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The path to peace lies in accepting and working with the uncomfortable truths about oneself for all people.
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In terms of an agreement, my basic taking off point is the Gush-Shalom outline as I understand it. No need to rehash its details for
this audience. It can be seen here for reference.
What I am writing about here are the more subtle aspects of putting an end to war that cannot be fully controlled and prescribed by top-down diplomatic agreements between states or even by creating committees to develop standardized joint cirriculum to teach about the Zionism vs. Palestine conflict in schools at some hypothetical wonderful future point in time when the current nightmare will be over. The roots of the ongoing war extend into the understanding of each individual person of what the story of their nation is about. Equally important to territorial and security arrangements, there has to be more personal agreements and committments on how to speak more civilly about one another so as not to inflame and incite fresh acts of violence from one side or the other. The national sense of identity of the Palestinian as one that defines itself mainly by its "liberation struggle in opposition to the Zionist/Nazi occupation forces" through brave military sacrifice is a self-concept that will lead to further clashes and bloodshed and more war after the agreements are reached, aside from making discussions exceedingly difficult to conduct in the present. In parallel, the "racist" sense of self of Zionism which sees Jewish suffering as more valid than Palestinian suffering and relies upon labelling its intellectual critics "moral relativists" has got to be decisively overcome if Jews are to learn to treat Arabs with the respect as equals we theoretically have in our laws, if not in our practices. This is a pragmatic functional issue of the changes people need to have in their hearts and minds in order for true peace to take root and grow. If you still must insist on thinking in terms of some form of us versus them zero-sum "morality" you will always be left with a war to fight. Language and feelings and ideas kill and encourage killing just as much as bullets do. Palestinians and Israelis have to personally and individually be made aware of this. The conflict is deeper than just diplomacy and land for peace deals. The conflict is a clash of two opposing overwhelmingly proud and brave national mythologies. Alas, the Palestinian sense of national identity is largely to be achieved through the idea of valiant victory in the armed struggle against "Zionist racism". There is no choice for us Jews than to recognize this Palestinian point of view as their own right to self-definition. For us to make peace lasting with them, to some extent we will have to find a way to compromise and internally accomodate this very uncompromisingly hideous view they have of us within our own framework of self-definition. There is no alternative but to intellectually even now work toward a common definition of history together.
This is an extremely angry and internally divisive task for Zionist
Jews worldwide of course. The front line of this Jewish civil war is
the Gush Emunim movement in the "territories". Unless the people of
Israel can be made to understand the important readiness for peace
signal that could be sent to the Palestinians by renouncing and
removing Gush Emunim from "Yesha", and publicly renouncing the
concept of "Yesha", the necessary hard work of Jews coming to terms
with their own internal unwillingness for peace will still lie in the
future. |