Love of the Land: There is no Hope for Peace

There is no Hope for Peace

Dr. Alex Grobman
Israelnationalnews.com
04 May '10

There are many attempts to understand why the Arab/Israel conflict remains unresolved. Among the reasons advanced for this impasse are that: years of suspicion, fear, feelings of injustice and stereotyping have created a psychological barrier between Israelis and Arabs.[1] Negative perceptions have reduced incentives to accept peace proposals, prejudice the viability of these proposals and preclude feelings of empathy.[2]

On the most personal level, there are differences in Arab and Jewish life-styles. Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, laments the gulf dividing Arabs and Jews even when they live together as neighbors. They patronage the same stores, exchange information on common neighborhood issues, drink coffee in the afternoon, and watch their children growing up from opposite sides of the fence.[3]

Yet they do not share common holidays, days of rest, or free time activities. Holidays are especially alienating. Benvenisti would not invite his neighbors to sit in his sukkah (booths used during the Feast of Tabernacles) lest they be offended when he recites the prayer over the wine. Similarly, when one of his neighbor’s children returned from the hajj, the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, his family would not be invited to celebrate to save them embarrassment for not knowing how to behave.[4]

Estrangement is even more pronounced the moment visible symbols are involved. When Benvenisti displays the flag on Israeli Independence Day, he knows his neighbors will be upset. On Yom Kippur, work ceases throughout the country. During the month of Ramadan, Arabs rise at 3: 00 a.m. A blind man in his neighborhood, who is escorted by a drummer, wakes-up the pious at 3:a.m. to prepare the meal before the fast. [5]

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Love of the Land: There is no Hope for Peace

Love of the Land: Nessie and why Obama can’t

Nessie and why Obama can’t

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
05 February '10

Two extraordinary recent events seem entirely unrelated, but they are in actual fact no less than peas in the same proverbial pod. US President Barack Obama of “yes we can” fame confessed that he can’t (impose instant peace on us). A concurrent shock was delivered by reports of the possible (premature?) demise of lovable Nessie – the maybe monster that has made Loch Ness one of the UK’s top tourist attractions. Though ostensibly far-fetched, the connection between the two news bombshells is inexorable.

Obama owned up that his diktat (which he calls “peace” and which he superciliously supposed he could inflict upon us overnight) has so far failed to reinvent the Mideast. Obama, of course, blames Israelis and Arabs equally (for the sake of hallowed postmodernist evenhandedness).

It matters diddly that the most unlikely government in Israel offered concessions that likelier governments had earlier refused to contemplate. It equally matters diddly that the Palestinians under Mahmoud Abbas’s fictional leadership regressed to more intractable positions than they had ever held in all previous negotiation rounds with previous Israeli governments.

Staggeringly, the White House resident has handed out identical demerits regardless of Israel’s compromise of vital interests and Palestinian intransigence on what was beforehand never insisted upon. No differentiation between compliance and obstructionism.

But while Obama spent the past year discovering that “this is just really hard” (we told him so), he evinces remarkable never-say-die spirit. Ever-valiant Obama vows to press ahead with the apparently ever-viable (contrary to all empirical evidence) two-state solution. Despite all clinical indications, Obama maintains that his phantom peace yet lives.

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Love of the Land: Nessie and why Obama can’t