This Writing Life

The Holocaust isn’t that extraordinary an event, I’ve come to understand, when looked at in the context of human history. Although it should be. It ought to be one of those things that couldn’t possibly be true. A conspiracy, an exaggeration... But it is true. It did happen.  When juxtaposed with other acts of dehumanisation and of human destruction by equivalent or lesser actors, it is easier to understand. The Holocaust is simply on a continuum of scale of dehumanisation of which every person and every nation sits somewhere along. And I believe that it can happen again, and is happening now, albeit to much lesser degrees and in different ways all around the world, and certainly has happened since the Holocaust too. Of course, the Holocaust is unique in its scale and due to the history of Jewish persecution. No question. And of course, it is a completely abhorrent thing. Mind blowingly devastating when one really thinks about it and one immerses themselves in some of it...

I recently spent three months in the West Bank of Palestine and Israel (and then two months in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan), and feel compelled to write about my understanding of the situation there, based on my experience. Not a lot has changed about my views, having entered Israel and Palestine with a relatively well-formed historical and political understanding of the situation; and yes, a well-developed cultural bias against Israel and the actions of its government and people. Still, I remained as open as one can be given the reality on the ground, and the historical facts. And the more I experienced and witnessed, the more I was (and am, even more after some time away) convinced that the real problem and solution lay neither with Israel or Palestine. Expecting a solution from Israel and Palestine is like locking a grizzly bear in a cage with a pack of wolf pups. Israel, the nation created in 1948 and slapped down upon Palestinian people by Britain (largely), is an extrao...