Marc Gopin

Remembering Roger Fisher And Our Stage Of Human Global Development

2012-09-21T16:02:07-04:00

Roger Fisher, one of the greatest luminaries in modern times of negotiation practice died at the age of 90 on August 25 of this year. Roger exuded that confidence of Harvard elites, and American leaders, that has both been admired and admonished globally, that has been a source of optimism in the face of impossible circumstances and also a source of alienation and distance between American thinkers and actors and others. I come from a side of the field of conflict resolution that has emphasized local cultures, religions, psychological issues, that is far more receptive and encouraging of approaches uniquely tailored to each situation, each set of cultural actors. I stand by those differences that I had with him. And yet I always loved him in some fashion.

I loved Roger's courage coming out of World War II, the worst era of Western civilization's capacity for human degradation, with a determination to apply all his brain power to alternatives to war. That was a gift to this world. I admired the fact that as much has he exuded that annoying confidence of the Harvard style, he wrote in a way that was ten times more clear than the academic pretense into which I was schooled as a child and a graduate student. It is for this reason that his books and speeches reached millions rather than thousands, and the world is better for it.

Roger had an urge to simplicity, to razor sharp analysis of the essential problems of a situation or of a personality, and then he would devise his own ways around the challenge. I remember once we were at a gathering together, and I asked him what he thought the essential challenge was in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He answered with brilliant candor and psychological insight, not by holding forth with large academic words but by recounting two conversations he had with two essential actors in the conflict, Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat.

Roger asked Sharon in 1970 what his game-plan was, his strategy. Sharon said, "Well we are going to make it extremely uncomfortable for the Arabs to stay in Judea and Samaria, as well as Israel. Eventually they will leave." And that is just what he did, recounts Roger. He asked Arafat what his plan was. Arafat said, "They will lock us up in houses, but we are very good at making babies." From Roger's perspective, both had a rational plan, very destructive one, and he was facing and pondering the essential challenge.

It is not that I agreed with Roger's every perspective or analysis or conclusions, but I loved the twinkle in his eye as he pondered these matters. It expressed exactly what the writer of the obituary said, it intimated the inner life of a man who said to himself, 'I think I can do something to stop this war.'

That is enough for me when it comes to evaluating the life and contribution of a man in this world, the twinkle in the eye that says, 'I think I can do something to stop this war'. That is a life that was lived well and deserving of our utmost admiration and respect.

This approach, inside Roger's soul, speaks to something even deeper about our moment in human history. There are many people who still doubt that we can abolish war in human history, or that we can shift the urge to violence and war inside the souls of so many people. No matter how many times we cite evidence of cultures that have in fact done this, the human mind's fears, not to mention the profit seeking motives of popular media, always shifts us to the negative, to the worst examples of human capacity for violence. But most people on this planet lead peaceful lives, controlling their darkest impulses, while exercising great capacity for compassion.

We are a few hundred years now into an enlightened set of beliefs and scientific practices that have claimed that we can do much to advance human life in ways that were never imaginable in human history. We have done so in astonishing ways that have brought us to the moon and stars and massively increased the average human lifespan. But one of the keys to the future of life on this planet is the capacity to prevent and undo the wasteful and tragic damage of war.

This next stage of human development will require thousands of Roger Fishers having the courage to pioneer new thinking, new and bold experimentation, continuous learning, as we race for the time it will take to heal the effects of war and redirect human energies to life preserving and life enhancing activities. The massive expansion in conflict resolution programs around the world is testimony to how many young people want to do just that.

I look forward to witnessing revolutionary developments in the human capacity to prevent war, to heal the wounds of previous wars, to build empathy and compassion across civilizations, and to harness the rational self-interests of millions of human beings to discover the world together, to flourish and build wealth together, and I am grateful that Roger helped point us in a good direction.

A Silver Lining to the Film and Riots Tragedy: Freedom, Diversity, and the New Competition for Arab Public Space

2012-09-16T18:46:36-04:00

The shell shock to the West of the widespread demonstrations of rage against the United States, including the murder of an Ambassador, will taper off soon, but the lessons of this sad episode remain elusive and rather polarizing. Is the lesson that we in the West have to watch what our extremists publish? Is the lesson that the Arab Spring and the emerging freedoms was all one big mistake because it has unleashed extremist rage and command of the streets? Should the West buckle down, get out of the Arab world and leave the masses to their own devices? Should the Western countries play hardball and get behind a new set of 'dictators' who will control their miserable streets? Many thoughts are racing through the heads of average Westerners, policy makers, business people, and few of those thoughts are promising in terms of global relations.

To see forty sites erupt around the world in violent rage is indeed frightening and disheartening, but it is also misleading in our global village. It raises a serious problem, a real danger, but it is very deceptive. The truth of Benghazi came out slowly in the hours and days after this horrible crime was committed. We saw scenes and images from Benghazi that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. We saw mostly women, but also men, expressing their free speech, asserting that this violence did not represent them. We thus saw that the drive of self-expression, of freedom, did not die inside the violent upheavals of the Arab Spring. It is still there in Benghazi, in Cairo, in Damascus, all over the Arab world.

With the waning of the age of dictators we are witnessing the new, more realistic and more complicated Arab street. We are witnessing worrisome groups, criminal groups, conservative groups, but many groups committed to nonviolence, good relations with neighbors near and far, democracy and freedom expression, and a deep capacity to stand in the public square for what one believes in.

Western policy makers and officials, in addition to many other institutions, may shrink in horror from the violent radicals that periodically inhabit the public squares of a newer and freer Arab world, but they are mistaken to take these poor angry and misguided folks as the last word on the course and direction of Arab culture and civil society. With the removal of brutalizing police, or at least their waning power, we will see more violence from some, and more willingness by others to fight for their rights, and for nonviolent approaches to problems.

Scientific research on the increase and decline in violence globally suggests a strong correlation with at least four factors that will impact where a newly free society will go. It behooves us to pay attention to these factors and encourage their course and direction.

These four factors that encourage a less violent society and international relations include; 1. the power of 'gentle commerce', or good business that benefits and gives dignity to all parties; 2. The empowerment of women who consistently favor nonviolent engagement with strangers and adversaries; 3. The increase in empathy that comes from exposure to the literature, culture and life experiences of strangers and other peoples, 4. The growth of bodies of law, locally and internationally, that allow for civil society to develop and for human relations to proceed without fear within and across national boundaries.

We need to see the frightening demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo, as balanced out by deeply inspiring demonstrations. We need to see ourselves as agents of change, to see ourselves as capable of engaging and empowering fellow travelers overseas, as opposed to shrinking our presence and abandoning the powerful agents of change in the Arab world precisely when they need our friendship the most. This is the time to step forward.

I have received personal requests for conflict resolution training, business and conflict resolution, more than ever from so many parts of the Arab world in the last year. From young people, but also from many officials. It is as if there is something coming alive in the Arab world for the first time in decades. Now is the time not to shrink in horror and fear but to engage with courage and hope. We will find friends, we will be cautious with angry people, but the direction of history suggests that our nonviolent democratic friends in Arab and Muslim societies are on the right side of where history is going.

Now is not the time to cut and run from from Islamic societies, just when young democratic and nonviolent voices are asserting themselves everywhere. Now is the time to engage, to invest, to visit, carefully but with determination. We need to meet our new and more free neighbors in a global village that is filled with trouble but also filled with great promise, depending on how we welcome each other into global civil society.

Could a Nuclear Iran Bring About More Stability, Rather Than Less?

2012-09-12T11:28:19-04:00

There is a pervasive fear that is being spread by American, Israeli and Sunni Gulf leaders that the most dangerous development in modern history will be the capacity of Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. The fear of nuclear weapons is a natural one, and it is well deserved, because a nuclear weapon is far and away the worst technological innovation of murder ever developed in human history, probably the worst that ever will be developed.

It is especially understandable that Israel, composed mostly of Jews, many of whom are from Holocaust families, would be especially vulnerable to the fear of sudden and mass extermination by inveterate enemies. By some estimates, Israel has almost 400 advanced nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and yet there seems to be no limits to the fears that leaders can generate at even the possibility that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons.

Nuclear terror almost brought the world to an end in 1963, and it is amazing that humanity escaped a nuclear holocaust of 50,000 nuclear weapons aimed at each other during the Cold War. But that very reality, that the world did not disappear in 1963, should be a clue as to why the fear being expressed today that is focused exclusively on Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon may be due to an irrational and misguided reading of recent history. On the contrary, a balance of power and terror may bring about a far more stable situation, which is exactly how we escaped nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, and exactly why the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not escape a nuclear holocaust. Let's examine why.

