[NetBehaviour] Thoughts on Israel/Palestine
Ruth Catlow
ruthcatlow at gmail.com
Sat Nov 11 10:02:58 CET 2023
Me too!
"Yes and" as a way to progress beyond the inflammatory "Yes but", the
inadequate "Oh dear", and the dreadful "It's complicated", as a way to stop
putting peoples suffering in competition, and instead witness and hold
parallel realities with compassion.
Wonderful Gretta - Thank you!
On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:30 PM Ann Light via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
> Dear Gretta,
>
> I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for sharing this link. It so
> well sums up my own frustrations with what is being said all around me and
> neatly offers a way of thinking and speaking that might actually make a
> difference. My boss has called out "several antisemitic incidents" at my
> place of work and says that now there are both Jewish and Palestinian
> students feeling unsafe. This was obviously going to happen but how
> unnecessary and how sad.
> Thank you for being awesome and epic and putting this our way,
> Ann
>
> On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 3:50 PM Gretta Louw via NetBehaviour <
> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>
>> Very true words, Ruth! Just read this article this afternoon and wanted
>> to post here in case it’s useful for anyone.
>> https://medium.com/@mushon/your-empathy-is-killing-us-1a50a4fc0488
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10. Nov 2023, at 16:42, Ruth Catlow via NetBehaviour <
>> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Alan,
>>
>> This post really helped me with a number of things...
>>
>> It helped me recognise how paralysed I have been by the combination of 2
>> aspects of events in Israel/Palestine 1. the catastrophic violence and 2.
>> political propaganda.
>>
>> The violence perpetrated by states, armies, militias etc on civilians is
>> horrifying and grotesque.
>> Political propaganda is equally so.
>>
>> In the UK we have a home secretary who describes the London marches
>> calling for a ceasefire as "hate marches". Her message is carried and
>> amplified by ALL the mainstream British Newspapers - serious and tabloids
>> alike - apart from the Guardian and the Independent. So for the last week,
>> our newsagents have displayed wall-to-wall headlines that are designed to
>> spread misinformation and stir up fear and contempt along racial lines by
>> recasting peace protesters as dangerous, hateful, anti-British, antisemitic
>> extremists...part of a lefty conspiracy.
>>
>> The harm that these kinds of tactics do to both Muslim and Jewish
>> communities here is well understood.
>> <https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/antisemitic-islamophobic-offences-soar-london-after-israel-attacks-2023-10-20/> It
>> seems she is finally being sanctioned by her own Tory party but the damage
>> to people's sense of safety is immeasurable.
>>
>>
>> Your post also reminded me of the importance of constant work for
>> imagining and enacting routes to peace and justice from all quarters. No
>> matter what happens, we can be sure that if we stop talking to each other,
>> trying to understand what is happening, making our voices heard through all
>> channels; if we give up trying, there is really no hope. Therefore I was
>> supergrateful for your research into all the different peace strategies and
>> tactics that you have come across on these lines.
>>
>> You asked if art, music and discussion on lists help at a time like this.
>> For me, the answer is a resounding YES!
>>
>> Love and respect
>> Ruth
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 8:48 AM Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour <
>> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> (apologies for so much posting recently, cutting back)
>>>
>>>
>>> Thoughts on Israel/Palestine
>>>
>>> 0. Like everyone else, I've been ruminating more or less in
>>> despair at the situation in Israel/Palestine. Until my mother
>>> died, she was active in the Hadassah women's organization,
>>> and made many trips to the Mid-East and Europe, working on
>>> peace processes; I have many of her documents and some of her
>>> talks here. In any case, thinking about the situation,
>>> however naive I might be -
>>>
>>> 1. A two-state solution is absolutely necessary; nations need
>>> self-governance all the way around. There's no reason that
>>> the West Bank and Gaza cannot be united through physical and
>>> eletronic internetworking that would be able to respond
>>> quickly to crisis.
>>>
>>> 2. Israel must pull out of Gaza; what started as defense and
>>> retribution has turned into a massacre on the order of
>>> Dresden or the Warsaw ghetto. Beyond the politics there's an
>>> outdated issue of saving face which is increasingly deadly.
>>>
>>> 3. I believe that Israel still has nuclear weapons, and these
>>> should be off the table completely. A war of any sort in
>>> these small areas can escalate into annihilation: to the
>>> limit as I once wrote.
>>>
>>> 4. The hospital systems of Gaza and Israel should connect and
>>> the wounded of all parties should be able to receive
>>> immediate treatment.
>>>
>>> 5. Talks should begin on all of this, sidelining Netanyahu and
>>> Hamas; there should be no room for absolutism.
>>>
>>> 6. Jerusalem, in parts, should be an international city; there
>>> are a number of religions which are somewhat central there,
>>> and there should be no competition. It would be governed both
>>> as the capital of Israel and an important religious and
>>> political center for Arabs, Christians, and Jews.
>>>
>>> 7. I would keep in relation to 6, the ultra-orthodox out of all
>>> of this; their reasoning tends towards catastrophe, and, like
>>> Netanyahu, they have no interest in anything other, I think,
>>> than total annihilation of the Arabs. The same would hold for
>>> any other religion as well. I'd argue for the UN to control
>>> the temple mount, wailing wall, etc.
