Cultivating Peace in Palestine

In the days leading up to Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, Yisrael Beiteinu, the far-right party led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, announced that it would seek a bill in the Knesset banning Palestinian citizens of Israel--now 20 percent of the population--from commemorating the anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe), their way of marking the founding of Israel, which involved the expulsion or flight of some 750,000 Palestinians.

Thousands of Palestinians--in the occupied territories, in Israel and in refugee camps all over the Arab world--ignored Yisrael Beiteinu's bluster and turned out for Nakba Day rallies, insisting on the right of refugees to return to their homes, a demand that is anathema to the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews. In a speech in the stadium at the northern Israeli city of Kafr Kana, Raed Salah, the chairman of the northern branch of Israel's Islamic Movement, declared, "We are the ones who will remain on our land; it is the occupation that will soon disappear." Speaking of the occupation, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to seek a peace deal with the Palestinians in the territories as soon as possible, as any delay would bring about a binational state, which she called "a strategic threat, no less menacing than any other threat."

The fact is that even aside from the occupation, Israel is already a binational state--increasingly, a multicultural state--albeit one that is dominated by one ethnic/religious group. What if, instead of talking past one another, Jews and Palestinians were to take a step toward admitting this reality by acknowledging the other's historical narrative and trying to live together? It turns out that some are doing this, and in very interesting ways. I recently attended the sixth annual "Independence Day/Nakba Day" gathering near the northern city of Haifa, a two-day workshop organized by Arabs and Jews "designed to respect and commemorate the pain and loss on both sides." Sponsored this year by Beyond Words, a nonprofit organization that empowers Arab and Jewish women to work for social change and peace, the event featured a history lecture, recollections of the 1948 expulsion from Ramle by a Palestinian who experienced it and of the Holocaust by a survivor, personal testimonies of loss in a common grieving ritual, and breakout workshops, as well as music, dance and prayer.

It may be hard for Americans to comprehend just how threatening such an event is perceived in Israel--by both Jews and Palestinians. Many of the former find it nearly treasonous that on two consecutive days considered nearly sacred--the Day of the Fallen and Independence Day, when throughout the country everything comes to a screeching halt for two minutes as sirens sound--fellow Jews would go out of their way to acknowledge those who consider the time of Jewish national liberation to be a catastrophe. And just as many Palestinians are no less irritated that their dispossessed brethren, who endure continuing discrimination as second-class citizens, would commune with a people who celebrate what is for Palestinians a time of defeat and expulsion. But that's just the point: the participants don't presume to furnish a "solution" to the conflict, nor do they expect to synthesize the two vastly different national experiences into a unified whole. The idea, rather, is that in a society where the two opposing narratives almost completely negate the legitimacy of the other, simply to come together, to listen to the other, to accept the other's narrative as at least somewhat legitimate, is a crucial step in the healing process necessary to ending the conflict.

Another bridging of the narratives is being carried out by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME), a nonprofit established in 1998 by Palestinian and Israeli researchers whose "purpose is to pursue mutual coexistence and peace-building through joint research and outreach activities." A particularly noteworthy PRIME endeavor is the "Dual-Narrative History Project." Co-directed by Professor Sami Adwan of Bethlehem University and the late Professor Dan Bar-On of Ben-Gurion University (Bar-On's mantle was recently inherited by Ben-Gurion's Professor Shifra Sagy), the goal is "to ‘disarm' the teaching of Middle East history in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms" by developing, with a group of Palestinian and Israeli historians, textbooks that have parallel historical narratives, Israeli on one side of the page and Palestinian on the other, to be taught to high school students. There's a blank space in the middle of each page for student comments.

The goal of the textbooks is to expose to each student population the history of the conflict as seen through the eyes of, and as taught by, the other. The project believed that at this stage of the conflict, the sides are too polarized to be able to produce a single narrative. But the hope is that in educating each side about the other's history, they will "break down stereotypes and build more nuanced understandings." So far three books have been produced, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, covering key periods, including the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the 1948 war, the 1967 war, the first intifada and so on. The remarkable thing about this cooperative venture is that it got started at the height of the second intifada, a time of extreme violence when it was difficult for the program directors just to meet, let alone produce a textbook that highlighted fundamental differences. The books have been used on both sides, exposing hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli high school kids to a different narrative, although neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian education ministries have given official approval to the books.

