there's got to be a better way ...
This from the New York Times last Thursday, January 1st, the first day of a new year, the day when you hope everything starts again, afresh, new chances, new hope, new president.
It damn near broke my heart:
"I prepared them breakfast that day in the garden," said their mother, Ayda, 36. "They had the tea, bread and thyme. Lama wanted a second pita, but we all teased her saying, 'keep it for lunch.' She told us, 'Don't worry, God will provide us with bread.'
"She made all of us laugh," the mother said. "I cleaned after them and collected the garbage. Ismael volunteered to dump the garbage, but Hayya and Lama joined him. The garbage can is in front of the house, a five-minute walk away. All of a sudden I heard the news from a neighbor, and I ran barefoot to the hospital. A relative collected the bodies of Lama and Hayya on a donkey cart.
"The neighbors ran trying to save Ismael, who was the only one breathing," she said. "They say my kids flew 40 meters before hitting the ground."
Lama was 5. Hayya was 12. Ismael was 8. He died later in the hospital.
What good can possibly come of this?
On Sunday's Meet the Press, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was asked about his writing on Hamas. Meet the Press Host, David Gregory, quoted from a blog posting Goldberg had written on January 2nd, 2009.
He is describing a meeting he had two years ago with Nizzar Rayyan, a Hamas leader killed earlier last week in Gaza:
“The question I wrestle with constantly is whether Hamas is truly, theologically implacable. That is to say, whether the organization can remain true to its understanding of Islamic law and God's word and yet enter into a long-term non-aggression treaty with Israel. I tend to think not, though I've noticed over the years a certain plasticity of belief among some Hamas ideologues. Also, this is the Middle East, so anything is possible.
There was no flexibility with Rayyan. This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel." There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. "Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."
... What are our crimes? I asked Rayyan. "You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah," he said. "‘Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.’”
If this is the case, if this is the common view within Hamas of Israel, then why is Israel working so hard to increase the ranks of Hamas?
Rabbi Michael Lerner of the Tikkun Center has a far more useful approach. In an interview on Air America last week he asked instead of bombs, why not food? Instead of death raining down around, why not humanitarian aid. Instead of blockades and restrictions and sanctions why not the opposite.
Israel is getting it wrong -- bombing schools, killing the innocent, begrudgingly providing three hours each day (starting yesterday after 12 days of bombardment), to allow humanitarian aid to get through and then killing Aid Workers working to get that aid through, not allowing journalists in to bear witness.
And now, someone is lobbing rockets from Lebanon.
The United States must take a far more vigorous position than they have taken to date. Tough love as Nick Kristof writes in the New York Times today.
It is not good enough to say that Israel has a right to defend itself and leave it at that. It's not good enough to make some strange nonsensical analogy about Mexicans and Canadians lobbing rockets at America. It's not good enough to say that Hamas broke the ceasefire when clearly there is some ambiguity here. Richard Falk, (UN Special Reporter on Human rights in the Palestinian Territories) writes on the Huffington Post:
As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom.
If ever there was a question about "why they hate us" in the Arab World, look no further than what is happening right now in Gaza. We have to change. If not, every new year will feel just like the last one.
There has to be a better way.