Prisoners of History

I remember when I was in high school (pretty good long term memory for an old guy, hey) my history teacher saying “those that don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it”. This was an effort on her part to get someone who was mostly interested in math and science to show more interest in history. As I was preparing for our now canceled trip to North Korea, I was reading about the history of the relationship between North and South Korea and with the U.S. , Japan and China and how it informs what is going on today in that part of the world. In many ways all of the players know the history and are prisoners of it. Maybe, because they understand it, they are doomed to repeat it. The Koreans know exactly what happened with the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea and this memory shapes the relationship between them and Japan in the modern era. North and South Korea have more in common with each other in this regard than they do with Japan. North Koreans can remember the history of the U.S. strategic bombing and destruction of their cities during the Korean War. This memory shapes their feelings toward the perceived threat that the U.S. presents and tends to drive their need for a strategic defense. The effect of remembered history on current policy is especially important in North Korea which is the most closed society in the world. There is no internet, radio and TV are controlled and no one can talk to foreigners. The history is, therefore, what the government makes it. There are many other examples of remembered history driving current attitudes and policies. As one who grew up in the eastern U.S., the history that I learned was taught from a European colonial prospective. When I arrived in the west, I realized that U.S. history as understood by Mexican Americans in New Mexico and Native American Indians gave them a completely different perspective on the moral values and decency of the government in Washington D.C. Kenneth Pollack, in his book “The Persian Puzzle” about modern Iran states that “Iranians can remember exactly why they should hate the U.S. for prior slights, both real and perceived. Americans, on the other hand, are serial amnesiacs. We know that we should hate someone, we just can’t remember why”. Perhaps this is because, as my son said after his return from a tour of duty with the Air Force in Aviano, Italy – “Dad, I realized that American history is an oxymoron.” Other cultures and countries have much more history and much longer memories. The Serbian-Kosovo conflict of the 1990’s was driven, in many ways by a battle between the Serbs and the Ottomans 600 years ago. Muslims remembered 12th century Christian invasions when George Bush declared a “Crusade” against terrorism after 9/11. Even if we remember history, the challenge is to understand it’s lessons properly. The Israelis remembered their success in driving the PLO out of Lebanon in 1982 and thought that this history applied to the current effort to drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon. They neglected to consider that in 1982 that they had the support of Shias in southern Lebanon who had been oppressed and tormented by the Palestinians. Hezbollah, supported and embedded in Shia culture, is a much different enemy and, thus, the current disastrous conflict. Our challenge, therefore, is to not only remember history, but to understand its lessons in a way that we are not doomed to repeat it even if we remember it.

Who won?

As the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has reached a stalemated cease fire everyone seems to be claiming victory. George Bush, Ehud Olmert, Hassan Nasrallah and Prime Minister Ahmadinejad of Iran have all announced that their side has emerged victorious in the military conflict. It seems to me that there can be no victors in a conflict where over 1000 innocent civilians have perished to reestablish in the words of Condi Rice the “status quo ante”. You might be able to argue that Hezbollah won because they didn’t lose and Israel lost because they didn’t win, but that is a pretty pyrrhic victory. It is, however, pretty clear who is winning the political battle. Hezbollah and Iran have emerged as the clear victors on the political front. While the west has dithered and the Lebanese government has talked, Hezbollah, with a blank check from Iran, is moving rapidly and efficiently to compensate people who have lost their homes to the Israeli bombardment with bundles of cash and promises to rebuild their homes. (Perhaps we should hire them to help with the response to the next major hurricane.) Hezbollah, Iran and the Syrians have established themselves as major players in the post conflict Middle East. Israel’s stated objective in the war was eliminate Hezbollah south of the Litna river and to destroy their arsenal and to prevent their rearming by Syria – mission impossible. Trying to drive Hezbollah out will not succeed has long as Lebanese Shia come back. It is like New York trying to drive Republicans out of Idaho. As soon as the people come back the Republicans come back. Hezbollah’s fighters are primarily reservists who keep their weapons in their closet and under their beds. When they are needed, they pick up their weapons and go fight. (To see an interview with one of these guys click here.) The long porous border between Syria and Lebanon makes any attempt to prevent rearmament a hopeless cause. The only way to accomplish the objectives is to talk to Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Although the peace oriented left in Israel has lost its voice, (much as it has in the U.S.) the realists on the Israeli political scene are beginning to examine the concept of negotiations with Syria and Iran. Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defense Minister, has called for negotiations with Syria. (He was immediately attacked by members of his own party.) Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has appointed a “project manager” for possible negotiations with Syria. There certainly are those in Israel who are clamoring for another war with Lebanon and the current Israeli government will probably be short lived, but one hopes that reason will prevail. (To see the hawk point of view click here) Any negotiations with Syria will bring the Golan Heights into play. The Golan Heights is the strategic high ground in the Galilee. It is understandable why Israel would only agree to relinquish it as part of a firm peace agreement with Syria. Not a bad outcome. Peace agreements with Jordan and Israel have remained stable for a number of years. They may not like each other, but they live alongside each other. Condi Rice said that this conflict is “the birth pangs of a new Middle East”. It might not be the new Middle East that she envisioned and the birth did not need to be as painful, but she may have been right for the wrong reasons.

