Palestine: Prophetic Principles Over Prophecies*

Palestine: Prophetic Principles over Prophecies outlines the emerging patterns of the struggle for freedom and justice; of unfulfilled promises, dashed hopes, untold misery, and the long search for the elusive peace in Palestine. For 60 years modern Israel flourished as the Palestinian pain and suffering grew, and Palestinian anger gave birth to new generations of fighters who draw meaning from their life of suffering by challenging the Israeli occupation.

[[*This is the preface of a pamphlet I published in 2008 under the same title. For digital copy click here. You could also obtain a print copy at Amazon by clicking here.]]

As Israel, backed by western powers, pushes harder to assert its religious claims over Palestine, and as Palestinians, supported by Muslim societies, push back to assert their human and political rights, the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict becomes the epicenter of political pressure of great proportions that threatens to shake world peace to its foundation.

There is a great urgency to bring reason, justice, and humanity to the bloody and vicious exchange that dominates the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This monograph is an open call to end Palestinian suffering and prevent the impending earthquake from taking its ugly toll. It calls for rejecting parochial solutions inspired by historically-bound prophecies and faulty interpretations and for adopting solutions rooted in the prophetic principles of justice and compassion and in the universal commitment to human rights and dignity.

A lot of hope was pinned on the peace process that started in the early 1990‟s. The hope for just peace in which Palestinians would have a fair share of historical Palestine has been replaced with dread and fear that the peace Israel is pursuing resembles the Roman Peace. The peace the Romans imposed throughout their Empire demanded a full submission from peoples who came under their domain. Ironically, it was the very peace that devastated early Jews and destroyed the last historical Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem. As the Roman poet Virgil described it, the Romans built their peace by “sparing the vanquished and crushing the proud.”

It is this overreliance on force that is deeply troubling in the pursuit of Middle East Peace. It is always tempting for those who enjoy an overwhelming power to use it to solve conflicts. The power disparity between the Israelis and the Palestinians is very obvious, and Israel has not shied away from making this fact known to its Palestinian subjects.

Power is no panacea to solving conflicts particularly when human rights, dignity, identity, and honor are on the line. If history can teach us anything at all, it should teach us that the use of brutal power to privilege one community at the expense of the wellbeing of another undermines the power of the privileged and empowers the underprivileged. Israel itself after years of using power with impunity has started to feel the limits of power. To understand this fact of history is to understand the logic of history.

It is about time that a new vision is nurtured in the West about the future of the Middle East. Not only for the sake of the Palestinian community, but also for that of the Jewish community, a genuine and just peace must be pursued. It is about time that the Palestinian misery is put to an end and a new political dynamics is set in motion in the Middle East.