Gaza Ceasefire Now!
De-escalation, diplomacy, humanity and de-traumatization in the holy land and in the world
Israel is terror bombing civilians in Gaza in response to Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack on October 7th. It seems likely that Israel will then follow the bombing with a ground invasion. In the IDF’s everso ethical manner, they have dropped leaflets that apparently say something like if you stay here we will not distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants. So the Israeli government is basically asking people to do something impossible: Pack into already densely packed areas while being bombed and likely killed if they stay. Starved and without water or electricity, and bombed on the road to the places they’re told to go and bombed when they get there too. Israel may then reoccupy the North portion of Gaza. This dreadful human destruction is a microcosm of potential global conflict.
Humans need to figure out a whole new method of global diplomacy, conflict resolution and cooperation based on mutual respect and humanity. We need to figure out and facilitate the de-traumatization of populations. We need to learn from the past and move into the future as non-militaristically as possible, diplomatically engaging and cooperating with partner nations on regional and global issues.
The US needs to project peace, innovation, inventiveness, diplomacy and non-militaristic conflict resolution. But all we ever do is escalate. All we ever encourage our junior states to do is escalate when their civilians, enlisted and conscripts are always the ones who pay the most.
Hamas is a horrible radical Islamist group who does not accurately represent the will of Gazans or Palestinians in general. Netanyahu has made a career out of propping Hamas up as a divide and rule strategy to pull Gaza away from the diplomatic Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, encouraging a terrorist government in Gaza to demonstrate the impossibility of peace with the Palestinians. He once stated at a Likud meeting, “Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Not stopping this is risking expanding the violence to an uncontrollable level.
It was easy for Bush to say, ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists’ and it is easy for Netanyahu and Company to say the same thing now; but Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza. Its action resulted in murder of the civilian population of Gaza. Both sides are responsible for the destruction. There are no good guys, only bad guys. And now, in Gaza, innocent civilians are being murdered. Sorry, but yes we might need to negotiate with these terrorists.
If you are wondering why I am using we and us to describe the actions of the Israeli government/western governments in general, it is because we are a member of a military empire so the actions of one member in the empire are the actions of ours. And since we’re a democracy and not a plutocratic-corporate-bureaucratic dictatorship, we are technically in control of the actions of our government (right?), therefore these are our actions. We are the genocidal maniacs.
But are we not all humans on earth part of the same thing? And that can be viewed of course on a spiritual level, but equally important and valid, from a secular perspective. We are all demonstrably part of the same thing which is that we are one human race and we are part of an ecosystem and we have an impact on each other and our ecosystem and it is in our interests and the interest of future generations to not fuck this up too bad.
We are killing ourselves in Gaza and we are killing ourselves in Israel, we are killing ourselves in Yemen, we are killing ourselves in Ukraine, we are killing ourselves in Russia, we are killing ourselves in Lebanon and Syria and Iraq. We are killing ourselves in the United States and Latin America and so many more places.
War and killing is an unevolved way of being that we need to transcend now. Call your representative, urge them to call on the President and Israel and stop a genocide and choose de-escalation and diplomacy over militarism. Make politicians uncomfortable. Go to a protest. Talk to your friends and family. Make anti-war jack-o-lantern art. Push the first amendment to its limit because this is what it is for.
As global conflict reaches its next levels, things have the potential to get a lot worse and a lot more messy with a lot more emotion and pain and new trauma building on old trauma. There will be a lot more reasons flying around for people X to kill people Y and it will be increasingly hard to stop.
A ceasefire in Gaza and diplomacy before more escalations from any ‘side’, no matter how difficult and uncomfortable, is a good potential offramp and a lesson learning experience that can be applied elsewhere, leading to more peace.
