The Losing Battle of Picking a Side
A FOUR MINUTE READ
In times of chaos and unfathomable violence, our tortured minds yearn for understanding. Our default reaction is “Keep it simple. . . I can’t process anything but basic facts right now.” Unfortunately, facts are particularly hard to come by in times like these. Truth is indeed the first casualty of war. In 2023, when bots and privately owned social media giants, such as Twitter/ “X” and “Truth Social” amplify misinformation for strategic and economic gain, actual facts are like sunny days during a monsoon season.
We’ve all got our close friends and our country’s got our tried-and-true allies. In both cases, we’ve grown to accept them for who they are - warts and all. But sometimes serious marital discord can arise among friends, seemingly out of nowhere. Or all of a sudden, our “innocent” ally is attacked, and we’re blind-sided. “How the hell could that have happened?” Could it possibly be that we didn’t know the whole story?
Such is the case with the newest war in the Middle East. The major news media throughout the US could not be more unified in its support of our ally, Israel. It has been made perfectly clear that the Israeli people suffered a horrendous and widespread attack by Hamas on October 7th. But is the average American willing to dig deeper before picking a side? Do we actually have to pick one?
One critical question we might want to ask is: Why would a thousand Hamas fighters with small arms and maybe a hundred rockets, go on a suicide mission to attack a country with a total of 642,000 active and reserve troops, with access to tanks, hundreds of fighter jets, heavy artillery and the backing of the United States?
The first step in the dismantling of the “Us Against Them” paradigm is to try to gain an understanding of “Them.”
Do we know all of the facts?
Judgement comes so easily when we're aware of only one perspective - whether it concerns the upcoming divorce of our friends or an outbreak of war involving one of our staunchest allies. In the latter case, are we keeping in mind -
the Jewish immigration into Palestine in the late 19th Century,
the “Six Day War” of 1967 in which Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights,
and the endless skirmishes going back and forth between all of the above - for centuries!
According to Amnesty International, “Israeli laws, policies and practices against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories amount to apartheid.”
What if international disputes are like people - really complicated?
Desperate, oppressed people when forced into tighter and tighter corners, choose to become terrorists knowing that they will probably die. Their only other option might be to sacrifice their soul by doing nothing.
Rachel Corrie is the name of the young protester murdered March 16th of 2003, but it could have been one month ago.
She was an American whose writings and bravery had opened up my own eyes, to the foolery of blind allegiance - years ago.
“I think it was smart that you’re wary of using the word “terrorism,” and if you talk about the cycle of violence, or “an eye for an eye,” you could be perpetuating the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a balanced conflict, instead of a largely unarmed people against the fourth most powerful military in the world.”
― Rachel Corrie, My Name is Rachel Corrie
There is absolutely no way I could ever excuse the horror that Hamas unleashed on 10/7/23 - but it would serve us all well to try to understand where it came from.
You are correct in your assessment, in my view. Good work, Mark. No simple answers fit complex conflicts except stopping the violence and seeking justice, without which, there's never lasting peace.
Thank for this, Mark. Most of the news I am reading (I don't have TV) sounds like Israel is being set up as the "good guy" and Hamas is the "bad guy". While I agree that Hamas' attack on Israel was barbaric aggression, the fact that the people that are literally trapped in Gaza are helpless targets is being atrociously down-played.