Psychological Barrier In The Arab-Israeli Conflict Resolution

By Canute Tangwa (The Post 24 August, 2006)

In a November 20, 1977 address to the Israeli Knesset (parliament), the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said, "we should have the courage to make determining decisions that are consonant with the magnitude of the circumstances".

Apparently, the Arab and Jewish world is presently bereft of bold statesmen like Sadat "known for their wisdom and clarity of vision to survey (a) problem, with all its complexities, in a bold drive towards new horizons".

On both sides of the conflict, nobody is willing to break ground, "to go to the end of the earth, to go to the land of the adversary while… still in a state of war" and talk "permanent peace based on justice". Rather, the Israelis, Hezbollah and Hamas are digging war trenches deeper and deeper with the cynical and sinister complicity of their alleged backers: the United States, United Kingdom, Iran and Syria.  

For there to be sustainable peace in the Middle East, the will and groundswell must come from the region. This should be in the form of men and women willing to rise up to any occasion and respond to positive signals; Arabs who recognize Israel's security concerns and Jews who acknowledge the inalienability of Arab dignity.

At one time, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin seized Jimmy Carter's Camp David peace talks' bait. At another time, the late Yitzhak Rabin's drive together with Arab goodwill gave birth to the Oslo Peace Agreement but like Sadat, who was killed by Islamic fundamentalists, an obscure Jewish extremist put the Oslo agreement on hold by assassinating Rabin.  

Taking the cue from the late Rabin, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak sought to extract a sustainable peace from the late PLO leader, Yassir Arafat with the prompting of former US president Bill Clinton.

The peace talks were dubbed Camp David 2000. Till date, the concessions made by Barak to the Palestinians were the most far-reaching and comprehensive since the Arab-Israeli conflict began in 1948. Barak tabled the following: establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian State on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza strip;

dismantling of most of Israeli settlements; establishment of Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem; Palestinian sovereignty over half of the Old City of Jerusalem; no right to return to Israel for Palestinians; facilitation of rehabilitation of refugees amongst others. The late Arafat and his delegation spurned this offer and unleashed the Intifada in July 2000.

It is hard to understand Arafat's rejection of Barak's peace concessions. A peep into the mindset of the protagonists in the Middle East would be instructive. According to the late Sadat, failed attempts at peace in the Middle East are due to, "a psychological barrier (wall) between us, a barrier of suspicion, a barrier of rejection; a barrier of fear,

or deception, a barrier of hallucination without any action, deed or decision....a barrier of distorted and eroded interpretation of every event or statement. It is this psychological barrier that….constitutes 70 percent of the whole problem."  All these hold true today!

In Newsweek of July 27, 2006, John Barry corroborates Sadat in an article titled Israel's Mistake. He writes, "Sadat and Syrian president Hafez Assad were ready (after the Yom Kippur War) to do pretty anything Kissinger asked…But Kissinger hadn't reckoned on one figure in the talks: Israel's leader, Golda Meir.

She simply could not believe that Sadat and Assad were serious". Commenting on the failure of Camp David 2000, Ehud Barak, apparently irked by the failure of the talks, made a very pessimistic observation about Arabs, "they are products of a culture in which to tell a lie …. creates no (cognitive) dissonance".

Likewise, Arafat could not believe that Barak was serious or he played on the prevailing psychological barrier. It is possible to pull down this psychological barrier. Once this is done, the Middle East can look forward with hope. In order to break this wall, there is need to tap from the positive values or common denominators of both cultures that are so close but seemingly far apart.

To shatter this psychological wall, the religious angle of the conflict can be exploited to great effect. Inevitably, there is a connect between A salaam alaikum (peace be with you in Arabic) and Shalom (peace in Hebrew). These greetings, not taken at face value, encapsulate the mindset, tradition and philosophy of both peoples. 

In Building religious/cultural bridges between Israeli and Palestinian university students, EJAIB, (1999), Ben Mollow and Musa Isa Barhoum lay emphasis on 'exploring commonalities between the Islamic and Judaic cultures' in order to build a psychological bridge that would in turn 'enhance the possibilities for peace to develop'.

According to Mollow and Barhoun, such commonalities that would 'improve perceptions' between Jews and Arabs are (i) Physical: style of dressing (ii)  religion: similarities and differences in observance of religious feasts; believe in one God; common ancestry,

Abraham; Prophet Mohammed's recommendation of the good treatment of neighbours; essential prayers and religious credos; respect and belief of the Moslems of all the prophets and not discriminating between anyone of them as well as the story and significance of creation in the Torah and Koran. I would include Jerusalem and its significance to both cultures.

Only a durable people-to-people approach can ensure the building of psychological bridges. Sporadic meetings of both peoples in university conference halls, resorts, excursions, seminars, and so on constitute little drops that make an ocean. The key to this approach are civil societies, centres of learning and leisure/sports as well as Mosques and Synagogues.

A school curricular from kindergarten to university on Jewish and Islamic studies, NGOs that espouse positive perceptions of Jews and Arabs, frequent meetings between Jewish and Arab religious groups (moderate and extremist) and so on would pave the way "for a lessening of tension and new more positive mutual perceptions to emerge".             

Pulling down psychological barrier is a confidence building exercise. It cannot be quantified mathematically but it would impact positively in socio-economic, political and diplomatic circles in the Middle East since it constitutes 70% of the region's problem.. This is vividly expressed in UNESCO's motto: as war was born in the mind of man, with the mind of man a fortress of peace should be built.

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