Another Article On The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

 I am in the midst of a medical break from blogging. But the current situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires another article to be posted here. My regular blogging will return some time after the New Year.

There are two traps that many people fall into when looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first trap is the binary thinking trap. That trap divides people in the conflict into two fixed and disjoint groups: innocent victims and oppressors. Because the groups are fixed, innocent victims can never become oppressors while at the same time, oppressors were never innocent victims. And because the groups are disjoint, the people involved can never be both innocent victims and oppressors at the same time. 

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term 'oppressor' could easily be replaced by the word 'terrorist.' A word of thanks goes to a pamphlet written by Jeff Harper from ICAHD.

However, using the word 'terrorist' can become problematic for Americans. That is because our war on terror pits people in the right uniforms who salute the right flag and serve in one of the several branches of our military against terrorists who are non-state actors who tend to dress informally. Such a perception ignores the definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism is the threat or use of force on civilians to achieve political ends. We Americans might not want to recognize that definition especially when our nation threatened to unleash, and eventually did, 'Shock and Awe' on Iraq unless they replace their then leader Saddam Hussein. For when we did that, we were practicing terrorism. And it wasn't the first time that we practiced it.

Now what we see with the binary thinking trap when working in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that one side are always made up of innocent victims while the other side are always terrorists. Those spectators who favor Israel will see Israel as the eternal innocent victim and the Palestinians as the persistent terrorists while those who favor the Palestinians will see the roles reversed.

And that leads us into the second trap when viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the tribalism trap. Tribalism occurs when loyalty to a group, regardless of what the group is based on, goes too far. As a result a person's moral vision becomes compromised so that what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. That kind of moral vision or sense of morality is called moral relativity. So for example, suppose Palestinians attack Israeli civilians after Israeli had just attacked some Palestinian civilians. Those who are too loyal to the Palestinian cause will rationalize the Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians while passionately condemning the Israeli attack. And those who are too loyal to Israel will see it the other way around.

The binary thinking trap is an overly simplistic view of people by putting them in black-white categories.  In fact, that is its attraction. It gives us an easy analysis of the conflict so that we can focus on other things in life. And because it is an easy way to interpret the conflict, it provides a comfortable way of looking at the situation. 

But the hazard in the binary thinking trap is that, in reality, its charm is really the rocks that shipwreck our ability to think. For rigidly dividing groups in a conflict into two disjoint groups is an example of a black-white thinking. And so falling into the binary thinking trap limits one's ability to think deeply and see the complexity involved in the conflict. For the complexity of the conflict reveals that both Israel nor the Palestinians are both victims and terrorists. And so overly simplistic thinking  renders one unable to see the conflict for what it is.

The tribalism trap comes with its siren call and rocks too. What is attractive with tribalism is the appeal to loyalty. That is because loyalty is often portrayed as an important virtue to have. And so when we demonstrate loyalty in the face of adversity, we feel a growing sense of righteousness. And that makes us feel more important. 

But the hidden hazard of tribalism is that the virtue hides how tribalism damages, or even destroys, our ability to be fair to all sides. That is because with tribalism one embraces moral relativity. Such a state may not be apparent to those who are tribal because of how loyalty is seen as a virtue and necessary for survival. But too much loyalty both is counterproductive to maintaining moral standards because one becomes blind to one's own immorality and puts the survival of one's own tribe at risk by creating unnecessary enemies.

What both traps have in common is that they are signs of a growing authoritarianism. We should note here is that authoritarianism is the other pandemic. Also, it is important to note that a black-white worldview is a characteristic an authoritarian personality type. On the other hand, one way to partially describe tribalism is to say that it promotes group authoritarianism. For in tribalism, one is demanding that those from other groups should automatically submit in various ways to one's own group without resistance. And what we should note about authoritarianism is its karma. That is the authoritarian ways in which one's own group acts toward others is the authoritarianism the group will visit on its own members.

