Beyond War’s Relevance to Gaza (and other world events) Today

[Elaine Hallmark]

Members of Beyond War often struggle with the long term educational nature of our organization and search for the connection between who we are and what we do with the “real” world. Teams explore what to “do” after they have completed a study series or discussion group and have made a commitment to live by the foundational principles and the core practices. How are we relevant to what is going on in the world today? How can we be more effective in moving the world beyond the use of warfare?

This forum topic proposes to launch a discussion of these questions, using the current situation in Gaza as a backdrop. Hopefully, the discussion here will be carried over in the teleconference discussion during our Quarterly Membership Meeting on January 18 (see details and sign up under Events) and later in our Annual Meeting in West Chester, PA (also under events).

To get the conversation started, I would like to pose some ideas about the Beyond War mission, and ideas on a framework that we might use for discussing our work and its relevance to situations like Gaza. The Beyond War mission is “to explore, model and promote the means for humanity to live without war.” Many think that sounds somewhat esoteric, so they translate it into promoting non-violent conflict resolution (see e.g. our website). I believe our mission is much bigger than that. I include in our definition of “war” all kinds of war from personal polarization, hate and enemy posing, to individual and group violence, to international warfare.

I suggest there are three categories of the “MEANS” needed to live without war, and we as an organization through our teams work in all three categories. The labels I have given them are:

1. World view (or paradigm): We must individually and as a culture transform our world view to one that recognizes that we are all one, that we cannot pose enemies and that we can and must work together in a spirit of good will without war and violence. We have to believe that it is possible for humans to live without war, and we have to base our actions on that belief.

2. Tools (or processes): We must learn to use the tools we have for working together without war, and we must continue developing such tools.

3. Infrastructure (or systems and resources): We must transform our infrastructure, our systems and the allocation of our resources so they support living without war.

World View
I think Beyond War’s primary focus and “core competency” is with #1. We work for individual and cultural transformation of world views from the currently predominant view of “we are separate” to that of “we are one.” We provide educational courses and trainings that challenge individuals to explore the depths of the world view that serves as their operating principle—that guides their every day actions. We question and bring to consciousness the operating world view of our culture, and challenge all of us to change it to that of interrelationship and interconnectedness—we are one. We take on the commitment to live our lives in congruence with the principle of we are one.

Tools for Working Together
We explore, model and promote tools (processes) for working together in ways that do not lead to war and that are based on valuing all participants (we are one). We practice and support non-violent and non-polarizing means for solving problems and resolving conflicts--moving beyond polarization. We support and demonstrate the application of these tools in our families, our communities and in the world. Many groups and fields are developing these tools, and we are working with them to build the knowledge for using them and having confidence in them as tools that are much more effective than war.

Infrastructure
We support and participate in actions that will help to transform the infrastructure that supports our business, government and all human endeavors to an infrastructure that supports us in living without war. In participating in any actions, we continue to explore, model and promote the world view of we are one, posing no enemies, and we apply the tools for working together in a spirit of goodwill. Many groups are working to transform different aspects of our infrastructure. We may ally with them, support their actions or take up the same or similar causes, again with the application of the basic world view, and applying the tools for working together in a spirit of goodwill.

APPLICATION TO GAZA
Now, how might this help us in answering the questions about how Beyond War is or can be relevant to the situation in Gaza today? I would challenge us to address such questions as:

 What world view is operating in Gaza? How can it be transformed to one that would not see war as the solution?
 Why are the Israelis and the Palestinians locked into an enemy relationship? What is the root cause of their enemy relationship?
 What tools for working together without war are being used? Why have they not worked? What is needed? How can we support the successful use of new tools?
 What infrastructure or systems are needed in order to support Israelis and Palestinians working together peacefully? What systems continue to support the use of war rather than peace? How can we support the transformation of the infrastructure and resources needed?

You may have other questions and many ideas. The challenge for us in Beyond War is to recognize the role we can and do play, and to work together to become ever more effective. It seems to me to be a real breakthrough to have even some of the media interviewing our own Len and Libby Traubman discussing their Jewish-Palestinian Dialogues as an example of a non-polarizing approach. (Click on Videos - see Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogues). It gives me hope that if we demonstrate the processes and the world view that work without war, others will also begin to see them as the means to transform the infrastructure that locks us into war.

