Human Rights Day is December 10th. In December, let us, as human beings, commit ourselves to the proposition, “From the river to the sea, peace and freedom will set us free.”

My take on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is shaped by the fact that I am a Jewish American who grew up in Saudi Arabia.  I was raised in a diverse and multicultural environment.  My worldview is such that I have no stomach for hatred, bigotry, prejudice, or intolerance of any kind. 

Yes, the Israeli government maintains an illegal occupation of Palestinian land. It also discriminates against Arab-Israeli citizens, even before the Israeli military invasion of Palestine and, more recently, into parts of Lebanon. 

When Palestinians do have the vote, they must pick between two corrupt political parties, one of which is also crazy.  The lack of civil and political rights is horrid, but international human rights also talk about the importance of economic and cultural rights.   Even before the recent war, too many Palestinians lived in poverty and despair.

While the crime of “genocide” is notoriously difficult to prove in a court of law, the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties, not to mention the destruction of civilian infrastructure would almost certainly be a “war crime” or a “crime against humanity”.

Yes, the Palestinian people, and the Arab-Israeli citizens, have many legitimate grievances, but Hamas is not the solution. Neither is Hezbollah.   Neither is the ruling Likud party in Israel.  Treating bad actors like good actors does a disservice to the global cause for peace and universal human rights.

The Israeli people do have many legitimate grievances as well.  The State of Israel has a right to exist and it is surrounded by nations and “bad actors” who want to wipe Israel off the map. 

Such people use the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people and the Arab-Israeli people as a justification for anti-Jewish violence, hatred, hysteria, and intolerance of anything these bad actors decide is, “Zionist”, which typically includes all liberal ideas and attitudes.

The two-state solution, with a commitment to universal human rights, such as those outlined in the International Bill of Human Rights, is still the best option for all people concerned, well, except for the “bad actors” like the Israeli Likud, or Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Right-wing Governments, political parties, and terrorist groups are terrified of being out of power, unpopular, and unemployed.    

The only way that the far right wins elections in Israel, the only way that dictatorships in the Middle East hold onto power or groups like Hamas and Hezbollah get treated as folk heroes, is because they had successfully fed their respective populations a platform of hatred, hysteria, and intolerance.   We can, as human beings, do better.

Recent Forum columns and editorials on the homeless population reminds me of when I ran for Moorhead mayor in 2001. Lack of affordable housing was the top issue that most area residents expressed concern about. The second most frequent complaint was civil rights.

Yes, bigotry still does exist in the Fargo-Moorhead area, but laws have become more respectful of civil rights. And the civil rights conversations that occur are more frequent and more respectful than in the past. This does not seem to have happened concerning affordable housing.

Let us say, for argument's sake, that most of the homeless people are poor, weird and eccentric. Well, merely being weird and engagingly eccentric is not a crime. It is not a crime in America to be poor, although, as an indigent person, it can certainly sometimes feel like it is burdensome, if not de facto illegal.

If certain members of the homeless community are threatening public safety or the rights of other people, the law can address that. Yet, the big problem with the homeless is that they do not have a home, cannot afford a house, and have a mind and body ravaged by mental illness, addiction, or the simple fact that being homeless itself cannot be good for one’s overall health.

As a final thought, when I was running for mayor, I tried, without success, to spend a few nights in the Churches United for the Homeless shelter to learn more about what it meant to be homeless and interact with homeless people.

If you are not homeless, but like to write quite a bit about homeless people, then it would be a good idea to spend some time, maybe even a week or so, in a homeless shelter.