PEACEVOICE: Far beyond the limits of the frame | Open

“Madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — attributed to Albert Einstein

If you care about the people of Gaza, you will not support Hamas.

If you care about the people of Israel, you will not support Netanyahu.

All the old games just kill more people, destroy more infrastructure, destroy hope, and poison the environment.

The actual solutions will come from a population that is finally willing to think and act far outside the box.

Each of the in-the-box ideas has proven to be a failure, not once, not twice, but consistently, time and time again.

And yet we have some students who actually defend and justify Hamas.

Others defend and justify Netanyahu.

In my field, Conflict Transformation, we just say no. We defend, justify and promote the support of the Third Side, the side of positive peace. We support a trauma-informed process that rejects the positional, hostile and persistent arguments for one or the other, for Hamas or for Netanyahu.

In my field, Conflict Transformation, we suggest that the most adaptive course will be created by the people on the ground, but certainly not developed by the conflict industry.

In my field, Conflict Transformation, we find that if someone benefits from status, power or financial gain through the outbreak or continuation of destructive conflict, he or she is a member of the conflict industry and the conflict industry built the master’s house. As the visionary Audre Lorde well noted, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

The master’s tool is violence: structural, direct, physical, verbal violence.

We therefore call for new ideas that can break through. We present the counterfactuals:

• What if the US offered to build an Iron Dome for Iran and Gaza?
• What if Iran and the US halted all offensive arms transfers to the IDF, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis?
• What if the UN blue helmets separated Israel and Palestine along the Green Line?
• What if Qatar hosted face-to-face, ongoing substantive conversations that would reignite many of the initiatives between and among Israel and Palestine that had worked in the past?
• What if Palestine recognized and expressed the brotherly sorrow over the European Holocaust?
• What if Israel apologized for all human rights violations that occurred during the creation of the State of Israel?
• What if Israel offered reparations to the Palestinians, or their descendants, who were harmed by Israel’s creation?
• What if Palestine supported a nation-state of Israel?
• What if the British, French, Germans and others offered reparations to both Israel and Palestine?
• What if Israel supported a sovereign Palestinian nation-state?

The Irish and British eventually ended the problems with a peace treaty.

The Guatemalans eventually ended a long war with a peace treaty.

Colombia ended decades of brutal war with a peace treaty.

There are many examples of ending long-standing ‘irresolvable’ deadly conflicts with functional treaties that have worked quite adequately. Israel and Palestine could do the same in their own ways.

They will not do this by relying on anyone in the conflict industry, at home or abroad. The supplier of weapons cannot be an honest mediator of peace. The real negotiators must be Palestinians and Israelis (not Hamas and not the Netanyahu factions).

Ultimately, the people of both nations will take the initiative and negotiate, otherwise the war will continue.

Along the way, American protesters who fail to use trauma-informed resistance will contribute nothing.

Israelis are traumatized.

The Palestinians are traumatized.

Let them figure it out. Stop sending weapons. Stop cheering for one side. Cheer for the third side, for peace.

Liberian women showed the world how it should be done in 2003 when they rejected all the master’s tools, despite being utterly traumatized, and used massive nonviolent resistance to stop a war and gain real democracy.

Serbian children showed the world how things were done in 2000 when, despite being traumatized, they used nonviolent resistance to overthrow a dictator and establish democracy.

Palestinians and Israelis can do this. We just have to get out of their way.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings, PeaceVoice Senior Editor, is coordinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University.