Jews, Muslims Need a New Playbook in Responding to the Gaza Conflict

by Eboo Patel 01-05-2009

The Council of Islamic Relations calls the Israeli attack on Gaza a “disproportionate and counterproductive … massacre.” Its home page features a photo of a bombed out building in Gaza with a panicked official ushering civilians to safety.

The American Jewish Committee’s home page has a picture of Palestinian militants in ski masks holding guns next to a video of AJC Executive Director David Harris speaking of the “intolerable situation” Israel faces and how it had “no choice” but to bomb Gaza.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council is calling the Israeli air strike “brutal” and is helping raise money for Palestinian victims.

The Union for Reform Judaism calls the bombing “necessary” and is raising money for Israeli victims.

All pretty predictable, all pretty familiar.

Responding to a crisis in the Middle East is old hat to most American Muslim and American Jewish organizations. All they have to do is call up old press releases and fundraising letters, change a few names and dates, and they’re good to go. The playbook was written several decades back.

On the one hand, who can blame these organizations for hitting repeat? After all, they have clear and strong loyalties, and large and vocal constituencies. Circling the wagons and ringing the alarm bells has satisfied their respective sides for as long as anyone can remember. The proof shows up in the bank account during fundraising season, which happens to be right now.

Yet as I was reading through Web sites and press releases researching this column, I couldn’t help but notice something eerie that Muslim and Jewish organizations had in common: the mutual sense that the situation is even worse now than it was before. The Jewish organizations talked about the broader range of Hamas rockets. The Muslim organizations talked about the higher number of Palestinian casualties.

So let me get this straight. Both sides are saying that they need to be supported now more than ever. Both sides are congratulating themselves for contributing to their respective causes. Both sides are saying the situation is getting worse.

All of this adds a morbid new twist to the age-old proverb: If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. The status quo in the Middle East is bad enough, and should make us all reflect on our approaches. But if the situation is actually deteriorating for everyone (which seems to be the one thing that Muslims and Jews can actually agree on), shouldn’t we tear up the old playbook and try something else?

One of my favorite quotes is Susan Sontag’s observation: “Whatever is happening, something else is always going on.” And amidst a lot of the same old, same old, there is something distinct taking place that is worth paying attention to.

Muslim and Jewish organizations once considered it a matter of pride to engage in a communications blockade of organizations “on the other side.” The basic line I’ve heard from both sides is, “We can’t talk to people we have such fundamental disagreements with.” And so interfaith groups break apart. Friendships between Muslims and Jews are strained. And we revert back to shouting our own talking points louder and louder.

But, slowly, it seems that some people are realizing that increasing the volume on your own talking points and trying to drown out the other side is not a strategy for getting to a solution.

A senior American Jewish official told me yesterday “Jews and Muslims in America should be modeling positive relationships here, and hoping that pattern offers a way forward over there.”

I e-mailed with senior officials of the Islamic Society of North America yesterday, and they expressed a similar sentiment. In fact, point five of ISNA’s press release on the Gaza situation says the following: “Engage in informed dialogue with other Americans, especially Jewish Americans, so that religious differences do not become a source of civil discord and division ….”

My guess is that the idea of continuing positive engagement with people on the other side is probably gaining ground within Muslim and Jewish organizations, although it’s still very much a minority attitude (inertia is a powerful force).

And so we’re looking at a very small step toward a potentially big win.

The win isn’t just a rewriting of the respective playbooks that Muslim and Jewish organizations use when the Middle East conflict heats up. It’s the recognition that, if we want to actually solve the conflict, Muslim and Jewish groups should be writing a new playbook together — because they’re on the same side.

The first phone calls Jewish and Muslim officials should make when bombs explode over there are not to organizations within their own religious community, but to reasonable people in the other community.

The first line should be: “I’m on the side of coexistence, and I bet you are too. What public statements can we collectively make, what press releases can we cooperatively issue, which help the side of coexistence defeat the demon of conflict?”

That’s a play that could change the game.

Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together. He is also author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (Beacon Press, 2007).

Categories: Global Issues, War & Peace

Tags: AJC, attack, bombing, dialogue, Gaza, Hamas, Interfaith, Islam, Israel, Israeli, Jewish, Jews, Judaism, Middle East, money, Muslim, Susan Sontag, War

duhsciple

Thanks for this hopeful post! Bravo, Eboo!

How about this for a public statement....

They are all our children. When a Muslim child dies, that's our child. When a Jewish child dies, that's our child. When a Christian child dies, that's our child. And the so-called "collateral damage" death of even one of our child is UNACCEPTABLE!

Peace, not pieces,

Duhsciple

mscynthia

I'm right there with you.

