Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Gaza: A perspective that you might not have heard elsewhere...

I’m sitting in Jerusalem (‘City of Peace’) reflecting on a teaching I
recently heard in the name of Rabbi Fruman, Rabbi of Tekoa, who
frequently meets with representatives from various Palestinian groups
in the name of peace. Rabbi Fruman had just finished one such meeting
with a senior Palestinian leader, during which he and his Palestinian
counterpart had warmly shared their mutual appreciation of the fact
that ‘Peace’ is a name of G-d, in both Arabic and Hebrew.
Beautiful eh?
Rav Fruman went on to expound to his pupil, who related this to me –
Peace being a name of G-d, it is not something that we ‘make’, any
more than we ‘make’ love, or ‘make’ children or life – rather we most
humbly receive such blessings from the Source of Life.
With that in mind, I proceed, most tentatively and uncertainly…I am
currently feeling somewhat overwhelmed by emails, Facebook notes,
media articles, blogs and other writings about the conflict in Gaza
that are essentially continuations of the conflict, promoting blame in
one direction or another. I have also just learnt that my local
synagogue in London, where I attend regularly, was fire-bombed
yesterday, and that two Israelis in a shopping mall in Denmark were
shot at whilst going about their business by people “shouting
something in a Middle Eastern language”.
As someone who has devoted much of my adult life to building trust,
respect and love between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Arabs, this is
a pretty challenging time, to put it mildly.
What can I possibly say to constructively contribute to all this?
Most deeply, I feel strongly drawn towards simply keeping silent, as I
have done so far – so that I may not contribute any more to this ugly
cacophony of accusation and counter-accusation, and so that I may be
sure of being true. Silence is a most precious gift that guards our
lips from dishonesty and our hearts from arrogance. The humility we
find therein often seems to be the closest to Truth and G-d we can
reach.
On the other hand, so much of the writing I have received suggests
that even amongst many people I consider myself close to, there is a
fundamental misconception of the current reality, that even at my most
humble I cannot deny, and so I am feeling even more drawn towards
risking my own state of equanimity and clarifying a few essential
points. I pray that what I write may only contribute towards greater
understanding between the family of the descendants of Abraham, and
all humanity.
Let me start in earnest by saying that I am trying here to give over
ONE side of the story, a side of the story that many of my closest
friends seem unaware of – I am not claiming or trying to give over the
whole story – those who know me, know that I have no reservations in
listening to and acknowledging the Palestinian, Arabic and Islamic
narratives – and so now, my friends, it is time for you to
reciprocate, and open your ears, your eyes, and your hearts, to my
narrative, and that of the country that I love so dearly.
1) Israel, as a democracy with a relatively well-educated population
and a free, in fact often surprisingly critical press, does not act
aggressively for the sheer joy of it, or for expansionist aims, or for
any pleasure involved in violence. On the contrary – as a deeply
traumatized society with a people’s army whose population and leaders
overwhelmingly want only to live in peace, and to no longer be an
occupiers, they are ever-more reluctant to mobilize large numbers of
soldiers to do dangerous work.
For those of you who might be balking at my description of Israel as a
democracy, I’m not claiming She is a perfect one, or a super-liberal
one, but She is, according to any universally accepted definition,
most definitely a democracy – the only real one in the entire Middle
East – and if you didn’t know that, then I respectfully suggest that
you expand your sources of information about the Middle East.
Equally, if you doubt the commitment of Israel’s people or Her
leadership to ending the occupation of the territories captured in
1967, please research for yourself opinion polls and policy statements
of her leaders and political parties on these subjects. Next, look up
the 2005 disengagement from Gaza and its very clear motivation – to
make the first, brave, step towards ending the occupation, at
significant financial and human cost to Israel, and at the huge risk
that this territory would be used as a base for attacking her
civilians, precisely as it has been.
2) Please compare the above to Gaza, where Hamas permits no dissent
from its own ideas and where any suspicion of criticism is met in the
most brutal fashion – please see for yourselves what Amnesty, the UN
and similar groups say about the means with which Hamas governs its
territory, and note ongoing cases of hundreds of Palestinians being
killed and tortured, as well as Hamas’ violent putsch in which it
forcibly took control of Gaza, treating Fatah members with inhumanity
eliciting a slew of protests, even from across the Islamic and Arabic
worlds.
