Potential Responses and Their Possible Consequences

Submitted by Sigmund Derman (United States), Aug 12, 2015 at 14:08

I'm an outsider, an American Jew and not an Israeli. But such things concern me because hatred of Israel, and by a very reasonable extension, hatred of Jews in general is something that threatens me and my family even though I live far from the epicenter of it all.

I cannot tell Israelis, who are in the midst of these things, what to do. But I do have some thoughts to share even though I expect that they will not be well received by most on this forum.

When one does something (or chooses not to act) one frequently has an expectation regarding the effect of the action or "non-action." What are the expectations in this case?

One can do what these Jewish ladies are doing. They get a sort of benefit, not so much of the religious kind that one might hope for on the Mount but the kind of satisfaction that one gets from slamming someone on an internet forum (sort of the way that someone may well criticize what I am saying here). That's worth something. But they are not going to change the Muslims, at least for the good. They might make them a little angrier at Jews and at Israel than they already are but probably not much. I doubt the Muslim women will stop doing what they are doing

Or, they can choose to do nothing. Simply try their best to ignore what has been intended to disturb them. This will not change the Muslims either. But it might allow the Jewish women to get some other benefits, some solace or some religious inspiration from being at the Temple Mount.

But suppose the Jewish ladies tried something different. Suppose they said "have a beautiful day" and handed them a small flower (and not a toxic one). I would have said to give them a cookie but that might provoke charges of trying to poison them so a flower would be better. I think that could give the Jewish women some satisfaction of a different kind, a bit of a feeling that they had acted on a higher moral plane than the Muslims. It might not change the Muslim women either but, if this and similar responses were continued over time, I think such activities would be more likely to yield positive changes in the Muslims than either the ignoring approach or the more hostile approach, possibly even inducing the Muslim women to stop doing what they have been doing.

I'm not naive enough to imagine that this would bring peace. But I think this would be an interesting and rather inexpensive experiment.

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