DAJANI 2008 CrossCurrents

BIG DREAM/SMALL HOPEA Peace Vision

Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi

Introduction

A Rabbi went faithfully, every day for twenty years, to the Wailing Wall(Kotel) to pray for peace between the Jews and the Arabs. One day,a reporter who learned of his dedicated mission thought it mightmake a good story. So he decided to interview him. He began his interview

by asking him: How does it feel to go every day for twenty years to the Wailing

Wall to pray for peace? The Rabbi responded: It feels like talking to a wall!

Why is it that peace seems so elusive? Why is it that we feel like talk-

ing to a wall when it comes to the important matter of peace?1 One reason

is because we always evaluate an issue in a certain contexta set of condi-

tions that place the issue or problem in a particular light that suggests

how the issue should be dealt with or how the problem should be resolved;

as one scholar once remarked, If all you have is a hammer, then all the

problems look like a nail!

In his classic work, Stable Peace, Kenneth Boulding defines the con-

cept of peace as follows: The concept of peace has both positive and

negative aspects. On the positive side, peace signifies a condition of good

management, orderly resolution of conflict, harmony associated with

mature relationships, gentleness, and love. On the negative side, it is

conceived as the absence of somethingthe absence of turmoil, tension,

conflict, and war.2

Palestinians and Israelis disagree over the peace issue because they

view it in two diametrically opposed contextsthat is, with different

S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 1 9 1

beliefs, interests and values in mind. When competing actorsthat is,

Palestinians and Israelisplace the peace issue in their own conflicting

contexts, decisions by policy makers to give more weight to one context

than another typically determine the outcome of the dispute, pushing it

more in the direction of war and conflict rather than in the direction of

peace and conciliation. Putting Israeli security needs above Palestinian

national needs resulted in making peace illusive since one party viewed

its own values and needs above those of the other. One-sided total

security in the long run is a theoretical and practical impossibility,

unless the opponent is wholly annihilated.

This study is divided into three parts. The first part looks at where

are we today, that is, living the Big Dreamconflict. The second part

looks at where we ought to be, that is, living the Small Hopeconcili-

ation. The third part deals with the question of how to get there

peace.

Historical background

Palestine was under Ottoman occupation from 1516 till 1918. In 1922,

the British Mandate was put in effect. It lasted until May 15, 1948, when

the State of Israel was declared. At the time, the West Bank and the Gaza

Strip3 were left without any strong centralized Palestinian authority.

Eventually, the Gaza Strip was placed under Egyptian administration,

while the West Bank opted in 1950 for unity with Jordan. In June 1967,

the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli Occupation. Jordan

kept its constitutional ties with the West Bank until July 31, 1988, when

King Hussein severed administrative and legal ties in order to reaffirm

the Palestinian entity.

Following lengthy secret talks beginning in April 1992 and

masterminded by Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgan Holst, the

Oslo Accord between the PLO and Israel was secretly hammered out in

Oslo, Norway on August 13, 1993.4 It called for an Israeli withdrawal

from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, which would

then fall under the civilian control of a Palestinian autonomous author-

ity. This historic step was followed by the Declaration of Principles (DoP)

signed by Israel and the PLO in Washington at the White House on

September 13, 1993. It stipulated mutual recognition between Israel and

the PLO and a commitment by the Palestinian side to end terrorism and

B I G D R E A M / S M A L L H O P E : A P E A C E V I S I O N

1 9 2 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

eliminate calls for the destruction of the State of Israel from the Palestin-

ian Charter. The DoP called for a transitional period of no more than five

years, during which final status arrangements for a lasting and

comprehensive peace settlement will be negotiated. Article I of the DoP

stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian Interim Self-Government

Authority for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza

Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a

permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and

338. Major issues, such as Jerusalem refugees, settlements, security

arrangements, borders and foreign relations and cooperation with other

neighbors, were deferred to final status negotiations to begin two

years later. The DoP was ambiguous on other issues such as:

1. Definition of the territory of the Jericho autonomous zone.

2. Release of the Palestinian political prisoners.

3. The nature of Israeli military withdrawals or redeployments.

4. Acts of violence by extremists on both sides.

The Declaration of Principles had a fundamental feature that had an

impact on the Palestinian public administration system: its declared

aims at establishing interim arrangements that would lead to a Perma-

nent Settlement.

On February 4, 1994, the Gaza-Jericho Autonomy Agreement,5 a

three-page document on principles of self-rule outlining the first stage of

Palestinian autonomy in Gaza and Jericho, was initialed in Cairo by PLO

Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Added

to it was an eight-page document that included details and maps of the

control of border crossings and security arrangements for Jewish settlers

in Gaza. The accord called for shared responsibility at border crossings

but gave Israel the ultimate right of decision. Israel remained in control

of the settlements, military locations, and security matters. Joint Israeli-

Palestinian forces led by Israel would patrol Gaza roads leading from

Jewish settlements to Israel. The boundaries were not covered in this

Agreement.

The Gaza-Jericho Autonomy Agreement signed in Cairo on May 4,

1994, stipulated that the Palestinian Authority shall establish a strong

police forcethe Palestinian Police.

The Palestinian Authority Political Program (PAPP) declared on May

28, 1994, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an

M O H AMM E D S . DA JA N I D AO U D I

S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 1 9 3

extenuation of the PLO. The PAPP maintained that the PA was a tem-

porary interim authority implementing its tasks until general democratic

elections in the Palestinian land takes place. The PA was authorized to

execute the interim programs during the interim phase in order to

achieve a program for connecting the interim period to the final solu-

tion. The PA was authorized to temporarily exercise its executive and

legislative mandate until the general elections. Among the main tasks

designated to the PA were:

1. Preparing for legislative and municipal elections and ensuring their

free nature and legitimacy.

2. Planning and formulating an active local governmental structure,

which included a new framework for local, municipal, and village

councils.

3. Drafting laws and decrees especially for the Palestinian Authoritys

institutions.

4. Coordinating with international institutions and donors in develop-

ment programs.

5. Reconstruction of the judiciary system.

6. Preparation of modern, efficient monetary system.

7. Complementing and structuring primary institutions such as a trea-

sury, development bank, employee bureau, accounting bureau,

administrative monitor, economic council, and statistic bureau.

8. Reorganization of the public service sectors.

The Early Empowerment Accord (EEA) initialed in Cairo on August

24, 1994 by Palestinian minister Dr. Nabil Shaath and Israeli negotia-

tor Danny Rothschild expanded the PAs authority in five key

spheres to cover all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The five

spheres of early empowerment, for which PA authority extended

beyond the autonomous areas of Jericho and the Gaza Strip, included

education, culture, health, social welfare, tourism, and direct taxation/

Value Added Tax (VAT). According to the EEA, Israel would continue to

control the remaining civilian administrative functions until after the

Palestinian elections. The Israeli Cabinet on August 28, 1994 approved

the EEA, but stated that it was conditional on Palestinian efforts

to halt violence and terrorism. Issues delayed until the permanent

status negotiations included Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, and military

locations.


1 9 4 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

The Early Empowerment Agreement signed in Gaza on August 29,

1994 by Israel and the PA, transferred to the PA from the Israeli Mili-

tary Government and its Civil Administration in the West Bank the

powers and responsibilities in the following spheres: education and

culture, health, social welfare, tourism, direct taxation and VAT.

