One Man, One Party

Alon Ben-Meir says that Israel's political center and left could unite and put the peace process back on track -- if it weren't, that is, for the politicians:

[A]ll Israeli politicians are driven by blind personal ambitions. I do not believe that there is a single issue in connection with the Palestinian conflict that Labor, Kadima and even Barak's Independence party could not agree on to move along a unified political agenda to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What prevents them from doing so are personal struggles over who should occupy this or that post and what prerogatives they may or may not be able to exercise.

What If The Children Led Them?

For a post about Alon Ben-Meir's Huffington Post series on the dearth of Israeli-Palestinian mutual understanding, I used photos I took several years ago of Arab Palestinian (shown here) and Jewish schoolchildren in Jerusalem. I was briefly tempted to append something about what might happen if we left peacemaking to the children but then decided not risk a callow-sounding and idealized P.S. to Ben-Meir's thoughtful words.

Then I listened to Dave Davies's "Fresh Air" interview with journalist Katherine Boo, who was talking about how the innate ethics of children in Mumbai's poorest neighborhoods are undermined by the harshness of daily living. Mumbai's struggles for survival are by and large more spirit-killing, I'm sure, than the struggle for political identity. Yet something of what Boo has observed probably applies to what kids in Jerusalem learn from political discussions around the dinner table:

[W]hat I see all the time in children in any country is an enormous ethical imagination. I really think that from a young age, people have a sense of justice in a society that is so corrupt that even to help a neighbor bleeding on the street is to risk your own livelihood and your own liberty because the police system is so corrupt.

I think that that innate capacity for moral action gets sabotaged, gets abraded, and I think that I see that constantly in my work. I see constantly, that in corrupt societies, in extremely viciously competitive societies, people's instinct to do the right thing gets turned upside down.

Sending Israelis And Palestinians Back To School

Alon Ben-Meir, beginning a series of articles in the Huffington Post, says Israelis and Palestinians won't be able to make peace until they finally learn to understand each other:

Overcoming these fundamental obstacles to a two-state agreement requires more than negotiations between political leaders. What is needed is to bring together noted and most-respected religious leaders, historians and NGOs that engage in separate talks about each of the conflicting issues between Israelis and Palestinians without outside political pressure as long as all participants believe in the inevitability of coexistence. Airing these issues and reaching a better understanding could have a tremendous impact on public opinion on both sides and provide the political leadership with the necessary public support and the political cover they need to accommodate each other. Understanding and appreciating each other's position and mindset, and reaching a consensus governed by the reality on the ground, will be a game-changer.

Only with such a broader, deeper dialogue, and the shared pursuit of understanding the issues on the psychological, historical, religious and emotional levels, can the roots of the conflict be addressed and substantive negotiations begin to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt Is Not The New Iran

Alon Ben-Meir give three reasons Egypt won't be the new Iran: The military's power, the Muslim Brotherhood's comparative moderation, and the Egyptian people's gumption. He then advises:

The United States and its allies, especially Israel, must accept the fact that in the wake of the Arab Spring, Islamic governments are likely to dominate the Arab political landscape. This does not suggest that these governments will follow Iran's model and naturally commit themselves to hostility toward the West or seek Israel's destruction. Without throwing their caution to the wind, the U.S. and its allies will be wise to adopt a pro-active policy toward Egypt. They must demonstrate that they stand for democracy, in words and in deeds, and welcome any genuine democratic development in Egypt that leads to sustainable reforms and progress, however treacherous the road may be.