Making the deserts bloom is not enough

Many on my so-called Jewish side fear you. At first they lumped you together in a general category under the rubric "Arabs", and didn't want to acknowledge you as people with a separate Palestinian identity. I remember arguing with some ardent Zionists back in the late 60s and early 70s trying to persuade them that Arabs were human beings, just like we all are human beings on this earth. To no avail.

I was told that you were “primitive” - though they didn't go as far as our illustrious Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, who as you know, argued that because Aborigines did not invent the wheel, it was quite appropriate, justified, to wipe them out from the face of this earth - that you did not appreciate the finer things of civilisation and that you were untrustworthy and sneaky.

Your side then engaged in terrorism, although I must say "my" side has done quite a bit of that and with greater fire power, having the state and a powerful army behind them. The Munich Olympics, then Sabra and Shatila, then countless everyday killings. This locking of each side into a solidity of Otherness is so counter-productive, so dehumanising.

I have always kept asking myself: for what and why is this conflict continuing? Religion? Hardly. Humanity has overcome religious wars since the Middle Ages. We now live in postmodern times where for too many people religion is an ideology of redemption. Yet our postmodern condition also tells us that we should let go of frozen national identities.

The propagators of these identities will trace, in their zeal to maintain them, their murderous litany of grievances against the Other back ten, or maybe a thousand generations. To die for this? We know that nuclear weapons are stored in the Middle East and ready to be used. When ...? I fear for your people and mine, and for the fate of future generations.

I have a dream that is firmly opposed to the realpolitik, that for all its false grandeur and its shuttle-diplomacy has resulted in endless wars, endless conflict and endless hate, again and again, in these last 50 years. Arabs and Palestinians have such a rich culture - your gift of algebra to the world and magical poetry is but one tiny contribution - which over the centuries has been rejected and demonised by the West. You can offer so much more if it was only accepted with open arms by the West and by us, Jews. We Jews, also, have a rich culture that can offer you new intellectual vistas.

My dream is one of a common Israeli-Palestinian identity - a rejection of the mono-cultural utopia, so popular among former General Sharon and his cohorts - slowly emerging, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of this seemingly intractable conflict: one that cross-fertilises the best in both cultures, eventually forming a new Palestinian-Israeli/Israeli-Palestinian identity.

For the present we must do everything in our power, despite the meagre power that we as ordinary citizens possess, to bring about a just peace and a just solution to this inflamed situation.

Let's join hands together and work for this.