Iraq - Palestine – Lebanon – Israel: The World Just Stands By and Watches

Whenever and wherever an accident happens you will get a crowd of people gathering to observe, no matter how gruesome or terrible the accident might be.

Yet, how much longer is the World going to stand by and just watch the tactics, actions and politics of Israel?

There is no doubt that most politicians are to blame, they are the worst at standing by and taking no action, or even worse, they often mange (intentionally or not) to throw “political petrol” onto a burning fire. We elect politicians expecting them to make wise decisions that secure our safety, take care of the country and the world we live in, give us structures which enable us and our neighbours to live the best life possible. Yet all too often we discover that once a politician is in power that they have their own agenda, and that agenda all too often has to do with personal power, or riches, or making a name for themselves, or whatever other demand their outsized and very personalised ego might be making.

But are politicians only to blame? It is not just politicians who are standing by and just watching, trying to cover there own political egos; we too are standing around and have been for a long time. We are also the ones that elect the politicians (and political petrol throwers) in the first place. Once we have elected them we stand around again. No matter how bad they are we tolerate them, make excuses for them, listen and believe them without taking any real meaningful and deep critical look at their deeds, words and actions, we seem to fall asleep and think we are powerless or decide that there is nothing to be done until the next election “happens” to come along, we might even help them throw that political petrol onto a burning fire.

There can be no doubt that the Jewish people suffered so terribly at the hands of the Nazis (although it was not only the Jewish people who suffered!). What happened then was a crime against humanity, horrible and shocking beyond words. No one can or should dispute this, and we should never forget this. However although we should never forget what happened we still have to move on, this is the way life is. Has Israel moved on? Are the politics and actions of Israel any better than those of the Nazis? True they are not of the same kind, perhaps do not have the same purpose or magnitude, but does this make them any better?

Have the wounds of those terrible years at the hands of the Nazis been allowed to fester instead of encouraged to heal? Has Israel, and perhaps the Jewish people in general, truly moved on from the past?

It does not seem like it. We all know that when we do not treat wounds and let the wounds heal then they turn septic, turn bad, poisonous, and even cancerous with possible disastrous results. This applies as much to psychological wounds as it does to physical wounds. The only difference being that some psychological wounds can be much harder to see or accept or be traced back to the root cause. And are such wounds confined to individuals, or is there such a thing as collective or national wounds? Since nations and groups of people are made up of individuals it would seem highly possible that at least psychological wounds can be collective or national.

There is no doubt that Israel is a country that has gathered many wounds and it would seem that those wounds have never truly been allowed to heal, at least it would seem that the psychological ones have not healed.

Clearly there was a great deal of sympathy from people around the world for the terrible sufferings of the Jewish people after the second world war, and only too naturally extra tolerance in many forms is often found when people have deep sympathy, a sympathy that is also possibly mixed with feelings such as anger, shame, guilt and such like.

It is clear that Israel has been allowed a great amount of lenience over the years by political leaders, not least by American political leaders. A lenience that is not usually leant to other countries. No one has ever put pressure on Israel for having a nuclear bomb or nuclear bomb capabilities like other countries such as North Korea or Iran. In fact it would seem that Israel can do almost anything it wants and get away with it, and in fact Israel does do want it wants and does get away with it.

Additionally a stifling atmosphere has been allowed or encouraged to be developed. If you criticise Israeli or the Jewish people you are likely to be quickly condemned s anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish or more recently possibly a terrorist.

Continually the impression is created that Israeli or the Jewish people are only “victims” and therefore have to be allowed this special lenience not usually leant to anyone else. That they are only victims doing nothing else other than just “protecting” themselves. Certainly this vision of being “victims” is a wound carried on from the Nazi period. Certainly the world has seen a period of time of the Jewish people being terrible victims and therefore had felt natural and healthy compassion but perhaps this compassion has been stimulated to continue and strayed over the years into unhealthy lenience and tolerance. However I seem to recall that going way back in the Jewish people history that considered themselves “victims” as they were forced to leave their homes or lands. Perhaps another unhealed wound? Yet an additional confusing psychological factor could be the fact I also seem to recall some reference to the past of them being “the chosen people”.

Whatever the cause, or the psychological structure, there can be no denying that Israel has developed the belief that it can do whatever it wants and the world, and certainly the American politicians, will do little or nothing to stop it. Unfortunately this belief would seem to be true. A belief that has been gently and even less gently cultivated over the many years since those Nazi years, cultivated from the compassion, tolerance and lenience, and from the continued and extended enforcement of the “victim” impression. Mixed up with this are the beliefs and ideas from the much longer past, and no doubt more recent financial and political positions of power. Israel (and perhaps the Jewish people in general?) seems to have developed the idea or belief, or see itself, or class itself as being “special”. With this “special” status comes the belief that it is allowed to do what it wants, do what most other (perhaps with the exception of such countries such as America) countries are not or would not be allowed to do or get away with.

The world is frozen in inaction. The extremely subjective political, military and financial power of America has many of the politicians around the world acting as little more than shadows following the path and desires of the political and industrial power of America. Any political leader or country that refuses to be a shadow is soon denounced as some kind of threat to the stability of the world (which can be translated to mean America) or democracy (which can be translated to mean changing things to suit American politicians and industrialists) – modern democracy means little more than doing what America (or such leaders as Tony Blair) and American industrialists want, it most certainly has nothing to do with real democracy – as we can see by what is happening in Middle Eastern countries and in many other places around the world.

But in the end it us that are to blame. We stay silent when we should speak out; we withdraw into our shells when we should act; we allow our politicians to act as shadows and chase their own personal egos; we gather to gawp in awe and fear; we allow false or outdated sentiments to tint our view of life; we so easily believe the forked tongues of politicians without true and intense critical assessment of what is being said; we allow real democracy to be manipulated to suit personal needs and ideas and psychological hangovers; we allow ourselves to be manipulated by false and unbalanced sense of threats and fear; we allow countries to be invaded illegally; we go to church and speak of love for our neighbours and yet allow injustices to be carried out - often in or name – knowing in our hearts that it is not right or just or often legal or loving or……..but we find or gladly accept reasons to turn away from these, from the truth……

Is it also not strange that we have certain leaders who spoke and speak of the Axle of Evil, and yet during the term of power of these leaders there is so much chaos, suffering, dying, killing and war…and so much injustice….in the world……

Does it not make you wonder what and where (and who) the real Evil is in this world?

And in the mean time “we” stand by and watch…….