Reconciliation in the Middle East

Extract

In everyday parlance, the term “reconciliation” is used in at least two distinct senses. Think of someone saying: “They were reconciled with each other after all those years”. The picture which comes to mind is the establishment of some kind of peace or harmony after years of disagreement. “Reconciliation” in this sense is seen as eminently good and well worth striving for by active means. In religious terms, when one talks of reconciliation, one tends to think of an almost eschatological situation, when all human beings are consciously reconciled in Christ, and God is “all-in-all”. There is, however, another, more ambiguous sense of the term, although it is not as common, and does not spring as readily to mind as the unambiguously positive usage of the term. Consider hearing someone say: “They have reconciled themselves to the probability of being made redundant next week”, or something of the sort. Here, the term “reconciliation” is used in a manner not unlike “resignation”. “They are now resigned to their situation.” It is not necessarily positive, and implies a passive and perhaps grudging acceptance. It is worth bearing both of these senses of the term in mind, since different models of the tensions created in the Middle East by the existence and behaviour of the State of Israel use different senses of “reconciliation” in positing ways in which the conflict could be brought to a resolution.

My brief is to talk about “reconciliation in the Middle East”. It is my intention not to talk about the Middle East in general, but rather to focus upon Israel, to examine those things which demand reconciliation, the actors in the Israeli situation, and factors making for reconciliation.