A third attempt to bridge the gap between the two peoples is Hagar: Jewish-Arab Education for Equality. Based in Beer-Sheva in Israel's southern Negev Desert, the Hagar Association has established a bilingual preschool and kindergarten in an attempt to overcome the extreme segregation of Jewish and Arab communities in Israel. The people of Hagar believe that "creating such a shared bilingual educational framework can promote knowledge and understanding of the ‘other's' heritage, religion and customs, and thus help to bring about positive change in the region." The school has equal numbers of Arabs and Jews, and every class has two teachers, who give instruction in Arabic and Hebrew. This is almost unheard of in Israel, where as a general rule Palestinian and Jewish kids attend different schools. Until the founding of Hagar, there was not a single school in the South where Jewish and Arab children could learn together (25 percent of the Negev population is Arab). But Hagar's goals extend well beyond that of bilingual, high-quality education for kids; the community brings together parents and other members of the Beer-Sheva community in a broader social network that includes picnics, adult language instruction, and artistic and other cultural events. This partly comes from an understanding that the education of children should be a community-wide effort, but also from the recognition that overcoming barriers of segregation and mistrust requires a multifaceted approach that integrates all areas and ages of life, including work, education and cultural and leisure activities. Hagar has had to overcome many difficulties, not least the upsurge in mistrust stemming from the recent Gaza military operation and Hamas rocket barrages, which reached Beer-Sheva. One testament to Hagar's success is that the bonds formed over the past two years were not broken by the bloodshed; indeed, Hagar is now expanding its program for the 2009-10 school year to include first grade.

Certainly none of these cooperative efforts can be a substitute for peacemaking on the diplomatic level--a step made all the more difficult by an obstructionist Israeli prime minister. In his first meeting with President Obama, Netanyahu refused to support a two-state solution, instead calling for limited Palestinian self-government, insisting that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state and making no promises to limit growth in settlements, let alone withdraw them. Resolution of the conflict is impossible without addressing its root causes: a brutal Israeli occupation and ongoing colonization now in its fourth decade in the territories, and systemic, legally sanctioned discrimination in Israel proper. But grassroots attempts to cultivate the seeds of cooperation can help further the larger goal, and make the transition to genuine peace more bearable.

Comments (55)

1. Wonder if we can get syfriendly and Cripthink....and antisocial to go to that kindergarten?

   Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 08:41am

2. Thanks, Roane, for a terrific post.

   Posted by Margaronis at 05/19/2009 @ 09:01am

3. Didn't the Greeks and the Turks solve all this by a population exchange: all Turks on Greek lands left and went to Turkey and all Greeks on Turkish lands left and went to Greece?

   Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 09:02am

4. Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 09:02am

   Fine...what are "Greek lands" and what are "Turkish lands" in your analogy to Israel and Palestine?

   Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 09:41am

5. Didn't the Germans lose a big chunk of East Prussia as a penalty for invading Poland and the USSR?

   Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 09:57am

6. Fine...what are "Greek lands" and what are "Turkish lands" in your analogy to Israel and Palestine?

   Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 09:41am

   Israel for Israel, Jordan for the Arabs.

   Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 10:01am

7. What other countries do the Arabs live in besides Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon?

   Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 10:26am

8. Nice to read about something positive hapening in that otherwise godforsaken, blood-besotted part of the world.

   Reminds me a little of small but increasingly meaningful efforts during the early civil rights era in the US, e.g., white and black churches and other civic groups reaching out to one other. Small, yes, but change in consciousness has to begin somewhere.

   We all already know that people in Israel/Palestine in 40 or 50 years will be amazed at how ignorant, prejudiced, and even savage many of their parents, grand parents, and great-grand parents (on both sides) were in our current age.

   It´s probably too late for a two state solution -- Israel has already too intensely integrated too much of the West Bank (land, water, transportation, housing, Jewish population etc.) into Israel to allow what remains to be a viable state. And, anyway, since Israel won´t permit independent Palestinian control of borders, air space, water, etc., which is obviously unacceptable to Palestinians, the movement will morph over the next few years into something like the international anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

   Posted by kcarey at 05/19/2009 @ 10:31am

9. Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 10:01am

   Just like the League of Nations wants....er wanted, right Larry?

   Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 11:25am

10. The air pollution from the Obamanation that makes desolation admin. is horrific! All that blue smoke he keeps blowing out from his pipe dreams and really fogging up D.C.!

