Newsletter 289 — October 23, 2023
Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess
We got two responses to our post comparing September 11 to October 7, one from a former student of ours, who prefers to remain anonymous, and the other from Mike Buck.
Our former student (who we will call Gail, who was one of our all-time best students, we might note) graduated from the University of Colorado, and then moved to Israel. She joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and served for for almost 3 years. She then went on to complete a master's degree at the Hebrew University in Conflict Research, Management and Resolution in 2022. For the last few years, she has been working in various peacebuilding NGOs in the Israeli-Palestinian context, in roles related to program development and coordination, monitoring and evaluation, and dialogue facilitation. The NGO in which she currently works, Amal-Tikva, works to build capacity for sustainable and scalable peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians. They work mainly at the NGO, donor, and academic levels to support the development of sound theories of change rooted in strategic thinking and best practices. They recently released an in-depth report on the state of peacebuilding and civil society after October 7th, which is not only highly informative, but in many ways very surprising. Gail shared this report with us, and with us we plan to write a post on that report soon. But here, we want to share Gail's and Mike's responses to our post comparing the response to September 11 and October 7.
Mike is a retired business person who has always been engaged with local community concerns and enhancement. He now works in ecological restoration. He has degrees in philosophy, political science and history but what really matters, he says, "is an ongoing learning that studies theory and practice, thought and action, knowledge and behavior for integral human fulfillment." He went on to say that he shares with us the desire to clarify our perception that seems culturally conditioned to dualisms—having to choose moral, political, and social alignments; and needing to divest ourselves of these biases for a fuller contextual understanding." Mike wrote "it is about awareness and understanding. Yet I start with a faith in our humanity."
Gail's Comments:
I read your newsletter comparing 9/11 and 10/7 and wanted to respond to a few things. In one section, you talk about how the world's response, including the White House, is that Israel is killing far too many Palestinians. This response is indicative of looking purely at "numbers" on both sides. The death and injury toll would surely be much higher on the Israeli side than it is now if we didn't have defense systems such as the iron dome and arrow to shoot down rockets and missiles coming into our airspace. I wonder if this were not the case, and the numbers were drastically different, whether this would actually cause a different outlook by the international community on what is happening. Or would they continue to perceive it in the same light as they do now? Also related to this response, is the issue of Hamas's output of statistics regarding casualties and injured people. As has been criticized and has come to light, much of the data is made up and also there is no differentiation in the statistics regarding civilians versus combatants. But, people are quick to believe the numbers and don't engage in critical thinking.
In another section, you talk about the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and how the following experience causes Israel to refrain from giving up the West Bank. While this is definitely a large part of the refusal to withdraw, it certainly isn't the whole story. It is much more complicated than that. Regardless, the questions you raised reminded me of a book I read in one of my classes for my master's degree - Chances for Peace: Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict written by a professor of mine, Eli Podeh. In it, he essentially analyzes and measures the potentiality of various attempted negotiations over the years — why they failed, who was at fault for it failing, and whether there even was potential for it to succeed. I am not sure if you know the book or not, but if not, I highly recommend it. It is very interesting and a lot can be learned from it towards future negotiations.
