joshbaumgartner

Having seen some very good films documenting what life is like for the average citizen of Gaza or the West Bank, it is hard to not understand why there is such angst amongst those people. Never mind whether they deserve their lot because of something done decades ago. Remember that most of these people weren't alive more than twenty years ago (IIRC, average age in those areas is less than 20). Add to that the impossibility of good education within the region and the brain drain of anyone with talent who isn't sucked up into one of the militant groups, and of course you have a recipe for what is happening over there. We judge these people by our own standards sitting in a world that bears exactly zero resemblance to theirs, and we wonder why there is so little common ground, and why they continually act in ways we find unbelievable. Instead of doing the difficult thing and actually seeking to have compassion--that is to understand their position from their perspective--we rationalize our understanding by considering them somehow fundamentally different from us. We blame their religion, their culture, their history, as if they were so foreign as to be truly beyond understanding. We allow ourselves to believe that they cannot be reasoned with, and attach all sorts of motivations to their actions that often are incorrect.

I'm not going to justify terrorism or even warfare conducted in this situation whether by Jews on Arabs, Arabs on Jews, Arabs on Arabs, whatever. But I'm also not going to pretend like if I grew up in their world I would be above all of it and behave like a Westerner. I don't pretend to know the answer to peace in the Middle East, but I do know that as long as their is not understanding across the borders, it will remain impossible to achieve.