There was a widespread belief in policy circles that during the "real" Cold War, the one between the Soviet Union and the United States, there were two rational actors, interested in their own survival. According to the Nash Equilibrium doctrine of game theory, there was a stable situation of mutually assured destruction that prevented global thermonuclear war for decades, which in turn helped the world escape complete destruction. In fact, the actors were not as rational as was hoped, and groupthink among American military and political advisers almost brought the world to complete destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nevertheless, there was much truth to deterrence theory, and it applies today as well.

There is a current bias that somehow 'rogue' states have crazy leaders who want their own destruction, such as North Korea. Well, North Korea got nuclear weapons, and we are all still here, and so is South Korea. On the contrary, the security that nuclear weapons gave the North Korean leaders (no matter how much we may despise their regime) may have been the only thing keeping them from triggering total war between North and South in recent years. In fact, North Korean leadership have ultimately behaved rationally, in their self-interest, and not triggered their own destruction by using nuclear weapons.

The tragedy at the end of World War II was that there was nothing stopping the United States from using nuclear weapons on civilian populations and creating mass death that would have been an unthinkable moral act for a democracy such as the United States only a few years earlier. But the Nash equilibrium did not exist since the Japanese government did not have such weapons. And so the Americans could not resist the temptation to 'finish off the Japanese,' even if it meant targeting and killing tens of thousands of men, women and children and vaporizing them. At the same time, the Soviet Union, which had run brutal proxy wars throughout the Cold War, as well as the United States, which also ran horrible wars of communist 'containment,' did, in fact, refrain from the use of nuclear weapons all those decades, because it was irrational not to.

Rational actors of the West are not as rational as they always claim to be, and non-Western leaders are not as irrational as Western bias claims them to be. Even the worst dictators are known to calculate their interests very rationally. However it is true that there comes a point in time when many populations, including democratic ones, and especially their political and military leaders, miscalculate their strength and ability to win, and that is when stupid wars happen. This has happened in every civilization throughout history. That is why weapons of destruction are a horrible idea, and should be in no one's hands, due to the possibilities of miscalculation. But once they exist, they should exist in balance, otherwise they tend to get used. That is the evidence of history so far.

It is every bit as likely that Israeli right wing leaders, particularly Netanyahu and Barak, are grossly miscalculating their capacity to strike Iran and "win," contrary to the advice of almost all of their intelligence and military leadership. This is irrational action at its finest, but it is in keeping with the potential of any leadership, democratic or otherwise, to miscalculate, engage in groupthink and commit suicide. In fact, they are likely to trigger a nonconventional war that could lead to mass casualties on all sides.

The Israeli leadership is seriously miscalculating the capacities of the Iranian people, they are throwing a population with no inherent hatred of Israel right into the hands of leaders who are eager to put Iranian popular unrest and democratization behind them. Worse, they are playing with a fire of retaliatory actions that will spiral quickly out of control and lead to massive casualties from which several states may not recover. There already is a balance of terror between Iran and Israel, but the Israeli leadership does not see it yet, because they have nuclear weapons and Iran does not have them. A nuclear balance of terror might make them more rational, as ironic as that appears to be.

This imbalance of nuclear weapons is an unstable and dangerous situation of history. It is not giving enough time for a slow emergence of solutions to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, as well as a slow decrease in the revolutionary fervor of Iranian leadership, which is aging fast, not to mention the long-term democratizing effects of the Arab Spring and that of other emerging Muslim democracies which will eventually have a positive effect on democracy in Muslim and Arab countries, and a pragmatic, less ideological approach by Iran to the United States and Israel. Forcing a military encounter now is the wrong time in history and the wrong tactic. On the contrary, aggressive engagement with the Iranian population, just as the West has aggressively engaged the Chinese population, is the best known de-escalator of dangerous ideologically-based warfare.

The dark reality of MAD and the Nash Equilibrium is that nuclear weapons are incredibly sobering to even the most arrogant ego, when they are pointed at your face. Sometimes this is all that can stand in the way of spiraling conflict. We have faced a deteriorating situation between Iran and other states ever since 1979. One can assign blame to the revolutionary spirit that was injected into the Muslim world as a result of the Iranian Revolution and the support for militant groups that fomented trouble for Gulf states, for Israel and for the West in general. There was an immediate infusion of funds by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states into countering the Shiite revolutions being fomented. A horrible battleground was created in Pakistan that has left that country fractured ever since, with thousands dead -- not to mention Afghanistan.

One can argue, from the Shiite side, that Iran since the Revolution has finally supported persecuted Shiites around the world, especially in Lebanon, and that it was payback time to the West and to Israel for supporting the Shah's murderous practices, as well as Sunni triumphalists in the Gulf, mainly Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, one can look at Iran's allies today, Hezbollah and Syria, and be horrified by who it supports. On the other hand, one can look from the Iranian side on the dozens of American military bases that completely surround and threaten its country from all sides.

There are many ways to analyze destructive conflict from both sides, and this fills volumes of good analysis. But everyone can see that the conflict has gotten worse and worse, and that we are reaching a negative turning point leading to total war in which there will be massively destructive consequences on all sides.

More than anything, the Middle East and Iran need time for the pragmatism of engagement to sink in. Everyone, Jewish Israeli, Arab, Muslim, needs to see the benefits of economic and people-to-people engagement that makes all the disagreements more subject to compromise and co-existence. This can come with time, but not if unconventional war, foolishly miscalculated, sets back all these civilizations by a hundred years. It could happen.

Compared to that horror, a small balance of terror between Israel's massive stockpile of nuclear weapons, and Iran perhaps developing the capacity for a few, seems like a good stimulus to a good nuclear standoff, to greater pragmatism, to a revisiting of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, to exploring the balance of terror in Korea, in the Indian subcontinent, in order to develop a global system of détentes that will parallel the process of the end of the Cold War. This is a more stable vision of the future of Iranian relations to its neighbors, and American and Israeli confrontation with their adversaries.

The question is whether this standoff between the West and Iran could go the way of the North Korean confrontation with the West, namely, as detestable as nuclear proliferation may be. A situation of deterrence between Israel's massive nuclear stockpile and weapons delivery system, the United States massive nuclear capacity in the region pointing at Iran, on the one side, may require balance. It may require some deterrence that brings about a doomsday standoff where taking military action is unacceptable to everyone. This in turn would yield years of negotiations, economic alternatives and possible new venues for détente. That may actually stabilize the situation. It may force the same kind of détente that allowed the United States and Soviet Union to make peace in the long run, despite 50,000 advanced nuclear weapons reaching their targets in minutes. If we can survive that, then the balance of terror may be a good way for two great civilizations, Israeli and Iranian, to survive their leaderships, and build a practical future together that moves from balance of terror to balance of power to balance of trade.

Anticipating the Syria of Tomorrow: Strategies to Decrease Violence Against Innocents

2012-07-10T10:25:40-04:00

Events are so fast-paced in revolutions and wars that there is scarcely a breath taken to anticipate the next stages of the unfolding drama. But anticipating each scenario is essential to minimizing the death of innocents in Syria at this moment in time, as well as planning for safety and security for all minority groups in the long run.

Who is currently at risk?

Everyone is in the long run. In the short run it is mostly rural Sunnis who have borne the brunt of the criminality of the regime's methods of torture and killing. Next in line are any Christians or even Alewites who have dared to stand opposite the regime. Next are more privileged urban opponents of the regime who are facing increasing torment. Then there is the danger of being caught by criminality and kidnappings for personal gain, after Assad releases tens of thousands of criminals into the streets in order to create chaos and necessitate the continuation of his regime. Finally, many armed gangs and groups are not part of some of the more principled opposition military forces, but are instead exacting terrible revenge on Alewites and others.

How bad will it get soon?

Very bad, in terms of the death of innocents. Petrol has run out in the second most prosperous northern city of Syria, Aleppo, and that means desperation will multiply astronomically very soon. At the same time, the regime has amassed hundreds of tanks, either in the North to engage in large-scale destruction and scorched earth of Syria, as Hitler did rather than surrender, or to repel a Turkish-led NATO invasion.

What lessens violence against innocents?

1. There is great virtue in the United Nations' efforts to secure a ceasefire and a transitional power-sharing arrangement. Our instincts for justice, including mine, tend to scoff at this option because with so much blood on their hands, the Ba'athists and the Assad family deserve no more power at all in Syria or anywhere else. However, the history of violence and violence mitigation suggests that the frequency of United Nations interventions, no matter how seemingly unfair, unquestionably lead to fewer deaths of the innocent, and that the more we can do to constrain the violence of the regime by international regimens the better.

2. The other critical factor now is working on the solidarity of the people of Syria, in all their diversity, with each other's immediate needs and concerns. Any humanitarian or conflict management interventions that can lead to greater cooperation across religious lines, both inside Syria and outside Syria, will improve the likelihood of minimizing innocent deaths in the short run and the long run. This will create more bridges to build upon now in terms of immediate victims and will run into the future as the victims may start adding up for minority groups that are now in a more privileged position.

3. Finally, conflict management and resolution training for opposition groups, for those who are trying, each in their own way, to build workable coalitions for a future democracy in Syria must be aided in all ways possible. We must aid to build trust, manage the understandable grievances and outraged feelings, and create a rational plan for a democratic future where everyone is protected and safe. This process should include, as much as possible, former officials, former soldiers, everyone who wants to buy into a safe democratic future. All outside funders and governments that accept this goal can be welcome partners, but all outside funders and governments who do not accept these principles of the future should be rebuffed.

My experience working on the ground in Syria for the past seven years across religious lines and across class lines suggests to me that there is a large nucleus of Syrian people, majorities and minorities, who are ready to build a democracy together. But they require help with the damage that the regime has wrought on them, they require trust building that will rise above whatever regional forces seek to divide them, they require the space to help each other and forgive each other, and they require the time to build their skills at nation building as free democratic citizens, religious and secular. We must do all we can to help them do this right now.

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Tourism of Destruction, Tourism of Construction: Two Trips to the Holy Land

2012-06-25T07:00:00-04:00

Tourism is a business involving a billion people a year meeting several other billion people whose lives they profoundly affect economically and socially. The question for the future is whether that effect is going to be negative or positive, peaceful or destructive.

I want to argue that it is all up to us travelers.

Recently, in the major Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot, there appeared a picture of a beautiful little girl holding and aiming a machine gun almost her own size, being coached by a smiling soldier in fatigues in a West Bank settlement in the Occupied Territories. The caption mentioned how many foreigners come on tours and are given this kind of exposure.

This is a very different kind of tourism and educational seminar experience than the kind I and my colleagues have been running for years in Israel and Palestine, Egypt and other countries. When we bring people to these regions we expose them to what we refer to as "dual narratives," which roughly translates into a deep exposure to the many cultures and religions of a region, some of whom are often in a state of conflict. The travelers have fun, they love the exposure, but they also positively engage all people, and do not become part of the problem. They "do no harm."

Tours and seminars either bind the people of a region together through sympathetic and respectful outsiders, or they serve to further divide people.

There is certainly a sickness in many settlements in the Occupied Territories, and there are Israelis who live with a bunker mentality, ready to live and die by their guns. But everywhere, even in the settlements, there are very different residents and neighbors, both Jewish and Arab, people who you may disagree with but who authentically want to meet their neighbors and stop living by the gun. This is true between Israel and Palestine, this is even true between Iran and Israel, as many recent citizen driven campaigns have shown in recent months. Tourists can either be a bridge or a barrier, an hindrance or a help to the desperate situation of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and many other conflicts around the world.
, a different kind of tourism than mine, where tourists come to get this kind of exposure.

Did we not in the West used to be horrified at seeing child Hamas recruits with toy weapons? The sad psychoanalytic reality of war is how much people paint the worst image of their enemy through propaganda and so-called intelligent analysis, but then proceed to unconsciously, over time, become their own worst nightmare by copying that negative image of the enemy. This is a rule of physics in long term wars. Only conscious people, thinking people, empathetic people, wake up and steer their culture away from these unconscious suicides. Citizens, traveling citizens, can be the best global diplomats in the world. No one is paying them or controlling them, they want to enjoy a nonviolent experience, and they are prepared to greet strangers. We need them as part of the world's march in a better, less violent direction.

Marc Gopin is co-owner of MEJDI Tours, as well as Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University.

The Iranian Yalda and the Fateful Choice of Light Over Darkness

2012-01-03T12:21:36-05:00

Just a few days ago was the longest night of the year. Another way of looking at is that this was night in which the tide of darkness began to turn back in favor of light. Bunched around this time are so many ancient holidays of lights and candles, of which Hanukkah and Christmas are but two. Ancient rabbinic tradition suggests that the purpose of the small light at night is to teach that it takes only the light of one individual candle to illuminate the darkness of an entire room -- or the world.

Peering at small lights at night, meditating on them, also has another interesting impact. It makes the blinding light of the morning sun feel almost miraculous. Indeed, many of the pre-monotheistic nighttime celebrations of light at this time of year are actually celebrations of the birth of light, and particularly sunlight. There is an inescapable reality to the absolute attachment of all of terrestrial life to our sun. We are racing through time and space with this glorious little star that is a small light in the dark of an endless universe, every bit as tiny, lonely, noble and courageous as a small candle in the dark.

This year Hanukkah coincided with Yalda, a major Iranian holiday going back thousands of years, well before Islam and Christianity. Yalda is celebrated by all the religious and ethnic groups of Iran, and, shockingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which places the word "Islamic" on just about everything, has allowed this holiday to be considered official, a national treasure of the country. Unlike in Saudi Arabia, where everything from a Christmas tree to Sufi Muslim holy sites and graves are repressed, at best, here in Iran, the West's enemy No. 1, a universal holiday of light has been allowed to persist. This is due to its massive popularity, and to the fact that throughout Iran the people made it clear that they would tolerate no removal of such a beloved experience.

Yalda celebrates rebirth in the midst of winter's death, the victory of light over darkness, a victory on the very day in the calendar when at last light will once again begin a steady gain on darkness. There are bonfires, there are symbolic meals celebrating special dried and fresh fruits, there is great music and dance, there are special lights, of course, and there is family celebration. It is as beloved as Christmas, only universally celebrated by many ethnic and religious groups.

Yalda is a Syriac word meaning "birth," but yalda is the Hebrew biblical name for daughter, dating back to at least a thousand B.C.E. The Hebrew ho'lid is "gave birth." The later Aramaic word for the first appearance of the new moon is molad, the exact moment when the new moon appears, but literally, the birth every month of the new moon. This is precise moment that has been announced every month in traditional Jewish synagogues for thousands of years, and that is why every traditional Jew has grown up with the words resonating in his ears, "And the molad this month is..."

The more we delve into what connects us all on this planet, the more eerie it gets and the more absurd the pervasive extinction of war becomes. Imagine an exchange of chemical weapons between Iran and Israel -- a distinctly possible result of the downward spiral of confrontations right now. Imagine this breaking out on Yalda and Hanukkah, while masses of families are gathered to celebrate the victory of the forces of light over darkness -- in both places -- even as their weapons systems destroy all those thousands of innocent families. This is the obscenity of war.

When will the intimate cultural, even mystical, ties of the Middle and Near East translate into real relationships that emerge victorious over the darkness of political, military and economic cannibalism? This is an open question that will only be answered by the future, a future that is being born every day inside the choices we each make to hide behind dubious military shields, or to engage in the arduous work of people-to-people relations, the only true source of an illuminated and enlightened world.

Beyond Jewish Blessings and Curses There is Absolute Love

2011-07-11T10:00:02-04:00

I grew up in a world of blessings and curses, and I mean a world of radically elaborate blessings and curses. I speak of course of the Yiddish world, the world of Jews from Eastern Europe. It surrounded me and was in the air all the time. The incredible creativity in describing problematic people attests to the chief complaints about women and men. The sheer number of names for a useless person, a shlemiel, a shlemazel, a shmendrik, a pisk malocheh, and much worse, all very colorful. Jews never held anything back in their criticism of each other, which naturally psychologists might see as internalized persecution.

Some people I knew had a very hard life with bitter disappointments and losses. They used to call many people "chaleria", which later I would learn meant roughly, "a piece of Cholera". Many people were requested to 'plotz', explode, but only after they had gone to 'kakin afen yam', relieve themselves in the ocean. On the other hand, I had other old people in my life who felt very fortunate, who lost so many relatives in the Holocaust but were blessed with good husbands and large families. They blessed us children abundantly. I remember always hearing about mazel and glick, good fortune and good luck, but I was quite confused because I thought they were always telling me about some family named 'Glick', because there actually was a butcher named Glick. Go figure. I was a bit eber botult, mixed up in the head.

There is something about blessings and curses that are both a very weighty matter, taken with the utmost seriousness by the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. But there is also something about cursing that you just have to laugh at, especially because it seems to be borne out of a profound sense of absurdity, powerlessness, and endless fighting between people that goes nowhere, what we call in conflict analysis 'intractable conflict'.

