Many were shocked by the brutality of the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians in October of 2023, only to be further amazed by the cheering of these events by many in the U.S. and other western countries. How did we get here? Is it possible to have an opinion in the context of such bitter conflicts without becoming an unthinking agent of one group or another?
Many were shocked by the brutality of the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians in October of 2023, only to be further amazed by the cheering of these events by many in the U.S. and other western countries. How did we get here? Is it possible to have an opinion in the context of such bitter conflicts without becoming an unthinking agent of one group or another?
Welcome back to the willing fool. I am your host and lead fool, Paul Trimble. We talked last episode about the ongoing conflict in the land of Palestine between Israel and Hamas. And I want to further that discussion a little bit and look at this from a few different angles. I am not going to try to, as I mentioned.
I think last time I'm not going to try to persuade you to take a particular view of this conflict politically, uh, to, to choose quote unquote aside or, or anything like that. Uh, or try to trap you into thinking a certain way. But what I do want to do is just model, uh, to the best of my ability, a way of thinking that includes some layers, um, that allows for more than one angle.
of consideration, but that also allows for distinctions to be made there. It always feels like there's two bad choices and things like this, where there's something that's a very contentious issue. That's very complicated. That is connected to people suffering and that people have really strong feelings about.
Uh, one is to get just trapped in, in one perspective so that you can't even hear or see what someone else is saying or thinking or feeling or worse, you can't identify with another person's pain or acknowledge, uh, someone else's pain or a whole group of people's pain or loss, uh, renders you unable to mourn or have empathy with them.
And I never want to do that. And I see people, I see that happening to people and I think I don't, I don't want to do that. And then on the other side, it, um, there's the possibility of just not being able to conclude anything, of just staying right in the middle of every issue, every conflict, not being able to say anything meaningful or make, uh, meaningful distinctions, and that doesn't seem wise either.
That seems like a very bad choice. So, um, those are the two polls that I always instinctively don't want to go to. But it, it can be very hard to figure out, well, what's, what's a better way through? Um, and so I am not pretending that I, I have the answer to that, but that's what I'm aiming for. And that's ultimately why I even decided that I would try to talk about this issue just because.
I, I need to do that and I've appreciated other people who have, um, done the hard work to help me think a little bit better through those things. So a couple of things of the top one, I, I, I talked about Jesus in the last episode and in, uh, you know, how did Jesus think through very difficult geopolitical events of his day, which he did as a different scenario for him than for us.
But. Uh, at the same time he did and, uh, I want to be clear about one thing because there's always whenever anything involves Israel, there's a contingency of people who, uh, are very quick to kind of tie anything going on geopolitically with Israel to the Bible, to prophecies in the Bible, to the end times.
And I just want to say real clearly, I, I'm not doing that. I'm not a big proponent or fan of that because I think a lot of things get conflated very badly and uh, it can be really a, a, a misguided venture and a waste of a lot of energy and effort. Uh, instead I'm looking at Israel just as any other nation, any other geopolitical entity for the most part.
And uh, you know, they have a, it's a, it's a very unique history. So I'm not going to recount that for you. That's. There's a lot, a lot of good material out there, and I'm not going to do better than any of it, but, uh, Just maybe enough, just enough that we could I have some intelligent thoughts, maybe, or, or draw some initial, uh, layers to, to, to consider further.
Uh, and I, I saw in a good analogy reading a whole lot this week, uh, one of them came from NT Wright, a thinker and writer I've come to, uh, rely on a lot and like, and he just drew this analogy of. a woman who has this great home in the, uh, countryside and due to circumstances unforeseen to her, she has to abandon it one night in the middle of the night, brings her family, moves, and then where she ends up moving to ends up being, uh, Much worse situation over time and eventually she returns back to her house and she finds it's been It's people are living in it.
They've been living in it for a long time. They've they've set up their lives there and She just starts going about her business living there once more and inevitably, there's a conflict between the expectations of those, you know, the people who are living there currently and the and her who evacuated and is trying to come back in and he was just using that as a very rough analogy for The very messy situation, uh, that is Israel, the independent state of Israel in the territory that has been called Palestine.
