Reactionary

I was reading the paper and the BBC online about this today. I had only heard about it from a distance as I’ve been involved with a lot of web work lately. But what was actually going on finally sunk into my cranium today. Israel has ordered its settlers to pull out of the contested Gaza Strip and leave it to the Palestinians. There were stories in the paper and the web today of people saying goodbye to their homes, packing up, moving out. There were also stories of resistance.

While anyone having to move from where they’ve been living does stir feelings of sympathy, as moving by your own will is hard enough, I’m not entirely sold on the reactions. The Gaza Strip, along with the larger West Bank had been seized by Israel during the Six Day War more than 30 years ago. Seized, as in grabbed without so much as a by your leave. And not even a lifetime ago. I don’t know. If the country I lived in seized land from someone else, I’d feel bad about moving to it in the faces of its inhabitants and I can’t imagine acting as if a great injustice were being done if I were asked to move out. I wouldn’t like to move, but I don’t think I could justify being weepy about it, angry about it, and let alone resistant to it.

Some of the people interviewed said it was land taken because it had been given to them by God. Well, of all the arrogant things to say… Yes, I know about the Old Testament and how that part of the world is supposed to be the promised land. But wasn’t that written kind of long ago to use as a legitimate reason in modern day politics? And the devil’s advocate in me begs the question, if God gave it to you, then why would you have to struggle at all to retake it? Wouldn’t God, being so powerful and unquestioned that His alleged original gift is used as justification for the occupation, if He wanted you to have the land, wouldn’t He make sure you’d keep it? And also, if somehow it had been lost, isn’t that because He willed that, too? Why is only the giving part so believed and the taking away never questioned? Is it yet more proof of people hearing only what they want to hear? Geez, do I sound like an atheist? No, I just like arguement and good reasons to do what you do, especially when it comes to acts of violence. The violence in the Middle East has gone on for so long and cost so many lives.

Via the article in the paper, I also got a jarring reaction to something a woman said. She was in Gaza helping her parents move out and said it was a great tragedy for Israel and she didn’t know what would happen now, “Maybe the Messiah will come.” You read right. The words are fused to my brain. I had the same kind of intense reaction as if someone said to me with a straight face that they believed God created the Earth in seven days as we know them or if they said they believed the world was flat. I was like, “What do you mean the Messiah coming? He already has!” And then I stopped myself and marveled at myself. Jews don’t believe that. But I surprised myself how strongly I do. I take that as a given and I know in my being that it’s true. It’s like Bono said, “It’s not something I can talk you into or out of.” Amazing.

Posted on August 15th, 2005 under News •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed