Introduction

There is no more compelling and dramatic story with more profound international ramifications than that of the conflict raging in the land of Canaan. The movement to gather Jews from across the world to the Holy Land was accompanied by the dispossession of native Palestinian Christians and Muslims. This was followed by decades of conflicts. How did Zionism translate into a nation-state for all Jews? How was such a state established in an already inhabited land? How did religious and geopolitical factors help create one of the most emotional and heated conflicts which remains unresolved to this day? These and other questions have received wide but skewed coverage in the media and in thousands of books published over the past century. This is a story that seems to generate more news internationally and more heated debate than any other.

As in other struggles, the superpowers have attempted to dictate the fate of the indigenous population without consulting them. As in other struggles, individuals have been willing to kill and be killed in the name of nationalism or religion. As in other struggles, this is a story of Cold War rivalries using populations as part of the game of domination. But unlike other struggles, it is a story with unusual twists, involving world religions, and a story that has a global impact. The events of September 11, 2001 and the US invasions first of Afghanistan and more recently of Iraq are but examples of the shock waves of this struggle going beyond its local borders. Yet despite the agony, there are signs of a moral solution involving integration and coexistence.

No other part of the world has had as much of an impact – both positive and negative – on global affairs as the land of Canaan. Here a rich history of innovation, culture, religion, and dominant civilizations evolved. It is here that dramatic and fascinating cave drawings and the stone tools of hunter-gatherers were first discovered. Here hunter-gatherers settled into agriculture, built city-states, and later developed prosperous empires that embraced centers of poetry, agriculture, trade, and science. In an area later known as the Fertile Crescent, in what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine, humans first cultivated wheat and barley and domesticated animals. It is where they first learned to use an alphabet and drafted civil laws. In short, this is where civilization first took root. The series of ancient civilizations was not a clean-cut temporal succession but a mosaic of overlapping cultures, dynasties, languages, and religions. This rich mix included some of the most successful traders (e.g. the Phoenicians), farmers of arid lands (e.g. the Nabatean Arabs), great architects (e.g. the Assyrians, Jebusites), and those who developed influential laws and religions (the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Arabs). This truly multiethnic and multicultural area oscillated between periods of war and prosperity. In the past 100 years, it has been an era of displacement, violence, and oppression.

While a rich and complex history is reduced to soundbites on television screens, six million Palestinian Christians and Muslims live as refugees or displaced people. A political and economic conflict has on occasion been reduced to simple statements about religion, violence, and ethnic slurs. Some have argued that this is one of the most complicated and difficult conflicts to resolve. They cite the conflict's supposed long history, sometimes claiming it goes back thousands of years. They cite religious involvement and other supposedly complicating factors. They sometimes arrive at the conclusion that the conflict cannot be solved but only 'managed', or at best resolved by an apartheid solution similar to the one already tried and failed in South Africa. This book will review data that suggest a logical way forward.

Britain and France fought many battles including the 100 Years' War. They now share the Channel Tunnel with free movement of people and ideas. The resurgence of conflict between those two great powers is unthinkable today. The Berlin Wall tumbled and apartheid in South Africa was dismantled. Yet the 100 years of conflict in the Middle East remains as a galvanizing force in the twenty-first century. This conflict is simple to understand, yet made complicated by claims and counterclaims, propaganda, power politics, and unimaginable violence and suffering. Israel, established to provide a safe haven for Jews, is ironically the place where Jews are at risk and subject to acts of violence. This is a book intended to provide a vision for peace based on human rights supported by international law. The vision is one of a pluralistic society for all its citizens, with justice and equality as its cornerstones. Such a vision has its detractors. It may seem unrealistic to many, including those uninitiated and those who have acquired their knowledge through mainstream western media. Therefore, I believe it is important to begin with a résumé of the history of the region in order to address some of the myths used to argue against integration and coexistence.

My purpose in this book is to take the reader through the major issues that surround the conflict in order to propose a rational solution to it. There are many books on the conflict that deal in detail with each of the issues I raise: refugees, Jerusalem, terrorism, human rights, etc. I examine the conflict as a whole, giving suggested readings on the different topics for those seeking greater detail. This lays the groundwork, despite the difficulties on all sides, for a solution, which I present in the last chapter. After so much bloodshed, people of different religions and persuasions are only now arriving at this revolutionary yet simple and logical conclusion. Myths prevent what many now know is the fitting solution to this man-made catastrophe, sometimes referred to as the 'Middle East situation'. In this book, we will also examine historical research that helps dispel the myths which have stood in the way of the most obvious and logical conclusion: a durable peace is both possible and inevitable, based on sharing and equality rather than separation and walls.

The citations I provide as sources published in hard copy or on web-sites are those I consider important. I have not tried to reference everything, except in cases where I have directly quoted someone else's work, or when I have thought it useful to do so. However, at the end of each chapter I do provide a brief list of recommended reading for those who want a more in-depth...