Please join the Conversation here and at the Quarterly Meeting. Help us explore our mission's relevance to world events.

[Leonora]

Here is a heartfelt personal response to Gaza that Jon McBride found published in The Huffington Post - January 3, 2009.
Marianne Williamson is a noted author with several books topping the NYTimes best seller list.

Towards a Miracle in the Middle East
by Marianne Williamson


Today is a day to cry for Israel. Today is a day to cry for the Palestinians. Today is a day to cry for all of us.

Today is a day of war.

War anywhere, at this point in our history, is an action that threatens peace everywhere. Particularly when it comes to the Middle East. From its spiritual significance to its political significance, it is humanity's hot spot. It always has been and probably always will be. It's where all the rivers of human perspective meet, to become either a cauldron of hatred or an ocean of love.

While it might be tempting to "take sides" between Israel and the Palestinians, spiritually there are no sides to be taken. God does not give us victory in battle but rather lifts us above the battlefield. As a generation, our moral imperative is to end war period, to somehow move beyond the idea that war is an acceptable means of solving problems. Anything less than that makes us attitudinal conspirators with a line of probability leading to nuclear catastrophe.

According to Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, humanity's biggest problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown. Our task is to create a field of consciousness in which the idea of war has dropped from the ethers.

So how do we outgrow war?

The first thing we do is to accept the possibility that the end of war is possible. In fact, in the words of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, "We must challenge the belief that war is inevitable." We must embrace the possibility that a world without war could exist.

Secondly, we must mature beyond the belief that the thinking that got us into this mess is thinking that can lead us out of it. "The problems of the world will not be solved on the level of thinking we were at when we created them," wrote Einstein. We must realize that the mortal ego will not provide us with a solution to the existence of war, because it itself is the problem. Notions such as, "The Israelis have a right to defend themselves," and "The Palestinians have taken so much abuse; what do you expect them to do?" are both insidious drivers of war masquerading as principled stands. They keep us attached to the very duality that is the root of separation and war.

On a spiritual level, our greatest service to both Israelis and Palestinians is to reach for a higher truth within our own minds. An essential principle of metaphysical reality is that all minds are joined; as any of us are drawn to higher thoughts, then all of us are drawn to higher thoughts. As we ourselves embrace a higher truth, we help create an anti-gravitational force field that lifts all minds above separation, hatred and war.

For all our talk about wanting to be the change, how many of us are siding now against one side or the other in the current Mid-East conflict? If you really want to help the situation there, ask God to remove from your heart any judgment you have against the Israelis or the Palestinians. Any thought of judgment you hold is like a gun that you yourself are firing.

The human race is evolving to the realization that what is happening on the level of consciousness both precedes and determines what happens in the world. War is just an effect, not a cause. With the power of our minds, we can move beyond the level of effect to the level of cause. There, and only there, can we wipe out what President Franklin Roosevelt called the "beginnings of all war."

As Americans, we have a creed -- a set of principles enshrined and institutionalized in our founding documents. First and foremost among them is that "all men are created equal." Period. End of story. Don't be lured into thinking that either Israelis or Palestinians have been either the perfect innocents or the perfect victims here; such thinking serves neither. The greatest gift you can give to both is to realize that on a spiritual level, Israelis and Palestinians are one. Their only true reality is the reality of whom they are in this moment, freed from any thoughts of the past.

Complexity is of the ego; do not linger there. Of course there is a complicated history to the struggle currently playing out in the Middle East, and that complicated history has significance and relevance for traditional political formulation. So leave that to the traditional politicians. Our task as seekers and purveyors of a higher human consciousness is to move beyond traditional political notions, to a holistic politics that embraces the relevance of psychological and spiritual realities to the political issues of our time. As students of Gandhi and Dr. King, we know that moving beyond the violence in our own hearts is essential if we are to be conduits for the creation of a world at peace. The truly new politics goes beyond mere "post-partisan" hand-shaking and collaboration among former rivals. It takes us to a new kind of thinking as a basis for the creation of a new kind of world.

