My friend Eboo Patel, the executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, wrote a great piece on the On Faith blog at the Washington Post. He has three status quo approaches that continue the cycle of violence and then contrasts them with four solution approaches that he proposes to break through the deadlock. I wonder if we have the guts to try what he suggests:
Rule No. 1 is use the current crisis to advance your narrative. If you’re Jewish, that story involves words like “security”, “terrorism”, and “right to exist”. If you’re Muslim, it includes terms like, “humanitarian crisis”, “occupation” and “disproportionate violence”.
Rule No. 2 is talk about how bad it is where your people live. If you’re Jewish, that means highlighting the number of Hamas rockets fired into Israel and the number of lives lost and disrupted in cities like Sderot. If you’re Muslim, it involves talking about the prison that is Gaza and the disaster that is the West Bank.
Rule No. 3 is blame it on the other side. If you’re Jewish, that means pointing at the violent and belligerent defiance of Hamas. If you’re Muslim, it means talking about the suffocation of the blockade in Gaza and the occupation in the West Bank.
Following these rules makes perfect sense for the parties involved because just about every one of their talking points is true. Hamas is violent and belligerent. The blockade and occupation is suffocating. Life in Sderot is rife with fear. Life in Gaza does feel like a prison.
vs:
Rule No. 1: Make your first phone calls to the people who disagree with you on the current situation, but who agree with you on the basic outlines of a long-term solution – two states, with security and dignity for all. That’s a Coalition for a Solution, creative and courageous enough to get people’s attention. This means, difficult as it might be, resist the instinct to use the current crisis to find more people who will wave signs for your side, show up at your rallies or sign on to your petitions. That logic serves mostly to further prolong the conflict. Instead, use the spotlight on the Middle East to reach out to those on the other side who have the courage to play for a long-term solution and say, “Look, the status quo is untenable for everybody. It’s time for a different set of rules.”
Rule No. 2: Acknowledge the real issues on the other side. Minnesota U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, models this in his recent press release when he says that he has been in Sderot and has “seen firsthand both the physical and emotional destruction caused by the rocket attacks”. That acknowledgment doesn’t take away from something else that Ellison says – which is that conditions in Gaza are “unliveable”. It merely means that Ellison has the eyes and the heart to imagine life on both sides of the fence.
In Status Quo Rules, recognizing the challenge on the other side makes you a traitor. In the Solution Rulebook, it makes you a true patriot, because it’s the fastest way to build trust with the people you have to build peace with.
Rule No. 3: Recognize that certain players who claim to be on “your side” are part of the problem. The truth is, you don’t want them on your side anyway. They are dangerous and destabilizing to your community. When peace is finally made with the other side, your first battle is going to be against them. Hamas is a destructive force to Israelis, and a destructive force to Palestinians. Muslims should feel no obligation to defend them. The militant settlers are murder to Palestinians, and also murder to Israel. No Jews should feel like they have to defend them either.
Rule No. 4: The politics of the Middle East is about where your family is. If your family is in Sderot, it is unbearable. If your family is in Gaza, it is also unbearable. Talking about whether scattered Hamas rockets are the equivalent of precision Israeli air raids, or whether Islamist rhetoric is as bad as Israeli occupation is logical but irrelevant. Logical because you can write press releases for your side using such talking points, irrelevant because it doesn’t build a bridge to the other side, which is the only way to a solution.
