Recipe for a fruitful discussion

Bring a thread, not a woven carpet!

I was reading a couple of blogs today, vast discussions debating over the best solution to the Palestinian question (the more realistic, the more equitable, the more profitable…). Bloggers were parrotting  politicians, proposing package deals and behaving like merchants, trying to sell the best product, the miracle pill.

It reminded me of those humorous pills you find in gadget stores (“Take two pills a day and become blond”, “Four pills to learn German”) or at your chemists (“this pill will make u happier”, “this pill will make u slimmer”).

These discussions have little sens. They do not even qualify as discussions. It’s like merchants yelling their goods. And taking it very much at heart, behaving as if they created the product to start with.
In Lebanon, we have similar discussions. The debate over institutional reform follows the same pattern. People will howl at you the virtues of federalism, others will hammer at you the necessity for deconfessionalisation. Each is convinced that the opponent’s solution is seditious, destructive and morally flowed.

Such discussions are sterile. A one state solution for Palestine/Israel could threaten Jewish existence as much as it could threaten Palestinian existence. It could be a solution just as it could just reframe the problem. All depends on the institutions that will be chosen and the way social and political actors will interact with them. Similarly, a two state solution could reinforce the antagonism between the two people just as it could comfort their fears.
The same could be said about the institutional debate in Lebanon. Federalism could bring the country closer together just as it could be the first step towards a permanent divorce between regions and communities. It all depends on what kind of federalism is adopted and how the social and political actors will interact with the new institutions. These two elements are hardly ever considered. The same could be said about confessionalisation and deconfessionalisation. Up to now, the results haven’t been very positive either way. When President Chehab introduced confessionalism to the public administration in the 1960s, it worked as an instrument of “affirmative action” but increased the hold of patronage networks and gave it a stronger communal flavour. Similarly, when the Taef agreement got rid of the Chehabist parity rule, it didn’t diminish the hold of the patronage networks but encouraged Christian-Lebanese to “withdraw” from the State apparatus (just as they had did since the 1950s from the Municipality of Beirut)…

Wouldn’t it be preferable to stop looking for the miracle panacea and spend all our energy on defending this “global solution” and just tackle the points that we find important, one by one? For example advancing individual and collective rights or dismounting the patronage networks in Lebanon, or working on mobility, security and the respect of individual and collective rights in Israel/Palestine…

Gaza… Closed zone

Well, there’s a first time for everything. Up to now, I had never inserted a youtube video in this blog. I didn’t see the point of it. But how can you resist Yoni Goodman’s short film “Closed Zone”. I discovered it on Haaretz’s website. For anyone reading this blog, and interested in the Middle East, you should check out this Israeli paper as often as possible. I believe it is by far the best daily in the Middle East. Sure it has its biases, it is after all an israeli rather judeo-centric and left leaning newspaper. But you’ll probably find in its pages the best reporting and analysis on the conflict.

As for the film, it’s really worth the click, and it only runs a minute and a half. Yoni Goodman created it for the Israeli NGO Gisha devoted to the freedom of movement.  He is no other than the animator of ”Waltz with Bashir”.

I would have preferred a slightly more condensed version of the clip, without the final frames in which the bird is caged. They are rather redundant and the message is quite clear without them.

Gaza, a prequel to Lebanon War 3 ?

Every day, news leaked into my spirit on what was happening in Gaza. I had shut myself off from it, tried to ignore it. But the death toll kept reminding me that there was a new war in the Middle East, actually not a new war but a new battle (in an ongoing war)  in my neighbourhood. 

I couldn’t stand to hear the press commenting on it. It was all dabble or worse… propaganda. Almost no coverage from Gaza. Only some images (probably stolen) from a Palestinian and Islamist TV, but no western journalists, no live testimonies from westerners living there. The only people interviewed were european looking IDF personnel, mostly women. 

As I walked on the streets of Amsterdam, I noticed through a window a TV reporting on the war. Each war in the Middle East is a rehearsal to another war. It’s a training ground for another war. That’s at least how the Israeli military sees it, and that’s how their foes now understand it. In each war, new strategies are tested and “lessons” learnt from previous wars applied. 

Israel knows that the Middle East is no friendly place to live in, so it has grown accustomed to seeing itself “victim” of an everlasting and ongoing war with its neighbours. A war taking various forms (one of them being a truce or a peace treaty), with nothing to build on except ones military “defensive” capacities, nothing to do other than “prepare” for the next war.

