We held our 14th annual Dharma Yatra (teachings/practices and pilgrimage) in France. During the Yatra, co-teacher, Zohar from Israel and I met with around 10 Israelis participating in the pilgrimage out of the 130 plus on the walk. We were all in rather remote areas, often out of the usual links with the rest of the world.
We sat in a circle in our makeshift Dharma hall to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was a thoughtful, sensitive discussion without a single expression of blame. One Israeli told us she attended a barbecue one night, some days before, not so far from the border with Gaza.
Suddenly there was a loud bomb explosion in Gaza and the lights of the city of Gaza all went out. The Israeli air force had bombed the city’s electricity generator leaving homes without lights, without safe drinking water, without cooking facilities, street visibility and leaving frightened families in total darkness.
A good friend of the woman at the barbecue turned to her and said. “They deserve it.” Our participant in the group told us she felt incredibly shocked to hear her friend say such words about the plight of the Palestinians. She tried to reason with the woman about the suffering for Gaza’s inhabitants. Our caring participant looked on the edge of tears. She told us she gave up and left the barbecue to return home.
“What is happening to us in Israel? Why are we becoming so insensitive to people’s suffering?” These were some of the questions Israelis in our small group were asking each other.
Back in Totnes, UK
I arrived back home at midnight on Sunday night after about two weeks away in France in the sun and driving rain of the foothills of the Pyrenees.
I spent most of the first night back at home on the web reading/taking notes to try to get a comprehensive update on the hell realm that has become the daily life of the Palestinian community living in Gaza and the pain of Israelis having to endure the tirade of rockets launched from Gaza.
When I left Totnes on July 21, I recall around 550 Palestinians had died and some 2500 maimed and wounded with tens of thousands traumatised living under the daily bombardment from the IDF (Israeli Defence Force).
UN, aid agencies and the media reported on the web that the death toll had reached on Sunday night 1800 Palestinians citizens including more than 80% men, women and children who have no involvement the Al Qassam brigade, the military wing of Hamas.
The IDF appears to have adopted a military policy that sanctions the bombing of civilians’ areas, the employment of missiles and fire shells from tanks at any non-military targets that may possibly have some kind of association with Hamas. These targets include offices, schools, hospitals, UN buildings and places of refuge for families hiding from the IDF. No urban area is safe.
The Israeli government refuses to allow any Israeli journalists, radio or television teams into any area involving an IDF invasion to report the actions of the IDF. Israeli citizens have to rely on their government’s version of events unless they make the effort to watch Al Jazeera or read news reports from journalists and television crews from overseas currently in Gaza. Generally speaking, Israeli citizens find themselves saturated with particular lines of view to justify the invasions of its neighbours.
It is important for overseas readers of this blog to understand this. It does help to explain in a small way some of the almost inexplicable tirades from Israelis against people from overseas who criticise the Israeli government and the IDF. Further the government and the media have elevated the IDF into a transcendent mythological status regardless of frequent international allegations they commit war crimes. Even Israeli peace activists are very wary of criticising the IDF as it sparks such rage in Israel.
Israeli citizens are told that Palestinians get advanced warning of bombing and shelling as if this showed compassion. Where do the children, the sick and the elderly, as well as healthy adults, go that is safe from attack? How can they get away from a bombing attack when left with between 56 seconds and four minutes to run away? Where do they go when the IDF deems every private and public building a legitimate target?
To its credit, Haaretz, a leading daily newspaper in Tel Aviv, does endeavour to offer a broad political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian divide but this newspaper reaches less than 7% of Israeli newspaper readership.
Immersed in Ignorance
I remember an Israeli TV producer saying angrily to me: “You (the British) haven’t had a war since 1945. You don’t know what it is like living in Israel under daily threat from Hamas rockets.”
The mind of the TV producer in Tel Aviv was immersed in an appalling ignorance.
Numerous British soldiers have died, lost limbs, lost their sight and been traumatised in our obscene wars in the past three decades or so in Northern Ireland, Falkland Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The IRA and various paramilitary forces, Catholic and Protestant, engaged in three decades of terror attacks in Britain, including Northern Ireland and the mainland here.
The IRA terror campaign took place in London, Brighton and various cities throughout the UK. The IRA set off bombs hidden in a Brighton hotel. They nearly succeeded in assassinating the British cabinet in the hotel including the British Prime Minister. The IRA launched rockets in Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister, to try to kill the entire cabinet at a meeting.