    I guess he is at least working hard to fulfill his "Carter II" legacy! In the future he can hug Hamas and Hezzbolah symbolically just like his predecessor!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:39am

11. "Grrrrr.... arrrghhh.... "Demoncrats".... mnnnhhharr...rrrarllrgarl.... "Alibama".....mrrrghhhhrr..... dddrrraaggglll.... "secular regressives".....mmarrrrrh.... grrrrrrrrrr...... slather...drool.... "Hillary Rotten (Satan's favorite daughter)..... grrrrrrrrr.....arrrggghhhh.... "Ward JOOA Corp!!!!"....... grrrrr....arrhahhggg..... "I'm an independent!"----Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:39am

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 11:45am

12. Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 11:45am | ignore this person | warn this person

    More deep thought intellectual moments presented by the Masked fool! Whats the matter did Axelrod call you a dog to?

    Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:58am

13. Israel for Israel, Jordan for the Arabs.

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 10:01am

    california for the paiute, europe for the larrys.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 12:20pm

14. Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:58am

    I'll take that criticism for everything it's worth, ol' feller.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 12:34pm

15. (Picking up on my earlier thread of 10:31, above)

    Since there is less and less likelihod of a two state solution, noted above, it´s good some of the locals finally understand that Jews and Arabs will be living together forever and the sooner they get down to the business of reconciliation and recognizing the legitimate greivances of all sides, and also what they share in common, the sooner they can get on with better lives.

    The blame game is pointless by now. Both sides were royally screwed by supremely bad cosmic luck and historical forces mostly beyond their control. Jews constantly harassed and oppressed, suffering repeated pogroms, until the holocaust finally forced them to try and make a safe haven in a land already long occupied by others. The Palestinians forced to pay for Europe´s crimes against Jews by losing their land and way of life to conquering invaders.

    Plan A (Jews leaving Israel) and Plan B (Palestinians docilely accepting apartheid in their own land) won´t work.

    What´s Plan C?

    Posted by kcarey at 05/19/2009 @ 1:12pm

16. What´s Plan C?---Posted by kcarey at 05/19/2009 @ 1:12

    Depends who you ask. (C-1)-Radical anti-Israel types want an embargo on Israel until they acquiesce to all Hamas demands. Plus the collapse of Fatah.

    (C-2) Radical pro-Israel side wants Gaza and The West Bank re-taken permanently (per religious and believe it or not "League of Nations" contract) and the Palestinians accept some kind of "Jim Crow" existance in Israel...or move "back" to Jordan.

    Plan "C" of course isn't happening either.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 1:53pm

17. The history books say the Israeli unification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day war was the 57th time since its founding that the city has been captured: anybody want to speculate on the circumstances of the 58th time (or will it just be an Iranian nuke putting it out of our misery)?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 2:24pm

18. (or will it just be an Iranian nuke putting it out of our misery)?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 2:24pm

    it's the third holiest city in islam.....

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 2:29pm

19. Depends who you ask.

    Plan "C" of course isn't happening either.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 1:53pm

    so, let's ask you:

    what's plan M?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 2:32pm

20. If Iran is reluctant to drop a nuclear warhead on Jerusalem, then wouldn't it make sense for Israel to build houses and shelters for Jewish refugees in Jerusalem and its environs?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 2:48pm

21. what's plan M?----Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 2:32pm

    The resurrection of the dead by electro-gun?

    No...that's Plan 9.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 2:56pm

22. it's the third holiest city in islam.....

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 2:29pm

    Based upon a lie spread after Mohammed's death.

    <The myth of al-Aqsa

    Holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been politically motivated Mordechai Kedar

    When the Prophet Mohammad established Islam, he introduced a minimum of innovations. He employed the hallowed personages, historic legends and sacred sites of Judaism and Christianity, and even paganism, by Islamizing them. Thus, according to Islam, Abraham was the first Muslim and Jesus and St. John (the sons of Miriam, sister of Moses and Aron) were prophets and guardians of the second heaven. Many Biblical legends ("asatir al-awwalin",) which were familiar to the pagan Arabs before the dawn of Islam, underwent an Islamic conversion, and the Koran as well as the Hadith (the Islamic oral tradition), are replete with them.