Traditionalists can call us naïve all they want to. But anyone who thinks that human hatred can simply be bombed away... they are naïve. Anyone who thinks we can continue to tolerate violence on this planet at ever-increasing levels and have such conflagrations not lead to the ultimate cataclysm of nuclear catastrophe... they are naïve. Anyone who thinks that the narrowness of a rationalistic, mechanistic human perspective can lead us out of the hell which that perspective itself has created... they are naïve. And those who see prayer as merely "symbol, not substance"... they are naïve. Prayer is hardly just symbol; it is a mover of hearts, and thus a mover of mountains.

Mountains we now need desperately to move.

Through the grace of God we are not powerless; according to A Course in Miracles, moving mountains is small compared to what we can do. War is at heart a spiritual problem and it can only be eradicated with a spiritual solution... a solution that lies within all of us.

Martin Luther King Jr. said there is a power in our hearts more powerful than the power of bullets. He described Mahatma Gandhi as the first person in the world to take the love ethic of Jesus Christ and turn it into a broad scale social force for good. (To Gandhi himself, non-violence was not just the love ethic of Jesus, but rather the heart of all religion and the heart of reality itself.) On today's geo-political landscape, we see hatred turned into a political force all around us; the politics of non-violence turns love into a political force. The question for any conscious human being, much less spiritual seeker, is, "How can I help do that?" Only the power in our hearts will be able to eradicate the idea of war, then the reality of war, from the experience of the human race.

According to Gandhi, the problem with the world was that humanity was not in its right mind. And arguably, we still are not. War, quite simply, is insane. For those of us who wish to be part of the solution to war -- not part of the problem -- it is time to change our own minds, to accept a healing of our own war-like thoughts, in order to create a new field of possibility. Whether dealing with the transformation of the individual or of the transformation of the world, only what is changed on the level of consciousness becomes a fundamental change in the conditions of the world.

For five minutes each day, be a spiritual activist.

You probably already know what to do. Turn off the TV; neither CNN, MSNBC or FOX know the news. They only know data.

Turn off the bright lights. Put down the newspaper. And go within.

However you do it, turn your attention to the God of your understanding. Surrender your own hatred, give over your own wars, and ask that this year you be lifted above the violence that still lives inside your heart.

With your eyes closed, see on one side of your inner vision the Israeli people. See their physicality, their mannerisms, as you recognize them on the material plane. Now see a light within their hearts, and slowly watch that light expand, extending beyond the confines of their bodies. See the bodies begin to fade before the greater light of their eternal selves.

Now with your inner eye look to the other side of your inner vision, and see there the Palestinian people. See their physicality, their mannerisms, as you recognize them on the material plane. Now see a light within their hearts, and slowly watch that light expand, extending beyond the confines of their bodies. See the bodies begin to fade before the greater light of their eternal selves.

Now using your inner eye -- your greatest source of power -- bear witness to what happens as the inner light of the Israelis begins to merge with the inner light of the Palestinians. Bear witness to the merging of their spiritual selves. Simply watch and focus, for what you focus on grows stronger.

You are bearing witness now to a higher truth, thus using the power of your mind to draw a heavenly truth into material manifestation. In the presence of higher thought forms, lower ones fall of their own dead weight. In the presence of light, darkness disappears. In the presence of eternal truth, temporal lies begin to fall away.

In the words of Dr. King, "No lie can last forever." The idea that the Israeli and Palestinian people are truly separate, or have separate needs, is simply a lie of the mortal mind. Spiritually, we are all one. Israelis and Palestinians were created by the same God; in Him they are equal and they are joined eternally. Only thought forms have separated them. Thought forms of guilt and separation have been handed down to children born innocent of such lies, generation after generation; those are the true enemy here, not either group of people.

