Revenge chasing vengeance around the block doesn’t result in justice. Moments of ceasefire may come but never peace. Peace occurs when parties who differ significantly are able to live in harmony. It does not require conformity or unanimity. It requires mutual respect and commitment to working things out in acceptable ways. Right now the world is consumed with apprehension over the horror of Hamas’s cowardly acts of terrorism and Israel’s savage response, the cost paid almost entirely by civilians unable to protect themselves or flee to safety. Whatever the reasons and excuses, it is an example of revenge chasing vengeance.
Overlooked globally in many places are smaller scale conflicts mirroring the Israel/Hamas situation. The most obvious situations are like armed conflicts in Africa and cartel violence in Latin America. But they aren’t so very different from the same process of revenge chasing vengeance in Congress, state legislatures, our communities, neighborhoods and families. Interviews with many residents on the ground in Israel and Gaza have a common theme: Why are “they” doing this to us? We are human beings, “they are animals. “They” have to pay for what “they” have done. True, not every interview shares that theme. It’s a hopeful sign that some interviewed understand the need for mutual respect before peace can be had. The Holy Land and environs have seldom known peace – long periods of truce, but not peace. There have been too many generations of us against “them.””They” can never be trusted, and tolerated only if “they” know their place and stay in it. It isn’t unique to Israelis and Palestinians. The same is going on at different scales in every place and among all peoples.
I don’t know why, but we (including me and you) are quick to make disagreements about “us” against “them” with “them” as the root cause of what we fear. It’s a scapegoating process more fully explored by the philosopher Renee Girard. He examined the history of people experiencing social disorder scapegoating some vulnerable “them” who are not “us” as the cause of the problems. Only when extreme and often violent measures are employed to rid the community of “them” can order be restored. Throughout the centuries it’s the story of pogroms, witch hunts, heresy trials, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
It has now exploded on the global scene in the Holy Land. In a sense what is happening there is an amplification of the less obvious dynamic at work in our own daily lives. It’s what makes it so difficult to resolve painful situations such as estrangements between families and friends, and implacable political differences. The “they” in our lives are always the ones who have made life more difficult than it should be. Who are the “they” we so eagerly blame for disorder and failures in society? Corporations, governments, people of other races or economic status, the poor or rich, members of our own families, we are quick to assign blame to innumerable “they” with unexamined certainty on the flimsiest prejudices, rumors and allegations. We readily ignore the logs in our own eyes while examining and insisting “they” remove the specks in “their” eyes. It is hard work learning to love our neighbors, especially the ones we dislike and don’t trust.
Social disorder can and often is a legitimate threat, a real and present danger and cannot be ignored. The principles of responsibility, accountability and the consequences of one’s actions must hold, but only on the foundation of verifiable evidence. The temptation of emotional knee jerk scapegoating must be avoided. It isn’t easy. Emotional reactions, including angry rage, are real and need to be expressed. The hard part is not letting that expression move onto the act of revenge chasing vengeance. To be sure, nations have an obligation to defend their people from attack. The struggle in Ukraine is a legitimate defense against a would be conqueror that wants territory and cares nothing about the people who live there. However, it is worth noting that Russia has tried to justify the war by setting “us” the good Russians against “them” the bad neo-Nazi Ukrainians who are a threat to all that is Russian. It’s classic scapegoating that could easily devolve into revenge chasing vengeance.