One thing is sure. Israel isn’t the only one “learning” from the present “war lessons”. While the whole world watches the battle raging , the military operations expanding and the casualties mounting; While Palestinians in Gaza (and Hamas) try to survive… Hezbollah is equally “learning” from the “Second Gaza War” the new strategies developed by its enemy, for they will surely be applied soon in Lebanon.

And as I sit comfortably in front of my computer in a public library, Gaza II seems to be just another prequel to the next war.

A month in a virtual-peace-community – part 2

What I didn’t say yesterday about this virtual-peace-community is that it is managed and owned by an young Israeli, a member of Peace Now.

This fact could explain some of the problems the virtual-peace-community faces. Peace Now is a left leaning zionist organisation. It enjoys a large international support in intellectual circles because of its pro-peace stands, but in Israel, it is criticized by all sides:  On the right because of its attitude against the settlements in the West Bank, on the left because it’s seen as inefficient and too zionist. 

I personally have been quite sympathetic to some of this NGOs work, but critical of its two shortcomings:  

- Its support of the 2006 July War

- Its lack of interest in non-jewish membership (which is odd for a Peace movement that is in a multinational country and in a multi-religious region). 

Nevertheless, one can only be admirative of the courage Peace Now and the creator of the virtual-peace-community have for extending a peaceful hand to their enemy when they are criticised by their own and generally ignored and rejected by those to whom they extend your hand. This is what Peace Now has faced, and this is what the cyber-community is suffering from. If they can’t find a way to solve these two problems, there’s very little chance that they will be able to succeed in their venture.

A month in a virtual-peace-community – part 1

Dear blogosphere,

It wasn’t really work that kept me off this blog, but my growing involvement elsewhere in cyberspace. Over a year ago, I joined a virtual-community committed to peace in the Middle East. For months I was a regular, but this summer, things slipped out of control. I spend over two hours a day reading and responding to postings and comments. It was eating up almost of my spare time, to what avail? This is what I asked myself yesterday when I decided to wean myself off it. 

It was time to check the balance sheet. What was I getting out of this virtual-peace-community? Was it of benefit for me to stay on?

Well, it was interesting to see that the “Peacemakers” on the site are deeply divided among different lines:

- the first line is linguistic: the site is mostly in English, so those who master the language are likely to dominate the discussions (i.e. English native speakers and people with a high academic background). The site tried to encourage postings in Hebrew and Arabic, but it didn’t work,

- the second line is ideological: on one side you have the pro-zionist (adamant defenders of Israel) and on the other the anti-zionists (they’re mostly anti-zionist Israeli or diaspora jews). Each group has his cyber-soldiers who shoot at anyone that doesn’t belong to their camp.

- the third line is on the level of arguments and experience in “peacemaking”: some arguments are journalistic, others are academic, some were highly ideological, others were technical… Some were informed, others not at all… The same subjects were treated ad nauseam… the same arguments repeated incessantly… Copy/Pasting from other cites used extensively by some in their postings and comments… 

What a challenge it was to make such a diverse audience interact with each other peacefully! Anger is palpable in most discussions and cyber-soldiers are very efficient in hijacking discussions (though their number is limited: never more than 10 out of 1000 member).

Bitter Lemon trees

If the title song doesn’t send U screaming out of the theater (luckily, my feet were aching), I’m sure U’ll find Eran Riklis last movie enjoyable and thought provoking (in a subtle way). Sure, the story has been told, but Riklis does it a bit differently. He doesn’t do the whole work for you. He offers all the elements – most of them we are familiar with – and it’s up to us to put them together. 

What he shows are two societies trapped in their mental systems: the Palestinians in their informal “intifada” mentality, the Israelis in their institutional “security obsessed” framework. Both societies speak different languages; and it’s not just about Hebrew versus Arabic, it goes deeper… it’s about institutional versus emotional, consumeristic versus economical survival, jewish-centric versus palestinian-centric…

This “linguistic” clash clearly comes across in the courtroom… the woman’s lawyer brings in a witness who tries to translate what he considers to be “key sentences” from Arabic to Hebrew. His language is poetic, he is appealing to the judge’s humanity. But the judge doesn’t hear him. She listens to the military lawyer’s arguments. They are factual, grounded in law, grounded in a law that allows the military complete powers on security matters, powers that even the Minister of the Interior doesn’t question. The Lemon tree are a security issue. But instead of uprooting the trees, as the military has decided, she decides it’s enough to trim them down to bonzaïs. 

