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Peace, Love, And Oh Yeah, BTW, F**k You

June 2, 2010

The tweet from @UKFPI was pretty direct:

"You fucking moron – your chums just murdered my friends – HOW DARE YOU."

He duplicated the words in a comment on yesterday’s blog post There Are As Many Truths As There Are People To Tell Them, in which I share a video showing the Freedom Flotilla activists beating the Isreali IDF forces as the soldiers land on the deck of one of the ships.

Truth be told, I expected a negative reaction to the post. Because I know from experience that it’s easy (and dangerously limiting), to become so deeply entrenched in one’s own views that it’s virtually impossible to see any other perspective other than one’s own.

(Maybe that’s where the term "blind rage" comes from. We become so enraged that we’re unable to see.)

A little digging revealed that the hateful tweet and its twin comment had been penned by adam@ukfpi.org (ukfpi is an acronym for UK Friends of Palestine & (moderate) Israel), of whom I knew nothing unil this morning when I discovered his messages.

I’ve received hate comments and tweets before, as well as threats to my person, from all sides of the political spectrum. The surprising part about these from adam@ukfpi.org is that he, and the organisation he represents, claim to champion peace and love.

According to the UKFPI’s twitter bio, it’s mission is:

2 raise awareness 4 non-violent ACTIONS & BOYCOTT 2 OPEN GAZA & END THE OCCUPATION. We work 4 EQUALITY,PEACE, & 1 day,LOVE between Arabs & Jews.

Likewise, the UKFPI website says it is committed to:

raising awareness for peaceful ACTIONS, to OPEN GAZA,
END THE OCCUPATION & see peace through justice

Hmmmmm. I wonder how calling me a "fucking moron" fits with "equality, peace and love" and "peaceful actions?" I’m having a problem figuring out how adam@ukfpi.org is going to love the enemy, when he can’t have a civil dialogue with me, someone with whom he supposedly shares the same core value. It’s a mystery.

And it begs a few questions…

Why does posting a video with a piece of relevant information make me someone to be villified? I don’t get it. Am I naive to believe that there are more sides to a story than the one with which I feel most comfortable? Am I wrong to question propaganda that comes from either "side" in a dispute? Or should I disbelieve only that which is issued by the "enemy?" Does questioning and exploring make me evil in some way?

Action And Reaction In A Never-Ending Cycle

The UKFPI
website says it is for "peaceful actions." I think it’s safe to say that any rational person would agree that the actions of the activists in the video in the There
Are As Many Truths As There Are People To Tell Them post are anything but peaceful. And neither in my view was the boarding of the ship by the IDF a peaceful action.

But does one violent action justify another? If yes, then there is no hope for change. None. The cycle will continue ad infinitum.There is such a bottomless pit of violence in this conflict that it would take an eternity to avenge it all.

In no way does my blog post yesterday endorse the actions of the IDF
or Israeli policy vis Palestine. Nor does it sanction the actions of the activists. In my view, all sides bear some responsibility for what happened, and for the loss of life, which I feel certain could have been avoided had cooler heads prevailed.

I believe there is no right in this situation. And it is so emotionally
charged that everyone’s judgment is clouded. Correction: everyone is in a blind rage.

I’m Not As Evil As You Think, adam@ukfpi.org

Had adam@ukfpi.org bothered to scroll through my twitter timeline before tweeting "how dare you," he would have found this string of replies to a tweet I received from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (start at the bottom and work your way up):

@IsraelMFA GROW UP FFS. Get ur collective acts together and solve this problem. about 11 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to IsraelMFA

@IsraelMFA you have videos, they have videos. they started it, you started it, they have knives, you have guns, what a bunch of rubbish

@IsraelMFA what a waste. God is ashamed of us for behaving in this hateful way.

@IsraelMFA because if you (Israel & Palestine) don’t figure this out, your gonna end up killing ALL of us. the lot. How sad. How tragic.

@IsraelMFA everyone involved on all sides shoulders blame. everybody needs 2 stop pointing fingers & start figuring out how to fix this

@IsraelMFA mothers who have lost children, children who have lost parents. it’s time to stop this violence. it’s sickening.

@IsraelMFA I feel sorry 4 Israel & Israelis, I feel sorry 4 Palestine & Palestinians, I feel sorry 4 all those who have lost their lives  

@IsraelMFA the policies of ur government are a major impediment 2 peace in the world. it’s a tragedy beyond belief for all humanity

@IsraelMFA i’m not for either "side" I’m Canadian and have no vested interest other than I wish peace 4 everyone on this earth

@IsraelMFA and BTW, I’m a peace activist. I abhor this conflict. but I consistently urge peace. ur strategy is a major fck up sorry 2 say
  
@IsraelMFA u must understand tht legal aspects make no difference. this is emotional issue. u can’t argue rational when people r emotional

  @amazingsusan Legal aspects of aid to gaza http://bit.ly/cDsTk8  

@IsraelMFA the balance of power is so clearly UNBALANCED over years of conflict. this time it’s 10 to one casualties. usually it’s hundreds 2 one   

@IsraelMFA but because of decades of systematic human rights abuses, of humilating an entire nation and its people. This is the last straw.

  @IsraelMFA And I’m afraid it goes far, far, far beyond that. U have an international PR disaster on ur hands, not because of this incident  

@IsraelMFA yes, I can see that the people on the boat resisted. The problem is, what were seals doing boarding ship in 1st place?

  @amazingsusan Israel didnt want 2harm any of the #flotilla personal &warned all along not 2 force them self in http://bit.ly/bcrDJ2 (I got this tweet from @IsraelMFA yesterday evening and responded with the series of tweets above)