Peace or Victory?

    I would like to focus on the piece by Dr. Tamari that we read for this week in addition to the final chapters of Armstrong's remarkable book. The last sentence of Tamari's piece captured the sentiment felt by not only Shami but also by many still today, "he could not…overcome the shattered hope that there was room for reconciliation as the two communities were driven toward irresolvable national polarity". This sentence dovetails perfectly with Armstrong's observation that this "irresolvable national polarity" is what fuels the conflict and prevents peace from prevailing by causing each side to be more concerned with victory over the "other side" rather than peace. 

    This week's reading gave me a great deal to think about in terms of how to structure a realistic environment for peace to be possible. In the early days of the Jewish migrations to Israel, they established rival and competing economies and political structures to those already in place. After the Palestinian General Congress declared in 1920 that they would "throw back the Zionists with all our force",  in 1937 around 10,000 Palestinian and non-Palestinian Arabs, worried about the heavy influx of Jewish immigrants to Israel, staged a rebellion that was quashed by Israeli and British forces. This escalation of land purchasing and resentful violence cemented the hateful relationship between the two peoples that once lived peacefully together. 

     Both the Palestinians/Muslims and the Israelis/Jews want to SURVIVE. They want to exist. They want to have Jerusalem. They want peace, but they also both currently want victory. Al Quds, Yerushalayim, either way, both sides will have to acknowledge that the city is important to other people, too, and that those people are just as entitled to accessing it as they are. Pride, nationalism, fundamentalist religion, and arbitrary hatred are the obstacles that we must overcome before we can see peace, and this begins with cultural education.

1. How can we most effectively educate mass amounts of people about the validity of each peoples' narrative?

2. How can we ensure that the political leaders of the future have minds open enough to envision a country that acknowledges and values both nations?

3. What specific actions can be taken right now by the Israeli and the Palestinian governments to take steps toward peace?