"THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST"

 “THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST”

In the spring of 1967, my college friend Sidney Cassell and I decided to  take an extended summer tour of the West.  He was from Tunica, Mississippi, and he had attended the University of Michigan, but his mom got seriously ill, so he transferred to Southwestern (now Rhodes) for a year.  During that time, we became friends, and I learned that his was the only Jewish family in Tunica.  His parents ran the Tunica Motel.  On June 5, the Six Day War broke out between Israel and Egypt, eventually drawing Jordan and Syria into it.

    We had planned to leave for our trip on June 6, but on June 5, Sidney called me from Tunica to tell me that he might not make the trip because he might have to go to Israel to defend what he called “the homeland.”  We delayed our trip for a week to see what would happen, and as it is called, it only took 6 days for Israel to defend itself and secure its borders.  I did not realize then that this was a second “Nakba,” or “catastrophe” for the Palestinians (the first being in 1948) when they were forcibly removed to form the state of Israel).

    We then went on our trip out West for two months. I was impressed with Sidney’s dedication to Israel – it was at a level that I did not have for my country.  Ironically enough, I would have to make the same decision 3 years later during the Vietnam War, and I became a conscientious objector and did two years alternative service.

    Because of my enlightening friendship with Sidney and because of the Jewish connections that my Mother and I had in my hometown, I have always leaned towards Israel in any Mid East conflicts.  But, over the last few years, Israel has gradually turned into an apartheid nation, and that has given me great pause.  Having grown up in a land where the original residents were either killed or dispossessed of their land by my ancestors and then that same land was worked by people who were enslaved, I have trouble keeping the same level of support for Israel, which dispossessed the original Palestine peoples without compensation.  The “Palestinian problem” continues to plague the nation of Israel, and it led directly to the horrible and brutal attack on Israel by Hamas on October 8.  Here are a few of my thoughts, as I try to take in the depth of the attack and Israel’s response to it, which is ongoing as I write this blog.

    First, Israel became a modern  nation in 1948 in some of its original territories as a result of lobbying by Jewish leaders, but most of all because of the horrors of the Holocaust, horrors which were a culmination of centuries of mostly Christian oppression and brutal policies toward Jewish people.  The problem is that there were people already living in those lands, and for the most part they were removed.  They have become known as the Palestinians.  Since Israel took their lands 75 years ago, no adequate provision has been made for the Palestinians.  They have been squeezed into the West Bank and into Gaza, much like the Native Americans were squeezed into “reservations” in our country.  There does not seem to be a viable solution to this issue.  The “two state” theory has long since been dropped, and Israel continues its repressive policies towards the Palestinians – Jewish settlers continue to move into Palestinian areas.  

    Even those who support the Palestinians were shocked by the brutal, terroristic nature of the attacks by Hamas on October 8.  It is hard to justify the killing of so many civilians at a music concert, and nothing justifies the killing of babies.  Yet we must also recognize the level of desperation and rage that was at the heart of those attacks.  That level does not come because the attackers are savages, as the mainstream Western media is calling them.  That level is reached because of a deep and continued wounding of the human heart, a wounding so deep that it makes the attacker willing and able to do inhuman acts.

    I am not justifying the Hamas attacks, but I put their rage on the same level that Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, and John Brown had in their attacks on the institution of slavery.   Until there is adequate compensation and justice for the Palestinians, these attacks will continue to rise.  At least two things must happen in the Middle East for any semblance of peace with justice to arise.  First, the nation of Israel must be recognized as a legitimate state – many Palestinians still see Israel as an occupying force over these 75 years.  Those who attacked Israel on October 7 did it as a liberating act against the occupying oppressor.  That can no longer be the rubric of the Middle East.

    Second, justice must be found and established for the Palestinian people.  I don’t know what that would look like at this point, but Israel and the West must make a strong commitment to it.  I have not seen such commitment from the leadership of Israel since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in November, 1995.  Yet, that commitment must be renewed, or the war that is now playing out in Israel and Gaza will be repeated many times.  

There is deep hatred, anxiety, and fear now in the Middle East.  May God raise up the justice and peacemakers, and may we all listen to them.  If not, hell awaits us.