Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah: The vicious circle of righteousness, force, and loss of compassion

The consciousness of many of our people rotates around this righteousness of the victim. It is not a coincidence that we are much less aware of our power and strength and its negative effects on the others who suffer from our powerful acts. The victims have an advantage over the perpetrators: They do not have to take responsibility for their own actions, as these are only a reaction to the evil acts of the others. Therefore, we should perhaps be reminded in these harsh days of bombs and fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, that it was our power-oriented behavior in Lebanon and in the occupied territories that contributed to the creation of both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in the territories. These militant organizations were created partially as a reaction to our excessive use of power. After these organizations grew to a magnitude which threatens us, we complain and again see ourselves as their victims, and them as terrorists with whom one cannot talk?

Though we tend to put all our 'enemies' in one basket, I want to draw a clear line differentiating between the Hezbollah and the Hamas. The first is a terrorist organization which acts violently against Israel in spite of international law, thereby also endangering the safety of the Lebanese government and people. It is motivated by the regional interests of Iran and Syria and should be taken care of by the international community, as it endangers not only Israel but also the region as a whole. The Israeli government is right in its efforts to weaken this organization and the only open question is if the current military actions in Lebanon will actually contribute to achieving this goal or will actually strengthen the Hezbollah, at least in the eyes of its Arab neighbors.

Unlike the Hezbollah, the Hamas government was elected through democratic elections by the Palestinian people, mainly as a reaction of the latter to the previous corrupt government and less because of its policy toward Israel. In the last months we have seen a bitter struggle within the Hamas, pressured by the Europeans, Abu Mazen, and delegates from Egypt and Jordan, between the moderate part of the Hamas, led by Ismail Haniya, and the military part, led by Haled Mashal. The prisoners? document that was signed between Marwan Barghouti and the leaders of the Hamas in the Israeli prison could be a basis for a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority. Now we are the ones who refuse to conduct such a dialogue, less out of political wisdom, but out of feeling of superiority and power-orientation. It was our military reaction to the abduction of Gilad Shalit that actually gave strength to the extremists of the Hamas in their struggle with the moderate part, instead of doing the opposite. Where is the logic for this deed?

With the Palestinian people we have to reach a painful but necessary compromise of dividing this land. A compromise can be achieved only through dialogue. We are the only people in the world, ridden by an intractable conflict with another people, who refuse to understand that a compromise will be reached only through an open dialogue. Almost every child in Israel and Palestine knows the nature of this compromise by heart: Return to the borders of 1967, with slight changes, two states with their capitals in Jerusalem, and a systematic step-wise solution to the resettlement of the Palestinian refugees, including Israel?s recognition of its share in the creation of that difficult issue. That was agreed upon in Taba in 2001, was suggested by the Arab League in 2002, and was also the basis for the prisoners? document. By reaching a compromise, the Palestinians will be pulled out from the threatening balance of power in our region, as they are not an essential part of that balance but rather suffer from it just like us.

It could happen that when the military operation will be over, we will be faced with a Palestinian government that will be ready to enter negotiations with the Israeli government based on this compromise. The question then will be: Is there an Israeli government capable of entering such a process of negotiations? Right now it does not seem that the Israeli government has a mandate to carry out such a compromise with the Palestinian people. By moving out of Lebanon and Gaza, Israel tried to retrieve an internal consensus of righteousness, which was hampered by the long occupation of lands which were not ours in the first place. The fact that Israel returned every inch of these territories, according to international law, made us again rightful, in our own eyes and those of the international community. We loved that feeling so much that we wanted to apply it also to the West Bank, cutting ourselves off behind an 8 meter wall. This was the mandate the Kadima party got from the Israeli people in the last elections. The Prime Minister even proclaimed that when this will be accomplished Israel will be a state in which it will be ?fun to live,? perhaps aiming at the full accomplishment of internal consensus and feeling of righteousness, by giving up most of the occupied territories.

However, in this whole 'clean' process someone forgot that there is also another people, with their own needs, pains and feeling of righteousness and powerfulness. In this whole process we played chess with ourselves, without letting the other party have a say, as "there is no one to talk to," and they anyway "understand only force." In that sense the Kassam missiles on Sderot and Ashkelon were unpleasant reminders of another people who suffer and needs a way to express itself. Whoever does not want to talk with them will get missiles and abducted soldiers.

Therefore, my recommendation to the Israeli government, which promised with its inception a new public agenda to a public tired of empty promises, is: Weaken the Hezbollah as much as you can, including by military means if it can serve that goal, but give up the new plan for disengagement that throws sand in our eyes and start talking to the Palestinians on the painful compromise between them and us, a solution both our people need so badly. Remember, a compromise is not based on either absolute righteousness or absolute powerfulness. It is based on compassion: Compassion for the people who suffer, who were killed, compassion for their family members, compassion for a public that is tired of just and successful wars.

Dan Bar-On, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Dan Bar-On is a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Ben-Gurion University. He is also the co-director of PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East) near Beit Jala in the West Bank. He is the author of several books, among others - Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich (Harvard University Press, 1989), Fear and Hope: Three Generations of Holocaust Survivors' Families (Harvard University Press, 1998) and The Indescribable and the Undiscussable (Central European University Press, 1999). In 1996 he was awarded the David Lopatie Chair for Post-Holocaust Psychological Studies. In 2001 he received the BundesverdienstKreutz First Class, from German President Dr. Johannes Rau. In 2003 he received the Eric Maria Remarque Peace Prize in Osnabruck, Germany.