caught in the spiral

A few days ago, I spoke at length with my friend Sharif, about whose sartorial excellence and skill on the dance floor I've written several times. "Sharif" is somewhere between a name and a title given to boys who can trace their patrilineal heritage to the Prophet Mohammed. There are a lot of Sharifs. It is a little bit like the Jewish names Levi and Cohen, which indicate a patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi, or from Moses' brother Aaron (the first high priest, or Kohen Gadol).

Anyway, Sharif is eighteen years old. He wants to study engineering at Teknion, a university in Haifa, in the north of Israel, that is well known for technology. In order to enter Teknion, Sharif needs to pass a Hebrew Equivelncy test. The test, much like the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), would be difficult for native speakers of the language. The name TOEFL is already a bit ridiculous. I would never say (in English or any other language I "speak") "I have a test of the physics of motion tomorrow. Language equivalency requires a good deal of knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language. Native speakers don't learn structural grammar because they learn by mimicking their parents. The grammar is either instinctual or incorrect. For instance, I had no idea what the subjunctive was in English, or even if I used it until I learned French. The other example is the tendency of English speakers to finish sentences with "...and I," even in the instances when the correct grammar would be "...and me."

Sharif, and many of the Palestinian Residents of East Jerusalem who are in my Hebrew class speak excellent (if not completely fluent) Hebrew. However, it is a somewhat imperfect Hebrew, with snippits of Arabic, and a general lack of proper grammar. This is because many of them learn Hebrew as they grow up, but not as a primary language. They have the problems of native speakers and the problems of non-native speakers. Many of them end up taking Hebrew from the beginning in order to learn the grammar. It ends up being very good for me, I get pushed along by a class that has a similar grammatical skill but an infinitely stronger skill in the language.

My Hebrew, in contrast to theirs, is inflected with Biblical Hebrew Grammar. This mostly comes out in my pronunciation. Think of what you might do if you ran into someone who spoke like the King James Bible. The problem is that I can't keep straight which grammar belongs where, and so I default to the Biblical, which has much more stringent laws (in language alone, I respond to and appreciate rules). My Hebrew isn't incorrect, but it probably sounds a little stilted or just silly to a native speaker, especially given my extremely limited vocabulary. All this is an aside, I was talking about my friend Sharif.

Sharif and I have had a lot of really inspiring and wonderful conversation over the past five months. He often shares pita with zatar and olive oil. I try to and occasionally succeed in buying him a coffee. The first conversation we had, he told me that he thinks Jews and Muslims are brothers. We talked about how both religions have a central sacrifice story. And about how Abraham is the father of all of us. There have been many lighter conversations too, many discussions of movies we both like, etc.

But last week, we had the hardest conversation I've had with him. We talked about Gaza. He feels angry and hopeless. The same two emotions I have been feeling for three weeks and a couple of days. Sharif is a kind and reasonable young man. This is somewhat unique among eighteen year olds. I was neither kind nor reasonable at eighteen, nor were any of my friends.

The problem is that Sharif is feeling, very personally, the 1300 deaths in Gaza. And he is feeling very personally the fact that the civilian population of Gaza has absolutely no where to go. When London was in the blitz, many children were sent away from London to safety. No one can leave the 40 km by 8 km area that is the Gaza Strip. Sharif calls it a prison. He says that what is going on there is like bombing a prison.

As I said, he is a kind and reasonable young man, interested in building friendships. Through the course of the past three weeks, his moderation has started to give way to his anger. And a young man interested in friendship and the brotherhood of the children of Abraham has started to talk more about Hamas.

This is the absolute failure of violence as a form of conflict resolution. It destroys the hope of people who, against great odds, remain reasonable. The absence of that hope leaves a vacuum. That vacuum is exactly what Hamas waits for.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day (observed). My first posted reaction to the war was a quote from him. I re-read that quote last night and found it more powerful in the light of three weeks in this intensified conflict zone. It broke my heart to see my Israeli, American and Palestinian friends and their exact locations in the descending spiral.

I pray that Sharif is given other options. And I pray that the hopeless masses for whom the bombing seems like a good idea are given other options. And most importantly I pray that everyone will stop praying for peace, and begin to think creatively about solutions. If left up to Hamas and Israel, this war will only escalate. It is left to us to present other options to the reasonable people caught in the middle of so much hatred, in order that they not be dragged down by the flailing desperation that surrounds them.

Without wanting to be overstate it, here again is the quote from Doctor Martin Luther King Jr (z''l). I ask you to re-read it, and on his observed birthday, the day before the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, begin to think creatively about solutions to problems that don't involve bombs, rockets, guns, or coercive force.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."