01/03/2009 04:12:41 AM EST
Human Nature and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
posted by BWV 988
I was reflecting on the most recent Israel/Palestine conflict, and the human propensity to respond to violence with violence which reminded me of an old interview from CNN that I found quite profound.
Partial transcript below the fold.
On June 8th 2006, CNN's Soledad O'Brien interviewed Michael Berg, the father of Nicholas Berg who was beheaded early in the Iraq war. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was held to be primarily responsible for killing or ordering the killing of Mr. Berg's son, and the interview was to get Berg's reaction to the death of Zarqawi at the hands of American forces.
Mr. Berg's reaction both surprised Ms. O'Brien, and profoundly moved me. The context of the interview is the Iraq war, but I think that Mr. Berg's observations are relevant to the current conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians as well.
Here are some excerpts (emphasis added):
O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.
MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.
I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I don't ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.
[...]
O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...
You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?
BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously.
I've been shot at. I've been showed horrible pictures. I've been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.
Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?
(
full transcript)
Like I said, it's human nature to want to respond to violence with violence. However, Mr. Berg shows us in this interview that it is possible to transcend the impulses we all share and to sue for peace even in the face of great atrocity. Perhaps it takes an exceptional person to look beyond something like the senseless murder of a family member, but it is possible.
I wanted to share this interview both because of it's philosophical relevance to the possible motivations driving either side on the Israeli/Palestinian divide and to pay respect to Mr. Michael Berg, an exceptional man.
