Reconciliation assumes that hostilities have ended, that it is time to heal wounds and unite enemies. Such moments are sacred. But not every moment is like this. When something bad is going on, merely to accept it is craven. Attempting to justify it is worse. But refusing to understand it is monumentally stupid.

I am writing at the moment of the Gaza bombings. My heart is cradling its grief, remembering its visit to that desolate place (on an Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation) in 1998. At that time, the Jews in our party dared not remark above a whisper what the passage inward reminded them of: some thoughts are forbidden. These days I recall 19th century Indian reservations, the Trail of Tears. It seemed then that things could scarcely get worse. But they have, they have.

Hope depends on the notion that there is a bottom you can touch, a point at which the cycle must begin to reverse. But Israel/Palestine seems sometimes an infinite descent into Hell. When the object is extermination, there is no reciprocity to reach for, no reasoning together, no way out, nowhere to go but down. Hamas’s wish for the obliteration of Israel is explicit. But who is actually obliterating whom?

Many Israelis live in fear, and bitterly resent it. They want to go about their business undisturbed, which is one definition of peace. Every sort of violence is condoned in pursuit of this peace. Elimination of the Palestinians is not precisely mentioned: some thoughts are forbidden. But unless you manage to wipe out your enemy entirely, the long-term usefulness of violence in obtaining peace of any kind is exactly zero.

Thus spoke Prophet Zechariah, whose words were being read during Hanukkah when the bombings began: Not by power nor by might but by My spirit, saith the Lord. God’s sovereign truth. But many Israelis are disinclined to trust in God, for God did not protect them. They think they can do a better job themselves.

Last April, Israeli President Shimon Peres visited the site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where a desperate, valiant insurgency sought to push back approaching murder. It came to nothing, inevitably, and the population vanished into Treblinka. Yet standing at the site with an honor guard of IDF soldiers and members of Israeli youth groups, Peres announced, “”If we had had these soldiers and young people then, this would not have happened to us, and it will not happen to us in the future. We will not let the beast go crazy again” (Ha’aretz, 4/16/08). An extraordinarily strange and revealing statement, full of conflict about the past. Those gentle ones failed. But we shall succeed!

IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi was in Warsaw at that time, too. “It is fitting that the IDF soldiers learn the story of this uprising, and that’s why we came to admire and salute the heroes who - despite the reality and the balance of power, and the fact that they were untrained civilians - got up and took action and fought. That is what we call ‘principles’ today. … They knew they had no chance of winning, and they fought nevertheless,” said Ashkenazi. “That is bravery.” (Ha’aretz 5/1/08).

It may have been futile, it may have been crushed, but at least it was noble. Better to fight! No notion here about today’s relative strength of forces, or where untrained civilians who “got up and took action and fought” might be found just now. The Arabic word is intifadah.

Jews should know as well as anyone just how hard it is to wipe out a people entirely. Despite the monstrous worst efforts of Hitler, they are still around. Yet the ghosts of the millions who went silently to their graves haunt Israelis, who wish more had fought back – who see themselves, indeed, as fighting back in European Jewry’s place, revenging themselves on phantom Nazis, now hallucinated in Palestine.

Many Palestinians live in despair, denizens of a nightmare. When you are in despair, the options are limited. By far the most widespread choice is brute endurance: don’t think, don’t feel, just go on (Waiting for Godot should be staged in Gaza). But sometimes one can endure no more: then there’s insanity. Because any action feels better than none; insane hope feels better than no hope at all. Throw a few pointless missiles, feel like a man, and hope God will reward you. Death is coming either way.

When the US Cavalry was wiping out or walling in the Indians of the Plains (who deserved it, of course, as attackers of peaceful settlements and notorious savages), a new spiritual movement sprang up among the broken and defeated. Called the Ghost Dance, it taught that a return to ancestral values and ritual observance among Indians would lead to an apocalyptic failure of the whites’ project, with the eventual return of Indian ways and the natural order. The religion’s founder, Wovoka, envisioned himself as a peacemaker. But his restorationist vision terrified the settlers and the federal government, who did all that they could to suppress the “backward, violent” religion.

After this great movement was underway, certain Lakota warriors, followers of Wovoka, independently decided that his visions implied that the whites could be militarily uprooted. They concluded that certain consecrated garments, known as “ghost shirts,” would protect them against bullets, and dreamed of pushing their enemies into the sea. They held on to a few pitiful weapons. And they died like flies during the massacre at Wounded Knee, on December 29, 1890, 118 years ago. God did not protect them, either.