Numbers 22-25 does not disappoint in this regard. It is an absurd and odd tale for many reasons. It has great and fearsome enemies of Israel, Moab and Midian, reduced to hiring a professional curser, Bilaam, against the Israelites, but who just can't seem to get it right. Every time he tries to curse a blessing comes out of his mouth, and a curse on the very people who hired him. And let's not even talk about the fact that divine prophecy is coming out of the mouth of an ass? What is this, a Mel Brooks routine? Something is strange about this episode.

This portion also ends quite badly. Just as you think that Israel has the upper hand because Bilaam simply ends up blessing them with victory, they end up really screwing up behaviorally, so badly that their own leader, Moses, brings upon them the very kind of plague that Moab and Midian could not have been more pleased about.

I started to sense that this is a very violent portion, filled with adversarial relations, endless hatred and wishes of ill will, triumphalism, and a very male psychology of win/lose, defeat or be defeated, be cursed or be blessed -- and take no prisoners.

I asked myself a basic question about this portion, why put blessings into the mouth of those who want to curse? And why are we treated to such a profound look into the psychology of malignant enemies, Moab, Midian, Balak? I started to realize that the portion is really dealing with Israel at the apex of its power against its enemies. Its reputation for victory has spread to many peoples, and they have become afraid and desperate, so afraid and desperate that they are relying on cursing for hire. Even more, the portion ends with a plague in fact coming on Israel. Why end this way?

There is a strange principle in Judaism, relatively unknown in this age, especially as it is refracted by the ancient rabbis. It is best encapsulated by an enigmatic phrase in Ecclesiastes (3:15). Ecclesiastes states: ve'ha'elokim yevakesh et a ha'nirdaf, The Divine desires (seeks after, embraces, longs for, sides with) the one that is pursued (persecuted). Later commentaries will emphasize that it does not matter whether the persecuted are guilty, are the criminals. It is in the nature of the universe that the Divine will balance out persecution with devotion, dedication and protection.

This makes the business of cursing very problematic indeed. It means that whatever happens, whoever has the upper hand, they had better watch out, because a balance is coming to fate and to the universe. It will make victory and blessings at the expense of someone else being cursed into a very dubious way to flourish. In effect, once cursing is afoot, once the curses are flying, no one is going to do very well in a Divine world.

Numbers 22 begins with the complete impotence of Israel's enemies in the art of cursing, and blessings flow for Israel to crush and bloody its enemies. Yet by Numbers 25 we have Israel bloodied in the worst way, by its own deeds, and by the curses or words of indictment of their own leader, Moses, as well as radically violent acts against their own leadership. What is divine wrath in this portion? Plagues and your own leaders turning against you and commanding a civil war, turning brother against brother. This is a true curse.

What is the remedy within the section of the Bible? Go with the best of the blessings of Bilaam, the one about brothers living as one together, the one about tents of peace. And yet everything at the end undermines the comfort of those victorious blessings, these anti-curses in defiance of Midian and Moab, and certainly the bloody predictions of a slaughterhouse where your enemies will be eaten by you. Something is unsatisfying here, which is why the rabbis who made the traditional Jewish calendar of readings, create effectively a commentary on this troubled portion of curses through the words of the immortal prophet, Micah. Micah is salvation here.

The happier note of this entirely strange portion is not to be found in Numbers at all, but in the rabbinic choice of Micah 5 and 6 for the prophetic portion that is meant to accompany (in this case redeem) the portion from the Five Books of Moses.

Micah is the answer to everything, and here is how it goes. In an adversarial universe everyone dies by God's ruthless might and revenge. God's might is expressed by the violence of warfare and revenge. Micah effectively says that people can continue to fantasize about a primitive god that will be appeased by bulls and blood and sacrifice, the re-creation of bloody warfare in the slaughterhouse of the Temple. But where the deepest answer lies is not in blood and sacrifice. The true answer to the mysteries of enemy systems, of endless cycles of curses and blessings and reversals, and curses again, is something that is at once utterly nonviolent, utterly compassionate, and utterly beyond war. It is something utterly beyond demonization and particularist jingoism.

The answer lies inside the human soul, every human soul. It is in the intra-psychic discipline and choice of making three things the locus of our longing and pleasure. It is the key for the human being and the human community to discover union with the God through three very hard spiritual practices: the pursuit of social justice, the pursuit of love and kindness, and the practice of humility. It is these practices--and these practices only--that allow the human being and the human community to pass through the mysterious God-intoxicated universe, in safety, in peace and in prosperity.

Here is Micah at his most profound: "He has told you, human being, what is good, and what Eternal Being is searching for in you: the practice of justice, the love of kindness, and a humble journey with the God."

We are plagued by a political world, domestically and internationally, of winners and losers, no prisoners taken, ruthless efforts to create the blessed and the cursed, and we see that in such a world there are a string of Pyrrhic victories, but no real blessedness that emerges from the deluge of curses. They could learn a thing or two from Micah about true victory and authentic blessings that cannot emerge when you hate everyone but your own camp. True blessings emerge from what you practice and how you engage the world, not what you wrest from your adversaries.

Don't Talk, Do Something! Palestinian/Israeli Unilateralism as Legitimate Negotiations

2011-06-15T15:19:30-04:00

Much is being made of Palestinian unilateralism recently, and President Obama and his advisers seem authentically perturbed by the unilateral march to Palestinian statehood declarations at the United Nations come September. It will indeed put the United States in an awful position.

Is this Palestinian move such a bad thing, and is it a betrayal of that sacred cow of statecraft, verbal negotiations? I say no, it is rather Palestinian leaders finally intuiting what the true form of negotiations have been all along, the true positions being formulated by successive leaderships of Israel. That form of negotiation, the one that has marched forward year after year, is the creation of facts on the ground, actions, not words.

I always knew that actions speak louder than words, but only of late have I come to realize that they are not only a form of negotiation, but the form of negotiation in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and perhaps in many conflicts. After all, when I hit you, I am making a very clear negotiating position, 'I have the right to hit you and will continue to do so until you submit.' When I take land, I am saying, 'I have a right to take this land and you have no rights to it.' When I kill your children, Arab or Jewish, I am saying, 'I despise your existence and I want you to go away.'

The Israeli right has been making very clear statements through its actions for decades. So has the Arab right, through terrorism. What has made the 'peace camp' in both Israel and Palestine so feckless is their reliance on elite and secret negotiations as their 'voice', a voice that is in ill-repute with the masses. Frankly, it lacks the thunderous power of other 'negotiating positions', such as land theft or suicide bombs, which are much louder and bolder statements. Moderates on both sides have lacked a true voice of negotiating strength for their positions.

Perhaps the Palestinian Authority is pioneering a new way to make bold statements of moderation through actions, through actions with strong international legal implications. Palestinians always had the advantage in the international court of legal opinion, due to the creation of only one state in 1948, Israel, whereas two were intended all along. But all their leaders and advocates did for decades was to helplessly repeat numbers that numbed the brain with their repetitive ineffectuality, 242,194. Just words, no action. Ah, but what if the United Nations and international bodies and alliances become not a vehicle for words of toothless complaint, but a place of creation, a place of creating reality? Then actions become negotiations, and negotiated positions demand a real response to a serious adversary.

Hardline Zionists, perhaps for the first time, must face an adversary that may be besting them with facts on the ground. These new Palestinian leaders have not only created good economic governance facts on the ground, verified by the international community, but also political facts and realities on the ground that edge Israel closer to the nightmare international status of pariah. Now that is a fact on the ground worthy of negotiation that may even bring hardline Zionists like Netanyahu to a real table of negotiation for two states.

The goal of peace talks is not talk but peace, safety, a just social order. Then why are we so wedded to dialogue and negotiation in peacemaking? Two reasons, neither of which have ever satisfied me: 1. When people stop talking to each other it often means that violence is coming. We want talking to happen as a reassuring sign that violence is not around the corner.

Often it is not that we want to talk, but rather that someone should be talking. Busy with our lives, we say in 1962, 'Someone must be talking to the Soviet Union so that there is no nuclear Armageddon.' We say, 'Someone must be knocking sense into the crazy North Korean regime so that they stop their apocalyptic threats. Oh, a great ambassador I know, former Dean of Fletcher is on the case. Thank God!' But this reliance on negotiations by others to give us the illusion of stability is really childish messianism.

