I was raised Roman Catholic, and while I have since drifted from the Church in many of my views, one phrase oft repeated during my childhood still rings true:
"Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin"
Meditations:
One seemingly cannot speak out against the atrocities Israel commits daily against the people of Lebanon without quickly finding oneself labeled an Anti-Semitic.
I live in a region of Canada that is very strongly Protestant Christian; an area that boasts quite a few Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian congregations, and I find that this point of view carries into political conversation in a manner that I find confusing.
Being a follower of Christ's teaching (his words as provided in the Gospels, and not as interpreted later) and those of the Buddha, I am a man who tries to live in harmony with the world around me, and the human community. I know I have prejudices like anyone else, but I don't believe I harbor racist feelings towards anyone.
Yet when I speak with some people about what I see as a great injustice in the Middle East, I am slandered as an Anti-Semitic, and at that point it seems that the conversation ends.
I wonder about these reactions. Is this simply a tactic to end a conversation that the other party feels they cannot win? Or is it more than that? And what of myself? If I am the Zen Buddhist I strive to be, I must reflect upon if I am truly a racist.
After some meditation on this subject, the following struck me:
- I don't see a Jewish person as any more or less human than any other religious practitioner.
- I don't see a Jewish person as any more or less a human than any other member of any other culture.
- I deplore the idea of a Jewish State founded on the ethnic cleansing, genocide, or even subjugation of other humans who hold to a different culture or religion.
These points brought me to one inescapable conclusion--I am not an anti-Semite, instead I am an anti-Zionist.
Hate the Sin:
According to Christian, Jewish and Islamic teachings God gave unto Moses ten sacred commandments, carved upon stone tablets. The sixth commandment stated:
"Thou shalt not murder"
Notice how it specifies murder, rather than simply killing. Putting a guilty party to death maybe acceptable to God, but killing an innocent human being is a capital sin.
No matter what you think of Hezbollah; no matter if you see them as terrorists or freedom fighters, they are one thing none can deny--killers.
Nor can any sane human deny the civilians of Lebanon are innocent of the crimes Israel attributes to Hezbollah. How many of the dead Lebanese fired rockets into Northern Israel? How many were involved with the kidnapping (or alternatively; arrest) of the Israeli soldiers?
None. They were, and still are innocent.
The IDF's murder of these innocents is a capital sin, a sin that all of Israel has committed, and until atonement is sought out, a sin that shall weight heavy against the State of Israel.
I believe that for this act against God's commandments to the nation of Israel, I am well within my right to hold the State of Israel in great contempt.
I know hating what Israel has done is still hatred, and harboring that in my heart makes me less of a person, I suppose it is only human, and that, I am willing to admit to.
Love the Sinner:
Can I truly say though I don't hate the Jews? Unequivocally, yes. Peering beyond the fact that my family is also partly Jewish, I can't truly say I hold any hatred towards the citizens of Israel. Like so many of us, they are victims of their own fears--fears stoked by cruel and heartless people.
The architects of the disaster--those on both sides who feel that God is telling them to kill the enemies of Islam or the enemies of Zion as beyond my hatred as well. For them I only feel a deep sense of pity; for the suffering they shall endure will be greater than that they have heaped upon others. Another truism from my life, which I hold to, says:
"Karma is a bitch."
There is, I believe, justice. In all worlds.
Conclusion:
Where my wandering thoughts have brought me, eventually, is a plateau where I understand the issues I have with Israel are related to its actions as a state, and not to its people.
Is Zionism--that is the creation of a Jewish State--right? No more than the creation of an Islamic State, or a Christian, or Buddhist State where practitioners of other religions or members of other cultures are held in contempt. Any society founded on setting one people above another is inherently unjust, and should be done away with.
I am an anti-Zionist because I do not believe in Israel's right to exist as an exclusively Jewish State. Israel could be a prosperous, peaceful nation if both sides gave up their belief that they can extinguish the other's religion and/or culture. So in this manner, I am also anti-Palestinian, as I do not subscribe to the belief of a Palestinian State as an exclusively Arab or Islamic state either.
As for those who would still call me a hater of the Jews, I wonder if it is not a combination of ignorance of my position, coupled with an unwillingness to hear it out. I also fear that for some Christians awaiting the Rapture, hanging the anti-Semitic label on others may simply be a matter of projection.
Considering their belief in the Rapture requires the destruction of the Jewish people once Israel has triumphed, I fear that in this case, these people "Love the sin, but hate the sinner."