I came to Buffalo over thirty years ago to study philosophy at UB. My primary teacher was philosophy professor Shia Moser whose specialty was ethics. We became friends. I stayed in touch with him long after he retired. And I was saddened at news of his death a few years ago in Vancouver at the age of 96.

Shia Moser was a gentle man, a vegetarian, and an advocate of non-violence and peace. He was also Jewish and a holocaust survivor, but his sense of justice would not allow him to be a Zionist or a supporter of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.

At the time, I spent many hours volunteering at the Western New York Peace Center. We had our hands full addressing issues like the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. These days the Peace Center is tackling the “Middle East Issue.” Back then we almost never spoke about it because of concerns about fragmenting the organization and losing some of our Jewish members.

Shia had me read Tolstoy’s short story, “A Spark Neglected Burns the House,” so I would better understand the nature of violence. It’s a tale about Russian peasant families who fight over a chicken egg. One family finds the egg on their property and the other is sure it came from one of their chickens. When the egg is not returned, the families begin a feud and an escalating cycle of violence and revenge, which ends with a fire that burns down their entire town. While the Middle East conflict began with more than a disagreement over a misplaced egg, the cycle of violence and revenge Tolstoy described has played out in that region for many years.

The most recent conflagration – now hopefully ended by the United Nation’s ceasefire – is said to have been sparked by Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and killing of eight others. That led – with remarkable speed -- to a massive Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon while thousands of Hezbollah rockets reigned down on northern Israel.

Most of world public opinion and international criticism has been directed at Israel and its chief ally, the United States. While Hezbollah has been criticized for launching indiscriminant rocket attacks, Israel has been accused of mounting a disproportionate response and inflicting collective punishment against a civilian population -- all serious violations of international law. Amnesty International has weighed in. And Human Rights Watch, while critical of Hezbollah, has called Israel’s attack on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure a deliberate strategy and not merely unavoidable “collateral damage.”

Years ago, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre argued in a small monogram entitled “On Genocide” that superpowers will have to resort to attacks on civilian populations to beat well organized guerilla forces. Sartre deplored this but could see it playing out in Vietnam. Israel finds itself in the same box and the awful consequences are apparent. Like its enemy Hezbollah, Israel has hit civilian population centers -- but with many times the fire power.

While hundreds of thousands of people on both sides had to flee their homes, over 1300 Lebanese civilians were killed by the Israeli military attack – more than twenty times the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets -- with many more injured. While damage has been done to Israeli towns and cities, those in Lebanon – along with their infrastructure of roads, bridges, and power plants – were flattened, leaving behind a serious humanitarian crisis and an oil spill said to potentially rival that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Throughout, the American role has been deplorable. While the Lebanese hoped and cried for the U.S. to step in and stop the carnage, Secretary of State Condi Rice stood on the sidelines wringing her hands and wiping the crocodile tears from her eyes. By the time she did act, the damage was done and it was clear that the Bush Administration fully supported Israel’s attack and may have given it a green light and even encouraged it.

According to some reports, Bush’s neoconservative brain trust – not satisfied with the catastrophic mess they’ve created in Iraq -- viewed Israel’s attack on Hezbollah and southern Lebanon as a prerequisite to a U.S. attack on Iran, Hezbollah’s ally. In any event, U.S. weapons, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, were used by the Israeli military, and these apparently included anti-personnel cluster bombs -- weapons which should be banned because they are indiscriminant and designed to maximize suffering.

Once again, the United States has failed to be a peace-maker. In this volatile part of the world, we now have more enemies, as does Israel.

So what was gained? Polls suggest that a majority of Israelis are ready to toss out their apparently incompetent prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who was elected just four months ago. Many are upset about losing the war and others about launching it in the first place. Meanwhile Hezbollah is claiming victory and rapidly expanding its influence in southern Lebanon. Of course, any claims of victory by either side should be tempered by the death and destruction which this war brought to Lebanon.

Talking about all of this is difficult. The holocaust and its legacy require deep respect and sensitivity. Those who are not Jewish or a member of another group targeted for extermination by the Nazis cannot imagine the holocaust’s traumatic impact and meaning. But the often-delivered charge, “If you criticize Israel, you must be anti-Semitic” is unfair. And unfortunately, it has been used as the “great silencer.” I can criticize my own country’s errors out of concern for justice. And I can criticize another country’s errors, even Israel’s, for the same reason and with the same motive. We do a disservice to the prospects for peace and justice in the Middle East if we silence debate or refrain from engaging in it.

I respect Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself but I don’t believe those rights give it carte blanche to humiliate, oppress, and violate other people. I believe the root cause of much of the current conflict is Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands since the six day war in 1967. In the words of Uri Avnery, leader of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, “Either the settlements and an endless war, or the return of the occupied territories and peace.”

The occupation of Palestinian lands, so inconsistent with Judaism’s commitment to social justice, has been on-going for nearly forty years and has produced an overflowing reservoir of resentment and hatred. Peace will not come easy but the time to work for it is now though acts of justice and an end to the occupation. Fueled by the enforced silence of Americans and the uncritical support of Israel by our government, this fire has been burning for too long.

An abridged version of this essay was rejected by WBFO radio as his monthly commentary for August. According to Mr. Simpson, he was told by WBFO that the NPR station was no longer going to air commentaries critical of Israel’s conduct in the recent war in Lebanon because callers had complained about a previous commentary critical of Israel. Mr. Simpson’s regular monthly WBFO commentary has also been canceled.

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