    Islamization was practiced on places as well as persons: Mecca and the holy stone - al-Ka'bah - were holy sites of the pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Great Mosque of Istanbul were erected on the sites of Christian-Byzantine churches - two of the better known examples of how Islam treats sanctuaries of other faiths. Jerusalem, too, underwent the process of Islamization: at first Muhammad attempted to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community, and, by way of persuasion, established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this attempt he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.>

    continued

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:07pm

23. the myth of Al-Aqsa continued

    <Jerusalem, too, underwent the process of Islamization: at first Muhammad attempted to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community, and, by way of persuasion, established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this attempt he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.

    Muhammad's abandonment of Jerusalem explains the fact that this city is not mentioned even once in the Koran. After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramlah, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant nothing to them.

    Rediscovering Jerusalem

    Islam rediscovered Jerusalem 50 years after Mohammad's death. In 682 CE, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr rebelled against the Islamic rulers in Damascus, conquered Mecca and prevented pilgrims from reaching Mecca for the Hajj. Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Calif, needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage and settled on Jerusalem which was then under his control. In order to justify this choice, a verse from the Koran was chosen (17,1 = sura 17, verse,) which states (translation by Majid Fakhri):

    "Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. "

    continued

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:09pm

24. Do you remember that in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" they talked about a "Solanyte" bomb, which was even more powerful than a hydrogen bomb?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 3:09pm

25. The meaning ascribed to this verse is that "the furthest mosque" (al-masgid al-aqsa) is in Jerusalem and that Mohammad was conveyed there one night (although at that time the journey took three days by camel,) on the back of al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel. On his way he met the prophets of other religions who are the guardians of heaven.

    Miraculous account

    Thus Islam tries to gain legitimacy over other, older religions, by creating a scene in which the former prophets agree to Mohammad's mastery, thus making him Khatam al-Anbiya ("the Seal of the Prophets".)

    Not surprisingly, this miraculous account contradicts a number of the tenets of Islam: How can a living man of flesh and blood ascend to heaven? How can a mythical creature carry a mortal to a real destination? Questions such as these have caused orthodox Muslim thinkers to conclude that the nocturnal journey was a dream of Mohammad's. The journey and the ascent serves Islam to "go one better" than the Bible: Moses "only" went up to Mount Sinai, in the middle of nowhere, and drew close to heaven, whereas Mohammad went all the way up to Allah, and from Jerusalem itself.

    What are the difficulties with the belief that the al-Aqsa mosque described in Islamic tradition is located in Jerusalem? For one, the people of Mecca, who knew Muhammad well, did not believe this story. Only Abu Bakr, (later the first Calif,) believed him and thus was called al-Siddiq ("the believer".)

    continued

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:10pm

26. The second difficulty is that Islamic tradition tells us that al-Aqsa mosque is near Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. This was unequivocally stated in "Kitab al-Maghazi," a book by the Muslim historian and geographer al-Waqidi. According to al-Waqidi, there were two "masjeds" (places of prayer) in al-Gi'irranah, a village between Mecca and Ta'if - one was "the closer mosque" (al-masjid al-adna) and the other was "the further mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa,) and Muhammad would pray there when he went out of town.

    This description by al-Waqidi which is supported by a chain of authorities (isnad) was not "convenient" for the Islamic propaganda of the 7th Century. In order to establish a basis for the awareness of the "holiness" of Jerusalem in Islam, the Califs of the Ummayad dynasty invented many "traditions" upholding the value of Jerusalem, which would justify pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the faithful Muslims. Thus was al-Masjid al-Aqsa "transported" to Jerusalem. It should be noted that Saladin also adopted the myth of al-Aqsa and those "traditions" in order to recruit and inflame the Muslim warriors against the Crusaders in the 12th Century.

    Another aim of the Islamization of Jerusalem was to undermine the legitimacy of the older religions, Judaism and Christianity, which consider Jerusalem to be a holy city. Islam is presented as the only legitimate religion, destined to replace the other two, because they had changed and distorted the Word of God, each in its turn.

    almost done

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:11pm

27. Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 3:09pm

    "Solaronite", I believe...the response from the "hero" (a parody of right-wingers that Ed Wood even realized) was "Why we'd be an even stronger nation than we are now!"...

    despite the fact that the weapon would ...destroy the entire Universe if deployed.

    LOL

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:13pm

28. Though Judaism and Christianity can exist side by side in Jerusalem, Islam regards both of them as betrayals of Allah and his teachings, and has always done, and will continue to do, all in its power to expel both of them from this city. It is interesting to note that this expulsion is retroactive: The Islamic broadcasters of the Palestinian radio stations consistently make it a point to claim that the Jews never had a temple on the Temple Mount and certainly not two temples. (Where, then, according to them, did Jesus preach?)

    http://tinyurl.com/oord97

    During the 2000 Camp David Summit, Yasser Arafat said that no Jewish Temple ever existed on the Temple Mount. A year later, the Palestinian Authority-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrima Sabri, told the German publication Die Welt, "There is not [even] the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history."