According to this agreement, Israel was to provide the PA to enable

free access to all information that is necessary for an effective and

smooth transfer. The PA became fully responsible for the proper func-

tioning of the offices included in the spheres and for the management

of their personnel in all aspects, including employment and placement

of employment, payment of their salaries and pensions, and ensuring

other employee rights. The PA continued employing Palestinian

employees of the Civil Administration who were employed in the

offices included in each sphere and maintained their rights. Article VII

of the Agreement transferred legislative powers also to the PA. It

authorized the PA to promulgate secondary legislation regarding the

powers and responsibilities transferred to it. Such legislation included

amendments and changes to the existing laws, regulations and mili-

tary orders. However, Israel would have no reservations concerning

any proposed legislation for such legislation to enter into force. Article

XI of the Agreement stipulated that the PA will do its utmost to estab-

lish its revenue collection system immediately with the intent of col-

lecting direct taxes and VAT.

On September 28, 1995, Israel and the PLO signed the landmark 400-

pages Interim Autonomy Agreement (IAA),6 at the White House in Wash-

ington, paving the way for an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian

cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The IAA provided for two elec-

tions: one for the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in January 1996;

and another to elect an 82-member self-governing authoritythe Pales-

tinian Councilwhich would have legislative and executive powers to

be held in April 1996. It also provided that legislative power would be

exercised by the Palestinian Legislative Council as a whole, while its

executive power would be exercised by a committee of the Council

called the Executive Authority. This committee consisted of Council

members together with appointed officials. The powers of the Coun-

cil would extend to all matters within its jurisdiction. However, it did

not have powers in the sphere of foreign relations. The IAA did,


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 1 9 5

however, provide for a number of areas in which the PLO might, on

behalf of the Council, conduct negotiations and sign agreements.

The IAA divided the West Bank into three areas:

1. Area A with full Palestinian civil jurisdiction and internal security.

2. Area B with full Palestinian civil jurisdiction and joint Israeli-Pales-

tinian internal security.

3. Area C with Israeli civil and overall security control.

Although Israel continued to control some 70 percent of the land

in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the IAA allowed the Palestinians to

conduct their own internal affairs, to reduce points of friction

between Israelis and Palestinians, and to open a new era of coopera-

tion and coexistence based on common interest, dignity, a mutual

respect. At the same time, it protected Israelis vital interests, and in

particular its security interests, both with regard to external security

and the personal security of its citizens in the West Bank and Gaza

Strip.

Negotiations on the final disposition of the West Bank and Gaza

Strip were due to begin no later than May 1996. During the first stage of

the Accord, it was agreed that Palestinians would gain full control of the

municipal areas and would have administrative control over an esti-

mated 460 villages.

The IAA contained three undertakings from the PLO to Israel:

1. A commitment to annul the Palestinian Covenant clauses calling for

the destruction of Israel.

2. A commitment to put a stop to hostile propaganda.

3. A commitment to wage war against terrorism.

To the main body of the Agreement were appended six annexes deal-

ing with security arrangements, elections, civil affairs (transfer of pow-

ers), legal matters, economic relations, and Israeli-Palestinian

cooperation. The permanent status negotiations were to deal with the

remaining issues, including Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security

arrangements, borders, relations, cooperation with neighboring coun-

tries, and so forth.

The Wye River Memorandum (WRM), signed on October 23, 1998,

called for the implementation of the IAA and the resumption of the final

status talks. It included modifying the PLO Charter, opening Gaza Airport

and the Safe Passage connecting Gaza with the West Bank, reduction in


1 9 6 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

the number of Palestinian police, and release of Palestinian political

prisoners.

The Sharm Esh-Sheikh Agreement (SSA), signed by Israeli Prime

Minister Ehud Barak and PA President Yasser Arafat in Sharm Esh-Sheikh

on September 4, 1999, stipulated that Israel would withdraw in three

stages from 11 percent of the West Bank, release 350 political prisoners,

open the safe passage, and begin permanent status talks on September

13, 1999, to reach a framework for a settlement by February 2000 and a

final peace agreement by September 2000.

The Al-Aqsa Intifada that began on September 28, 2000, and the Israeli

Revolving Door Policy of incursions into the West Bank that came as a

reaction to it, sealed the fate of the Oslo Peace Process, bringing it to a

sudden abrupt halt and causing unprecedented human losses on both

sides, heavy destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and economy, as

well as vast demolition of main PA institutions.

The peace process

The political and economic environment in the late 1980s and early

1990s was charged with anger, hopelessness, tension and anxiety,

resulting in a wave of extremism and growing tendencies for

radicalism and thus precipitating an unpredicted dangerous situation

in the region. For this reason, there was an urgent need to search for

new options to defuse the crisis. Since the road of confrontation and

violence failed to produce any tangible results for both conflicting

parties, there was no other alternative but to search for new avenues

and fresh approaches to meet the new challenges.

In 1991, the Madrid Peace Conference brought a glimmer of hope.7 It

was followed two years later by the Washington Declaration signed and

sealed by the two antagonists and witnessed by a superpower.8 This

historic event inspired people to hope: Finally peace is attainable, they

calmed their fears. However, since its early days in late 1993, the Oslo

Peace Process lurched from one crisis to another with no light at the

end of the tunnel.9 Thus, our life in the last decade had been a

combination of despair and hope. When the waves of terrorism ebbs, we

are distraught with despair; when waves of terrorism subside, we are full

of hope. But hope for what?


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 1 9 7

Big Dream/Small Hope framework

In her book, The Vocabulary of Peace, Shulamith Harevern maintains that the

Oslo Accords brought an essential change: From now on, it is not automati-

cally Jew against Arab and Arab against Jew; it is the Jews and Arabs who support

peace, and those, Jews and Arabs both, who oppose it10 Thus, one main fruitof the Oslo Peace Process is the radical change in the identity of the

protagonists. The identity of the two conflicting parties to the Middle East

conflict has been transformed from national in character (Arab-Israeli) to

more sociopolitical in character (Pro-Peace/Anti-Peace).

The well-known Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once wondered:

What is more importanta small hope or a big dream? In my view,

the Oslo Accords brought two other radical changes. The first was the

Israeli recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,

the first genuine recognition in the history of Zionism that the Palestin-

ians are a people,11 shaking the basic foundations of the Zionistdenial of the very existence of a Palestinian people as exemplified by

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famous statement: It was not as

though there was a Palestinian people and in Palestine considering itself

as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their

country away from them. They did not exist.12

Another essential change was: From now on it is not Palestinians against

Israelis and Israelis against Palestinians; but it is Palestinians and Israelis, who

believe in the big dream, and those Israelis and Palestinians who believe in the

small hope Thus, as the peace process progressed, this identificationhas crystallized more into cultural/psychological character which assem-

bled in one camp those Palestinians and Israelis who are for the Big

Dream in mortal combat with those in the other camp of the Small

Hope. But what is the Big Dream? What is the Small Hope? What is the

Big Dream for Israelis? What is the Big Dream for the Palestinians?

The Big Dream

For the Israelis, the Big Dream is to wake up one morning and find that

Palestinians have disappeared in the desert and that only Jews live in

the promised land of Eretz Israel in a purely Jewish state with the two

rivers as its borders and unified Jerusalem as its capital. Among the early

Jews who believed in this dream was Zeev Jabotinsky who advocated

force to contain the Arabs of Palestine behind an Iron Wall of Zionist


1 9 8 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

resolve which they will be powerless to break down. He considered a

voluntary agreement between the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine as

inconceivable now or in the foreseeable future.13

For the Palestinians, the Big Dream is to wake up one morning and

find that all Israelis have departed and only Palestinians live in the Holy

Land in an independent Arab state from river to sea as its borders and

al-Quds al-Sherif as its capital.

