Post Haste

As usual no real time to write a thoughtful or provocative blog piece. Instead, I'm cramming cyberspace with a few, small impressions before leaping up to face another day.

My Name is Rachel Corrie opened last night, to what seemed like a very warm reception. We received a lot of compliments, as well as thoughtful comments during the talk-back. One girl appeared offended by the one-sidedness of the play. My response to that is: it's an autobiography. Of course it's one-sided! The audience's task is to use its critical thinking skills to contextualize the one-sided play within the far more nuanced topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What Rachel Corrie does is ask us to think about Palestinians for a moment. Not as suicide bombers or Islamo-fascists, but as people. Individuals. The only reason this becomes a controversial request in the eyes of the media or certain sectors of society is because it's far easier to justify America's support for Israel if we pretend that all Palestinians deserve to live is demolished hovels with zero access to clean water or food sources. Nevermind that conflating all Palestinians with Hamas is like equating all Americans with President Bush's foeign policy fiascos; did we deserve 9/11 because the American financial, cultural and political machines are dependent on a global hegemony that discounts and displaces other countries?

And I will say one more thing (so much for not being provocative): The other reason people are offended by this play--Jewish people, and I am one, with a seminary graduate degree in Modern Jewish Studies, so you can stuff it--is that it is shameful for us to augment our general collective support for Israel and Israelis with the knowledge of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. How can a people that prides itself on the overcoming of perpetual genocide admit to breaking, and justifying this breaking, the 4th Geneva Convention? Here's the harsh truth: Israel has taken an occupying people and placed the population in confined areas. Destroyed wells; destroyed greenhouses; destroyed houses. Denied them access to Israel, to Egypt, to the ocean. Denied Israeli peace acitivists a media voice, and in doing so, implied that Israel the state does not want peace. Instead, Israel the state's desires align uncomfortably with that of Hamas and other violent organizations: the annihilation of an opposing people, because they represent a problem too difficult to fix.

It may be naive in an age where we are all culpable in the dissolution of someone's life, somewhere, but I have to believe that there is a common moral denominator that we all share, which tells us deep inside that we are responsible for the welfare of each other's children; homes; land. This isn't to say that all men are good, but that we know the difference between good and evil, and can choose to act on this difference when we try.