Can There Ever Be Peace in the Middle East?

At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus.  G.S.

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Can There Ever Be Peace in the Middle East? 

What is the current situation?

Jerusalem is divided. There are Israeli settlements on the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, which is considered occupied territory along with the Gaza Strip, which is isolated from the rest of the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. There are Palestinian enclaves on Israeli territory, neighbourhoods that consist primarily if not exclusively of Palestinians who for the most part are Israeli citizens.

Israel exercises control of movement in and out of Palestinian territory, causing severe restrictions of movement on Palestinians in the occupied territories; while Palestinians who are Israeli citizens enjoy more freedom of movement and activity.

The Israeli economy is fairly robust while that of the occupied territories is anaemic if not in dire straits. The State of Israel ensures very good to excellent infrastructure support and civil services; while the Palestinian authority can do fairly little for its own and the State of Israel seems rather disinterested about extending these services to the occupied territory. 

What do the parties want and need?

The People and the State of Israel need a secure and recognized homeland for the Jewish People, particularly in view of what Jews suffered during the Second World War when some six million Jews were wiped out in the Holocaust and for the first time in their history of several thousand years a serious attempt was made to annihilate them as a people

The State of Israel needs to have its capital in Jerusalem, or at least certain elements and functions of its capital city, given that other elements are already established in Tel Aviv. In addition, both the State and the People of Israel need to live in security on their own territory, without constant fear of attack or terrorist activity.

The Israelis who now live and work in settlements in the West Bank need to maintain their Israeli citizenship, their sense of belonging to the State of Israel, and the responsibilities and benefits they currently enjoy as Israeli citizens.

For their part, the Palestinian People and Palestinian Authority also need a secure and recognized homeland for Palestinian People, given their millennial history of existence as the People of Palestine. Not unlike the Jews – with all due respect for the insufferably severe losses sustained in the Holocaust – the Palestinians in the last almost century have had many of their own people displaced and reduced to the status and sorry lot of refugees.

These refugees need to have their situation resolved, one way or another. Their desire and hope is that they might return to their homeland in Palestine. Practically speaking, it is not likely that they could return to the vineyards and lands, homes and towns they lost. However, they need to be given a place of their own where they might finally land and put down roots and be free at last to leave their refugee camps.

The Palestinians also need to have their capital in Jerusalem, or at least certain elements and functions of their capital, given that like the Israelis, other elements of their capital could exist in another city or town. Again, like the Israelis, Palestinians need to live in security on their own territory, without constant fear of attack or military control, with freedom of movement, work, and freedom to enjoy all the normal activities of life in a civilized society.

What would two neighbouring states look like?

Jerusalem would continue to be a city with international status in view of its value and interest as a religious capital of the world, but also in being the single unified city consisting of capital city elements of the governments and other central public institutions of both Israel and Palestine as two separate sovereign states with unique histories intricately interwoven and entwined with the same land, the same Holy Land. As each state would exercise responsibility for its part of Jerusalem, they would collaborate through a joint mechanism for overall planning and management of the city as a whole.

Dual citizenship could be offered by both Israel and Palestine to those citizens currently living in the other state – Israelis living in Occupied Territory settlements and Palestinians living in Israel – and under certain conditions to other citizens of both countries.

Israelis living in the Jewish settlements in Palestine would become primary citizens of the new sovereign State of Palestine to which they would owe their primary taxes and from which they could expect civil services. Palestine will need time and assistance to bring its infrastructures and public services up to the standard currently offered and enjoyed in Israel.

Palestinians living in Israel, outside the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or East Jerusalem, would continue to be Israeli citizens first, with the same responsibilities and rights as any other Israeli citizen. In addition, they could partake in the new responsibilities and rights of dual citizenship of the State of Palestine.

