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli community. Israelis never have treated them totally fairly and always suspected them to be “traitors within the state”. Israeli Arabs (as they are generally called) have for a long time worked hard to prove their loyalty, have suffered from this prejudice for a long time. But at least it was “only” a prejudice. Now, things have radically changed. From now on Israeli Arabs will have a much harder time to be trusted. Everyone could be a terrorist, now. Until now, “terrorists” were those who came from the West Bank or Gaza. Now, they can come from “within”.
Why, why, why are they doing this to themselves?!
Why did that guy do this to his community?!
Why?!
Murders at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem: by Rabbi Michael Lerner:
Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives unequivocally condemn the killings of students at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem today. Just as last week we prayed for a speedy recovery of Israelis and Palestinians wounded in the fighting in Gaza and the bombings of Sderot, so today we pray for a speedy recovery for those who were injured in this ghastly attack. The wounds of two thousand years of exile and the holocaust are inevitably restimulated by this kind of attack, and tragically the price will likely be paid by Palestinian civilians, who in turn will fight back and then the price will be paid by other Israelis. Thus the seemingly endless cycle of violence will continue.
We at Tikkun feel equally grieving for the people killed by vicious and immoral terrorists at the Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav (the ultra-nationalist religious center that developed the ideology which inspired religious Zionists to believe that they had a God-given right to settle and hold on to the territories without regard to the consequences for the Palestinian people already living there) as we do for the victims of Israeli terror (which in the past week killed 120 people, many of them children, many of them sitting in their homes when Israeli troops randomly fire-bombed and murdered them, as documented by the same international human rights organizations that today condemned the attack in Jerusalem by terrorists). We understand that these killings can only be understood in the context of the 60 year old struggle between these two communities, and that nothing short of a full peace accord that will require a new open-heartedness on both sides can possibly break this horrible cycle of violence. We have no sympathy for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah or those in Israel who advocate violence as a solution or those in the military who announced that they were going to implement a Shoa on the Palestinian people in Gaza, or any of the extremists in the Palestinian world or the Israeli world who seek to disrupt and derail any movement toward peace.
We similarly mourn the people in Sderot and Ashkelon terrorized by bombs from Hamas, as we did for those people who die in the Gaza and West Bank areas because the check points prevent them from getting to the doctors they need, and the many children suffering from malnutrition because of Israel’s slow starvation of the country and cutting off of supplies. Of course there is no “moral equivalency” here, because as Talmud and other religious and spiritual traditions teach, every single life lost is a unique tragedy, and no life lost can be compared to or the loss justified in terms of the life lost of others.
From our standpoint, all violence, whether overt or built into the institutions of economic and political reality, is a sin and unacceptable, whether done by the powerful or the powerless. Violence is the wrong path. So this week in Beyt Tikkun synagogue we will say kaddish for the young men killed at the yeshivat ha rav, and for the people killed in Gaza by Israeli troops, Israelis killed in Sderot and Ashkelon, and for the million two hundred thousand Iraqis killed by the US occupation of Iraq and the 4000 American soldiers killed in that war. And all the victims of wars in Africa and Asia, all the victims of oppression and murder in China and Tibet, all the victims of oppression in Saudi Arabia and Iran and Lebanon and Syria and Egypt.
When will they ever learn? Violence doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t create safety. The way to security is through a. recognizing “the other” as part of you, not an alien but as a fundamental part of “the unity of all being” created in the image of God and deserving just as much as we deserve, and entitled to live at the same standard of living and with the same political rights as we have and receiving the same compassion we would give to our friends; b. the Strategy of Generosity that we in the US have to initiate and the Global Marshall Plan that makes it concrete (see www.spiritualprogressives.org) ; and c. public acts of repentance and atonement that both sides need to take to acknowledge the cruelty and hurt that they have visited on the other side.
Till that happens the killings will go on, and the partisans on each side will always blame the other, and each will ignore the history that has led to the specific act of violence that they are focused on, and each will proclaim that any one who does not side exclusively with their side is a traitor and an evil person.
All this talk, though, doesn’t really reveal how much those of us in the Tikkun community are grieving for all the pain and suffering, how deeply sad and depressed it makes us, and how very much we wish we could ease the suffering on all sides of this struggle. May all of them be comforted along with all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and the whole world!
