Terrorism & Faith In A Post-Bush World

I could criticize until I'm blue in the face the word "terrorism" as it is used to describe a supposed statement of fact.

For example, the word "terrorism" is entirely subjective, that what is to us an evil act requiring a just response on our part is to the recipients of our just response an act of terrorism that requires a just response on their part, eg. the Palestinians on what they see as the taking of their land by Israel. So the outline defining "terrorism" is not so easy to draw.

Or that the word "terrorism" is just a word used to scare people into forgetting, or not seeing, that the "war on terrorism" is not a "new kind of war" we're fighting, but a war in the most traditional sense, with the same money being spent, the same pockets being lined, and the same lives being lost.

However, all of these arguments have been made before by people much more practiced on the subject than I.

One of the predictable results of the "dumbing down" of political discourse practiced by the Bush administration is that people became, well, dumber when it came to analyzing truth from fiction in world affairs.

I swear I can sometimes see President Obama bristle when using the term "Homeland" (as opposed to "national", or "our nation's", cf. "Homeland Security"), a euphemism created by Bush and his advisers to better characterize our nation post 911. To any Jew (such as myself) the use of the term holds too many echoes of the concept of the "heimat" of Nazi Germany and everything that word implies (nationalism, rejection of foreign people and culture, rejection of foreign ideas, etc...). The word "Homeland" then smacks of manipulation and propaganda and was utilized by Bush exactly for that purpose (and, unfortunately, I fear the word is here to stay).

But what I can't understand is Obama's embracing of the "faith-based" initiative, a notion interpreted by even some religious people, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, as a way for certain members of government to justify lessening government support of education and health care. As the Chicago Tribune noted last July, even Obama has had mixed results applying these initiatives in his home state.

What I wonder about is, is Obama embracing the "faith-based" to appease his radical religious constituents? Or his "fiscally conservative" constituents? Or does he really believe in the ability of such programs to bring a balanced education to people in a way our government should but doesn't?

Before accepting or rejecting (in Obama's case, apparantly, accepting) whether or not faith-based programs do work, one should define what "faith" means, which is exactly what proponents of "faith-based" programs don't want people to do.

Having "faith" implies a connection to the otherworldly, a position or circumstance that the worldly, language, intellect, materialism, cannot help us achieve. Having faith implies that there is something out there that is beyond language, and that a belief in such is dependent not on reasoned thought but on something that cannot be described.

But, as we are humans, we can only reach the otherworldly through the worldly, and that's why any profession of faith, or profession of "faith based" initiatives, must be rooted in intellectual thought.

So, I just hope that when Obama says he supports "faith based initiatives" he is honest with himself about exactly what it is he is supporting, the genuine belief in something greater than us all, or a vial of snake oil passed off as holy water in order to save a couple of pennies.

Neve Gordon On Gaza

From Democracy Now, 12 January 2009

NEVE GORDON: The problem is the—yes, intentions are important, but the facts are more important. And the fact is that Israel is the one that’s doing the harm to—much more harm to civilians than the Hamas ever did and ever will do. Israel has killed in the past two weeks 275 children, and not Hamas, regardless of the intentions. You mentioned the school. Israel is dealing with a propaganda war. Israel is the one that disseminated a video of Hamas shooting rockets from a school, a video that’s almost two years old, claiming that the video was taken a day or two earlier. So Israel is in a propaganda war. Yes, the Hamas is fighting out from a civilian population, but Israel has the choice whether it’s going to bomb the civilian population ore (sic) not, and it is intentionally deciding to bomb the civilian population. So in terms of intentionality in bombing areas where there are civilians, Israel is acting like a state terrorist. So, if your definition of terrorism doesn’t take into account the identity of the actor—and state actors can also be terrorists—then when you bomb a school and when you bomb a university and when you bomb a neighborhood and you’re killing much more civilians than militants, then you’re doing something that is an act of terror.

And I have a problem. I think my views are pro-Israelis. I would like to see Israel existing in the Middle East sixty years down the line, and not only the first sixty years. And the only way for Israel to continue to exist in the Middle East is if it changes its approach towards the region and see itself as a leader of peace and not a belligerent actor in the region. And Israel has been living on the sword. Some of our neighbors have been living on the sword. But we have to come out and say we no longer want to live on the sword, because those who live on the sword, as the Bible tells us, also die on the sword. We have to come out and say we are willing to talk with our enemies, even with people that say that they do not believe in the existence of Israel. The PLO—you mentioned Fatah—the PLO said that they do not believe in the existence of Israel for many years. And ultimately, we sat down and talked with them, and they are now considered our Palestinian partner. I believe that if there is a pragmatic side, a strong pragmatic wing in Hamas, that if we start negotiation with them, over the years these people will also agree to the existence of Israel and be willing to live side by side with us. If we do not talk with them, if we continue this cycle of violence, ultimately Israel will be destroyed, because ultimately, the technological edge that we have over our neighbors will not be meaningful. So we have to change our approach. We have to be pro—by changing our approach, we’re actually pro-Israeli. We say we want to see Israel a hundred years from now. And the only way we’ll see Israel exist a hundred years from now is if Israel makes peace with Syria, with Lebanon and with the Palestinian people.

Josh Haden On Gaza

Yesterday on my facebook page I reposted (as I did here) Brian Eno's recent article outlining his position on what's going on in Gaza.

The resulting facebook discussion helped me to better formulate my ideas on the matter, and I post my response below, slightly out of context:

I'm not an expert (far from it) on political and religious matters, so forgive me if what I say seems naive, simplistic, or even amateurish.

But it seems to me that Israel is perfect, and so is Gaza, for that matter, because they can't be anything else except exactly what they are at this point in time. They are the epitome of perfection.

Anyone who believes in God, or at the very least, says they believe in God, must concur, because God by definition is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. If...victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for justice, unborn generations will live in a desolate night of bitterness, and their chief legacy will be an endless reign of chaos." (“Non-Violence and Racial Justice”)

I watched on CNN tonight how representatives of both sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict said to the other, in so many words, your killing of our babies justifies our killing of your babies.

How could this way of thinking by both sides ever end the cycle of conflict we’ve been seeing for so many years now.

One of the sides needs to begin an assault from the higher moral ground, and say, no, your killing of our babies does not justify our killing of your babies. This must end now.

On the History Channel this week (can you tell I watch a lot of TV?) there’s been a whole series of programs on “Armageddon.” One such program has Nostradamus, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, even Christians and a whole host of others saying that the world as we know it will end on Dec. 12, 2012.

I don’t know if this is true or not, and I hope it isn’t, but wouldn’t it be sad if it were true, and the only legacy our world could leave for the next world-to-be was one filled with hatred, intolerance, violence, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, selfishness, avarice, greed, narcissism, and an inability to even seek perfection, instead of a legacy filled with love, spiritual enlightenment, reconcilliation, truth and honesty, selflessness, and acceptance of the unknown and unseen by human minds and human eyes?