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Peaceful Relations
Ron Kronish
The Peace Agreements with the Palestinians represent a new beginning and bring with them much hope, mixed with awesome anxiety. Yet, we should all realize that political arrangements only create new frameworks for insuring both security and tranquillity. Indeed, peace will only be realized if we can take bold steps towards establishing peaceful relations both with the Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel and with those who will live under autonomy yet in constant interaction with us.
The need for coexistence - both within Israel and between Israel and the Palestinians in the territories and in the soon to be autonomous regions of Jericho and Gaza - will become more pronounced as implementation of the initial peace agreements moves forward in the months (and years) ahead. The new geopolitical situation will create new opportunities - and new needs - for more serious and sustained efforts of promoting better intergroup relations in our society and our region.
Just as our political leaders have realized the importance and vitality of dialogue and compromise, so will our religious and cultural leaders, on both sides need to develop meaningful and significant strategies for dialogue in the interreligious and intercultural arenas.
The best place to begin this is within Israel, where the groundwork of coexistence and cooperation has been laid very carefully by many thousands of people who have lived and experienced the benefits of shared civility as citizens of the same state. Perhaps at a later stage - in the not too distant future - this kind of dialogue can also be done under autonomy, especially as the burdens of "occupation" or "administration" of the territories are lifted on both sides, for Israelis and Palestinians.
In any event, there will need to be a multi-disciplinary approach to Understanding the Other - among Christians, Jews and Muslims - in Israel and in our region. This will necessarily involve cooperation and sustained efforts on the part of educators as well as religious leaders, kibbutzniks as well as urban intellectuals, opinion-molders as well as ordinary citizens. Moreover, it will require the inputs of strategies and substance from many theoretical and practical disciplines.
These efforts will be part of the ongoing building blocks of peaceful relations among neighbors, which will undoubtedly turn out to be just as important as the political and economic frameworks being devised for the betterment of all people in this part of the world.
*Dr. Ron Kronish is a rabbi and educator. He is presently serving as the Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (I.C.C.I.).
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