than later?
“Among Israeli Jews, a Jewish majority is seen as the most important value (35%), followed by peace (32%), democracy (20%) and a Greater Israel (10%).
Among the Palestinians, Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital is seen as the most important value (45%), followed by obtaining the right of return to refugees to their 1948 towns and villages (32%), and building a pious or moral individual and a religious society (13%).”
BOTTOM LINE, as extrapolated from the Pulse: "Most Israelis and Palestinians want to be safe from ‘terrorist’ attacks especially from state terror. Most Palestinians worry more about jobs than about territory or borders. Most people on all sides want little more than for the other side to leave them alone." Before they are willing to break bread together, they would first want to put bread on their own tables to take care of their families and to raise their children.
And finally, the people of Israel - Palestine crave honor, respect and dignity from the other; a more pliable and palatable peace process with built-in expandability, flexibility and versatility; in short, fluidity predicated on ‘We’ Sight not just ‘I’ Sight. Two States (Zones) Within One Borderless Homeland With Freedom of Movement For All open the possibilities toward reaching an accord to sustainable peace.
Which Choice … Good, Bad, or Ugly?
The Israeli-Palestinian saga needs a twist; paradigm shifts with new metaphors, uplifting stories with more openness, questioning the legitimacy and authority of deeply rooted dogmas. These are tools that enable us to succeed going from darkness – the terrible realities we face – to the amazing possibilities of tomorrow. “We must start by rejecting the narratives we are told, to tell our own stories, becoming the storyteller rather than the person who is told what to do,” says Rebecca Solnit23.
The people of Israel – Palestine are intertwined for millennia. Wouldn’t it be an ironic twist if the indigenous people in the Region were genetically connected to Ancient Israel? Their gene pools still exist. They have lived in the same region from the beginning. Don’t people living contiguously beget others, one after the other? Palestinians could be just as much if not more Israelite than the Israelis; and, seven (7) percent of the Palestinians are Christians. “How Does One Reunite a Million-Year Old Rain Drop With a Million-Year-Old Blossom? ”24
And, why does the Israeli-Palestinian clash, the defining feud of our times25, enrapture the world? Could it be that our hearts belong to Zion, that we all carry the DNA of the original Israelites within our souls? We know how many seeds are inside an apple. Only God knows how many apples are in one seed. It is time that the people of the Region greet each other with “Welcome Home.” Prolonging the struggle is “sadness silence can’t touch”26.
Each day we must make choices from the good, the bad and ugly within us. We are all obligated to help build a bridge between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If peace is possible there, it is possible everywhere.
Here Today Gone Tomorrow (Psalm 49: 7-13)
Israel today, as affirmed by the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, is “a Jewish and democratic state”27, yet Israel’s Declaration of Independence speaks of “equal rights for all citizens, regardless of religion, race, or gender”28. Theologian David Novak in ‘Zionism and Judaism A New Theory,’ implores that “’Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ have to be rethought so the two elements of Israeli statehood might be correlated … that rethinking must be theological if it is to be rooted in the Jewish tradition.”29
“We are sojourners (gerim) before you, transient tenants (ve-toshavim) like all our ancestors (II Chronicles 29: 15)” … “without future prospects in this world … That is, unlike God, no humans can truly own anything or any place in this world, because we are all mortal creatures; here today and gone tomorrow (Psalm 49: 7-13).”30
Thus, King David states, “everything is Yours [belongs to God] (II Chronicles 29: 16).” The Torah clearly stipulates: “There shall be one civil law (mishpat ehad) for both the sojourner (ka-ger) and the native-born (ka-ezrah), for I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 24: 23).” To paraphrase God, "Co-existence among people demands equal rights."
But let’s talk brass tacks. How will Modern Israel treat the indigenous Palestinians?
Instruments of Blessings …
Stephen Sizer points out in ‘Middle East: Anglican ‘Peacemaker’ Calls for Christians to be Part of the Solution in Ending Israel-Palestine Conflict’31, that in the Old Testament Book of Esther, as one example, “many” people of other ethnicities have become Jews after the Persian King Xerxes issues a decree in support of them. “What does that mean? It means that from the time of Esther on – 400 to 500 BC – a Jew [Ancient Israelite eds.] is not necessarily someone who is descended from Abraham.” He also points to Ezekiel where God speaks of the distribution of land among the tribes of Israel:
"21 “Divide this land among your tribes; 22 it is to be your permanent possession. The foreigners who are living among you and who have had children born here are also to receive their share of the land when you divide it. They are to be treated like full Israelite citizens and are to draw lots for shares of the land along with the tribes of Israel. 23 All foreign residents will receive their share with the people of the tribe among whom they are living. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken (Ezekiel 47: 21-23 GNT).”
“You look at those three verses and it says the same thing three times in three verses - share the land with the foreigners,” says Rev Dr Sizer32. He says that he prays for a solution to the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories without further bloodshed, but he believes that such a solution will only come about when Israel either gives up the West Bank and allows “an independent, sovereign Palestinian state” or embraces a one state solution “whereby everyone within Israel and the Occupied Territories has equal rights and the right to vote, the right to education, healthcare and so on.”
Rev Dr Sizer: “It’s either a one state or a two state. What we have at the moment is a no state solution [conundrum eds.] and it’s one that the present Israeli Government is happy to perpetuate,” Sizer says. “It wants the land without the people; it wants to allow the Palestinians to have autonomy but without having independent borders, without having a military, without having any sovereignty over their airspace, their water borders, their land borders. It is turning the Palestinians into the equivalent of a Bantustan in South Africa or Indian reservations in North America and that is not acceptable these days.”33
Isn’t racism anti-Semitic; anti-Christian?
Teach Me, Lord, What You Want Me to Do …
Many
