I am upset.
I am upset how the belligerence of a region, fueled by millennia of injustices, tries to co-opt my energies, the energies of my nation, and the energies of the world.
The entire Semitic world, Arab and Jew alike, have long fashioned identities of victimhood as a means for attracting energy from other sources. In defining themselves as the divinely ordained but humanly deprived people of the earth, they manipulate others into patterns of allegiance and support. All sides in the middle east are also adept at using guilt ("give guilt, the gift that keeps on giving") to recruit others to acts of passion beyond any rationality. In the course of those millennia, such an identity has evolved into an almost manic dependency on the attention of others.
But then, we all play the game. We feel sorry for the poor, set-upon ____s (fill in the blank with your chosen identified group in the conflict) and vilify the "others." In doing so, we fall right into line with the attention/energy needs of these now heavily dependent groups. They wink, they flinch, they kidnap, they retaliate, they re-retaliate . . . and we energize the lot by keeping alive their dependence and their victimhood.
What if we were to say "No more," and mean no more of this game playing? What if we were to see these nations and groups behaving like the worst of elementary school children ("I'll get you for that!", "If one of your group does that, you all are going to suffer!") and not do anything?
What if we chose a course of denying them the energy to keep this foolishness going?
What if we provided no financial support? No resolutions of support? No big attention to their bickering?
What if, instead of focusing on two soldiers (people already committed by their roles to acts of violence) who are kidnapped or on the dozens of civilians who are being injured or killed in retaliations, we were to focus on the thousands of children worldwide who will die today because of preventable hunger and disease?
What if we let two wannabe bullies in the middle east fight it out while we get on with the more important business of the world?
Hey, middle east - the world does not revolve around you! Maybe if we got over it, they could get over it.
Or, at least, it wouldn't be our energy (money, goods, commerce, psychic, spiritual, attention) fueling the conflict.