As any of us move beyond the fear-based thought forms of separation and guilt to the truth of our eternal oneness, it becomes easier for everyone else to do so as well. Let's give up the way-too-easy, so-American way of chiding either Israelis or Palestinians for their difficulty in forgiving the past. What both peoples have endured is almost unimaginable, and only the truly sainted among us should even for a minute consider judging either side.

We don't have to; and when in our own right minds, we don't want to.

Use the power of your mind to create a new possibility... a miracle in the Middle East.

As the poet Rumi wrote so eloquently, "Out beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I'll meet you there." So go there now. Such thoughts are not just poetry, or even symbol, any longer. In the world that's being born, they're the stuff of a new politics.

No more simply asking, "But what can I do?" Go even further, to "What can I think? What can I pray for? What can I meditate on?" Pray for the removal of all walls that separate any of us from any of us, not only on our earth but also in our minds. Pray for the removal of the guns that still fire within your own mind as you accuse or withhold your forgiveness from anyone. And pray that at this perilous hour, those of us whose lives have not been touched by the horrors of war can be of service to those whose lives have been.

[Sally Suzanne Marie]

Leonora,
This is a truly beautiful sentiment. Few could put it this well. I hope we are spreading this message with Mariane.
I don't see any of her books on our long list in the Library Project. Do you have any to recommend?
Sally

[Elaine Hallmark]

Well stated, Jackson. We are surely all linked together.

As to the comment on the funding and the Ning pages, I would suggest we move that discussion to a new forum topic, so we can keep this one focused on the Israeli-Palestinian situation and on Beyond War roles. A short answer to your question from a non-techie is that Jubitz Family Foundation gave Beyond War a grant that went toward setting up the many connections needed to integrate the Ning sites with our BW website and our CiviCRM system. However, starting a conversation on this could get better explanations, and might start some interest in pulling together people who might have interest and expertise in helping us take full advantage of the systems we are building.

[Jackson Kellogg]

Thank you Elaine and Leonora for the thoughtful posts. The enemy conciseness is made possible in part by the idea that different groups of people think that their history and fate is separate from other groups of people. Like all the people who share the Earth, the fate Israeli and Palestinian peoples are in fact closely linked together.

[William L Hallmark]

We are all quite familiar with Iraq as an example of why violence doesn't work to solve problems. It has been in our newspapers everyday, and we have as a nation worked our way from "let's go to war" to "this is not a good idea." While the first and second gulf wars and the period in between them are a good illustration of these issues, Gaza is even better but also even more overladen with conflicting views. And most of us know little about Gaza, and even if we do know, we feel ill prepared to explain our Beyond War approach in a land so laden with conflict.

I don't pretend to be an expert on Gaza, but I was there in the late 1980s with a group of Jews, Christians, and one Arab from the Pacific NW known as the Interfaith Committee for Peace in the Middle East. It was an eye opening experience for a Beyond War devotee. I quickly learned I had projected my own culture on this very intractable conflict. And I met incredible people working in Gaza and in Israel to restore peace and establish communications between enemies. But I also met government authorities from Israel and Palestinian refugees in Gaza hopelessly trapped in this cycle of violence.

Imagine sitting down and talking with a ten year old Palestinian living in hopeless conditions in a refugee camp surrounded by violence who tells you his home is in Israel and that he has the deed and the keys to the house. Then realizing that neither he nor his family has been in Israel for the last twenty plus years. In other words he is talking about a home his grandparents owned and left when his parents were children. And his whole life is focused on the dream of regaining that home.

Imagine discovering that in Israel Arabs and Jews do not know each other. They live in separate Arab and Jewish cities which abut each other, but where personal contact is kept to a minimum. This works to enable each to hold the other in their minds as the enemy. It is so effective that when the Arab who was traveling with us took one of the kindest men I ever met, a Jewish Rabbi from Eugene, to meet with his family, the Arab's nieces and nephews (children) ran away in fear when they saw the Rabbi was Jewish.

Imagine meeting with peace groups in Israel who are working to bring Arabs and Jews together to build bridges between their communities -- two communities who don't know each other even though they have lived in the same region for thousands of years. Two communities who remember each other only for the atrocities members of each has done to the other. Two communities of loving people who have been taught to hate each other. Two communities who do not lack for reasons to hate, but have forgotten they also do not lack for reasons to love each other.

