An Unimaginable Peace

The sight of Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands over a peace accord between their peoples evokes prophetic images. Swords into plowshares; spears into pruning hooks; preparing for war no more; above all, the dead, dry bones of peace prospects taking on sinew, flesh, and spirit. Standing together in the sunshine of a late summer morning in Washington, D.C., the old antagonists, Arafat and Rabin, symbolized the unexpected, the unimaginable, the unbelievable that only God's Spirit can ultimately effect in human affairs.

This, then, must be our first and most important word on the accords between the Israelis and Palestinians: a jubilant recalling of God's promise of peace affected in ways that defy prediction. The Creator has done it again--an unlikely, some would have said impossible, reconciliation of seemingly irreconcilable nationalistic claims.

Two other comments seem to have gotten lost in the reams of material written and spoken about the agreements. Not many observers highlighted the fact that all of the principals in this historic peace accord came to Washington, D.C., to make it official. However, one pundit who did--Charles Krauthammer--put it in these disturbing words: "Anyone who doubts that Washington is the center of the universe has not been paying attention." The idea of Rabin, Arafat, Peres, Abbas, and a host of others trooping halfway around the world for the blessing of an American president gives us pause.

CAUTION IS URGED by experts on all sides about expending American lives and treasure on foreign policy issues except in clear cases of national interest. Many Americans would agree with this sentiment, yet it can hide a dangerous xenophobia. Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Desert Storm have illustrated that our perceptions of national interest can go tragically awry. U.S. leadership, as any national leadership, simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing in every case of international conflict.

We would have found much more comfort had the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement been signed elsewhere than Washington, D.C.--at the United Nations, for example. That body, for all its faults, still holds out the best hope for the increasingly sought-after world governance as humanity moves into the next century. Nations, including the United States when it suits our purposes, call on the United Nations to intervene in the affairs of sovereign countries. Why not acknowledge it as a force for peace in the world when an achievement like that of the recent accords comes to fruition?

Or the final signing and the Rabin-Arafat handshake seen 'round the world might have taken place in Oslo. The Norwegians, in the person of consummate diplomat and foreign minister Johan Jorgen Holst, shepherded the delicate talks to their successful conclusion. They, not the United States, really deserved the spotlight when the accords came to be formalized. Creativity and poetic justice might then have emerged if the Nobel committee that selects its peace laureate each year had used the signing as the occasion to award the prize for 1993 to Holst, Rabin, and Arafat.

Perhaps the real but unsung heroes were the unheralded patriots on both sides who worked for years to bring about today's rapprochement. Groups such as Peace Now and the Women in Black on the Israeli side worked for peace with the Palestinians even when it was a most unpopular position.

And people such as Mubarak Awad of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Washington, D.C., and Jonathan Kuttab, an attorney in Jerusalem, continuously injected the note of nonviolence into the Palestinian struggle for equality and statehood. Hanan Ashrawi continued to lead the Palestinian delegation in the official talks, doubtlessly aware that "back channel" negotiations in Norway were where the real action was happening. Two crucial players in these back channel talks were Professor Yair Hirschfeld, a Haifa University expert on Arab affairs, and Yoel Singer, a lawyer who has had a hand in every Israeli-Arab accord since 1974.

Most of these people are ordinary folks who passionately hope, pray, and work for peace. They are men and women with whom we can identify and celebrate in their present moment of vindication.

Moreover, they teach all peace seekers a most valuable lesson in persistence. They kept alive the flame of hope when it seemed that peace could never be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians. The successful outcome of their long and quixotic pursuit of peace gives enormous encouragement to all who labor in other areas of the world for the same goal.

Joe Nangle, OFM was outreach director of Sojourners when this article appeared.