Feel-good Gaza poster in NY window draws feel-bad response from neighbor

@Phil

Yep. You have a New York Jew that genuinely hates the Gazans. From the sounds of it he’s never met a Gazan so this is all a product of poisonous actions and rhetoric.

There is a solution to that. The sort of shared humanity reconciliation type approach that peace activists used in the 1980s-1990s. It worked well, but expectations were unfortunately ridiculously high and so success was measured as a family. Support for discrimination decreased and there was economic progress for Palestinians. Politics shifted left and what had previously been impossible for both sides got put on the table, they never quite reached agreement but both sides shifted towards one another.

During the 2nd intifada and since then confrontation and more hostility got tried. Back to the pre-Oslo strategy of a rhetoric of total population war, even though the Palestinians were no longer in any position to even plausibly attempt it. So the Israelis can destroy 1/3rd of the infrastructure of Gaza in “self defense ” and your letter writer mostly agrees. In the end what matters the most is not whether Gazans hate Israelis, or New York Jews hate Gazans but how much Israelis hate Gazans. The higher Israeli anger and hatred towards Gazans the more Gazans die.

You want to avoid hate people need to be charitable. Try and see things from both sides. Appreciate common humanity. Look for win-win rather than win-lose. That’s how you avoid hate. We both like INN. Think about that for a moment. As far away as we are on this conflict, we both like INN. Maybe that means they are doing something right. That INN can dialogue with both of us from a position of trust is no small accomplishment.

I can dialogue with rightwing Israelis from a position of trust (excluding the more religious settler right, where I’m too much of pinko leftist assimilated American…). So likely can your letter writer. The violence against the Gazans has gone to far when we condemn it not when you condemn it. Or more accurately the fact that I reject the idea of Jordanian citizenship for West Bankers being sufficient matters to them, the fact you reject it doesn’t. Similarly you have cred with the other side. The reason the Allison Weir thing still bothers people so much is that JVP was able to draw a line in the sand and say “this rhetoric we will not support” and make it stick.

You do a terrific job in the “this is why the Palestinians are so pissed off” department. And that is needed. What you could do on the other side having built the credibility is…. try and work towards dialogue not confrontation. 5 years ago when we started having these conversations you believed BDS would grow and swamp the domestic counter pressure. Before that the resistance strategy would work and your role was going to be the typical domestic resistance. I think you realize now that didn’t happen. The American Jewish community was able to win the fight. And the Israelis were able to win their fight. The fraying you chart, isn’t happening fast enough.

We are in a weird void period. Its a good time for articles that think through what comes next. How do we create a less poisonous environment so that the Gazan poster isn’t seen as personal threat to a New Yorker?

Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2017/10/window-response-neighbor/

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