It always strikes me as a bit strange that we are always ready to try war again - the same war, with the same stakes, against the same (or better-prepared) enemy, as though a solution lies in the ritual of killing.
We'll start moving towards peace when we decide that peace has to be the means as well as the end. Since the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, Israel has tried to protect itself and/or to find peace by not talking with its neighbors. You can't make peace with people with whom you don't interact. You can't change the conditions for war without engagement. And with all the good will in the world, there will always be people who refuse to be won over, in a perverse mirror of the fact that, no matter how bitter the war, some people still find themselves able to see the other side as human. That is as true as the fact that water is wet, but seems (and is) far more threatening.
It always strikes me as a bit strange that we are always ready to try war again - the same war, with the same stakes, against the same (or better-prepared) enemy, as though a solution lies in the ritual of killing.
We'll start moving towards peace when we decide that peace has to be the means as well as the end. Since the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, Israel has tried to protect itself and/or to find peace by not talking with its neighbors. You can't make peace with people with whom you don't interact. You can't change the conditions for war without engagement. And with all the good will in the world, there will always be people who refuse to be won over, in a perverse mirror of the fact that, no matter how bitter the war, some people still find themselves able to see the other side as human. That is as true as the fact that water is wet, but seems (and is) far more threatening.