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Uri Katz
  • Uri Katz
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • United States

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How do we make peace between Israel and Palestine?

Lets take it for granted that both sides are to blame in this conflict, and neither is going to disappear off the face of the earth any time soon.
Answers like "make love not war" would without a doubt work, but I am hoping for a little more substance.
If, like me, you think peace is only achievable in a distant future, but we have to begin working on it now, that is something I would like to hear, especially what we should be doing now.
If you know of a faster track to peace, all the better.

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Closing Statement from Uri Katz

I would like to personally thank all the participants in this conversation.
I think we all recognized the immense difficulty this problem poses. At the same time, most people acknowledged that there is plenty that can be done, not all hope is lost.
Here are a few answers I collected. This is not a summary, only a list of the suggestions I think have the greatest potential to lead to peace. Each stands on it own, but together they have the most power. If we start implementing these ideas, sooner or later the reality in the region will change and a more direct path to peace will become apparent:

1. Instead of broadcasting yet another suicide bomber, give peace a chance by trumpeting every peaceful attempt by both sides.

2. Deflate the issue so that people see it not as cultural & religious issue, but as a localized dispute over resources and land. Then we can ask what a just division of these would be.

3. Recruit moderate religious leader.

4. Understand the other side as best as possible. How are they different? How we are they similar? Make sure your education is fact based and not propaganda.

5. Teach and practice forgiveness, which is key to all true conflict resolution
Also practice: Tolerance, Compassion, Acceptance, Appreciation

6. Remove all hate, and all us-them mentality, from school syllabuses.

7. Both side need to stop looking at themselves as victims. They are not victims of each other or of the larger world. They should take responsibility for their lives and actions.

8. The blame game does not help.

9. Historical arguments are usually used to advance one sided justification for violence and war, as such they are ineffective in the struggle toward peace.

10. Create joint projects such as competitive sporting events.

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  • Richard Krooman 50+

    • 0
    Feb 8 2013: In my eyes the easiest and fastest way would be to just nuke them as soon as someone fights.
    Both sides have deep roots to the country so both sides would be extremely upset (and possibly erradicated) when nuked.
    So the threat of wiping out the whole nation should do the trick pretty much instantaneously....
    Ofcourse I'm not in favor of actually dropping any bomb on there. But just make sure that external retaliation for both sides is so huge that neither will mess up.

    That way both sides can actually meet eachother and see that they actually don't hate eachother.

    Ofcourse you could also just remove all people from (political) power (also at both sides) which would result in similar personal relations between both sides. But that would be a really long peace project over many years of external control etc.... I favor just threatning them with insane retalliation.

    • shawn disney 10+

      • 0
      Feb 11 2013: Richard: I'm curious as to just what kind of incident would incline you to engage in such a Genocide: would teenagers throwing rocks at tanks qualify as a "fight" ? How about Israeli airstrikes against some specific building? And I trust you are aware that any nuclear bombing would kill both sides, as well as miscellaneous tourists, foreign reporters, etc. If this was a joke, it wasn't very funny.

      • Richard Krooman 50+

        • 0
        Feb 11 2013: Hello Shawn,

        I would personally never even be able to throw a punch at someone... I'm a very peace loving person.

        But the point of going berserk on the retalliation is exactly that it will kill both sides.

        It is like the cold war.... if the USA would press fire Russia would retalliate like mad resulting in the end of the world. And if Russia would hit fire the USA would as well.
        Neither side wants the world to end therefor neither side will press fire.
        Eventually they started a dialogue and tada peace.

        If we put external pressure on them which is greater than what they are fighting about... there is no willingness to fight anymore.

        There are so many Israeli people who have no problem at all with palistinians who live right next door. There are actually friendship relationships between them.

        There is NO reason for them at all to do this to eachother... but they can't see it untill they stop their blind madness...
        For which the easiest way (aka fastest... least trouble to create etc) is to use some immense threat to punish them extremely when they do defect rather than collaborate.
        I'm following an online game theory class... it's best to just alter the payoffs for what they are doing and they will make peace themselves.

        • shawn disney 10+

          • 0
          Feb 12 2013: Richard: Thanks for the clarification. If you remember , the "M.A.D." doctrine could not exactly said to be a great success, or that it actually "worked". And if you saw the movie "Dr. Strangelove" of the time, it indicated some serious weaknesses of the scheme. Indeed, our galloping entry into the Spanish American war gave another.(The Spanish did not actually sink our battleship) The truth of the matter is that it was mere luck and personalities that worked out in the world's favor, in the Cuban Missle Crisis. The next time we might not be so lucky. And when it was all over, the Soviet Union fell because of its own rotteness, not because of any military causes. In other words, it is clear in retrospect that the US was never in danger from them, in the sense that they would have initated any war. Our war experience was so limited in WW2 that we just didn't understand. Quick thinking in very stressful situations is not the way to come to good conclusions.

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