Talking Your Book

I got into it with a friend and fellow Jew about Israel the other day. It’s not a topic I talk about much, either here or on my podcast and not because I’m worried about offending anyone — that ship has long sailed. It’s because I’m not entirely clear on the facts, and I find the usual back and forth about who did what to whom when to be endlessly debatable, unresolvable and uninteresting. Same goes for the history.

My basic understanding is that Israel is killing a lot of innocent people, and that’s both bad strategic policy and also evil. Of course, the US killed a million Iraqis for less (nothing), and no one seems to mind much. I mean you mind, but if you don’t think George Bush (who gave Michelle Obama a candy once) and Dick Cheney should be prosecuted for war crimes because come on, that’s absurd, then you don’t really mind.

And I get it. The “Iraqis” are just a concept to you and me, as are the Palestinians, the Ukrainians, the Yemenis and the Congolese. Just a bunch of unfortunate, oppressed, murdered humans about whom we all feel terrible, but who also occupy less of our mindshare than that fucking parking ticket we got yesterday. I swear I read the sign three times!

It’s normal for people to care almost exclusively about themselves, their families and their friends. People who purport to care so much about “humanity”, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, often do so while despising and mistreating the individual human beings with whom they come into contact. I’d much more trust someone who risked his reputation and livelihood for a friend than someone going on about third-world oppressed peoples on social media, for example.

But this natural tendency to prioritize those nearest to us often seems to undergird how we see the world and the sides we take in these discussions. For example, my friend sees Israel as a potential homeland for his family should things get ugly for Jews in the US. He is therefore inclined to support them generally, even if he doesn’t always support their particular tactics or conduct.

I live in Europe which seems to me more antisemitic than the US, and I’d rather Israel not fuel more of that by killing a whole bunch of seemingly innocent people. That’s honestly what I think was framing the conversation, the initial biases we brought to it. I think of it as “talking your book,” a phrase used to describe when people talk up their own investments simply because they are invested. And there is no bigger investment than your family’s safety.

So you have people convinced Israel is a potential safe haven, and others who see it, rightly or wrongly, as a flashpoint for conflict and driver of antisemitism. The former will talk their books, say how Israel was savagely attacked and has terrorists right on its border, and the latter will point to the conditions under which the Palestinians live and the disproportionate response to the attack.

But as someone who lacks the appetite to sift through the propaganda and delve into what’s really happening and why, and who has never been and has no desire to go to the region, I don’t care to weigh in much about the truth on the ground. As I said, from what I can tell, Israel is doing something stupid and evil right now, but what I can tell from afar is neither definitive, nor especially important.

What I can say is even though my “book” is for Israel to stop killing innocent Palestinians, my real book, the thing that is most in my family’s interest is justice. That is, if in fact Israel were truly fighting terrorists and within its self-defense rights, then I would want it to defend itself as it is, even if it seems to make things harder for me. That’s because I have faith that justice is more in my interest than whatever appears to advantage me in the short run.

And I would also argue that the “book” of those who view Israel as a potential safe-haven for Jews is also for Israel to be harshly condemned and punished internationally if it’s in fact the case that they are committing war crimes. What’s true and just always trumps what’s apparently expeditious and advantageous in your real book. That is, if you are a person of faith, and by that I don’t mean nominally a Jew, a Muslim or a Christian, but someone with actual faith.

So rather than argue the facts on the ground with people talking their books (and often manipulated by powerful interests that shape what they see as their books), it’s better to understand what’s in our deeper interest, what’s more important than our fears, which incidentally might correspond less to reality than to someone’s cleverly incepted narrative about it.

Otherwise, I expect things will only get worse.