ISRAEL, UKRAINE, AND YOU

Sometimes it becomes difficult to decide the “correct” side of an issue to support. This happens when there is a moral dimension in the conflict. Of course, the moral contribution means the issue is stand culturally charged; if a majority approve of the stand taken, it is the morally correct position even if the basis for taking the position, what ever it is, is vague or obviously illogical. This reinforcement sometimes drives people to absurdities, suicide bombers for example. Of course, war fought for other than self-defense can be moral absurdities as the history of the crusades tells us. Sometime the number of people involved (support) in these deceptions can be massive. Apparently, this has been with us as part of our natural history and is not a modern phenomenon.

In addition to massive and savagely fought wars for self-defense, we also have to deal with wars fought to establish or protect rights of all kinds. The problem is in establishing what is right and what is wrong beyond raw survival—life and death at the bestial level id biological. The establishment of right is part of our humanization well beyond our bestiality, which classes it as moral. For example, at the close of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson created chaos when he insisted on the sovereign rights of nations to self-determination. It is “legally” right and morally right to protect national boarders; the world just fought a vicious war doing that and also poised us to fight the next war driven by the rights of so called “ethnic” or Aryan Germans to live under Aryan rule. We all sense this feeling as a strong individual right—really, innate—to be with people of our own choosing; we sense that right as an inalienable right; something no one can take from us. Historically, this feeling or sense has contributed to and helped shape our culture since the beginning extending the feeling of rights from individuals to nations. How many times have you heard the heart felt declaration; as Americans, we stand together?

Trying to be broad-minded in our troubled world is always difficult. I heard reports this morning that 83% of Russians supports Vladimir Putin policy in the Ukrainian conflict. They are responding to the information that ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine want independence. The Russian people believe like Woodrow Wilson and most American believe, which is that the people have the inalienable right to be ruled by whom ever they want, in this case Russia.

Turning to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I assume we would have an equal percentage or even more of Americans supporting Israel in that extremely complex conflict. This seems to be a fact flying in the face of American strong desire for the world to establish the principle of self-determination. However, among many other things, I take, as the primary reason for the conflict, to be the fact that Palestinian people are fighting for independence from Jewish rule forcefully established by the nations of the world in 1946 by the United Nations vote to partition, which was equivalent to the American solution to satisfy the Native American wish for self-determination. Jimmy Carter artfully explained the equivalency of Israel rule in Palestine to South Africa in his classic book, Peace not Apartheid (2006).

This diametrically opposed approach should create a mental dilemma bordering on chaos in the American mind but remarkable the conflict, as obvious as it is, does not seem to be recognized, although, I have to admit that during the Crimea crisis some recognized the Russian dominance; therefore, some Americans accepted the Russian position. Now our President is taking American leadership in establishing the position of proving no ethnic majority exists in Eastern Ukraine who want independence; rather, it is a move on Putin’s part as a Russian military support of a land grab. In Israel, my wish is that we would ask for and receive an answer to the question, “What is Netanyahu’s real objective?” Personally, I think Netanyahu is not Israel’s equivalent to bomb-bomb McCain, who seems to want war for the sake of war, but rather wants to live in peace by reducing Palestinians to complete cowering, sniveling servitude living in slave quarters confined to Gaza. Would 83% of American agree with that? How would that be different from the percentage of Americans agree with having land set aside as reservations as independent nations with oil and mineral rights and gambling casino controlled by tribal leaders as a righteous solution to the “problem” of native Americans? The answers might surprise you. All my objective of this blog post is not to take sides but to stimulate you to think about things that really matter and not about some sports score that makes no difference to anyone other then the people who sell beer.           

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