Tel Aviv, Massachusetts
TEL AVIV, MASSACHUSETTS“Differing weights and differing measures, both are repugnant to The Creator.” – Proverbs 20:10In July 2014, the Arab political and terror organization called, Hamas (“Zeal” in Arabic), organized and fomented the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teen-agers. They also fired over a thousand rockets from Gaza – a territory given to them by Israel under agreement it would remain forever demilitarized – into Israeli civilian territories, attempting mass murder of Israeli men, women and children, as well as mayhem destructive to Israeli society.The world is now having a discussion about this situation.May I offer the following for consideration?In a land called Aquinnah as far back as any human can remember – even back to the last Ice Age ten thousand years ago – a people calling themselves, “Wamponoag” built a fishing-based civilization and economy. The big island on which Aquinnah occupied the southwest-most corner was called, Noepe.A few hundred years ago, Europeans started arriving to Noepe, and began living, fishing, and farming near the Wamponoag. Across time, these Europeans took more and more Noepe land for themselves, and with the 1869 passage of "The Indian Enfranchisement Act," Euro-Colonials officially ended the existence of the nation to which Wamponoag belonged: the nation called, the Massechusit – which may go back as far as thirty thousand years living uninterrupted in the Noepe region.The Wamponoag/Euro-Colonialist history being unjust can certainly be argued.Imagine now, in 2014, you are on your noon break from your job in Boston.You are having a pleasant lunch in the famed “North End” – when you suddenly hear a deafening roar, and run outside to find a flaming crater where a restaurant you almost chose for that day’s lunch used to stand mere moments before. Debris is everywhere, dead and maimed lie scattered about, and sirens scream into the peaceful seaside as ambulances approach, and the populace is alerted to danger. All normalcy is gone, and the neighborhood is empty in moments.Imagine this scene – or siren-proclaimed imminent threat of it – being repeated daily, as rockets are fired by Wamponoag militants from Aquinnah land within rocket range of Boston. These attacks are accompanied by repeated demands that "The Colonialist Occupation" end, and the "American Occupiers" leave Massachusetts, returning all lands to their original Massechusit owners, who are asserted never to have given them up willingly.Would not be fair to say the following?
The justice of the Wamponoag claims would be an entirely separate matter from the recent outburst of Wamponoag violence against American civilians in the Boston region?
The civilized world would quite probably be willing to listen to, consider, and judicially respond to Wamponoag pleas based on provable history, established law, and civilized standards of equity: but until the Wamponoag stopped firing explosive missiles into Boston, there would be nothing to discuss other than the cessation of that murderous activity against civilians?
Would the world not unconditionally support American military incursion into Aquinnah – now a defined “reservation” – to find and disable the storage and firing facilities of the rockets being used against Boston? Would revocation of the right of the Wamponoag to live in unrestricted autonomy on their land not be withdrawn until the Wamponoag publicly forever renounced intention to use their reservation as a staging-ground for military strikes at nearby American populations?It must be emphatically put into the present day's conversation about peace in The Middle East, that Gaza – which was taken by Israel in a defensive war in 1967, and thus, was entirely legally possessed by Israel – was given back by Israel into total Arab control as a concession of "land-for-peace" with the specific condition accepted by the Palestinian Authortity that Gaza be “forever de-militarized.”There is no question that Gaza has been militarized.There is no question the purpose of militarizing Gaza is for the killing of Jews.Yet – the world cries out to Israel, “do not use your might to defend yourself."This is Israel’s plight in the community of nations.Let the Arabs present in the State of Israel who claim the existence of a nation called Palestine come to the table of civilized nations and argue their case. Let them bring forth the best evidence and best case their best minds can provide: and let all the world hear them – and also hear the Israeli nation whom they accuse and which it is theirs aim to displace.Let civilization decide.Yet - by all means – let civilized people meet in civilized councils and by civilized means make civil decisions. Let no one using barbarian methods be accorded a moment’s hearing or platform: let it be a guarantee of utter exile from the courtroom of civilized discussion. Let anyone committed to using barbarism against civilized nations so as to leverage political goals consider the following very carefully: Japan learned following Pearl