Strange Gods and Manifest Destiny

Several years ago a woman served me apple pie from a recipe of her cousins in Chicago, the descendants of her great-aunts and great-uncles who fled to America after yet one more Russian pogrom. She left more recently, only a decade or so ago. She is a Jewish settler on the West Bank. She explained to me that the land around us was all part of Greater Israel promised by God to the Jews. She returned home to a place she had never been.

As she spoke, my mind and senses disassociated from each other. The sweet smells and tastes, the kindness, and her patient sincerity in explaining this God-given truth, did not fit for me with the root meanings of her words, i.e. this land is a Jewish right that trumps the legitimacy of the non-Jews who have lived here for hundreds and hundreds of years, so we are reclaiming it.

She wished no harm to the Palestinians. In fact, she wanted to join them in one state. They could even fly their own flag if they wished, though they wouldn’t be allowed to vote, of course, or run structures that would govern their lives. When she saw my perplexity, she added, “At least not at first.” That is, they would be disenfranchised second-class citizens on their own land, which would be called “Israel.” That the land had been called “Palestine” for two thousand years had no substantive meaning to her. “If you read the Torah you would know . . .” she said, that Greater Israel extended even into Jordan and Lebanon.

Manifest Destiny is a dangerous concept built on myths of entitlement.

In the name of Manifest Destiny, northern Europeans decimated the native populations in North America, and the Spaniards and Portuguese did the same in South America. Pox in blankets. Death marches. Death as slaves in gold mines. Betrayals. Confinement on barren lands. Outright slaughter. Separation of children from parents for indoctrination. But, of course, the white man is superior. We are entitled to be savages.

Combine Manifest Destiny with self-serving human distortion of the teachings of a group’s chosen god and you have apologias for mass brutality. We live in this world now. The fanatical fringes of the Abrahamic religions – Islam, Christianity, Judaism – grant themselves free rein to murder and oppress because they have created their god in their image, with their prejudices, greed, and lust for power.

God, whatever It may be, has nothing to do with war, hate, and land-grabbing. If such a sentient Lording-Over-Us Being exists, there is no way He/She/It could have created a world in which love exists so bountifully while also advocating slaughter – or poverty, prejudice, hate, or dispossession.

To be plain, Israel was promised to no one. America – neither south nor north – was promised to no one. The counties Germany claimed during WWII were not part of an Aryan right. The nations Russia claims under Putin are not an inherent part of a greater Russia. Neither India nor Pakistan have a heaven-endowed right to Kashmir. China does not have a Manifest Destiny to claim Tibet. The clashing interests and claims in some nations in the Middle East and Africa have no justification from any god.

It is a myth. It is all human invention. Whatever Source created and propels an expanding cosmos of more than 10 trillion galaxies – a number used but generally considered a gross underestimation – is not interested in real estate apportioning on earth.

The woman who served me fresh apple pie did so while a guard with a gun sat 8’ away because the law of the settlement required a guard when “outsiders” visited. She saw nothing wrong with her perception that the West Bank was Jewish property. She did not make the connection that the reason a guard was necessary was because her belief might not be heaven blessed. To her it was the highest perception possible. God-given, and, Lord knows, God is above secular rule.

When we create God in our image with our prejudices, our demands to be recognized as superior, and our lusts for control and ownership, we create a petty god. We create excuses not to share, have compassion, or love. The belief that we are an elevated people chosen to follow the dictates of a god we ourselves created tramples “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Syrians are slaughtered, refugees fleeing horrors from their home nations are turned away from other nations, fanatics behead people who don’t follow their beliefs, barrel bombs are dropped on civilians, and gun killings in the US explode in numbers – and are justified.

Living in a commune four decades ago I was taught that if I believed I was God, I was correct because we all are made of whatever God is, but if I believed only I was God, I had gone insane.

I believe this principle expands to: If you believe only you and people like you have the inside track with the Source – call It whatever you care to – that created us, then you are on a path towards harming others, harming the earth itself, justifying your damage, and never coming into full awareness of love, sweetness, and wonder. It is more than a waste, it is a self-imposed cage of insanity.

 

 

How Can I Be Snarky When You’re Injured?

The answer to that is I can’t, even though you are a stranger to me, Linda C.

The original title to this blog was to have been Did You Just Say I Was “do pathic”?

The original first three paragraphs were to have been:

1) “Do pathic” = “so pathetic.” At least that’s how I read Linda’s post to me on Facebook. The sentence, lifted from two paragraphs of attack and sarcasm, is: You are really something I pity you you are do pathic you should be ashamed. June 25 at 5:30pm.