More than 3800 British and Irish people died and more than 50,000 were maimed or wounded in three decades of terrorism in the UK between 1970 and 2000.
I mention this to try to get into perspective the commonly held Israeli view that nobody knows about what it is like to live under terror.
Three Israeli citizens and 61 Israeli soldiers have died due to the launching of daily rockets into Israel by al-Qassam Brigade. The suffering for Israeli families over the loss of their loved ones is almost unimaginable. Al-Qassam has the same murderous intent as the IRA. They should join IRA terrorists in any hell, along with certain sections of the IDF. Israel society is suffering too. If the West, including activists, understood the suffering of Israelis, and had contact with the inner life of Israelis, and really understood their history, there would be far greater empathy for their situation and perspectives. But this does not condone the bombing and invasion of Gaza.
There is far greater despair in Israel over current events than you read in the media. Poll figures (see later in this essay) appear to show a hard-heartedness among the vast majority of Israeli citizens but that does not reflect the anguish and struggles of a nation sensing it is losing its way, nor the countless kindnesses that Israelis show to visitors. There is growing degree of narcissism in Jewish society in Israel that resists even wise and compassionate voices because they are not Jewish.
Friends here in the UK have expressed concern about the vilification of people overseas who condemn Israel’s foreign policies. Letters and articles in the British media, comments on Facebook and other social media often appear abusive and hostile towards those who criticise the Israeli government.
The rage from some Israeli citizens towards critics within Israel and outside of Israel often mirrors government policy. I recall reading years ago in Haaretz that Israeli citizens are the world’s most compliant citizens in terms of following the policies of successive Israeli governments. We cannot claim we know more about the conflict than Israelis but we can see on our television screens, night after night, the bombing, tank shelling and brutality of the assault on Gaza. The pictures, and the film clips reveal more than a 1000 words.
The size of demonstrations in Israeli against the war on Gaza have been small and sporadic. In comparison, when Bush and Blair launched their war on Iraq more than one in 20 of the British population took the streets of London and other cities to protest, as well as a fierce public debate. Bush and Blair have never been forgiven for the lies and deceit they employed to launch the war. We see the terrible consequences throughout the much of the Arab world today.
The Overwhelming Support of Israel for the War on Gaza
Here at home, I read that around some 95% of Israelis support the bombing of Gaza and the invasion of the suburbs by tanks, rocket launchers, troops and snipers. Pollsters did not ask Palestinian/Arab citizens living in Israel their opinion.
Israel’s 6.1 million Jewish citizens (around 1.7 million Palestinian-Arabs live in Israel), make up around 75% of the population.
Well educated Israelis speak excellent English providing access to international media but very few know Arabic to hear first-hand the plight of the Palestinians, nor is there much social integration of Jews with Arabs. It is not easy for Jewish citizens who try to bridge the divide within Israel. There is hostility from Zionists and fear from Arabs of the motives. It takes time to build trust.
In the old Buddhist texts, the discourses begin with the time-honoured words Evam me Suttam. It means Thus Have I Heard. In other words, what you are about to read could be true or perhaps not. I wish Israeli citizens would apply the same principle to the announcements of their government.
The Israeli government claim they believe in choice – after all that is what democracy is supposed to be about. Yet, the same government claim they have no choice.
I read online on Sunday night that Prime Minister Netanyahu said “Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it.”
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett accused Hamas of committing “massive self-genocide” against their own people and blamed Hamas for the death of four boys on the beach when hit by Israeli missiles. Others took the view that the beach might be one of the relatively few safe places from attack.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”
I got a copy of The Guardian on Monday morning. The headline on the front page said: OUTRAGE AFTER THIRD STRIKE ON GAZA SCHOOL. The opening sentence reported that the school sheltered families from the bombardment and went onto say that the IDF had been “repeatedly warned of the location of these sites… Children’s bodies were being stored in ice-cream coolers.”
The infliction of such brutality on families, hospitals, schools and UN shelters in the Gaza brings out a moral outrage. There was a time when Israel held the high moral ground in the eyes of the world. The Israeli government/IDF has sunk into the dark abyss with far too many Israeli citizens sharing the same view. Even the conservative Foreign Minister here in the UK said the world is losing its sympathy for Israel.
