Tangled thoughts between war and food

 

Creamed chipped beef on toast.

Tangled and unhappy thoughts tonight, and I know I’m not alone. The barbarity of the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians keeps me awake at night, as I am sure it does you. I simply cannot fathom cold-blooded, mindless killing of innocent strangers. Nor the execution of babies in their cribs. Those men are animals (I have not heard of any women among the Hamas terrorists, and I’m wondering if that’s a cultural thing.) I was glad today to hear President Joe Biden make the strong distinction: we must not confuse Hamas with the Palestinian people who are, perhaps even more than the Israelis, victims of Hamas. Netanyahu’s revenge will be swift and terrible—and that gives me pause, because he too will obliterate innocent civilians.

I did a bit of prowling about the background of the longstanding enmity. Perhaps you’ve done that too. In 1947, I was nine years old, far too young to care about what was happening in some far-away place. But that was when the land was divided into a Jewish state and an Arab one. At that time, the Arabs had most of the land. Over the years, the Israelis have taken over most of the Palestinian land, and they have not been gentle about it. They would establish a kibbutz on Palestinian soil and then react when Palestinians raided that village. Both were guilty; neither tried to find peace.

Today, if I’ve got it right, the tiny remaining Palestinian lands—the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—are occupied territories, occupied and controlled by Israel. And the Israeli military is not gentle, not even humane in their occupation. The only innocent victims in this are the ordinary citizens—particularly women and children—on both sides. And I weep and pray for them.

There’s so much disinformation too. No, the U.S. did not give $6 billion to Iran which Iran in turn used to fund the Hamas attack. That money, held by South Korea, has not been touched and can only be used for humanitarian purposes. The US facilitated the agreement—it never had the money, never gave it to anyone. Shame on Republicans for trying to turn this world tragedy into a political talking point.

Jacob came home today worried that we would be bombed for sheltering refugees. That’s what he heard at school. How to tell him to tell his schoolmates we don’t have many Palestinian or Israeli refugees, though we might get them, and neither Hamas nor Israel has the capability of bombing Fort Worth, Texas. I sympathize with him because I remember the Bay of Pigs crisis—I was not a lot older and was living in Missouri. I begged my parents to leave Chicago, a prime target, but they assured me they had lived through similar crises and would be fine. I suppose that is true today too—we have lived through this, but never untouched emotionally.

A side of this I haven’t heard mentioned in this day of anxious concern about the climate: war with rockets and destruction is bad for the climate. It is another way we do not treat the earth kindly. I’ve been thinking this week about slogans: War is bad for people. War is bad for humans and other living things. War is bad for the earth. Take your pick. There’s bound to be so much pollution of the air from the bombs and explosions.

It all makes me think how shortsighted men of violence are. They cannot see beyond the next battle to the effect on their own people, the earth and the world. I refuse yet to give up hope for mankind, but some days it’s hard to cling to.

I started out to say my thoughts are tangled between war and food, because most of the day food has been on my mind—not to eat but to write about. Tonight I fixed dinner for my friend Mary V. Creamed chipped beef on toast, or, as it is commonly known, SOS. Somehow it came up in conversation a bit ago, and I told Mary she was the only other person I know who would eat it, so I promised to fix it next time we got together. So simple to do, and so very good! All you do is make a white sauce, cut the beef into strips and add it, and serve on toast. With a green salad. Mary tells me she also loves liver, so that’s next on my agenda, but she insists next time she will bring dinner from Eatsi’s, and I’m up for that.

Eating a good dinner in a peaceful cottage it seems impossible that there is such horror half a world away. I often wonder why I am so blessed. You or I could be living in a kibbutz on the West Bank, we could have been at that music festival—and yet here we are, safe. It must mean, to me, that God wants us to do good, to fight for truth and honor, to love our neighbor no matter what.

Sorry, I’m getting sloppily philosophical, but I think it goes with this week.