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Chair, the Network of Spiritual ProgressivesP.S. If this message resonates with you, please A) send it to everyone you know and call your local media and ask them to have this “progressive middle path” perspective represented by speaking to us at Tikkun Magazine 510 644 1200 and b) help us by joining the Network of Spiritual Progressives.
Join the Conversation
Alice, you rightfully ask why people bring such destruction upon themselves. The answer is that a lot of people believe a lot of crazy things. What if I were to suggest that most of what we believe doesn’t make any sense. Would that be going to far?
People on both sides of the conflict choose not to see things as they really are. We let our emotions get in the way of what is true. We let false ideology cloud our judgment. We prefer to live our lives as confused believers, than straight-thinking realists. That’s how we get ourselves caught up in an endless cycle of violence, in which each act of violence gives justifaction to the next.
What is the answer? Stop philosphising, and start doing. Create facts on the ground which speak louder than words, and which point to the possibility of peace. And when you talk, make sure that what you say makes sense. And that you make sense not only within the context of your own agenda, but within the context of the general good.
Albert Einstein came up with E=mc2. Thankfully, the formula for world peace is a lot simpler: Ideology plus Investment equals Hope, and with hope, all things are possible, even the impossible dream of peace.
Speak to one another with Common Sense and with a sense of personal dignity. Invest in one another with projects that inspire a sense of hope, that create jobs, and that protect the environment. Use An Ideology of Common Sense along with some well placed Investment Dollars to Sell a Vision of Hope, a Vision of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom, on the Arab street, in the Muslim world, and in the world as a whole. Sustain the hope with Public Diplomacy. And when necessary, fight, and fight hard,against the forces of ideological extremism, but position the fight within a Vision of Hope. Raise the fight on the ground to a higher moral plain by giving the fight a moral clarity of purpose.
This is the time, before time runs out, to dream the impossible, and to make the impossible come true. I applaud your idealism, and your willingess to listen to the other side. I hope that you will not give up on that, and that you will find a way to give substance to what you know is true.
Yes, Nissim! I thank you a lot for your comment and your encouragement! This is only my first post here – I’ve written before on a Yahoo Blog – and I’m trying to do exactly what you say – as much as I can. The real problem – the real barrier between us is not (in my sense) the actual violence (which could be stopped at any time), but the mental barriers, the sensless beliefs, the prejudices, the enormous lack of commons sense on both sides.. And that is the most difficult thing to fight! I have planned to post here some of my previous Blogs from my Yahoo page where I wrote about what barriers/prejudices I have to face as an Israeli defending peacful coexistance! – Ramzy’s posting here shows you what even greater barriers people face on the Palestinian side – where they don’t even have freedom of speech!!
Dear Alice:
Do you really want to know the answer? Here it is:
He had no other choice. Did you want him to see and sit and doing nothing? Putting people under pressure will force them to do that the Common Sense or Humanity dosent worth! It was the case in whole human history; but not only human, and also other animals kingdom! Then expect what you do to other!
Kavi, What did iran do to the Kurdish? to the People of Khoozestan? To the Persian Militants who broke into iran from the Iraqi border, all those 15 year old girls who were the frontiers of their militant group? What did NAJA do to the Kurds of Mariwan when Jalal Talebani became the president of iraqn and they dances in the streets overjoyed? What does Iran do to the prisoners, the students? the political. the social dissidents? What happened to 7000 prisoners in Iran overnight , once upon a time?
It is good we be honest with ourselves before pointing an acusing finger at some one else. Whenever you found the proper answer to the questions i asked, then together we will answer all the questions you have from any other land which doesn’t belong to me and doesn’t belong to you baby.
Baby! What a word
I realy wonder how you are into Israel and advocate them!
By the way, I’m against all oppressions all around the world; in my country or others. As I said before, Thats WAR! Both suffers! And you shouldn’t take one’s side. why do you think that Israeli side has more rights? Why cant you see that suffering forces man to stand against? Dont you know what that realy is? Why Gaza should bear terror but not Israel?!! I wonder about you!
I condemn that terror and any terrors, but you judge Israeli side for good and give right to Palestinian. Thats what makes me wonder about you!
Lets see these matter beyond Israel-Palestin: Do you always think that one side has right and other side should suffer and never revenge?!!
