Summary
Title: Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy
Author: Shlomo Ben-Ami
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195181581
Pro:
• Critical of both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
• Explains what has been done correctly and what errors have been made
Con:
• None
Description:
• Analysis and history of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis
• Argues that both sides have done awful things and failed to reach peace when it was possible
• Argues that both sides have legitimate grievances and need to learn to compromise
Book Review
The fighting and conflict in between Israelis and Palestinians is one issue that everyone should know more about, but it’s also one issue about which it’s extremely difficult to get fair and trustworthy information. Everyone seems to have an axe to grind and takes sides, portraying either the Israelis or the Palestinians as the “bad guys” and possibly without any redeeming qualities.
Shlomo Ben-Ami’s book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy is different. It’s not that he doesn’t take sides — on the contrary, as a former Israeli foreign minister, he is unapologetic in his support of Israeli and doesn’t hide the fact that he is a Zionist. This, however, makes his book all the more important because he is nevertheless also unafraid to take Israel to task for the myriad mistakes — political as well as ethical — that it has made over the years.
Shlomo Ben-Ami is an Israeli who believes in Zionism and who believes in Israel, but who also believes that at times Israel has acted shamefully, making a bad situation unnecessarily worse and engaging in behavior which it has accused the Palestinians of doing. Of course, he is also critical of the Palestnians and the many things they have done wrong, but it is his willingness to criticize both sides, despite his obvious sympathy for one, which sets his book apart from a crowded field.
Coincidentally, I read this book while travelling to New Mexico to give a lecture at the United World Colleges about the relationship between religion and violence. I wish I had read this book earlier, because it would have helped me prepare; Ben-Ami continually points to times when a negotiated, settled peace between Jews and Arabs might have been possible, but no one took advantage of the opportunities because they weren’t interested in a peace based upon compromise.
Instead, they hoped to achieve peace based upon dominating and controlling their opponents. The central theme of my lecture was that absolutist religion makes negotiation and compromise difficult, but these are ultimately the only way that peace will be achieved in the long term.
I think that Ben-Ami would agree and the “tragedy” of Israeli-Arab relations is the failure of so many others to ultimately recognize this. Essentially, both sides want everything and are unwilling to give up anything. Early Israelis were more cautious, but their impressive military victories against Arab states led to an inability to settle for lesser goals — and a belief that military force, not negotiation, could get them what they wanted. Arafat was perhaps worse, always willing to talk but never willing to make hard choices and pragmatic settlements that likely would have rendered him politically impotent among the Palestinian people.
Whether any of this is likely to improve is an open question. Ben-Ami believes that such warring sides come to the negotiating table when they have exhausted all other options and finally realize that they won’t be able to obtain what they want through force. How long will it be before Israelis and Palestinians come to this realization? Perhaps it would help if they read Ben-Ami’s book; if you get a chance to read it, you’ll be in a much better position to understand the current problems and why things keep going wrong over there.
