By the way, don’t hate the haters… part of compromise (the part I find hard to deal with these days) is hearing opinions of people who don’t get that compromise means we both have to lose a little… after all that all of us have lost it’s time to figure out how to lose less now. And this will take longer when we all hold onto our old beliefs like that’s our life raft….
It’s not yet 7am here in Montreal and here I am crying. Thank you Etgar… I grew up (in Israel) with the same belief of this “gift” of peace. You’ve described it so well. My heart breaks seeing no hope of this compromise you speak of. At least not from greedy and power hungry politicians. But people like you give me hope. I don’t care if my family (who supports Netanyahu) continues to accuse me of being “naive”, I will continue to speak of this compromise. We must never lose our humanity. Thank you for reminding me that it exists!
Thank you for reminding me of that uncool word "compromise", which doesn't evoke quite the same heart flutter. But in the English hidden in plain sight is another word, "promise". Hope lives within that word as well as reality...living into and up to a promise requires quite a lot of individuals as well as groups and communities. You are so correct. Everything is a gift actually...life, beauty, relationships, art, music, love...unquantifiable, which does not suit a world built upon balance sheets that "prove" the worth and worthiness of this or that whether object or person. And when a person or group is objectified, well, the seeds are sown for what will follow. The last paragraph of the reprint from 14 July 2014 caught me...my 42 wedding anniversary! Now of course it is 10 years on.
"But in contrast to the lovely word that demands nothing of the person saying it, the word “compromise” insists on the same preconditions from all those who use it: They must first agree to concessions, maybe even more — they must be willing to accept the assumption that beyond the just and absolute truth they believe in, another truth may exist. And in the racist and violent part of the world I live in, that’s nothing to scoff at."
No relationship just happens. It never just comes fully formed. If you hope to enjoy the promise of it, you will have to come along into a space that is open to challenging set ways of being, it seems to me.
It is deeply true that my truth may not be the same as yours. This is as true of individuals as of communities. I keep wondering when the full history of the agony of the Near East region, from European colonialism, to world wars, to partition and all that has followed will finally be known and dealt with in the humane way it should be?
Like you I live in a deeply racist, white supremacist, leaning into christo-fascist space. We have learned these ways of being. Unlearning them is the work of a lifetime. That too seems part of the promise in engaging the hard work of compromise.
In theory, you are right. So, the ultimate question is: can both sides agree to a compromise? Let's say the Israeli side can compromise. Do you think the other side is willing from an ideological and practical point of view to accept a compromise? And what would a compromise look like? It seems to me that when someone is theoretically ready for a compromise, one starts with a list of demands. What is the list of demands on the other side? What would make the other side if not happy, at least, content?
Such a useful reframing of the word Peace, one that rings true in my bones. Thank you for continuing to share your thoughtful - and thought-provoking - words.
We humans are odd creatures in this universe. Words are the clay that molds our lives. “Peace”, alas! has become empty. Who would have believed that “compromise” demands such courage!
Thank you for reposting. I like "compromise." But it is also true that such negotiations are structured temporally, claims vs counterclaims. On the anniversary of Oct. 7th, I argued that perhaps the ME situation is not nearly so intractable as often assumed. Suppose we see it as a rather specific historical constellation, which, in the nature of such things, will change. If we view the problem as a matrix, rather than a history, perhaps there is more room for creative, constructive, thought. More room for hope, and so action.
Yes, perfectly said. And let’s add “communality” to that, so that what we do is about we, not I, i.e. for the most good for most. Maybe an impossible dream, but let’s at least try to stop being so individualistic, personally and nation state-wise, as clearly, none of us is going away. It reminds me of what you said in an earlier piece, that what most people want is to live their lives, and there should be three states, the third being for people who want to fight.
“Like you, I live in a deeply racist, white supremacist, leaning into ]c]hristo-fascist space”
Are you calling Israel “racist and white-supremacist”? I know you cannot be referring to it as “[c]hristo-fascist” as it has always been the indigenous homeland of the Jewish nation dating thousands year and at least 1500 years before Christianity and Islam and all the border changes of those millennia. It also includes all the atheist Jews, LGBTQIA Muslims and refugees from many countries. Are you at all familiar with the diversity of the melanin content, ethnographic, religious, linguistic and cultural demographics that comprise Israel?
