Much has been said about the escalating violence in Israel and Palestine. Furthermore, it appears ideological battlegrounds are being hardened by those watching from home. The most hopeful outcome, it seems, is somehow achieving a cease-fire as soon as possible to avoid more civilian casualties. Yet regardless of who you support what all of us must truly ask is what lies beyond this end of violence? What would peace look like in this context? Obviously, peace is not occupation. But just as important arguably is how our minds are being occupied by the language we use. The idea of conflict implies that these are two implacably divided opponents who can never share a common future. Or that this is simply a larger outgrowth of a historic hatred. Yet neither of these points are true. Historically, Arabs and Jews in this region (and in comparative terms globally) had a relationship marked more by toleration then hostility. Moreover, the roots of this conflict may be exacerbated by recent history (and competing historical narratives) but it is rooted in age old questions of how people can commonly share land and resources. It is worth noting that tensions were at their lowest and genuine movements toward peace at their highest in the early 90s when the everyday interactions between Israelis and Palestinians were also at their highest. Such interaction allowed both sides to see through the eyes of a new generation that they shared common problems (e.g. fears over unemployment, rising inequality, lack of political representation in a largely entrenched partisan democratic system, both formal and subtle cultures of racism, etc...) as well as common interests (it is Israel - so you know not the least of which was partying). Fast forward almost two decades later and the country is wracked by the same problems but is now populated by combatant populations divided by a rising wall between them literally and figuratively separating the winners from losers. On the one side are Palestinians, suffering, trapped, without basic consistent access to health care, water or education even at the best of times. On the other, an Israeli state that is forced even after over 50 years to send all of its sons and daughters to war in order to protect themselves from the terrorist directly on their borders. This speaks to the internal politics of both sides as well. It is easy for some Israelis to support a massive escalation of violence against a poor civilian population that most have never met and only know as the invisible cause of daily bomb warnings. And it is just as easy for the military part of Hamas to directly contravene their political section and believe that rockets and revolutionary spirit can somehow defeat one of the best equipped and trained militaries in the world, one who just as importantly is backed both politically and militarily by the only remaining superpower in the world, when they have never actually been to Israel to see first hand who they are fighting against. This is a lesson then in what happens when conflict becomes not simply a temporary reality on the ground but a permanent one in our collective minds. We can speak for days about Israeli colonialism and apartheid. As well as about the morally questionable tactics used by Palestinians to change this situation. Yet in continuing to treat this as a ‘conflict’ and to see both sides as unchangeable opponents, we are consigning them to a fate of ongoing war and hatred. Defined by a cycle of Israeli politicians using various pretexts every 4 – 5 years to ‘cut the grass’ (e.g. using low to medium level military strategies to lessen the power of the most threatening elements of Hamas) while Palestinian leaders use the same nihilistic rhetoric and tactics of ‘uprising’ to keep themselves in power and their people further oppressed. These divisions stop the real struggle – conversations between both sides, not just their elites, about How to achieve water sustainability? How to improve a flagging and increasingly unfair economy? How to forge a common foreign policy with neighbors in the region that is cooperative and mutually beneficial rather than simply strategic and threatening? How to commonly negotiate newly arising economic and political effects associated with 21st century corporate globalization? The key is not simply to stop the violence but take the steps necessary to form a common society, a common people, whose relationship is not defined by their historic injuries but rather their shared optimism in the present for a collectively better future. It is to ‘end the conflict’ in the name of creating a society.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 11:16:50 +0000
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