An advantage of following the Israel and Palestine conflict over decades – I’m old enough to remember the 1956 Suez Crisis, the June 1967 (Six Day) War, the October (Yom Kippur War), the 1982 Israeli “incursion” into Lebanon, and successive, smaller battles, and in the past have been to Israel and the West Bank, even Southern Lebanon – is that I’ve heard all the arguments by both sides, seen how they’ve morphed and faded and been resurrected.
I like the way you wrote this. War is not something anyone wants due to the damage it does to innocents. Differences between countries, religions, and or ideologies, does not require war.
It’s a shame that Hamas decided to invade, kill, and take hostages of the Israelis. It’s a shame Israel had to defend themselves as strong as it did, but in my opinion, had every right to defend their border and citizens. Killing of civilians is wrong and their protection should always be a consideration when undertaking retaliation.
I can somewhat understand both sides in this conflict that has been happening longer than I have been living.
My only history of their argument, besides the religious aspect, is the disdain of the Palestinian people who lost land and property after WWII when the “powers that be” placed Jews in Israel and took some of Palestinian land to accomplish their placement/settlement in that region.
We are about 70 years past that and there has been constant conflict between them since.
Today, I am sure there are many who remember those terms of that time, but the people who felt slighted in the decisions, have carried that displeasure on and on into recent generations.
Right or wrong, innocent people during war actions should be protected at all cost.
I like Sapolsky and read ‘Behave’ to try to understand a mental health crisis a few years ago (not mine). His emphasis on DNA as an impetus for all behavior is revelatory. He also talks about brain development, especially what goes on with adolescence. Glad to see him in your column; he is getting heat now. Have you read ‘Behave’?
Good stuff here, Abe. Especially about trauma. But let’s not forget resilience…or is that just a factor of our DNA, too? We are complicated animals!
Ruth - I also read "Behave," on my Kindle. Sapolsky goes far beyond talking about genetic determination versus environmental, or even probability and proportionality, but deals with "cause and effect," namely that every cause of everything and anything has a cause, which also has a cause, ad infinitum, for you and for everyone else and everything else in the world, meaning no one is ever responsible for anything because it was all caused a long time ago. On his recent interview alluded to in the column he mocks the idea of a "proximate" cause, namely the most recent cause of some event or outcome, because proximate causes are just the last cause in a chain of causation that goes back ad infinitum . He flatly says there is no such thing as a cause that itself did not have a cause. So, how does he explain ex nihiilo, and how does he explain the Beg Bang theory? He says God is impossible because who created God? God himself had to have a cause in order to come into being. Well, I won't get into whether God exists or not, but something exists in this world, to say the least. And the very first thing that existed - where is the cause, Professor Sapolsky, I have to ask. Unless he can show that, he has no argument at all. There's another, secondary issue here: if we really believe that we are 100 percent a product of every antecedent not only in our lives but in the history of the universe, then jperhaps he is "determined" to believe what he believs, and disbelievers are "determined" not to believe him, and we're just acting out a kind of computer program, but are not sentient beings at all! Actually, this latter hypothesis is more credible than what he proposes, as unwelcome as it is. Lastly, others have argued about the moral implications of saying we have no free will (the big point of his new book), but I leave that aside - he has not proven there is no free will.
I like the way you wrote this. War is not something anyone wants due to the damage it does to innocents. Differences between countries, religions, and or ideologies, does not require war.
It’s a shame that Hamas decided to invade, kill, and take hostages of the Israelis. It’s a shame Israel had to defend themselves as strong as it did, but in my opinion, had every right to defend their border and citizens. Killing of civilians is wrong and their protection should always be a consideration when undertaking retaliation.
I can somewhat understand both sides in this conflict that has been happening longer than I have been living.
My only history of their argument, besides the religious aspect, is the disdain of the Palestinian people who lost land and property after WWII when the “powers that be” placed Jews in Israel and took some of Palestinian land to accomplish their placement/settlement in that region.
We are about 70 years past that and there has been constant conflict between them since.
Today, I am sure there are many who remember those terms of that time, but the people who felt slighted in the decisions, have carried that displeasure on and on into recent generations.
Right or wrong, innocent people during war actions should be protected at all cost.
It's the human thing to do.
Thanks, Susan! Everyone must know war is hell, yet .... it doesn't end.
I like Sapolsky and read ‘Behave’ to try to understand a mental health crisis a few years ago (not mine). His emphasis on DNA as an impetus for all behavior is revelatory. He also talks about brain development, especially what goes on with adolescence. Glad to see him in your column; he is getting heat now. Have you read ‘Behave’?
Good stuff here, Abe. Especially about trauma. But let’s not forget resilience…or is that just a factor of our DNA, too? We are complicated animals!
Best.
Ruth - I also read "Behave," on my Kindle. Sapolsky goes far beyond talking about genetic determination versus environmental, or even probability and proportionality, but deals with "cause and effect," namely that every cause of everything and anything has a cause, which also has a cause, ad infinitum, for you and for everyone else and everything else in the world, meaning no one is ever responsible for anything because it was all caused a long time ago. On his recent interview alluded to in the column he mocks the idea of a "proximate" cause, namely the most recent cause of some event or outcome, because proximate causes are just the last cause in a chain of causation that goes back ad infinitum . He flatly says there is no such thing as a cause that itself did not have a cause. So, how does he explain ex nihiilo, and how does he explain the Beg Bang theory? He says God is impossible because who created God? God himself had to have a cause in order to come into being. Well, I won't get into whether God exists or not, but something exists in this world, to say the least. And the very first thing that existed - where is the cause, Professor Sapolsky, I have to ask. Unless he can show that, he has no argument at all. There's another, secondary issue here: if we really believe that we are 100 percent a product of every antecedent not only in our lives but in the history of the universe, then jperhaps he is "determined" to believe what he believs, and disbelievers are "determined" not to believe him, and we're just acting out a kind of computer program, but are not sentient beings at all! Actually, this latter hypothesis is more credible than what he proposes, as unwelcome as it is. Lastly, others have argued about the moral implications of saying we have no free will (the big point of his new book), but I leave that aside - he has not proven there is no free will.