The Isreal – Hammas conflict reminds me a lot of what you read in the history books about the Indian removal and creation of the Indian reservations in America. White European settlers with their early industrial revolution produced superior weapons that rolled over the unfamiliar countryside and took the land long settled by the red men – the Native Americans and forced them onto undesirable lands, the reservations. The red men fought back bravely with what they had, occasionally uprising and engaging in terrorism against the white men, but ultimately because of disease and the overwhelming power of the American colonists ultimately ended up signing away their rights and giving up much land that they had once farmed, hunted and lived on.

Isreal has long had a similar relationship with the Palestinian people. Many Isrealies are driven for a passion to recover their religious homeland, an ideology of Zionism similar to that of the American settlers and manifest destiny. Both are an ideology of hubris, a grandeous delusion built on superior military force. Religious ideology – fundamentalism in the form of the Jewish or Muslim faith – is fine but one’s religion should be private moral code not an excuse to bully or remove the Palestinian people from their homeland.

Like the white men taking over the red man’s land when a group has no practical way to lawfully to fight back, their option really is only to engage in the unconventional war tactics – namely terrorism and war crimes against civilians. As they said about the Viet Cong in the United States, “those commies never fight fair.” Isreal is responding with their own series of war crimes, starving Palestinian civilians from food, energy and water. Not unlike how the United States engaged in war crimes both against the red men throughout history, or more recently in Laos and Cambodia.

If there was adults in the room known as the globe, both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders would be rounded up and tried for war crimes. Bombing and kidnapping Israeli citizens who aren’t leaders or military people is disgusting and immoral. But likewise imprisoning Palestinians in their communities, cutting them off from food, water and energy – while bombing their towns is morally repugent too. Killing the opposing side is not the solution. Compromise and peace is.

First we need peace. Stop bombing and bullying both the Isrealis and the Palestinians. Then we need to hold leaders on both sides accountable for terrorism and war crimes. Not civilians even if they are sympathic towards the fighters. But actual leaders. Then we need to find a two state solution where both the Isrealis and Palestinians are free to create their own forms of government that uphold their own values that allow for the free movement of people and goods. There needs to be borders assertian that everyone agrees upon, with both sides losing a bit. We need democracy in both the Israeli and Palestinian states.

But most of all we need peace. 🇮🇱 ✌️ 🇵🇼