There's no such child as other people's children.

http://heartdancing.wordpress.com/

What kind of future are we creating for our children? What kind of people will they become, even if they survive the trauma?

churchlady

Dare we hope that this could come to be? I pray so. Thank you, Eboo, for this post. I'm on your side.

erbe

As long as one side, Israel, has "all" the military power and the unequivocal support of Uncle Sam there will never be any reason for Israeli politicians to negotiate in "good faith" with the Palestinians. Give the Palestinians, or proxies for the Palestinians, access to nuclear or biological weapons and the means to deliver them and watch how quickly Israeli politicians change their tune.

The Israeli politicians will have to be "forced" into behaving properly towards the indigenous Palestinians just like the white politicians in South African had to be "forced" into abandoning their government sanctioned mistreatment of blacks.

newcreation1

I am all for peaceful coexistence and informed dialogue. The Bible tells us that peacemakers are blessed, and that we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem. But are peaceful coexistence and informed dialogue really possible when Gaza is being controlled by Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel? I don't think so.

Also, erbe, what would you have Israel do in this situation? Engage in dialogue with Hamas, while Hamas continues to launch dozens of missiles per day into Israel? And don't you think it's a bit of a stretch to compare Israel with the old pro-apartheid government in South Africa?

erbe

Israel, as a "religious" state or "Jewish homeland" foisted on the indigenous Palestinian population by the machinations or European and American politicians should be "destroyed" and replaced by a democracy that treats all inhabitants as equals free to practice their religious beliefs within certain limits. Palestinians should be allowed reparations for land appropriated by the Zionists since at least 1948. Israel should be denied any further military aid and the United States and France under the auspices of the United Nations should ensure peace in the region.

PASTOR JEFF

That would sure put a kink in the dispensationalist's reading of Scripture.

newcreation1

erbe, is Israel a religious state? Or is it a civil democracy? Doesn't the state of Israel already offer freedom of religion -- including to the ~15% of its inhabitants who identify as Muslim? Obviously, the "Law of Return" privileges Jews to move to Israel from all over the world...but is this instance of a special privilege for Jews really enough to make Israel a "religious state?" Would you agree that Israel is the most free and democratic nation in the entire Middle East? If not, which Middle Eastern nation would you consider more free and democratic?

The conflict over the land area that is Israel has gone on for quite some time. Regardless of whether the decision to create the state of Israel in 1948 was a good one, surely the current residents of Israel should not be left defenseless and made to pay (with daily bombings, no less) for a decision that was made before most of them were born.

I maintain that it is impossible for Israel to negotiate with Hamas when Hamas simply wants to wipe them out. Hamas' behavior has been atrocious. Israel backed out of Gaza several years ago, and Hamas has thanked them by consistently using the area as a launching pad for rockets that can now reach up to one-eighth of Israel's territory. I do not see negotiation with Hamas as any kind of a moral imperative.

neuro_nurse

The only person or group with whom it is impossible to negotiate is that with whom you refuse to negotiate.

jonabark

Below are the last 3 paragraphs of an article by the British Independent's reporter in Gaza. Fares Akram first described the killing of his father by an Israeli bomb dropped on his father's farmhouse and tells about his life. These are the concluding paragraphs.

".....My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture. Dad's father, Fares, who had been driven out of his home in what is now Israeli Ashkelon in 1948, had bought the land in the 1960s.

During the second intifada and until the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the farm was taken over by Israeli settlers, but after 2005 we went there every holiday. In Gaza, the only escape is the beach or, if you are lucky enough, the farmland. My father hated what Hamas was doing to Gaza's legal system, introducing Islamist justice, and he completely opposed violence. He would have worked hard for a just settlement with Israel and a better future for Palestinians. When the PA gained control over the West Bank, he moved to Ramallah to help establish the courts there.

My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-... for full article)

jonabark
This is one of hundreds of examples of the reason for the UN injunctions against collective punishment. What continues to happen year after year is that the Palestinians who inhabited the region for centuries are violently displaced by Israeli settlements backed by the Israeli army. Every instance of self defense and every form of violent resistance by the Palestinians (or other powers in the 67 war) has been multiplied in Israeli violence against Palestinians. It becomes more and more obvious that there is a powerful extreme of Zionist ideology that is profoundly racist, frequently resorts to terrorism, and has no room for peace with Palestinians . The worst of Palestinian resistance exactly mirrors all of these qualities. Israel's current solution is before our eyes: build walls around the Palestinians and crush them if they fight. Hamas vainly imagines ending the state of Israel. No reasonable 2 state solution has been offered by Israel, though there are many Israelis who want such a solution.