We want someone else to take care of us, but peace never comes with this kind of evasion of citizen responsibility, particularly in the Arab/Jewish conflict. After 28 years in this work I feel quite confident in saying what is trite but true, there is no peace without people, one relationship at a time, one apology at a time, one act of justice and solidarity and sympathy at a time, from all sides. And yet we cling to talk negotiations by elites.

This is due to reason 2: governments tell us to trust negotiations. They say, 'Quiet, be still, shhhh!, We are talking! No worries, we will take care of you, and don't interfere. You know why we are better at talking than you? You don't know all the facts. Our intelligence agencies (who for most of their existence systematically ignored 'open source' information, that is, the common sense that comes from actually talking to people, listening to the tapes they listen to) are telling us things you don't know. So, shhhh!' We moderates, busy with upwardly mobile careers and 2.5 children, dutifully go back to working our heads off, and we hope 'they' know what they are doing.

That is where we became complicit, at least in terms of the Arab/Jewish conflict that has killed thousands. We gave the floor to those who understand facts on the ground, hardline Zionists, Hamas, Hezbollah, CIA, all the Mukhabarats. The time has come as moderates to reclaim facts on the ground and thus to make negotiations real. We need to support the creation of nonviolent facts on the ground that are quite intimidating, so intimidating that they drive people to the negotiating table hungry for a deal. Then the politicians can sign the papers and take credit for peace in our time.

Fatah, Hamas and the Future of Palestine

2011-06-06T17:50:00-04:00

Ever since the disastrous split in Palestinian leadership of several years ago into Fatah and Hamas, it has become clear that disunity has been a critical factor standing in the way of Palestinian statehood. Many reconciliation efforts, with several third parties, were attempted and aborted. This time it seems that things are different, despite the enormous ideological divisions and outstanding grievances between Fatah and Hamas.

Why is this happening now? Clearly, the historic impact of the "Arab Spring" on Egypt and Syria, and across the region, is an enormous game changer. The increasing instability of Syria suggests that there is a strong possibility that A) Hamas may no longer have a stable home in Syria, but, on the other hand, Palestinians now have a much more sympathetic ear in Egypt which has been critical as a peace broker. B) Syria has long prevented its own Palestinian population from any kind of political activism, preferring to keep them as a bargaining chip to get back the Golan. But events of Naqba Day 2011 suggest that there are elements in Syria who are ready to unleash the power of the Palestinian masses against Israel if they see their internal situation increasingly destabilized by what they say are "outside agitators." In other words, if the spirit of the Arab Spring brings them down then these elements are threatening to take Israel with them. All of this is new and is due to the unprecedented power and effects of Arab nonviolent resistance.

Aziz Abu Sarah is Co-Executive Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, a leading Palestinian peacebuilder, architect of CRDC citizen diplomacy interventions in Palestine and Israel, and an important analyst featured in numerous Middle Eastern outlets. He explains Hamas' and Fatah's evolving strategies this way:

"Hamas has been following the changes in the Middle East with growing interest and anxiety. The centers of power are changing, and some of their allies in the region are facing internal challenges and uprisings that they might not survive. They learned from watching the Arab revolutions that there is the potential for unrest in Gaza due to frustration with the status quo. At one point Gazans will ask Hamas' leaders what are they doing to make a difference, and the people will not be satisfied with just blaming Israel. They want to see a difference in their lives and they expect their leaders to have a strategy that would lead them to freedom, dignity and security. A unity government will legitimize Hamas, especially in the Arab world. Both Khaled Mashal and Ismail Hanniyeh have spoken publicly about accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Many believe that Hamas was waiting for President Abbas to negotiate an agreement before jumping onboard."

In other words, the Arab Spring of the young has already come to Gaza, and it is re-structuring the strategy of Hamas. The same can be said of Fatah, who were facing a restive youthful population in recent months, ready and eager to join the Arab Spring. Aziz explains:

"The Palestinian leadership decided that they must choose a different avenue if they want to shake the political stalemate. This new path includes the internationalization of the Palestinian case and putting Israel under pressure by countries sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. "

The Arab revolutions are making all power brokers re-calculate their strategic interests in terms of the power, voice and interests of the young masses. The fear among the elites, whether or not the young protestors achieve all of their aims, is palpable, and most recently exposed in the creation of a Colombian mercenary army for the UAE by the scandalous founder of Blackwater.

I am concerned, however, about the possibility of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water.' Many a noble Palestinian and Israeli hammered out a livable two state solution based on the '67 borders, and it is not clear that the youth -- nor Hamas -- are in the mood to move all this energy of resistance back to a two-state solution. It is not clear to me how Hamas could ever be integrated not only into a peaceful relationship with Israel but also with a secular Palestine. Nevertheless, I agree with Aziz that Mashal and Hanniyeh sent clear signals in recent years for what a viable peace deal with Israel would look like, good signals.

It is true that Hamas will not recognize Israel's right to exist as a starting point for negotiations, especially negotiations that turned during the Oslo years into an endless pretext for successive Israeli political coalitions to take more land. Hamas, despite its abhorrent use of violence against innocents, may have been right to not want to give away recognition of Israel until there is a real deal, and that this was Arafat's fateful error. They may have legitimate reasons to consider the Quartet's demands on them regarding recognition as unreasonable.

Hamas, however, should listen to the masses across the region and write a new page in their history, as did the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and that is the new page of nonviolence and democracy. Hamas therefore should play its part in nonviolent resistance and state building by enforcing a hudna, a long-term ceasefire with Israel without recognizing Israel, in order to test Israel's intentions and behavior, and in order to create the space for a viable two-state solution to be realized.

It is nonviolence that is the key here to the future, it is the key to the heart of Westerners and Americans who ultimately must get behind a Palestinian state, and it is the key to moving the mostly liberal Jewish masses in America into a clear coalition for Palestinian statehood. Many polls suggest that there is a majority in Israel and especially among American Jews for Palestinian statehood if nonviolence is the method and goal of its achievement. Now that Hamas is not as encumbered by Syria and Egypt it should seize the opportunity to present a new, defiant but peaceful face to the world.

The Palestinian Authority is already putting all its efforts into a nonviolent strategy of unprecedented proportions. Quietly there is support for the nonviolent resistance movements in the village, and publicly there is a massive and successful campaign for the unilateral declaration of statehood. Palestinian leadership is engaged in a high-stakes nonviolent resistance strategy, using their assets-global fatigue with Netanyahu's government and over forty years of occupation. This may also press the United States to go where President Obama was incapable of moving it, certainly in his first term given the power of the Lobby and the weakness of his political party. But considering the sweeping changes across the Middle East and the rising din of the popular voice of nonviolent resistance, the United States may be forced to confront the Israeli government with a stark choice; accept the Clintonian parameters of a two-state solution based on the '67 borders, or face a Middle East marching with Palestinians toward Jerusalem.

Abu Sarah wisely concludes:

"Palestinians are changing the rules of the game. They are two steps ahead of Netanyahu and Obama in their strategic planning. The Palestinian strategy has been for too long emotional, filled with reactionary responses to Israeli actions, and consequently unproductive. It is a breath of fresh air for Palestinians to see their leaders making a giant shift in their behavior. The reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah and the clear strategy for achieving independence is inspiring Palestinians to believe once again in their leaders."

No Way Out: Ancient Wisdom on Putting Bad Guys Up Against a Wall

2011-05-31T16:34:06-04:00

Men in Middle Eastern palaces making decisions about their lives, their families, their fortunes, their necks. I think a lot these days about such men because history and the fate of millions of people often comes down to what is going on inside their heads. They are certainly not unique to the Middle East. Think Robespierre, Mussolini, Marcos, Milosevic. Think Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, Noriega, Fujimori. The list is endless, the impact of their choices monumental.

There is an ancient law in the Jewish Torah that forbids combatants from surrounding an enemy on all four sides, requiring instead that there is always an escape route. In the Middle Ages Maimonides, one of the greatest legal decision makers in Jewish history, concluded that this prohibition applies even to a mortal enemy in a defensive war. This sounds bizarre to the contemporary person saturated by media, video games and politicians, all exulting in the pulverizing of bad guys, but there it is in inconvenient black and white.

No explanation for the law was offered in the original codification, but commentators have suggested that this is an act of compassion even for a mortal enemy, similar to other surprising Biblical statements, such as helping one's enemy in Exodus 23. Others suggest that it was a strategic law, along the lines of wisdom literature and prudence. It makes sense to offer an enemy the possibility of escape so that enemy troops will see relocation as a realistic option, that they will give up more easily seeing a way out, that this will divide the enemy, that this will conserve resources and energy, and shorten the war. This would reflect a pattern in ancient wisdom traditions, East and West, that prudence suggests a conservation of energy, a minimization of waste and a maximization of peace.

