Harmful Generalizations

[Harbinger]

This thread-killer was one of my earliest posts on a thread from 8/11 about the Isreal / Palestine tensions. Some of the talk going on reminded me of it.

I notice that people tend to throw around terms like "the Jews", or "the Palestinians". It's like saying, "Black Americans think" thus and so, or "white people" do this or that. It's probably better to try to use terms like The Government of Israel, or the Palestinian Authority, or Sharon, or Arafat. Nobody likes to be told who they are according to what group they belong to, it's demeaning. I stopped believing in "groups" of people as real entities. I believe in individuals. In fact, there are a lot of individual people over there that have individual ideas about what is going on, and many of them want peace. It is easier to focus on those that want to keep the flames of hatred burning hot, sadly, because there is always ready fuel for those fires, and they are so hard to extinguish. I have a number of friends that are Jewish, or Islamic, and have lived/do live/ have family in/ Israel or Palestine, and many of them have lost homes and loved ones to this stupid conflict. Some of them want to carry this bloody battle flag for yet another generation, but others are willing to try to find routes to peace. Ultimately, the two "sides" are those who want this tragedy to end, and those that want it to continue. Pick a side.

 

[shadowsource]

Absolutely -

A very good friend of mine is a Palestinian Christian Israeli, whose identification bears a special code so that any Israeli official will know that he is not Jewish and yet also a citizen. One of the very best PLO officials is the very brave, intelligent and sensible Hanan Ashrawi, also a Christian. And anyone who associates activities by the State of Israel with all Jews, and vice versa, is just as stupid as someone who associates all Iranians with the current regime. If anyone chould know by now to look at people as individuals, it should be the rugged, American libertarian types, no?

While I disagree with the policies of the Israeli government, I am endlessly amazed at the percentage of Israelis who support peace, even now. I am likewise amazed at the humanity of the hapless Palestinians, whose real "crime" is to have been born in a land whose dominant forces wish them to go away - to vanish, to abandon the same patrimony that the ruling ethnicity deems sacred. I'll be surprised if any Palestinians are involved in yesterday's hijackings, and I'll be truly impressed if there aren't larger contingents from other lands. I don't care about some children dancing when they've been given chocolate by bitter adults. And neither should you.