Building Bridges for Peace

I had a few queries over twitter about the "Building Bridges for Peace" that I am attending in September. As it would be difficult to explain in 140 characters and I would hate to flood the timeline with multiple tweets on the same subject, I decided to provide the information here on my blog.

This event is the 4th in a 6-parts series of events organized jointly by the Mosaic institute and the Canadian Centre for Diversity (which used to be called Canadian Council for Christians & Jews - CCCJ). The full official title of the series is "Building Bridges in Canada: New Perspectives on People and Peace" and its purpose is to create a venue for a better discourse about the Middle East peace for Canadians in general and the Canadian Arab and Jewish communities in particular. The short name is therefore "Building Bridges for Peace".

Statement of Values

The organizers of this series of events declared that they subscribe to the following values (quote):

• Canada is a country committed to peace, and diaspora communities resident in Canada have a tremendous opportunity to contribute to Canadian peace building efforts around the world.
• While governments are vital contributors to peace building, citizens who are informed, and particularly those from diaspora communities originating from regions of longstanding conflict, have an equally important role to play in building peace.
• It is important for communities of concerned Canadians to enter into difficult discussions about topics as important as the achievement of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. As Canadians, an discussions we have should be polite, respectful and involve listening with open hearts and minds.
• Any effort that results in increased mutual awareness of the history, perceptions, hopes and struggles of the Canadian Arab and Jewish diasporas is a valuable one. If that effort results in a shard commitment to even one tangible peace building initiative in the Middle East, or in a joint recommendation for enhancing Canada's foreign policy towards that region, Canada's mosaic will show its true value.
• Achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East will require unrelenting goodwill and creativity of good people who believe that it is never the wrong time to pursue peace.
  

(End of quote)

Session Themes

The six session themes are:

1. Diaspora Diaries - A Panel Discussion in Cultural Duality (March 4, 2009): The panel featured 4 prominent Canadians (2 from each community) and was moderated by journalist and commentator Noah Richter, author of This is My Country, What's Yours?: A Literary Atlas of Canada.
   
2. The Business of Peace in the Middle East (April 6, 2009): Keynote address by Sir Ronald Cohen, who among many things is the Chairman of the Social Investment Task Force. He was then interviewed by CBC host/correspondent Susan Ormiston.
3. Making Peace Personal (June 3, 2009): Featuring as speakers journalist and author Janet Wallach and founder of the Canada International Scientific Exchange program (CISEPO) Dr. Arnold Noyek as well as two special guests, Nousha Kabawat, the first Syrian-Canadian to ever participate in the Seeds for Peace program and Inbal Marcovitch, an intern with CISEPO and founding member of the Health as a Bridge to Peace student club at York University. the event was hosted by Evan Solomon of CBC "one of the top 100 people to watch" according to MacLean's magazine.
4. Where Are We Now (September 16, 2009): a scholarly assessment of the current status of peace building in the Middle East hosted by Margaret MacMillan, author of best seller Paris 1919.
5. Where Do We Go From Here (November 4, 2009): A diplomatic assessment of the current opportunities for peace in the Middle East, hosted by Ralph Benmergui.
6. Bridging the Cultural Divide (TBD): Special concert celebrating a shared experience, hosted by Sheilagh Rogers.

In a previous attempt to a dialog between the Arab and Jewish communities in Canada, which was sponsored at the time by Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, I had proposed to establish a list of Canadian values common between the two communities before starting the dialog, and to commit to resolving differences in views based on such values and principles. Although that first dialog attempt did not progress far enough, we did establish among other things common values that all agreed to, as well as ample historic precedence for harmonious coexistence and even creative collaboration between these two communities. Not many of these made it through to the values stated above unfortunately. The need for such common ground will be felt when it is time to resolve core differences.

Format

The format of the events held so far has been panels or speakers presenting followed by either interviews and/or question period managed by the host. The attendance is approximately 100 guests mostly from the Canadian Arab and Jewish communities. The events are sometime attended by the Israeli General Consul and the Syrian Honorary Consul in Toronto. After the event there is opportunity to linger a bit and engage in conversations (refreshments are served).

After the first session participants were asked to complete a survey designed by The Strategic Counsel. The survey measured audience perceptions of a variety of issues relating to the Middle East. Surveys will be administered again at various points in the series to track changes in the attitudes of attendees over the course of the series.

The sessions are held at University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.

My Take So Far

The initiative to bring the two communities in a well designed setting is to be applauded. The profile of the speakers and hosts has been generally high and the perspectives presented interesting. There is also an element of novelty as the content presented is not well known in main stream media.

