The danger in coming out of the trenches too soon

On my daily commute through the many small Arab villages along my route, I often force myself to think about the people I see as individuals instead of as members of some real or imagined monolithic group.

I've written in the past that it is important to remember that just as their blanket assumptions of me and my countrymen are at least partially incorrect ... so too, no single idea I might hold about Arabs/Muslims could possibly apply to all (or even most) of them.

This perfectly rational humanist sentiment is at the core of the thinking of many Israelis I know and respect.  Their in-person and on-line contact with Palestinians and Arab/Muslim bloggers from around our region has convinced them (quite correctly, I might add) that these people are not monsters and that they want their lives to return to a semblance of normalcy as much, or even more, than the typical Israeli.

Intellectually I totally get this, but it is in total conflict with the another semi-rational part of my brain... the part that deals with the ultimate human instinct; self preservation.  And for whatever reason, even with wise counsel and information from friends on both sides of the political chasm, I have not had any success in getting my inner humanist to sit quietly alongside my inner human.

This morning I woke up understanding what I think is the crucial stumbling block to achieving this inner peace.

During World War II the Allied governments went out of their way to deliberately vilify the Germans and the Japanese.  Admittedly they had a much easier time turning our Asian enemy into a sub-human devil because of the natural suspicion that accompanies large cultural/racial divides. 

But even with the Germans, our leaders were extremely successful in portraying a people who had historically epitomized the very apex of continental civility and culture as something suitably evil and sub-human to be considered an enemy.

So why was this intentional vilification process necessary?  Why wasn't it enough to hate the German and Japanese leadership and leave the perfectly nice German and Japanese people intact in our collective imagination as wholesome, family raising, hard-working people?

The simple answer is that it is impossible to wage war only on the leaders of a country or national entity.  You can argue all you want that the people are essentially good and more like you than not... but entire nations and national entities wage war, not just their leaders.  When the leadership of a national entity declares war on another, everyone is at war. 

With the decision to go to war the nature of the citizens doesn't change.  But no matter how many individuals you can locate who are wonderful upstanding people, the entire population is now actively part of an entity that wants to do another entity (yours) harm. 

To make it possible for soldiers to mow down human beings with machine guns or level cities with bombs, a great deal of mental groundwork/preparation has to be accomplished whereby the enemy ceases to be completely human.

For a perfect illustration of this dilemma we have to go back to Christmas of 1914 during World War I:

During the terrible trench warfare at Flanders during the winter of 1914, the German and British lines were less than 60 yards apart and the two sides were doing unspeakable things to one another with some of the most vicious weapons imaginable.  The Pope had begged both sides to call a truce for the Christmas holiday but both sides rejected it as 'impossible'.

However, on Christmas eve some German officers placed Christmas trees on the parapets of their trenches and began leading their men in traditional carols.  The English troops didn't understand the language but many of the tunes were familiar enough that they stopped shooting and crawled closer to listen.

Christmas morning saw both sides out of their trenches exchanging rations and tobacco, singing traditional songs and even playing several well documented games of soccer in the muddy no-man's-land between the trenches.  During this spontaneous recognition of the enemy's essential humanity, both sides were able to put aside hostilities for a little more than a day.

This may seem like a heartwarming story to most... and is even retold by those who would like to illustrate the futility and folly of war.  But in doing so they will always sidestep a couple of crucial issues.

First of all, this was 1914 and the war would rage on for another 4 years before one side would be beaten into submission and forced to accept terms of surrender.  That it took so long was as much a result of fairly equally matched combatants as the leadership's refusal to contemplate a non-military solution.  In fact so long as a military victory remained in the realm of possibility, a diplomatic solution was never seriously considered by either side.

But more important was the demotivating/demoralizing effect this impromptu holiday truce had on the troops who had eaten and drunk with their enemies as well as those who had heard about this startling event.  Discipline broke down for several weeks up and down the lines while both sides sent angry messages through the chain of command demanding that the soldiers in the trenches resume hostilities.

Obviously the war resumed in all its horrible manifestations and millions more died after the leaders on both sides ignored this potential opportunity to emulate their citizens.  But was an opportunity for peace really missed in 1914?

The answer is 'no'. 

For hostilities to have ceased long-term, both sets of leaders would have had to agree to pursue an exclusively diplomatic solution.  For only one side to have done so would have been tantamount to suing for surrender terms.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves today.  The Arabs who live in the countries that surround Israel are not bad people.  They do not have horns and do not have a thirst for Jewish blood.  And the Palestinians who live in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (or whatever terminology floats your boat) are not bloodthirsty killers or sub-human monsters.

Granted the cultural gulf that exists between them and us is more reminiscent of how we and the Japanese viewed one another during WWII.  But even if the conflict more closely resembled the cultural fratricide that existed between the various European combatants during WWI, we would still be left to deal with the only thing that matters; the decisions and orders issued by the leaders.

You can write all the heartwarming anecdotes you want about mothers in Gaza and students in Bethlehem.  Those nice people are not in a position to call the shots and are as much victims of this conflict as we are. 

Until their leaders (and by this I mean the unambiguous, democratically elected leaders of the Palestinians people) unequivocally and finally denounce all armed hostilities against the people and nation of Israel, the two peoples... ALL OF THEM... will remain in a very real state of war.

If in 1914 the German and English leaders had decided to sit down and negotiate a peaceful solution while the German troops continued to wage an open war against the British troops who had agreed to respect a cessation of hostilities, the negotiations would have broken off immediately, and rightly so. 

It wouldn't make any difference that the majority of Germans were ready, able and willing to have an end to hostilities and see their beautiful children out from under the destructive cloud of war.  So long as even a few organized German units continued to perpetrate substantive lethal attacks against the Allies, no allied leader could consider an offer of peace to be even remotely credible.

I don't care what the rest of the world tells Israel it should do.  They have their own agenda in mind and it doesn't matter what motivates that agenda. 

What concerns me is that nearly half the Israeli population... MY PEOPLE... are willing to delude themselves that the reasonable voices they hear from 'the other trenches' are actually the voices of the decision makers... and they are not!

To act as though friendly, reasonable Palestinian journalists and bloggers speak for their leaders... and to attempt to influence our government's foreign policy according to this mistaken perception while the elected leadership of the Palestinian people continues to actively work towards the destruction of Israel (a country whose name many of their leaders won't even publicly utter)...  is to aid and abet the enemy in time of war, and this is tantamount to treason!

The German troops who came up out of the trenches on Christmas morning of 1914 were not the exceptional in any way.  They were absolutely representative of the humanity and goodness that the German people possessed.  But their leaders, like the Palestinian leaders today, were not ready or willing to seek a peaceful solution... and therefore the Allied leaders were forced to continue pursuing the only solution at their disposal; a military one.

Our leaders seem to be listening too closely to the 'men playing football in the mud between the trenches' and those who have been witness to such heartwarming events, while ignoring the enemy leaders who are unambiguous about actively pursuing their next military offensive.

This will be our national undoing.