Tag Archives: israeli-palestinian conflict

Who precisely is “the conflict”? Who taught them?

27 Monday Feb 2012

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The pamphlet

The pamphlet

Two weeks ago Israeli police found pamphlets that read, “Members of the Likud Caucus [the right-wing party currently in power], along with its thousands of members, headed by Moshe Feiglin [a political activist] are hereby invited to arrive at Temple Mount and praise God, and declare that healthy leadership begins with total control over Temple Mount. (Let us) purify this place from the enemies of Israel, who rob lands, and build the Temple on the ruins of mosques. We need not be afraid!” Police banned Feiglin from going onto the Haram al Sharif, which he tried to do. This news spread through the Palestinian community, and some began protesting. A week later, a rumor spread through some Palestinian circles that Feiglin and his supporters were going to try again, and young men again protested and threw stones at the army. This past Friday, Talat Ramia was among young men throwing rocks at a checkpoint, when he was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier. An Israeli army spokesperson said that Ramia had thrown firecrackers at the soldiers.

Since I am interviewing both Israeli and Palestinian teachers, this news made me wonder: where did Moshe Feiglin go to school? Where did Talat Ramia go? What I would have hoped from each would have been different – from Feiglin, a broader and more welcoming view of humanity, and from Ramia, better self-control and understanding of what will actually further his hopes and dreams. Did Feiglin have teachers who introduced him to an understanding of and respect for people of different faiths? Did Ramia have teachers who sought to inculcate in him emotional self-regulation and an insight into what actions actually effect political and social change?

For Feiglin a quick web search in English turns up masses of information, including where he went to high school, facts about his family, his two books, his regular writings and his many speeches. For Ramia, 15 minutes of searching in English yielded me only his hometown and a picture of his relatives mourning. In any case, Feiglin is a 50 year-old highly influential Israeli nationalist political activist, and Ramia was a 25 year-old Palestinian angered by the latest rumor. Of course, both were influenced by many people before and after high school, most powerfully by their families. Nonetheless, were there teaching opportunities to turn them, even if ever so slightly, off the path that led to this tragedy?

Steven Pinker in Jerusalem

11 Sunday Dec 2011

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Steven Pinker is in favor of cosmopolitanism and opposed to religious prejudice, tribalism and nationalism. He sees international institutions like the U.N. as correlated with a decline in interstate warfare. He notes that women’s rights and the rights of minorities have resulted in a decline in violence against these groups. He does not advocate unilateral pacifism, and does have historical examples where weak states have suffered as a result. He does argue, however, that less insularity and greater democracy leads to less violence.

As I listened to Professor Pinker discuss his new book The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, I could not but think how his points apply to the current trends in Israeli politics and society. A rise in insularity? Check. Nationalism? Check. Anti-democratic legislation? Check. Hostility to international institutions? Check. Assaults on women’s rights? Check. Prejudice against a minority? Check. Tribal? Check.

International institutions like the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel are on the side of the angels, according to Pinker. The Israeli government does not agree.

And yet, when asked the question “What about Israel?” he interpreted the question as meaning, “Isn’t the threat to Israel a counterexample to the trend of declining violence?” (He responded that in fact the Arab-Israeli conflict has been far less bloody than many, and the last war Israel fought against another state was in 1973, consistent with his hypothesis.) His only reference to the Palestinians was in the context of making a point that terrorism almost always fails to attain its stated political goals. He also pointed out that the Arab world has failed to reduce violence to the extent of much of the rest of the world, though he sees hopeful signs of that changing. All these points are absolutely legitimate, but I was interested that he either did not hear or chose not to articulate the lessons for Israeli politics inherent in the case he was making.

I love hearing Prof. Pinker speak, and I am excited to read his book. I also think that the lessons for Palestinian politics are legion. Indeed, Hamas is on the wrong side of pretty much every one of the trends that lead to a decline in violence. Still, I would have liked to have heard Prof. Pinker comment on ethnocentrism and dehumanization of the other in the context of the Netanyahu coalition, settlers shooting their neighbors, and the “price tag” attacks. His book sounds to my ears like an extended critique of many current Israeli policies, and I’m surprised he chose not to make that point.

Mutual religious understanding: not a panacea, but helpful

11 Friday Nov 2011

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Not just a Zionist conspiracy - the actual foundation wall of the actual Second Temple!

Last month I interviewed a professor named Marc who expressed skepticism that education in comparative religion could improve the conflict. This month another Marc (Silverman, of Hebrew University) also questioned the relevance of this kind of work. He took a different line of critique, however. While Rabbi Rosenstein suggested that the conflict was primarily about issues other than religion, Professor Silverman proposed almost the exact opposite. “Imagine a child is raised with a real appreciation of the divine – not through being told, but through her parents’ enthusiasm. Her parents get excited at the experience of being in nature, for example. Such a child will likely be open and appreciative to the divine all around them as an adult, not just in their own tradition but in others’ as well.” He raised the possibility that I was putting too much stress on the academic, that information about other peoples’ belief systems would not significantly affect how people approach the other, and that the true influence takes place much earlier and from another direction.

