(Title and blog has been updated since first published on Tuesday night, 5/14)
Whenever life lacks answers to my bigger questions, I turn to trusted sources. Sometimes, studying and pondering Yogic philosophy and the wisdom from parables, epic poems and sacred scriptures helps me expand my limited view. These offer a way to reflect on the themes of past and present and to recognize the repetitive and revealing nature of history. Other times, going inward and listening to my gut, intuition, inner knowing or making my best effort to tap into collective consciousness serves as a useful resource for reflection. What arises within me is a consistent motivation for truth, liberation and peace. At the core of this personal mission, is the vision for equity and coexistence.
Through paradox and contrast, through duality and efforts to understand union, I’ve often experienced the most profound lessons. A teacher that I disliked or felt hurt by, had become the unexpected inspiration for growth and deepening of self. Earning more money during my event years felt like the answer to my complaints but became the slippery path of desiring more from the material world and a diminishing relationship to my spiritual practices. And a final offering on duality and oneness is understanding that a coin has two sides AND is also seen as one coin.
As a mixed heritage person, I’ve come to see myself as a whole person versus relying on percentages to define who I am. I hold different parts of ancestral triumphs and traumas and walk as a wounded healer on a path to peace and harmony. It has been a complex journey of accepting myself as I am versus wishing I was more or only one part of my Japanese, Ashkenazi, German, Welsh, English mix. I am a gay male, a creative force that is innately designed from life’s mixture and no longer defined by separate parts. This personal work has been a way to see potential for unifying cultures and concepts that feel separate and especially oppositional. From the personal to the universal, you can have more than one culture occupy the same space.
Rather than be motivated by endless ambition or extreme worldly success, I feel called to be of service for the sake of this collective dream. But nothing has highlighted this call more poignantly than becoming a studio owner for Yoga and well-being. And only since the events on October 7th had anything risen to create a greater motivation for truth, liberation and peace than this epic event as a result of 75 years of catastrophic abuse of Israel against Palestine with the invincible support and encouragement from the US, the UK and others.
March 13th and 14th celebrated the Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day of 1948 – Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut. There is no denying that anti-semitism, pograms and persecution of Jews required the world’s attention before 1948. To take a moment to celebrate the safety of a people is important and historical. While more than ever there is controversy for these days of honor due to the military extremism and ethnocentric vision of Zionism, I will always mourn the loss of life, especially by those who were obligated by Israeli law or compelled by Jewish nationalism to enlist in military service. As someone who did not choose the military path and especially as someone who did not grow up in Israel or an active war zone, it may seem easy for me to misunderstand the passion. But as a citizen of the planet, I mourn the entire concept of war as a means for making peace. I’m saddened that our youth, who are the celebrated soldiers who essentially fight someone else’s war, zap their energy with killing rather than channeling to other use. What would it be if instead of enlisting our youth into the military complex, we enlisted them into environmental conservation and stewardship, international solidarity or teach them to build infrastructure and technology for equitable coexistence on this planet?
As a mixed heritage, Jewish and gay boy who grew up in Cincinnati, OH that has taken more than half of my life to confront Zionism and the Israeli agenda, I can only imagine the turmoil for an Israeli Jew to even question their state’s morality. For someone who was raised during a war and whose government designed a nationalist theme alongside a colonialist story of existence, I would expect this to be as difficult as ripping off one’s own skin to see anything differently. It has been profound to learn of Jewish Israelis who have spoken out and to once again, remember there is a mix of stories but we often only hear one. Resources that offer mixture to the one-sided view: MSNBC – Medhi Hasan — BreakingTheSilence — npr.org — apnews.com —Israelism
Wednesday, May 15 commemorates the Nakba of 1948 – the counterpoint to Israel’s Independence Day. As a Jewish person who understood only one side of the story, I’ve come to understand that this side was hidden intentionally. It was only around 15 years ago that I even heard of this word. The Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the “mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Before the Nakba, Palestine was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. However, the conflict between Arabs and Jews intensified in the 1930s with the increase of Jewish immigration, driven by persecution in Europe, and with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.” –UN.org In the 1948 Nakba, around 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes which were torn down and/or occupied by Israeli Jews. The Nakba that is often credited as a one-time event has been recognized as an ongoing catastrophe that Israel has perpetrated for 76 years, as of 2024. Read: TheNation.com — amnesty.org — un.org
It feels useful to compare the Nakba alongside America’s Columbus Day and the skillfully embellished story detailing events of 1492 to favor the American narrative (history.com) which was first celebrated as a holiday in 1937 – quite an interestingly long gap from the historical moment. In 1990, South Dakota initiated the idea of a counterpoint to recognize the millions of indigenous people who had been living on and stewarding this land, who were killed and largely wiped out due to the arrival of Columbus and their ongoing colonization of the indigenous peoples’ land. (usatoday.com) And we’re also taught that it was a happy occasion. But there is another side of the story that we’re ok, nearly but not completely comfortable talking about today. President Joe Biden signed the first Presidential Proclamation in 2021 to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day. It seems acknowledgement takes time. A long time. An embarrassingly long, long time for humanity to confess the truth.
