BETWEEN EDEN AND ARMAGEDDON

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BETWEEN EDEN AND
ARMAGEDDON
The Future of World Religions,
Violence, and Peacemaking

MARC GOPIN

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 2000 by Marc Gopin

First published in 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2002
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gopin, Marc.
Between Eden and Armageddon : the future of world religions,
violence, and peacemaking / Marc Gopin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–19–513432-X; 0-19-515725-7 (pbk.)
1. Violence—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Conflict
management—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.
BL65.V55G67 2000
291.1'7873—dc21 99-37478

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
 Acknowledgments

n earlier, smaller version of chapter 2 was published as "Religion,

A Violence and Conflict Resolution," Peace and Change 22, no. 1 (Jan.
1997), and as "Religion, Violence and Conflict Resolution," Issue Paper No. 1,
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (Oct. 1998).
An earlier, smaller version of chapter 5 was published as "An Orthodox Em-
brace of Gentiles? Interfaith Tolerance in the Thought of S. D. Luzzatto and Rabbi
E. Benamozegh," Modern Judaism 18 (Spring 1998).
An earlier, smaller version of chapter 6 was published in Hebrew as "Con-
fronting the Secular/Religious Conflict in Israel: Suggested Solutions," in Religious
Secular Relations in Israel: Social and Political Implications, ed. Ephraim Ya'ar and
Tamar Herman (Tel Aviv: Steinmetz Center for Peace Research, Tel Aviv Univer-
sity, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 1998).
An earlier, smaller version of chapter 7 will be published in From the Ground
Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding, ed. Cynthia Sampson
and John Paul Lederach (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The
research for the latter book was supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support that I received from Nancy
Robson, whose faith in my work allowed me the time to do the research and
activism upon which this book is based. I would also like to especially acknowl-
edge the faith in me and support of my work that has been exhibited by Joseph
Montville, one of the pioneers of the field of conflict resolution, who I am priv-
ileged to call a friend and a mentor.
The following colleagues have provided crucial support and valuable teaching
to me on this journey: Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Scott Appleby, Kevin Avruch,
Aviva Bock, Robert Eisen, Gordon Fellman, Wayne Froman, Ray Gingrich, Ger-
shon Greenberg, Bryan Hamlin, Ron Kraybill, Louis Kriesberg, John Paul Led-
erach, Julia Lieblich, David Little, Marc Ross, Jay Rothman, Richard Rubenstein,
Cynthia Sampson, Michael Sells, Laurence Simon, and Barbra Wien.
I want to acknowledge the vital role that the following student/friends and
assistants have played in supporting me: Larissa Fast, Dena Hawes, Lynn Kunkle,
Erin Mcandles, Patrick McNamara, Heidi Paulson, and Sarah Rosenberg.
 vi Acknowledgments

My deepest gratitude to Rissa Leigh, my sister, and Jack Lewis for encouraging
my path as a writer throughout many years.
My wife, Robyn, has taken this journey with me, with all its hazards and risks.
She has exhibited enormous patience, provided strong encouragement, and dis-
played a willingness to sacrifice a secure life for the work that is the subject of
this book. Together with my daughter, Ruthy, we formed a bond that allowed
this book to be created. "Two are better than one.... For should they fall, one
can raise the other, but woe to him who is alone and falls with no companion
to raise him.... And a three-fold chord is not easily broken" (Eccles. 4:9d–12).
"You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride, you have captured my heart"
(Song of Songs 4:9).
I dedicate this book to my parents, Sidney Jack Gopin, of blessed memory,
and Pauline Gopin. Despite the difficult path that I have chosen for my life, they
have supported me and respected me and my dreams since I was a small boy. I
only hope that I have honored them and aided them a small amount in return.
They have come, not unscathed, through the arduous odyssey of the children of
Jewish immigrants in a century that has left permanent scars on the Jewish family.
I dedicate this book to the healing of all the suffering and all the conflict and
anger that they and their parents—and millions of others like them around the
world in many civilizations—have had to endure in this century and in this
millennium.

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you about extraordinary
things, secrets that you have not known. For thus says the Eternal Being,
the God of Israel, concerning the houses in the city and the palaces of the
kings of Judah that were torn down.... I am going to bring her relief and
healing. I will heal them, and I will reveal to them an abundance of peace
and truth. (Jer. 33:3-6)
Brookline, Massachusetts M. G.
October 1999
 Contents

I Introduction

1 Alternative Global Futures in the Balance 3

2 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution:

Mapping a New Field of Study 13

II A Critique of Current Secular and Religious Approaches

to Conflict and Peace

3 Why Modern Culture Fails to Understand

Religiously Motivated Violence 35

4 What Is Missing from Religious Approaches to War and Peace:

Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 65

5 Modern Jewish Orthodox Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence:

Strengths and Weaknesses 87

III Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking in a Multicultural and Secular Context

6 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict:

The Case of Contemporary Israel 115

7 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience:

Contemporary Mennonite Peacemaking 139

8 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution:

A Case Study of Judaism 167
 viii Contents

IV Conclusion

9 Systematic Recommendations for Intervention

in Contemporary Conflicts 199

Glossary 229

Notes 239

Bibliography 285

Index 297
I

Introduction
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 ONE

Alternative Global Futures in the Balance

A n unprecedented level of paradoxical religious movement charac-

terizes the contemporary era. On the one hand, there are a greater
number of people than ever before who are expressing either secular perspectives
on life or views of their own religions that are completely independent of tradi-
tional religious authority, dogma and law. There is more and more experimen-
tation in some quarters on the basic meaning systems of traditional religion. This
is due both to the unprecedented level of involvement of women in public reli-
gious life and to the interesting interaction of the liberal state and free religious
inquiry and experimentation. Furthermore, the unprecedented mixture of people
of all faiths in many parts of the globe, especially in large cosmopolitan centers,
has also given birth to great creativity in religious life.
At the same time, we are witnessing an unparalleled invigoration of extreme
enthusiasm for old patterns of belief and practice on the part of many others.
Whereas the former depends on the liberal state, the latter is often expressed in
active opposition to state authorities, secular authorities, and the basic institutions
of global secular culture.
This has set many religious people on a collision course with the rest of society
and, in some cases, is creating serious levels of destructive conflict and violence.
On the other hand, this religious revivalism is shaking up complacent cultural
institutions of the modern state, and it is forcing most people to rethink their
moral and political assumptions as citizens of their state, as well as citizens of a
global society.
This extraordinary level of religious activity takes place in the post-Cold War
era, which is also characterized by two countervailing trends. One trend is un-
precedented economic integration and cultural homogenization, especially at the
hands of the materialist culture associated with the Western forms of investment,
media, advertising and entertainment. But the other trend is unprecedented cul-
tural/religious fractionalization. People the world over are rebelling against this
materialist homogenization, searching out the roots of their identities, exploring
the uniqueness of their backgrounds and their original systems of meaning.
The pattern of intense integration is also felt in the liberal religious sphere in
terms of multifaith communication and cooperation that has never seen its equal

3
 4 Introduction

in human history. This, too, is transforming modern life and creating a common
global culture. Thus, while the fractionating character of religious revivalism is
more noticeable, and sometimes more violent, there is a quiet revolution of in-
tegration taking place as well.
It is not an age of a new world order but an age of great social, cultural, and
psychological uncertainty in the context of an overwhelming and almost over-
powering economic integration of the world. It is in eras of great uncertainty that
we see some human beings gravitating toward traditional religious systems in
search of stability and identity. But how this search is undertaken, and how it
integrates or dis-integrates with the world at large, depends very much on the
socioeconomic, psychological, and political situation of the individual and the
individual group.
The most important implication of this is that we see very different possible
futures emerging from the human interaction with traditional religion at this
point in time. There are patterns at work that indicate that religion is one of the
most salient phenomena that will cause massive violence in the next century. But
there are other indicators from our current experience that suggest that religion
will play a critical role in constructing a global community of shared moral
commitments and vision. Religion's visionary capacity and its inculcation of al-
truistic values has already given birth to extraordinary leaders, such as Gandhi,
King, the Dalai Lama, and Bishop Tutu, who, in turn, have had dramatic effects,
pushing the global community toward ever-greater commitments to human rights
and compassion for nonhuman and human life, regardless of race or citizenship.1
Religion has helped set the stage for a fully functioning global moral community,
which may take a long time to fully materialize but which is unquestionably
closer to fruition than a century ago. There have always been exclusive religious
visions of a peaceful world. Never before in history, however, have so many
leaders and adherents been inspired to work for a truly inclusive vision that is
multicultural and multireligious.
The contraindications to this trend are painfully apparent in the murders, the
tortures, and the religious financial support for brutal regimes, all of which have
been abundant in recent history. At the same time, there is an unmistakable level
of global commitment to shared values that is being upheld and defended every
day by literally hundreds of government and nongovernment agencies that adhere
to the international agreements of the United Nations. There is no doubt that,
difficult as it is to imagine, the brutal abuses in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo,
Tibet, and Burma would be even worse if it were not for this global consensus.
Admittedly, this consensus still lacks the teeth of enforcement, and we stand
deeply frustrated at the tragic failures. But from the long view of history, there
is a remarkable shift toward moral consensus. Religious leaders, visionaries, and
activists have played no small role in this, especially since World War II.
As with all scientific predictions in the postmodern era, we now have to ac-
knowledge that what we say and do—and how we decide to respond to these
trends—are fundamental parts of the formation of the future. By virtue of our
reactions to the patterns of the present, we steer the future in one direction or
 Alternative Global Futures in the Balance 5

another. If, for example, we as a culture act as if religious violence will simply
disappear on its own, perhaps believing that good jobs will solve all social unrest,
then the future of religion will be set on one course. If, however, we see the
problem of religion and conflict in all its complexity, as something that is a
permanent fixture of modern life until it is addressed in a new way, then it is
likely that religious history will move in another direction. How we see reality
determines the future of that reality.
It is the argument of this book that religions have always interacted in highly
dynamic and complex ways with the world around them. If, then, the traditional
forms of analysis of religions and of social conflict insist that religions must
continue to do violence to democratic culture and to the pursuit of a peaceful,
civil society, then that is what the scholars will find and what some theologians
will create. If, however, the world of thoughtful people is open to the infinite
hermeneutic variability of religious traditions, one may discover, in the most
surprising places of the religious world, the basis for a future that allows for
coexistence between religious and secular people globally and even for a shared
vision of civil society.2
Another way to look at the alternative futures is to look at these two coun-
tervailing trends as expressions of two human needs.3 One is the human need
for integration. This need to merge with the larger world has always motivated
human beings to search out new parts of the world around them, to meet new
people, and to look for the underlying causes and origins of things, which give
an overarching unity to existence. Certainly, numerous religious mythologies, as
well as scientific enterprises, typify this human need. Both mystical and scientific
drives to account for or merge in one's mind with the whole universe are typical
of this need. The mystic meditates on the ends of the universe, while the physicist
works hard on subatomic formulas that should in principle apply to the ends of
the galaxy as much as they apply to her own backyard.
On the other hand, there is a clear human need for uniqueness, for being
different from others. This expresses itself through the infinite ways in which
human beings make themselves different, from dress and habits to various formal
expressions of allegiance to small, special groups. The latter, paradoxically, often
involves a complete submergence of the individual character into the larger whole
of the subgroup. But the price for many of us is worth it because joining a
group—even one in which we must submerge our individuality—fulfills our need
for some distinctive identity and meaning system in the context of the mass of
humanity and the indifferent character of the universe. The enormous universe
that captivates the mind and heart of the mystic and the physicist is also so
overwhelming in its physical and chronological magnitude as to make individu-
ated human life feel meaningless. Unless human beings discover a meaning system
that makes them unique and important, they feel the weight of an indifferent
universe that has no interest in their past, present, or future, in neither their lives
nor their deaths.
What happens often, and what is the central problem of religious militancy
and violence (and, I would argue, many other forms of cultural and political
 6 Introduction

totalitarianism), is the confusion or melding of these two human needs. Instead

of developing a psychological and moral self capable of dealing with these
two needs—the need for integration and the need for uniqueness—and balanc-
ing them with the help of one's will, many people are tempted to do something
much more violent. They create or submit to structures that give their own
subgroup a strong sense of uniqueness and then couple that with the need for
integration with the world. But they do not integrate by visiting the world non-
violently but rather by trying to make it in their own image, by consuming
all of it, or by developing fantasies of doing this. This becomes an insatiable
drive to conquer in the hands of many ideological systems, including religious
systems.
There are many unmet human needs that are active elements in causing re-
ligious conflict, including basic issues of material resources, issues of psychological
trauma, issues of humiliation and shame, and issues of empowerment, to name
a few; we will address these varied needs and their complex interactions. But the
need to integrate warring with the need to be unique seems to be among the
most fundamental causes of conflict at the level of basic identity.4 Furthermore,
it seems to be the case that those religious people who discover a balance between
the two needs, the need for integration or merging and the need for distinctive
identity, are the ones who negotiate their religiosity in the most peaceful ways.
To have a clear sense of one's uniqueness and to combine that with a willing-
ness to explore and visit other worlds of meaning, without destroying them, are
central ingredients in religiosity that is oriented to peacemaking and conflict res-
olution. In a lecture that I delivered in Belfast, I introduced to the combined
Catholic and Protestant audience the biblical idea of ger, the stranger, who is
different than the majority group addressed by biblical law but who is also a
person who must be included at Jewish celebrations, cared for, and even loved.
He is the quintessential outsider, who is also a litmus test of the ethical conduct
of the majority group.5 In fact, it is the loving care of strangers that is stated by
the Bible as the essential lesson of Jewish enslavement in Egypt. The Exodus and
its accompanying freedom are meant to give the Jewish people the opportunity
to treat outsiders in a fundamentally new way than they were treated in other
societies. Furthermore, and equally important, the religious law is meant to
counteract the natural tendency of an abused group to pass that abuse onto
others.
In a move of exquisitely brilliant irony, this special care for the outsider is
supposed to take place every time that the religious group gathers for its most
special and unique times of identity, the holiday cycle. Thus, the need for dis-
tinctive identity and for celebration in one's own land must not overshadow the
requirement of respecting the boundaries of others—and the others' need for
those boundaries in order to maintain their own identities. The ger is a part of
one's moral universe but is not consumed by one's universe. The ger is included
but not overwhelmed, loved but not consumed. Thus, there is integration and
uniqueness, sameness and difference, which coexist in a creative set of moral and
ritual practices and obligations.
 Alternative Glabal Futures in the Balance 7

I was amazed that this Belfast crowd was so receptive to this model of
interreligious interaction, many of them expressing profound gratitude to me.
My prejudices, based on my own history of injuries, had led me to expect
that a Christian audience would not accept what I presented: a ger theology
that celebrates particularity and boundaries. I was expressing a not-so-subtle
critique of universalist religious systems that assume everyone must be under
one banner. It would seem, however, that both groups in Belfast feel vulner-
able and excluded and, at the same time, keen to maintain the borders of their
own identities. Yet, as Christians, they cannot help but long for integration
and love among all human beings, especially fellow brothers and sisters in
Christ; they know this is missing from the Irish context, and it causes pain
and shame. The ger law and metaphor gave them a profound but simple way
to embrace the deepest prosocial values of Christianity, most notably love,
or agape, without this devolving into a destruction of each group's unique
identity.
The ger concept moves well beyond a legal category of obligation to become
a metaphor of the human condition. It reifies the human situation of simulta-
neous sameness and difference, of the need for integration, love, and acceptance
coupled with the need to have boundaries of the separated self or group.
This is a central theme of this book, and I will return to it often as a possible
solution to seemingly intractable religious militancy. It also may help us address
some fundamental questions of human community in the modern world and
how we can negotiate integration, disintegration, and the building of community
despite our deep differences.

This book will explore the question of how we can understand the violent actions
of people motivated by religious zeal and will also explore the ways in which
world religions have contributed to peacemaking. It is the argument of this book
that organized religions can, with the aid of certain interventions, become major
assets in the construction of a global civilization that manages to limit conflict
to its nonviolent, constructive variety.
There are a series of reasons why the relationships among religion, conflict,
and peacemaking have been misunderstood until now. It is partly due to mistakes
of students of religion and partly due to mistakes of students of human conflict.
Mostly it is due to the unusually complicated set of influences on religious belief
and practice, which makes predicting and understanding religious behavior dif-
ficult; this sends most analysts running for cover. Furthermore, there has been a
natural tendency for religiously motivated actors to distrust theoreticians and
practitioners of conflict resolution, and vice versa.
But we cannot run away from this problem, because it is plainly apparent that
the standard mechanisms of conflict management that have been developed by
global civic institutions, as well as those of the modern state, are failing to address
adequately the needs and problems of religious militants. Until they do, we face
the possibility of a large section of humanity becoming increasingly alienated
from the entire experiment with the modern state, as well as from the mod-
 8 Introduction

ern international system of cooperation on the civic issues of health, human

rights, social justice, and basic freedoms.
Chapter 2 outlines the need for and the parameters of a new field of study—
religion and peacemaking—and examines the challenges and complexity of mas-
tering so large a phenomenon.
The second part of this book examines what has prevented the students of
conflict from understanding religious conflict and why religious studies scholars
have tended to overlook the prosocial elements of religion, which are critical to
constructing conflict resolution and peacemaking ethics in each tradition. I also
analyze two historical models of conservative religious philosophies, looking at
how they could form the basis for peacemaking and what their limitations are.
The conservative expression of most religious traditions presents the deepest chal-
lenge in terms of peace and conflict, and thus I direct my energies to exploring
how one constructs conservative paradigms that are nevertheless committed to
peacemaking on a deep level. In particular, the challenge is always to move beyond
the righteous rhetoric of peace and to explore the prosocial basis and the antisocial
problems of a religious paradigm, as these would interact with contemporary
constructs of the liberal state or the global community.
The next section is dedicated to paradigms in the present of confronting deep
social crises involving religious people and utilizing indigenous religions and cul-
tures to heal those conflicts. At the same time, it is an investigation of how to
integrate the best available techniques of analyzing and resolving conflicts with a
deeper understanding and utilization of religious resources in the various world
religions. This is a complicated task that involves an engagement with the field
of conflict analysis as well as an in-depth look at religious systems of meaning
and ethics. This section is mainly meant as a paradigm for further work in all
the world's religious traditions and as a challenge to the various schools of conflict
resolution to adjust their insights and practices to the world of religious human
beings. It also involves a deliberate process of synthetic construction of religious
institutions, myths, and values, specifically geared to the art of conflict resolution
in the modern context.
Chapter 8, in particular, engages in a constructive analysis of Judaism, pro-
viding a paradigm of how one can honestly investigate the antisocial and prosocial
elements of a tradition, or the conflict-resolving and conflict-generating elements
of a tradition, and utilize this analysis to hermeneutically construct a conflict
resolution philosophy and practice. The aim is to produce a practice of peace-
making that could appeal to even the most militant of religious revivalists in the
present period.
This is by no means a final model of peacemaking but an evolving set of
explorations, nor do I ever recommend applying these models blindly and hap-
hazardly to the field. It is a paradigm of what we may be able to encourage and
engender in future relations among and between religious and secular members
of a given society or culture. I do not want to preempt or underestimate the
importance of models of peacemaking being developed indigenously by the par-
ties to a conflict. It is also meant to demonstrate at a basic level just how far poli-
 Alternative Global Futures in the Balance 9

cymakers, diplomats, and peace activists need to move from their present rigid
paradigms of peacemaking. If they want to truly engage the world's religious
people as authentic partners in constructing the future of civilization, they must
fundamentally reconstruct their present interventions in conflicts.
This analysis is directed toward a wide range of actors, including policymakers,
diplomats, conflict resolution theoreticians and activists, theologians concerned
with building practical paradigms of ethics for their fellow believers, and scholars
of religion who would like to analyze religious institutions through the prism of
conflict theory. In particular, I focus on the fascinating confluence of religious
meaning systems, rituals, laws and myths, which can only be understood in their
relationship to peace and conflict through the prism of psychodyamic approaches
to conflict. The relationship between personal and collective trauma, for example,
and religious story, myth, and practice, is critical to understanding the compelling
nature of religious violence but also to understanding the indigenous ways to heal
those injuries and curtail that violence.
This brings me to the tide of this book and the importance of violence to
sacred stories. Eden and Armageddon are terms that emanate from Western re-
ligions, and, while Eastern religions receive a decent amount of attention, this
book is heavily weighted toward Western religions. This is in part due to the
stage of my research at the present time, but it is also due to the overwhelming
sources of religious violence in world history that emanate out of Western reli-
gions or the Abrahamic monotheistic faiths.6
Eden refers to the Garden of Eden, the idyllic original place of birth of the
human male and female as recorded in the beginning of Genesis. Mythically,
Eden was a place of limitless vegetarian food, no toil, no suffering, no death,
simple natural beauty, perfect weather, and no need for any clothing, as there
was only one man and one woman. But there was one simple condition, namely,
that the fruit of just one tree of the garden would not be consumed. The Eden
story is about the tragedy of the human inability to accept limitations or bound-
aries and the need to consume everything.
As I said earlier, regarding the biblical concept of ger, a basic motif of this
story involves the question of the need to merge with all and thus consume
everything, versus the ability to make space for the Other in the world. There are
many other themes that underlie this timeless myth, but it is clear that the in-
ability to set boundaries, the failure to recognize a separate space for that which
one cannot have, is a central theme. Eden is lost because of this inability, when
the snake entices Eve, who entices Adam, to eat from the one forbidden tree.
Then they are expelled.
While Eden is a mythical, supernatural place, it has always excited the religious
dreams of devotees of the Bible, and it has stimulated the belief that Earth can
be a more blessed place than it is currently. It is the protean place of mythic
home and imagined homecoming. Thus, as we think of how religion can con-
tribute to or thwart our attempts to make the earth and the global community
of humankind better than it has been, especially in the twentieth century, I
thought it appropriate to place Eden as one of the polar antipodes of the reli-
 10 Introduction

gious contribution to the future. This seemed especially apt because the ideal of
Eden entails the ability to exult in an integrated environment of ultimate beauty,
spiritual fulfillment and deep meaning for the individual. But it also expresses a
perpetual warning against the excesses of the human need to merge with the
whole, to consume everything, and thus to destroy the beauty that one has been
given.
Armageddon refers to a place of final, cosmic battle between good and evil,
between those who follow God and those who are less than human, "the beast,"
who will be utterly destroyed in the most horrible ways imaginable. It too is a
place that is dreamt of with great imagination but imagination that is by defi-
nition sadistic. This is a vision of extreme violence, the roots of which are found
in the New Testament book of Revelation, chapter 16. In addition, this is part of
a much larger history of predictions of terrible cosmic battles that permeate
Middle Eastern religious traditions, including the Day of the Lord predictions
that are to be found in the Hebrew biblical prophets.7 All of these apocalyptic
visions utilize the human capacity to fantasize about the most horrific forms of
retribution. All three monotheisms contain apocalyptic visions that generally in-
volve violent destruction of those who are "enemies of the Lord" or "enemies of
God's people" or "infidels," with parallel visions of the salvation of the few who
are true to the one God, whichever name that God goes by.
There are some important versions of the apocalyptic myths that include an
uncanny level of violence but also include critical references to the deep injuries
of those who have suffered for God and the way in which this final act of violence
is retribution for those injuries.8 This is an important clue to why and when
Western religions, in particular, turn to solutions of extreme violence to resolve
the problems and tragedies of life. We will pay special attention to the collective
injuries of religious people and to how religious institutions both offer comfort
for those injuries and magnify their reality, perpetuating their damaging effects
and fixing the hurts as permanent features of life. This is what makes processes
of reconciliation so hard in religious cultures. The natural resistance to reconcil-
iation by those who have experienced terrible injury, unrecoverable personal loss,
and humiliation couples with religious rituals, which turn this reaction into a
permanent fixture of the cosmos, the way the world must be until some great act
of revenge is perpetrated.
As will be shown, world religions have a reservoir of prosocial values of pro-
found subtlety and effectiveness that, if utilized well, could form the basis of an
alternative to violence in coping with conflict or coping with devastating injury.
But this will take a conscious effort on the part of peacemakers, theologians, and
average people to engage the world of religious institutions with an eye to creating
a nonviolent future. In particular, it will involve an effort to dismiss no group,
give up on no subculture, as we attempt to build a peaceful future. That is not
to say that one cannot condemn certain acts and achieve important consensus
on delegitimizing various forms of destructive conflict. But it does mean that, in
principle, we develop the courage and the skill to engage all religious communities
in the belief that all communities are capable of prosocial practices and peaceful
 Alternative Global Futures in the Balance 11

paths to future dreams. In particular, it will involve the ability to share space
with secular communities and to envision a future of coexistence with them, even
if a religious person's ultimate, private dreams include a hope that such com-
munities find "the truth" of one particular religious vision.
There is an infinite set of possibilities associated with religious institutions and
their behavior in terms of peace and violence. I never cease to be amazed by how
the seemingly most violent religious institutions or texts in history give way over
time to the most exalted values and moral practices. At the same time, the most
pacifist foundations of a tradition can be turned toward the service of the most
barbaric aims. It all seems to depend on the complex ways in which the psycho-
logical and sociological circumstances and the economic and cultural constructs
of a particular group interact with the ceaseless human drive to hermeneutically
develop religious meaning systems, texts, rituals, symbols, and laws.
This is a deeply dynamic process, no matter how rigid religious institutions
may appear to the unskilled eye or to the unsympathetic or fearful critic. What
we do, how we all address this vital issue in the coming years will directly affect
the course of this great interpretive enterprise. We must find the way to engage
this period of religious history with intelligence, with skill, with compassion, and
with an eye to creating a more peaceful twenty-first century in which religion is
integrally involved in creating the good global community.
To believe that we can create a perfect global community, given the serious
divisions of religion and the exclusive claims to truth, is somewhat naive. But the
evidence of history and the hermeneutics of religious traditions strongly indicate
that we have, over time, done both better and worse at this task, and that, with
the development of better skills and deeper understanding, we do have the ca-
pacity to move the world community in a far better direction, in terms of peace
and conflict resolution for religious communities, than has been attempted until
now.

Two points should be emphasized about the structure and thrust of this book
before proceeding.
There is an overall argument that I make about world religions, violence, and
peacemaking, but the case studies are not exhaustive, and they are heavily focused
on Judaism and the Abrahamic faiths. Each religion is unique in terms of its
approach to peace and conflict, and, as I will show, has multiple voices within
the tradition as well. At the same time, there are lessons to be learned that cut
across religions, both East and West. It is true, for example, that Judaism is heavily
focused on worldly ethical concerns, whereas much of Buddhist discipline is
geared toward the inner life and the attainment of nirvana. At the same time,
elements of Judaism have always been distinctly otherworldly, and there are cen-
tral aspects of Buddhism that are distinctly practical and political. No major
religion that is thousands of years old, with millions of adherents, has not had
broad experience with ethics, politics, and the psychology of war, peace, and
interpersonal relations. Thus, all of them have lessons to both learn from and
teach to each other. Therefore, although this volume's case studies have a certain
 12 Introduction

emphasis, I hope that they will be instructive by way of contrast and comparison
for numerous religious traditions, which we will investigate in other studies.
The second point is that my emphasis in this volume tends to be on the more
conservative, strident—fundamentalist, if you will—expressions of modern reli-
gion. The reason for this is that these expressions generally have been the ones
to evoke the most conflict and violence in the modern world. My recommen-
dations for ways that these expressions of religion can be engaged more produc-
tively and ways in which civil society can proceed in better relationship with them
in no way implies a disparagement of the liberal or modern expression of these
same religions, the latter being far more ready to engage in peaceful coexistence
with modern states and cultures. It is true, however, that I call upon liberal
streams of secular and religious cultures to rethink the dichotomy between them-
selves and these religious enthusiasts. There is a need for both the interpreters of
traditional religion and the interpreters and proponents of liberal secular or re-
ligious culture to confront the Othering and demonizing of their counterparts or
adversaries. This has been painfully apparent, for example, in Jewish Israel as a
major component of its culture wars and the corresponding or derivative lack of
Jewish consensus on transforming the relationship with Palestinians. Thus, pro-
gressive and liberal wings of a society, sometimes especially the so-called peace
camp, can be rather destructive in their indulging of their own sets of fears and
hatreds. This only makes religiously sanctioned violence even more extreme.
There is a need to work on all sides to construct hermeneutics of religious
traditions, as well as hermeneutics of modern culture and the modern state, that
work together to prevent a descent into the kind of religious warfare that plagued
the Middle Ages, the last time that religion came to dominate the lives and psy-
chologies of millions of monotheists. There will also be a need to plumb the
depths of human psychology in these matters of conflict and deep injury, to
understand the nature and complexity of human conflict, and to apply this learn-
ing in new and constructive ways to religious adversaries and the conflicts in
which they are engaged.
 TWO

Between Religion and Conflict Resolution

Mapping a New Field of Study

E very major religion of the world has expressed at some point,

through its leaders and thinkers, a commitment to the value of
peace, both in classical texts and modern reformulations.1 Furthermore, religious
actors are playing an increasingly important and valuable role in resolving inter-
national conflicts. These include Mennonites, Quakers, and Catholics, who have
successfully intervened in and mediated African, Asian, and Latin American con-
flicts, and key Buddhist leaders, such as Maha Gosananda from Cambodia, Thich
Nhat Hanh from Vietnam.2 But a faith-based commitment to peace is a complex
phenomenon. While some believers creatively integrate their spiritual tradition
and peacemaking, many others engage in some of the most destabilizing violence
confronting the global community today. The purpose of this chapter is to outline
what will be necessary for a new course of study of religion that will examine its
relationship to conflict and conflict resolution methodologies.
Through our long human history, religion has been a major contributor to
war, bloodshed, hatred, and intolerance. Yet religion has also developed laws and
ideas that have provided civilization with cultural commitments to critical peace-
related values, including empathy, an openness to and even love for strangers,
the suppression of unbridled ego and acquisitiveness, human rights, unilateral
gestures of forgiveness and humility, interpersonal repentance and the acceptance
of responsibility for past errors as a means of reconciliation, and the drive for
social justice.
There are two essential benefits to exploring a relationship between religion
and conflict resolution theory. First, there is a vast reservoir of information in
sacred texts on peacemaking and conflict and on prosocial and antisocial values
that affect conflict. This literature contains a long history of individual struggles
with the inner life, which have either led toward or away from a violent dispo-
sition. What has worked and failed to work in the past and why? What can these
stories teach us about the relationship between violence and the religious person

13
 14 Introduction

in a particular culture? The replicability of past methods of conflict resolution or

methods of deterring a violent disposition should be of critical concern.
Second, religion plays the central role in the inner life and social behavior of
millions of human beings, many of whom are currently actively engaged in violent
struggle. Diplomats and conflict resolution experts could benefit from an in-depth
understanding of the motives for either violence or coexistence. With this un-
derstanding, there might be more productive interaction between religious com-
munities and conflict resolution strategies.

The Nature of Religious Decisionmaking Regarding

Peace and Violence

It is certainly often the case that motives other than religion, such as the desper-
ation of economically disenfranchised people, are central to conflict. However,
religious language and symbolism are critical ways in which human beings in-
terpret reality,3 expressing the full range of emotions in religious terminology. It
is essential to be schooled in how the myths, laws, or metaphysical assumptions
express in the minds of believers their deepest feelings. This enables the negotiator
to empathize with the forces on both sides of the conflict and to dynamically
interact with the spiritual language of frustration and anger that leads to violence.
Thus, even if the roots of the conflict are economic disenfranchisement, the revolt
against the status quo may in fact express itself in religious terms.4 This neces-
sitates an intervention strategy that can acknowledge and utilize the role of reli-
gion.
It is important to understand not only the relevant texts of a religious system
but also the actual practitioners themselves. What, for example, is the inner life
of a Gandhian Hindu today in India who is dedicated to peace, as opposed to
another Hindu who is prepared to destroy a mosque and die in the effort? What
are the metaphysical priorities of each, and why do they attach themselves to
differing visions of Hinduism? Clearly there is a complex array of contributing
influences beyond religious instruction or orientation, and it would be valuable
to examine several overtly identifiable aspects of such choices. For example, which
sacred phenomena—texts, rituals, or images of God or gods—emerge most often
in the minds of believers who are prone to violence, as opposed to those who
are prone to conciliatory approaches? These questions raise the need for empirical
studies that combine an intimate knowledge of the lived religious traditions en-
gaged in conflict with a social scientific understanding of why particular texts and
symbols are clues to both the deep motives of conflict and the possible herme-
neutic ways to move religious adherents to a less violent place.
Let us illustrate with an example. Many violent trends are initiated in India
with various radical Hindu parties' use (or abuse) of sacred mythic tales of the
gods, using the dramas of defeat and victory to stir up rage against foreigners
and, specifically, Muslims. The standard, rational, Western approach to this,
which many middle-class and academic Hindus have embraced, is to fight for
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 15

the strengthening of the typical components of a civil society—civil rights for all,
a free press, honest courts, integrated police enforcement, and so on—and that
effort is to be lauded.
I have a good friendship with Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi, one of Mahatma Gan-
dhi's most active grandchildren, who has dedicated his life to peacemaking, to
the spiritual improvement of Indian society, and to Hindu-Muslim reconciliation.
Dr. Gandhi asked my opinion a couple of years ago about writing an expansion,
or modern fictional continuation, of the Mahabharatha, one of the most central
mythic epics of Hinduism, whose various episodes and characters are known by
most Hindus and are retold repeatedly in literary creations, at celebrations, and
on television. One of his close associates thought this to be ill-advised, considering
how much else he needed to write about the urgent needs of Indian peace and
conflict. Gandhi asked my opinion, and I did not know quite what to say, trying
to be respectful. After I read a while later that Shiv Sena, the most radical Hindu
party, had caused an immense amount of conflict by dressing up a car as a mythic
god, driving it through the country, and stirring riots against Muslims, I realized
what Gandhi was up to. He wants to engage the deepest myths of Hindu reality
and evoke from them the ideas of nonviolence, bringing out what he believes to
be their ultimate spiritual truths, which he, his grandfather, and many others see
as expressing the highest virtues, including ahimsa, nonviolence.
I realized much later, after years of training students and researching, that
Gandhi was exactly right, that our solutions must speak to the average person's
mythic sense of the true and the untrue. And that if we understand exactly how
fomenters of violence appeal to otherwise decent people, we may stand a chance
of moving society in the opposite direction.
A close study of the sacred texts, traditions, symbols, and myths that emerge
in conflict situations may contribute to several theoretical approaches of conflict
analysis theory. For example, close analysis may indicate to what degree percep-
tions of empowerment or lack thereof are at work in a particular crisis. Psycho-
dynamic models of conflict resolution that analyze the relationship between en-
emy and self or the role of deep injuries could be enriched by examining such
materials. One could also examine what human needs are fulfilled by the texts
or imagery involved. Finally, these phenomena may also provide a useful frame
of reference for conflict resolution workshops. They could create a bridge to the
unique cultural expression of a particular conflict, although more experimenta-
tion in the field will tell us how this might work well.5 For example, in a recent
training workshop for Christian peacemakers, I used Matthew 7:1 and the concept
of suspension of judgment of others both as a bridge to other monotheistic
traditions with similar moral values and as the theoretical frame of a conflict
workshop for Christians where the parties would have extra religious motivation
to humanize the Other and to suspend stereotypes during the course of their
meetings.
Theories of peacemaking and conflict resolution need to analyze the nature
of the leaders in society who have the courage to advocate peace with an enemy,
even when they are subject to ridicule. What, for example, are the laws, prophetic
 16 Introduction

texts, and rabbinic stories that passed through the mind of an Orthodox Jewish
woman who was a member of a group called Women in Black, which protested
the West Bank occupation on a weekly basis on the streets of Jerusalem? Why
was she willing to suffer insults for what she believed? What sustains that degree
of courage?6 What, by contrast, is in the mind and heart of the West Bank settler
who will die to defend his piece of sacred, ancient Israel? One may know by heart
selections from the book of Joshua in which the Israelites are commanded to
occupy all of Canaan, while the other dreams of the moment between God and
Abraham in Genesis 18:19 where the gift of the land is based on a commitment
to justice and righteousness. These textual foundations of religious positions can
offer crucial insight into what creates, sustains, or, alternatively, prevents violence
in Israeli life. We are beginning to understand now that both parties may see
their texts through the lens of deep fears and concerns and that the actions that
they see implicit in these texts and symbols may in both cases be motivated by
high ideals.
Let us illustrate this. Acting like King David and conquering the land by
whatever means necessary may be seen as conforming to the finest tradition of
Jewish idealism, helping the Jewish people flourish militarily for the first time in
two thousand years, and, in fact, being militarily stronger than even in the heyday
of the ancient Jewish monarchy (the latter possibly intimates the potential ar-
rival of the long-awaited Messiah). To think that one may be empowered to be
a part of this process is astonishing enough, but to do it in the shadow of the
Holocaust, the greatest destruction ever wreaked on the Jewish people, in the
wake of the final showdown with a gentile world that many Jews feel has always
despised them, is to be literally immersed in a divine plan.
Within this cognitive, emotive, spiritual construct, one will tend to focus on
the physical, land-based markers of ownership of the land of Israel as outer man-
ifestations of a divine spiritual program. Thus, gravesites and ancient ruins be-
come the banners of identity and, even more important, the markers of divine
intention unfolding. In this context, singing "David, King of Israel, Lives and
Survives" becomes significant, while old Eastern European songs that celebrate
humility and relatively quietistic moral virtues, such as right speech or judging
all people favorably, tend to fade into the background. I grew up hearing all the
time a song, derived from Psalms 34:13, that went, "Which man desires life, and
loves the days [on earth] to see the good? [What should he do?] Guard your
tongue from speaking evil things, shun evil and do the good, chase after peace
and pursue it." It was a popular liturgical song in the first half of the twentieth
century and one of the most magnificent songs in my family's repertoire. I do
not hear that song anymore. Many peacemakers in Israel and the Jewish com-
munity, with some notable exceptions, do not know or remember such songs,
and they, from their cultural construct, prefer to think of peace emanating from
Jews by lessening the power of Jewish spirituality not increasing it. Of course, this
leaves religious enthusiasts in the hands of a conflict-generating theology.
In the religious Zionist context that has come to dominate modern Orthodoxy,
there has developed a fundamental disagreement over the relative sacredness of
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 17

land, human life, and morality itself. For most of the history of rabbinic Judaism,
when forced to choose, the priority of sacredness has been given to human life
and morality over land.7 In the twentieth century, there has been a minor but
steadily growing trend to attach supreme sacredness to land and to sanction
violence in order to protect it.8 But there is still a great degree of inner confusion
about these matters. This confusion is important because it implies that the
choices being made for violence may be negotiable if it becomes clear that at-
taching too much sacredness to land is endangering human life. Fear and inse-
curity in the face of terrorism and war are more important in the minds of many
religious people than is the sacredness of land. That means that confidence-
building measures regarding the protection of Jewish life could be effective not
only in the secular community but also in a large portion of the religious and
fundamentalist community if it became clear that giving up land would truly lead
to this protection. The vast majority of religious Jews in Israel are not affiliated
with Gush Emunim or Kach, two radical religious groups that represent some
settler Jews who have placed a premium on land.9 Rather, the primary religious
opposition to the peace movement is simple fear of loss of life, which has explicit
halakhic (religious/legal) ramifications in terms of obligatory defense. Knowing
this should profoundly modify the goals and tactics of conflict resolution strat-
egies involving religious Jews.
There are a variety of possible explanations as to why people choose one
religious response to conflict over another. Certainly, one cannot dismiss the
cognitive or emotional needs that may be met by a particular text, idea, or spir-
itual image. Further, it is often true that there are powerful social motivations
for affiliating with a particular group that espouses a certain approach to religious
experience, an affiliation that, in turn, enmeshes the person in a particular moral,
social, and political universe. The violent or politically coercive aspects of that
response may be less important to the person than the other benefits received
from this association. How deep is the commitment to violence? Can it be sep-
arated from the rest of the spiritual commitment? For example, the Islamic Broth-
erhood in Egypt, along with other religious groups, seems to enjoy great popu-
larity for its humanitarian and postdisaster work among the poorest people of
Egypt. When people vote for the Islamic Brotherhood in the polls, are they voting
for caring humanitarians who fulfill the demands of the Qur'an to redistribute
wealth, or are they voting for a group that works to violently overthrow the
government? Clearly, we cannot know without better research, but we are certainly
failing to comprehend the appeal of extremism or to adequately address the vi-
olence if we do not understand this complex interplay of religious values and
institutions.
It is only partially true that what causes a person to focus on one text or
another is due to one's emotional nature, family upbringing, or socioeconomic
status. This is too easy a dismissal of the powerful impact of ideas and texts on
human minds or hearts in the search for guidance in ambiguous ethical and
political circumstances. It is the ambiguity of many human situations that is
crucial here. No one would assume, at least on the individual level, that an ar-
 18 Introduction

bitrary poverty line, for example, can predict who will become violent or anti-
social. Some disenfranchised people, often in the worst of circumstances, become
saints, while others become rebels, revolutionaries, and terrorists.10 To take an-
other example, a loving family structure will not necessarily provide a guide as
to how someone will behave in complex violent or confrontational circumstances.
Certainly it is helpful to have been reared in a nurturing environment, and it has
been persuasively argued that the family environment has a critical impact on
which personalities are more prone to either violence or altruism.11 Yet the am-
biguity remains, especially over an extended span of time, where the stress of
protracted periods of fear greatly affects a person's judgment. More investigation
is required into the effect of one's most deeply held beliefs on violent behavior.
For many people, those deeply held beliefs and habitual actions are religious in
character. The values and texts that spring to mind first in radical circumstances
of societal upheaval or personal crisis are critical.

