Where Do They Stand?

I spoke in my last entry about “taking a stand” toward ourselves. I can’t take credit for the concept, which comes from Viktor Frankl’s incredibly perceptive works on psychology. Frankl, however, is speaking about taking a stand toward personal suffering – i.e. if someone has an incurable illness, he still can find meaning by the attitude he takes and the purpose he finds. I am speaking about taking a stand toward communal suffering – i.e. how we can each be responsible for our societies by being responsible for ourselves. Earlier I spoke in general about this necessary reorientation. What about its specific application to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

From what I’ve experienced firsthand, both sides are eager to shirk responsibility, to pawn off their own weaknesses as faults of the other side. I talk to Israelis and they bemoan the Palestinian lack of leadership, the fact that there’s “no one to talk to” on the other side, at least no one of equivalent position or expertise. Palestinians decry the Occupation, the Wall, the Oppression. It is difficult to find anyone willing to talk about the flaws and defects of their own society, the fact that Israelis are often complacent and content with the status quo – to the detriment of their moral authority – and the fact that Palestinians are either too invested in absolutes or else too fragmented to push for fair compromise. There are many, many more aspects in both cultures where introspection and self-critique are needed. The “New Historians” have begun this process in Israel, and Rashid Khalidi is starting the conversation in Palestinian academic circles, but these reflective and analytic voices are too few to generate generational change.

The philosopher Karl Jaspers once said, “What man is, he has become through a cause which he has made his own.” If we accept the truth of this statement, consider it in light of Israel/Palestine. The individuals of these respective societies have become who they are mainly by adopting the cause of conflict. Fighting for something (a state, recognition, land) or fighting against something (occupation, injustice, terrorism) – both come to the same end. People become so preoccupied with the “other” that they ironically become less self-aware and more self-centered. They loose one of the essential human freedoms: the freedom of imagination. They can no longer imagine what it is like to live an existence or to accept a truth contrary to their own. And since they can no longer imagine, they can no longer legitimize or empathize. I feel that when it comes to Israel/Palestine, both societies have lost this fundamental imaginative freedom.

This loss is felt everywhere, especially when the subject of peace is broached. I’ve talked to several Israeli students – well-schooled, well-traveled, intellectually curious and politically moderate youth – who all come to the same basic conclusion: There can be no peace. At best there will be a stand-off; at worst Israel will continue to build settlements and Palestinians will continue to blow themselves up. Why should Israel make any concessions with the current Palestinian “government”? When it comes to a “two-state solution” both sides – with the notable exception of officialdom – are incredulous. The one-state solution is only championed by a very few Palestinian academics and free-thinkers. A three-state solution is the domain of cynics. And what else is there?

This is where imagination would be so very helpful. Maybe instead of peace conferences and commissions and committees, we need some peace brainstorming, some peace blasphemy (what about giving social and financial incentives to Israeli-Palestinian interracial couples?). We need some risk-taking and political incorrectness. The hopelessness and complacency must be shaken up.

As I write this entry, I am sitting in a park on the bank of the Yarkon River. This sounds very picturesque, and, for Israel, it is. I mean, it’s hot and dusty and there are insects and power plants and the river is polluted…but…there are also families, birds singing, rowers, joggers, and birthday parties. Why should Israelis in such a place give two snaps for a Palestinian family in the West Bank or Gaza? Why should they care about the identity crisis facing Palestinian citizens of Israel? Moral arguments are not good enough, not when human satisfaction and security are at stake. Netanyahu’s “economic peace” is certainly part of the picture, for economic interdependence is one of the established pillars of Kant’s democratic peace theory (the idea that democracies don’t fight each other). But for Kant’s theory to work, both societies need to be democracies – and at the moment, one is (approximately) and one isn’t.

New stakes need to be created. King Abdullah of Jordan’s idea of the Arab Peace Initiative (that if a two-state solution is enacted, Israel would obtain official peace with all signatory Arab governments) is a generous though sadly empty offer. You see, Israel doesn’t really need peace with the other Arab states. It has peace with Jordan and Egypt, the two most influential. Economic stakes are important, but again, a greater incentive for Palestinians than for Israelis. Some Palestinian activists have attempted a “boycott, divest, and sanction” (BDS) movement around the world against the Israeli government. It’s too weak and support for Israel too strong. International condemnation of settlements and human rights abuses generally goes unnoticed. If normalized relations won’t work, and economics won’t work, and politics won’t work, and moral arguments won’t work, what will? Short of a heightened crisis (Intifada III? God forbid) or environmental catastrophe, it seems the only hope I can find is in the following:

• A SPIRITUAL EXCAVATION of the Holy Land to find the roots of the conflict, the true identity of the people. This undertaking must be individual as much as it is communal
• Personal and collective RESPONSIBILITY-TAKING
• Exercising the FREEDOM OF IMAGINATION to begin breaking down externally-shaped identities and creating internally-conscious (and conscientious) individuals
• As much COLLABORATION, co-education, and meaningful contact between the two sides as possible
• A transition, on both sides, from living in a state of SURVIVAL to one of EXISTENCE
• Much later, CO-EXISTENCE will be possible, but only after each side learns to live with themselves in a constructive way instead of the present destructive mentality