A moral stance

Respect to my friends and colleagues trying to provide context and nuance to events over here, explaining the side that appears to be less understood by your audience. I also strive to be in the camp of doing the work needed to grasp the complexity and humanity of everyone. I acknowledge the moral positions I see you taking. That’s important.

So here’s my position, as someone who’s also a teacher and practitioner of matters of spirit:

I AM AGAINST MASSACRES.

Beyond context, beyond complexity, beyond justice – I am against massacres, whether premeditated or spontaneous, whether committed by guerrilla or institutional forces, whether understandable in the larger context or not. Indiscriminate killing is evil. Period.

If we have one universal obligation as human beings, before survival or even making sure our kids survive, before winning or achieving justice, it is to keep our own souls and our collective souls from evil. Regardless of circumstances, of intergenerational trauma, of what we, our ancestors, or our communities have been victims of.

I am against the massacre of populations, and while I’m at it, also against the massacre of nonhumans, and against the abduction and imprisonment of children. Regardless of context or justification. That’s the absolute minimum.

I don’t much care for comparisons of who’s committed (or suffered) more or greater atrocities when they’re used to justify the unconscionable. I am vehemently against them all.

I am for whatever stops them, regardless of justice. A lot of people seem to think the only thing that will prevent more massacres in the future is more massacres now. That’s how we got here. What might have a chance of preventing them is a completely different paradigm, because the one we’ve been operating under clearly does not. If it seems like I’m only speaking to one side – I am not. As far as I’m concerned, this is as universal as it gets.

This doesn’t make me a pacifist. I’m an animist, and animists don’t get to eschew violence, not when every bit of the world is alive and we all eat/feed each other. But animists are aware of the need to be conscious about it. To steer clear of evil, and to exorcize it as needed – first and foremost from our own souls.

Since this doesn’t seem to be obvious, whichever side you’re talking to, please consider including this. As a citizen of Israel and the US, it’s my responsibility to call out our governments for evils committed or abetted in our name. I look to our allies for support in this. From allies and supporters of Palestinian liberation, I  expect the same.