Harbor, a civilized nation of vast resources, when awakened to self-defense by repeated and unrepented barbarism, can become a terrifying and unstoppable warrior-colossus.The Unites States of America could reduce Aquinnah to a smoking asphalt flatland within minutes to hours of any time it decided to do so. The State of Israel could erase all of Gaza mere minutes to hours from any moment it made the decision to do so.Any Wamponoag still living in Aquinnah after the rocket attacks would owe their very existence to the civilized unwillingness of America to use its full might to solve its problems as quickly as possible. America has the civilized, self-imposed limitation of conscience upon the extent to which it exercises its might. Even so, Israel very carefully limits the extent to which it deploys its military power to end its own suffering at the hands of its assailants. Every Gazan who draws breath in July 2014 does so only because Israel is unwilling to harm one more human being than necessary for the sake of its own security.It has always been a painful irony that evil-doers depend upon the goodness of good people to empower them to do more evil. If Hamas had the military power Israel has, every Israeli in the Israel would be dead, and every Jew everywhere in the world, in immediate danger. The only thing limiting Hamas is its lack of resource and opportunity.What limits Israel is its own civilized goodness.Even to end its own suffering, it will not exercise the fullness of its own might.Therein lies the terrible beauty and irony of it all.It is doubtful American Secretary of State John Kerry would be so even-keeled about the present Hamas rocket assault on Israel, if Wamponoag rockets by the hundreds were landing weekly in Massachusetts near the homes of his friends on "Martha’s Vineyard" - the name by which we now call the land of Noepe.It is the agreed-upon position of the civilized world that no nation can be asked to live under the on-going occurrence of – or threat of rockets being fired at their civilian population by people doing so in order to get something they want.That is the simple essence of the July 2014 Middle East eruption.
Hamas asserts that kidnapping young Jewish civilians on their way home from school is an acceptable tool getting things they want; and
Hamas asserts that firing rockets into Jewish civilian populations is an acceptable tool for getting things they want.
Osama bin Laden believed the same thing about all non Muslim nations and peoples.He and his family are now dead – his and their assets are seized – and the nation he sought to harm is only stronger and more determined about the value of democracy than ever before. Bin Laden is now, among civilized human beings, a by-word on the order of Hitler. His name is forever accursed: saying you are a “Bin Laden” out loud in any crowd of civilized human beings will cause people to turn away in disgust. Such is the legacy of Hitler, Capone, Bin Laden.Such now is becoming the meaning of the Arabic word, “Hamas.”In Arabic, it means “zeal” – a positive quality.In Hebrew, the same word means “violence” – the meaning it is, through its own actions, assigning itself in the conversation of civilization. This does not have to continue.Anyone any day can decide to cease violence.Martin Luther King, Jr. said of his own heart, "I've decided to lay down hate. It is too heavy a burden." It is worthwhile noting that non-violence won the American Civil Rights Struggle for the North American peoples of color.The Berlin Wall was torn down without a shot being fired.Nothing is impossible.Claims about right, justice, and equity should always be heard by the courts of the world.Acts of murder, kidnapping, and mayhem should be treated for what they are: crimes.If rockets cannot be tolerated in downtown Boston or Hyannis, they should not be tolerable in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. If American citizens cannot be acceptably murdered and kidnapped to advance Massechusit goals, then Israelis and Jews cannot be accepted as consigned to such treatment. The world must say no to barbarism with a loud and unified voice.Equity means one scale of justice for all humankind.When the leaders of Arab political goals in the Levant accept this truth – the world will become a far better place for having lunch with a friend in any restaurant by any sea.No one should have to keep one eye on the sky for missles, or one ear tilted for sirens, while ordering a cup of coffee or tea. No Arab, no Jew, no Ukrainian, no Russian, no Irishman or British citizen, no Basque or Spaniard – no one anywhere should have to live without their loved ones because someone somewhere wants something for which they are willing as aggressors to kill or kidnap the unarmed and vulnerable.How long must civilization struggle for the most basic of ethical 2+2 equations, taught by all revered masters of all respected faiths and belief-systems: if you don't want it done to you, do not do it to someone else.All the rest is commentary.Shalom. Salaam. Peace, soon and in our days.