War is failing all sides. War does not bring peace. War does not bring justice. There is no God of War. War is the organizing principal of most human criminality. If humans do not organize to end war, war will destroy the earth.

newcreation1

It is very grievous to hear of the human toll that this conflict is taking. Unfortunately, these types of situations are to be expected, given Hamas' apparent habit of interspersing its military resources with the civilian population.

jonabark

It is not what is to be expected at all. There was a cease fie in place. Israel Continued to carry out targeted killings (Nov 5 08), and the military embargo which was costing Gazan lives. Hamas's reaction was misdirected , but it was basically the same as what Israel claims, that is, the right of self defense. I think only active nonviolent resistance can work to bring peace, but the logic of self defense is being applied unequally. According to the logic of self defense, if Iraqis could bomb or otherwise attack America they would be within their rights. The logic of bombs is always favored by the those with great lethal power and the peace it brings is lopsided. Some prosper and others are disposable. This is not good news.

I think Israel and Americans in particular need to allow others to claim the entitlement to justice, security, homeland etc. that we claim for ourselves. Often this means admitting mistakes and accepting that some of what we have claimed for ourselves rightfully belongs to others, or must at least be shared equitably.

vetcurt

When individuals kill it is called murder and they are sent to prison if caught. When governments kill it is called war and participants are called heroes.
I was in an artillary unit in Vietnam. The first aretillary shot is lucky to be within a couple of hundred yards of what it is shot at, depending on distance, etc. What is going on in Gaza now is nothing other than indiscriminate slaughter.
The U.S. as represented by the Bush administration has no credibility in the Arab world as they give a blank check to Likud and other extremists on the side of Israel.
Harry Ried on Sunday's Meet the Press parroted Bush's defense of Israel. They refuse to look past the Palestinian rockets of the past two years.
Israel occupied Gaza for 39 years before they withdrew and laid siege to it for the last two years. As my father taught me, what would you do if you were in their shoes?
To change the dynamics, The U.S. should isolate the extremists on BOTH sides and support the moderates. To get Israel's attention, all military aid to Israel should be stopped and they should be told that they have to follow U.N. mandates regarding the treatment of occupied lands, torture and collective punishment.
Israel should learn from their past mistakes. They demonized FATAH and Arafat and ended up with Hamas and Hezballah. It seems that they are getting much more sympathy from governents like Egypt and Jordan than they get in the Arab streets. If they keep going they may end with the Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt and some radical group running Jordan. Their actions are strenghtening their enemies and weakening their support. They could well win the tactical battles but lose the strategic war.
E-mail your congresspersons so they know there is a variety of views on this issue. Is the fact that we went through a long primary and election season, including all the debates and interviews, without one serious question about Israel/Palestine policy an indication of the itimidation or our politicians and media by Israel's support groups?

Palosaari

I agree- both sides need to change the way they interact; both sides need to reject violence; both sides bear culpability. But that equanimity can not dissuade us from the reality that Israel bears the greater responsibility, for it has all the power of the state behind it- a state that has one of the strongest militaries in the world. It is one thing when it is an eye for an eye, a life for a life. What's the current death toll in Ghaza, from this past week? Something like 650? Most of them civilians. We're now going 100 eyes for an eye. Sure, Hamas shouldn't be launching rockets, but that in no way justifies Israel's incredible over-the-top response.

Some are arguing that Hamas was elected, and therefore that somehow justifies the very proportionally high death toll of civilians. These people forget that 50% of the Ghazan population is under 15; 75% under 25. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say about 100% of those under 15 didn't vote for Hamas. Yes, both sides need to change the way they respond; but the focus now needs to be on Israel. Israel needs to stop killing hundreds of children, and the rest of the world needs to rise up in complete condemnation for these acts.

Cuauhtemoc

Dozens of children, women and young people are being slaughtered at this moment in Ghaza! Medical supplies are urgently needed, food, water and other essentials for life are needed! It is useless to discuss whether Israel is right or not, whether Hamas is right or not. Christians, Muslims or non-religious people---all of us should get to work in order to help the wounded and save as many lives as possible!. Yes it is just as important to have the US, the EU, and the UN act right now and stop the slauhtering. But it just as important to put our imagination to work in order to send help to the Palestinians suffering people. Now!!!!

DeaconJack

Both peoples have the right to live in dignity and peace. Palestinian suicide bombers indiscriminately strike civilians. Hamas fires rockets deep into Israel that indiscriminately strike civilians. Hamas stores weapons in mosques, schools and other places where innocents gather. Israel responds with disproportionate force, but Hamas would do the same if they could. Blockades never work for the benefit of the civilian population. The only solution, the only hope is is what Eboo suggests. Getting reasonable people on both sides can create a dialogue that should involve more and more people where adversaries can see each other's humanity, which will in turn disolve hate. The status quo can only escallate into more hatred and it really isn't the status quo.