The 'Genius of the AND' Peace - An Alternate Path | Adam Gross

There is a general principle in Judaism that Hashem provides the cure before the disease (Tractate Megillah 13b).

As Israel stands on the precipice of another existential war, G-d forbid, we may ask: what could be the solution to the 100-year conflict over the Land of Israel?

One possibility is an outright victory for either side.

While G-d may perform all manner of great miracles, as He has in Israel’s not-so-distant past, and as He continues to do albeit more subtly every day, in purely natural terms, whichever side achieves this kind of victory, it would seem likely to come at horrific human cost.

Another possibility is that the 90-year effort to create a two-state solution, most recently enshrined from the 1990s in the Oslo framework, finally comes to fruition.

More about this below.

I would like to suggest another route, which I will call the ” ‘Genius of the AND’ peace”.

One of the books that has made the deepest impact on me as a problem-solver is ‘Built to Last’ by the legendary business strategist, Jim Collins, co-authored by Jerry Poras.

Based on empirical research about what drives business success, investigating the experiences of a thousand successful companies, this is what they write:

“Builders of greatness reject the ‘Tyranny of the OR’ and embrace the ‘Genius of the AND’…

Highly visionary companies do not oppress themselves with what we call the ‘Tyranny of the OR‘ —the rational view that cannot easily accept paradox, that cannot live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time. The ‘Tyranny of the OR‘ pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both…

Instead of being oppressed by the ‘Tyranny of the OR‘, highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the ‘Genius of the AND‘ —the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing between A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B..“

Last week’s dual-parshiot, Mattot-Massei, shows that our holy Torah was several millennia ahead of Collins and Poras.

First, Tzelofchad’s daughters demanded their share in the Land so their women-only family would not lose out. The chiefs of their tribe expressed concern this would lead to tribal land passing to another tribe.

Second, the tribes of Reuben and Gad demanded the East Bank of the Jordan to accommodate their huge flocks. Moshe Rabbeinu worried this would anger Hashem by showing disdain for the Land, reminiscent of the Spies, and divide the nation.

In both cases, Hashem’s solution is the ‘Genius of the AND‘, not the ‘Tyranny of the OR‘: Tzelofchad’s daughters inherit the Land but must marry within their tribe; Reuben and Gad receive their portion on the East Bank but must lead the Israelites’ battles of conquest in the West.

So we may have some confidence that Hashem endorses ‘Genius of the AND’-kind of thinking.

Collins and Poras continue:

“[The Genius of the AND] is not talking about mere balance. “Balance” implies going to the midpoint, fifty-fifty, half and half. A visionary company doesn’t seek balance between short-term and long-term, for example. It seeks to do very well in the short-term and very well in the long-term. A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability; it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.

Irrational? Perhaps. Rare? Yes. Difficult? Absolutely. But as F. Scott Fitzgerald pointed out, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” This is exactly what the visionary companies are able to do.”

The Two-State Peace Process – the dominant paradigm for Arab-Israeli peace that has generated nothing but failure for 90 years – represents the ‘Tyranny of the OR’.

Here is an absurd Western reductionist framework that doesn’t give a toss for the religious and national sensibilities of Jews or Arabs. Rather it says, you can have peace, or you can have your religious and national sensibilities, but you can’t have both. (King Solomon, wisest of men, also had something to say on this way of thinking).

The ‘Genius of the AND’, when applied to Arab-Israeli peace, says, you can have peace and you can also have your religious and national sensibilities. In fact, done well, the ‘Genius of the AND’ would mean that each sides’ religious and national imperatives are best advanced through peace.

This Jim Collins-inspired methodology is straightforward:

Firstly define what it is that Jews and Arabs, authentically as Jews and Arabs, each actually want?
Secondly, figure out the creative way necessary to make both happen at once.

