Seven years ago, I worked at the base newspaper at Aberdeen Proving Ground, under the management of the Baltimore Sun Media Group. It was a wonderful introduction to a military community and the work of those people committed to the defense and wellbeing of our nation. A couple of years later, I also worked for a while at the newspaper at Fort Meade and was constantly inspired by the sense of community among the folks who worked and lived there.
In the summer of 2014, I was a writer and editor at APG News when one of my colleagues came over to my desk and asked if I would step into an office with her to discuss a delicate matter. I didn’t know this person too well, except that she seemed pleasant and had served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This was right around the time of Israel’s military operation in Gaza after the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. The brutal cycle of Hamas rockets hurtling toward Israel and Israeli bombardments of Gaza was, in many respects, quite similar to what we’ve seen on the news over the past week-and-a-half.
This colleague, who is not Jewish, had heard I spent many years working in Jewish media. She said she had a number of close friends who were posting angry screeds on social media condemning Israel and its actions in Gaza. (Sound familiar?)
In a very thoughtful, earnest way, she asked me to offer the pro-Israel perspective of the situation, because she wanted to be open-minded and balanced in her understanding of the crisis. “I don’t know a lot about the Arab-Israeli conflict,” she admitted, “and I want to make sure I’m hearing it from all sides.”
Frankly, I was flattered and impressed by her honesty and reticence to jump to the conclusions of her comrades. I emphasized that I’ve never actually lived in Israel (although I’ve visited there four times) and am not always in Israel’s “amen corner.” I explained that like a lot of American Jews, I occasionally take issue with some of the Israeli government’s policies and decisions. “Believe me, I do not think that Israel is always perfect. Far from it,” I said. “I’m no hawk.”
But to the best of my abilities, I attempted to offer the reasons why Israel was conducting the military operations against Hamas, to ensure the security of its citizens. I told her there’s plenty of blame to go around in the Middle East, but no country – not even the United States – would put up with a bordering entity sending over rockets and terrorizing its population. Singing “Kumbaya” or “We Are The World” just won’t cut it in that neighborhood, I said.
Nor would anyone normally issue warnings before bombing buildings or neighborhoods. To my knowledge, nothing like that ever happened during the Allied aerial bombing of Dresden.
I told her that with all due respect to her friends, I do not believe Israel wants to kill Palestinian children, and that calling Israel an “apartheid state” is an oversimplification of a very complex situation with a long, tragic history.
I said I believe most Jews dream of a two-state solution, but the other side does not appear equipped or willing to do so at this time. All of these things I said with the caveat that it was coming from someone who is Jewish and loves Israel but also believes the Palestinians deserve to eventually have their own state (albeit not one run by a terrorist organization).
I don’t claim in any way to be an expert on the Middle East or conversant on all of the nuances of the conflict there. But when I finished my shpiel, my colleague thanked me profusely and said she felt like she understood the Israeli perspective a little better. As a former member of the military, she said she genuinely understood and sympathized with the need to protect your citizens.
Look, I’m not delusional enough to think I completely changed her mind or dissuaded my colleague from accepting her friends’ charges against Israel as gospel. But I was impressed that someone calmly and considerately asked for a little perspective and clarity on this volatile subject, and I was more than happy to be an ambassador of sorts for Israel in that instance. That kind of thing doesn’t happen a lot, and people can be quite rash when looking at things involving the Middle East.
Let’s pray that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas sticks this time, and perhaps somehow eventually leads to a final peace agreement of some sort (I know, wishful thinking). With everything that went down between Israel and Gaza recently, all of the pain and suffering and vitriol and international outrage, I wish there were more people like my former APG colleague who would simply try to hear all of the sides of the story before jumping to conclusions. It might help us understand all of the perspectives a little better on this very complicated, emotional issue.
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