Later on, you also mention something about Israel's incorporation of Palestinians and other Arabs (Druze and Bedouin) into society as demonstrating that a better approach is possible. While you do say that the way it has been done has been imperfect, I feel that it is glossing over the actual severe inequality and structural racism which has long been inherent in Israeli society. I would not say that Israel has successfully incorporated Palestinians and other Arabs into Israeli society. The only community which can be looked at as a successful incorporation is the Druze community — and only the Druze community in the Carmel area, not the community in the Golan Heights. This successful incorporation is also not, in my opinion, a success of Israeli efforts. Rather, it stems entirely from the Druze community of the Carmel area itself. In Druze culture, they are largely loyal to the country in which they live. As such, when they became Israelis, Druze from Carmel essentially pledged loyalty to Israel. The Druze in the Golan Heights however, which was occupied through war, see the Golan Heights as part of Syria still, and therefore are not loyal to Israel, but to Syria. In fact, Israel had offered citizenship to the Druze community of the Golan Heights, and many of them refused the citizenship. Additionally, the Israeli attempt at integrating Bedouins into Israeli society through the creation of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the south was largely a failure. Culturally, Bedouins are a nomadic people, and Israel has forced them to settle in one place, without providing them means to adapt to a new way of life, and without being culturally aware of their needs and interests. As such, we have two problems: 1) Rahat has become a city filled with gang violence and crime, where the Israeli police essentially refuse to operate and get involved. 2) There are many Bedouin villages which are "illegal" and "unrecognized." These people end up facing housing demolitions and destruction of their communities and lack of rights. Furthermore, other Arab communities and villages continue to face structural racism, such as unequal distribution of resources towards them from the government, and also here too, an issue of Israeli police refusing to get involved in the crime and violence happening in the communities. I think we can also see from the 2021 outbreak of violence in the streets in mixed cities in Israel - lynchings, vandalism, fights etc, that Israel is not doing a very good job at "keeping the peace" or incorporating Palestinians and Arabs into Israeli society. Incredible rifts exist instead. These are rifts that peacebuilding organizations are trying to mend.
Lastly, your comparison of the reactions to 9/11 to the reactions to 10/7 compares the reactions from each time period. While this is important, as we can see the trend and change in public opinion towards such events, I think it is also important to compare modern day to modern day. If 9/11 were to happen today, how would today's society react to it? What would the expected response be from civilians in the US today? Would their response be similar to what it was in the past to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or, if these wars were to happen today, would they call US actions a genocide (which they did not then)? What does the younger generation of today - Gen Z, particularly the extreme left, who we see are vocally supporting violent resistance of Palestinians towards Israel as "freedom fighting," and who see Israel's actions as genocide and occupation and settler colonialism — what do they think of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars looking back on American history? How do they define American actions? Maybe they do call what the US did a genocide now, even if at the time of it, the public did not.
Many of your articles and newsletters have been about the red/blue divide in the US, and how public opinion has shifted towards each extreme over time. I think your comparison of 9/11 to 10/7 has to fit somewhere within this understanding that discourse and public opinion has changed, and we cannot just compare public opinion during 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq to 10/7 and the ensuing war. Rather we also must compare current opinions and perspectives on 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq to the reactions to 10/7 to gain a better understanding as to what transformations in public opinion have occurred and whether 9/11 and 10/7 are similar or not within the American mindset.
In general, I want to commend your and Guy's ability to carry out this ongoing discussion regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. As you said in the beginning of this newsletter, you do have a very different image of the situation than most of the international community, including academics and practitioners, do. I am sure engaging in this discussion with those who see things vastly different than you has been incredibly challenging. For me, it has become incredibly difficult to hold these conversations, as it is incredibly personal and emotional. Growing up in Colorado, I grew up in a very left and liberal surrounding, and always considered myself to also be as such. Not once did I ever feel that my Jewish identity was threatened or have anyone around me who was inherently against Israel and Zionism - not even during college. Somehow, I escaped BDS on the CU campus during the time I was there. In 2021, after the Israeli operation Guardian of the Walls and the civil unrest within Israel's borders in mixed cities, suddenly many of my childhood and college friends flipped a switch. Those who had previously supported me in moving to Israel and joining the army, even those who knew I was studying conflict resolution and working in peacebuilding, suddenly decided "I" was the enemy, and unless I would tell them that I believe that Israel is a colonial state which has no right to exist and that we need to get rid of it and give it back to the Palestinians, then they had zero interest in continuing to talk with me anymore. That was the first time I lost friends over this, and it was incredibly painful. It didn't matter to them that I was trying to work towards bettering the situation. To them everything is simple, black and white. They don't I dare come forth and say it could possibly be complex. It didn't matter to them that I had been studying and researching this conflict for years. Suddenly they were the experts and what I had to say meant nothing. For those friends who I didn't lose in 2021, this ongoing war was the tip of the iceberg for their change of heart as well. I lost pretty much all of my friends from my childhood and from college over this, and not because any of us argued about it, but simply because they no longer had any interest in keeping in contact with me due to their newfound perspectives on what's going on, and therefore, also about me, because I moved to Israel and because I served in the IDF. I don't know if this "jumping on the bandwagon" is a new social phenomenon which needs to be studied, or whether it has happened consistently through different periods of time, but it certainly says a lot about the shift in public opinion over the years.
