Over the weekend I watched news coverage of the ground incursion into Gaza by the IDF. Then, this morning, three very different articles caught my attention. The first was this account by a Gazan journalist. The second was President Bush’s take on the situation in Gaza. The third was Andrew Sullivan’s analysis of the current conflict using the idea of “just war” and proportionality.
Taken as a whole, these articles summarize my own thoughts and concerns about the situation in Gaza. Yet, another set of questions and ideas has also been on my mind… questions of cause and effect. President Bush (and seemingly the Israeli government) seems focused on the immediate causes — the thousands of crude rockets that Hamas has sent into Israeli cities, towns, and villages. As such, a response can be seen as justified. Yet, are there other, earlier causes and responses that have played a role in bringing both sides to the present conflict?
Several years ago, I worked for an organization and in an industry where there was a requirement to minimize error and to understand what had happened when errors or failures occurred. Now, humans are fallible, and all human activity is subject to error and to failure. However, the consequences of some errors can be catastrophic, so it is important to understand what went wrong when errors and failures — even small, seemingly insignificant ones — occur. The military calls this process a “lessons learned” exercise. “Root cause analysis” is another term for the same process. It’s important to make sure that the process results in identifying the right things and all the contributing factors that lead to the errors and failures. Essentially, that analysis consists of asking “why?” repeatedly until one has identified ALL the factors and failures that contributed to the event in question. Virtually no event has a single cause — or a single contributing factor or failure. Root cause analyses can and should identify assumptions that may be an unconscious part of the thought process leading to decisions.
A former boss encouraged his staff to innovate, to think creatively in order to solve problems. He knew that we would make mistakes in our efforts at improving processes — there are almost always unanticipated consequences to decisions. But he was adamant that we learn from our mistakes, saying, “Don’t make the same mistake twice. There are plenty of new ones to make!” The idea that one can keep repeating the same action yet expect a different result is one definition of insanity. It’s also a definition of alcoholism — which is seen by most recovering alcoholics as a form of insanity, albeit with genetic aspects.
There are those within the US military who believe that the majority of US casualties in Iraq are direct and unavoidable blowback from our abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and at a series of so-called “black” sites. If that’s the case, can we (or the Israelis) expect different results from their response to the attacks coming from Gaza?
In listening to the news coverage over the weekend, it seems to me that very few people are going beyond the most immediate cause of the current strife. There isn’t time or space here or in news reports to trace far enough back through time to identify all those contributing factors dating back at least to World War I and possibly as far back as the Diaspora at the hands of the Romans. However, as I continue with my Middle East tutorial, some of them will come into focus.
All sides agree that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict must be political, not military. Hamas states as its goal the destruction of the state of Israel. All but the most radical and intractable factions agree that is at least impractical if not impossible. The vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians wish to live in peace. The issue is, at its core, how to achieve that goal. It would be an intellectually and emotionally challenging task to determine the root causes of the current conflict if the parties were willing to go through that exercise. Both sides would have to face the consequences of their actions as well as of their assumptions about themselves and the other side.
>>>>>>>>>The idea that one can keep repeating the same action yet expect a different result is one definition of insanity<<<<<<<<<<
….and this is where we always seem to begin and end…without ever changing the dialogue.
Willpen,
You’ve mentioned dissension within your own family on the topic. And the dissension across national, religious, and political lines is equally challenging. It’s clear that the methods that have traditionally been used aren’t working and that no solution will result from continuing the same methods and positions. So, from your perspective, how might we change the dialog? I’m hopeful that ordinary people, people whose careers aren’t impacted by the conversation and the decisions that might result, may in fact be more able to propose and craft alternative ideas.