Israel – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

Truth & Reconciliation, Part 1

Posted on May 15, 2014 by kathiemm

Mujahideen in a parade after they forced the US to retreat out of Fallujah in May 2004.
Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission.

This is the first of three posts on Truth and Reconciliation by guest author Ross Caputi.

Truth and reconciliation projects have proven to be a powerful ways of bringing closure to communities affected by violence, healing the psychological wounds inflicted by war, and taking the first steps towards bringing communities that have been torn apart by violence back together.

The most successful application of this idea of post-conflict restorative justice is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the abolition of Apartheid. Many have attempted to apply this model to other conflicts involving protracted inter- and intra-group violence. Some have even tried to use it as a way of ending ongoing violence, as in the case of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

However, much of the success of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa can be attributed to the fact that Apartheid had been abolished. The unjust system that had been fueling oppression had ended, creating an opportunity to build a new society based on equality, human rights, and dignity.

We at Islah believe firmly that reconciliation is not possible while violence and violent systems are ongoing and sustained. Furthermore, it is insufficient for reconciliation projects to try to affect cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes in groups and individuals alone in order to achieve reconciliation. Dialogue, exercises in forgiveness, and the fostering of attitudinal and perceptual shifts about the conflict do not address the structural injustices that drive conflicts.

Reconciliation cannot lead to resolution; it can only be a result of resolution. Furthermore, the form of resolution called “peace,” is not desirable if the structural injustices that caused the conflict remain in place.

Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America.

Honoring the Peace President

Posted on February 17, 2014February 16, 2014 by kathiemm

The birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will be celebrated in various ways today and school children around the United States will celebrate a week’s vacation.

But we at Engaging Peace want to celebrate another American president, a man of character and honor who has worked tirelessly for peace and social justice: Jimmy Carter. He is a man of rare principle, whose message of peace and brotherhood has been matched by his deeds.

President Carter is a model of moral engagement.

He does not use euphemistic language when referring to aggression by America and its allies.

He chastised the Bush administration for using “lies and misrepresentations” to involve the U.S. in an unjust Iraq war, has urged the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and an end to its human rights abuses, and has criticized the use of drones to murder terrorist suspects and to spy on Americans.

Moreover, he is not just a talker but a doer, a man of moral agency. As President, for example, Carter:

Brokered the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin
Signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, despite enormous criticism from war hawks who considered efforts to limit nuclear proliferation a “sell out.”

Post-Presidency, he has:

Established, with his wife Rosalyn, the Carter Center, a nongovernmental nonprofit organization devoted to advancing human rights
Served as a peace ambassador in many troubled parts of the world.

Not surprisingly, Carter has many vocal critics—members of the power elite, the military-industrial complex, the war profiteers, and idolizers of bullies who are terrified at the prospect of a man of peace being a role model for the American people.

Despite what those critics do to detract from Carter’s image and his quest for peace and social justice, he is a President who earned and continues to be worthy of his Nobel Peace Prize.

Kathie Malley-Morrison

Fallujah: Death and destruction again, Part I

Posted on January 27, 2014January 28, 2014 by kathiemm

By guest author Ian Hansen

As a supporter of human rights and locally-controlled democracy in Iraq, I am dismayed to see Fallujah fall to Al Qaeda.

Al-Qa'ida training manual — Al-Qa’ida training manual, CIA Virtual Museum. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons

Some may see poetic justice for the U.S. in this development: the U.S. war of aggression has clearly backfired in Fallujah. But there’s no justice in it for the people of that historic city. I would have been happy to see Fallujah residents lead a nonviolent civil disobedience movement to regain control over their communities, but the ascendance of Al Qaeda there is a tragedy.

The people of Fallujah have already endured enough massacres, destruction of the city’s ancient buildings and mosques, and chemical weapons horrors from the U.S. siege in 2004. And although the draconian rule of the U.S.-aligned Iraqi Security Forces should be overthrown by local democratic rule, the siege by Al Qaeda is, if anything, a regression, not an improvement.

Al Qaeda is not a progressive organization, and there is nothing redeeming about it. It’s a violent oppressive scourge on Islam in much the same way that the Christian Coalition–and the U.S. military-industrial-ideological machine generally–is a violent and oppressive scourge on Christianity.

It is not a coincidence that Al Qaeda as a movement arises largely from the Arabian Peninsula, most of which is controlled by an oil-rich U.S.-Israeli ally (Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia–one of the most draconian autocracies in the Middle East–is playing a disgraceful role in the Syrian disaster right now; it just got around to abolishing slavery in 1962. Al Qaeda is at odds with the Saudi regime in obvious ways, but in other obvious ways Al Qaeda mirrors its core values.

And I don’t think that violent decision-makers in the U.S. actually want Al Qaeda to disappear (though until more evidence pours in, this is more of an accusation against our leadership’s unconscious intentions than their conscious ones).

Even at the time of 9/11, Al Qaeda was originally a pretty paltry and unpopular group. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the drone assassinations, and the other Joint Special Operation Command-CIA paramilitary killings all over the world seem to have only magnified Al Qaeda’s international presence.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

Perspectives on violence

Posted on September 12, 2013September 23, 2013 by kathiemm

By guest author Jenna Hassan

Professor Malley-Morrison’s seminar on the Psychology of War and Peace showed me how altering one’s perspective can instantly change one’s entire outlook on a situation.

Alan O’Hare showed us how just moving from inside the classroom to outside the building can change an entire experience. Once we left the classroom, all formality ceased and every student was eager to share views. When we returned to the classroom, the conversation reverted to a formal discussion.

In the film Forgiving Dr. Mengele, Eva Kor showed us how her perspective on the Holocaust and the Nazis changed from anger to forgiveness, giving her a greater sense of health and freedom—but not freeing her to listen to the perspectives of Palestinians regarding Israeli occupation.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned about perspective is how mechanisms of moral disengagement function in ways that allow people to view immoral and inhumane acts as morally acceptable.

I grew up with a Muslim father and an Irish-Catholic mother in Scarsdale, New York–-a predominantly Jewish town. I gained perspective from all three Abrahamic traditions. My connection with each often resulted in internal conflict but was ultimately beneficial, teaching me that we are all much more similar than different.

To achieve peace, it is important that we emphasize our human similarities and resist the messages attempting to persuade us that someone is an enemy because of a different religion, nationality, or ethnicity.

Jenna Hassan is an undergraduate student in the College of Liberal Arts at Boston University, majoring in Psychology and learning Arabic. She took Psychology of War and Peace in the summer of 2013.