"JUSTICE JUSTICE THOU SHALT PURSUE"

Trump's peace plan for the Middle East

Sun rising over Gaza. Photo by MAHMUD HAMS

None of us should be naive about the hard road ahead regarding President Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan, but neither should we be cynical. If there’s the slightest chance - and I believe there is - that Step 1 can be followed by Step 2, then all praise and credit to the team that made it happen. Much could fall apart, of course, and many details have yet to be worked out. But the fact that this is even the beginning of an end to this war is itself a giant feat.

Now, a plan having been established, we must be vigilant and mindful of our ultimate goal. The goal is not just the end of a war, but the establishment of true peace. And peace is not just the absence of war; war is the absence of peace. Positive peace, according to Martin Luther King, Jr., can only emerge from brotherhood and justice.

The architects of Trump’s Peace Plan - presumably Trump, Kushner and Witkoff - created an external architecture for ending the war. Building peace will be at least as hard, perhaps harder. It will necessitate a different kind of expertise, and an expanded set of skills. Rebuilding hearts is as difficult a work as rebuilding land. What will be necessary is an army of peace-builders, Arab and Jew, leading the way beyond the psychological and emotional damage to so many ravaged lives. It will take enlightened leaders among both peoples who can envision a time, and work assiduously towards it, when Jews and Arabs once again live side by side in peace. And this is sacred work. According to A Course in Miracles, “The holiest spot on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.”

Disconnection between our inner and our outer worlds is what created the systemic problems that beset our world today; only a politics that reconnects them will ultimately heal us. Addressing internal issues is the only way to address the level of cause. That’s true in the Middle East, and it’s true in the United States. When in the 2020 Democratic Presidential debates I spoke of the “dark psychic force of collectivized hatred” unleashed by the Trump phenomenon, many laughed. Anyone who is laughing now just isn’t looking. Collective hatred is more powerful than a million bombs, and bombs cannot destroy it. When politicians stuck in the mental mire of 20th century thinking refuse to recognize the significance of our inner lives, they might treat symptoms but they do not treat cause. When cause is not addressed, then symptoms will inevitably return.

The politics of the past will only take us so far in addressing the problems that beset us now. Whether in the Middle East or in the United States, we must deepen our political formulations to include - and take seriously - psychological, emotional and spiritual considerations. Israel of all places should know this. In Deuteronomy 16:20, it is written, “Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue.” God’s word spoken thousands of years ago is like a gong that sounds in the heavens now: Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you. It has been a terrible thing - for Palestinians, obviously, but also for the Jewish people - that we ever let the words of Bibi Netanyahu take precedence over the words of the Lord our God.

These are sobering and painful times, and any bursts of light are appreciated. Will this plan work? Let’s pray. Does the President deserve praise? You know how I feel about him, but in this he does. So much suffering, so much death, so much trauma for so many people will hopefully now come to an end. But the hate will still be there, as all of us are well aware. Only love and forgiveness, and a huge amount of justice, will be powerful enough to cast it out.