And, uh, it's true, it's, it's, there, it, it isn't something that's probably happened a whole lot in the way that it did. A country was formed out of whole cloth. This was right after World War II is when Israel became an independent state. And it was really largely by decree of the United Nations. A whole bunch of countries saying that, you know, this, this, the best of the available solutions for these people who, this was their ancestral homeland, but they haven't been there in large numbers for a long time to set up a country here and have a place of their own.
This is obviously following the Holocaust. And not just the Holocaust, but decades of pogroms in various European countries where the Jews were persecuted and at times, um, executed, exterminated, eradicated, whatever word you want to use. Really to a degree that kind of boggles the mind. So, it was a reasonable thing to want to set up this country somewhere where people had a safe place to live that was their own.
Uh, that's noble, it's reasonable. Of course, the complication is there were people living in these areas, these territories. And now it's, it's good to know it wasn't a nation, it wasn't like a nation of Palestine, uh, that had a government and established borders. It wasn't that, it was one of these areas that was an area, it was a territory.
It was, at different times, a territory under different empires, like the Ottoman Empire up until World War I, and then a British, British Mandate after World War I. Um, but nonetheless, there was people who lived there and who were almost for sure going, some of them at least, were going to be displaced or, you know, potentially outnumbered in the place that they had come to find home.
And so that is, uh, what you might call native Palestinians, so, um, and Arab ethnically. So you know. There's so many ways to go about this, but what I'm going to do is I'm just going to try to flash actually from now backwards and kind of hit a few key moments in the history and just to paint a general picture like these are just snapshots because I don't, I don't know what else you can do.
The history is very complex. Uh, and if you're like me, you don't want to be a complete ignoramus and know nothing, but at the same time you don't have. Uh, a thousand hours to devote to learning the history in all of its complexity, and truthfully a thousand hours wouldn't be enough. Uh, you just, there would always be more.
So, uh, so attempting to do the impossible. You know, right now, I think the situation is, uh, it's just so tragic. I mean, Hamas is the terrorist group who is in leadership of Palestinian areas, the Palestine, Palestinian state, and Hamas is recognized by some countries as a terrorist group, not others. And Hamas is recognized generally and was historically as the legitimately elected representatives Uh, leadership of the country, and that might just be mind boggling to you, but that is the truth.
They, they came into power in the mid, uh, 2000, the aughts, and are still in power today. Now, you don't have like free and clear elections happening anymore, but they were like the most recently legitimately elected. leadership of the country. And as hard as that might be to imagine, that is the case. And, uh, from my perspective, and I think the perspective of, of many people, they're in every way clearly a terrorist organization.
Uh, and even in the wake of the horrible events of October 7th, the attack, the Hamas leadership has Very publicly, you know, you can find this on CNN, uh, stated kind of where they're at and what they're, what they're attempting to do, and it's exactly what you have seen, it's exactly what you would think, they, uh, planned for a very long time to carry out these civilian executions, uh, the soldiers, uh, were told, you know, kill whoever you find, um, their goal was, as terrorism is, to inflict as much pain and terror as possible Um, and, and target civilians.
So, that is, uh, very difficult to believe, but that's, that's the reality. Um, and, it sadly doesn't stop there. The, the leadership has said that they're just gonna keep doing this. This is their plan. This is just stage one, and they're just gonna do stage two, stage three, stage four, stage five. Um, when asked about You know, protecting the people of Palestine, uh, the leader responded, Well, as with any liberation effort, there's got to be civilian casualties.
And he goes through and he lists different, uh, countries that have, uh, sacrificed their civilians and, and the millions, And he just says, this is what we're going to do too, and we accept it. When asked about why not build bomb shelters at least to have a place for Civilians to, um, hide during bombings that are guaranteed to happen as a response to your attacks.
He said, no, we just have tunnels, um, for our, our military to hide while we attack. Any protection is up to the UN to protect our people. So, I don't know how to read that other than a, uh, I mean, if I had to rate the leadership. Um, I think you'd have to give that an F minus. I don't know how you do worse than that.