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:14pm

29. Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:14pm

    Ynet News being completely objective on the matter, naturally.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:17pm

30. Ynet News being completely objective on the matter, naturally.

    Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:17pm

    I used that one out of convenience, but there are certainly plenty of duplicates.

    that isn't the point. You're just taking a strawman approach.

    Why don't you try rebutting it instead. The History is well documented and the Qu'ran is easily accessed.

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:27pm

31. To carry on with the movie metaphors, isn't all this "third holiest" stuff really a Macguffin? Wouldn't the Muslims have claimed Qom or Damascus was the "third holiest" if the Jews had come from there?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 3:32pm

32. To carry on with the movie metaphors, isn't all this "third holiest" stuff really a Macguffin? Wouldn't the Muslims have claimed Qom or Damascus was the "third holiest" if the Jews had come from there?

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 3:32pm

    Correct. Advance to Go, do not stop. You have won the lotto!

    That is the heart of the issue.

    If you look at Mohammad's history. He initially tried to link of with Jews in what is now Saudi Arabia against other Arab tribes. But after a while they realized what a con he was and dumped him; he never got over it and created a religion to go against Judaism and Christianity.

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 3:43pm

33. '...The written Arabic language has two features that make it difficult for an outsider to learn: it uses dots to distinguish consonants like "b" and "t," and in its original form it had no sign or symbol for short vowels, which could be rendered by various dashes or comma-type marks. Vastly different readings even of Uthman's version were enabled by these variations. Arabic script itself was not standardized until the later part of the ninth century, and in the meantime the undotted and oddly voweled Koran was generating wildly different explanations of itself, as it still does. This might not matter in the case of the Iliad, but remember that we are supposed to be talking about the unalterable (and final) word of god. There is obviously a connection between the sheer feebleness of this claim and the absolutely fanatical certainty with which it is advanced. To take one instance that can hardly be called negligible, the Arabic words written on the outside of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are different from any version that appears in the Koran....' -- Christopher Hitchens -- God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 05/19/2009 @ 4:08pm

34. Guess that's why Honestliberal quotes only the liberals, so nobody can accuse her of using a source that isn't "completely objective."

    Posted by Mistral at 05/19/2009 @ 4:13pm

35. It is admirable for Israelis and Palestinians to work on mutual recognition. Certainly this work should continue.

    However, I see a problem with focusing on recognition given the current process by Israel of settlement expansion, home demolition, and starvation:

    Imagine trying to get Native Americans to acknowledge the "white settler narrative" and the suffering of white settlers even while they are dropping dead along the trail of tears? Or imagine if the white settlers insisted that Native Americans celebrate the Fourth of July even as they were dying of small pox?

    It seems to me that mutual recognition first requires that the more powerful side stop creating facts on the ground and engaging in human rights violations that are destroying the physical community of the other. Otherwise it is mere, even dangerous, sentiment.

    Posted by peteski at 05/19/2009 @ 4:52pm

36. It is all very interesting about "bridging the gap", and so on. I wonder whether that is possible now with an aggressive, intransigent, conniving Israeli government, always grabbing more Palestinian land, tearing down Palestinian homes, ever expanding. Israeli policy has been consistent over 61 years whatever political party happened to be governing. If I were Palestinian, I wd have a hard time swallowing this stuff about "bridging the gap". I would say fine, but let the Israelis tear down their wall, rebuilding it, if they like, on their side of the 1967 borders and get every last one of their settlers out of the occupied territories. Then we can start talking about "bridging the gap". Until then, forget it.

    Posted by mikhailovich at 05/19/2009 @ 5:16pm

37. 'Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.' -- Noam Chomsky -- The Nation -- 19 May, 2009

    'The 1948 war was declared by the Arabs, after their rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) that would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state.' -- Wikipedia

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 05/19/2009 @ 5:36pm

38. posted by ROANE CAREY on 05/19/2009 @ 07:39am

    While the efforts and ongoings you describe seem like basically positive efforts at ground-level reconciliation, I suggest to you that it will take a bit more than some educational initiatives to bring peace to the region. The region has seen 60 years of brutal colonialism and currently there is a population of millions of Palestinians living in either open-air prison camps, where they are terrorized daily by Israeli monsters with guns, tanks, and bulldozers, or allowed to live as (basically) Arab "jigaboos" in the land they must now call Israel.