Guy and Heidi's Response to Gail
Thank you so much for your comments, and for your willingness to share them with our Newsletter readers. This has been a searing experience for us as well, but not in the same league with what you must be experiencing, putting your life on the line every day, just by living in Israel, and then also serving in the IDF reserves. (In another email Gail shared that she has been on active reserve duty for five months since October 7, and she was expecting to be deployed again shortly.) And then to lose friends because of this, as we have too (though, unlike you, we haven't lost any to death from war, nor have we lost nearly as many over our current activities and views). It's really painful!
I particularly thank you for your correction to our comments about Israel incorporating Arabs into Israeli society. I shouldn't be surprised that the story is "more complicated" than what we had understood. (Everything is always more complicated than most of us understand!) I've done more reading about the differential treatment of the Arabs and Palestinians living in Israel and now realize that there is validity to the notion that Palestinians living in Israel are, indeed, treated as "second class citizens" without the opportunities or protections afforded Jewish Israelis. So we were wrong to suggest that Israel is a model that should be followed in terms of integration of diverse populations. They, just like the United States, and so many other countries around the world, need to do much better at providing fair treatment for all of their population. That they don't, however, is not reason to say that Israel, as a country should not exist. (And of course you are not saying that — but some of our readers and many other progressives in the United States are saying that. We believe Israel has a right to exist and thrive, Jews have a right to exist, and thrive, and Palestinians have a right to exist and thrive. And they all need to figure out how they can do so together, in one place, because most of them have nowhere else to go. But the current war is preventing all of them from doing so. We must find a way to end these wars, without planting the seeds for the next one.
As for your comments about comparing 9/11 to 10/7 now, that's an interesting point. American progressives have, indeed, gotten far more extreme than the Democrats who generally referred to themselves as "liberals" back in 2001. We (Guy and I) were actually among a very small minority back then who opposed both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. But after both of those wars went so very badly, and particularly after the ignominious and costly retreat America staged when they pulled out of Afghanistan in 2020, few Americans now want the country to "take a more active role in solving the world’s problems," according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
How U.S. citizens would respond if there was another significant attack on U.S. soil, however, is a different question — one that I don't think many people are even considering when they are calling for Israel to stand down and accept a cease fire. Would we? Would we learn from our previous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that they are likely to turn into quagmires and not accomplish the intended goals? I really don't know. And is the Israeli attack on Gaza and/or Lebanon likely to turn into a quagmire and not accomplish the intended goals? I do not know the answer to that question either. But given Hamas's and Hezbollah's, and Iran's oft-stated intention to destroy Israel entirely, I do not see that Israel has as much leeway in its response as the United States did in 2001 or would now, if we are attacked again. But it is an interesting question to contemplate.
Mike Buck's Comments:
Thank you for your attempt to weigh into this moral morass with some comprehensive pondering. I have some criticisms in terms of your leaving out historical contexts throughout. Your comparison of 10/7 with 9/11 has merit on just a limited basis of inflicted assault on a national psyche. What bothers me most is you do not ascribe similarities and actually the need to change worldviews on both Hamas/Hezbollah/radical Islam and Israeli mindset on rigid fundamentalisms that support both sides policies. The other aspect you completely ignore historically is the US actually being a terrorist in our own self-serving roles. Our own involvement in Afghanistan when we were opposing the Soviets helped form Al-Queda and ISIS. Israeli military and their proxies in Lebanon in the 1980's helped create Hezbollah (that was stated by their Prime Minister at the time).