And so that is the legitimately elected leadership. Now, I'm not saying that all Palestinians support Hamas, obviously that's not true, but from the survey data I could find, it does appear that a large percentage does and has supported Hamas, maybe around the 50 ish percent mark. Which you can look at and say, well, 50 percent don't.
And that would be true. And also, 50 percent do.
And there's so many other data points I could go through that kind of tell the same story. But I'm just, again, I'm trying to give you a taste. Um, and so that's where things are at right now. That gives you at least a taste of where things are at. I'm going to rewind the clock back many years, this is 30 years ago.
Of course there's been different chapters in the history, uh, Hamas hasn't always been in control. Before Hamas, there was an overlap of the Palestinian Authority, who still exists today alongside Hamas, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which if you're over the age of 40, you've probably heard of that before.
But this was the previous incarnation of Palestinian leadership, which also was a terrorist group, uh, which carried out, you know, countless terrorist acts, suicide bombings, uh, that was their stated goal to their agenda of of liberating their land as they saw it. Um, and as with most iterations of this leadership, liberation of the land includes removal and eradication of the state of Israel.
Um, and so for most people that is akin to genocide, um, and eradication of an entire people in a nation state in their, in their, in their borders. Um, so Rewinding the clock back to the mid 90s, I'm going to set up a contrast for you. So, there was a guy who became very well known, he was very successful at improving the technology of their suicide bombs.
This is, uh, with the terrorist organizations that were also the leadership of the, of the, of the state. And, uh, they just nicknamed him the Engineer. I don't remember his, his name, but he, his nickname was Engineer and I'm just gonna call him that. So he was very well known and, and because he was successful at making better and more destructive bombs to, uh, kill civilians.
So these are, you know, suicide attacks wherever they could be carried out. Whether it be, uh, a bus, uh, a civilian area. And he was, uh, ultimately he was assassinated by the Israeli government. They found him and found a way to assassinate him and they did. Well, the state, uh, publicly celebrated him. They called him a martyr, they lionized him, they named areas and streets after him, uh, and he had a, he had a funeral procession and over a hundred thousand people came out to celebrate this guy, this, this, um, this terrorist, you know, this suicide bomber equipper.
And it was, it was in all ways that I can see, it was officially a state function to celebrate his. Terrorism, his, his, uh, the killings that he, he fostered and he, he was able to help carry out. Um, and I'm gonna contrast that to, there was a guy in Israel who was a Zionist. He, he was, you know, believed very strongly in the superiority of the Jews.
And he was this kind of right wing guy. His name was Baruch Goldstein. And he carried out a. A, uh, terrorist attack on, on, uh, Muslims. And this was, uh, in Israel. And he, I don't remember exactly how many people he killed, but it was a lot. And he, uh, he was killed in the act. He was beaten to death during the act.
Well, the Israeli government, um, obviously wasn't involved in this, didn't sanction it, but they publicly condemned him. They used words like, you're an embarrassment and a shame to our people. You're not one of us. We reject you and everything you stand for. They made arrests of other people who are in the same organization as him, this little terrorist cell, and they outlawed the organization that he was a part of.
They made it criminalized. Well, there was still some people in this camp who, uh, were fans of his, who thought he was a hero, a martyr. And they, they gave him a burial. The state said he cannot, he cannot be part of our, you know, our, our, our areas for uh, burials that are not part of our cemetery. But he, so he was privately buried by whoever, friends, family, whatever.
And then that place became a shrine for people who thought similarly. Well, the, the Israeli government came in and. tore up, uh, the shrine to him. They, they, they had a, uh, somebody stand in and make sure that his actual grave wasn't disturbed. So his, you know, his friends and family didn't go into an uproar and create riots, but everything else around the gravestone they took out and they, um, they just removed the entire shrine.
They made it impossible for that to become like a pilgrimage point. And so it's, these are both in the mid nineties around the same time, maybe within a year or two of each other. And they just show. Even though there was killing and there was terrorism in both cases, very clearly, um, the complete difference in orientation of the culture, the willingness, in this case on the part of Israelis, to draw a line in the sand and say, you crossed this line, you're not part of us.