    Just recently, under the Netanyahu government, Israel has initiated the creation of yet another "settlement" in the West Bank. This is colonial land thievery at its worst, and a sign that the educational initiatives you write are not going to be sufficient to somehow help bring peace to the region. The Israelis won't stop stealing land and resources that are not theirs. A textbook won't help with this.

    Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 5:53pm

39. Posted by mikhailovich at 05/19/2009 @ 5:16pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    With respect to what you wrote - it is just amazing, isn't it, how the American perspective on the conflict in Israel/Palestine always seems to fail to acknowledge all the evil that the Israelis have done, and seems to give the Israelis a free pass on the stolen lands, the killed and injured people, etc.

    Certainly, there can be no gap bridged until Israel takes down its wall (built to include land it has no right to) and until Israel evacuates its "settlements".

    Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 5:56pm

40. The 1947 partition plan was highly dubious exercise of the new United Nations. For one thing, it was adopted without the cooperation of both sides involved. Even Israeli leaders recognized that there was no way Arabs, or indeed anybody in the same position, would accept such a plan: 56% of the land was given to people who comprised 30% of the population and 6% of land ownership. Israeli leaders also acknoweledged that they had no intention at stopping at their allotment. How could anyone be expected to accept that? As Ilan Pappe's book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine showed, what happened after was ethnic cleansing by the Zionist military forces.

    Not only that, but the new Israeli state violated the terms of the agreement, taking 78% of the land instead of the allotted amount and gravely trampling the human rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants: "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"

    Posted by peteski at 05/19/2009 @ 5:56pm

41. Correction to my prior post, I quoted the Balfour declaration, but the partition plan has a whole sections dedicated to protecting the right of the Arab (and Jewish) populations, such as "No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State)(4) shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be said previous to dispossession."

    Posted by peteski at 05/19/2009 @ 6:01pm

42. Posted by peteski at 05/19/2009 @ 6:01pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    The Balfour declaration was, as they say, one nation promising a second nation the land of a third. No sane observer could claim that the 1947 UN resolution was just or fair to the great majority of the people living in Palestine. The 1947 resolution should never have happened; Britain and the US had no right to give away Palestine to a group of fanatical Western European religious zealots attempting to recreate some sort of pre-BC homeland.

    Given the state of affairs today, it is desirable to find a remedy to the situation that allows for two viable states. That is the only sane goal. However, the history of those two states will always be a source of contention between their peoples, who will never get along.

    Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 6:09pm

43. larry's all upset because god plagiarized god who had plagiarized god.

    stupid humans.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 8:16pm

44. so what's <i>your</i> plan, criswell?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/19/2009 @ 8:16pm

45. Again. This BS, that the Israeli's deserve Jerusalem because it's their holy land is precisely that. I don't care what a historical text says they own 1600 years ago. They lost it, plain and simple. Much land has been taken from many people over many years I don't see us fighting to get it back for them. A conquering force came in and took America from the Native Americans. Which is about the same concept. So the simple question is, why do we uphold Israel's right to occupy their land just because they owned it 16o0 years ago if we aren't willing to uphold that for, well EVERYONE else?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/19/2009 @ 11:35pm

46. In a real sense the Gaza massacre was not only to "teach Hamas a lesson", but to test to see if the US would do anything. And we all know now that Obama never uttered a syllable at the time, the bribed Congress said nothing either, and now with Netanyahu he sounds very weak especially with Rahm biting his fingernails in the background. They say that the most power lies in he who whispers in the king's ear. Netanyahu, who reminds me more and more of Stalin,knows that the only "solution" will be FORCEABLE deportation of ALL the Palestinians at the point of a gun onto trucks or 1000 El Al planes for all I know and out of Palestine, and Rahm will stop biting his fingernails. Unless the Arab street rises up and I can't see that happening. A one state solution is the last thing Stalinyahu wants. And he's ruled out a two state solution.Ergo, expulsion, because America will continue to finance Israel and look the other way, again.

    Posted by mystic at 05/20/2009 @ 12:03am

47. Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 5:56pm

    I could not agree more with your post. And the worst of it is that the Obama government with respect to foreign policy issues is really Bush Light and thus a huge, if not unexpected disappointment.