I believe that there are many unjustly phenomena in our land, but here we are talking about last terror and you want me not to speak about because our government is unjusty?!!
Lordy Lord
Who said i am just on Israeli side? my good intentions embraces all the nations in Middle East, including israelis and Palestinians. I am indeed very much concerned about what is happening there and i am very much hopeful that things get better and people live their lives the way they deserve. I am just not on Hamas side, is that aggrevating? should any one who cares for Palestinians back hamas and its nonsense? its call for destruction and extention of violence? Kavi, where were you when some years back, Mahood Abbas who was the second man in PA was trying to advocate peace, site down with Jihadists and Hamas people and make them agree with a truce, the moment he was talking to them Islamic Jihad was firing rockets, he got so angry that he resigned from his position right away. The same hamas is fully backed by our govenment and Mahmood Abbas who is the one who is working for peace is not taken seriously. The same policy is promoted in Iran and we as iranians are bound to view the happenings of Middle East from a Hamas point of view. Did you like what the same Hamas people did to the AL-fath officals within their own borders? do you call this what authorities should do to their people? I wonder how You back them. They do not care for their people, or they would stop the violence and try a bit to walk in the direction that would promote peace. Well, i am not in Gaza and I am sure life is very hard there, and I know people pay so bad for what the qassams do, and they cannot stop the qassams, as they cannot stop many other things, as we, the 70 million people cannot stop a group of people who are doing al what they want, in a Peaceful way.
If Iran was honest in its intentions, it would be good to both sides and try to help them have peace, not back one side and threaten the other.
Well, I don’t want to say much – but Kavi, I think you didn’t read my post entirely… Maybe if you read it again, carefully, you’ll understand better who I am… Regards!
Elinor,
Learn from wise Rabbi Michael Lerner:
“Till that happens the killings will go on, and the partisans on each side will always blame the other, and each will ignore the history that has led to the specific act of violence that they are focused on, and each will proclaim that any one who does not side exclusively with their side is a traitor and an evil person.
Both side has equal right, in peace and even in revenge! You may fear world or Middle East judge me for being an Iranian as who is into Palestin; but your viewpoint is wrong! You should learn to realize that both side human, what I tried to show in my posts and comments; with no regard to our nationality! for sake of truth and humanity!
Kavi,
What I tried to say here is that it’s not so much what is actually happening on the ground is what prevents peace to happen – but what’s in the minds of people… I saw your comment on Ramzy’s post (he’s actually one of my best friends) – and I think you’re a little contemptious (sorry to say)… but he’s actually “sitting” there, living in the middle of it all… How can you justify to give HIM lessons?
Elinor Again,
Did I advocate Hamas ever? And I believe that guy that killed 8 other youth, wasnt forced by Hamas to kill them all (thats my belief)! He revenged as he figured out that his people are suffering! just it! He tried to do the same as what Israel did. No Hamas here, I believe!
But Hamas found it a great act a said proudly “Oh that was me! did you see how powerful I am! then expect the nexts!”. I dont care about Hamas and even advocate them.
But what kind of forces do you realy think made that guy to do this? Pressure, suffering, grieve, hatred, revenge! Of what?
I’m not political here, I’m into humanity! I dont care what hamas did or Mahmood Abbas! I give the same right to both side! both are human and both suffer when a family member dies! But world cant see both the same and this is what makes me sick. PERIOD
Lord Kavi,
I’m sorry to say that you’re wrong. Nobody “forced” him, but brainwashed him. If Hamas wasn’t involved in his life, why did the family decorate the mourning tent with flags of Hamas and Hezbollah?
Alice,
Which lesson did I give him? My comment had no lesson and that was just a sympathy!
And if you are pointing to justifing then here is my answer:
You justifeid what World may say or may see about Islam and Palestin; Then I justified what World may NOT say or NOT see about Palestinian and the parameters that lead them to these acts!
Both logics the same!
Kavi, do a ravankavi here,
When I talk, i talk as some one who has gone through the relentless experience of the war, the Iran and Iraq war, as some one who lost a very precious gem of herlife in that war. I do undertand what suffering means and what does sense of revenge means Lord, but Somehow, I got over that, and I am looking forward to having a Good Neighborly relationship with my Iraqi Brethren. You got it?
Dear Alice,
I that was as you said, I admit that I was wrong till now!
