I will reproduce here some papers that were published in Medium.com

First Paper

Open Letter to the Families of the Israeli Hostages

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Hello there,

Allow me to introduce myself.

I was born in Damascus, Syria, and I grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. I have two children, Mike and Renée. Circumstances have made of Seattle our hometown. But my ex-wife lives now in California. She comes and visits with us on special occasions. The last time was when we celebrated our grandson’s Bar Mitzvah.

No, I am not Jewish, but my son married a lovely Jewish girl, and they are raising their children in the Jewish religion. I used to be a practicing Christian. I am not any more. I am just trying to be an ordinary person that is free, to the extent possible, from the primitive dictates of religion and nationhood.

I have seen your frustration with your government. Governments are good at using bombs, but I am afraid, they are clumsy when it comes to solving delicate human problems. If you want the hostages back, there is another way and a much better way – But, as you may have guessed, that other way is likely to be a harder way.

When I was Christian, I was told that there are two ways. One is easy and one his not. The easy one leads to perdition, and the hard one to salvation. I don’t like this dualism, because I feel it is too simplistic. But I find it useful for those who want to solve the hostage crisis.

I am introducing to you a choice. You can rely on your almighty government or you can trust in an insignificant man like me. You are likely to think that I am asking you to be foolish. Well, you are right. This is why my way is so hard to accept. There is here a paradox. Here is how I would formulate it. There are situations in which those who want to save their life will perish, and those who are willing to lose it will live.

Let me explain.

What is your government calling for? Two things. First, freeing the hostages. Second, eliminate the hostage takers. Correct? Yes. But, you see, those two demands are contradictory. You need the goodwill of the hostage takers in order to free the hostages. What incentive does your government offer them for doing that? Be killed or spend the rest of their lives in prison. Incentives of this nature border on the absurd. Your armed forces cannot be expected to perform miracles. Do you know any rational people who would beg butchers to perform brain surgery on their children?

Please excuse my intruding and questioning your sound judgment. As far as you are concerned, you believe that you have only one recourse, and that your government is the only force that can bring your loved ones home. I don’t agree. I think that there is always another way, and that it is wise to consider it. Don’t let your heart numb your mind. There are situations in which the mind should enlighten the heart.

Please think about what I have said. I am sure you will have a lot of questions to ask. Here is my email, josephcodsi@hotmail.com.

Thank you for your attention and best wishes.

Joseph Codsi

November 18, 2023.

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A quote.
“Let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man.”

Robert Kennedy, after the killing of Martin Luther King.
Quoted by Chris Matthews in his book, Bobby Kennedy,
Simon and Shuster, 2017, 326.

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Second Paper

Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?

Hamas is classified by the American government as terrorist group. But recently some demonstrators have dared to disagree. They referred to Hamas as freedom fighters. This reminds me of an old French saying,

“Truth on this side of the mountain
error on the other side.”

This means that every coin has two sides. If one is bright, the other one is dark. When religious and political questions are concerned, the emotional dimension takes precedence over critical thinking. We tend to take side on those issues because our church or our government says so. In other words, those who are in power (in the political and religious fields) control the way we think and act. We do not resent those controls, because most of the time we are not aware of them, and because we feel that we belong in our church and country. Thus, it is almost unpatriotic to declare that the Gaza-Strip Palestinians are fighting for their freedom.

Have you noticed that President Biden has mentioned the need for a two-state solution? He did so very timidly and without believing in what he was saying. I think that he expressed there a wish that he felt was too good to become a reality. The idea is not new. The two-state solution has been on the table for a long time. But it was never taken seriously by any American administration. We know what to do, but so far we have been unable or unwilling to do it. Why is the American giant so paralyzed? I will go back to this question in another paper.

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I have talked with some Palestinians who have been living in America for a long time. Some of them feel that the Gaza Strip has become a Palestinian reservation similar to the American reservations of the Wild West. In both cases, the conquered are forced to live in a place where they cannot survive and provide for themselves. They must rely on charitable handouts. This is how civilization allows the dehumanization of the conquered.

