Hostage to Extremes - Dec 24 2023

 

Hostage to Extremes

Dec 24 2023

I am asked to take sides.

To decide

who's in the right

and who the wrong.

As if judgement

is even possible.

As if the options stop

at only two

and I'm called on to choose.

So what to do

if both sides are wrong?

Both hostage

to the extremists and ideologues,

the true believers

who insist on purity?

Especially when the silent majority

will gladly sacrifice

for peace.

Who are weary of war

the burden of history

the license of victimhood;

the grievances

so faithfully nursed

by the firebrands and demagogues

who piously claim

God as their own.

If only I could turn away,

wash my hands of it,

leave them to their fate.

But time after time

I’m asked to take a stand

proclaim where I belong:

choose my tribe

and justify the cause,

no matter how complicated

or compromised.

As if they've put a price on life

and some are worth more.

As if forgiveness

betrayed the hurt.

As if the middle ground

showed weakness

not strength.

As if it's either victory or defeat;

no muddling through

no grace.

When the real choice

is between the cost of war

and the risk of peace.

Between live and let live

and an-eye-for-an-eye

until no one can see.

Another unwinnable war in the Middle East because both sides are hostage to extremists: the most right wing government in Israel’s history, and the depraved terrorists who control Gaza through fear and force of arms. I don’t mean to imply any equivalence; just that the leadership of both is unrepresentative. And that the mentality of grievance, reprisal, and vendetta leads only to escalation: Israel's draconian measures (all-out war in Gaza; settler violence in the West Bank) simply breed more terrorists; Hamas' genocidal ideology leaves no choice but existential war.

Yet I feel the same compassion for and outrage over the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis. While my family expects loyalty to my Jewish roots. So, how to choose a side when neither is in the right? Why is one obliged to choose? And why reduce it to a binary choice, to either/or?

Too bad simply throwing up your hands and saying a pox on both your houses feels like a head in the sands cop out. There's a silent majority that isn't being heard. How to give them voice without risking being ostracized, or branded an apologist?