We saw in Iraq how easy it was to pose enemies and go to war. To pretend we were not killing innocents, but only destroying our enemy. An enemy not worthy of being seen as human. When we realize that that enemy was really no threat to us, or at most only to our oil supply, we can surely understand why the Israeli government sees it necessary to attack Hamas in Gaza. But hopefully we can also see the futility of their approach as clearly as the futility of Hamas' approach. Fear is a powerful driver, and there are great fear mongers on both sides of this issue. The question for us is knowing "We are one" how can we bring that knowledge to others. What does Gaza teach us about the use of war to resolve disputes? How has it helped the Palestinians? How has it helped the Israelis? What more can we do than cry and wring our hands as we watch brother killing brother ad nasuem?

[William L Hallmark]

Set out below is a summary of our discussion at the quarterly meeting.

GAZA DISCUSSION
Quarterly Meeting of Beyond War
January 18, 2009

On January 18, 2009 members of Beyond War met by telephone to discuss the application of Beyond War principles to the current situation in Gaza. Beyond War’s mission is to explore, model, and promote the means for humanity to live without war. For purposes of the discussion we broke the means into three categories: (1) world view, (2) tools, and (3) infrastructure. Because we all have a tendency to jump from these means to solutions I have added a fourth category (proposed solutions) to note solutions that were proposed throughout the discussion. This summary includes Len and Libby Traubman’s comments which they did not have time to include in the conference call, but shared with me after the call. Some of their comments are stated in the first person.

World View
Beyond War’s world view is that We Are One. What world views are reflected by the participants in the Gaza struggle and in our own reactions to it? How can we shift to a We Are One world view in our response to Gaza?
• The view in Israel and Palestine is we are three: (1) Gaza, (2) West Bank, and (3) Israel.
• We need to build into the Israeli culture the view that We Are One. See Marianne Williamson’s article explaining that we need not take sides, but rather need to find a way to clear our minds to identify with the whole. See Leonora’s January 16 post at http://beyondwar.ning.com/xn/detail/950018:Comment:6411
• We need to address the tension between our anger and our knowledge that We Are One.
• Because We Are One no one can avoid responsibility.
• We need to be aware of how We-They thinking sucks us into taking sides.
• Both sides think they can survive without the other. Israel believes it can have peace without relationship with its neighbors. We believe that when things get very difficult that it is the wrong time to meet and be together. That is the time when staying together is most important. It is an illusion to think that Israel can survive or at least ever feel truly secure without being in relationship with its Arab neighbors, especially the Palestinians. It is an illusion to believe that anyone can be left out of the process of change. Everyone is needed and needs to be heard.
• Anger interferes with our ability to address solutions. What can I do about my anger? It is important to self-reflect and ask myself "how am I like that?" If we are BW, we must not be preoccupied with an enemy, but with how to change the relationship.
• It is easy for us to be mad at Israel because their pain and fear is not as visible. (Note: anyone who felt anger or fear on 9/11 should be able to identify with Israel.)
• People take sides. Professor Fred Luskin at Stanford told us that "the default setting of the human is to take sides." The BW principle is to pre-decide not to (1) take sides, because all is one - we're neighbors forever, (2) use violence, or (3) leave relationships in the heat of conflict. This requires pre-decision and unprecedented determination to be a new kind of human being.
• The U.S. takes sides. This reflects the condition of our citizens, who do not know Arabs or Muslims among us. They are newer in America, and most people still have dark stereotypes we're fond of passing on among us. There was also a time of huge prejudice about Jews, until they engaged the population and became known as equal human being. Arabs and Muslims have largely still stayed in their families and clans in the U.S., and so are not yet known. Any candidate being seen with an Arab is likely to be a non-candidate the next day; that is how awful prejudice is in American today.
• I don't know how to talk with my Jewish friends. In a way, we can't talk to one side or the other in a way that changes their inner conditions. Each person has to have a new kind of authentic experience of the "other" beyond the intellect. What we can do is take the hands of both and help them to a safe place to hear one another anew. "An enemy is one whose story we have not heard." Listening and stories are the new power. Tell them, and point them to, the many success stories of Jewish-Palestinian relationship building. Google "Jewish Palestinian Success"
People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell, especially the stories they tell to themselves.
• They don't understand what to do. The educational mission of BW is to define, illustrate, and expand the conversation. about the process of change from confrontation to engagement, communication, and creativity that leads to community - http://traubman.igc.org/changecharts.pdf . It can be the mission of BW to define the process of change. As I see it, BW education defines, illustrates, and personalizes by living examples of the principles that take us beyond war.
• The means determines the ends. BW must be firm and crystal clear about this. The fearful, willful brain is hijacked by the amygdala to where it only rationalizes self- will and cruel acts. Any means must diminish fear and build the trust that allows the brain to get creative.
• Everyone wants to have their normal life in peace. We know that about ourselves, but we don't believe it about our feared enemy. Most Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have never met and do NOT know that about each other. From a distance and from ignorance, they "know" that the "other" is dangerous and wants to annihilate them. They do not believe the "other" is quite human and prepared for co-existence. Yet they still refuse to engage because they (1) do not understand the process of change that begins with the invitation to engage, and (2) they are afraid of judgment from their own people for crossing the line toward the "other."

