There is a big problem right now in the Middle East and it is not just that Israelis and Palestinians are pummelling each other in a brutal mayhem. The fundamental problem is that both sides are de-humanizing each other. They are both to blame. As Hussein Ibish, an Arab Middle East scholar, said on CBS’s Sunday Morning:
“Nothing can excuse the terrorist rampage committed by Hamas. They murdered hundreds of Israelis and made no preparations for the 2 million people of Gaza to survive the inevitable retaliation. Israel is responsible for avoidable civilian deaths and for cutting off all basic necessities for the Gaza Palestinians now under collective attack. Civilian deaths could easily rise into the tens of thousands. How did it come to this?
The history is long a disputed. Yet today a structurally unsustainable inherently explosive situation prevails. In the territories controlled by Israel since 1967 there are roughly equal numbers of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Muslims and Christians. All 7 million Jewish Israelis have citizenship and full human and legal rights as do the 1 million Palestinians citizens of Israel. But the 5 million Palestinians under occupation don’t.
In a world made up of states and their citizens the stateless Palestinians are unique because they have no citizenship in Israel and yet, no state of their own. The occupation forces Israelis and Palestinians into a toxic relationship of dominance and subordination. This unnatural relationship insures periodic outbreaks of atrocious violence.
The conflict involves individual and group malice on both sides. But structures of violence are hard-wired into any relationship defined by the control of one people by another in a contest for land and power. Israelis and Palestinians must stop dehumanizing each other.
Hams killed Israelis indiscriminately. Israel says it is confronting “human animals” in Gaza. People treated like animals sometimes act like animals. It’s a self-reinforcing shared pathology. Israelis and Palestinians must rehumanize each other and eventually cooperate in replacing the violent occupation and resistance with genuine coexistence. That can only be sustained between equals. Humans who respect each other’s full humanity recognizing that we are all no better and no worse than each other.”
The Israelis and Palestinians can continue their current relationship. Both have good reasons to do that, but then both parties must recognize that continuing in the way they are doing will ensure nothing better will happen. By now it is obvious to everyone that neither side will beat the other into submission. That status quo will ensure endless pain. Then both sides will be deciding that they want the killing of women, children, the elderly, and civilians to continue.
But both sides must realize there is a better way.