{"id":38002,"date":"2024-08-28T12:15:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T19:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38002"},"modified":"2024-08-28T12:15:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T19:15:24","slug":"mine-yours-ours-the-battle-for-home-and-safety-in-israel-and-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/mine-yours-ours-the-battle-for-home-and-safety-in-israel-and-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Mine, Yours, Ours: The Battle for Home and Safety in Israel and Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Large-scale human conflicts (and many small-scale conflicts) inevitably arise around concepts of ownership: \u201cThis is mine\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This desire for ownership could be about land, or water, or antiquities, or a variety of other tangible objects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But what is at the heart of the concept of \u201cMine!\u201d?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s a fear of loss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when we dig deeper, we see not just fear of a loss of land or other resources, but what they represent: a loss of identity, power, and autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we have ownership, belonging, and agency, we feel safe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The most vivid representation of safety is the concept of \u201chome.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe all of that is at the core of the Israeli\/Palestinian conflict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some things I thought I knew (and I recognize now that some of this is simplified, incomplete, or slightly inaccurate):<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The conflict has been going on for generations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Israel desired the biblical lands promised to Abraham in Genesis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Holocaust made the need for a homeland for the Jewish diaspora more urgent, as anti-semitism seems always to rear its ugly head.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After WWII, many nations came together and agreed on the need for a Jewish homeland as a way of providing reparations for the Holocaust.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Israel was carved out of land that was already there and given to the Jewish people at that time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Palestinians who were already living in that geographic region either fled due to fear, left amid the chaos of war, or were forcibly displaced. Many became refugees, and ultimately resorted to violence to reclaim their lands.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Neighboring Arab countries have made \u201csafety\u201d for Israel an elusive target as nearby Arab states have waged war against Israel multiple times and have historically opposed its existence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ve also been keenly aware of the recent events between Israel and Gaza, going back to October of 2023. The extremist group, Hamas attacked Israel in multiple locations last October and took many young people as hostages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hamas has been intent on the eradication of the Jewish state. Some Hamas leaders have also at times called for the \u201cannihilation\u201d of the Jews. (1)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I write this today not all hostages have been returned yet, despite a continual, devastating attack by Israel on the Gaza Strip which has not only impacted Hamas, but killed and displaced thousands of ordinary Palestinians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The conflict has become a political hot potato in the U.S. because there are so many Americans who are committed to supporting Israeli democracy, which is surrounded by undemocratic regimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Prime Minister Netanyahu&#8217;s response to the Hamas attack has been unyielding and unending, harming families of this generation well into the next generation because of so much death and destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The depth of suffering on the Palestinian people has shifted sympathies. Which, it appears, was one of Hamas\u2019s goals all along.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Centuries of struggle<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I confess there is a great deal I didn\u2019t fully understand about this centuries-old struggle until recently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict; A Very Short Introduction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the New York Times Magazine article, \u201cThe Road to 1948\u201d\u2013based on a panel discussion\u2013have provided many useful details on this complex history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Martin Bunton begins his <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Short Introduction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 1897. The panelists in Emily Bazelon\u2019s article place the start of the contemporary conflict in 1920. When asked why, Leena Dallasheh, a historian of Palestine and Israel referred to the Mandate for Palestine, a 1920 document from the short-lived League of Nations that gave Britain authority to govern Palestine and Transjordan after WWI. She replied,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The British mandate was crucial in laying the grounds for the creation of the state of Israel and the prevention of the creation of a Palestinian state. Zionism was only able to take root in Palestine because the mandate recognized Zionist organizations as representative of the Jewish population and as self-governing institutions, basically creating the structure of a quasi state. It did this by incorporating in its text the Balfour Declaration,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">which the British issued in 1917.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The mandate did not similarly recognize Palestinian organizations or representation. The majority, the Palestinians, were only mentioned in the negative, as \u201cnon-Jewish communities\u201d given civil and religious rights. That meant the Palestinians were trapped, as the Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi says, in an iron cage.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The structure of the mandate prevented them from being able to have national rights or sovereignty. And that set in motion the developments in 1948 and after. (2)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nadim Bawalsa, a historian of modern Palestine, shared, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Any real discussion of what is going on today has to start with a century ago, with World War I, when Western powers redrew the Middle East for their own interests. We who live here are known as Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and Israelis because of the war. And in so many other ways, we continue to feel its effects.\u201d (3)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An important piece of the conflict\u2019s background I didn\u2019t know well was the key role Britain played in this contemporary version of the struggle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn\u2019t know about their conflicting promises following WWI and how they set up different Arab leaders to create internal conflicts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And how eventually, growing weary of the intractable nature of the conflict, Britain washed its hands and sent the issue to the new United Nations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Martin Bunton informed me that ultimately, the Zionists\u2013the Jewish leaders in Europe who were calling for a Jewish homeland\u2013were willing to forego lands of religious significance\u2013called Eretz Israel\u2013in favor of \u201cland that held economic promise.\u201d (4)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the twentieth century, various political entities\u2013from Britain and the failed League of Nations to the U.S. and the United Nations\u2013called for a solution to \u201cthe Palestiniain problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A personal reflection<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This post is not intended to lay out the timeline or history of this conflict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if we return to my opening statements, we can see how this conflict clearly illustrates some important\u2013and often devastating\u2013human behaviors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe our ability to understand others comes down to a greater understanding of \u201chome\u201d as a place of \u201csafety.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both peoples\u2013the Palestinians and the Israelis\u2013long for a safe place to live, raise their children, worship as they choose, without fear, and thrive by living into who God has called them to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our natural human desire to claim land, resources, and other items as our own causes conflicts, both on the global level and on a family level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While religious conflicts have been among the most brutal and bloody in world history, when we get it \u201cright\u201d&#8230; that is, when we remember from Whom all things come and to Whom all things belong\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All claim to owning anything at all disappears.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For that reason, I\u2019m sorry religion has often been swiped aside in this conflict, for political and economic reasons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All material and land possessions belong first and foremost to God, not to us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When in the middle of our own conflicts, we do well to remember that Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek and to love our enemies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And yes, when it comes to such global conflicts, I know that\u2019s easy for me to say, sitting here as an \u201carm-chair\u201d analyst.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though our triune God knows that we fail at this, time and time again, I\u2019m certain we make God weep when we continue to hurt and destroy each other.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jesus taught us that even our birth families\u2013and our nationalities\u2013take a back seat to being part of his family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I can only do my best to learn from what is in front of me\u2026 and apply it to my own context.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although we all long for identity, to belong to \u201cour people\u201d, we are truly safe and at home, only when we know we belong to God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How would that deep knowledge begin to change our interactions with each other, both locally and globally?<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anti-Defamation League, \u201cHamas in Its Own Words,\u201d Jan. 10, 2024, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adl.org\/resources\/blog\/hamas-its-own-words\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.adl.org\/resources\/blog\/hamas-its-own-words<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emily Bazelon,\u00a0 \u201cThe Road to 1948,\u201d Feb. 1, 2024, New York Times Magazine, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/02\/01\/magazine\/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/02\/01\/magazine\/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bazelon.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Martin Bunton, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013),<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 5.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Large-scale human conflicts (and many small-scale conflicts) inevitably arise around concepts of ownership: \u201cThis is mine\u2026\u201d\u00a0 This desire for ownership could be about land, or water, or antiquities, or a variety of other tangible objects.\u00a0 But what is at the heart of the concept of \u201cMine!\u201d?\u00a0 It\u2019s a fear of loss.\u00a0 But when we dig [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3222,2967],"class_list":["post-38002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bunton","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38004,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002\/revisions\/38004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}