Please remember our own American short-sightedness with the lens of Vietnam, Central America, overthrow of democratically elected governments in Chile, Iran, etc. through covert means, Iran, Iran and the overwhelming support of one nation in the world more than any other country regardless of need. Noam Chomsky called us a "terrorist" state decades ago. Have you just dismissed the evidence?
You dismiss normative global parameters like international law set by so many conventions. I think you have returned to some pre-WWII models of behavior to rationally justify continued war-making. So many of these conflicts are based on faith claims that have nothing to do with actual reality. You have totally bought into a one-sided alignment that helps continue ethnocentrism and racism. You have condoned assassinations of "terrorists" (could be one person) in any country, violating any regard for sovereignty and tens of innocent lives could be taken in the attempt. You also talk about "enemy" groups using human shields but do not see the inconsistency of geography with Israel where Mossad headquarters in right in the middle of Tel-Aviv.
When you move to the "enemy" being more blackened and our alignment being more white, I think you are morally color-blinded and your conclusions skewed. Sorry.
The Burgesses response to Mike:
We agree, first, that "fundamental mindsets," as you call them, which I interpret to mean the belief that your side is all right and the other side is so wrong that they do not have the right to exist, is a problem on both sides. It is. And, such beliefs are made stronger by the actions of the other side, so that the more one side attacks the other, the more defensive the attacked side becomes, and the less open they become to listening to the legitimate concerns of the other side. This is happening in this war to a great degree.
What we didn't share in this newsletter, but will in a later one, is the report from Amal Tikva, an Israeli peacebuilding NGO. This report shows the degree to which peacebuilding is still going on in Israel, even during the war. I found this astonishing and very heartening. There are indeed, a significant number of people on both sides of the war who have not been drawn into the spiral of hate, and are continuing to work for peace in all the ways that they can. So yes, fundamentalists who want to get rid of the other are a big problem. But they are by no means all of the story of what is going on in Israel.
About your statement that we have ignored history. We actually did two posts on the history of this situation (Newsletters 197 and 198) much earlier in this string, although it did not cite the same things that you are citing here. We agree: the U.S. has done many reprehensible things in the past, and made many mistakes. It is also true that some of those errors contributed to the tragedy that is now unfolding in the Middle East. It is also true that some of Israel's past interactions with Hamas (and Hezbollah), have contributed to the current situation, as have other actions that Israel has taken.
The United Nations has also acted in ways that have done much to contribute to the ongoing tragedy. Rather than helping Palestinians build the kind of independent and prosperous society that could make coexistence and the two-state solution a reality, UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) provided huge amounts of monetary and other aid to Palestinians and turned a blind eye when much of this was stolen by Hamas and used to prepare for the massive attack that they launched on October 7 (and the larger effort to destroy Israel that that attack was intended to promote). Similarly, UNIFIL (The United Nations Force in Lebanon) was supposed to disarm and patrol the Israel/Lebanon border after the 1978 Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Instead, they allowed Hezbollah to rearm to the point where they had between 40,000 and 120,000 missiles capable of hitting Israel — more missiles than most countries have. (And, as was the case in Gaza, these missiles were also deeply entrenched in civilian areas of Lebanon).
The fact that Israel's (and the United Nations') actions have contributed to the problem doesn't mean that we should now forgive terrorism and the other barbaric strategies of Hamas and Hezbollah, and assert that they are justified in their behavior. It doesn't mean that Israel has no right to exist, as would occur if they didn't defend themselves against Hamas' and Hezbollah's attacks and the larger threat posed by Iran's Axis of Resistance.
