What comes first to mind in any discussion of wars it seems, is the preference for numbers in critics' arguments. With the current catastrophe in the mideast, it's as if everything must be reduced to the positioning of six million Jews against whatever number of deaths is presented by an opposition.
I regret that I can't always state an exact number of fatalities in a given conflict zone, sometimes because that number is increasing even while I sip coffee safe at home. But I know that the parents of a dead child, whether the death occurred in the chambers of Dachau of 1943 or the bomb crater of a school in 2026 Gaza or Iran, would feel the same anguish.
Coming a close second will be the appeal to lived experience as some perverse validation for murder.
Saying, "You haven't been there and talked to real Israelis, (substitute Sudanese, Iranians, child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army - whoever) and so you can't pass judgement on their actions" seems on the face of it to have genuine import. The relevance disappears though when you pan out from that suggestion of a folksy connection to the broader context and the forces that operate in that larger domain.
Here's what I mean, and I take the example from an acknowledged world-class debater, Mehdi Hasan. In his book, How to Win Every Argument, which BTW, is filled with the kind of straightforward advice you would give to any novice debater such as "Know what you're talking about" and "Do your research" (and I could have saved myself some money), he gives this example:
In the 1988 presidential debate between Michael Dukakis and George Bush, CNN moderator Bernard Shaw poses the question, first to Dukakis, "If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favour an irrevocable death penalty?" Dukakis gave a long dissertation on crime statistics and law enforcement and lost the debate and his election chances. Bush's response is recorded somewhere, but who cares? What would you have said?
My immediate response? I'd kill the sonovavitch with my bare hands. You touch my family; I'm at your throat. Die, you bastard!
Deep breath.
And that's why we have laws - to constrain those emotions to serve our better natures. Of course, I'd react to destroy anyone who hurt my loved ones, but the laws we've created over centuries of gradually moving humankind to become civilized, to stop the ancient and barbaric "eye-for-an-eye" notion - those laws would intervene between my lust for revenge and any hope for anyone's redemption.
One of my "counsellors" if you will, was Viktor Frankel of whom I found this story and related it at the funeral of a young student of mine who had been killed on the street by a gang.
In Viktor Frankel's autobiographical Man's Search for Meaning I found:
"Since Auschwitz, we know what human beings are capable of, and since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake."
Of Frankel the story is told that, released from Auschwitz and walking by a field of grain, he cautioned a friend not to step on the stalks of wheat. "Why do you care about the wheat after what they have done to us? We have surely earned the right to walk freely.
"None of us have the right to trample the wheat," was Frankel's response.
And no one, even after the deaths of six million people whom they may claim as their kinfolk, has the right to stamp out the lives of others, be they children or adults. Our convention of international law says so. Our International Courts of Justice pass judgement on those who disregard those laws. And our fellow citizens must remind the politicians governing their affairs to refuse support for industries over which they have authority that would profit from dealing with violators of those laws.
Chris told me once about the "payback law" (I think was the term) in the rural areas of Papua New Guinea in which he worked. It would be a fine barbaric counterpoint to our civilized society's attempts at rehabilitation or even to the "healing circles" of our Indigenous populations in their pursuit of restorative justice.
So, no, the lived experience of people in other nations is what it is and it's true that I can never fully experience their lives. Neither can you, especially as a tourist. Even as a kibbutzim, you might have varying opinions on the legitimacy of your host country's policies. That's why young Israelis are refusing to answer their military call-ups and going to jail rather than serve what they see as a corrupt government.
What comes next as a response to criticism of Israel's genocide (and it is so a genocide and enough reputable people say that it's a genocide beyond debate and you do your own research on it) is that "in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Jews were also uprooted from their homes in Arab countries and forced to move to the new nation of Israel, so stop it already with sympathy for the 'nakba' business."
Well, it sounds reasonable - not civilized, but reasonable in a ghastly sort of way. I counted. Here's what I found.
In 1947 and 48, Eygypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria expelled or allowed to leave, Jewish citizens, and along with the voluntary but often uncompensated emigrants these people travelled to Israel, the new "homeland for the Jewish nation". Some also went to France, the UK and USA and the totals recorded varied depending on who did the totalling.
In Israel, these new arrivals were not left to survive as best they could in tent cities, but granted land and settlement assistance. We do the same today in Canada for families who survive a winter crossing from New York State claiming asylum. Most European countries also do the same, and they really strain their resources to take in so many refugees from war zones at their borders. Many of those refugees don't survive. Remember the photograph of the body of the child taken up on that beach in Italy?
from Middle East Eye, an article by Joseph Massad on Dec 15, 2020.
Contrary to Israeli propaganda that there was a population swap, it is notable that while European and Arab Jews who emigrated to Israel were given the stolen land and properties of expelled Palestinians free of charge, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris and other sources, the Palestinians did not receive the property of the Arab Jews who migrated to Israel.
The link to the full story is here:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews
But, so what? We can all do the "whatabout" babble to push for a particular perspective, but what about we reach a consensus such as this:
Forcing citizens to leave their home to go somewhere they didn't want to go is wrong and they should be allowed to return. And if those evicted people don't want to or can't go back to their homes, and the government that did the forcing out of those citizens didn't pay them for their properties, it should do so.
How well do you think that solution will go down with the people in power?
And beyond the numbers game of counting bodies, past the travelogues of happy hardworking settlers, and way beyond the comparative data logs of who got kicked out of where and when it happened – past all that is the call for compassion. Does it matter that someone is your enemy and wants to do you harm when their child is hurt? Can we give over our desire for vengeance to the regulation by calmer, dispassionate governance in the settlement of grievances?
The agencies of our United Nations are not moribund if we say they are not. They have the best of our medical, legal and military knowledge and can exercise their authority if we grant it to them, to restrain greed and barbarism. They are the best tool we have yet designed for our evolution, indeed for our very survival.
And my evolution into a happy old person is now dependent on the health of my sourdough starter. I'm going to go make some bread.