James M. Redwine

Middle East

Ever Again

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Maybe it is because I was born and grew up on an Indian reservation and had many Native American friends, including my Osage Sunday School teacher, but there are things involved in the Gaza Peace Plan claimed by President Trump that remind me of the treaties between the United States government and numerous American Indian peoples. In general, those treaties put Indians out of sight and white people in possession of Indian lands. Although many of those peace plans did contain magnanimous conditions and gratuitous language such as, “As long as the rivers flow, etc.” It turned out those were a secret code that meant, until gold, silver or whatever thing the dominate culture wanted was discovered, say Riviera type real estate along the Mediterranean Sea or lush farmland along the West Bank of the Jordan River or holy sites in East Jerusalem.

While the Zionists of Israel assert the destruction and occupation of Gaza was a response to an attack by Hamas, Palestinians believe the initiation of the current invasion by Israel began in 1917, resulting in a Nakba (a catastrophe) in 1948 and became a full-blown Israeli occupation in 1967 that was exacerbated in 1973 and continues to today. For many Palestinians, October 7, 2023 was an act of resistance to Zionist occupation and oppression.

Many Jewish people feel a deep connection to that part of the world called Palestine. The reasons are historical and cultural and, for most, do not require a genocide of the original inhabitants. However, as with many non-Native Americans in the United States from 1492 until contemporary times who believed Indians were an impediment to Manifest Destiny, many Zionists see Palestinians the same way.

Peace negotiations in such an atmosphere may bring a momentary pause, but the conflict will never resolve until all Palestinians are eliminated or they have their own, fully functioning and self-governing state. It is a moral imperative upon all of us to recognize this reality and guarantee Palestine’s establishment. President Trump’s Peace Plan is a poorly disguised effort to accomplish only Israel’s objectives. A true, lasting peace in the Middle East must start by the U.S.A. recognizing the autonomous, independent, self-governing and self-securing State of Palestine along the borders set forth in 1948. If President Trump makes such a declaration, a real peace process can succeed. If not, the current peace plan is a chimera designed to accomplish Israel’s dreams of a country “from the river to the sea” without any Palestinians but one in eternal turmoil with its neighbors.

As our American Founders discovered, being some other country’s colonies leads to permanent second-class status and “taxation without representation”. America, better than most of the 157 countries that have already officially recognized the State of Palestine, should recognize President Trump’s peace plan “… is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” but more endless conflict. It is like ice cream on a hot day, momentarily sweet and cool, but soon melted into a faint memory and maybe a sop to the forgotten “noble savages” whose aspiration for freedom and independence have gone the way of the Little Big Horn and the Trail of Tears. Or for Palestinians, the Nakba and genocide.

 

Another Trail of Tears

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Israel’s actions in Palestine’s designated future capital, East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, are a conundrum to many Americans. How can a country that arose from the ashes of the Jewish holocaust of World War II inflict similar atrocities on its neighbors? A related mystery is why the United States enables and abets Israel’s actions? In a country born out of occupation and oppression from our closely aligned cultural “First Cousins”, we yearned to breathe free. This is much as the Jews and their first cousins, the Arabs, are embroiled today.

Jews, Arabs and Muslims are intertwined by history, genetics, geography and religion. Hebrews look to the Torah, much of which is reflected in the Arab and Muslim culture and beliefs via the Quran. Religion is visceral to many Jews and Muslims who call themselves People of the Book. We Americans were similarly bound together with Great Britain. Christian religious beliefs were and are integral to each people’s psyche and Volksgeist. America’s Colonists and Revolutionaries as well as the people of Great Britain found inspiration and justification for their actions from The Book. The Book still provides much of the reason many Israelis want to expand their territory. And The Book provides much of the reason given by many Americans for supporting Israel’s actions.

Manifest Destiny divined from the Bible and Zionism with reference to the Torah have numerous similarities with one another and with the tenants of the Quran. There are countless distinctions in the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran. However, the adherents of all three see themselves as believing in the same god but with different rituals for each faith and with dizzying variations of beliefs within each faith.

