Ethnic Hatred and the Red-Headed Scotsman

I was watching the Morgan Spurlock movie where he's looking for Osama bin Laden yesterday. It's kind of a lame movie, but with a big heart, and Spurlock is a dreamboat when he grows his beard out and tries to look like an Arab even though he is so obviously a red-haired Scotsman. Nice try, buddy.

But he spends a bit of time on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and talks about how it is the rallying call of Islamic Fundamentalists, which is the truth. He talks to people on both sides, and the only people that really come off as douche bags are the Hasidic Jews. Being Jewish myself, I think I am entitled to say that I'm not really surprised.

A lot of people have an opinion on this conflict. Most left-wing people, who I usually agree with, are Pro-Palestinian, sometimes to the extent that they believe that the Jews need to leave and find a new place to shack up. This, in my opinion, is an absolutely ridiculous solution to the problem.

We need to dig into history a bit to understand the situation. First, remember that Israel was founded as a state very soon after the end of WWII and the holocaust. It doesn't take a PHD in psychology to understand that people who've had most of their family and friends tossed into ovens by a man with a silly little mustache won't put up with a lot of bullshit. And they might even act a bit selfishly at times. But who can blame them? They just suffered through one of the biggest tragedies in modern history.

So these Jews want a place where they can call the shots, so they don't have to suffer though another debacle like the holocaust. So, when the Brits and the UN decide that they can all live in Israel, the Jews start cleaning house. They kick out a bunch of Palestinians, kill a few for good measure, and lock the rest in what basically amount to cages. Better safe than sorry.

So the Palestinians are pissed off, and rightfully so. They fight back, and you can't really blame them. They're in the right. But are the Jews in the wrong? What would have happened if they tried to integrate with the Palestinians and trying to softly shove them out of power? Would the Palestinians be down with this situation? Probably not. Would there be bloodshed exceeding that in the actual history of the Israeli State? My intuition is yes.

I took an ethics class last year in college. In it, we learned about two theories of punishment. Retributivist punishment is backwards-looking punishment, which involves punishing someone proportionally to what they did in, supposedly in order to restore the natural balance of justice in a society. This is the philosophy exists in Israel and Palestine right now. Utilitarian punishment is a forward-looking philosophy that involves punishing someone in a way that will best serve society. This is what Israel and Palestine need.

The Israelis and Palestinians needs mutual trust and understanding. They need leaders that don't let their plans get screwed up by extremists. Easier said than done. But I wrote this mainly to show that one doesn't need to be Pro-Palestinian or Pro-Israeli because neither of these people are evil, and because basically because everybody is getting fucked. What we need are more people to call for an end to the fighting instead of just taking sides.

If you are reading this, you have surprised me with your patience. If you comment now, you'll be the first one ever to comment on one of my posts. Be a trend-setter.

Mahalo.