This final trinity is kind of the key to universal peace — peace ranging from the closest one-on-one intimate relationships to global warfare, this ancient formula: atonement, forgiveness, redemption has almost always been the only escape. This year I have to address that tragic miasma of the war in the Holy Land. But first, an anecdote.

My wife once slapped me. It was early in our relationship when she was in the process of buying a house from the LA Dept of Transportation in a special program for those that had rented these houses that had been condemned for a now canceled freeway extension. They were rehabilitating her house as a requirement of the program, but they were then trying to renege on the deal due to their ballooning costs. When they began work they had moved us into a small decrepit duplex nearby in a sketchy neighborhood. It was a horribly stressful time where we had the first arguments of our young relationship. I don’t recall what I said to make her hit me, I’m sure it must have been pretty cruel, but I was shocked and hurt, and left the house in a huff. My way has always been, as I have often described here, to try to accept responsibility for whatever my role has been in a conflict and apologize for it, which is what I did once I had managed to calm down. She apologized too, and in the tearful conversation that followed, our relationship deepened and strengthened.

Escalating to physical violence in response to a cruel remark meant I was technically the legal victim in the situation, but it had certianly been in my power to cool off the conflict earlier and certainly to never go as low as I did. I have no doubt if I had let my ego rule and had nursed my outrage, indignantly shared my inflamed face with my friends, filed a complaint about domestic abuse and taken some righteously stubborn stance about the unfairness of the exchange, it would have been the end of our relationship, precluding the existence of these three women who are now the center of my life. My take is that even if I am only 1% to blame for a conflict, I have 100% control over that 1%, which might be enough to reverse the course of the interaction.

Most conflicts are like this; the aggrieved could almost always have done something to help end, or at least reduce the severity. Unfortueately, it’s too common for folks to indignantly recite the wrongs done to them or their tribe. The idea that it’s forbidden to blame a victim means that claiming a victim mantle is an armour against guilt and blame. But we are all victims of fate, all doomed to be killed by it, and all facing constant and unrelenting threats to our joy and thriving. In fighting back against our fates, we’ve all missed our target and wounded an innocent. It’s pretty rare for others to harm us for no reason at all, they are almost always responding to their own sense of hurt or slight.

The horrific violence both sides are suffering in this current Israel-Palestine conflict are just the most recent eruptions of a long and escalating cycle of tit for tat. The dueling accusations of genocide are the reductio ad absurdum of long-spiraling vengeance where the only solution the self-righteous can envision is the total obliteration of their opponent. This tawdry contest to wave the most dead babies to justify the righteousness of their crimes is a tragic, childish, and hopeless strategy, even as it may energize their supporters and strengthen their resolve. I am saddened everytime a read another post detailing the horrors their side has experienced in increasing detail. I know it is a way to process their grief and anger, but it only makes things worse. Believe me, we all know too well that both sides have more than enough dead bodies to prove they have been to be aggrieved, saying it again louder adds nothing to the resolution.

When we try to atone for what we may have done, acknowledge the pain it may have caused to the other instead of feeling justified by their offence to take their eye or tooth, they are more likely to acknowledge our pain, making space for a deescalating cycle. Can you imagine the impact of Bibi looking straight into the cameras and acknowledging the the grief and pain of generations of palestinian children, committing to improve their lot, and promising to try to protect them from hateful extremists? Can you imagine if the organizers of free Palestine protests shared their horror at the mayhem committed by angry young Palestinian men on 10-7 and offered to try and help weed out the violent and cruel within their ranks and work to prevent any such atrocities in the future. It may seems like a naive fantasy, but the amazing thing is that it would be so easy, cost nothing but injury to their egos and loss of face among their most extreme supporters. Decades of Israeli hardliners justifying their militancy and oppression in the name of safety have left them less safe than ever. Decades of Palestinian attacks to destroy Israel have left it stronger than ever. Maybe the absurd futility of all this childish posturing and cynical political calculus will have finally run its course and the electorates will find some grown ups to lead them. Both sides certainly have plenty to atone for.

Happy Holly Days and
Awesome Atonement