Israel and Palestine: Building Peace from the Bottom Up
Graphic by Alejandro Vargas
The History Which Shaped Attitudes
1917 marks the British announcement of Palestine as a home for the Jews through the Balfour Declaration. Five years later, in 1922, Britain was granted a mandate over much of the Middle East, and partitioned the region between themselves and the French. Britain and France now had chopped up Palestine, a region of the old Ottoman Empire after the first World War when Arabs struggled to find the strength and organization to push back against the British invasion. The decades-long trend of Zionism and colonial rule ultimately culminated in the Jewish home being established as a formal state known as Israel in 1948 with UN approval. Britain left thereafter, as the wave of Zionism led to mass migrations to the region and the first Arab-Israeli war became too morose for Britain’s continued stay. Decades of brutal violence would loom over the future of Israel-Palestine. Outbreak of several wars would lead to Israeli victories where land would be accrued, roughly 750,000 Palestinians would be further displaced in what would be infamously known as Al-Nakba (‘the catastrophe’), and territories not kept by Israel would be leveraged for consolidation of greater power in Israel.
Palestinian civilians throughout history would often utilize their voices for freedom, taking to the streets in protest. The Arab revolt in Palestine in 1936, an uprising of Palestinian-led protests against the British partitioning of their land, led to over 2,000 deaths with over 100 hangings at the hands of the British. Again, in 1987, Palestinians protested when civilians were killed by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). The first year of protesting resulted in 332 Palestinian deaths, over 50 of whom were children. In comparison, How many Israelis were killed when they instituted military dominion over the region by the deployment of 80,000 Israeli troops in response to “violent” protests? 12. Israel has proven time and time again that as a state it functions to serve Western imperial interests. The West’s perpetuation of these notions can be seen best in the use of U.S. foreign aid to Israel.
Where Do State Interests Truly Lie?
The Lowey Act seems like a promising piece of U.S. legislation dedicated to funding non-state peacebuilding organizations, with a hefty sum of $250 million over five years. However, it should be noted that the Biden administration in 2022 has decided to fund Israel’s military with $3.3 billion (part of a $38 billion plan) of foreign military financing. Then, in this package, they set $5 million aside for refugee and humanitarian aid. This means military aid to Israel is over 60 times higher than investment in peacebuilding organizations and 600 times higher than what is set aside for refugees and humanitarian aid. The main interest of the West is to protect their legitimacy. Israel’s claim to having “the most moral army,” — as described by their own defense minister, Ehud Barak — is part of the framing that they indeed contribute to peace as a state enterprise. This is not to say that aims for peace should be devoid of political intervention, but instead that peace should be constructed socio-culturally. A process of peacebuilding should occur at the grassroots level, cultivating itself through honest change of culture and ideas. Then, assimilation, reconciliation, and diverse political agendas can subsequently become the glue in cementing these ideas legislatively and forming economic interest-based ties.
What Has Peacebuilding Looked Like Through the State?
Taking a look at the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993, one can see how promises of non-violence were moot once the perceived necessity for violence persisted beyond the point of instant reconciliation for many Palestinians. HAMAS, an Arabic acronym for Islamic resistance movement, had been a recently founded Islamic militant organization and saw violence as a justified means of achieving peace under terms befitting the integrity of Paltestinians’ self-determination. This was in difference to their PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) counterparts who had international legitimacy in representing Palestine as an authoritative body and sought reformation and reconciliation through more non-violent means. That is not, however, to say that either HAMAS or PLO are more legitimate or ‘right’ in their cause. HAMAS felt they would continue to be bullied into deals oriented for liberal-institutional imperial ‘cooperation,’ denoting the greater benefit for Israel and Western allies alike. It’s plain to see why these attitudes have built over time and being confronted by an imperial hegemonic capitalistic force would dissolve notions of peace posited by a piece of legislation with no wide-scale socio-cultural underpinning. While the law itself resembled a hollow institution at first glance, it evoked seeds of promise. This is because the hollow but official announcements of recognition between the states was a grand geo-political gesture between both sides on the world stage, inspiring the formation of non-governmental organizations which could more succinctly develop an honest will to facilitate peace.
Modern capitalistic imperialism has promoted Israel only as an arbiter of military control and political influence of the West. Israel monitors trade in Gaza. The West perpetuates Israel in its military dominion with billions in military aid. Israel serves as a beacon of Western liberal institutionalist influence in the Middle East as a geo-political outpost proliferating Western material structures and schools of thought. Perhaps then it could be concluded that the reason Western economic disbursements to non-governmental peacekeeping operations are abysmal in comparison to their aid to the state of Israel is so the state of Israel appears more legitimate. While trust of each opposing state is low, however, there is trust being built on each side through these non-governmental means. These often revolve around ecological and environmental methods of cooperation, opening of dialogue, and education.
Environmental and Ecological Peacebuilding
Israel and Paestine share an ecological environment and interaction within this environment will certainly be unavoidable, so how these groups meet, connect, and interact will be key ideas for the facilitation of peace through their engagements. Organizations such as EcoPeace Middle East focus on methods of practical cooperation in solving ecological issues across the region. One contemporary issue has been a lack of suitable land for solar farming in Israel. The bordering country of Jordan has plenty of space and sun, perhaps an overabundance of sun at the cost of water. Jordan also lacks the technological capability to fully exploit the resource of their sunlight. Naturally, a deal may be struck where Israel may construct solar farms on Jordanian land utilizing their technology in exchange for clean water for Jordan. It could also be seen how deals such as this could be expounded upon, utilizing teams from both sides for the construction of the solar farms, allowing for Jordan to have access and understanding in the operations of the technology, and seeing how these economic and geographic ties can create concrete links where groups can facilitate better and more cooperation in other facets.
