On May 4th, Gazans gathered at the Israeli border to write wishes for peace onto pieces of paper, attach the notes to doves, and then send the birds off to deliver their messages to Israel. Here’s the event flyer:
And a video (and my apologies for not being able to provide a translation, but I don’t know Arabic… You can make out the words “salaam” and “Israel”, so, I feel pretty confident that it’s all good):
I believe that when people’s sympathies lie far more with the ones sending words of peace across the border on doves,
than with the ones lobbing Molotov cocktails across the border on swastika kites,
or the ones indiscriminately firing live ammo across the border, the other way…
then there will be peace.
And I’m not saying that the counterproductive actions on both sides are equivalent- I’m only saying that the more support there is for peace (all-around), the greater the likelihood of it actually coming about.
So then, this leads to the question of how to get more people to favor peace…
I have come to strongly suspect that the present lack of interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace, is largely due to it (as of yet) not really being well defined- for it’s hard to want something, that can’t even be tangibly conceptualized.
I commonly encounter the view that the “nuts & bolts” details should be left to the “experts” to hash out, and only at the time of “negotiations”- but this ordering may be fundamentally backwards, if in fact arriving at something that can be broadly agreed upon, is a necessary prerequisite to actually reaching peace...
Of course these matters are not easy- I would never presume this. But I don’t think one necessarily has to be an ivy league professor of Middle Eastern studies, in order to understand certain basic aspects of this. I mean, it says right in the third paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for “1948 Palestinian exodus”:
Factors involved in the exodus include
Jewish military advances,
destruction of Arab villages,
psychological warfare, and
fears of another massacre by Zionist militias after the Deir Yassin massacre, which caused many to leave out of panic;
direct expulsion orders by Israeli authorities;
the voluntary self-removal of the wealthier classes;
collapse in Palestinian leadership and
Arab evacuation orders and
an unwillingness to live under Jewish control.
I selectively left/right justified portions of the above quote, to accentuate a key point regarding a particular challenge of this conflict- the Palestinian right of return: Because of all the stuff on the left, Israel cannot claim zero culpability in this, and thus should acquiesce to allowing the return of qualified diaspora Palestinians. However because of all the stuff on the right, Israel is not solely culpable either- and therefore Palestinians, in acknowledgement of this, should be amenable to Israel setting some reasonable limit on the number of returnees. In this diary, I had proposed the number 800,000 for this limit. And well, guess what? Some people told me that they thought this number was way too high, and other people told me that they thought this number was way too low. And so then I thought, maybe I might be about right…
I believe that in order for a solution to have any chance at gaining sufficiently widespread acceptance, it must be as balanced as possible, as I do feel mine is. And so, yes, I am repeating something I’ve already said in an earlier diary… however, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza still persists, and it only stands to reason that it will just keep on persisting, until the underlying problem is addressed through the implementation of a sensible solution.
The protests now taking place at the Gaza border present an immediate dilemma, but if we restrict our focus to the activities at the border, then this will at best just get us past this current situation. Although, the matter at hand must also still be dealt with… Thus I’ll conclude with some action items that I think we should all be able to rally behind (even if we may not necessarily agree on any particular solution): Our beloved Senator Bernie Sanders has drafted a letter to the State Department, urging that it restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and encourage the easing of the blockade on Gaza, and help with rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure:
There’s a change.org petition to the entire Senate, requesting support for Sanders’s letter. And we can also target senators individually, by calling them (as J-Street suggests). I think it would pack an especially powerful wallop if Sanders’s letter were loaded with as many Democratic signatures as possible, as this would help to distinguish our party magnificently, in sharp contrast with the ever-descending train wreck that is the current GOP. Encouragingly there’s already an analogous movement in the House, with the following statement by Rep. David Price (NC-04) being backed by 9 of his fellow Democratic congressmembers:
We are deeply concerned by the violence and the tragic loss of life along the border of Gaza. As strong supporters of Israel and advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we respect Israel’s right to defend itself. However, short of a threat to human life, we call on the Israeli Defense Forces to immediately stop using deadly force against unarmed protestors. Likewise, we respect the Palestinians who are advocating for change through peaceful means. However, we call on the Palestinian demonstrators to renounce the violence and inflammatory rhetoric expressed by Hamas. With demonstrations expected to last into May, we urge both Israelis and Palestinians to refrain from any actions that would further escalate tensions and cause further bloodshed. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have a right to a just, safe, and secure future, which can only be achieved through diplomacy—not military action.