Message from the Galilee

I recently received a communication from my friend Abuna Elias Chacour, Bishop of the Melkite Catholic Church in the Middle East. I have been concerned about him and his community as his school and offices are in Ibillin in the northern Galilee, an area that has seen a great many rocket attacks during the current conflict. His letter provides a wonderful perspective on peace at a time when everyone else is talking about war. It is too bad that the governmental leaders involved don't have this prospective. As Abba Eban, former Israeli diplomat once said "People and governments usually do the wise thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities"


Dear Beloved Friends,

We used to write newsletters about hope and development but this time the circumstances have changed drastically. We used to think that Galilee was very safe, even the safest in the Middle East. This is true with regards to the past. Presently for the past ten days we have the experience that we live and survive. It is because of mere luck nobody is any more safe from the rockets which rain everyday on the city of Haifa, they also fell in Nazareth, Akko, Nahariyah and almost all the cities, villages and settlements in the Galilee region. These rockets fall indiscriminately on anyone who happens to be at the place of their falling. Exactly as on the other side in Lebanon, no one is protected.

We find ourselves between the fires of hatred on both sides: the occupation and resistance. Both use the languages of hate and revenge and uncontrolled threats. They use the language of total destruction of the enemy. The result is the systematic destruction of the civil infrastructure of Lebanon with thousands of people sacrificed in an absurd way. On the other side equally absurd but a smaller destruction inside Israel and destabilization of everything in the country, add to that the tragedy and free hand to destroy whatever exists in Gaza and the West Bank. It is billions of dollars that have been wasted on the altar of war, pride and arrogance. All sides are angry, all sides are bitter, every side has its own claims, everyone is repeating with modern dimension the first crime we witness in the Bible. One brother was angry. He called his brother outside the house and killed him thinking that his anger will be eased. What happened is that the earth saturated with Abel's blood was crying to God for vengeance while God was asking, "Where is your brother? What have you done to your brother?" The same answer comes out, a denial of responsibility. At the same time a justification of the violence of killing. Today the same situation in their anger the political leaders fearing for their pride, bring out their armies and the machines of destruction, started this time also in Galilee. No one is sheltered; the first rocket fell short 200 meters away from where I was while traveling to Haifa.

Our message to you is a distressed one. Many lives have been lost, many properties destroyed, and many hopes shattered. Again, the Arab community in Galilee, and very specially the Christian community on the border with Lebanon, finds itself with no jobs, no livelihood and no shelter, unlike the neighboring Jewish settlements. Many among our community members were directly hit. Mainly in the villages of: Jish, Rama, Eilaboun, Fasuta, Miilya and Tarsheeha. Besides the several rockets that hit the heart of Nazareth and Haifa not to exclude Ibillin. Thanks be to God, that the students are at home on their summer holidays.