Christians, Jews and Muslims all profess a belief in justice, equality and a version of the Golden Rule. It has been demonstrated countless times that members of each group turn to their faith to support their actions that are sometimes diametrically opposed to their professed faith. This phenomenon has occurred repeatedly over many years. In America, many people of European descent drew upon their god for divining guidance each time they saw Native Americans as obstacles to territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny was often a deeply ingrained belief that justified the desires of the powerful; the Trail of Tears was one of many such divine tragedies.

In her book When the Wolf Came, Mary Jane Warde cites the account from a survivor of the forced removal from the Native Americans’ homes and traditional lands in the eastern states to Indian Territory. Sallie Forney, who was a member of the Muskogee-Creek tribe, described her experience:

“The command for a removal came unexpectedly upon most of us. There was the time that we noticed that several overloaded wagons were passing our home, yet we did not grasp the meaning. However, it was not long until we found out the reason. Wagons stopped at our homes and the men in charge commanded us to gather what few belongings could be crowded into the wagon. We were to be taken away and leave our homes never to return This was just the beginning of much weeping and heartaches.

…

Many fell by the wayside, too faint with hunger or too weak to keep up with the rest. The aged, feeble, and sick were left to perish by the wayside.”

One of the four carvings of U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore is of Theodore Roosevelt who is quoted by writer Alysa Landry as having said in a January 1886 speech in New York City:

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

Such a cavalier attitude by an American President towards Native Americans sounds remarkedly similar to the Zionists’ view and actions toward Palestinians today. One might wonder if much of America’s support for Israel’s actions arises from a subconscious conflation of Native Americans and Palestinians with America’s faith in Manifest Destiny being morphed out of a Chosen People cultural myth.

It is difficult for us to do the right thing in Palestine when we built our empire using the same tactics the Zionists are using. However, we owe it to “ourselves and our posterity” to not aid and abet another Trail of Tears in Palestine. We certainly sinned ourselves, but we can partially atone by helping to alleviate the great Nakba being wrought by Israel’s Zionists today.

Father Knows Best

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Back in the days when TV was black and white the show Father Knows Best starring Robert Young and Jane Wyatt as father and mother Jim and Margaret Anderson dished up weekly lessons of morality and common sense. Father Jim could always be relied on to give thoughtful and caring analysis that mother Margaret would inculcate in their children. The show’s premise was based upon a family seeking and receiving sagacious advice from a respected father much as our nation had received from the Father of our country, George Washington.

Just as most of us have from time to time neglected our parents’ guidance to our chagrin, the United States has sometimes strayed from our Founders’ hard-earned wisdom to our mutual detriment. Our current fall from grace in the Middle East could use a stern parental lecture as set forth in Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796. Among his thoughtful and prescient cautions to us were his observations on dangers to our own country from unjust and unwise foreign entanglements:

“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations, cultivate peace and harmony with all. … give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

“…. Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations (Iran?) and passionate attachments for ochers (Israel?) should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or its affection.”

Washington’s advice stands in sharp contrast to our long myopic view of the Zionists unjust actions towards the people who long inhabited the land that was created as Israel in 1948. America has always been the main supporter and enabler of what can no longer be denied as an effort by Zionists to eliminate Palestinians from their ancestral homes. And it is Zionism not Judaism that should be condemned.

Jewish people as all other peoples have the right to live in Israel or migrate to Israel if it is done according to international law and justice. There are countless Jewish people throughout the world, including in Israel, who believe the Zionists in Israel are both legally and morally wrong to prosecute a genocide against Palestinians. The trope of calling criticism of Zionist crimes antisemitism or of speaking or protesting against the Israeli government’s actions is just an attempt by Zionists to divert attention from their immoral actions.

As for America, we should consider the wisdom of our Founders and the special place America has held in the world since WWII. We should stand up and call out the “passionate attachment” we have allowed to subvert our basic principles. It is never too late to do the right thing.

Perhaps a simpler guide than Father Washington’s sage advice might be an old adage about self-reflections. If one person calls us an ass, we can laugh it off, but if almost everyone does so, then we better look in the mirror. Such is America’s denial of its immoral enablement of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We may not be dropping the bombs on innocent children, but we are providing them along with the existential political threat to use our military might to support Zionist atrocities.

