After the violence in Gaza, is there a path to a lasting peace?

Image source https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-war-explained-week-2-mime-intl/index.html

Most of us watching the latest war in Gaza want the emotional rollercoaster to end. In despair we often grasp on to simple solutions that we believe should stop the war. A common one is the ‘two-state’ answer. But that itself will not end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel left Gaza in 2005 - over 18 years ago. Nothing got better.

Resolving the seemingly endless conflicts between the Arabs and the Jews of the Middle East (and let’s not forget the multitude of other factional conflicts throughout the region) is not about finding the right answer that solves some sort of ill-defined problem of frustrated ‘interests.’

Neither is genuine peace achieved through signing a treaty that creates a disengaged stand-off. Nor is it attained through the diplomatic moving of chess pieces to restore an equilibrium of tensions.

Humans are complicated and layered, and so too is the real resolution of social conflicts.

We are creatures in a web of tribal identities whose attachments are experienced as central to our existence. Tribes are galvanized by cultures that detail common ways to function together – our thoughts, our feelings and our behaviors. Perceptions of threats are transferred across the generations in fear-based stories. These aspects of our humanness are our innate survival mechanisms. Today, in these times of turmoil and danger we cling evermore desperately to them.

Building an enduring peace in the Middle East (and elsewhere) requires the creation of some broader shared identity, the uprooting and purging of murderous cultural narratives, the healing of past traumas, and the reaching out across the divides to build new direct human relationships (these days termed the ‘nominalization’ of relations).

To do so requires a greater vision, wisdom, courage, strength, skill, and leadership than we have seen up until now. This time when the violence abates there needs to be much deep and protracted work done (as they did in South Africa).

Or else, there will be war again, again, and again.

A version of this post was published in the Jewish Independent on October 26, 2023