But I like you to answer a question:
Ok we assume that guy was brainwashed (we dont know what was the reality; he is now dead) Why should Hamas Evolve? Wasnt that some kind of pressure that create them?
Elinor,
I understand. I didnt look for war between Israel and Palestin. I said world cant see them equal! You always didnt get me the right way.
Maybe I’d better finish it here. Because it really seems that World never want to see’em equal! Ok, I give up! I dont care anymore about injustic! You and other guys who think that Human being is more than other human being, better make a world better place! I give up!
If we continuesly go back and look who did what to whom, when and why, we’ll never get out of this. Yes, Israel did that, yes, it did this, yes, Palestinians did this, and Palestinians did that… We’ve been doing such summaries for years and years – and it didn’t lead anyone of us anywhere. Not only me, as Israeli, but also many Palestinians are just sick and tired of these accounts of deeds, mistakes, horrors, mutual massacres. We want to stop and go ON – go “somewhere”, to a new, constructive place. We don’t need to forget or forgive each other, or to come to “love” each other – and justice must prevail – but we must STOP it, somehow.. To recount relentlessly all the horrors committed on both sides, by whoever and for whatever reason – didn’t and will not lead us forward. Respect for the dead on both sides is a minimum requested in my view. The killer, who lived in the same city as me, wasn’t (by far) under the same pressure as Palestinians in the West Bank or (much much more!) in Gaza. I don’t know the details of his life – maybe he has lost family or friends in this conflict – as I have, and many Israelis have, as well – but he did it out of solidarity with Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, while for him life was MUCH easier than for them… Anyway – I won’t convince you – to each his beliefs. May you have yours! Salaam!
Dear Alice,
You ask “Why?”.
Perhaps the answer will be clear if you browse the pages of http://pmw.org.il/, pay special attention to the children section. This new, post-Oslo generation grew up on this type of propaganda (I remember watching PA TV 10-12 years ago and seeing this trend already present, though of course really blossoming a couple years later). Why do these people create and provide this content? There are plenty of reasons from the blind hate to money (you know the famous hadith about the rock and a Jew hiding behind it? a decent muslim will find a way to stay away from acting upon it, but it is there for all the other muslims to place on their banners – and they sure do). A friend of mine happened to translate a lot of the Palestinian documents captured during the Defensive Wall operation a few years ago, and he said that it is perfectly clear how huge sums (dwarfing drug trafficking) were made by creating “hot situations” and then collecting money for addressing the resulting issues.
Also, there is the issue of the reporting of Israeli actions. We may or may not have opposing views about these actions, but we both understand that they are rational and at least in a way legitimate. And that the innocent victims of these actions are not the desired effect and IDF takes all the precautions to minimize them. But the media rarely presents it in this way. It plays along with the Palestinians blowing out of proportions the Israeli “aggression” (while ignoring the much more serious issues making the lives of Palestinians quite miserable). To learn about this trend of the media and plain falsification of the news (and justifying it!), browse http://www.seconddraft.org/
These are the reasons why I was opposing Oslo – these consequences were fairly obvious to me even then, 15 years ago. And even then, I could say that the biggest victims of Oslo will be the Palestinians themselves.
Regards!
