By Mary Ann Paliani
I have a dream! In it, both Israel and Gaza rise up — together — like a phoenix from the ashes, and serve as a model of peace, prosperity and humanity for the world to emulate. Can such a dream become a reality when two such culturally different populations bear so much hatred toward each other — hatred stimulated by the consuming conflict in which they are engaged?
Before considering how such a dream might materialize, let’s review the current situation, and examine what’s at stake. Today, Israel, Iran and Iran’s proxies are locked in an escalating, retaliatory conflict in the Middle East. The war is murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians and reducing their communities to rubble. Evidence exists that the warring militants on both sides are engaging in the gratuitous brutalization of combatants and noncombatants alike.
If Israel wins the war, what can it expect? Will the losing side in the battle forget the death and destruction that Israel has caused? Probably not. Will winning the war against Hamas, Iran and its proxies, ensure Israel’s future security? Highly unlikely. Israel’s enemies may not respond immediately, but they will respond, as they have in the past!
Since its inception in 1948, Israel has engaged in numerous, fruitless struggles with its neighbors over the land it occupies. At the heart of these struggles is disagreement about who has an absolute, religious or historical right to the ground on which Israel and Gaza lie. The dispute will remain until a peaceful negotiation is accomplished — one that objectively and fairly recognizes the basic human rights of both populations.
Tragically, the leaders on both sides of the conflict have just one objective — annihilating each other! Winning an enduring peace seems to be secondary to winning the war! They fail to understand that peace cannot be built on a foundation of hate, death and destruction that warfare creates.
Offsetting these negatives is a growing volume of voices around the world, among non-Jews as well as Jews who are crying out, Stop it! Recently, on NPR an American Jewish woman recounted how she had recently participated in a Shiva, a Jewish ritual for the dead. But it wasn’t for the Jewish dead, it was for the victims in Gaza. Jewish leaders, like Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, are vigorously voicing their opposition to the war’s immoral and unjustifiable military actions.
Given the growing outcry against the hostilities, what if the war-weary people in Israel and Gaza were to seize the moment and replace their war-mongering leaders with people focused on stopping an endless war and creating an enduring peace? What if these peace-oriented leaders were to focus their respective populations on the critical experiences that bind them together? Both have suffered suppression, marginalization and the denial of basic rights at some time in the past. What if both Israelis and Gazans worked together to bring the hostages home, to deliver humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza, to rebuild Gaza and to restore Israel’s reputation as a responsible democracy? What if both populations agreed to share the land rather than seize it for themselves? What if this unified entity became a state where Jews and Palestinians could safely coexist as equals? Indeed, what if Gaza and Israel were to subsequently unite as one nation, much as East and West Germany did in 1990? What if their unification resulted in a nation that became an economic powerhouse in the Middle East, much as Germany did after its unification? Might this not become a learning moment for the entire world and a turning point in our social evolution?
In today’s world, people and nations are connected to and dependent on one another in unprecedented ways. Isolationism and ultra-nationalism don’t have a place in it. The nations of the Middle East have so much more to gain by working together and pooling their incredible human, natural and technological resources rather than dissipating that wealth in warfare. It would be well for them to recall Thomas Paine’s immortal words: “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”
Mary Ann Paliani lives in Boulder.
