We like to pose this problem as complicated, when it is simple facts forever shrouded by fog, over history that is entombed in mud that is interpreted by scholars who never found the shovel or the light to cut through to the truth.
I am far away from this conflict and can only relate it through the history of our own Native American sufferings through a story not often told in any history book.
The settlement of one of our wealthiest areas in our country, Greenwich, CT, was one of the greatest acts of genocide never told. In an effort to gain the valuable land, a Dutch captain surrounded the Natives. As they ran into their longhouses, thousands of them remained still. The Captain ordered the homes burned with the people inside. To his shock, not a sound or a scream was heard and rather than running out of the longhouses the natives ran into them. They would rather die then be under the rule of the new world.
When you forcefully take the land of people who lived there for centuries or leave them with the poorest land that can neither sustain nor provide hope - you leave nothing but a slow and torturous life of death. Few people will come out of these conditions humbled or grateful. Almost none will have compassion. Most will have anger. We know that from all the wars and occupations that we have been a participant. Hate sows hate.
It is one thing to say that a handful of civilians may die during a conflict. It is another to indiscriminately bomb residential neighborhoods. It is one thing to secure your border. It is another to systematically remove hope and leave nothing behind but anger and then act appalled that those same people are desperate and combative. I am not condoning the heinous actions of October by Hamas, however, what outcome could anyone have expected?
If there is a right to exist for one, there is a right for both. The United States once again could have taken a path to ensure a two-state solution - one that we have been tacitly working toward for decades. Instead, we arm one side and then expect them to act compassionately.
The shrouding of truth and the shock that the ugly reaction was unexpected or unprovoked has never been an acceptable response.