Advocates of the Big Dream are those, at present in the majority, who

struggle for the eventual triumph of their perception of good over evil as

resembled by the other, and as a result seek to establish their state exclu-

sively on the historic land of Palestine/Israel. In their effort to achieve their

goal, the Big Dream camp exercises strong opposition to the Oslo Accord

and all subsequent agreements such as Hamas14 within the Palestinian

community and the Likud Party within the Israeli community. In his book

Sharing the Promised Land: A Tale of Israelis and Palestinians, Dilip Hiro accuses

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of doing his utmost to wreck

the peace process.15 It demonizes the other and implements a highly

nationalistic curriculum in its educational system that deligitimizes and

demonizes the other. It promotes conflict education that teaches the new

generation the war philosophy of the old generation. It appeals to the emo-

tional bondage of the people to the land and focuses on historical ties of

the past. It denies the narrative of the other and ignores their history, cul-

ture literature, and traditions.

In the Big Dream scenario, Israeli morbid fantasy is expressed in the

saying: The only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian! On the other

hand, Palestinian morbid fantasy: The only good Israeli is a dead

Israeli!

The Big Dream vision is reflected in different aspects in both societies

in conflict.16 In the daily life, the Big Dream is reflected in denying the

other, building negative mirror image of the other, divisiveness, demon-

ization of the other, mistrust of the other, blaming the other, insecurity,

broken hearts, shattered families, and vanished dreams.

In both countries, the Big Dream advocates teach historical Palestine/

Israel with all its total geography with maps including pre-1948 Palestine

as the envisioned state of Palestine/Israel. In Palestine, Israel is viewed as

a usurper state founded on the destruction of historical Palestine and

the misery of its people.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 1 9 9

Each sides own historical descriptions of the conflict are loaded with

diametrically different interpretations of past and future. Rouhana and

Bar Tal (1998) describe the contrasting, incompatible versions of the con-

flict held by protagonists: The narratives of the two communities are

in total clash as to the root causes of the conflict, the meaning of

the historical developments, and the role played by the ingroup and the

outgroup during the various stages of the conflict. For example, the

1948 Arab-Jewish war is remembered by Israelis as the War of Indepen-

dence/Liberation; in contrast, the same event is remembered by the Pal-

estinians as the Catastrophe/Disaster/Nakba. Rouhana and Bar Tal

describe how each narrative negates the other:

According to the Palestinian narrative, the Jewish settlers occupied

the land, and Palestinians were dispossessed and displaced. The

Palestinian narrative views this influx an invasion of foreigners

who took over the country from Palestinians and in the process

pushed out Palestinians, making them refugees in the neighboring

countries. According to the Zionist narrative, the land was liber-

ated and redeemed in a process of national revival. The Jews gath-

ered their exiles in the land of their forefathers to establish their

state, which was attacked by hostile, non-accepting Arabs at its

birth. As an outcome of Arab aggression and defeat, the Palestin-

ians became refugees.17

In the Big Dream Palestinian refugees aspire to exercise their right

of return to the places of origin in the State of Israel.18 Politics and

religion shape the character and tone of all other subjects such

as civic education, language, history, literature, and geography. Jerusa-

lem is proclaimed as the capital of one nation at the expense of the

other.

The media in both Israeli and Palestinian communities advance the

Big Dream theme.19 Each echoes the popular messages: We are victims;

they are aggressors; Our victims are a terrible tragedy; their victims

are statistics; Our actions are legitimate; their actions violate interna-

tional law; Our aspirations are noble; their aspirations are despicable;

Our cause is just; their cause is evil; We are peace lovers; they are

war mongers; Our hands are clean; their hands are stained.20 Press


2 0 0 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

coverage of the other other is: biased, emotional, exaggerated, myopic,

and nationalistic.

In evaluating Israeli and Palestinian education, one finds that the

knowledge imparted through both Israeli and Palestinian textbooks

reflect the Big Dream theme.21 They are hardly objective, truthful, or fac-

tual. Both Palestinian and Israeli textbooks instill enmity and hatred.

They are biased, and include visual and verbal incitements, as well as

negative stereotype images of the other. Both curriculums delegitimize

and demonize the other, and fail to embody the principles of coexis-

tence, peace, tolerance, multiculturalism and diversity. Classes in Israeli

and Palestinian schools and programs at universities do not include

peace education courses.

The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace claims: Palestinian

textbooks instill hatred of Israel and Jews . The PA has rejected inter-national calls to modify the Palestinian textbooks.22 Similar views are

echoed in the Israeli press: The incitement to hatred of Jews and the

destruction of Israel, which has always been part of the Palestinian

school curriculum, was intensified.23 Hillary Clinton claims: A book

that is required reading for Palestinian six graders actually starts off stat-

ing, There is no alternative to destroying Israel.24 The spokesman for

Israeli settlers proclaimed: We teach our children to respect life, while

they teach that if you die with Jewish blood on your hands you go to

heaven and are fed with grapes by 15 virgins.25 Charles Krauthammer

claims that since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians had

intensified the propaganda, the anti-semitism, in their pedagogy and in

their media and that while Israel had assiduously changed its text-

books to prepare for peace, on the Palestinian side, the opposite was

happening.26 However, George Washington Professor Nathan Brown

finds such charges inaccurate. He concludes: While highly nationalis-

tic, the Palestinian curriculum does not incite hatred, violence, and

anti-Semitism.27 Similar views are stated in the Study on the New Pales-

tinian Curriculum prepared by Israel Palestine Center for Research and

Information (IPCRI), which concludes: The overall orientation of the

Palestinian curriculum is peaceful. It does not openly incite againstIsrael and the Jews. It does not openly incite hatred and violence.28

Despite drafting a new curriculum, Palestinian education remains a

source of conflict since it includes such words as Palestine and Jerusalem


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 0 1

used in the new Palestinian textbooks but without definition is interpreted

by the other as a denial of the two-state solution. For instance, on one

cover of a textbook on national education (grade 2, 2001) is a British Man-

date stamp that originally had Palestine written on it in English, Arabic

and Hebrew and that now has the Hebrew erased from it. Cities located in

the State of Israel, such as Akka, Haifa, Nazareth and Jaffa, are referred to

in Palestinian textbooks as part of Palestine, which is interpreted as a

denial of the existence of the State of Israel. Textbooks teaching the Arabic

language in grade 6 include titles such as Our Homeland Palestine that

shows a picture of the city of Akka, which the Oslo Agreement designates

within proper Israel. Also, while Moslem and Christian religion, culture

and heritage is taught to students, Jewish religion is ignored and thus cre-

ating a rift with the other. Students are taught that the [refugee] camp is

not to be considered an original homeland for the Palestinian refugee, it is

but a temporary place in which he was forced to live, and all Palestinians

are waiting for the return of each Palestinian refugee to his city or village

from which he was forced to leave. This position contradicts the spirit of

the Oslo Accords. In an announcement addressed To the Palestinian Lead-

ership, in January 2001, over thirty Israeli peace activists, intellectuals

and politicians announced publicly that we shall never be able to agree

to the return of the refugees to within the borders of Israel, for the mean-

ing of such a return would be the elimination of the State of Israel.29 The

leading figure in the Israeli peace movement, author Amos Oz, views the

right of return to Israel of Palestinian refugees as a Palestinian demand to

have two states, both of them for Palestinian refugees.30 Robert Mallay

and Hussein Agha, whose article on Camp David Summit shed much light

on the secret negotiations, wrote: The Palestinians, while maintaining

the right of the refugees to return to the homes which they had lost in

1948, were ready to link the implementation of the resolution to a mecha-

nism which would provide substitutes for the refugees and would restrict

the number of refugees who would return to Israel itself.31

In teaching Islamic education in grade 6, the focus is on jihad rheto-

ric and the lesson is that the Moslem loves his country and defends it to

stir national feelings to regain the homeland. Pupils are taught that it is

their religious duty to be part of the struggle against occupation; however,

this lesson is not balanced with any religious lessons on peace. Its nostal-

gic teaching of a vanished past has an anachronistic quality about the Big


2 0 2 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

Dream textbooks. For example, a second grade text reads: a family takes

a trip to Jaffa, smelling lemons and oranges along the way. This of course

is the Jaffa of the past; current drivers along the way entering the city are

more likely to smell the polluted air rather than oranges. This teaches

Palestinians to yearn for a world in the past that does not exist anymore.

