Statehood for Palestine

Palestine is one more step further along the road to full statehood.

The history of the Middle East is one that is filled with broken promises. That is the single reason why the acts of the past must be let go, not forgotten but let go. Everyone in this region has incurred great damage, lies, deceit and blatant violent hatred.

The state of Palestine is not an evil empire any more than Israel is. The evil comes from the people which are taught to hate, not the state itself. We have to understand that a government does not really exist. It is this simple, a state does not exist if the people do not. So to say the Palestine is an evil empire is in reality not possible because Palestine is made up just like every other country we invent. With that if the people change so will the government. So to say the Palestine does not deserve to be recognized as a state because of its ideology is absurd. Perhaps this understanding is too simplistic for most but the reality remains. The people are the government and people will and do change.

We have been living with chaos in the Middle East for centuries and enough is enough. To be honest I really do not care who fired what rocket or who lied to whom.  The fact is that there has been no resolution to the idiocy that has gripped the Middle East and we must seek other options. Recognizing Palestine is a step that is long over due.

We often forget that boundaries, cultures, people and realities change. In forty years we have the opportunity to look back and see this step as the force which brought peace. I hope that is the reality in forty years. As I look around at the leadership of the current world, I have serious doubts. There is a deep distrust today because no one has taken the bold steps towards peace. Let this step be that motivator of peace, not further violence and war.

The violence and distrust that exists in the Middle East is easily understood. Basically there is a great level of insanity within the leadership of the entire region. How else can you make sense of why people choose to live within such chaos? This is what people are not understanding, the situation in the Middle East has come about due to choice. The choice has been to live in a violent, chaotic and peaceless environment, why?

I can hear the answer loudly stated as this. “Because they can not be trusted! They do not want peace! They have never honoured any peace agreement!”

You just have to step back and see how the blaming of others is a zero sum strategy. It solves nothing and only continues a cycle of aggravation as those that are being blamed respond by justification of their actions. We have been witnessing this very reality in the Middle East for centuries now.

The “Two State Solution” is one more step towards completion. How long it will take or even if it happens is only guess right now. Recognizing Palestine as a state is a path that needs to be tried.

Middle East peace and the individual

When starting out to study peace and conflict, the emphasis on inner peace was made known to me early. From there all emotions of life have been understood. A war between two countries was quickly introduced and brought into the realm of a personal relationship. This connection between the international peace and a personal peace is understood as outer peace and inner peace. Within this dynamic is how the world comes into my mind.

The situation between Palestine and Israel that has rolled along for decades is one violent conflict that has lost a great deal of trust between each other. In another part of the world we have the insanity of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Central African Republic, and both Sudans.

In the realm of a personal relationship, trust is paramount and trust is equally important within international relations. If the trust factor is understood to be a violent relationship, that trust exists even though it may not be the desired situation. Yet violence is a trusted action in all the relations noted above. This leaves us with the question, How can peace ever be possible when violence is a trusted action?

On a personal level you can equate a similar reality when a spouse or an important friend breaks the trust built up between you and them. Such actions will bring life down to a very rudimentary level where anger and aggression are primary responses. Those responses are exactly where the countries listed above exist now.

How do we get past this so that peace is a reality?

On an international scale, inner peace is a very difficult reality because a nation has many people. What is needed is a leader that understands the need for inner peace. Furthermore, a leader that can communicate that need and emulate the mindset of peace is needed. Such leadership has not been present for many years. In this event we must rely on the leadership of others. The sad reality is that the leadership of the other countries is just as weak and untrustworthy. Religious leaders have just as much blood on their hands as the political leaders. The United Nations Security Council system is powered by the untrustworthy leadership of the Permanent Five. This leaves us with the leadership capacity of the individuals.

The leadership of the individual brings us right back to the need for inner peace. This is when each of us has to look at how we think, understand and act to both ourselves and each other. A philosophy that helps to understand peace is to balance where you see yourself and others as helping or hindering efforts to obtain a peaceful relationship.