From an article by Nick Estes, Lakota organizer, journalist, and historian at the University of Minnesota: “So around the time of the Nakba in Palestine, the U.S. was forcibly relocating Natives, either through federal policy or by literally flooding those lands with dams, pushing them into cities where they were actively discriminated against by police.” He continues on to say: “Israel’s so-called “Nakba Law” is about attempts to rewrite national history. It is a way to absorb Palestinian history as a branch of Israeli history, and make Palestinian history beholden to the larger national narrative. Similarly, in the U.S., American Indian history is considered a subcategory of U.S. history.” Here’s another resource from The Israel Democracy Institute to understand the dismissal of the Nakba via the Nakba Law. This is why I had never heard of this and why many Israeli Jews have chosen not to talk about it.
——————————-
From NPR, May 15, 2023:
For the first time in history (one year ago), the United Nations is officially commemorating the Nakba, the annual Palestinian commemoration of their mass displacement during the establishment of Israel.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, are urging U.N. member states to boycott the event. “Attending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster,” Israeli’s U.N. ambassador Gilad Erdan said.
“For Israelis and for most other people who know only the Israeli narrative, 1948 represents the miraculous establishment of a Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust,” Rashid Khalidi, a Middle East historian and author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, told NPR’s Throughline podcast in 2021. But Palestinians call it the Nakba — “the catastrophe.” “For Palestinians, it represents the destruction of their society, the loss of self — the right to self-determination and the expulsion of most of them and the expropriation of the property of most of them,” Khalidi said.
“With Palestinians around the world commemorating this anniversary, the Palestinian narrative is only now starting to find its way into the consciousness of countries by countering the false Israeli narrative. A national commemoration monument is being built in the State of Palestine as a witness to this human tragedy. Yet, Israel continues to deny the Nakba and build settlements on lands that are recognized and accepted as Palestine while imposing an apartheid regime.” –https://press.un.org/en/2023/gapal1453.doc.htm
A concise history of Palestine and the Nakba on un.org
When centering Israeli Independence Day, some scholars ask, independence from whom? As they fought a war on their given land with full western powers and support from the US, UK and other allies against a region without this sophisticated military might. And, fought to take land that belonged to Palestinians who had already been living there. It was not the Palestinian’s crime to be thrown off their land and Israel was aware of this. Zionists knew that it would be difficult to export people off their own land, but that it had to be done for the mission. The common phrase I was taught, “A land without a people for a people without a land” simply was propaganda to allow Israel’s independence to be seen as a righteous act.
Quotes by Ben Gurion for reference from progressiveisrael.org:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
— David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return.”
David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
Ben Gurion also warned in 1948: Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes: “The old will die and the young will forget.”
To bring this into context, it’s imperative to include what no one can forget, that the Jews had suffered the world’s most unbelievable massive tragedy, the holocaust. The level of trauma flows deeply via epigenetics within Jewish people and all whom were affected by this disaster that was able to happen due to a powerful messaging that convinced Germans to kill 6 million Jews. Only through the most skillful, psychological manipulation could something like this be possible, to which I was taught and all Jews are familiar with this phrase, “never forget, never again.” Why do people who have been abused often abuse others? Why can alcoholism and addiction stain future generations? What we are witnessing is unresolved trauma and addictive relational dynamics that seek relief yet turn to what is familiar in order to appease the desperate need for escaping or transferring pain.
