It’s a weird moment in the Middle East when an ultra right-wing Israeli politician and a former Palestinian Authority prime minister agree on anything, let alone something as controversial as the Oslo Accords.
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that “the stalled peace process … has repeatedly failed, and it is virtually certain to continue to fail in the absence of fundamental adjustments to the existing paradigm, the Oslo framework.”
A few months ago, member of Knesset Naftali Bennett similarly reflected in The New York Times that “recent events in the Middle East are a reminder of how the old models of peace between Israel and the Palestinians are no longer relevant.”
Whether either member of this unlikely duo is proven "right," in the long-term, is up for debate. But the fact of the matter is that today, the Oslo Accords are a failure. Israeli and Palestinian leaders come home from peace summit after peace summit with empty hands and little to show for the hours of negotiations. Violence continues to break out almost cyclically. Chances of a comprehensive peace agreement, assuming both parties would be willing to even come to the negotiating table yet again, are slim.
However, the fact that the top-down method of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum has failed does not preclude a less conventional, grassroots approach. In fact, it begs for one. At the end of the day, regardless of the terms of a final status agreement, the Israeli and Palestinian peoples will have to tolerate each other for any peace deal to sustain itself.
What better time than now, when the outlook is so bleak, to aim for a new, nuanced, and multi-faceted, kind of peace?
This ground breaking campaign has already begun, both online and in person. Two years ago, a Tel-Aviv based graphic designer named Ronny Edry started a viral campaign by posting a picture of himself and his daughter with the caption: “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We love you.”
The campaign went viral, racking up thousands upon thousands of shares, likes and comments across the Middle East and the world. The incredible success of this campaign spawned new Facebook forums aimed at allowing Middle Eastern peoples to break stereotypes and misconceptions simply by chatting online. Almost three years on, most striking are its Israel-Loves-Palestine and Palestine-Loves-Israel pages, which have created vibrant online communities of thousands of people desiring co-existence.
Even in mourning there lies a crucial opportunity in the new peace framework. A particularly striking organization, The Parents Circle Families Forum, serves as a support group for relatives of Palestinians and Israelis lost to the conflict. 20 years after its inception, over 600 families have come together to begin to heal deep-seated wounds.
Most important, however, is rooting the new peace in the minds of Israeli and Palestinian children as early as possible. This must happen both in and out of the classroom. As shown by the fully integrated model of the Max Rayne Hand in Hand co-existence schools, teaching Israeli and Palestinian youths together helps reshape misperceptions. In these unique, pioneering classrooms, Israeli and Palestinian children learn each other’s language, narrative and holidays, helping to increase political awareness at a time in their lives when they are most impressionable.
Extracurricular interaction between Israeli and Palestinian children is equally key to the long-term success of the new peace. Support for programs like those of the Peres Center for Peace, which hosts sports camps and other programs for Israelis and Palestinians, has further value in teaching the rational pay-offs of cooperation, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or creed.
Besides, one cannot deny that it is hard to learn to hate the classmate with whom you shared toys in kindergarten. Clearly, it is difficult to grow to despise the friend with whom you won and lost countless soccer matches.
This brings me back to the unlikely agreeing duo of Bennett and Fayyad. Some say Bennett has a shot at being Israel’s next prime minister. Fayyad, on the other hand, is on a different trajectory. Although Fayyad was ousted from Palestinian politics in 2013, some call him the man who should have been president.
Though his reputation for moderation and economic reform stands out, I am most struck by his observation that “[statehood] … is something that will grow on both sides as a reality ... creating a belief that this was inevitable through the process, a convergence of two paths, the political and the process, from the bottom up and the top down.”
We have already seen the former path twist, wind and take a turn for the disastrous. Now is the time for us to do the just and pragmatic thing, to support burgeoning co-existence programs.
As 2015 unfolds and the conflict remains unresolved, it is time to work towards sustainable peace on the ground, even if it will not happen over the negotiating table.
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