We've heard this before in the Sermon on the Mount among other places, to paraphrase, it's been written to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but don't even the lowest of the low do that? It's instinctually easy to love those who love you, animals do this. But to rise above and love those who persecute and hate you, only this will act as a force for healing change in the world. Or as Mahatma Gandhi expressed, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." These ideas are often dismissed as "platitudinal" or "idealist" by adherents of realpolitik—but we actually see these principles at work at the community and national level, you just have to unpack the cultural background and history to recognize the wars, conflict and bloodshed that have been proactively averted by these peacemaking techniques.
The Flip Side
The shared destiny or common stakeholder approach towards cooperation, sharing and generosity is in my opinion the best way to construct a narrative and common bond together for a prosperous and peaceful future, regionally and globally. In history, this approach is often arrived at when a people are threatened and have to think out-of-the-box and take on new ways to make friends. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" is the axiom developed by the patron saint of war strategy, Sun Tzu, and in this case, war and peace strategies merge.
But this is not the only way for a people to react after being subjected to ceaseless tyranny. There is also another and more common response a people can take to sustained attacks and continual systematic repression. An attack-back mode is triggered as pure self-defense at first, but then runs amok into a well-oiled machine of unbridled permanent vengeance. It's a latch that gets stuck on an over-compensating doctrine of self-defense. This over-hyped aggressive mindset is blind to one's own sense of moral propriety and fails to see the long term negative impact preventing any possible peaceful settlement from ever taking shape. A propagation of the cycle of violence continues with revenge killings, reprisals and posturing so hard-hearted that no trust or movement can even be recognized by either side, let alone be tolerated or embraced.
For example, the Puritan Christians of New England were once severely persecuted for their non-orthodox religious beliefs in England so they set sail for the New World and settled in what was to become the United States. For many generations, there was collaboration and partnership developing between the Native American tribes and the newcomers. In fact, without the Native American's understanding of indigenous crops and other endemic survival techniques, the Puritans would have possibly perished.
But as the years went by, the cultural separation between Europeans and Native Americans was exploited into open warfare and ethnic cleansing, this combined with the resilient germs born from Europe's plagues transported in the veins of the settlers themselves, decimated the Native American populations leaving thousands where once millions flourished. The Christian Puritan discipline and piety and morality did not apply to these others, the means for survival they had once learned at the hand of oppressive violence directed at them, did not evolve past the Spiritual affliction of repeating cycles of violence and subjugation. And so it goes today in other lands with other peoples.
These populations that are threatened have learned to defend themselves in unforgiving ways, forgetting and becoming disconnected morally from their own past state of oppression. Former victims will overreach past any sense of empathy for the plight of others in an exaggerated burst of militant triumphalism. A self-reinforcing, self-congratulatory frenzy takes place within the in-group lauding the members for their righteous and heroic deeds in defending against the enemy. The perversion of the mind through in group/out group thinking and racist conditioning bears its last and final fruits through the abomination of genocide. Today, this progression is taking place on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a cult of violence against innocents and terrorist acts being invested in at escalating levels.
This brings us back to our lovely Arab Druze community:
-An independent class of Arabs uniquely positioned as proven patriots to the State of Israel having served with loyalty and distinction earning the respect of Jewish Israelis and,
-Also being like the Jews in an historical sense having the depth of cultural understanding garnered from living, suffering and surviving as a minority community within hostile and potentially hostile majorities and,
-Being Arabs having a degree of political capital within Israel that could be used to bridge the gap between Arabs and Jews, bringing healing to a nation that needs the Druze's cultural and spiritual wisdom to negotiate through the rough waters, bringing Israel through her stormy adolescence.
Arab journalist Mahsoud Zvidat was the master of ceremonies for our gathering and introduced different members of Brit Olam. The Brit Olam candidates who spoke were of course Ofer Lifschtiz, Party Chair and Ms. Kinneret Golan along with Druze Sohir Hmdan and Hasidic Orthodox Joel Zeitlin and Breslev Orthodox Asa Caesar. An Arab Bedouin gentleman spoke in addition to our Druze religious leader and host Sheik Said Hmdan.
In my speech to the Druze, I thanked Sheik Said Hmdan and his son Raif Hmdan for their hospitality and making this meeting happen. I introduced my partner Rebecca Tobias (Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics), for recently joining us in Israel from the US only a few days earlier. I mentioned that I felt a Spiritual kinship with the Druze and affirmed our shared knowledge of one Spirit of Unity within our human family and in the Universe.
"I have travelled all the way from the United States to support Ofer Lifschitz and Brit Olam, he is a good man with a good heart."
