Lessons in Peacemaking - The Other

BELOW IS PART TWO OF A THREE-PART SERIES REGARDING MY EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS WORKING FOR PEACE IN THE HOLY LAND.

THE OTHER

In the evenings, while in Bethlehem, I would go out for dinner with my Palestinian friends and have long discussions about the history of the conflict, the current political challenges and the overall sense of hopelessness experienced by the Palestinian people. I spent more than a few sleepless nights and anxious days thinking about the pain and suffering all around me… so foreign to my secure and privileged Midwest and now Rocky Mountain lifestyle. How did they get here and what can be done??

It seems to me the reason for this conflict, and pretty much all others is our innate tendency as humans to group people not like us, in the category of “The Other”. The Other, are people who are “different”, who don’t look like us, act like us, dress like us, or believe like us. It is the negative perception of “The Other” that I believe is the root of most if not all conflict.

When we begin to fear the other, it can lead to apathy, discrimination, racism, and dehumanization. When this takes hold in societies it leads to the villainization and suspicion of the other, which ultimately leads to apartheid, war, slavery, genocide, and events like the Holocaust in Nazi Germany or the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia during the 1990s.

From a neuroscience perspective, this is an inherent human behavior. We naturally want to categorize stuff in our minds. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it’s needed and beneficial in helping us cognitively understand the world around us, to know what to act on, and what not to. What to fear, and what’s harmless. It’s ok to eat those fresh blueberries in the fridge but not the 10-day old sushi. The danger of this naturally dualistic thinking is when we start sorting people in a way that makes them less than us. We fail to empathize with them. We see them as less enlightened, less intelligent… foreign. We begin to suspect their motives, or worse yet, see them as dangerous. Once we see the other as dangerous to us, our families, our communities, our way of life, and our beliefs, we begin to fear them and fear leads to all kinds of bad mojo.

When the Jews left Europe after World War II and the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, they were in a fight or flight mentality, that never really left their collective mindset. So what you have is a whole culture, a whole people, taught from a young age, to live in fear of the other. Some of the emotional effects of chronic fear are:

A chronic sense of helplessness,
The inability to reflect before acting ethically or violently,
The inability to have loving feelings.

I believe this is what’s happening in Israel/Palestine. Fear, and at times, hatred, of the other. For Israelis; fear and hate of Arabs out to destroy them. For Palestinians; fear and hate of their oppressor, who stole their land and their way of life.

CHRISTIAN ZIONISM

An added layer of complexity to the conflict is the influence of Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism, which has its roots in seventeen century England, believes that the modern state of Israel, established in 1948, is the result of biblical prophecy. This belief centers around the idea that 4,000 years ago God promised the land to the Jews (Genesis 13:14-17, Genesis 15:18), who will rule it until Jesus’ return to Jerusalem and the rapture. It’s important to note, not all evangelicals, let alone mainline Christians, adhere to this belief, but I can tell you as a former evangelical, it’s pretty much assumed. The trouble I have with Christian Zionism, as it’s manifested in American churches, is it completely ignores Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestinians, including those who are Christian, or assumes it’s required to achieve the end result of Jesus’ return. Christian Zionists consider Israel’s illegal expansion into the West Bank a positive development and following biblical prophecy. What it doesn’t take into account are the numerous biblical references that encourage the welcoming and good treatment of the outsider, the stranger or the refugee. I also take issue with the mindset that prophecy takes priority over Jesus’s command to love one another, including our enemies, care for the oppressed and the outcasts. It seems to me that misplaced Zionism can encourage us to be less compassionate… or more inhumane. An argument can be made that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to peace in the Holy Land is misconstrued Christian and Jewish Zionism. (To learn more about the influence of Christian Zionism, check out this documentary called With God on our Side.)

HOW DO WE RESPOND?

So what is the answer? Where do we go from here? How do we change the hearts and minds of Jews, Palestinians, AND Christians to love our enemies instead of fearing and hating them? In part three in this series on peacemaking, I will share about some folks who are making a difference by encouraging peace and transformation… and maybe some hope to what appears to be a hopeless situation.