Where angels fear to tread

People sometimes ask me if I've ever been to Israel - or to the Holy Land. And the answer is that I have, in 1966! That was before the Six Day War, when the political map so radically changed. As a family we did something which would be impossible nowadays, I suspect: drove overland across Europe, through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, in a black Ford Consul 375, spending a week in East Jerusalem (as it then was) before crossing through the Mandelbaum Gate into West Jerusalem (as it then was). The political arrangement seemed to be working quite peacefully, as far as I in my teenage  years could tell. However the uneasy equilibrium was destroyed when less than a year later Israel launched preemptive strikes against the perceived threat of hostile forces gathering on all its borders.

I'm not one for pontificating on the rights and wrongs of the present situation in the Middle East. I do suspect that meddling by external "powers" only exacerbates the mess. The British establishment has not learned the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, it seems, with its careless encouragement of the Syrian uprising over two years ago. I've just been listening to Katie Melua's thoughtful song:
"If a black man is racist, is it okay
if it's the white man's racism that made him that way,
'cause the bully's the victim, they say?
By some sense they're all the same,
'cause the line between wrong and right
is the width of a thread from a spider's web...". Apportioning blame is a mug's, or a thug's, game.

One thing I am certain of is that isolation and non-communication is not a productive policy. Which is why I am sorry that Stephen Hawking has decided not to attend a conference next month in Israel. At first it was announced "for health reasons"; then it was because of a boycott of Israel by British academics - New York Times report. It's sad, because dialogue is always more productive than silence. It's ironic, because the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem appears to be on the threshhold of a breakthrough in an ethical stem-cell treatment for ALS/MND (from which he and I suffer) and other neurodegenerative diseases, and I personally wouldn't want Israel to boycott me or fellow MND patients with the fruit of their research. A further irony is his nifty speech-generation device which is so well known as his "voice" has at its heart "a fiendishly clever silicon chip that was designed in . . . yes, Israel" (Rod Liddle, in The Sunday Times yesterday).

I much prefer the Jewish conductor, Daniel Barenboim's approach with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1999 with Palestinian American, Edward Said, which brings together musicians from all over the Middle East, including Israel and Iran. "The aim of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians and pave the way for a peaceful and fair solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Barenboim himself has spoken of the ensemble as follows:
'The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project (for) the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to - and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago - ...create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.'" (Wikipedia) 

I was recently sent a link to this fascinating YouTube clip about Ulfat Khaider, an Arab-Israeli athlete. On Facebook, she's described as reaching high peaks "not only as a mountain climber, extreme sportswoman and volleyball player (she played for the Israeli national team), but as a remarkable woman striving for peace": YouTube Ulfat Khaider. This comment followed on Facebook: "Et on dit qu'il y a l'apartheid en Israel?! Pas seulement qu'il n'y a pas d'Apartheid, bien au contraire: dans quel pays arabe elle aurait pu devenir la champion qu'elle est? la femme libre et moderne qu'elle est? Bravo Ulfat et merci!" (And they say there's apartheid in Israel! Not only is there not apartheid - quite the contrary. In which Arab country could she have become the champion she is? The liberated modern woman that she is? Bravo and thanks!)

I try not to be naïve about the complexities of the Middle East and the Palestinian "question". Of course, I don't know the solution, but I would say, whether you're a scientist, musician or sportsman, that fighting ignorance is the better way than colluding with it. In Barenboim's words, "It is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it." 

12 Steps in the Middle East

In 1966 - I remember the year because we were in Istanbul when England won the football World Cup - our family travelled overland in a black Ford Consul 375 to Jordan and Israel. Then the city of Jerusalem was divided between the two countries, and you had to cross, one way only, through the Mandelbaum Gate - which meant, incidentally, that we had to leave behind my brother, who'd just returned from Iran, in hospital to return on recovery with our mother by air. We met Arabs and Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians. Unhampered by official guides, we were free to go where we would.

Then less than a year later came the Six Day War, an extraordinary military success for Israel against the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, probably not best understood from Wikipedia, which resulted in a vast expansion of Israeli-held territory. I relate my '66 experiences not to qualify me as expert, but rather to explain my interest in that region and explain my lack of clarity about it. It seems to me that anyone who pretends fully to understand the rights and wrongs or to know the answer to the Israeli/Palestinian problem is deluded. Today the Archbishop Cranmer blog fired a broadside at the prevalent liberal orthodox view in Rich powerful Jews annihilate poor innocent Palestinians. And I have to agree that it apparently takes a well-directed Israeli drone attack on the top Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jamari (I can't remember whether we are supposed to regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation or not at present. It's certainly intent on destroying the nation state of Israel), to remind the BBC and other news organisations of the 800 missiles and mortars launched from Gaza this year into Israel. So I take Cranmer's point.

Clearly war will not prove to be the solution to the intractable problem. The Arab states' unwillingness to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and Israel's stubborn determination to exist seem to create a formula for perpetual conflict. It would take a massive amount of international repentance (including by the UK - for its [mis]handling of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine, for instance) to form any foundation for peace negotiations.

However I suspect the only hope for the parties apparently addicted to violence (including us) is the recognition of their need for a "greater Power" and something like Alcoholics Anonymous's Twelve Steps:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practise these principles in all our affairs.

For "alcohol", read violence, and for "alcoholics" read warmongers. And the whole document makes great sense in this context. The Middle East is indeed "unmanageable" and does need a greater Power to restore "sanity".

The beauty of this part of the world is haunting - and so is its pain. Ironic, isn't it, that in five weeks' time millions worldwide will be singing about a future "when peace shall over all the world / its ancient splendours fling" remembering events in this region over two thousand years ago? We should pray that it might be so.