Universal Codes of Conduct and Religious Subcultures

Among people of secular, liberal religious, or cosmopolitan orientations, there is

broad-based support for the notion that the best way to move society away from
religious intolerance and toward more pluralism is the development of a universal
set of political guidelines, such as those expressed in U.N. documents regarding
political and civil institutions and individual rights. However, many religious peo-
ple around the world do not share this universal, "secular" moral discourse. It is
fine to wish that they did, but in moments of crisis what is needed are methods
of dealing with religious actors as they currently define themselves. A nuanced
approach will identify those actors who are prepared to engage in a more uni-
versal discourse but will also prepare us to work as well with religious actors who
span the spectrum of attitudes toward modernity.
Analysis of religious peace organizations is instructive in this regard. Take, for
example, Oz Ve-Shalom, the Orthodox Zionist peace organization in Israel. It
has, over the course of the last twenty years, provoked a national conversation in
Israel on the nature of Jewish values, writing essays and citing numerous legal
and nonlegal Judaic sources that justify a peaceful solution to the Arab/Israeli
wars. Its publications are dedicated for the most part to justifying this position
from the vantage point of premodern halakhic and midrashic (biblical exegetical)
texts, as well as by citing contemporary rabbinic authorities.12 Many of the Oz
Ve-Shalom writers happen to be quite committed to Enlightenment conceptions
of human rights and civil liberties. But it is vital to their arguments that they
justify their positions independendy of the modern universal discourse, mostly
due to the kind of people they are trying to convince. A conflict resolution expert
who enters into such a universe needs to understand these subtleties in order to
know how religion can be used to resolve rather than exacerbate social and po-
litical conflict. The mistake of the Israeli Left has been that it often undermines
these potential allies by promoting itself politically as the group that will fight
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 19

religion in Israel, rather than as the group that will fight hateful expressions of
religion. The left fails to recognize that in lumping together all religious people
it generates more conflict in Israel rather than less, and that instead of true
reconciliation work, it is merely transferring enmity from Palestinians onto reli-
gious Jews.

Tracking Trends in Religious Subcultures

There are a number of ways in which religious texts and traditions can contribute
to conflict resolution studies. For example, in a somewhat negative sense, the
study of religious traditions and laws will reveal the dangers that lie ahead for
dealing with a particular group whose leadership is buoyed by violent traditions.
Subtle theological changes in a particular culture might provide an early warning
system of the nascent growth of religious intolerance and the justification of
violence. This would be an invaluable tool, enabling one to respond to conflict
before it breaks out or reaches a stage beyond which it cannot be controlled.
Tracing the full range of benign and violent interpretations of jihad in the Arab
world, for example, would provide an important set of clues as to the state of a
particular society.
Familiarity with classical sources might make it possible to distinguish where
and when a leader is expressing real traditions and when he is using the religion
to gain political power through the use of violence. Even if he is expressing an
authentic violent source, exploration is required to see if there is room for theo-
logical deliberation, a new look at the sources, or alternative sources that might
countermand the desire for violence or conflict that is implied in the tradition.
Religious traditions are dynamic and can change profoundly through discussion
and the influence of leadership.
In a more positive sense, conflict resolution studies should examine ways of
coexistence within the ideal community, as it is expressed in the sacred texts and
history. Leaders of most religious traditions have expressed rhetorical commit-
ment to peace, but a serious analysis of the texts and cultures in question will
yield far more than this. There have been many theologies created over the cen-
turies that are replete with ethical precepts and inspirational literature designed
to create coexistence in spiritual communities. This has something crucial to
contribute to the contemporary discussion of strategies of communal conflict
resolution and negotiation.
One example is the spiritual process of transformation of character through
reflection and ethical improvement of one's behavior. Several theories of conflict
resolution suggest the importance of personal transformation for the resolution
of deep conflicts.13 Spiritual programs of personal transformation might be com-
bined with this kind of conflict resolution methodology in religious settings. For
example, a unilateral gesture of forgiveness is encouraged in many traditions, and
much has been written over the centuries on this one self-evident but extremely
complex gesture. A related but different value is the requirement to confess to
 2o Introduction

past wrongs, to repent, and to apologize to the victim. What are the inner spir-
itual/psychological dynamics of unilateral acts of forgiveness or repentance? Could
such phenomena be incorporated into conflict resolution strategies among reli-
gious peoples, or even more generally?14 It seems to me that the answer is "yes"
if the challenge is presented equally to both sides of a conflict,15 and if it speaks
to profound cultural and religious metaphors of both adversaries.
Another aspect of religious literature that pertains here involves the critical
importance of authoritative leaders. These leaders can be either living or dead,
human or deified. The critical role of such leaders in the inner life of religious
adherents cannot be overestimated. The role of charismatic leadership in conflict
resolution theory and political psychology has received some attention.16 How can
the role of the religious leader be analyzed in this regard? In many societies,
emulation of an ideal figure, including a deity, is the foundation of all prosocial
values.17 This makes the analysis of leadership critical and might suggest unique
strategies of coping with violence. Gandhi understood this well and therefore
undertook to study and interpret the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the most widely
recounted books, and to reinterpret the role of battle, in order to make princes
and gods into teachers of a peaceful path in life.18 Furthermore, leaders play a
crucial role in the process of injury and healing mentioned above; their smallest
gestures, for better or for worse, take on mythic significance in relation to these
injuries. This is a liability when one is saddled with callous leaders and a boon
when a leader understands the healing power of symbolic behavior.

Religious Values, East and West, and Conflict

Resolution Strategies

Many values around the globe need to be identified in terms of their importance
for conflict resolution theory. Here are just a few of them.

Empathy
The critical importance of empathy in Western religious and secular traditions
cannot be overestimated.19 The concept or experience of empathy could be used
in religious contexts either in terms of advocacy and long-term education or,
more directly, in the conflict workshop setting. The advantages of its use as a
basis for devising workshop strategies is that there would be a built-in spiritual
motivation to engage in exercises emanating out of a familiar value.20 As an
example, hearing the public testimony of parties to a conflict at Moral Re-
Armament's Caux retreat center is critical to its conflict resolution process.21
Empathy is evoked by the painful story of the other party, and, in this religious
setting, both parties refer to God's role in their lives. This, in turn, generates a
common bond between enemies that has often led, with subtle, careful guidance,
to more honest discussion and relationship building.
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 21

The religious adherent must see that her way of looking at reality is being
directly addressed by the content and method of conflict resolution. If, for ex-
ample, relational empathy is a key concept that informs the conflict resolution
methodologies at work, one could explore a means to view that concept in pos-
itive spiritual terms, an easy leap for many religious value systems.22 For example,
in a dialogue or conflict resolution workshop involving devout Christians and
Muslims, one might frame the discussion in terms of emulation of God's empathy
as a vehicle to understand each others' needs and aspirations. Allah is referred to
throughout the Qur'an as "the Compassionate and the Merciful," and Jesus' em-
pathy with others in their suffering is well illustrated throughout the New Tes-
tament. Clearly, the details of how to operationalize this in a culturally sensitive
fashion would have to be adjusted to each situation.

Nonviolence and Pacifism

A critical concept for the inner life in the Eastern traditions of Jainism, Buddhism,
and Hinduism is ahimsa, nonviolence, made famous in the West by Mohandas
Gandhi.23 Certainly, in an Asian context, the elaboration and use of this principle
could be a critical cultural tool to traverse ethnic and social boundaries.
Pacifism is a related, though different, concept that has had a profound impact
on the early Christian church and many sectarian interpretations of Christianity.24
Even for those Christians who do not subscribe to a purely pacifist view of Chris-
tianity, the pacifist writings, primary and secondary, are a powerful basis of dis-
cussion and debate.25

Sanctity of Life

Another central value in religion, often a source of controversy, could also be a

source of reconciliation or joint commitments. The sanctity of life is a core value
of Christian society, however one feels about the way it has been interpreted or
the uses to which it has been put regarding abortion. What has been less obvious
is that this value of the sanctity of life is shared across many cultures.26 This, too,
could become the basis for interreligious conflict resolution.

Inferiority
Another important aspect of religious experience that will condition the nature
of conflict resolution strategies is interiority. What I mean by this is that disci-
plines, even in societies that are quite communally oriented, are especially focused
on the inner life of the individual. Prayer, meditation, the experience of divine
love, ecstasy, guilt, and repentance all reflect the central importance of the inner
life.27 This means that conflict resolution techniques applied to religious groups
or workshops might consider, where deemed appropriate to both sides, the use-
fulness of focusing on this aspect of human experience. For example, I was wit-
ness to the work of Maha Gosananda, a Cambodian Buddhist monk who is quite
 22 Introduction

prominent in the efforts at Cambodian reconciliation, when he moved a large

room of religious people of many faiths practically to tears, simply by recreating
with them, in a matter of ten minutes, the kind of meditational practices that
help generate in him a perpetual state of metta, loving kindness for others. Metta
forms the basis of his work on reconciliation between enemies. Many of the
people in that room were very conservative Christians, but the monk touched
something quite deep in their inner lives that circumvented the cultural divide
and enabled a transformative moment to take place.28

Buddhist Compassion

The Four Sublime Moods of compassion (karuna), equanimity (upekkha), joy in

others' joy (mudita), and loving kindness (metta) 29 are an important tool of con-
flict resolution available in the Buddhist context. They also have important ped-
agogic value for the general understanding of the changes necessary in internal
perceptions of the Other, who is an enemy. The focuses of the Four Noble Truths
and the Eightfold Path have been mostly on restraint.30 For example, Right Action,
one path of the Eightfold Path, expresses itself in five precepts of restraint: mur-
der, theft, adultery, intoxication, and lying. But there is a proactive character of
the Four Sublime Moods,31 at least by implication, that makes them potentially
a critical tool of conflict resolution for Buddhist societies. The Moods suggest a
disposition of peacefulness and compassion, which creates the groundwork for
effective engagement in peacemaking.32 On the one hand, Buddhist traditional
texts on this matter place most of the emphasis on one's state of mind, and this
would seem to be missing, or in need of, a proactive hermeneutic that contem-
porary activists and interpreters are providing. On the other hand, these Buddhist
texts have much to contribute to Western approaches to conflict resolution, which
systematically ignore the inner states of peacemakers and conflict resolvers. This
blindness often leads to failed processes due to unexamined motives, anger, and
mixed emotions that have not been dealt with internally either by the parties to
the conflict or by the interveners and mediators, whose own inner states affect
the intervention and therefore need to be examined.

Religious Disciplines and Conflict Resolution

Related to the experience of interiority in religious traditions is the great emphasis

placed on discipline of the body. Experimentation with limiting personal violence
has involved this aspect of religious experience, and it seems clear that, for Gan-
dhi, his brahmacharya experiments with discipline of the body were critical to
his commitment to satyagraha (holding on to truth) and the attaining of ahimsa.
Self-restraint of the senses was central to his conception of self-restraint in violent
situations. The multiplication of wants that is inherent in Western civilization
was a key for him to the understanding of political violence, repression, and
imperialism.33
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 23

The following is an example of how Gandhi combined religious discipline,

pluralism, and conflict resolution. Religious fasting and dietary restrictions were
experienced on Gandhi's Tolstoy Farm as means of promoting mutual respect
and tolerance, as each religious community member—be he Parsi, Hindu, Chris-
tian, Jewish, or Muslim—would aid the others in the observance of the discipline
of their respective traditions. Consider the effect on the participants or the wit-
nesses to Gandhi's encouragement of Christians and Parsis to help a young Mus-
lim to fast the whole day during Ramadan and to provide food at night for him.
The fast itself is beyond reproach in its commitment to ancient Islamic tradition.
Yet it is transformed, in Gandhi's hands, into a moment of interreligious discovery
of immense power that leads the participants to nonviolence. Gandhi's concern
was to provide a model for religious observance that simultaneously creates tol-
erance. There are very few models that have been generated by the world's reli-
gions that are simultaneously authentic to a religious tradition and simultaneously
accepting of other traditions. In a certain sense, it is India's unique contribution
to inter-religious peace, which Gandhi elicited from his cultural matrix. Gandhi's
concept of lived religiosity that is both authentic and pluralistic needs to be
examined as a model for contemporary societies that mix people of many faiths.
Contemporary American examples of this include the Jewish community's or-
ganizing of volunteers for soup kitchens and homeless shelters across the country
on Christmas Eve, so that Christian workers can spend the night with their fam-
ilies. The key is not the blurring of religious distinctions or categories but the
peacemaking quality that is inherent in enabling someone else to practice her
religion.

Messianism and Imagination

All three monotheisms have crucial contributions to make to conflict resolution

studies in the areas of social criticism, envisioning of more just social construc-
tions, and new possibilities of the human social order. The phenomena of reli-
gious messianic dreaming and envisioning new realities should be studied in terms
of how to combine the dreaming and visioning with the imaginative element that
is necessary for conflict resolution. The prophetic imagination, as it expresses
itself in biblical literature, may provide a critical precedent for this use of cre-
ativity.34

Stages of Interfaith Dialogue and Conflict

Resolution Theory

Interfaith dialogue is another important avenue of research. What models have

worked better over the years, and what models have failed? Many of the consid-
erations of conflict resolution theory regarding states or other large entities need
to be applied to religious institutions. Strategies such as confidence-building mea-
 24 Introduction

sures and unilateral gestures have all been used at one time or another in inter-
faith work, but little has been done to document the successes and failures of
these methods in religious settings.
There are discernible patterns of progression in interfaith conflict resolution
that, if properly identified, may provide a framework of analysis and activism not
currently available. For example, in the past decade there has been a remarkable
development in the Catholic church's attitude toward Jews and Judaism that has
progressed from papal pronouncements to changes in catechisms and educational
materials.35 This is of profound importance because it represents not only a theo-
logical shift but also a commitment to change the attitudes of more than 800
million believers. The confidence-building character of this development, espe-
cially for those who have felt deeply injured by the long history of repression of
Jews and Judaism, is remarkable.
There are still, however, some serious disagreements. Most of the disagree-
ments involve acknowledging past wrongs of the church, and conflict resolution
theory and practice would be useful in both analyzing this conflict and moving
it toward resolution. There needs to be greater attention paid to the differences
in perspective of both parties. For example, many members of the Jewish com-
munity point out past actions of the church, especially during the Holocaust and
especially regarding Pope Pius XII's actions or lack thereof. But members of the
Jewish community tend to underemphasize the heroism of other catholics who
were particularly committed to the Jews during the Holocaust. For some Jews,
this is the expression of a need to be angry at a long history of mistreatment,
but for others it expresses a desire for apology from the highest sources.
We have here an interesting combination of social/psychological elements of
conflict scenarios and communication difficulties informed by theological differ-
ences. Jewish tradition emphasizes that even Moses, the greatest Jewish leader and
prophet of all time, must be criticized and found to have committed at least one
sin, in order to make the clear distinction between a supreme God and imperfect
human beings. The church, however, has a hard time criticizing a pope without
undermining its own essential theological legitimacy.36 It can, however, issue bold
new statements and make substantial changes, such as Pope John Paul II's interest
in investigating and repudiating the horrors of the Inquisition, without necessarily
naming the names of the popes who obviously, by implication, were responsible
for what happened. Many Jews, however, are expressing a need, it seems to me,
for the Catholic church as such to apologize. A good conflict resolution process
would delve deeply into the subtle needs of each tradition, both psychodynam-
ically and theologically, in order to arrive at compromises and novel gestures that
would satisfy the needs of both communities. Good people on both sides are
doing excellent work on this, but I still hope to see greater attention to filtering
this process down to the millions of adherents on both sides. It is in and through
the masses of religious people that history has a nasty habit of repeating itself,
unless there is a profound, broad-based transformation of relationship.
By contrast, the Christian/Jewish relationship in Russia is still at the primitive
stage of trying to get the higher echelons of the Russian Orthodox church to
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 25

condemn anti-Semitic beliefs, some of which are still occasionally promulgated

by prominent members of its own hierarchy.37 Such cases illustrate the fact that
religious dialogue has stages of development and that there could be a fruitful
interplay of conflict analysis, resolution strategies, and interfaith religious dis-
course.
The Protestant/Jewish relationship has also improved remarkably since World
War II. The fascism of so many Europeans in the war and the results of genocide
led to profound levels of soul searching, and extensive Protestant/Jewish dialogue
has been quite fruitful. A worrisome trend, however, is the commitment of some
conservative denominations to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into active
programs of proselytizing Jewish people, particularly the vulnerable, those who
are lonely in college, and senior citizens. This return to the medieval assaults on
the integrity of the Jewish community is creating a backlash of hatred that is
diffuse in its anti-Christian expression, certainly among the Orthodox. At present,
this is still a relatively minor problem, but, depending on how the war over
Christian culture goes in the United States, this could lead to serious interreligious
conflict.
A telling sign of a worsening relationship is Jerry Falwell's recent assertion
that the coming Antichrist must be a Jewish male. The Jewish community was
understandably horrified, but it was made far worse by the steadily lessening trust
of the Jewish community in the direction of right-wing Christian America.38
Now here is a case where there are several old Christian traditions about who
the Antichrist is, and one of those traditions is that it is a Jew, but Falwell, for
whatever purpose, chooses to pick that one tradition about this dark, evil fig-
ure. Thus, this hermeneutic is combined with a cultural/psychological war that
Falwell and others are engaged in to make the United States into a Christian
nation, with, of course, the expected reassurances of fair treatment to minori-
ties. It is very clear that liberal Jews, both secular and religious, stand in the
way of that aim, since they are among the staunchest guardians of church/state
separation.
This is more dangerous a trend than most Americans realize. The Jewish com-
munity, which has a very long memory for past eras of Christian revivalism, is
worried. The alliance of conservative Christianity with a strong pro-Israel, anti-
Palestinian stand, which makes conservative Christians helpful partners to certain
political parties in Israel, is no real comfort to most American Jews. This trend
will worsen unless there is a serious effort to intervene in this relationship.
I am particularly concerned by the tendency in conservative circles to demon-
ize two groups in America, lawyers and anyone associated with Hollywood, two
areas where Jews have been prominent. There is no doubt that there is much to
criticize in American legal practice and in the media. But there is also no doubt
that these professions are mere reflections of deep cultural trends in the United
States. Whatever is right or wrong on television is right or wrong with the culture
of America, which makes those ratings go up and down. And lawyers do what
clients want them to do. There are deeper reasons why America is a legalistic
culture, having far more to do with the fact that this is a young, highly multi-
 26 Introduction

cultural society, which from its inception was bound together, not by etiquette
or social custom, but by the Constitution and the rule of law.
But it is in the nature of certain expressions of religious psychology, out of
bewilderment at the admittedly terrible problems of American popular culture,
to search for a simple cognitive construct of reality that concocts a grand con-
spiracy that can be laid at one entity's doorstep, thus exonerating the rest of us.
This is a compelling myth for many people, who no doubt struggle with and
experience guilt over changing roles and the problems of their own families. It
would be tragic if the trend, already in place, to look at Disney and Hollywood
as the source of all evil—and the greatest competition for the attention of con-
servative Christian children, not coincidentally—moves hermeneutically into a
demonization of Jewish media figures. If politics became more extreme, due to
various social or ecological disasters, how difficult would it be for some on the
fringe to see someone like Steven Spielberg as the Antichrist? It sounds absurd
but has not Falwell opened the door to this? Spielberg would be a specifically
tempting choice precisely because so many of his films have a redemptive mes-
sage, which enrages those who have become obsessed with "taking America back
for Christianity."39 Of course, this is all rather distant from the American main-
stream, but conflict analysis must keep a close eye on the fringes of religious
society, for that is where violence often springs up, given the right circumstances.

Conflict Analysis and Situational Religious Ethics

I have offered a brief sampling of values derived from classical sources that might
be considered as creative conflict resolution techniques in religious settings, a
deductive method that will then allow us to move on to concrete situations. This
has value as preparation for dealing with religious conflict, but, in the real situ-
ation of conflict, priority must be given to an inductive approach, which involves
an empirical investigation of a conflict scenario: listening to the needs being
expressed in the conflict and then exploring a series of religious ideas, values, and
institutions that may be appropriate for that conflict setting.
My own work in Arab/Jewish relations and intra-Jewish conflict has led me
to the conclusion that each new encounter between enemies can elicit the use of
religious values and corresponding strategies of behavior that may work only in
that setting. This is why replication and professionalization of these efforts by
third-party actors must be accompanied by both a broad-based knowledge of the
traditions in question, which can be drawn upon in a wide variety of circum-
stances, and a level of elasticity and humility on the part of interveners, which
allows each new situation to dictate its own unique constellation of responses,
both in terms of conflict analysis and in terms of religious texts and ideas.40
When I met a group of Jordanian students in a retreat center in 1991, the clear
danger was that the relationship would be reduced to a series of angry exchanges
about Israel. Dialogue and conflict resolution work regarding Israel was clearly
the goal in this setting, but how to get to that goal was unclear. The unique
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 27

circumstances of this meeting—the retreat center, the pluralistic religious context,

and the personalities involved—led me to interpersonal strategies of conflict res-
olution that were derived from my knowledge of rabbinic Judaism. These strat-
egies were only occasionally made explicit to the other parties. Mostly, this was
an internal process: I struggled with conflict resolution techniques, my con-
science, and traditional ethics. But the techniques that emanated out of that in-
ternal process, including an intensive commitment to honor adversaries, a com-
mitment to external and internal humility, empathy, listening, and the wisdom
of silence, all worked quite well in breaking barriers and creating relationships.
It was a powerful motivator to me, as a party to the conflict as well as a conflict
resolver, to be able to draw upon deeply held sacred traditions while engaged in
the difficult and emotionally draining process of conflict resolution.

Religious Jurisprudence as a Peacemaking Tool:

Prospects and Problems

There is an entirely different set of religious literature that, I would argue, could
be used in fruitful conjunction with the more traditional subjects of peace studies.
I refer to the use of international law in situations of conflict, arguments for
international commitments to human rights, and new paradigms of global rela-
tions and mutual security based on the rule of law.41 Another way, therefore, in
which religious literature can play a role in conflict resolution is in the exami-
nation of practical values and laws as they might relate to international concerns,
such as human rights. There are two possible areas of investigation here: an
analysis of the correlation of religious laws and values with the basic institutions
of civil society, such as human rights,42 and an analysis of religious traditions as
they pertain to conflict management and the peaceful resolution of legal disputes.
Religions with strong legal traditions, such as Islam and Judaism, should be in-
vestigated regarding the management of such conflicts and studied as paradigms
of intra-communal relations that could be applied to broader inter-communal
dialogues.43 The problem is that communitarian commitments are limited to the
faithful. The difficulty of widening the scope of religious ethics to include out-
siders or nonbelievers remains a serious challenge, especially in fundamentalist
circles. This is a cognitive and emotional leap that would have to be nurtured
carefully by third parties.

Extending Religious Ethical Categories beyond the

Faithful: The Problem of Scope

There are two questions to be asked about nonbelievers. First, which values affirm
coexistence with those outside the world of the believer, and which do not? Sec-
ond, can the values that affirm coexistence be strengthened by leaders and activists
in such a way that they dramatically remove the animosity toward nonbelievers?
 28 Introduction

There is an unprecedented level of interaction among people of many faiths

around the globe due to patterns of rapid mobility, mass communication, and
the spread of capitalism. This is deeply threatening to many religious leaders,
especially fundamentalist ones. These leaders are reacting to the chaotic reality of
a pluralistic society by emphasizing the aspects of their respective religions that
are the most rejecting of the legitimacy and even humanity of nonbelievers.44 On
the other hand, more adherents are coming into contact with others who are not
of their belief system than ever before. Clearly, religious hermeneutics that cre-
atively engage tolerant texts of the past are necessary in order for the respective
religions to flourish without building their base of support through intolerance.
It is necessary in a conflict situation, therefore, to develop a methodology of
positively interacting with religious leaders and thinkers, even fundamentalists.
The conflict resolution expert must elicit from this interaction the possibility of
developing religious traditions that are accepting of the Other.45 Rarely do dip-
lomats or conflict resolution experts currently engage religious groups on their
own terms and dynamically interact with their categories of thinking in order to
produce a greater commitment to coexistence and peacemaking. But the effort
may produce important benefits that have eluded international diplomacy until
now.
These efforts will undoubtedly be complicated by the fact that religious leaders
and practitioners are also influenced by the emotional and socioeconomic factors
mentioned above. The complexity of mixed motivations does not negate, how-
ever, the usefulness of interacting hermeneutically with a religious tradition. It
simply means that the interaction must be engaged on many levels. The religious
human being in conflict must be approached on a number of planes, just like
his secular counterpart. Some people think of peace and conflict rationally, in
terms of the calculation of interests; others think in terms of ideological principles
that necessitate conflict; and still others think in deep emotional terms. Most
people tend to experience these questions in some combination of several cog-
nitive and emotive constructs. It is exactly the same in religious life. Some people
are moved to conflict or hatred by deep emotional scars, and they express this
in religious terms; they clearly need to be moved from that stance by deep emotive
methods of conflict resolution that emerge out of the moral guides of their
traditions. Others, especially those in leadership positions, tend to think more in
terms of the cognitive categories of faith, dogma, law, and institutional interests.
They clearly need to come to believe that coexistence and peace are defensible
legal and metaphysical possibilities within their system of belief, and that they are
of practical benefit to their institutions as well. The successful conflict resolution
expert will learn to creatively interact with all of these strains of religious life.
Leaders and practitioners must be given the chance to creatively engage their
traditions, especially the ways in which difficult dilemmas were negotiated in the
past. Allow me to demonstrate this by way of an example from Judaism. There
are clear rules in ancient Judaism against idolatry and, in many instances, against
idolaters, which would produce terrible violence if they were ever put fully into
practice again.46 But another fundamental metaphysical assumption of Judaism,
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 29

based on Genesis 1:26, is that every human being is created in the image of God.
That metaphysical assumption leads to a series of ancient rabbinic rules that
reinforce the idea that every single human life is precious, as precious as the
world itself.47 Hillel, an older contemporary of Jesus and the most important
founder of rabbinic Judaism, was motivated by this belief to call for the love of
every human being as the highest calling of Judaism. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai,
the central hero of post-Temple rabbinic Judaism in the first century, taught his
disciples to greet every human being, Jew or idolater, with kindness and peace.48
Thus, a dynamic process was set in motion that led one metaphysical assumption
to overwhelm and effectively cancel the practical implications of another, and the
result was a more peaceful society. This was a choice made inside the minds of
religious leaders, which provides a precedent from classical sources for later gen-
erations to follow.
This ethical posture makes a place in the rabbinic universe for someone utterly
Other, who will never be Jewish or even monotheistic. Furthermore, the position
is not based on a hidden agenda or the motivation of a hoped-for conversion.49
The latter, while better than violence, would call into question the ultimate ac-
ceptance of the Other who will remain different and distinct. Rather, the moti-
vation for coexistence is the fundamental belief that God has commanded them
to value all human beings.
It is apparent that much work has yet to be done in many religious traditions
on constructing a theological and metaphysical approach to the Other, or "out-
groups," while, at the same time, maintaining a meaningful and authentic system
of belief and practice.
There is a good deal of bad precedent in the treatment of traditional Others,
especially in the history of the monotheisms. Examples include the treatment of
heretics, apostates, and slaves, as well as attitudes toward women. A feminist
critique of religious systems would therefore be quite important in this regard
and should be undertaken in order to see both the dangers of each system as well
as its dynamic possibilities. Much can be learned about the possibilities within
traditions by examining the steadily improved status of some of these Others over
the centuries. I do not deny that the status of some groups has often risen and
fallen over time, without progress. What is crucial for purposes of conflict analysis
and resolution is the dynamic of the internal process of change, when and how
a group's status has improved, and how it has been justified.

A few cautionary notes are in order before I conclude. There are two dangers to
highlighting the importance of religion in conflict resolution: (1) that analysts
and activists, in their enthusiasm about religion's positive contribution to conflict
resolution, might overlook its violent potential,50 and (2) that analysts will over-
emphasize religion's role and not see it as part of a complex array of factors that
generate violence and peacemaking. It would be a profound error, for example,
to attribute a conflict exclusively to religion—and, therefore, its resolution to
religion—if, in fact, the society in question is plagued by problems that have been
appropriately called "structural violence."51 If a society is afflicted by gross eco-
 30 Introduction

nomic inequities or tyrannized by a brutal regime, it would be seriously misguided

to think that religion is all that is necessary to resolve the conflict. Worse, it could
make the society more violent by masking the underlying problems and thereby,
unwittingly or wittingly, taking sides in the conflict. That does not mean that
religious intervention cannot be an important element in the conflict resolution
process. It just means that it should not distort that process with a narrow agenda.
This brings me to my next point. Let us assume that there is a broad range
of values in most of the world's religions that express a commitment to peace
and elimination of violence.52 That happy circumstance does not begin to address
the problem of countervailing religious values that will, at times, override the call
for peace. This struggle of conflicting values or, in some traditions, conflicting
laws, is often manipulated by powerful interests that do not want peace. That
does not mean, however, that the conflict of values is not a formidable reality
for the average believer or cleric who struggles with his conscience. Acknowledg-
ing and dealing with those struggles is crucial for conflict resolution in a religious
context.
As an example, let us take the U.S. response to Bosnian genocide. There were
numerous voices in the Muslim and Jewish communities calling not only for an
end to the violence on the part of the Serbians, which was certainly also vocif-
erously being called for by the Christian community, but also calling for a com-
mitment to arm the Bosnians to defend themselves and even to strike Serbia
militarily. There are various cultural factors that could be pointed to in order to
explain this rather unusual alignment of Jew and Muslim versus Christian paci-
fists. But it must be noted that, in Judaism, according to most readers of the
traditional texts, the principle of using violence to save innocent lives in violent
situations, where there is no alternative, overrides the commitment to peace.53 In
Islam, unjust injury is certainly grounds to defend oneself.54
These conflicting values will have to be acknowledged in conflict resolution
settings and the cultural and religious differences fully confronted. There will be
some interesting combinations of values that may seem unusual in the predom-
inantly Christian West. In Christian conversations about war and peace, there is
a great deal of struggle with pacifism, partly because it has such strong roots in
the pre-Constantine church and partly because of a laudable degree of soul
searching concerning the disastrous medieval religious wars and crusades.55 There
are some voices, both classical and modern, in Judaism and Islam, that are also
pacifist.56 But they are a much smaller voice. However, Islam, Judaism, and non-
pacifist versions of Christianity all have a reservoir of sources that would commit
them to aggressive efforts to limit war, pursue peace, or resolve conflicts even if
they are not pacifist. In other words, there may be plenty of agreement on conflict
resolution strategies even if not on pacifism. Conflict resolution may be a much
more useful bridge between religious cultures, offering a language of discourse
that may provide many more points of entry for a wide variety of religious
cultures than either just war theory or pacifism. The pragmatic emphasis of con-
flict resolution theory and the goal-oriented nature of its methodologies allow
people of many cultures to support the same processes of engagement. This has
 Between Religion and Conflict Resolution 31

been my experience among leading conflict resolution practitioners and theore-

ticians, only some of whom are absolute pacifists but who, nevertheless, share a
rich array of methods for aggressive conflict prevention and peacemaking. Fur-
thermore, making conflict resolution respectful and inclusive of a broad repre-
sentation of religious values, not just pacifism, can further strengthen the bond
between conflict resolution practice and the behavior of religious parties to the
conflict.

The Dangers of Religious Expansionism

My final cautionary note involves what appears to be one of the central tenets of
several world religions, namely, evangelism, or the notion that there is either an
obligation unfulfilled or a spiritual reality unfulfilled as long as the whole world
does not profess the tenets of a particular religion. A corollary is the drive to
convert as many people as possible to one's faith. While this spiritual disposition
does not by itself require violence, it certainly has included extreme violence in
the past on the part of some, both in principle and in practice, and the very
drive, nonviolent though it may be, will cause more and more of the pretexts for
violence in the crowded world of today. In particular, the corporate institutions
of religion, for which power is dependent upon the number of adherents, tend
to vie with each other in increasingly hostile ways when this issue is not con-
fronted.
The question is: Can there be complete religious fulfillment for adherents in
a world of unbelievers? What needs to be explored is what the options are in
each religious tradition on these matters. The typical modern assumption is that
radical change is the only possibility. However, it may be the case that shifts in
emphasis will suffice or a return to other, nonevangelical classical sources or
experiences or a redefinition of concepts like "mission." Each religious system
must work on this in its own way. There must be, for example, great respect
accorded to those who have dedicated their lives to a religious principle, such as
mission, and an empathetic understanding of their inner spiritual lives. But the
issue of how to negotiate the enactment of this value in the future while com-
mitted to authentic peace with others must be confronted as part of a long-term
conflict resolution strategy for the world's religions.

Religious Pluralism and Conflict Resolution

More thought needs to be given to why some people find deep religious fulfill-
ment through their particular tradition while side by side, in their minds or hearts,
exists an abiding respect for other religious traditions,57 while other people have
such an intense level of identification with their own group that any affront to
their group is a deep affront to their sense of personal survival, and any com-
promise of their group's domination is an attack on their personal legitimacy.58
 32 Introduction

This overidentification with one's ethnic group is also typical of patterns of over-
identification with one's religious group.
I would tentatively suggest that those, like Gandhi and many others, who find
it quite natural to honor and encourage other religious traditions have a sense of
self that is inclusive of but not exhausted by their own religious affiliation. Their
religious worldview does not confine them to one identity. They see and define
themselves as religious adherents of one faith and practice but also as human
beings standing in communal relation with other valued human beings. They
share faith with their own group but humanity with all other humans and life
with all living creatures and organisms. And their spiritual psyche values all these
relations and consequent identities. It is the multiplicity of healthy identities that
prevents a level of overidentification with one group, be it an ethnic group or a
religious community.

Conclusion

In summary, we have analyzed a variety of issues relating to world religions that

demonstrates the need to engage in a positive interaction between the study of
religious texts, traditions, and practitioners, on the one hand, and, on the other,
conflict resolution research. This is necessary in order to elicit from that inter-
action a series of strategies for engaging in conflict resolution where some or all
of the parties to a conflict hold strong religious beliefs.

Until now we have engaged in a general map of the issues surrounding world
religions and their potential for violence and peacemaking. We have also indicated
that a substantive interaction between religious traditions and the social science
of conflict resolution would be most desirable as a way of hermeneutically en-
gaging religious traditions as vehicles of peacemaking. However, this marriage of
religion and peacemaking or conflict resolution has been thwarted until now by
the limitations of thinking in two distinct areas of scholarship, the analysis of
religious traditions on war and peace and the social science of conflict resolution.
There are a variety of complex reasons for these limitations that touch upon the
basic rift between liberal, secular modernity and the world of religious belief and
practice. We will explore this in the next chapter.
II

A Critique of Current Secular

and Religious Approaches to
Conflict and Peace
This page intentionally left blank
 THREE

Why Modern Culture Fails to Understand

Religiously Motivated Violence

T he complex nature of the interactions among world religions, peace-

making, and conflict generation in recent decades, in addition to
the role of religion throughout history, warrants a special area of investigation.
The need for this is urgent. As religion becomes more important in the lives of
hundreds of millions of people, the political power generated by this commitment
will either lead to a more peaceful world or to a more violent world, depending
on how that power is utilized. Only through understanding the nature of this
growing enthusiasm for religion can we hope to steer the religious world in the
direction of peacemaking and coexistence. Furthermore, only if peace is, and is
perceived to be, a part of a principled and meaningful fulfillment of religious
experience, rather than a shady compromise with an unredeemed world, will this
commitment take hold in the broadest spectrum of those who are now zealously
religious. Methods of peacemaking that continue to focus only on political and
intellectual elites or that fail to address the broadest possible range of religious
believers are leading to systematic and potentially catastrophic diplomatic failures
in key areas of the world, such as the Middle East.
There are several areas of inquiry regarding peace and war, all of which, for
independent reasons, have failed to account for this complex issue. Much of the
thinking about peace and conflict in terms of religion has been divided into
questions about the legitimacy of war or its conduct. The contours of this long
history have come to be dominated by Christian discussions of "just war" theory
or, alternatively, pacifism. There have also been corresponding bodies of literature,
going back thousands of years, in other religions on the legitimacy of war and its
conduct.1
Most of this discussion has a tendency to limit the full range of possible
approaches to human problems, religious or otherwise. The discussion, for ex-
ample, about just war in Christianity, especially in Catholicism, is important and
old. There has, however, been a far broader Christian discussion over the centuries
about interpersonal ethics, human psychology, and the things inside human be-
ings that lead alternatively to love or hate, compassion or rage, peace or conflict.

35
 36 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

The same is true in numerous other traditions. There is a curious split between,
on the one side, discussions of war or peace and, on the other, discussions of
ethics and psychology, which are critical to the capacity, or lack thereof, to create
peace. This selective approach to religious literature and experience is the first
problem with just war literature.2
The second problem is that just war literature always focuses on a single, rather
limited choice: war or not war. But this is hardly the range of choices that are
available to human beings in conflict situations. One can believe that war is
sometimes necessary but also believe that the choice for war, even if it rests on
sound moral principles, effectively expresses a complete failure of all the other
ethical or spiritual directives that are ideally supposed to guide one's actions. It
is their absence that leads to conflict, and war may now be the only moral course
of action possible, assuming one is not a pacifist. One such spiritual directive is
a prohibition in both Buddhism and Judaism against selling destructive weapons.3
The failure to follow this precept leads to violence and is therefore a critical
component in analyzing its genesis according to these spiritual systems of belief
and practice. Nevertheless, a resulting war may be necessary due to the obligation
of self-defense, at least in Judaism. For example, a complete theological analysis
of the Gulf War against Iraq would include a severe condemnation of the Western
countries for having armed Saddam Hussein in the first place.
Another spiritual principle is the directive of boundless love in Christianity,
or metta in Buddhism. Were it followed on a day-to-day basis with adversaries,
this principle might prevent minor disagreements from turning into violent war-
fare. In other words, there is a range of ethical practices, spiritual experiences,
laws, and codes, which are inherent in religious life, that are virtually left out of
just war discussions.4
The broader ethical literature is the key, I will argue, to serious and construc-
tive approaches to conflict prevention, resolution, and reconciliation in religious
societies. It will also provide, if investigated well, several instructive paradigms
for general conflict resolution theory and practice.
The third problem with just war literature is the lack of consciousness of the
varieties of cultural contexts that form the basis of how people think about con-
flict, war, and peacemaking. There is a tendency to define war and peace in terms
of specific religious criteria in only some faith traditions and almost exclusively
in terms of biblically based religions. But many people the world over are not
thinking in terms of biblically based religions. Even most of those who are rooted
in biblical religion do not in practice make decisions about conflict based on just
war criteria. Few of them know these criteria at all. Therefore, the entire discus-
sion smacks of elitism and theological speculation—often after the fact—that has
little to do with how, when, and why violence is generated by religious people,
or why and how peace is sought and cultivated.
This has important ramifications in terms of global relations, as well as do-
mestic relations between disparate cultural groups. Just war discussions have been
valuable in the attempt to search for global standards of behavior regarding the
conduct of war, harking back to their original function in the Middle Ages. Just
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 37

war has also been a helpful banner around which to frame opposition to an ugly
war. I do not deny the importance of evoking standards, either secular or reli-
gious, for shared behavior and values on a universal scale. Conflict prevention
will require this ultimately, and certainly the building of civil societies in religious,
nonreligious, and multireligious contexts requires this.
The real problem is that we cannot, while pursuing just war standards, bury
cultural specificity or the unique character of all religious expressions when it
comes to peace and conflict without subverting our original intention. These
unique qualities must become key to the discussion if we are not simply to repeat
the same mistakes of miscommunication across civilizations or to impose stan-
dards coercively on others in the name of peace. In particular, it is the broad
range of spiritual beliefs and practices that could be useful in creating constructive
approaches to preventing conflicts or managing constructive conflicts nonvio-
lently.5 From the perspective of conflict resolution practice, if we consult religious
traditions only when war is imminent or on the horizon, then we ask their advice
only when the real damage has already been done. By the time the sabers are
rattling—or the nerve gas is cooking—the great potential of religious interper-
sonal values to prevent violence has already been emasculated by the dangerous
and terrifying circumstances.
The field of conflict resolution theory and practice has also failed to respond
to the critical role of religion in both peacemaking and conflict generation.
This lacuna occurs despite the fact that an astonishing amount of the violence
around the world is being justified by appeals to religious traditions. For ex-
ample, millions of dollars and decades of effort have been expended by nu-
merous governments and heads of state on the Middle East peace process. Re-
ligiously motivated violence, however, and the pressure from fundamentalist
and religious nationalist wings of government have been the single greatest de-
terrent to this process proceeding in recent years. From Islamic radical groups
to religious Jewish settlers, from suicide bombers dying for Allah's great name
to a Yeshivah-trained assassin killing a head of state, all of the energy behind
the destruction of the peace process comes from religion. Yet almost none of
the analysis, conflict resolution strategies, and foundation grants have gone to-
ward addressing this issue. The phenomenon of religious consciousness and
commitment necessitates a reexamination of conflict analysis theory and strat-
egies for conflict resolution.
The gap between the reality of religion and conflict and the lack of response
to it by the peacemakers, both governmental and nongovernmental, both theo-
reticians and practitioners, suggests a deep fear of and aversion to this entire
phenomenon on the part of government bureaucrats, journalists, and secular
intellectuals and activists. They seem to unconsciously wish that it would go away
so that everyone could continue unperturbed in simplistic diplomatic or conflict
resolution paradigms. This suggests a regressive fear of a large sociological phe-
nomenon that is terrifying to liberal religious or secular individuals. This fear has
led to a strategic paralysis on the part of the very actors placed in charge of
peacemaking by modern culture.
 38 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Here is the depth of the problem that we seek to address in this book. It
involves two separate communities of actors, both of whom are intimidated by
the resurgence of religious affiliation and its accompanying power: first, the dip-
lomatic community and the elites of both government and the media, whose
power depends on the continuing geographic and political integrity of the secular
nation-state, and second, the liberal intelligentsia of the academy, who theorize
about human and international relations and whose intellectual paradigm de-
pends upon a humanist, agnostic set of assumptions. Both groups will tend to
focus on those segments of society (different ones, to be sure, for each group),
domestic and foreign, that reinforce that group's hold on the future.
University-based conflict resolution would rather support those cultural trends,
domestic and international, that tend to strengthen the role of and legitimate
space for rational, free, highly individualized inquiry. Furthermore, they will nat-
urally seek partners in the field much like themselves. Governments, by contrast,
will tend to engage in peacemaking efforts that reinforce their values and their
priorities, supporting people internationally that buttress their group, namely the
business and government elites. It is only natural, from a human point of view,
for us to congregate tribally in our thinking and our interpersonal engagements.
Too much of this very human characteristic has been projected pejoratively out-
ward onto actual tribes or ethnic groups, without recognition that we all slip into
this way of thinking and acting. It is only by constant self-examination that
professionals, researchers, and peacemakers can learn to separate out the benign
aspects of this human tendency from its more counterproductive elements.
Sometimes, these two groups will coalesce in supporting a cause, such as
international human rights, whose agenda fits well with Western governmental
efforts to open up closed societies—and their closed economic markets—and
that also fits the liberal, intellectual agenda of the freedom of the individual.
There are value choices and value assumptions that lie beneath the approaches
of this political and intellectual elite. These include the idea that the freedom of
the individual is the highest priority, that rationality is the key to a better society,
that Western and capitalist interests of opening up markets, as well as maintaining
the nation-state boundaries, are the most important priorities, and many more.
I sympathize with at least some of these assumptions, and as long as they are
honestly confronted, there can be merit to these approaches. Many violent con-
flicts have been prevented or brought to a peaceful end, at least in the near term,
by governmental power groups operating with the most crass level of self-interest.
Furthermore, numerous dialogue workshops operating at a rather elite level of
society, with rational discussion at the heart of their method, have proved abso-
lutely critical to long-term peacebuilding efforts from South Africa to the Middle
East.
I come to this work with a value bias; I assume that any effort that saves lives
in the short term or the long term is inherently worthy from a moral point of
view. Many successful efforts at peacemaking in the past have, in fact, been pac-
ification. They have masked deep causes of conflict, ignored social justice issues,
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 39

and ultimately failed to generate profound peacemaking. Furthermore, many ef-

forts address the values and assumptions of just a small, elite segment of society,
who, for example, may share the belief—naive, in my opinion—that rationality
is the key to social change. These efforts often only have a marginal impact. But
sometimes, it must be admitted, they have a major impact, such as the series of
dialogue workshops and back channel conversations that eventually led to the
secret Oslo meetings at the early stages of Israeli/Palestinian peacemaking.
I value any effort that saves lives in the short or long term, no matter what
its cultural assumptions may be. On the other hand, its motives and its limitations
must be honestly confronted if we are to maximize the amount of peace and
justice achieved by the efforts of interveners and the parties to human conflicts.
Thus, for example, if the diplomatic community had both embraced the Oslo
peace process and also vociferously pointed out what was missing, such as its
expansion to 90 percent of the population on both sides of the conflict, then we
could have built on its limited success and immediately moved to a more pro-
found process. In fact, the elites on both sides were motivated not to expand the
process because of a mixture of fear of and disdain for the majority of the pop-
ulation on both sides. To be charitable, the secrecy was motivated by a fear of
the violent fringe on both sides, but it still remains confusing to me. If the
principal motivation for the secrecy and the elite process was fear, not disdain
and distrust, why did they not want to solicit and persuade the nonviolent ma-
jority—through meetings, programs, and cross-cultural popular processes of
peacemaking—in order to undermine the violent fringe? But this did not happen,
and it suggests the deeper disdain for the masses that has consistently undermined
Middle East peacemaking as a whole. The disdain for the populace has its roots
in old authoritarian structures of governance on all sides, and the latter is one of
the most important generators of intractable conflict the world over.
It should be pointed out that there is an important distinction here between
governmental mixed motives and biases in peacemaking and the mixed motives
and biases of conflict resolution professionals. Government intervention in peace-
making must be acknowledged to be a process in which national self-interest is
built into the expenditure of public funds on international peacemaking, and the
bureaucracy must demand that self-interest be high on the diplomatic agenda.
This is ineluctable and needs to be confronted honestly and constructively.
The problem with the profession of conflict resolution is more subtle, not
really an intentional act at all, I would like to believe. But it is necessary to begin
to confront the fears and concerns of liberal peace activists as they face a large
and growing, often illiberal, segment of human culture: religious militants. The
militants' participation in peacemaking is vital if real progress is to be made on
the basic issues of civil society and coexistence. Their absence from peace pro-
cesses in the Middle East, for example, is indicative of both diplomatic neglect
and the neglect of the propeace community, which seems actually threatened, at
least in Israel, by a religious commitment to peacemaking, as if this upsets the
peacemakers' categorization of all groups; more on this later. The fact that one
 40 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

subset of the religious community is decidedly against the construction of a free,

civil society is exactly what needs to be addressed, and any peacemaking strategy
would have to concern itself in part with precisely that subset of the community.
Returning to the problem of conflict resolution theory as it currently stands,
there are several important issues.

