A Plague on Both Your Houses

I've been reluctant to weigh in on the subject of the horrible situation in the Middle East because no matter what I say, somebody is going to be enraged and accuse me of ignorantly and unfairly supporting one side or the other. So let me be clear ... in the words of the dying Mercutio in Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet," 

"A plague on both your houses."

Mercutio, you will recall (if you went to school in a time when the classics were part of your education), was what we would today call collateral damage in the blood feud between the warring Capulet and  Montague families. Who was right and who was wrong in the feud didn't matter to poor Mercutio - he was just as pointlessly dead.

And so it is with the endless, bloody feud in the Middle East between Muslims and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis. Each side claims to be in the right, and to have primacy of ownership of what we laughingly call "The Holy Land." Each religion and ethnic group claims exclusive ownership of the land and is willing to murderously enforce its claim against the others.

Religion is at the heart of this terrible and bloody morass, which has been aided and abetted by the political interests of greater and lesser powers within and outside the area ... you may wish to go back and study things like the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandates, and the 1947 UN partition of Palestine. You may also want to read the masterful nonfiction book A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, by David Fromkin, for an excellent summary of the great power machinations which laid the political groundwork for our ghastly current situation.

Who is in the right, here? In my opinion, which counts for nothing, nobody.

I have well-educated and politically savvy friends and colleagues, both Jews and Arabs, whose opinions I generally respect, but who go wild with rage against the other side over the current situation in Gaza. Jews point (with obvious good reason) to the horrific slaughter visited on Israeli citizens and others in the brutal Hamas attack on October 6th. Palestinians point (with good reasons of their own) to the occupation of the West Bank and the oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians who live there*. Everybody hates everybody else and everybody blames the other side for the situation. Israelis are motivated to overwhelmingly powerful retaliation against their enemies by the lasting memory of the Holocaust. Palestinians are motivated to violent retaliation against Israelis by the lasting memory of the nakba ("catastrophe") of the creation of Israel and the partition of Palestine. Both Israel and Hamas, in different guises, aim for the ethnic cleansing of the region. 

A plague on both your houses.

Positions in this country have become so polarized and outraged over the situation that even people who should know better insist they will never vote again for President Biden, or will sit out the coming election ... utterly ignoring the obvious social, political, economic, and justice catastrophe - for the nation and the world - of a potential second presidency for Der Furor**. No matter if you are Jew or Muslim, Palestinian or Israeli, Republican or Democrat, if you think things will improve for you if Der Furor returns, you deserve what you get. Sadly, the rest of us will have to suffer along with you.

You can support Israel and still oppose the brutal devastation of Gaza and the deaths of thousands of already-suffering Palestinians. You can support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and still oppose the blind hatred and violence of Hamas. There are no clean hands, here, and it's good to acknowledge the fact.

In summary,

A plague on both your houses.

I'm through with all of you.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* The part of the Balfour Declaration which reads, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" has long since been conveniently forgotten.

** Or even a lesser GOP demagogue.