A political thought

I don't normally like to use this space to discuss politics. Not because I don't like the topic - I'm something of a political junkie, in fact - but because I hate to rant on a subject that is usually best enjoyed around a table, in the company of friends, preferably with a cup of coffee/pint of beer/shot of whiskey (pick your poison) close at hand. Also, it's nice to be challenged immediately if my opinion is ignorant or stupid - political discussions by their very nature are ripe for intelligent and healthy disagreement. Yet, a comment on a friend's facebook site has really stirred me to write a few words about the current situation in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. (No need for me to recap the news to my readers. My guess is that you're all pretty up-to-date on world affairs - all three of you that visit this site, of course.)

I wouldn't necessarily call S. a friend but rather a good acquaintance. She's a classic facebook friend in that regard: someone I see only a couple of times a year (at most), never speak to on the phone, only occasionally exchange e-mail with, but who, except for her periodic updates on facebook, I've largely lost touch with. Although we used to work together, today we basically we travel in very different circles.

Her facebook update yesterday really got under my skin. Essentially it was a call-out to the Israeli soldiers in Gaza. "Stay safe," she wrote, "but go get 'em. We've gotta take care of our own first.'" My first reaction - after showing it to the lovely A. to use as an example of why I rarely if ever discuss Middle Eastern politics with friends, particularly as it relates to Israel (it's just too contentious) - was quiet acceptance. As long as I've known S., she's been a fervent, passionate and militant believer in the Jewish state. In fact, when I first started working with her about a decade ago, I took note of a bumper sticker affixed in her office cubicle: "My Israel includes the Golan." I'm never surprised when she takes a strong anti-Israel view of the world.

I too am a strong believer in Israel. I find it sad that there continues to be opposition to Israel's right to exist as a state, and that peace and stability in that region is so elusive. I can also understand its need to defend itself, particularly against an organization that seems intent on provoking Israel. All that said, this is not the place to argue what I feel is Israel's disproportionate response to the rockets fired into the southern part of its country. (As stated earlier, the Israeli issue is too massive for this feeble blog to properly debate.) Rather, it's the whole idea of S. using the phrase "our own" that really rubs me wrong.

I remember reading a wonderful Talk of the Town obituary in the New Yorker magazine many years of a long-time UN diplomat. He was American, and he said he often was queried by his fellow citizens why he was spending so much of his time trying to help those in other regions in the world rather than helping his fellow Americans. His response (and naturally I'm paraphrasing) was "I'm a member of the human race before I'm a citizen of any country." That simple phrase has stayed with me - in fact, it's something I've appropriated for myself many times!

In S.'s eyes, does being Jewish - or being a member of any race, religion, sect, sex, whatever - take precedence over the shared commonalities we all have as fellow human beings? Is it possible to be so cold and dispassionate about the loss of 500 Palestinian lives? Can there be no remorse? It strikes me that if seemingly reasonable and rationale people like S. have such an unhealthy view of "the other side," what chance do those in the belly of the region have of ever finding compromise?

I don't feel I've done a great job of explaining my point of view. Chalk it up to Sunday evening and having to go back to work tomorrow after a wonderful two-week break.