Another point that should be noted about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the reliance on the threat or use of force. Such a reliance is called the rule of force. And though at this time the force is with Israel, Hamas and other Palestinians are practicing terrorism in ways that attempt to change the balance of power. For example, the Hamas atrocities of October 7th were partially designed to instigate the kind of Israeli response that would cause others to join the fray. Both fortunately and unfortunately, that has yet to come about. It is fortunate that others have yet to join the fray because the world has seen enough violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is unfortunate because, just perhaps, if the forces were equal, there would be more incentive for both to negotiate.

The reliance on the use of force is authoritarian in nature. And such a  reliance logically follows the authoritarianism that involves the binary thinking and tribalism traps. In addition, the rule of force invites a seemingly forever king-of-the-hill battle that results in each side succumbing to military defeat and/or moral suicide. And the moral suicide that is experienced in how a side attacks its enemies can be similar to the moral suicide in how a side eventually treats its own members.

What is a common theme in all that has been discussed thus far is authoritarianism. And though it would be overly simplistic to reduce the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to that of being authoritarianism, authoritarianism looms large in how the conflict is both perceived by both insiders and outsiders and reacted to. That is because with authoritarianism comes the expectation of hierarchical relationships between those who are in conflict. Those who are on the upper side of the hierarchical relationship will view their position as being merited and those who are on the lower side of the hierarchical relationship can feel morally outraged at the injustices that are visited on them.

Regardless of the self-declarations made by either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the path that has been rejected by both sides is the rule of law. The rule of law views all sides as equals, as having the same rights. The rule of law holds all sides accountable to the same laws and standards, laws and standards that are based on all sides being equal and having the same rights.And the rule of law allows outsiders to hold the warring sides accountable to those laws and standards that are based on equal rights for all groups.

With both Israel and the Palestinian terrorists using the atrocities of the other side as an excuse for their own atrocities, it is apparent that neither group, nor their allies, are promoting the rule of law. And so here will be a modest proposal for the beginning of a just and peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That the the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC would use the same international law in judging the actions of the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians that it has used to judge others who have been charged with committing crimes against humanity. And whatever actions that the ICC finds as violating international law will be corrected by the guilty party without the threat or use of force.

'You may say I'm a dreamer.' Maybe so. But the above proposal will allow the world to identify those who favor the rule of law from those who merely claim to follow it. Distinguishing those who favor the rule of law from those who prefer the rule of force will perhaps allow us to identify the warring sides of the global conflict that mankind has forever been battling. That war pits those who favor equality and democracy against inequality and authoritarianism. And in an age when WMDs are inevitable, because technology is a whore, at least the above proposal will distinguish those whose first priority is the survival of mankind from those who are all too willing to sacrifice the world because they refuse to share power and wealth. And perhaps the ability to make such a distinction will temper our own desires for any kind of tribalistic conquest. 

One final point to be made is that for as long as Israel's Occupation against the Palestinians is in place, talk of a two-state solution is disingenuous. For with Israel's Occupation of the land comes the continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the land followed by an annexation of the land. And atrocities are being committed to achieve that ethnic cleansing. With the West Bank, where settlements along with how Palestinian communities are divided by those settlements and their highways, a viable Palestinian state has become not just a mirage or even dream; it has become an impossible dream. After all, if Israel  dismantled the settlements in Gaza because of the expense of protecting them, what could possibly motivate Israel to even consider dismantling the settlements in the West Bank? 

Talk of the Two-State Solution is merely camouflage for land theft for as long as the Occupation continues. And that goes back to the form of Modern Zionism that has taken. That form says that the Jewish people are to have ownership the land from the river to the sea. That doesn't necessarily exclude the allowance for there to be Arab citizens in Israel. Zionism, for them, provides a formal equality only with their fellow Jewish citizens of Israel. It is an equality declared by Israel's constitution but not an equality that is actually practiced. And it never could be for as long as Israel is defined as being a Jewish state. For that definition means that Israel must take official measures that will keep the Arab population in check in order to preserve a vast Jewish majority. 