This argument is similar to the one given by the Higher Court concerning the Wall. The Higher Court doesn’t question the opportunity of building a “security fence”/”separation wall” between the Palestinians from one side and the Israeli and Jewish settler population from another… It doesn’t try to balance short term “security” issues with humanitarian principles. It only tries to limit the “shocking” aspects of the israeli policy and its consequences. 

Two interesting articles by Bradley Burston

I think two of the most interesting articles I read this year surrounding the 60th anniversary of Israel were penned by Bradley Burston, in the Israeli daily HaAretz : 

- We owe the Palestinians a state. 

- Sixty years of Nakba, 60 years of nothing.

Both articles are courageous and highlight very important things that were obliterated by the imposing celebrations of Israel’s independence day. What I most admired is what Burston terms Israel’s “tragic success”, and how he flips the coin to look at its other side. He invites Israelis to consider on that day what they owe the Palestinians. 

Lastly, he sums up the last two decades extraordinarily. During the 90s, “we lost our belief in the power of peace to solve our problems”, and “then we lost our faith in the power of war to do the same”.  

 

 

 

Mohammed al-Atar’s “The Iron Wall”

Trying to get to watch this movie was an adventure in itself. A couple of months ago, I tried to catch it’s only public screening in Paris. I had received a message from my aunt reminding me about it. Only I read it 30 minutes before the start of the projection. So I pedaled and rushed as fast as I could from the other end of the city. I had a flat tire… I couldn’t find another bicycle to swap it with… And after finally finding one and reaching my destination, I couldn’t find a terminal to park the rented bicycle… So I arrived a couple of minutes late and saw a large crowd cuing before the theater. They weren’t actually cuing. They were discussing politics, middle eastern politics. Most looked French. But I’m sure there were a couple of Lebanese, Palestinians and Israeli amongst them. The theatre was packed, but they stayed on to discuss the same topic, either hoping to be allowed in, or they were just happy to meet with like-minded people and were planning on watching another middle-eastern film programmed for the same day.  After eavesdropping for a couple of minutes, I returned home.Later that day, I learnt that a friend had bought back a DVD copy of the film from England. So i decided to borrow it from her. And so I did. I literally shelved it for weeks. But decided to watch it a couple of hours ago. I wouldn’t say I found it disappointing. It was actually rather close to what I had expected. It is a militant palestinian movie that’s main argument is against the separation wall.  What I hadn’t expected was the reaction it was going to have on me. I felt totally discouraged. The whole Israeli-Palestinian issue seemed to be totally hopeless. Strangely enough, this impression didn’t come from the film’s subject, but from it’s approach. It reminded me of Alan Dershowitz’s “A Case for Israel” in its obsession to “prove” one point right by discarding any information that doesn’t directly suit this purpose. What does Mohammed al-Atar’s expect from this film? Sympathy for the Palestinians? Antipathy towards Israel? Most of the people who are likely to see his movie already share his sentiments… As for the rest, they’re going to be surprised by his portrayal of Israel and its colonisation policies. Even though he undeniably relies on facts, people are likely to be taken aback by the way he browbeats his point. When one makes such a militant documentary, one hopes for change. If Mohammed al-Atar aims at that, I believe he’s chosen the wrong strategy.

Egypt closes Rafah border

How said it was to hear that the Rafah border was closed again; that the inhabitants of Gaza were once again walled in their strip. When I saw the images of the Egyptian army pushing the Palestinian back with water-cannons, setting up a barbed-wire fence, patrolling the border areas to catch the “fugitives” still wandering free in Egyptian lands. As I watched those pictures I started to feel the anger Islamists throughout the world were feeling as they watched the same pictures. I started to understand how this fueled their general mistrust of the West that was applauding such a measure and their hate of the Arab regimes for not only failing to condemn it but openly supporting it.  It was like watching the West German army in 1989 sealing off the Berlin Wall again, claiming that if it did not do so, it would be breaching the quadripartite agreement between the WW2 allies and that this lack of reaction could be interpreted as a casus belli by Democratic Republic of Germany or the USSR!! Does one have the right to transform a district home to 1.5 million souls into a roofless prison? To condemn all its inhabitants to economic underdevelopment? To kill all hope for a brighter future?  

