The weight of history

History offers little comfort to those who approach it honestly, seeking to truly understand what happened and why. When history deeply informs the course of contemporary events, it is often weaponized to promote a moral case for one side or another in a conflict. But then it’s not really history — it’s mere fodder for propaganda.

Such is the case in the war between Ukraine and Russia, and such is the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both conflicts have deep roots, but both conflicts really grow out of the great catastrophe of the 20th Century — the two World Wars. Both conflicts elicit passionate emotions, even in people who don’t have a dog directly engaged in the fight. This is especially true with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has come to represent a kind of avatar for whole sets of cultural, religious, and political beliefs. People wholly unconnected to the conflict attach a sense of identity to whom they support in the conflict. And those who take a partisan stance mine history for justification and validation of their emotional attachment.

We all do this. It is the most human of tendencies to justify the actions of “our people” and condemn the actions of the other. Especially when those actions are cruel and unjust, soaked in blood and terror.

For the past year, I’ve been part of an informal book discussion group with a number of men for whom I have the deepest respect. The conversations are challenging — and exceptionally invigorating. At my recommendation, we are currently taking up one of the finest pieces of digital content ever produced on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a podcast by Darryl Cooper titled “Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem.” It can be accessed through the Martyr Made Podcast on any podcasting platform.

There are seven episodes totaling more than 30 hours of broadly and deeply researched content. Cooper describes the work this way:

“The conflict between Israel and Palestine can often seem like a permanent feature of the global order. The wars, intifadas, refugee camps, suicide vests, U.N. resolutions, and peace talks have been painfully burned into our collective consciousness. But how could this have happened? Was it always this way? That’s what we’ll seek to find out in ‘Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem,’ a multi-part series exploring the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

While some might trace the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back to Jacob and Esau, the modern story catches wind at the end of the 19th century with the rise of Political Zionism — the project to establish a homeland for Jews in what was then the Ottoman Empire’s territory of Palestine. Cooper situates Zionism in the context of the ferment of nationalist ideologies that were roiling just under the surface of Europe and percolating across the globe as European imperialism reached its zenith. It grew out of the dark soil of Eastern European antisemitism, from the seed of savage pogroms, particularly in Russia and Ukraine. Some of the Zionist leaders had an almost preternatural sense that a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions was brewing. And, of course, they were right.

The early Zionists knew better than to say so publicly, but their writings to each other make it very clear that they intended to seize by force a land that was already occupied by Arabs. The myth of “a land without a people for a people without a land” is just that — a deliberately cultivated myth that made palatable the exact same kind of expropriation of land that our own nation is built upon.

Yet Cooper allows us to understand how and why such an aggressive mission came to be. This is the great achievement of this podcast series. Cooper has an acutely developed sense of historical empathy, and he teases that empathy out of us. He puts us in the shoes of Jews and Arabs of all stripes, and bids us ask ourselves, what would you do? He challenges us to navigate a dark territory with a moral compass that is not manufactured in an environment of safety and security.

It is hard to hold onto cherished narratives and justification-through-trauma when you are forced to confront realities that don’t allow for a white-hats-vs.-black-hats version of a complex and profoundly fraught story. But if you like challenging yourself, there’s a lot of satisfaction to be found in lifting and carrying the weight of history.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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