5 Steps To Peace In Israel & Palestine

israelis and palestinians meditating together in peace
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  • We’ve just released The Peace Issue of Meditation Magazine, focused on cultivating peace, communication, understanding, and reconciliation, within ourselves, within our families, between nations, and in the world as a whole.

    • For more background on how to create peace and avoid fueling war, please check out The Peace Issue.
    • For a more comprehensive article on understanding the humans of Israel and Palestine, please see my article Peace In The Middle East.
    • For a simple, concrete, and feasible plan to get to peace in Palestine and Israel, please see below.

    UNDERSTAND THE NEEDS AND ASPIRATIONS OF BOTH SIDES

    Palestinians are fighting for freedom, and to end oppression and occupation. Israelis are fighting for safety, and to end terrorism and violence against civilians. Any viable solution must address the needs of both sides.

    But it’s not only Palestinians who need freedom, and it’s not only Israelis who need security. Both groups need both freedom and security. Additionally, no group of humans will live happily in a situation of injustice. All three of these things – freedom, security, and justice – must be ensured, for all humans in the land, in order to reach a true and lasting peace.

    Lastly, both Israelis and Palestinians feel a deep and understandable need (rooted in both peoples’ historical traumas and experiences) for self-determination. Both peoples feel a need to be masters of their own futures, rather than to submit to the will of others who would dictate their fates.

    So we have four basic needs for both Israelis and Palestinians: freedom, security, justice, and self-determination. All four of these basic needs must be met, for both groups, in order for either group to experience true and lasting peace.

    AGREE ON MUST-HAVES

    The first thing that Israeli and Palestinian leaders need to agree upon is this very basic vision: Freedom, Security, Justice, and self-Determination (which we will refer to as FSJD), for all of the human beings between the river and the sea. (Personally, I would extend this to all conscious beings in the Universe, but for now, it may be more immediately achievable to begin with the humans of Israel and Palestine.) 

    AGREE ON MUST-NOT-HAVES

    Both sides need to understand the obstacles to, and enemies of, peace, in order to avoid the obstacles and handle the enemies, to ensure lasting peace.

    OBSTACLES TO PEACE:

    Hatred, Dehumanization, and Violence (HDV) are the three poisons that destroy peace. Israeli and Palestinian leaders must both sincerely commit to combatting and removing these poisons from their constituents, from their governments, and from their policies, as much as they possibly can. NOTE: Dehumanization includes racism, othering, and apathy toward the suffering of people “on the other side.” The category of “violence” includes emotional, physical, and structural violence. Emotional violence includes interpersonal actions like screaming, spiteful speech, spitting, slurs, etc. Physical violence includes harming people or property. Structural violence includes policies and systems of occupation, oppression, apartheid, etc. All of these obstacles to peace must be removed (or at least dramatically reduced over time) in order for either people to enjoy true and lasting peace.

    ENEMIES OF PEACE: 

    Any individual who prevents the achievement of the must-haves (FSJD – Freedom, Security, Justice, and self-Determination for all), or perpetuates the must-not-haves (HDV – Hatred, Dehumanization, and Violence), is an enemy of peace, because he or she will decrease the level of peace in the land, rather than increase it. It only takes one human being to commit a terrorist attack that can ignite a war that kills thousands. We must therefore take care to create a society where extremist individuals will not restart the cycle of violence.

    While we cannot force individual humans to change their thoughts and emotions (for example, to let go of hatred and dehumanization), we can certainly encourage this type of change at a societal level, through peaceful education, media, social discourse, and messaging from leadership.

    But when it comes to violence, we must demand a basic standard of interpersonal behavior that will protect peace and prevent future conflict.

    Any human who perpetrates acts of violence (whether emotional, physical, or structural) is an enemy of peace. But if we respond to this human with hatred, dehumanization, and violence, then we become enemies of peace ourselves. We must respond firmly and justly to violence, in order to stop and prevent it… but we must also respond compassionately and wisely, to avoid exacerbating it. For example, by focusing more on rehabilitation and reconciliation than on punishment and vengeance, we can heal individuals and societies, rather than perpetuating hatred, anger, violence, and conflict.

    IMPLEMENT THE VISION

    In order to move toward a true and lasting peace, Israeli and Palestinian leaders must agree on the basic principles above. They must agree to work together to co-create a situation of FSJD for all of the humans between the river and the sea, and to reduce (and hopefully eliminate, over time) HDV on the part of their own people.

    Any Israeli or Palestinian leaders who do not agree to working toward these fundamental conditions for peace are fundamentally enemies of peace. These leaders must be (as non-violently as possible) removed from positions of power and influence as much as possible, in order to move toward peace. Some may need to be incarcerated (ideally by their own people, but possibly by international bodies) in order to prevent them from destroying the nascent peace.

    Once the enemies of peace have been removed from power, and the leadership on both sides is committed to cultivating FSJD and reducing HDV, we can quickly begin to move toward peace. With both sides agreeing on this vision for the future, the next steps are very clear:

    5 STEPS TO GET TO PEACE

    1. Agree: Leaders on both sides must agree on the must-haves (FSJD) and must-not-haves (HDV) for all humans between the river and the sea. Enemies of peace in the leadership on both sides may need to be removed from power in order to accomplish this.
    2. Stop: Israel must stop bombing Gaza. Both sides must stop all physical violence. This step is what people often refer to as “ceasefire.” (This should be implemented immediately, but without the foundation of Step #1, the ceasefire will quickly be broken by one side or the other, further deteriorating trust and hope. Therefore, Step #1 is a necessary precursor for Step #2. The reason why a ceasefire in Gaza has not yet been achieved is because Step #1 has not yet been addressed.)
    3. Release: Israeli hostages, as well as Palestinian political prisoners (those who have not been convicted of violent crimes and are not explicitly planning to commit violent crimes in the future) must be released and returned to their families.
    4. Educate: Both sides must begin to urgently implement systems to reduce the HDV within their own communities, governments, messaging, and policies. These programs should include meditation and reconciliation programs like the ones provided to Israelis and Palestinians by Thich Nhat Hanh.
    5. Liberate: Israel must agree to dismantle its systems of oppression, occupation and apartheid, over a definite time span, with defined milestones. This must be done cautiously and prudently, and ideally under the auspices of international guarantors from the western and Arab worlds, to avoid providing easy access for extremists to destroy the peace via terrorist attacks. Israeli milestones of dismantling security infrastructure should be tied to Palestinian milestones of reducing and eliminating violence against Israelis; these two processes must go hand-in-hand in order to ensure a stable and lasting peace.

    Steps 1, 2, and 3, should be implemented immediately, and “held” as strongly as possible in order to avoid reigniting the conflict. Steps 4 and 5 must continue to be implemented and expanded over time, until a situation of peace, security, and yes, even brotherly love between nations, is achieved.

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