Tag: Hamas

War Destroys History

W.J. Astore

The God of War Consumes All

The ancients were wise to make war a god. Violent, unpredictable, destructive, seductive, brutal, and capricious. And of course very, very powerful in its hold on the human mind.

Ares, the Greek god of war

I trained as a historian, where an understanding of facts, context, and other forms of evidence is all-important. War destroys history. War creates its own “facts.” Who needs context when you hear the cry: “We’re at war!”

Consider the Russia-Ukraine War. Americans are encouraged to believe the war began with Putin’s invasion in February 2022. All you need to know is that Putin is evil and that he wants to conquer and subjugate Ukraine. A bit of history is introduced by equating Putin with Hitler; sometimes you see claims that Putin is “worse than Hitler.” But that’s about all the “history” you’re encouraged to know.

To follow the war, you might go to the Guardian, which tells me this is Day 596 of Putin’s invasion. Again, it’s implied that what came before Putin’s decision to invade simply doesn’t matter.  NATO expansion to Russia’s borders, for example, is dismissed as irrelevant. Russia shouldn’t have felt threatened by benevolent, peace-loving NATO. Nor do you need to know anything about U.S. meddling in Ukrainian politics. Focus on the war, cheer on the Ukrainians, and see all Russians as guilty, more or less, even Russian opera singers and tennis players.

Consider as well the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Again, Americans are encouraged to believe the war began with terrorist attacks by Hamas. All you need to know is that Hamas is engaged in “pure, unadulterated evil” (President Biden) and that Israel must defend itself however it deems fit. Hamas is evil, Israel is good, end of story.

Americans saw this with 9/11 and the Bush/Cheney response to it. President Bush encouraged us to believe that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. because they hated us for our freedoms. They hate us because they ain’t us, simple as that. Meanwhile, Bush told the world you’re either for us or you’re for the terrorists.

War is the great and terrifying simplifier. We go to war shouting “Remember the Alamo!” or “Remember the Maine; to hell with Spain!” or “Remember Pearl Harbor!” with vengeance on our minds. There’s no need to think. There no need to seek any understanding. Who cares about history and context? It’s time to kill-kill-kill. That’s the only language *they* understand, because they’re pure evil even as we represent pure goodness. Our wrath is righteous and measured; their wrath is unbounded and insane, evil, the work of “human animals.”

Recall what Congresswoman Barbara Lee said when she cast the lone vote of dissentafter 9/11. Instead of authorizing a blank check of support for Bush/Cheney and U.S. military action everywhere, Lee advised restraint and asked a nation in mourning to pause. Citing a clergy member, she memorably cautioned that “as we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.” Her speech was a profile in courage for which she was widely attacked and condemned.

What followed 9/11 was an orgy of violence by the U.S., a global war on terror akin to a jihad, producing the Afghan War, the Iraq War, Libya’s collapse into chaos, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the collateral murder video, torture, and so many other deplorable acts. Yet we as Americans are told by our leaders and the mainstream media to forget these “excesses,” these “mistakes,” because we meant well and we had no choice but to respond to evil terrorists with massive military might.

And so now Israel, aided by the U.S., faces the same choice: how best to respond to a terrorist attack. And it appears their response will be an exercise in massive military might. Because history doesn’t matter. The god of war has taken over. And that god demands vengeance. Violence. Blood sacrifice.

Yet there is wisdom in the Bible when it says (Romans 12:19-21):

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

What War Does to Us

W.J. Astore

It Makes Us Hate; It Leads Us to Slaughter

From the Gaza Strip, the Hamas offensive against Israel has been murderously effective. The vaunted and much-celebrated Israeli military was caught by surprise and is responding to the Hamas attacks with its own version of murder, as captured in this announcement:

Israel Defense Minister: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” [emphasis added]

Actually, we have laws against allowing animals to starve. Think of the SPCA, the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Furthermore, comparing humans to animals is most often an insult to animals. Animals’ thirst for blood is sated quickly compared to humans and our thirst.

Let’s be clear: Hamas and the Palestinian people are not “human animals.” They are not lesser humans or beasts. Are the Jewish people forgetting the way that the Nazis reduced them to lesser humans or beasts to be exterminated during the Holocaust?

The Gaza Strip has been described as the world’s largest open-air prison.

Announcing a siege against all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (no food, no power, mostly unsafe water) is the equivalent of launching a holocaust in slow motion. How is this in any way a proportionate and defensible response to the attacks by Hamas?

Meanwhile, as usual the U.S. government, showing its inherent unity and conformity, is 100% behind Israel, sending an aircraft carrier and issuing blank checks of unequivocal support. The mainstream media once again is telling Americans which side to hate. Think of the Palestinians as a gaggle of little Putins and you’ll be applauded for your right-think.

This is why I hate war. It turns us into killers. It leads us to hate those we kill. And hate kills our minds and makes us even more willing killers.

I applaud and support neither Hamas nor Israel. I applaud and support those who fight for a peaceful future in which we don’t see each other as “human animals” to be slaughtered with impunity.

David versus Goliath in the Middle East

david and goliath_aaron wolpert

W.J. Astore

When I was a kid, I was a big admirer of Israel.  I saw Israel as being surrounded by implacable enemies bent on its destruction.  Israel was the plucky underdog, David against Goliath, with Goliath being Arab countries like Egypt and Syria, having militaries trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, sworn enemy of the U.S. during the Cold War (or so my ten-year-old mind saw it).  I recall keeping a scrapbook of articles on the Yom Kippur War of 1973.  I cheered the Israeli “blitzkrieg” (What an odd term for a daring Jewish armored attack!) that crossed the Suez Canal and isolated the Egyptian Third Army, as well as the Israeli riposte on the Golan Heights against Syria.

That was 1973.  Forty-one years later, Israel is engaged in yet another assault on Gaza and the Palestinians.  Compared to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Palestinian militants are undergunned and hopelessly outclassed.  Organizations like Hamas rely on the traditional tactics of terrorists (or freedom-fighters, choose your loaded word): hit-and-run raids, random attacks (unguided rockets), war in the shadows (or in the tunnels).  Who is David and who is Goliath now?

What hasn’t changed, of course, is the mainstream media in the U.S., which cheers the Israelis while condemning Hamas and any other Palestinians who choose resistance instead of compliance.  Watching a snippet of CNN, I witnessed Wolf Blitzer, who poses as a disinterested journalist, demanding from his Palestinian interviewee an immediate stoppage in rocket attacks.  Blitzer had nothing critical to say of Israeli air raids or the disproportionate casualties suffered by the Palestinians in this latest skirmish in a very long war.

What can be done?  As one of my historian friends put it, the Middle East has “a massive legacy of entropy.”  All I know is that more bloodshed, and more innocents killed, like those four young boys playing soccer on the beach, only adds to that entropy — and the legacy of hatred.

Perhaps one thing I’ve learned in four decades is that negotiations in good faith can’t occur when either side sees itself as a heroic David fighting against a glowering Goliath.  Until Israelis and Palestinians see each other as fellow human beings, as equals rather than as monsters, wars will continue, innocents will suffer, and hopes will be left in the dust, slayed like so many Goliaths by self-anointed Davids.