Dialogue, Rationality, and the Dialogue Workshop

The dialogue workshop is one of the centerpieces of most conflict resolution

practice. Its principal components are the direct confrontation, through verbal
communication, of conflicting groups together with planning, coordination, and
on-site facilitation, most often by a third party that is considered to be neutral
or as close to this as possible.
There are several problems with applying this to conflicts among or involving
religious people. Some of these problems will be similar to applying this method
cross-culturally, especially to village-based life that is closer to premodern culture;
other problems are unique to the question of religion. To begin with, hierarchy
and religious authority is a major issue. The dialogue method assumes that the
parties feel free to engage in open and honest communication and assumes some
ability to change attitudes, opinions, and behaviors. But many, if not most, sys-
tems of traditional religious hierarchy preclude this possibility.6 Only someone in
a position of authority might be able to make new or novel overtures to an enemy.
Dialogue with lesser authorities may be useful, but there would have to be an
entirely different structure that allowed for a systematic process of private con-
sultations with authorities. Or there may need to be a parallel system of dialogue
in which enemies at corresponding levels of religious hierarchies could meet, then
report to their superiors. This way there could be a parallel process of dialogue
all the way from lay leaders to clergy, to superiors.7
The problem with this is that few actors at higher levels of authority encourage
or even permit lower members to engage in such work, lest they subvert the
hierarchy. This has been a perpetual problem in Bosnia and the Philippines, to
mention just two places. The lower-level participants do come to the dialogues,
but they often feel that they cannot speak. A possible solution is for the hierarchy
to permit a broad range of possible topics for discussion that would not impinge
on more sensitive subjects of negotiation. This could still allow for a substantive
set of exchanges on personal histories, grievances, analyses of communications
problems, and shared visions, to name a few.
Another problem is that hierarchies are almost never perfectly parallel between
enemy groups. One group may have a clear hierarchy whose members expect to
meet with those on their level. Even laypeople can often become insulted and feel
they've lost face if they know that their leader is meeting with a representative of
the other side who is not of the same stature. This touches on the critical issue
of face saving and the honor of the group. The same attention that one gives in
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 41

diplomacy to this issue must be addressed in the religious subcultures that are in
conflict.
Sometimes it is not the hierarchy but rather a collective commitment to a
single religious idea that is the main impediment to the dialogue model, such as
the idea that a certain person or group is and must be an enemy or is an incar-
nation of evil. I once saw a sixteen-year-old girl on an American television talk
show who was part of an extremely small Christian cult, and she was convinced
that Jews were the incarnation of evil, agents of Lucifer, and responsible for all
human problems. The venom that poured forth from this beautiful, redheaded
girl almost overwhelmed her emotionally, even on television. I was overwhelmed,
too, not by fear but by profound sadness that a beautiful young woman could
be so passionately motivated by such a destructive vision. Of course, her venom
was also a reaction to the atmosphere of the talk show, which was designed—as
many are today—to provoke as much conflict and rage as possible from both
the audience and the guests, a latter-day version of the voyeuristic and vicarious
forms of ancient gladiator violence. The girl was being attacked and embarrassed
by the audience. But still one could tell that the rage and the religious vision were
authentic and deep.
I have wondered to this day what it would take to convince that poor young
woman to feel differently about her life and her "enemy" and what it would take
to teach her to deal differently with the sources of her rage. And I wonder con-
stantly what is the usefulness of peacemaking if it cannot really speak to a girl
like this, because it is this type of person who comes to the fore and takes power
when society is deeply stressed by war or economic collapse. Her rhetoric and
style of delivery was little different than Hitler's and what was obnoxious to this
American audience at this point in time was quite appealing in 1930—and not
just in Germany. If all we can do is speak to civil people in a dialogue, then what
are we doing as conflict resolvers? Conflict resolution theorists must have the
courage to confront this. That young girl may be a rarity right now in the West,
but she is representative of tens of thousands who marched across Europe during
the Crusades and of many who took control of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
What would we have said to them back then if we had managed to get them into
a workshop? More important, would a workshop have made any sense, or was
something else necessary?
I leave this question open for debate, but it is not merely hypothetical or
heuristic, and it is certainly not meant as a joke. We often make light of the
religious fringe, because it relieves our tension about what they betray about the
human and the religious human condition, and we also, in the process, enrage
such people even more by not taking them seriously.
In one form or another, we often come across in conflict resolution a world-
view that permanently and authoritatively affixes a label of enemy on some group.
These labels are not subject to negotiation. Now, it is true that in general conflict
resolution theory we are already familiar with the challenge of dialogue partici-
pants who are subject to a higher authority, such as a government, and are
 42 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

therefore hardened into certain positions. But some religious contexts involve a
fixed view of the world that is deeply threatened by a change in assumption about
the identity of the enemy. To change this would, at the very least, require au-
thoritative permission to see the enemy in a new way so as not to threaten the
entire structure of the ideological system.8 Alternatively, some consensus-driven
process of the faith group would have to come to a new perception of the enemy
before the individual felt permitted to do so.
I have been working with many people, mostly Christian peace activists, in
conflict resolution training that is specifically geared to religious problems. In my
most recent training, I was struck by the forthcoming and bold nature of my
Catholic students' presentations. They were unusually honest about the past
crimes of the church against many groups and about how those crimes may have
been rooted in old church doctrines. They were also the most creative group in
envisioning and practically constructing a different future. Here I was, a Jewish
rabbi, and my fellow trainer was a Mennonite, both of us from groups that had
suffered persecution from the church, and we were witnessing an extraordinary
level of serious transformation. Absolutely critical to the Catholic groups' pre-
sentations were extensive quotations from Vatican II documents, the statements
of recent popes and bishops, and the changes in catechisms, among other things.
I am also convinced that the public acts of contrition of various Catholic hier-
archies in the 1990s concerning the Holocaust had a hand in making this the
boldest presentation by Catholic students in the last three years of my training
sessions. Thus, although the Catholics in my class were highly independent, crit-
ical thinkers, it was vital to their sense of who they are that the changes in their
image of the enemy were following the path of their church, not destroying the
basis of their religious identity. Other students, who were equally committed to
peacemaking as a vocation but who came from religious subgroups that had not
in the recent past openly talked about their past mistakes, had a much harder
time confronting and specifying the problems in their own community. The ex-
ercise of collective self-examination often causes a minor crisis in many of my
students, but it is not as traumatic for those who come from groups where the
leaders themselves have boldly admitted the mistakes of the group.
Now, I am overemphasizing hierarchy to a degree. Clearly, many religious
people today, in almost all the religious traditions that I have studied, including
the Catholics, think and behave far more independently than their clergy would
like. It is perfectly possible, and it happens quite frequently in my trainings, that
people show great courage in confronting the problems of their community, with
or without permission to discuss them in public. On the other hand, hierarchy
and religious precedent are always in the background and often set the tone in
terms of the permission that individuals feel to enter into such a painful dialogue
process, whatever their private feelings may be. Add to that the already difficult
psychological threshold of participation in open communication, and we have a
formidable challenge to the dialogue model when applied to religious people.
This has implications as to how to structure or retool dialogue workshops that
include religious groups. The religious person is carrying an immense burden of
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 43

fealty to his group, which also provides him with his entire value system and
worldview. To have those challenged in a dialogue with enemies is possible, and
many courageous people do it. But it would be easier for the vast majority to
engage in this process if the workshops were embedded in a much larger nego-
tiation among religious groups that made this kind of process legitimate, an
acceptable—even good—deed for religious people to be engaged in. It may need
to take place after or in conjunction with highly public displays by religious
leadership or perhaps after members of each group prepare each other and receive
permission from the group to engage in such a dangerous exercise.
There may have to be deliberations over the spiritual legitimacy of such con-
versations. Often what needs to be talked about borders on blasphemy or sin,
according to the most fundamentalist interpreters of a tradition. It may be pro-
hibited to say anything bad about one's own community. It may be a sin to say
that a pope is mistaken, according to some Catholics. It may be a desecration of
the divine name that is placed on Israel to admit in public something about
Jewish crimes that is not generally known, according to some interpreters. It is
a violation, according to others, to speak of something bad about the land of
Israel.9 According to some, admitting that a rule in the Qur'an might be intolerant
is blasphemy.
These are not simple matters to negotiate but, as I said earlier, there are many
generations of hermeneutics at work here. If we give these communities a chance
to engage in this process on their own terms, it is quite possible that creative
ways can be found to engage in these discussions without the discussion being
rejected as blasphemy or a betrayal of basic principles.
Fortunately, there are many members of these communities who are already
willing, on their own and without hierarchical permission, to engage in cross-
religious dialogue and conflict resolution, when or if the diplomatic community
and the conflict resolution community start to include them. But we must also
conceive of ways that even the most fundamentalist members of a community
might be included, for it is they who often form the political bloc in contem-
porary conflicts that is in danger of being in violent conflict with the larger,
secular cultural and political constructs.
A more fundamental question of religion, conflict resolution, and the dialogue
workshop involves the issue of how people change. The culture surrounding the
efficacy of the dialogue workshop assumes that direct verbal dialogue is a path
to deep change within people. There are many roots to this assumption, including
a culture that values rhetoric and debate as a means of governance and social
legislation, with precedents going back to Greece, Rome, and rabbinic Judaism.
There is also, in my opinion, some deeply Christian and particularly Protestant
assumptions about the spirit of God residing among those who engage in con-
versation. The Protestant belief, stemming no doubt from the importance of the
word and dialogue in Jesus' interactions, also has roots in ancient Jewish as-
sumptions about the spirit of God residing among those who share the words of
Torah.10 This represents an important trend of human culture that no doubt
resonates in many parts of the globe, such as in Buddhism.11 But, in whatever
 44 A Critique ofApproaches to Conflict and Peace

culture this occurs, it does favor those with good verbal skills and those who
express themselves spiritually through the use of conversation, which eliminates
many of the styles of religious behavior and practice with which I am familiar.
It also favors people with higher education, and they are a tiny percentage of the
human community.
Alongside the highly verbal and conversational character of much spiritual or
religious change, there exists a wide variety of other avenues to change a person
or the character of a human relationship. In parallel with other cultural critiques
of the dialogue workshop, many religious processes of conflict prevention and
conflict resolution are indirect, through third parties, or they are accomplished
through deep symbolism that resonates with the age-old memories of individuals
and spiritual communities.
Let us take an example. Maha Gosananda, the supreme patriarch of Cambo-
dian Buddhism, has spent a great deal of his time and the efforts of his students
and fellow travelers literally walking across all of Cambodia as a way of peace-
making and reconciliation.12 We know the power of walking and marching in
human history. Armies march not only to gain ground but as a profoundly sym-
bolic act of conquest. Marchers continue in Ireland to this day in order to pro-
claim conquest. But people also march to affirm their identity. It is a profound
statement far beyond the power of words. The most creative social change activists
of this century, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., used marching in ways that
literally changed history.
Maha Gosananda, however, is using marching, or walking, to be more precise,
as a form of meditation that leads to reconciliation. It is a walking meditation
with the purpose of transforming those who engage in it, as well as those who
witness it. Why? What is this rather silent, mostly wordless method of conflict
resolution, and why does it make sense in Asian or Buddhist culture? Why is it
so significant to the people that the monks dip flowers in buckets of water and
sprinkle the water on the shops and homes as they walk? Why has it resonated
so deeply with the Cambodian people, even with many members of the Khmer
Rouge? How did Maha bring himself to meet and even include in the peace
marches leng Sary, who took part in the Khmer Rouge war in which so many
innocents were brutally tortured and murdered? Why, when he writes down a
saying of the Buddha suggesting the futility of violence and gives it to a soldier,
does it have such a deep impact? Is it because the soldiers know that the Khmer
Rouge murdered Maha's whole family, and here he is calling for an end to vio-
lence, and it thus shocks them into reconciliation or even some limited rap-
prochement? Are they frightened for their future, knowing what they have done,
and feel safer to return to civil society in the presence of Maha? Does his example
of nonviolence, despite his losses, overwhelm them emotionally, because they too
have lost so much but have not found a nonviolent way until now to express that
loss? Or is there some ancient cultural power in Cambodia in the act of receiving
the word of the Buddha on paper from a venerated monk? There are many
unanswered questions here, details that remain to be investigated, ethnographic
studies of religious transformation in the context of extreme violence to be re-
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 45

searched, and last but not least, theories and practices that need to be built upon
these studies.
Maha began his walks as early as 1992, as far as I can tell. Originally, it was
called the Walk for Peace and Reconciliation, the dhammayietra (pilgrimage of
truth). In 1994, for example, the march coincided with the Khmer New Year, and
it ended a month later, on a Buddhist holy day. Maha passed through regions
riddled with land mines and utterly deforested.13 He said to the people, as they
passed through these places:

We must remove the land mines in our hearts which prevent us from
making peace—greed, hatred, and delusions. We can overcome greed with
weapons of generosity, we can overcome hatred with the weapon of loving
kindness, we can overcome delusion with the weapon of wisdom. Peace
starts with us.14

He uses important Buddhist cultural referents in these statements and, at the

same time, draws upon the brutal reality around him. But he transforms and
overwhelms the violent symbols and metaphors by turning them into metaphors
of transformation, healing, and peace. He uses the terminology of land mines and
weapons but turns them toward inner reality, the inner life, where Buddhist tra-
dition holds the greatest sway over the human being in this culture and where it
has the greatest potential to make a Buddhist into a nonviolent sentient being.
Maha gave out books on wisdom, according to pictures that I saw, right in
front of a huge portrait of a legendary figure called Finger-garland. Finger-garland
was a warrior who terrorized many villages. His bloodthirsty nature was so severe
that he walked around wearing necklaces of fingers, taken from the villagers that
he had killed. He was transformed by the Buddha's wisdom, however, and he
then was told by the Buddha to go back and face the villagers, who kicked him
and taunted him. But the Buddha told him that the price was well worth it,
because otherwise he would be paying with a thousand more deaths after this
world for the crimes that he had committed.
Maha Gosananda knows exactly what he is doing. He knows that there is no
way for Cambodia to recover without the dismantling of the Khmer Rouge. He
found his own way to offer the Cambodian people a path back out of the hell of
their own creation. The soldiers, who committed unspeakable atrocities for many
years, truly are today's Finger-garlands, and Maha, today's Cambodian Buddha,
is helping them come back to wisdom from the delusions of Pol Pot's mad vision.
He invites them, under the portrait of Finger-garland, to change now, to endure
the humiliation of return to the people they have damaged in order to avoid a
thousand lives spent in repayment for the suffering that they have wreaked. The
repetition of mythic history lived and felt by the Cambodians in this context, in
the presence of this extraordinary monk, must be positively awe-inspiring, emo-
tionally devastating but hopeful at the same time. It offers criminals the rhythm
and ritual of violence, remorse, return, and punishment in order to transcend
the suffering of a thousand lifetimes.
 46 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

It is interesting that Maha does symbolic acts. He also speaks. He also gives
out books on wisdom to be internalized by those who read them. But he does
not conduct dialogue workshops. It seems that in Asia, in general, suffused by
ancient wisdom traditions, the idea of giving out a book or holding a book in
one's hand is widespread as a path to enlightenment. Recall the famous photos
of tens of thousands of Mao's followers in China holding high his red book. Maha
Gosananda now uses this cultural tool to return Cambodians to a path of sanity
for their country or, as he would say, a path of generosity, loving kindness, and
wisdom. He does not do this by engaging in verbal debates but by accessing deep
symbolic places in the culture, by using his moral authority to get people to read,
on their own, the wisdom of their own tradition. He thus empowers the individ-
ual, deepens the inner life, and moves his people to a new inner reality, which
then generates a new outer reality. This is Buddhist conflict resolution at its finest.
Of course, it cannot replace the need for a democratic political structure that will
hold everyone to a standard of civil liberties. But he is playing a vital role in
giving his people a deep way to move out of the hell in which they find themselves.
Few have even approached his methods in terms of the depth of its cultural
persuasiveness.
Some might scoff at Maha Gosananda's effort, assuming that there is no way
to truly measure what effect he really has, how many Khmer Rouge he has really
transformed. But evaluation is the great burden of all conflict resolution practice.
There have been countless efforts at first- and second-track diplomacy and many
workshops on Cambodia, which failed miserably for years while more people
died. Do we assume that all these secular efforts are part of a slow and steady
success story, despite the initial failures, because slowly Cambodia is achieving
some normalcy, while the Buddhist priestly peace marches are not? The peace
marches are a deeply Cambodian and particularly Buddhist way of social change,
profoundly symbolic and completely serious in their intent to accomplish every
bit as much as a dialogue workshop, in terms of personal and intergroup trans-
formation.
The policy implications, which we will discuss in detail at the end of this book,
seem clear. We must actively pursue a number of avenues of intervention in
conflict. But, in particular, the most creative intervention strategies may require
funding dialogue in one place and a march in another, or funding one kind of
activity for university-based citizens and an entirely different kind of activity for
villagers. It may mean a completely different approach to project conceptuali-
zation, choosing often to fund a human being with extraordinary leadership qual-
ities in a given culture rather than a gathering, a conference, or a workshop. It
may mean funding symbols rather than verbal exchanges. Of course, any authentic
funding strategy must emerge from a deep familiarity with what has worked and
what could work in a particular cultural milieu. But we will leave a full discussion
of this for chapter 9.
Nothing we have said suggests that the dialogue workshop cannot work to-
gether with these cultural methods or even that they cannot be incorporated into
the structure in some way. But this has to be thought through carefully. I partic-
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 47

ipated in a Richmond, Virginia, event that has now become the national Hope
in the Cities Project. It was a gathering on racial conflict. Moral Re-Armament
was the chief initiator of the event. There were some workshops, more in the
form of mini-classes or discussion groups to express one's feelings. In classic MRA
fashion, there was a plenum that was not like the typical dialogue workshops of
conflict resolution. The plenum was more in the form of public confession and
included moments of contrition about past wrongs. But it was the classic model
of using words and verbal exchanges to transform people. More to the point,
however, is that as a predominantly Christian, (Protestant) group with old evan-
gelical roots, the attendees were "inspired" to make a pilgrimage, which they
called a walk through history. We walked as a very large group, black and white,
the path of the slaves from Richmond's past. The participants became like the
slaves for a time by engaging in this journey. Finally, we did a symbolic act of
empathy or identification or, perhaps, burial. The group's emissaries threw
thousands of flowers into the water where the slaves first came off the boats. We
watched from high above as the flowers floated away.
This concept of the walk through history, or what I would call the walk
through the pain of the Other, is something that various peace activists will be
experimenting with in many other places. It was profoundly moving for those
who participated, as powerful—or perhaps more powerful—than what could have
been achieved through dialogue.15 It seemed transformative, in distinct ways, for
both the blacks and the whites in the group. Furthermore, for this Christian
group, it resonated deeply with their mythic ritual attachment to Jesus' path of
suffering and redemption, which is a foundation of the Christian yearly calendar.
The notion of pilgrimage also has deep biblical roots beginning with Jewish cy-
clical pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the mythic roots of the Jewish odyssey in
search of the Promised Land while guided by God's presence through uncertain
and hostile desert terrain. Therefore, this symbolic practice would resonate deeply
in many religious cultures.
Another problem with conflict resolution based on dialogue involves the in-
ternal life. The way to change violent interpersonal behavior, according to the
ethical treatises of many religions, is inseparable from the question of how to
change the internal workings of the human being.16 In fact, most religious
traditions and cultures approach the question of conflict in terms of the personal
morality of the individual and the dynamics of her internal life. The question of
how a person trains herself to act in a peaceful way, however, is answered in
divergent ways, even within the same religious traditions, let alone between them.
But the work of the internal life is vital. Whether it be meditation in Eastern
traditions or prayer and self-evaluation, confession and repentance in the Western
traditions, religious peacemakers cannot think about dialogue as the only path to
eliminating violence or conflict. They cannot separate violent behavior from the
inner experiences of jealousy, anger, and rage that generate violent reactions to
the world. Thus, a dialogue workshop that does not take this into account would
systematically disenfranchise those religious people or spiritual leaders who dis-
cover change by other means, such as internal work on one's anger or jealousy.17
 48 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Timing is another crucial factor in regard to religious conflict, as it is in all

conflict resolution theory.18 Workshops are often appropriate at one stage and
not at another in the dynamic of a religious community's development. Other
measures may often be necessary before individuals and leaders feel comfortable
accepting the dialogue process. For many in religious societies, dialogue itself is
already a major concession, a recognition of the Other as a legitimate, moral
counterpart that may in fact be the essential challenge of conflict resolution, the
end, that is, of the process, not its beginning. This then requires a special analysis
of the timing and sequencing of relationship building and dialogue. It may be,
that there are earlier, more subtle stages and gestures of prosocial religious mo-
rality that might be enacted vis-a-vis the enemy Other before the bold break-
through of dialogue is achieved. I can think of any number of prosocial gestures
that I could convince even the most isolationist and the most wounded of my
coreligionists to engage in, justified hermeneutically in any number of ways, be-
fore I could ever convince them to sit down for a formal dialogue with an ad-
versary, be that adversary a Catholic priest, a Buddhist, a Reform rabbi, or a
Palestinian. Authentic dialogue is one of the most challenging activities that we
humans ever attempt. But there is much that can be done in religious morality
short of dialogue to engage in conflict resolution.
For some societies, the dialogue workshop itself violates the system of au-
thority. That authority system may be the key to authentic change and to alienate
it at the outset is counterproductive. Many people change across the world be-
cause their leaders say and do symbolic things that transform their own attitudes,
or at least open them to new possibilities. This is not the ideal Enlightenment
model of the free, rational citizen choosing to engage in conflict resolution with
his enemy. But it is foolish to make believe that everyone acts this way today. It
is unclear how many people operate as free agents even in a democracy, given
the demonstrable manipulative power of advertising. Leadership and authority
figures, be they religious leaders, politicians, or rock stars, have an enormous
impact on human consciousness, but they have even more impact in many reli-
gious societies.
This leads to a deeper issue. An important assumption of conflict resolution
theory and practice—and an assumption beneath the surface of the dialogue
workshop—is the centrality of "rationality," however one defines it, in conflict
resolution. There is also a tendency among some theoreticians to assume that
emotions are at the root of conflict and violent behavior, that emotions originate
in a "lower" form of human evolution, and that only critical thinking leads to
peacemaking.19 There are some pivotal cultural assumptions here that may or
may not be rooted in Western, male, and/or secular biases. But these biases do
imply that the construction of a civil society that is rooted in deep emotional
reactions and not based on rational constructs is inherently inferior and bound
to create far more violence.
The rationality and pragmatism of Western thinking has led to the creation
of a number of democracies, which have created many improvements in the
quality of human life for many people while also leading to misery for the
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 49

poorest members of society. But the benefits for many millions have been un-
deniable. Rational thinking has also led to the greatest concentration of brain
power in the history of the human race, much of it focused on the most effi-
cient way to commit mass destruction in a matter of hours. I speak, of course,
of the scientific and technological resources dedicated to weapons production
and particularly to nonconventional warfare. No "nonrational" human society,
no religious culture, no animal species has ever managed to achieve this level
of preparation for large-scale murder. Thus, rationality does not always lead to
conflict prevention, as it has not in the scientifically based, mechanized mass
murders of twentieth-century warfare. In fact, if rationality is defined as the
search for pragmatic ways to achieve one's own interests, one has to wonder
about who is really rational: the magic-infused culture of a tribe that has a high
but stable infant mortality rate, a rather short lifespan, but a completely sus-
tainable agricultural life with permanent, inexhaustible resources, or, a culture
with a low infant mortality rate, long lifespans, resources that are steadily de-
pleted, and a defense system that puts everyone at risk of germ warfare and
nuclear holocaust? It is beyond any of us to pass judgment on whole civiliza-
tions, but we can safely say that rationality is not the only path historically to
peacemaking or social stability. I would argue that at some juncture in adju-
dication and conflict resolution, in every culture that I have studied, there are
what one would call rational discussions about compromise, the just division of
resources, and so on. But there are many other factors that go into whether
people reach this stage of conflict resolution, and most of them are not really
what one would call rational.
There is much evidence that prosocial emotions are key to a stable nonviolent
society.20 It is only reasonable to assume, therefore, that conflict resolution prac-
tice should have a much more constructive approach to, and even embrace of,
emotions and intuitions, spiritual or secular, as critical to peacemaking and rec-
onciliation.21 Even anger and rage are not necessarily dark libidinal impulses but
normal responses to impossible circumstances or traumas. These violent emotions
can and should be used in the process of moving people toward conflict reduction
and even reconciliation.22
Western interest in the prosocial emotions goes back to the Scottish Enlight-
enment. It is a caricature of the Enlightenment, or at least one side of it, that it
made a virtual religion of rationality. In fact, the Enlightenment brought with it
an ever-increasing interest in the role of the emotions in human psychology.23
In the context of religion, it is clear that emotions, in religious communities
across the world, play a central role in the processes by which people prevent
conflict or resolve it. It is the inculcation of these prosocial emotions, such as
love, empathy, and honor, that is the key to intracommunal harmony. Often they
act as the very vehicle of conflict resolution, such as the spirit of remorse and
forgiveness that leads to penitential reconciliation between adversaries. This is not
to say that rational means of adjudication have no place in religious traditions;
they absolutely do at the appropriate times. But it is clear that there is a critical
role for emotions.
 50 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

A conflict resolution culture that defines itself as exclusively rational tends to

see itself as categorically opposed to religious systems of belief and practice, which
are characterized, or caricatured, as rooted in the irrational. That cuts off the
possibility of constructive engagement with religious societies and traditions in
all of their complexity.

The Needs of the Individual

Another direction of thinking in conflict resolution that needs to be looked at is

human needs theory.24 The focus of this theory is that deprivation of the needs
of the individual leads to conflict. As vital a contribution as this theory is to our
understanding of conflict, there is also a reductionism about it that leaves little
place for human behavior motivated by other than individualized need fulfill-
ment. This leaves little room for the religious psyche that, at least in Judaism and
Islam, sees itself as motivated much more by a free will, not by needs, and by a
sense of duty to a community or an exalted being or beings, all of whom rise
beyond the realm of the individual's needs. This is additionally true of many
African religions.25
Now it may be the case that the social scientist will nevertheless assert that
religious behavior is based on needs, not duties and not a free will. But this is
certainly not the perception of the religious actors, and one has to question the
usefulness of a social conflict theory whose essence cannot be communicated
honestly, in terms that can be agreed upon or understood, to the very people it
is trying to help emerge from conflict. Whereas to a person who has no spiritual
interests, one can speak about exploring his needs, in the context of engaging in
a conflict resolution intervention, it is hard to know exactly how the intervention
would proceed with those who feel that they are not acting at all on their needs
but on high ideals that defy their own personal needs.26
Human needs is also a theory deeply rooted in Western prioritization of the
individual. Once again, numerous cultures and religious traditions globally, cen-
tralize the community, not the individual. It is fine to critique these cultures and
religions from a liberal, moral point of view and, therefore, to advocate social
change and even conflict resolution that guarantees the rights of the individual
and the freedom of the individual. But this must be acknowledged as a moral
position of the outside interveners. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in terrible
trouble, for example, trying to negotiate the rights of a woman in a particular
tribe versus the group's rights. In other words, preferring the needs of the indi-
vidual over the group, or vice versa, is a value judgment that has a variety of
nuanced answers in many civilizations. This has clear effects on conflict, its con-
duct, and its resolution. It would be fine to argue for the rights of a woman
versus her tribe, but one should do so as an advocate for her or at least acknowl-
edge, after self-examination, to the adversaries that you do have certain nonne-
gotiable values as an intervener.
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 51

The job of the intervener is, in my opinion, to be as self-aware as possible, to

know one's moral predisposition, and then to act in as transparent a way as
possible. Human needs theory that does not take into account the centrality of
the communal in religious life will not deal effectively with the challenges faced
by the parties to a conflict. Many people see their needs fulfilled by the guarantee
of the safety and security of their group and the continuity of their group's
traditions. Many others, despite or sometimes because of their particular view of
spiritual truths, consider the individual's needs to be paramount when it comes
to certain fights with religious authority. I do not have a solution to this moral
conundrum, but I am certain that theoretical constructs of conflict that place
sole emphasis on the religious individual and ignore the role of group identity
will misunderstand some conflicts and miss opportunities for creative solutions.
This is not to deny that human needs theory has not contributed significantly
to the conflict resolution discussion. Its frames of reference are useful and im-
portant in understanding the behavior of religious societies, and my analysis of
conflicts often incorporates a review of the basic human needs that are unmet
on all sides. But there are fundamental assumptions of the theory that need to
be expanded or redesigned to understand religious society and even religious
individuals. We must be able to develop a theory that will explain why so many
people will go against their basic human needs, such as food, water, or social
acceptance, in order to fulfill a religious precept. Certainly, the most blatant
examples are religious suicide bombing or self-directed destruction, such as the
self-immolating Buddhist monks or the self-immolating wives in old Hindu tra-
dition. Certainly, one can theorize a basic need for ultimate meaning that is so
fundamental to some people that all other needs collapse before it.27 This must
be studied further before the theory can be an effective aid in intervention when
religion and culture are deeply rooted phenomena in the conflict.

Psychological Reductionism and the Cognitive/Social

Structures of Religious Meaning

The same questions can be raised about psychoanalytic approaches to conflict

resolution, namely that they tend to assume that beliefs and practices are reducible
to emotional needs. Hatred of or violence toward a specific enemy is reducible
to a manifestation of traumatic injury to the psyche or to projection and so on.
This school of thought has contributed enormously to conflict analysis, and there
is no argument here that it is irrelevant to religious life. On the contrary, it may
well help to illuminate numerous aspects of religious culture. However, it is not
the whole story nor can it explain the hold that sacred traditions involving ene-
mies have on people. There are commitments here to systems of practice that go
well beyond deep injury. For example, if a certain antisocial belief about a given
enemy is inextricably related to a system of traditions whose structure would fall
apart, from a fundamentalist perspective, if one piece was taken out, then the
 52 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

persistence of the antisocial belief cannot be explained simply as a reaction to

trauma. It may have been at one time, but now its persistence is due also to the
complexity of meaning systems and how they often resist evolution and herme-
neutic development. Thus, the resistance to change may not be part of holding
onto an objectified enemy but rather may be a holding onto a cognitive meaning
structure that cannot survive without this piece. Equally important, the authority
structure of clerics is often threatened by calling into question any piece of a
meaning system whose legitimacy depends on its inerrancy or on its appearance
of permanence. The cleric may not be attached to the enemy image embedded
in the system as much as to his obligation, and that of his colleagues, to a meaning
system under fire from secular culture. In their eyes that system would lose its
legitimacy if it simply removed an ancient enemy image or an antisocial law,
whose roots in hoary antiquity provide their own kind of legitimacy.
I have known many Orthodox rabbis, for example, who would be happy to
ensure that a holiday such as Purim, with its obligatory reading of the Book of
Esther, which culminates with the slaughter of the people—including their chil-
dren—who tried to exterminate the Jewish people, would never be used to justify
the killing of anyone today. They certainly are deeply ashamed by Baruch Gold-
stein's mass murder at the Hebron mosque, which was inspired in part by Purim.
And yet, their hands are tied. They cannot simply abolish an ancient holiday nor
change the reading of the text. They can and do give moralistic sermons, and
they can and do interpret the story in less violent terms. But they cannot remove
the ritual without calling into question their own legitimacy as guardians of the
law. Are they frozen by Jewish trauma, or are they frozen by a meaning and
authority system that gives them little room to maneuver? This dilemma is the
foundation of liberal modern religion—in many traditions—that says effectively,
"Yes, we do change things from time to time, gladly." This is the basic dilemma
we have in conflict resolution, as we insert ourselves, whether we like it or not,
into the thorny theological choices of modern human beings in search of meaning
systems that make sense to them.
This has critical implications in terms of a strategy of intervention. It may
mean that creative hermeneutics on the part of leadership or even individuals
may be the key to a solution. It may also mean that solutions take a long time
to take hold since the new interpretation of a religious symbol is not something
that one can turn on and off like a faucet. Human beings become attached, in
early youth sometimes, to a certain meaning system, and it is only their children
who can accept a new interpretation that is more peaceful.
The hermeneutic give and take of Purim is but one example of the way in
which a deeply embedded tradition will not disappear even when many people
reject its implicit message of violence. It can be reinterpreted but not easily dis-
carded. The same is true of many other systems of belief and practice. Is this
because the trauma that gave rise to the holiday—the threat of annihilation—
still resonates with recent traumas and that the wish fulfillment—the fantasy of
strength over enemies—is still deeply longed for by this tiny people? Perhaps.
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 53

The irony is that now there is a great deal of strength over enemies that Jews
experience. And yet that is not the self-perception of the community. In fact, the
community acts often as if another Holocaust is about to happen at any moment.
Would Purim recede into insignificance if the community slowly shed itself of
the trauma of historical oppression? It is not likely in the current climate of
religious revivalism, but it is possible that the violence of the story could be
overshadowed with time by the numerous benevolent characteristics of the hol-
iday, such as aiding the poor. This is what happened historically in the disem-
powered atmosphere of exile. The focus of the holiday was celebration, gifts to
the poor, and gifts to neighbors. The risk is in the present, in a dangerous com-
bination of living in the shadow of the Holocaust together with unprecedented
military power, when Jewish empowerment allows for a new hermeneutic that
could centralize the violence of the story.28 If the political situation were to rapidly
deteriorate, it is conceivable that Purim could become for radical Jews what
Ramadan has become for radical Muslims in Algeria, a killing season.
There is no doubt about it: religious rituals are potentially dangerous. But even
the rituals that flirt with violence mean much more to people than simply a
rehearsal of trauma or a revenge for trauma. There is a persistence of Purim, for
example, even among many who do not have a paranoid or fearful view of the
Christian world. They cling to this holiday simply because wiping out an ancient
holiday would undermine the entire meaning system of rabbinic Judaism. Even
the most radically pacifist religious Jews that I know do not eliminate this holiday,
although they do not really know what to do with sacralized violence yet and are
only now evolving a spiritual and ritual reworking of traumatic and violent ep-
isodes, such as the Exodus and the drowning of Pharoah's armies, commemorated
on Passover.29
Thus, psychological theory can help to decipher the labyrinth of religious cul-
ture, but it must respect its internal meaning systems and value systems and not
reduce everything to libidinal impulses of the individual. It is much more com-
plicated than that. Furthermore, it must help to evolve intervention strategies that
respect meaning systems in addition to addressing deep injuries that might be
causing the conflictual behavior.

Culture and Religion

The cultural method of conflict analysis is the most akin to research on religion
and conflict resolution. Some caveats apply, however. Religious beliefs and prac-
tices often span many cultures. Therefore, religion must be considered, for in-
vestigative purposes, an additional or different principle of organization of anal-
ysis. Despite protests to the contrary from narrow interpreters of religion, there
are values and assumptions that religiously oriented people hold in common in
many parts of the world; these occur in a wide variety of cultural expressions.
Some examples include the importance of spiritual as well as physical modes of
 54 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

existence, the importance of the inner life, and the importance of various moral
precepts, such as honesty, justice, the protection of human life, and the veneration
of elders. All of these would affect a religiously constructed conflict prevention
and resolution strategy.
The main point is that religious values or metaphysical orientations regroup
human beings into separate sub- or supercultures that cross other cultural lines
and that, therefore, deserve independent analysis. It is possible, for example, that
biblical monotheists from widely different cultures may share a great many values
and even ritual patterns that would be critical for the construction of conflict
resolution strategies among them. One could say that biblically based religions
globally, consisting perhaps of 3 billion people, constitute a superculture that has
its own problems and possibilities. On the other hand, the analysis of the inter-
actions of the religion and the local cultures would be critical in anticipating what
strategies of peacemaking that appear on the surface to be shared by many reli-
gions would be subject to debate as one tried to use the strategies cross-
culturally.30 For example, forgiveness is a basic theme in monotheistic traditions,
but its character and parameters are interpreted in widely different ways across
religions and across cultures as it pertains to reconciliation.31 Its theological sig-
nificance and, more important, the parameters of its use in peacemaking are
completely different among, and even within, the various religious expressions of
the monotheisms. To utilize this as a method of peacemaking without cross-
cultural and interreligious awareness would be a mistake.
To take another example, in Bosnia there are at least five faiths involved in
the conflict: Catholic, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant. And yet, there is a
common language here. On one level, there used to be a common culture in
Bosnia per se, especially in Sarajevo. And yet, it is the vastly different cultural
meaning systems of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian consciousness that could give
rise to the most horrific results of the war. On the other hand, the same religions
that served to justify the war and the killing at the hands of some also have within
their reservoirs the metaphors and values that could heal this society. There may
be cultural assumptions about peacemaking, restitution, and tolerance that would
be vital to understand in dealing with all the representatives of religious society
in this region. Thus, there are times when, and ways in which, culture may be a
unifying or a disunifying factor and other times when religion may be the im-
portant unifying or disunifying factor. A great deal depends on the interpretive
initiative and zeal of the parties to the conflict.32 Both religion and culture are
potentially vital but complicated assets to peacemaking.

