What would Buddha say about the Gaza Crisis?

The current theme of our Buddhist magazine is whether Buddhism can offer some insights on conflict resolution and help ameliorate the tension in the Gaza region.

I am not sure that there is any Buddhist teaching which may help. All the world religions have some version of the Golden Rule, the great moral principle of reciprocity. We can find a version of the Golden Rule in Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet, such teachings have fallen on deaf ears.

In the rabbinic tradition of Judaism, there is an interesting story: When someone challenged Hillel the Elder (b. 110 BCE) to teach the entire Torah while his listener stood on one foot, he famously replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Now go and study.”

If there is a question as to whether this teaching applies to non-Jews or people of other ethnic groups, there is also this teaching from the Torah: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”(Leviticus 19: 33–34)