veiled4allah: a clarification of a recent post

Idrissia said:

Total comments: 1

Asalaamu alaykum,
I read your response to Lynn B. and agree. There is a hadith my husband told me about one about a poor man who had to steal food to keep himself from starving. The poor man was caught in the act and taken to the Prophet, sallahu alayhe wasalaam, for judgement. The Prophet, saw, asked the man why he had stolen and learned that it was for survival and hunger and when he heard this he said that the community was at fault and should be punished for the poor man's stealing. If the community had been acting in accordance with God's law, that man would not have starved. The point of the story is that circumstances are IMPORTANT to context. To relate this back to the situation at hand, suicide bombing is reprehensible and morally wrong, no doubt about it. But the question remains: Why are the Palestinians committing suicide bombings? Is it for pure spite or is there an underlying reason? There IS an underlying reason, a history of repression, of land stealing, of injustice being done to a people who did nothing wrong but be there when the Brits settled the Jews into a land that the Europeans didn't want. When you squeeze a balloon, you have so much give. Squeeze hard enough and the air has nowhere to go put out with an explosion. This is not to suggest that the Palestinians are right in their actions, but that there was no where else to go but BOOM.

Jonathan Edelstein said:

Total comments: 91

I won't presume to speak for Lynn B., but I think what bothered her about your post was the same thing that bothered me - the timing. If you had posted that article a few days earlier or later, it would simply have been a reminder that the matsav ("situation") has two sides. Because you posted it the morning after a suicide bombing, however, it seemed as if you were discounting the suffering of Israelis and acting as if that suffering didn't even exist. I'm sure your intention wasn't to do that - I know you have condemned terrorism in the past - but it seemed that way.

This is the flip side of what is often done to the Palestinians. Ignoring the pain of Palestinians is a way of ignoring them - if their pain means nothing, then they mean nothing and they don't really have the right to exist. This is one way that Palestinians are dehumanized, and it's just as wrong when done to Israelis.

As for the occupation (small "o" please - it's one of many), we can disagree about root causes, but very few Jews or Israelis want it to continue. We know that the human rights situation in the occupied territories is bad, and we know that the occupation is costing Israel lives, money and moral strength. Most polls show that 70 to 80 percent of Israelis want to withdraw from the occupied territories, and the figures for American Jews are even higher. The problem is that ending the occupation is a matter of how and when, and it will end when Israelis feel they can end it safely. If Palestinians act as if Israeli lives mean nothing, then that feeling of safety will not exist - and I think that's what Lynn B. saw in your post. As I said, I don't think you actually meant it that way, but if you try to look at it through Israeli eyes, you might see what I mean.

And I do think that dialogue between Jews and Muslims is possible - and necessary. Without it, there really wouldn't be any point - in that case, "dialogue" about the Middle East would consist of people talking to themselves.

Al-Munaqabah said:

Total comments: 996

Thanks for your feedback, Jonathan and Idrissia.

I posted the article the day that I happened to come across it. I would guess that the webmaster of the site I found the link at chose to post it on that day for a reason, but perhaps he had only just found it himself. God knows best.

Is there an amount of time that should pass before it is OK to discuss such issues? Could we all agree on the proper amount? I would appreciate some feedback on this point.


When all is said and done, I still stand by the basic point that I was trying to make. Whenever I see the Palestinian situation presented in the media, it's always as though the Palestinians are acting out of nowhere. They aren't. Perhaps my attempt to show that the Palestinians have real, human motivations caused me to be insensitive to Israeli feelings. However, if my post went beyond being insensitive to feelings of mourning, grief, and shock and it actually dehumanized the Israelis, then I have indeed been guilty of what I accuse others of and I sincerely apologize.

Jonathan, you probably don't believe this after reading my comment, but I appreciate and agree with much of what you said. Both sides need to respect, by words and deeds, the humanity of the other. Perhaps waiting a few days before making a point which I feel to be in the pursuit of justice would be a small step in that direction. I will keep this in mind for the future.

I have a few other issues with Lynn's post and some of her previous posts about Islam and Muslims, but I can save those for another time and place, God willing.

Jonathan Edelstein said:

Total comments: 91

I think we agree on many of the fundamentals - that both Israelis and Palestinians are human beings who have rights and whose suffering counts. (All these things should be non-controversial, but they aren't.)

I haven't seen quite the same slant in the media as you have - I see reports of Palestinian life under occupation quite often, and the reports of suicide bombings I've seen usually try to place them in context. This may be due in part to the fact that I get much of my Middle East news from British media, but the New York Times and Washington Post have similar coverage. Smaller-city dailies often don't provide as much balance (although the Boston Globe and Atlanta Constitution are very thorough, and the Hartford Courant has a definite pro-Palestinian slant) so the situation may be different where you are. I agree that there are two sides to the story - many more than two, actually - and that the Palestinians deserve to be heard.

As far as timing, I'm not sure there's any hard and fast rule. I usually wait 24 hours (and I would wait the same time if a similar tragedy happened to Palestinians), but it's probably best to go with your feelings.

Al-Munaqabah said:

Total comments: 996

Actually, I too have found that the British media is much more balanced. What I really mean to say was "American media", so thanks for catching me on a too-sweeping generalization.

I've just finished reading your post about the way that words are used. I really liked the one about "homicide bombers" since of course all bombers are attempting to commit homicide. I've never been able to figure out why some people use this term.

It also helped explain what you meant by pointing to my use of the capitalized "Occupation", because I didn't really understand that when I first read it in your earlier comment. In a previous sentence in my blog entry I had mentioned that I was talking about an occupation in the context of Israel and Palestine. By the normal rules of usage, any subsequent reference to "the Occupation" should be understood in that context. It's true that some people don't like capitalization in this type of usage, but it's fairly standard as far as I can see (an example being "the president of the United States" and later "the President"). It may be true that some people do use it in the sense that you mean, but I think you may be reading too much into it to assume that every use of "the Occupation" is intended that way.

Jonathan Edelstein said:

Total comments: 91

The British media, like the American media, has a range of opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of the four "quality dailies" (I don't read the others), the Telegraph is the most pro-Israeli, followed by the Times, the Guardian and the Independent; the BBC seems to be somewhere between the Independent and the Guardian. (For comparison purposes, the Telegraph is sometimes called the "Tel Aviv-o-graph" and the Independent is sometimes known as the "Intifada.") The Guardian, which often has the reputation of being the most anti-Israeli paper in the UK, really isn't; there was a very interesting series of articles last May and June in which the Guardian readers editor discussed the paper's attitude toward Middle East coverage. I like the Guardian; it's a little leftish for me, but its reporting is the most thorough and its analysis (usually) the most informed.

American media also span a range of opinion, although the average is somewhat to the right of the British media. The New York Times is probably somewhere between the London Times and the Guardian; the Hartford Courant is to the left of the Guardian, and the New York Post is to the right of Attila the Hun.

Your point about the use of "occupation" is a good one; I'll answer it in the fourth and final part of my series on language (in which I will discuss issues raised in the comments).

Fitzy said:

Total comments: 2

Perhaps it is of some interest to some as it is to me that Lynn provides no space for people to comment on her own blog.

Al-Munaqabah said:

Total comments: 996

That was part of the reason I posted this to my own blog. After I read her entry, I wanted to post a comment to her, but was unable to.

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