As a peace activist, on that level, it all seems so simple. First, you look honestly into yourself and ask, "Where did I go wrong?" -- because if things are an intractable mess, as they are in Israel/Palestine, it's a human certainty your side had something to do with it. Of course, the other side is very different and they may seem like "monsters" for the things they've done. The only consolation, in this respect, is you can be sure your enemy feels the same way about you. There are "monsters" on both sides.
The point is to make the first steps to overcome all this, to begin to ask who one's enemy really is and, beyond our darkest fantasies, what they're really about. Then there's the clincher: What do they have in common with us?
Another smart, pragmatic Israeli, a retired general named Ephraim Sneh, wrote a recent op-ed in The New York Times [5] in which he says "nurturing settlements in the West Bank and maintaining an occupation in order to protect them" is a policy working against Israel's interests of future security. "Following that path will lead to disaster," he writes. It's "a doomsday prophesy."
The point is, people of all political stripes -- including my friends on the flotilla and those attempting to attend a Palestinian conference -- are trying to nudge, pressure and cajol the Israeli government and its patron in Washington to take a fresh look and make bold changes vis-a-vis the Palestinian people. US leaders like Ms. Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden are as fresh in their thinking as a week-old catfish.
The US and Israel should be pressured to open talks on real sovereignty for Palestine. Cut the double-talk. That would be the smart, pragmatic thing to do -- and the best chance for making the September UN recognition unnecessary, which both Israel and the US want. The smart thing for them would have been to let the peaceful flotilla through and to concentrate on negotiating real security.
In the current volatile world of the Middle East, Israel and the United States should be on the side of real political structural change, instead of where they currently are, supporting the same old oppressive, unworkable status-quo based on violence. The world is like Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me only if we choose to make it that way.
Source URL: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/693
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
2
