Israeli-Arab conflict could use more religion

It may seem an audacious title: "Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East." After all, innumerable efforts over decades to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have come up woefully short. And in recent years, religious fervor has grabbed hold of what was predominantly a nationalist struggle and turned it into the most deadly violence since the 1967 war.

Yet this new book by an American rabbi with years of experience in grass-roots conflict resolution in the region offers such a fresh angle from which to view the struggle that it demands attention. Marc Gopin's critique of the failed peace process will be controversial – and perhaps termed naive – among those stuck in a strictly political perspective. But his visionary analysis and imaginative proposals suggest there are human resources that haven't been called upon adequately.

Gopin, who teaches at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., has dealt with people on all sides and levels of the conflict (including Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat). He contends that diplomatic efforts have failed because they involved only elite political encounters and left both peoples outside the process, ignoring deep needs and values. Had an accord been signed at Camp David in 2000, he says, it, too, would have failed.

Pinning hope on top leaders is delusional, he adds, since most leaders will only do what they can within what they see as their political constraints. They can't act if the people aren't ready for the peace being considered. What is needed is honest self-examination by all involved, including the peace brokers, as to why the people aren't ready and what their roles are in changing that situation.

Gopin argues convincingly for a simultaneous peace process among the peoples, with support for meaningful steps that move them beyond the present-day traumas and begin to build relationships that are essential to restoring trust.

He couples profound insights into the power of metaphor and myth – particularly that of the biblical Abrahamic family in shaping the lives of Jews and Muslims – with practical proposals, based on real-life examples, for drawing on those religious values to move the two peoples toward seeing their enemy in a new way.

Gopin notes that efforts by religious leaders have already begun, even in West Bank settlements, where the most fervent proponents of taking the land for "Greater Israel" are often found:

• Jewish and Muslim clergy are studying sacred texts together, seeking shared values upon which to build relationships. They have produced a Jerusalem Accord, renouncing religion-based enmity and embracing a nonviolent path to peace.

• A West Bank rabbi's sermon on the Torah to his settler students presents a new perspective on the destiny of Isaac and Ishmael to live together. Jews recognize Ishmael as the symbol of Arab Muslim descendants of Abraham, and the rabbi is "deftly inserting a new set of ... possibilities into the nationalist Orthodox imagination."

Page: 1 | 2