I am writing from a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain to Amman after
attending a conference on nuclear energy run by the Gulf
Cooperation Council for Foreign Relations. Ironically, my
in-flight reading is Thomas Friedman’s award-winning book
The Lexus and the Olive Tree
– a brilliant explanation of the meaning of globalization and
its impacts on the world.
Last evening I went to dinner with two young Bahraini women who
are breaking new frontiers for youth around the region through
the Internet. We were connected by Eyal Raviv, a young Israeli
social entrepreneur who created “mepeace.org” – the Facebook of
peacemakers. Eyal met the Bahrainis and other young Arabs at a
social entrepreneurs conference in London in early March.
At the nuclear energy conference, I sat with scientists from
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the Emirates, South Korea, China and even
Iran. Much of the conference was dedicated to confronting the
dangers of the Iranian nuclear threat as documented by a former
senior official from the International Atomic Energy Agency. His
words were echoed by one of the heads of the Arab Atomic Energy
Agency, who spoke about the need to ensure that atomic energy in
the region would be used only for peaceful purposes.
The whole experience was fascinating. The organizers of the
conference knew I was Israeli but, after the Dubai affair and in
the interest of my own security, made sure that no one else did.
They even printed up a business card for me with a position
listed as being from the European division of a local Bahraini
investment company. However, I am pretty well known in the
region, and met several participants who already knew where I
was from. I cautioned them not to disclose my real identity to
others, mainly to protect the organizers of the conference.
On my way back home to Jerusalem, I am sitting next to a
Bahraini businessman en route to Amman for cancer treatment. He
is sitting with his wife and speaking Persian. They are Shi’ites
with roots in Iran – he told me his grandfather had fled from
the Persian army and ended up in Bahrain. I heard many similar
stories during my three-day visit to this very interesting and
troubled Gulf state. Bahrain’s main challenge is from within –
Shi’ite fundamentalists who wish to bring down the ruling Sunni
royal family and become a southern province of Iran.
The organizer of the conference is also Shi’ite – he is from an
intellectual family with wealth and education. He has a PhD in
international relations and his wife is a medical doctor on
sabbatical at Harvard.
I met human rights activists in Bahrain who are in a serious
dilemma. They are activists, both Sunnis and Shi’ites, working
for the rights of women, migrant workers, the unemployed and
more. They obviously would like more democracy in Bahrain, but
are aware that full democracy would probably bring an end to
stability and prosperity. It would bring an end to the monarchy,
and march Bahrain into the arms of a waiting Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In order to survive, the Bahraini Sunni monarchy should join
hands with Shi’ite intellectuals and reach an agreement for some
form of power sharing. There is an urgent need to spread the
wealth and focus attention on massive educational and economic
reforms that will help prevent the fundamentalists from gaining
popular support among the Shi’ite majority. It is better to have
half of the wealth of the kingdom than to have none of it.
ALL OF this brings me to think about our small corner of the
planet. While I was listening to my Bahraini friends talk about
their problems, all of a sudden Israel’s problems seemed so much
smaller. The main similarity in my mind is the realization that
our problems are also mainly fueled by internal disputes between
competing worldviews. I came away from Bahrain feeling a lot
more optimistic about our potential to achieve greatness as a
nation.
Our main challenge is to accept the fact that we are part of an
increasingly shrinking planet at a time when our refusal to come
to terms with the inevitability of peace with the Palestinians
pushes us to construct higher and thicker walls. We are living
in an age during which walls have come down all around us and
borders between peoples and civilizations are disappearing. Our
resistance to this change and our insistence on living by the
mantra that “we are a people who dwells alone” is becoming a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
This does not have to be our reality. We are pushing ourselves
into pariah-state status. Doors all around us could be opening,
but instead are closing, and soon even our closest friends
around the world will recommend that we stay home.
It is time for us to be honest with ourselves. There is a
possibility of making peace with our neighbors, and we all know
what is required. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and
believe that we can hold onto all of the territory, and that the
Palestinians and Arabs will simply acquiesce to our desire for
pieces rather than for peace. Yes, Ramat Shlomo and Gilo and
Ramat Eshkol and French Hill will remain Israeli. The
Palestinians understand that East Talpiot will never be
Palestinian, but we too must understand that Jebl Mukaber and
Sur Bahir, Wadi Joz and Sheikh Jarrah will never be Israeli.
We must come to terms with the fact that the Palestinians, by
their own understanding of the world and their narrative, made a
historic compromise when they accepted Oslo. In their mind they
gave up 78 percent of Palestine between the river and the sea.
They will not give up more. And we can live with this. They have
accepted the principle of territorial swaps, allowing us to
enable most settlers to remain under Israeli sovereignty.
Palestinians will also accept that the implementation of the
right of return for refugees will be only to the Palestinian
state.
All this is doable and acceptable to a majority of us. The
international community is more than willing to assist us in the
implementation of the process, and in working with us to develop
the appropriate security arrangements.
Like Bahrain, Israel’s main challenges come from within. Our own
fundamentalists, who either for messianic fantasies or belief
that we must always live by the sword, are leading us down the
path of a futile struggle against the whole world. With our
hi-tech miracle and the dynamism of our creativity and
initiative. we could emerge on top of the world. Let us no
longer be slaves to our fears; it is time to be a free people
living in peace with ourselves and our neighbors.
The writer is co-CEO of the
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (www.ipcri.org),
and an elected member of the leadership of the Israeli Green
Movement political party.
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