While each sovereign state would keep and maintain its own military force, there could be a joint and shared military force for the maintenance of peace and order in the shared City of Jerusalem, along their shared borders, and perhaps even along their collective borders with other nations. This would be of particular interest given the relatively small size of the shared lands referred to internationally as “The Holy Land” but also in view of their respective people’s connection with the peoples of the nations of the world. It would be of mutual benefit for these two states to collaborate in assuring together the security of their respective territories. Their partnership could then serve to defuse potential extremist outlooks, demands, or activity.

What would such peaceful cooperation and coexistence cost?

Israel needs to recognize that, despite its right to sovereign existence, international recognition, and security, peace and justice can only come to their land by acknowledging that Palestine also has a legitimate claim to sovereign existence, international recognition, and security. Practically speaking, Israel needs to renounce its demand for sovereignty over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.

Individual sovereignty over the whole territory by only one of the two peoples is not feasible or even just. Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims along with Christians, are all originally Semites and have a shared history on the land. Israel believes that the God of their ancestors gave them the land and led them to occupy it. Nonetheless, many of the original peoples continued to live in the land and coexisted with the Jews.

When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and crushed that ultimate rebellion, many Jews left the land and increased the population of the Diaspora. It is their descendants who survived the atrocity of the Holocaust and claimed their right of return to the Holy Land. Due to the urgency of their situation, they took measures which in effect displaced thousands of Palestinians for whom this had also been their land for millennia.

The cost to Palestinians is just as high as it is for Israelis. As for Israelis, so Palestinians too must recognize that, despite their right to sovereign existence, international recognition, and security, peace and justice can only come to their land by acknowledging that Israel also has a legitimate claim to sovereign existence, international recognition, and security. Practically speaking, Palestinians and all Arabic peoples supporting their cause and demands must also renounce their claim of sovereignty over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.

It is time that the two brothers made peace with one another.

To put this situation in biblical terms, it is time that the two brothers made peace. The time has come for Jacob to be reconciled with his brother Esau and for Esau to be reconciled with his brother Jacob. It is only human and therefore understandable that they came to be estranged, but now that estrangement has lasted far too long and has become far too costly for it to continue unabated.

Out of respect for the many strands and layers of this most complex of demographic situations, one could also say that the time has come for Sara to be reconciled with Hagar, and for Hagar to be reconciled with Sara; that Abraham may finally have peace between the two mothers of his only sons. The time has come for Isaac to be reconciled with his estranged and only brother Ishmael, and for Ishmael to rediscover and be reconciled with is long lost brother Isaac. They were estranged due to the human frailty and insecurity of their mothers and also the inability of Abraham to settle the matter amicably without alienating his two women.

Their descendants have suffered long enough and they have forgotten their shared history for far too long. The time has come for everyone to remember – not only the parts of our history that we favour and that we use to repel one another – but to remember the whole history that has bound us inextricably and irrevocably together.

While there are irreducible differences stemming from our respective faiths with their religious ramifications, requirements, and practices; nevertheless, it is possible to venture into a common space and time of peace in which each can summon the noblest and best of human attitudes and dispositions of will to at long last find deep within a capacity and willingness to show the other sufficient respect to grant their need for existence, freedom, and respect.

Though our respective claims relating us to the one Godhead may diverge and even at times contradict or exclude one another’s beliefs and claims, could we not out of respect for the One True God at the very least acknowledge one another and allow one another to exist, if not actually go further and collaborate for a mutually shared and supportive existence for our respective peoples?

Written in no one’s name but my own and out of shared reverence for the God of the Jews – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Christians – Jesus the Lord, Son of God the Father and made man by the Holy Spirit, and the God of the Muslims – Allah who called and sent his prophet Mohammad; given, after all, that these peoples all lay claim to belief in the One True God and that there can only be One True God – and that there can be no other god.

 

Fr Gilles A. Surprenant 
            Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Montreal
            1071 Rue de la Cathédrale, Montréal QC    CANADA

abbagilles@gmail.com 


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At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus.  G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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