Peace prior friendship or friendship prior peace

What does peace mean?

The simple dictionary translation is: “State of not being at war; silence, quietness; tranquility”. The question is: Can this create friendship? Obviously, among normal human society it may and do create friendship. Yes, peace promotes friendship and partnership.

When we think deeply about peace can we define it objectively and clearly? Can we know what it looks like at the end of the day? It is an abstract object. It is an abstract object since we are wishing to achieve but often we feel that it is not a reachable task.

This essay is trying to evaluate what peace means in the context of Israelis-Palestinians conflict, to find why after so long time and so many peace negotiations, no peace is found between the two sides. This essay is trying to suggest an alternative pathway, where peace is not the objective but a mere byproduct.

Peace which is agreed from a peace negotiation table, often is not reachable to the people in the streets of a shared town or country like Israel/Palestine, it is just a desire of those who are doing the negotiation. Often peace is interpreted differently on each side, thus the path undertaken by each side to achieve it is different and usually not complying each other.

In order to achieve this kind of peace, both sides are "enforced" unwillingly to abandon some or many of claims, assets, what so ever of the others. Since this acts of abandoning or compromising important assets is usually painful and consequently each side tend not to ignore them. In the event of a bitter war between two enemies, peace cannot healed completely those "wounds" resulting from the conflict. These "wounds" cannot be compromised since they may generate internal suffering and silent hatred.

If I'll take for example the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, we can see it follows the traditional definition of the dictionary as I defined above. But I'm asking myself: Is that the kind of peace which we really were dreaming of? The Egyptian media and papers are still spiced with Israel's hatred and in some cases with anti-Semitism (anti Jewish). Likewise some Israelis are behaving against the Egyptians as same but at a different scale (the scale magnitude is not the main factor). Yes, we have peace, but we don't have the friendship warmth. The friendship warmth is the insurance of the peace treaty. Without this warmth, the peace state is still fragile, weak and may vanish in the blink of an eye.

 Friendship prior and beyond, or prior peace dilemma?

People may have arguments about each other's opinion but these differences must not be used to weaken their argument instead to strengthen it. In relationship, those differences must be consolidated to enrich each other rather differentiate and destroy one other. The convergence of these differences must form a harmony of life like a good orchestra with many different notes from a variety of instruments.

Two arguing parties probably have more similarities than differences.
 Rather than beating ourselves and each other with differences, it makes more sense to search for common interest and similarities.
 We have much in common to share if we forgive each other and become moderate. We must inherit a communal interest and look for our own mistakes we committed and are still doing, instead of just looking microscopically at the mistakes of our enemy.

The problem is that mistakes are not forgiven among foes (bloody foes). Even more, those mistakes are increasing the hatred, bias and ignorance of each other. So many wars have been committed and continue so, only to preserve the mistakes and to increase the hatred for generations and till this particular moment.

What is more interesting, both sides are actually desperately looking for peace; each has its own version of peace. How can it be that two enemies are looking for peace in that parallel manner through so many peace conferences and meetings? Of course they cannot find the solution for such a long time because they are obsessed for the "peace" as an end solution, as an abstract object. This is the traditional approach – where peace is a non-reachable aim. Yes in the present circumstances, peace is not reachable as we have witnessed times and again in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I am proposing a different aim.
Peace must not be the primer aim. Peace must become a byproduct of another nobler objective. What are both foes missing? They are missing friendship. They are missing to know each other on the very personal basis, from as simple as how we live, what we eat, how our mosque, synagogue, church or temple look like, what we like and dislike, cultures, arts, scientific interests, literatures and so the countless daily issues. We miss the chemistry between people. Who prevented them from such basic necessity of knowing each other? Politicians and political-religious clerics are brainwashing either by speeches or by the media. Both sides are not free from these negative influences even though the extent may be less or more within each group but these have some impact on both sides. People are easy to be brainwashed in any society since it is not built on rationalism but on emotions. Thus the ball of snow is rolling UP the hill from the angry people back to the leadership which drives them to make more mistakes and many more wars.

The moderates among us think a bit differently from the others. They want to learn and listen to the other. Their emotions to know each other are driving them to a good rationality towards a friendship. There are no friends that their friendship byproduct is not peace. Real friends have peace. Did they sign any peace treaty for that? No, this is the natural outcome of their friendship. Now, if they are real friends, even they have tough arguments, they are listening to each other and their compassion to each other drives them to forgive, compromise, tolerate and retract from extremism. It is very simple as they are not ignoring each other.

Any good engineer knows the trick to solve a problem is to think out of the box. Complicated problems cannot be solved traditionally. We need to involve some imagination, inventive thinking and creativity. The end of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinian, Jews and Muslims is not achievable without changing the present approach.

We must break the circle of violence caused by ignorance. It is up to the moderate people from both sides to harness the power friendship which we (Muslims and Jews) have so far largely ignored. We must stop that trains of inherited hatred from both sides from a fatal collision. We must create friendship prior peace.

This web blog is an open door for anyone (Jews and Muslims or anyone) who wants to post his/her thoughts and opinions. It is the blog for everyone to become a friend with the “enemy” or with the “friend” using the bridge of common interest from the simplest and naive issues in everyday lives between people in conflict. This web blog is for those people who want to become closer to each other. Anytime when we write our opinions we need to handle our words in a friendly manner.

The friendship torch

"Life is a network of mistakes and errors we must knit the holes by learning". We need to learn our own errors and mistakes first and then learn the other side errors and mistakes join forces and knit a firm friendly network of life.

"Every white paper has a black mark even it is microscopic and every blackboard has a small chalk marking which cannot be wiped". We are not clean of mistakes and sins even we may think we are the most rightful and the other is the most guilt. No one is saint and we are not God. Self criticism is not a shame and a weakness; it is strength of honor.

One sentence of wisdom cannot build what one sentence of foolishness can destroy. We must keep our talking sensibly and with sensitivity. One wrong saying may destroy a thousand of pages of friendship. We must not lose such a jewel for a single stupidity.

Peacemakers are not always inheriting friendship but friends inherit always peace. It is the time for a new page opening since I feel people are thirsty for the change. I think it is reachable even it is very naive.

Hanan,
Israel.