There has never been a time when I have not respected pacifists. I grew up as one. I retain vivid memories of my own childhood and those temptations I had to fight, but would not or could not. Like many young people, I overcompensated in other ways. I wrestled with the fact of violence in my community, I waffled in a passive-aggressive way. I fought and regretted fighting, I was cowed by those too willing to fight. But to the extent a child could, I was taught and respected Christian ethics and the example of Martin Luther King. It required a great deal of courage to be pacifistic for me, courage that I fortunately, mostly had. But I didn't know what to do with that courage for a long time.
I speak of this today in light of my willingness in this and in past weeks to press for a proper war and a proper peace in the Middle East. I wish to express my thoughts about the failures that I think are inevitable if such things are not gotten. I have had plenty of time in my life to regret the consequences of not fighting those that should have been fought, it is a long lament. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the failure of the Talented Tenth is a failure of fighting spirit, that they have indeed not kept it real enough to matter. But that is a tangent to be pursued another time. This time is a time for pacification.
The pacifist is a 'loser' in a war he no longer cares about. He turns away from war and will no longer fight. The pacifist retreats to a neutral corner and if none is to be found he leaves the arena and never looks back. The pacifist is withdrawn from conflict, he only wishes to be left alone, in peace. The pacifist is the warrior who has laid down his sword and shield, who studies war no more, who doesn't seek glory, or honor, but merely dignity in the wake of the horror of war. The way of the pacifist is not easily trod, in fact I would say that one cannot be a pacifist who hasn't warred a bit. One has to understand the costs, the taste of blood, the need to destroy, the high of victory, the humiliation of defeat to understand the full equation of peace. For to avoid conflict at all cost, to never have gone in the arena of battle at all is not pacifism but cowardice. Cowards cannot lead, but the man who sues for peace must.
To sue for peace is to have been pacified. This is the duty of those who knock over their own king and retire from the chessboard of militant conflict. They must shake hands with the victor and walk away quietly, never to return. They cannot backbite, they cannot mutter in spite, they cannot denigrate the champion, they must give their all in battle, and concede their all in defeat. They must put themselves at the mercy of the winner, for this is the only way the winner can show mercy. If the winner of war cannot show mercy, then he is not a champion, merely a destroyer. If the winner of war cannot respect the rights of the loser to retain his dignity, than he is an aggressor, a bully, a tyrant. If the loser of war cannot concede defeat then he defies peace at his own expense and forfeits the right to walk away alive and with dignity.
The Intifadas of the Israeli-Palestinan conflict have killed only 6000 people since their inception two decades ago. It is right to call them Intifadas because they are not wars. In South Lebanon, against Hezbollah in 18 years of conflict, 2500 died. That is not a war. In the Israeli fight against the PLO during the Lebanese Civil War many thousands died, but none of these conflicts rank significantly with even the secondary wars and atrocities of the 20th Century. The Arab Israeli conflict continues because nobody has been pacified.
Yet of all the state actors in armed conflict over the years with Israel, some have been more disciplined and pacifist that others. I will leave parsing that to another discussion, but I want to leave some leavening perspective on the current willingness to fight. As loudly as many are complaining about death and destruction, little of what we have seen in the past few weeks ranks highly in the annals of war. And the fact that so many are confident that a ceasefire can be attained and war crimes trials immediately sought demonstrates the hand-holding swiftness with which we arrogantly believe two dogs can be separated.
I would like to think that some peace can be arrived without the full, awful horror of war. That is wishful thinking, but it is the kind of thinking I believe will prevail in the near future. We will all pretend that this was a war, and we will all pretend that any UN negotiated settlement will be peace. But we who have lived in the 20th Century should know better. And any observer would be a fool to think that Nasrallah on one side and Halutz on the other don't know better.
When we see one of them become a true pacifist, then the war will be over. Not a moment before. The problem is, as we all know, that they are not the last of their kind, nor are they the ultimate combattants.
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