Tools
What tools can we use to achieve our mission of exploring, modeling and promoting the means for humanity to live without war?
• Dialogue is one of the tools. The problem is that we get discouraged when the going gets tough (e.g. family member killed).
• The UN is a tool. An overarching body that can influence.
• Education is a tool. By educating we can empower others not to be radicalized. Education is long term, but still it is really the only tool.
• Persistence, commitment, tenacity.
• Collegiality is a tool that enables us to reinforce each other.
• Questions can be used as tools. Write questions to public officials rather than solutions. Use open ended questions. They have more power.
• Listening is a tool.
• Is it too late to use tools in Gaza, or is there always a way to start a new approach. In the middle of the fire, it's too late to get the oily rags out of the garage. Beyond War is to prevent future war.
• A movement is a tool. Moving people in large numbers is a formidable force.
• Governments write and enforce laws; they send armies off to war and bring them back; they fund projects. Government professionals tell us they must follow the people and can only nudge the system a little. They also have a momentum - get on rolls - that take time to both start and stop. It's our experience that governments and populations will not go down a road where they've not personally seen what life looks like around the corner.
• In the telephone conference, people expressed different means to promote change.
One related to boycotting. This reminds us that change is binary; there is a "no" and a "yes." Boycotting is a way of expressing what one is against and what is old thinking - the "no." It is choosing an enemy, a side, thus diminishing one's ability to explore both "sides" for valid concerns. Taking other stands was suggested, like objecting to land mines; and one could list many more, including cluster bombs and uranium-enriched warheads,. Much time can be spent debating what we are against, what dinosaur to kill next. And certainly each individual can additionally choose to support personal causes, without insisting the whole movement agree or spend energy that way. Yet the road less traveled and illustrated is the "yes" - inventing the gazelle - painting a human picture of what life looks like beyond war. That education and life would be clarifying the (1) principles and process and (2) living and illustrating stories of life beyond war.
• Sharing models of successful change is an excellent tool. You mentioned our physician-friend Izzeldiin Abuelaish in Gaza whose three daughters were killed at home by an Israeli tank shelling a few days ago. This very moment this exemplary Muslim Gazan is in Israel embracing new people, maintaining his relationships, modeling forgiveness, redeeming the death of his daughters.
A few days ago he was wailing on TV in front of his home in Gaza - http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/16/145932/668/542/684934
He knew in advance about his decision and the importance of his symbolism to all life. He knew what it meant for him, an obstetrician, to spend a life that included crossing the border to deliver babies of Jewish and Israeli mothers in Israel.
Telling stories like Izzeldin's can be tools of BW, not unlike what was accomplished by the Beyond War Award in the past. Perhaps BW could choose several people and groups a month to honor for a new BW Award, and posted on the BW Web site.
But every BW activist should be able to tell stories like these, to humanize the process of change.
• In Beyond War, we intend to live in a conscious process. The key word is process, requiring patience and realizing that hoped-for outcomes may not happen in one's lifetime. It's a paradox: we have to act as if there's little time, and we have to act as if we have some time.

