I am deeply disturbed by the lack of humanity both Israel and Hamas are showing in the latest conflict.
If both parties actually took their religious traditions seriously, they would treat each other as they would treat themselves. They might understand that the violence they do to each other will always rebound back on them. They might understand that they need to share all of Israel-Palestine without walls, without the Gaza ghetto, without violence and without genocidal rhetoric.
And given all of that, I am disturbed that the United States, with its uncritical support for Israel, is perpetuating crimes against humanity by both sides, and providing Israel’s and our adversaries with justifications for further violence. Instead, the U.S. should be working with Israel to make Palestine whole — to compensate for the violence and land theft done to them — once Hamas is wiped out. And we should be working to see that neither Israel nor Palestine is racist and exclusivist. In fact, if that were the case, there wouldn’t be a need for a two-state solution.
The current policy has failed. It’s time for a policy based on moral clarity.
