How Humanism Can Help Bring Peace Between Arabs and Jews

By David Ibry <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The present conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East is probably one of the most serious and dangerous problems in the world today.

 

The Jews in Israel, as well as outside Israel, are a people identified by the Jewish religion, just as the Palestinian Arabs are identified primarily by the Muslim religion. The Jews dispersed in the world about 2,000 years ago. Somewhat similarly, in the past few decades, Arabs from Algeria, Morocco, and other countries have dispersed in France and other European countries.

 

It is not widely known that Zionism began as a nonreligious movement which also aimed at giving to the Jewish people a national identity connected to their ancestral homeland and entirely separate from the Jewish religion, just like the national identity of the English, or French, or Germans, which is separate from their religion. Religious Jews were against Zionism, but later jumped on to the bandwagon and, to a large extent, were able to hijack it.

 

Religions – all religions – constitute a major obstacle to peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews. Whereas all human ideas are fallible and open to compromise and the correction of possible mistakes, religion offers instead beliefs held with absolute certainty of their truth, because their messages are regarded as revelations from a source that must be infallible. I believe that Humanism could help Jews and Arabs to distinguish their identity from their religion, and thus help them to achieve a peaceful coexistence.

 

In 1913 and 1914, the Zionist leadership discussed how to prevent Arab hostility against Jewish immigration and the establishment of the state of Israel, and decided to undertake public relations exercises, contacting influential Arabs and explaining to them that Zionists had no intention of expelling them from the new state.

 

Khalil As-Sakakini and family in 1914.

My father, Benjamin Ibry, born Benjamin Berstein in Russia, was a secular non-religious Zionist pioneer who followed the Zionist Congresses and was a lifelong friend of Hahad Ha’am (A. Ginzberg), widely regarded as the theoretical leader of secular Zionism. In 1914, my father had conversations about Zionism with a well-known Arab writer and educator, Khalil As-Sakakini. When Khalil As- Sakakini subsequently reported these conversations in his published diary, they were quoted by Arab politicians and scholars and acquired considerable historical relevance.

 

Benjamin Ibry with his wife in 1923.

After 90 years, those conversations are still relevant, not so much for their content as for their spirit, representing as it does a genuine effort to reach an acceptable way for Arabs and Jews to live peacefully with one another.

 

From a Humanist point of view, the present, dangerously confrontational situation could be helped by following the lead offered by my father and Khalil As- Sakakini. Direct face-to-face discussions between Arabs and Jews should take place in front of the cameras so that they are open, and can be followed by as many as possible. It would of course be essential that nonreligious points of view were presented effectively in any such debate. Such exposure to non-religious Humanist views may develop in some viewers new thought processes challenging the religious certainties with which they have been brainwashed since childhood. This would be an essential first step towards realizing that their religiously polarized views of the national conflict between Arabs and Jews are mistaken, and may lead them towards finding new ways to solve that conflict.

 

I believe that when sufficient numbers of Arabs and Jews start doubting their respective religious certainties, coexistence between the two nations will become easier to achieve.

 

David Ibry (email: exodtohumanism@btinternet.com) is the author of Exodus to Humanism: Jewish Identity Without Religion (Prometheus, 1999). The conversations between Benjamin Ibry and Khalil As-Sakakini formed the subject of extensive research by the scholar Gideon Shilo. His analysis was published in the December 1990 issue of Cathedra, the leading Israeli historical journal.