There have been no dialogs between the attendees as the format consisted mainly of listening to speakers or panelists. While a limited Q&A has been allowed, the format was strictly limited to questions and commentary or multiple-exchange discussions were discouraged.

The attendees from the two communities do not mix enough in their seating order. Many seats are reserved by name and clustered by community, creating a perception of tiered audience and discouraging mixing with the opposite community. After the event a few good conversation across community lines have been possible, but were limited in time and scope due to the constraints of a brief post-event reception.

Having said that I do appreciate that the first 3 sessions have been building up towards the tougher questions. The next session will provide a realistic assessment of where the peace process stands. The 5th session will tackle where do we go from here. That's where any commonalities achieved in the previous sessions will come to bear.

I have suggested a few things to the organizers such as changing the seating design to encourage mixing and cross conversations, designing time and space for smaller deeper conversations about specific sub-topics, and setting tangible objectives for the outcomes of the series. Come to think of it, my peers at the Design with Dialog group could offer a lot to some of those activities. Greg and I had a brief conversation about setting up a similar dialog. But this is a more complex issue than organizational transformation, and we would need to have a few serious conversations about approach, methods and capabilities. That's material for a few months of DwD right there, but peace is so important that we must try everything possible all the time. I am in. Who wants to join, DwD Team?

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In conversation about Gaza

In response to my blog about what's behind Israel's attack on Gaza, I received comments from "Civax", an Israeli whose parents live in Ashkalon on the southern borders of Israel. What started as statements of "enemy" camps developed into a conversation. The lengthy exchanges were being relegated to the comments page of the archived blog. I decided in the interest of the dialog to publish my latest reply to Civax as a new posting, so it can be found and followed easier. Here goes:

Dear Civax

Yes I agree with you, that some Arab regimes want Israel to rid them of the Palestinian problem, the problem being a model of how people despite dire circumstances can self-organize and resist oppressor regimes. This tacit cooperation merely demonstrates that the conflict is not an Arab/Jewish conflict but rather a conflict between tolerance and fanaticism, opression and resistance, people who value all human beings regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or political beliefs and people who are homophobic and racist.

In many cities of the world Arab and Jewish people (both from Israel and outside) demonstrated side by side against the Gaza massacres, while both Arab and Israeli politicians played their diplomatic games while civilians were slaughtered. The Jewish women who occupied the Israeli consulate in Toronto in support of the Palestinians (not necessarily Hamas) are closer to me than Arab fanatics blowing themselves amongst Israeli civilians.

Regardless of the details of any peace agreement, the first step is to acknowledge the injustice done to the wronged party. Such acknowledgment opens the way to reconciliation and to resolving not just differences but the wounds of the past. This was the way in Germany and Japan after WW II. This was the way in South Africa, where the Truth & Reconciliation Committee hearings were arduous and painful, but way better than killing each other. This is also the way in Canada as we start addressing the injustice and suffering caused to First Nations by colonists and immigrants.

Until we acknowledge the injustice done explicitly, we can't start seeing each other as human beings and we will continue to deal with each other in the context of "enemies".

As for the need of a strong Palestinian leadership, I agree that such leadership would make negotiations and implementing agreements easier. I personally don't believe, however, that Israel is genuinely interested in fostering and supporting such strong leadership. Supporting those leader that are willing to accept unfair conditions against the will of their people, destroying every emerging infrastructure of an independent Palestinian state, driving a spike between elected Hamas and the PA, etc. are all acts that weaken the Palestinian leadership.

There is no need for alarm though. If the surrounding Arab states are any indication, then a Palestinian state (assuming it is allowed to be reasonably sovereign and independent) would just produce another "strong man" regime, which if friendly to western interest would be called "democratic" and otherwise would join the "axis of evil". Such states never were a real threat to Israel as documented by the historic results on the ground for the past 60 years not by the propaganda's rhetoric.

But back to the fndamentals: An Israeli baby was wounded by one of the rockets launched against Israel. This is traumatic for both the child and the parents. In the last few weeks over TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY THREE CHILDREN DIED in Gaza. Can you really justify such a crime with any political rhetoric? Can you really look the other way?

Well, I can't. It is past 3:00 A.M. and the pictures are haunting me and the emotions are robbing me of sleep. And I sincerely hope you can't too, because if we could, we would have lost a great deal if not all of our humanity.

Gaza: What's Behind Israel's New Attack

Yesterday Israel launched a massive attack against Palestinians in Gaza resulting so far in over 300 dead and over 700 wounded. The major North American media presented the news along three points:

1. Hamas is launching rocket attacks onto Israel
2. "Tension is increasing" and the situation is becoming untenable for Israel
3. Israel launches a proportional attack in response
   

A simple straight forward story. Or is it? Let's consider some of the troubling questions not raised by the main stream media.

