Meteor Blades posted a Diary asking us to think beyond the conflict, to look for solutions outside of the sixty year narrative of this conflict.
I have been reluctant to weigh into the back and forth over this issue as our discussions here at Daily Kos are just a fractal of the shooting war. Both sides have stories. Both sides can point to facts, loss, fear and selective mythology. We spend our time in these Mid Esat Diaries supporting and/or refuting those narratives.
Despite my trepidation, I'm game.
So I'll get off my focus on Jack Abramoff for a day and offer up my novel approach as an answer to Meteor Blades:
Let's put a true value on human life.
To the jump...
I do not think this conflict will be resolved until we value human life--all human life. Without that recognition the end game for both sides is ethnic cleansing (killing, removing or beating into submission the population of the other side).
For a good description of what is going on in this conflict, I would recommend reading The War Prayer by Mark Twain. Sure it was written long before this conflict began, but it captures the essence of it quite well. Here is the prayer at the heart of the story:
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
Amen.
We could call the end game of the current path (of both sides) by many names, I choose to call it ethnic cleaning.
As a citizen of this planet I can not accept that end game, for either side.
So here is my starting point.
A new round of negotiations should start out by making clear that ethnic cleansing is where (regardless of intentions) the conflict is headed.
A first agreement might be that all sides think ethnic cleansing is a bad idea.
A second agreement might be that all sides recognize the value of each human life.
To be binding these two agreements would need an enforcement mechanism. There would have to be monitoring and a price to pay for violating the agreement.
The price for each violation should be real. I would advocate a fine of $1,000,000 per each civilian life lost and $500,000 for each person critically wounded. There could be exceptions for soldiers in organized fighting forces (National or militias).
New international mechanism would have to be empowered to collect these fees which would have to be earmarked to solving humanitarian needs and building civil society institutions in the region.
That is how a peace process based on all sides recognizing the value of human life might look.
The sad truth is that human life is not viewed with equal value. Moving to an agreement based on formally recognizing that every life has value would be revolutionary.
It would also be incredibly difficult.
It would require diplomatic skills and imagination that I do not see among the players in the region or on the World stage. And it would face fanatical opposition from players who have staked their power on dehumanizing their political opponents (I'm looking at you G W Bush). Exposing their arguments that some human lives should be disposable to the light of day will weaken the power of their rhetoric.
This will take time and this fight has been going on for centuries. We are making progress, but there is a lot of work left to do.
It starts with a deceptively simple idea: All human life is of equal value.
From that seed Government sanctioned slavery in America was ended, Colonial powers were overturned, as was the Soviet Union, civil rights movements were began and many victories have been won.
It is about keeping our eyes on the prize.
I can not spend time going into the specific narratives of grievance of all sides in the Mideast conflict. My personal memories are as faulty as the next guy.
I remember some things right and some things wrong and there are thousands of facts and nuances I have never learned. The collective narrative is as faulty as my own.
But I do know that each human life is of equal and infinite value. Each life is precious.
That is the basis of the Human Rights movement.
This is more than rhetoric. It is about thinking in new ways. It is about imaging the world as a new and better place.
When I was twelve I campaigned for Bobby Kennedy. I was staying up late watching primary results when RFK was assassinated before my eyes. His killer was a Christian Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan. As I remember the story, Sirhan was upset by the results of the 1967 War and RFK's commitment to sell advanced weapons to Israel.
To this day I remember this line from RFK's campaign stump speech:
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968 presidential campaign
I think Bobby Kennedy would be looking for a solution rooted in the value of human life. I think that is what Yitzhak Rabin was working towards before his assassination (and I remember where I was that day as well). Human Rights motivated Jimmy Carter and (I believe Bill Clinton).
The undeniable value of each human life would have been the foundation of a Gore Administration.
It is not part of the discussion today.
I blame George W. Bush.
He does not value human life. And it is that simple. He does not lead because he does not believe protecting innocent life is valuable.
He has moved our country away from basic human decency.
When I think of RFK's quote and ask Why Not?, I see Bush.
My modest proposal might not work. It would be very hard to negotiate and implement. And it would face endless obstacles. I imagine that many would take issue with my premise that left alone all sides in the conflict will move towards ethnic cleansing as their default solution, but I think it is a hard truth and one that has to be named in order to have any hope of resolution.
Only a plan that is grounded in basic human rights for all can resolve this conflict.
And to do that we need leadership and accountability.
If we want peace in the Middle East (or anywhere) we have to ensure that Democrats take back the House and Senate this November.
We have work to do. Serious work to do.
2006 is now.
Let's take our Country back.
I am not being hyperbolic when I say the fate of the planet depends upon our success in November. I believe it does.
Let's keep our eye on the prize and get to work.