April 13, 2011
To the Editor,
Thank you for this story – and for taking the initiative to go to a Palestinian refugee camp. Many people must have told you it wouldn’t be safe.
The ‘right of return’ is an important sticking point regarding peace in the region. Your story clearly depicts the entrenched positions regarding whether this will ever happen or not.
I’d like to suggest that the conversation needs to go deeper, and you do take it deeper for the Israeli side – a deep-seated understanding that all of the Palestinians returning would effectively be the end of the Jewish State – and thus the end of a secure place for the world’s Jewish populations. This begs the question – ‘What is the Palestinian’s deeper concern?’
It could be that they need to hear recognition from Israel that they were ‘unjustly displaced’, or however they might like it framed. By going deeper in this way, a way forward might be found in which there is another way to meet their deeper need than to have them return, and/or preserve the security of the world’s Jewish populations.
In these deep-rooted conflicts, the real issue is rarely only the tangible one – the more significant issue may be intangible – ‘recognition’, ‘security’, ‘belonging’, etc. That’s where the conversation needs to be.
Having said that, when people are stuck in limbo in a refugee camp -whether they’ve chosen it or not, and others are hanging on to a small spit of inherently insecure land, of course there are also real tangible concerns – the refugees do need to go somewhere – and in this case the solution is neither obvious nor simple.
My point is that where the Palestinians live can’t be solved until the deeper issues are addressed. Counter-intuitively, the tangible issues will remain unresolvable until the deep-rooted issues are resolved – and then the tangible ones will fall into place.
David S. Pankratz, Director, Institute for Community Peacebuilding, Menno Simons College,
Canadian Mennonite University Campus at the University of Winnipeg.