TJP

Jews do no have a Monopoly on Suffering

By Byron A. Ellis – June 05, 2008

According to The Jerusalem Post, Ministers and MKs on the right are outraged by President Obama’s comparison of the Palestinian suffering with suffering endured by Jews. This type of reaction by some Jews is a fundamental obstacle to peace in the Middle East; it is a belief that Jews have suffered the most in the entire world and because of this belief they are entitled to oppress other with impunity.

Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering. However, they have a monopoly on inflicting suffering to the Palestinian people.

Failure of extremist Jews to understand and empathize with the suffering of others inhibits their ability to find common ground.

Africans brought to America suffered horrific conditions in the transatlantic voyages and on the shores of America for over 300 years. However, Africans in America recognized that they could not live in the past, claiming to be perpetual victims of past misdeeds.

It is this recognition that President Obama wants people in the Middle East to understand. Certainly, they should not forget the past. Rather, they should use the lessons of the past to forge a future that prevents past misdeeds. Thus, the present and future should not be forged in the past, rather Middle Easterners must construct an environment where all individual have opportunities to succeed in a peaceful setting.

If President Obama lived in the past, he would have never come to believe that an individual of African descent could become president of the United States, a former bastion of African enslavement.

We must have the courage and conviction to believe that attitudes and behaviors do change. Attitudinal changes are contingent on the law of reciprocity; too often, however, the belief is that changes can be imposed by brute force. Thus, those locked in the mindset of vengeance and vindictiveness become occupiers and oppressor. And, the vengeance and vindictiveness is often reciprocated by the oppressed.

Matthew 20:40, tells us that the whole Law of the Prophets depend on two commandments, one is to love God and the other is to love your neighbor as self; in Luke 6:31, we are told to treat others the same way we want them to treat us; in Romans 13:8, we fulfill the Law, if we owe nothing to our neighbor except love; and in Galatians 5:14, the whole Law is fulfilled in the statement “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

It is difficult to see on what Christian grounds the American religious right validates the existence of a repressive Israeli government.

Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering. Suffering cannot be quantitatively compared or even ranked. Therefore, to say that one group suffered more than another is meaningless. For instance, it makes no sense to compare the suffering and displacement of Native Americans to Jews or Africans. 

What can be said without ambiguity is that Jews suffered under Nazi Germany and that Palestinians are suffering under Israeli occupation.

President Obama and large percentage of Americans are communicating to Israel that apartheid-like occupation of Palestine and settlements expansions are unacceptable.

Israel must realize that reluctant American taxpayers support their military to a tune of $3 billion dollars per year. Furthermore, many American taxpayers (voters) do not believe American funds should be allocated to inflict suffering on the Palestinian people.

Therefore, it would be wise for Israel to heed President Obama’s two-state solution. Moreover, Israel should recognize, without delay, that time is of the essence.

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