You're not in line with what we believe in, what we stand for, what we do and how we do it. We do not accept this. And this is, you know, these are people who have been terrorized by who they would have to perceive as their enemies in some ways, but they just said, no, we're not, we're not going to this. And when you contrast that to the massive public governmental leadership led celebration of a terrorist on the other side, it's just, to me, it's a very clear distinction to be drawn in the cultures.
Now, this is where I always get nervous, and so I'll give a little bit of a caveat, um, in case you're like me, uh, and maybe I shouldn't do this, but I will. It's always dangerous when you, when you say, you draw a distinction, you kind of shine a light positively here, but negatively there. It's always risks, of course, offending people, insulting people.
Uh, you know, people can wonder, well, does that mean you're racist? Does that mean you're just condemning an entire culture? Uh, and I, I don't, obviously I don't think I am, and this isn't my goal in any of this, but it does open you up to that sort of questioning or criticism. Uh, and I think maybe it's just a risk that has to be taken, but sometimes you have to risk saying something meaningful because I think it is everybody's responsibility to be able to draw wise discernment and make wise distinctions.
And in my, in my opinion, this is a very strong distinction. Now, if I rewound the tape even further back, I could go all the way back to the, the 40s, the 30s, the 20s. You know, the formation of Israel as a state, like I said, in my opinion, it's a hard situation. It's a scrambled egg type situation, like once an egg is scrambled, you just can't unscramble it.
Is it optimal to build a state whole cloth when you know you face quite a bit of opposition from most of the neighbors? No, that's really rough. Uh, do I have a better idea? No, I don't have a better idea. Do I think it was a reasonable thing to do? Yeah, I do think it's a reasonable thing to do. Um, but that doesn't make the opposition disappear.
And to be clear, the opposition has been there from before the beginning. So, there were multiple attempts to formulate a two state plan, which means, you know, an Israel as a state and a Palestine as a state in that same, same geographic area for, for decades, even before it happened in the late 40s. And at every point, the Arab leaders in the area opposed it.
They opposed it from beginning to end. Uh, we do not want Jews to be able to hold corporate land here. We do not want a state of Israel, uh, almost to a person. It was just opposed unilaterally. So I don't know how reasonable it would be for. You know, to, to just kind of wait around for it to happen. Like, like I said, it was initially, not initially, but it was ultimately approved by a, a UN vote.
I think the vote was 33 to 13 for the formula for this kind of the 1947 borders of Israel and Palestine. Uh, that was never accepted. In fact, what the Arab leaders, the nation, the surrounding neighbors did, uh, this is countries like Egypt, Syria, uh, Lebanon, et cetera, is, uh, Well, there was three wars and in fact the first war is immediately after Israel following that 1947 UN plan said, okay We're formulating a government.
We're formulating our state and our borders according to this plan The war was on pretty much immediately and Israel emerged victorious from that And they actually extended the original borders from there and have done that at various points in history since then as well, including after the 1967 war, which was a big one.
Um, but what I'm doing is just painting the picture that the existence of Israel has been opposed and resisted. From the beginning and even before the beginning and at every stage along the way, I believe it was 1967 as well. It might have been after that war, the Six Day War, that Arab leaders got together again and had a reconvening.
How are we going to deal with this? And what came out of that was what they call, uh, the, the three no's. I can't even remember what they all are, but it was like no, no peace with Israel, Israel, no recognition of the right of Israel to exist, no negotiation. So, that's, that's about as hardcore, hardline as you can get and it just, it gives you a sense of the environment that this has been done in.
Now in all this, has there been, uh, has there been abuses on the Israel side? I think there have. I think there's, there's things to point out and say, this was done that was wrong. This is done that was abusive. This was done that was callous. I mean, there's. Plenty of reports of abuse by military police. Uh, obviously people use the word occupation to, to describe the existence of Israel forces in West Bank and, um, as well as the settlers that have gone there and gone past any boundaries in, uh, forcibly displacing Palestinians from their homes, displacing families, um, at That has happened.
That's undeniable that that has happened. And that that is, uh, an abuse at the very least. Um, there's more, there's more to go on from there. I, there's also been times where I think Israel's leadership could have been responsive to what were at least glimmers of hope or, or, uh, initiations by the other side towards a potential peace plan and simply did not.