All of these explanations have resonance in at least some Biblical sources, but no one knows for sure -- nor does it really matter. The beauty of ancient wisdom traditions is that they act as a distant goad to clear thinking in impossibly complex contemporary circumstances.

Just think of the onslaught, think of how much we have absorbed so quickly about the so-called 'Arab Spring', think about the myriad of facts, images, truths, half-truths, conflicting narratives, and all of that on top of a mountain of theories and facts of history, politics, religion, economics, and psychology. Then think about how you make moral judgments about politics. Do you only think of the 'national interest', whatever that is? Are you evaluating a course of action for yourself? Your country? Your military? Your overseas aid?

If you don't try to clarify with thought, meditation and intuition, the choices that are difficult you end up being manipulated by media, by leaders, by your own apathy and exhaustion from data over-stimulation. Cutting like a scythe through all the questions about Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, are the choices that leaders are making about their fate, about what their alternatives are, and whether they are back up against a corner or have realistic options.

Here is the 'fourth side principle' in modern terms that states and individuals should embrace:

Always convey messages, directly or indirectly, that there is a way out. Make that path clear, make it enticing. Justify it, from the point of view of justice, as a way to prevent further injustices against victims of the future. As anger rises and outrages worsen move from the 'way out' of verifiable reforms, to full exit options with dignity, to exit with indignity, to exit without assets, finally to criminal prosecution, and from there to the 'no way out' of hostilities. Even then, if there are signals of real acceptance of resolution options then grab them. Nonviolent exit is always more efficient, prudent and just. There will be plenty of time for survivors to seek justice later.

Government officials who understand the logic of this principle and utilize it are hampered often by biases of narrow national, corporate or political calculations. This is understandable up to a point -- no government official is hired to pursue his own sense of justice. But they can be prodded to elevate the national interest to align with what is most prudent, stabilizing and just. Responsible citizens need to pioneer the intervention in order to pave the way for government officials to do the right thing. We are often in a more flexible position to discover options. Making the noble choice easier and more enticing for leaders is the most prudent and ethical intervention we can make. It is downright Biblical.

Revolution or Bust: False Choices of Bystanders to the Middle East

2011-02-08T17:54:52-05:00

I have spent the last two weeks, like millions of other people, completely immersed in supporting the brave Egyptian citizens of Tahrir Square. I have spread every piece of truth about them that I could get my hands on to my social network. Indeed their revolution is perhaps the first revolution that was self-consciously created by a young Internet force that actively pleaded for the rest of us to Twitter and blog and Facebook. It has been heartbreaking and glorious, even for those of us who only participated with our fingertips.

What concerns me coming out of the experience is a gnawing question for us bystanders: where have we been for all these decades of oppression? And why and how were we suddenly energized by demonstrations in Tahrir Square, but failed to be mobilized all those previous decades when people such as these Egyptian citizens needed us. I am old enough to remember, with some sadness, the way in which we all woke up for Tiananmen Square, emboldened, marching on the streets of the U.S., only to be lulled back to a studied passivity by the resolute brutality of the Chinese regime.

I have been working for twenty-seven years not for revolution in the Middle East, but evolution. I have worked in Palestine, Israel, and Syria, and to some extent Jordan. I have worked with amazing people from every one of these countries and more. Revolutions do not come from the dust, they come from a glacial pace of education and solidarity in building shared values of human rights, civil society, culture of debate, economic rights, and people-centered development. Then, one day, when a regime becomes especially venal and stupid, with bread prices rising to absurd levels, the human spirit occasionally bursts forth through the actions of large numbers of people in unison.

But we bystanders should not just awaken for these moments and then go back to sleep. We should not, even worse, dismiss others or whole geographic, culture or religious regions as somehow 'incapable' of change. Anyone who takes the time to visit with real people, anyone who has listened and learned from the good people in every one of these countries, knows a fundamental truth: the human spirit yearns to be free and equal everywhere. The human spirit, so desperate for honor and dignity, is ready for sacrifice, for generosity, for solidarity, and also an astonishing ability to forgive those in authority, to welcome them if they are willing to step aside from the hopelessly violent. This is what we have seen on the streets of Egypt.

And what of the rest? Should we go to sleep until one day we see such an outpouring of the human spirit on the streets of Riyadh or Amman or Doha? No, for it is our sleep that has made the journey of brave people fighting for their rights so much harder. Should we advocate revolution everywhere? No, been there done that, communism and neo-conservatism just got a lot of people killed while armchair warriors yelled a lot.

It is just as often the case in history that bad regimes turn into better ones over time, that leaders at the top of corruption slowly evolve into something better. Ours is not to judge which society should revolt or not, or whether it is even morally right to engage in any kind of violence to push for change. Every society and situation is different. But one plea I can safely make: please do not go back to sleep on the Middle East, no matter what happens in Cairo.

Please engage in solidarity with good people in the Middle East. Yes, engage leaders and elites, but not to the point of feeding their crimes with financial aid. Do not repeat the Mubarak mistake ever again. At the same time, do not force yourself on a society, do not claim solidarity with the Iraqi people, and then proceed to 'liberate' them by killing sixty nine thousand civilians and torturing them.

Revolution and evolution are not mutually exclusively, and compromise is a beautiful human invention, apparent in all the traditional legal systems. Yes, sometimes revolution comes, and we should support good, nonviolent people when they revolt. But, above all, we must be there for them in the 'silent' years, the years of quiet education and preparation, the years that, if we in the international community do our part, may set the stage not for tragic moments of revolution but peaceful evolution.

Unite, Confuse, and Inspire: Creating a More Inclusive Atmosphere in Israel

2011-01-13T12:52:00-05:00

Reflecting on 2010, it's clear that racism in Israel has reared its ugly head. A recent poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 51 percent of Israelis support equal rights between Jews and Arabs, while 53 percent think the state should encourage Arabs to emigrate from the country. The poll also established that Jewish Israelis find the idea of living next to an Arab more troubling than any other minority, and that in the event of war, 33 percent of Israelis support the idea of putting Arabs into internment camps.

In the last few months, these findings were given concrete expression in a number of incidents. These include:

A religious ruling signed and endorsed by 50 state-appointed rabbis forbidding Jews from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews. "Racism originated in the Torah," said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, head of the Yeshiva in Ashdod and one of the endorsers of the ruling. "The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel. This is what the Holy One Blessed Be He intended and that is what the [sage] Rashi interpreted."

A letter signed by 27 rabbi's wives stating that Jewish women should not date Arab men, work where Arabs are employed, nor volunteer in National Service with Arabs. The letter stated, "They [Arabs] ask to be close to you, try to find favor with you, and give you all the attention in world, they are actually here knowing to act with courtesy, acting as if they really care for you, say a good word, but their behavior is only temporary. The moment you are in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes."

A protest against Arab presence in the city of Bat Yam. Demonstrators shouted and held signs that read: "Keeping Bat Yam Jewish. Arabs are taking over Bat Yam, buying and renting apartments from Jews, taking and ruining Bat Yam girls! Around 15,000 Jewish girls have been taken to villages! Jews, come on, let's win!"

Incidents of intimidation and violence including accounts of a burning tire thrown into an apartment of five Sudanese refugees living in Ashdod. And five Israeli Arabs fled their homes in Tel-Aviv after people from their neighborhood harassed and threatened to harm them.

Gangs of Jewish youths who targeted and assaulted Arabs in Jerusalem. Using a girl to attract their victims, the youths, who coordinated some of their attacks via Facebook, would pounce on their targets with sticks, stones, bottles and tear gas. Police believe the gang was responsible for more than ten attacks.

We cannot afford to ignore these signs as a marginal phenomenon or passing phase. History has shown that when racist attitudes, perceptions and behaviors are not addressed, they fester and spread -- eroding the body politic like an acid.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken out against the rabbinic prohibition on renting or selling property to non-Jews, and in a short address on his YouTube channel he warned citizens against incitement and violence against foreigners while assuring them that the government is on the case. But his efforts fall far short of what needs to be done.

Israel's intellectual community has taken its own stand against the rise of racism. Refusing to become bystanders who passively watch as their society crumbles, these individuals, armed with the power of the keyboard, have opted to become witnesses-exposing and decrying with the hopes of jolting their society out of their moral slumber. Leading the charge have been a number of writers for the Israeli daily Haaretz, as well as the up-and-coming online publication +972.

