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I respect your right to protest in any way you feel is necessary but how can NOT taking part in discussions with average Israelis, Americans, other Arabs help move along the peace process?

hey wait. i thought you said things were LESS black and white… what good will THIS do?

Dear Yasir,

I thought about your note while getting ready for work today. I am making a lot of assumptions in my mind about where this is coming from based on what you wrote so if I am making false assumptions, let me know.

I am not sure what Dr.Azmi Bishara said in his speech but I can make some guesses. Regardless, he is only one point of view. Even if all Palestinians agreed with his viewpoint, it is not the entire picture- the other half is the Israeli viewpoint. I am not a supporter of the black and white perspective that one side is a victim and the other side is a perpetrator and that in order for there to be any change (or even any dialogue) the perpetrator side must change, etc. (again, I am making a lot of assumptions here about what your life changing experiences was).

As someone involved with Israelis and Palestinians (and Jews and Arabs in Canada) and forms of peacemaking or peace building, I am often incredibly frustrated and offended with one side or the other. To be honest, usually it is with the Arab side mostly for the reason that because I am part of the Jewish side, I can more easily overlook behaviour, statements, ideas that I don’t agree with because I am more used to them and because I am part of this side, I see the complexity that they come from. None of this excuses or accepts the ugliness but it makes it easier to humanize in some way. When I am faced with the Arab side’s behaviour, statements, ideas that contradict my understanding or worldview, I immediately regress to that primitive state of “you see, you can’t trust them”. It is a defensive instinct to regress to that state of protectionism, believing only your own side and disbelieving the other. It doesn’t make for good peace building though.

I tell you this because this is something we all go through. And if I listened to my protective instincts, I would never work in peace building. Peace building requires us to take a step back and observe the entire picture, understand the complexity of the human condition and try as hard as we can to make the best choices that works for everyone. Otherwise the cycles of violence, distrust and hate go on.

So I encourage you to come back and talk through the life changing experience and your thoughts and emotions behind it. Not participating with the “other” is putting up a wall which in the long run works for nobody.

Corey

we all love our countries and are willing to sacrifice our lives to defend it,and in this struggle in which we are locked, we don’t have a choice in who’s side we are in.
However, hope is created when we talk in terms of peace building as Corey has mentioned, and so you have a basis to start working to build bridges and reach out for the other side. that is the primary focus behind any true peace initiative and I stress on the word “true”, because time is running out, and lets face it; walls are every where, both imaginary and real! and one questions : whats left for us to discuss??
maybe I was very abrupt, but wishful thinking does not serve the goal we are here for.
I used the phrase “good neighbors” because I started to see how each party’s actions affect all other inhabitants of the region so we ought to take the whole picture into consideration.
I hope I was not patronizing but that is my opinion.

Yaser,

I was in Seattle for work, so I hope I’m not too late. Don’t go.

Later

Yaser, I’d urge you to reconsider. When people stop talking is when peace becomes truly impossible.

Yaeli,
thats true, and believe me I had a great experience having a dialogue here. I think there is much to be cleared out and misunderstandings to be solved.
this is not over yet!

Yaser,
As a Good Neighber I beg you not to leave:)
A good neighbor could be a beggar too you know

yaser, do not reduce yourself into a country. if we leave it to countries and parties i dunno if we’ll ever see peace. it is people that warm up the territory, it is people countries consist of, it is people that can’t choose the sides they were born into but they sure as hell can reach out and undermine the whole sides concept from within. pls don’t close this door. i still wanna hear what bashara actually said.you don’t strike me as someone who’s easily influenced by this or that person and as someone who reads Ekhart tole i expect you to see through all these narratives more clearly and stick to the people! pls?

Carmel,
I know that i may have mislead you about what was it that i got from Dr. Bishara’s lecture, believe me i didn’t intend that.
I didn’t take his words as they are.however what i really got is that we have to stop seeing this conflict the way that suits us, that is keep us in our comfort zone.
he explained the internal palestinian situation and for the first time he demonstrated what is really going on, and i can now better understand why is there Hamas holding part of palestinian territory while Fatah is holding the other.
i concluded that if we keep on the way we are approaching this conflict no real advancement will be made even if all nations of the world came to our help.
being honest to one another is one good strategy towrads creating trust which is the foundation for a peaceful settlement, I am hoping that this is the way it going to be.

Hi yaser, I actually got to this site a few minutes ago by reading your post http://gnblog.com/?p=413
I was very encouraged by your writing and optimism, and I was excited to see rationally thinking people on the other side, which I don’t get to see very often.
I was hoping you actually started a group on facebook that I could join, as this would be very productive in my opinion.
If you had not written what you did, I’d never get here, and never hear this excellent discussion. So, you MADE a difference, just by writing what’s on your mind.
Throwing that away because someone made you angry at one side or another is just sad, we are the ones that are supposed to be stronger than others and keep believing that a different connection between our peoples is possible.
Don’t take the easy way, keep fighting the good fight.

Roi,
Tel Aviv

Hi Yasir, I agree that none of us seem to be doing things the “right way” or we would see more changes. First, what in your opinion is a better approach? and second, how does suspending your participation help the situation?

for my part a better approach is to open up and start to reach out, that is seeing beyond the barriers and the walls.
and I am back to the GNblog:)

welcome back

Yasir, good to know you are back. I would actually like to understand what happened to you. I think it is important because we all have these emotional moments where we question if we are doing the right thing.

Yay!!!!! Welcome back and a big hug Yaser. I was so sad at the thought of losing you as one of our neighbours. You add so much here, it would have been a deeply felt loss for our neighborhood.

You know, it is so hard to keep faith and to keep working and talking and hoping for a better future for all of us. It has been so hard to watch as so many of our Lebanese friends gave up, not on GN but on the hope that their own country will ever get things together. I am still missing BV and BJ and many of the Lebanese bloggers who’ve stopped blogging -and I hope they will come back. Myself, I’ve nearly thrown up my hands so many times. But I think that even if our governments remain deadlocked or crazy or you name it, it is important for us little people to keep the lines of communication open, to try to see the bigger picture of our common humanity and our common goals and dreams as individuals, as neighbours, as people who share this planet. Otherwise, I think, the world becomes a little less human.

Welcome back Yaser, and thank you, for giving me some hope back.

and yeah I agree about the Lebanese bloggers part, it is so sad ..

Corey, Dr. Azmi has a core ideology as that of any member of Hamas. He is just too trained how to hide it and in playing word games to make it unobvious.

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