Such education enforces fantasies of the Big Dream.32

On the other side, Maureen Meehan finds Israeli education needing

much reform. She writes that Israeli textbooks and childrens literature

promote racism and hatred toward Palestinians and Arabs. She asserts

that Israeli school textbooks as well as childrens storybooks, according

to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs

as murderers, rioters, suspicious, and generally backward and unpro-

ductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians

and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.

Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary,

middle, and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature,

history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli text-

books present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even

humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and

acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.33

In the Big Dream, Israelis maintain that hiding behind walls would

provide them with the national security they seek.34 However, the histor-

ical experiences show the fallacy of this assumption. For instance, the

Great Wall of China, built in 221 BC and stretching 4,100 km/2,550 mi

across north China, failed to repel attacks from nomads to the north;

the Constantinople Wall failed to protect the city and was eventually

destroyed in the year 1453; the Maginot French defensive fortifications

constructed 192931 to act as protection against German invasion failed

to prevent the German attack of 1940; the Barlev defenses along the

Suez Canal crumbled and thus could not protect the Israeli western front

in 1973; more recently, the 96-mile, 11.8-foot-high Berlin Wall, built in

1961, could not prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Germany

and was finally torn down in 1989.

The lessons drawn from history are that great walls provide a false

feeling of security without providing much protection. They symbolize

failure in diplomatic communications and are no substitute for political

solutions. They also reflect a negative international image indicating lack


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 0 3

of peace strategies. Thus while the Big Dream advocates call for building

walls to separate them from the other, the Small Hope advocates call for

building bridges of knowledge and understanding based on peace and

justice.

The Small Hope

Advocates of the Small Hope are those, at present in the minority, who

believe in the peaceful coexistence between the two peoples and call for

the establishment of a two-state solution (State of Israel next to the State

of Palestine created in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) living next to each

other in harmony, peace and security, with Jerusalem as a shared capital

for both.

Refugees would exercise their right of return to the State of Palestine

or accept compensation.35 As the Palestinian professor of sociology Elia

Zureik states, By accepting the Madrid formula for the Middle East

peace talks, which excludes the United Nations as the structure for

resolving the Palestine refugee problem, the Palestinians have seriously

weakened their demand for the implementation of the right of

return.36 Although the Israeli-Palestinian DoP of 1993 is completely

silent on the vital issue of the right of return, Edward Said in Peace and

Its Discontents maintains that the Palestinian claim to the right of return

was substantially weakened by the DoP.37 In contrast to the Big Dream,

agreements in the Small Hope are holy and honored by both parties.

Politics and religion are discussed independently and separately and

do not dominate the contents and nature of all other subjects.

The Small Hope advocates teach Israel/Palestine as two independent

neighboring states with Palestine as West Bank and Gaza Strip while

Israels boundaries would reflect the 1967 borders with minor modifica-

tions; refugees would exercise their right of return to the state of Pales-

tine in addition to being compensated; politics and religion are

discussed independently and separately without dominating the contents

and nature of all other subjects. In the Small Hope vision, religion

becomes a source of peace inspiration.38

The Small Hope believers are devout disciples of the Book of

Proverbs, the Hebrew Bible that instructs: Peace will not rise by force, but

only through understanding; the Christian Bible, which says: Blessed are

the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 3:16); as


2 0 4 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

well as the Muslim Holy Quran, which states in Surah 47:35: Call for

peace. And if they lean to peace, then leaneth thou too to it, and trust in Allah;

verily he is the all-hearing, all-knowing. Rather than teaching controversies

and differences in religion, peace advocates focus on commonalities such

as The Golden Rule in Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your

neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary (Hillel, Talmud,

Shabbat 3/9); in Christianity: In everything, do to others as you would have

them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12), in Islam:

Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself

(The Prophet Mohammed, Hadith).

In the Small Hope, society shows tolerance. As Joshua Leibman

states, Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand anothers beliefs,

practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.

The aim of the Small Hope is to build bridges for peace and justice

with others, to help future generations make the right choice between

war and peace, to make them realize that they do not have a monopoly

over the truth, to give the ability to treat opinions and interests of the

other with respect, to help solve problems through peace culture, to

develop a sense of civic duty and personal responsibility for the fate of

not just ones own country, but for the other.39

In the world of the Small Hope, Jerusalem would become the inter-

national City of Peace reflecting the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-

religious, and peaceful nature of the city.

In the educational system of the Small Hope, peace education is

adopted by both Israeli and Palestinian ministries of education. Montes-

sori teaching methodology would be adopted by private schools.40 As

summarized by Bar-Tal, peace education aims at achieving the following:

goals:

to foster changes that will make the world a better, morehumane place. The goal is to diminish, or even to eradicate a vari-

ety of human ills ranging from injustice, inequality, prejudice, and

intolerance to abuse of human rights, environmental destruction,

violent conflict, war, and other evils in order to create a world of

justice, equality, tolerance, human rights, environmental quality,

peace and other positive features.41


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 0 5

According to I. Harris, the objectives of peace education in a situa-

tion such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be:

to break down enemy images and break through a process ofnumbing and denial about atrocities committed in intractable con-

flictspromote compassion for the suffering of those in the othergroup, in the hopes of reducing ethnic and religious hatred, and

bringing members of conflicting groups together in a diologic

communication process that searches for common understandings.

The key is to accept the other and respect the inherent humanity

that resides in all humans.42

Textbooks would not include negative images and adjectives of

other; negative stereotypes in describing the other; pejorative terminol-

ogy. On the other hand, it would include narratives of the other; positive

features and traits of the other; stories about friendship and cooperation

between Israelis and Palestinians; and a human, multidimensional, indi-

vidual approach. The Small Hope educational peace strategy aims at

including the following elements:

1. Democracy: fostering independent and creative thinking.43

2. Peace-orientation: focusing on the acceptance of the other and embody-

ing mutual respect for the other.

3. Non-authoritarianism: avoiding placing any stress on authority and

making manifest that truth is not absolute.

4. Rationality: teaching students to think in a rational way avoiding emo-

tional decision making.

5. Tolerance: teaching tolerance of the other.

6. Compassion: promoting compassion for the suffering of the other.

7. Cultural sensitivity: Being culturally sensitive; for instance, using the

following definition quoted from the Encarta Online Encyclopedia to

define Al-Intifada in the Palestinian context: throwing off, as a dog

throws off fleas. Using this definition may offend the Palestinians

who are being portrayed as a dog as well as the Israelis who are

being portrayed as fleas.

Generally, the aim of peace education focus on building bridges for

peace and justice with the other. Its objectives focus on helping future

generations make the right choice between war and peace, making each


2 0 6 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

realize that they do not have a monopoly over the truth; giving each the

ability to treat the others opinions and interests with respect; helping

one solve his problems through peace instruments; developing a sense

of civic duty and personal responsibility for the fate of not just ones

own country, but for the other.