Israel/Palestine in mind -1

For the past week, I’ve been somewhat obsessed by the whole Palestinian-Israeli question. It all started on monday, after a talk I had with a very interesting Frenchwoman who had campaigned for the release of Marwan Barghouti. Her actions resulted in an expulsion order by the Israeli authorities. Several people in the group she’s in have sympathies for both the Palestinians and the Levantine Christians, which is quite a rare combination in Europe. Those who commiserate with the Palestinians are usually left-leaning (which she seems to be) and are quite sensitive to the anti-colonial rhetoric, while those who empathise with the Levantine Christians are usually conservative, traditionalist or religious and are rather hostile to anything islamic. I wonder what her position was during the first few years of the Lebanese war (1975-1983). We had a short healthy debate over the question of approaches to the Palestinian question: a political one or a humanitarian one (collective vs individual).
The second event that triggered my questioning was an article I read on the Annapolis peace summit. It seems that Abbas and Olmert were unable to get to a common understanding in Jerusalem, what hope is there that they would achieve anything different across the Atlantic?
The third event was the projection of Mohammad Atar’s “Iron wall” in Paris. I arrived a couple of minutes late to the projection and couldn’t get in because of the crowd that had invaded the theatre and its surroundings. So I compensated by reading articles about Vladmir Jabotinsky (who fathered this expression and notion). And then I came across an interview of Benny Morris by Ari Shavit (rather chilling) and got a couple of infos on Ghaleb (Raleb) Majadele and Avi Shlaim.

Geneva Initiative, 4 years after.

In three weeks, we will be celebrating the 4th anniversary of the Geneva Initiative. A very interesting book I’m reading brought this Israeli-Palestinian initiative back to my mind. David Chemla’s Bâtisseurs de la Paix (Liana Levi, Paris, 2005) is in fact a very important complementary reading to this Draft Permanent Status Agreement, because it consists of extended interviews with its main protagonists: Nazmi al-Jubeh, Ami Ayalon, Abdel Jader Al-Hussein, Dror Etkes, Qadira Fares, Tsvia Grinfeld, Radi Harai, David Grossman (who lost a son during the July War/Second Lebanese War), Zehira Kamal, Amram Mitzna, Saman Khoury, Haïm Oron, Ibrahim Khreishi, Ron Pundak, Sari Nusseibeh, Rafi Walden. The interviews were done by David Chemla, head of the French section of Peace Now: La paix maintenant.

These interviews give you a clear picture on the dynamics that resulted in the Geneva Initiative. For those like myself who are critical about the accord, it gives you all the argument you need to show why their accord was doomed to failure.

My approach to dealing with Israel/Palestine

For over a year now, I have been experimenting with a new approach to deal with the Israeli/Palestinian issue. If one has to sum it up in one word, it would be “non-arithmetic”. I deliberately choose not to add 1 and 1, not to subtract an Israeli perspective from a Palestinian one (or vice versa), but to juxtapose them, to approach them as separate and distinct even though they pertain mostly to the same objects (land, places and dates).
In times of extreme polarisation, I believe there’s no other way to proceed because the conflict is so vibrant, there is no place for shifts and change, no place for a meta-narrative, no place for conflicting sub-narratives. Any attempt to increase the value of those narratives will ultimately fail because of the strong polarisation that affects everyone (from which no one can be immune from). Even if a person has a different perspective, he will have to take sides and sacrifice even his own experience to the narrative shared by his group. This is the price one pays for belonging.
The non-arithmetic approach that I have adopted is not a neutral one. I don’t believe there is such a thing. Actually, I don’t quite understand the meaning of the word “neutrality” or “objectivity” in such a context. When one faced with several narratives, how can one be neutral toward them? All narratives are subjective, and each and everyone of us follows one or another according to his/her inclinations. For a debate over my positioning, you could check out a debate I had a year ago with a fellow blogger Taltalk “Weighing victimhood and competing suffering”

