A brilliant day. Princess Little Tree spent most of the day together just enjoying each other’s company; doing things together that we haven’t in too long of a while. I shared some of my current research with her. The A440 versus 432 conspiracy. And a lot of the sacred geometry and ancient knowledge stuff I’ve been studying over the last two weeks. It’s been an intense learning period over the last 14 or so days. We made love. We lounged. Listening to special 580 hertz tones for meditation. Ate a leisurely lunch. Eventually made our way to the gym, where I worked out for the first time in years. It felt very good.
The early part of the day was spent in intense debate on social media regarding this latest skirmish between Israel and Palestine. If i am not feeling too lazy i will post a link in here that gives a full objective accounting of what actually transpired in case you don’t yet know that led to this latest round of bombing between these two forever warring peoples. its a very sad affair. For all involved.
A beautiful soul at Global Exchange, a new organization for me though they’ve been around quite a long time — I’ll be making another peace mission to Iran with them in October — sent me an excellent book entitled COUNTER RHETORIC whose basic mission is to help guide civilian diplomats like myself and activists (or for that matter anyone interested in helping further the cause of peace in Israel and the Palestinian Territories) to have a better understanding how to respond to the most common objections people have to helping the Palestinian people. For every assertion they make — there is no such thing as Palestine and there never was. — they have devised an intelligent and logical and humane response.
The irony? The book was written by a group of Jews in Israel who are completely against the occupation of the palestinian’s land there. Today I really got the chance to use what I have learned in the book. Because the highly emotional hate speech was flying today. As soon as you speak up pro-palestinian in the US, you’re acussed of being “anti’semetic”. Of course I pointed out that Palestinians are also considered “semetic peoples” as well as tens of other races and nations. So that puts an end to that argument. But what they’re really accusing a person of is being “anti-jew”. Perhaps they’re afraid to say it… anti-Jew. They believe “anti-semetic” sounds more scientific or accusatory… Not sure really. Whatever their reasoning, they should just say what they mean, “if you’re pro-palestinian then you’re anti-Jew”. Just because we want equal rights for palestinians. Truth is that most of us who are pro-Palestinian are super compassionate loving people who just want equal rights for all people and we aren’t actually “anti” anyone. As one person commented today in our heated debate, “If the tables were turned and the Israelis were the poor and impoverished Ed would probably be on that side”. To which I answered, “that sounds about right”. At our worst what some of us might be is anti-Zionism as it is being practiced in today’s world. And I believe we are justified in holding that opinion. We certainly have a right to it, at least here in democratic United States. But more importantly, Zionism has been a terrible failure. It’s taken the near genocide of one people to save another people from near genocide. It just hasn’t worked. Not yet at least.
It’s quite a small box they’ve painted themselves into. Stolen land. Tens of thousands (some say more) murdered. And millions now living in refugee camps that look more like concentration camps. No running water, hardly electricity. It’s shameful how these people live. With lush lavish posh hotels ten blocks away in the Israeli parts of the country. If Americans ever saw it, knowing how much money — in the billions every year — we give them of our hard earned income, they would at first be in shock and then be raging mad. It’s also odd when one thinks about it that the US doesn’t give any aid money to Palestine when they’re the ones who actually really need it. They’re the ones living in abject poverty, shit for hospitals, children running through filthy garbage filled streets with no shoes on their feet. And yet billions of our income tax dollars pour into Israel every year. Not because we Americans voted for that… But just because of some back room deals made decades ago that we just can’t seem to get out of. The whole mess is crazy and corrupt.
All we want to do of course is change that. By starting with simple things: access to clean water, remove this wall with armed guards that surrounds them every day of their lives, give them a new home if they can’t give them their old homes back, etc etc. Simple things. But alas I am aware like everyone else that these things won’t happen overnight and they certainly wont happen from a few dozen people arguing about it on Facebook. But the hope I always have is that perhaps even one person’s mind or heart can be shifted in the way of being more peaceful or more compassionate through these debates… and at times i do feel as though i am accomplishing that. At one point in the debate today a girl from Israel compared me to Steven Spielberg in that she does not believe me to be “anti-semetic”, but perhaps just “misinformed” due to Speilbergs making the movie Munich. Since I had never seen the film I figured i better watch it to see what kind of company I am being thrown in with.
Well… Wow. What a great film that is. Highly recommended. But besides that it also brings up many finer subtler questions about morality. In essence it is the story of how the Israeli army and secret intelligence branch Mossad sent a bunch of assassins into europe and the Middle East to kill a bunch of Palestinian men after the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. Before our time. The whole film is about these five Israeli men hunting down these Palestinian men — many of which had nothing to do directly with the actual killings at Munich. They are ruthless heartless bloodthirsty men. Just do their job. It’s not that they don’t think about what they’re doing. they do. But they approve of what they are doing and they seem to enjoy it. They believe they are serving their country.