3) Also please compare this to Hamas’ insistence that all Palestinians
are ‘soldiers’, whether they consent to this or not, and that ‘Leaving
the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason’ (Hamas Charter,
Article 32). Perhaps this explains Hamas’ treatment of those
Palestinians who disagree with it, and its willingness to abuse its
own children and other civilians as combatants and human shields.
(Again, please consult UN sources, Amnesty etc. if you doubt any of
this – I cannot feign ambivalence here as it is beyond dispute).
3) Israel, caught in the ugly trap of continuous warfare against those
who choose to hide behind civilians, has made terrible errors (e.g.
Qana) and committed terrible wrongs (e.g. Sabra & Shatila) but despite
these instances I am willing to assert that She most often takes extra-
ordinary measures to prevent excessive civilian casualties. And yet
Her actions are often portrayed in precisely the opposite light by
people and media outlets who are accustomed to buying and selling the
psychologically appealing, and unhealthily addictive, story of David
vs Goliath. For example, in sending in ground troops, rather than
continuing the current operation from the air, Israel places MORE of
Her soldiers at risk than only using aerial bombardment, and the only
possible motivation for doing this is to avoid injuring further
civilians, which Hamas uses as human shields for its arms dumps and
rocket factories – if anyone can provide an alternative explanation,
please do let me know what it is.
4) The David vs Goliath narrative, although emotionally engaging and
great for selling newspapers, not to mention motivating violence, is
hugely patronizing to the Palestinian People and seeks to diminish any
role or agency they might have in anything that happens in the middle
east. It also portrays Israel as some huge monolith that obviously
always seeks conflict or expansion. The 2002 withdrawal from Lebanon,
the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, the Israeli Declaration of
Independence (see for yourselves), the Camp David negotiations, the
Oslo Accords and Israel’s willingness to give up vast territory
(several times as large as Israel Herself! And full of oil!) for peace
with Egypt in 1979 all suggest that this narrative might be missing
some of the complexity of the historical and current reality. Once
again, I respectfully suggest that you expand your sources of
information if any of this is news to you.
5) What is Hamas? firstly, Hamas is what it says it is. It is
disingenuous, and again rather patronizing, to blindly project a
naïve, liberal agenda on to an organization that is most definitely,
according to its own words, the enemy of peace. Before urging Israel
to negotiate (without the eminently reasonable pre-condition of being
accepted as having a right to exist!!!) with Hamas, please read the
Hamas Charter for yourselves: ‘Initiatives, and so-called peaceful
solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the
principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.’ (Hamas Charter,
Article 13) Hamas refuses to recognize any pre-existing peace
agreements between the Palestinian leadership and any other party, and
the Hamas Charter states clearly that it wants to part of any
compromise – only total victory over ‘World Zionism…until the Day of
Resurrection’. (Hamas Charter, Article 32)
6) Hamas represents an interpretation of Islam that promotes genocide
(that is, the deliberate murder of an entire people), and uses
propaganda and education, from nursery school level education upwards,
from school lessons to militaristic children’s summer camps, from
mosque sermons to ruthlessly-controlled media outlets, to propagate
this form of Islam. It is so proud of this activity that you can find
plentiful sources portraying it in Hamas’ own media and internet
outlets - see for yourself!
7) Hamas interprets certain passages from sacred Islamic scripture to
justify their genocidal agenda, presenting their own interpretations
as if they were the only ones, whereas in fact they are debatable, to
say the least – e.g. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until
Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide
behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O
Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." (related by al-
Bukhari and Moslem). (Hamas Charter, Article 7)
8) Furthermore, the participation in this genocide is, according to
Hamas, required by every Muslim - ‘The day that enemies usurp part of
Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every
Moslem.’ (Hamas Charter, Article 15) If you are a Muslim, I would love
to know what you personally think and feel about this use of Islamic
scriptures to justify genocide to encourage every Muslim to
participate in it. I know that when certain Jewish people do similar
things with the Torah, I can retain a certain level of brotherhood and
compassion with them, as I can for all human beings, but I will NOT
whitewash them, I will not let such people speak for me, I will not
grant them legitimacy, and I WILL let my voice be heard in condemning
their perversion of my tradition.
