Interesting Encounter after Dim Sum

So my girlfriend's parents are in town visiting and we decided to head down to Chinatown in Boston to get some Dim Sum. My girl and I go frequently and we found a great new place (Chow Chau House) that we wanted to show her parents. Just as a (somewhat irrelevant) aside, my girlfriend and her parents are Chinese-American, so going out for Dim Sum is always a treat as they order in Chinese and usually find some things that I have not tried yet. So we had a great meal and then parted company as I had to head to go to work and they wanted to walk around Chinatown and do some shopping. So I head off to the T (subway) station to catch a train back to my car.

As I was walking up to the stairs leading down to the station, I notice a line of cops walking in the street side by side, as if they were clearing the way for something. Intrigued, I watched as they cleared the road and stopped traffic at an intersection. About 100 yards behind them I could see a crowd of people walking in middle of the street and waving flags and carrying signs. At first I thought this must be a protest against the persecution of the Fau Lu Gong religious sect in China, as these occur fairly regularly in Chinatown. However the flags did not look right. It was then that I realized the flags were Palestinian and that the protest was against the bombings currently occurring in Gaza. My first thought was regarding the safety of my girlfriend and her family. Not that I thought the protestors would hurt anyone, but given the currently climate surround the conflict between Israel and Palestine, I was concerned that trouble might arise. So I called my girlfriend, told her what was going on, and advised her to just be aware of her surroundings.

Now it is important to note a few things. First, Michelle lived in NJ and worked in Manhattan and was stuck in mid-town NY for several days after 9-11. Then the London train bombing occurred about 6 months after I moved to NYC to be with her. Combined with my background, situations like this make me hyper-aware of my surroundings and I tend to go into "protective" mode when it comes to Michelle. Anyway, once she was aware of the situation, I decided to hang out and see what the protestors had to say and what was written on their banners.

Watching the procession, I thought about my position on the whole mess in the Middle East and how that conflict touched me today here in the US. My personal opinion is that both sides are "wrong" in the respect that both the Palestinians and the Israelis wish to live in the same area (West Bank) and claim that this area is their "birth right granted by God". Without getting into a philosophical diatribe that would probably offend both sides, let me just state this. The concept that God, who according to most religions (regardless of which you follow) created the universe and EVERYTHING & EVERYONE in it, would choose one ethnic group over another, strikes me as ludicrous and completely narcissistic. To me all religion is based on a given cultural perspective on God. In other words, people (for the most part) tend to adopt the religion of their parents and ancestors and said religion is typically "determined" by culture and geographic origin. If you are born in Palestine, you tend to be Muslim. If you are born in Israel, you tend to follow Judaism and so on. The fact that people are willing to use the concept of God, religion and "Manifest Destiny" to justify the slaughter of their fellow human beings is absurd to me. I simply cannot understand this need to separate the "us" from the "them" to such a degree that "they" must be eradicated or driven from a given geographical area. Is this not akin to what the Nazi's did during WWII, what Anglo-Europeans did to native North and South Americans and why we now must worry about terrorists?

Enough already I say. Human beings are all basically the same with regard to "what" we are - bipedal primates with well developed brains and the learned ability to use complex tools. I really wish people would stop using these tools to kill each other, particularly based on a "belief", whatever that belief may be.