It is easy but deceptive to proclaim one's astonishment at the
reality that no matter how highly educated, how well-adjusted and how impartial
someone is, they can still suffer from what human reason would call “flaw.” We
are all flawed by that measurement, after all. But we must ask: Is that really
the right measurement to use in assessing our human dispositions?
Take the case of Doctor Marc Siegel, who is as near a perfect
human being as they get. He just proved that he can be so overwhelmed by one
side of a story, he could not open a hole as small as a peephole through which
to look at the other side of the same story. He thus failed to establish any
level of balance if only to indicate that he is aware of and prepared to
acknowledge that when curing one illness, we must not allow the creation of
another illness.
You can see what I mean when you read: “Survival in Auschwitz,” an
article that was written by Doctor Siegel. It was published on May 15, 2019 in
National Review Online. In that article, the doctor takes issue with Rep.
Rashida Tlaib who spoke about the Holocaust.
First, the doctor said this: “She talked about having a 'calming
feeling' whenever she thinks of the Palestinians creating a safe haven for Jews
after the Holocaust.” A few lines below, he wrote this: “What I am focused on
as a physician is the human tendency to heal memory over time … in this case,
we must resist the tendency lest the importance of this memory is lost”.
And so, to explain why he considers this to be a special case,
Marc Siegel mentioned Primo Levi, a survivor of Auschwitz who was a novelist
that wrote a poem about his experience. It is a poignant poem that moves you as
a human being, and makes you say: something like this must never happen again.
And then it hits you that while saying that same thing, Doctor Siegel has made
it possible for the thing to happen again by ignoring half the history of the
same event.
The good doctor has failed to see that comfort does not come into
a vacuum; it comes where there has been a discomfort. The thought that millions
of Palestinians, including Rashida Tlaib's grandmother, are living in
humiliation and that they are dying by the thousands, has been the discomfort that
was alleviated by the thought it was not all in vain. All that suffering and
all those dead Palestinians are serving the purpose of giving Jews a home where
they say they feel safe.
But then there is the question that's preoccupying Rashida Tlaib,
but apparently not Doctor Marc Siegel. It is this: Must the state of
humiliation and death of Palestinians continue for the Jews to feel safe? If
the doctor believes that Jews have a monopoly on suffering, he'll only see the
Jewish side of that historical event. But if he can bring himself to seeing
that there is also the Palestinian side of that same event, he might appreciate
that Rashida Tlaib and all Palestinians need a psychological ointment to
alleviate their discomfort. Could that not be the thought that it was not in
vain?
If it takes a poem to move Doctor Siegel, here is a Palestinian
poem that might open his eyes and stir his heart:
A State of Siege
A woman asked the cloud: please enfold my loved one
My clothes are soaked with his blood
If you shall not be rain, my love, be trees
Saturated with fertility, be trees
And if you shall not be trees, my love, be a stone
Saturated with humidity, be a stone
And if you shall not be a stone, my love, be a moon
In the loved one’s dream, be a moon
So said a woman to her son at his funeral.
During the siege, time becomes a space
That has hardened in its eternity
During the siege, space becomes a time
That is late for its yesterday and its tomorrow.
The Palestinians too are hurting Doctor Siegel. They have the
right to grieve, and in their grieving, they have the right to seek comfort
where they can find it, even if it is in the justification of the pain that the
Jews are inflicting on them.