31 March 2019: Promoting peace in the Middle East

We should support protests by Gazans of their terrorist government, even if the individual protesters do not otherwise meet with our approval. It is easy for Americans to protest. We know what to do and how to do it effectively. We recognize that protest is part of the political culture needed for effective government. Most importantly, we need not fear that the government will retaliate against us or our families. This is not true for Gazans, ruled by Hamas, which regularly kills its own people, including protestors.
To bring about peace in Middle Eastern countries, we must find ways to change their political culture to embrace the basic attributes of civilization today - representative government, respecting the rule of law, freedom of speech, religion and political association, and tolerance of opposing points of view. These ideals exist to any extent only in Israel, and although they are imperfect there and in the US, there are still thousands of organizations working to strengthen them. In contrast, there appears to be little activity of this type in Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Yemen.
What can we as Americans actually do, since we cannot easily change the dictatorial governments above? We can decide that working from the “bottom up” is important and start to do something. We can work with Americans from these countries to figure out how to promote these civilized ideals, even if in small ways, or to protest their evil governmental activity. We can communicate with our elected officials. It will take decades to claim victory, but it’s time to begin.