By Mazin Qumsiyeh

AS A PALESTINIAN FROM THE WEST BANK I was raised under Israeli occupation, but my family was rather lucky in being in a part of Palestine that was occupied in 1967 rather than ethnically cleansed in 1948. This has always placed an element of guilt and responsibility on me. Most people I developed close connection to seem to be refugees: in childhood schools in Bethlehem, in college in Jordan, and even in the United States where 400,000 Palestinians now live. But the second group of people I developed close friendship with is Jews of conscience. These interactions and many others shaped my life, including my philosophy of life.

My thoughts evolved as I learned history and grew in my political understanding of the causes and consequences of the Zionist project. I went through stages of anger, depression, immobility, hope, and caring. Today, sixty years after that seminal event, there are simple truths that my friends (Palestinians, Israelis, U.S. citizens, etc.) and I understand even as we continue to evolve our political and activist agenda. We know now that the catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948 was not inevitable and certainly most Jews in the world at the time did not participate in the Zionist project (although many were silent while today many speak out).

We know that ethnocentric nationalism is not the humane answer to the racism and discrimination inherent in ethnocentric nationalism. We know that people of all faiths and backgrounds can and do work together for peace and justice. They can and do live together (even as husband and wife--I have been married to a Chinese woman for twenty-three years). We know that violence is a symptom of the underlying disease not its etiology (as seen in the end of violence in Northern Ireland and South Africa). We know violence to be more: that violence only begets violence. We know that the only route to a durable peace is restorative justice. And we know that we must transcend the nineteenth-century ideologies especially now in this twenty first century after the birth of Jesus. This is the era of dissolving borders (e.g., in Europe) and dissolving barriers (e.g., the internet). In my humble opinion, the only way to maintain an Israeli Hebrew culture is Sharing the Land of Canaan (the title of my book). If apartheid (segregation) was the problem in South Africa and the Jim Crow South, why would we think it a solution in the Holy Land?

We can either wallow in our old violent ways or we can really be alight unto the nations. Of all these lessons, the one I as a Palestinian Christian most understand now is what Jesus and many of the prophets taught: though we must challenge and hate the bad deeds done to any fellow human being, we must never hate the evil-doers but try to win them over to the causes of humanity and co-existence. That should be our collective mission and the lesson we draw from sixty years of violence (but also sixty years of good people doing good things for peace and justice).

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh served on the faculty of Duke and Yale Universities and is a peace activist who splits his time between Palestine, Connecticut, and the Wheels of Justice bus tour (justicewheels.org).