Arabs and Israelis held hostage by a common enemy
Khaled Diab
Salom Now!
And
METalks are two experimental initiatives which sought to rewrite the
script of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and give ordinary people a starring
role in the quest for peace. Those involved experienced profound changes to
their outlook and took the first steps towards forging a new, more inclusive
narrative for the Middle East. However, such popular, grassroots action is held
hostage by some common enemies: despair, hatred, antipathy and distrust.
February 2007
Part I – War and elusive
peace
Part II – Talking under
fire
Part III – Dangerous
liaisons
Part IV – Constructive
ideas
Part V – Let’s talk about
you and ME
Part VI – Terrorised by a
common enemy
Part VII – Existential
angst
Part VIII – Moving forward
Let’s
talk about you and ME
Motivated by the conflict in Lebanon, Anat el-Hashahar says
she established METalks.com to help Arabs and Israelis to humanise each other
and better understand the way the other side thinks through dialogue and debate.
“I was born back when Israel had peace with no Arab
country. We grew up dreaming of peace with our neighbours,” she confesses. “We
have achieved that with Egypt and Jordan. The very thought of maybe, just
maybe, reaching a state of peace with all neighbouring countries sends shivers
down my spine, for real.”
Those who took the leap of faith and made the time to
engage in this experiment learned a lot about the socio-political situation on
the ‘other side’ and made new contacts, myself included. I spent too many hours
burning the late night oil, pondering and debating complex questions with the
others, soul-searching, wracking my brains, holding back my temper, hoping,
despairing, distressing, aspiring.
There were interesting and intelligent debates over Jewish
and Arab identity, Palestinian nationhood, the one-state solution, opinions
over the role of the Israeli military, Israel’s so-called ‘deterrent posture’,
and much more.
Sadly, some debates revealed the worst forms of bigotry on
both sides of the conflict – and too much energy was wasted arguing about the
mythical ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and the hugely exaggerated threat
posed by Islamic extremism.
Members were also encouraged to socialise and get to know
one another on a personal level. “I almost think that the social forum here
may, in fact, be most important of all, if and when there are many people on
both sides of the conflict talking silly and exchanging jokes and personal
trivia,” believes Werbeloff.
Unfortunately, the forum ground to a halt weeks after the
fighting in Lebanon ended. Faced as it was with few new members arriving,
growing recrimination and the constant, depressing daily attrition on the
ground, the dialogue simply lost steam.
Further reading
Read the Salom
Now! draft
manifesto
Madrid II: towards a civil peace in the Middle East
November 2006 – Prompted by the dire situation
in Gaza, Spain, France and Italy have floated an unexpected Middle East peace drive.
This initiative will almost certainly join other similar aborted road maps and
peace plans slowly decaying in the graveyard of international diplomacy. What
the EU needs to do is to abandon the deadlocked political level and organise a
high-profile Madrid II conference targeted at civil society to set in motion a
‘people’s peace process’. Read on
How I learned to start worrying and hate the bomb
November 2006 – With North Korea’s recent
nuclear test and Iran’s suspected nuclear designs, Khaled Diab explains why he
learned to start worrying and hate the bomb and suggests how the proliferation
of nuclear weapons can best be arrested – and reversed. Read on
Give ‘salom’ a chance
September 2006 – The
best lessons to draw from Lebanon and Gaza are that all sides lost the battle
and the only way for everyone to win the war is through peaceful means.
Politicians have shown a lack of imagination and willpower and so it is up to
ordinary Arabs and Israelis to lead them down the path to salam/shalom (peace).
It is high time to demand Salom Now! Read on
Salom
now!
Reaching out for a people’s peace in the Middle
East
Using
a carrot and stick for peace
September 2006 – Given the fragile situation in
Lebanon, the pledge by EU member states to provide troops to police the
UN-backed ceasefire was well-timed. However, to avoid a fresh crisis from
erupting, Europe will have to aid efforts to forge lasting peace in the Middle
East. Read on
Salom
now!
Mobilising the untapped power of Arab and Israeli
peaceniks
Part I – Silent world
Part II – Peace begins at
home
Crisis
in
From
complete failure to comprehensive solutions
July 2006 – Israel’s
massive onslaught against
The EU’s
new Palestine
February 2006 – It may be better for the EU to
provide more carrots and fewer sticks for Hamas, writes Khaled Diab. Read on
Dressed
to kill –
Under
the cloak of Bush’s foreign policy
December 2005 – Jeff Sommers, Khaled Diab and Charles Woolfson expose what lies beneath the cloak of US President George W Bush’s foreign policy. Read on
Time
to rethink the EU’s role in the Middle East
January 2005
– If Yasser Arafat’s death is to signify anything more than the symbolic start
of a new era, the European Union must radically rethink its role as a mediator
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to persuade the two peoples to work towards
a new dawn. Read on
Commission
wants closer EU-Israeli ties
January 2005 – The European Commission and the EU’s
former envoy to the Middle East have both come out in favour of enhancing
economic and political ties with
ă2007 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.