Infrastructure
What infrastructure prevents us from exploring, modeling, and promoting the means for humanity to live without war? What infrastructure would support this mission?
• Infrastructure controls thinking. This is a good example of forgetting who we are, and allowing people and events to determine our identity - our amazing human capacity for independent perception, decision, creativity, and power to do what's new and for life. This is lack of belief and faith that there is a discoverable process of change that works. It is to this very human, widespread doubt that BW must respond with principles and images that are so intelligent, compelling, and beautiful that Innovators and Early Adopters - even the Early Majority - will want to step into this new life and help educate. Finally, in my experience, it's not so much fixing what's old, but having an illustrated plan for what's new and works.
The old will atrophy as it is replaced.
• Many institutional changes could take place if we experienced a shift in thinking.
• We need a force that is not military. For example, massive peaceful demonstrations. Witnessing.



Proposed Solutions
• Jimmy Carter’s Book lays out the solutions.
• We need a letter writing campaign asking the US not to use its veto power to prevent UN resolutions from being implemented.
• We need to address the abject poverty of the Palestinians in Gaza.
• Implement the two-state solution.
• Eliminate the veto power in the UN, eliminate national armies, and let the UN run the world.
• A world rally to improve life in Gaza.
• We need to address infrastructure that would promote resolution like the issues addressed in the DVD (world court, treaty banning land mines, etc)

[Jackson Kellogg]

Bill, Thank you for posting such interesting materials. I am not sure the two state solution is really in the long term best interest of the people living in Israel/Palestine. Professor Stephen Zunes wrote an interesting piece about this in Yes! magazine. The editorial is short - I'd post it here but I want to avoid copyright infringement. Just navigate to: http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2683

I must say that Yes! magazine is generally problematic because it embraces a relaxed attitude towards checking its facts and sources, but this editorial is worth reading.

[Bill Scheurer]

Jackson, thanks for the artcile. I personally am not a 2-state solution advocate. Ali Abuminah of the Electronic Intifida also critiques the 2-state solution approach. Of course, I am neither Israeli nor Palestinian, so my opinions would be secondary anyway. It's not a chess game for outsiders like me. It's a real life decision for the people who live there.

[William L Hallmark]

I think we need to be careful about dismissing this controversy as strictly an Israeli-Palestinian problem. Perhaps you only meant to say these two peoples have a vital interest in the issue. I agree. But I can think of no controversy that more clearly demonstrates We Are One. The resolution of this controversy would have huge impact throughout the world. And continuing to fail to solve the problem has and may well continue to drag the world into war. We may be outsiders because of our ignorance, but we are not uninvolved. We Americans are literally dying because we have not been responsive to this need.

[William L Hallmark]

Hi Jackson. Thanks for your note. The proposed solutions were not intended as endorsements but only reflect that someone during the conversation made such a proposal. I don't know what the proposer had in mind, but I did read the YES article and I didn't find the proposal there inconsistent with what understood to be meant by a "two state solution." I have understood this to be a generic term to connote that both Israel and Palestine would be sovereign states. Has the term come to mean something more, e.g. what the Israeli or Bush administrations specifically have proposed?

[Ann Cole]

Dear All,

Helping to heal and hold the pain in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict is a very worthy cause, as our tax dollars go to Israel and could be used as leverage for change. I believe we, as Americans, need to keep focused on where we are killing and are at war right now. This is our first responsibility from my point of view. Seeing what is in our own backyard. Afghanistan and Iraq and all the children who have died from our intervention must be our primary locus of control, because the soldiers are killing in our name.

[Leonora]

Since we Americans send money to help fund Israel, we have complicity in the killing.
In an interconnected global community, all countries are in our backyard.
Our responsibility extends to the whole, so that we cannot limit our focus to a few.
We are all in this together.