For a moment, though, it felt good again to be alive. Native Americans survived, and may resurge. White America needs them badly. In their absence, we have unloosed environmental destruction that may very well cause our project to fail: Prophet Wovoka spoke true. The Ghost Dance religion survives too, slowly building the strength of Native people even without ghost shirts.

Today Hamas wears the ghost shirts of the Islamic resurgence. “Who will be an army to assist you beside the All-Compassionate?” asks the Qur’an. But we all have such trouble understanding our prophets. When anyone’s intrinsic value is denied, the question is not whether to fight, but how to fight. Not by power nor by might but by My spirit, saith the Lord. What that might really mean for a just struggle is of the profoundest importance. Because it is only the All-Compassionate who does not end up, like Voltaire’s cynical God, on the side of the big battalions.

The big battalions, though terrifying in their day, vanish into history like dust. But the servants of the All-Compassionate transcend the bitterness of time. Not one of us is guaranteed protection, let alone victory, at any moment. But in the end, God is not mocked. None of these stories is over.

(Photo: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi via flickr under a Creative Commons license)

"Hope depends on the notion that there is a bottom you can touch, a point at which the cycle must begin to reverse. But Israel/Palestine seems sometimes an infinite descent into Hell."

Perhaps it has been a mistake to seek a two-state solution which the Palestinians can't sustain without tyranny and terrorism, since, as the author notes, there is no hope for either the Israelis or the Palestinians in pursuing it. A one-state solution won't work because of mutual hostility and distrust between the parties. The only hope I see - and maybe that's the path to seek - is the no-state solution, where Gaza reverts to Egypt and much of the West Bank to Jordan.

This isn't 1967, both states have peace agreements with Israel and have honored them. Yet the no-state solution would appear to violate the principle of Palestinian self-determination that was accepted in the Camp David Accords. Where do we go from here?

>>>Perhaps it has been a mistake to seek a two-state solution which the Palestinians can't sustain without tyranny and terrorism

You have SOME NERVE saying that, if killing over six hundred humans, two hundred of which are children in the course of ten days isn't terrorism then I don't know what is...But I know what you're getting at, Zionists hardliners like you don't want the two-state solution, they want the whole thing to themselves, well dream on because Palestinians are not going anywhere. There has been a concerted effort aimed at evicting Arabs from the whole territory especially in East Jerusalem, do you know how much it costs to just get a damn license to build a house- in some cases over 200000 shekels, but it doesn't matter because many Jerusalemites are more than willing to pay up, anything just so as not to leave and give the Israelis the satisfaction of chasing us out of our city, this is also the case with Arab Israelis (aka 48ers) they are not leaving either...So Israel can kill and maim as many as it wants but let me tell you its either the two-state solution or Israel will find itself with an Arab majority some day..But that no state crap is just a pipedream, one that fools like you are more than welcome to indulge in...What are you doing on this site anyways, you obviously know nothing about the mideast, probably went on one of those taglit birthright trips Bronfman is stupid enough to blow his money on and think you can talk about this situation. Go back to brushing up on the latest Commentary and National Review garbage, because even the most screwed-up psychopaths on this site can see right through Zionists like you.

Thank you, Rabia. We have to see the dignity in the Palestinians' continuing struggle for freedom and security against so many foes, including, I regret to say, the government of Egypt, the country of my birth.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82218

>Perhaps it has been a mistake to seek a two-state solution which the Palestinians can't sustain without tyranny and terrorism, since, as the author notes, there is no hope for either the Israelis or the Palestinians in pursuing it. A one-state solution won't work because of mutual hostility and distrust between the parties. The only hope I see - and maybe that's the path to seek - is the no-state solution, where Gaza reverts to Egypt and much of the West Bank to Jordan.
This isn't 1967, both states have peace agreements with Israel and have honored them. Yet the no-state solution would appear to violate the principle of Palestinian self-determination that was accepted in the Camp David Accords. Where do we go from here?<

Well, well well, if it isn't the member of the blight of nations pulling his usual Hasbara tactics(links to garbage articles from dismissive extremist blogs, which not surprisingly links to his own dust bowl blog). A "no-state" solution by guess who? Failed academic and judeofascist Daniel "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene" Pipes. The same racist zionist charlatan who has been wrong on everything.
I've got a better idea : the complete dismantlement of the terrorist state of Israel, along with a war crimes tribunal of its criminal leaders and deportation of the illegal immigrants back to Brooklyn. Its a counterfeit nation of mass murdering criminals who don't even define their own borders, yet want "recognition" from the people they've been ethnically cleansing for the last 60 years. Talk about chutzpah.
The fact is that "israel" is digging its own grave. The current barbarism they're carrying out in Gaza is a sign of that.