To read your comment, one might think you are living in Nazi Europe, Pinochet’s Chile, the USSR (or today’s Russia) and opt, as I assume, in what is now North America, and the United States, in particular.
.
You may want to consider stepping back to get some perspective and look at the bigger “space” in which you live and see how not racist, white supremacist and leaning in [c]hristo-fascist” it really is. Are the voices challenging those who do lean in that direction able to stay alive, out of prison? Are they able to make jokes on late night tv and list the absurdity of that mindset? Do those who seek political office get routinely jailed or killed off? (I’m not diminishing the threat here, but let’s travel around the world together for a moment. But before we do, keep in mind there are also those where you are with whom you share what I understand from your comment to be the same values, who seek to “lean into” a similar mindset but it is less Christian than it is simply antisemitic as they feign inclusion and diversity. … except for Jews.
Then look at eastward and tell me what you see in the broader world.
Start with from the massive swath of land colonized by Arabs and where Islam took hold. While most are not Jihadists, Jihadism is left to flourish. Tell me about the many politicians - especially women and LGBTQIA - and late night hosts who are able to mock them without threat of imprisonment and death. Tell me about he women who are able to wear whatever they want and do whatever they please without fear of prison, rape and death actions all protected by their eye risk religious regimes that have been far more stringent in their misogyny and general oppressiveness for far longer than the push and shove of growing pains in what is now North America and the inherent but inalienable challenges that define democracy.
Let’s then head south from where you are and tell me about how peaceful life is in Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Nicaraguan, El Salvador and so many more where ... what? Life is good? All the politicians and the people who vote for them or who have no choice really, are all wonderful and loving? Where democracy exists? Or where it does its not also vulnerable?
Let’s head East again, the most Eastern parts of Europe and Asia, where the largest country in the world is a legitimate racist state as are many of the ones most closely geographically connected to it and where they ally with some of most operative regimes in the region as well as in the Muslim world. Politics so make for strange bed fellows, indeed.
We can swing back into Europe where there is a also threats against democracy, against inclusion, against diversity and who still carry really old antisemitic notions and suspicions and who harbour even worse aspirations. Interestingly, in the countries where there are many do favour inclusion, diversity and progressive ideals are also able to hold within themselves the same severe antisemitic notions of the people they rail against and who have become increasingly violent in their rhetoric and physical behaviours and violent attacks against Jews.
Let’s swing south and little bit east again to another continent with many, many humans. Let’s talk about what life is like there and how their governments and civilians treat women and girls and what it’s like to live under a caste system that is nearly impossible to break away from and which perpetuates slavery. Then let’s move a bit south west into central and Southern Africa (I’m including Northern Africa as part of the Muslim colonies I referenced above, because … well …they are, predominantly, Muslim). So, many countries in Africa have also fallen victim to Muslim colonizations (which still exist) and European colonization (most of which have left, in some respect they could have and should have done a much better job in the transition, but let’s not over-romanticize the human traits of people there, either. Some are wonderful some are not at all wonderful. The no wonderful ones have agency.)
It always amazes me how Americans, in particular (and yes, I’ve made an assumption here) see the world from such a myopic perspective. This applies as much to the gobsmacking arrogance, visceral hatreds and general stupidity of those who are positioned don the Right of the political and religious spectrum, (the ones I assume you are describing ) as it does to those who position themselves on the Left with their excessive wallowing in guilt and prostration seeking forgiveness for paradigms not all of their making or supporting, the virtue signalling (omigod, the virtue signalling🤦🏻♀️ to anyone who will catch them out of the corner of their eye), and the extra dainty ability to sustain a perpetual state of sanctimoniousness and, for some, who leaning into a victim-mindset even when things are changing and shifting toward a more just society. After all , there are punishments to be meted out even against those who have stood alongside them to fight for change.
Truer words were never spoken. Compromise, so difficult and distant, insists on a do-it-yourself mentality and not divine provenance. Unfortunately, people are so lazy and would rather blame the unseen entity for their problems than do the hard work themselves.
It helps to hear a voice of reason, even when that voice isn’t reassuring. “Compromise”— rarer in this world than the teeth of hens.
Here’s to compromise! X at least that.
Amen!
By the way, don’t hate the haters… part of compromise (the part I find hard to deal with these days) is hearing opinions of people who don’t get that compromise means we both have to lose a little… after all that all of us have lost it’s time to figure out how to lose less now. And this will take longer when we all hold onto our old beliefs like that’s our life raft….