Now the reverse is very, very true. I'm just not going into that because I already kind of painted that picture a little more. So, uh, there, there's plenty of things like that. I think Israel's also done many things like, uh, revoke, I don't know if I'm using the right exact terminology, but revoking residency and or citizenship when people have fled or been forced out of the country or just been studying abroad.
That sort of thing made it hard or impossible for people to come back. Sort of a taking over by displacement rather than taking over by military force or killing. And I think that's happened in multiple times in multiple levels. So there's, there's, there's lots of things you could list there under the, um, abuse or wrongdoing department on the other side as well.
Uh, I don't think in my opinion, I don't think that that should completely obscure that fundamental difference of The orientation of the cultures involved. I think that distinction does exist. Um, and in fact, it's so tragic and sad, but, but the leadership, uh, has leaned into this and not just one leadership.
I can't piece together all the details factually historically, but, but it's been said, I think by more than one faction, more than one leadership group, things like we love death. more than they love life.
Like we're going to win because we love death more than they love life. It's it's sometimes when people say something like that and then their actions perfectly back it up as hard as it might be because we don't think this way. I think for most people are going to be listening to this. It's just so foreign, but you really have to take people at their word.
They've organized a culture. around glorification of death and violence and hatred. Man, if you organize your culture around death, violence, and hatred,
I think it's a little hypocritical to turn around and be surprised when destruction is raining down on your doorstep. You have invited that. This doesn't, it's going to sound maybe sounds like I'm excusing any sort of decision. I'm not, I'm just saying like from a, metaphysical standpoint, when you orient yourself towards death and say, we lean into that, we embrace it, we want it.
And we're, we're going, we're going to pursue it towards you and we don't care if it comes back on us. Then Lord help you when it comes back on you.
To me, it seems like a painfully obvious thing and so hard to understand. It's there's different ways to be lost. There's turning. Off the road, you know, onto a dirt road that's not going to get you to where you're going. And then there's yanking the wheel over the guardrail and a 150 foot drop off to a sheer cliff below.
There's, there's levels to lostness. There's levels to being warped and distorted. And this is really out there.
I've got to think though, there are some people who
In this self created hell, there's gotta be some people who think, you know what, I don't, I don't want a hundred more years of this for my kids and grandkids and great grandkids. What might be necessary for this to be different? And it's hard because once you get in a cycle like this, you have terrible leadership formulated around death.
Uh, you've got that, you know, so firmly embedded within parts of the culture that even if you have a leader who is smart enough, courageous enough to say, this is crazy. We have to find a different way. A, that person's gonna be a target for all the militant, death oriented, other potential leaders around them, that they're likely to be killed.
And they might just not even find enough support from within the people who have been exposed to this for decades. Just, I don't know if I want to say brainwashed, but I'm, okay, brainwashed. You know, that's just, this is what they've heard for decades. They've been soaked in it.
And that might sound like a very over the top way to describe it. I, I don't think it is. I, I saw a cartoon. I don't, I don't remember the details on this. I don't know if I even knew them, but a cartoon that was shown to kids in the area. And it's, it's just a complete glorification of violence. It's got, you know, Israeli soldiers that are like these big satanic beastly figures.
And then the little kid hero, uh, You know, going against them with, uh, violence, um, and I've seen kids interviewed in the streets, like, you know, talking about, what would you do if you saw a Jew? I would, I would slice his throat, you know? Like, kid after kid after kid after kid, this has been drilled into them.
I've seen videos of kids going to terrorist camp, learning how to, to kill and maim, and just having that drilled into them, that that is their, that's their ambition, that's their vocation, that's their responsibility. Uh, I've seen it in, um, the eyes of soldiers being interviewed by the Israeli force after being captured.
You know, what, what were you told to do? What would, what did you do? And man, just the life has gone out of them. I assume these are people who they have no other hope. They don't have any other There's there's nothing in front of them pulling them forward. And so they're just Sitting ducks for this recruitment.