>>if killing over six hundred humans, two hundred of which are children in the course of ten days isn't terrorism then I don't know what is

I agree, you don't know what terrorism is. Terror is the fear that violence will be directed at you. Terrorism is the use of fear and violence directed against civilians as a means of coercion. Every bit of proof available, from both Arab and Israeli sources, shows that the IDF's violence is directed at Hamas. The use of coercion against civilians is, however, a fair description of Hamas' methods, as in, "Give me what I want, or I'll kill or maim you or your family."

>>Zionists hardliners like you don't want the two-state solution, they want the whole thing to themselves

Israel tried swallowing "the whole thing" and even the Zionists found it unpalatable. Too many Arabs, a society that is currently corrupted by almost always valuing tribe over truth, law, and civic duty. (We've already discussed the lack of Arab self-criticism, remember?) But currently the only people in power who "want the whole thing" are Hamas and their ilk, who erect signs at their borders promising Israelis that they will continue to seek the genocide of the Jewish people.

>>There has been a concerted effort aimed at evicting Arabs from the whole territory especially in East Jerusalem, do you know -

No I don't, I don't follow everything. I know that in Lebanon the Shia of Hezbollah, supported by Iranian money and weapons, are buying lots of land from Sunnis and Christians. I don't see an international outcry about that, do you? Why shouldn't Jews buy land from Arabs who live in Israel? It's not like Jews are much interested in buying land in Saudi Arabia or Libya or Yemen or Egypt - places where most or all the Jews were kicked out and their land and property seized by others.

>>even the most screwed-up psychopaths on this site can see right through Zionists like you.

Care to make a list?

i don't know why... in Maulidur Rasul day the Israel war Hamas. What happen PBB do nothing only meeting why? What power are Israel then all the world can hear and see...why? We all Malaysian muslim prays everyday
hope the war can be stop.

http://hu-allah.blogspot.com

>I know that in Lebanon the Shia of Hezbollah, supported by Iranian money and weapons, are buying lots of land from Sunnis and Christians. I don't see an international outcry about that, do you?<

Including support from the local population. Why would there be an "international outcry" over Lebanese supporting Lebanese resistance? Judeofascist wishful thinking is more like it. Hezbollah came into existence to expel "isreali" terrorists who invaded Lebanon. Another futile attempt on your part to "divide and conquer" by way of promoting sectarianism.
Where do you get all your weaponry from again? So the Lebanese shouldn't get weapons to defend themselves while the "israelis" get whatever they need from the US, UK and Europe.

>Why shouldn't Jews buy land from Arabs who live in Israel?<

I can go (and have gone) to almost any part of the world, to the departmental entities that represent ME studies, and there is no mystery in regard to the FACT of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 (nor the present process, which should have been a clue to certain ignorant people). They never bought land from the Arabs. The AskheNAZIS took it by force through a campaign of terrorism and genocide, with British and UN complicity. Compare maps of Palestine from 1900 and today and nobody but a rabid zionist like you would claim that all that land was "bought."
In 1919 Ben-Gurion, who later would become the first prime minister of Israel, saw that the Zionists were creating a problem with no just solution. "No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can fill this guilt ... I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews. ..We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs." Later, during the Arab revolt of 1936-39 against this takeover, Ben-Gurion continued: "This is an active resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard as a usurpation of their homeland by the Jews ... But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves." 4 He proceeded to strengthen the Jewish terrorists organizations like the Irgun with more guns and explosives so that they could, with bullets when necessary, force the Arabs into relinquishing their ownership of Palestine.

>It's not like Jews are much interested in buying land in Saudi Arabia or Libya or Yemen or Egypt - <

More Hasbara bulls***. Eretz Israel = from the Nile to the Euphrates. Nuff said.

>places where most or all the Jews were kicked out and their land and property seized by others.<<

Kicked out? Forgetting the FACT that askheNAZI jewish terrorists targeted Jews in Arab countries in false flag attacks to force them to come to "israel." Naeem Giladi, the Iraqi Jew active in the "zionist underground" back in the 1940s has plenty to say on it :

http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html

>>>Terror is the fear that violence will be directed at you....