Strong non-governmental organizations can certainly have an influence on state ties through bottom-up institutions and infrastructure creating opportunity for inter-state cooperation, but success in environmental cooperation can also be previewed as a method for creating strong ties socio-culturally. Wadi Fukin is a small Palestinian town with a population of roughly 1,200, surrounded by much larger Jewish settlements to the east and west. Being by the Green Line, a line which refers to the separation of Israel and Palestine before Israel expanded militarily in 1967, Wadi Fukin also runs the risk of losing its sovereignty to Israel. Friends of the Earth Middle East is a non-governmental organization which, since 1994, has been working in cross-border cooperation to facilitate the protection of the environment across the Middle East. They brought Wadi Fukin together with their neighbor Tzur Hadassah (an Israeli community of 5,000) to participate in the Good Water Neighbors Project, where resources and clean water could be shared thus utilizing Wadi Fukin’s exceptional farming capabilities for the benefit of surrounding towns. Sympathies for Wadi Fukin grew in Tzur Hadassah through contact and cooperation, which ultimately led to their protest against the separation wall instituted by Israel in respect to the autonomy and sovereignty of their neighbors.
Educational and Discourse as the Key to Peacebuilding
Education and discourse both help shape the attitudes of a society. Perspectives shift most greatly with politics from the ages of 15 to 30, so here is where the focus of intervention to facilitate cooperative discourse and education is aimed. Seeds of Peace was an early post-Oslo Accord peacebuilding non-governmental organization which brought over 800 Palestinians and Israelis together for peace-education. After 10 years, into adulthood, approximately 17.5 percent of the study subjects went on to work for peacebuilding initiatives as adults. Later studies from 2015 showed the process of how dialogue and education can lead to cultural reform and eventual political reform.
It was noted that the dialogue workshops which succeeded were more inclusive, participative, and incorporated some sort of physical action or skill-building component in conjunction with the dialogue. The Abraham Initiatives allowed for Arabic to be learned in Israeli schools taught by Arab teachers so that understanding through language could help bridge the dialogue divide. Community police, dialogue forums, and mobilization also led to the construction of a joint committee representative of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths in protection of Mount Zion. After groups are linked together in order to facilitate dialogue it can be seen that they develop more “tolerant and good hearted” attitudes towards each other.
Factors of Success
As previously mentioned, the Oslo Accords were largely hollow as they represented a large-scale political measure for peace without having substantiated itself enough culturally to actually resolve conflict from the micro level. The non-state peacebuilding outgrowth that began subsequent to the Oslo Accords, however, has certainly seen the collapse and sustainability of many NGOs looking to confront the internal problem of cultural attitudes to create a strong foundation of peace further legislation may be pragmatically built upon. There are several prime examples of NGOs which have stood despite the dissolution of the Oslo Accords. These include PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East) which teaches history through a shared lens, IPCRI (Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information) which employs a wide array of conjunct peacebuilding institutes through mostly academic means with teachers and youth alike, MECA (Middle East Children Association) facilitating joint education and supplying much needed resources to students, and finally Crossing Borders. Crossing Borders is a joint newspaper workshop which brings young journalists together for professional training and dialogue of their experiences in order to create a press ecosystem where information may be disseminated in a framework where peace and understanding is of higher regard. “Equality and symmetry” have been noted as nearly inalienable factors of success within these beneficial organizations which have stood the test of time in a greater tumultuous atmosphere.
Ideas of equality and symmetry refer to characteristics of the organization such as geography, hierarchy, and language. Geography is important as power dynamics in this conflict are inherently geo-political, thus success in organizations looking to build peace require facilities to lie either at a border in what would be determined as a neutral zone or for each sovereign entity to have their own location where prospects from each group may also visit the other location. Hierarchy pertains to the organizational structure of each group. Oftentimes these structures have been Israeli-dominated, and this has been born out of the demise of these organizations; therefore, for the promise of their efficacy these structures need to be well-balanced so that Palestinians feel across all positions (be it task-driven, moderative, or executive) that they have an equal say in the productive output and direction of each organization.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that bottom-up methods of peacebuilding are a necessity for peace to be sustainable, true, and cooperative in a future political and cultural landscape. This is not to say that states can not facilitate this kind of peace through legislation, bureaucratic functions, infrastructure, and institutions. However, these are all hollow propped up political gestures serving no long-term purpose towards the true essence of peace if cultural reconciliation is not vitalized. Perhaps it is time a greater light is shed on where the West’s true intentions have lied? Perhaps it is time to hold a state which tries to legitimize its military expansion as a means of peace accountable for what will truly bring peace to the region. The bottom line is that moving forward, if funding towards non-state peacebuilding operations proven to facilitate cooperative outlooks between groups cannot match even a fraction of Israel’s capitalist industrial pursuits in the region, Israel will be regarded as yet another neo-imperial conquest of the West.
Edited by Abigail Loomis