Learn from Gabor Maté, watch these videos:
–>The Secret To Healing Trauma
–>On the Events of October 7th
–>Gaza Besieged, Jews Divided, & a World in Pain
What I’ve learned to do, is to recognize and study the existence of both perspectives as a practice of understanding evolution. I see why some people celebrate the day with accomplishment and why some recognize it by commemorating profound and irreparable loss. We all have a particular vantage point and choose the angle at which we see any event. What I also know is that we have the capacity to transform and to rise above the limitations of any singular event once we gain insight. Thanks to our adaptive brains, heart-centered tolerance and resilience, it is possible for the worst moments to become the lessons that help us move forward. But, as with other events, we see that we can also miss the opportunity to learn from the most horrific events. And even amidst saying “never again” we can not only live through it again, but we can be the ones who create it again.
My mixed-heritage self says there’s room for recognizing all parts of history because it’s a reflection on who we are and where we’ve grown. Rather than negate one side, I automatically feel compelled to welcome the other side. And not due to a lack of knowledge or discipline to choose a side, but because I see the instant trap of losing touch with opposition. We learn who is defending versus who is offending. We see who is blocking to protect and who is killing to steal. We see who is acting with impunity versus who is acting from resistance. The truth becomes evident. It’s not a story of seeing the right in everything. It’s seeing that to everything, there is a right side of history and a side that is being deceptive.
Slavery is America’s other horrific embarrassment of crimes against humanity that we endured. It was normal in the U.S. for centuries, and it took 400 years, a Civil War, and important leaders like Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Abolitionists Movement and more to end slavery. In recent years, many Black Lives Matter protests have been necessary to make even more progress to demand scrutiny of White Supremacy. Yes, progress, but far from equality and justice for Black people. The effort to bring lasting change is ongoing. Though it sometimes feels like nothing will change, history proves that change does and will happen. And change is usually, if not always painful and polarizes people during the heat of transformation. If nothing else, may we learn that that is part of this collective experience and we have a choice in how we move through this. Whether as ignorance is bliss, or as ignorance being the awakening.
In my studies of the Mahabharata, a clear distinction is made between the two warring families. One is considered righteous, the Pandavas, while the other is unrighteous, The Kauravas. The unrighteous ones aim to win the war so that they can declare that as the winners, their way IS righteous. A manipulation of thought that you might think only exists in stories where the complicated plot is hidden in the details.
If you have disconnected from the genocide in Gaza, or you don’t believe that what is happening is a genocide but are acts of protection for Israel, then the complicated part of this story is working. As Israeli settlers sabotage and block aid to Gaza and the U.S. continues to explain that we are supporting Israel in destroying Hamas, then only part of this story has been shared and the short blips of October 7th are ruling the mind. That, to me, is what is complicated – the mental misperception and possibility to justify the deaths that even as they are being disputed, is still clearly a huge number of identified bodies with uncounted bodies trapped under rubble. NBCNews reported updates to the confusion presented on May 14, 2024. Here are the highlights:
“The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told NBC News it had changed its regular updates on the death toll in Gaza to reflect breakdown by gender and age of the number of people who have been identified among those killed, rather than providing a breakdown of the total number of people killed.”
“As a result, the number of women and children listed on the site appeared lower than previously reported, because OCHA was listing only the breakdown of those who have been identified, while still noting the larger overall death toll above it.”
“But some Israeli officials incorrectly suggested that the data showed a significant drop in death toll numbers — and that this bolstered their claims that health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave inflate the number of children and women among the dead to disguise the large number of militant fighters killed.”
“Previously, OCHA had reported the total number of people killed in Gaza (which reached 35,000 this month), along with a breakdown of the number of women and children among the dead, citing the government media office in Gaza. As of May 6, Day 213 of the war, OCHA reported that at least 14,500 children had been killed in Gaza, along with 9,500 women.”
“The numbers appeared significantly lower, with 7,797 children among those who have been fully identified, along with 4,959 women and 10,006 men. A separate category was also included for the elderly, representing 1,924 people. It was not clear how many included in that category are women.”
