"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

I started this as my MLK Day post, but got side-tracked with the Gaza vigil and action alert.

If Dr. King were alive today, I have little doubt that he would have plenty to say about the conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere because when people are willing to enact or condone injustice, it creates an opening for people to continue behaving in an unjust manner, or for people to use the 'well they're doing it in ____" excuse to justify injustices that they may wish to perpetuate on others.

Very often I hear Israelis and Palestinians talk about their violence as though it is justifiable, and I find myself in the uncomfortable and usually unpopular position of stating that it is not.

It is not justifiable for Israelis to kill (directly) over 800 Palestinians in the past two years (number of Israelis killed by Qassams - 1) because rockets are being fired from the Gaza Strip. There are ways to stop rocket fire WITHOUT bombing heavily populated areas or sealing borders. Diplomacy--ever hear of it? Usually the response to that is that there is "no one on the other side to talk to." That isn't true, but you have to be open to hearing what the other side has to say. If you're only willing to talk to people who are going to tell you what you want to hear, there may be a problem finding someone.

As a result of the near-total failure of Israel (and the international community, especially the U.S.) to acknowledge Palestinians as equal human beings who have their own dreams of self-determination in their homeland, hundreds of Palestinians have died and countless Palestinians have been wounded or have died from related causes, such as not being able to get to a hospital or because of malnutrition, poor water quality and lack of adequate medical supplies.

There is no symmetry in the Israel-Palestine conflict. There is one very powerful country with a strong military and the nearly unconditional backing of the world's only military superpower, vs. the non-contiguous, fragmented Palestinian territories which has a weak governmental structure, no formal military, no control of its airspace or borders, and which constantly struggles with movement restriction and the constant confiscation of land via the separation wall and from Israeli settlements.

And yet, I also take the position that armed resistance is unjustifiable.

Often when I say that, many of my Palestinian and Palestinian solidarity circle friends balk. They want to know if I am suggesting that Palestinians just accept their fate and live out the rest of their lives being treated as "less than" Israelis and to be slowly driven from their land until Israel really is from the sea to the river Jordan. Of course not.

There is a difference between self-defense and what is being done with the Qassams. Shooting homemade rockets into a predominantly civilian area is not self-defense, and frankly, doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than antagonizing the Israeli government and giving them a reason to continue the strangulation of Gaza. Based on results, it appears that shooting rockets is only making things worse for Palestinians. Israeli policy towards Gaza and the West Bank is still oppressive when there is a ceasefire. It would be smarter to stop all rocket fire and then watch Israel try to justify its restrictions, and to demand that Israel acknowledge the Palestinians' rights to exist.

I am not suggesting passivity, but non-violent resistance. Non-violent resistance appeals to the good in humanity, in which eventually, people say "enough--this isn't working." Where is the Palestinian's Ghandi or MLK? I know there are many people who believe that nonviolence is the way, but how can they mobilize more effectively?

Ultimately, the answer is not in fighting injustice, but in preventing it from finding a foothold in the hearts and minds of people. That is the essence of the "I have a dream" speech. If there is to be peace in this region, there must also be a willingness for Palestinians and others to work (and struggle) with Israelis to to create a shared vision of what peaceful coexistence will look like. At some point, all of the people must shift and make a commitment to putting aside differences, making apologies and restitutions as needed, and forgiving past wrongs for the greater good and the future of the region.

The past cannot be changed. There is no way to turn back the clock and prevent injustices from taking place. The lives that have been lost are gone forever. Towns and villages have been reduced to rubble and dust, and 40-60 years of exile have created a diaspora of a people that will never be again who they were in 1947. There is not and will never be "justice" for that, any more than there could be "justice" for the Jewish Holocaust, the slaughter of the native people of North and South American, or history's many other genocides and dispossessions. Human beings have been doing terrible things to other human beings since they decided that their "own" people were superior to people who they could identify as "others."

We cannot change the past, but we can create a different future, and we do not have to accept that the way thing have been up until now (the injustice, the violence, the dispossession) is the way things have to be. Human beings are blessed with critical thinking and reasoning skills that are too seldom applied for the greater good.

It is time to start looking at the big picture.

I see my role in this, a citizen of the United States of America, as working with other Americans on this issue. We Americans have a lot of responsibility for how our role in the world affects others, including the Palestinians and Israelis.

I am not the Palestinian Ghandi or MLK, but I do believe there are a few good candidates for the role. I will be wholeheartedly behind them 100%.