Gabor Maté: “Never again” does not justify Gaza slaughter

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      As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?”

      It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach.

      In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees—you care about life?

      There is no understanding Gaza out of context—Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians—and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood.

      The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability.

      Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth.

      I have visited Gaza and the West Bank. I saw multi-generational Palestinian families weeping in hospitals around the bedsides of their wounded, at the graves of their dead. These are not people who do not care about life. They are like us—Canadians, Jews, like anyone: they celebrate life, family, work, education, food, peace, joy. And they are capable of hatred, they can harbour vengeance in the hearts, just like we can.

      One could debate details, historical and current, back and forth. Since my days as a young Zionist and, later, as a member of Jews for a Just Peace, I have often done so. I used to believe that if people knew the facts, they would open to the truth. That, too, was naïve. This issue is far too charged with emotion. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has pointed out, the accumulated mutual pain in the Middle East is so acute, “a significant part of the population finds itself forced to act it out in an endless cycle of perpetration and retribution.”

      “People’s leaders have been misleaders, so they that are led have been confused,” in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. The voices of justice and sanity are not heeded. Netanyahu has his reasons. Harper and Obama have theirs.

      And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing.

      A few days ago I met with one of my dearest friends, a comrade from Zionist days and now professor emeritus at an Israeli university. We spoke of everything but the daily savagery depicted on our TV screens. We both feared the rancour that would arise.

      But, I want to say to my friend, can we not be sad together at what that beautiful old dream of Jewish redemption has come to? Can we not grieve the death of innocents? I am sad these days. Can we not at least mourn together?

      Comments

      7 Comments

      reba heron

      Jul 23, 2014 at 11:14am

      Thank you for speaking out.

      Rory Buchalter

      Jul 23, 2014 at 1:02pm

      Masada shall not fall again.

      bobo

      Jul 23, 2014 at 1:46pm

      Free Gaza from the terrorist regime of Hamas!!

      Anne

      Jul 23, 2014 at 9:53pm

      You are an excellent man

      Satish Chandra

      Jul 24, 2014 at 3:30am

      (July 22, 2014) : I have pointed out that India is now the sole superpower -- because of its nuclear warheads emplaced in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities ready to be exploded to destroy Washington and New York with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation -- and can compel the United States to do anything it wants it to do and, through the United States, compel any other country to do whatever it wants it to do. At present, India’s nuclear forces stand ready to destroy Washington and New York with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed unless it uses its ICBMs to destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem if Israel does not stop its invasion of Gaza.

      (July 20, 2014) CAN TAMIL BE COMPARED TO SANSKRIT?
      Tamilian Jayalalitha objects to observing a Sanskrit week and demands a “classical languages week” putting Tamil at the same level as Sanskrit. Sanskrit mantras can command the forces of nature; anyone can see videos of thousands of practitioners of Transcendental Meditation spectacularly overcoming gravity every day and this is a trivial example of the power of Sanskrit. Can Tamil do that? No language can be compared to Dev Bhasha Sanskrit. I was aghast to see on Bharat-Rakshak -- a collection of bhangis and chamars -- someone say Jews are the Brahmins of the Middle East, defiling the word ‘Brahmin’ and defiling India. Any Indian, no matter what his caste, is higher than a Westerner who by definition are ‘mlecchas’ and the lowliest worm is higher than a Jew. To restore social order, Jews and Americans must be denied entry to India just as they would be denied entry to a temple.

      (July 17, 2014) MALAYSIAN AIRLINER THAT CRASHED IN UKRAINE WAS BROUGHT DOWN BY MICROWAVE SIGNALS FROM UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY SATELLITES. See ‘Indian Air Force Pilots’ Murder’ : IndianAirForcePilotsMurderDOTblogspotDOTcom . This was done to keep the conflict alive and keep the former republics from reuniting as I had suggested below :-

      Russia and Ukraine are a single country temporarily separated by the machinations of the CIA. They should forget everything and re-unite with the help of other republics that were part of the same country, with no role for the EU or the UN. A body of representatives of the former republics including Russia and Ukraine should by consensus make all de

      kafantaris

      Jul 24, 2014 at 10:22am

      The disproportionate attacks on Gaza are tugging at the heartstrings of the citizens of Egypt and Turkey -- two key allies the U.S. needs to keep order in the Middle East.
      Self-righteous Israel has thus far ignored the volatile conditions of its neighbors. The U.S. and the rest of world simply cannot.
      We can no longer afford to let a self-centered nation turn our fragile world topsy-turvy.

      Marjorie Stewart

      Jul 24, 2015 at 8:15am

      Thank you for publishing this moving summary of the Israeli attempts to obliterate a Palestinian Arab presence in their own territory. Our responsibility as Canadians is to deal with our own government's arrogant support for the government of Israel, parroting the lie that Israel is a victim.