June 25, 2003

Is Peace Enough?

I was just watching American CNN news coverage of a possible Mideast truce. A prominent American politician reminded viewers that peace was not possible with organized terror groups like Hamas operating in the Palestinian territories. But let's think about this for a minute -- would everything be fine if Hamas was disbanded and peace broke out today? Is peace enough? Let's say that all the fighting stopped between Israelis and Palestinians. No more Palestinian suicide bombings and no more Israeli Apache helicopter missile attacks. I think it's a step in the right direction, but what do we have left?

Well, Israel is fine -- its citizens do not have to worry about bombs on buses. People can freely go to movies and restaurants and discos. It's OK to go to the theater without a second thought. No one has to worry about terrorist threats. Peace solves their problems. Great. They would like to see it, and I'd like to see it.

But now what about the Palestinians? If peace suddenly broke out in Palestine, unfortunately the situation is still terrible. Hundreds of settlements filled with hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers are still in the West Bank and Gaza -- daily confiscating land and water. Every day Palestinian farmer lose more land and water to aggressive and armed Israeli citizens living in the territories. Settler roads still carve up the Palestinian territories allowing access to Israelis while denying it to Palestinians. How about all the demolished Palestinian homes? The homes that are located too close to the settlements or settlement roads? They are still being destroyed. The apartheid wall still exists, separating Palestinians farmers from their property. Palestinian roads are still riddled with roadblocks -- huge mounds of dirt or concrete that make it impossible to travel. Hundreds of humiliating checkpoints are still in place, would they all be removed if peace suddenly broke out? And the uprooted olive trees and the policy of property destruction -- would this stop if peace broke out? There are millions of people in Palestinian families forced out of Israel and now living in refugee camps in surrounding countries. If peace broke out, would they be allowed to return? The families haven't been allowed to visit for 50 years, would they now if there was no more fighting? Would they be allowed to return to their home communities in Israel? Would they be compensated for their losses? Peace does not dramatically improve the life of a Palestinian like it does the Israeli. Sure, it's nice not to have to worry about F16 dropping bombs and tanks shelling neighborhoods, but peace doesn't solve many of the daily trials and frustrations and injustices of life in Palestine.

So to say that fighting and terrorism is the problem is to have an incredibly superficial view of the situation in the Middle East. There is terrorism -- because the occupation situation is so bad for Palestinians, not because they like to fight. Israeli experts I see on TV say that Palestinians don't want peace. Ridiculous. Sure they want peace, but they want peace with justice. Peace alone is not the answer. Peace alone leaves one side in a very favorable position. To solve the problem you have to go just a little deeper to find out why people are unhappy. But you don't have to be an Einstein to figure it out. it's pretty darn obvious.

"Don't just pray for peace, pray for a just peace." -- Janet Lewis