“The numbers have not dramatically shifted. The overall tally remains unchanged — 35,000,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said in emailed comments to NBC News on Monday. “What is new is the level of verification (‘full details have been documented’) for a subset of 24,686 of those fatalities.” –NBCNews
To spend the time to understand the now 76 years of catastrophe for Palestinians in this region, is to understand the simple effort of Zionism which equates to what has and continues to happen on this planet – colonialism, racism, caste structure and othering, military dominance, drunken patriarchal power, cognitive dissonance and skillful distraction.
Thankfully, there is a rising number of those with full understanding of what is happening in Gaza and what is happening to Palestinian life. If the signal of massive protests on college campuses worldwide wasn’t enough of an alarm, then it would be helpful to review movements in history where student protests have always been on the right side of history. And as they are always criticized and condemned by dominant culture, this should serve as another hint to the longstanding corruption of power by White Supremacy. So for a clue at what we are seeing through the eyes of our actively engaged thinkers, it is imperative to research this and consider this as our greatest misunderstanding and deepest abuse of human dignity. And of course, plenty of criticism will be available as this is the entire reason that these reach the level of protest that they do. And as has been reported, the pro-Palestinian camps have been largely peaceful, while a number of responses with police and pro-Israeli attacks have been violent and aggressive. thefire.org bestcolleges.com vox.com usatoday.com
———————————————
My conscience is relieved that what was once barely talked about or hadn’t gained enough traction, is being so intensely discussed and reviewed, being revealed and decried. When last year, May 15th was declared an official day of commemoration of the Nakba from the United Nations, it felt like the world was letting light where it had forever been dark. For those who do not understand this as a genocide in Gaza, it is because a genocide is never broadcast as the right thing to do. Killing anyone for the sake of religion, politics, revenge or safety is an act of terror based on indoctrination of a radical narrative of othering. Period. And then forcing young people under 25 to do the killing, should be criminal. Yes, this includes Hamas and any groups who believe this is a solution. But, there is a defining line. Resistance versus ongoing terrorization. Understanding the reason for bloody resistance and a cry for help when the world ignores a slow moving genocide.
I was taught that Israelis were considered the resistance force against the terrorist Arabs. I thought the Intifadas were simply terrorist events wanting to kill Jews just because they’re Jews. But, it’s now clear to me, after months of research and reflection, that Israel is the terrorist, apartheid state it has been accused of for decades. And it’s not my friends or their families who are the perpetrators, it’s not the people who mass migrated there fleeing persecution. It’s not the Jewish religion that justifies this insanity. In fact, my Jewish upbringing helps me understand and compels me to speak out against persecution. Instead, it’s the political leaders who have managed to expand the Zionist mission, conceal or disregard the truth of the Nakba, and deprive Palestinians of the right of movement and human dignity. It’s the current settlers who act independently and arrogantly to take over Palestinian houses with impunity. It’s the ongoing dehumanization of a people in order to design a neatly told story that enables a slow genocide.
Who followed a declaration in 1917 (Balfour Declaration) that already set up rules for colonizing the land of Palestine where Jews constituted less than 10 percent of the population at the time? Who came in by the hundreds of thousands after 1948 and then illegally pushed the boundaries of their region? Whose military has dehumanized, mocked, tortured, terrorized and stolen houses from thousands of Palestinians prior to October 7th? Who is strategically placed as a so-called democratic state by the US and UK in the Middle East in order to allow western hands in the battle for oil? Who made up stories of mass rape, mutilation and intentional killing of babies to incite emotional response from the world, knowing that lies told first blare out the truth told second? To all of these questions which are published facts versus opinions, the answer is the political, military leaders of Israel and the Zionist ideology.
By thinking that the ongoing attack is helping to finish off Hamas, or that Hamas will prevent civilians from receiving this aid, has fallen to the narrative that Israel has perpetrated for decades. To break free from this is actually liberating though requires following the ongoing investigations and reliable sources. It requires taking time for a sensitive response versus a shock of reaction. As cliche as this phrase is, “the truth will set you free.” As I shared in my previous writing, (Following the Twisted Path), it would be easier for me to stick with my Jewish narrative and to buddy up alongside those who promote the pro-Israeli story. But I see behind this facade and I’m not able to follow this version of the story based on the research and study that I’ve been engaging in for months. Moreover, I feel compelled to speak about it to help raise awareness of this genocide in the hopes of saving innocent lives from brutal death.
