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5763: Articles posted from September 2002-September 2003
Get the real situation in Israel every day.
REBUILDING HOPE AND CONFIDENCE IN PEACE
Dr. Gershon Baskin
August 31, 2002
A speech delivered on Saturday night, August 31, 2002 at the weekly demonstration of the Israeli Peace Coalition in front of the Prime Minister's house in Jerusalem. Following Gershon's speech, Dr. Zakaria al Qaq, the Palestinian Co-Director of IPCRI also spoke about a vision of peace and cooperation and the need for new hope for both peoples.
Jerusalem -
Something peculiar is happening to public opinion in Israel. Ever since
the beginning of the second Intifada two years ago, the Israeli public
is continuing to show willingness to arrive at an agreement with the
Palestinians on the key issues of the conflict. Even today, the majority
of Israelis support the establishment of a Palestinian State next to
Israel. The majority of Israelis even support dividing Jerusalem and
sharing it as a capital of two states. A majority of Israelis are in
favor of removing most of the settlements. Almost a majority of
Israelis support the June 4, 1967 as the basis for the borders dividing
Israel and Palestine. All of these opinions are based on the predication
that there is someone on the Palestinian side to make peace with.
It seems that the Israeli public understands and supports what is and
what will be the "price of peace". At the same time, the Israeli public
continues to support the devastating policies of the Israeli Government
as it continues to destroy the Palestinian Authority. This support is
based on the belief in Israel that there is no one to make peace with on
the Palestinian side. Most Israelis don't believe that there is someone
in Palestine to talk to. Most Israelis are convinced that there are no
Palestinians who want peace and compromise with Israel. They believe
that the Palestinians are committed to destroying Israel and to throwing
the Jews into the sea. These slogans of the past have returned and are
voiced by politicians and public officials from all streams of political
life in Israel. They are widely accepted by the Israeli public without
any real scrutiny or questioning by a frightening and frustrated public
living in the constant shadow of terrorism and rage gone out of control
on both sides. This is a spiral of violence which has no place to go but
upwards and will continue to take more and more casualties from both
sides. It seems that we still have not reached the peak in violence. We
have not yet reached a place and a time when the publics on both sides
will scream out loud - ENOUGH! I'M FED UP! WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!
Today both publics continue to call for more killing, more revenge, more
assassinations, more terror, and leaders on both sides have voluntarily
given up their role of leading in the face of angry publics that are
living in constant fears and frustrations. These leaders are incapable
of extracting the two peoples from the very place that they have brought
us to. That very dark place where there is no hope, where dreams are
destroyed, this place of destruction, the place of economic ruin. This
is the place that they complacently call "the situation".
Every week I come to this demonstration. I come because we have to
come. We must show that there are those who don't accept the "situation"
and don't take it for granted. We must demonstrate in order to show that
there is another way. We must present an alternative to this madness.
We must present hope, we must show reason and logic, we must prove that
we truly want peace and reconciliation. I admit, I come to these
demonstrations despite my feelings of frustration. This sense of
frustration comes because our demonstrations are almost invisible and we
have so little influence. But we must continue to demonstrate, we must
continue to raise our voices -a different voice - to be heard in
Israel, but also for the Palestinian to hear that there are voices of
peace and reason in Israel.
Before the Oslo agreement, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was defined
as a "zero-sum-game" - an existential conflict in which there can be
only one winner - us or them. The Oslo agreement changed the nature of
the conflict into a "positive sum game" where both sides could win. The
violent Intifada of the Palestinians and the violent behavior of the
Israeli government has changed the nature of the conflict into a
"lose-lose" arrangement. There is no victor and there can be no victor.
The so-called experts call the present situation a "war of attrition"
whereby the first side to "blink" loses. The strategies they have built
are based on attempts to bring about a total victory and a total defeat
of the enemy. But this will not happen. It is impossible to totally
defeat a people struggling for national liberation and freedom - not the
Jewish people and not the Palestinian people.
Our main task, those who want to recreate the positive sum game - the
win-win scenario, is to rebuild the trust and confidence in peace and
the belief that there are people to talk with on the other side. Just as
our words and demonstrations must be directed at the people of Israel,
they must equally be directed at the people of Palestine. The voice of a
whole camp - the peace camp - was silenced for too long in the wave of
terror that has swept through the country. The silence of the peace camp
is interpreted in Palestine as blind agreement with the policies of the
Sharon Government.
Tomorrow, the new school year opens in Israel. This is an opportunity
for us to raise our voice against the way that an entire new generation
of both sides is being raised and educated without any hope. The school
systems in Israel and in Palestine have failed dramatically in not
providing the citizens of tomorrow with the possibility to see a future
of peace. The school systems embellish the myths and the lies that are
meant to explain to us why the leaders failed and are failing to protect
their citizens. The school systems do not provide the students with
tools for critical thinking and analysis. They do not educate towards a
value system based on the sanctity of life and respect for humanity -
for all humanity.
I would like to briefly share with you a different experience, a
successful experience, one that is growing and widening in the school
systems of Israel and Palestine. This is an experience that gives hope,
it provides and builds hope because it reconstructs the trust and
confidence in peace through the rebuilding of trust and confidence
between Israelis and Palestinians.
IPCRI - the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information - a
joint Israeli-Palestinian research center founded 14 years ago,
established six years ago a new department for Peace Education. This
department has developed programs that are now taught in secondary
schools throughout Israel and Palestine. In this new school year these
programs will be taught in more than 60 schools on both sides. There
will be more than 400 Israeli and Palestinian teachers participating in
the programs with more than 4,500 students involved. Only last month,
some 80 Israeli and Palestinians participated in a five-day joint
training workshop and encounter that took place in Turkey. These
training and encounters took place prior to the Intifada and continue to
be conducted under the very difficult conditions during the past dark
two years of Intifada and violence. These trainings and encounters will
also continue during this school year. During this year, the programs
have grown. There is an increase in more than 50% students, classes, and
teachers who will participate - despite the very difficult situation.
This year, the program will also enter, for the first time, several
National Religious schools in Israel.
Participants in the program have stated that their main motivation for
their participation is the hope that they gain from the knowledge that
there are people on the other side to talk to and there is something to
talk about with them. Perhaps educators from both peoples will show us
the way to a more rational course on the road to peace. It is possible
to educate for peace. It is possible to demand that our schools educate
for peace. The role of the educator is to provide the next generation of
Israelis and Palestinians with the possibilities of succeeding where
their parents failed. The biggest crime that an educational system can
commit to the young generation is to freeze their brain cells with a
manufactured and fabricated consensus of fear of reconciliation and
peacemaking between the two peoples of this land.
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