We appear blind to the evil Zionists call self-defense. Starving civilians, destroying hospitals, murdering journalists and stealing land is genocide, not self-preservation or any type of legitimate response to any former attack. As for America, we should not take up arms against Israel, but we should cease aiding Israel to take military action beyond its borders. And its borders should be those established by the United Nations in 1948.

 The United States and Great Britain were the main reason there is an Israel. We found reasons to create Israel in the great evil done to Jewish people by WWII Germany. But that evil was not done by Palestinians or Arabs or Iranians. Such sympathy was certainly understandable. However, to commit another great wrong out of sympathy just doubles the evil; it does not expiate it.

America should first cease our complicity in this modern-day holocaust then we should assert our world leadership to help re-build and realign Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Our decades long culpability in this tragedy and our unique status and stature demand that America stands for what we say we believe and what George Washington called for. Peace and stability are possible in the Middle East; however, it will not come from bombs but from the principles we hold dear.

Uncle Tom’s Gaza

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I read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin when I was in the Seventh Grade because my Seventh Grade Social Studies teacher told our class the book missed the true meaning of the Civil War. My teacher was also my Junior High football coach and I liked and respected him. He was a solidly built white man about thirty-five years old. He ran his Social Studies class using the same system he used to coach.

He gave clear instructions and we players and students followed them. We won football games and accepted his interpretation of America’s cultural history the same way we players absorbed extra wind-sprints for mistakes on the practice field in 90º heat in September.

Both our football team and our Social Studies class were comprised of white kids as Oklahoma had not as yet integrated its schools. I do not know if there was a Social Studies class for Junior High, what we then called Colored kids, in my small hometown. Thus, I have no knowledge if they would have been taught Uncle Tom’s Cabin was enlightened or misguided or if it was simply ignored.

I remember the firmness in my teacher/coach’s voice as he described Mrs. Stowe’s novel as a book of fiction written by a northern Yankee whose uninformed views on slavery were influenced by her family’s brand of the Christian religion. As our Christian instructor told us, “The Civil War was not about slavery but State’s Rights”. That was not what I had been told by my Osage Indian Sunday School teacher or my parents. It was confusing.

However, football was more important than whether some long-dead writer was an accurate observer or a fervent abolitionist. So, I took in the lecture and let it roll off as most of the other stuff. That is, until the day my friends, Abby and Jack, brought the issues of State’s Rights and human rights into perspective.

Abby sat near me in class and Jack sat right next to her. Jack liked Abby but was unskilled in the ways to a girl’s heart. He sought her attention but thought to get it through pre-teen means. When our teacher left the classroom to get a book, Jack saw his chance to garner Abby’s ardor by slipping a thumbtack on her chair. She sat down on it just as the disciplinarian returned. She yelled and our teacher immediately went into coach mode.

At that time I had not learned about the tender mercies of Simon Legree but I got a preview from the Coach. He had always been ready with one of the paddles he kept hanging from the chalkboard. But this time the lesson of the power structure between teacher and student was graphic. Coach chose a thin paddle and pressed two thumbtacks through it. Then he proceeded to apply maximum behavioral modification to Jack.

That next Saturday I checked out Uncle Tom’s Cabin from the public library and read about slavery from the northern viewpoint. The aphorism “Power Corrupts” became an on-the-ground example to me. Those thoughts have reoccurred now I am an adult and have observed the corruption of the Israeli Zionists immense power over their neighbors, especially the Palestinians.

As I re-read Uncle Tom’s Cabin these past two weeks, my thoughts have been, where is a Harriet Beecher Stowe’s outrage at what is the incomprehensible cruelty of babies being starved and mothers being bombed. Harriet, we need you to visit Mr. Trump as you did Mr. Lincoln. Or, perhaps, we all need to read your book again.

 

All In The Family

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The Book of Ruth has four pages. One paragraph of one page is perhaps the Bible’s most often recited passage by brides and grooms: 

“Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you;
For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people, and your God my God;
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”

Ruth 1:16-17

These beautiful promises were made by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. The family and cultural inter-connections are closely intertwined. Ironically, Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons, Mahlou and Chilion, were originally Ephrathites who lived in Bethlehem in Judah, what is now not only the birthplace of Jesus but also Palestine. A further historical irony is that just as today there is famine in Gaza, part of Palestine, in Naomi family’s time “the judges” (the government?) “ruled there was a famine in the land”. So, Naomi and her family left Bethlehem and “sojourned” to the country of Moab that was in what is now the country of Jordan.