Why would Hamas continue launching rockets at Israel when they had signed six months ago a truce? Why now? Who benefits from such actions?

Gaza has been under a real siege since the "withdrawal" of Israeli forces from it in 2005. Israel still controls Gaza's air, land, and sea borders and has severely hampered movement of goods and people across these borders. The only other borders are with Egypt, who is witnessing a rise in opposition movements against President's Mubarak government, is distracted with the president's succession planning, and paranoid about organized Islamist opposition similar to Hamas spreading across the country and gaining broad mass support.

Many international and humanitarian organizations have decried this siege including the International Red Cross, UN organizations, NGOs and even Israeli civic groups. The truce was supposed to end the siege of Gaza in return for cessation of rockets firing against Israel's southern settlements bordering the Gaza strip.

For a while the truce seemed to be working. The long years under direct Israeli occupation (1967-2005), had produced numerous Palestinian factions and armed resistance groups in Gaza, some of which are more radical and less pragmatic than Fatah or Hamas. The Hamas government, which won a majority in internationally monitored fair elections, used its security forces to pressure the different factions into respecting the truce. The military operations decreased in intensity and number on both sides, but never subsided completely, a result hailed as a success setting the grounds for more steps towards a resolution of the issues.

The siege, however, was never lifted. Slightly more goods were allowed into Gaza, but not enough to make a difference in the daily lives of the over 1.5 Million people trapped in the few square kilometers of the strip. Even young Palestinians, who had received prestigious U.S. Fulbright fellowships were not allowed to leave Gaza to join their universities. Grumbling among the population grew and dissent among the other factions and groups started to manifest itself despite Hamas efforts. Israel claimed that the text of the truce agreement did not promise such siege lifting.

As the six-month truce neared it's end, a number of elements converged to spell its demise. In Gaza people's patience was running low with the daily deprivation of power, water, food, medicine and the continuing lack of security from Israeli raids. Hamas was running the risk of loosing its support to other groups and factions proclaiming simplistic solutions, mostly violent ones. It had to show that it is doing something to change this situation. It articulated non-ambiguous terms for a new truce that would guarantee lifting the siege and made them condition for renewing the truce.

In Israel, the general elections were nearing. The Kadima party still struggling with the legacy of the failed Lebanon war and allegations of corruptions against Olmert, and facing polls indicating that Likhud's and Natanyahu's combative campaign was getting some traction, was also under pressure to compete. Conditions seemed conducive for attempting a bold solution: The U.S. was in the paralyzing transition phase with the sympathetic Bush administration still in office; all major powers were busy with the global financial crisis; and the Arab regimes were as divided and impotent as they would ever be. If the current Israeli administration managed a successful military operation yielding one of those blitzkrieg victories that it delivered a couple of decades ago, a victory in the upcoming elections for Kadima would be secured.

So suddenly, statements are made by Israeli officials that they are committed to the removal of Hamas. A poll commissioned by the Ma'ariv newspaper on December 26th, 2008, has Kadima winning 33 seats against 29 by the Likhud. With such encouraging signs, the military operation was all go and the bombing started on December 27th.

Interestingly enough, the first attacks targeted Hamas security forces, the only regular forces capable of maintaining public order and constraining the militants of smaller factions. This guarantees that some of those factions will still be able to sporadically shoot something at Israel, justifying its "retaliatory" actions.

The "proportional" Israeli response included dropping 90 tons of bombs in the first day alone on densely populated areas. Women, children and innocent civilians were killed as "collateral damage" on the road to political gains. The lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there is no military solution to broad based insurgency, went unheeded in the arrogance of militarists. The hearts of thousands of Palestinians, who lost family members, homes, and more importantly hope, was refueled with hate against their oppressors, cultivating the next generation of revenge seeking "militants", "extremists", and suicide bombers, and adding another round to the vicious circle of violence.

It is time that this vicious circle is broken. This is not a conflict between Jews and Arabs, nor a war against terror. There are many Jewish voices, both from within and outside Israel that have risen against the undeniable injustice done to the Palestinians. It is basically a conflict between the fundamental rights of self determination and human dignity of the Palestinian people and the ethnic and religious monolithic ideology of Zionist nationalism. No real peace will ever be achieved as long as Palestinians are denied these fundamental rights.

There are enough international frameworks and tools to implement a solution, if the international community's will is there. But as long as the Palestinian question remains the subject of domestic or regional political tactics and election strategies, innocent people will continue to suffer and die. Taking the easy way out of blaming both side and sitting back will not absolve us from our human and moral responsibility for what is happening in Gaza.