Hate or Not To Hate
This is one of the trickier subjects out there for sure.
Lots of people use the word but I don’t think they actually believe it when they say it.
Maybe it’s just me but the word “hate” is a very strong word with very specific meaning. I try not to use the word literally very often because at the end of the day, I only hate a few things. Beans and Stew.
Beans because of the texture and taste in my mouth. I know they are very good for you but I am more a Ring Ding and milk kind of person, legumes are not my thing.
Stew because it brings up some horrible memories from my childhood. I love the components, just don’t like (or hate) them altogether.
I know I am making light or a really dangerous subject but my point is, Americans really do not know what true hate is.
Oh yes, there are people in this country that are racists or homophobes but to really get down to it viscerally, they may really dislike a race or a sexual preference, they don’t know the true depths of hate.
Yes, there are a few people out there that can honestly put themselves in the “Hating” category but thankfully they are actually few and far between.
People do stupid, insensitive things that get labelled as hate but the reality is they are ignorant and don’t know how to express their feelings in an appropriate manner. It looks like hate but it isn’t really.
The reason I bring this up is because of the war in Gaza. You want to talk about true hate, just look to the Hamas fighters and their brethren. These guys actually have harnessed their hate and inflicted untold, inconceivable pain and suffering on innocent people. They use the guise of fighting for Allah and freeing their people from the tyranny of the Israeli occupying force and with the help of Iran, they will sacrifice their lives because of this true hatred of the Jews.
You see, we Americans have no clue about what true hatred is. I hate peas. Somebody will hate the Yankees or the Patriots but that is all nonsense. The hatred in the Middle East goes back thousands of years. This is something none of us can comprehend.
It is almost like it is embedded in their DNA. The hatred metastasizes repeatedly and shoots in different directions based on the generation.
If you look at the bigger picture in the Middle East you can see hatred in multiple directions. The Sunnis hate the Shiites who hate the Kurds who all hate Westerners.
It’s hatred clear and simple and it will never end.
A friend of mine once said “There will never be peace in the Middle East until people begin to love their family more than they love their God”. Which makes sense to me as a Westerner but it doesn’t look to me like that will ever happen in the Middle East.
I think this is why any US policy in the Middle East is doomed to fail. We do not understand the level of hate these people have for each other. I don’t have the answer for this and I don’t think anyone ever will.
The conflict in Gaza has been a disaster from the beginning. I think there have been multiple miscalculations from everyone involved and the people of the Gaza Strip are paying the price.
No matter how this ends, even if Hamas is finally and completely routed, the hate will continue. Thousands of Hamas fighters will have died for sure along with multiple thousands of innocent men, women and children. The territory has been leveled pretty much and there are hundreds of thousands of people suffering right now. Aid will come but in the meantime, the hatred for Israel will only grow. The people of the Gaza Strip will talk for generations about the devastation the Israelis caused and the children of Gaza will learn about this as time goes on. They will see the hate their parents have, their respected elders will talk of the hate as well and a new generation of fighters (terrorists?) will be brought up into this World.
The hate will always continue.
There will be little talk of what precipitated the war. The story will only be about what the Israelis did. Hamas, Hezbollah and every other terrorist cell will keep the diatribe alive and the hatred will fester over and over again.
You could argue here in the US about the Israeli response to October 7th but we don’t live in Israel. We don’t live in the Gaza strip or the West Bank. We do not know the terror that lurks everyday in everyone’s life. We can not imagine the amount of hatred that goes into killing and mutilating young innocent children. The desecration of people is beyond our comprehension and yet there are people that side with Hamas in this country. To me, that shows that ignorance shows no boundaries.
There are protests supporting the people of Palestine and that is fine, they have rights as well and 99.99% of the Palestinian population wants peace and to go about their daily lives without fear. This war has not allowed them to do that. Do I think there should be a ceasefire and do I think that Hamas should release the hostages (all of them)? Yes, I do but the reality is, we as Americans really have no clue what it is like to live over there.
We pass judgement here in the US with little understanding of what it actually means to hate with every fiber of your being or to live in constant fear that some terrorist is going to blow up the Temple in which you worship. To actually have to worry that your child will die from starvation or blown up by some unknown weapon.
I do not have the answers. I don’t think anyone truly does. The only thing I do know is the cause. It is all about hate.