The Israelis think they are fighting the Palestinians and Hamas. Hamas thinks it is fighting the Israelis. They are not. They are fighting an idea, perceived whether true or false and given real effects by each of the combatants.
We think we fought the German, Italians and Japanese in WWI. We did not. We fought the ideologies that inspired them to arms. That is why we won. That is why we all won. While we momentarily raged into battle raining death upon our enemies, in the end, when the guns were silent, we set aside our hatred and instead of burying the living remnants of our enemies, we worked side by side with them to bury the remaining remnants of our mutual hatred.
In the "Book Thief" by Markus Zusack, the narrator, Death, poignantly informs that soldiers who run off into battle exuberantly think they are running at the enemy when in reality they are really running into the arms of Death. For killing an enemy does not destroy the idea that inspired its warriors. The idea lives on and the death it brings continues and reinforces the devotion of the survivors to pursue its same purpose. You see, wars fought against enemies are never won, they just temporarily create a momentary cessation of hostility until we get on with the business of genocide.
And an idea cannot be destroyed by killing those infected with it, for the very ideas, are endowed and infused with the power by the exponential numbers of its martyred servants. For truly we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we see the man as our enemy and not the ideas and ideology that are the engines of his actions. For these ideas corrupt all into believing them, and have forces beyond our own mortalities.
So kill the ideas and win the hearts and minds of all of your enemies. That is the way to peace. We can run towards our enemies, into the arms of death, and continue the bloody cycle and thereby become as bankrupt and naive as those we think we despise, or we can run toward the evil ideas that enslave them and find peace.
Today, we do not fight the people of Hamas, Isis, Russia or Al Quiada, we fight the evil ideas that embolden them and necessarily the leaders who use those ideas to foment fear in order to whip otherwise good people into a frenzy to unleash death and destruction.
Never forget that, so that instead of running into Death's arms we run toward the light, toward life, toward peace even though we may loose our lives to achieve it.
Comment 1: Jacob Dean - Loved the Book Thief, and while it is better to turn an enemy into a friend, there are times when war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer. Again I quote Netanyahu (and amen his words) "If the Palestinians laid down their arms there would be no war, if Israel laid down her arms there would be no Israel."
Only the aggressor can stop a war short of victory by one side or the other.
There are people who would call Israel the aggressor in this - those people would be wrong. Were there not floods of rockets flying into Israel, Israel would stay home. It is worth noting that if any nation on earth was launching rockets at us like it is in Israel I would be advocating whomever was doing so's total obliteration.
Pray for peace, pray for calm, because short of intervention from on high or an unbelievably unlikely outbreak of sanity amongst the crazies in Hama's, Israel will likely continue to do the right thing - defend her people from the crazy, evil, terrorists who put their headquarters in a hospital basement and use houses, schools, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals as armories and civilians as shields. Many an innocent will die, because sometimes war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer.
Comment 2: Loren M. Lambert - @Jacob, yet, I often hear Netanyahu and others talk about the Palestinians as if homicidal ideation was an immutable genetic component of their status, as if they were not human beings and often Israel's actions say this. Israel is not always the hapless victim it claims to be.
Loren M. Lambert © July 25, 2014
We think we fought the German, Italians and Japanese in WWI. We did not. We fought the ideologies that inspired them to arms. That is why we won. That is why we all won. While we momentarily raged into battle raining death upon our enemies, in the end, when the guns were silent, we set aside our hatred and instead of burying the living remnants of our enemies, we worked side by side with them to bury the remaining remnants of our mutual hatred.
In the "Book Thief" by Markus Zusack, the narrator, Death, poignantly informs that soldiers who run off into battle exuberantly think they are running at the enemy when in reality they are really running into the arms of Death. For killing an enemy does not destroy the idea that inspired its warriors. The idea lives on and the death it brings continues and reinforces the devotion of the survivors to pursue its same purpose. You see, wars fought against enemies are never won, they just temporarily create a momentary cessation of hostility until we get on with the business of genocide.
And an idea cannot be destroyed by killing those infected with it, for the very ideas, are endowed and infused with the power by the exponential numbers of its martyred servants. For truly we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we see the man as our enemy and not the ideas and ideology that are the engines of his actions. For these ideas corrupt all into believing them, and have forces beyond our own mortalities.
So kill the ideas and win the hearts and minds of all of your enemies. That is the way to peace. We can run towards our enemies, into the arms of death, and continue the bloody cycle and thereby become as bankrupt and naive as those we think we despise, or we can run toward the evil ideas that enslave them and find peace.
Today, we do not fight the people of Hamas, Isis, Russia or Al Quiada, we fight the evil ideas that embolden them and necessarily the leaders who use those ideas to foment fear in order to whip otherwise good people into a frenzy to unleash death and destruction.
Never forget that, so that instead of running into Death's arms we run toward the light, toward life, toward peace even though we may loose our lives to achieve it.
Comment 1: Jacob Dean - Loved the Book Thief, and while it is better to turn an enemy into a friend, there are times when war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer. Again I quote Netanyahu (and amen his words) "If the Palestinians laid down their arms there would be no war, if Israel laid down her arms there would be no Israel."
Only the aggressor can stop a war short of victory by one side or the other.
There are people who would call Israel the aggressor in this - those people would be wrong. Were there not floods of rockets flying into Israel, Israel would stay home. It is worth noting that if any nation on earth was launching rockets at us like it is in Israel I would be advocating whomever was doing so's total obliteration.
Pray for peace, pray for calm, because short of intervention from on high or an unbelievably unlikely outbreak of sanity amongst the crazies in Hama's, Israel will likely continue to do the right thing - defend her people from the crazy, evil, terrorists who put their headquarters in a hospital basement and use houses, schools, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals as armories and civilians as shields. Many an innocent will die, because sometimes war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer.
Comment 2: Loren M. Lambert - @Jacob, yet, I often hear Netanyahu and others talk about the Palestinians as if homicidal ideation was an immutable genetic component of their status, as if they were not human beings and often Israel's actions say this. Israel is not always the hapless victim it claims to be.
Loren M. Lambert © July 25, 2014
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