When you only see people at the end of your gun, or on the other side of barbed wire, year after year, what becomes your perception of them? You can find empathy and work to understand what allows an injustice to be, or you can double down on dehumanizing “justifications” for why human dignity does not apply to “them”.
The choice is yours, but do not feign surprise when that grows into a monster that must cover mass killings, ethnic cleansing, displacement, starvation and endless justification for what can never be justified, culminating in an all out genocide. For once we begin to buy into the lies that allow us to think less of another, we go down a road paved with ever more lies to make it ok to do unspeakable things to innocent people.
The Israeli people are dealing with that. There are extremists who have bought so far into their twisted interpretation of scripture that they have created a master race of themselves who are preordained to destroy everything to create endless settlements and commit endless crimes to expand and sustain them. Settlers are taking boat rides to watch the genocide. while some Synagogues are holding real estate sales for beach front properties in Gaza.
What is this bloodthirst? It is not Judaism. There are Jews of all backgrounds in Israel, including those who recall a time of living with Muslims and Christians before Zionism took hold. Looking at how Palestinians are treated by the state of Israel, you would think that they were the German Nazis who commit the holocaust in World War II.
Most religions can point to an extremist group that claims not only to be part of their religion, but insists that they are the one true voice of it. These are the worst of what each system of belief has to offer and must be recognized and defused. We can’t take our own suffering to justify the brutality that we commit against others. Nor can we allow one horrific ideology to take ownership of belief systems that are more varied and beautiful than the brand of a particularly toxic group.
May we challenge the ideas we are taught and measure them against core values of humanity, compassion and love. Is it so difficult to look at suffering that you would not wish upon yourself and not wish it upon any other as well?