Earlier today, an Israel Defense Force (IDF) official said that the Israeli plan to level and destroy Gaza and kill countless civilians — including children and babies — is meant for the “good” of the Palestinian people; that once Hamas is defeated, all will be well for Palestine (both the West Bank and Gaza). What will this “good” look like once Hamas is defeated and removed from power? A free Palestinian State? “Good” requires putting an end to Israel’s apartheid practices. “Good” requires turning the electricity and power back on and ensuring that Palestinians have sufficient food. “Good” requires access to medical care. “Good” requires rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure and family dwellings. I have not read one word from Israel’s military and political leaders that suggests that they have any interest in “good.” Motivated by rage, vengeance, and retribution, Israel is poised to cause untold harm and carnage. Hamas will most certainly respond, adding to the blood of combatants and innocents flowing through the streets.
The idea that bombing and killing people because it is “good” for them is a common delusion of the powers that be in the West. The United States told the citizens of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq that our invasions of their sovereign states were “good” for them; that clap-happy freedom and democracy awaited once their lands were bombed into oblivion and hundreds of thousands of civilians were wiped off the face of the earth. Fifty years later, a unified Vietnam has returned to some sense of normalcy, but Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries that we have bombed with “good” munitions remain shadows of the countries they once were.
Americans wrongly assume that our “good” is what every nation needs. Who doesn’t want to be just like the good ‘ole United States of America, right? For those blinded by American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and Christian nationalism, the only “good” they see is the continuance of the “American Way” — whatever the hell that is — and laissez-faire capitalism. No introspection, no repenting of our national sins. We’re #1! We’re #1! We’re #1! We never seem to stop for a moment to consider whether our quest for “rightness,” dominion, and power is “good.” If I asked one hundred residents of rural Northwest Ohio whether the United is “good,” all of them would unequivocally say YES! Ask one hundred residents from Europe, Africa, South America, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East the same question, and I suspect most of them would have a very different definition of “American Good.”
As long as we continue to use military force — either directly or through proxies as we are doing in Ukraine and the Middle East — to expand the American Empire, we should not expect the world at large to think we are “good.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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