Moderates vs Radicals

Seen from the outside, there seems to be a clash between the “moderates” and the “radicals” throughout the Middle East. And the major fronts seem to be Palestine and Lebanon. In Palestine, Fateh is presented as a moderate force, while Hamas is denounced as a radical force. In Lebanon things are always more complicated. The moderates are an aggregate of historically opposed and confessionally varied political forces. And the radicals are Hezbollah on one side, and the Qaeda/pro-syrian sunni islamist forces on the other.
Since the 2005/2006 parliamentary elections in Lebanon and Palestine, the US and Europe have been very openly supportive of the “Moderates”, and very vocally opposed to the “Radicals”. On the other hand, Syria and Iran have been very vocally supportive of the “Radicals” and sometimes violently hostile to the “Moderates”.
The whole international and regional mood has been to pit one against the other. In Palestine it has successfully led to an open war between the two factions. In Lebanon, violence has errupted between the “Moderates” and some “Radicals”, while a “cold” war has been opposing for almost a year the “Moderates” and the “Radicals”.
This disctinction and labelling of forces was created by the Americans. The “moderates” are their allies, and the “radicals” are those who are still combatting Israel. This labelling is justifiable if one is looking at the international dimensions of the conflict, but they are totally unsatisfactory if one is interested in the local and social dimension.
What is moderate about Mubarak’s regime? What is the trait shared by Siniora’s and Abbas’ regimes?

Talking politics with an Israeli chap

Just as I was finishing my second lesson of modern hebrew in a public library, the person next to me interrupted me and asked if I found it difficult to learn hebrew and why I was learning it. After a brief discussion, I “came out” as a Lebanese and he as an Israeli. I told him what difficulties I was encountering (mostly having problems distinguishing certain letters), but once I reestablished the proper probounciation of some letters (the ‘ain and the het) it became much easier to me to understand some words because of my knowledge of Arabic.
After finishing my lesson, and very proud of my microscopic progress, I met him at the Cafeteria as we had agreed. And there started a 3 hour lengthy discussion on Israel and Israelophobia. Truth to tell, I didn’t find the discussion very interesting. He was very defensive and kept on justifying what he saw as right. While I was trying to explain the differences in perception, failing miserably to make my points understood. Well, I had too many to start with, and as I wasn’t taking a pre-formated role, I guess it was rather unsettling for him. He very quickly noticed that I wasn’t hostile to Israel, but he then was surprised to see me critical about Israeli politics and understanding with Israelophobes. But even then he was surprised to see that I wasn’t very comfortable and apt in defending their point of view. I think that made me very suspicious in his eyes. My failings were probably interpreted as proof that the Israelophobes are wrong (politically, morally, ethically, legally), that Israelophiles were right (in every way) and that I was a crypto-Israelophobe, probaby for genetical reasons, because in his eyes I was very stereotypically an Arab.
Disappointed as I was with the discussion that centered on the wars betweens the Arabs and the Israelis (bad versus good), on the justification of violence (for survival) and the condemnation of Israelophobia as a prefiguration of the future and a declaration of genocidal intent… I asked myself, what exactly did I learn from this discussion?
- There is a very strong narrative in Israel concerning the Israeli-Arab struggle, and it’s probably even more tightly “argumented” than its Arab and Islamic equivalent(s).
- Israelis are as suspicious of Arabs as the Arabs are of Israelis. They both see hidden intentions and agendas everywhere and perceive themselves and the other as a monolythical whole.
- The Mizrahi Jews have a larger problem than other Jews to tackle with regard to the Arabs because they are not reconciled with their original identity. The guy I was talking to was a clear example of this. His father’s family is from Egypt and his mother’s from Tunesia. He refused at first to acknowledge that any of them spoke Arabic?! Later conceding that they might have spoken a few words to communicate in the market.
- My meta-narrative awakens suspicion and does not bring about a common understanding.

Talking-back: reacting to posts made on Haaretz on the british academic boycott of Israel

It is no coincidence and it should not come as a surprise that such a reaction [as the academic boycott of Israel] comes from England. It’s in London that the Boycott Movement (that latter became the Anti-Apartheid Movement) against South African products during the apartheid started. And the UK is in many ways responsible for what happened during and after it was given a mandate over Palestine. The regime the Jewish majority (a minority then) set up and is supporting today is a form of Apartheid of a very particular sort, but an Apartheid regime nevertheless.
Humanists, academics and human rights activists cannot condone such a regime and it is only normal they react to it. The question that I ask myself is how effective and productive is the boycott?
I personally believe it’s counterproductive, especially if it triggers hysterical reactions, justifications, accusations and not an ounce of self-criticism.
Boycott is not the solution. Argumentation, open dialogue, non-polemical debate is the only way forward.