Rethinking Conflict Resolution Theory for Religious

Societies and Subcultures

There are two things that need to occur in order to further analysis of religion
in terms of conflict: first, conflict resolution theory must always consider how
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 55

and whether its constructs of conflict analysis, conflict prevention, and resolution
can be understood or framed in a way that includes religious societies, and sec-
ond, world religions and their practitioners must be investigated with an eye to
conflict and peacemaking.
Both the field of conflict resolution and the study of the religions need to
begin to ask new questions. We cannot limit ourselves to negative or crisis-
oriented questions, such as what makes conflict happen, or how to defuse a
conflict, particularly when it comes to religions. We need to ask other questions,
including: Why does conflict not happen in and between some religious societies
in various historical settings? Why is there so little violence at a particular place
and time? How did a particular community achieve such a high level of altruism
or public service? When does a large portion of a community abhor violence?
What values are cited or referred to by those who embrace nonviolence or even
a prosocial, accepting response to others who are different? What prosocial be-
haviors, emotions, and principles lead to a nonaggressive or even loving response
to outsiders? What social systems of justice and fairness, on the level of the
distribution of scarce resources, as well as on the level of personal status, have
led to harmonious interaction among human beings, especially human beings
who are different? What kinds of mutual behavior between the genders leads to
the least amount of conflict, violence, or miscommunication and the most
amount of respect or love? All of these questions are directly related to what goes
wrong in conflict and violence, but framed this way their answers can include a
host of religious traditions that have not been utilized by conflict resolution the-
ory nor, for that matter, by political science or sociology. These questions address
the prosocial underpinnings of religious society by focusing on when and how
religious people have successfully coexisted with each other and with others be-
yond their group.33
World religions have been particularly astute in offering answers to these ques-
tions, which fall loosely in the range of conflict prevention, whether or not one
agrees with those answers. On the whole, most world religions have been weaker
at resolving crises or conflicts with enemies and outsiders once these emerge,
although this is not universally true. It seems to be the case, especially with
biblically based religions and some tribal religions, that the reification of evil in
the estranged Other, be it a heretic or an unbeliever or a foreign traditional
enemy, is a deeply embedded phenomenon. Conflict analysis theory can help
explain and expose this side of organized religion. But it does a disservice to its
own constructs, as well as to the study of religions, to avoid asking why and when
things go right as opposed to why and when they go wrong. We deprive ourselves
of entire areas of investigation in social psychology and psychotherapy by not
probing these prosocial constructs. Furthermore, by evading this inquiry, the
current discussion of religion and conflict guarantees that religious systems will
not be able to positively interact with or even contribute to the subject of peace-
making.
 56 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Distinguishing the Phenomenal and Epiphenomenal

Causes of Religious Violence and Peacemaking

Academic theory can be helpful in the process of distinguishing between phe-

nomenal and epiphenomenal causes of religious conflict and peacemaking to the
degree to which it can offer a partial account of these phenomena. For example,
economics is important to understand the genesis of conflict between minorities
and majorities,34 but minorities often have that status due to cultural or religious
differentiation. To the degree to which the genesis of conflict can be explained
by the inequality of scarce resources among poor groups that are competing, or
between poor and wealthy, this will help explain why a particular religious group
may be developing an antisocial attitude and behavior. It may explain why a
group may be hated by Others, even if the hate appears to based on theological
necessity. It may also explain the opposite, namely, why at a particular point in
time a religious tradition develops a benevolent attitude toward Others who are
either not in competition economically or who are engaged in a mutually bene-
ficial arrangement.
The same is true of psychological study. Let us say, for example, that a
particular group is developing a middle class that is privileged economically.
Furthermore, this class is removed by time and geography from some deep and
horrific trauma in the group's history. Yet, a portion of this group is display-
ing more and more antisocial approaches to Others than their forebears, who
were poorer and suffered more persecution; these attitudes are also expressing
themselves in religious beliefs and behavioral priorities that are more violent or
exclusivist. Here, economics is inadequate as an explanation, while psychology
may be quite helpful in understanding the persistence and the strengthening of
the effects of trauma over generations, the guilt that is felt more some-
times by generations one step removed from a traumatic event, precisely be-
cause they now have privileges while their parents or grandparents suffered
horribly. There is also often a sense of anomie and rootlessness that comes
with a life of economic privilege that pales in comparison, at a deep existential
level, with the clear and dramatic moral and spiritual challenges of a previous
generation that was poorer and more brutalized—but also more spiritually au-
thentic. Or there may be an embittered, unconscious rebellion against eco-
nomic privilege, the price of which is highly isolating suburbanized living that
deprives one of the deep level of community that older generations had. Thus,
despite the current privileges, there is an irrational longing for the very life that
their parents sought to help their children escape. And so, the children or
grandchildren begin to recreate religious belief systems that confirm their iden-
tity as poor and persecuted, thrust in the midst of a hostile world; their only
escape is the deep, protected womb of communal religion, even angry com-
munal religion.
One can make the case that this explains the odd behavior of many immi-
grants to the United States, whose politics are far more radicalized than those
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 57

of their parents or than the people in their native country, who had or pres-
ently have much more direct experience of prejudice. We have the unique phe-
nomena in the United States of Jews supporting the most extreme political po-
sitions in Israel with millions of dollars, Arab immigrants doing exactly the
same thing by major financial support for Hamas, people of Irish extraction
being the main source of money for many years of the IRA military opera-
tions, and Cuban exiles lobbying for the most militarist approaches to Cuba.
The examples multiply.
Certainly, this is the result of the simple economic reality of American wealth
having great power over poorly funded causes abroad. But it goes deeper and
seems to reflect the way in which the guilt associated with expatriates' current
privileges and their absence from a struggle in the homeland is channeled into
financial aid for the most extreme causes; they prove their patriotism by "out-
patriotizing," to coin a phrase, the indigenous patriots. Religious beliefs alone
would be insufficient to explain this phenomenon.
This is an example of how two fields of research, socioeconomics and psy-
chology, can explain epiphenomenally what happens to religious life over time in
terms of peace and conflict. But it is not the full story. There is an internal
dynamic to both individual and collective religious life, especially with the added
factor of time, even generational time, that creates its own logic and pattern of
development. If some catastrophe occurs to a religious community, there is not
one day a trauma, and then a moment of healing, and then suddenly every belief
and practice changes. There is an internal coherence and logic to religious patterns
of being that form the basis of their attractiveness as persuasive systems of mean-
ing. These develop over decades, even centuries. It is the very stability and con-
servative character of these meaning systems that attract people to believe and
follow their strictures. Thus, change happens slowly to the group, if it is a group-
oriented religious tradition.
What happens to the individual or to the community confronted by external
changes is much more complicated and varies enormously with the personality
characteristics and upbringing of individuals. The results are affected by the
ways in which the religious beliefs, stories, and practices have been internalized
and, above all, which of these have been internalized. A new event, such as
massive loss of life, loss of a specific loved one, a natural catastrophe, or in-
creased experience of hostility from outsiders, may cause a radical break with
religion or confirm its teachings or lead to a profound and arduous search for
new meaning inside the traditions. Those who choose to leave a religion, as so
many have in the modern period, no longer affect the character of the com-
munity. Those who stay and reinterpret it in light of external events have the
most impact.
These external events, these traumas, have enormous power over the evolving
character of the community. At least in the Abrahamic faiths, one of the central
challenges theologically is the reality of evil befalling the innocent. If a group
suffers massive injury, this is a direct challenge to faith in a providential deity,
unless the trauma is seen as part of some divine plan. The traumatic events then
 58 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

become the center of the spirituality. Responding to this violence becomes the
crux of religious faith.
For the Jewish community, the Holocaust looms over everything as the prime
example of what I have just described. But how that trauma is interpreted is the
difference between those who embrace peacemaking and those who embrace a
belligerent resistance to the rest of the world. Holocaust survivors find themselves
on both sides of this equation. What is more surprising is the way in which
second- and third-generation responses have been more and more belligerent.
There are many factors involved in this development, including the uses of the
Holocaust for Jewish education, often with little else to create a sense of collective
self beyond persecution, and the uses of the Holocaust as part of a Zionist myth
of history in which the state of Israel is history's, and God's, only acceptable reply
to the Holocaust; the cry of "never again" is central to this mythology.
Another factor is the general loss of meaning systems in contemporary ma-
terialist societies. This void is increasingly being filled by people searching their
ethnic origins for traumas that organize their response to the world, that give
them a reason to live beyond the accumulation of wealth. There are often re-
membered traumas that are built into the community's history and cultural con-
struct, such as the Civil War for southerners of the United States, or slavery for
the black community of the United States. But it is often the unfulfilled deep
needs of individuals in the context of contemporary materialist society that may
drive one individual to highlight past traumas to the point of destructive obses-
sion, whereas others, also keenly conscious of their history, may learn to live with
their past in a much less angry fashion. The latter often learn from their group's
traumas the skills of building a world that minimizes the trauma to underprivi-
leged or suffering groups. Victor Frankl's response to the Holocaust comes to
mind, as does Martin Luther King's to slavery and Nelson Mandela's response to
almost three decades in prison and the enslavement of his community under
apartheid.
One note of caution here is vital. The inner dynamics of communal religion
and, in particular, the individual's experience, are utterly complex in the deepest
sense, defying any serious generalization. This is particularly important because
so many radically and violently religious groups are composed of individuals who
are sometimes not guided by a religious authority at all but have come to their
place of violent religious expression through an internal dynamic and hermeneu-
tic engagement with their religious tradition often in opposition to family and
community expressions of the same religion. They subsequently will gravitate to
a religious authority who shares the same views, and the radical leader will feed
off of these lone individuals, creating a new religious communal dynamic that is
very violent. This is the prototype of the religious terrorist. The origins of this
phenomenon are in the individual's own psychological odyssey, his own history
of abuse, for example, by a parent. However, once all of this is set in motion,
and these damaged individuals gather together, and do their damage, it can then
have a dramatic impact on the entire community, especially as power shifts to
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 59

those religious authorities who embrace the violent individuals who look to them
for leadership.
We need a vastly improved working knowledge of religious traditions and their
hermeneutic processes of change over time if we want to engage in serious conflict
analysis and conflict resolution theory that is attuned to the reality of these com-
munities. We must be able to trace the origin of violent trends in interpretation,
when they wax and wane, and which subgroup of the culture is embracing these
interpretations. Sometimes economics will help explain this trend. Terrorists are
often part of some abused, disenfranchised group, deeply identified with the mis-
ery in their own group. Sometimes psychology is critical. Terrorists and fomenters
of violence are often people who have been physically abused or, at least, emo-
tionally abused. Religion is the vehicle through which radical political action is
channeled, yet it is modified in the process and proceeds according to the com-
plex dynamics of religious consciousness and hermeneutics.
At this point I should say a few words about religious hermeneutics. By this
I mean the broadest way in which stories, institutions, rituals, texts, precepts, and
values are being reinterpreted all the time, seen in a new light by virtue of the
interactions between the individual or the community and the environment and
life history in which they find themselves. I assume that even those who believe
their religious beliefs and practices to be static or see themselves as changing only
in order to revert to some idealized past structure are, in fact, engaged in subtle
but very real processes of development. There is, to be sure, a great deal in
religious traditions that remains the same over time. The science of hermeneutics,
especially as interpreted by Hans Gadamer, merely suggests that much more is
changing than is generally realized, not that there is nothing consistent in a
tradition, an argument that would be demonstrably contradicted by empirical
evidence.
The story of the Exodus, to take an example, is a clear part of the Hebrew
Bible and therefore a component of literature sacred to Jews and Christians. How
central it is, however, is always changing, depending on time and individualized
interpretation. Furthermore, what it signifies—the importance of violently over-
throwing unjust governments; the importance of destroying God's enemies; that
only God, not man, wreaks vengeance on the wicked; that only God acts in
political history; or that only through human leadership, as exemplified by Moses,
is justice ever achieved—depends on one's horizon of understanding and the
context of one's belief and idea structure.
Regarding the question of the relationship to violence and peacemaking, we
need to know several things about hermeneutics, religion, and time. What are the
T
precedents for change, in one direction or another, within traditions regarding
attitudes toward outsiders or traditional enemies? When the traditions express a
prosocial approach to Others, how does this express itself interpersonally, com-
munally, symbolically? How does it manifest itself in the internal life in terms of
prayer, study, meditation, ritual, repentance, and change? How are good rela-
tionships maintained? Most important, what are the boundaries of prosocial at-
 60 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

titudes? Does it extend only to the faithful or to Others with certain conditions?
Do these boundaries ever expand or contract over the course of history and, if
so, why? What are the epiphenomenal and phenomenal motivations of that
change? What resources in the tradition address the question of envisioning new
or future realities? Are those realities violent in an overt or subtle fashion or are
they peaceful? The key is to investigate how traditions have changed, and how
they could change, based on the internal hermeneutic dynamics of the tradition.

The Elicitive and Cross-Cultural Methods

of Conflict Resolution and the Diversity of
Global Religious Expressions

It is manifestly clear that the infinite diversity of possible directions that religious
faith and practice can and do take requires a method of conflict intervention that
is at the very least deeply in tune with the particular characteristics of the groups
and/or individuals in question. Furthermore, I am in agreement with the general
thrust of elicitive methods of conflict resolution.35 There is no true way to ac-
complish long-lasting peace, which truly addresses the needs of all parties, without
an elicitive and relationship-building process built into the intervention. This is
particularly true for religious societies, for several reasons. First, it is self-evident
how individualized this process of hermeneutic engagement with tradition is, in
addition to the unique complexity of the interface with epiphenomenal factors.
This, in itself, makes the basic components of the elicitive method crucial to
evolving a new hermeneutic of one's religious orientation. It is only over an
extensive period of time and through hearing the stories, traditions, and internal
struggles of a particular religious community that a third party could ever hope
to be helpful to the peace process. He must elicit patterns of human interaction
that sustain what peace there is, help to resolve conflicts, and especially find
creative ways to traverse boundaries. The intervener must work on ways to reduce
conflict between ingroups and outgroups whose adversarial relationship has been
for generations built into the religious and cultural constructs of reality. She must
enter into the patterns of meaning in a given culture when it comes to those who
are Other or outside the community of faith, if they are the ones with whom
there is a conflict. He must understand how the Others are viewed and then
discover how they can be related to in peace.
Religious traditions have such a variety of ways to express the deepest human
intuitions and patterns of growth in relationships that it is impossible to make
this into a prepackaged formula; which would shut off an infinite number of
possible creative expressions of religious peacemaking. These span the spectrum,
from deeply internal processes, such as reflection on personal values or efforts to
eliminate anger, to the most public, mass-communication methods involving
symbolic gestures, such as those performed in the past by Gandhi or Maha Gos-
ananda. One creative possibility might be directed toward the most elite forms
of transformation in key religious leaders, who, in turn, affect populations quickly
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 61

or over a long period of time, while another might be something simple and
profound that will change every person's attitude slowly, over time, such as the
Catholic church's changes in the catechism in order to eliminate anti-Semitism
from its community of believers.
There is little point to narrowing the richness of an entire religious culture's
possible responses to peacemaking into one dialogue workshop between privi-
leged members of the enemy groups. Even in a single room of religious individ-
uals, there may be one person who longs to write the definitive book on peace
in his religion, another who wants to create an interfaith group of clergy, another
who wants to engage in interfaith charity work as a vehicle of peacemaking,
another who wants to create a public event of collective remorse and repentance
to be coordinated with members of the enemy group, yet another who needs to
sit with mothers from the other side and cry over the lost children, and still
another who may want to find his way to making peace by playing a sports game
with someone from the enemy group and having a drink afterward. Finally, not
to be forgotten, there will be one in the group who wants to sit and rationally
work out a plan for coexistence and the construction of a civil society. To cater
to only the last person in one's intervention method, as many outside interven-
tions do, is not only shortsighted and a waste of human resources, it borders on
the cruel in the way in which it imprisons those who yearn the most to heal their
culture and that of their enemy. The multiple paths that I have just described
hypothetically—and many more—can be discovered in real people by drawing
ideas out of them, slowly creating relationships, listening to and sharing in the
pain of their loss, and then helping to tease out the contours of creative future
visions and practical action plans.
I saw a variation of the elicitive method in Panchgani, India, in 1997, not
directly in a conflict scenario, but at a gathering of Indians that included a fas-
cinating mixture of prominent activists, intellectuals, people of wealth, and many
simple people seeking social change. An Indian businessman named Aneel Sach-
dev and his partner coordinated a procedure involving about a hundred people
at this gathering in such a way that every single person was invited to devise new
methods of social change, to caucus with others in the room who might be
interested, and to create concrete plans for the future. The ideas could range from
new organizations to individual book projects to public acts of reconciliation.
Anything was possible to put on the table, and everyone was free to vote with
their feet as to which ideas appealed to them the most. The result was an astound-
ing burst of energetic creativity from the group.
I watched in wonder as the group was released to form whatever they wanted.
The loud, joyous chaos was riveting in its similarity to the character of Indian
village life. There was great comfort in a thousand directions of energy, reflecting
the embrace of a thousand Hindu manifestations of divinity that, in itself, mirrors
the Indian self-image. This was Indian culture at its best.
At this event, however, there were Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, and Bud-
dhists but hardly any Muslims, and thus the event did not address deeply enough
what I believe to be the central wound of Indian life, which is Hindu/Muslim
 62 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

conflict and violence. This has recently been confirmed by steps toward nuclear
catastrophe taken by India and Pakistan, one all-Muslim and one predominantly
Hindu state that emerged out of what once was all of India. Nevertheless, the
conference was a fabulous exercise and a step in the right direction.
This Indian group had the time and the distance from their problems to truly
engage their creativity. Conflict resolution interventions, by contrast, have a ten-
dency to be crisis-driven and problem-focused. This limits creative potential. Also,
as we said above, crises often evoke the worst patterns of behavior and attitude
from organized religion. By contrast, eliciting long-term strategies of coexistence
well before a crisis, in a way that draws out the religious tendency across many
cultures to dream and conceive of better realities and work toward them, posi-
tively engages religious traditions when they are not driven into extreme positions
by the passions of conflict and the suffering of their constituencies. In other
words, patterns of intervention that emphasize creative vision may fit much better
the strengths of a religious society, than a problem-or conflict-focused interven-
tion, which evokes from many who are motivated by a religious consciousness
the pattern of locating ultimate evil in some distant object, person, or group.
This is not to say that, as a peacemaker, one should submit to a common
characteristic of religious gatherings, namely, the tendency to sweep problems
from view or to pretend that there is no crisis. But in the course of one's inter-
vention one may find that an emphasis on creative vision may tap into the natural
instincts of a religious society, whereas an overfocus on problems may attack the
very thing, religion, that many in the group are holding onto as their source of
strength in a violent or conflict-ridden situation. There is a tension here between
brutal honesty, which is at times necessary, and the deliberate protection of that
which people hold as their central anchor of meaning and comfort. This is some-
thing that must be adjudicated differently in every intervention.
In a certain way, religion accentuates the deepest emotions and intuitions of
the human being, and we have a choice as to whether to elicit the best from
religious consciousness or the worst. We must be aware of how we affect religious
thinking and feeling by the constructs of intervention that we present. Interven-
tions that emphasize creative vision tap into the best resources in many religious
societies, whereas the focus on problems tends to bring out the worst. The latter
was suggested by some of my religious students who are peacemakers that, in
pointing out the sources of violence in religion, I was destroying the one source
of goodness that they held dear in the midst of conflict.
This is a difficult matter, and it often pits the natural desire of conflict resolvers
and justice advocates to expose the full truth of history against the understandable
need of many people in the worst conflicts to have one sure anchor of goodness.
I have found no simple way to do this, but we have compromised in our trainings
by emphasizing vision and the prosocial elements of a faith tradition while also
delving into the violence that religion has produced, its origins and contours.
Often we err on one side or the other, based on the dynamics of the group. This
is almost unavoidable, but it is the combination of the elements of the training
that I believe works for most broad-minded religious people. For fundamentalists,
 Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence 63

with a narrow or defensive view of their own religion, a different kind of inter-
vention and training would be necessary, one that would minimally criticize the
religion directly, unless they do themselves, which does happen surprisingly often
in safe contexts.
Another issue is the unique role of religious identity in times of crisis. The
likelihood of a preset, formulaic method of intervention and mediation leading
nowhere or being counterproductive is quite high in the settings we have de-
scribed. Especially in conflict-ridden situations, the tight relationship between
identity, personal legitimacy, and the drive to create religiously unique cultural
expression is high. Effectively, the worse a situation is the more that there is a
tendency of some to hold fast to unique expressions of religious identity that
mark an identity in opposition to an Other. This is the critical place of what I
call "negative identity." Religious identity tends to focus on what makes me the
most different precisely when I feel the most mortally and existentially threatened
by an enemy, whether he be real or imaginary.
At the height of conflict, we find ourselves precisely at the point when for-
mulaic interventions that are foreign and that do not appeal to our uniqueness
will be the most suspect and will remind us the most of our enemy and what he
wants to do to us—eliminate our unique identity and our right to live indepen-
dently or at all. It is vital that the process of change and healing be indigenous
at precisely this time in the crisis in order to wean people from this very under-
standable overattachment to what makes them religiously unique and, therefore,
belligerent to outgroups. This cannot take the form of a weaning from religious
identity as such, which a formulaic intervention would be perceived to be, but
rather must take the form of a shift to a hermeneutically reworked sense of
religious identity.36 It is a process in which the person and group can come to
feel that "a person of my religious tradition does not kill and commit acts of
cruelty," for example, or that "the circumstances under which I would commit
violence should be limited to situations whose time has passed now," "a person
of my tradition and our community does the opposite ideally." That shift in
mentality should be the end goal of the interveners. In my experience of obser-
vation, intervention, and training, it is the rare religious fundamentalist today
who revels in the opportunity to shed blood, despite the notable exceptions that
we all see splashed across our television screens. Most religious advocates of vi-
olence whom I have encountered do so reluctantly, feeling compelled by religious
authority, by threatening circumstances, and by prevailing hermeneutic readings
of their tradition. A slow and steady process of exposing them to the humanity
of their enemies combined carefully with exploring alternative hermeneutic reli-
gious paths often creates a quiet revolution in religious thinking, both individually
and collectively. Of course, these paradigm shifts are rarely acknowledged in fun-
damentalist contexts that prize the image of "no change." In fact, these changes
do occur, regularly, and they go unnoticed because they are overshadowed by
those news-grabbing fundamentalists who crave an opportunity for violence. This
is not to say that one cannot find sanction for violence in these traditions. But
the modern fundamentalist community in all parts of the world is more subtly
 64 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

divided on these matters than one sees from the outside. What conflict resolution
needs to do, at the very least, is utilize that division to bring as wide a circle of
religious enthusiasts as possible into the orbit of peacemaking.
In some other part of an intervention process, perhaps with a more moderate
section of the religious community, one can raise the possibility of universal
human commitments that might form the basis of a multicultural and multire-
ligious society. But for many of the most extreme religious people committed to
violence, those human commitments can only come about well after the deeply
perceived threat to identity and existence has abated.
This is not to deny that with many other religious people and institutions in
the same conflict one could actually begin the intervention with universal appeals
and common principles. The two efforts, with both the more liberal and the more
radical religious constituencies, could in principle proceed simultaneously. But I
would argue that, especially during a crisis, it is vital that we elicit that which is
most unique and most sacred as a source of prosocial practice and social change,
if we truly want to move the entire religious culture to a new and lasting com-
mitment to peacemaking. This is the only measure that will draw most people
away from extreme violence. It must be felt as an authentic hermeneutic of tra-
dition in its deepest phenomenal sense, as well as a reasonable response to the
pragmatic external needs of the community. It must honor and speak to what
religious people are safeguarding the most and are in the greatest fear of losing:
their unique spiritual identity, for which they and their ancestors have lived and
died for centuries or longer. This is the best way for them to eventually come to
a place of shared humanity with estranged Others: after their unique identity and
religious reality has been safeguarded and vindicated. Intervention can either help
this evolution to take place or it can hinder it, depending on the quality of that
intervention.
In this chapter we have examined the strengths and weaknesses of general
conflict resolution theory as it may be useful in understanding conflict involving
religious people or communities. In the following chapter, we move toward an
internal analysis of two religious traditions. We will demonstrate how religious
scholars over history have discussed the problem of war and peace, and why this
discussion is inadequate, as it currently stands, to the task of generating authentic
religious commitments to peacemaking and conflict resolution, particularly with
nonbelievers, "heretics," and members of other faiths.
 FOUR

What Is Missing from Religious Approaches

to War and Peace

Judaism and Islam as Paradigms

W ar has been the subject of centuries-old discussions in both Ju-

daism and Islam, and there have also been separate discussions
in each tradition regarding peacemaking and the ethical relationships between
human beings, both between fellow believers and between believers and Others.
Rarely, however, are these discussions integrated in a way that illuminates the
question of warmaking and peacemaking as a whole. It is as if war is a separate
category of human experience, having nothing whatever to do with the full spec-
trum of ethical challenges of human intercourse, and as if these phenomena have
no causal interconnections at all. Furthermore, there is a tendency to engage in
these discussions in an ahistorical fashion, as if there has been no fundamental
movement over time in attitudes toward these phenomena.
The modern study of hermeneutics has facilitated the investigation of the dy-
namic relationship of text, reader, and the historical horizon of each reader.1 This
ever-shifting horizon, depending on the reader, the time, and the place, will help
explain the many paradoxical attitudes toward our subject. Furthermore, the so-
cial science of conflict analysis and conflict resolution can be a useful tool in
understanding the shifting, dynamic attitude toward violence, war, and peace-
making in the Jewish and Islamic traditions. In addition, conflict resolution the-
ory may help to extend the discussion of our subject in Jewish and Islamic ethics
beyond its current state of ambiguity.2 I will examine principally the evolving
Jewish tradition, especially as it reinterprets religious traditions based on contem-
porary challenges, and make some comparisons to Islam.

War and Its Hermeneutic Transformation

Let us begin with the attitude toward war. There is significant importance attached
to the relationship of God and war in the Hebrew Bible, illustrated by phrases

65
 66 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

such as "the wars of the Lord" (Num. 21:14; 1 Sam. 18:17) and "war for the sake
of the Lord" (Exod. 17:16). Furthermore, wars commanded by God to Israel play
a critical role, and the wars involving herem (complete destruction) are among
the most famous, or infamous, of these.3
There has been a long and interesting debate concerning the Hebrew biblical
concept of war as "holy war" since the appearance of von Rad's classic.4 This
concept has interesting implications in some surprising ways. For example, von
Rad himself acknowledged that implicit in this holy war tradition is the way in
which, at the hands of various biblical authors,5 it actually suggests a passivity on
the part of the human agent. God conducts the war, while the job of the human
agent is to trust in him.6 This suggests significant tension within the biblical text
regarding the human role in God's wars. On the one hand, there are command-
ments to go to war, and yet there are also significant statements suggesting that
war is truly the province of God. This sets the stage for the hermeneutic dynamics
of rabbinic debates regarding war and peacemaking.
The term "holy war," however, is problematic in the analysis and comparison
of Jewish and Islamic religious obligations, in that it does not do justice to the
concept of war in either religion, as they have evolved. The laws regarding war
are a composite of centuries of reading and rereading of biblical literature in both
communities and of Qur'anic literature in Islam. At the heart of Judaism is a
rabbinic interpretive reading of the Bible, often a deeply subversive reading. At
the heart of Islam is the Qur'an, the hadith, and numerous oral stories, which
see earlier sacred texts through a particular lens. The biblical concept of God
fighting battles for Israel, the biblical institution of herem, the rabbinic halakhic
analyses of milhemet hova (obligatory war), milhemet mitsvah (war as a fulfillment
of a positive deed before God), and milhemet reshut (optional war), on the one
hand, and, on the other, the rabbinic celebration of shalom (peace) and pikuah
nefesh (the preservation of life) as ultimate values, various strands of rabbinic
pacifism, rereadings of violent texts, and recreations of biblical warriors in a
nonviolent light7—all must be considered part of the complex legacy of Judaism
regarding war.
Qur'anic uses of the term jihad are only the first level of analysis of the Is-
lamic approach to war. There are later distinctions between state jihad and reli-
gious jihad, as well as reflections on quietism and "waiting" that have legal ram-
ifications, expressed by the words fitna or taqiyya. There are, in addition, the
peaceful and violent versions of the Mahdi tradition, the pacifist and neopacifist
traditions of Ahmadi Islam and Sufi Islam, Islamic celebration of life-preserving
values,8 and general principles of interpersonal ethics. All of these need to be ex-
amined, each on its own terms, in the varying and often contradictory contexts
in which they appear and only then compared to concepts from other religious
systems.9
In both Judaism and Islam, there have developed an extensive body of sec-
ondary literature confronting the question of war and its prevention, promotion,
and/or regulation, in addition to larger issues of social justice that have a direct
impact on conflict.10 In each tradition there are, in the course of centuries of legal
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 67

and religious reflection, countervailing trends that emphasize alternatives to con-

flict, the practice of conflict resolution, and the promotion of ethical values crit-
ically related to coexistence, peacemaking, and even pacifism.11
There is a clear dichotomy between these two strains of literature, one em-
phasizing moral values that tend to deplore conflict and violence while actively
seeking to train people through moral discipline in the prevention of conflict and
the other strain suggesting the legitimate means by which to engage in terrible
violence and to conduct wars.
There is also yet a third trend in which clearly bellicose themes from ancient
texts are hermeneutically reworked by later authorities, and these rereadings have
some implications for our subject, implications that are sometimes clear and
sometimes ambiguous. Let us begin our examination of Judaism by analyzing
one of the most representative texts regarding God and war in the Bible, namely,
the God of Israel represented as a "man of war" in the great battle against Pha-
raoh and his army in the Sea of Reeds. "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is
His name!" (Exod. 15:3). Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael records the following mid-
rashic discussion, which completely reworks the implied military character of
God. In fact, Rabbi Judah turns the many references to God in military terms
on its head:

"The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name!" Rabbi Judah says:
Behold this verse is rich [in parallel verses]. In many places it is told that
He revealed Himself in all manner of weapons. He revealed Himself as a
hero bedecked with a sword, as it states, "Gird your sword upon your
thigh, O hero"[Ps. 45:4]. He revealed Himself to them as a horseman, as
it states, "And mounted a cherub and flew, gliding on the wings of the
wind" [Ps. 18:11] He revealed Himself as a bow and arrows.... He revealed
Himself as a shield.... I might have thought that He requires these qual-
ities. Therefore it states, "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name."
With His name does He fight, and does not fight with any of these instru-
ments.
There is the [human] hero of society for whom, once zealotry and power
envelop him, even his father and even his mother and even his relative, all
of them he strikes in his wrath. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is not
like this. "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name." "The Lord is
a man of war"—that He fought the Egyptians. "The Lord is His name"—
that He has compassion on his creatures [beriot], as it states, "The Lord,
the Lord, God, merciful and kind" [Exod. 34: 6 ] . . . . A human king goes
out to war, and [meanwhile] local authorities come and ask for the things
they need. They are told: He is angry, he has gone to war, when he is
victorious and returns then you will come and ask for their [the people's]
needs before him. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is not like this. "The
Lord is a man of war"—that He fought Egypt. "The Lord is His name"—
that He hears the prayers of everyone who inhabits the world [bo'e olam],
as it states, "All of humankind comes to You, You who hear prayer" [Ps.
65:2].12
 68 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

What is remarkable here is the rabbinic hermeneutic reworking of this most

violent biblical description of God as a man of war. God's full name, emphasized
in the second half of the verse, serves to circumscribe the violent image. God
punishes violently the guilty while simultaneously hearing the prayers of all crea-
tures, serving their needs and having compassion upon them. The terms beriot
and bo'e olam indicate a specific rabbinic intention to emphasize that God's com-
passion is universal—not just for Jews—even as he punishes Egypt. Thus, the
dichotomy of divine behavior that the rabbis wish to emphasize is not between
Jew and gentile in this case but between the righteous and the wicked. Further-
more, in a most startling reversal, Rabbi Judah claims that the very multiplicity
of descriptions of the divine use of military weapons indicates that God has no
need of them, only needing his name, which simultaneously functions in all of
the aforementioned nonviolent contexts.
This passage does not eliminate the concept of God as a man of war nor does
it categorically reject it. It cannot if it is to remain committed to the sacredness
of the biblical text. And that is the essential challenge that all historical religions
have in needing to embrace the sacred character of earlier texts. A traditional Jew
could not reject the term "man of war" as referring to God; neither could a
Muslim reject Mohammed's violent program of conquest; nor could a Christian
reject the wholesale reference to Jews and Pharisees as the main challengers of
their Savior, despite all the tragedy that this led to in European history. But all
three groups can and periodically have completely reworked the violence in their
tradition by hermeneutic means, which maintain the religious commitment but
see the sacred as operating at a deeper level than the overt violence or hatred that
may appear on the surface of a particular text.
This is also a critical device in the process of trying to make some sense out
of inherently contradictory systems of thousands of verses that preach love, jus-
tice, and compassion but then also imply or command rejection, hatred, or vi-
olence. Thus it is inherent in the monotheistic religious consciousness to engage
in this creative, hermeneutic activity. It has been at the heart of the monotheistic
program since the first centuries before the Common Era when the earliest ex-
pressions of or precursors to rabbinic Judaism began. The above text is a typical
example of a later effort to ameliorate or mitigate the violence of a particular
theological construct.

Legal Religious War in the Contemporary Context

These depictions of God and war exist alongside another body of rabbinic liter-
ature governing legal and nonlegal attitudes toward human warmaking. The legal
attitude toward warmaking is subject to extensive debate in the earliest sources.
What emerges from that debate is a conception of three types of war: milhemet
hova, milhemet mitsvah, and milhemet reshut. The first two, for all practical pur-
poses, appear to be the same (at least the way that they have been received in
traditional Judaism), namely, a war that is obligatory or considered a mitsvah.
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 69

These wars include the war against the ancient Amalekite nation and the war
against the Canaanites and other tribes occupying the land that became Israel.
Only these latter wars involve the killing of every man, woman, and child. Vir-
tually all talmudic authorities conclude that the war against the Canaanites is
finished because they no longer exist. The Amalekite case is different. Some au-
thorities compare them to the Canaanites in the sense that they no longer exist.
Others delay the battle with Amalek to the premessianic era.13
The latter poses a problem in the sense that, at least according to some au-
thorities, what is pervasive in the popular religious Jewish consciousness is the
belief that implacable enemies of the Jewish people truly are, in some sense, the
Amalekites. The fact that once a year it is obligatory in Orthodox Judaism to
recite, hear, or read the biblical verses declaring eternal war on Amalek has
strengthened a continuing sense among some Jews that there will always be people
who, when they demonstrate an implacable need to kill Jews, can be considered
like Amalek. Furthermore, part of the struggle in Israel today over its future
relationship to Arabs, Palestinians, and the territories involves a minority of re-
ligious Jews, who actually do consider this period of history to be the premessianic
period of struggle, which means that war against Amalekites could be operative
potentially. Furthermore, every time there is a bombing in which the purpose of
the bomb is to kill as many Jews as possible, with no other objective, it confirms
in many religious minds that, on a theological plane, Amalekites exist, and they
are the Palestinians, just as they used to be the Nazis. Nevertheless, it is important
to point out that the vast majority of halakhic authorities do not consider this
kind of war to be operational. The final kind of obligatory war is the war of self-
defense. If it is clear that an enemy has attacked a Jewish self-governing entity,
then it is obliged to defend itself. The texts seem to indicate that this obligation
is limited to defense in response to attack and does not include preemptive
strikes.14 Preemptive strikes are a major issue today in the missile age, in the sense
that waiting to be attacked could mean waiting to suffer massive losses and even
defeat. Thus, there has been considerable discussion in the literature on preemp-
tive strikes, particularly in light of Israel's decisions in 1967 and the questions
surrounding the Lebanon war of 1982.15 The fact is that it remains extremely
difficult to justify preemptive strikes as obligatory according to Jewish law, despite
the existence of some authorities, such as R. Menachem ha-Meiri (d. 1315) who
did, because of several important authorities who specifically defined obligatory
war as a response to attack.
This then leaves the category of milhemet reshut, discretionary war. Here we
have an interesting set of disagreements. Jacob David Bleich summarizes the tra-
ditional attitude toward discretionary war by stating quite clearly that it is pre-
cluded in modern times and in fact has been precluded since at least the end of
the second Jewish commonwealth (70 C.E.), if not earlier. Discretionary war re-
quires a Jewish king, presumably of Davidic descent, a Sanhedrin (ancient Jewish
high court), and the urim ve-tumim (a breastplate worn by the high priest, con-
sulted to give its miraculous indication of whether or not to wage war). All three
of these institutions have been assumed to be impossible to recreate before the
 70 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

coming of the Messiah, according to traditional Judaism. This point of view is

typical of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in modern times, which has been quite reluc-
tant to follow the lead of religious Zionism in terms of reconstituting Jewish
institutions of power before the Messiah arrives. This represents a subtle but deep
fissure regarding Jewish use of state force.
Reuven Kimelman has done extensive work on the parameters of Jewish war-
fare. He cites the idea, based on precedents in Maimonides, among others, that
the Sanhedrin requirement is meant to act as an expression of the needs of the
people and to be a counterbalance to the needs of the sovereign. Furthermore,
the Sanhedrin would be in a position to evaluate the rights and wrongs of going
to war and conducting it in an halakhic fashion. He also points out, following
Chief Rabbi Goren, that the key element of the Sanhedrin is its representative
authority.16 Furthermore, the urim ve-tumim is no longer necessary for consul-
tation now that it is defunct, according to some authorities.17
The Sanhedrin would provide a counterbalance to the ruler(s) in making the
decision to go to war, thus balancing the state's interest and the people's interests
(though not those of the adversaries) in deciding to go to war.18 In the immediate
background of this formulation, especially regarding Kimelman's citation of Chief
Rabbi Goren, seems to be a suggested justification of warmaking in contemporary
Israel when the elected government and recognized halakhic leaders agree on
going to war, though I am uncertain of this. There appears, however, to be some
confidence that the agreement of the state and the representative halakhic body
would be enough to ensure that the war is conducted for "moral" reasons.
It must be noted, however, that Kimelman, like many previous scholars, weds
this argument to an extensive effort to circumscribe both the legitimization of
war and the conduct of war by a broad series of ethical/halakhic guidelines. This
includes not engaging in wars that will involve more than one-sixth of one's forces
as casualties, allowing escape routes for retreating forces, and conducting nego-
tiations before besieging a city, "calling out to it in peace first." Destruction that
is unnecessary for the achievement of military aims is disallowed. Destruction of
the surrounding environment is not allowed. The killing of noncombatants is not
allowed.19
This raises an issue, not really addressed by Kimelman, which is the problem-
atic nature of targeting anything near civilian populations with explosive weapons.
In general, I would argue that explosive weapons, from rocket-launched grenades
to F-16s and certainly including weapons of mass destruction, make it extremely
difficult to comply, in any contemporary warfare, with the halakhic rule that
requires giving even combatants, let alone unarmed civilians, a way out of con-
flict, a path of retreat.
It would seem that Kimelman hopes to limit war due to the nature of the
halakhic institutions that would need to support a war and that in some fashion
represent the interests of the people. In principle, I would agree that getting the
consent to go to war from those who represent the average person's interests is
no longer easy in an age where the brutality of war is available in the living room
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 71

of every parent who would send a child to the battlefield. But a present-day
halakhic body would not necessarily be the equivalent of a democratic or even
representative institution by any means, especially in a largely nonreligious and
at times antireligious society in Israel. On the other hand, the Knesset, which is
a representative elected body, hardly operates in terms of halakhic guidelines on
issues of national security and morality surrounding the taking of life, nor can
its members in any way be seen as having halakhic authority. Thus, we are still
left without a clear way to conduct a modern Jewish war or even a mechanism
to determine which wars are justified.
David Novak, reflecting on Jewish attitudes toward wars conducted by gentiles,
which Jews must decide whether to support (in this case, the Vietnam War),
employs the now-infamous rodef law, made famous by the assassin of the late
prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. The rodef law requires person A to intervene and
stop B from killing C. But A may not use any means whatever, unless it is clear
that killing B is the only way to stop him. And, in fact, A can be guilty of murder
if he does not need to use deadly force. This law is used rabbinically to justify
abortion when the fetus is threatening the life of the mother. Rabin's assassin and
his rabbis20 extended this law to politics and made the case that, in their minds,
Rabin was a direct and immediate threat to Jewish life, a position that the vast
majority of rabbinic authorities have repudiated.
Novak extends this law to justify exactly the opposite of killing in the case of
Vietnam. If persons B and C, argues Novak, are not clearly defined, and we do
not know who exactly is trying to kill whom, then the law of rodef does not apply,
and another halakhic principle, namely, not destroying one life for another or
not considering one life more valuable than another becomes morally paramount.
Who was really the pursuer in the Vietnam War is dubious from an ethical point
of view, argues Novak. Whether it was a war of aggression by the North, a civil
war, the Cold War fought by proxy, or all three is unclear. Furthermore, the
United States was hardly in a position to make a moral judgment on this, con-
sidering the fact that its strategic interests were paramount, and its decisions about
the war were certainly not based on the Jewish law of rodef.21 Thus, it would be
complicated to justify the war as a religious Jew, argues Novak.
I would point out the rather circumscribed nature of the rodef law in that it
only justifies use of force in the limited circumstances of "hot pursuit," as far as
I have been able to tell.22 The danger of the political extension of this law to war
and wholesale killing or the use of this law to justify premeditated killing when
there is no hot pursuit seems clear. While Novak's use of the rodef law to limit
the justification of war is understandable, I think that its extension at all by
theorists to situations beyond hot pursuit of one person by another that you see
before you is ill advised.23 It confuses political calculus and the halakhic challenges
of individual decisionmaking in very particular situations.
There seems to be very little to justify Jewish war today, except when being
attacked, and even then a set of circumscribing jus in hello laws apply. It is also
not clear to me whether even this category is legitimate, because the state of Israel
 72 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

is not a halakhically constituted state, but neither were the many Jewish com-
munities in the premodern era. The very category of halakhic war is only dis-
cussed by the mishnaic and talmudic rabbis in the context of a highly theoretical
construct of the halakhic state. Many rabbinic discussions in general—most of
the discussions in certain areas of law, in fact—are completely theoretical in
nature because the current circumstances make the law's applicability impossible.
I am not satisfied that it has been proven that these talmudic war discussions
apply to any circumstances beyond the Second Temple period, or could in prin-
ciple. Furthermore, it is questionable whether the rabbis, even in the period of
the second Temple, ever had a sovereign construct in which their guidelines for
war were operationalized.
This leaves us with two curiously overlooked Jewish principles. One is that
saving of life, pikuah nefesh,24 justifies the abrogation of most other laws, and the
other is the principle that if someone comes to kill you, you are obligated to kill
him first in self-defense.25 As far as the former, one is permitted to do almost
anything to save one's life and the lives of others, with the exception of incest,
idolatry, and premeditated murder. However, I cannot kill someone else, who is
not attacking me. Thus, even if person A, ordering me to kill person B, will kill
me instead if I do not comply, I cannot follow the order. Now it is clear that
war is a very different situation from this, where an attacking army is directly
threatening one's life and the lives of many others. The people that I kill are the
people who are attacking. Once again, however, it would be problematic to kill
civilians or those not directly threatening one's life, based on this law, with, for
example, indiscriminate bombardment of enemy cities. The same would apply to
the second rule. These two principles seem to me to justify the use of violence
in very limited circumstances of attack and to make organized war in an envi-
ronment of many civilians problematic.

