Arab Lives Matter

                                                                   Gaza City

I’m really getting tired of the Israelis killing Palestinians and Lebanese, and now it looks like they’re getting ready to kill some Iranians. After they blew up Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies, killing or injuring thousands, not only Hezbollah’s members but also whatever Lebanese civilians happened to be close by, my first response was that Israel is now the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism. Now they’re planning a ground invasion of Lebanon, and who knows what in Iran. 

This is after they’ve spent a year killing Palestinians, over 40,000 of them, both in Gaza and the West Bank, in what really amounts to genocide, after the Hamas staged an invasion of Israel, killing a little over a thousand Israelis, and taking 250 hostages.   

Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah and has sent two barrages of missiles toward Israel after Israel killed several Iranian and Hezbollah military leaders. It amounted to a protest, since most of the missiles were intercepted and few Israelis were injured.  Now Israel is planning a major attack on Iranian military and infrastructure. 

I’m no expert, but it seems to me that the Arab nations, especially the Palestinians, have a legitimate grievance against Israel. Israel’s very existence is illegal, since their land was originally Palestine. The Israelis have continued to encroach on the areas left to the Palestinians by building settlements there. The Palestinians have fought and lobbied for independence in the world court. They don’t have the military power to win independence, but they have won their legal battles. I can understand why the Palestinians have resorted to terrorism and why the other Arab states have supported them, because they can’t win a war. 

I have been sympathetic to Israel’s desire for a homeland, a refuge from the antisemitism around the world, but I can’t condone their continued slaughter of Arabs in the countries surrounding them. 

It’s as though they are playing a game: “If you kill one of ours, we’ll kill ten of yours.” So they continue to attack and kill Arabs, as if to say, “That’ll teach you.” Of course, they’ve proved over and over that responding to terror attacks just enrages Arab victims and inspires more to become terrorists. 

The result is more and more killing, weighted more toward Arab casualties, and in Gaza it really does seem like a war of genocide.

My response is that “Arab lives matter!” What I don’t understand is why casualties, deaths don’t seem to enter into Israeli, or Arab calculations. There have been a few programs to develop understanding and personal relationships between Arabs and Israelis, but, while successful on a small scale, these programs seem to be outweighed by the decisions of militant leaders. 

The punch line to this tragic conundrum is that the enabler of all this hostility and killing is us. We support Israel with money, weapons, and if necessary, military backup. They have pursued their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, their attacks in Lebanon, and possibly a war with Iran knowing that we will support them, no matter what. They’re betting their very existence on our support. Biden can urge a cease fire, negotiations, and limited responses to Arab protests, but his words are meaningless as he continues to provide Israel with huge bombs and high tech defensive systems, and to surround the area with aircraft carriers for Israel’s “defense.” 

I’m not Arab or Israeli, and I don’t understand the complicated relations between the Arab nations, or Israeli politics. I just think everyone needs to consider the lives and suffering of the people involved.