In light of this critique, which I find powerful, let me try to assert some ways in which teaching comparative religion can help reduce conflict between people of different beliefs:

1. It signals to students, teachers and the culture in general that those in authority value others. The very fact that it is taught (with the exception of presenting it as “know your enemy”) is teaching by example.

2. It is an ideal platform from which to teach critical thinking skills, and such skills are a powerful antidotee to extremism.

3. There is information that can undermine extremism.

While all three of these claims need to be defended, here let me argue in more detail simply for the last one. I have frequently heard the claim that “just teaching people a few facts about another culture won’t help them be more tolerant.” I agree: learning a few facts won’t help, if those facts are unrelated to the prejudices and misunderstandings people hold. Let me give two examples, one teaching about Islam, the other about Judaism. (I’ll wait for a Christian example for another time.)

Several times people have told me that learning the Five Pillars of Islam does little to increase understanding. Well, I would claim memorizing the pillars does a small amount – it helps the student consider the claim that creedal Islam encourages many ethical values. But what are students’ really wondering? Primarily they are wondering about links between Islam and terror and Islam and the position of women. One needs to address these issues, honestly and fully – one cannot simply present an apologist argument. In the case of violence, Qur’anic verses condemning suicide are necessary but not sufficient. One needs to dig deeper and to go outside of what many teachers would consider “learning about the religion.” For example, reading several of the recent studies of the psychology of suicide bombers can contextualize self-identified Muslims who engage in acts of violence against civilians. These readings and discussions can help students reflect on the extent and the limits of the links between Islam and terror.

One can ask similar questions of Judaism. Learning that Jews place the Ten Commandments at the center of their ethical thinking likely will help a Palestinian student understand Judaism a little better, but probably will not help address their core questions. Recently a friend of mine, Professor Charles Stang, gave a talk about early Christianity to students at a Palestinian university. In the course of setting up his discussion he referred to the Second Temple and its destruction by the Romans. The teacher who had invited him to speak had to spend the next class explaining to surprised students that the Second Temple had in fact existed, and was not just a Zionist excuse for taking over the Haram al-Sharif. This points us to a key question for Palestinian students: what is the link between Judaism and the occupation? Understanding the role of Jerusalem in the hopes and dreams of diaspora Judaism and understanding the scale and impact of the Holocaust would likely help students reflect on the extent and the limits of the links between Judaism and the injustices of the occupation.

Finally, to be clear – I am not claiming that mutual religious learning will end conflicts. What it can do, I believe, is problematize and so defang some beliefs that exacerbate many conflicts.

Alternatives to the two-state solution?

11 Friday Nov 2011

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A street sign only in Arabic in the old city of Akko, Israel. What structures can protect the cultural interests of groups other than one in power?

I’m sitting in on a course at Hebrew University called “Binationalism in Israel/Palestine.” Professor Bashir Bashir, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, wants to consider “out of the box” ways to settle the conflict. As he said in the first class, he wants to look at non-racist alternatives to the two-state solution.

The initial readings reveal some of the theoretic structure underlying his thinking. Professor Chaim Gans, a legal theorist at Tel Aviv U, argues for “liberal cultural nationalism at the sub-state level.” “Cultural nationalism” is itself an interesting idea, one that I had not encountered before. It’s basically renaming ethno-nationalism and arguing that it is not all bad from the liberal perspective. It points out that people gain great meaning from culture, even particularistic culture, and argues that they be able to practice their culture and pass it down. Many caveats follow, but the central idea is that not everyone who wants to maintain their culture is necessarily going to turn into the German romantics and then into the Nazis. Gans contrasts cultural nationalism with what he calls “statist nationalism,” in which cultural homogeneity exists to support the goals and stability of the state, not the other way around. Both nationalisms contrast with the pure liberal conception, with the state existing to defend the rights of the individual, not cultures.

An Israeli example might be the government allowing the residents of an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood (Mea She’arim) to close the neighborhood’s streets to traffic on Shabbat. An American (and many secular Israelis) might respond “They can’t do that; it is my right as an individual to drive where and when I want. They can practice their culture in private spaces.” But a defender of cultural nationalism would respond, “We increase human happiness by letting the state support some forms of particularistic culture.”

So where is this heading in terms of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? I think Professor Bashir wants to imagine governing structures that carve out spaces for various forms of Palestinian culture and various forms of Israeli culture to flourish, and not saying that those spaces need to overlap exactly with a Palestinian state and an Israeli state. My biggest question, of course, is trust. Because of the history of anti-Semitism, most Jews are skeptical of the claim that Jewish cultural interests will be protected by anyone but Jews. Because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the behavior of successive Israeli governments, most Palestinians are skeptical that Israeli Jews will protect Palestinian cultural interests. I’ll be interested to hear how Professor Bashir suggests addressing this problem.