Individual Religious Ethics versus Religious Warfare

This limited notion of self-defense in specific circumstances highlights the way

in which Jewish law and religion is supremely wedded to individual circum-
stance, which has several ramifications. One of the fundamental challenges to the
moral evaluation of war in general, not just Jewish war, is the way in which the
word "war" includes such a vast array of unpredictable circumstances, especially
modern war. How is the individual who is committed to a personal code of mo-
rality expected to suspend all of those values in the context of war? When is the
personal code, or the halakhic code in the Jewish situation, to be suspended and
when is it not to be suspended? When does the obligation to kill, steal, or de-
stroy things as a part of warfare override all of the everyday laws that absolutely
prohibit these activities? When exactly is there a suspension of the numerous
halakhic moral safeguards governing one's internal life and external behavior,
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 73

which often prohibit even the hint of violence, such as tale bearing or losing
one's temper?
Michael Walzer attempts to get at some of these issues by looking at the details
of war situations, but it is a difficult enterprise.26 The same is true of the di-
chotomy between the extremely high standards of conduct demanded by halakha
and Jewish pietistic literature as applied to individuals versus the behavior that is
apparently acceptable and expected in war. We see from Kimelman's sources that
indeed the rabbis expected some complex interaction between these two spheres.
But the interaction remains extremely nebulous, as far as I can tell, as if there is
a vacuum of experience in this regard. Indeed, there is little experience that
rabbinic Judaism has of organized warfare in the last two thousand years in which
Jews are the combatants, not the victims. The vast chasm between the life of
warfare and the talmudic and medieval pietistic insistence on an utterly sanctified
day-to-day, even moment-to-moment, interpersonal lifestyle seems to be insuf-
ficiently confronted.27
Let us take an example. Person A is part of a group that has expressed hostility
to some Jews at some point in time, such as Christians in medieval Europe or
Arabs today, but has not attacked a Jew himself. Does one treat person A as an
enemy, as if war has been declared, or does one owe him all of the moral obli-
gations of the Jewish tradition: honoring him as a creature of God or as an elder
(if he is older), greeting him with peace, honoring his property, even loving him
as a creature of God, as Hillel did to all gentiles,28 and so on? Is this stranger
perhaps in an in-between state? How can one immediately classify all Christians,
Arabs, or Muslims in one category, simply because some of them at some point
in time have engaged in hostilities? How does one determine the contours of
enemy, friend, righteous gentile, and, most important from a realistic as well as
psychological point of view, those who are in-between, neither friend nor foe?
These questions are particularly relevant today to Jewish/Arab relations, for ex-
ample, but have never really been analyzed in Jewish legal tradition due to reasons
that wait to be uncovered.
A far deeper problem with the secondary literature on war in Judaism is that
it suffers from a compartmentalized and fragmented approach to life. It is only
one part of a religious system of belief and practice that actually governs all
human interactions. But the literature reads as if the question of war and violence
can be discussed and then acted upon utterly divorced from the rest of Jewish
morality. In this way, it models itself on discussions of jus ad bellum and jus in
bello in Christian tradition, which have a long history. The latter, however, may
be accused of the same thing. Both discussions divorce the subject of war from
the rest of the range of religious values applied to the individual, as if these other
religious values, such as humility, compassion, and justice, which are incumbent
on the individual, were abolished during war or are irrelevant to the decision of
whether to participate in a war; the discussions ignore the question of whether
there are other avenues of dealing with adversaries short of war and proceed as
if the moral imperative somehow disappears on the battlefield. Most important
 74 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

for our subject, regarding the transition from war to peace or peace to war, it is
as if the decision to engage in war with an enemy is somehow divorced from the
entire set of human interactions that brings groups of people to the brink of
conflict, violence, and bloodshed.
Here is the most important point. War, according to all schools of conflict
analysis, does not happen in a vacuum without any causal chain leading to it.
Furthermore, war is not neatly separated from other human interactions. War is
first a distant possibility, then it becomes reality, and then it disappears again. Or
it grows, is waged, but suddenly stops due to any number of complex socioeco-
nomic, psychodynamic, and political factors. In other words, whether war hap-
pens, how it proceeds, and how and why it ends is a sufficiently complex human
phenomenon that it cannot be separated from the range of human choices and
behaviors that lead up to it or that interact with it in complex ways. There are
innumerable contributing factors that bring people to a state of war, and these
factors themselves, be they political, economic, psychological, or ethical, can be
further broken down to many individual choices that helped create the atmo-
sphere of war. These innumerable individual choices are precisely the kind of
choices that most interest rabbinic halakhic Judaism, especially the sources that
ask continually, "What brings people to bloodshed?" But this aspect of halakhic
thinking does not become part of the halakhic analysis of war in the scholarly
literature.
It is also clear from conflict analysis that war often exists along a contin-
uum from deeply embedded friendship to miscommunication to peaceful but
cool coexistence to serious disagreement, and then on to small-scale isolated
conflict, large-scale isolated conflict turning into chronic conflict, isolated
bloodshed, organized massive bloodshed, and sometimes genocide. This contin-
uum is in itself complex, and it does not always follow a predictable order. But
this more nuanced understanding of warmaking as well as peacemaking means
that many of the circumstances leading up to war are, in fact, governed mor-
ally by other parts of Jewish moral and halakhic tradition which apply directly
to the individual and to the spiritual community (the kehillah in the medieval
and modern period), not just to a sovereign or a Sanhedrin. The latter emerge
as more important when being attacked. But even afterward they do not sup-
plant the individual's moral decisionmaking in key choices that he makes on
the battlefield, as we have seen.
Far too little attention is given, by contrast, to all of the circumstances leading
up to attacking or being attacked, how to avoid a conflict that turns into war,
which religious values prevent conflict and bloodshed, or what to do when the
war or acts of violence are over in terms of mourning, recovery, and reconciliation
and the moral laws and values that come into play for this crucial stage of human
relations. Rabbinic sources are filled with advice on these matters, but their in-
terpretations are somehow cut off in the secondary literature from the war dis-
cussion. This is a distortion—though probably not conscious—of the complex
panorama of rabbinic Judaism.
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 75

Unprecedented Contemporary Circumstances,

Hermeneutics, and Antimodern Backlash

The contemporary period has given rise to circumstances that have never been
encountered before in rabbinic Judaism, namely, the juxtaposition of the most
detailed codes of personal moral piety, developed over millennia, with a level of
Jewish military ability to kill in war that is far greater than anything that ever
occurred before in rabbinic history; this is especially true due to the massive
and unprecedented killing power of modern weaponry. This juxtaposition is a
critical example of what I would call a time of hermeneutic intensity, namely,
a period when the personal horizon of those who read and internalize sacred
texts and traditions has been virtually assaulted by the broadest set of un-
precedented circumstances of history.29 Thus, reading, rereading, and reading in
the context of lived experience become paramount. Furthermore, one of the
most important religious, and certainly rabbinic impulses, as demonstrated by
the Tosafists and classical compilers of halakhic compendiums in earlier cen-
turies, is the drive to integrate sacred literature, that is, to make it internally
coherent. This, as an end in and of itself, forces the hermeneutic enterprise to
unprecedented readings. When this is wedded to unprecedented shifts in one's
hermeneutic horizon, this leads to or can lead to especially unprecedented
readings.
At the same time, however, there has been a global backlash of fundamentalist
traditions against precisely this process of reading and rereading, at least as a
conscious process. There is plenty of rewriting of history and claims to authen-
ticity in fundamentalist circles, but the rage against the liberal state, the antire-
ligious thrust of some expressions of the Enlightenment and socialism, and the
barrenness of the materialist global civilization, which some blame specifically on
modern thinking, have driven many to a conscious unwillingness to see inno-
vation and rereading as anything but destructive to their only line of defense
against a world bereft of truth and certainty. On the other side, many of those
Jews who have broken with halakhic Judaism as an authoritative guide to life see
no need to address with a new hermeneutic the violent sources of Judaism or
those dealing with war. They simply reject them.
Little of this rereading of text and tradition has been done, therefore, by the
majority of conservatives and liberals, other than in a few exceptional circles.
Furthermore, there are separate provinces for war literature, peace literature, and
personal ethics literature, with little integration. Those who have embraced the
political value of Jewish warfare, for various contemporary reasons, have tended
to focus exclusively on milhama and its limits. Those who are particularly hor-
rified at the prospect of modern warfare seize on the shalom texts, pacifist-
oriented, personal, pietistic virtues that appear throughout rabbinic literature,
while those who recoil utterly from the use of Jewish power in the modern world
continue to study, teach, and write about the ethical piety literature, as if Jewish
military power did not exist.
 76 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

There is yet another contemporary alternative with some deep implications

for the future of Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Jewish state. There are those
who divorce entirely the ethics of personal and communal piety from Jewish
issues of the use of power when that power is used against or in contention with
gentiles. In other words, the ethical piety literature becomes a racial category,
exclusively for Jews, while the war (milhama) literature is for gentile relations.
This has an eerie relationship with the medieval Islamic categories of values that
govern dar al-harb versus those that govern dar al-islam, though the latter was
not a racial division, and both categories could apply to born Muslims, depending
on their status in the faith.30 But it suggests a dangerous direction of Jewish ethics
to reserve all the subtlety and beauty of prosocial piety for one group, namely
fellow Jews—and sometimes only fellow religious Jews of one group—while fo-
cusing the war literature on gentiles.
This must be seen in the larger context of the human tendency to bifurcate
one's universe into a sphere of ultimate violence against some constructed Other
and the focus of prosocial life on some limited group. In extreme circumstances
of clan warfare this reduces down to prosocial ethics extending only to members
of one's own family.31 There is, in fact, an insidious, cannibalistic tendency of
these bifurcations that, over time, reduce further and further the amount of people
who reside inside one's moral universe. One could see this in the progressively
more ubiquitous violence of European fascisms, national socialism, and Leninism/
Stalinism, which all started out with some chosen group for special care, such as
a racial or ethnic group or a group of workers or farmers. But everyone is even-
tually terrorized, except for "party" members, and they are eventually terrorized
as well. Hitler eventually relished burning his own cities and killing Aryan chil-
dren who did not join his dying army.
This bifurcation is not necessary to human ethics or religious ethics. It is a
human tendency but one that can be modulated, as we clearly see in the her-
meneutic history of religious ethical traditions, which at times excels regarding
the Other and at times fails miserably. Improving the general state of ethics
does not require that everyone be treated absolutely equally, in the extreme
form resulting in not caring for your own child or parent more than others.
But it does require a self-conscious effort to work with difficult life circum-
stances, especially life-threatening conflicts, in order to find a way to extend
prosocial ethics wherever and whenever possible, while also protecting one's
own life and the lives of loved ones and even one's ethnic or religious group. It
requires a self-conscious process of avoiding the worst pitfalls of bifurcating
one's moral universe.

Conflict Analysis and Resolution Theory in

Relation to Religious Ethics

The key reason that a new hermeneutics is essential for the future of Jewish
thinking on the subject is the new analysis that is emerging in the contemporary
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 77

world about the nature of conflict, its prevention, and its resolution, particularly
as these insights are applied to ethnic groups and their unique cultural expres-
sions.32 Jews and Judaism will become a critical topic of this literature, particularly
because Jews and Judaism have, as minorities and a minority religion, respectively,
been particularly subject to conflict, often deadly conflict.33 An integrative con-
ception of Jewish attitudes toward peacemaking, conflict, and warmaking will
have to include not only an internal or phenomenal analysis of Judaism and its
hermeneutics but also an epiphenomenal analysis of the place in the world in
which Jews have found themselves situated; the latter, however, is beyond the
confines of the present study.
Conflict resolution theory has been critiqued for its tendency to be culturally
rooted in a secular but neo-Protestant Western context that tends to make uni-
versal assumptions about what works and what does not work in conflict reso-
lution, peacemaking, and the reconciliation of parties. As the literature cited above
indicates, what is conflict-resolving activity in each culture often involves unique
ritual expressions, a unique constellation of values that work together to reduce
tension, facilitate communication, and ultimately reconcile parties. In some
traditions this is a highly developed art, whereas in others it is either undeveloped
or deeply embedded and unarticulated at the present time.
The fact is that all three monotheistic traditions have extensive systems of
interpersonal ethics, much of which directly addresses the challenges of human
relationships and directly confronts the human tendencies that can lead away
from or toward conflict, violence, and war. The sources in Judaism, for example,
that address the question of war, discussed above, actually only occupy a handful
of pages of the Mishnah, Talmud, and later halakhic collections. On the other
hand, there are thousands of rabbinic sources on a broad range of ethical values,
which are specifically designed to prevent economic disagreement, misunder-
standing, disrespect, callousness, conflict, hatred, revenge, violence, and blood-
shed. Effectively, a large portion of Jewish ethics governs behaviors that, each in
their own way, constitute broad and complex areas of human intercourse that
lead toward or away from conflict.
More specifically, shalom is mentioned more than twenty-five hundred times
in classical Jewish sources. There has also been a respectable contemporary lit-
erature that builds on the classical sources that extol the ideal of peace in Juda-
ism.34 More important for our purposes than peace as a metaphysical value are
at least thirty eight references to the mitsvah of peacemaking (redifat shalom) as
a practice, which have pragmatic strategies for preventing or resolving conflict.
For example, perek ha-shalom, the Chapter on Peace of the Babylonian Talmud,
has a variety of ethical insights that include conflict resolution techniques, such
as shuttle diplomacy, empathy, and unilateral gestures to evoke a response in the
other party to a conflict.35 The literature on repentance involves a range of activ-
ities designed to make peace between people, including confession of wrongdoing,
commitment to a change of behavior in the future, asking of forgiveness, and
offering of forgiveness.36 There are many other traditions, including the Hebrew
biblical commitment to aiding an enemy and its expansion by rabbinic texts to
 78 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

suggest that the law in Exodus 23:5 is designed as a conflict resolution device:
"When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden, and would refrain
from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him." Helping the enemy with
a burden would change his opinion of you.37 It is a classic example of a strategy
involving unilateral gestures, which cause cognitive dissonance in the enemy,
which, in turn, is specifically designed to cause a rethinking of the cognitive
structure of self and enemy.
This is directly relevant to one of the key themes of conflict analysis theory.
Human beings are content with and even enjoy moderate levels of cognitive
dissonance. It stimulates intellectual and emotional growth and is actually enjoy-
able for the curious mind. But, at a certain juncture, especially in the midst of
conflict, the world begins to overwhelm the senses and the emotions. This is when
members of combating communities need to simplify the universe. The conflict
must become a cosmic battle of good and evil, and it is vital, for the sake of
emotional consistency, that there is nothing redeeming in one's enemy.
Biblical Judaism, buttressed by rabbinic amplification, made the case that a
way to jolt the combatants out of what Mack calls "the enemy system"38 is by
mandating that there must be gestures of aid and sharing even with the enemy.
Proverbs 25:21-22 cryptically suggests, and the rabbis amplify, the psychological
strategy of breaking the enemy system of cognition, thus allowing for the possi-
bility of negotiation and even reconciliation to take place. The Bible in other
places may recommend calling out to a city in peace first—which is reminiscent
of initial negotiation efforts in conflict resolution practice—but the text above
suggests that this negotiation can only take place successfully when the psycho-
logical impasse has been overcome.

Toward a Jewish Ethic of Conflict

Prevention and Resolution

We will amplify this theme in a later chapter, but let us briefly make some
suggestions now. A Jewish conflict resolution theory, applied to individuals as
well as to large groups, would have to include strategies of this psychological
sort—authentic gestures of aid to an enemy or an enemy group—in order to
fulfill the letter and spirit of this Exodus law. For large groups in conflict, this
would have to entail extensive gestures by many individuals to members of the
enemy group.39 Furthermore, they could not be perfunctory gestures, if they are
to fulfill the rabbinic amplification of this biblical law. They have to be sufficiently
authentic and clever that they truly cause the enemy to experience real cognitive
dissonance, a real questioning of previously held assumptions. This, by all ac-
counts of conflict resolution theory, takes a great deal of work. Thus, the mitsvah,
the divinely taught good deed, of redifat shalom would entail an extensive un-
derstanding of the attitudes and feelings of the enemy, in addition to a good
working knowledge of psychology and conflict resolution practice. Just as some
medieval Jewish philosophers argued that fulfilling the mitsvah of knowledge of
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 79

God required years of training intellectually, and most halakhic authorities would
argue today that the mitsvah of saving a life requires a doctor to have years of
arduous training, I would argue that the mitsvah of Exodus 23:5, the mitsvah of
conflict resolution, if it were to be taken seriously in the discourse of Jewish
ethics, would have to entail years of training and a good working knowledge of
general conflict resolution theory and practice.
Exodus 23:5 is also an expression of a unique conflict resolution strategy of
shared activity, which humanizes the enemy, removing his status as an objectified
embodiment of evil.40 You work with the enemy on some shared project, in this
case helping a distressed animal, which, in their times, meant also helping the
enemy with the transportation system for his livelihood. This method of building
human relationships has deep resonance in Jewish culture, with the latter's em-
phasis much more on behavior and less on dialogue as a solution to human
problems. The rabbinic relationship-building process is far more attuned to doing
things and sharing things, both as moral acts in and of themselves and as symbolic
acts that convey to the enemy a conciliatory intention that is not merely words
but something that has been concretized as deed.41
This speaks to another critical conflict resolution tool: trust building. It may
very well be that deep in Jewish traditional and cultural responses to the world
is the perception or intuition that actions are the only things to be trusted and,
therefore, are the only real tools of peacemaking. This has enormous ramifications
in terms of the development of Jewish thinking, culture, and even the halakha
itself, as the subject of conflict resolution is hermeneutically engaged in the years
to come. It also has important ramifications for those who would attempt to
engage in peacemaking with significant portions of the Jewish community.

Islamic Possibilities and Contemporary Impasses

The methodology of investigation of peace and conflict that we are proposing

here can also be a bridge to Islamic and Arabic cultures, which also highly
value symbolic ethical gestures from one person or group to another, especially
involving gestures of honor and magnanimity and the moral values that these
gestures embody.42 It may be that both traditions have been unsuited to at-
tempts thus far to engage them in terms of Western styles of dialogic peace-
making. While it may be the case that Western efforts and interventions in the
Middle East have resonated with those in the local cultures who are Western
educated and sympathetic to Western thinking, these same efforts may not have
resonated with those who consider themselves to be more closely connected to
or actual guardians of their indigenous cultures. Of course, this failure at cross-
cultural communication is not the sole problem with Western involvement in
Middle Eastern conflict, but neither should it be ignored as an important un-
derlying factor.
Conflict resolution through dialogue has special resonance in the West, par-
ticularly in Protestant cultures where the spirit of God is discovered through the
 80 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

communion of the faithful by way of harmonious conversation.43 Western styles

of conflict resolution certainly have more than this one source, including the legal
tradition of disputation and negotiation, which also has early European roots.
The case has been made, however, that there are numerous styles of conflict
resolution around the world and that we have only begun to uncover these in-
digenous sources.44 The Exodus source cited above, in addition to rabbinic sources
that have Aaron, the high priest, engaging in particular methods of peacemaking
that do not involve face-to-face negotiations, suggest that rabbinic Judaism has
its own indigenous methods of conflict resolution that would be vital to uncover
in order to develop a full picture of rabbinic attitudes toward warmaking and
peacemaking. This also suggests that there are methods of peacemaking in Ju-
daism and Islam that may yet affect the continually evolving hermeneutic con-
structs of the respective religious communities.45

The Problem of the Scope of Monotheistic Ethical

Concern in Relation to War and Peace

A key challenge to peacemaking in all of the monotheistic traditions is their

tendency to limit prosocial ethical values to members of the religion, or ingroup,
as mentioned above. This is certainly true but only up to a point and certainly
not universally. More investigation needs to be done on exactly how outsiders are
viewed theologically and how they are treated in various historical circumstances
over large spans of time, both in principal and in practice. Which religious sub-
groups of the respective religions have limited the scope or expanded the scope
of their ethical universe? The scope of religious ethics, that is, who it includes, is
a critical determinant and prognosticator of the system of ethics' contribution to
violence or conflict resolution.
I do not mean to imply that only those religions, or interpretations of religion,
that unconditionally treat everyone equally will contribute less to war. It may be
impossible to create religious institutions without special systems of care for ad-
herents nor is it necessarily desirable to do so. Many would question the moral
wisdom of an ethical system without any distinctions or preferential treatment
for loved ones. Furthermore, universalist religious traditions that claim to care
for all have done at least as much damage historically as those religions that have
preferential treatment for fellow believers. There has been a fine line, often crossed
in the history of European culture, between universalist concern, on the one side,
and, on the other, majority oppression, when it comes to issues of religion and
culture. The two unconsciously fused in the minds of the most liberal thinkers
of the Enlightenment and, therefore, caused great damage in the long run.
The real issue is the degree to which distinctions are made between believers
and nonbelievers by a religious tradition and the nature of the treatment of the
nonbelievers. This is the key question in terms of future attitudes toward war
and peace. Contrary to standard modern assumptions that the only good society
is a universal society where there are no distinctions, I would argue that bound-
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 81

aries between religious—and other—groupings are a fundamental feature of hu-

man life. They seem to play a crucial role in terms of the human need to belong
to groups that give them unique identities. The real question is how does one's
group negotiate the boundaries between self and Other. Do those boundaries
require dehumanization of the Other or not, do they require war, or do they
require compassion, justice, or even love toward those who are beyond the bound-
ary of the group? This is what has been subject to great hermeneutic diversity
over the centuries and especially in the modern era.
There is a tendency on the part of many traditional Jewish commentators
emerging out of premodern Europe to see most prosocial ethics of religious Jews
to be focused on fellow religious Jews. There are, to be sure, extensively developed
laws regarding treatment of the gentile and the obeying of secular law that es-
sentially make the Jew, according to halakha, a law-abiding citizen in a predom-
inantly non-Jewish society. There are prohibitions against murder and theft from
non-Jews, among other things. But what about the deeper interpersonal laws of
which I spoke above? Here we see that often traditions stemming from interpre-
tations of the Talmud will limit those laws to fellow law-abiding Jews. A good
example is Leviticus 19:18, "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself." This
is limited to fellow religious Jews by most premodern authorities. Thus we have
the coexistence of several laws designed for law-abiding coexistence with non-
Jews but few of the prosocial laws applied universally.
The problem is that the prosocial laws, I would argue, are especially relevant
for the questions of war and peace, for how to prevent and resolve conflicts, for
how to reconcile with enemies that have really hurt you or that you have hurt.
The modern period, before the Holocaust, however, elicits some changes in this
regard from some key authorities and commentators. Ernst Simon records the
fact that Rabbis Mecklenberg and Hoffman directly suggest that this verse is to
be applied universally.46 Simon has trouble with this development, assuming that
it is merely apologetics, a lame effort to show that Jewish law is not backward in
the liberal nineteenth-century context. He claims that we should see this as a
clandestine effort on the part of these men to suggest that there is something
higher than the law in Judaism, whether it be ethics or conscience.
We cannot here delve into the complex theoretical problem of the interrela-
tionship of law and ethics in general or, in particular, regarding this matter in
Judaism. But I would argue that Simon has imposed his own definition of Jewish
law on the traditional sources and then argues for the rejection of that structure
of law as immoral. In other words, he takes honest attempts, in classic Gada-
merian fashion, to develop the law hermeneutically within its own bounds, de-
clares this process to be mere apologetics, and then argues for the rejection of
those laws. What is "apologetics" to Simon, however, may be to another person
or religious authority the dynamic and vibrant process of hermeneutic interac-
tions among a highly valued religious traditional body of law, the changing facts
of the world, and the conscience of the responsible lawmaker. Those halakhic
decision makers, such as Me'iri, who saw their relationship with gentiles as pro-
foundly different, in fact much better, than that of their predecessors, had to
 82 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

come to the conclusion that many prosocial laws that previously had excluded
gentiles must now apply to gentiles in the current circumstances. Why? Because
the world had changed, and a good legal system responds dynamically to new
situations. Personal interviews that I have had with Rabbi Dr. Joseph Soloveitchik,
the leading twentieth-century Orthodox interpreter of talmudic law, yielded the
same results, namely, that many antisocial laws of the medieval law codes were
meant to be used in circumstances of absolute or potential violence between Jews
and gentiles, when it was a threat to Jewish life to trust gentiles or when it would
make Jews mortally vulnerable to engage gentiles socially. This is a common
assumption among many modern Orthodox thinkers in the last couple of hun-
dred years.
Similarly, Samuel David Luzzatto (d. 1865) was for forty years the central figure
at an Orthodox Jewish rabbinical seminary in Padua in the early nineteenth cen-
tury. A moral sense theorist, deeply influenced by David Hume and Jean Jacques
Rousseau, but also a leading figure of and defender of Italian Orthodox Judaism,
he developed a Jewish halakhic ethics founded upon prosocial emotions, as we
will see in later chapters. He stated, "Compassion in Judaism is required toward
all. It extends, like [the compassion] of God, to all of His creatures. No one is
excluded from the Law [Torah], because all human beings, according to Jewish
teachings, are brothers, are children of the same father and are created in the
image of God."47 Now, is Luzzatto, one of the greatest authorities of his century
on Jewish texts, after forty years of teaching Orthodox Judaism, knowing full well
all the premodern sources, simply engaged in facile uninformed apologetics, or
is he hermeneutically engaged with a conservative yet dynamic, changing legal
tradition? Religious law, even conservative religious law, changes with the circum-
stances of human relationships. Even the more jarring elements of worldwide
religious conservatism today have depended on change, though it is completely
denied.
This reality of choosing, subtle though it may appear on the outside, has a
direct bearing on decisions made about the negotiation of conflict, and, therefore,
the conclusions that individuals and communities make about war. There are
dynamic choices made concerning war and peace and, especially, regarding the
extension of the moral boundaries of religious community, that is, who is con-
sidered included or excluded by the highest expressions of a tradition's moral
universe. This is by far the most important ingredient in the discovery of prosocial
traditions that directly affect issues of peace and war.

Islamic Parallels

Nineteenth-century Indian Muslim reflection on jihad and its relationship to the

state is another example of our thesis. Despite a long tradition of dividing the
world between dar al-harb and dar al-islam and, according to Khadduri, an ex-
tensive tradition of jihad fought in a variety of circumstances, ulama (religious
leaders) emerge in India to proclaim that anywhere that Muslims enjoy religious
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 83

freedom there is no justification of jihad against a state.48 Now, who agrees with
this in what time periods and who disagrees under what circumstances is what
is most interesting in terms of the dynamic of warmaking and peacemaking in
religious traditions.
Even this, however, does not do justice to the full complexity of Islamic tra-
dition. The Islamic view of jihad is no more complete a picture of the variety of
Islamic attitudes toward the tragedy of conflict, violence, and war or to the phe-
nomenon of interpersonal ethics than is the limitation of either tradition to a
discussion of biblical holy war.
Medieval Islamic ethical theories entailed highly developed systems of moral
interpersonal behavior. Much of the earliest expression of these ethics is directly
rooted in what Fakhry referred to as scriptural morality, morality directly derived
from a close reading of sacred scriptures, namely, the Qur'an.49 Key components
here are the concepts of goodness (khayr) and righteousness (birr). Related to
these, and deeply important to Islamic tradition are the values of al-iqsat (equity),
al-'adl (justice), and al-haqq (truth and right). These concepts naturally have their
counterparts in other religious traditions, though each tradition has its unique
hermeneutic and ethical applications of these values. For example, Luzzatto makes
Genesis 18:19, regarding justice and righteousness, the quintessential mandate of
Judaism.50 These values provide an interesting bridge of interpersonal ethics be-
tween Islam and Judaism, even assuming different histories of interpretation. Yet,
if the analysis of Islam is limited to texts on war, we never see the full range of
traditional approaches to problems of human interaction.
Yahya ibn 'Adi (d. 974) developed a set of cultural values, emanating out of
his tradition, that included dignity, forgiveness, friendliness, compassion, loyalty,
confidence keeping, humility, purity of intention, generosity, and magnanimity.
Vices included greed, cruelty, and treachery.51 In the long history in which Islam
was the dominant religion in particular regions, where there were many non-
Muslims, such as Jews, living with them, we must assume that, in addition to
philosophical and political deliberations over jihad and other rules of a dominant
political order, there were also countless interreligious relationships in which the
values we are discussing here played key roles. There is no way, that Jewish/
Muslim relationships could have flourished at certain points in Spain and North
Africa without extensive positive interpersonal values being practiced daily by
thousands of people of both faiths and with those values applied to members of
another faith. And yet, if we limit the discussion in Islam regarding conflict to
justifications of jihad, we never understand the subtle complexity of its moral
tradition, and we never see the prosocial elements of a large, long-standing reli-
gious society. When it came to the wars of the caliphs and wars of expansion,
there is an extensive body of law justifying—as well as limiting—the conduct of
war, as can be seen in Khadduri's writing.52 War, despite being constrained in
theory by certain moral laws, clearly involves the suspension of the prosocial
values discussed here. Nevertheless, we cannot have a full conception of the at-
titudes toward conflict, conflict prevention, and even prevention of full violent
hostilities if we do not include an analysis of the range of interpersonal values
 84 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

embraced by a religious tradition, which have clearly been operative in the lives
of millions of its adherents throughout history.

Conclusions: Hermeneutics, Religious Ethics, and

the Negotiation of Conflict and Peacemaking
in Traditional Societies

We have the opportunity as conflict theorists, if we seize upon it, to use the
knowledge of what interpersonal values are prominent in a particular religious
tradition and culture to understand better the genesis of a conflict or even a war.
If dignity, nobility of character, and confidence keeping are essential character-
istics in a certain culture, as they are in several Islamic traditions, we might expect
that the violation of these values by members of the faith—but especially by
outsiders—will likely generate conflict, possibly leading to violence and even to
war. In other words, as important in understanding war as concepts such as jihad
and milhemet mitsvah may in fact be, the real challenge may be to discover the
interpersonal values most highly prized by a culture and how an enemy at some
early stage of the relationship violated those values, thus intentionally or unin-
tentionally striking at the heart of the relationship. This is one of my most im-
portant points. These moral failures, conflict resolution theory should argue, are
early but crucial indicators of how wars get started and how they are eventually
justified. The rhetoric of war, even in deeply religious societies, almost never
simply states a legal or moral obligation to kill on a massive scale. Generally, the
enemy needs to be portrayed as utterly corrupt, an infidel, or not human alto-
gether. This is not just a result of the cynical manipulation of interhuman imagery
by a leadership bent on war. People often gladly embrace this process of dehu-
manization, which suggests that there is often a dismantling of human moral
relationships that occurs much earlier than actual war. This, in turn, suggests
that there is much in the prosocial interpersonal values of a religious tradition
that exists to prevent conflict and to build human relationships. Without under-
standing their presence in a tradition, we do not understand how their absence
is a key progenitor of war. And without understanding their absence as a pro-
genitor of war, we will not understand how the introduction of prosocial religious
values, or their reintroduction, across enemy lines becomes a key method of
indigenous and culturally profound conflict resolution.
I would suggest that in order to truly understand war and peace in these
religious traditions and, most important, to understand this murky space in be-
tween war and peace where people and civilizations really make the fateful de-
cision to humanize or dehumanize the Other, it is vital to learn the broad range
of interpersonal and communal ethical ideals that have served as the cohesive
force of sustainable communities since their beginnings. Often these ethical ideals
have been applied to members of other faiths, paradoxically coexisting with laws
and values designed to undo that very relationship or even to justify war against
people of those other faiths. It seems that the hermeneutic of applying values and
 Judaism and Islam as Paradigms 85

laws to ever-changing human societies and social constructs has always been a
dynamic, paradoxical process. Therefore, it behooves us when speaking of war in
religious traditions to speak not only of the justifications for war or the limitations
of its conduct but also of the primordial prosocial moral/spiritual values that so
often undermined the genesis of internecine and interreligious warfare, preventing
war from ever breaking out.
We have a tendency, perhaps due to an understandable fear of war, to highlight
its prominence in history, including religious history. But we distort that history
if we do not ask why that state of war did not exist or does not presently continue
all the time, since there are laws that justify it and even require it, such as some
of the laws that we have discussed. What prevented a permanent state of war, a
perpetual struggle against infidels, apostates, idolaters, or enemies of the people?
What were the interpersonal values that constituted the framework of the years
of coexistence? And how did that state of peace break down at some point and
then yield to a new religious hermeneutic of war? Those are the theological,
sociohistorical, and anthropological questions that will truly complete our un-
derstanding of war in religious traditions. Clearly, there have been in most reli-
gions mandates for coexistence with Others that occasionally reign supreme. They
may not be a perfect equivalent of the more unconditional guarantees of civil
equality that we seek today, but they could form the basis for a healthy coalescence
of goals with even the most fundamentalist representatives of a religion.
There are some things about the past and its context that remain elusive,
however. It is true that we can never know completely, for example, the context
of the biblical herem laws. Were they ever carried out? Was this a myth to frighten
syncretistic Israelites into monotheism, or was it a real genocidal plan of action?
We simply do not know enough about the sitz-im-leben (the text's cultural and
social context). But we do know enough to say that in the developing hermeneutic
of Judaism, the herem law about conquest was discontinued by the rabbis at a
certain juncture, not to be applied again to the indigenous inhabitants of Israel.
On the other hand, as part of a sacred tradition, the text never disappears, and
the possibility of a new hermeneutic exists as well. Part of the conservative char-
acter of Judaism and Islam is that all the texts that are believed to be divinely
revealed, those that extol war as well as those that model peacemaking, will always
remain sacred, though which texts within that body are favored and highlighted
will always be changing. Despite the best efforts of religious authorities to control
the direction of the hermeneutics, the texts will always be there to be reinter-
preted. Essentially, war is a permanent part of the texts of both Islam and Judaism.
In the other great monotheism, Christianity, the sacred story will always have to
contain a space for some group that rejects Jesus, someone who betrays him, and
someone who kills him. But equally embedded in these traditions are the pro-
found prosocial values and the resulting conflict prevention and resolution strat-
egies that lie embedded in the respective histories of these ethical systems. Which
texts, stories, or laws gain the upper hand depends on the hermeneutics of the
generation, which, in turn, depends upon the subtleties and intricacies of the
human relationships of that generation.
 86 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

War never occurs full-blown in religious history out of thin air. It takes a great
many human relationships to fail and a great many interpersonal values of a
religious system to be violated in order to bring war here and now to full religious
consciousness and acceptance. Thus, if we are to fully understand war in these
monotheistic traditions, we must understand the full range of religious values that
break down in human relationships, which, in turn, makes war into an attractive
religious alternative to religious peacemaking. Furthermore, peacemaking, with
all of the requisite moral values that it entails, remains a continual hermeneutic
possibility within each tradition, awaiting a reader or readers to rework the sacred
traditions, symbols, and values in terms of relationship building both before and
after conflict.
Finally, the scope of ethical concern is always being renegotiated by the readers
of the texts, whether those readers be authority figures or anyone with access to
the text and a creative, daring approach to his religion. Thus, the scope of ethical
concern may be restricted to only members of my subgroup of my religion, who
are the truly observant, faithful, or saved. But it may also be extended by me to
include every human being, every animal, and even the earth itself. These
traditions really contain both possibilities at the same time, and it is the reader
or readers and the generation, influenced by all the complex economic and social
psychological phenomena that evoke peace or violence from human beings, that
determines which readings will become paramount.
In this chapter we have examined the limits of the religious just war discussion
in addressing the deep causes of conflict and responding to them. In the next
chapter, we will examine the problem of creating theological constructs of religion
in the modern period that favor peace and tolerance. Liberal forms of the world's
religions have flourished in all parts of the globe in the last hundred years, and
they tend to favor constructs of civil society that make peacemaking and conflict
resolution into religious experiences. On the other hand, the more conservative
expressions of these same religions have tended to house militant approaches to
Others that is conflict generating in a variety of ways, some directly through
violence, others through intolerance, prejudice, or aggressive forms of prosely-
tism.
Any strategy of conflict resolution in religious societies would have to be able
to address the section of the society that is the most conservative, because it is
from there that the violence usually comes. It will be instructive, therefore, to
examine in the next chapter the construction of two modern, conservative ap-
proaches to tradition, which combine conservatism with a benevolent approach
to the rest of the world. It is in the analysis of such constructs that one finds
clues as to how conservative religious culture is capable of change and capable of
generating those skills and qualities that we normally associate with conflict res-
olution and the construction of a civil society. It is also instructive to explore
what the limitations are of these constructs in addressing the practical questions
of conflict resolution, coexistence, and the construction of a contemporary civil
society that has a large, dominant secular structure.
 FIVE

Modern Jewish Orthodox. Theologies

of Interreligious Coexistence

Strengths and Weaknesses

T he level of contact between people of many faiths in the last hun-

dred years has led to some unprecedented developments in religious
belief and practice. It is true that an approach to faith and practice that acknowl-
edges the existence of other religions has been a staple of human religious ex-
perience since the dawn of civilization. But after many centuries of extremely
intolerant monotheistic religious warfare, there is a decidedly important group of
monotheists who have embraced multifaith contacts and exchanges. This, in turn,
has led to some interesting shifts in religious consciousness. From the Parliament
of World Religions in the late nineteenth century right up to our own time there
is more and more conversation both on what makes us all different in the scores
of world religions and on what binds us together. It is the latter that has led to
a distinctive form of religious humanitarianism that suggests an important her-
meneutic evolution of religion, at least for those who have come to subscribe to
this kind of humanitarianism.
Let me be more specific. If one looks at a sampling of multifaith documents
of recent decades, one discovers a remarkable level of commonality of both goals
and values expressed by leaders of many world religions.1 There is clearly a trend
among some, especially those whose education runs wide and deep, to engage in
a selective hermeneutic of their traditions that emphasizes what they share in
common with the liberal humanitarianism of the Enlightenment.
This has also led, however, by way of reaction probably, to those who her-
meneutically engage in the opposite, namely, the interpretive selection of that
which makes their tradition distinctive, superior, and particularly opposed to the
Enlightenment, or opposed to the kind of liberal humanitarian values expressed
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
What is most crucial for conflict analysis and resolution, when it comes to
religion, is a focus on those hermeneutic trends that are felt to be authentic by

87
 88 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

a large portion of believers. Conflict resolution theory and practice must be in-
terested in those trends that embrace values that could be commensurate with
peacemaking and coexistence both inside the religious groups as well as between
them and Others. Despite the fact that there are liberal elites in each religion who
embrace tolerance and coexistence, if this is not embedded in the experience of
the majority, then we must understand this and work with it, rather than pretend,
as many liberal institutions do, that it is not there. Pretensions of dominant
groups always leave us poorly prepared for the conflict and violence that lurks
beneath the surface of a given culture.
Let us take an example. It is quite wonderful if the majority of liberal Prot-
estants in universities embrace nonracialist thinking in South Africa. But more
to the point in terms of conflict resolution is whether the rank-and-file members
of, say, the Dutch Reformed church, as well as the church hierarchy, truly embrace
nonracialist thinking and behavior. It is the masses of people in a country that
determine its ultimate character. How do these rank-and-file people change? It
happens by a decidedly new hermeneutic of Afrikaner Christianity that may per-
haps now evolve. It happens when active members of the church engage in a
serious hermeneutic of their own tradition and then teach that to the lay com-
munity. Most crucial of all, people change when a new hermeneutic is inserted
into the symbolic and ritual life of the religious community. This is the most
effective way to change the broadest spectrum of citizens in a society. This is a
method of transforming opinions, giving people the cognitive and behavioral
capacity to engage in peacemaking and tolerance, while at the same time main-
taining the authenticity of a tradition with those members who guard that au-
thenticity zealously. Guarding the authenticity of tradition is a deep human need
in many people; it is a defense of the existential identity of a group and its
members. The most effective way to enlist the guards in the cause of peacemaking
is not to destroy what they need to protect but to hermeneutically engage their
traditions in a way that enhances their sense of pride in what they guard so
carefully. It is fine to work with those whose religious hermeneutics lead them to
a wide and pluralistic embrace of wisdom from many sources, including docu-
ments such as the Universal Declaration. But these are not the people, by defi-
nition, who resort to violence in the name of religion. Peacemaking strategies
must speak deeply to those who are the most at risk to create destructive conflict
in the name of their religion.
As we move to the Jewish community, it is important to understand that the
attitude of Jews and Judaism toward the rest of the world is a key litmus test of
their embrace or nonembrace of a range of values related to conflict resolution.
After at least a millennium of persecution, or certainly memory of persecution,
in Christian lands, in addition to some internal hermeneutic developments within
Judaism that are intolerant, the pressure on normative Judaism to be something
less than peaceful in reaction to non-Jews is high today, especially now that Jews
are a majority somewhere in the world, specifically in Israel.
Nineteenth-century Western European Orthodoxy is particularly interesting
because it was one of the few Orthodoxies2 to have flourished in a somewhat
 Theolagies of Interreligious Coexistence 89

more hopeful and less anti-Semitic environment, unlike its Eastern European
counterparts and unlike the Orthodoxies of today, whose theologians and rabbinic
guardians are reeling from the trauma of the Holocaust. I am particularly inter-
ested in this subgroup precisely because the question of whether there can be a
peacemaking, tolerant Orthodoxy is one of the central issues today facing the
Jewish people and, indeed, the Middle East. This is the case because of the me-
teoric rise in prominence and power of Orthodoxy in contemporary Jewish cul-
ture and political life. In many ways, today's Orthodoxies are still in crisis mode,
engaged in emergency measures to rebuild everything that was lost in Europe.
But let us turn to the nineteenth century for the moment and then return later
to contemporary analysis.
Ever since the beginning of the Enlightenment, there has been a markedly
tolerant shift in the philosophical and ethical stance of Jews and Judaism toward
non-Jews and their religions. This is certainly true in the social sphere, in political
conceptualization of the liberal society, and in the extension of ethical commit-
ments to non-Jews.3 But this has generally been considered typical mostly of
liberal Jewish thought and in opposition to Orthodox philosophical and halakhic
constructs. But a closer look at the details of the philosophical and ethical posi-
tions in this matter yield some surprising results.
While in the practical realm there was a considerable degree of acceptance of
gentiles among liberal Jewish philosophers of the Enlightenment and the nine-
teenth century, there was also a significant effort to articulate, especially in Ger-
many, the supremacy of Judaism over all other faiths. Among some philosophers
there was even a perpetuation, at least on a philosophical level, of the need to
destroy false religions.4 For example, Hermann Cohen, the great exponent of
ethical monotheism and the ethical treatment of the stranger, stated:

The worship of the unique God unavoidably exacts the destruction of false
worship. In this respect there can be no pity and no regard for men....
Therefore the worship of false gods must be annihilated from the earth.5

On the other hand, some modern Orthodox formulations of Judaism are aston-
ishingly accepting in principle of gentile religions. This is particularly true in
Italy.
Samuel David Luzzatto's philosophy was a careful construction of a moral
sense theory out of the sources of the Bible and rabbinic literature. It demon-
strates a profound relationship to the Scottish Enlightenment school of moral
sense theory and to figures such as Rousseau, Hume, and Shaftesbury.6 Luzzatto's
benevolent attitude toward gentiles stemmed from his early childhood as amply
demonstrated in his Autobiografia.7 But the moral commitment to gentiles was
not just a personal or sentimental one. It is at the heart of Luzzatto's construction
of Jewish philosophy and the ethics of halakha. The most important moral sense
in his construct is the Italian moral sense of compassione or the Jewish moral
sense of hemlah. By definition, this sentiment extends universally, even to non-
 90 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

human creatures. Halakhah's object is to strengthen this sentiment and formalize

it in terms of virtually all human relations.
Further acceptance of gentiles is found in some rather astonishing biblical
hermeneutics regarding monotheism and idolatry. Luzzatto argued that biblical
Judaism's main problem with idolatry is immorality and, particularly, brutality
not its metaphysical errors. This sets him apart from most Jewish philosophers,
even among modern liberal theologians.
Elijah Benamozegh (1823-1900), the Orthodox rabbi of Livorno (Leghorn) for
more than a half century and a Kabbalist philosopher, demonstrated in his post-
humous work, Israel et Humanite, and several other rare commentaries a bold
interest in and embrace of Christian and pagan religious symbols and ideas.8 In
his philosophy, all of the most significant theosophical concepts in the major
religions stem in one way or another from the eternal truths of Kabbalah. Even
the Trinity, a concept generally considered anathema in Orthodox circles, is con-
sidered derivative of the lower portion of the sefirotic structure and merely "mis-
taken" in its translation into physical incarnation.9 Benamozegh further strength-
ens his commitment to the gentile world through his non-Jewish student, Aimé
Pallière, who he converts to "Noachism," not Judaism.10
These models demonstrate the need to reanalyze the nature of modern Or-
thodoxy, the hermeneutic dynamics of modern traditional thought, the ever-
present question of Jewish particular and universal moral commitments, and the
question of Jewish universal versus particularist self-perceptions and self-
definitions.
Luzzatto, or Shadal (the acronym of his full name), was one of the most
pragmatically oriented thinkers in the history of Jewish thought. His assumption
was that the entire structure of Torah beliefs and practices is geared toward the
creation of the good person, particularly the compassionate person. As such, even
the central axis of monotheism, the rejection of a plurality of deities, was subject
to his pragmatic/ethical cross-examination. Luzzatto asked an astounding ques-
tion regarding the second commandment of the Torah: Why does God care
whether people believe in his unity, or whether they worship gods other than
him? "For does the worship of idols harm human society?"11 The answer for
Luzzatto was that, indeed, idolatry is socially harmful. The belief in many gods
allows for the possibility of worshiping evil as a separate sacred entity or god,
and therefore it encourages people to become evil.12 This is an astounding posi-
tion. Luzzatto actually can ask of this tradition what is wrong with idolatry! One
would think that idolatry is the quintessential denial of the essence of monothe-
ism and Judaism, as in the Maimonidean position. But for Luzzatto the highest
good in the world is the inculcation of goodness in humanity, not the inculcation
of religious dogma. God wants to foster, by his teachings, the good person, not
the good theologian. This is God's highest aim, and monotheism is simply the
best instrument to accomplish this. That is why Luzzatto's question is even pos-
sible.
This position has serious moral implications in terms of the treatment of non-
Jews, especially idolaters, and may explain why Luzzatto has such a qualitatively
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 91

different attitude toward them than philosophers with other theological orienta-
tions. It makes the boundary between the Jewish self and the gentile Other far
more negotiable, based on common commitments to goodness, and far less de-
pendent on theological or dogmatic constructs.
To return to Luzzatto's theology, evil, as he defined it, is only real in the world
in atomistic form. When seen as a totality, the world is wholly good. Therefore,
the amorality of belief in pagan gods, especially the Greek gods, is due to their
expression of partial reality. Each god embodies characteristics, such as jealousy
or war and, therefore, conditions believers to embrace evil by way of the model
of the deity's behavior.
Second, the idea of one God is crucial to the idea of one human family, and
the latter is a core justification of the Torah's ethics. Like other moral sense
theorists, Luzzatto focused on the way that human beings extend their loving
sentiments universally when allowed to do so naturally, such as upon seeing a
mishap on the street and expressing a natural compassion for the car accident
victim. However, these same sentiments are blocked by various prejudices and
injuries, sometimes brought about by other angry sentiments. Thus, the same
person, upon seeing that the victim is a member of a certain race, may lose his
compassion. The Torah is designed to train one to extend the loving sentiments
to all situations and to not allow them to be buried by other emotional reactions
or cognitive prejudices. It is also designed, avers Luzzatto, to generate a love of
the entire human family. But each tribe and nation worshiping its own deity leads
to human alienation and to dehumanization of the Other, who is not a member
of one's tribe or protected by one's tribal god. Thus, monotheism is an essentially
moral teaching whose utility to human life is in generating a common love of
humanity:

The compassion that Judaism commends is universal. It is extended, like

God's, to all of His creatures. No race is excluded from the Law, because
all human beings, according to Judaism's teaching, are brothers, are chil-
dren of the same Father, and are created in the image of God.13

It is an extraordinary testimony to the cultural shifts within Orthodoxy of the

post-Holocaust period that we find a deliberate mistranslation of this paragraph
by Luzzatto in his collected writings, which were translated into Hebrew in Israel
in recent decades. The paragraph now reads in Hebrew, "No race is excluded
from the Law, because all Jews [my emphasis], according to Judaism's teaching,
are brothers, they are children of one Father, and are created in the image of
God."14 Apparently, it was too much to bear for a translator or an editor that an
Orthodox theologian and Torah scholar could actually say that all human beings
are brothers or, more specifically, that Jews are brothers with all of humanity.
This astonishing willingness to mistranslate and misrepresent a famous Jewish
theologian is a testimony to the fluidity of Orthodox hermeneutics, which appear
unchanging from the outside but which are, in fact, subject to the deep influences
of time, place, and circumstance, on basic theological/moral constructions of the
 92 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

social universe. In this case, the interpretation and translation from one genera-
tion to another reaches the logical extreme limit of hermeneutics, namely, the
deliberate subversion of the author and the destruction of the integrity of the text
by putting in a word that the author never wrote, replacing "human beings" with
"Jews" and thus undermining the author's entire premise.
The context of this rewriting of Jewish theology is entirely understandable.
Contemporary Orthodox Jewry has come to be dominated by descendants of
Eastern Europeans. As a group, their ancestors suffered the most at non-Jewish
hands since around the 1880s and have had the least positive interaction with
them. In addition, there is the overshadowing presence of the Holocaust, which
calls into question all Jewish/gentile relations. Furthermore, Western materialism
and wealth has had a decidedly deleterious effect on many minority groups, which
come to the West harboring deep injuries. Some in the group will often proceed
to take advantage of newfound wealth, not to heal, but to deepen the wounds of
the past as a way of strengthening ultraethnic and ultranationalist commitment.
This is not rational, but it is all too common among many deeply insecure
minorities around the globe, who find themselves in the throes of modern, ma-
terialist alienation and dislocation. It is for this reason that Luzzatto's love of
non-Jews would be considered bizarre by many ultra-Orthodox or ultranationalist
Jews today, at best, and, at worst, heretical or traitorous. That is why a mistrans-
lation has gone unnoticed or is even an acceptable subterfuge.
Let us return, however, to nineteenth-century Italian Orthodoxy, which is no
less a manifestation of modern Orthodoxy than the models of today but which
has an extraordinary quality of universalism built into its worldview. There are
some interesting questions to raise about Luzzatto's ethical, monotheistic con-
structs. What would Luzzatto think of gentiles who, despite the lack of mono-
theism, lived peacefully and amicably among themselves and with Others? How
would he evaluate, for example, Tibetan Buddhist teachings on compassion,
which exist side by side with the worship of a pantheon of deities? His two great
moral concerns—the development of moral character and the peaceful coexis-
tence of the human family—would be embraced by the Dalai Lama, for example,
but without belief in one God. Would this call into question the need for mono-
theism? Would God be satisfied with this religion, according to Luzzatto's belief
structure?
It certainly seems that Luzzatto's perception of the divine will is that the desire
is primarily for human goodness and secondarily for monotheistic worship. Con-
ceivably, Luzzatto could respond that the behavior is good, and that this is the
most important thing, as far as God is concerned, even though the theology is
mistaken. It is hard to imagine that he would, therefore, not see any appreciable
advantage to Judaism. He clearly is committed to the monotheistic construct of
the world and is most certainly convinced that divine revelation insists on a
certain path for the Jewish people. But it is remarkable how unimportant theo-
logical constructs are to him next to the choice between compassion and brutality,
for example. Therefore, we cannot really say with any certainty that he would
reject nonmonotheistic systems as idolatrous—at least for non-Jews—if they em-
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 93

brace the single greatest divine teaching for him: compassion. We simply do not
know for sure. Effectively, however, it is irrelevant for Luzzatto. He may or may
not consider Tibetan Buddhism to be idolatry. But, pragmatically, the Jew is
obligated to a universal level of benevolence and committed relationship building
with even idolaters. Thus, the stakes are not high for Luzzatto as to whether
Others are idolaters or not. This is quite distinct from other formulations of
halakha wherein if the person is an idolater a whole series of laws applies that
makes a normal or benevolent relationship impossible.
The importance of universal benevolence is further confirmed by Luzzatto's
extended efforts to demonstrate not only a benevolent biblical attitude toward
idolaters but the commitment of key representatives of normative biblical Judaism
to enter into sacred commitments with idolaters, in the form of oaths and cov-
enants. This is rooted in the institution of berit, the most sacred term for divine/
human covenant in the Bible, which is then applied to interhuman covenantal
relationships. Abraham prayed for Abimelekh's recovery, and he and his son Isaac
both took oaths and established covenants with Abimelekh and the shepherds of
Gerar, with Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre, as well as with the Amorites. Simeon and
Levi, Jacob's children, are rebuked for the murder of idolaters on the eve of their
entering into the community of berit, even when a wrong was committed against
their sister, just as centuries later Ezekiel rebuked King Tsedekiah for breaking
his covenant with the Babylonian king, who was clearly not a monotheist. Judah
kept an agreement with Hirah the Adulamite, while Joseph demonstrated cove-
nantal devotion to his Egyptian pagan master by resisting his wife's overtures.
Joshua kept true to an oath to Rehab, as well as to the Gibeonites.15
Luzzatto's last example is especially striking because it involves Joshua, the
man who probably killed the most idolaters of anyone in biblical literature—at
God's command. Luzzatto argued, however, that the biblical condemnation of the
inhabitants of Canaan is a singular event and is due exclusively to their moral
degradation and pollution of the land, not their idolatry. It may be true that their
idolatry was seen as a dangerous snare for the Israelites, but it was not the basis
of their capital punishment. Numerous texts are quoted to demonstrate that idol-
atry is always condemned in the context of moral failure, such as in the ill
treatment of the poor or the defenseless, especially in the prophetic critiques of
the brutality of nations, such as those found in Isaiah and Amos.16
Even where there has been enmity or wrong done to the Jewish people by
idolaters, the Torah commands a tolerant approach, such as not hating the Edo-
mite or the Egyptian, despite the harm they did to the Jewish people. It must be
emphasized that these biblical proof texts involve the treatment of idolaters, not
simply non-Jews, and therefore suggest a far more sweeping construct of Jewish
ethics requiring an almost complete universalization of Jewish moral laws.
We must note here, however, that Luzzatto is prepared to justify the killing
of men, women, and children by Joshua and others for two reasons: there is a
singular divine mandate for this event in history, and their society, according to
the biblical story, is steeped in so much brutality that they have lost their right
to live. Luzzatto does not enter into the moral problem of exactly how a child is
 94 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

condemned to death for the sins of his culture, nor why this is not counted as
at least as cruel as the condemned cruelty of the culture.
Luzzatto seems not to have a choice here. He is investing the literal words of
the Bible with ultimate authority. His critique of rabbinic institutions that are
chauvinistic are based on a return to the Bible as he has interpreted that docu-
ment. This is somewhat parallel to Protestant critiques of Catholic accretions to
the New Testament, although Luzzatto is completely beholden to the rabbis on
most interpretations of Jewish law, unlike the Protestant/Catholic split. What
Luzzatto cannot do then, as long as he remains Orthodox, is ignore where the
Bible directly mandates cruelty. What he can do is circumscribe it to the degree
that it is never to be repeated, and he can explain it in terms of a higher purpose
of compassion, namely, others will learn what happens to civilizations that were
based on cruelty.
This is a difficult position to sustain. Luzzatto is making the case that com-
passion is God's supreme concern. He is also suggesting that God will decide in
very rare instances to suspend compassion and to punish the guilty, such as in
Sodom, where God justifies wiping out an entire city for the ultimate purpose of
teaching what happens to those who live based on brutality. But the destruction
of the children, together with the parents, in the biblical extermination laws is
well beyond the Sodom episode. After all, in the latter Abraham does ascertain
that God is not condemning the innocent together with the wicked. But the
extermination laws do demand the murder of the innocent together with the
guilty, as far as we can tell, although this seems to be directly contradicted by
other biblical discussions of this subject.17
Here Luzzatto, and perhaps Orthodoxy itself, is backed into a corner, a corner
whose parameters suggest that one cannot reject as wrong a biblical position
mandated by God. Luzzatto works mightily to make that corner more "livable"
by making it a singular event in history. Ironically, it is the herem war laws that
were subsequently used as the justification for much of the religious wars of
monotheistic traditions in the last two thousand years, especially against the peo-
ples of the Third World. One can hardly avoid the irony that these wars, especially
the Crusades, claimed thousands of Jews as victims through so many centuries.
Essentially, as long as those biblical words were and are considered to be expres-
sive of something that God wills, or willed at one time, it will always be more
difficult theologically to categorically reject the morality of a war that systemat-
ically slaughters the innocent, if they are nonmonotheists or not of one's faith.
Of course, one cannot hold Luzzatto or Orthodox halakha responsible for the
uses of biblical scripture for murderous purposes at the hands of others, especially
when rabbinic Judaism would seriously circumscribe the applicability of the herem
laws. But the logical difficulty of Luzzatto's position seems to me to remain, and
the militarist purposes to which these laws have been put in biblically based
religions continues to adversely affect history.18
Luzzatto did not deny that there is differentiated treatment of Jews and gentiles
in biblical Judaism. However, as part of the structure of his major work, Lezioni
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 95

di teologia morale israelitica, Luzzatto focused heavily on universal moral obli-

gations in which no distinction between Jew and gentile is made, while the par-
ticularist obligations, though documented, received much less attention.19 Essen-
tially, Luzzatto traced the necessary halakhic differentiations to five areas: interest,
loan cancellation, loan guarantees, responses to the enslavement of a Jew, and
revenge. Anywhere that the text distinguishes ahikha (your brother) and nokhri
(foreigner), the text is acknowledging special obligations of the Jewish family to
itself.20 Luzzatto allowed for the special commitments of families and indeed
structured his moral lectures around family commitments. The Jewish people are
a family in his theology, but they are also committed to a family of humanity,
which has equal theological cogency. There are families within families within
families, each with increasing levels of commitment. However, the family of hu-
manity carries the broadest possible level of mutual obligations, while increasingly
intensive levels of commitment are reserved for the Jewish family and one's per-
sonal biological family, respectively.
The case is made further that all references to re'a (fellow or neighbor), 21
must be considered universal, and thus the love principle of Leviticus 19:18, the
commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself," is to be universally extended.
Evidence is cited from various biblical sources, including Exodus 11:2, that re'a
refers to gentiles. This is an old problem in Jewish ethics, and there are certainly
other Orthodox rabbinic figures in more recent times, such as Rabbi Mecklen-
burg, who claimed the love of re'a as a universal obligation.22 Furthermore, Luz-
zatto cited several places in rabbinic literature where the ethics associated with
re'a are extended to gentiles. Even the ethics of ahikha regarding interest-free
loans is extended to gentiles as an act of piety by Talmud Bavli. Makkot 24a, the
latter directly contradicted, incidentally, by Maimonides.23 This has revolutionary
implications because the re'a laws of the Bible involve the deepest kind of moral
relationships, including the prohibitions of envy, oppressive behavior in both
business and interpersonal interactions, encroachment on another's land, and—
one of the most important laws of social engagement that goes beyond contem-
porary morality—a prohibition against inaction when you see a neighbor being
assaulted or under mortal threat of some kind. It also involves prosocial com-
mitments to the distribution of scarce resources equitably and a moral guide as
to how the poor should take what they need from the rich, but not more than
their due.24
Luzzatto is well aware of how much of rabbinic literature contradicts his con-
clusion about universalizing these values. This is why much of his writing is
dedicated to carefully defining rabbinic Judaism as a divinely mandated but, nev-
ertheless, human process of adjusting the divine word to makom u' zeman (time
and place). To the degree that the rabbis are successful in accomplishing this,
Luzzatto applauded them. He adhered to their words assiduously in the face of
mounting modern pressure to change the laws and customs that express the
particularity of the Jewish people, such as in prayer, and simultaneously attacked
stylistic and ritual reforms. But where the rabbis plainly violated the most fun-
 96 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

damental biblical commitment to universal compassion and justice, due to the

circumstances of their own times, Luzzatto rejected their conclusions categori-
cally, stating:

Whatever proposition or story that could be found in the Talmud ... which
would be in opposition to the sentiments of universal humanity and jus-
tice—which are suggested equally by nature and by Sacred Scripture—must
be regarded as neither of the dictates of Religion or of Tradition, but as
regrettable insinuations of the calamitous circumstances, and of the public
and private vexations and cruelties to which the Jews were subjected in the
barbaric centuries.25

In sum, Luzzatto concluded, "The difference, in religion or opinion, of a person

[and ourselves] does not allow us to hate him, or to injure him, nor to refrain
in any way from exercising towards him the universal obligations of humanity
and justice."26 This is a remarkable level of commitment to detheologize the
question of religious ethics. What I mean by this is that Luzzatto's ethics of
sentiment are simply to be extended universally, without regard to any theological
evaluation of the other human being or living creature.
This is a necessary position for Luzzatto. His understanding of nature and
what appeared to him to be irrefutable on a biological level led him to conclude
that only the prosocial sentiments, centering on misericordia (compassion), have
the requisite power to motivate human ethics and thus create the good society.
Thus, if God's wish is for human beings to be good, as is shown by the biblical
corpus, then the Torah must, in its essence, be founded upon a pedagogy that
always reinforces the natural sentiment of compassion, especially for those who
suffer. That compassion can have no limits, at least in principle. Luzzatto did
address the necessary suppression of compassion, such as in capital crimes. But
it appears that he saw the suppression of compassion vis-a-vis gentiles and idol-
aters or its limitation to fellow Jews to be in direct contradiction to the natural
direction of compassion and also to be a direct violation of the biblical vision of
a universal human family that is meant to be the recipient of the individual's
feelings of compassion, love, and justice.
As far as Luzzatto's approach to rabbinic Judaism, one should note the irony
here. Rabbinic Judaism, in its essence, is a hermeneutic religion; it is such a
thorough hermeneutic of biblical Judaism that it is effectively now known as
Judaism, having overtaken biblical Judaism. Luzzatto is one of the few traditional
thinkers in Jewish history who turns this hermeneutic enterprise on its head. He
is a parshan, a commentator, a hermeneuticist, in the classic rabbinic fashion. Yet
he creates from this enterprise a return to biblical centrality that keeps the rabbis
to a standard of legitimacy: they are authoritative to the degree to which they do
not violate basic biblical values and goals.
Of course, the irony is double. Luzzatto is as human as the rabbis, a herme-
neuticist in his own place and time who, no matter how brilliant a Bible scholar
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 97

he may have been, saw in the biblical text a particular ethic of compassion and
out of that central perception built his explanations for when and how the Bible
makes exceptions for that ethic. This is a perceptual and hermeneutic construct
that may be quite convincing, more convincing than that of the rabbis, perhaps,
when it conies to interpretations of the biblical meaning of ger and re'a. It may
very well be that rabbinic circumscription of these concepts is less true to inner
biblical exegesis than Luzzatto's interpretation, but his is also a hermeneutic con-
struct of his own place and time, and we have seen this hermeneutic move in
other modern Orthodox thinkers, as noted earlier. But Luzzatto is one of the
only ones, in classic Italian fashion, to remain in an Orthodox construct but still
treat the rabbis as deeply human interpreters, capable of basic errors. And he did
join other Orthodox interpreters who, as a group, hermeneutically redesigned the
basic boundaries between Jew and gentile, even between Jew and idolater, in the
modern period. This suggests the surprising elasticity of moral boundaries even
in the most religious constructs of a religion in response to the changed circum-
stances of the religious interpreter.
Turning to Benamozegh, we discover a complex attitude toward Jewish-gentile
relations, opposed in some key ways to the theological and ethical framework of
his older contemporary and rival, Luzzatto. Whereas Luzzatto's engagement with
gentiles and idolaters was entirely on the level of ethics—true to his theological
orientation—Benamozegh's relationship to other traditions was almost entirely
on the plane of metaphysical and mystical speculation. Furthermore, Benamo-
zegh's attitudes changed, it would seem, over time, based on the evidence we
have.
Benamozegh's erudition in Jewish rabbinic sources, in Kabbalah in particular,
in world religions, and, last but not least, in Christian sacred literature, is truly
astounding. In midcareer, at the age of forty-four, he wrote a stunningly bitter
polemic against Christianity entitled Moral juive et moral chretienne.27 Its main
purpose was to demonstrate that Christian pretensions to supplant Judaism were
ill founded from the beginning. In rather angry language, he asserts that the best
in Christianity had been plagiarized from Judaism, while the adverse effects of
Christian morality are documented throughout. One is struck by how much even
the discussions of Jewish ethics are couched in Christian language in order to
demonstrate the plagiarism still further, while in general the Jewish ethics are not
particularly well developed by the author. Benamozegh states at the beginning of
his essay:

Now what has Christianity substituted for the God of the Jews, the First-
and-the-Last, the Author of the beginning and end of man and of the world?
It has ascribed progression to God himself. . . asserting that this last bends
to circumstances, to custom, even to the weakness of man—has ascribed
to him the flexibility of Paul... and the base concessions of the Jesuits to
idolaters; it has made a god after its own image, like the gods of Homer,
instead of making man after the image of God, as Moses teaches.28
 98 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

The overall impression one gets of his early polemical writings is that what
Benamozegh resented the most is religious successionism,29 the theft from Juda-
ism of its best values and then the pretension to supplant its usefulness to man-
kind. Later in his writings, he also resisted biblical scholarship that suggests an
evolutionary, linear progression in human history from the most primitive to the
most progressive human thinking for the same reason, namely, the implied suc-
cession of Judaism by more advanced expressions of religion, philosophy, and
science. This, indeed, was a commonplace, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so
subtle, message of cultural/religious supremacy, which underlay modern Western
scholarship.
Even in Benamozegh's early period, however, we see some remarkable and
rather atypical characteristics of his thinking. As an Orthodox rabbi, he seemed
to have no trouble singing the praises of Cicero, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
For example, he said:

As to Paganism, without urging the simplicity, beauty, and elevation of

Greco-Roman poetry or theology, we should have to cite only from some
sacred books of the East, from Confucius or Menu [Mencius? the code of
Manu?)], for instance, to show what man can extract from that rich and
inexhaustible soil of Divine gift, viz., the religious sentiment.30

We see here the beginnings of his perception as a thinker that divine truths exhibit
themselves universally in all religions, even pagan ones. In fact, he has far kinder
things to say about Confucius at this point than about Christianity.
By the time we revisit Benamozegh in 1885, twenty-three years later, we dis-
cover a man deeply committed to Judaism's contribution to the future of hu-
manity. His Israel et Humanite is an introduction to the long posthumous work,
of the same name, which did not appear until 1914.31 He was still engaged in a
debate with Christianity, though it was far less polemical. His principal concern
was to demonstrate the existence of a universal religion, deeply embedded in
Judaism, which could solve the problems of mankind and which could accomplish
this more effectively than Christianity, as the latter was currently formulated.
The first thing to notice about Benamozegh's formulations is that ethics is not
at the center of either Judaism or its universal religion: metaphysics is, although
it is a formulation of metaphysics with profound moral implications. Further-
more, science and history matter a great deal to his methodology, in addition to
the sciences applied to biblical literature. He did not flinch from the biblical
scholarship of his time. On the contrary, he embraced it in order to demonstrate
his argument.
At the heart of Benamozegh's thesis is the belief that there is a universal religion
that predates Mosaic religion, the latter being specifically designed just for the
Jewish people. The former, however, is far more ancient and is Benamozegh's
greatest concern in terms of the fate of humanity. Its manifestations are to be
felt in veiled form in every major pagan tradition. This revelation, which Jewish
tradition, according to Benamozegh's formulation, associates with Noah, is mono-
 Theologies of Intemligious Coexistence 99

theistic. Its principal message is the unity of God, especially as, or when, this is
manifest in the unity of mankind and the unity of the universe. However, it is
obvious that mankind is not united and that belief in God is hardly a uniting
force in the world. Following Vincenzo Gioberti's philosophy, with which he was
quite familiar, and adding a neo-Hegelian twist, Benamozegh argued for a stage-
by-stage process of human religious consciousness that begins with unity—albeit
a vague conception of it—moves on to complexity and multiplicity, and then
returns finally to a higher unity or synthesis. Gioberti's description of the devel-
opment of consciousness, the "palingenesis," or ultimate return of the existent
to being, was applied by Benamozegh to human history, especially religious his-
tory.32 Thus, the progress of history, if and when it leads to unity of mankind,
also demonstrates or makes manifest the divine unity that is latently present in
all of existence.
All of the multiple manifestations of deities to be found in many religions are
actually vague reminders of an original conception of unity. The universal religion
embedded in Judaism, particularly as this is expressed by Kabbalah, is designed
to synthesize the multiplicity and diversity of the world's pagan religious expres-
sions. It can be the glue that synthesizes a "religion of the future," which returns
the human race to a higher reality of divine unity, human unity, and cosmic
unity.
This is why the Kabbalistic description of divine traits necessarily contains
within itself so many contradictions. It is a synthesis of the real and the ideal,
the material and the spiritual, the pantheistic and the transcendent. Every aspect
of nature that has been worshiped separately in the world's religions is contained
therein.
It is for this reason that Benamozegh refused to utterly condemn any pagan
idea or form of worship, because it always has some roots in the sefirotic structure
of the universe.33 That does not mean that it is not mistaken. But it is not evil
in the absolute sense; it is only incomplete. All theological sins involve, argued
Benamozegh, the terms ketsots, perud, or hibbur. All involve the mistake of cut-
ting, separating, associating—in other words, not seeing the whole. Therefore,
pagan gods should never be cursed.34 They are part of the higher unity of the
world but have been mistakenly separated from the higher unity of God.
Judaism's ultimate task is to resolve the duality and multiplicity that exists in
humankind and to bring it closer to the synthesis and unity to be found in the
authentic doctrines of divine revelation, particularly the universal revelation given
originally to mankind through Noah. In answer to the "rationalist" critics of
Judaism—by which Benamozegh usually meant the Bible critics—he claimed
that Moses understood this original revelation well. That is why Moses, as the
author of the Torah, does draw upon pagan mysteries and rites. He took from
the secrets of Egyptian religion, such as circumcision, which were rites of entry
for the few, for the elite, but made the whole Jewish nation into a priesthood.
This was not due to pagan and primitive roots of the Torah. Rather, this was
intentionally designed to create ever-larger human communities dedicated to the
higher unity of God.35
 100 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

A crucial point is that Benamozegh believed that Moses and the Jewish people
encountered, in their time, a purer form of paganism than what has been studied
by scholars today as the latter analyze, from a distance, the popular manifestation
of those religions. Its secrets were closer to the original unitary conception of the
world in the time of Noah. That is why the patriarchs, for example, can have
good relationships with figures such as Malkhitsedek and why the biblical text
could see him in such positive terms, even considering him a priest (Gen. 14:18,
19).
Turning to the modern period, Emile Burnouf's science of religions is an
important backdrop to Benamozegh's philosophy.36 Burnouf claimed a basic di-
vergence of Eastern and Western religion in which the East is characterized as
pagan, emanationist, and/or pantheist, while the West is characterized as Semitic
and transcendent. This was completely unsatisfactory to Benamozegh, who be-
lieved that Kabbalah, which contained within it the synthesis of all religious ideas,
the higher unity of human revelation, called into question Burnouf's duality. True
Semitic religion has both. It recognizes at once transcendence and immanence,
unity and pantheism, "where this is reasonable." By this Benamozegh meant that
the mistake of many religions, including Christianity, is when they take this too
far in one direction, such as in the doctrine of the literal incarnation of God in
Jesus.
True faith in one God can unite all peoples and all religions. It can also
harmonize science and religion. Benamozegh characterized modern science as the
search for causal chains and singular principles, such as Newton's laws, to explain
the universe. He saw himself on the same path of discovering singular truths in
the universe. But he saw the challenge of religious diversity as no less important
than the challenge of a world of chaos without scientific explanation. Religious
diversity indicates a multiplicity of avenues to God, which awaits a higher syn-
thesis to resolve the conflicts of religions and, particularly, sectarianism, a key
concern in his intellectual milieu.
Science is based on a search for the relationship of cause and effect. But this
is also the basis of religious metaphysics. Benamozegh assumed that angelology,
for example, is an analysis of the causal connection of divine attributes and their
effect on the world. Similarly, pagan hierarchies try to explain the same thing.
But sometimes they make a fatal error in not seeing the entire causal chain
moving back or up to the highest expression of a unified deity. That is why he
is particularly hopeful that many non-Western traditions have within them the
bases of not only scientific conceptualization but monotheism.
Benamozegh was particularly struck by how much Christian Europe was in
search of a solution to its disastrous struggle with religious sectarianism and how
devastating it was to human life. He offered his form of universal religion as the
religion of the future, which could solve this problem of gentile life. A united
God, as a synthesis of higher unity, would solve both the religious crisis and the
scientific quest for singular truth.
Revelation, through the prophets and Kabbalistic constructs, was a major
source of proof texts for the radically inclusive approach to multiple expressions
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 101

of religion. Pantheism is seen as in dramatic tension with, but also in coexistence

with, transcendent expressions of divinity in biblical texts.
Isaiah 6:3 and Isaiah 45:5 are both seen as evidence of a pantheistic side to the
higher unity of Judaism. The word describing God as kavod is a key here, since
it is translated as "glory" but is clearly related to the Hebrew term kaved, thus
implying a substantive heaviness, a tangible reality. Isaiah 6:3 is normally trans-
lated as "Holy, Holy, Holy, the world is filled with His Glory." Benamozegh
translated this as "All that fills the world is His kavod (glory)."37 Isaiah 45:5 is
usually translated, "I am the Lord and there is none else," while Benamozegh
stressed, "I am the Lord and nothing else exists."
There is an obvious problem for Jewish identity and spirituality in Benamo-
zegh's construct. What is the purpose of Jewish particularity if the entire theo-
logical construct is geared toward universalism? He rejected the charge that "cho-
senness" is racism. Here, he clearly laid great stress on the early chapters of
Genesis to demonstrate the belief in one God in those early generations. The
revelation of that principle universally clearly means, argues Benamozegh, that
the truths of Judaism were not exclusively given to one people. Here, Benamoz-
egh's formulation parts company with a theological construct commonly known
in traditional circles, which emphasizes one midrashic myth, namely, that the
Torah was offered to all nations and only accepted by Israel. But Benamozegh
stressed the biblical recounting of a long period of early history in which there
were many sins but not pure idolatry or absolute rejection of monotheism. Thus,
there is never an overt rejection by the entire world of monotheism, as is re-
counted in early biblical history.
Jewish particularity, therefore, has a restorative quality and is not an exclusivist
privileging act. This he shares with Luzzatto. Jewish life is a particular means to
a universalist end. The only purpose is to restore the original religion of humanity
by teaching a higher synthesis, which removes the need for each religion to wor-
ship in opposition to the Other, rather than with the Other. It is inconceivable,
argued the rabbi of Livorno, that Jewish monotheism is not related in some way
to gentile monotheism, particularly to gentile beliefs in their original form. He
saw a deep affinity, not so much with Spinozist pantheism or Christology, but
with sacred texts such as the Vedas. For example, each god in the Vedas takes
turns at supremacy, and this, Benamozegh argued, is halfway between polytheism
and the authentic theosophy of Kabbalah. Kabbalah recognizes the different faces
of God and the way in which one face or expression can have more or less power
at some place and time. But he denies their independent existence.38 Polytheism,
the worship of each face of God as independent, is only a later corruption of
earlier thinking, which had been unitary and monotheistic. Benamozegh con-
cluded near the end of his magnum opus, "Thus, Israel is only a means, as grand
and noble as you like, but solely a means and not an end in itself. The end resides
in the union of Israel and humanity that sums up the entire providential plan."39
The particularity of the Jewish people is limited to an unredeemed present and
functions as a means of preserving the universal religion. But the messianic end
is unity.
 102 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Benamozegh's vision took on political implications as well, as we see from his

article "Le crime de la guerre denonce a 1'humanite" (The crime of war de-
nounced before humanity).40 His conception of human unity precluded a violent
approach to uniting humanity. This is why he denounced Roman imperialism
and Christian forms of cultural domination brought about by the Christianization
of the Roman Empire, despite the fact that Christianity spread monotheism. An
approach of force to establish the synthesis that he seeks is completely unac-
ceptable. Even a culturally imperialist approach, namely, a rigid monotheism that
vigilantly denounces the idolatry of the rest of the world is unacceptable. He
sought a higher unity through synthesis, through recovering the pure doctrines
embedded in all religions. This cannot be done through violence, physically or
culturally.
This approach to the world is in keeping with that of the first Jew, Abraham.
Benamozegh saw Abraham in spiritual continuity with his ancient environment,
purifying it, not conquering it. Malkhitsedek's blessing of Abraham and his God,
el elyon (Gen. 14:18), indicates that Salem, later Jerusalem, is a capital of pagan
religion, yet not a religion that rejects Abraham's God.
The names of God are an important part of Benamozegh's theory. Here, for
example, Malkhitsedek's use of el elyon (roughly, "most high God," or, more
radically, "the God who is the highest of the gods") is important. It recognizes a
hierarchy of divinity, which for Benamozegh is the key to the ultimate synthesis
of monotheism. Other biblical texts refer to God's praises being sung throughout
the world.41 Benamozegh believed that the Psalmist, among others, believed these
praises to be coming from pagans.
In order to demonstrate his positions from Kabbalah, Benamozegh referred
often to sefirotic syntheses that reflect higher unities of separated phenomena of
the world. The most important, in terms of Jewish/gentile relations, is the con-
ceptualization of shekhina as the plenitude of divinity in its relation to the created.
Israel worships the multi-faceted shekhina, while others worship partial aspects.42
Christianity borrowed from Judaism the multiple relations of the Trinity but
limited divine manifestations to just three.
The infinity of divine manifestations, such as is found in the Vedas, was more
interesting to Benamozegh than the Trinity. It seems that multiplicity is closer to
the higher unity that Benamozegh sought from gentiles than the dogmatic and
exclusivist faith in the Trinity or the more secular expression in his time of
Spinozist pantheism. Infinite expressions of the divine intimate, by their nature,
an ultimate unity, whereas a rigidly formed Trinity ultimately creates division that
cannot unite nature or the metaphysical universe, while a dogmatic and exclusivist
pantheistic conception does not recognize multiplicity, or transcendence as well
as immanence. The Torah itself, in referring to God as tseva'ot (hosts) and making
reference to angels and b'nai elohim (sons of God) recognizes multiple forces in
the world. But this is why the most important name for the sefirah of malkhut
(kingship) is bet ha-kenesset (house of gathering), the gathering in of all cosmic
forces, which for Benamozegh is the synthesis of all the forces worshiped as pagan
deities.43 Thus, an overfocus on just three deities, or a Trinity, and the only path
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 103

to that through Jesus is too exclusivist a conception to pave the way for higher
unities.
Benamozegh was aware of the fact that Judaism or, more specifically, the
universal, primordial religion embedded within Judaism could be accused of syn-
cretism. More accurately, he was aware that he could be accused of developing a
highly syncretistic expression of Judaism that was inauthentic to tradition. But
on a metaphysical level, Benamozegh saw himself practicing the Kabbalistic doc-
trine of berur, choosing the good from multiple sources and synthesizing a higher
unity. It would only be syncretistic if it did not resolve itself in a higher unity.
In other words, the Kabbalistic roots of his method gave it authenticity and
internal coherence as part of the primordial religion of the world, rather than
being a facile, syncretistic effort to combine the superficial elements of world
religions for the purpose of creating a modern culture. As mentioned earlier, he
was actively engaged in palingenesis, recovering the original roots of this pri-
mordial religion and rediscovering it, but in a higher unity now, by gathering and
synthesizing the divine wisdom implicit in many traditions.
Another way that Benamozegh looked at this is by a metaphysical definition
of Israel. Israel is seen as the "synthesis," the central point of faith, a priesthood,
and the gentiles as "analysis," the perception of divinity in the smallest objects
of the world. Atomizing the worship of God into the smallest objects is a crucial
cultural and metaphysical development in the history of humankind. It is a way
to deepen our understanding of the divine relationship to everyone and every-
thing. But it also requires an eventual return to or movement toward the central
point of unity, the synthesis.
This is his messianic vision. It is the way in which Judaism alerts the world,
through teaching, to the theosophic essence of universal religion, which Bena-
mozegh referred to as Noachism. It is this Noachism that he taught to Aime
Palliere, who in turn wrote about it and set the stage for the development of a
small sect of gentiles now known as Noachides. Some live in the United States to
this day, in Tennessee.44 Naturally, in compliance with rabbinic Judaism, it in-
cluded the Seven Laws of Noah. For Benamozegh, it clearly signified a much
deeper synthesis of human religious beliefs and practices, which returns mankind
to the primal unity of its earliest origins. But now this is fulfilled with a higher
unity, which is more deeply redemptive of the world, uniting all of humanity
politically and socially—and metaphysically uniting humanity with God.
Peace is indispensable for the process of teaching this universal religion.
Therefore the role of the Jewish people is to be peacemakers among the nations,
ambassadors, and intermediaries. He disagreed radically with other visions of the
future that suggested what he considered either incomplete visions of humanity
or barbaric means of social change. He completely rejected Marxist internation-
alism as materialistic and incomplete, while Ferdinand Lasalle's (d. 1864) vision
was poorly conceived and too one-sided, presumably because it favored only
workers, but this is unclear.45 Benamozegh also seemed to be quite nervous about
revolutionary means of change as producing too much violence, thus achieving
the opposite of the hoped-for unity.
 104 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Despite his universal vision, Benamozegh was not a typical internationalist of

his day. He felt that pure internationalism devalues the spiritual and the provi-
dential significance of nations. He wrote, "The nations are unified historically
through Adam, psychologically in the shekhina, the Divine Presence in the world,
which is the center of all souls.... Each nation represents a particular idea unto
itself which is its raison d'etre."46 Ultimately, the nation's purpose is to evolve
organizationally into a higher unity of nations but not by betraying its essential
character. Each nation has a sar, an angelic force, and it maintains its distinction
while also evolving into a higher unity, which clearly parallels a dramatic Kab-
balistic process of the divine presence itself. Thus, Benamozegh's vision would
embrace a method of peacemaking and conflict resolution that simultaneously
affirms the independent identity of all parties, while also searching for a higher
set of principles and cognitive constructs of the world that serve to unify all
parties.
The true way to the future for both the body and the soul of humanity, as
well as for the shekhina, is by harmonizing, not delegitimizing, the multiple spir-
itual and national expressions of humankind. The Jewish people, with their com-
mitment to the theosophic doctrines of Kabbalah, their awareness of their own
distinct particularity combined with a universal vision of the future, are perfectly
equipped to teach this to humankind, precisely because Jews have lived for so
long with their particularity coexisting, in dramatic tension, with their existence
in larger, non-Jewish cultures. They thus have a keen understanding of how to
make a higher unity out of multiple particular identities.
Benamozegh is touching here on a vital principle of conflict resolution in
situations of multiple ethnic and religious identities. There is a constant struggle
between the search for universal principles of coexistence and the clearly demon-
strable human need for particular identity. The latter seems to be a constant in
human history, and it expresses itself in abundance through numerous religious
constructs and rituals throughout the world. Benamozegh was suggesting a so-
lution to this tension of the universal and the particular and also cautioning us
about the ways in which an overemphasis on universalism leads to repression,
while an overfocus on particularism leads to permanent conflict.
The answer lies in an embrace of particularity with the aim of creating a higher
synthesis. How exactly this approach would express itself in situations of conflict
is well beyond the purview of this theologian, but his ideas deserve careful study
and should be considered in the future as we experiment with the construction
of a multicultural, multireligious civil society. We cannot do this without careful
study and experimentation on a social scientific level. But neither can we do it
without a refined understanding of the ethical and theological challenges of this
process.
It is ironic that Benamozegh's vision fits into neither political trend that shat-
tered the optimism of the Enlightenment and destroyed tens of millions of lives.
The particularism of World War I nationalisms and their fatuous pride led to the
senseless deaths of millions of people and destroyed a generation, which in turn
set the stage for the European fascisms of World War II, which were simply a
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 105