Both the Jews and the Palestinians deserved a homeland in order to be protected from past abuses. That is true even though European Jews have historically suffered more than Palestinian Arabs. The choice for a homeland that both parties could have selected is a binational, democratic state. But by defining Israel as a Jewish state while there exists Palestinians in the land, both as citizens of Israel and noncitizens who are living in the land that Israel seeks to annex, results in Israel being disqualified as being a democratic state. For the state of Israel does not equally belong to all of its citizens. This is a point that Jeff Halper makes when he distinguishes a democracy from an ethnocracy. 

The same would be true if Hamas's goal of creating an Islamic republic in the land from the river to the sea became reality. And though the Israel's Zionism is more palatable than Hamas, it becomes more and more comparable to Hamas and its efforts to create an Islamic republic, as Israel continues to both slaughter innocent civilians in Gaza and forcibly, including the use of deadly violence, annex land in the West Bank. 

Is The Ghost Of Christmas Future Pointing To North Korea?

If technology makes the proliferation of WMDs inevitable, then how the world handles the current crisis with North Korea will tell us a lot about our future. 

That North Korea shows that technology makes the proliferation of WMDs inevitable is as real as it is ominous. A rogue leader has obtained WMDs shows that it is possible for other rogue leaders to do the same. Here we should note that rogue leaders who have at their disposal WMDs do not have to be leaders of states. They can be leaders of non-state actors. And here, we should note that it is not necessary for all rogue leaders to gain access to WMDs to prove that the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable.

Next, there are multiple reasons why a leader like Kim Jong-un would want to own WMDs. And all we have to do is look at why the major powers have WMDs to be able to see these reasons. One reason is that having the ability to use WMDs can act as a deterrent to any outside attack. And it isn't a matter of whether Jong-un has an equal number of WMDs as his enemies. His possession of WMDs makes the price of intervening in some aggressive action of his extremely high.

Another reason why a leader like Kim Jong-un would want possession of WMDs is that either as a deterrent or a first strike weapon, possession of WMDs makes leaders like Kim Jong-un more powerful and enables them to take more aggressive actions against others, especially one's neighbors. Thus, the red line North Korea  would have to cross before other nations would intervene becomes redrawn and thus allowing  North Korea to get away with more. And history teaches us that when a nation successfully shows aggression against others, it can cause nationalism and support for the leader of that nation to soar. Thus, increasing public support for a leader's power over his/her own nation becomes another reason motivation for rogue leaders to possess WMDs.

But Kim Jong-un's possession also comes with a liability. That liability is that his possession of WMDs comes within a context of a state. That limits how much aggression Kim Jong-un can exert before he does cross a red line and has to pay devastating consequences. So what would happen if a non-state rogue leader gains possession of WMDs? Because non-state rogue actors can be dispersed in several locations and hide within friendly states, the WMDs possessed by nations like our own become less of a threat to these non-state rogue leaders.

Despite all of our nation's talk and posturing, our foreign policies easily show that our nation does not follow the rule of law. Instead, it follows the rule of force provided that there is no significant deterrent to our use of force. And in relying on the rule of force, we have provided a perfect model of behavior for rogue leaders like Kim Jong-un. By relying on the rule of force, we have made the world into a king-of-the-hill battle that naturally gives others reason to strive to be the next king.

So how we respond to North Korea's current development of additional WMDs points us to our future. For even if we were able to forever eliminate the threat North Korea poses with its weapons, there are sure to be other rogue leaders who also gain access to WMDs. Here we should note that nuclear weapons are not the only kind of WMD we should worry about. And we should note that technology enables the obtaining of WMDs because technology is very user friendly. What is our technology today can easily become the world's technology tomorrow. All of this should tell us that if we continue to rely on the rule of force because we are presently able to, there will be a reckoning some day in the future. At least, that is what the ghost of Christmas future is pointing our attention to.