I then talked about the change in consciousness that is happening around the world and that Brit Olam is helping to spearhead this shift in Israel. The Druze flag and star symbol have five colors representing five principles of understanding alongside inspirational Spiritual leaders that they revere. Green is for the Mind, as I gestured towards my head allowing for the translation to be made. Red is for the Soul and I held my heart. Yellow is for the Word touching my mouth. Blue is for the intention or force of will—and White symbolizes the realization of the will or that intention being made real here on Earth. Leading up to this day, I had heard of Druze loyalty expressed towards Israel, towards the blue and white of the Israeli flag. "We serve the blue and white!" they would proclaim.
So in my speech I paused and echoed a Druze primary tenet,
The Flip Side
The shared destiny or common stakeholder approach towards cooperation, sharing and generosity is in my opinion the best way to construct a narrative and common bond together for a prosperous and peaceful future, regionally and globally. In history, this approach is often arrived at when a people are threatened and have to think out-of-the-box and take on new ways to make friends. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" is the axiom developed by the patron saint of war strategy, Sun Tzu, and in this case, war and peace strategies merge.
But this is not the only way for a people to react after being subjected to ceaseless tyranny. There is also another and more common response a people can take to sustained attacks and continual systematic repression. An attack-back mode is triggered as pure self-defense at first, but then runs amok into a well-oiled machine of unbridled permanent vengeance. It's a latch that gets stuck on an over-compensating doctrine of self-defense. This over-hyped aggressive mindset is blind to one's own sense of moral propriety and fails to see the long term negative impact preventing any possible peaceful settlement from ever taking shape. A propagation of the cycle of violence continues with revenge killings, reprisals and posturing so hard-hearted that no trust or movement can even be recognized by either side, let alone be tolerated or embraced.
But as the years went by, the cultural separation between Europeans and Native Americans was exploited into open warfare and ethnic cleansing, this combined with the resilient germs born from Europe's plagues transported in the veins of the settlers themselves, decimated the Native American populations leaving thousands where once millions flourished. The Christian Puritan discipline and piety and morality did not apply to these others, the means for survival they had once learned at the hand of oppressive violence directed at them, did not evolve past the Spiritual affliction of repeating cycles of violence and subjugation. And so it goes today in other lands with other peoples.
These populations that are threatened have learned to defend themselves in unforgiving ways, forgetting and becoming disconnected morally from their own past state of oppression. Former victims will overreach past any sense of empathy for the plight of others in an exaggerated burst of militant triumphalism. A self-reinforcing, self-congratulatory frenzy takes place within the in-group lauding the members for their righteous and heroic deeds in defending against the enemy. The perversion of the mind through in group/out group thinking and racist conditioning bears its last and final fruits through the abomination of genocide. Today, this progression is taking place on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a cult of violence against innocents and terrorist acts being invested in at escalating levels.
This brings us back to our lovely Arab Druze community:
-An independent class of Arabs uniquely positioned as proven patriots to the State of Israel having served with loyalty and distinction earning the respect of Jewish Israelis and,
-Also being like the Jews in an historical sense having the depth of cultural understanding garnered from living, suffering and surviving as a minority community within hostile and potentially hostile majorities and,
-Being Arabs having a degree of political capital within Israel that could be used to bridge the gap between Arabs and Jews, bringing healing to a nation that needs the Druze's cultural and spiritual wisdom to negotiate through the rough waters, bringing Israel through her stormy adolescence.
Arab journalist Mahsoud Zvidat was the master of ceremonies for our gathering and introduced different members of Brit Olam. The Brit Olam candidates who spoke were of course Ofer Lifschtiz, Party Chair and Ms. Kinneret Golan along with Druze Sohir Hmdan and Hasidic Orthodox Joel Zeitlin and Breslev Orthodox Asa Caesar. An Arab Bedouin gentleman spoke in addition to our Druze religious leader and host Sheik Said Hmdan.
In my speech to the Druze, I thanked Sheik Said Hmdan and his son Raif Hmdan for their hospitality and making this meeting happen. I introduced my partner Rebecca Tobias (Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics), for recently joining us in Israel from the US only a few days earlier. I mentioned that I felt a Spiritual kinship with the Druze and affirmed our shared knowledge of one Spirit of Unity within our human family and in the Universe.
"I have travelled all the way from the United States to support Ofer Lifschitz and Brit Olam, he is a good man with a good heart."
I then talked about the change in consciousness that is happening around the world and that Brit Olam is helping to spearhead this shift in Israel. The Druze flag and star symbol have five colors representing five principles of understanding alongside inspirational Spiritual leaders that they revere. Green is for the Mind, as I gestured towards my head allowing for the translation to be made. Red is for the Soul and I held my heart. Yellow is for the Word touching my mouth. Blue is for the intention or force of will—and White symbolizes the realization of the will or that intention being made real here on Earth. Leading up to this day, I had heard of Druze loyalty expressed towards Israel, towards the blue and white of the Israeli flag. "We serve the blue and white!" they would proclaim.
So in my speech I paused and echoed a Druze primary tenet,
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