more demonic form of ultranationalism. The Cold War and its innumerable
deaths in proxy wars around the world, in addition to the horrors of the gulags
and purges, was, by contrast, due to a universalist vision of communism, which
turned into a nightmare. Western triumphalism and occasional paranoia made a
bad situation even worse, but there can be no doubt that universalist political
and universalist religious visions have their dark side, as Benamozegh understood
well. His subtle attempt to build a political/spiritual vision that embraces both
particularity and universality presaged the spirit of multifaith conversation and
cooperation that has begun to take root in recent decades, as well as our fledgling
but honorable efforts to create an international political community that em-
braces distinct nations but also a higher political unity of moral purpose.
We clearly have a long way to go, but Benamozegh's theology demonstrates
how even the most conservative religious traditions can become a part of this
process. An Orthodox community rabbi for fifty years, he evolved a vision that
in certain ways proved superior to many progressive political ideologies of the
modern period, particularly in terms of its attention to the challenges of peace-
making.
These two Italian philosophies also raise timely theological/psychological ques-
tions that are relevant to our study. How does the religious individual define
himself vis-a-vis human beings who are not of his belief or believing group? Most
often, especially in monotheism, this definition involves an ontological opposition
to the Other, a dualistic division between the good Self—collective or individ-
ual—and the evil Other, between the saved and the unsaved.47 For Luzzatto and
Benamozegh, there is a clear differentiation of Jew and gentile but not an op-
positional duality. The Jewish role is pedagogic, teaching a compassionate ethic
and simple monotheism, in Luzzatto's case, and, in Benamozegh's, teaching a
synthetic unity of God and humankind that includes the best expression of all
spiritual human insights. For Luzzatto, the pedagogic vision is strictly in the
ethical realm—simply teach a good way to live that also happens to be mono-
theistic. For Benamozegh, there is a grand design to teach a universal religion to
all of humanity or to enable its evolution out of the sources of the world's spiritual
traditions, to transform history, and to realize the messianic age, which is the
hoped-for palingenesis, the regeneration of humankind.
Benamozegh's vision has all the problems associated with any universal pre-
tension to religious truth, namely, the potential to be a coercive force in the world
despite Benamozegh's commitments to peace. Luzzatto might have rejected out-
right the aspirations of Benamozegh precisely because, in Luzzatto's vision, com-
passion is at the heart of God's aspiration for human beings, both Jewish and
gentile, and universal ideological aspirations are notoriously oppressive in history.
Benamozegh, however, repeatedly rejected the Roman imperial character of his-
torical Christianity and its use of force, and he also clearly embraced an extremely
tolerant program of theological inclusiveness, that is, the construction of theology
in such a way as to include many pagan beliefs as a part of his overall conception
of divine unity. Furthermore, he made it clear that politically he would not have
any part of coercive international programs of action.
 106 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Benamozegh also, according to Palliere's reports, held out the possibility of a

religion, such as Christianity, being the universal religion if it would rid itself of
the key errors of Incarnation and Trinity and the accompanying intolerance of
Others who do not accept these dogmas. One of Benamozegh's problems with
the Trinity and Incarnation is its classic expression of an idolatrous principle
from a Jewish point of view, a move too far in the direction of God's presence
in the material world. Another key problem is its limitation to just three char-
acteristics of God and the limitation of Jesus as the sole vehicle of salvation. In
other words, it is not inclusive enough, and Christianity must go through a pro-
cess of self-reform in order to be more inclusive.
Of course, Benamozegh's conditions for Christian reform would wipe out pre-
cisely what gives many Christians their sense of having a unique and special sacred
story. It would be similar to asking Jews to keep their religion but just eliminate
the Talmud. It would rob them of what makes them unique, and I would argue
that this undermines the basic human need for particular identity that many
people achieve through their embrace of religious dogma and ritual, especially
those dogmas and rituals that are the most peculiar to outsiders. Thus, Bena-
mozegh's vision of one religion in particular shedding all its particularity seems
a little unrealistic. More realistic is the possibility of people of many religious
faiths and practices coming to agreement on higher unifying values, while still
maintaining their particular religious expressions and groupings. Indeed there are
tens of thousands of peace activists and others around the world who already
embrace this perspective and act on it ethically in the world.
Presumably, all religions, in Benamozegh's view, could engage in some process
of self-reform, thus setting the stage for a confluence of expressions of the uni-
versal, ancient religion. Benamozegh's concept of a universal religion could not
be one that buries all particularist expressions of or approaches to God. True
universal religion must allow for particularist expressions of relationship to God,
in order for it not to become an instrument of violence.
As far as I can tell from my experience in training and conflict resolution, it
is only a small portion of religious humanity, even among those committed to
peacemaking, who want to embrace a universal religion in addition to their own.
It should be noted that many people in the United States, for example, actively
search for this very thing and discover it in various small groups, which are
referred to as New Age religions. By contrast, many traditionalists are frightened
by and even enraged by this syncretism. All old religious structures and cognitive
constructs are threatened by new ones. Thus, it is likely that an emphasis on a
new universal religion, at least in the contemporary period, would create a neg-
ative backlash that, in pragmatic terms, would not generate more peacemaking.
On the other hand, Benamozegh's more subtle vision of many particular religions
experiencing some higher unity as they perceive or embrace common values—
while maintaining their particularity and that of their institutions—stands a much
better chance of generating peacemaking trends in religious cultures.
Both Benamozegh and Luzzatto saw a separate, pedagogic, even priestly role
for the Jewish people, with the need for Jewish particularist ritual, in the form
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 107

of halakhic Judaism, to flourish and continue as an instrument of pedagogy, not

as a privileged structure, separated from an unredeemed or evil world. Further-
more, these formulations require extensive attention to Jewish/gentile engagement
and relations and certainly cannot coexist with any kind of spiritual or ethical
chauvinism. Thus, what these theologians wanted and needed for the Jewish peo-
ple is a need that all peoples and religions feel, namely, to be important and to
make a unique contribution to humanity. Any serious conflict resolution work
must recognize this need.
It also should be emphasized that these Italian theologies represent an utterly
distinct expression of halakhic Judaism; they assume a level of halakhic acceptance
regarding gentiles and their religions, even demonstrating a commitment to re-
pudiate rabbinic statements of intolerance. But, in classic Orthodox fashion, there
is also considerable halakhic stringency implied by these two philosophies. The
stringencies, especially for Luzzatto, are in the area of interpersonal relations. The
extension of Jewish ethical interpersonal requirements globally increases dramat-
ically the burden of halakhic Jewish life in a qualitatively different fashion than
the Judaism that was being expressed or is presently being expressed by other
formulations of Orthodoxy. Benamozegh also placed on Jews an increased burden
of a global pedagogy and mission.
In addition, both men placed greater halakhic responsibility onto the shoulders
of gentiles. For Luzzatto, what gentiles do in their day-to-day lives, their morality,
is far more important than their theology. However, it should be said that the
vast bulk of his oeuvre is dedicated to Jewish ethical and ritual behavior as a
universal pedagogy. Benamozegh, however, spent the bulk of his later writings
persuading the gentile world of what it must do for the sake of the future of
humankind, while also staking out a unique Jewish destiny as peaceful teachers
of universal spiritual unity. His call for the unity of God and humanity, his
pedagogy of insight into the multiple and fractured expressions of divine unity
in the world's religious traditions, is a wake-up call primarily to gentiles. Bena-
mozegh believed that his and the Jewish people's destiny is to express the unified
vision of universal religion embedded within Judaism and to recover the separated
portions of it scattered throughout the world's national cultures and religions.
There are other questions raised by these two philosophies: What is modern
Orthodox Judaism? Deeper still, what is Jewish particularism? In light of these
Italian models, it seems to me that we have not begun to comprehend the varied
expressions of traditional Judaism. Benamozegh's spiritual vision is so universal
and Luzzatto's ethics so inclusive that they radically change the standard concep-
tions of Jewish Orthodox life and what is normative and what is not normative.
Yet, both men prayed three times a day from the same Siddur (prayer book) as
all other Orthodox Jews (except, of course, the minor differences of the Italian
Siddur), kept kosher and sabbath laws strictly, and observed all of the innumerable
rituals of halakhic Judaism. Certainly, however, the religious visions of both men
make them part company with individual halakhic decisions regarding, and rab-
binic attitudes toward, gentiles. Even here, however, their halakhic commitment,
on the behavioral level, does not challenge the requirement to keep the religious
 108 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

Jew distant from worshiping God in any way that would be considered pagan.
The departure from expressions of Orthodox and non-Orthodox antigentile at-
titudes is at once subtle and profound. To borrow halakhic language for a mo-
ment, it expresses itself less in issur (prohibition) and more in mitsvah (positive
deed). Both men extend the realm of Jewish obligation and gentile obligation in
terms of what both owe to God and to each other. In particular, it calls upon
both Jews and gentiles to live up to a high standard of universal morality in
addition to an exalted and inclusive conception of God and the spiritual life. It
does not challenge profoundly the behavioral, halakhic expressions of Judaism,
with a few exceptions, particularly in the realm of prohibition, as much as it
challenges the Jewish people to a far greater destiny in human history and, for
Benamozegh, in the fate of the universe itself, perhaps even the fate of God's
shekhina.
It is beyond the confines of this chapter to speculate too much on the rela-
tionship between these doctrines and the time and place in history in which these
men found themselves. But it seems clear that expansion into humanity with
one's religious particularity intact is something natural to these Orthodox men,
while, in contrast, withdrawal from humanity seemed more the traditional Or-
thodox order of the day as the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries unfolded.
Two elements seem important in the development of this withdrawal: poor
relations between Jews and gentiles, especially as they escalate into extreme vio-
lence, such as in pre-World War II Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and contem-
porary Israel; and a fragmented, multicultural pattern of loose coexistence, such
as in contemporary America, where there is less and less of a common culture
with humanity that is rooted in something more than materialistic gain. There
is, therefore, little motivation in such a culture for Orthodox Jews, deeply im-
mersed in the cultural recovery of Eastern European Judaism, which was lost in
the Holocaust, to see themselves spiritually as part of the larger whole of hu-
manity. Both of our subjects, by contrast, found themselves in a peaceful and
intellectually engaged relationship to a larger Italian gentile world that was im-
mersed in its scientific and cultural achievements. Both of them took that world
seriously, and they expected to be taken seriously by that gentile world.
The contrast between these Italian philosophies and other Orthodox philos-
ophies in the modern era suggests once again how intimate the relationships are
among ideas, texts, and contexts, and the observer is struck with a "consciousness
of being affected by history (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewustein)" or "a conscious-
ness of the hermeneutic situation," to paraphrase Gadamer.48 The Orthodox her-
meneutic situation is much more deeply affected by the vast differences of cultural
horizon that one sees across the Diaspora than is usually assumed. There is a
dramatic process of hermeneutic interpretation and reinterpretation unfolding in
the many Orthodoxies of the last two hundred years. Judaism is thoroughly text-
centered, and of all Judaisms, Orthodoxy claims the most text-true (or Torah-
true) status, a status that is supposed to—theologically speaking—be seen as
static, relatively unchanging, true to an original form of the Torah. Furthermore,
Orthodoxy, especially haredi Orthodoxy,49 often assumes a cultural and global
 Theologies of Interreligious Coexistence 109

horizon that is fundamentally dualistic, qualitatively distinguishing Israel and the

nations, or Jacob and Esau, often set in the stark contrasts of righteousness and
unrighteousness, good and evil. And yet we see here, in these two philosophies,
dramatic combinations of hermeneutics, personal and cultural horizons, and
theological conceptualizations of the world, which all add up to a universe or
horizon of Orthodoxy that is antiseparatist to its core, that deeply engages even
all of pagan humanity, in addition to monotheistic humanity and fellow non-
Orthodox Jews. It is an Orthodoxy that is conscious of multiple Jewish identities
or a complex spiritual identity, in which the individual Jew is a part of a particular
people's destiny and of humanity's destiny before God, at one and the same time.50
It is a theological and halakhic construct that challenges the Jewish people to a
higher level of moral and spiritual existence but that also unambiguously em-
braces all of humanity in a shared spiritual destiny.
There is an obvious problem with using Luzzatto and Benamozegh as models
of Orthodox thinkers whose philosophies could form the basis for Jewish peace-
making values and practices today. It is obvious that their philosophies are sui
generis; they are a product of their time and place. If we were to present the
philosophies of these Italian Jews to a haredi leader today, they may well be
dismissed as both bizarre and heretical. We live in an age where the bottom has
fallen out of respect, even grudging respect, for modern culture and where the
injuries of the last hundred years run far too deep to accept these ideas in any
serious way.51 It must be said, on the other hand, that these two philosophies
point us in the right direction. They provide an intellectual blueprint for how
even the most fundamentalist beliefs and practices can be wedded to a deeply
prosocial paradigm of Judaism.
The real question is what it would take, emotionally, culturally, and politically,
for Orthodox and haredi leaders today to develop their own version of a nor-
mative Judaism that works for them and their people but that could also somehow
embrace the universal values that are so critical to coexistence and conflict res-
olution in a civil society. In order to do this, there will have to be, as far as my
experience and research indicates, a great deal of trust building and relationship
building with their enemies. This includes intimate enemies, namely, fellow Jews,
and also more distant but far more damaging enemies in their eyes: gentiles,
especially Christians. This will obviously have to go both ways and will require
considerable efforts on the part of those Christians who are committed to peace-
making.52
This, in turn, could lead to an Orthodox evolution of a frum (pious) her-
meneutic of the Torah that would be legitimate in their eyes. It is also the case
that this hermeneutic would address issues that our nineteenth-century Italians
could not really imagine. I think, for example, that it is only now historically,
after Hitler, that many Jews are convinced that annihilation of the Jewish people
is a real possibility. This results in a new hermeneutic of the world, which will
necessarily put this issue front and center, and it is inseparable from the com-
mitment of many identified Jews to Zionism as the solution to the lesson that
Hitler taught. This is especially true of modern Orthodox, nationalist Orthodox,
 no A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

and religious settler Jews, who have made physical survival into the supreme
mitsvah of contemporary life. I do not assume, however, that their new herme-
neutic is a fait accompli. Experience indicates that these hermeneutic trends are
constantly evolving. If we shut the door on this hermeneutic, if we shut out those
who are or were associated with Gush Emunim, for example, then we consign
them to an interpretation that must be conflict generating. But that is contrary
to truly transformative and elicitive conflict resolution practice, which never as-
sumes that any group is incapable of transformation. In other words, the peace-
makers must engage on their own terms those for whom physical annihilation is
the central issue. One can argue that this is a kind of posttraumatic pathological
development. But that does not matter, and it is not even necessarily true. Conflict
resolution engages communities in conflict without conditions, without prejudg-
ments, and with complete interest in relationship building and constructive en-
gagement.
The same is true of the haredi wing of Orthodoxy. Its great obsession, and the
roots of its deep separatism, is a response that is similar to other fundamental-
isms, namely, the strong perception and fear of cultural annihilation. The con-
temporary materialist society continues its assault every day on their children and
on their ethics and pits itself squarely against the separatism that the ultrareligious
see as their only hope of maintaining their religious lives for as many millennia
as their ancestors did. Indeed, they have an obligation to make their grandchildren
so committed that the traditions will last thousands of years or as long as it takes
for the messianic era to arrive. Their greatest fear is to fail their ancestors and
their descendants, to be the ones who lost the continual line of devotion to the
Torah. Furthermore, and in a way that the nineteenth-century Orthodox could
not have anticipated, the unprecedented openness and tolerance of the post-
Holocaust Western world to Jews, has led to intermarriage rates of 50 percent or
higher, and the material success of today's highly assimilated Western Jews has
led to negative birthrates. These two elements are guaranteeing the steady demise
of the Jewish people in their eyes, and this has a reasonable basis in fact. This,
combined with the loss of the one million children in the Holocaust, is what
makes haredi leaders set up a sociological construct in which haredi families are
having between six and twelve children, sometimes more. Many of the male
children are encouraged to not work but to study Torah all the time, while their
in-laws and their wives support them, all often justified as a way of making up
for the loss of Torah scholars in the Holocaust. The resulting poverty has been,
until recently, considered acceptable by the haredi leadership and their followers,
because they are safeguarding the Jewish future and the future of the Torah.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that, as with many other fundamentalist move-
ments, there is a use of the family and especially women (many of whom seem
quite willing) to produce large numbers of children in an effort to triumph
numerically over non-Orthodox Judaism.
Any effort to help them evolve a peacemaking or coexistence ethics vis-a-vis
the rest of the world will have to take this contemporary context and reality into
account. It is a reality filled with buried injuries, resentments, and highly adver-
 Theologies of Interrdigious Coexistence 111 111

serial interactions with the rest of the world. We are in a very different universe
than that of Luzzatto and Benamozegh.
I have deliberately painted the darkest side of the contemporary Orthodox
scene. The truth is that there are many Orthodox Jews who are caught in the
middle of this cultural and political warfare without a voice representing their
values. Many would embrace Luzzatto as a role model if they could, and there
are many who do not, in principle, dislike or distrust gentiles or hold other
religions in disdain. Many wish other religions well, as long as they do not de-
monize Jews, as in the past. This is particularly the case because rabbinic Judaism
and its most Orthodox adherents do not suffer from a proselytizing drive to
convert everyone to Judaism, although Judaism does have standards of intolerance
of certain polytheistic practices that would place it in conflict with some religions
of the world. But, as I have said, these standards of intolerance tend to relax or
become more strict depending on the level of trust between Jews and Others,
which brings us back to the ethics of conflict prevention and resolution.
The task of truly building a peacemaking strategy with religious Jews and
eliciting a peacemaking ethic is what still remains to be done. This has been made
exceedingly difficult, however, by the ongoing Arab/Israeli conflict, the almost
impossible contradiction between the religious need for a reestablishment of Jew-
ish sovereignty in the ancient lands versus the rights of Palestinians, and the siege
mentality that has therefore developed among many religious Jews vis-a-vis every-
one else, especially in response to the fears evoked by Arab terrorism. The latter
makes them justify many terrible things and refuse to acknowledge their own
part in this conflict. We will address this in some of the later chapters.
The other major challenge in this regard is that religious paradigms of peace-
making and coexistence, even the best of them, tend to assume a world in which
everyone believes in God or at least conforms to some basic standards of behavior
that everyone agrees on as moral. The latter assumption is something that can
be adjusted to the contemporary situation to a degree. There is a widespread
effort among people of many religions and the secular community to establish
norms that can be shared. They have been framed until now in the secular con-
structs of human rights, despite the fact that most religions that I have studied
tend to frame these ethical values in terms of obligations, not rights. Nevertheless,
there is ample room for shared work here between the secular and religious
communities. But most religious systems of the past, even the most liberal, have
assumed that everyone must believe in something, and this is severely challenged
today by the numbers of people who are atheist, agnostic, or believers in a par-
ticular faith who will not be subject to religious authorities on how they should
interpret their religion or its precepts. This large amount of people, and their
rights, are a central concern of the entire human rights agenda of modern civi-
lization.
Can we truly say that the constructs of civil society that Benamozegh and
Luzzatto, for example, would come up with could address this central concern?
Another way of framing this is that we have an unprecedented theological chal-
lenge for traditional religions, which is how to construct an ethical universe in
 112 A Critique of Approaches to Conflict and Peace

which nonbelievers can coexist equally in a given society. I believe that Luzzatto
and Benamozegh would fair pretty well in this regard and that Luzzatto's supreme
concern for compassion, in addition to his judgment of others' legitimacy by
what they do rather than by their dogmas, would put him in good standing in a
contemporary context. Nevertheless, the human rights agenda has been specifi-
cally constructed so that no human being can or should pass judgment on an-
other's legitimacy. The human rights of an individual can only be curtailed to the
degree to which an individual violates the rights of others by committing crimes.
This discussion is critical for the next chapter because we move into the com-
plex problem of contemporary Judaism, Orthodoxy, and the modern Israeli state.
It is here that many factors, only one of which is religion, have come together to
create a serious challenge to religion as a peaceful element of social construction.
Furthermore, the injuries of the past that both secular Jews and religious Jews
feel, both from each other and from non-Jews, has conspired to create a serious
religious/secular conflict that threatens the future of the state and severely com-
plicates the prospects for a peaceful and just settlement with the Palestinians.
From an analytic point of view, however, this affords us the opportunity to move
our study away from theology and into the complexity of contemporary culture.
It is in the midst of this complexity of today's civil society that religious human
beings and secular human beings must find the resources to be peacemakers and
conflict resolvers.
111

Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking in

a Multicultural and Secular Context
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 SIX

Healing Religious/Secular Conflict

The Case of Contemporary Israel

Confronting the Current Conflict

We turn now to a contemporary civilization in which organized religion has been

a major factor in conflict and violence. There is a great deal to be worried about
in terms of Israel's future, particularly in terms of the unraveling of its domestic
relations. One major reason that Israel is polarizing and is in some danger of
disintegrating is the war over its identity, especially as that identity has been deeply
called into question by the "terrifying" prospect of peace. Some careful analysis
is required to understand the reason why this identity war between religious and
secular, between liberal and nationalist, along with the slow convergence of these
polar sets, is so decisive—and destructive—and why something as normally hope-
ful as a peace process has become the major trigger. It is true that the Hamas
bombs prior to Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral victory in May of 1996 did the
most to disintegrate a broad consensus for peacemaking. The threat of bombs
continues to frighten Israelis in ways that one can see clearly in everyday activity
but that are not readily admitted. Recently, the Palestinian Authority public tele-
vision aired a program that featured Palestinian children making speeches in
which they aspired to be suicide bombers, with their teacher looking on and
applauding.1 This strikes Jewish psychocultural vulnerability at its weakest point,
the fear of violent loss of life at the hands of gentiles.2
Israeli society has faced much greater violence before, in the form of warfare.
Why is the culture reaching such a difficult juncture now? This is a complex
question. Sometimes it is precisely on the verge of peace that populations develop
a hypersensitivity to the threat of violence, as if they are only now waking up to
the enormity of what they have been through: decades of buried traumas stem-
ming from places of origin, four wars, losses of loved ones, and older terror
campaigns, among other problems.
I would argue that this phenomenon is also deeply related to an entirely
different dynamic. It is the fact that peace is so threatening to those whom I have

115
 116 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

interviewed on the right wing that has intrigued me the most. A lack of a sub-
stantive Israeli and Jewish identity for peacetime that is widely shared is one of
the principal culprits of the current crisis of Israeli culture. This is due to some
of the profound conflicts that Jews have been having for centuries, and it is also
due to the way in which wars and anti-Semitism have masked basic questions of
identity and values until now. It is a time of reckoning and painful discovery. For
anyone interested in a peaceful, stable Israel and an Israel that can discover its
collective ability to meet the Palestinians in a true spirit of coexistence, this is the
time for deep analysis of the conflict that is devastating its identity.
There is a long history of antagonism between secular and religious Jews, as
well as among Jews of different religious orientations. At the same time, this is
particularly traumatic to Jews because it calls into question some vital myths that
have been the key to survival in a hostile world. The myths of Jewish brotherhood
and the care for fellow Jews at all costs have been central beliefs that buttressed
the struggle for survival in defiance of the wishes of religious enemies for two
thousand years. Furthermore, the myth of Jewish unity has always been tied to
the existence of an overarching, evil enemy.3 But this myth has masked serious
divisions within the Jewish people, which have always existed and have always
been avoided, at least officially. Conflict avoidance is one of the most popular
methods of peacemaking—and one of the most dangerous in the long term. The
Jewish people have been particularly prone, especially in the last couple of hun-
dred years of traumatic change, to internal strife, hidden as far as possible from
public view but deeply bitter. This internal strife, mahloket, in the language of
the Talmud, strikes deeply into the heart of the basic interpersonal and social
styles of interaction.4 It goes beyond any one conflict, such as the religious/secular
conflict, and goes to the core of internal Israeli interactions.
In the contemporary situation, the tendency to be conflictual may be express-
ing an internalized anger and self-hatred originating possibly, at least for Ash-
kenazi Jews, in the brutal conditions of minority life in Europe, anti-Semitism,
and the Holocaust, which would be more than enough to create internalized
abuse. This alone, aside from the religious conflict, has seriously undermined the
search for a truly civil society in Israel and the spirit of cooperation in numerous
Jewish contexts, such as synagogues in the Diaspora. Of course, this is not true
of everyone, or even most perhaps, but it is true in enough contexts as to make
it a serious cultural problem for numerous Jewish organizations, synagogues, and,
of course, the state of Israel.
The Arab/Israeli conflicts have, in particular, masked the problem of internal
Jewish conflict for most of this century. The Arab/Israeli conflicts and the accom-
panying terrorism are far less frightening a prospect to many Jews than facing
the fact that Israel perhaps may end up in civil war, as so many young countries
do, with Jews killing Jews en masse in a way that has not been seen in two
thousand years. It is far less frightening for modern Jews to expect and acclimate
to what they are familiar with—an assault by gentiles—than to watch their tra-
ditional base of security, fellow Jews, fall apart at the seams. External conflict
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 117

confirms the myths by which Jews have lived and died, whereas internal conflict
shatters them. And nothing in life is more frightening than a world of shattered
myths, even if those myths are dark or fatalistic in nature. We will return to this
theme later.
Beyond the general roots of conflictual styles in Diaspora Jewish life, however,
there needs to be an exploration into and exposure of that which causes the
secular/religious divide in Israel at a deep level, especially the level of mutual
injury that has been perpetrated for a long time, going back to Europe for the
Ashkenazi community and to the first Sephardi/Ashkenazi encounters in the Yis-
huv (the early Zionist settlements in Palestine). These remembered injuries may
sound petty next to the Holocaust. But curiously, many haredi Jews to whom I
have talked have far more venom for what Reform Jews, Bundists, or Zionists
did to their community in Eastern Europe or during World War II than they
express for anti-Semites.5 It is almost as if the pain that many haredim feel about
the loss of virtually all their cultural centers in the Holocaust and all their families
in the shtetl is beyond words; it is literally unspeakable. It is much less daunting
to deal on a conscious level with fellow Jews who are adversaries. It also may be
the case that they expected gentiles to behave barbarously but were deeply
wounded by what they perceive as betrayals by fellow Jews since the Emancipation
but especially since the beginning of the terrible European persecution and pov-
erty from 1880 onward, culminating in the Holocaust. Much is still unknown
about these attitudes.6
We have not even begun to understand the pain that is hidden in this reclusive
community regarding the Holocaust and the European past.7 They have been
deprived of what is essential to healing and to developing a renewed trust of the
world: the chance to openly face one's injuries, what one has lost, and have this
acknowledged by the world, especially by that part of the world that was partly
or completely to blame for that loss or perceived to be so by the victims. Their
theologians may have responded at one point to the Holocaust but never has
there been a truly open encounter between haredi Jews and non-haredi Jews,
especially Zionists, about the loss of the Holocaust. One almost never sees haredi
Jews at Holocaust museums. The reasons are complicated and partly attributable
to Jewish legal sensibilities.8 But it is these Jewish legal differences over the pre-
sentation of the material that embody the pain of the community. Jewish law and
legal conflict often embody Jewish emotions, pain, and unresolved rage. Further-
more, there was such a legacy of shame over the Holocaust in Israel that many
people, not just haredim, felt prohibited for years from speaking of these things.9
This encounter between religious and secular about the pain and anger of the
past—and the healing that could come about from such an encounter—remains
a distant possibility as long as conflict resolution in Israel remains at the level of
select representatives of progressive elites talking to each other. It must reach the
masses for it is their unresolved anger that drives the polarization of the politics
and, therefore, the impasses on coexistence. Furthermore, the Knesset, with its
vested interest in power informing most members' behavior—be it secular or
 118 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

religious political behavior—is not an ideal place either, although select members
of that body may have the courage soon to show the way.
One must deal with whatever injuries come to the fore initially in these en-
counters, even if one suspects that something much darker, such as the Holocaust,
lurks beneath the surface. It is difficult to disentangle these matters in dialogue,
but it is vital to not predetermine where dialogue processes go. If I am correct
about a deeper injury lurking beneath the surface, then it will emerge as rela-
tionships proceed. It is in the nature of these difficult encounters that someone
breaks the silence about a deeper stratum of trauma, which others may be avoid-
ing.10
There is a great deal that is hidden in Israel, so much family history, so many
injuries from the results of anti-Semitism all the way to brutality imposed by
fellow Jews, such as what was done to Yemenite families by some Zionist insti-
tutions. There appears to be a strong need among some Jews to project injury
that was done by gentiles onto fellow Jews; this, in my opinion, is especially true
among anti-Zionist haredim. It appears that for some people the "injuring Oth-
ers," in this case European Christians, are so fearsome that to directly attack
them is somehow too overwhelming or disempowering. One feels safer with fam-
ily, and thus the family becomes the locus of all the anger that one feels at these
larger, more fearsome sources of anger, such as anti-Semites. Anti-Semites have
been so mystified in traditional Judaism (even elevated to supernatural levels)
that to directly attack them is unthinkable; they are a mysterious but permanent
fixture of God's universe. But one can attack those who one knows, or even
oneself, for not living up to God's laws. This happens often to close-knit groups
in crisis situations, and it magnifies the tragedy of victimhood to even greater
levels. Thus, the secular Jews, Reform Jews, early Zionists, or even one's own sins
become responsible for everything evil that befalls oneself or one's people.
The opposite coping mechanism is taken by other Jews, especially nationalist
Jews, who project all family-related anger and injury onto an externalized Other,
a demonized Other who must be evil by definition. The prospect of facing some-
thing repulsive that is rooted in an internal, family problem would destroy an
already fragile family identity. This is especially rooted in the fact that the more
exclusively religious is one's orientation to Jewishness and Judaism, the more one
may lay blame for events with Others, even Jews, who are sinful, since God is
the only one who is and must be sinless in these tragedies. The more that one's
faith is focused on Jewishness itself, on the Jewish people, then the more one
may be prone to lay all blame for evil on some outside group. This leads some
Jews, in the contemporary period, to a desperate search for anti-Semitism. There
is a need for anti-Semitism to be the locus of all evil in order to not face the
fragility of one's family identity or identity as a people. This does not mean that
anti-Semitism does not exist, but the search for it becomes pathological when it
is a replacement for any positive Jewish identity. One finds this especially among
Jews who support Jewish defense organizations in the Diaspora, but it is also
found among those in Israel who have elevated the Jewish people and their holy
land to a mystical level of worship. The worshiped object must be beyond re-
 Healing Religious /Secular Conflict 119

proach. One senses that it originates in a rather impoverished sense of substantive

identity, what I have referred to often as "negative identity," but this is not always
the case. For either response, the damage is profound and needs to be exposed
and confronted.
On a deeper level, it occurs to me that some non-Zionist haredim, who today
place all of their absolute faith in a good God, must see the evil of the world
located in human beings who failed to live up to God's law, even if those human
beings are fellow Jews who also died in the camps or Israeli soldiers who died in
battle. This would explain the widespread practice of haredim repudiating the
yearly Israeli ritual of standing for a moment of silence in honor of the fallen
dead of Israel's wars, a practice that is deeply injurious to secular and Zionist
Israelis.
For haredim, the critical thing to avoid psychologically is blame of God, who
must continue to be their one anchor of unqualified goodness in a harsh world.
For many other Jews, however, a good, perfect God is almost impossible to believe
in after the Holocaust. Whether they admit it or not, for many Jews today, in-
cluding many of the modern Orthodox, who are the most fiercely loyal to the
Jewish state and its military, their deepest faith is in the absolute goodness and
righteousness of the Jewish people and its one state. Thus, their need for projec-
tion of evil needs to go to any object other than fellow Jews or a Jewish state. If
not, their one source of faith in the post-Holocaust world falls apart. It is espe-
cially the Holocaust, the overarching guilt that every Jew feels at surviving, that
poisons the atmosphere so deeply. On the one hand, the haredim feel that the
Zionists abandoned them in Europe by taking all the youth to Palestine, leaving
them defenseless against the Nazis and generally impoverishing the community
physically and spiritually. On a theological level, at least some of their theologians
and leaders taught them that those Jews who repudiated Judaism, who became
nationalists and idolaters of the state, like the gentiles, incurred the divine wrath
of the Holocaust, a collective punishment against the people that took away the
innocent together with the guilty.
God was involved at every stage of the Holocaust from the haredi perspective.
The deaths were a sanctification of God's name, which brought people closer to
God, and the survival of the individuals, especially the beloved rebbes, was seen
often as a miraculous sign of God's continuing relationship with the people.
There was an angry side to many haredi responses to the Holocaust during
those terrible years. Elhanan Wasserman, for example, saw the events as a con-
sequence of anti-Torah activities. The behavior of some Jews, who were separated
from halakha, brought the seed of Amalek (the ultimate symbol of gentile evil)
into the Jewish people. The Jews who were responsible included communists,
secular humanists, and Zionists, including religious Zionists who sinfully adopted
the practices of the gentile world. In fact, the Zionists, unless they did teshuva
(repentance), now belonged to the sitra ahra (other side), the evil side of the
world, from a mystical point of view. They were no longer part of klal yisroel,
the inclusive community of Israel, to use Greenberg's phrase, the members of
which are committed to love and care for each other.11
 I2o Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

The suffering of the Holocaust was seen by some as a means of purification,

and for many thinkers, the suffering was supposed to spur the people into re-
pentance. Hasidic thinkers of the Lubavitch sect in particular, felt the urgency,
with each passing year of the war, that the Messiah could come at any time if
only everyone repented.
From an outsider's point of view and from a psychological perspective, the
haredi leaders lived in a universe of meaning in which the Jewish people were
still profoundly empowered to control this brutal world. It was not the Nazis,
with their unprecedented level of physical power, weaponry, and cruelty, who
were in control but the Jewish people. The Jews who were faithless brought this
plague, and, with a strong sense of urgency, many rabbis hoped during the war
that if there were profound repentance, a return to Torah, or, for some, a dis-
covery by all Jews of the deep revelations embedded in Kabbalah then the plague
would end, and the great redemption would come. How bitter they must have
felt when only a few listened to their method of winning the war against the
Nazis.
What neither they nor the Zionists, who were equally embittered by the loss
of their families, were ever able to face—something that all victims have a hard
time facing without help—is that victims of overwhelming force usually have
absolutely no power. That is part of the horror of victimhood. It is true that one
can tinker at the edges of the Holocaust and learn how to prevent future geno-
cides. It is true that there may have been things that should have been done
differently. I have no doubt that many haredim were bitter at fellow Jews in
America, for example, who seemed too afraid to speak out more forcefully in
Washington. I have no doubt that there is great bitterness at what resources were
or were not used by fellow Jews. But the important thing is that most victims
would have died in the "final solution" anyway. The only response to this is
shared mourning, the telling of the stories of the families, of the losses, of the
bad fortune, of being saved, of fighting the Nazis, and even of the Jews saved by
gentiles, who risked their lives. But this is not something that haredi and non-
haredi Jews have ever really done together, not in a way that would bring healing
and a greater openness again to the world, that would bring a greater trust of
life and humanity.
These two communities live in different universes of meaning, and therefore,
their tales of both the tragic and the heroic are profoundly different. For one,
heroism may entail the creation of seventy grandchildren, fifty years after Hitler,
all named for murdered family and all committed to a religion that Hitler wanted
to make into a relic; this is a victory that goes to the heart of Hitler's design. For
others, it may be the creation of seventy acres of Jewish-owned tilled land that
used to be desert and now provides for a more permanent place of Jewish security
than life among the gentiles could ever provide. For one, noble heroism at the
hour of death could have involved the defiance of a Yom Kippur service, saying
Kaddish (the comforting prayer after the death of loved ones) for themselves,
hours before being led to the death pits outside of town. But for another, a noble
 Healing Religious /Secular Conflict 121

death may have involved dying with a stolen gun in one hand and a dead fascist
at her feet.
For a haredi Jew, the causal connectedness of the world involves an intimate
system of action and counteraction by God and human being. At a profound
level, what we do morally matters much more to our survival than our petty at-
tempts to control destiny by military or even financial means. That does not
mean that the haredim are impractical, not at all. But when it comes to the over-
arching questions of survival, this is where the two groups split so bitterly in the
Diaspora and in Israel. For the haredi and many other religious Jews, the key to
the promise of the eternity of the Jewish people is Jewish commitment in each
generation to the covenant of Torah observance. This can conquer even Hitler,
as long as some survive. But the abandonment of the Torah is truly the annihi-
lation of a four-thousand-year-old identity before God. For Zionists and other
modern Jews, this kind of imprisonment in the old ways of coping with cultural
survival is intolerable. Furthermore, it was completely ineffective in combating
European anti-Semitism. But the haredim respond that it is the Reform or sec-
ular Jews who, when they tried to be like the gentiles, brought on a genocide
from the Germans that was far worse than anything in Jewish history, while the
Zionists, by insisting on a Jewish secular state, have incurred the wrath and ha-
tred of hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. This argument has
never been taken seriously, or at least understood empathetically, by non-haredi
Jews.
The Zionists, living with a completely different construct of how the world
works and how people live, die, or are killed, are outraged that the fundamentalist
rabbis, for reasons of piety and fear of assimilation, prevented so many Jews from
leaving Europe in the first place, thus massively increasing the death toll. But I
would suggest that what everyone shares are feelings of profound guilt, in ways
that they can hardly articulate, for being utterly powerless to help their families
survive the Holocaust and for surviving themselves, without their families, in
whatever ways that they did. We must keep in mind, in terms of Israeli society,
that all Ashkenazi Jews, both religious and secular Jews, had family in Europe.
Ninety percent of European Jews were murdered, and many of the few survivors
did not recover their sanity. The hidden toll on Israeli Jews is astonishing.
Coming back to the present day, for some Jews, displacing all their anger onto
fellow Jews is an escape from more fearsome enemies, real or imaginary, past or
present. For others, they do not want to face the internal Jewish conflicts because
that threatens one of the basic myths that sustains them in an uncertain world,
namely, the myth of Jewish solidarity or, in religious terms, the "love of Israel,"
ahavat yisroel.
Until now, one of the powerful ways in which there have been temporary
truces in Jewish conflict in Israel is by way of Arab bombs. Then one sees some
truly admirable forms of Jewish reconciliation. But this is also where the true
nature of the injuries is exposed. For example, there are intimate and respectful
relations between Jerusalem police and the ultra-Orthodox group Hesed shel
 122 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

Emet, whose adherents pick up every piece of Jewish flesh after Arab bombs have
exploded; they work hand in glove with the police and have developed mutual
admiration.12 Yet some of the same group of Orthodox men have then gone to
Saturday demonstrations against the police, where epithets like "Nazis" are hurled
at literally the same policemen, although not by the same people. Still, this is a
bizarre social interaction, and it suggests something deeply wrong with Jewish
Israeli interaction. Also, the freedom with which the "Nazi" curse is used indicates
how much the Nazi is still in everyone's mind, both secular and haredi, like a
ghost that cannot be exorcised.13
One can hear this epithet frequently regarding the perennial haredi protests
against various construction and archaeological digs, all involving outrage at the
alleged desecration of Jewish graves. It is extraordinory how much attention is
given by some haredim to graves that are thousands of years old, just fifty years
after the biggest failure to bury Jews in all of the people's history: 6 to 7 million
people not buried according to Jewish rites, their bodies violated, abused, and
cremated, in complete violation of one of the most sacred obligations that Jew-
ish families have regarding their loved ones. I cannot prove the correlation, but
the fact that epithets of "Nazi" are often used in this context cannot escape no-
tice.
The haredim who protest the digs are dismissed by almost all Israelis, includ-
ing fellow religious Jews, as crazy extremists. I do not dismiss any behavior as
"crazy," which is our word for what we cannot comprehend. To me such behavior
presents a golden opportunity to see an injury; a minority may be acting upon
that injury externally in strange ways, but a much larger amount of people may
be feeling it.
I am going to suggest something harsh about the strange level of cooperation
and affectionate care among Jews of all kinds during bombing crises, and I could
be wrong. I suggest that there is a need—completely unconscious to be sure—
that is being expressed here for the bombs, as a way of discovering the loved and
hated Jewish Other. There also seems to be a need to continue to be deeply
conflictual when there is no external attack. It is as if the psychocultural injury
is so deep and vast that it needs an outlet in conflict that either has to be with
an external Other, in which case one finds solace in the company of the reconciled
Jewish Other, or the conflict has to be internal to the Jewish people, in which
case one directs the anger at the Jewish Other. In any case, there must be conflict.
The need for bombs to bring out the best in Israelis can also be seen in how
they care for non-Jews. The American embassy bombing in Kenya and Tanzania
prompted an immediate engagement of numerous Israeli experts in recovering
trapped victims, pulling out survivors who had been given up for dead. In Israel,
this rescue operation was covered by the generally cynical media as one of the
great proud moments of the Israel Defense Forces, a "flash of its old brilliance
and style that had won Israeli soldiers international admiration."14 This was
viewed with extreme gratitude by the Kenyans.
It is the language of the reporting on this tragedy that is utterly inexplicable
unless my thesis about the need for bombs is correct:
 Healing Religious /Secular Conflict 123

The carnage in Nairobi has provided a welcome [my emphasis] ... respite
for the pressures the State of Israel as a whole ... have [sic] felt regarding
the long-stalled peace process ... Suddenly... Israelis this week were reliv-
ing the country's good times [my emphasis], periods when the Jewish state
basked in the warm glow of international admiration.15

This is an astonishing embrace of bombs and carnage as related to the "good

times" of a culture. Taken by itself, this appears quite barbaric and callous con-
cerning the Kenyans, except when one remembers that most of the bombs that
have brought Israelis to a higher sense of who they are and their values have been
directed against them. They are the ones who have suffered the most from these
bombs. Furthermore, their very purpose in taking over the chaotic situation on
the ground in Kenya and bringing in such sophisticated equipment was to save
a few precious African lives buried in the rubble. Ironically, this effort is in the
highest tradition of rabbinic values, which places saving a human life at the
highest level of ethical/religious achievement.16 Thus, this journalist recounts a
tragedy, which involved so much death and suffering, yet welcomes it precisely
because it is an opportunity to be "good" in a deeply Jewish way, by saving lives.
This is a tragic psychological paradox, which takes a profoundly prosocial spiritual
value of Judaism and Jewish culture and inserts it into a pathological need for
tragedy.
I see this phenomenon as an expression of an indirect longing that Jewish
Israelis have for community, to love and be loved by each other, even to be loved
by the world. There is a need to achieve a state of communal relationship, which
has always been a part of the Zionist dream, often epitomized and symbolized
by the idea if not the reality of the kibbutz. But right now they only seem able
to do this in the midst of enormous suffering that is externally generated. I have
seen this to be true among both religious and secular Jews, though expressed in
different ways.
Here is the most important point. This strange phenomenon, taken as a whole,
is an uncanny recreation of centuries of Jewish love, which was at its most intense
in the midst of pogroms. Put simply, this is an extremely bad habit of the heart,
born of tragic circumstances. It is a compulsion by some to repeat the tragedies
of the past, with all their pain and all their evocation of the nobility of the Jewish
character. But it can also be characterized as a cry for help that requires a creative
and healing response, something beyond simple, rational diplomacy. Israelis know
very well that this is not the kind of normalization of Jewish response to the
world that the Zionist founders had hoped for as they escaped the ghetto and
tried to create a new kind of Jewish life.
Of course, there are real, vital issues that divide secular and religious citizens
in the Middle East as a whole17, real concerns on the side of the secular com-
munity for its safety, its cultural future, and its independence from religious
coercion. Those issues should be the subject of good, rational negotiation pro-
cesses. The challenge to rational problem solving, however, is how to distinguish
those legitimate concerns and needs from deep psychological patterns, which are
 124 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

understandable but highly destructive. This is a process that requires enormous

patience, listening skills, problem-solving skills, empathy, and the cultural knowl-
edge base to devise, together with the adversaries, the kind of solutions that speak
to both the minds and hearts of people on all sides of these conflicts.