A Reason For Hopelessness: Our (Homi/Sui)cidal Leaders

It seems like what John Lennon said in 1968 (see the video above) applies in full force today. For if we are not talking about how to treat Iran over its nuclear aspirations, we are talking about the US sending troops to nations that border Russia--no need to mention the nuclear capabilities of the nations involved here--as the West has broken its promises of not moving east in exchange for the reunification of Germany. And one of the Russian responses to America's policies suggested a nuclear strike on Yellowstone and the San Andreas fault in order to trigger catastrophic results (click here). It isn't certain whether that analyst understands that if Yellowstone erupts,  not only will America be decimated, much of the whole world will be put at risk (click here). Of course, we should include how Russia has been trying force its way into the Ukraine as the U.S. and the 

And while Netanyahu wants a better, though perhaps unrealistic, deal with Iran (click here and there), Republican leaders and wannabe leaders are calling for the possible bombing of Iran (click here and there). Netanyahu's worries here include the financial recovery for Iran and a Middle East Arms race. Note how, in the MSNBC video, the Israeli representative calls on Iran to act as a "normal" nation if it wants to be treated as one. But consider the source. How has Israel treated both Lebanon and the Palestinians? Is Russia a normal country? Then what about Chechnya and the Ukraine? Is the U.S. normal country? No need to list the number of interventions on our part? How about France or Great Britain? Haven't they joined us in interventions or had some of their own?

The concern that the Israeli representative(see the video linked to above) shows for Iran obtaining nuclear weapons too soon is too limited and selective. When Israel has its way with the Palestinians, shouldn't it expect challenges? What kind of reaction did Russia receive when it did the same in Chechnya? And we weren't greeted as liberators in Iraq, were we?

What the Iran controversy is about is the tension that exists from the desires of a nation, which exists in the lowest tier of a multi-tier international pecking order, to switch tiers and move on up in the world. Meanwhile, the big fish in the pond, Israel, feels threatened about the change and for some understandable reasons. Being on the recipient end of chants that say 'Death to Israel' can understandably put you on edge. Seeing how the nation calling for that is moving up in the world in terms of its economy and its technological capabilities can be disconcerting. 

But the moving up of nations from the lower tiers to upper tiers is not only a normal occurrence in history, it is facilitated by the spread of technology. And perhaps, that is the real issue both now and in the future. Technology is spreading and as it does, it brings more parity between nations and even groups. Parity brings a change in the pecking order. And changes in the pecking order can also bring calls for retaliation. So those nations that have taken full advantage of being upper tier nations could have many legitimate concerns when nations change the tier in which they are in.

This changing tiers among nations is perhaps the biggest argument for relying on the rule of law, rather than the rule of force, especially when one's nation is in the upper tier. Relying on the rule of force could be very expedient today, but it can put one at great risk in the future. This is why the Iran nuclear deal has become such a sensitive issue. Iran wants to advance so that it can change tiers. Israel is worried that once Iran does, it will be in a better position to settle some old scores. In addition, Israel won't have as free a reign over the region as it once did.

As technology advances, our only hope for survival is to coexist as equal partners with all others. And, for good reason, while many can point to history and say that such coexistence is the impossible dream, the future is saying that relying on a pecking order is not survivable. For either we will always be stuck in a cycle of maintaining the international status quo by bombing suspect nations into the past until we are overwhelmed by a growing number of enemies, or we will fall a peg or two because keeping our current place in the world is simply not sustainable. With either scenario, we make ourselves, and others, increasingly vulnerable in the future.

What Trying To Join The ICC Can Reveal About The Rule Of Law

On April 1, the Palestinians will be joining the International Criminal Court (ICC, click here for the story). Membership to the ICC brings a double-edged sword for for all who join. For not only will it provide a possible layer of protection from international crimes from external enemies, it makes one subject to prosecution as well. Thus, the old protest against using the Geneva Convention as a standard for how we treat prisoners from countries that have not signed will no longer be applicable to the Palestinians with regard to the ICC and international law. 

Former Nuremberg prosecutor, Ben Ferencz, gives a brief account of how the ICC was founded and why (click here). The hope was that the principles used in the Nuremberg Trials could be used to establish the rule of law around the world. This use of international law could then serve as a substitute for the reliance on the rule of force which had such devastating results in WW II. 

Some of the resistance to the ICC have come from the same nations that are currently protesting the Palestinians joining the ICC and with some of the same methods. Both Israel and the US have objected to the ICC. In addition, the US pressures some of the nations that receive aid from it into agreements that would grant immunity to all US personnel working in those countries from the ICC . In addition, a bill was passed allowing for the US to rescue any American held by the ICC. 

The reasons for America's resistance to the ICC show that our leaders are steeped deep in tribalism--tribalism occurs when group loyal trumps commitment to principles and morals. In addition,  though America has exercised the latitude to cite others with failure to follow international law, it sees any enforcement of international law on its own rulers or military personnel as an infringement on national sovereignty. 

The implications are rather obvious and they revolve around American exceptionalism. The implications are that not only can the US convict any other nation or party of wrongdoing and violating international law without due process if it so chooses, it is above international scrutiny. Such means that only America and its special friends, such as Israel, have the right to enjoy national sovereignty. All others are under the jurisdiction of the US or its special friends. Resistance to the ICC is nourished and emerges from the Republican Party and the Pentagon, according to Ferencz (see previous link to Ferencz's article).

With that background information, we should note that Israel's and America's reactions to the Palestinians joining the ICC is not a surprise because it is the same-old same-old. Israel has threatened to cut off funding that is legally due to the Paletinians, the funding is actually Palestinian taxes collected by Israel, as well as electricity (click here and there). And it isn't as if such does not cause undue hardship on the Palestinian people considering how decimated the territories have become due to Israeli attacks. At the same time, the US explicitly states that the Palestinians are not allowed to join the ICC (click here) which can only mean that the US will not recognize any judgment made by the ICC against Israel when it involves the Palestinians. Noting again that joining the ICC also subjects Palestinians to judgments made by the ICC, one must have an extremely difficult task if one wants to claim that America and its protected friends really pursue the rule of law.

It is time that we Americans see ourselves for who we are. We are like any other empire whose collective ego is as vast as its riches and sphere of influence if not more. The reason why we resist the rule of law is because our collective self-righteousness has made us feel entitled to forego it and our military might makes us think that we don't need it. But History shows that no empire lasts forever. And, because of the inevitable proliferation of WMDs, the only question that remains is this: Will we bring down the whole world with us when we fall? 

One thing must be added for America's Christians. Any Christian who supports our gratuitous reliance on the rule of force shows that rather than standing for the Gospel and God's Word, he or she has settled for assimilation. So rather than playing the role of a prophet, some of us have decided to repeat the sins of Israel when they were judged for practicing idolatry and injustice.

May The Rule Of Force Be With Us?

Early on in the War on Gaza, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped, killed, and burned. Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu correctly promised to bring those responsible to justice and then used his response to the killing in comparing Israel to those around it. He stated that Israel allows no room for murderers while its neighbors regard murderers as heros (click here). 

Now that was a long time ago in the beginning of the War against Gaza. That was in early July of 2014. Fastforward a whole month to now and we get a different picture of Netanyahu and Israel. Netanyahu is now asking for America's help in preventing Israel from facing war crimes charges before the ICC (the International Criminal Court). In fact, the Israeli government has not even decided if it will cooperate with a possible UN investigation into possible war crimes committed by Israel (click here). Why? Because according to Netanyahu, Israel doesn't commit war crimes, only Hamas does, and we've heard this from Western leaders before. For it was George W. Bush who said that the US doesn't use torture--he could have added that we use a thesaurus instead because he called the American treatment of enemy combatants  "enhanced interrogation." As for the assertion that Israel does not commit war crimes, we need to read how, a while back, Major General Doran Almog avoided being arrested in Heathrow Airport on war crime charges (click here).

Perhaps the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a vintage example of what we are seeing in the armed interventions being committed today. Then, President Bush's justification for the invasion included accusing Iraq of breaking of international law. At the same time, Bush's America refused to be accountable to international law. In fact, the US even applies economic pressure on countries that would support making America accountable before the ICC (click here and there). Despite our claims, we weren't submitting to the rule of law, we were following the rule of force.

Of course all of this exempting the powerful from playing by the same rules as everybody else has its start with the UN Security Council veto. This insures that permanent members of the Security Council can make null and void any of its pronouncements against  themselves and their friends. This is how Israel can thrive despite the number of UN resolutions it routinely breaks in maintaining the Occupation while other countries can be attacked or even invaded based on a single accusation made by one of the powerful ones.

So what we have today are America's invasions, its adventurism in Africa, the expansion of the Drone Wars, Russia's involvement with the Ukraine, and Israel's slaughter in Gaza, all with no legal repercussions ever taken. It is all a repeat of the American 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as other crimes committed before. This is despite the international resources we have to legally address war crimes committed by anyone. Instead, what we are left with is Thucydides. For it was Thucydides who, when writing about the Peloponnesian War, observed:

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must ¹

Perhaps, this is why Machiavelli is so widely read and respected. And since history shows that what Thucydides said has always been the case, why get upset? There are two reasons to protest the continuing of this time honored tradition. But the first reason depends on who is doing the protesting. 

A while back ago while attending a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, the speaker called the protesters, "people of conscience." Why did he use that name? It was because what we had in common was a conscience that overrode our loyalties to nationality, political groups, religion, and ethnicity. We had Jews, Christians, Muslims and Seculars who were protesting Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. We should note that the alternative to being a person of conscience is either submitting to tribalism or trying to escape to some fantasy island of our own making. 

See, we have only one immediate hope to stop today's global downward spiral. That hope is that enough people of conscience will emerge who will put a stop to the current insanity which has been embraced by most, if not all, of our leaders. We need Americans of conscience to stop America's foreign policies. We need Russians of conscience to stop what Putin is doing. We need Jews of conscience to stop Netanyahu in his tracks. And we need Muslims of conscience to not only stop ISIS, but to stop Hamas as well. We need people of conscience all over the world to stop fellow countrymen whose avarice and ambition drive them to abuse others. 

Why call what is going on today insanity? We have the West, for the sake of economic expansion, provoking a nuclear superpower in the Ukraine. On the other side, you have a delusional thug, Putin, who wants to return Russia to the glory days of when it rivaled the US and to prove his point, he is currently increasing the number of violations of American airspace with his bombers. Do either Obama or Putin understand what happens if there is a mishap here?

At the same time we have Netanyahu slaughtering over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza over the kidnapping and brutal murder of 3 Israeli teens while claiming that the difference between his country and its neighbors is that his country follows the rule of law. Doesn't he know history? Doesn't he know that nobody stays on top for ever? And doesn't he know what paybacks are? 

Then we have ISIS in Syria and Iraq and if we are honest, we will admit that we had role in creating or sustaining this monster. We should note that its leader was incarcerated by American troops with the invasion of Iraq. We should also note that some of the support for ISIS is due to the oppression of Sunni Muslims by Iraq's Shiite government. Again, paybacks are not pleasant. And of course, this list of insanities is only a small partial list of what exists in our world.

And all of that brings us to our second reason: the inevitable proliferation of WMDs. And we could include with this proliferation the current destruction of the environment. It is the combination of world conflicts in which we have this inevitable proliferation with the current destruction of the environment that the current Doomsday clock has been set to 5 minutes before midnight by those at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (click here and there).

We don't have much time to put up with the insanity of those whom we have granted authority. And even if we did, we are sociopaths if we don't feel moved to stop the suffering of those who are bearing the brunt of the violence and attempts to dominate being exercised by our world leaders.

Those of us who are economically privileged can still choose to temporarily bury our heads in the sands of our prosperity and pursuit of pleasures. But the insanity of our leaders will either crash our world or that of our children.

So that's how the world is today. We are following yesteryear's delusions brought by greed and the desire to dominate with today's technological weaponry. Our advances in technology have far outpaced any moral progress we might attribute to ourselves. We have advanced in weaponry but we still lack self-control. Despite the abundance of compliments with which we shower ourselves, we follow the rule of force because we can. And we do all of this with a flare of self-righteousness and entitlement. 

So it is simple. If we don't change, we don't survive. If we don't change our desire to dominate and accumulate, we will destroy ourselves. And if we don't survive it will be because of the insanity of our leaders and the passivity of the rest.


References
1.    https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/melian.htm