More on the Middle East

I am Jewish, I am American and I am studying to be Unitarian Universalist Minister. I do not see my choice of religious practice (such as it is) having anything to do with reducing my "Jewishness."

A few years back, in a search for an emotional center to my own cultural roots, I went to the Holocaust Museum and while on a trip to Europe, I went to Dachau. In a third of some sort of triple crown of experiences, I saw Schindler's List. After the movie, I remember just pulling off to the side of the road and weeping. I was overwhelmed with pain and sadness. I was processing for perhaps for the first time what it meant to be a Jew.

This however pales in comparison to those Jews who have suffered persecution in so many ways for so many thousands of years. As a white middle class American who has not been the victim of terrorist violence except on the TV and through second hand experience, I can hardly place myself in their shoes. I can hardly know the pain and suffering of those who have lost so much.

But, here is one thing that I know to the depths of my soul, violence does only beget violence. war has never ever led to peace. The ramifications of one war lead to the contributions of another. These global cycles of violence have been going on for so many thousands of years that we have become used to talking about who is right and who is wrong verses what can be done to break the cycles of violence for good. As I have written any of a number of times recently, the question for me is, who will blink first for real transformation for that is what I believe peace will require.

I have no interest in getting involved in the "Israel's actions" debate. I care about who is right and who is wrong but I just don't think that is really the point. What I am focusing my thoughts on are the official actions of the United States. Can the leading power on the planet whose charter says that all are created equal, actually place that point into policy. Can those who run our government see past the need for oil, their personal religious motivations, their own ambitions and fears and actually lead the world to a safer and more peaceful place where our actions model behavior for others to follow.

The current leaders are modeling violence as the answer and others have now picked that up. I just don't believe that violence works to stop violence, it never really has. At times mutually assured destruction has worked, but my goodness, is that the kind of planet we want to live in, what happens if someone makes a mistake?

I crave leadership that takes all the history, anger and fear and follows a different path. A path where the "evil ones" are isolated and those who have a tendency to follow are presented with different choices not forced into unfortunate actions. A path where the money is spent on building nations not destroying them. A path where respect, democracy and love are modeled and not belittled by lip-service, political posturing at home and the narrow vision of violent solutions to global issues.

As a Jew I have certainly felt the pain of "otherness" and as I've said, I can never compare my pain to the loss of a mother whose bleeding child is dying in her arms, but I must hold out hope, for that mother and for the others currently to come. As Desmond Tutu writes in his book, No Future Without Forgiveness:

Peace is possible, especially if today's adversaries were to imagine themselves becoming friends and begin acting in ways that would promote such a friendship developing in reality. It would be wonderful if, as they negotiated, they tried to find ways of accommodating each other's needs. A readiness to make concessions is a sign of strength not weakness. And it can be worthwhile sometimes to lose a battle in order in the end to win the war. Those who are in negotiations for peace and prosperity are striving after such a splendid, such a priceless goal that it should be easier to find ways for all to be winners than to fight; for negotiators to make it a point the no one loses face, that no one emerges empty handed, with nothing to place before his or her constituency. How one wishes that negotiators would avoid having bottom lines and too many preconditions. In negotiations we are, as in the process of forgiveness, seeking to give all the chance to begin again. The rigid will have a tough time. The flexible, those who are ready to make principled compromises, end up being the victors.