>>>
>>> 8. A great deal of all of this should center on the Jordan River
>>> which has been known for a long time to be in a contention
>>> that's damaging to everyone - instead there should be an
>>> international agency composed of all the countries involved,
>>> to find the best way to employ the water for agriculture and
>>> so forth. Likewise Israeli desalinization plants should be
>>> open to all. Articles I've read have indicated that this
>>> might well be sustainable.
>>>
>>> 9. Cross-cultural education should be offered to all and perhaps
>>> made mandatory; there are too many misrecognitions among
>>> peoples that are resulting in the growths of hatreds.
>>> Face-to-face peaceful encounters should be instituted;
>>> there's already much too much false information online on
>>> both side to result in anything other than a sense of
>>> absolute warfare and enemies.
>>>
>>> 10. In terms of #2, the pull-out should be an immediate priority
>>> and Israeli hospitals and other institutions should be open
>>> to receiving the wounded. In other words, there must be
>>> immediate steps taken, above all, to at least hint of a
>>> periphery of reconciliation and cooperation; the land-mass
>>> is too rugged, too alienating itself for anyone to prosper
>>> without cooperation.
>>>
>>> 11. Obviously there should be term limits on Israeli leaders;
>>> Netanyahu, who of course is corrupt, is going the way of all
>>> strong-men, caressing the state, consolidating power,
>>> ensuring his continuous re-election, and working with a
>>> vengeful and underlying militarism that affects everything.
>>> The fact that he listens to no one but himself in this
>>> catastrophe - which he is now both creating and continuing -
>>> indicates he has no desire for a peace process. I'm reminded
>>> of Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us" - and this is
>>> absolutely true in this situation, with perhaps the worst
>>> collateral damage the world has seen since World War II;
>>> again Dresden comes to mind.
>>>
>>> 12. There should be any number of "temporary" withdrawals on the
>>> Israeli side, to see if Hamas could be contained or even
>>> become part of the peace process. In other words, in order
>>> to give peace a chance, you need a space for peace, a space
>>> that would, at least for the moment, refuse recrimination in
>>> the interests of the families and cultural institutions
>>> caught up in the middle of all of this. (Remember John and
>>> Yoko's bed.)
>>>
>>> 13. I wonder if lessons might not be derived from Hiroshima in
>>> particular, a cultural backing-away, finding other paths to
>>> process what is happening and what has happened. I remember
>>> the long tradition of the Jewish Left in America, saw it
>>> work out, at least for a while, in New York city, and
>>> whether one might draw on that as well. We're on the brink
>>> of inconceivable horror, even worse than the current
>>> carpet-bombing and violent moving of populations from one
>>> place to another, what I called at one point "annihilation:
>>> to the limit." We live in a universal shtetl.
>>>
>>> 14. Finally, I'd even think of Thomas Merton, Liberation
>>> Theology, the world's calling for peace over and over again,
>>> so many protests, so much pain distributed everywhere, and
>>> see if it would be possible to at least begin the peace
>>> process. I cannot imagine what it must be like living in
>>> Gaza with continuous bombing, etc. - no sleep, no clean
>>> clothes, no shelter, and always in a resulting state of
>>> inconceivable anxiety and danger, sleeplessness and lack of
>>> medication, nowhere to go, constant contradictory orders,
>>> and people dying or wounded everywhere around you - in other
>>> words a phenomenological environment of pain, fear,
>>> exhaustion, hunger, illness. That should be absolutely
>>> paramount.
>>>
>>> 15. I know of course what I'm writing is a fiction, has no
>>> ultimate meaning in terms of performativity; it's something
>>> I've been thinking about for a lot time, way before August.
>>> A final note, the simplest thing - everyone involved should
>>> be talking, however where and when, with everyone involved.
>>> And more than anything, this should be within a safe space
>>> for listening as well.
>>>
>>> - Alan
>>>
>>>
>>> __
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ruth Catlow
>> she/her
>> Co-director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab
>> +44 (0) 77370 02879
>>
>> Mastodon: @Ruth at assemblag.es
>>
>> *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender
>> balanced.
>>
>> **sending thanks
>> <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> in
>> advance
>>
>> *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions,
>> labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking.
>> furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/>
>>
>> *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0
>> technologies research hub
>> for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now.
>> https://decal.furtherfield.org/
>>
>> Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee
>> Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
>> Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London,
>> EC1A 9ET.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>
> _______________________________________________
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
--
Ruth Catlow
she/her
Co-director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab
+44 (0) 77370 02879
Mastodon: @Ruth at assemblag.es
*I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender
balanced.
**sending thanks
<https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html>
in
advance
*Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through
exhibitions,
labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking.
furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/>
*DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 technologies
research hub
for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now.
https://decal.furtherfield.org/
Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee
Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London,
EC1A 9ET.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20231111/6eb4aa4e/attachment.htm>
More information about the NetBehaviour
mailing list