The Romans used to say, “Oderint, dum metuant.” (“Let them hate us. What matters is that they fear us.”) This is the logic that the rule of power follows. The rule of justice is totally different.

I am reading a book by President Carter. The title is, Our Endangered Values. The subtitle is, America’s Moral Crisis. His Christian faith defined many of those endangered values. I don’t share his faith and what he condemns based on that faith. But he criticizes the way America uses power to protect the empire at home and overseas. It takes not only courage but also a great deal of spiritual maturity to do so. The point I want to make here is that America is a great country and a formidable power. She has a bright side and a dark one. Patriots are conditioned to see the bright side. Those who are enlightened are capable of seeing the darker side as well.

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Long time ago, when the kids were little, we lived in Orange County, California. Disney Land was only twenty minutes away. We used to go there quite often. This is when I noticed something that very few visitors notice or interpret as I do. The haunted House was the kids’ favorite place. Scary but exciting. They were proud to show that they were not scared. Before you go down to the dark and haunted places, you enter a waiting room. You have to wait there for the elevator to come and take you down. In the waiting room, up in the corner of the wall, you could see a strange icon. It represented the head of a beautiful lady that kept changing into the head of a Medusa – a black head of a frightening demoness with tiny snakes in the guise of hair. I recognized there an influence of Greek mythology. The message was simple. All of us have a bright and a dark side. The bright side is beautiful; the dark side is ugly. This is true of every person, including the saints. This is true as well of nations and even churches or religions.

The myth reveals the truth that nations and religions wish to hide.

Fables are another literary form that is used to reveal the dark side of the human species as individuals and as religions or nations. Please excuse my including religions among the human formations that have a dark side. The dark side of Islam has become a common feature of the American discourse. How about the other religions, namely Judaism and Christianity?

President Carter is honest enough to criticize the Christian fundamentalists for their lack of tolerance. He laments the fact that religious and political intolerance are on the rise, not only in America, but also in the world that we, humans, have created after World War II. I think that we have created a world that is based on simplistic dualism: The good nations on one side and the bad nations on the other side.

Unfortunately, this dualism has become ingrained in the American psyche. America is now ungovernable. The political divide is just as deep as the religious divide. The only thing that our two political parties seem to agree on is the need to exterminate Hamas. What they don’t seem to realize is that in order to achieve that goal, we must exterminate all the Palestinians as well. The Romans failed to exterminate the people who called themselves Christian. Closer to home, we failed to exterminate what is left of the Indians. What makes us so optimistic in our ability to exterminate the Palestinians?

This takes me back to my first question, terrorists or freedom fighters? The answer is not clear. But one thing is clear. What we are doing is contradictory. We declare that we do not deal with terrorists. But we have been dealing with them for a few weeks. Yes, we are doing so through the mediation of Qatar. But, I am afraid, the distinction that we are making here is a distinction without difference. It works only on feeble-minded people. Whether we bury our heads in the sand or not, it is clear that Hamas has shown honorable behavior and that they have conducted themselves as reliable partners. This is how freedom fighters behave.

It is typical of governments to treat freedom fighters as terrorists. England did so with the “terrorists” of Northern Ireland. Syria did so with those who wanted to introduce more democracy in the country. The list can be very long here.

This is not the time to blame our failures on others. I may be a voice whispering in the wilderness. But I am confident some will hear it and start a new conversation for America’s greater good.

Thank you for your attention.

Joseph Codsi

11/27/2023

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Quote.

“Let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man.”

Robert Kennedy, after the killing of Martin Luther King.
Quoted by Chris Matthews in his book, Bobby Kennedy, Simon and Shuster, 2017, 326.

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11/29/23

I invite you to read the following paper that was published on Medium.