But acknowledgment is only a first step. After recognizing the issue (which is not the same as recognizing the root(s) of the problem), we must think of creative and effective ways of addressing it. Many people believe the government needs to step in and simply "fix" the problem. However, a top-down intervention, valuable as it may be, does not take into account the nested nature of racism: the influential role of family, school, media, religion and community, in either exacerbating, constraining or ameliorating the problem.

Keeping this in mind, here are three steps that we think are essential to counteract the deleterious influence of racism, and help create a more inclusive Israeli consciousness.

Unite: Research has shown that "qualitative contact" between conflicting groups is a meaningful way to reduce hostility and prejudice, as well as cultivate more positive attitudes between group members. By "qualitative contact" we mean direct and consistent interpersonal relations between individuals of equal status who pursue common goals with the help of institutional support.

Usually groups that support this type of togetherness are centered on peace work (e.g. Seeds of Peace, Sulha project), but sometimes qualitative contact is most effective when it circumvents the issues that divide people all together. Israeli hospitals, for example, are places where Jewish and Arab doctors, nurses and patients cooperatively interact as equals on a daily basis. They are environments in which the shared goal of saving and healing lives transcend the narrow confines of religious and political identity.

Our colleague, Palestinian writer and activist, Aziz Abu Sarah has written the following about his experience with cancer and getting operated on by both Jewish and Arab surgeons in an Israeli hospital.

In the midst of the hatred, anger and bitterness of the conflict, you can still find glimpses of goodness. Unfortunately, this light often passes unnoticed. Yet it offers a practical example of the dream we all share, of a future where we can live safe and full lives without fear of injury... I have many criticisms of Israeli policies and politics, but the functioning universal health care system in Israel and its ability to separate politics from medicine earns my praise.

We need to support and create more opportunity for Israeli Jews and Arabs to interact and work together as equals with common goals and values. There are many organizations and projects that are dedicated to this type of work, and much will be gained by diverting our financial and political resources towards aiding their efforts.

Perhaps the most important of all in this regard is the Israeli educational system. Next to families, schools are the most important spaces in which our values are shaped. Here the state has a very important role to play- not only in constructing a curriculum that addresses racism, but also in reconstructing the makeup of the student body. Currently, only five primary schools in Israel are integrated. At the level of the university, Palestinian citizens of Israel make up only 7% of the student body. When it comes to education "separate but equal" has proven itself a sham, and if we are to provide more economic and social opportunity for Israel's minorities, if we are to reduce the level of overt racism in society, the educational system in Israel must have its "Brown vs. Board of Education" moment.

Confuse: Religion has become a handmaiden of racism in Israel. The poll published by Israel Democracy Institute found that the greatest objectors to equality between Jews and Arabs were religious Jews. A breakdown of the Jewish public showed that 33.5 percent of secular Jews were against equal rights, in distinction to 51 percent of traditional Jews, 65 percent of religious Jews, and 72 percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Religious people are by definition far more insulated from non-Jewish neighbors, and they are easily manipulated by a couple of rules that some rabbis can pull out of a hat. We believe that one of the best responses to such worldviews is to create constructive confusion: Confuse people by justifying every progressive action of human rights and gestures of good will to immigrants, to Arabs, to people of color, with quotes from Torah. Experience demonstrates that confusion is often good for conflict resolution, as it opens up the mind and casts doubt on the certainties of prejudice or self-righteousness.

Faced with an alternative religious interpretation of human rights, for example, the religious Israeli cannot just dismiss such thinking as merely the rantings of leftists. They have to think about it and make a moral choice, as many Israeli rabbis who oppose racism do. For example, if the Right trots out a text, "You shall have no mercy (on idolaters)," as the justification for not allowing housing in Israel, then the response at demonstrations, in op-eds and advertisements, should be signs and texts that read, "Love your neighbor as yourself!" [Leviticus 19:18]; "What is hateful to you (eviction, exile, discrimination) do not do to your neighbor," [Rabbi Hillel]; "Love the stranger for you were strangers... and you know the heart of the stranger."; 'The Torah forbids persecution of strangers thirty seven times, but milk in meat only three times! Remember the priorities! Choose life!'

Another source of creative confusion is interfaith gestures with the use of Jewish rituals or mitzvot. We would like to see immigrants and Arab citizens of Israel, for example, at thousands of Passover Seders in Israel this spring-and it should be reported heavily. That will confuse everyone and stimulate a deeper understanding of the Seder as a three thousand year old Jewish protest against tyranny, and as a testimonial to freedom, justice, and the embrace of vulnerable strangers.

Inspire: The fire that raged and ravaged the north of Israel could not be put out by the Israeli government alone. Neither can the flames of racism that are beginning to engulf the country. Dousing this fire will be a team effort -- it will require harnessing the intelligence, creativity and wisdom of the Israeli people.

This may seem like a strange strategy given the disturbing findings published by the Israel Democracy Institute cited above. We believe, however, that despite a turn for the worse, Israeli society is composed of some of the most dynamic, imaginative and compassionate people around. Here are some ideas.

Elise M. Boulding, the great Quaker Sociologist, working with prison inmates, developed an empowering technique of conflict resolution called "remembering the future." This technique calls on participants to imagine what a world of peace 10 years into the future would look like, "remember" how they got there, and make a commitment to bring that potential reality to fruition.

We would like to see the ministry of education or an independent organization launch a competition of narrative and visual art entitled, "Remembering the Future: How Israel Became a Non-Racist Society." This could be an open competition or one that is tailored for a particular group(s) (though diversity of contestants is essential for the success of this project). The winner will get a significant grant in addition to something more original such as getting their work displayed on a stamp or studied in classrooms across the country.

Another possibility is to make the challenge, as serious as it is, a little more entertaining. Create a reality TV show (Israelis love reality TV) focusing on creative and nonviolent ideas and solutions to the problems that plague Israeli society. The panel of judges could be comprised of notable Israeli intellectuals, writers and artists (representing diverse worldviews), and the people at home get to vote for their favorite idea. As utopian as this sounds, it is not outside the realm of possibility. As the founder of Zionism once said, "If you will it, it's no dream."

Still another possibility is to harness the knowledge and insights of the people through the use of wiki-technology. As business columnist James Surowiecki has argued in his best-selling book, The Wisdom of Crowds, under the right circumstances groups are more intelligent than individuals-even the smartest individuals within the group. Today, organizations, businesses and even governments are using wiki-technology to improve their knowledge base, findings, profits and activities. Perhaps the Israeli government, should it choose to initiate a campaign to constructively transform the problem of racism, ought to do likewise. After all, this is the same government that believes that the future of peace between Israel and its neighbors should be subject to a nation-wide referendum.

A final point. As conflicts become protracted and complex there is a tendency to experience them in simplified terms: to bundle many interrelated and complex problems into one reaction-in this case, racism. There is also a tendency to see the problem originating from people's personalities or dispositions, as opposed to particular situations. Thus we speak of racist people as opposed to racist behavior. Since dealing with this conflict involves dialogue, we can go a long way by improving the way we communicate with one another. As Hip-Hop blogger Jay Smooth put it, in talking to people about racism we need to differentiate between a "what they did conversation" and a "what they are conversation." Doing so will not only improve our arguments, but also increase the possibility of a real and potentially transformative change in relationships to take place.

Qatar Airlines, Bombs and Me

2010-11-01T20:04:40-04:00

I recently flew Qatar Airlines round trip for a lovely interfaith conference in Doha. I ended up, back and forth to Washington, spending a total of 27 hours in-flight within four days. Not long after I got back, Qatar Airlines was in the news as having been one of the Gulf passenger carriers that unwittingly transported a mail bomb from Yemen al Qaeda destined for a gay Jewish synagogue in Chicago.

This caused some strange sensations as a rabbi recently in the complete care of the same airline. I felt one of those moments of absolute contradiction, the contradiction between the way I was treated in the plane and the reality of cargoes headed for murder.

Before Qatar Airlines, I was going to write a sincere article about my evolution as a human sardine. I have been on planes traversing continents doing interfaith work for what seems like an eternity. That experience has become hard to describe, but one of my main motivations for weight loss has become not the lengthening of my life, or a few extra looks from women, but a couple of centimeters of butt space on airplanes that get smaller every year.

I dream of a world without a child's ability to whine and with license renewals for parents who have lobotomies in that one brain space overseeing social awareness. I work on conditioning my prostate, all in terror of being assigned a window seat.

I will never forget the face of the lovely flight attendant who implored me at LAX to give up my aisle seat for a wayward mother and two children, as if this were the Titanic. I gave up the seat, saint that I am, but they put the family right behind me, next to a nice man three times my size with recent knee surgery, while the boy in back of me proceeded to play air hockey with the back of my chair for four hours as his mother quietly read. Sardines seem to have it better, for some soybean oil lubricating my chair, separating me from that brat would have been just fine.