So what do Jews and Arabs, authentically as Jews and Arabs, each actually want? This is the good part, because it’s actually more or less the same thing. Let’s simplify somewhat:

The Self-Determination Imperative: Each side wants self-determination and security – in other words, a state they can call their own.
The Connectedness Imperative – Each side also sees themselves connected to the whole Land, not just a part of it. (Here, secularists – including and sometimes especially Israeli Jewish secularists – tend to get lost when it comes to understanding the Jewish connectedness to the entire Land, usually dismissing it as ‘messianic extremism’ rooted in the nebulous concept of the ‘promised land’, rather than the normative mitzvah-linked Rabbinic Judaism that it actually is, coupled with the yearnings of an exiled people that has never forgotten its home.)
The Sovereignty Imperative – Each side insists on a sovereignty claim over the whole Land, rooted for the most part in religious concepts. (Here, secularists get even more lost, misrepresenting the sovereignty claim as rooted mainly in extremist nationalism on either side, even though the sovereignty imperative is a clear religious precept, albeit in slightly different form, respectively in both Judaism and Islam).

Looking across these three imperatives, ‘tyranny of the OR’-thinking frames them as an impossible contradiction.

The Oslo supporters say, you can’t have (1) self-determination with (2) connectedness and (3) sovereignty. Therefore, cut the Land in half, give each side a country, and each side will suffice with (1) self-determination.

Except experience has shown this isn’t true.

During the Oslo process, when you think about it, both sides showed very clearly they will not suffice with (1) self-determination. Furthermore, because a majority on each side will remain deeply dissatisfied with a two-state outcome, it means that even if it could be negotiated, and even if it could be implemented, the two-state outcome could never create stability. Rather – contrary to the stated opinion of almost every global leader (except those of Israel and, ironically, Iran) – it will become a source of ever greater instability and violence.

Supporters of the one-state solution – i.e. a binational state across the whole Land in which Arabs and Jews would have equal citizenship and equal rights – have it a different way round. They say you can have (2) connectedness, but not (1) self-determination and (3) sovereignty. One-state will give you connectedness to the whole land, but you can’t also have self-determination or sovereignty. The first problem here is that, after their respective histories of oppression and trauma, neither Jew nor Arab will accept an outcome that does not bring self-determination. The other problem is, each side – unsatisfied with the one-state outcome – will sabotage the one-state with the intent it becomes a vehicle that brings the eventual achievement of (1) self-determination and (3) sovereignty, either through demography, or through violence.

Then you have the confederation-based approach of ‘Eretz l’Culam‘ , an organisation I was proud to engage with for some time. In the end, though, I found their approach also falls short. Eretz l’Culam say, actually you can have both (1) self-determination and (2) connectedness. You can add (2) connectedness to (1) self-determination by complementing two states with a confederation. The two states give each side (1) self-determination. The confederation provides the enabling framework for (2) connectedness – a framework which means all Jews and all Arabs can live, travel, work, pray and do business across the entire Land. But still they say, while you can have (1) self-determination and (2) connectedness, it’s impossible to also have (3) sovereignty. Both parties can’t be sovereign over the confederation at the same time, and neither side would accept the sole sovereignty of the other, so the confederation will require some form of power-sharing.

This is a lesser form of the ‘tyranny of the OR’ but it’s still a tyranny.

So our challenge becomes clear. We must figure out a way to have (3) sovereignty as well as (1) self-determination and (2) connectedness for each side.

This is where we need, to use the words of Collins and Poras, “to live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time”; “to have the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time”; “to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time”.

In a subsequent blog post, I will outline my proposal on how this outcome can be achieved by modifying the confederation-based approach of Eretz l’Culam.

I will also address the inevitable objections, at least from the Jewish/Israeli-side – i.e. the claim that the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace and linked to it, that a Palestinian state would quickly become a ‘terrorist state’; and second, the assertion which says the notion of a ‘Palestinian people’ is a recent creation and therefore the Palestinians do not have entitlement to a state.

Let us all in the meantime pray in these perilous times to Hashem, as we said this morning in our prayers – Ze Hayom Asah Hashem Nagila v’Nismacha Bo, Ana Hashem Hoshia Na, Ana Hashem Hatzlicha Na.