Media coverage of other in the Small Dream reflects neutrality,

accuracy, honesty, objectivity, humanity, broad-mindedness, as well as

promoting peace and conciliation.

In the society of the Small Dream, there is no monopoly for one

party over the truth, as reflected in this wise Jewish folktale:

Cohen and Levi both approached the rabbi in an attempt to resolve a

festering dispute between them. After Cohen relates to the rabbi his side of

the story, the rabbi pronounces to him: You are right. Following Levis

statement of the facts as he sees them, the rabbi declares to him: You are

right. Once the two have departed, the rabbis wife turns to the rabbi and

asks: But rabbi, how can they both be right? To this question, the rabbi

responds: You are also right.

Conciliation and forgiveness

No doubt, there is an urgent need to invoke the spirit of reconciliation44 in

order to reach a long, lasting peace.45 But many feel that reconciliation

will be difficult to reach if both sides to the conflict are not prepared to

acknowledge their responsibility and guilt.46 Palestinians tend to distrust

the term reconciliation as they feel it doesnt do justice to their pain

and suffering. Hizkias Assefa argues that, The central question in recon-

ciliation is not whether justice is done, but rather how one goes about

doing it in ways that can also promote future harmonious and positive

relationships between parties that have to live with each other whether

they like it or not.47 In The Palestinian Exodux-1948-88, the Palestinian Pro-

fessor Rashid Khalidi raises the issues of responsibility and atonement in

order to achieve reconciliation:

We need truth so that the harm done in 1948 can be acknowl-

edged by all concerned, which means facing history honestly,

acceptance of responsibility by those responsible or their succes-

sors, and solemn atonement for what was done fifty years ago. We


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 0 7

need truth also in order to clarify the limits of what can be done

to right that injustice without causing further harm. Once these

have been established, it should be possible to work toward attain-

able justice and therefore toward reconciliation. This is essential

because our ultimate objective should be to end this conflict for

good, which can only come from true reconciliation, based on

truth and justice.48

Professor of Political Science Munther Dajani of Al-Quds University

expresses similar views in The Palestinian Refugees: Old ProblemsNew

Solutions:

At some point the Israelis must face the truth and begin the recon-

ciliation process by accepting responsibility for injustices inflicted

on the Palestinians in general, and the refugees in particular. This

will open the way to usher in the Palestinians as equal partners.

While it is true that it has taken the Palestinians a long fifty years

to finally accept the Israelis, it is my sincere hope that it will not

take the Israelis another fifty years to accept the Palestiniansaspartners in the peace process.49

Nadim Rouhana argues that conflict reconciliation, as opposed to

conflict resolution or conflict settlement, seeks to achieve a kind of rela-

tionship between the parties founded on mutual legitimacy. For this to

occur, issues of justice, truth, and historical responsibility as well as the

restructuring of social and political relations need to be addressed.50

In his book Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, Nur Masalha states

that any genuine reconciliation between two peoplesas opposed to a

political settlement achieved by leaderscan begin only by Israel taking

responsibility for the displacement and dispossession of the refugees.51

In my view, for a lasting peace to be achieved, the Israelis need not

acknowledge their central role in the historical dispossession of the

Palestinians as a people, or that they should take collective responsibility

for evicting the Palestinian people from their homeland. As a pacifist,

I believe in conciliation without the need for forgiveness as echoed in

the Christian Lords Prayer: Forgive those who trespass against us.

Research shows that learning to forgive those who hurt us can have


2 0 8 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

profound benefits. It helps to manage anger, cut stress, and improve rela-

tions. Forgiveness can be a powerful antidote to hate and bitterness.52 In

her insightful article The Power of Forgiving: Best Way to Heal a

Heart, Lisa Collier Cool lists five steps to find peace: (1) Focus on the

facts of the offense. (2) Dont condone it, but try to understand what led

to it. Try not to take it personally; you arent the only one to ever get

hurt. (3) Focus on the offenders humanity, not just his hurtful behavior.

(5) Forgive for yourself, not anyone else. And forgive in your heart. You

neednt tell the offender.53

Glimmers of hope for peace

I. International initiativeThe Road Map: Officially launched in June 2003, the Road Map for peace

remains the only accepted political process for moving from a state of

violence toward peace between Israel and the Palestinian authority. It

has been endorsed and accepted by Israel, the Palestinian authority, and

the Quartet led by the United States. Its main goal is the establishment

of a Palestinian state, independent, viable, and sovereign with maxi-

mum territorial contiguity. With regard to Jerusalem, the Road Map

grants the Palestinians a political status equal to Israel; determines that

the decision in the negotiations over the citys status will be with regard

to the political and religious interest of both sides; and emphasizes

that Israel should reopen Palestinian institutions closed in East Jerusa-

lem. As for settlements, it demands that Israel should immediately dis-

mantle all the outposts and freeze all settlement activities, including

natural growth. On security, the Road Map calls for security cooperation

between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with participation by

American security representatives. It demands that Israel cease its

attacks on Palestinian civilians.54

II. Arab initiativeThe Saudi Peace Plan: Adopted at the Arab Summit held in Beirut in

March 2002. Its main goal is the establishment of an independent Pales-

tinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

It demands that Israel dismantle all its settlements and that Palestinian

refugees be granted right of return for all the Arab states to establish


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 0 9

normal relations with Israel. The plan needs to be marketed authenti-

cally to the Arab and Israeli public. Although unfortunately there is no

minimal effort at present to pursue this initiative, it holds much prom-

ise.55 The Arabs moved a long way from the 1967 Khartoum Arab Sum-

mit of the famous three nos: no conciliation, no recognition, no

negotiations, and the 2002 Beirut Arab Summit of yes to conciliation,

yes to recognition, yes to negotiations.56

III. Joint Palestinian-Israeli initiatives1. Ayalon-Nusseibeh people initiative: Peoples Peace has been gathering

momentum with tens of thousand signatures from both Israelis and Pal-

estinians supporting the peace process. Its main goal is seeking a viable

just solution to the conflict. It calls for the establishment of an indepen-

dent Palestinian state, maintaining that the borders will be set along the

lines of the Saudi peace initiative with a 1:1 territorial exchange and

calls for the City of Jerusalem serving as the joint capital of both

states.57

2. Beilen-Abd Rabbo Geneva initiative: Israeli and Palestinian ex-officials

announced on October 2003 that they had worked out an unofficial

peace deal, known as the Geneva Accord, which they offered as a blue-

print for formal negotiations. It calls for the formation of a Palestinian

state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the return of Palestinian refu-

gees to that state, and the division of Jerusalem between the two states

where each side would govern its holy sites.58

3. Independent initiatives: (a) More than 150,000 Israelis demonstrated on

May 15, 2004 at Rabin Square, calling on Israeli leadership to start talk-

ing with the Palestinians and demanding that Israel pull out of Gaza. (b)

More than fifty Palestinian-Israeli intellectuals, initiated and signed on

July 25, 2001, the joint Declaration for Peace No to Bloodshed, No to

Occupation which stated in part:

We refuse to comply with the ongoing deterioration in our situa-

tion, with the growing list of victims, the suffering and the real

possibility that we may all be drowned in a sea of mutual hostil-

ity. We implore all people of goodwill to return to sanity, torediscover compassion, humanity and critical judgment, and to

reject the unbearable ease of the descent into fear, hatred and


2 1 0 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

calls for revenge. In spite of everything, we still believe in thehumanity of the other side, that we have a partner for peace, and

that a negotiated solution to the conflict between our peoples is

possible.

Which road to take?

