In January Father (now Bishop) Elias Chacour, an Israeli, Palestinian, Melkite Catholic priest spoke at St Thomas Episcopal church in Sun Valley. Because the local Jewish community was upset over this presentation and therefore there was controversy surrounding it, the place was packed. The rabbi asked Father Chacour if he supported the “two state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Father Chacour answered, “I used to think that the two state solution was the best solution, now I am not so sure”. Reluctantly, this is the conclusion that I have also reached. I have grown to realize that 1.The Oslo peace process is dead (if it were ever alive), 2. Any “two state solution” that has borders acceptable to Palestinians is not politically feasible for the Israelis and 3. The “Quartet Road Map” lays out a road to nowhere. If this is the case, why are all western and some Arab governments insisting that Hamas accept the “two state solution”? I have no idea. A different “completely absurd” idea is beginning to surface among intellectuals, such as Edward Said, concerned with this issue. It is not a new idea, but rather a reinvigoration of an old idea originally supported by the PLO before the Oslo Accords and before the US and Israel helped to create Hamas to counter the PLO. (If you think that this is ridiculous, click here) The absurd idea is that the solution requires a single secular state in Palestine where Jews, Christians and Muslims live alongside one another as they have for centuries. A number of people have weighed in on this. The best and most thoughtful of these that I have found is “Alternative Palestinian Agenda” created by a University of Wisconsin graduate student. The idea may make sense to intellectuals in their ivory towers, but is it possible in the real world? I don’t know. I have given up making predictions in this part of the world. They never seem to survive the next news cycle. A number of different factions will oppose the idea. Many Jews will oppose it because it will require abandoning the Zionist concept of a Jewish state. Hamas and other Islamist groups will oppose it because they will have to give up the idea of an Islamic state. (Itzak Rabin once said “If the conflict is ever theologized, there never will be peace. For, to theological conflict, there are no compromises and therefore no solutions”.) Some will say that, after 40 years of occupation, the animosities are so deep that people of this land cannot live peacefully along side each other. (While traveling on the West Bank Zoughbi, our Palestinian leader, did, however, point out a great example of Palestinian-Israeli cooperation. It was a Palestinian automobile “chop shop”. The Israeli Russian Mafia steals the cars in Israel and brings them to the West Bank where the Palestinians cut them up. The completion of the wall will probably be bad for business.) The Palestinian “militants” will probably oppose it as it will require them to lay down their arms and seek a peaceful solution. This might be possible if the arms were surrendered to a UN peace keeping force, but it is unlikely that the Israelis would allow this. But to paraphrase Karl Marx: “Palestinians of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains”. Even if it is possible, how do we get there? As one who believes in the power of prayer, I would suggest that we need to pray that our Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters come to their senses before they destroy themselves.
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