View From a Grain of Desert Sand: a caste analysis of the Israeli-Hamas War.

"What a society doesn't transform, it transfers..." - anonymous.

The eruption of a full-scale war in the Middle East was predictable and evitable. It appears that the two sides have opted to annihilate the other. Even in this moment of utter despair, after the spilling of blood and dignity, there is a way to generate a lasting peace. The road is hard and long. The alternatives seem to be ethnic cleansing and genocide. Please pay close attention to our infographic to analyze the power dynamics of this regrettable and unavoidable war. It may provide us with a clue for where to go from here.

This week's chaos in the Middle East provides us with a textbook case to learn how and why populations and individuals behave as they do when pushed to their limits. Born of the crushing oppression of WWII, the Jewish people returned to what they considered their homeland after the war. They established themselves as the nation of Israel with the support of the U.N., NATO, and the U.S. For a brief moment, there was an opportunity for a two-state solution between the Israeli government, the Palestinians, and neighboring Arab countries. When that effort failed, war broke out, with Israel firmly establishing itself as a nation. The Palestinians became a people without a nation in total resistance to what they considered a hostile takeover of their native inheritance.

What followed was the erection of a social system in the region where Israel was in firm control of the disputed territory, assuming what I recognize as a HIGH CASTE position (holding all the power, privilege, and influence). In the LOW CASTE position, the Palestinians were SUBORDINATED (through military, political, and social power). Over the decades, civil disobedience turned into outright armed resistance, even two wars. The strategy to maintain the social order included the Israeli High Caste TOLERATING socially compliant exceptions (obedient-subservient working class) while ISOLATING the Palestinian political dissonance (due to the use of political violence. After several failed peace settlement attempts, the Israeli power structure physically separated and blockaded the Palestinian people and their accompanying hostile political resistance into a full-scale OUTCAST position not unlike the U.S. in their treatment of Native Americans on reservations. Palestinians and Israelis are now locked into mortal combat in the death-throws of full-on Caste OPPRESSING behavior.

After all the blood is shed, what will be left is the truth-telling of how we got here in the first place and the reconciliation and reparation for the harms inflicted on the way to a more civil society. Only then can there be healing and reciprocity. Without healing, reciprocity, and transformation, the region cannot progress from merely tolerating each other to including each other. Only then can the hard work of moving toward a transformative, mutually affirming, and integrative society. The Continuum of Responses to Oppression document attached may provide a roadmap for progressing toward social wellness and peace in the Middle East.