While the Israeli and Palestinian masses dance to the tune of the maxi-

malist big dream, radicalizing the discourse, few have opted for the less

taken road of the minimalist Small Hope pacifying the discourse. One

such voice is the Israeli Daniel Barenboim, the well-renowned Israeli

musician, who in inspiring words stated in his acceptance speech for the

Wolf Foundation Prize reflected the theme of the Small Hope:

With pain in my heart, I ask today whether a situation of

conquest and control can be reconciled with Israels Declaration of

Independence.

Is there logic to the independence of one people if the cost is a

blow to the fundamental rights of another people?

Can the Jewish people, whose history is full of suffering and

persecution, allow it to be apathetic about the rights and suffering

of a neighboring people?

Can the State of Israel allow itself to indulge in an unrealistic

dream whose meaning is an ambition to bring an ideological

resolution to the dispute, rather than the aim of attaining a prag-

matic, humanitarian solution, based on social justice?59

In the words of Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh: It was the

Palestinians misfortune to have been victimized by historys greatest vic-

tims, the Jews.60

Conclusion

In his Proverbs for Paranoids, the American writer Thomas Pynchon writes

that if you get people asking the wrong questions, you dont need to

worry about the answers. That is why it is important for us to ask our-

selves the right questions: What heritage and legacy do we want to leave

for our grandchildren: Conflict, hatred, bloodshed or peace, goodwill,

prosperity, and security? Why dont we channel our pain and anger away


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 1 1

from hatred and toward peace and conciliation? As in the parable of the

Prophet Ezekiel, why dont we revive the dry bones of peace, cloth it

with flesh, lift it from dust and set it up as a joint concern? In his

speech before the Knesset on July 13, 1992, Israeli Prime Minister Yitz-

hak Rabin declared, It is our fate to live in common on the same tract

of land in the same country. Our lives are conducted with you, beside

you, and against you. For forty four years and more now, you havestumbled about in illusion.61

In their introduction to Creating a Culture of Peace, Gershon Baskin and

Zakaria al-Qaq write: It is quite a considerable challenge to ask how do

we influence, mold, create, lead our own societies to create a culture

where our children, the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians, will

really be able to live in peace. How can we play a role in paving that

road so the challenges that will face the next generation will be

smoother and easier than the ones we face today?62

If we have a strategy to achieve peace, what would it look like?

A peace strategy should have five main targets: to inspire people to look

to the future rather than the past, and not to allow the past to negate

our ability to build new roads, as Shimon Peres writes in his book The

New Middle East,63 to bolster popular support for the peace initiative, to

foster cooperation between the two negotiating sides, to create a culture

of peace that holds non-violence64 as an only instrument to resolve

conflicts, and to build a coexistence base that provides security for both.

No doubt, security is a legitimate need for both sides and no security

guarantee should be asked of one party at the expense of other. Security

concerns should be equal, mutual, and reciprocal on both sides. Uri

Savir, in his book The Process, stresses the significance of the security con-

cept in Israeli psychology, For Israel the critical issue was security; for

the Palestinians it was political and national pride.65

Significantly, it is not enough to base peace upon political and eco-

nomic agreements, as was the case in the Oslo Peace process or the

Egyptian-Jordanian-Israeli peace accords; it must be founded upon a

culture of peace based on understanding, respecting and appreciating

each others values, perspectives, history, culture, tradition, religion, and

aspirations.66 As Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin wrote, In order to

bring an end to the state of war in the reality of the Israeli-Arab conflict,

there must be change in the psychological components, the perceptions


2 1 2 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

and interests, not only of governments and diplomats, but also of the

peoples involved in the conflict.67

This conflict can be settled peacefully if both Palestinians and Israelis

try to negotiate their differences rationally and sensibly, understand

each other, listen to each others arguments, defend their views stead-

fastly but without violence.68 To move away from this culture of conflict,

war, and violence, both Palestinians and Israelis ought to get closer to

each other, not further away from each other. Konrad Adenauer was

known for his dry humor. During his visit to the Hebrew University of

Jerusalem, some students used the occasion to voice their protests

against Germany. Adenauers escorts urged him to pass on quickly, but

he refused, saying: Dont we want to get closer to each other?69 They

need to grasp the opportunity of peace; it may not come back again!

Peace is not a utopian dream but the hope at the end of the tunnel.

In Jewish culture there is the recognition that the child at the Pass-

over festival may deliberately, naively, ask questions that would be seen

as inappropriate if they came from an adult. Let me then be that child

and ask the following questions: Do key terms such as peace, secu-

rity, conciliation, coexistence, mean the same thing to both Pales-

tinians and Israelis? Do both people want peace, security, coexistence,

and conciliation70 or continued war, conflict, and bloodshed? Wouldnt

it be much better to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state

rather than to take it by force? And what is the future of such a state if

established on the basis of force, hatred, and enmity? Arent both Israelis

and Palestinians better off in denouncing the Big Dream in favor of the

Small Hope?71

Back in 1986, Uri Avnery ended his book, My Friend, the Enemy, on a

pessimistic note. The chances of peace are at their lowest ebb, he

wrote. Both in Israel and amongst the Palestinians, powerful forces are

arrayed against it. Both superpowers seem indifferent.72 Nevertheless,

he did not give up and continued his crusade with the other Israeli and

Palestinian peace activists guided by Abba Ebans observation that men

and nations often behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other

alternatives.73 Thus, this is a cri de Coeur of a Palestinian who had

suffered exile and his right to pursue happiness as a normal human

being in his homeland. Finally, let me close on an optimistic note with

these inspiring words of Indian writer Satish Kumar:


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 1 3

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth.

Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust.

Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace.

Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.74

Notes

Scholars expand peace in the world

Talmeedai chachameem marbeen shalom baolam Hebrew Bible, Book of Proverbs

1. To the question, Do you believe that ultimately there will be peace between Israel and

the Palestinians? only 18.3 percent of the Israelis asked answered yes, within a few

years, 30.4 percent said yes, but only in the distant future, and 47.7 percent responded,

not in the next 100 years, with 3.6 percent responding dont know. [Israeli daily

Haaretz, We have lost our optimism (September 15, 2004), pp. B11-B12.]

2. Kenneth Boulding, Stable Peace (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), p. 3.

3. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have a combined land area of about 6,000 km2 with a

population of around 3.3 million, a Gross National Product (GNP) of US$5.8 billion and a

per capita GNP of US$1,824. The Palestinian diaspora is estimated at 3.5 million people.

The economy of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is predominantly service-oriented. Trade

constituted 13.6 percent of the Palestinian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The economy is

heavily dependent on Israel: over 85 percent of trade is with Israel. Moreover, about one-

third of the labor force worked in Israel until the institution of the closure policy by Israel

(120,000140,000); earnings from these workers amounted to more than one-quarter of the

income of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Remittances from Palestinians working in the

Gulf countries have been another important component of disposable income, although

this source of revenue has been substantially diminished since the Gulf War in 1991.

4. See Avi Shlaim, The Oslo Accord, Journal of Palestine Studies XXIII(3) (Spring 1994),

pp. 24-40.

5. Also known as the Cairo Accord or Oslo I Agreement.

6. Also known as Oslo II Accord or Taba Agreement.

7. See: The Palestinian-Israeli Peace Agreement: A Documentary Record (Washington, DC: Institute

for Palestine Studies, 1993).

8. See: Uri Savir, The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East (New York: Random

House, 1998).

9. See: George Giacaman and Dag Jorund Lonning, After Oslo: New Realities, Old Problems

(London: Pluto Press, 1998); Uri Savir, Why Oslo Still Matters. New York Times Magazine

(May 3, 1998), pp. 50-54.

