Not many people get to travel the world. And an even fewer percentage go to countries that are conflict zones. The Rev. Cindy Howard recently took a trip to Israel and Palestine and came across an interesting fact – every Israelite and Palestinian she met wanted the same thing ”“ peace.
“There are people in every culture that make up the radical few who only want to fight,” she said. “But the vast majority of people I met wanted peace between the two countries. It didn’t matter what side of the Gaza strip they were on. They all wanted the same thing, peace for their families.”
Howard, an Episcopal priest and rector at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit, was part of an Interfaith Delegation from Kansas City that traveled to Tel Aviv last month.
This is a little hard to square with the election of Hamas, not to mention some of the polling I’ve seen of Gazans.
The undeniable truth is that the “Palestinians” could have peace tomorrow if they wanted it, and have their own nation next to what are possibly the world’s most creative, intelligent and industrious people the day after, with the obvious economic benefits thereof. But they cling to this ultimately self-destructive paradigm of a Palestine free of Jews. Insane.
The elderly non-Jewish residents of what used to be Palestine who suffered “the catastrophe” of 1948 and their descendants have an entirely legitimate point of view that most – but I am not saying all – of the State of Israel’s policies towards them have seemed racist and oppressive. Both Palestinian Muslims and Christians agree on this. Their resentment and mistrust of the Israeli nation is hardly insane. What is insane is the resort to terrorism.
What “race” is Israeli policy oppressing? Aren’t both Arabs and Jews Semites? Or does “racist” just sound good?
I wonder, would the Israelis have any valid trust issues?
To non-Jews, Israel has appeared racist when its citizens and its supporters who are citizens of other countries speak of the Jewish people’s entitlement to the Zionist state and to defensively aggressive and expansionist measures to protect the Zionist state claiming the superiority of Jewish people and culture over others people and cultures in the Middle East on account of Jewish (chiefly Ashkenazi) cultural criteria.
And, of course, from the perspective of Israeli Jews, they have never felt entirely safe from the resentful non-Jews of what was formerly Palestine, many of whom they displaced.
It has been a terribly ugly situation ever since the UN turned its back on enforcing the original two-state plan.
Again, Henry, what “race” is Israel oppressing? I’m a non-Jew and I don’t view Israel as racist at all. And I don’t understand what “aggressive and expansionist measures” Israel has engaged in…can you help me out here? The only territory I recall Israel expanding into was the result of repelling Arab attacks on that nation intending to exterminate it.
I agree with Jeffersonian. “Racist” is a misnomer if ever there was one, and for the reasons he states.
Jim Elliott <><
If one does not see the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel helped itself to expanded borders and began to exert police state authority over the entire population of Gaza and the West Bank, then perhaps you should make the effort to meet some Palestinians and ask them what might bring peace to the Middle East.