Are your comments centred around the relationship, you or the other? Peace is a relationship that has a trusted harmony of mutual respect. For an example of poor mutual respect, being Canadian I have lived with the imbalance of respect that the political leadership in the RUSA has for Canada. This imbalance of respect has filtered down to the average person and results in the constant comments of Canada being taken over, being insignificant and having the impression that the RUSA can tell Canada what to do. This is not a peaceful mindest. However, there have been enough peaceful interactions/relations between the two to understand that peace is more valuable than the rhetoric of disrespect. The reality of the disrespect is still there and it is often spoken about when the two leaders meet.  This keeps the issue at the forefront of all situations and that makes the relationship easier and more peaceful.

In that example we can see how leaders work to ensure the rhetoric of the people does not escalate. Furthermore we can see how the need for the individual to be peaceful is a must.

In the cases of Israel, Palestine, DR Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Central African Republic, Both Sudans and Burundi, there is very little respect and most communication is done with weapons. Before the weapons are no longer used the leaders have to build a certain level of trust and or respect. This is where ceasefire agreements come into play. Once we can get to a point where the weapons are no longer used and put away, the work to build a peaceful reality will begin. 

To make a parallel to a personal relationship, is having a friend that tells the truth yet that truth is that they continue to hurt and cheat you a peaceful relationship?  For the international scene, such truth is a hard reality of life when weapons have been put away. Some poeple act in ways that are destructive and all you can do is let them go to destroy themselves. Hopefully they will not and rebuild theirself into a more peaceful person.

More often though such situations will quickly see weapons/aggression put to use again out of anger, frustration and a desire to exact revenge to balance out the pain and suffering one has felt.

Again the need for inner peace is needed. It is not an easy path yet we must look to understand how others are trying to help further peaceful realities. Even if that person is insane, there has to be a string of understanding. For the peaceful person the task of understanding is ever present.

Corruption and aggression

After reading a great many articles and essays from around the world, it is really interesting to read news reports from across the world as well. Being from Canada I obviously read most of my news from those sources. Furthermore I try to relate what is taking place there (Canada) to what is happening globally. The two largest items for my interest in Canada have been the corruption in Montreal (which is finally being dealt with) and the issue of bullying.

Both the corruption and the aggression issues are front and centre on the global scene as well. Corruption has brought about the current global economic crisis and aggression has put the Middle East into a tail spin of chaos. What is really interesting is that both corruption and aggression spread due to a perception that all other options are not worth the effort. This perception quickly erodes all avenues of a peaceful society.

In one news story I came across, there was a link made to people that wear fake/knockoff clothing and the likelihood of that person to indulge in corruption. That idea made me think of the current economic crisis and how the world was taken by a bunch of false leaders. I quickly thought of the saying, “dress for success”. Now I know it is wise to prepare for success but mentality is way more important than appearance.

On the issue of aggression, the use of social media has been a major factor. The social media is full of false reality. There are too many people relying on this medium as a source of information and we are paying the price for it now. The actual human need for communication is being fed junk food through the social media. It has got to the point where two people will sit together and not talk because they are texting others. This behaviour has become normal yet in reality it is disrespectful. We are losing respect for each other and we are doing it as blindly as possible.

Just mentioning the absurdity of social media will irritate some people because they want to defend their actions. Most likely their response will be that I live in a reality that is dying. Well the fact of reality is that face to face communication is the primary source for building a trusting relationship. Social media is assisting in the destruction of peoples lives. Whereas in the face to face communication many of these aggressive people would not have the support, courage or reason to act as they do through social media.

On the global scene, would Israel have acted as they have in the past sixty years without the support of the United States (RUSA)?  Israel has now gone to social media to announce its military actions. Global terrorism is rooted in capturing people that are fragile and filling their minds with propaganda so as to turn them against others. This is corruption and aggression mixed together, which is exactly what Greece, Syria and other Middle East countries are now experiencing.

The world is a fascinating place even though there are times which frustrate people to no end. As I look around the world I see the commonalities of life taking place internationally and personally. As I have been working on corruption and aggression these past few months, I find the commonalities rather funny but there are moments where I just wish people could step back and switch off for a month or so. Maybe then peace will be just that much easier to obtain throughout the world.