We live in a world where the bombastic, violent, and extreme capture our attention, paralyzing us. In short, we are inundated by the asymmetry of the sensational. Hope for a better future seems unrealistic. Working toward that goal is perceived as gullible. Many Palestinians and Israelis are stuck in this vortex.
That is the price being paid due to that asymmetry. The reality of destruction, violence, and death along with the emotional and psychological toll both peoples carry is overwhelming, particularly these past two years. A tragic and painful reality. But it is not the full picture.
A vibrant ecosystem of Israelis and Palestinians working to overcome the status quo also exists. Civil society peacebuilding programs enable Israelis and Palestinians to meet, discuss, and challenge together their hard reality.
Peacebuilding programs
The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), in an extensive study of these programs, concluded: “Many participants enter with one-sided views but leave understanding each other. The vast majority discover that their core interests are aligned and that, as partners, they can create real change. Most then take action for peace with 80% of alumni active in some way working toward Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution.”
Peace does not mean issues of a conflict go away; it means those issues are given the opportunity to be addressed through words, not bullets.
In addition, the asymmetry of the sensational confuses causes of a conflict with symptoms of a conflict. Too much attention is co-opted by those symptoms – brutality, death, fear, carnage. Those symptoms need to be addressed as they include safety and survival. However, in that state of mind, we close ranks and see the violence as the cause, forgetting it is a symptom.
The Israeli-Palestinian clash is no different. The root of this strife is the inability to reconcile two realities: for Israelis, they have come home; for Palestinians, they have been invaded. This conflict will only end when both sides are able to meet in the space beyond those two deep self-perceptions carved in stone and blood. For too long, Israeli and Palestinian maximalists have held sway, leaving no room for the needed compromise located in that space.
We must decide to amplify the powerful transformative work of those Palestinians and Israelis working to move the conversation from confrontation to solution. Because of the asymmetry of the sensational time, energy, monies, and lives are lost to symptoms of conflicts without addressing the cause. That focus is failing us.
Parallels from Northern Ireland
During the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, in 1986, when only death and despair prevailed, the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) was established to promote dialogue between Catholics and Protestants.
There is a direct line from the creation of that fund to the signing of the Good Friday Accords in 1998, as the IFI reshaped conditions on the ground, tilling the soil so a different reality could emerge. The IFI spent $42 per person/year, and even more from the EU, with total investments over the years exceeding $6 billion.
At present, the international community is investing less than $5 per person/year in similar programs for Palestinians and Israelis. It was energizing to hear British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announce she will host an inaugural meeting of the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace in London next month.
Related, the Trump administration could release $50 million of Middle East Peace Partners Act (MEPPA) funding passed by bipartisan efforts in Congress, and Congress could vote to continue to fund MEPPA and other related initiatives.
Pope Francis I wrote: “Life, for all its confrontations, is the art of encounter. I have frequently called for the growth of a culture of encounter capable of transcending our differences and divisions.”
In that same spirit, Ghassan Hammad, a Palestinian alum of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, where for 30 years Israeli and Palestinian college students and researchers have worked together, put it so well when he wrote this past cruel year:
“Empathy isn’t weakness, it’s discipline. To mourn even the pain of those who harmed you – that’s moral courage. It calls us to break the cycle, not by forgetting, but by feeling fully and still refusing to pass the pain on.
“Today, this land is heavy with sorrow. Grief echoes on every side. Homes are gone. Futures feel uncertain. I know this is not the peace many of you hoped for. It’s not what your ancestors dreamed of when they fled persecution in search of safety. So, I ask you to reflect with me. Let us not pass our trauma to our children like a sword. Let us mirror something else, something brave and tender. Let us be the people that choose differently.”
It is essential voices like that are given larger bandwidth so they can be heard above the cacophony of the asymmetry of the sensational, to remind Palestinians and Israelis that a better way forward is, indeed, possible.
The writer, a rabbi, is the director of community relations for the Friends of the Arava Institute. He served on the Partnership for Peace Fund Advisory Board established through a bipartisan act of Congress.