Vision An Inclusive Alternative to End the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Vision

An Inclusive Alternative to End the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Blueprint for a Better Tomorrow

Ahmed Ismail Elnakouri

Copyright © 2014 Ahmed Ismail Elnakouri

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-0-9936469-0-4

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Palestine: A Glimpse of History

New Approach

Vision for Peace

The Union

Road to Peace

Ta’ayush (Arabic for Living Together)

Jerusalem: A United Capital

The Arms Industry and War Business

Disabling Terrorism, Enabling Peace

War and Peace Industry

The Multidimensional Approach

The Great Tomorrow – Candles of Hope

About the Author

Footnotes

To God, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Acknowledgments

I would like to offer my thanks and appreciation to those who devoted their time and encouragement and provided invaluable comments to successfully shape this ambitious project.

My deepest thanks go to my son Abdo for his constant help in proofreading this volume. Thanks to Dr. Ahmed Ahmed for his useful feedback on an early draft of the manuscript, and to Samir W. Raafat who provided indispensable assistance and support. A special thanks to Sigrid Macdonald, my astoundingly good editor, for offering valuable guidance and helping to professionally shape this manuscript.

Introduction

Back in the mid-1960s when I was a child, I used to play around my father’s grocery store in my hometown of Alexandria, Egypt. One day I happened to stray over to the building across the street and an old lady, who was standing right in front of her apartment, found me wandering around. She called me and kindly asked me to wait and then went inside her house. Moments later, she came back with a wonderful little bag full of candy and handed it over to me. The most important part of this moment, which I still (and always will) remember, is the pure emotion of love that emanated from the old lady while she was giving me the candy.

My memory of this experience has lasted until today. It is difficult to precisely estimate how many positive consequences can blossom from small acts of kindness and, paradoxically, how negatively bad experiences can affect us. Every act of kindness creates a ripple that over time can turn into a tidal wave capable of affecting the lives of many with no logical end. Albert Schweitzer, a German theologian, organist, philosopher, and physician expressed this idea eloquently: Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. With that in mind, this book is not merely about politics—it is also about peace, kindness, and an earnest call to promote understanding and respect toward others.

I have witnessed and read about the horror of war for most of my life, to the point that a moral obligation drove me to write about peace and initiate my own vision for the pursuit of a decent and peaceful world. This vision is not only a reflection of my extensive reading and experiences, but also mirrors the fact that I was born and grew up in the heart of a region soaked to the bone with wars, enmity, and bleak hostility. Thereafter, I left the region and immigrated to Canada. This has given me the opportunity to interact with different cultures, read more, and look at the whole scene from a new vantage point. I believe that it is easy to write about the current reality of continuing discord between Israel, Palestine, and neighbouring countries by simply describing the anatomy of and the justification for the ongoing conflict. However, I have intentionally chosen the harder task of writing about peace and harmonious coexistence. By doing so, I am sincerely and from a pure heart trying to make a positive contribution to peacemaking efforts. Furthermore, as strange as it may seem, I must clarify that I truly do not have the enthusiasm or the concern to write about politics; however, I’ve found that it's almost impossible to write about peace without being unwillingly dragged into the world of politics.

In fact, writing this book has been a tremendous learning experience as it has given me an opportunity to immerse myself in some of the most significant ethical and theological challenges facing us today. In order to find a cure for the world’s illness, it is essential not to deal with the symptoms in a separate, narrow, and disconnected manner. For that reason, this vision is not a mere writing about politics. I’m writing this from a holistic approach that includes humanistic, spiritual, and religious standpoints together with a fresh political perspective.

As Albert Einstein once said, We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. It is essential to transcend to higher states of consciousness in order to explore new paths and different approaches. Truly, any process of transformation must begin with a radical change in perception which might open up a wide range of perspectives. We urgently need to view the whole process from different angles. This vision, a look beyond the horizon, may be considered an aspiration toward redrawing new perceptions, hopefully influencing our world for good. A vision that looks into the future and views our life not as it is… but as it can become. This book is my humble attempt to reach a recipe for peaceful coexistence and a prosperous future for humanity.

I have come to a conclusion that solving the Arab-Israeli conflict would definitely have a positive impact not only in the region but also at a global level. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a truly pivotal dispute that deeply reflects and provokes a wider clash between the Western world and the Arabic-Islamic world. Indeed, the ramifications of solving that conflict and reaching a durable solution may surpass our expectations. It could very well be considered a threshold and the beginning of a new dawn of a consistent and lasting peace in the world. Consequently, one of my main goals in this volume is to draw an acceptable, viable, and practical solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that accommodates the essential needs of all parties. A much wiser approach would be to focus our efforts on finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than following the chorus who engage in long, futile arguments and point fingers.

Historical events in this particular part of the world, specifically in the last century, are so controversial that there are many versions of them. And it is no wonder that each party advocated his own version with all the confidence of absolute certainty. However, our main task should not be to establish validations or vindicate events to favour or advocate one party over the other or to adjudicate between different parties but, simply and consistently, to pursue peace among all of us. Also, this book is not only about introducing a humble vision for peace in the Middle East; more importantly, if this book has any other mission, I might summarize it as follows:

Promoting the consciousness of peace.

