[Neurons] 2023 Neurons #s45 A PSYCHOLOGICAL SOLUTION

Sun Oct 22 18:02:41 EDT 2023

From: L. Michael Hall

2023 Neurons #45

October 23, 2023

The Israel-Hamas War

A PSYCHOLOGICAL SOLUTION

The superficial, biased, and non-journalistic press would have us believe
that the war is between Israel and Palestine.  But that is actually not
true.  Palestine did not attack Israel, Hamas did.  As an extreme terrorist
group, Hamas attacked the Festival in Southern Israel, killing 260
civilizations, captured some 200 hostages, and beheaded babies.  At the same
time, Hamas sent 5,000+ missiles into Israel.  No wonder Israel responded by
sending bombs to where Hamas' missiles originated.  Since the beginning,
Hamas has sent 7,000 missiles into Israel and another Terrorist group, Islam
Jihodist, fired a missile that hit a hospital in Gaza killing three dozen
Palestinians.  (Then Hamas blamed Israel for it which the mainstream media
picked up and repeated without checking the facts.  Only now are they
correcting that mistake.)

Of the three main players in this war, Hamas is a terrorist organization
which is using Palestine to try to achieve its agenda of destroying Israel.
In spite of years of attempts to create a two state solution, to enable
Palestine to be an independent state, it was Hamas who rejected those
solutions.  Most recently they rejected the Abraham Accords.  Why?  Because
they are extremists.  They have taken their religion to an extreme position
and in doing so have become totally and rigidly intolerant.  That's the
problem.  When anyone takes any religion or philosophy to an extreme
position-they become an intolerant cult.  They become dogmatic, rigid, and
irrational.  You can't reason with them.

In extremism thinking a person assumes that he is absolutely right, cannot
be wrong, and "being right" can engage in any behavior no matter how savage,
cruel, or criminal to achieve their outcomes.  This is true for extremism in
any and every group.  Hamas just so happens to do that with Islam, as did
Isis.  The problem is not Islam, it is extremistic thinking.

What then is the solution?  Tolerance.  For there to be peace, there has to
be the willingness to tolerate differences and to allow the other to be.
What does it take to tolerate what we do not like or appreciate?
Acceptance.  It is acceptance, as a way of thinking and as an attitude, that
enables us to acknowledge reality and facts. 

This is what Hamas, as a terrorist organization, cannot do and will not do.
Acceptance.  From the Israeli military perspective, stopping Hamas will be
the solution that Israel will opt for-as an act of self-defense.  From a
psychological perspective, the solution will be for the Palestinians and the
Israeli to accept and tolerate each other's right to exist as separate and
independent nations.  When the Palestinians accept and tolerate Israel,
there will be no Hamas (or other terrorist organization to replace them).
When Israel accepts and tolerates Patestine, they will grant them full
autonomy and the right to self-determination.  Then there can be peace and
mutual respect.

But without that basic acceptance, there will be no peace.  Individuals on
both sides will look for revenge.  They will quote different versions of
their history to justify that they are "right," that they have the "high
moral ground," and that they therefore (somehow) have the right to reek
revenge on the other group.  That is the structure for ongoing, never-ending
violence and war.  That is what has gone on repeatedly since the end of
World War II and the establishment of Israel as a nation.  And it does not
work.

What will work is acceptance.  Now acceptance is a psychological state-that
is, a state of thinking and feeling, a state of mind-and-body.  Acceptance
is also a spiritual state.  It is a state of willing to be the creature
rather than the creator.  When you accept, you take things as they are, you
acknowledge them.  You may not like them, you may not want to condone them,
but you acknowledge what is.  Only by acknowledging what is can you then
begin to work toward change.  You accept that it's raining, then you grab an
umbrella.   You accept that there's a traffic jam, and you turn on some
enjoyable music or engage in a meaningful conversation.

Acceptance is inward peace and leads to contentment, not because the world
is not perfect.  It is not!  You experience contentment because you know who
you are as a creature within the world, not the creator.  You are here for a
little while, then you pass on.  While you are here, accept the conditions
that you find and then, from a state of acceptance, seek to make things
better.  That's the ultimate solution for making the world a better place.  

Rejecting what is, hating the conditions, wanting revenge on any "bad
things" that happens -that's a great way to spread the violence and
perpetuated more bad things.  That sets up a cycle of revenge, hatred, war,
atrocities, brutality, criminality, and "man's inhumanity to man."  Good
luck with that approach! 

The cure is a healthy and robust acceptance that leads to tolerance, respect
for human beings, and forgiveness.  Lots and lots of forgiveness so that we
can "put the past behind us" and move forward to being the kind of persons
we can be at our best.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

(970) 523-7877

drhall at acsol.net  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20231022/fde42e93/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.wmz
Type: application/x-ms-wmz
Size: 284914 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20231022/fde42e93/attachment-0001.wmz>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 96538 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20231022/fde42e93/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: oledata.mso
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 1619720 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20231022/fde42e93/attachment-0001.obj>