Your Majesty,
Somaliland sun-Your proposed Arab Peace Initiative is like manna from Heaven, a noble pursuit with give and take toward reconciliation among believers in the one God. If Israel returns to the pre-1967 borders [a big if] and if Israel fosters the return of the several million Palestinian refugees [a bigger if], including their children, grand children and great-grand children to freely move, live and work inside the Israeli/Palestinian homeland, how could the Israelis and Palestinians be assured that this road towards peace would even become more peaceful? For so long, lights and shadows with moments of grief characterize the relationship among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Can we become one in the Spirit, to do that which has the most chance of being good for all concerned?
Your Majesty, any peace accord, minus full reconciliation, will inevitably collapse … without incorporating the proposed ‘EU Complement’ to your Arab Peace Initiative, the wounds will only be temporarily soothed, letting the disease to stealthily spread and eventually erupt and explode again.
I suggested a number of steppingstones – ‘8-Points EU Complement to the Arab Peace Initiative’– to harvest new promises, to connect dots heretofore unthinkable and impassable, to break out of the box.
Sooner than later the people of Israel/ Palestine can and will be Living Apart Together, inside one Home Land within two Borderless States as friends, their only option.
To be clear, we Europeans may only propose, not impose. What matters most is what the people in the Region want. So in the coming months, I’ll continue to pound on the EU leadership to step up to the plate, to challenge the Israelis and the Palestinians to converge toward a series of catalytic possibilities. The alternative can only result in more cataclysmic calamities.
The ‘8-Points EU Complement to the Arab Peace Initiative’ could serve as the catalytic game changer to forever stop any further cataclysmic calamities between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It sweetens the Arab Peace Initiative, a long awaited brew, like the Manna from Heaven.
The task is no longer a question of ‘who is right’ but to focus on building a path that will be best served for all, a path that embraces kindness and a generosity of spirit. Can and will the Israelis and Palestinians destroy their enemy by becoming friends with all the give and take to make and keep the friendship?
The Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague www.buildingthebridge.eu
Abraham A. van Kempen, Editor
Building the Bridge Foundation
The Hague, The Netherlands