10. Shulamith Harevern, The Vocabulary of Peace: Life, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East

(San Francisco: Mercury House, 1995), p. vii.

11. Jeffrey Michaels, National Vision and the Negotiation of Narratives: The Oslo Agree-

ment. Journal of Palestine Studies 24(1) (Autumn 1994), pp. 28-38.

12. Sunday Times (London) (June 15, 1969), as quoted in David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive

Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), p. 264; see


2 1 4 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

also: Amal Jamal, The Palestinians in the Israeli Peace Discourse: A Conditional Partner-

ship, Journal of Palestine Studies XXX(1) (Autumn 2000), p. 36.

13. H. D. S. Greenway, Leaving Gaza, International Herald Tribune (April 27, 2004), p. 7.

14. For a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Hamas movement in Palestine, see

Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine

Studies, 2000); Ziad Abu-Amr, Hamas: A Historical and Political Background, Journal of Pal-

estine Studies 22 (Summer 1993), 5-19.

15. Dilip Hiro, Sharing the Promised Land: A Tale of Israelis and Palestinians (Brooklyn, NY: Olive

Branch Press, 1999), p. 311.

16. In the early 1960s Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba told Palestinians in Jericho to

take what is being offered to them and demand more later. They threw tomatoes and

stones at him and accused him of being a traitor. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat asked

them to join him at the first Camp David Summit and they branded him as a traitor to the

Arab cause. They loved Arafat, who signed the Oslo Accords acknowledging the State of

Israel but at the same time told them that their right of return is sacred and holy, implying

that the 5 million refugees would return to Haifa, Jaffa, Bisan, Akka, etc. We keep missing

one opportunity after another because we live in the BIG DREAM that one day we will

return to the homeland and the Israelis would just disappear in thin air because we are

right and they are wrong.

17. N. N. Rouhana and D. Bar-Tal. Psychological Dynamics of Intractable

Ethnonational Conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case, American Psychologist, 53(7), 1998,

pp. 761-70.

18. For a book that outlines official and unofficial Israeli and Palestinian policies on the

fate of the refugees, see: Elia Zureik, Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process (Washington,

DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1997); also, Salim Tamari, Palestinian Refugees Negotiations:

From Madrid to Oslo II (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1996).

19. Mohammed Dajani, Press Reporting During the Intifada: Palestinian Coverage of

Jenin, Palestine-Israel Journal 10(2), 2003, pp. 39-46.

20. See Gadi Wolfsfeld, The News Media and Peace Process: The Middle East and Northern Ireland

(Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995).

21. See Muhammad Hallaj, Israels War on Palestinian Education. The Return 2(6) (Febru-

ary 1990), pp. 31-34.

22. The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, 2000, http://www.edume.org.

23. Berl Wein, Illusions, Jerusalem Post (October 26, 2000).

24. Hillary Clinton: Link P.A. Aid to End Antisemitism, Jerusalem Post (September 26,

2000).

25. Spokesman for Israeli Settlers quoted by Christian Lamb, Intifada: The Next Genera-

tion, Sunday Telegraph (October 15, 2000), p. 26.

26. Charles Krauthammer, Is the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process Dead, and if So, Whats

Next?, November 6, 2000, http://www.aei.org.

27. See the well-researched report prepared by Georgetown University Professor Nathan

Brown for Adam Institute entitled, Democracy, History and the Contest over the Palestin-

ian Curriculum (November 2001).


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 1 5

28. IPCRI Study, Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum: Reviewing Palestinian

Textbooks and Tolerance Education Program, 2003.

29. Israeli daily Haaretz (January 2, 2001).

30. Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot (August 3, 2000).

31. Robert Malley, and Hussein Agha. Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors, The New

York Review of Books 48(13) (August 9, 2001), pp. 59-65; reproduced in Journal of Palestine

Studies 31(1) (Autumn 2001), pp. 62-75; and Camp David Proposal of July, 2000,

Negotiations Affairs Department, Palestine Liberation Organization, http://www.nad-pol.org.

32. For a clarification from the Palestinian Ministry of Education on the education system,

see: The Palestinian Curriculum and Textbooks, Palestine-Israel Journal Viii(2), 2001, pp.

115-18.

33. Maureen Meehan, Israeli Textbooks and Childrens Literature Promote Racism and

Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Special

Report (September 1999), pp. 1920. See also: Y. Bar-Gal, The Image of the Palestinian in

Geography Textbooks in Israel. Journal of Geography 93, pp. 224232; D. Bar-Tal, The Rocky

Road towards Peace: Societal Beliefs Functional to Intractable Conflict in Israeli School

Textbooks, Journal of Peace Research 35, pp. 723-42.

34. Different views on the wall are reflected in the following articles: Prof. Ephraim Yaar

and Dr. Tamar Hermann, A fence, yesbut not in Jerusalem, Haaretz (Friday, April 18,

2003); Gabriel Danzig, No to Unilateral Separation, Jerusalem Post Internet (May 23 2002);

Jerry Levin. Supposing everything west of the Mississippi was Palestine, From the inside

Looking Out - Hebron Report 12. Mid East Realities, 2002; Mark Lavie, Separation of West

Bank and Israel Proposed, US-World News (August 17), 2001; Nadav Shragai, Dividing

Jerusalem, Haaretz (April 19, 2003); PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, Israels

Separation: Bad Fences Make Bad Neighbors (June 6, 2002); Unilateral Separation, Econo-

mist (September 4, 2001).

35. On my way from Dearborn, Michigan to the airport in early December 2004, my driver

turned out to be a Palestinian from Beit Hanina who immigrated to the United States

30 years ago. I asked him: Can you answer me honestly if I ask you this question? He

said, ask. I asked openly: If today you are granted your right of return allowing you to go

back home with a free ticket to Palestine, would you go to live there in your old home?

He responded with a question: But let me ask you, will I have the same freedom and lib-

erty that I enjoy here? I answered: You will have as much liberty and freedom as any

Arab living in an Arab state, no more, no less. He responded: Then, no, thank you. I will

rather spend the rest of my life here. It is my duty to my children to offer them a better

life than the one I have had back home. Part 2 of The Palestinian Exodus, 1948-98, ed., by

Ghada Karmi and Eugene Cotran (Reading: Ithaca Press,1999), deals with the question of

solutions to the refugee issue, specifically looking at the right of return, compensation,

and reconciliation. In Chapter 9, Rashid Khalidi discusses his bold and controversial pro-

posal for the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem based on abandoning notions

of absolute justice in favor of working toward a solution founded on principles of what

he calls attainable justice (pp. 238-39).

36. Elia Zureik, Palestinian Refugees and Peace, Journal of Palestine Studies XXIV, 93(1)

(Autumn 1994), pp. 16-17.


2 1 6 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

37. See Edward Said, Peace and Its Discontents (New York: Vintage Books, 1996); Palestinian

Versailles, Progressive (December 1993), p. 22; The Lost liberation, The Guardian (Septem-

ber 9, 1993).

38. For a book that attempts to develop a method for using religion to resolve conflicts,

especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, see: Gopin Marc, Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion

Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

39. See: European Centre for Conflict Prevention. People Building Peace. 35 Inspiring Stories from

around the World (Utrecht: European Centre for Conflict Prevention, 1999); Galama, Anneke,

and Paul van Tongeren, ed., Towards Better Peacebuilding Practice: On Lessons Learned, Evaluation Prac-

tices and Aid & Conflict. Utrecht, Netherlands: European Centre for Conflict Prevention, 2002.

