This is excellent. David Bedrick has masterfully, wisely, and compassionately connected different fragments of an essential much, much larger picture. My heart is deeply touched by the depth and essence of what David speaks to here. His voice and others like his are so vital and so needed. May we listen to, hear, absorb, and be awakened and transformed by the wisdom-keepers, truth-tellers, and loving, souls in our midst. Deepest gratitude, respect, and love to David Bedrick and to each of us who are working together to create a more conscious, trauma-informed, compassionate and caring world. Bless us all! 🙏 Molly
Children salvage toys from their home at Gaza City's Al-Jawhara Tower, which was heavily damaged in Israeli airstrikes. Anas Baba/AFP/Getty Images
Israel, Palestine: Abuse, Understanding, and Dialoguing
Dear Friends: This is the longest post I have ever written here on facebook. I simply could not separate the issues in a way that allowed me to make several posts.
I have cared for my feelings, my thoughts and my friendships in writing this. I have written many times before, speaking out against the abuse of the Palestinian people.
I know it may take a few minutes or so to consider what you are about to read. However, I ask you to go slow, feel and think, and if you comment, please keep the dialogue respectful and heart-full (which does not mean to put away your fire and passion). I will do my best, over the day, to hold the dialogue, knowing that I am not only a neutral observer (and that I have a full day of counseling ahead of me).
I've been meditating on the situation and dynamics in the Middle East, between Israelis and Palestinians. I have identified 5 (for now) variables that I want to address, but first I must make my identity clear: I am a Jewish White male whose is a citizen of the United States.
1. Power and abuse: I define abuse in a particular way: it means when one person, group or nation assaults or injures another and the other can’t adequately defend themselves. Thus, for me, power differences are critical to my ethical vision.
This does not mean that a less powerful person or group can’t assault or injure another of greater power. However, when this happens, “abuse” does not occur. For me, when abuse arises, an ethical imperative comes with it – to not only bear witness to the greater injury, but also the background power difference.
In this case, I view Israelis as getting injured, but not abused. Saying both nations are at fault, is inadequate.
Thus, as a Jew, as a White male from the U.S, I say clearly that Israel has been and is abusing her power and creating a vaster amount of death, injury and human suffering, not only at more overt escalations, as we have recently seen, but across time via the oppression, dislocation, impoverishment, killing and theft of the Palestinian people.
2. If one is an outsider, not a Palestinian or Israeli, then it may be impossible to bring the deep healing that is needed without caring for both sides.
That means, for me, given my critique above about Israeli relative power and abuse, I want to bring forward my felt sense of the trauma, pain and suffering of the Jewish people and the role that plays in understanding (not agreeing with) Israel’s use and abuse of her power.
The Jewish people have a history of great abuse and trauma - a trauma that I readily admit lives in me.
There is also a rise of anti-Semitism around the globe, especially in the United States, where there were over 190 violent attacks against Jews in the last few weeks and over 15,000 tweets suggesting that “Hitler was right.”
It is imperative, if we are going to help bring justice to the Palestinians and Israelis, and greater peace to the region, that we deepen the understanding that the Jewish felt sense for a need for safety, including and projected upon a Jewish State - the state of Israel, arises, in part, because of global Jewish hatred.
In other words, as Jews feel less safe in the world, we are more likely to look to, and/or project upon, a protected, fortified, and militarized place in the world. In that way, standing against anti-Semitism helps bring greater justice and peace to the Middle East.
Thus, let me say, and request, that if and when you offer critique of Jews or Israel, please also keep in your heart and mind the great suffering perpetrated by historical and current global Jewish hatred which plays a crucial role in creating the fire that burns in the Middle East.
It also means placing yourself, if you are not Palestinian or Jewish, in the role of someone who can make a difference by understanding both the Palestinian and Jewish predicament, and NOT in the role of someone who sees themselves as a neutral and objective outside observer and critic.
