Last month, Representatives Mark Pocan and Jamaal Bowman travelled with the pro-Israel, anti-occupation lobbying group J Street to Susiya, a Palestinian village in the West Bank that the Israeli government has repeatedly threatened to demolish. Pocan tweeted a
I read you because I agree with what I think is your foundational value: "All life is equally precious." Your respect for the dignity of each person and your advocacy for all peoples' human rights are pinholes of light in what feels like an increasingly dark world. Thank you for lighting candles instead of just cursing the darkness (often that cursing taking the form of blaming "the other side").
Your statement that "understanding the connection between illegitimate violence by the state and illegitimate violence against the state is crucial to ensuring that both forms of violence end" should be an urgent topic for discussion in our schools, our legislatures, and our communities. A lyric from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" is playing in my mind as I type:
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
I think that anyone who draws battle lines - whether rhetorically or physically - is wrong, and yet we have adopted an 'us vs. them' mindset in almost all aspects of our relationships to one another. How much better a world we would be living in if we each resolved to approach our fellow humans - in fact, ALL living things, including our planet! - with goodwill and in good faith, with compassion and generosity. Very hard to do, I understand, but the most difficult acts are typically the ones most worthy of our effort. The Chinese proverb - "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - might serve as our mantra. If we each take that first step and then keep putting one foot in front of the other, maybe we can find our way out of the morass in which we are sinking.
You're right that terrorism perpetrated by some doesn't necessarily mean the broader group should be discredited — this is obvious to me.
The real question is: do the political goals of the group in question make sense? And from there: Is this group part of a broader narrative or coalition that might have ulterior motives? Are the goals of this group seen as desirable among the actual people they claim to represent? Can you get reliable information about the issues facing these groups generally?
Once you start to ask those questions, it becomes quite difficult to be so sure about certain issues. For me, it's clear that Palestinians have now, and black South Africans had, legitimate grievances. But we were told (especially up until the 1990s) that Tibetans had legitimate grievances, but there was (and is) almost no support for those grievances on the ground in Tibet — and a lot of what was said turned out to be US-sponsored propaganda (the fact that this was propaganda is widely accepted now, although many in the US would claim it is still true). We were told that Afghans and Iraqis yearned for US-imposed freedom, but they actually didn't prefer that "freedom" to the regimes they lived under, as Americans must bitterly accept 20 years after the fact. These facts seem to severely complicate the general applicability of your thesis.
I really enjoy your viewpoint. As a 73 yr old daughter of the dregs of a Shoah family I am annually horrified at the mess that Israel has created for itself. While on one hand that tiny nation is producing some of the worlds greatest health and science advancements, they can’t seen to understand that their current policies vis a vis their Palestinian neighbors ( love them or hate them) are making life difficult and in some cases even deadly for the Hugh worldwide Jewish Diaspora. I am a big supporter of JStreet and cannot stand AIPAC
As a former resident of Wisconsin for 22 yrs. Mark Pocan represents the best politically that State has to offer.
I read you because I agree with what I think is your foundational value: "All life is equally precious." Your respect for the dignity of each person and your advocacy for all peoples' human rights are pinholes of light in what feels like an increasingly dark world. Thank you for lighting candles instead of just cursing the darkness (often that cursing taking the form of blaming "the other side").
Your statement that "understanding the connection between illegitimate violence by the state and illegitimate violence against the state is crucial to ensuring that both forms of violence end" should be an urgent topic for discussion in our schools, our legislatures, and our communities. A lyric from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" is playing in my mind as I type:
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
I think that anyone who draws battle lines - whether rhetorically or physically - is wrong, and yet we have adopted an 'us vs. them' mindset in almost all aspects of our relationships to one another. How much better a world we would be living in if we each resolved to approach our fellow humans - in fact, ALL living things, including our planet! - with goodwill and in good faith, with compassion and generosity. Very hard to do, I understand, but the most difficult acts are typically the ones most worthy of our effort. The Chinese proverb - "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - might serve as our mantra. If we each take that first step and then keep putting one foot in front of the other, maybe we can find our way out of the morass in which we are sinking.
You're right that terrorism perpetrated by some doesn't necessarily mean the broader group should be discredited — this is obvious to me.
The real question is: do the political goals of the group in question make sense? And from there: Is this group part of a broader narrative or coalition that might have ulterior motives? Are the goals of this group seen as desirable among the actual people they claim to represent? Can you get reliable information about the issues facing these groups generally?
Once you start to ask those questions, it becomes quite difficult to be so sure about certain issues. For me, it's clear that Palestinians have now, and black South Africans had, legitimate grievances. But we were told (especially up until the 1990s) that Tibetans had legitimate grievances, but there was (and is) almost no support for those grievances on the ground in Tibet — and a lot of what was said turned out to be US-sponsored propaganda (the fact that this was propaganda is widely accepted now, although many in the US would claim it is still true). We were told that Afghans and Iraqis yearned for US-imposed freedom, but they actually didn't prefer that "freedom" to the regimes they lived under, as Americans must bitterly accept 20 years after the fact. These facts seem to severely complicate the general applicability of your thesis.
I really enjoy your viewpoint. As a 73 yr old daughter of the dregs of a Shoah family I am annually horrified at the mess that Israel has created for itself. While on one hand that tiny nation is producing some of the worlds greatest health and science advancements, they can’t seen to understand that their current policies vis a vis their Palestinian neighbors ( love them or hate them) are making life difficult and in some cases even deadly for the Hugh worldwide Jewish Diaspora. I am a big supporter of JStreet and cannot stand AIPAC
It all comes back to Israel on this newsletter. I wish it was less predictable.
Great post, Peter. Thank you.