Please join me in a thread for PEACE [View All]

[theHandpuppet]

Let me begin with these words of wisdom:

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Yesterday I had posted my thoughts on the current crisis between Israel and Lebanon on a thread by Rucky (now locked) and fellow DUer Jacobin asked that I begin a new thread with my post. I was hesitant to do so but tensions seem so high that perhaps it could serve as a springboard for my own offer of a cease fire -- or a deep breath, whichever you prefer.

Won't you join me and add your own thoughts, words of wisdom or prayers for peace to this thread?

My post from a previous thread:

Y'know, it's interesting because on a visit home to my mother just a few short weeks ago she told me a story she'd never before related to anyone. When her family escaped Europe (my maternal line are German Jews) they were headed for a ship which was to take refugees aboard but for one reason or another they were delayed and by the time they got to the dock the ship had already raised the gangplank. Despite the fact that the crew was ignoring their pleas the captain of the ship, seeing their plight, ordered his men to redeploy the gangplank and allow them to board. "If it wasn't for that captain," my mother said, "perhaps none of us would be here today."

That story only reinforces my dismay at the turn of events in the ME. There is plenty of blame to go around, but blame is not what is needed here. How could we not relate to the ghettoization of Gaza, the usurping of others' lands, a feeling of hopelessness against a vastly superior military force, etc. when it is so much a part of our own history? Can we not recognize the irony of treating others as we have despised and feared being treated ourselves?

Conversely, the history of the Jewish people is fraught with persecution, imprisonment and genocide, of being surrounded by those who despise, distrust and curse you and will at the drop of a hat blame Jews for everything from the Black Death to "genetic pollution" or collapsing economies. Jews in Israel fear because they have much to fear -- it's only that some Arab and/or Muslim peoples who are honest (or perhaps "up front" would better describe it) about the reasons for either their anti-Semitism or hatred of Israel, yet it is "our" (so to speak) history which is littered with the bodies of murdered Jews.

So what will more killing accomplish? For every member of Hezbollah or Hamas who is killed, how many more is this war creating who will take up arms to avenge their dead? Have we learned nothing in Iraq? When the new Lebanese government, one struggling to establish a ME democracy against all odds and which had finally managed to drive Syria from their land, is undercut and made impotent as the result of this war, how exactly will that make Israel any safer? Will the families of dead children remember that bomb was intended for a Hezbollah militant and not their child?

More war, more killing, more blame, more vengeance, more tit for tat, bomb for bomb has never been the answer and is not the answer now. What we need is courage. Like that captain who saw a wrong and decided there was another way, we need someone to face the monster and lower that gangplank and offer a way to life and peace. For all our futures, there must be a better way.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

-- Mahatma Gandhi