Why I Am Another Jew Finally Embracing BDS | by Matthew Gindin | Medium

Here is my comment.

Dear Mr. Gindin,

I’ve read your paper with great interest. You are a Jewish man in whom there is no deceit. Seeing and recognizing what others cannot see is partially a blessing and partially a curse. Please allow me to remind you of an important fact. Those who have been abused tend to be become abusers when they find themselves in a position of power. The state of Israel was created not only by the Zionist movement, but also with the tacit consent of the Western powers that occupied Germany, namely England, France and America. In other words, the abusive treatment of the Palestinians is done by Israel with the tacit approval of our sacred trilogy and, as the time passed and America became the uncontested world power, the transformation of Israel into an extension of America.

This means that any solution to the Palestinian problem is now in the exclusive hands of America. Israel cannot be expected to do the right thing. Only America can impose the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Please think about what I have said. The problem is right here with your neighbor to the South. We must find a way of severing the umbilical cord that unites Israel and America.

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Third Paper

America, the New Israel.

Long before the state of Israel was created, the New Israel existed, not on Middle Eastern soil, but right here in America.

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I was in Beirut when an American Evangelical group organized and financed a two-day conference that was meant to be ecumenical, because it invited Christians and Moslems to a Biblical study concerning Abraham. Two Belgian scholars, a man and a woman, took turns telling us what Bible scholarship has discovered about Abraham. Neither the Lebanese Christians nor their Muslim counterpart were ready for this kind of critical studies that treated the Biblical texts more like pious legends than historical facts. We were told, in particular, that the legendary stories about Jacob were written first, and that what concerned Abraham was invented later.

Lunch was served at a nearby restaurant. We would walk there in small groups. On the second day, my companion happened to be a Sunni Moslem who had represented his community in the Synod for Lebanon that was held in the Vatican during the reign of Jean-Paul II (1995). He felt like talking about America and her support for Israel. He was very pessimistic. “Unless America becomes more evenhanded,” he said, “peace will keep eluding us.” Then he added, looking at me, “You know America. What makes her so biased?” I recognized that America was the key to a peaceful solution of the Palestinian problem, but I had no idea about what could be done to make her more even-handed. I did not know then that Israel controlled America.

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Imagine a David who would have invented a way of controlling a Goliath. The roles would be reversed in a way that even the Bible could not think of.

This situation can be illustrated by the way Netanyahu relates to Biden. Netanyahu is a bully. His victim is the American President. He comes and goes as if he owned America, and he expects to be received at the White House. The last time he came, however, Biden would not see him in the White House. He met him in New York. This was the awkward way in which the one who is bullied expresses his anger.

Immediately after October 7, our President dispatched the fleet to the erupting volcano, and he flew to Israel. I thought that he was going to move the White House to Jerusalem. Then he came back home and let Netanyahu run the show. When he saw the brutal attacks on Gaza, he suggested that Israel should be more careful with civilians. He mentioned a couple times the two-state solution, as if this wishful thinking would exonerate him and America from any responsibility. Pilate washed his hands as he was letting Jesus be crucified. This was just about the extent of our President’s courage.

But the controls of Israel over America go back to the early days. There is here a complex relationship. America celebrates the Pilgrims every year and recognizes herself in them. She sees herself as the New Israel and the land “from sea to shining sea” as the Promised Land. Her sacred mission was to exterminate the local population and rule in the name of God. This was referred to as “Manifest Destiny.” President Regan revived this mythology in his speeches.

This mythology manifests itself today in the fact that our two parties disagree on practically everything with one exception, Israel. The basic rationale is that the new state of Israel is entitled to the full conquest of the land that is now occupied by Palestiniens. This is what the American pattern requires.

Our Christian fundamentalists have become staunch believers in Israel. President Carter has recognized this point. But his criticism of our fundamentalists remains superficial. He does not seem to have heard of the Jewish Christians who go back to the early days of the Christian movement. They insisted that the gentiles who became Christian had to be circumcised and observe the Jewish law. They found in Saint Paul a fierce opponent. His central argument was that, if we must observe the Law in order to be saved, then Jesus would have died in vain.

