The continuum of good and bad

I have been guilty of taking a binary approach to far too many issues in my life lately.  I think it's one of the reasons I'm so stressed all the time.  In my world, something is either good or bad... sacred or profane... I or 0.  Binary. 

There are so many things in our world that are so clearly good or bad that we have little problem defining them in binary terms.  For instance, who would argue with the statement:  Terrorism is bad... charity is good?  Easy one, right?  That kind of question is as basic as the two positions on a light switch.  On or off... there is no middle position.

But perhaps we need to shake ourselves loose from the idea that the switch has only two positions.  Maybe even such easy questions require a dimmer instead of an on-off switch to answer properly.

Allow me to muddy the waters a bit:

Hamas is technically a charitable/social welfare organization that is tasked with providing necessary services to the Palestinian population.  True, many, if not all of these services are supposed to be provided through the staggering amount of money that the International community continues to dump into the big slot machine known as the PA.   But part of Hamas' popularity among the people on the street comes from their ability to deliver many of these services when nobody else will. 

Obviously their sponsorship of, and direct participation in attacks on Israel make them quite popular amongst a segment of the Palestinian population as well. But the fact that they are also involved in charity work is a simple proof that the most basic assumptions of good and bad that I mentioned earlier are not really such perfectly binary choices.

Let's go to the other end of the spectrum for a moment. 

To many, the International Committee of the Red Cross represents all that is right in the world... the pinnacle of what is meant when we say 'Good'.

If someone is taken prisoner, who do you call to go in and make sure they are not being mistreated?  The Red Cross.  If a tornado cuts a swath through your trailer park or your house is washed away in a flood, who is there within hours bearing blankets, food and a ride to a warm shelter?  The Red Cross. 

In fact, my parents were recently in a bit of a bind after my mother broke her arm in a canoeing accident on the mill pond behind their house.  My mother is the only driver in the house (my father is legally blind) so they were effectively stranded.  So the local Red Cross chapter arranged a driver to take mom to her doctor's appointments and physical therapy sessions! 

This should be a clear 'check' in the 'good' column.  Correct?

Well, the International Red Cross' reputation has taken a few hits over the years.  They refused to intervene on behalf of the Jews during the Holocaust, and this remains a big black mark against them.  Since that time they have been dragged a little further down the good-bad continuum in the eyes of many people because of their refusal to recognize and accept Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA, or the Red Star of David, is Israel's 'version' of the Red Cross-type national organizations) into the international organization. 

The International Red Cross recognizes all of the other national chapters of the Red Cross.  Even after they had voted in 1949 (in a secret ballot) to refuse recognition/membership to Israel's Red Star of David organization, they quickly went on to officially recognized more than 25 chapters of the Red Crescent Society (the 'version' that exists in the Muslim world), as well as the red crescent symbol. 

Inexplicably, over half a century later the ICRC still refuse to even consider recognizing the Red Star of David.  The official reason is that the Jewish Star is not one of their symbols. 

Really... I'm not making this up. 

The Red Crescent wasn't one of their symbols either, but once the ICRC accepted it, it became one their symbols.  So in a bit of circular logic, by not accepting the Red Star of David they are providing the only reason for excluding the entire Israeli MDA and it's good work from membership in the international organization! 

Obviously Hamas and the the ICRC are still light years apart on the good-bad continuum, but my point remains that in nearly everything we see as either 'good' or 'bad', there are shades of gray... settings along a dimmer instead of an 'on-off' light switch.

As Israelis and Jews, we hate that we are judged quite subjectively by elements and events that we don't consider at all representative of who we really are.  Yet we have little trouble taking a very simplistic/monolithic and, yes, subjective view of others. 

We label The UN, 'The Arabs', the ICRC, The Olympic Commitee and even the other countries in the Eurovision song contest as either 'good or 'bad'... I or 0.

Are we the only complex society in the world?  Are we the only ones who deserve to be judged only by our 'good' attributes? 

We cried foul when the Arabs wouldn't accept 'Jewish blood' from us when their own emergency blood supply ran dry.  They could only see Israel/Israelis as either good or bad... so the 'good-bad' switch remained firmly in the 'off' position. 

Yet I won't buy so much as a plum from a Palestinian fruit stand 5 minutes from my house because I can't differentiate between the good and bad people within their society. 

How different is it that they fear we might give them tainted blood... and we fear they might attack anyone who stops to shop in an Arab village?  Before anyone attacks my analogy with statements like, "But we have never given anyone tainted blood, while they have killed innocent shoppers in Arab villages", let me remind everyone that they no longer hold the monopoly on terrorism.  Tainted blood is only one way to kill an enemy... and we no longer have the right to say that Jews/Israelis don't act that way.

I am not quite emotionally ready to go looking for the 'good actors' among the societies that have sworn to destroy my tiny country.  But intellectually I know that such people must exist.  I need only look at my own society to see plenty of nut-cases and extremists (on the left and right), as well as good, altruistic, brilliant people, to prove this to myself.

Many of Israel's PR problems, and our own perceived position along the world's good-bad continuum, stem from the fact that we demand that the world look at us as a whole.  "We are Israel... see us as a whole and accept us as we are!"  But you have to admit, there are parts of that 'whole' that are not particularly 'good'.  Perhaps we need to make fewer excuses for the bad actors in our own midst so that the good becomes unmistakable.

I'm not saying that we need to be 'even handed' (I hate that term), and place everyone fairly in the center of the 'good-bad continuum'... some people and actions deserve the judgment/placement they have receive.  I'm simply saying that we may need to look more closely at the factors by which societies deserve to be defined before assigning a relative good-bad rating.  Maybe we need more 'sort-of-good' and 'pretty-bad' in our rating system.

Maybe we need to consider installing a dimmer where there is currently only an on-off switch.