40. See the book published in 1946 by Maria Montessori, the pioneer of peace education,

entitled, Education for a New World.

41. D. Bar-Tal, The Elusive Nature of Peace Education, in G. Salomom and B. Nevo, ed.,

Peace Education (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002), p. 28.

42. I. Harris, Conceptual Underpinnings of Peace Education, in G. Salomom and B. Nevo,

Editors, Peace Education (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002), p. 22.

43. For an assessment of the likelihood that the Palestinian education system would

succeed in teaching the civic virtues necessary to democracy, see Andrew Rigby, Palestinian

EducationThe Future Challenge (Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of

International Affairs (PASSIA), 1995).

44. For a paper on psychological obstacles to Israel-Palestinian reconciliation, see Israeli and

Palestinian Identities in History and Literature, ed., Kamal Abdel-Malek and David Jacobson (New

York: St. Martins Press, 1999).

45. See: M. Abu-Nimer, Editor. Reconciliation, Justice and Coexistence: Theory and Practice (Lanam,

MA: Lexington Books, 2001); Lederach, J.P. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided

Societies. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997, and by the same

author, The Journey toward Reconciliation. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999.

46. See: Kamal Abdel-Malek and David Jacobson, Editors, Israeli and Palestinian Identities in

History and Literature (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999).

47. Hizkias Assefa, People Building Peace. 35 Inspiring Stories from around the World (Utrecht:

European Centre for Conflict Prevention, 1999).

48. Rashid Khalidi, Truth, Justice and Reconciliation: Elements of a Solution to the

Palestinian Refugee Issue, in The Palestinian Exodux-1948-88, eds. Ghada Karmi and Eugene

Cotran (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999), pp. 221-43.

49. Munther Dajani, A Predicament in Search of an Innovative Solution, in The Palestinian

Refugees: Old ProblemsNew Solutions, ed., by Joseph Ginat and Edward Perkins (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), pp.243-44.

50. Quoted in Fouad Moughrabi, The Politics of Palestinian Textbooks, Journal of Palestine

Studies, Issue 121 (Autumn 2001).

51. Nur Masalha, The Historic Roots of the Palestinian Refugee Question, in Palestinian

Refugees: The Right of Return, ed., by Naseer Aruri (London: Pluto Press, 2001).

52. See: D. Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1997); E. L. Worthing-

ton, Jr. Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research and Theological Perspectives (Radnor, PA:

Templeton Foundation Press, 1998).


S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 . 2 1 7

53. Lisa Collier Cool, The Power of Forgiving: Best way to heal a heart, Readers Digest

(May 2004), p. 86.

54. Antonia Dimou, The Road Map Peace Plan. DEFENSOR-PACIS, Defense Analyses Insti-

tute, Issue 13 (July 2003), pp. 78-86. For the text of the Road Map see: The Road

Map, Palestine-Israel Journal 10(2) 2003, pp. 115-19. For a book that traces, portrays, and

explains the American search for Mideast peace, see Dan Tschirgi, The American Search

for Mideast Peace (New York: Praeger, 1989). Tschirgi follows a chronological approach of

the period from 1967 to 1988.

55. See: Scott Macleod, Arab Moves for Peace. New Statesman 109 (March 8, 1985), 18-19.

56. At the end of the 1967 Khartoum Summit, the Arab heads of state agreed in their con-

ference communiqu, to unite their political efforts on the international and diplomaticlevel to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to insure the withdrawal of the aggres-

sive Israeli forces from the Arab lands which have been occupied since the 5th June aggres-

sion. This will be done within the framework of the main principle to which the Arab

states adhere, namely: no conciliation with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations

with it, and adherence to the rights of the Palestinian people in their country.

57. Munther S. Dajani, Achieving Security and Cooperation in the Arab Israeli Conflict:

A Home Grown Peace Initiative (The Nusseibeh Ayalon Declaration), Rivista della Cooperazi-

one Giuridica Internazionale, VI(18) (December 2004), pp. 7-14.

58. Geneva Initiative: Peace Is Possible (Ramallah: The Peace Coalition, 2004). The 54-page

Geneva document details the creation of a Palestinian state encompassing 97.5 percent of

the West Bank with shared sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Palestinians will waive the

right of return for some 3.8 million refugees under the initiative.

59. A Renowned Israeli Musician Condemns the Israeli Occupation and Detonates His

Prize to the Palestinian People, May 11, 2004 (IPC + Agencies)-[Official PA website] Baren-

boim remarks were met with a standing ovation by the audience during his acceptance

speech for the Wolf Foundation Prize, which he received at the Knesset on May 9, 2004.

The renowned musician has decided to donate his $50,000 prize to the Palestinian people

aiming at encouraging the Palestinian music. Daniel Barenboim (60) was born in Buenos

Aires in 1942 to parents of Jewish Russian descent. He started piano lessons at the age of

five with his mother. In 1992 he became General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper

Berlin. In the autumn of 2000, the Staatskapelle Berlin appointed him Chief Conductor for

Life.

60. Quoted in: Merle Thorpe, Jr., Notes of a Bit Player in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,

Journal of Palestine Studies 91, XXIII(3) (Spring 1994), p. 42.

61. Yitzhak Rabin, Speech to the Knesset (July 13, 1992), quoted in, Amal Jamal, The Pal-

estinians in the Israeli Peace Discourse: A Conditional Partnership, Journal of Palestine Stud-

ies XXX(1) (Autumn 2000), p. 39.

62. Gershon Baskin, and Zakaria al Qaq. Editors. Creating a Culture of Peace (Jerusalem: IPCRI,

1999), p. 2.

63. Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (Longmead: Element Books, 1993), p. 3.

64. In 1988, the Yitzhak Shamir government deported Mubarak Awad, a prominent Pales-

tinian Jerusalemite non-violent activist during the first Intifada, and thus preventing him

from laying the foundation of non-violence philosophy within the Palestinian society.


2 1 8 . C R O S S C U R R E N T S

65. Uri Savir, The Process (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 114.

66. Jerome Segal, an American Jewish academic, in his thoughtful book, Creating the Pales-

tinian State: A Strategy for Peace (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1989) takes a historic intellec-

tual journey that culminates in his advocacy of a two-state solution as the only way to

achieve peace in the promised land.

67. Yitzhak Rabin, Peace in the National Order of Priorities, in Israeli-Arab Negotiations:

Political Positions and Conceptual Frameworks, editors, Tamar Herman and Robin Twite

(Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1993), p. 15 {in Hebrew} quoted from: Amal Jamal, The Palestinians in

the Israeli Peace Discourse: A Conditional Partnership, Journal of Palestine Studies XXX(1)

(Autumn 2000), p. 37.

68. See: UNESCO and a Culture of Peace: Promoting a Global Movement (Paris: UNESCO, 1997),

p. 5.

69. Konrad Adenauer for Reconciliation and Peace: Remembering the Past to build the Future

(Jerusalem: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2001), p. 14.

70. The possibilities for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians are illus-

trated in Mine Enemy, by Amalia and Aharon Barnea (New York: Grove Press, 1988).

71. One good example is Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin: In 1948, Menachem

Begin broke with David Ben Gurion because he could not agree to giving up any of the

sacred soil of Greater Israel, that include Jordan. In 1978, Begin ceded back the Sinai

removing all Jewish settlements, though Sinai is where Moses spoke to God and came

down with the Ten Commandments.

72. Uri Avnery, My Friend, the Enemy (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Company, 1986).

73. Abba Eban, Building Bridges, Not Walls, The Guardian (September 10, 1993).

74. Satish Kumar, Prayer for Peace (1981).


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