Working for Peace
Personally and publicly
I’m often a little anxious before sending out a newsletter, but this one is prompting more fear than I’ve ever experienced before. I’m afraid of hurting someone. I’m afraid of prompting a fight because I know that so many of us are hurting right now.
Know that if you feel like I’ve done something wrong you can always tell me. If someone in the comments upsets you, you can tell them as well. But, please, lets all be kind to each other. Thanks.
It’s such a heavy time, friends. Like many of you I expect, a lot of my mental space is consumed with thoughts of war and grief these days, even as I do my job, talk to my kids, and clean my house. It’s exhausting, this constant churning of questions and feelings. I push them to the back and then they jump to the front, back to front, back to front all day long.
As neither a Jew nor a Palestinian, with no direct ties to the Middle East, I have been struggling to wrap my head around what is happening in Gaza and Israel and what to do in this moment. The message is loud that this conflict is too old and complicated to make any sense of; it discourages engagement by those of us not directly affected. But turning away, as if it all has nothing to do with me, goes against everything I believe about our essential connection as human beings.
I was raised with the call to remove within myself and the world “the cause and occasion for all war”. What does that mean in this moment? For me, it means I have both personal and public work to do. Personally, I’ve been sitting with the ways and times I have excused or even applauded the use of violence when confronted with it, both historically and contemporarily.
Thinking about my response to slave uprisings, like that led by Nat Turner in 1831 I have to admit that reading of the brutal deaths of slave owners and their families, including children and infants, elicited no sympathy from me. My response was simply, What did they expect?
Given my opposition to the Occupation (which isn’t slavery, but has functionally turned Gaza into an open air prison), am I being similarly dismissive of the pain and grief of Israelis and Jews now? Can I hold my convictions and retain my empathy?
Thinking about my work for the Cuban solidarity movement years ago, I have to confront my own prior support for a government that came to power through violence, regardless of their support for racial and gender justice. Does that make my commitment to pacifism and my calls for peace now suspect? Is my instinct to be humble in the face of what oppressed populations do to get themselves free appropriate or is it a cop-out?
Does injustice justify slaughter? Is there such a thing as a just killing?
Looking around me at how people are talking and writing about this conflict now, I have to ask myself, am I participating in or condoning dehumanization through the language I use or refuse to interrupt because to wade in to emotionally volatile conversations feels intimidating? How many steps is it from language like “barbarians”, “savages”, and “infidels” to excusing brutality?
I don’t have hard and fast answers to any of these questions. I’m not sure hard and fast answers serve this moment. Instead, sitting with the discomfort I feel confronting my own complicity in violence and dehumanization motivates me to stay present with everyone involved in this conflict now, directly and indirectly. To witness their pain and grief and not turn away, to keep my heart open to everyone, and to use that connection to fuel my work for peace.
Below are some links to organizations that are working for peace in Israel and Gaza. Offering resources to those who are putting themselves in harm’s way to call for peace and care for those affected is something we can do to meet this moment.
Middle East Children’s Alliance
If you have other organizations working for peace in the Middle East that you support, please link to them in the comments.
Finally, here are some of the things I’ve been reading and listening to in recent days to help me navigate this moment:
What it takes to choose life over revenge
An Evolving Moral High Ground in the Israel-Gaza War
Ceasefire (podcast)
To End Conflict, We Must Transform It (podcast and transcript)
Again, if you have articles, podcasts, or newsletters that are helping you navigate this moment, please link to them in the comments.
In that final podcast linked above, Tim Phillips, head of Beyond Conflict, related a message we would all be best served to remember. He ascribed it to Nelson Mandela, who offered it to other world leaders involved in transforming seemingly intractable conflicts:
Be tough on structures, be tough on institutions, but don't be tough on each other.
In case it’s unclear from everything I’ve said up to this point, my opposition to the policies of the current Israeli government is not an opposition to safety for Jews in Israel and everywhere. The attack by Hamas on October 7 was horrific and wrong, as is the bombing of Gaza. The militarized tribalism being perpetrated by extremists on both sides is not keeping anyone safe and will never lead to peace, which all Israelis and Palestinians deserve.
My heart belongs to all of those being brutalized by this conflict, and all of those working to transform it systemically and permanently. I believe this is possible.
XO, Asha
I have read this piece through several times, just taking it in. I haven’t engaged much in any public forum about this because most online public forums (not referring to this newsletter comments section) are idiotic, un-nuanced, dangerous, frightening, unkind and infuriating. But I did want to come on here to say that I appreciate your willingness to ask hard questions of all kinds and to ask what it means to stand for peace in the face of horrific violence, especially when that violence is both against one’s own people and also perpetrated by one’s own people. This comment space is too small for to write everything I am thinking/feeling as an American Jew, but suffice it to say that I am grappling with the same questions and also struggling with how to engage with my own people about this issue, as I cry for the victims in Israel (especially the children, I come unglued every time I think of them), feel immense sorrow and anger at the Israeli government’s response, feel immense sorrow and anger at the uptick in the US of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim words and actions, and feel immense sorrow and anger at those individuals and governments in the Middle East who not only want to eliminate Jews but who also don’t really seem to want to help the Palestinians directly either (hello, Egypt, among others?). I am deeply sad and deeply scared and also trying hard to be with all of the depth of questioning and what it means to have, as much as possible, a willingness to take a position that may put me at odds with so many of my own and so many others.
Asha, I so appreciate this. As you’ve said, you’re not ‘directly affected’ but I am so glad you’ve resisted the urge to turn away. The people of Gaza need us now as they try to fight the genocide that is being perpetrated against them. Every voice that speaks is another voice of conscience. 🙏🏽🙏🏽