2) Facebook is well suited for snark, but no one had ever out and out blasted me there before so it felt like a christening. I had said something that left irrational people sputtering and unable to spell. I wonder if I would be so proud if her comments had merit.

3) Yes, I, too, can do snark. Who can’t? It’s much easier than thinking.

Then the report came in that the bodies of the three young Israeli settlers had been found. My original paragraphs no longer had a modicum of humor in them. I lay down my snark and surrender to our broken hearts.

The young men deserve their names to be told – Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar. At my last count at least six Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) since the kidnapping. They equally deserve their names to be told but the news of their deaths is scattered and piecemeal. The number will rise if IDF bombing continues in Gaza. More than 540 Palestinians have been arrested to date, most held in prison without charges, which is common and legal under Israel law.

If you are on Facebook with me, you know I regularly share news from Israel and Palestine. You might also know that I was the editor, photographer, and – working with my Palestinian and Israeli liaisons – the primary interviewer for the book “Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women” printed in English, Arabic, and Hebrew (available on Amazon). I have also produced a dozen short videos with these and other women.

Between 2003 and 2010 I made 8 or 9 trips to the region of three weeks each, with time divided equally between Israel and the West Bank. I average five to twenty FB updates daily of “conditions on the ground” from Israelis and Palestinians.

[Photographs are coming in right now of the bombing of Gaza. Buildings exploding. The kidnapping and killing of the three Israelis were by two men apparently “rogue” to Hamas. Israeli policy is collective punishment.]

This is an area where I have knowledge – enough knowledge to recognize when someone is denying reality or is grossly misinformed. Enough knowledge to know when someone, even unconsciously, is the problem and not the solution. Enough knowledge to know who is the primary aggressor. Enough knowledge – and direct experience – to know that Netanyahu is arrogant and dangerous. Enough knowledge to know that historical wounds and incalculable fear can sink their claws onto reason and reality and bring them down.

Enough knowledge to know that the death of the three settlers will be used as proof that all Palestinians are dangerous and terrorists. Linda C said it clearly: Patricia Smith You missed the point lady you are actually saying that because no one was killed when terrorist from Gaza hit Sderot then it’s okay. Dont you realize that they want to kill as many Israelis as they can the fact that they miss doesn’t change anything it’s the fact that they are trying.

Of course I did not say that since no one was killed it was okay for missiles to be shot from Gaza to the southern Israel town of Sderot. It’s not okay. Missiles are never okay.

What I said, that prompted Linda to write in the first place, was: I’ve been at Sderot where . . . when I asked in deep sincerity how many people were killed the year before, silence fell, and then someone said,” well, a rocket went through someone’s kitchen ceiling.” Yes, a few people have been killed. Yes, there is fear. But for this over 1300 Gazans were killed in retaliation?
June 25 at 4:38pm 

Whether you could say that Linda C responded to my question about killing over 1300 (actually more it turned out) Gazans in 22 days at the beginning of 2009 in Operation Cast Iron is questionable. No Israeli, in fact no Jew, has ever responded when I give this reminder. Few have responded to my inquiries about the hundreds of deaths at the hands of the IDF since Cast Iron, about the expanding settlements, about night raids, about house demolishing, or about the more than 5000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Silence is the prevailing response. The silence of good people, people who care, people who want peace. Silence. I cannot tell you how much I long for this acknowledgment, how much it hurts to have this wall of silence, a wall that I do not know how to interpret. Is it denial? It is emotional freezing caused by fear, or guilt, or scars? The most important question it seems: Is peace possible without ownership of pain caused?

In case I need to say it: I have had two Jewish husbands, my daughter converted, my grandchildren are Jewish. I am literally at home with Jewish warmth, humor, creativity, sense of family, and genius. That is WHY it particularly hurts. It is my family, and they have been deeply wounded – and now they are deeply wounding others.

Linda said: Patricia Smith let me tell you something until you’ve had to go an identify your child by a piece of her clothing because she and several other children were blown to bits by a Palestinian terrorist you have no idea of what real terror is. Believe all the propaganda lies you want because they will never change the fact that you are supporting terrorist until the day comes when they no longer need you as a mouth piece to spread their lies and hate you will realize what a fool you are.
June 25 at 5:19pm

This is immense pain talking – the pain of a woman I do not know – and I have no response except I have been with both Israelis and Palestinians whose innocent children were killed by the “other” side. The deaths are exactly the same, the daily and unending grief is exactly the same. No child’s death takes precedence over another.

Snark is not the answer. Hopefully compassion may have a chance because otherwise fear will blind and defeat us all.