tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-936989246128851910.post6513980876365392996..comments2023-05-30T03:35:08.371-07:00Comments on Bluestocking Institute: Inflexibility or Wither Empathy or the Absence of Reasonskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10154448225043132552noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-936989246128851910.post-66558575010184809432009-04-22T05:32:00.000-07:002009-04-22T05:32:00.000-07:00Thankyou for your comments Steve - this discussion...Thankyou for your comments Steve - this discussion is exactly what we had in mind when we started the institute and blog. Also, thanks for clarifying my typo; I didn't pick it up until after I had posted (a Freudian slip perhaps?). <br /><br />I wanted to add another, albeit brief, comment, prompted by a recent address by an Arab academic in which could not bring himself to say 'Israel', rather, he used the term 'Jewish state in Palestine'. <br /><br />If the elite on EITHER side, and this applies to any intractable conflict where similar deliberate semantic games are played, can not bring themselves to such a basic recognition of the other, what hope for the rest of the populace, and thus peace?katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11919899229249579988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-936989246128851910.post-10666523997894015502009-03-21T02:02:00.000-07:002009-03-21T02:02:00.000-07:00See this: http://jiw.blogspot.com/2009/03/palestin...See this: http://jiw.blogspot.com/2009/03/palestine-victim-of-arab-betrayal.htmlSteve Lieblichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-936989246128851910.post-34318949758553145532009-03-19T23:17:00.000-07:002009-03-19T23:17:00.000-07:00Thanks for this posting Kate. Yes there are severa...Thanks for this posting Kate. <BR/><BR/>Yes there are several threads (not "threats"!) running through it, but one clear call for parties in a conflict to "walk in the others' shoes..." which is clearly always needed for real conflict resolution. Of course you're quite right.<BR/><BR/>However, as Churchill also quite rightly pointed out in the UK House of Commons when debating the sacrifice of Czeckoslovakia to the Nazi regime in 1938: "There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations between the peoples. ... but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy." <BR/><BR/>Regretfully, the Arab world has repeatedly rejected all opportunities for reconciliation and co-existence with Israel, from the Peel Commission Report in the late 1930s, the UN Partition Plan in 1947, the Armistice talks in 1949, the post 1967-war talks, the Oslo "Peace Process" (1992-2000) etc etc, while Israel has accepted each and every one.<BR/><BR/>In the specific example of the Israel-Arab conflict, the "top-down approaches" have been a major problem. <BR/><BR/>Regretfully, the poor Palestinian Arabs, who have been turned into humanitarian-aid basket cases and cannon-fodder by a sequence of corrupt and despotic leaders in the Muslim world, have suffered the most from the above-mentioned rejectionism.<BR/><BR/>The Mufti of Jerusalem, early in the 1900s, long before the establishment of Israel, agitated for murderous rejection of Jewish immigration to the region. He befriended Hitler and Himmler, and planned the same "solution" as they did to his "Jewish problem" (in 1942, he planned, with the Nazi SS to set up another death camp in Cairo...).<BR/><BR/>Regretfully, the Arab leaders who opposed the Mufti and could empathise with the "other" (there were 300 of them who signed a declaration welcoming the Jewish immigrants to their ancient homeland - the document is still in the British Museum) were, and still are, drowned out by the voices of hate.<BR/><BR/>Since the Mufti, there have been a parade of Muslim leaders whose flat rejection of co-existence with a Jewish population has made it impossible for Israel to find "another" with whom to make peace, top-down.<BR/><BR/>While we individuals (at the grass roots level) can readily engage in person-to-person social interaction across all sorts of boundaries, if given the chance, how can an Israeli government "negotiate" with regimes whose entire raison d'etre is to destroy the state of Israel? What should the agenda be? ...the terms of Israel's suicide? ...the method of Jewish genocide?<BR/><BR/>So I must say I agree wholeheartedly with your thesis Kate. Both bottom-up, and top-down progress is needed. The problem in this specific conflict that you used as an example (and which is very close to my heart), the top-down is a REAL problem. <BR/><BR/>Only when BOTH sides have leaders committed to peace, can we START the process of reconciliation. <BR/><BR/>But when any one side has leaders committed to wiping the other off face of the Earth, and is prepared to stop at nothing to hold on to power, including sacrificing its own constituents...then what?Steve Lieblichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-936989246128851910.post-48970789260039651332009-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:002009-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:00I'm curious about the links between the top-down a...I'm curious about the links between the top-down and bottom-up approaches... are there examples of political elites taking steps to help foster (or discourage) empathy at the grassroots in these intractable conflicts? Are there examples of grassroots cooperation/dialogue affecting the elite level?skyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10154448225043132552noreply@blogger.com