9) Hamas' words are matched by its actions. These include firing over
3,000 rockets at civilians, from an area that Israel unilaterally
withdrew from in 2005. It also includes hundreds of actual (and many,
many more attempted) suicide bombings, stabbings, and shootings, the
vast majority of which were aimed at civilians. Is it not quite
dishonest to deny these acts exist, or that the Palestinian People
were aware of them when choosing to elect Hamas into a position of
power in the legislative elections of 1996?
10) According to Hamas' own words, these attacks are aimed not at
ending the occupation of the territories captured in 1967, but at
killing as many Jews as possible. Furthermore, If Hamas sought a
compromise based on the 1967 borders, it would at the very least
recognize Israel’s right to exist within those borders, and it would
also make sense to recognize pre-existing agreements, at least as a
basis for future negotiation. It would also utilize its sovereignty of
the Gaza strip to exercise state-building and to improve the lives of
its own people, rather than letting its people suffer whilst using it
as a base for Jew-killing, not to mention tyrannical oppression of all
opposed to it (including Fatah members and Palestinian Christians). I
myself have experienced a small taste of the terror Hamas’ attacks
have caused, but I know nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands
of Israelis in southern Israel who have spent much of the last three
years literally living in bomb shelters - no school, no work, no
routine, no peace of mind, just terror.
11) To justify its genocidal programme of Jew-murder, Hamas actively
promotes the narrative that Jews are secretly dictating global
affairs, and are well on their way to running the entire world.
Furthermore, the French Revolution, World War I, World War II and all
other such events are portrayed by Hamas as deliberate steps in the
Jewish war for world domination. (Hamas Charter, Article 22) Those of
you familiar with what happened to the Jewish People in World War II
may find the irony slightly distasteful, but Goebbels, the Nazi
propagandist, said it best – repeat a lie often enough and people will
start to believe it, however sickening it is. Hamas have most
definitely learnt a lot from that school of thought, and they even
cite the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, a famous text outlining an
alleged global Jewish conspiracy, which they seem not to mind has been
definitively proven to be a malicious forgery.
12) Negotiating with Hamas within the frameworks of liberalism, reason
or political pragmatism has not, and will not yield fruit as long as
the organization maintains its current ideological position – ‘It is
necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the
Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with
on this basis.’ (Hamas Charter, Article 15)
Ironically, Hamas may be right here – maybe the problem is a religious
one, but will the solution be found in the kind of religion espoused
by Hamas?
I think not, and I invite people of all faiths to tell me what they
think about this.
My own vision is one of a middle east healed by faithfully bringing to
life the depth and beauty of our respective traditions - after all,
our G-d is called Peace!!!
So yes, Israel has closed Gaza’s borders, as much as possible, in an
effort to limit the arms available to this murderous force on her very
border. (For the record, and contrary to the popular narrative, a
substantial amount of humanitarian aid has been allowed in – see
http://aid2gaza.blogspot.com
 for more info about this). The suffering
caused by this blockade, and the current operation, brings no pleasure
to Israelis – in fact both leaders and ordinary people in Israel are
acutely aware that the poverty and misery of Gazans is nothing but
bad, in itself, and in terms of feeding further radicalism against
Israelis. It is abundantly clear to all Israelis that if Hamas were
not (ab)using Gaza’s civilians as a human shield, and its land as a
base, for its campaign of genocide, Israel would have no need, nor any
desire, to blockade Gaza’s borders.
By way of conclusion, please ponder this:
What would England do, if Scotland was ruled by a body openly
committed to the genocide of all English people, and that body
constantly fired rockets across the border into civilian population
centres?
I finish by reminding you of what I said in my introduction, that the
above is not purporting to be the whole story, just the side of the
story that many of my friends seem entirely lacking in consciousness
of.
I pray that in writing from my heart of how I really feel, that I am
doing my part to create greater understanding between the descendants
of Abraham, and all humanity.
May we all soon merit to receive the gift of Peace from our Creator.
With love from Jerusalem
Daniel
http://www.jeneration.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=419&Itemid=137
---
"in oltre dieci anni di usenet" (Luca Logi / rodewalder)
cfr 
http://raionim.blogspot.com/2008/12/luca-logi-e-i-piselli.html

 
http://www.jeneration.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=419&Itemid=137
Sempre sperando di sbagliarmi.
Tb

 that ‘Peace’ is a name of G-d, in both Arabic and Hebrew.
da quando l'innominato ha un nome in ebraico?