It’s not yet 7am here in Montreal and here I am crying. Thank you Etgar… I grew up (in Israel) with the same belief of this “gift” of peace. You’ve described it so well. My heart breaks seeing no hope of this compromise you speak of. At least not from greedy and power hungry politicians. But people like you give me hope. I don’t care if my family (who supports Netanyahu) continues to accuse me of being “naive”, I will continue to speak of this compromise. We must never lose our humanity. Thank you for reminding me that it exists!
Thank you for reminding me of that uncool word "compromise", which doesn't evoke quite the same heart flutter. But in the English hidden in plain sight is another word, "promise". Hope lives within that word as well as reality...living into and up to a promise requires quite a lot of individuals as well as groups and communities. You are so correct. Everything is a gift actually...life, beauty, relationships, art, music, love...unquantifiable, which does not suit a world built upon balance sheets that "prove" the worth and worthiness of this or that whether object or person. And when a person or group is objectified, well, the seeds are sown for what will follow. The last paragraph of the reprint from 14 July 2014 caught me...my 42 wedding anniversary! Now of course it is 10 years on.
"But in contrast to the lovely word that demands nothing of the person saying it, the word “compromise” insists on the same preconditions from all those who use it: They must first agree to concessions, maybe even more — they must be willing to accept the assumption that beyond the just and absolute truth they believe in, another truth may exist. And in the racist and violent part of the world I live in, that’s nothing to scoff at."
No relationship just happens. It never just comes fully formed. If you hope to enjoy the promise of it, you will have to come along into a space that is open to challenging set ways of being, it seems to me.
It is deeply true that my truth may not be the same as yours. This is as true of individuals as of communities. I keep wondering when the full history of the agony of the Near East region, from European colonialism, to world wars, to partition and all that has followed will finally be known and dealt with in the humane way it should be?
Like you I live in a deeply racist, white supremacist, leaning into christo-fascist space. We have learned these ways of being. Unlearning them is the work of a lifetime. That too seems part of the promise in engaging the hard work of compromise.
These pieces you are writing take my breath away. Especially this one about peace. It will stay with me a long time.
In theory, you are right. So, the ultimate question is: can both sides agree to a compromise? Let's say the Israeli side can compromise. Do you think the other side is willing from an ideological and practical point of view to accept a compromise? And what would a compromise look like? It seems to me that when someone is theoretically ready for a compromise, one starts with a list of demands. What is the list of demands on the other side? What would make the other side if not happy, at least, content?
Such a useful reframing of the word Peace, one that rings true in my bones. Thank you for continuing to share your thoughtful - and thought-provoking - words.
Only when we realign ourselves with G-d will be have peace. Read that Bible. It's explained very clearly in there--multiple times.
We humans are odd creatures in this universe. Words are the clay that molds our lives. “Peace”, alas! has become empty. Who would have believed that “compromise” demands such courage!
לחלוטין, ומי היה מאמין
Thank you for reposting. I like "compromise." But it is also true that such negotiations are structured temporally, claims vs counterclaims. On the anniversary of Oct. 7th, I argued that perhaps the ME situation is not nearly so intractable as often assumed. Suppose we see it as a rather specific historical constellation, which, in the nature of such things, will change. If we view the problem as a matrix, rather than a history, perhaps there is more room for creative, constructive, thought. More room for hope, and so action.
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidawestbrook/p/hope-on-october-7th?r=13evep&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Yes, perfectly said. And let’s add “communality” to that, so that what we do is about we, not I, i.e. for the most good for most. Maybe an impossible dream, but let’s at least try to stop being so individualistic, personally and nation state-wise, as clearly, none of us is going away. It reminds me of what you said in an earlier piece, that what most people want is to live their lives, and there should be three states, the third being for people who want to fight.
A line from an American baseball movie came to mind. Jimmy Dugan tells his best player not to quit the game:
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
The same with peace.
“Like you, I live in a deeply racist, white supremacist, leaning into ]c]hristo-fascist space”
Are you calling Israel “racist and white-supremacist”? I know you cannot be referring to it as “[c]hristo-fascist” as it has always been the indigenous homeland of the Jewish nation dating thousands year and at least 1500 years before Christianity and Islam and all the border changes of those millennia. It also includes all the atheist Jews, LGBTQIA Muslims and refugees from many countries. Are you at all familiar with the diversity of the melanin content, ethnographic, religious, linguistic and cultural demographics that comprise Israel?
