Reb Tuvyah Says...

Everyone is Cause in the Matter
by Rabbi Terry A. Bookman
rebbeaid@att.net

I have a simple operating principle whenever I encounter a breakdown in a relationship, whether it is between spouses, siblings, a parent and their child, or two nations. And that is, everyone in the conflict is cause in the matter.

Now that is not the same as saying, "It is all your fault." It is never any one person's "fault." In fact, the very word "fault" tends to keep people from owning any responsibility. After all, who wants to admit it is "all their fault"? It's nobody's fault. It just is. And yet everyone is cause in the matter. That is, everyone contributed to the breakdown. It is only when each party recognizes this that any possibility of healing or forgiveness, or reconciliation can begin to take shape. 

So long as we are in the blame game — if only they would (you fill in the blank) — we can feel "right," but the situation and everyone caught in it will stay stuck. I guarantee it.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East. Now, while I am always hopeful of a breakthrough (after all, who can predict anything over there?), the possibility of a peaceful resolution has not looked this bleak in more than two decades. And though the finger pointing is pretty fierce these days, one thing I know — everyone is cause in the matter.

Recently, this was captured brilliantly by Trudy Rubin, who writes for The Philadelphia Enquirer and was reprinted in newspapers around the country. She writes:

Traveling in Israel and the West Bank, and talking to leaders on both sides, one thing soon becomes apparent: The Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the last two decades is dead. Israeli leaders don't believe in it, Palestinian leaders have given up on it and the White House has abandoned it.

An end to talks on a two-state solution means a slide toward a "one-state solution" in which Palestinians outnumber Jews inside Israel's borders. This ensures perpetual violence. There was a promising alternative to this grim prospect but Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leaders all failed to seize it. And so the peace process died. 

Why did things develop this way?

In part, because the political scene in today's Israel has moved further to the right than any time in my 40 years of covering the region. During my stay, Israeli media were focused on bills by right-wing lawmakers aimed at giving conservatives more control over Israel's Supreme Court and restricting foreign funding for nongovernmental organizations that criticize government policies. In this climate — and given 18 years of failed talks — Israelis have little faith in the peace process.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he would accept two states, but his concept of Palestinian statehood is too limited for any Palestinian leader to accept. Nor has he shown any willingness to challenge the powerful Jewish settler movement, whose numbers constantly increase on the West Bank. And in part, the process ended because of public pressure on Abbas to produce some results, in the wake of the Arab Spring. Confronted with expanding Israeli settlements and limited prospects for a state — the Palestinian opted to take his quest to the United Nations. Abbas' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told me this tack was not meant to preclude negotiations, but to save the dying two-state option by enshrining it at the United Nations. 

The Obama administration could have worked to channel the Palestinians' U.N. request in a positive direction — back toward negotiations. Instead, the White House joined Israel in threatening to punish the Palestinian Authority. We now have a situation with little prospects for a return to talks. There was a promising alternative to this grim impasse: a set of creative peace proposals put forward in 2008 by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after two years of discussions with Abbas. Well-informed Israelis and Palestinians tell me these ideas could have propelled the process forward. But Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. leaders all dropped the ball.

Sad but true. Unlike what you will typically hear in American Jewish establishment circles, everyone has dropped the ball. And as President Obama begins to shift his focus on being reelected, the Palestinians and Israelis have drifted away from negotiations. 

Ms. Rubin's ominous conclusion? "The peace process as we've known it is over, but the status quo can't last."

Let's pray she is wrong on that one. For right now, prayer is all we have.