Give peace a chance in israel and gaza | thearticle

> _ __He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me > with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. _ >  > _Job 16:9_ _ _The antagonism between the

Arab world and Israel has shrunk to its irreducible core: a contest between two peoples with a common ancestry over a strip of land held to be holy by many (but not all) on both sides. In

any case, a strip of land from which neither can escape because it is all they have. This strange unity under the now mostly extinct term “Semites” (the antonym is “Aryan”) is what lends a

searing poignancy to the terror unleashed by Hamas on Israeli civilians and the terrible wrath to come of a vengeful Israel. It may offend adherents on both sides to acknowledge, but this

forever war between Jews and Palestinian Arabs is, in part, a conflict between siblings tied together since antiquity by a common linguistic ancestry and, to some extent, a shared regional

culture. Threadbare it may be, perhaps even broken. But the shared inheritance of a people whose paths have crossed, diverged and crossed again over the millenia is a reality — albeit one

drowned out by a fratricidal war now spiralling out of control. This may sound prosaic at a moment such as this. But it’s worth reminding ourselves of what the two sides have in common as

well as what divides them. Arab and Hebrew are both Semitic languages. Islam and Judaism also share deep roots. Moses who led the Jews out of Egypt to the Promised Land, is the most

frequently mentioned individual in the Quran. Both are staunchly monotheistic religions with similar practices: dietary laws, fasting, almsgiving, ritual purity, the separation of men and

women in the case of many Muslims and Orthodox Jews. Both peoples , albeit in different measure, have experienced suffering and banishment. Then there’s the fact that the land of Israel,

unwelcome as it may be to some, sits comfortably, even naturally, in an arid, biblical landscape bounded by the desert and the sea. It’s hard to imagine any place on earth that speaks so

powerfully to the frontier character of Israeli settlers. Travel overland (in the days when you could) from, say, Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt up the Sinai peninsula to the border crossing at

Taba. Then into Israel and up to Jerusalem. Then cross the Allenby Bridge (on foot) over the River Jordan into the Hashemite kingdom. Travel down to the Red Sea resort of Aqaba that sits

alongside its Israeli mirror image, Eilat — like East and West Berlin. Perhaps drive back via historic Palmyra in Syria, now defaced by ISIS, Aleppo (now flattened by Bashar al-Assad) and on

to Damascus and Beirut. What strikes you most are the similarities, not the differences. At the end of the 1973 October war Egyptian and Israeli negotiators met at kilometre 101, the

UN-manned checkpoint on the road from Suez to Cairo. An encampment of sand-swept tents guarded by blue-helmeted UN troops served as neutral territory. An Egyptian and an Israeli general in

an open tent finalised a disengagement agreement between the two sides, hammered out by Henry Kissinger, the then US Secretary of State. They did not shake hands; but as I watched, along

with the rest of the international press, my overwhelming impression was how alike they were. Almost exactly four years later, the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat travelled to Jerusalem,

where he met, among others, the former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, the driving force behind the 1967 war and the occupation of the Sinai, the West Bank and Gaza. Four years after

that, in 1981, also on October 6, Sadat was assassinated by Islamist terrorists. Then in 1995, after the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, Israel’s Prime Minister was shot (in the back) by

a right-wing extremist, a student of law no less. The recent history of the Middle East is filled with such moments of high hope and pitiless anguish. So far it’s the fanatics, those who

emphasise the otherness of their opponents, betrayers of the true faith, that have prevailed. A nation divided will not win a war. In these dark hours Israel and the Jewish diaspora have

united to face down this existential threat. Hamas has achieved that much with its monstrous incursion. But it has also exposed Benjamin Netanyahu’s gross failure, despite repeated warnings

by his military, to protect his nation. Netanyahu has been a uniquely divisive leader. Whether in pursuit of his own ambitions or simply to stave off his corruption charges, he has divided

and weakened Israel with a mixture of lazy thinking and hubris. He thought he had it covered. The new national unity government he has now formed with his former opponent Benny Gantz will

buy him time. But it won’t dispel the anger many Israelis feel. Israel is not homogenous. Israelis come in all shapes and colours, literally and politically: liberal, Orthodox, far right,

left wing, Ashkenazis (European Jews) Sephardim or Mizrahis (oriental Jews), some from Russia or eastern Europe, Arab Jews, Ethiopians, Kurds, Yemenis and so on. The majority, however, in

Israel is of at least partly Sephardi or Mizrahi descent — in other words Jews whose ancestry from biblical times lies not in Europe, but in the Middle East and North Africa. Josh Drill, a

young American emigré from New Jersey, who served in Israel’s elite Golani brigade, grew up with a strong Jewish faith and an unwavering belief in the superiority of Zionism. He has since

tempered his views and become an advocate for greater democracy in Israel. Netanyahu’s government, he says, has been “barreling towards becoming a dictatorial regime”. Drill characterises

the recent judicial reforms aimed at limiting the power of the country’s supreme court as an attempt to consolidate power in the hands of an extreme ultra-religious right-wing faction. He

fears, he says, for “my Arab Israeli friends, my LGBT friends, women and for the status of the occupied territories.” He is not alone. Netanyahu’s days in office are numbered. And so, one

hopes, is the leadership of Hamas. Supporters of a two-state solution must see that Hamas can no longer be part of a future dialogue. Which is perhaps what it intends by ensuring there is no

dialogue at all. But it is worth reflecting through the agony and the fear on all sides that the basis for co-existence between Arab and Jew is there should anyone wish to reach for it.

This may be a naïve, even a forlorn, hope. For the time being a red mist hovers over the region. Israel is mourning its dead. Gaza will mourn many more. Any talk of reconciliation, let alone

peace, is hollering at the storm. But, like Daniel Barenboim whose West-Eastern Divan Orchestra — a “musical bridge” between Israeli and Palestinian musicians — offers hope in the cultural

sphere, surely the only path to peace in Middle Eastern politics is through justice and equality. _Alain Catzeflis is a former Middle East correspondent and News Editor of the Financial

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