Then there was the "Qatar moment" in business class. A luggage rack all my own, beautiful pajamas into which I immediately changed, a choice of foods unimaginably good, like the single malt 15 year old liquor -- for free. I think my flight attendant was sent from heaven. Going to an Arab part of the world that I never visited while being watched over by an Indian flight attendant who was more gracious, patient, smiling than anyone I had ever met, I tried but failed to watch all the different media options available. I wrote in bliss, slept in bliss. The plane lands and I absolutely do not want to leave. I actually ponder how I can live in first class for the rest of my life.

We have a saying in Jewish tradition that comes from the Passover meal: "Why is this night different from all other nights?" I understand that Qatar Airlines is rated the best in the world, but why is it so different? It is like much in this small emirate. The Emir made a decision that he wanted to excel and set out to do so. I have grown so used to the kind of social Darwinian stoicism that has gripped our world, namely that only the ubiquitous "bottom line" makes our choices for us, and so if we are all treated horribly by airlines it is because that is what the market will bear. But there was a time when we were not brainwashed by libertarian economists believing that all values are sacrificed to the value of a dollar. Successful people used to make decisions to be proud of their products, and we the people rewarded them with our patronage. Qatar Airlines treated me with absolute dignity at a level I have not been treated in decades, and it was their free choice.

I don't know how to square the Qatar Airlines moment in my life with Al Qaeda in the cargo bay. But it just drives home the absolute reality that we are all the same, that the desire to either treat human beings with dignity or to blow them to bits remains the essential choice in every region in the world. Oceans of separation are an illusion, in every culture and in every religion the decision between dignity or humiliation, selfishness or generosity, hate or love, is the ever-present choice.

For Rising China, Taoist And Confucianist Wisdom Should Inspire Positive Global Leadership

2010-10-25T18:20:55-04:00

President Obama has signaled in recent days that he will be confronting China much more on its global policies. But China is on the rise as the premier economic global power, even as America is on the decline, and it remains to be seen what kind of confrontation could be effective. Will China's rise actually be good news for the world? This will depend on how China rises, and it will be wise to challenge China on its humanitarian impact every bit as much as on its economic impact globally. Let's look at one example.

Burma has one of the worst governments in the world, a place where citizens live in terror. The military junta seized power when Aung San Suu Kyi's party won 392 of the 492 seats in Parliament. It does not fully control the Hill Country on the west and east sides of the country, inhabited by ethnic groups including the Chins, Kachins, Shan and others. These groups have had violent clashes with the junta government. The Kachins worked out a truce agreement in 1994 that has held for 16 years. Burma is a mostly Buddhist culture, but extensive Christian missionary activity there generations ago created enclaves of Christian groups in the Hill Country. The Kachin people on the Burmese/Chinese border constitute one such group. They apparently have good relations with their Buddhist neighbors, and the Kachin have successfully practiced mediation skills with the government in working out a written truce in 1994. They could use these skills with the new government after the elections on Nov. 7.

There are signs, however, of a serious junta assault on these Hill peoples, and China may be actively cooperating by cutting off escape routes. Why? It may be because China does a fabulous business in Burma, while other nations shun the Burmese military on principle. China is extracting jade, gold and timber to feed their own enormous business machine. Are there any principles behind China's global foreign policies except profits, because if there are, they seem hard to discern.

To me as a student of philosophy and conflict resolution theory, this is especially strange. In a recent book, I argue that it is precisely the great wisdom traditions of China that the West needs to learn in order to form a more complete and effective global ethic of engagement with each other, with states and with the earth itself. There are wonderful spiritual virtues from Western religious traditions that have played an active role in the foundations of democracy, human rights and international law. And yet Taoism and Confucianism have unique ethical and spiritual assets, and each system in its own way inculcates harmony, balance, honor and moderation in our dealings with each other as a global community. These Chinese virtues can support efforts to practice peaceful conflict transformation, mediation and can build community among the people of Burma/Myanmar, if only China would truly rise to its role as global leader.

If China is to emerge as a global leader -- not a global spoiler and not a global economic dictator -- it will have to dig deeper into its noble cultural moorings. China will have to incorporate the genius of Confucius and Lao Tze if it wants its global emergence to generate admiration, not resentment. China is exploding right now with more economic power than any other nation on the planet. But for the sake of its own identity and for the rest of us, it would be wise for its emergence to be based on a better balance of principle with profit.

Speaking from inside an American nation in serious trouble, and as a student of nations that lose their soul to greed, aggression and bad relations, I can say without a doubt that China's great age of prosperity and power will either be shortened by moral indifference or greatly lengthened by the visionary greatness of its extraordinary ancient philosophers.

We live in an interdependent planet where it is only our collective wisdom that will guarantee our survival and prosperity. Ethnic enclaves in a Buddhist culture constitute good opportunities for inter-cultural and interfaith cooperation. For this to happen we need China to open a conversation with the ethnic groups, with Baptist communities, with Buddhist leaders and with Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy. Moments and places of tension such as in this small province can either be flashpoints of inter-civilizational conflict or opportunities for new relationships. It is time for China to see its greatness not just economically but as a positive cultural force on a global scale.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Ravaging Our Young War Vets

2010-10-18T14:42:00-04:00

He was racing in a Humvee with four other soldiers, having arrived there just days before, 19 years old. The day he got there his best friend was shot in the head, boom, gone in an instant. Now he was racing along this road when a missile directly hit the cab of the vehicle. One guy's legs were gone and another was killed right away, and the missile flew right by his head, just missing him. He seemed uninjured, but he was, and now he is back in Boston.

It was a sunny August afternoon in Boston as I leaped into a cab. I had just finished attending a conference of great religious educators at Boston University, and I was feeling very good about my presentation. I thought it was a home run because I really connected with the message and the people.

The 50-something Irish cab driver, whose presence I immediately felt, had ruddy skin, a decently sized belly, and a fabulous shock of white hair. He was struggling with why he picked me up. "This is not my area," he said. "I could get into trouble." He asked me which way he should take me to get to the train at Back Bay, which was unusually indecisive for a local cabbie, suggesting that he was distracted.

The driver kept talking about complicated choices, and I became intrigued. I said to myself, "This man has troubles. He needs to talk." Coming off the conference I felt confident in my listening abilities. So I asked him where he was from, and out poured his story like a gushing fire hydrant. His tough Boston voice started to choke and his neck turned a deeper red. His son had come home from Afghanistan a different person. "How was he different?" I asked. "It's hard to say," he responded. "He doesn't hold down any food. If he eats, he vomits everything." My stomach convulsed a little, my head already in Afghanistan. I had lost balance before, and I wondered about the young man's his inner ear and what the roar of the missile might have done. I asked the cab driver if his son had seen an ENT specialist, and the father said that someone else had suggested that, and then immediately took out a pen at the red lights and started writing the suggestions furiously. I thought, "This is a father."

I wondered if the son was becoming emaciated. How could he have slipped through the care system if he couldn't eat? I asked if there was anything else unusual, and he said, "Yeah, he can eat late at night just fine, but come the morning, he can't hold anything again." I thought about day-and-night rhythms of the body that I know nothing about, but I also wondered when the missile strike occurred, and what was he doing at that minute. Finally I thought, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But I didn't know, I didn't know, and then I was at Back Bay, and I didn't want to get out of this Boston cab. I told him about PTSD, and he wrote furiously; we were blocking traffic. I said that a therapist must talk with his son about the exact circumstances of the strike. I told the father that he was doing all the right things by caring and studying and paying attention, and how good a father he was.

I gave him a huge tip, out of guilt, out of damn guilt that it is his son who pays the price for the crazy inability of our superpower democracy to stabilize a small poor country, because what we mostly have invested in until recently are weapons to destroy, not the means to cultivate life and liberty, and not resources to heal wounded 19-year-olds who may never again eat breakfast.

War is horrible, it is why I fight against it every day of my life. I entered a cab in my beautiful Boston, and in five minutes I was in a cab with four 19-year olds, bundled up with weapons and helmets and boots, and absolutely defenseless before the monstrous appetite of war for human blood.

The news in recent days of high-level engagement with the Taliban reveals a fresh American approach to bringing a truly stable peace to Afghanistan and the troops home, something I have worked on. But right now I can't stop thinking of the father, driving and writing, in search of a way to make his veteran son whole again, and I bless General Petraeus for opening a door to the end of this terrible war.