My perspective on the conflict in Palestine-Israel

As someone who was born and grew up in Israel

In the previous post I addressed this conflict from a more bird’s eye perspective of how it fits into the machinations of the western billionaires’ empire and its proxies across the globe (Israel being one of the empire’s proxies, its main proxy in west Asia). And in a separate note I detailed four profoundly important key facts (that not many people seem to aware of) that illustrate how this conflict is being misrepresented in the billionaires’ media and how this conflict is ACTUALLY a war waged by the uber-rich ruling class (both jewish and arab) on ordinary people (both jewish and arab), and exactly what the billionaire rulers do to enflame the hatred and pit ordinary people against each other, and precisely WHY they do that. If you haven’t read that note yet then I suggest reading it first. This post, however, will be from a more intimate ground-level first-hand perspective on this conflict, as someone who was born and grew up in israel and who is intimately familiar with the psychologies, identities and mythologies that perpetuate this conflict.

I will start with what seems to me like the way out of this horror (at least on the cultural and psychological level. There’s a lot more that can be said about the solution on the structural/practical level - see for example this very wise yet simple example on how the conflict can very intelligently and justly be resolved on the practical/structural level - but here I focus only on the cultural/psychological/religious/identitarian level, the level that seems to prevent such wise practical solutions from being implemented, based on my own intimate familiarity with the prevailing cultural/religious/identitarian conditioning in the region).

It seems to me that the way out of this horror lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity and divinity of another BEFORE viewing each other as a LABEL (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew), and it also lies in coming to terms with and acknowledging the IMMENSE AND PROFOUND SUFFERING AND TRAUMA that each "side" has caused the other, and in finding ways to heal together.

And a small side note with regard to the last sentence, before I proceed. I'd just like to say that unlike most Israelis, I'm fully aware that the suffering and trauma that the newly-arrived Jewish migrants caused the local people over the last century - in the brutal ruthless cruel supremacist exclusivist tribalist zionist project to disposses, throw out, take over, dehumanize and erase of the local people in Palestine - is many many orders of magnitude greater than the other way around (than the trauma caused to some of the newly-arrived Jewish migrants by the resistence of the local people to being dispossesed, massacred, abused and driven out of their home). Some of it is detailed in this shocking documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4 which i can confirm is 100% true to reality based on my own personal experience in the Israeli military. And after watching that documentary I also highly recommend this short video https://youtu.be/CSff-Ip1kZs?si=udYd0XxYz6kbcDMb that details the horrific TRUTH of what is being done, everything that the one-sided billionaire-owned media never tells you. All of these are pre october 2023. Since then the colonizing & disposession project has reached much greater extremes of unspeakable sadistic inhumanity, cruelty and religious-national burning hatred based on deliberately cultivated lies and propaganda by cynical narrative-managers (more on that later).

End of side-note.

This capacity mentioned above, to step out of one's bubble and hear/see the humanity and divinity of another before seeing a label (and the stories attached to the label), requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that we may hear each other's stories and feel each other's pain, but this contact is prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the tribalist sectarian nationalist-religious divisive ideology in both sides (extremely dominant among Israelis, in my experience)

As someone who had the labels 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' placed upon me ay biryh (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, heart-corrupting, imprisoning, DIVISIVE, sectarian and God-ignorant nature) I notice that what allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but for more than a century now) are several things:

One is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is, by the way, one of the greatest successes of tribalism/nationalism driven by the ultra-wealthy ruling class, to divide and tribalistically pit against each other the non-elite masses, those who for many centuries lived together - Arab Jews and Arab Muslims - before the invasion and introduction to the region of the exclusivist and highly divisive zionist nationalist mind virus, a virus which was brought over to the region by outsider invaders to west Asia, invading colonizers from east Europe).

SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience, of the suffering & trauma experienced by those on the "other side".

From what I see, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls foreign invaders/dispossesors/colonizers or terrorists) cheer when “our hero fighters” murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.

Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma, suffering and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience, suffering and trauma of the "other side".

And so, when “the other side” reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first “side” interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side are evil monsters who only want to harm us for no reason..”

It's quite amazing how similar the story that each “side” tells itself to the story that the other “side” tells itself, it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only defending ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!

And all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the sides. This is the tremendous “success” of tribalism/nationalism (driven by the uber-rich ruling class on both “sides” to pit the 99% against each other). There is a complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the “other side” tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the profound suffering and trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic soldiers"

It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that people in the region (and especially Israelis, in my experience) undergo a very deep and intense conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!! (In a moment I will say exactly how and why it creates the opposite of safety and security)

This indoctrination into the separative exclusivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a religious-nationalist label. Identification which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that they teach me is at odds with this sectarian label.

Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this religious-national label, and anything that isn't aligned with the narrow sectarian exclusivist interests of this exclusivist religious-national label is therefore seen as a threat to my very existence!! (Because this label is seen as ME, is who I am)

It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose tribalism also involves divisive, excluding, supremacist and God-ignorant sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that their saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion, a sense of separation from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label 'Jew' is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and anyone who was not born into the correct religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common & mainstream worldview in the extremely tribalist, ethnocentric & fascistic Israeli society. In my observation, this tribalist blindness (innocent yet profoundly destructive) is what brought about this conflict in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian exclusivist zionist nationalist mind virus and heart-corruption, and the ill-intentioned amd love-less invasion of this corrupted and blind sectarian psyche into west Asia from (mostly) eastern Europe (ill-intentioned, love-divorced and God-forgetting because it arrived with a corrupted sectarian heart that seeks to benefit ONLY certain people, who are considered of greater importance and value than others, based on a childish ignorant religious label placed on us at birth).

To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, ONLY for a part of the whole (while ignoring and dismissing what this does to the whole) , such an attempt can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!

TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, SECURITY ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!

In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God/Consciousness actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our innocent blindness we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through a sectarian divisive religious-national identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).

To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, misunderstanding, fear, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, and organized mass-murder (known as war)

In my humble understanding, the bloodshed can never stop and there will never be safety & security for anyone unless we have the courage to step out of our sectarian bubble and actually listen (listen with the heart, not with the head) to the profound suffering and trauma we inflict. This is true for both sides but IMHO it is especially so for Israelis who in my experience are profoundly brainwashed and ignorant of the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR CRUELTY INHUMANITY AND TRAUMA that the supremacist zionist ruling class inflicted and inflicts on the local people in Palestine (not just now but for many msny decades already)

Without feeling the profound pain and horror that was and is endured, and without understanding (truly understading, not just mentally) what local palestinians are actually reacting to, without that, indoctrinated supremacist God-forgetting right-wing zionists will just continue with the mass-slaughter, torture, abuse, dispossession, throwing-out, cruelty, rape, massacre, kidnappings, home-demolitions, land-theft, erasure and de-humanization of the indigenous people, and will keep telling themselves the story that 'they are hostile to us for no reason whatsoever, but simply becasue they are evil antisemite terrorist monsters by nature..'