Chris Hedges: Peace Is in the Eye of the Beholder

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Peace Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Posted on Jan 19, 2009

By Chris Hedges


I do not like Hamas. I detest religious fundamentalism and the use of suicide bombers. I find the group’s anti-Semitism and ruthless silencing of internal Palestinian opponents repugnant. The rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are a war crime. But this does not negate the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance to the long Israeli siege and occupation of Gaza.

The moral scum of any society rises to the surface in war. Those who have a penchant for violence and an access to weapons dominate the landscape. It was the criminal class and gangsters who first organized the defense of Sarajevo. It was the thugs of Gaza who took control to confront the Israeli army. This is nothing new in wartime. Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause. But there are moments when a people face the terrible tragedy of resistance or obliteration. This was true in Sarajevo. It is true for the Palestinians. It does not make it pretty or good. It is what happens.

The condemnation of the Palestinians for the use of force ignores the long violence of Israeli occupation. Those who call on the Palestinians to embrace nonviolence preach an airy utopianism. Reinhold Niebuhr, who argued that the rise of fascism in Europe had to be countered by force, broke with liberal humanists over the issue of pacifism. He attacked pacifism as “simply a version of Christian perfectionism.” And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who preached nonviolence during the civil rights movement, never finally claimed to be a pacifist, although he understood and warned about the moral contamination of violence.

“If we believe,” Niebuhr wrote in his essay “Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist,” “that if Britain had only been fortunate enough to have produced 30 percent instead of 2 percent of conscientious objectors to military service, Hitler’s heart would have been softened and he would not have dared attack Poland, we hold a faith which no historic reality justifies.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090119_peace_is_in_the_eye_of_the_beholder/