Sometimes, the same temptation that exists in watching a game between arch rivals is the same inclination many of us experience when sizing up the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That urge is to pick a side and root for that side no matter what they do to win. And though doing so when watching a sporting event causes no significant immediate problems, it does train us to pick sides in other, more critical arenas.
Tribalism has many definitions. One of them involves having a strong loyalty to a group. It matters not on what that group identity is based, what is important is the degree of loyalty involved. The stronger the loyalty we have to a group, the less committed we are to other groups and even beliefs. So eventually when group loyalty becomes strong enough, we end up supporting the group regardless of what it does. That causes us to passionately embrace moral relativity so that what we see is right and wrong depends who does what to whom. What we are talking about here is a gang mentality.
And this is what many Americans experience when paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On one side are those strong supporters of Israel who side with Israel for any number of reasons. Such people find it difficult to find significant fault with Israel's Occupation of the Palestinians. For either they deny that Israel commits atrocities against Palestinians or they justify those atrocities.
And in the other corner are those who, out of deep sympathy for what the Palestinians have endured, support the Palestinians in the same way as those who sympathize with Israel support Israel. I ran into such a group at a panel discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They correctly found fault with Israel for the atrocities it has visited on the Palestinians, but, because of those atrocities, they unfortunately rationalized the violent responses Palestinians make to Israeli civilians.
Tribalism, which at the most, merely winks at the wrongdoings of one's own group while crying foul at the sins of the group, is what has kept the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alive for these many decades. For as long as we ignore our own atrocities while pointing out the horrific acts conducted by the other side, we are relying n the rule of force. And that fits in with the embracing of moral relativity.
Now it is easy to see how Israel relies on the rule of force because it is, by far, the stronger party between the two. But what is Palestinian terrorism other than an attempt to respond to force with force. And though the force practiced by the Palestinians against Israel might be more understandable because the Palestinians have much more to be angry about in this conflict than Israel, attacking civilians is still horribly immoral and inexcusable.
Thus, we have two sides that rely on force to have its way with the other. And while both sides rely on force to win, they both will risk committing moral suicide while only one side will see military defeat. And we should note with the former is that how one treats one's own enemy can become how one treats one's own citizens.
At that panel discussion, I suggested that the US, Israel, and the Palestinians submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the ICC. Why? Because doing so would introduce the rule of law since all sides would be subjected to the same standards--something that could never happen for as long as tribalism reigns. It would also require both sides to employ self-restraint. The person who responded to my suggestion said that doing so would not help. That same person also had rationalized Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. But that person also said earlier that there exists a cognitive dissonance between American and Christian values and how Israel treats the Palestinians. And he couldn't be more correct about the existence of such dissonance.
However, this person didn't read everything about the theory of cognitive dissonance. For he left out the part that says when people experience cognitive dissonance, they usually seek to alleviate that dissonance using the least energy possible. And since change requires the most energy, change is rarely the response one who is experiencing cognitive dissonance exhibits. Yes, people do change when they feel forced to. But that takes a great deal of dissonance and how much it requires becomes almost insurmountable when people embrace tribalism.
Thus, for as long as the violent status quo remains, there is little possibility that sufficient support for changing how our nation responds to this conflict will occur. And this is especially true when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The more violence that is exercised by either group, the more tribalism strengthens its grips on the two parties involved and the more we will witness the same-old, same-old in that region.
We simply cannot afford to support or overlook the atrocities committed by either side if we want a peaceful and just resolution to the conflict. Thus, those who want such a resolution cannot afford the tribal approach where they are almost unconditionally supporting one side or the other. Instead, they must insist that the rule of law be relied on in resolving the conflict. For relying on he rule of law includes self-restraint and discipline. And there is a better chance that the other side will eventually respond to the self-restraint and discipline of their opposing group with their own self-restraint and discipline.
Isn't that what happened during the days of our Civil Rights movement. Blacks had every reason in the world to regard Whites as their mortal enemies and treat them as such. But those who followed Martin Luther King Jr. did not do that. So that eventually, enough support for civil rights laws and changed attitudes took hold and we experienced an opportunity to see racial reconciliation between Blacks and Whites. We had that opportunity but we certainly didn't take advantage of it.
And so we have a choice here. Either we embrace tribalism or we insist on settling for nothing less than a peaceful and just settlement. To do the latter, we have to provide enough reasons for those who need to change the most to change. And that will never occur when we embrace tribalism regardless of which group we support.
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