It reminds one of any other country on earth presently. Certainly the United States. the rule of the human animal kingdom is “if one of your tribe is killed then you seek vengeanceThere and go kill one or more of their tribe.” that is what is happening in Israel as I type this. Israel is bombing the holy fuck out of tiny Gaza. Randomly killing men women and children, in retaliation for Hamas who is based in Gaza firing 70 rockets into Israel towns and cities this week. Which was in retaliation to a carful of Israelis who kidnapped a young Palestinian boy last week and forced him to drink gasoline and then doused him in more of it and then, yes, lit him on fire. Which was in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens who people believe to have been murdered by Hammas. Though they vehemently deny having any involvement in it.
So… therein lay the first big mistake. Instead of burning a poor boy alive — can you even imagine the sheer horror and pain that poor boy experienced in the last hour of his blessed life? — the Israelis should have waited for a formal investigation, found the culprits of the kidnapping crime and put them on trial; showing the world that they in fact do want to be seen as peaceful civilized people. Many probably did their best. But not this one car load of men… So Hamas struck back. And there’s mistake number two. Hamas should have demanded that these men be turned in and be put on trial. Not fire rockets into random cities in Israel that could just kill anyone. But they didn’t. And that’s a shame. Because now there are over 100 Palestinian people dead. And because of who? One could just as easily fault Hamas and those in Gaza who permitted these attacks as they could fault the Israelis who fired back.
Violence always begets violence. Peace is never won through war or battles or violence. There is a point in the movie MUNICH where the mother of the lead assassin tells her son that she doesn’t want to hear what he did while “away on his mission”. Her words, “All we wanted was a home for Jews to live, among other Jews, in safety. Whatever you did. Whatever has to be done. It’s worth it. Because now we have this land where we can feel safe.” He had just been on a killing spree, killing around ten people, some guilty of something — even just thought crimes or plans for crimes, and some entirely innocent bystanders. It really makes one think “is this justification for murder for revenge or safety that countries use so casually a true and valid one? Or is it just more bullshit perpetrated by primitive unenlightened minds?
If everyone just continues to kill when they are killed, or even afraid of being killed or hurt, will it ever lead to the end of killing? Or will it just perpetuate the cycle of incessant killing? The answer is clear to those of us who frequent these pages obviously. But how do we get our fellow humans to understand this fact? How do we get them to rise above this tit for tat kill or be killed mentality? A friend of mine today on Facebook, I am not kidding, has this to say about the Palestinians: “I wish they would just kill them all and send them all to their moon god and let’s be done with it”. Yep. He’s literally advocating genocide of the entire Palestinian race. Just so the so-called Israelis of present time (post 1948) can live in peace and without fear. Sure we understand his motivation for having such an extreme view. The Israelis have not necessarily been welcomed with open arms since they first came back to this homeland of theirs. But why? Because by the time they got back, after almost 2000 years, other people had moved in and had been living on the land all that time. And to them, that land had been home. And that home was then taken from them. For the sake of saving the Jews. I’ve said it before and Ill say it again. It would have made a lot more sense to put all the Jewish people in Germany — as punishment for what they did — we must remember that it wasn’t just Jews who died in WW II, over 20 million Russians died in that war, and plenty of French and English and Americans as well. Surely the Germans deserved to be displaced from their homes more than the poor palestinians. For they weren’t even involved in that war. And voila surprise surprise! BAM their homes gone. Their land taken. And a new people placed on it.
If we study our history well, we can clearly see from using the United States as an example, that the jews who live in what they presently call Israel, which used to be called Palestine, will never feel completely safe until they exterminate the majority of the palestinian people, just as the European settlers did to the native Americans here in the States. There are barely a million of them left here now. When Columbus arrived there were some 100 million of them living in North and South America. But they just wouldn’t let us live in peace, which we felt we had a right to. Why? Who the fuck knows. Because we wore clothes and they didn’t I suppose. But the real answer is because we had larger weapons than they did. And so not only did we get to take the land but we also got to write the history. I am afraid to say it, but that’s the future of the Palestinians if the Jews ever start thinking seriously about wanting to live in peace and sleep safely at night. They’re going to have to wipe them all out like so many of my American Jewish friends want them to. It’s sad to contemplate and discuss. But it’s reality.
Does that make it right? Hell no. It’s entirely wrong. That’s why we fight this noble battle for these people. That’s why they fight. Is there hope for a two state solution where Jews and Palestinians can live side by side in unity or at least in a peaceful separation? Yes, of course there is. And that’s what so many of us are working towards. How will it play out in our own lifetimes? Of this I am not 100% sure yet. Peacefully I hope and pray. But it’s going to take a lot more work and attention and sharing with those who don’t yet understand what’s going on over there.
Must sleep. As always, more later.