Ich Bin Ein Ausländer Worldwide
I am a foreigner everywhere.
Current events make me sick to my stomach. I really do try and avoid any contact with mainstream media, because it has this nauseating effect on me. I get my news from boingboing and Fortean Times and that’s usually enough.
But once in a while, I get this masochistic urge to burst my bubble and find out what’s troubling everyone else around me. I had vague knowledge of some sporting event, but other than that I didn’t know much else.
Reading today’s newspapers, the only word that comes to mind is “escalation”. Makes me wonder “Whose interest is it to go to war?”
(“This war brought to you by Lockheed Martin, The Disney Corp., and the Israeli Military-Industrial Complex”)
Hermann Goering once said:
“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Newspaper articles willed with flaming, pressing warring words, that “enough is enough” “hamas have declared war”, “it’s time to take off the gloves” – As if we were withholding anything.
Undoubtedly, it’s a horrible thing when a soldier gets kidnapped. It is. Really. No one knows this better than the Palestinians, who have literally hundreds of “detainees” incarcerated by Israel, without due justice.
I’m not trying to compare sufferings, but honestly, when playing the game of war, we all know that soldiers are legitimate targets. What isn’t legitimate is blowing up buses filled with civilians in downtown Tel-Aviv.
It’s a game, and it has it’s rules of conduct. We can all agree that the playing field isn’t remotely even, and their attempt at evening it out to their advantage is infuriating, but should it be crushed with might..? Can we not see where they’re coming from? Why would they want to play by the rules when the rules don’t give them any edge whatsoever?
I can’t help but think of the miserable way most of these people have to live, and that misery lies heavily on my heart. It’s a burden I never asked for; I was born with it. Just like everyone else. I do not feel the misery of Israelis as any better or worse than the misery of Palestinians. They are all “my” people.
Some call this form of unpatriotism “identifying with the enemy” , or worse. George Orwell once said (“As I Please,” Tribune, 8 December 1944):
“We are told that it is only people’s objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort, are ‘objectively’ aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true, the ‘objectively’ line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore ‘Trotskyism is Fascism’. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated. This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people’s motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions.”
I must admit, I’m finding it hard myself to forsee my actions. This is all an ambigious haze I wish I needn’t even think about. But what we do to “leftist” or “rightwingers” and even pragmatic modrates, is precisely what we do with the outgroup – we dehumanize, turn them all into a homogenous entity, an a vicious, radical barbaric one at that. Easier to think of in sterotypes, and easier to justify cruelty to subhumans.
George Orwell in retrospection on the Spanish Civil War clues us in to the cure for dehumanization. Sighting an enemy holding up his trousers in both hands while running beside a nearby trench, Orwell was unable to take the easy shot: “I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist,’ he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him”.
Restoring the Human connection.
Not an easy thing to achieve from across a fence.
I see no solution to this conflict until a leadership will arise again in Israel that is willing to admit Israel’s past wrongdoing, and be willing to take unilateral concessions to make amends, coinciding with a pragmatic leadership in Palestine, willing to realize that while they may sometimes appear to have the moral high-ground, at days end, it’s their people who suffer more, and ending the prevailing suffering, even at a cost of some unfulfilled dreams, should be of utmost priority, with no honour lost to either side.
Tagged as george orwell, herman goering, israel, Israeli-Arab Conflict, palestine, Peace, quote, War, שי ברוג + Categorized as Current Events, Meta/Personal, Social Politics
If you’ll take the human history into consideration, the definion of “peace” would be “time between wars and/or conflicts” instead of “not war”.
I wish we could simply make it happen but its not going to work.
Neither will your novel idea that reasonable leadership in both sides will rise to the occasion and actually make something work.
It seems that the best option is to simply blow this whole planet apart. Something on the lines of “If two people are fighting about something, non of them will get it”.
That’s a solution (I was tempted to say “the final solution” but it just wouldn’t be right
).
I actually think it’s rather appropriate, under the circumstances
I argee that historically speaking, Humans are conflictual by nature, but that doesn’t mean that any particular specific conflict can never reach a resolution. Only for attention to be diverted elswhere – i.e. USA vs. USSR transubstantiating into USA vs. Islam vs. China.
It’s all part of the survival of the stupidest
Biologically speaking (or should I say evolutionary speaking) conflict is part of the survival of the fittest. Whether its on food sources, water, herding lands, oil, ______ (whatever).
Perhaps, specifically speaking on Israel it is time, like Mr. Yishayahu Leibovich says, to have a civil war in Israel.
That might straighten things out here. Everyone else had one, so it is only fit for us to have one as well.
Oh, believe me, I’m all for that. And let it be said here and now that I align myself firmly with the North.
Having said that, now is not the time. You don’t need to read Sun Tzu to know that a divided enemy is easy prey.
Well, I have a few things to say:
1. You should go to finishing school.
2. You are a very bright lad, and it is really touching they way you write and stuff.
3. What Orwell wrote reminds me of what Todd Solondez writes in “Story Telling” the Scooby section: the scene where they talk about Holocaust Survivors, and that in fact if it weren’t for Hitler, then Grandma would have never come to America, she would have never met Grandpa, so in fact, if it weren’t for Hitler, we wouldn’t be here.
It is a funny way of thinking… and I see what he means, but I think it is manipulative to claim that there is only one way to play they game. You don’t need to bend the spoon, it is the mind that must be bent.
Civil disobedience is an example I think to the way you can change the game’s rules, or restart the game. throwing tea into water, sitting at a diner bar, refusing to pay your taxes… Imagining colours and shapes that don’t exist.
I don’t have belief that any government will be able to make a change, primarily because they have no interest. It is easier maintaining hostility toward the OTHER, because then you don’t have to take a deep look inside.
But, maybe it is enough to just have all the leaders if the world meet at a baseball field and fight it out with socks filled with horse shit.
1. On a pirate ship?
I always feel pretty awkward and unsure when trying to convey something which isn’t wholy intellectual. I guess that’s why I quote a lot. That, and growing up in a pop-culture-iconographic home 
2. Thanks
3. True and effective civil disobedience is a remarkable phenomenon, where change is promoted by the free human spirit. Honest emancipation. What Hegel would call a rare event, on the cosmic scale.
Having said that… Say, you want to start a revolution?
I think Sun Tzu never met jewish people. We flurish on disagreements, being divided is part of the Jewish culture
heck, have you ever been to an average family dinner (with extended family, of course) that doesn’t look like a battle field after 30min?
You know the old proverb (forgive me for not quoting it word for word in its English form, this is a rough translation from Hebrew): Two jewish people, three opinions.
Haha, yeah, some people actually train for family events playing COunterstrike.
I think starting a revolution isn’t a bad idea…
I mean, but what will we throw into the water? Sabich? We can only start the revolution when we are able to locate what is the one thing that Israelis CANNOT live without, what will rock their world so drastically? Taking over the “KOHAV NOLAD” studios perhaps? Throwing Zvika Hadar into the sea?
A capital idea, with or without a revolution.
I’m sure Thomas Paine would approve.
There is a certain level of depression I didn’t know until I realized I was waking up more than one morning of the week to some sort of story about American soldiers raping and murdering Iraqi people.
I go through complete newsfree moments of existance, I don’t listen to the radio or read the paper. I then counter thi by reading three papers, listening to the news constantly, reading letters to the editor (if you ever want to feel like the world is going straight to hell, letters to the editor are the place to start).
I guess what I’m saying is… you speak my mind. And it scares the shit out of me.
Werd.