Yeah well I would add the disproportionate use of force that results in the death of hundreds of children and innocent civilians to that definition...And it doesn't matter if you or the mainstream media do not agree because most in the world (outside the US and Israeli media) also see it that way.

>>>Too many Arabs, a society that is currently corrupted by almost always valuing tribe over truth, law, and civic duty. (We've already discussed the lack of Arab self-criticism, remember?)

This is not 1948, Arab societies have changed dramatically, tribes do not have the kind of effect on people's lives that they did back then, in fact, I would say tribal societies are long gone, I don't know of one...except maybe in the Negev, but they're Bedouins and that is an intrinsic part of their social fabric, though I am sure that it will not be nearly as power in the future. And, NO, we did not "discuss" the lack of Arab self-criticism, I told you that it wasn't your place to tell Arabs how to conduct their internal affairs,besides that was about the Muslim world, and you have no business criticizing either.

>>>>I don't see an international outcry about that, do you? Why shouldn't Jews buy land from Arabs who live in Israel? It's not like Jews are much interested in buying land in Saudi Arabia or Libya or Yemen or Egypt - places where most or all the Jews were kicked out and their land and property seized by others.

Now this is so funny, I was right all along, you don't know a thing, well that's understable, Likudniks always try to sugarcoat reality to Jewish Americans...Well, allow me to burst your bubble, its the Arabs who are buying lands from Jews, not the other way around...Yes, it's true, and for a number a reasons, first and foremost, contrary to your "Arabs are a simplistic tribal society" perception, the fact is that Palestinians would rather starve to death before selling their land to Jews. I have to admit that some Arabs engaged in that heinous act back in the forties, but that was done by the corrupt, British-educated elites who managed to fool the some of the less-educated into selling their lands to Jews. But things could not be more different today because even the lowlifes who would perhaps be tempted to do so are halted by the stigma that surrounds such a despicable act, and in our "tribal" society, there is great shame in selling your land in general, and in selling it to Jews in particular, it's kind of like selling yousrself, it's one of the most dishonorable things a person could do, I would definitely say that this communal aspect also played a role in preventing some Palestinians from selling... Now I don't like being petty but this is fun, so to rub salt on that wound, here's something that I am sure will make your day Solomon, enjoy.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009568.html

Solomon2 >>> ...The use of coercion against civilians is, however, a fair description of Hamas' methods, as in, "Give me what I want, or I'll kill or maim you or your family.

The hypocrite emerges. When Israelis kill 900 Palestinians (a sizeable amount of whom are civilians), it is anti-terror. When Palestinians run hit and miss attacks for being starves .. it called is terror. An Israelis suffers "fear", Palestinians impose "fear" Palestinians can only govern themselves with terror?. That Israel is a foreign coloniser just adds more absurdity to the argument.

It stopped being irony and started being hypocrisy when you believe it. Unfortunately, hypocrisy is a sin in Islam but not in Israel, where allegiance to the state and the cause of zionism determines your worth and success.

>>> ...And it doesn't matter if you or the mainstream media do not agree because most in the world (outside the US and Israeli media) also see it that way.

Word .. all the communist misfits, islamic extremists, developing-nation secularists, socialist failures, 3rd world green card hungry masses, muslims and poolytheists alike ... see the full scale of the attacks on our televisions daily and are voicing very virile objection. I'd like to congratulate Venezuelans for their excellent choice in President. Hugo Chavez has not only sent aid to Palestine, but has expelled the Israeli ambassador too.

>>> Why shouldn't Jews buy land from Arabs who live in Israel? It's not like Jews are much interested in buying land in Saudi Arabia or Libya or Yemen or Egypt - places where most or all the Jews were kicked out and their land and property seized by others.

Evictions, forced expulsions, racist and forced State removals, violent expansion in 1948, refugee crisis ... and Solomon2 says "Why shouldn't Jews be free to buy land from Arabs who live in Israel" ... its not even a discussion with a sane person anymore.

Check out the Network of Spiritual Progressives' full page ad in the New York Times that ran today (January 14, 2009) protesting the current conflict in Gaza. And don't forget to check out the rest of the NSP's website and Tikkun Magazine, the voice of the NSP!

http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php/gaza
http://www.spiritualprogressives.org
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine