If you’re the sort of person who sees no difference between the Israeli military defending its citizens and Hamas terrorizing civilians, you might want to pass on this column.
This column is for the sort of person who realizes that violence is horrible, that killing civilians is horrific, that politics is dirty and that the world is not designed for the peacemakers. This column is also for those who will disagree on how we get to a point where warring tribes can come to some middle ground of safety and understanding. It is a column that recognizes the profound policy clashes between Netanyahu and Abbas, and it’s directed at those who might even differ on the role that the United States should be playing as mediator.
What it is not is a press release written by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib that focuses on the humanity of Palestinian children while ignoring that Israeli children, who have a right not to have their schools, homes and highways destroyed by rockets.
I have many Jewish friends with family in Israel who’ve spent the last week on the phone, on the internet, and on their knees praying. I also have many Arab friends, some Muslim, some Christian, who are horrified at this renewed Intifadah that threatens the welfare of their own loved ones. Not one of those friends, regardless of how they pray, supports Hamas. Not a one.
I am not an expert in the geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East. I am an expert in refugees and the displaced, and have handled the cases of Palestinians who were forced to carry passports from “Jordan” or some other country that had given them refuge. I understand the pain of loss, of severed roots, of wandering with no fixed destination. My own roots sink deep into the soil of my ancestors, Irish and Italian, French and Swedish. My identity is tied up in people who died centuries before I was even born.
So I do not dismiss the pain of the Palestinian, the ones who seek a home and a peace they can bequeath their grandchildren.
But I cannot ignore the Faustian bargain that some Palestinians and their more vocal western supporters have made with the devil, a devil that rains rockets down on the heads of innocent Israeli children. That is not a myth. That is what is happening as you read these words, in your safe corner of the world.
Copyright 2021 Christine Flowers.