All we are saying is give Peace a chance

31 Dec All we are saying is give Peace a chance

I’m running the above ad in the Seattle Times on Sunday December 31, 2023.

It calls on the United States to join the overwhelming majority of other Nations of the world—159 Nations– in calling for an immediate humanitarian Cease-Fire.

The headline reads: Listen to the musicians…

Thank you Macklemore, & John L:

“All we are saying is give peace a chance”

The text reads:

“When I say free Palestine, it’s not against anyone. It actually means we should protect everyone. It means equality for all. Respect, peace and love. A right to exist no matter what sector you’re from.” –Macklemore at Climate Pledge 12/23. Leave it to a great musician to remind us of our humanity. While never forgiving the horror or evil of the Oct.7 attacks, the exploding death toll, mostly women and children, and including more than 140 UN aid workers as well as hostages, should impel us to join the 159 other nations calling for a Humanitarian Cease-fire. We must see great truth in the words of a simple song: “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

We need to understand that the people in charge of Israel’s security are misreading the world. Seeking national security through military strength alone while relegating friendship-building to the dustbin can never work in the long term. Being the “toughest kid on the block,” is a like engineering a car with massive horsepower but no brakes.  The extent of the Israeli security failure has been underestimated. Consider that

A women security analyst working with the national intelligence agency warned of an imminent attack but was ignored. A detachment of women soldiers guarding the border warned almost daily of an imminent attack but were laughed at. Twenty-two of these women were killed in the vicious attacks of October 7, in the long hours it took for the army under the command of various Netanyahu loyalists to reach the scene. (source: The Week, December 8, 2023)

An unwillingness to listen to women is a characteristic of strong-man-led governments. Men who try to lead but won’t listen to women—on any subject—always fail in their ultimate goal–they fail because although they present as strong, in reality they are weak, and the unwillingness to listen to women is proof of that.

There is an infatuation with strong-men these days all over the globe. There are no two better examples of strong-men come to power than Trump and Netanyahu. Many in the public are willing to trade away their rights in the certainty that a strong man will defend them and the country better than any alternative. Once the strong man is in power he replaces government and military personnel with sycophants whose main trait is loyalty-to-the-strong-man.

Because of this weakening of governmental leadership and because strong men think in simple ways and only about themselves and never about the long term future of their own country, they fail in their basic goals.

Such is the case with Netanyahu’s Israel today. The “war” in Gaza exists beneath a campaign of death and destruction. The strategy is all-collective-punishment-all-the-time, a strategy that holds no hope of building a long-term peace.

Many people feel they are showing disloyalty to Israel to criticize its actions, but actually the opposite is true. It’s a time for tough-love of Israel because that is the only love of Israel that can be real right now.

Two articles appeared in the New York Review of Books immediately after the October 7 attacks, the November 23, 2023 issue. I will try to post links to both articles here. They say so much better than I could how I feel about the current situation.

The first:

Inhumane Times

By Joshua Leifer

Inhumane Times | Joshua Leifer | The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com)

The second:

Causes for Despair

By Raja Shehadeh

Causes for Despair | Raja Shehadeh | The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com)