War Is A State Of Mind - Conference - 'Raising Children Without Violence'

We, Israelis and Palestinians, are living in a permanent war. It has lasted now for more than 120 years. A fifth generation of Israelis and Palestinians has been born into the war, like their parents and teachers. Their whole mental outlook has been shaped by the war from earliest childhood. Every day of their lives, violence has dominated the daily news.

In many ways, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unique. Putting a complex historical process in its simplest terms, it goes like this:

120 years ago, many Jews in Europe realized that the growing nationalism of the various peoples, almost always accompanied by a virulent anti-Semitism, was leading towards a catastrophe. They decided to become a nation themselves and set up a state for the Jews. They chose Palestine, the ancient homeland of their people, as the place to realize their dream. Their slogan was: "A country without people for a people without a country."

But Palestine was not empty. The people living there objected, of course, to another people coming from nowhere and claiming their country.

The historian Isaac Deutscher has described the conflict in this way: A person lives on an upper floor of a building that has caught fire. To save himself, he jumps from the window and lands on a passerby below, injuring him grievously. Between the two, a mortal enmity ensues. Who is in the right?....

War Is A State Of Mind