Tikkun Magazine, March/April 2009
Seven Principles About The Isreli-Palestinian Conflict
By Cherie R. Brown
1. Every situation, including the current conflict in Gaza, can provide us with new opportunities to think, take leadership, and move the conflict forward, if we are able to act outside of hopelessness and discouragement. Even as the violence continues, new opportunities arise for us to mobilize others, put out correct information, and gain allies for good policies.
2. A just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking longer than any of us want, and we need to grieve about the horrible loss of lives on all sides. In particular, we need to grieve about the current setbacks, which are real. But even with these setbacks, there are also important new opportunities for increased dialogue, leadership, mobilization of others, and action.
3. No one group or country deserves to be targeted as the sole perpetrator of the current conflict. Not the Israelis who feel threatened by continued rockets landing in Israel and then seek safety and security by striking back. And not the Palestinians who send the rockets when they feel besieged by an occupation that has lasted way too long.
4. Even if no one side is totally to blame, it is still each side's responsibility—and obligation—to stop wrong actions and to reach for rational policies and solutions that take everyone's long-term needs into account.
5. It is not helpful for Diaspora Jews to attack Israelis for the difficulties they have in being able to think clearly under conditions of hopelessness and terror. It is not helpful for Israelis to attack Diaspora Jews when they seek to find their own independent voice and articulate the role that the U.S. government can and should play in moving the current situation forward.
6. Any solution that is found to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will need to take all historic injustices into account but not be bound by them. Both peoples (and their allies) put out narratives about the current situation that have correct information in them—but these narratives also contain distortions that are a result of a history of mistreatment and painful emotion. One narrative says Israel is being besieged: Hamas is primarily a terrorist organization, and there is no choice now but to engage in a long protracted war in Gaza until Hamas is totally defeated. Another narrative says Hamas is primarily a liberation organization, working to free the Palestinian people from occupation by Israel, and therefore should not be blamed for sending rockets into Israel. Any narrative that portrays one side only as a victim and the other side as worthy of all or most of the blame for the conflict does not have the full picture. Any narrative that describes the current situation needs to take into account the history of mistreatment of both peoples; both sides' hunger for peace, justice, and security; and the need to prevent outside forces from pitting one side against the other for purposes of greed and exploitation.
7. There are no military solutions to this conflict that will achieve lasting peace and justice for Israelis or for Palestinians. Any solution will require the engagement of all Israelis and all Palestinians, including Hamas, in dialogue and negotiations. No people in the current situation can ultimately be destroyed, expelled, or beaten into submission. Attempts to do so will, in the long term, only engender further violence and retaliation, as well as increase the length of time it will take to reach a negotiated settlement.
Cherie Brown is the executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute, an international leadership training organization dealing with anti-oppression issues, and she has been involved in Jewish Middle East peace groups for 35 years. She is currently on the board of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom.
Source Citation
Brown, Cherie. 2009. Seven Principles About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Tikkun 24(2): 47.
