A few weeks ago I attended a protest in my hometown of Victoria, British Columbia against the recent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. Walking towards the gathering wearing the keffiyeh that I bought in the Old City of Jerusalem, I was immediately thrown into a crowd of passionate activists from both sides of the political divide holding boards and banners, arguing with one another about motives, necessity, and justifications for the bombardment of schools and houses in the densely-packed Palestinian territory. Israeli and Palestinian flags were held high along the road, as if each was trying to cancel the other out by their unwavering presence.
One woman who was carrying a massive banner supporting Israel seemed to notice the peculiar scarf around my neck. She paused for a while, and then moved her head upwards to catch a glimpse of my face. After staring curiously for a few seconds, she walked over to my side of the invisible divide and we started speaking.
“You’re Daniel Ming, right? I recognized you from that article in the newspaper the other day.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“So you studied in a Palestinian university last semester? In Ramallah?”
“Yes, I was at Birzeit University in the West Bank.”
“Well, I just thought I should come here and talk with you so that you can know the other side as well.”
Apparently for her, my sympathies and loyalties in the situation needed no identification. Unaware of the fact that I have close family friends who live on a Kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border in the Negev desert– within range of the rockets that were being constantly fired at the time of the protest– my newfound discussion partner went on to tell me about her life growing up in a small Israeli town near the Lebanon border. She explained the constant anguish of fearing rocket attacks, the devastation of having a friend killed during the first Lebanon War, the impossibility of finding normalcy in a life that is at times so uncertain.
I listened to her; trying to comprehend the ways in which her lived experiences have led her to this moment. She proudly waved a flag in support of a military that is currently responsible for over a thousand of Palestinian casualties; mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, all obliterated in the name of “fighting terrorism.” And moreover, she wasn’t simply forgiving the Israeli Defense Forces for their actions; she was defending the very right of Israel to commit these atrocities. Some of the signs in the counter protest read: “What would you do if rockets were falling on your house?”
Is “bomb a UN school” the logical answer? If so-called terrorists hide behind civilian targets, must the civilians first be destroyed in the name of purging evil? How could this woman lament the deaths of Israeli citizens and not give a thought to the lives of the Palestinians which Israel constantly oppresses?
In trying to make sense of the chilling answers to these troubling questions, I came across a psychological theory called cognitive dissonance. When our minds hold two conflicting ideas, attitudes, beliefs or opinions, we are left in a state of tension. One way in which our brains attempt to resolve this mental discomfort is through seeking out justifications in order to privilege a certain opinion over a long-held belief. In this case, the two inconsistent cognitions are 1) that massacres on innocent civilians are morally reprehensible and 2) that the attacks on, and continued collective punishment of, 1.5 million Gazans is an appropriate response to threats towards the state of Israel. Despite the fact that there were one hundred Palestinian deaths for every Israeli citizen killed in the recent war, the word “massacre” is never invoked by the supporters of the invasion. The consistency of these two ideas is therefore unchallenged, and the painful tension is effectively avoided.
The justifications that have been championed by the pro-Israel camp center around the need to protect against incidents of terrorism, and under this banner of national security they have come to defend the unimaginable horrors of an indiscriminate war. This month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza” by 390 votes to five. The specific methods of an appropriate defense were never mentioned, and there was nothing in the resolution that expressed criticism of Israel’s tactics. We are watching the official American sanctioning of a distant slaughter, which may not seem new to students of history, but is still shocking to a student returning from the Palestinian territories.
I was talking to a Vassar professor the other day about the catastrophe in Gaza and my subsequent decision to return to Poughkeepsie, rather than Jerusalem, for the semester. In defense of Israel’s actions, she invoked the famous words of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: “We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.” As I walked away from that encounter, the words rattled in my skull. Justification can be a monster of a thing.
