Over the past few months, since the October 7th attacks by Hamas on Israel, I have seen this world become shocked, and deeply concerned, and divided, on the war occurring in Gaza.
Over this time, I have talked to folks with many different types of views, though they all share one concern: the health and safety of people. But, as with a conflict of this nature, these positions generally also, if not condone, then perhaps excuse violence towards a different set of people, depending on the position you take. And it’s been heated at times, arguing with friends, and testing the boundaries of some of these relationships. But I think it all comes from a place of caring, and a desperation to see the suffering stop.
But what I have observed as the difficulty in this war, is that it has too many dimensions for simple judgement, and multiple dimensions sometimes for folks involved in it.
To some folks in the conflict, it is a political war of boundaries. At the same time, it is also a war of occupation. And at the same time as that, it is also a religious war. And with each of these three perspectives, come many deeper beliefs, aims and understanding. And from reading and watching reports on this, the multilayered perspective seems to be on both sides of both the leadership and the people of this conflict. Accordingly, one end may serve another end, with or without the specific intent of the specific actor’s intent. And perhaps sometimes, with the actor concealing the intent as a different motive.
The first step in solving something like this, or even just getting a basic understanding of it, would be to accept the premise that each party has a right to exist, and therefore, needs to come to a harmonious conclusion. However, at this basic part, we see that both sides have claimed the other has no right to exist: sometimes politically, sometimes religiously, sometimes as human beings entirely. And then each side defend themselves, and say they do not actually believe that, despite actions or statements that may suggest otherwise. And it just kind of devolves from there.
My general thoughts on this remind me of a slogan by the punk band Aus Rotten. ‘People are not expendable. Government is’. And I believe that is a powerful reminder of the way, I believe the hierarchy of human order should work. It goes as such:
1. Human beings
2. Anything devised to organize or ‘help’ human beings
Governments, or any organizational body, are designed in purpose, to give organizational capability, resources, and power to Human Beings. When Humans become secondary to an organizations ideology, the plot is fucking lost.
Religion, on the other hand, has a hierarchy to God, not to Human Beings, as Human Beings are viewed as subservient to God. And this is why both nationalistic and religious wars scare me. Humans, are not the priority in the hierarchy. *
Accordingly, I have come to view the war in Gaza not from a perspective of sides, because both have factual points, and both have rhetoric; both of which are the specific things that make the sides so dividable, and the basis that perpetuates this conflict. Instead, I just look, with little regard for the political boundary, to the people in that area, and wonder how this war can stop.
My personal view is that: 1) the people of both Israel and Gaza have a right to exist. 2) Both Israel and Palestine are representational entities that have a legitimate claim to exist. 3) Israel has committed War Crimes with the military campaign they have waged for the last two months, and it’s continual actions towards the people of both Gaza and the West Bank for the last few decades have been as well. 4) Hamas is a terrorist organization that has brought death and instability to the region to accomplish it’s own political goals at the expense of human beings. 5) Both the government of Israel, and the organization of Hamas operate with policies that serve their own power needs as organizations, regardless of, and with detriment to, the health and desires of the people they claim to serve. (And thats not a judgement call, thats just how formal organizations have historically worked, to gain and maintain power, with few exceptions). These thoughts come from a political and human perspective.
From a religious perspective, this war seems even worse. Because both religions share the same ultimate idea of who God is, and they both strive for their believers to reach the same place. And to see the differences in approach be used to hurt each other so badly, and it could be argued, to meet the means of those who hold power over them, it just fucking sucks.
As a westerner, I’m not sure of where my part is in this, though as a US citizen, whose country has given money to Israel specifically for it’s military campaigns, I feel a responsibility to voice my opposition of this support to my elected officials, and I have.
And specifically, as a citizen of a nation whose existence geographically depended on the eradication of the people indigenous to the land they were forming their nation on top of, I see it as imperative, if as nothing more than a child of this history, to advocate for current power structures to not repeat the same behavior. I believe we live in a time where dehumanization cannot eclipse the imperative validity we know all human beings have in their right to exist. And to see this occurring, when in the West, we are at a time where we actually pay attention to the historical culture and identity of peoples, and particularly marginalized people in our own internal policies, it is perplexing and disheartening to not see those same ideals extended to our views and funding of our foreign policy.