Nissim Dahan
Admin
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10.23.2007 12:44
Hi Valentin,
As always, your comments are cutting edge. Thank God for people like you who have the courage to speak out.
I see where you?re coming from. I too admire the work of pro-Israel lobby groups like AIPAC. Israel needs all the help it can get. But it is also true that lobby groups in general, have a difficult time seeing things from different points of view. It is hard to imagine, for example, that AIPAC could be convinced to endorse the give and take negotiations that are prerequisites for peace.
You are also right to suggest that ??a one-sided, all-or-nothing, with-us-or-against-us demagoguery? is often the case among people who believe strongly in any given cause. If someone, for example, like Bishop Tutu or President Carter, uses the word ?apartheid? with regard to Israel, he is likely to be severely criticized and even demonized by people who are intensely committed to the survival of the Jewish state.
Why do people react this way? Some Jews look at the history, the present, and the future of the Jewish People, who number only 14 million, and come invariably to the conclusion that: ?They were out to get us in the past. They are plotting to get us as we speak. And they may well end up getting us in the future.? When Jews worry about their survival as a people, they?re not exactly over-exaggerating.
The history of the Jews is replete with every form of tragedy known to man: expulsion, dispossession, forced conversion, discrimination, demonization, and ultimately, extermination. At present, even though most Jews have it good, there are plans afoot to destroy the State of Israel, the ultimate refuge of the Jewish People. And as for the future, it is not difficult to imagine a doomsday scenario, an ill-fated succession of events, that will one day threaten the viability of Israel, and by implication, of all Jews.
And so, when some Jews over-react to a perceived threat, or even to a symbolic threat, it is with a sense of history, and with a sense of ominous foreboding for the future.
So what is the answer? In my book Selling a Vision of Hope I write that for peace to happen, we will have to ??step out of the box that is us?get over ourselves?and beyond our differences.? Yes, we may believe in this and that, and yes, we are inclined to hold on tightly to our deeply held beliefs, but we may have no choice but to let go of some of our beliefs, in order to find something we can believe in even more, like peace. When it comes down to it, Jews and Arabs will have to find a way to let go of a bit of themselves, so that they could find something that they can both hold on to even more, something that could save them from themselves, and thereby keep them whole.
For peace to happen, we will have no choice but to sell one another on a Vision of Hope. Trade in the ?demagoguery? you so eloquently speak of, for the language of Common Sense. Let go of some of the conspiracy theories, in favor of some mutually beneficial investments, which speak louder than words. Put aside the worst imaginings of doom and gloom, and embrace the intoxicating possibilities of Hope.
Is any of it possible? I don?t really know. Some of it seems to be against human nature, as we know it. But to my mind, the passion of your words is the kind of energy it will take to give a Vision of Hope half a chance.
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