It means deeply feeling for the history of violence against the Palestinian people over time. It means understanding the role the U.S. plays to facilitate a vast power difference by resourcing Israeli military might.
It means understanding the Christian right in the U.S. and their twisted notions, leading them to seemingly “support” Israel and defame Palestinians, while fomenting Christian supremacy and Jewish hatred at the same time.
It means, perhaps most powerfully, to keep an eye on the collective and historical trauma of the peoples who are in conflict, both Jews and Palestinians, as you bear witness.
These dynamics are critical to having a whole view of the situation - it is not just Palestine and Israel that deserve our focus and critique, accountability and complicity are all around us (and inside of us).
In essence, I am saying that in order to create deep and sustainable conflict resolution to the region, and to ourselves and our relationships, at least some of us need to be able to empathize with both sides.
Again, that does not mean to fail to notice abuse and the greater injury to the Palestinian people; it means to have one eye on the larger history and peoples in the conflict.
Failing to be able to hold this deeper and more whole understanding, in my view, often adds fuel to the fire in the Middle East.
3. Tied to this dynamic is the fact that many who critique Israel or Palestine fail to mention how their own history, nation or religion is, and has been, complicit in Jewish or Palestinian suffering.
For example, a person from the U.S. who criticizes Israelis or Palestinians, without noting that the U.S. has played a part in Jewish suffering from the Holocaust and beyond, as well as plays a part in Palestinian suffering in her military support of Israel, does not enter the conflict with ‘clean hands’ – meaning they are not neutral observers.
If a person from the U.S. is going to critique other nation states, then that person must identify as a person from the U.S, their nation state – they cannot act simply as a neutral unbiased observer.
And if a person has a Christian background (for example, aligns themselves with Evangelicals or the Catholic Church, or the Protestant Church) they must also note how that background is part of the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, currently and historically.
Essentially, critiquing without identifying one’s role, country, or religion, even if one doesn’t agree with those policies, does not only fail to bring a sustainable healing attention, but unconsciously fuels the fire. On a psychological level, that means they are likely to be having a strong opinion without taking note of their own projections.
4. Directly following from the point above, it is clear to me that every dialogue about this issue reproduces the outer global dynamics in the personal relationships we are co-creating while in dialogue.
To create a healing dialogue, we need to be able to think about the global situation as well as the personal relationships we are having with those we are in dialogue with.
If we can’t attend to the personal relationships we are in, we will likely reproduce some of the war-like dynamics of injury, abuse, and blindness to the trauma that we all have suffered.
My healing question is this: Can we walk away from conversations about the Middle East with a deeper sense of relationship, understanding, empathy, even intimacy with those we are in dialogue with?
Don't get me wrong, I do not mean deepening our relationship by accommodating or suppressing our fire or strong opinions. That will never be sustainable. Nor must all listen or be open to positions that injure them - some people need to be one-sided for their voice, their power, their life.
But we all can be more mindful of power dynamics that are abusive. Perhaps we all know what it is like to be beaten down and unseen; perhaps we all know what it is like to rise out of oppression and struggle to find our power even while misusing it; perhaps many of us have unresolved trauma living in our bodies, our souls, our relationships - trauma that leaks out unconsciously creating violence to our bodies, lives, and communities. I implore all who enter these dialogues to bring forth this kind of empathy and self-awareness. I believe this will create more healing dialogues and deeper relationships. I also believe that deepening our relationships with each other is our only real hope for a sustainable resolution to the wider global conflict.
5. The Use of Links: Because I believe that our conflicts ‘about’ the conflict in the Middle East (and other regions) are always relational, I urge people not to use links to other sources while in the heat of conflict. Links to information can be very useful at certain moments, especially for those of us who love to learn.. But when we are in the midst of conflict with each other, citing the words or ideas of people who are not present in the conflict, often makes resolution and understanding harder. In effect, we cannot debate with a person who is not present.
Thank you for your ears, your hearts, your minds, and your care for our relationship as well as your relationship with others here.
— David Bedrick
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