Two Polls in Israel
Here are two links showing the apparent overwhelming support of Israeli citizens to the bombing and military invasion of Gaza. The Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan Israeli think tank and polling organisation and Tel Aviv University conducted the poll in the latter part of July. 95% said the military operation was “completely or moderately justified” with 80% saying completely justified. Of course, we have to assume the polls have some degree of accuracy and not engineered by the Israeli government. War depends entirely for its very existence upon the psychological factors of fear and blame as well as identification with institutional belief systems.
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/31/5955077/israeli-support-for-the-gaza-war-is-basically-unanimous
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/israeli-polls-support-gaza-campaign-media
The Buddha commented right after his awakening that “fear and blame” gripped people. It seems that the national psyche of Israel lives in such destructive fear and blame triggering much stress and unhappiness within Israel and intensifying in invasions when it comes to Palestinians and the Lebanese.
I appreciate more and more Israelis who refuse to submit to such fear and blame. Israelis actively committed to ending the violence must find more and creative ways to speak up.To live in the dark is to live in fear.
War is the most barbaric form of human activity used to serve the vested interests of the nation state or organisation. I prefer we stay unwaveringly committed to dialogue and the dissolution of fear and blame. The issue is not about taking sides. It about taking responsibility for what is done in our name.
We might only be the minority but we must uphold civilized values without compromise. Israel must address this national mental disease of fear and blame. The widespread stress and despair in Israel is tangible, largely affecting people’s decisions and apparent strong support for their government. Sadly, a thoughtful culture has also become paralysed and withdrawn. The angry voices have become the dominant ones. This state of affairs reveals a crisis in values that has to be addressed. This same crisis extends further than Israel and currently runs throughout much of the Middle East.
The noble activists include numerous organisations within Israel dedicated to working for peace, justice and reconciliation. They include:
- Arab Israeli Dialogues Groups
- Arab-Jewish Primary Schools
- Arab-Israeli music
- Arab-Israeli families who have lost loved ones
- Beth Shalom
- Business Leaders
- Chamber of Commerce
- Centres For Developing Jewish-Arab Relations,
- Children Of Peace
- Combatants For Peace
- Commerce,
- Green Action
- Hand In Hand,
- Higher Education,
- International Solidarity Movement
- Neve Shalom
- Non-government Organisations
- Olive Of Peace
- One Voice,
- Oseh Shalom
- Peace Camps,
- Peaceniks
- Rabbis For Human Rights
- Rabbis for Palestine
- Rabbis For Peace,
- Seeds For Peace
- Sports
- The Abraham Fund,
- The Arts,
- Trade Unions,
Of course, there are varying differences in view within and among these organisations and networks but they do offer a difference voice from the persecution and violence of the Israeli government and IDF upon the Palestinians. Some of these organisations have peculiar views. A genuine democracy includes such diversity. Various Israeli organisations also issue statements for peace and reconciliation within Israel and with Arab neighbours. There are also Israelis who refuse to submit to the version of event the Israeli government propagates.
A month before the present conflict the 10 Dharma teachers of Tovana, the main Dharma and insight meditation network in Israel, issued a statement on humanitarian grounds on behalf of all Palestinians and Israelis to bridge the divide.
It is not unusual for organisations working for peace and human rights to face personal attacks from the majority for being naïve. In the case of Tovana, some say Tovana teachers should only teach mindfulness and meditation to Israelis.
The Dharma directly supports non-violent ethics, inquires into the causes and conditions for suffering and employs insights, loving kindness and action for liberation from suffering. The Dharma upholds a universal value, a broad vision, not an introverted system.
I recall speaking in a hall by a synagogue several years ago in Tel Aviv. I referred to the wonderful initiatives of thoughtful networks in Israel and praised specifically the refusniks who refuse to enter the occupied territories in a military uniform. I referred to them as the “true sons and daughters of Israel.”
About four Israeli men in the audience were furious with me. They stormed out of the hall deliberately knocking over the chairs. I wish they would convert their protest to their political masters who continue to betray the creative initiatives of thoughtful Jewish citizens. The Israeli government is anti-Semitic and obsessed with their own lust for power. The citizens of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish, and the citizens of Palestine, deserve a wise and compassionate leadership.
May the loving work of the minority in Israel
overcome the despair, fears and blame of the majority
May all citizens bridge the divide
May all live with empathy and wisdom