Breaking out of the conventional way of thinking, and

Recognizing and respecting the divine and ancient heritage of each other while also trying to better understand the true meaning, or essence, of God’s message.

Discussions on peace do not necessarily deal only with the present but also the future, and this is my attempt to draw, positively, a bright outlook and prospects for a better tomorrow. Some readers may feel that my view of the future is a reflection of wishful thinking more than a demonstration of realistic and attainable goals. Truly, I admit that I am a dreamer who sometimes looks beyond the horizon; nonetheless, I hope that believing in dreams might inspire us and give us hope for a brighter future. Usually, the depressing complexity of our current reality confines and impedes us from seeing any hope or even a way out, and this negatively impacts our abilities to adequately deal with the present and draw a fair vision for tomorrow. As a matter of fact, many things in our life started as dreams that eventually became parts of our current reality.

It is essential for us to trust God and believe in human potential and our ability to overcome life’s difficulties and hurdles. One of our major challenges and fundamental objectives should be attaining peaceful coexistence and engineering a better life for ourselves and upcoming generations. To do so we need to be forward-thinking, we need to be optimistic, and we need to positively believe that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. What we can easily see is only a small percentage of what is possible. I’m not looking under my feet, reading, or watching today’s news! Conversely, I am longing for the future when these dreams and wishes become integrated parts of our reality.

Peace has to be our common goal. If conflict is what we want to see, there is a conflict. However, if peace is what we are looking for, then peace is there to be found. So, to pursue that objective, I introduced this humble vision and adopted a positive approach to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict. This vision would also put aside any biases or preconceptions by dealing with the case in an absolutely impartial and neutral manner. Hopefully, that would lead us to attain the common goal of achieving peaceful coexistence. It might seem impossible to write about the Arab-Israeli conflict without taking sides. I will just say here that I have tried in this book to do my best to be impartial and objective to all parties.

As I pledged in every capacity to promote peace based on both regional and global perspectives, the spheres of interest in this book extend to many issues that correlate with world peace and stability. In general, I tried to embrace an inclusive approach and demonstrate that goal through initiating peace based on three footings: local, regional, and international outlooks. However, these spheres of interest sometimes can converge and overlap. By introducing this humble vision for peace, every chapter in my work serves one or more of those spheres while all chapters collectively oblige us toward achieving the same paramount goal.

The reader may notice that at some points in this vision I did not provide too many details; the reason for this is to allow each reader to fill in the blanks to his or her own satisfaction. Overall, my primary concern is not as much to introduce a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict as it is to extend our awareness and elaborate on the fact that we all belong to each other. I sincerely invite readers to do the same and encourage them to break out of a dominant way of thinking and try to find new avenues that will lead us not only to construct a truly Arab-Israeli partnership but also to envision a better life for ourselves and upcoming generations.

Furthermore, it is important to state that this volume is about the pronoun we, contrary to the notion of us versus them, which has preoccupied almost all of us and crippled any actual and genuine attempt for peaceful coexistence. The peace proposal that I present here, once it is fully employed in the future, is not going to be between Palestinians and Jews/Israelis as it primarily appears, but it will be among all inhabitants of the whole region who share the same belonging to the human race, worship the same God, and adhere to the same moral standards and universal values.

Ahmed Ismail Elnakouri

Ottawa, Canada

Palestine: A Glimpse of History

History and different perceptions of history are perhaps the most important factors in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Accounts of history and interpreting history in different ways are used to justify claims and to negate claims, to vilify the enemy, and to glorify our side. Dozens of accounts have been written, and most of them are intended to convince rather than to inform.

It would be wrong to try to use this history to determine who is right, though many histories have certainly been written by partisans of either side with precisely that purpose in mind. Those who are interested in advocacy, in collecting points for their side, cannot find the truth except by accident. If they find it and it is inconvenient, they will bury it again. Also, it is unlikely that anyone has written or will write an objective and definitive summary that would be accepted by everyone. However, this very brief account is intended as a balanced overview and introduction to Palestinian and Israeli history, and the history of the conflict. I hope these objective narratives about the past will provide us with a better understanding of the present and more importantly, will not limit us from creating dynamic prospects for future resolutions.

Early History

Abraham (peace be upon him) is one of the most central figures to Islam and Judaism, and he is also revered to some extent among Christians. He is of great significance to Judaism because he is the forefather of the Jews through the line of his son, Isaac. Abraham also is very important to Islam as a prophet of the same message from God as Muhammad (peace be upon him), the father of Ishmael or Ismail his firstborn son, as well as for having erected the Kaaba,¹ the most holy place in Islam. Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldeans, also known as Babylonia. Babylonia was an ancient Semitic, Akkadian-speaking nation in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. According to what Jews believe, in around 2000 BC, Abraham took his son, Isaac, to Mount Moriah to offer him as a sacrifice.² It is