Dan,
You wrote:
"Since 1948, the US and Israel have used talk of a so-called "peace process"
as a smokescreen to disguise their joint policy which has been employing
military force to expand Israel's borders and displace the non-Jewish
population."
By overgeneralizing in this way, don't you risk demonizing one side of a
conflict you are trying to embrace with the deeper analysis of systemic
work?
"Whenever an Israeli Head of State visits the White House to discuss the
"prospects for peace," the topic for discussion is always plans for
prosecuting further war."
How can you know this? Isn't there a danger that by projecting what we
assume to be true onto a system, we ignore the reality of that system as it
is experienced by the individuals who are in it?
The propaganda machinery sucks the discussion into a tightly controlled
narrative about political proposals, elections, geopolitical strategy,
balance of forces, land swaps and who-did-what-when, etc. as a way of
distracting public attention away from the "facts-on-the-ground." It's like
tag-team wrestling, where one heel distracts the ref and the other beats the
opponent senseless with a chair. The only Israeli policies that matters are
its determination to conquer a defensible portion of land and render the
native Palestinians defenseless and impotent.
With your last statement in this paragraph, haven't you also sucked the
discussion into a narrative? Isn't this a little like setting up the
constellation you are comfortable with rather than the one that may actually
be there?
Ed
_____
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dan Booth Cohen
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 8:16 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Statement on Gaza
There is a nearly universally embraced precept that persons, groups or
nations justify their actions by weighing the good against the bad. A
typical example comes from the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL article,
"Advocating for Israel: An Activist's Guide" present facts and talking
points on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and information
for reaching out to elected officials and the media.
It frames good versus bad to bolster support for the Israeli government.
The number of times the word "violence" appears: 20. The number of these 20
references that refer specifically to Palestinian violence against Jews and
Israel: 20. The number of times the word "peace" appears in the document:
19. The number of these 19 references that refer to Israel's desire for
peace or Palestinian's rejection of peace: 19. The number of times the word
"terrorist" is used: 19. The number of these 19 references where the word
terrorist is conjoined with the word Palestinian: 18. This approach to
argument and advocacy is mirrored in many pro-Palestinian sites.
This style of advocacy is a function of the workings of conscience.
Conscience whispers that we are the innocent ones, our actions are justified
and righteous, our beliefs are merited, and our opponents are misguided, or
even evil. We believe our conscience because we understand it to be a
mechanism for distinguishing the good from the bad, even though it
invariably determines that our people are the good ones and our enemies the
bad ones. Even when we do bad things, these actions can be justified by
good reasons.
What comes through in constellations time and again is that opposing parties
cannot reach reconciliation by maintaining a good conscience. Instead,
healing and acceptance come from embracing what we viscerally reject and
acknowledging and honoring what we would reflexively exclude. This is the
very opposite of what commonsense tells us.
The primary conflict between Western powers and the indigenous population of
historic Palestine since the demise of the Ottoman Empire has been about
borders and sovereignty. Since 1948, the US and Israel have used talk of a
so-called "peace process" as a smokescreen to disguise their joint policy
which has been employing military force to expand Israel's borders and
displace the non-Jewish population.
Whenever an Israeli Head of State visits the White House to discuss the
"prospects for peace," the topic for discussion is always plans for
prosecuting further war. The exceptions were under Presidents Carter and
Clinton. When Israel withdrew from Egypt and agreed on the border, a peace
treaty followed. The same with Jordan.
The propaganda machinery sucks the discussion into a tightly controlled
narrative about political proposals, elections, geopolitical strategy,
balance of forces, land swaps and who-did-what-when, etc. as a way of
distracting public attention away from the "facts-on-the-ground." It's like
tag-team wrestling, where one heel distracts the ref and the other beats the
opponent senseless with a chair. The only Israeli policies that matters are
its determination to conquer a defensible portion of land and render the
native Palestinians defenseless and impotent.
The systemic elements come into play because the U.S. Jewish community
wholeheartedly endorses these policies and actions - even though they see
clearly through the transparency of the falsehoods and recognize that such
acts represent a horrid betrayal of core Jewish spiritual values. Without
members of my community paying the bills and prohibiting any US elected
official from voicing objections, the Israelis would have to agree to a
final, internationally recognized border.
Why does every Rabbi with a building and every employee of a Jewish
organization go along with this ruse? The answer lies with the trauma
imbedded inside the realm of the collective spirit-mind of the American
Jewish people. Very few will open their eyes, ears, and hearts in tune with
this realm, because it is unbearably painful. Here is where we feel all of
the victimization and perpetration that is our familial inheritance. Here
is where we agree to be perpetrators to genocide as an alternative to being
its victims.
If the members of the US Jewish community engaged in healing our own broken
hearts, we might become less willing participants in committing atrocities
against the Palestinians. That has been my mission for 25 years. I have
succeeded with a few dozen individuals, but in terms of a broader impact, I
have utterly failed.
Dan
Boston, USA
www.HiddenSolution.com <http://www.hiddenso ;<http://www.hiddensolution.com/>
lution.com/>
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