I think that Paul introduced a new understanding of the Christian religion that was destined to become synonymous with orthodoxy. At the same time, however, a more traditional view survived that was condemned as heretical by the powers of the day. Today there is ample evidence that the Christian religion is based on a pious illusion, the resurrection of Jesus, and on the not so manifest error that the Jewish leadership had him crucified unjustly.

Sorry for the digression. I just wanted to show that America’s Christian mythology is no longer sustainable today.

What remains is the political alliance between America and Israel. In this alliance, America uses Israel and Israel uses America. This marriage is based on the rule of power that is, by definition, contemptuous of the rule of justice.

Hamas, as the Palestinians’ spokesman, is not expected to excel in ancient and modern mythology. It speaks the violent language of the oppressed. This language, by the way, is perfectly Biblical. But what does our Catholic President know about the Bible?

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Forth Paper

Wedge between Netanyahu and Biden

A smart move, on the part of Hamas, would be to invite President Biden to negotiate the release of the American hostages without relying on the Israeli Bully.

Netanyahu’s intransigence means that he is ready to sacrifice the hostages on the altar of Abraham. In other words, he is so obsessed with the extermination of Hamas that his priorities are now clear. Everything must be subordinated to this sacred goal. He is becoming increasingly intolerant of any criticism of his policy, especially when it comes from America. I think that the Israelis should come to their senses and get rid of that bully. They ought to have pity on him and have his head examined. Did he not say when he was sober, that the liberation of the hostages was his priority?

On the other hand, if Biden continues to kowtow to Netanyahu, he should be judged incompetent and impeached. So far, America has shown that she is bewitched and under the spell of some mythical force. The result is that the American Goliath has been dancing to the tune that is played by the Israeli David.

If the so-called civilized world, that is to say Israel and America, continue to give priority to the eradication of Hamas, and are willing to sacrifice the hostages in the process, they become terrorists of a special kind, that is to say terrorists who are prepared to sacrifice their people!

Wake up, America!
Your hypnotic affair with Netanyahu will make you the pariah of the world that is taking shape today.

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Beat the iron when it is red hot.

Now the iron is red hot. Now is the time to beat it into a two-state formation. This cannot be done without an American clear and decisive action.

I know that the tidal wave that has submerged America and plunged her under the spell of Israel is making a comeback. A new form of McCarthyism is now taking Congress by storm. The new crusade is not concerned with the eradication of communists but with the way our universities educate their students. Congress, in the person of Rep. Elise Stefanik[1], R-N.Y., wants to submit our educators to their political ideology. They don’t know that this is below the dignity of our universities. Their function is not to brainwash their students, but to teach them how to put their raw feelings on hold and think critically. This means that raw feelings are sometimes expressed in the heat of the debate. But this is when learning to think critically enters the picture.

Ideology is the mother of all forms of inquisition. Our bullies are contemptuous of the First Amendment that prohibits among other things ideological bullying.

Can America afford to be under the spell of a Netanyahu and defy the rest of the world that has managed to isolate her? I cannot answer this question. But President Biden can. All he needs is the courage to do the right thing in an America who has sold her soul to mere chimeras. Will he be able and willing to save America from her demons?

Joseph Codsi

12/14/23

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Quote

“The president said he and Netanyahu have had stark differences through the years, and that remains the case. The Biden administration supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Mr. Biden noted Netanyahu’s government doesn’t.

Biden says Netanyahu’s government is starting to lose support and needs to change.”

BY KATHRYN WATSON

UPDATED ON: DECEMBER 12, 2023 / 8:09 PM EST / CBS NEWS

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[1] Under her manifest physical beauty, she hides the spiritual ugliness of a medusa.

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Letter to Vice President Harris – PDF