Friday, Sept. 26, 2003 | 9:54 a.m.
PURSUING PEACE while those around you talk of war.
If we have learned anything in the last year it is that when our country's leadership is pushing hard to go to war, it is difficult if not dangerous to talk of peace. Labeling citizens as traitors or unpatriotic when they speak about peace is suddenly un-American, a drumbeat heard around the country as we marched our young men and women to war with Iraq.
Now, picture yourself an Israeli who dreams of peace, who works for peace and who acts in the name of peace while around you, those with whom you must deal to make such a peace, are allowing murderers to bomb your children out of existence. Being called unpatriotic is child's play!
In our country, despite the horrific attacks on 9-11, the existence of the United States on the planet has never been in question. In Israel, a miscalculation about some Arab intentions could mean a fight for life itself for that tiny democratic state. So speaking out forcefully in the name of peace might not only bring ignominy but also disaster to Israel's door. The stakes, to make a fine point, are life and death high.
There is no question in any responsible Israeli's mind that for Israel to exist a generation from now as anything other than a nation under siege, the path to peace with the Palestinians and other Arab countries must be found. Killing an entire generation of angry people may be an answer for some, but it is an unthinkable one for a country founded on the precepts of peace, civility and the laws of the Torah.
Likewise, there is no doubt in any responsible Arab's mind that Israel is a democratic, life-loving country that is here to stay. No Arab country or combination of them has the military might, determination or ability to make good on some demented threats to drive the Jewish state into the sea.
So, since Israel won't kill them all and the Arabs can't, the choices are few. In fact, there is only one. And that is peace in the Middle East.
The State of Israel is 55 years old and for that entire time one man has been working -- not necessarily harder but, certainly, more consistently -- for peace in that part of the world. His name is Shimon Peres. Throughout his country's short but very dynamic history, Shimon has served his people in almost every governmental capacity including that of prime minister. It was through his efforts at Oslo, that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was able to forge a path toward a lasting peace with Israel's neighbors. That path was detoured with his death and with the final realization by the entire world three years ago that Yasser Arafat was not a man who wanted peace, despite the desires of most of the Palestinian people.
When the Palestinians decided that murder was their path toward a resolution in that part of the world, Israeli children paid the ultimate price but Israel did not give up. Israelis gave up on Arafat as a partner for peace and labeled him for the monster he has always been. And, even though Israelis yearn for peace at almost any cost, they have accepted the fact that more hardship will be endured before they can know the pleasures of such a peace.
With the current backdrop of violence in Israel, you can imagine the courage it must take for Shimon Peres to speak about and work actively for more dialogue with the Palestinians, more activity toward peace and more acceptance of the give and take process that must be undertaken for such an agreement to result. His is the kind of courage that made him indispensable to Israel's first prime minister, David ben Gurion, and an integral part of every effort for war and peace in Israel since it became a state in 1948. It is the kind of courage that earned him a Nobel Prize for Peace.
Last week Shimon Peres celebrated his 80th birthday in Israel. The people who came to honor him did so, in part, because of that courage. But there was more. There are very few people -- less it seems today -- in each generation of leaders who exemplify the very best of man's service to his fellow man. Peres is one of those rare individuals and that is why his birthday celebration drew the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who "tore down that wall"; F.W. de Clerk, the man who freed Nelson Mandela and ended the ugliness called apartheid; the Rt. Hon. David Trimble, a man who showed unwavering courage when peace in Ireland required it; and former President Bill Clinton, a man who spent precious political capital like it was water because he believed so much in peace in the Middle East.
There were others, too, including my wife, Myra, and me, who spent the weekend in Israel, not to pay tribute, but to pay respect and give thanks for the work Shimon Peres has done. The results of that work give all of us hope that peace will come, if not now, then soon.
All we see on the news reports is the violence. We hear about the suicide bombings, see Israelis mourning and then witness the attacks on those who planned the murders and those who abetted them. There seems to be no other alternative right now. And the circle of violence continues.
We saw something a little different, though, in Tel Aviv last Saturday night. There were beautiful children, 40 of them, singing songs of peace and giving us all hope that the elusive and difficult path can be found. But it was not the songs that were meaningful. Nor the fact that they enlisted former President Clinton to sing along with them. It was the kids.
The news reports in America constantly show Palestinian children fighting Israelis and vice versa until despair requires that we turn away. In the Mann Auditorium, however, Israeli and Palestinian children, most of whom have been meeting together for the past year or two seeking ways to better understand and deal with each other, sang as one. In most cases, you couldn't tell the Israelis from the Arabs, not from their looks or their voices. And barely from their language.
They are a product of the Peres Center for Peace. And when they held hands, hugged one another and gave the audience reason to hope, we did not see enemies. We saw friends. We saw hope.
It has taken Shimon Peres more than half a century to help get Israel this far down the road toward a magnificent future. We wish our 80-year-old friend the vitality and wisdom to continue his efforts as he moves headlong into the second half of his life!
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
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