Nobody makes new friends by writing about the Middle East. Whatever you say, somebody is going to get pissed off. So the temptation is to say nothing.
But after reading the UN (Goldstone) report about Gaza, I don’t want to say nothing.
I love the ideals of the UN. I have visited and helped at their headquarters in New York, and standing inside the UN Security Council Chamber – the focus of so much international attention for longer than I’ve been alive – was a magical experience for me. I also think most of the people who work and volunteer for the UN are enthusiastic, idealist and great people.
But I think the UN is weak, biased, antisemitic and discredited when it comes to the Middle East.
Did you know that the Jewish state is smaller than Wales and has a population less than Greater London? Did you know that it’s surrounded by Arab neighbours with many hundred times more landmass and around 50 times more people? And did you know that several of those powerful Arab neighbours declared war on Israel on the very first morning of its existence, simply because they didn’t – and mostly still don’t – think a Jewish state should be allowed to exist?
The great myth is that the Middle East conflict is about land. Of course it’s really about ideology and power.
The land of Israel has been a Jewish area since biblical times (and I mean the old testament bible; thousands of years BC). It was sparsely populated for much of the last few hundred years, until the first mass immigration into the area between 1880 and 1920. Those immigrants were Jews escaping the Russian and East European pogroms, and that land was their oasis of hope. In return they breathed life into a mostly parched landscape. They built the area from mostly dusty desert into a country with an infrastructure. They built the economy from virtually nothing to something that became stronger and stronger.
More Jews moved there over the next two decades, many escaping the rise of Nazism in the 30s. They built the infrastructure and the economy. They rebuilt Jerusalem. They reinvested in their communities to make them strong, all the time asking for self-determination and self-government.
Modern Israel was officially created as a country – by the UN, ironically – in 1948. It was a place that refugees from the Holocaust could go to start a new life. People are often accused of being emotive when mentioning the Holocaust, but why not be emotive? It’s relevant that many of the founders of modern Israel were people who had been horribly treated, not only by Germany and the Nazis but also by the many countries that refused them asylum after the war. It’s sick and disgraceful that people who had lost their families and their homes, and all their material possessions, were left to die and rot in boats hanging off the coast of countries – including Britain – that wouldn’t let them in.
Israel was their sanctuary. Jews agreed to the terms of the UN resolution that gave them a home – and then, immediately, they were invaded and attacked by Iraq, Syria and others.
It’s against this backdrop that Israel has reactively and proactively defended itself against aggressors for 61 years.
By extending its boundaries outwards, enemy rockets were pushed back and could no longer reach densely-populated cities. That seems like a sensible idea to me. It’s an imperfect solution of course, but it’s saved far more lives than it’s cost. What would you do if someone who wanted you dead had rockets aimed at your house? Pushing the rockets back to a distance where they are much less of a threat is probably the most peaceful option available in that situation.
Similar with “the wall”. Of course it’s inconvenient and humiliating for people (both Jews and Arabs) to be stopped at checkpoints, and it has dramatically reduced suicide bombings and saved countless lives. It’s not perfect, but what is? What would you do if people were blowing themselves up in your neighbourhood?
I’m not into the religious case for Israel. Each of us has our own god or gods, and few of them seem to agree on very much. It’s not relevant to me that many Jews see Israel as their spiritual home or promised land. What matters is the truth of history – what matters is that these people overcame horrendous obstacles to build something beautiful, and nobody’s fear and hatred should deprive them of another home.
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens a second Holocaust not because he wants a few extra square miles of land but because he doesn’t want Jews having a home in that 95%-Islamic region.
People like to say “oh it’s all very complicated”. People like to say “oh there are two sides to every story”. Those are just lazy ways of not having to think.
What’s your side of the story?
These are not complicated issues once you realise that three foxes and a chicken voting on what to have for dinner isn’t democracy. The UN report betrays the trust that some people still have in the UN because Goldstone has deliberately and cynically misrepresented events to pacify a violent majority.
There’s another factor too. I think it’s so far outside our realm of understanding that most of us simply can’t believe that mothers could use their own babies as human shields. Even when I see video footage of Hamas firing rockets from the roof of a school – knowing that any retaliation will kill the children playing inside and therefore cast Israel as the bigger and nastier aggressor – somehow it still seems unreal to me. It just cannot be. It cannot be. But it is. It is.
The kids that survive this abuse are the future and may one day hold our future in their hands. What hope do they have? The UN-run schools in Gaza recently asked Hamas if it would be ok to teach the standard curriculum, including some history lessons about World War 2 and the Nazi Holocaust. Of course Hamas aggressively refused that permission.
Where else in the world does the UN ask terrorists what it’s ok to teach in history class?
See the video below for a provocative glimpse at how some children grow up in UN-funded facilities in Gaza.
Israel is certainly not perfect. Nobody and no country is. But I’ll tell you something – they’re far more restrained than I’d ever be in their shoes. If you hit someone I care about, I’m not interested in calculating what is a proportional response. I’d punch you back as hard as I could, and when you stood up I’d punch you again even harder. And I know that’s not an ideal way to be – and we could all be Zen masters – but if your parents were killed in a Nazi death camp and your kids were killed by a suicide bomber, what counts as a proportional response? When you’ve lost everything, rebuilt it again from nothing and then have hate-filled people trying to take it all away again, what the hell is a proportionate response?
What would you do? It’s not nice to consider, but it’s the only way to make it real. And that’s the only way to collectively find a solution.
I recommend reading this chapter (available free) from Not In My Name.
All kids deserve better than this:
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