What other what other avenue but it's so tragic i've seen people, you know Celebrating death in the streets by the thousands and hundreds of thousands. I've seen all these things i've seen people even in here in the west even in america just You know, anybody with a, a camera or microphone trying to say, Hey, you know, this seems crazy.
Can you, can you walk me through what's in your head and heart that leads you to, to act and to feel this way? And just the rage that these people have, the disdain for anybody who would even ask a question. People ripping down posters of the kids, the Israeli children taken hostage. I mean, person after person after person, these are not, these are not people who grew up in Palestine and were brainwashed for decades, these are just, some of them are just what you would think are normal people, normal Americans, and, and somehow this virus has spread,
all this heat they have, but no light coming from them, zero love, zero empathy, zero respect for dignity,
I don't know what to call it other than brainwashing. To get to that point, I would just, man, wouldn't some part of you have to be like, Hey, wait, how did you get here? How did you get here? And
yet I have to think if I, if I'm in their shoes, maybe that's me somehow. Maybe that's me.
Maybe I I'd have an F minus two. I don't know.
And then there's this weird, perhaps hopelessly naive, perhaps fantastically thinking Part of me that says, you know, but all it would take,
all it would take for this to change in the long run, not immediately, is at least two people,
one on each side of this conflict
that said, this cannot go on the way it has. There must be a different way to think and be about this. There must be. I mean, even if you don't think there is, don't you have to think there is any way there must be a different way. If you had two people who truly thought and felt that way, who linked cause, who could look each other in the eye, who could share.
Deep level trust and who importantly had a second and a third and a fourth wave of internal support from their respective camps.
It could be different. It could not be 100 more years of hell.
Unimaginable hell.
What kind of person would that be, you know? And this is, this is what started me thinking about this and thinking, I'm going to talk about it instead of not talk about it. I'm going to think about it instead of not thinking about it and just retreat. And into the turtle shell.
I'm, I'm never going to be that person. But maybe I should be working on being, becoming that kind of person. Anyway. Just anyway.
I know I'm wrong about a lot of things. I know I'm off. Man, how can I be less wrong? How can I be at least, you know, wrong in a new or better way?
How can I be less foolish? Less inclined to indulge my desire for retributive violence and hatred and Punishment, destruction, and creating more hell
Because I'm telling you there's a lot of people that are going the other way on this. At this point, and I'm shocked to say this,
Wouldn't be surprised to see Americans celebrating and rejoicing with ISIS in five years.
Or an organization just like ISIS. We're almost there right now. I mean, for, for years. The old thing is like, how could Nazi Germany ever happen? You know, that would never happen. I'd be the first to stand up and oppose it. And people thought that. And you have really smart people like Jordan Peterson saying, Hey, if you think that, then you, you don't understand history and you don't understand yourself.
And my God, how right he has been proven. In the last one month. We've just seen person after person after person after person after person. Celebrating, rejoicing, in death, destruction, rape, dismemberment, abuse, beheading of people, beheading of children, people cooked in ovens, celebrating, rejoicing, tweeting, unbelievable, unbelievable.
I wouldn't even want to know what comes next,
but it does make me want to go the other direction.
I'm not leaving this on a hopeful note, uh, this episode was just about painting a picture,
making a distinction,
and trying to take from that. What is that? Who does that make me want to be? How does that help shape me in the direction I want to go, need to go? You might think, what do those two things have to do with each other? You're talking about geopolitics and then, you know, your own personal, whatever, growth or development or character development.
I think they're connected. I think they're connected, not just for me, but for you. I think they're connected for each person. We don't know. We don't know how they're connected. You don't know. It's not your job to know,
but it is your job to be, to be shaped, to be, to be willing, to be open, to be, to be molded and shaped.
Anyway, thanks for listening today. We're going to keep going with this. We are going somewhere.
I know I talked about last episode the secret that Jesus had that I think fueled him and directed him to be willing to walk into, to step into even the harshest things. I'm sure that part of him just wanted to walk around in the the, the land and the field and listen to the birds and feel the grass on his feet.
But nonetheless, he found himself in the heart of the most tension filled, horrific conflicts of his day. We are going to get there. So stick with me. I'll see you next time.