The reason for this conflagration is the conflict between the Lebanese resistant movement, the Hezbollah, and the Israeli government. Israel withdrew from South Lebanon keeping a piece of territory pretended by Israel, being Syrian territory but for Lebanon and Syria it is Lebanese territory. One more reason is the hundreds of Lebanese prisoners inside the Israeli jails. No way to get them free. Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers hoping to negotiate and exchange of prisoners but the pride of Israel on one side and the stereotyped image of Hezbollah as being a terrorist movement, blinded the authorities from negotiating. Some say there was a pre-set agenda to find an excuse to invade Lebanon and destroy all the Hezbollah people. It appears that the Israelis were badly informed and the Hezbollah is stronger than what they thought and it enjoys the sympathy of the major part of the Lebanese population and the Arab Moslems who they have trained in guerrilla warfare and it seems that Israel has been humiliated since its creation. Instead of negotiating they used all the weapons they received from oversees to destroy and create havoc in Lebanon. The outcome is contrary to what they expected. The Lebanese population is more determined to help the resistance, the re-destruction of Beirut is a stronger rebirth of violence. Would it not have been better than an instantaneous reaction to wait some time, negotiate the liberation of the Israeli soldiers and save the population on both sides from that immense trouble and widespread destruction, and from the overwhelming fear and the immense economic waste?

We have now more reasons as Christians to voice out loud our mind and call for moderation and appeal to all sides to give up weapons and start negotiating. We feel it is our prime responsibility to get away from the pre-historic attitude and from awkward beliefs, "Tooth for tooth and eye for eye." In fact no one has anymore teeth to exchange or eyes to offer, we have no more teeth. We are blinded because we got deaf from the noise of explosions on both sides. No one hears anymore the whispers of children, frightened, scared to death before they are massacred!

Indeed we are not afraid for our lives, because sooner or later our lives will come to an end. We are rather concerned for our children and grandchildren who deserve life whether they are Jewish, Palestinians or Lebanese. Would they come to terms with military opinions and practice God's commandments or, God forbid, will they implement the Roman saying: "Man to Man is a Wolf". This is not what Christ lived for and taught his disciples. This is not what he believed and this is far from what he invited us to do, " Love your enemy, bless those who curse you and do not return evil for evil but good for evil.”

Allow me to thank you for your concern, your prayers and those who send us some money to help affected families. Your friendship makes a difference in our life and you continue giving us hope that there is so much goodness in human beings. Please keep in touch and be sure we shall be representing you in the building of justice and integrity with the hope to obtain peace and security for all sides here in the Middle East.

Be assured bombs shall stop, jet fighters shall be crippled. Children shall be able to play once again on the streets of our villages; they shall go to school to learn that "Together and only together they are stronger than the storm".

Yours sincerely with tears and hope,
Abuna Elias Chacour† Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee

President
Mar Elias Educational Institutions

Acting like children

As I look at the ongoing 50 year conflict in the Middle East I can’t help but feel that the players are acting like a bunch of children. The “he hit me first” rhetoric that we hear so often reminds me of what I heard from my own children as they went through the sibling rivalry phase, but it didn’t take them fifty years to get over it. (fortunately) I am also, however, reminded that in one of my favorite bible verses in the Gospel known to the church as Mark, the Gospel writer has Jesus say “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it”. For me the writer is saying unless we have the open, accepting attitude of a little child we will not find the kingdom in our lives. In the words of the musical South Pacific “you have to be taught to hate and to fear”. That is why I was disturbed to see this picture of Israeli school children writing messages on artillery shells before they were fired into Lebanon which appeared last week in the Israeli English language paper Haaretz. This picture, along with many other graphic pictures from the conflict, has flashed around the Arab world on the internet. (If you are interested in what the Arab world is seeing, click here. Be aware that this is not the sanitized version of war that we get in U.S. on CNN and MSNBC. Parental guidance suggested.) The subject of the impact of this seemingly endless conflict on children was explored by the James Miller documentary Death in Gaza. We only see the Palestinian side as Miller was killed by Israeli soldiers before he could go to Israel to film the Israeli side of the conflict. In the film two young boys show how to make hand grenades from a cocktail of household chemicals and Coca Cola cans. They describe in detail how they had to score the can with a drill so that the explosion will create shrapnel which will be more effective in killing and maiming the targets. Another documentary film on the conflict, Jenin Jenin, describes the Israeli invasion of Jenin during the second intifada. In the film we meet a young girl, probably not much older than twelve, who is very attractive, very bright, very articulate and very angry. I remember thinking as I watched the film that the Israelis should probably be very afraid of her. These are the children who will grow up to be leaders of their societies. In the words of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah “a little child shall lead them”. The question is, where will they lead?.


Israel
Palestine
Middle East