Victim, Villain. Where’s The Hero?
It was difficult to turn away or engage in the occasional Twitter “scroll.” . Dr. Tal Becker was on it! And even though we had been sitting and listening to him speaking for a long period of time, every word was compelling. We all sat in one of the many modern, wood-paneled, freshly cooled lecture halls of the Mamila Hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. Perhaps all 26 of the Hispanic leaders sitting there listening to the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian realized that the middle eastern experience wasn’t too far from our own experiences in America as Latin Americans.
Dr. Tal Becker was the senior Israeli peace negotiator, now serving as an expert in peace negotiations and traveling as an ambassador for peace in the Middle Eastern part of our world. Simply put, he’s a guru at navigating tough conversations and a sensei in “getting it done!” Dr. Becker helped us understand the different groups that are shaping middle eastern culture, what drives those groups and where there are (if any) places of convergence within those groups.
In Dr. Becker’s talk accompanied by our two-week stay in Israel, I learned that it didn’t matter who we spoke to —Israelis or Palestinians — middle easterners were in large part disenchanted with the United States. “There is a general annoyance with Israelis toward the U.S.”, said Becker during our lecture.
The perception that Sunni Arab communities have of the United States is more closely connected to the Iranian Shiite role. Becker continues to explain, “The disenchantment is mainly fueld by the reality that although the U.S could do something about some of the civil tension in the middle east, the U.S. consistently chooses to not do anything when innocent Syrian civilians are massacred.”
“There is a deep sense of victims and villains mentality among us.”
Keep in mind that I am a Dominican-American from New York City trying to soak up as much as I can about a region’s age-old history in two weeks. Much of this is passerby impressions and reflections. Take it with a grain of salt, but take it nonetheless.
Most insightful perhaps was learning about both the Israeli and Palestinian way of thinking and as a result, being.
The Israeli-Palestine Mindset
On the Palestinian side…
The feeling frustration and bitterness is triggered by a warped sense of justice, which then fuels vengeance. It’s seems to hardly be about desiring true peace. I should probably qualitfy what I mean by true peace. In simple terms: a desire and pursuit of physical, emotional, relational and spiritual completeness. We’ve heard it said that peace isn’t the absence of conflict. And I would add that it is life lived in such a way that even conflict is used for the good and harmony of the relationships involved.
Peace seems to involved two things: one, removal of attitudes and behaviors that encourage division. Two, wholeheartedly pursuing harmony and the good will of the other.
During my time there, Palestinians, in large part, didn’t seem to want either. They appeared to have hard exteriors and hard interiors.
The Palestinian needs to be sympathized with. After sitting in several lectures and stories from both sides of the tension, I realized that for the Palestinian is it more about punitive action than it is about restoring relationship with their neighbors. It’s as renown Israeli-Arab journalist and filmmaker Khaled Abu Toameh said, “For the Palestinian conflict with Israel is more about hating Israel than it is about achieving Palestinian good.”
In fact, Khaled goes on to ask a deeply poignant (and self-assessing) question. He asked, “Why have peace efforts fallen desperately short in all our talks?”
“Two deeply inescapable reasons” he continues. “For starters, there is a significant deficit about peace with Israel.” There seems to be an underlying message of hostility that is woven in the fabric of Palestinian life, and propagated by Palestinian leaders.
When a people are shared a story, told a message, educated on conflict only — that people will never see peace with as the logical (even more, inspired) option.
“Secondly” he continues, “there has always been a shortage of competent leadership.” This is prime example of narrative control. Perhaps no different than what we often see stateside when it comes to White European narrative in America continually being held up as the prominent and most important narrative. While any other story is set off to the margins.
On the Israeli side…
Almost in all interactions with Israeli neighbors, lecturers and peace negotiators — the posture was mostly one of victim who’s been displaced. None of those interaction were void of a statement conflict ownership. in orders, a statement like, “surely we play a part in all this.” But it was rarely qualified or spoken of in specific ways that they can own the conflict.
Although they are the majority, their language and posture is informed by anxiety. There is a sense in that they live as a minority; as a target.
Impressions Of a Hero
Often in conflict we see ourselves as enemies fighting against each other, which understandable. How else can we see it? But throughout our time in Israel there were pockets of “light” in all of the deep conflict.
Among those shimmers of light were Rabbi Danny and Pastor Steven. Rabbi Danny is an Israeli Jew and Pastor Steven was a Palestinian Christian Arab. There friendship was not only enlightening, but a breath of fresh air.
They were brought in to give us a lecture on how to approach the Paslestian-Israeli (and even the Christian-Jew) relationship. Quite frankly, if felt less like a lecture and more like watching two friends pull the curtain back on what true reconciled relationship between two perceived enemies could look like.
Here were some take aways from the time:
- Be an advocate of the other side
- Don’t tell the victim that they’re not a victim. Then they become the victim twice.
- Resolve to know both sides might be victims and villains
- There is a difference between justice and fairness. Justice is not a result, it’s an orientation. Justice is pursued not achieved.
- Justice misunderstood only produces more injustice.
- Justice must be framed within reality: the story of the “stolen beam” — do you compensate for the beam or do you destroy the palace in order to give back the beam?
- Don’t have too much empathy. It’s paralyzing and leaves no room for forward movement
There is perhaps no picture of empathy, compassion and peacemaking more vivid than Jesus at the cross.
Both of these groups feel marginalized and attacked by the other. Both feel a deep sense of anxiety, fear, anger and bitterness toward the other. Both deeply desire justice — an acknowledgment that they’ve been wrong and a restoration of what has been taken from them.
At the cross Jesus embodies marginalization by being crucified, a most heinous and shameful way of death. And even more, he was crucified “outside of the city of Jerusalem.” In the margins of Roman society at the time.
At the cross Jesus takes up the darkness of our hate, anger, hurt and fears kills them there, “disarming [them] and putting them to open shame, by triumphing over them in it.”
At the cross, as he suffers and takes on the full weight of all our sins, Jesus offers words of invitation and reconciliation when he very well could’ve responded as we often do when we are being hurt and betrayed. He said, “Father forgive them.”
