Building Palestine from the Bottom Up by Shlomo Ben Ami

Oil grown by Jews, Druze, Arabs and Bedouin together
Oil grown by Jews, Druze, Arabs and Bedouin together

Shlomo is right, that the only tangible successes in Palestine in recent years have been the local, mayor-based projects of safety and security. He also knows well that without the political, endgame progress, that these local successes are just ways to make the Palestinian open-air prison of the West Bank into a nicer showcase of Bantustans. It can only be the prelude to nation building if President Obama rhetorically crushes the last vestiges of neoconservative tactics, this time in Jerusalem, that insists on driving Palestinians out of any place to live in their ancient city. This cannot continue, because it must be a home for two peoples.

The “bottom” that Shlomo points to, security and infrastructure projects, are not ‘bottom’ enough for me. The real ‘bottom’ of peacebuilding is the heart of these two peoples, the searing rage, anger, humiliation, fear and paranoia that must be responded to by effective on the ground changes. The overriding need is to push for policy changes regarding the IDF and its behavior. But this may not come any time soon. At the very least we need aggressive people to people work in which the United States insists that the parties allow progressives on both sides to freely, without being shot or threatened, plant uprooted trees together, build housing together, oppose nonviolently the location of the horrific wall, and many other activities of innumerable good groups and people of good will on both sides. Shlomo, tell the leaders, who you used to serve with, to get out of our way, so we can build the heart as well as the body and the head of a new reality.

© Marc Gopin

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