Venom and fish: What comes after the war?

I don’t believe anyone in the world knows all the facts and truths of the past. In today’s world there is never one version of any story or history.

But there actually IS a clear, simple, yet seemingly impossible solution to the wars between the Palestinians and Israel. A solution that has always been there to solve the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. A solution that has been and continues to be adopted by regional powers.

Before we get to that- I want to bring attention to two sayings:

1. Mark Twain- “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than on anything in which it is poured.”

By feeding anger continuously to their people, Hamas is simply poisoning their future. The hatred of Israel bred by Hamas is only harming the vessel that is the Palestinian people. The poison is harming them more that it harms Israelis.

Unfortunately no other drink has been offered by their leaders for decades. It has blinded them from their own potential as a people. It has blinded them to the opportunities that exist right in front of them. It has blinded them from realizing a future where Palestinian children do not live in poverty. A future where everyone has enough to eat. This venom prohibits Palestinians from using their creativity to live in this desert with limited natural resources without depending on the international community for meager rations. The poison has kept the potential of so many Palestinians to help save our planet and humanity. It has blinded them from seeing the contributions to the world that lay dormant and untapped in the Palestinian people.

The world wants to give money to help create a non-violent, vibrant Palestinian state. The world knows there lay potential in the people. Can someone take the venomous blindfolds off the Palestinians living in Gaza and refugee camps scattered in the Middle East?

2. “Catch a man to fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a     lifetime.”

Hamas has been catching fish to feed the people, not well, but catching fish. But it certainly doesn’t have the capability to teach the Palestinians to fish: to create a productive society that promotes equality, education, imagination, and freedom of thought and speech. Palestinians won’t use the West’s “Fishing for Dummies”, they can come up with a new fishing tactic that is wholly their own.

When Hamas is destroyed a true Palestinian leader must rise. A leader that understands the simple yet seemingly impossible solution to the Palestinian plight:

Lead the people to recognize Israel’s right to exist, as a Jewish, democratic state in the Middle East.

Israel will always exist, she has a great many warts, but she will always be. Israel can and will rein in the hardliners and extremists in her midst when this leader arrives.

I believe there is a possibility for an enduring Palestinian state. But that potential can’t be realized unless the true Palestinian leader arises, anti-venom in one hand, and not one, but many fishing rods in the other.

This is the only way to come together and stop being pawns and losing our lives in the geopolitical game of chess. The best way to cut the puppeteers’ strings, and allow all our children to grow up free, is to find a path for peace.