The never-ceasing war between Israelis and Palestinians speaks both to a kind of political mental-illness and to a failure of will and creative imagination on a grand regional and global scale. But, Bernard Weiner writes, if the desire of peace can be enlarged, there are ways out of the maelstrom of slaughter.

January 7, 2009 – San Francisco (crisispapers.org) – One definition of mental disease is when someone repeats the same counter-productive behavior again and again and again and expects different results. Which brings us to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

This time it's centered in Gaza, but the ramifications threaten to engulf much of the Arab Middle East, and Iran, and possibly beyond the region.

Each side believes that with just a bit more violent pressure, one more attack, one more mass bombing, one more unleashing of the dogs of war, the other side will bend to its will.

In effect, each side is acting out of a belief that it can make The Other simply disappear. The Palestinians, many Israelis want to believe, will migrate to other Arab/Muslim countries and leave Israel alone. The Israelis, many Palestinians want to believe, will take their Zionist philosophy and leave the premises, perhaps go to Eastern Europe somewhere or find an abandoned island in the Pacific or move to the American desert.

Both sides concoct their tragedy-producing scenarios out of such wisps of delusional belief, fueled by bloody history and/or religious or nationalist fervor. But since reality does not bend to satisfy beliefs and fantasies, the result is never-ceasing slaughter and generations of children turned into haters, killers, fanatics.

That, to me, is the real subtextual tragedy here. It breaks my heart to see Israeli and Palestinian children caught up in this vortex of violence, not just those youngsters killed and tragically maimed in the bombing and crossfire but in the larger context: This endless cycle of hate and war closes off the possibility of them ever leading normal lives of hope and peace and movement toward something better. Instead, generation after generation continues in the senseless carnage and tit-for-tat vengeance attacks. The result is the annihilation of hope, which is the ultimate war crime.

BREAKING THE SPIRAL

So is there a way out of this maelstrom of death and destruction?

I think there is, but the bloodshed has spiraled for so long as to be almost unstoppable at this point. Still the effort must be made. If Northern Ireland could reach a peaceful solution to its seemingly intractable conflict after centuries of religious/class/nationalistic warfare, other bedeviled regions might be able to do the same.

In the Middle East, there are those on both sides who understand the futility of the current paths each side has chosen. We call them "Israeli moderates" and "Palestinian moderates," but, more correctly, they should be called Middle East realists in this horrific situation.

They realize that the current spiral of violence twists and turns on itself and gets them nowhere but back to where they started. There must be some way out of here, but the voices of courage and clarity are few and far-between in Israel, Palestine and even here in the U.S. Hate, rage, mistrust, slaughter -- these dominate the Middle East's politics and policies.

It seems clear that there will be no significant progress toward peace and justice under the current leadership in Israel and Gaza. They are like two tarantulas locked in a death embrace; even if they wanted to separate, they no longer know how to release. It will take a "neutral" outside force to help them and guide them to a different, more hopeful reality.