The Only Road to Sustainable Peace: Pluralistic Democracy

At what point does an occupation become a permanent state of affairs? Here, a Palestinian child faces an Israeli soldier before the West Bank separation wall.

Creative Commons/Justin McIntosh

In medical genetics, the field in which I specialize, we believe the correct diagnosis is the best guarantee of selecting the right therapy and improving prognosis. I’d like to offer a diagnosis of the injustice in Palestine/Israel: the morass that we are in was created by an ideology called Zionism, which overlooked the immorality of transforming a multireligious and multicultural Palestine into the Jewish State of Israel.

The immoral ideology of Zionism is now being reevaluated in order to chart a better course forward instead of dealing cosmetically with its symptoms. Jews who have accepted this false idol of Zionism are leaving it in droves.

Those with some conscience who still cling to Zionist notions are mostly driven by fear and are noting major setbacks in their ill-fated efforts. These efforts previously focused on giving us Palestinians a sliver of our lands and denying the most important right we need for peace: the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands.

Our struggle is personal. On a deeper psychological level, the choice we have is between basing our actions on the worst elements of human history and daring to imagine and plan for a better future.

I entreat all of my fellow human beings to shed the chains that they have built around their own minds and make a moral stand for peace, which can happen only if native Pales tinians’ rights are respected. I predicted twenty years ago that the ardent right wing in Israel would gain more power. But I also predicted the growth of human consciousness at the grassroots level thanks to the internet and better global connectedness.

The push for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and similar nonviolent actions help accelerate the growing movement for Palestinian rights. Awareness is growing all around us, and we see people mixing everywhere (including by inter-marriage) and rejecting the notion of “us here–them there.” The trends are encouraging, and our job is to accelerate them in time to save ourselves and this beautiful planet. We cannot limit our struggle to Palestinian liberation alone — we must also take on the challenges of global warming, nuclear weapons, and the cascading fanaticism of religion-based states in Western Asia.

There are no win-lose or lose-win scenarios (not that this was ever a binary struggle). Here in (historic) Palestine, the lines of the struggle are also now clearer than ever: either you are siding with colonial racism and segregation, or you are committed to transforming the “Holy Land” (Israel/Palestine/Canaan) into a secular, pluralistic democracy for its people (who happen to be Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahá’ís, atheists, and others). The latter is the only road to sustainable peace, and it happens to be a win-win scenario for all. It is moral and it is doable, but we cannot afford to stand on the sidelines.