posted January 11, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I believe that the analogy with is taking place in the Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto as quite apt, except that the Israeli state does not intend to exterminate the Palestinians as the Nazis did to the Warsaw Ghetto Jews. An even more apt analogy is the brutal bombing and massacres of thousands of innocent Czech villagers by the Nazis after the top Nazi Commander, Reinhardt Heydrich, also known the butcher of Prague, and Hitler’s Reichsprotector of Czechoslovakia was assassinated by two special Czech commandos specifically parachuted by British intelligence to care it out. Reinhardt Heydrich was the head of the SA, the Sicherheitsdients, the German Homeland Security Services, (the Intelligence branch of the SS) and carried out massive and notorious sadistic repression and hardship upon the Czech people. This sadistic Nazi Commander, Heydrich, by the way headed of the special meeting held outside Berlin, the Wansee Conference, to map out the Final Solution and the extermination of the Jews of Europe. This type of bombing, massacres, blockades, random killing, executions, and various punishments of innocent civilians carried out by the Nazis as reprisals for the activities of anti-Nazi resistance fighters was repeated innumerable times throughout Nazi occupied Europe, in order to turn the people against the partisans and resistance fighters. The same tactic is presently being carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza. It all started by the Israeli economic blockade of the Gaza to turn the population against Hamas which was elected democratically by an overwhelming majority by the Palestinians in the Gaza and the West Bank. The Hamas government was dismissed by the ex terrorist and billionaire in the construction industry, Mahmud Abbas the present day corrupt president of the Palestinian Authority. He is viewed in the Gaza and the West Bank as a type of corrupt pro-Western Mubarak. In fact his army and police have been openly financed, armed and trained by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. This attempt to punish the Gazans by forcing them into untold economic and material hardship and suffering in order to turn them against hamas has lead to this firing of missiles into Israel as a form of defiance to end the blockade. All Israel has to do is allow food and material in, end the economic blockade, and have international observers oversee that no weapons enter the area. The only true way to truly undermine Hamas is by ensuring prosperity, industry, employment and material wellbeing to the people of Gaza.
Also as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, Pope Paul II canonized the Croatian Ustachi Fascist and anti-Semitic priest of World War ll, whose name escapes me at the moment, over the protests of Israel and the Serbian government. He was present with Croatian Ustachi Nazi-supported troops and those Jews and Serbs who did not convert to Catholicism and he gave the go ahead and allowed the Ustachi soldiers and commanders to execute them. He was present at many of these executions when they were asked to convert. Pope Paul II said that this priest was a staunch anti-communist and a Croatian patriot who fought for Croatian independence. This priest was executed by Tito’s government as a war criminal after a trial at the end of the war. When I raised this issue with John Allen, the almost official reporter stationed at the Vatican for the National Catholic Reporter, he simply said he was executed by a Communist government of Tito, and therefore his conviction is suspect and his war crimes are void, evincing absolutely no sympathy for the murdered Jews and Serbs. Allen’s remarks are very similar to those of a new brand of Holocaust apologist. This time they raise issues of ambivalence, ambiguity and illegitimacy and fairness, even though the Soviet Union was present at the Nuremburg Trials and these convictions of Nazi leaders were accepted by all governments including the US and therefore in no way were their war crime convictions considered null or void just because the Soviet Union was present and a participant at these trials. Moreover, the Soviet Union at the time was an ally of America and Britain against Nazi Germany. It was Russian troops that liberated the extermination camps in Poland and eastern Germany and many of these were led by Jewish Red Army officers and soldiers. Thank you for reading my blog. Tom Tsuka Thank you for reading my blog Tom Tsuka
posted January 11, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Patel makes a lot of sense, in my view.
I hope a lot of well placed people take him up on his suggestions.
posted January 12, 2009 at 7:32 am
Your analogy to the Warsaw Ghetto is not valid. The Jews never posed a threat to Nazis or to Germany. They certainly never denied Germany’s right to exist. They never attacked anyone. The Nazis created the Warsaw Ghetto to make it easier to murder all the Jews inside it.
The Palestinian population of Gaza keeps growing. If Gaza was like the Warsaw Ghetto the population would be continually shrinking.
It is Hamas that has a Nazi-like hatred for ALL Jews everywhere. Hamas which uses and believes Nazi propaganda about Jews. I believe Hamas would try to kill Jews everywhere if they had the capability. Ironically, Hamas leaders are Holocaust deniers, but they keep comparing Jews to Nazis.
posted January 12, 2009 at 10:48 am
It is wonderful to read the words of a man with a truly even-handed and balanced approach. Bravo, Mr. Patel.
posted January 12, 2009 at 11:40 am
Susan nicely illustrates the “status quo” solution(?).
posted January 13, 2009 at 7:48 am
I am only looking at the situation honestly and without blinders on. What did I say that was not accurate?
posted January 14, 2009 at 11:00 pm
What is inaccurate is a description of what is going on as if all the bad guys are on one side, all the bad attitudes are on one side, all the wrong doing is on one side. That is demonstrably false.