-Gene
correction: the link http://pmw.org.il/ above picked up the “,” which messed it up
Dear Gene,
Thanks for your comment. If I asked “why” it was partly rhetoric, partly an outcry – an outcry about the lack of common sense. I know what you are talking about – I do not follow the Palestinian media by myself, but I know enough to understand perfectly well what you say. I must admit, that it’s a bit difficult for me to start blogging here, after having posted Blogs about this subject for about 2 years on my Yahoo Blog. Pleople there know me already, and know where I ‘come from’ and what I’m aiming at. I intentionally keep away from governmental rhetorics, argumentation, propaganda, manipulation and the like. I do not listen too much to the “paroles” on both sides. I agree that the lies, the manipulation, the mindless slogans might be stronger on the Palestinian side, more hateful and more “mystical” (with religious implications) – but we have our share of “lies”, manipulation and rhetorics as well. What I’m trying to do is speak out on the “human” level – speak to Palestinians as human to human – not to deal with politics and levels of power I can’t influence anyway. I’m speaking always (with others or in my Blogs) about the human side – the level of the regular people. I know directly through my Palestinian friends what the “official rhetoric” is and does. But I also know how the non-fanatics suffer from this. How the normal “nice guy” suffers from being perceived as a terrorist, when he himself opposed such actions, when he’s just a normal guy who just wants to live his life normally like we all want to do. A friend of mine once told me that he sometimes, jokingly, presents himself as “Palestinian, terrorist by blood” – which means that he knows how the world perceives him, as soon as he identifies himself as Palestinian. The weight of these images is on everyone, bad or good. Often, when I talk to someone new, be it a Palestinian or any Muslim or Arab from abroad, they tell me how Israelis are presented in the rhetorics of their countries and often express their joy to “meet” me, to be able to see Israelis as humans, too. – My outcry of “Why?” was about that – the destructiveness of images and symbols – which are present very strongly in many ways in the attack of especially THIS very special Yeshiva by a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship… I’m definitely sure that all of the planners of this attack knew exactly what they were doing in this way. To know it doesn’t prevent me from exclaiming my disbelief how they can be SO destructive to themselfs – meaning destroy the prospects of all the normal, regular and good people among the Palestinians…
We disagree with what is going on between the Palestinians and the Israelis. When we watched what had happened on the news, we felt disturbed as to what is going on. This young man just took a stand for his community and now everyone is going to base their views on the Arab/Palestinian and Israeli community by what this killer did.
It seems as though these two groups are basing their relationship with the other off of what their families think or what they have been taught. If we continue to teach our children to hate, then nothing is ever going to be solved. With what Nissim Dahan said about giving hope to people, we believe that is a very good idea. If we start to change what we believe in and our views of other cultures, than the violence will eventually simmer down. Nissim said in his post, “Speak to one another with Common Sense and with a sense of personal dignity” which again, is so true. If you have respect for yourself and just think things through than we won’t constantly have to worry about being caught in an attack. The constant fighting between these two cultures is not solving anything, and this attack and the celebrations are proving it.
How could someone celebrate the killing of innocent people, just because of their culture? Just because they were taught to hate the other. Hate for no reason is what makes this world a crazy place. It happens everywhere, and somewhere along the line someone has to figure out that hating someone because of their values and beliefs, or what they look like is not going to solve or do anything good. Celebrating the deaths of these young people is beyond wrong. Imagine if it was your children or your son or daughter who just murdered 8 innocent people. Personally, I don’t think that is something to be proud of.
The reason that israelis don’t celebrate murders is because they have no reason to. If they celebrated their own killings, then nobody from around the world would be on their side. That is potentially one of the reasons that people are in fact taking the side of the israelis. It is very barbaric to celebrate the murder of a fellow human. Sure, they are just celebrating victory, but the price that is paid to be able to celebrate victory is outrageous. The fact that they need to kill is barbaric, but to celebrate their “victory” is a whole other story. If the palestinians decided to not have a celebration after killing the israelis, then the israelis would be no better thn them. For now, and as long as they celebrate killing, then there is no way anybody is going to give them any respect or feel bad for them for being attacked against. It is ingenious on israelis part to not celebrate. Sure, it might be for other reasons that they don’t celebrate, maybe they do feel bad about killing other people, but because they don’t celebrate, they get more respect than the palestinians.
All of the violence going on with Hamas and “terrorists” is very ridiculous. I agree wit Nisim when she says that both sides are being very stubborn and not allowig the other side to explain themselves. It’s almost like nobody is even considering the others point of view. The Isreali’s did barge in on the Palestinians after 2,000 years, but the Palestinians aren’t willing to share anything. The only thing the Isreali’s have an advantage on is the fact that religion is their reason for their actions. They really otherwise have no right to be so rude and disrespectful to the Palestinians.
I do believe that the violence from Hamas is a result of severe frusteration from the Palestinian side. If Hamas keeps on the path their on, things can get much worse. Celebrating violence is pretty bad, so who knows how much worse it can or will get in the future.All in all, certain individuals is making it harder for Hamas as a whole to be trusted. Thie reputation is now officially down the tubes.
Israelis don’t celebrate the murder the of their victims? Rubbish! Go check out pictures of them blessing the missiles they shot into Lebanon and Palestine. Israeli Rabbis regularly make calls for genocide. Some of you suffer from the lack of clarity : OCCUPATION.
There is only side to this story, and its the one which establishes Israel as vicious, racist, terrorist state.