Naomi’s sons both married Moabite women but then both sons and Elimelech died. Thereafter, times were hard for Naomi and her daughters-in-law when Naomi heard that, “the Lord had visited his people (in Bethlehem) and given them food”. So, Naomi, Ruth and Orpah decided to seek new lives in Bethlehem. While Orpah turned back to Moab, Naomi and Ruth ventured on to Bethlehem where Naomi’s husband still had a wealthy Israeli kinsman named Boaz. Ruth and Boaz eventually married and had a son named Obed. Obed fathered Jesse who fathered Israel’s most famous king, David. The genetics of the Israeli-Palestinian Naomi, the Moabite (Jordanian) Ruth, the Israeli-Palestinian Boaz and the Israeli King David are closely related. They are all of Semitic culture and history and are all deeply embedded in the general genealogy and geography of the area. In essence, they are all related, leading to possible fratricide or genocide if indiscriminate slaughter should occur.

Yet, according to many authorities that is exactly what the Zionists of Israel are doing today as a matter of government policy. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently stated in an interview on BBC, what Israel is doing in Gaza is, “very close to a war crime”. And more evidence of Israel’s intent comes from Israeli Cabinet Members, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have publicly called for the “conquest and depopulation of Gaza”.

More graphically, as recently reported in The Washington Post’s World View Newsletter by reporter Ishaan Tharoor, former Israeli Defense Force general and current head of the Democrats Party in Israel, Yair Golan, stated:

“Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state among nations if it doesn’t return to behaving like a sane country. A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal.” 

As for America, with the cooperation of Egypt and other allies, we should immediately force massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt. America should also guarantee the accessibility and safety of impartial international journalists into Gaza so the world can witness the facts on the ground. And, the immediate cessation of America’s enablement of the killing and destruction by Israel in Gaza should be a priority.

Not only are the descendants of Ruth and Naomi responsible for and entitled to humane treatment, the United States, as part of the human family, must help assure such outcomes.

Life From Above

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Israel has imposed a total blockade of humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza. No food, no water systems and no medical supplies are allowed to the more than 2 million people who live there. Israel enforces its prohibition militarily. Israel also bombs hospitals, schools, places of worship and residences. Since October 07, 2023 over 52,000 Gazans, including thousands of children, have been directly killed by Israel and many more are dying each day due to lack of food, water and medical care. The Zionist led government of Israel in March 2025 publicly announced these actions to be its official policy. Israel has received massive amounts of United States military aid to help enable it to implement these actions. The United States has the moral and legal responsibility to cease aiding this humanitarian catastrophe.

The moral issues are subject to debate, but the legal prohibition of United States military and civilian aid to Israel is specifically required by Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Six United States Senators have just signed a letter addressed to the Comptroller General, Gene Dodaro, citing the Foreign Assistance Act, asking for an investigation of Israel’s, and other countries’, denial of human rights to others while receiving U.S. aid. The Act provides no presidential waiver for such actions. Aid to Gaza’s residents should be both massive and immediate. And history provides a guide. From 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949, the United States and Great Britain operated the Berlin Air Lift that flew over 250,000 humanitarian flights over Stalin’s blockade of aid to Germany’s war-ravaged populace. Food, fuel, medical supplies and other non-military aid helped save countless lives. It would also be apropos for the West to help Palestine because there would have been no state of Israel in 1948 without America and England.

The United States has far greater capability in 2025 than it did in 1948. We can and should alleviate the suffering we helped create. It is both our moral responsibility and our legal duty under our own laws. Also, the only truly permanent road to peace and prosperity involving Israel and its neighbors must come from a Marshall Plan type of solution. America knows both the Berlin Air Lift and the Marshall Plan were humanitarian actions that helped bring much of the world peace, stability and prosperity since WWII.

Since history has proven how greatly we ourselves can profit by simply doing the harder right things, let’s do them. After all, our own laws require them, even if we do not do so because it is right and just.