Rather, we should support all people's right to exist in peace, and support all efforts to make peace a reality. Unfortunately, there are times when acts of aggression make this impossible. In this case, Hamas was deliberately trying to provoke a wider war. When Hamas and Hezbollah decide that they want to start behaving like responsible members of the international community, they can be treated as such. To do this they need to start by returning the hostages, dismantling the tunnels, returning the aid they have stolen from their own citizens, and renouncing their goals of destroying Israel and Jews, Until then, military confrontation is unavoidable. Sadly, the current tragedy would, most likely, have been avoidable had the UN fulfilled its peacebuilding responsibilities.
As to two of your other points (1) Even Lebanese and Syrians celebrated when Israel killed Nasrallah. That attack was That was not an illegitimate type of warfare. hit. In fact, it is far preferable to strike leaders who deliberately try to cultivate public sympathy by sacrificing their civilian populations than launching more conventional attacks — attacks that would, inevitably, endanger those civilians. And, (2) Israelis are given bomb shelters so that they are protected as much as possible from Hamas' and Hezbollah's attacks. Israel does not shoot rockets from civilian areas; it does not hide weapons in children's bedrooms, schools, temples, and hospitals. Palestinians are not given shelters and are not allowed to take shelter in the vast tunnel system that does exist — a system that is, instead, used to launch offensive military operations from civilian areas. That Mossad headquarters is in Tel Aviv is not in the least a parallel situation.
Please Contribute Your Ideas To This Discussion!
In order to prevent bots, spammers, and other malicious content, we are asking contributors to send their contributions to us directly. If your idea is short, with simple formatting, you can put it directly in the contact box. However, the contact form does not allow attachments. So if you are contributing a longer article, with formatting beyond simple paragraphs, just send us a note using the contact box, and we'll respond via an email to which you can reply with your attachment. This is a bit of a hassle, we know, but it has kept our site (and our inbox) clean. And if you are wondering, we do publish essays that disagree with or are critical of us. We want a robust exchange of views.
About the MBI Newsletters
BI sends out newsletter 2-3 times a week. Two of these are substantive articles. Once a week or so we compile a list of the most interesting reading we have found related to our topics of interest: intractable conflict, hyper-polarization, and democracy, and we share them in a "Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links” newsletter. These links include articles sent by readers, information about our colleagues’ activities, and news and opinion pieces that we have found to be of particular interest. Each Newsletter will be posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
NOTE! If you signed up for this Newsletter and don't see it in your inbox, it might be going to one of your other emails folder (such as promotions, social, or spam). Check there or search for beyondintractability@substack.com and if you still can't find it, first go to our Substack help page, and if that doesn't help, please contact us.
If you like what you read here, please ....
Please Contribute Your Ideas To This Discussion!
In order to prevent bots, spammers, and other malicious content, we are asking contributors to send their contributions to us directly. If your idea is short, with simple formatting, you can put it directly in the contact box. However, the contact form does not allow attachments. So if you are contributing a longer article, with formatting beyond simple paragraphs, just send us a note using the contact box, and we'll respond via an email to which you can reply with your attachment. This is a bit of a hassle, we know, but it has kept our site (and our inbox) clean. And if you are wondering, we do publish essays that disagree with or are critical of us. We want a robust exchange of views.
About the MBI Newsletters
BI sends out newsletter 2-3 times a week. Two of these are substantive articles. Once a week or so we compile a list of the most interesting reading we have found related to our topics of interest: intractable conflict, hyper-polarization, and democracy, and we share them in a "Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links” newsletter. These links include articles sent by readers, information about our colleagues’ activities, and news and opinion pieces that we have found to be of particular interest. Each Newsletter will be posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
NOTE! If you signed up for this Newsletter and don't see it in your inbox, it might be going to one of your other emails folder (such as promotions, social, or spam). Check there or search for beyondintractability@substack.com and if you still can't find it, first go to our Substack help page, and if that doesn't help, please contact us.
If you like what you read here, please ....