What has clearly been a dividing line for people is the details from October 7th. To say these were intentionally exaggerated to infuriate our tolerance might be hard to accept. (Read from nbcnews.com that explains the impact of unverified stories by IDF soldiers) But to learn that a team, unskilled in forensics, known as ZAKA – volunteer orthodox members of Israel who are called in to bag bodies after terrorist attacks and horrific death, gave false testimonies as noted by the Times of Israel, is helpful. It offers the chance for us to peel away at this intensely harsh twisting of a story that contracted our minds and suspended our ability to hear anything more. And to then read articles that debunk the mass allegations of rape that the NY Times had a leading article about and the killing of babies in the most horrific ways has also been disproven. But, as simple as we are, we tend to cling to what we heard first. Even when news comes forward that these were lies, most people don’t want to feel like they’ve been tricked. Like Trump’s tactics, this is a known style of manipulation and though it’s hard to swallow, this isn’t new. This is not to take away from what did happen and to mourn the killings and attacks on Israelis that day. More specifically, it’s a study of character on why Israel would wish to push these stories into the world’s mind.
Briahna Joy Gray from The Hill:
MISINFO Spreads; Sheryl Sandberg Gives OXYGEN To Now DEBUNKED NYT Hamas Rape Story: Briahna Joy Gray
(https://youtu.be/Kii0bbh0tNw?si=uYD9Df9GZEXNj2qp)
(Excerpts transcribed from the YouTube video)
“Why would you embellish? … Why do you then need to spin that to something more than what is already horrible? It’s an important question. If it is barbaric to burn someone to a crisp, …to kill somebody, …to shoot somebody, the what does that mean about Israel when earlier this week as part of the invasion into Rafah, an 18 month old child is shot in the head… What does it mean about Israel when we have 34,000 people dead in Gaza and ¾ of them are women and children? If we are acknowledging that the tragedy of October 7th is the tragedy of having 1200 people murdered and those deaths are horrible and the people who inflicted those deaths are arguably barbaric and horrible and all of those things. Then shouldn’t those words, barbaric and horrible, all of those similar words be used to describe all of the innocent people that have been killed in Gaza? And regrettably, as we’ve seen from an exposé from the Intercept and other sources that the NY Times does not, in fact, allow the same language, does not recommend the same language be used to describe the tragedies that happened in Gaza versus the tragedies that happened to Israelis.”
“The constant choice to reiterate the false narratives from Oct 7 around sexual assault, the newest iteration being this Sheryl Sandberg documentary do serve a purpose,…whether or not they’re intended to serve the purpose or they happen to serve the purpose, of trying to create some moral distance between what it means to have killed Israelis and what it means for Israel to continue killing Palestinians.”
Another great take from Briahna Joy Gray:
Zionism Is The Problem: Zadie Smith Gets It WRONG: Briahna Joy Gray
https://youtu.be/62cuZZ1k9kI?si=bcRiqg_5P4iMChqW
There are many more sources that would allow each of us to reach our own conclusion, and many have. But who is willing to take the time versus follow soundbites of stories or stop to consider that the loudest person in the room may be spreading lies? To consider that the narrative of Israel is corrupt feels parallel to naming White Supremacy as the root cause of America’s moral injury and even the world’s bruise on humanity. It would be like saying capitalism and imperialism are the cause of a degraded culture. And if that were to be admitted, then what? Would it be a complete collapse of the structures that have been holding up society and the superpower of America? Would the foundation of western culture fall like a house of cards? Like in the Mahabharata, these human afflictions will likely be able to continue for years and years and years. Somehow, corruption is woven into our existence and is part of how we evolve. It’s exactly devastating that logic doesn’t seem to step forward, that truth often has to take the backseat while corruption and unrighteousness are given turns at the wheel. Rather than wish or wait for everything to iron out, it means more deaths, more loss, more ignorance along the journey of human evolution. What brings me any comfort, is that the truth will rise one day and that amongst the 8 billion of us on this planet, humanity is also wildly loving, kind and magnificent. As Integral Yoga offers, “Truth is One, Paths are Many.” That’s the way it’s always been and while it may take a while, the many paths always lead us to truth. That’s what I celebrate, commemorate and honor today and always. And I know I’m not and will never be alone with that.
Thank you for reading.
Let’s stay connected,
Marc
