By Mike Ghouse
We urge our governmental and humanitarian agencies to investigate and establish responsibilities for the death of 1900 civilians in the latest conflict. Through this we hope and pray for de-escalating the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Arab sentiments caused by the brutal but senseless killings in the conflict. Our ultimate goal is security for Israel and Justice for the Palestinians, one will not happen without the other.
Aug. 7, 2014 – DALLAS — We are seriously concerned about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, and present the following proposal to bring some sense to the future of both societies, as all of them have to start living together some day, and seeing eye to eye. If they can mitigate the damage about to happen with the war of words, the better off they would be in facing each other tomorrow.
The immediate need is to de-escalate blaming and stereotyping that goes with a conflict. Judaism or Islam is not responsible for this mayhem, and neither Israel nor Palestine is responsible for this. If we blame these intangibles, we cannot restore law and order, as we cannot beat, kick, kill, shoot or bury these, nothing comes off blaming these. We cannot put these intangibles on the stand in the court of law either.
We should guard ourselves from getting derailed from our goals by divisive rhetoric or reports. The bottom line is security for Israel and justice for the Palestinians so that Israelis and Palestinians can start living a normal life as normal people.
Blaming any group amounts to stereotyping, and will lead us nowhere, and it’s an unhealthy thing to the future of both societies, as all of them have to start living together some day as normal people.
It is in the best interests of all to establish the responsibility of the crimes on to the individuals and hold them accountable.
A commission of inquiry needs to be set up, to clearly establish responsibility for the death of civilians, and take the necessary actions to hold the individuals accountable. If Netanyahu, Mashaal, Obama, and the leadership in US Senate and Congress could have averted the deaths, why did they not do it? What prevented them from getting the parties to have a dialogue?
Societies functions effectively and cohesively, when there is law and order, individuals mess it up, and individuals need to be punished to restore it. Barking at intangibles like religion or nation is useless, although their scriptures require a better interpretation to fully respect the God given rights of every human being.
Individual lapses or deliberations are responsible for this mayhem, and certainly not Jews and Muslims. My father taught me, blaming the individual stops the fire from spreading to neighborhood, town, state and the nations. As responsible citizens of the world, we need to take a step back, drop anti-Semitism and Anti-Palestinian stance and be the just people to produce just results and work on building cohesive societies, where no human has to live in fear of the other.
We will pursue this option, no one should go Scot free.
Mike Ghouse is a public speaker, thinker, writer and a commentator on Pluralism at work place, politics, religion, society, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, food and foreign policy. All about him is listed in several links at www.MikeGhouse.net and his writings are at www.TheGhousediary.com and 10 other blogs. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.
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