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Jan
10
I remember telling a few people last month, during a particularly difficult time I was having, that I always have thought that there’s nothing I can’t work through or work out if I just keep talking with whomever or about whatever the problem is. I said it wistfully, as in, it was feeling as though that approach was failing me, but I just didn’t want to believe that talking would or could ever fail, if you just keep communicating – no matter what. To not turn away – to force yourself to say the hard things, the painful admissions – but say them.
Anyway – the Cleveland Jewish News has a mention of a film coming out called Waltz with Bashir (I can’t find that mention online but here’s something from Forward about the film) and then someone tweeted about how tomorrow (today’s) New York Times Sunday Magazine has an interview with the filmmaker of it, Ari Folman. These excerpts…I know what he means and how he feels.
One tends to think of Israel as a country where survivalist imperatives do not allow for much antiwar sentiment.
Israelis are divided, definitely, but I think you hear too much of the louder voices that always justify any kind of act of aggression. But there is a very big crowd of people who are fed up with war. I can’t understand the word “war” anyhow.What can’t you understand?
I can’t understand people killing each other for a piece of land. Can you understand that?…
Israel’s founding generation didn’t seem to harbor ambivalence about war.
They were survival wars. They were about the existence of the country, and they were influenced tremendously by the Holocaust. But the Lebanon War had nothing to do with survival.It was a military exception?
It was not an exception. It was a turning point in the relationship between the Israeli leadership and the people, who realized for the first time that war canbe declared just for political reasons.…
You were one of the original writers on “In Treatment,” the Israeli show set in a psychiatrist’s office that was adapted by HBO.
You know the show? There is an Israeli pilot traumatized by his experiences dropping a bomb that killed 14 kids. In the American version, it was adapted to Iraq.Will he be returning for the second season?
No, he committed suicide.…
Do you find that talk is more effective in matters of war and diplomacy?
Yes. I think you should always ask yourself: has everything been done to prevent the conflict? Talk, don’t shoot. Talk.
Also, I found this transcript of a BBC broadcast that features the first-person voice of four Israelis. Please go read them.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:56 pm January 10th, 2009 in activism, Culture, Ethics, Gaza, Israel, Jewish, leadership, Media, middle east, Military, Politics
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One Response to ““Talk, don’t shoot. Talk””
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Jill,
I applaud you for your candor, but it isn’t about the land, because it was granted to the Palestinians and they continue to wage war thru terrorism.
Hamas has, by their actions, proclaimed that any Jewish state is too much, and they will continue to fight until it is destroyed, or they are destroyed in the process.
Gaza is not the goal, if it was, the fighting would stop.
They intend to retake all of Isreal, and somehow the public sentiment is with them, despite using schools and residences as battle stations, then crying foul when these “civilian” targets are bombed with far greater destruction that what casualties they (the Terrorists) cause.
You don’t ask for a truce if you are not suffering great losses, so a “measured response” as advocated by the UN is not an effective tool to resolve the conflict.
If you are willing to die for your beliefs, no amount of suffering is enough to surrender, which is the problem facing nations today, how do you fight a “fair war” when your enemy refuses to surrender when beaten???
I would love to see the end of conflict in the region, but not at the expense of Moral and religious ideals –