    Posted by mikhailovich at 05/20/2009 @ 06:19am

48. US Senators press Obama on 'risk' for Israel

    WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A vast majority of US senators on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to mind the "risks" to Israel in any Middle East peace accord as he presses for a two-state solution to the six-decade conflict.

    "As we work closely with our democratic ally, Israel, we must take into account the risks it will face in any peace agreement," 76 of the 100 senators wrote Obama in a letter released to reporters.

    "Without a doubt, our two governments will agree on some issues and disagree on others, but the United States friendship with Israel requires that we work closely together as we recommit ourselves to our historic role of a trusted friend and active mediator," they wrote.

    http://tinyurl.com/ojy2nj

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 11:58am

49. Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 11:58am

    Sure...it's not going to be the "syfriendly/CripThink" option...

    not going to be your "Re-take Gaza and the WB and ship the Pallies off to Jordan" option either.

    Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 12:06pm

50. Sure...it's not going to be the "syfriendly/CripThink" option...

    not going to be your "Re-take Gaza and the WB and ship the Pallies off to Jordan" option either.

    Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 12:06pm

    We shall see.

    <Israeli official blasts focus on 2-state idea

    May 20

    By AMY TEIBEL Associated Press Writer

    JERUSALEM (AP) - Media focus on the idea of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, favored by President Barack Obama, is "childish and stupid," said an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday The aide's statement reflected efforts by Netanyahu to deflect attention away from the issue during his just-completed trip to Washington.

    Ron Dermer spoke to The Associated Press after Netanyahu and his entourage arrived home from Washington. He denied that he meant that the two-state concept itself childish and stupid, as he was quoted earlier as saying in an anonymous briefing to journalists on the plane carrying Netanyahu home.

    "I told reporters that the focus by the media on the concept of solving the Israel-Palestinian issue through a two-state solution is childish and stupid, but I deny that I described the idea that way," he said.>

    http://tinyurl.com/plpj7n

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 12:26pm

51. The determination of Israel to maintain Jerusalem as the undivided capital- an inspiring article.

    http://tinyurl.com/osr2cr

    And the view of the Arab "Palestinians" towards a two state solution

    <The Palestinian Arabs have been opposing a two-state solution ever since the British Mandate. Nowadays, the PLO says it wants "Palestine" and Israel to exist side by side - though you wouldn't know it from the way it behaves at the negotiating table.

    An insight into why this is so comes from Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in the June 11 New York Review of Books: "For Palestinians, the most primal demands relate to addressing and redressing a historical experience of dispossession, expulsion, dispersal, massacres, occupation, discrimination, denial of dignity, persistent killing-off of their leaders, and the relentless fracturing of their national polity. These… yearnings are of a sort that, no matter how precisely fine-tuned, a two-state deal will find it hard to fulfill.">

    http://tinyurl.com/rcgf5d

    Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 12:41pm

52. Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 12:26pm

    More interesting question to you, Larry, on the new "Israel/Palestine" post by Eyal Press.

    Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 1:39pm

53. Talks without Hamas will be futile while they command the popular vote. Good article: http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/20/the-plot-against-hamas-and-khalid-misha l/

    Posted by Pilgerizer at 05/20/2009 @ 7:16pm

54. "Talks without Hamas will be futile while they command the popular vote. Good article: http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/20/the-plot-against-hamas-and-khalid-misha l/ (Pilgerizer at 05/20/2009 @ 7:16pm)

    This article has been blocked. Any other link?

    Posted by mystic at 05/21/2009 @ 06:37am

55. 'As Uri Avnery, the veteran Israeli writer and peace activist expostulated here furiously in the wake of this last sentence: "Along comes Obama and retrieves from the junkyard the outworn slogan ‘Undivided Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel for all Eternity'. Since Camp David, all Israeli governments have understood that this mantra constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to any peace process. It has disappeared - quietly, almost secretly - from the arsenal of official slogans. No Palestinian, no Arab, no Muslim will make peace with Israel if the Haram-al-Sharif compound (also called the Temple Mount), one of the three holiest places of Islam and the most outstanding symbol of Palestinian nationalism, is not transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. That is one of the core issues of the conflict. On that very issue, the Camp David conference of 2000 broke up."...' -- Alexander Cockburn -- CounterPunch.org -- 13 June 2008

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 05/21/2009 @ 08:09am