Okay, loves. Here's the big one. 🕊️
Today, I have an explainer.
It covers 30 years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the Oslo Accords to now.
I wrote this to illustrate why peace is and will be hard:
namely, because peace attempts have never been implemented in good faith, or with sufficient regional consensus.
But this isn't the first time we've needed to heal from deep violence.
We have to remember that healing is complex. Time is what we need to get it right.
https://onlysky.media/mclark/from-oslo-to-october-7-and-beyond/
@MLClark I will give it a read ... I'm curious what you think of this #WaPo article (free link). The author delves into the colonial history of #Israel - #Palestine.
I'm sure there are people more knowledgeable than me about the topic, but still I think it's important the people understand the colonial imposition of artificial borders to solve the political problems post-Holocaust and WW2.
I'm out on crossword time right now, but I'm sure it will be a good read later.
I wrote a four part series on precisely that issue earlier this year, called "Israel and the West", which called for folks in the West to interrogate how we've been using and talking about the Middle East with zero recognition of our own historical complicity, ongoing antisemitism, and all the ways we flatten the country's politics to serve our own ends even now.
So, agreed! 👌🏻
https://onlysky.media/mclark/israel-and-the-west-how-we-lost-nuance-with-jewish-state-politics/
(Part 2: "Western Complicity in Middle Eastern Trauma" gets into the war period especially, but Part 1 is where I differentiate between different political positions, to first remind folks that a democracy always contains multitudes.)
https://onlysky.media/mclark/israel-and-the-west-western-complicity-in-middle-eastern-trauma/
@MLClark In the Oslo column, there's a typo about halfway down:
"In 1996, Benjamin Netanyu of the right wing Likud Party was elected in his wake."
It should be "Netanyahu," obviously. 😘
Will adjust when I'm at my computer again, thanks!
@MLClark I read the April four-parter. My first reaction ... Israeli politics is a mishegoss. 😉
As with so many other colonial breakups, the drawing of artificial borders defies reality.
You wrote about plans to place the Jewish homeland in Kenya (!), Canada, etc. In one Big Bang episode, Sheldon proposed Mexico. (I forget why ...)
I'm surprised the U.S. didn't offer lands taken from indigenous Americans. 🙄
On to this week's columns ...