We can no longer be bystanders
Monday, April 22, 2002
By JAN JARBOE RUSSELL
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
What will it take to get off the crazy merry-go-round that is the Middle East?
For starters, we need a completely new way to look at the world. It was anthropologist Margaret Mead who first warned us that we could no longer afford to look at the world as a collection of separate, warring tribes.
I wonder what Mead would make of the site of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, surrounded by Israeli soldiers, with Palestinians hunkered down deep inside. This is an image that reflects the failure of tribalism.
The view from manger square is of Israeli soldiers on watch outside that church who still believe that they can buy peace by killing a few more Palestinians. The Palestinians in the church continue to believe that just a few more suicide bombers and terror campaigns will force Israel to give them the deal they want. This is an insane, bankrupt view of the world.
Now that we are all connected by our common ability to annihilate one another, either all of us are safe or none of us is safe.
I am an American mother who refuses to take sides between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Sometimes I imagine the Palestinians and the Israelis as two tribes huddled beneath the bloody rubble of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
If they keep up their fight to the mutual death over disputed real estate, then my own land will be covered with more blood. They are blowing up my children's future, and I want to scream at them: "Cut it out right this minute."
Until now, I have not written about this issue because I have believed the soothing, convenient lie that this is a problem better left for the military generals, the politicians and the diplomats. But none of us can be a bystander anymore, because all of our future is at stake.
Besides, since the political approach doesn't seem to be working, all of us need to get in the game. From where I sit, if the Israelis and the Palestinians want America's help -- as both keep insisting that they do -- they have to be willing to accept our uniquely American view of the world. They have to be willing to tolerate their own differences at least long enough to set up a heavily guarded border between Israel and a new Palestinian state.
When my two children fight, I do not take sides. First, I separate them. I don't allow them the luxury of believing that there is anything to be gained by continuing to believe that one child can defeat or dominate the other. Finally, I force them to listen to each other -- to maintain their connection, no matter how angry they are -- until the family is once again at peace.
This is not maternal sentimentalism, but a hard-nosed, practical way of maintaining safety and sanity. The origins of the Middle East war are rooted in the failure of connection between the two tribes. The solution must be an end to the mythology of martyrdom that is so alive in the region. Israelis and Palestinians have proven repeatedly that they are willing to die for what they believe in, but they have failed utterly to prove that they are willing to live for their beliefs.
The most valuable resource that America has to contribute to the peace process is our dream of pluralism. In order to extend our dream, America should first physically separate the Israelis and Palestinians. That means that President Bush should not just continue to ask Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, he should cut off all U.S. aid to Israel until the withdrawal is complete. Second, we have to help set up an independent state for the Palestinians, and send troops to the region to guard borders.
We have to force ordinary Palestinians and Israelis to talk to one another about all they have lost. They have to grieve together before they can live together.
After Sept. 11, Americans rushed to get back to "normal." We all went back to work and tried to pull together in a show of strength. But as the current war in the Middle East proves, there is no "normal" anymore. All of us are vulnerable to terrorism now. The only safety is in numbers.
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Jan Jarboe Russell is a columnist with the San Antonio Express-News. E-mail: jjarboe@express-news.net
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