Breaking the cycle in Israel-Palestine: Even sworn enemies can be humanized
Human nature has the capacity for nonviolence even under extreme provocation.
“Everyone knows someone who was at the big party down south. Everyone knows someone who lives in one of the places that was destroyed. Every family has people who were called up. Earlier this week I built up the store of coffins for our cemetery.” — My Israeli cousin, Avery Jochnowitz
The Metta Center for Nonviolence recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Ofer Cassif, an outspoken Knesset member who was in Mexico for a meeting when the war in Southern Israel-Palestine erupted on Oct. 7 — and is so far unable to get back. Though he spoke with a great deal of passion and anger, what he said made perfect sense. “People who have nothing but horrible choices will do irrational things;” like attacking others who will almost certainly exact horrific vengeance. The sociologist Ted Gurr in a classic work, “Why Men Rebel,” showed that there is a clear demarcation between poverty and destitution, namely that the former can be endured but the latter, if not resolved, will lead to death, physical or moral. The same applies to violence: There is a point at which people feel they have nothing more to lose, and then they fight back no matter how great the odds against them. Often, as in this case, they feel they can at least preserve some dignity.
The British knew this. They tried to keep their colonial yoke mild, or apparently so, in order not to provoke resistance. The Israelis do not. Yet their own history contained a perfect example. In the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 the embattled Jews fought back against a vastly greater power with what meager weapons they had, facing certain death. This kind of courage elicits at least a grudging admiration from everyone.
But the mentality of Warsaw, or Masada, is not what we want here.
At Metta we also had the pleasure of interviewing Middle East Children’s Alliance Executive Director Zeiad Shamrouch, who made the eminently humane and doable suggestion to call for a cease-fire and (as seems to be happening now) the creation of a humanitarian corridor to save innocent life. To this suggestion we would like to add: yes, bring in food, bring in medicine, but also bring in conflict resolution. You might argue that there’s no room for negotiation here, that Hamas and Israel want to annihilate each other. But that would be to take the words of parties who are driven to the extreme of hostility at face value. We do not have to. History has shown that sworn enemies can be reached, that their eyes can be opened to the humanity of the other. This is the minimum and often the only necessary criterion for opening up a space for negotiation. If a third party is needed, many would be available because so many people want so badly for this to stop.
Both sides have made terrific political mistakes — the people of Gaza by electing Hamas and the Israelis by electing the pro-settler hawk Benjamin Netanyahu. And most of the world is making a huge mistake right now, the age-old psychological mistake of looking at the whole situation within the prevailing paradigm 𑁋 violence. Another world is possible if we step out of that conceptual prison and embrace the real alternative: nonviolence.
We are not talking about waving a magic wand and making the war go away. I personally know people on both sides who are willing to see the humanity of the other, who want security but who know that violence cannot bring it; who have the courage and imagination to see that human nature has the capacity to be nonviolent even under extreme provocation, and the capacity to respond to it when offered. Their voices must be heard. Then a whole new history would come into view, and a whole new repertoire of options for the path forward. This is not a pipe dream; nonviolence has a proven track record now. Slowly but surely people are beginning to understand that you don’t have to force people to change by threats of harm, you can induce them to change when you are unwilling to perpetuate the cycle, even if it means making some sacrifice. We know now that there have been times in history when one party or the other (or both) in a violent situation said, “I don’t want to live like this any more; what’s the alternative?”
I daresay few of us reading this article are policymakers or even influencers at any significant level. But we are bearers of a culture, and from the likes of us have come tipping points. The words of my cousin, in the headnote, show how badly one is needed.
