A plea for peace

In the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, can we choose peace over taking sides?

With the horrific reports of violence coming out of Israel and Gaza, and the voluminous commentary accompanying them, it is difficult to resist taking sides. Opinions fly fast and furious on social media. If one is hooked, it seems hard to take things in slowly, process them, and figure out what they mean at a human level beyond ideology and realpolitik.

Those, including myself, who consider all life to be sacred and precious, feel reluctant to play the game of right versus wrong in a situation where everyone seems to be losing. Bloodshed, whether it is in the name of self-defence or resistance, seems fundamentally flawed and unnecessary. Even those who manage to survive end up living in fear, mourning and hatred. The thirst for revenge is nurtured over generations, with more blood waiting to be spilled.

These thoughts led me to revisit Vietnamese Buddhist monk and human rights activist Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Peace Begins Here: Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other (2004), published by Parallax Press. It is based on peace retreats for Israelis and Palestinians that were facilitated by him at Plum Village, a monastery and practice centre in France, over several years. He describes the thought process behind his emphasis on practising peace through mindful breathing, walking meditation, deep listening, loving speech and mindful eating rather than just talking about peace. It also contains stories from Palestinians and Israelis who chose to come together for these retreats despite their suspicion and anger.

A Palestinian participant, who is quoted anonymously in this book, describes the experience. “I learned to listen deeply without rejecting the other person and his or her point of view, even if it was difficult for me to hear; and I learned how to share, especially difficult feelings and experiences, in a calm and respectful way, so that the other person would want to listen.”

On the other hand, an Israeli participant says, “To me, the possibility of Jews and Arabs living in peace, sharing one territory, one country, as equals, without feeling threatened, seemed a very distant dream. But, during our time together, I felt it was not a dream.”

Israelis as well as Palestinians featured in this book are well aware of the practical challenges of meeting and sustaining their meditation practice when they leave France and go back home. Yet they are thirsty for peace. They want to cultivate it within, and outside.

When images of dead bodies are circulating online, this possibility of peace is a healing balm. Those who are cynical might feel inclined to dismiss the book even without reading it but there is tremendous wisdom to be gleaned from the author, whose ideas are rooted in his own experience. In another book, titled Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995), published by Rider Books, he writes, “During the war in Vietnam, I saw communists and anti-communists killing and destroying each other because each side believed they had a monopoly on the truth.”

His meditation practice gave him the compassion and clarity to see everyone living through war — the Vietnamese and the Americans — as victims. “The American soldiers who had been sent to Vietnam to bomb, kill, and destroy were also being killed and maimed,” he adds.

In 1966, an interfaith organisation called the Fellowship of Reconciliation brought him to North America “to try to help dissolve some of the wrong views that were at the root of the war”. He names three Christian leaders — Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., Trappist monk Thomas Merton, and Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan — who helped him during this trip. “These were…the Americans I found it easiest to communicate with,” he recalls.

Arriving at this place in his heart was a struggle because Christian missionaries were complicit in the colonisation of Vietnam by the French. Having lived in “an atmosphere of discrimination against non-Christians”, it was tough at first to appreciate the teachings of Jesus Christ but his friendships with “Christian men and women who truly embody the spirit of understanding and compassion of Jesus” helped him view Jesus as his spiritual ancestor.

According to him, people who want to build peace between nations and communities must be willing to work with their minds first. Taking up this invitation would require us to sit face to face with all the baggage that we carry and let it go. We turn to history to refresh our wounds, instead of learning from grievous errors of the past. We find righteous ways to justify killing, instead of finding the moral courage to initiate a complete end to this cycle of suffering.

There are fires burning all over, not just in Israel and Palestine. Instead of adding fuel with our compulsive need to take sides, wouldn't it be a good idea to pause and calm down?