To read your comment, one might think you are living in Nazi Europe, Pinochet’s Chile, the USSR (or today’s Russia) and opt, as I assume, in what is now North America, and the United States, in particular.
.
You may want to consider stepping back to get some perspective and look at the bigger “space” in which you live and see how not racist, white supremacist and leaning in [c]hristo-fascist” it really is. Are the voices challenging those who do lean in that direction able to stay alive, out of prison? Are they able to make jokes on late night tv and list the absurdity of that mindset? Do those who seek political office get routinely jailed or killed off? (I’m not diminishing the threat here, but let’s travel around the world together for a moment. But before we do, keep in mind there are also those where you are with whom you share what I understand from your comment to be the same values, who seek to “lean into” a similar mindset but it is less Christian than it is simply antisemitic as they feign inclusion and diversity. … except for Jews.
Then look at eastward and tell me what you see in the broader world.
Start with from the massive swath of land colonized by Arabs and where Islam took hold. While most are not Jihadists, Jihadism is left to flourish. Tell me about the many politicians - especially women and LGBTQIA - and late night hosts who are able to mock them without threat of imprisonment and death. Tell me about he women who are able to wear whatever they want and do whatever they please without fear of prison, rape and death actions all protected by their eye risk religious regimes that have been far more stringent in their misogyny and general oppressiveness for far longer than the push and shove of growing pains in what is now North America and the inherent but inalienable challenges that define democracy.
Let’s then head south from where you are and tell me about how peaceful life is in Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Nicaraguan, El Salvador and so many more where ... what? Life is good? All the politicians and the people who vote for them or who have no choice really, are all wonderful and loving? Where democracy exists? Or where it does its not also vulnerable?
Let’s head East again, the most Eastern parts of Europe and Asia, where the largest country in the world is a legitimate racist state as are many of the ones most closely geographically connected to it and where they ally with some of most operative regimes in the region as well as in the Muslim world. Politics so make for strange bed fellows, indeed.
We can swing back into Europe where there is a also threats against democracy, against inclusion, against diversity and who still carry really old antisemitic notions and suspicions and who harbour even worse aspirations. Interestingly, in the countries where there are many do favour inclusion, diversity and progressive ideals are also able to hold within themselves the same severe antisemitic notions of the people they rail against and who have become increasingly violent in their rhetoric and physical behaviours and violent attacks against Jews.
Let’s swing south and little bit east again to another continent with many, many humans. Let’s talk about what life is like there and how their governments and civilians treat women and girls and what it’s like to live under a caste system that is nearly impossible to break away from and which perpetuates slavery. Then let’s move a bit south west into central and Southern Africa (I’m including Northern Africa as part of the Muslim colonies I referenced above, because … well …they are, predominantly, Muslim). So, many countries in Africa have also fallen victim to Muslim colonizations (which still exist) and European colonization (most of which have left, in some respect they could have and should have done a much better job in the transition, but let’s not over-romanticize the human traits of people there, either. Some are wonderful some are not at all wonderful. The no wonderful ones have agency.)
It always amazes me how Americans, in particular (and yes, I’ve made an assumption here) see the world from such a myopic perspective. This applies as much to the gobsmacking arrogance, visceral hatreds and general stupidity of those who are positioned don the Right of the political and religious spectrum, (the ones I assume you are describing ) as it does to those who position themselves on the Left with their excessive wallowing in guilt and prostration seeking forgiveness for paradigms not all of their making or supporting, the virtue signalling (omigod, the virtue signalling🤦🏻♀️ to anyone who will catch them out of the corner of their eye), and the extra dainty ability to sustain a perpetual state of sanctimoniousness and, for some, who leaning into a victim-mindset even when things are changing and shifting toward a more just society. After all , there are punishments to be meted out even against those who have stood alongside them to fight for change.
Ten years later, still so perfectly relevant. Thank you.
Truer words were never spoken. Compromise, so difficult and distant, insists on a do-it-yourself mentality and not divine provenance. Unfortunately, people are so lazy and would rather blame the unseen entity for their problems than do the hard work themselves.
Here's to COMPROMISE! ❤️☮️😘