Solutions

The primary formulation of a new path can only really come from Israelis them-
selves, but I have several recommendations, which draw freely from different
schools of conflict resolution theory.18 I want to divide this into two sections:
deep cultural changes, which both sides need to undergo, and practical steps for
the present that will lead to the necessary cultural changes.
It is vital for all sides to acknowledge the connections among the suffering
endured by Jews in the past, the effect of wars in the recent past, and their direct
impact on both the tendency in Jewish life to be combative and enraged and the
intolerant positions taken by the adversaries in this conflict. Both sides have
strong needs that are based on old fears from Jewish history. The secular fear of
coercion and their commitment to combat the influence of religion is in part a
response to the past. It is their solution to past suffering. The liberal Jewish
impulse in general is a direct response to the Crusades and almost sixteen hun-
dred years of insecurity and/or persecution in unfree societies that, in particular,
expressed their brutality against Jews for religious reasons. This is why Jews figure
so prominently in the battle for church/state separation in the United States. For
its strong advocates the issue goes far beyond rational self-interest. It has become
a moral mission, almost a religion.
Secular Jewish identity, as it is expressed in Israel, is beginning to become
aware of the limits of this social construct. They understand the problematic
nature of secular modernity, the materialism, the ethical relativism, and the loss
of intensive community; the latter seems to speak to a basic human need that
modern secular society, at least in its large, bureaucratic manifestation, never
really anticipated. But secularists—and many modern religious Jews, by the way—
are willing to pay this price because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate,
namely, a return to a disastrous past of persecution founded upon religiously
rooted political entities.
The anger and outrage over infringements of Israeli secular society are too
strong to be merely about the memory of shtetl rabbis and their coercive behav-
iors. Their outrage goes to the heart of the tragedy of Diaspora history and is an
attempt by secular Jews and Israelis to heal its worst aspects.
It is also the case that Israeli culture has followed the path of contemporary
European culture in terms of agnosticism and, at the very least, a rather low
tolerance for organized religion. At the same time, Israelis are coerced in critical
areas of life, namely, marriage, divorce, and burial, to submit to rabbinic au-
thority. Other European societies that have a mixed model of church/state rela-
tions do not have this burden for their secular constituency. Thus, the non-
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 125

Orthodox outrage is understandable. The religious community has traditionally

seen the issues of marriage and divorce as critical to Jewish survival for a variety
of reasons. Thus we again come to basic existential fears.
In the religious realm, there is also a quiet, private recognition of the problems
of their own subculture. They know that there is far too much fighting and
distrust in the religious world. They know that there is damaging behavior in
which each religious group disapproves of the group to its left and lives intimi-
dated by the group to its right. But they believe that the price is worth it, because
their children will be protected from a world that will otherwise drive them away
from their identity and, at worst, put them in gas chambers. I put this in extreme
terms, but it fits the emotions that religious Jews feel in their moments of anxiety.
This is especially true of parents when they are making critical decisions about
their children's friends and their education.
Both groups, secular and religious, have a need to perpetuate an identity, even
a Jewish identity. But one does it by recreating the lost past, while the other does
it by creating an utterly new future, completely divorced from the past. Both try
to have victory over the horror of the recent past. The mortal threats imposed
by the Arab/Israeli conflict and the deep confusion and threat to identity that the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict causes make this a real, day-to-day emotional and cog-
nitive concern. Thus the struggle over how to be victorious over the past is an
immediate struggle for life and identity. The past haunts the present. There is no
present and future, when it comes to identity, without the past. And yet the past
often tyrannizes in a way that strangulates positive identity for the future.
There needs, therefore, to be a much greater embrace of a conversation about
the future. There needs to be a way to hear what each group is really saying and
feeling about the past and the future, once one gets past all the defensive rhetoric
of the politicized face of this conflict. When Israelis have enough time to be honest
about the past and the future, they will discover a greater consensus than they
realize on the future, not full agreement, but consensus on enough to build a
new civil society.
Secular Israeli culture and Jewish religious culture need to both evolve to a
new place but not only a place of acceptance. That is not enough. They need to
discover over time a coalescence in some overall moral and ideological framework
that does not erase the boundary between secular and religious, but that allows
more open borders and a higher consensus on the foundations of civil culture,
culled from the best values that both communities have to offer. This can and
should be done on a popular level, through meetings and conversations, and it
must be done by at least one generation of courageous and visionary writers. It
means giving birth to a new Israeli identity that is constructed in the context of
political peace and not dependent on war or persecution. It means giving birth
to a state that is secular but that deeply values and honors its religious citizens,
protecting their needs and including them in the culture.
Some will argue that this internal Jewish process that I am suggesting will
make Israel unwelcoming to non-Jewish citizens. This is an important critique.
But I argue that it all depends on the Jewish values that are embraced and the
 126 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

way in which they are interpreted. I am banking on the fact that religious and
secular Jews, in order to coexist, will have to discover those Jewish values from
the past that would welcome the Other, embrace the stranger, and care for human
beings per se, no matter what their ethnic or religious affiliation. This would
allow for a legislative process that would guarantee the rights of all citizens to
full civil equality and cultural self-expression. The resources for these conclusions
are to be found in Judaism, even Orthodox Judaism, as we will see in the next
chapter, if the right atmosphere is created for their exploration.
It is vital to understand that the interpreters of culture, either secular or re-
ligious, in their ongoing hermeneutic enterprise are deeply affected by their an-
tagonists. The horizon of one's influences as one looks again and again at the
texts and symbols of one's culture is deeply affected by a hostile engagement with
enemies. The stronger the encounter of enemies is that entangles these people,
the more likely that they will choose an adversarial hermeneutic that is directed
against the attackers. Thus both sides of a secular/religious conflict have a deep
effect on the spiritual direction of a particular religion. Ironically, many secular
people have great power over the direction of the world's religions by being active
opponents of the same. The character of secular opposition and the content of
the opposition have direct impacts on the character and content of the responses
to their challenge. This is true of Judaism to some degree in the Diaspora but
especially in Israel. It is a natural corollary of the action/reaction dynamic of all
conflicts.19
Whether religions advocate peace or conflict, love or hate, involves both the
process of hermeneutic interpretation and the dynamic interaction of the her-
meneutic process with the cultural horizon of the interpreter, the power interests
at work, and the psychological state of both sides of the conflict. If both sides
engage in a hermeneutic debate that is constructive, even cooperative, then the
chances are strong that a religious hermeneutic enterprise will elicit the kind of
values that could be useful in the formation of a civil democratic society. This is
true in Israel, and I believe it is potentially applicable to other divided societies
as well. But I must emphasize that the nature of Israeli relationships and the style
of interaction will have a deep effect on the course of this hermeneutics.
There is no doubt that there are a variety of religious institutions that, if taken
literally and applied strictly, would be conflict generating in a secular society. But
the subtle reality of religious life indicates how much is left up to the interpreters
in each generation. The political constraints of those interpreters in their current
cultural milieu are often far more important than the actual texts of the tradition.
This is rarely apparent to outside observers, and therefore the true cause of the
intolerant behavior escapes notice. Potential solutions escape notice as well.20
The purpose of a joint exploration of these issues between religious and secular
is not, however, full agreement on every issue. The purpose of effective peace-
making is not to stop conflict but to focus on ideas, interests, and needs—and
not on people as dehumanized incarnations of everything that is evil and dan-
gerous. It is the latter that creates destructive conflict.
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 127

Cultures and religions in general need to evolve prosocial models of construc-

tive conflict, so that the cultures or religions in question do not simply revert to
Utopian calls for peace every time there are difficult issues; the latter effectively
make the values of the culture useless in dealing with the real complexity of
society. Cultures and the societies they sustain need mechanisms of constructive
conflict.
The ideal kind of Jewish conflict, according to the oldest Jewish sources, is
that kind of conflict, mahloket, that honors both sides, as the house of Hillel did
at the beginning of the Common Era, and that allows for civil society or in
religious language, hibbah (love) and re'ut (friendship), to survive the conflict.21
It is also the kind of conflict that opposes, as the talmudic-era woman Beruriah
did, what one thinks is wrong without inveighing curses against those people who
adhere to what one thinks is wrong. On the contrary, the latter model espouses
praying for, or hoping for, the other to change.22
In other words, a crucial form of indigenous Jewish conflict resolution is not
the elimination of conflict but the reformulation of its character. This is what
could create a better civil society in Israel today, across all shades of Jewish
commitment. Needless to say, such a prosocial way of conducting conflict could
only help stimulate new ways of relating to Palestinians as well, treating them
with the honor and respect that they justifiably expect.
The other unavoidable reality, in response to the question about non-Jewish
citizens, is that rabbinic Jewish values, having never previously confronted the
task of coping with a multicultural society that is predominantly Jewish, will now
have to find the humility to share space with other cultures, to fully embrace
their expression, and even to insist on it as a peacemaking gesture between Jews
and non-Jews. This too can be found in rabbinic Judaism—for those who are
willing to look for it and to develop it hermeneutically for the current circum-
stances.23 Conveying these ideas to haredi society, however, will require delicate
processes of relationship building, trust building, and negotiation.
I want to emphasize at this point that none of the recommendations that I
am making will directly solve the ongoing struggle between secular and religious
political parties nor will they solve the current legislative wars over who is a Jew—
or who is a rabbi. These legal battles will go on, but they are unlikely to solve
the deep social crisis described here. That is not to say that they should not be
pursued by those who seek a just Israeli society. But in the end they become a
war by nonviolent means rather than the creation of a future based on a reason-
ably agreed-upon social vision, which is the only thing that will create a truly
stable, vibrant society.
If there is greater effort in this direction and the social vision agreed upon is
inclusive of religious and secular sensibilities, I predict that religious people will
begin to vote along a much greater range of the political spectrum. This would
help significantly to prevent the polarization of the country along lines that com-
bine religious and political allegiance, a dangerous combination for any democ-
racy. In other words, if the social and cultural processes that I am recommending
 128 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

are followed, it is highly likely that the religious political parties will remain but
will not continue to be the exclusive representatives of religious people, which is
already partially the case. This will decouple religion and political affiliation,
which is vital for the stability of a democracy, because religious identity can at
times become so strong that, if it is affiliated exclusively with one party, it can
turn the normal give and take of party-based democracy into a life-and-death
struggle for ultimate identity.
There is one legislative issue that does seem a must for the future of Israel
and that is the guarantee of civil liberties, which Israel does not presently have
in constitutional form. Without those at some basic level, there is danger ahead.
Unfortunately, a consensus on a constitution will only occur if there is a pro-
foundly new process of trust building between the secular and religious Jewish
communities, in addition to the essential inclusion of Israeli non-Jews in the effort
to create a constitution.

Practical Steps

First, there needs to be a bilateral process of discovery of the respective com-

munities. This takes on three aspects: What motivates the heart of each com-
munity, what are its highest ideals and values? What are its deepest pains and
past injuries that might be shared in common with the other community? What
are at least some elements of its vision for the future.
The means of this discovery is most important. Certainly, dialogue in small
and large groups needs to be extensively pursued. These dialogues should be
guided by intelligent and sensitive principles of mediation, which are geared to-
ward accommodating the cultural needs and psychological peculiarities of each
group.
But dialogue is insufficient by itself. The reason why an exclusive reliance on
dialogue groups is insufficient is that Western styles of conflict resolution and
social transformation have been too intellectual thus far. They are too focused
on spoken communication, at which only a limited amount of citizens are gen-
erally capable. Dialogue involves verbal skills and, more important, the ability to
articulate extremely difficult, emotionally wrenching issues. This favors certain
people and eliminates others. Often it is the least articulate people, whether they
are educated or not, who have difficulty verbalizing their emotions, who become
prone to violent solutions to difficult dilemmas. Thus, it is essential to creatively
devise alternatives that will widen the circle of prosocial engagement.
These methods can be universal in nature, devices that could work in all
cultures. But the most effective will speak deeply to the specific cultures in ques-
tion. I can think of several untapped alternatives related to the unique cultural
constructs of the Jewish community.
We have failed to understand the peculiarly Jewish drive for activism, for social
justice, which is still strong in Israel despite the damaging effects on human
relations of the wars, the occupation, and Palestinian/Israeli relations. What I
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 129

mean by this is the drive to aid those who are suffering, at least when the sufferer
is not from an enemy group.
There is also still in Israel a strong drive to build society, to create something
out of nothing in new circumstances, as members of the Yishuv did and Jewish
immigrants have done for thousands of years. These two drives, building and
social justice, run deep in Jewish religion and culture. They are also survival
mechanisms of two thousand years of exile. In the Diaspora, they express them-
selves through a powerful Jewish presence in causes of social justice, particularly
defending the underdog. Often Jews were the underdog, and therefore there is a
finely honed sense of injustice when society is treating groups differently. Of
course, I am speaking of the best impulses of the community, not its worst,
because a community's best self-image is what one must build upon in concep-
tualizing with them a conflict resolution strategy.
Cooperation among the conflicting groups on these two Jewish impulses,
building and social justice, could be a vital form of peacebuilding and transfor-
mation of relationships among enemy groups. This might cross the lines of af-
filiation between secular and religious. In fact, it did for many years when the
Jewish community in Israel felt a strong external threat. We know that the more
complex we make the affiliations and connections among enemy groups on mat-
ters that make them interdependent the less prone they are to violence.24
How exactly would the opposing groups manage to cooperate on these shared
tasks? Translation of values between radically different subcultures into practical
projects or civil activities, especially when they are rooted in values that are deeply
honored and prized, is a difficult affair, easily devolving into injury to the Other,
where one meant no harm. But patient allowance for experimentation and error
over time can eliminate this problem.
A related method is the process of honoring the highest ideals of each com-
munity, finding the ones that can be honored. The free gift of honor is an ancient
method of discovery of the Other in Jewish life, and it has dramatic effects on
conflict and interpersonal injury.25 It is simple intellectually but exceedingly dif-
ficult emotionally for people of all educational backgrounds and will require
nonverbal gestures and symbols, visual evidence, and ceremonies. The smaller
these bilateral engagements are, in terms of participants, the more authentic and
effective they are likely to be. The more national and political, the more endan-
gered they are in terms of the perception of politicization and hypocrisy. On the
other hand, true societal change requires a large-scale effort. Thus, a broad-based
national effort that has many local outlets would be best.
Another key method of relationship building is sharing in the suffering of each
community in a way that is felt to be authentic by all parties. This is also most
effectively done through symbol and ceremony. All of these gestures must be
created indigenously by a wide range of Israelis, especially young, creative Israelis
from both camps.26
The next major step in conflict resolution in this case is the bilateral discovery
of injuries that each group has perpetrated on the other in the last couple of
hundred years. What is especially important in this regard is the use of narrative,
 130 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

the stories of both the different subgroups and individuals, because people believe
personal narratives in a way that they believe nothing else from an adversary.
There are various ways for this to happen, and all of them will have to be me-
diated with great skill, allowing for much pain to be unleashed in this process.
But this is the kind of pain that is constructive. The most obvious means is open
popular meetings. However, ongoing closed meetings among leaderships and var-
ious cultural elites, as well as living room meetings among many average citizens
would be vital as well, especially in cooperatively devising future steps for the
society as a whole.
The bilateral nonverbal gestures that I mentioned above would be especially
relevant in confronting the injuries in each community, especially if we are in-
terested in a truly broad-based process of social transformation.27 This may in-
clude public symbols of deep respect or apology or simple care. It may involve
intentional interpersonal gestures of aid, like visiting the sick or helping struggling
children from all groups, which take on deep significance when intended as con-
flict resolution gestures.
Additional methods involve educational curriculums, perhaps the most im-
portant long-term step for social transformation. Various programs involving ed-
ucation for democracy already exist in Israel, funded by Israelis and progressive
American Jews. I must emphasize, however, that at present some of this education
is not deepening a consensus in Israel but further polarizing the community. The
values of only one segment of Israel, the secular liberal community, are being
propagated. They do not represent a consensus, and they are perceived, at present
at least, as alien and extreme by the haredi community. That is not to say that
these values are wrong, but that the teachers of these values need to acquire a
method of extending their efforts into all segments of the society.
Through the trust-building methods that I am outlining here, there is at least
a possibility that education for democracy, for example, could be a broad-based,
deeply cultural process of Israeli social transformation. Otherwise, the educational
system becomes yet another battleground, not a place that teaches universally
accepted civic virtues. Many will respond that this is not possible because the
religious community is not committed to democratic values. But we cannot know
this until there is a profound effort to build trusting relationships, and then we
can see whether some middle ground can be found on the tough issues that divide.
As of this writing, this is beginning to happen. The Adam Institute, for example,
is sponsoring more and more religious/secular study and dialogue on democracy.
An important catalyst to these methods is the commitment of the cultural
leadership of the respective communities to these processes. It has been amply
demonstrated how vital leadership is to the formation of human values, secular
or religious, whether or not this offends our championing of human indepen-
dence and individual conscience.28 This is the psychological reality. It is not the
case, however, that the top leadership is indispensable, and it is often the lead-
ership that is not at the pinnacle that is the most useful for making change,
especially if the individuals are not currently in political office. Far too much
energy is expended on speculations about or influence on a prime minister or a
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 131

major rabbi and not enough on their immediate surroundings; it is the actors
inhabiting the latter that most often determine whether leaders have room to
move politically or not.
It is also the case that many of the new directions of society begin on its
fringes, for better or worse. In this regard, it would be useful to discover and
actively support those individuals who are at the margins of each group, the haredi
thinker, for example, whose tolerant attitudes have been neither accepted in his
own community nor appreciated in the secular community. This aid to those at
the margins could be crucial in building a new common consensus. The aid could
be overt or confidential, depending on what is useful, and the venue could be
financial or in terms of recognition or honoring, for example. I have met such
figures, and they need and deserve major support as at current, they are virtually
unknown. Such support could revolutionize their impact on their culture.
A key method of addressing the present situation is the training in peace-
making and conflict resolution of as many members of each community as pos-
sible, especially the leadership. These skills have universal validity and have been
useful around the world, even in nonsecular contexts, if and only if they are
aligned with the cultures in question. They must speak to the highest Jewish values
that are relevant to human interpersonal and communal behavior. There should
be mutually agreed-upon parallel processes of training, one secular, the other
religious. The religious process could be under the rubric of typical religious
ethical educations but it would have a much more activist, engaged training pro-
cess that weds conflict resolution research and methods with religious values.
This should emerge from creative religious people. For example, training for
religious people may involve experiments with public middot (morals) education
or campaigns in derekh eretz (civility).
I must caution that this training will lead to greater division unless there is
serious effort to coordinate culturally the two communities' efforts and to ac-
knowledge the differences in methods, and even some goals, and learn to deal
with those differences. Let us take a counterexample to demonstrate what needs
to be avoided. The mistakes are subtle. In a lecture I heard recently on a certain
project of peacemaking in Israel, the highly talented secular researcher evaluated
the results by how much the two groups, especially their teenagers, were more
prone to integrate and interact. The secular ideal here is a complete mixing of
groups as vital to conflict resolution. Intermarriage is perfect in a certain sense.
But this is a nightmare for religious people, who really do see a constant threat
to the continuation of their culture all around them. Their one hope for perpet-
uation is the commitment of their children to the group. This fear and concern
is as true of the Israeli religious community as it is of any indigenous, minority
cultural group around the world whose existence is threatened, especially when
the dominant group is pressuring them to integrate and thus lose their identity.
How can we deal with this?
In secular forms of conflict resolution currently in vogue, it would be scan-
dalous to engage in peace efforts with teenagers separated by sex. But this would
be a necessary condition for haredi groups. Would it be seen by the Left in Israel
 132 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

as giving into sexism? Some will see it this way, but others may see that it is only
sexist if the efforts of the boys' and girls' groups are valued differently. Some may
discover that we can honor the differences of these communities and find ways
to share overarching goals.
It must be emphasized in this regard that one basic error of universal or social
scientific methods of peacemaking is the lack of recognition by progressive, sec-
ular peacemakers that they are propagating a certain underlying moral and social
vision. Their goal often, especially in Israel, is to make a society of people who
have secular, liberal values: tolerance, human rights, integration of all peoples,
and the slow disappearance of religious, cultural, and ethnic divisions. Unlike
their adversaries, however, they have no interest in promoting some moral code
between the sexes. In fact, they would be horrified at this invasion into personal
morality. But their own methods and programs clearly do express many moral
values, just not the traditional ones associated with religious communities. In
other words, both groups champion a set of moral values that underlie their
styles of interaction and even styles of peacemaking.
The problem is that making peace only from the cultural position of the Left
will mean in practice that conflict resolvers could only make peace among them-
selves or with those who hold their values. We must constantly be alert to how
to engage in peacemaking with people who do not share all the same values. In
the case of the religious/secular conflict, it may be that sexual mixing or, at the
least, mixing of religious and nonreligious teenagers is a concern for many mod-
ern Orthodox people, but it is a central concern for the haredi community. Does
it mean that there is no possibility of conflict resolution or peacemaking in its
widest sense, or are we limited only by our imaginations? This remains to be
discovered and will depend on the ingenuity and courage of the respective com-
munities.
I do not believe it is impossible in principle. What we are speaking of here
are the boundaries and borders of sectarian groups, which often define those
borders by values that they hold dear. Is the only solution integration and the
dissolution of boundaries? I have spoken and written elsewhere on religious sec-
tarianism, and I have argued that it is never boundaries that create conflict but
the interpretation of those boundaries, how they are negotiated, and in what ways
they may be temporarily crossed. Furthermore, much conflict arises globally be-
cause of the lack of clear boundaries, which give one a clear and confident sense
of identity.29
The most important goal of conflict resolution and peacemaking should be
the humanization of the Other (or in Jewish religious terms, the perception of
God's image in every Other), the treatment of the Other with absolute dignity,
even love. It should not be the complete immersion of all parties into one, a
position into which liberal visions, as well as fundamentalist visions, sometimes
unconsciously slip. This merging has often been accomplished by extreme tyranny
in history and does not have a good track record in the human community. It
always has been and remains the dark side of universal love or global aspirations
generally.
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 133

Sectarianism and separation breed all the problems that bring us to the subject
of violent conflict. But it is in the negotiation of this inescapable human dilemma
of integration, interaction, and boundaries that answers are to be found, not in
the suppression of the problem by the merging of groups by force, by manipu-
lation, or by cultural domination, Left or Right, religious or secular.
Another source of religious/secular conflict in Israel is the attitude toward the
concept and practice of pluralism. In general, there always has been criticism of
the concept of pluralism, in the sense that what it really means is ethical relativism
and that, basically, "anything is permissible as long as you do not hurt the next
guy." This is the caricature of the concept in many religious circles. In fact, I am
told that it has become a kind of dirty word in the American Orthodox world,
associated with heretics.
I do not want to go into a linguistic and philosophical analysis of pluralism
now. But suffice it to say that the entire question is grossly oversimplified. Those
who claim to be pluralists in Israel have more rigid values than they realize, and
those who claim not to be are more pluralistic in their orientation than they
admit.
Leaving this discussion aside, there is a legitimate critique underway today
that says, essentially, that we cannot survive as a culture on such a thin layer
of agreement as the value of pluralism. Much of what we assumed about our
modern patterns of democratic coexistence has been dependent upon age-
old moral values that were not clearly articulated. But now this consensus of
civil values, such as honesty and fairness, is breaking down. So the argument
goes.
These are difficult matters. I simply raise them because I want to suggest that,
as far as I have seen in my experience of conflict resolution training, there really
is a substratum of values, beyond pluralism, that seems to be indispensable in
order to create a peaceful society. No matter how much understanding two groups
have of each other, no matter how much they have humanized the Other and
avoided demonization, there must be overarching values that bind them together,
and they must actively inculcate these values and reinforce them on a regular
basis. I have never engaged in a training in which the group, no matter how
diverse and divided, did not consciously or unconsciously come to assume a set
of values that were critical to their compromises and their conflict resolution
practices. This means that, in the secular/religious divide in Israel, there is going
to have to be a search for at least some common values and an attempt to mediate
or articulate them in such a way that they are not only acceptable to all com-
munities but embraced by them enthusiastically. This entails the study of each
others' values and then the search for overarching consensus. The operative ques-
tion must always be: What can we agree upon beyond the clear and unmistakable
distinctions? Here Israelis are going to have to stretch themselves culturally. They
are going to have to put aside temporarily a typical Israeli sport, which is the
enjoyment of making radical distinctions,30 showing what is utterly contradictory
between their position and someone else's, and, instead, search for a higher con-
sensus.
 134 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

As I analyze more cultural conflicts, I am starting to realize that each culture

has unique challenges. In Ireland, I notice a drive to fatalism, a need to see and
feel the utterly tragic, which prevents even significant peace advocates from seeing
a way out of the Troubles. In Jewish society, I believe that there is exultation in
the intellectual distinction of two phenomena (hiluk), the drive to dichotomize
and therefore to fight, especially if one can express this in a way that makes
oneself look intelligent and the other person or group foolish. Too many intel-
lectual Jews are obsessed with improved intelligence, probably because it is port-
able and just about all the community had in the way of dignity in many places
and times. Making constant distinctions also seems to be a fabulous habit of the
heart that always reconfirms the biggest distinction of all, the one between the
Jewish people and an intolerant dominant culture that ridiculed, threatened, and
constantly prodded them to merge with the clear victors of history. This may not
be dissimilar to other minorities' behaviors in the face of external pressure, and
I have seen similar patterns in the styles of interaction between black and white
youths in America. I have also noticed that in most places of deep conflict,
intellectuals, of which there are many in Israeli society, spend a spectacular
amount of time overanalyzing, because it seems to be the only thing that they
see themselves empowered to do or able temperamentally to do.
This drive to demonstrate the absolute contradiction of two positions and the
thirst for mental competition in the haggling over positions needs to be tempered
and even overcome when it comes to communal relations in Israel today. There
is much more that many citizens can do—especially the intellectual elite—than
endlessly debate the "true" nature of the problem, if they have the emotional
courage to rise to the occasion. Their writing skills, creativity, and ability to master
complexity are critical to any practical visions of the future.
Nevertheless, Israel is a deeply Jewish society, and intellectual study can have
its place in peacemaking. This has been demonstrated recently by increased Is-
lamic/Jewish/Christian, as well as secular/religious, encounters through the me-
dium of shared times of study. Study is a natural form of interpersonal com-
munication in Jewish culture, with ancient roots. It is no surprise to me, for
example, that the first forms of quiet but serious communication in Jerusalem
between Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Muslims is not coming in the form of
dialogue or interfaith prayers but in the study of sacred texts as a basis of com-
munication and mutual respect. This activity is intellectual, but it has deep sym-
bolic and ritual significance as well.
In light of this, I recommend an unprecedented level of cooperative, reflective
study of Jewish culture—ancient, medieval, and modern; written and oral; Se-
phardi and Ashkenazi—with the purpose of analyzing and critiquing the foun-
dations of ethics and civil society in Jewish tradition. This should be done sep-
arately by the secular community, by the religious communities, and by
independent scholars. It can also be done together, but it would have to be done
in a way that would create constructive conflict not destructive injury to the
participants, such as the spectacular model being provided by the Ellul program
in Jerusalem. Out of this period of study, conducted on elite as well as popular
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 135

levels, there should emerge discussions on what the minimum set of values is that
could be held in common. It is vital that this also form the basis of improved
civil relations with non-Jews in Israel and with Israel's international neighbors,
in order to prevent an easy projection of all problems onto a demonized Other.
This process will stir serious controversy, and accusations of heresy may fly in
the religious world. But it also may create a much larger consensus for what the
future of Israel could look like. The consensus that it could create may startle
those on both sides, who thought that nothing could ever be agreed to, except
old-fashioned political status quos and cynical religious/secular political alliances
born of no real trust. This surprise, in and of itself, could generate important
psychological change, which could make a united future for Israel a greater pos-
sibility and civil war less of a possibility.
The purpose of the study will be to mine the resources for civil values, values
that generate the kind of human relationships that are based on respect, trust,
and even care. It will also be an opportunity to discover numerous sources on
peacemaking and conflict resolution in Jewish tradition, both in its narrative and
its legal expressions. The challenges to coexistence and pluralism in Jewish tra-
dition are self-evident. What is less evident are the prosocial possibilities because
so few have seriously explored them hermeneutically for the unprecedented cir-
cumstances of Israeli society.
It must be kept in mind that in the history of very old religions, such as
Judaism, it is interpretation, vision, and the attention of great thinkers and in-
terpreters that have shaped the values of each generation, not rigidly defined texts.
There is a great deal of room here for creative visions of even haredi Judaism in
the future, if many of the processes that I have mentioned generate greater trust,
respect, and forgiveness between secular and religious Jews.31 The interpersonal
and intercommunal healing that I have outlined is the essential prerequisite that
could turn the more intellectual enterprise of the search for common values into
a realistic undertaking, rather than an exercise in futility.
The Jewish values that I am speaking of are in some ways self-evidently parallel
to secular ideals, but in other ways they will provide a unique contribution to
general peacemaking and future conceptions of coexistence. For example, Western
society has never understood the conflict-generating character of arrogance and
the lack of humility, as is plainly evident in many of its Third World relations in
the last fifty years. Humility, by contrast, is a powerful method of peacemaking
in Judaism. It is a key prosocial device of Jewish ethics, which makes good human
relationships possible. But it has never been analyzed in a contemporary setting
as a method of peacemaking or as a factor in successful conflict resolution.32 A
Jewish approach to this work would necessarily include this moral value, among
many others, in the way that enemies begin to treat each other.
Eventually, this can lead to a coalescence of shared values across many cultures
in the Middle East, each of which has a contribution to make in the construction
of civil societies. Honor and shame, for example, are important to Jewish religious
methods of moral interaction, as I mentioned earlier, but they are also at the
heart of Muslim and Arab religious and cultural priorities.33 Thus, while to some
 136 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

what I am suggesting sounds too particularist or provincial, it can actually form

the basis of some rather deep means of trust building across cultural divides.
A classic ancient Jewish method of peacemaking is coming to the aid of some-
one who is suffering, as mentioned earlier. This is a biblical-peacemaking device
(Exod. 23:5), which we analyzed in chapter 4. It could provide an interesting and
perhaps unique model for how to utilize the normal problems of human existence
as a way to create peace.
This method of conflict resolution is deceptively simplistic. Furthermore, it is
rarely if ever to be found in secular literature. The focus of secular peacemaking
is mostly on dialogue, and I have detailed my reservations about this as an ex-
clusive tool. Here we have the opportunity to explore and experiment with some-
thing that is at once simple, easy to implement, and model; that is deeply indig-
enous to Jewish culture; and that is also a challenging new approach to general
conflict resolution, even from a secular perspective. This is exactly what those of
us in conflict resolution research are hoping to discover in indigenous cultures
around the world.
This method is deeply compelling on a psychological level for Jews. It explains,
in a much more positive way, the strange behavior that I mentioned earlier of
the Hesed shel Emet group and the police. The one thing that is missing in some
Israeli reactions currently is a conscious commitment to take this deeply ingrained
cultural drive to join with others in aiding victims or those who are suffering and
make it into a conscious, self-aware, process of reconciliation, the beginning of
new relationships involving apologies, forgiveness, and numerous other moral/
emotional commitments. These last elements of apology and forgiveness have
deep roots both in psychoanalytic approaches to conflict resolution and simul-
taneously in two thousand years of Jewish commitment to prosocial processes of
interpersonal change in behaviors and attitudes.35
There needs to be a conscious attempt to replicate these accidental moments
of secular/religious peace and make them into a national effort at reconciliation.
This needs to be initiated by many subgroups, such as women's groups, children's
groups, and men's groups. It could unite people across religious lines to work
together for those who are suffering, for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the
mentally ill, the imprisoned, even endangered animals and environments (in line
with the spirit of compassion for animals of the biblical law just cited, among
others). The one requirement is that all these efforts be constructed and crafted
in ways that are appealing to both the secular community and the religious com-
munity.
There is another method that has ancient Jewish roots and that is also un-
derutilized by secular conflict resolution. Referred to in diplomatic circles as
shuttle diplomacy, it has deep talmudic roots. Several versions of a single story
are told about Aaron, the high priest, brother of Moses, in which he is described
as the paradigmatic peacemaker.36 Aaron was mourned for so long by the Jewish
people in the Sinai desert because he used to make peace between everyone, even
husband and wife. Thus they named all their children after him, because they
 Healing Religious/Secular Conflict 137

never would have found or restored loving relationships that led to children
without Aaron's intervention.37
Aaron's method in this rabbinic narrative is my greatest concern. He did not
sit people around a table and conduct a dialogue or negotiation. He went to one
party to a conflict, listened to all of his pain, told him soothing things, waited
until the pain left his heart, and then went to the other one and did exactly the
same thing with her. The elements here are: shuttling, which honors both sides
by entering into their own spaces and honoring the boundaries of their world;
engaged listening; emotional comfort; lengthy engagement with the parties, thus
building trust over time; and prodding efforts to create a new relationship be-
tween the alienated parties. The end result of this process, according to the rab-
binic narrative, is that the two people would meet and embrace each other, both
concluding that they had misjudged the other.38 The results of conflict resolution
would not just be a problem solved, or a compromise found, but the kind of
reconciliation that leads to physical embrace.
Now, I am not suggesting that anything in the Talmud should be acceptable
automatically to all Israelis as a way of behaving. It is a far too literal reading of
the Talmud, in any case, to believe that one has to do exactly what Aaron did in
order to be a pursuer of peace (rodef shalom). But working with these traditions
interpretively among a broad spectrum of Israelis would create an extraordinary
bridge of great cultural depth. It could both stimulate the creation of indigenous
conflict resolution methods and simultaneously offer a healing connection be-
tween Jews that until now has only been provided pathologically in the shadow
of exploding bombs.
Finally, it is beyond the scope of this chapter to elaborate on how the same
methods that I have outlined here of building a broad-based cultural form of
reconciliation among Jews in Israel can and must be extended to building serious
intercultural bridges among Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, and Palestinians. Suffice
it to say that it is eminently doable if a sufficient number of cultural leaders on
all sides become committed to this process and if the political leaderships allow
it to happen.
I want to emphasize, in conclusion, that nothing that I have said precludes
the possibility, as well as the absolute necessity, of tough negotiations between
the religious and secular communities that must ultimately, ineluctably, be subject
to rational compromise. But no rational process can proceed, not deeply, unless
the human communities involved, with all of their complex history in mind,
begin to develop new relationships based on true knowledge of the Other, care
for the Other's pain, remorse over the past, commitment to a joint future, and
the discovery of some higher values that can be held in common. If rational
negotiation over power is the soil in which the plant of democratic society is
rooted, then decent human relations are the water that gives life to that plant.
There is no escaping it. Building a sustainable Israeli society at peace will involve
slowly freeing Israel from the conflicts of the past, as well as freeing it from the
pathological need to live in conflict.
 138 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

Now we move on to another community, which is also small in number and

very significant in influence, at least in peacemaking. The Mennonite community,
like the Jewish community, has a strong memory of suffering that is part of its
cultural identity. But the circumstances of history have allowed the Mennonites
to negotiate that trauma in a very different way.
 SEVEN

Conflict Resolution as
a Religious Experience

Contemporary Mennonite Peacemaking

experience with the Mennonite community began a number of

My years ago, when I participated in a conflict resolution training
with John Paul Lederach at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Vir-
ginia. Since then I have become quite involved in this community, and I consis-
tently teach a seminar on religion and conflict resolution at the Conflict Trans-
formation Program of EMU. I have developed close personal friendships with
Mennonite peacemakers, been privileged to engage in training a number of Men-
nonites in religion and conflict resolution, and I have learned much from them.
I also participated in a major research project about Mennonite peacemaking;
this chapter is an expansion on my research for that project.1
These experiences have been formative in my own analysis of religion and
peacemaking, and I learned much of what I know about authentic peacemaking
from my Mennonite teachers, colleagues, and students. I was challenged to learn
how to translate peacemaking to and from many cultural contexts—including
theirs and mine—by the vast variety of Christian cultures that I encountered
among my students at EMU; there have also been other religions occasionally
represented in the student body of the summer program. The Mennonite cultural
context was particularly challenging—and healing—for me. In this fairly conser-
vative Christian context, I have been challenged to confront and deal with the
strange place of the Jew in Christian consciousness and culture. This is particu-
larly complicated in this case in terms of the overidentification (caused by many
Jews themselves, by the way) of the state of Israel with Jews and Judaism. This
has led to admiration on the part of some conservative Christians, who tend to
oppose the Arab and Muslim world, and hostility on the part of others, who side
strongly with the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel and, therefore, suspect
the role of Judaism in this struggle. This is due, in part, to the fact that many
Christians that I have taught in these circles have little working knowledge of

139
 140 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

Jewish tradition or contact with identified Jews. Furthermore, many have not
fully confronted the role of the Jew in Christian mythology and its effect on their
attitudes toward Israel, the Arab/Israeli conflict, and Judaism in general.
There are some rather striking characteristics of Mennonite peacemakers that
clearly resonated with my own cultural background. Strong identification with
past and present sufferers is a key element of religious experience and an im-
portant foundation of one's ethical posture. There is an endearing, if frustrating,
separatism or isolationism, as in my Orthodox upbringing, that combines in a
paradoxical way with a deep-seated commitment to human relationship as the
single most redemptive characteristic of religious consciousness, as well as peace-
making. I found that we shared an approach to peacemaking that emanates from
one's instinctive identification with sufferers. As contemporary fellow peacemak-
ers, we were all aware that we had imbibed old patterns of internalization of
others' suffering, despite our awareness of the maudlin and actually damaging
elements of religious experience that overidentifies with suffering and turns it
into group narcissism. Furthermore, Mennonites, like Jews, are a misunderstood
minority who have had a tendency to internalize the disapproval and even hatred
that they have received over the centuries. This has given them a problematic
but—to me—deeply refreshing level of self-criticism and self-doubt that one does
not often find in other expressions of Christian culture or in policymaking circles
in Washington. They have also been historically a "minority in the middle,"2 who
were used by dominant groups and benefited from this but were abused for it as
well. In general they were isolated from their neighbors in ways that made them
suspect and that made them not understand their neighbors' needs well either.3
The Mennonite community had the advantage, in contrast to other abused
minorities, of recovery from their deep wounds and their own experience of mass
murder as they retreated into rural isolation and agricultural independence. Even-
tually, by virtue of their skill and steadfastness, they achieved moderate to exten-
sive levels of wealth and security, especially as the value of good land has vastly
increased in recent years. Those minorities who could not own land or did not
have their agricultural skills were not so fortunate in Europe or in the United
States for that matter. The Jewish community of Europe, by contrast to the Men-
nonites, stayed in the only place they were allowed, the marketplace, with all its
uncertainty, incivility, and opportunity for great wealth—and also great hatred.
I have also learned that, beneath the genteel surface of Mennonite life and
their idealized image as pacifist "lambs of God," there is a real sense of disquiet
and even shame about certain Mennonite behavior patterns, which I will not
discuss here. There is also a degree of ethnic chauvinism, in terms of their Eu-
ropean roots, expressed by some. I was always impressed with the deep com-
mitment to pacifism of my Mennonite colleagues but soon discovered that this
stance does not extend for some other Mennonites to the political realm, to
voting, for example, for politicians who are propeacemaking or at least less ori-
ented to war. On the contrary, the priority is given by many to economic and
other typical Christian conservative priorities. Furthermore, while the pacifism of
American Mennonites is well known, there is a darker side to Mennonite history
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 141

in Germany, including ethnic devotion to Germany, astonishingly even during

Hitler's time. It appears that many Mennonites of German ethnic origin were
pacifists during World War II in the United States, while a significant number of
their Mennonite cousins in Europe fought in armies that were implicated in the
worst genocides that the world had seen up until then, though there is no available
analysis, as far as I know, about how those Mennonites behaved as part of the
German army.
There may have been many authentic Mennonite pacifists in 1930s America,
but the sad truth is that when the world was increasingly opposing the barbarism
of the Nazi regime, too many in the German community of America were, at
best, arguing for isolation and nonintervention and, at worst, were actively sup-
porting the Nazi regime. It must be said also that even Mennonites, with their
history of commitment to pacifism, have not escaped the taint of racism and
Christian anti-Semitism among a significant number of their members, at least
during those terrible years of fascism.4
This makes the efforts of the peacemakers among them to develop a conflict
resolution method and philosophy and to extend this practice globally that much
more admirable and even heroic. They provide a model for me of how an isolated,
conservative religious tradition can evolve a peacemaking philosophy and practice
that is not only adequate but is a powerful paradigm for the world. This requires
great courage and vision and a capacity to stand up to one's own community's
limitations. The Mennonites are, on the whole, rather reticent about their com-
munity's worst failings and have not gone out of their way to highlight them. On
the contrary, it has taken me several years to discover these things. But this is
their way. With some exceptions, they do not attack their own with an outraged
sense of injustice, at least not in public. Rather they tend to provide alternative
visions that make it clear what it is they stand for and what they oppose. This
too was refreshing, for they avoid the opposite extreme, described in the previous
chapter, of a damaged group whose members relish the opportunity to attack
each other in highly injurious and destructive ways, which are conflict generating,
to put it mildly.
Before beginning my examination of their peacemaking methods, I want to
emphasize that I have deliberately, in the preceding paragraphs, pointed out Men-
nonite flaws in order to demonstrate the continuing theme of this book, namely,
that all groups of all religions are capable of moving in directions of extraordinary
courage in terms of peacemaking but also are capable of shocking failure. It does
not seem to matter what the theological starting point of a group may be, no
matter how much we may feel the evidence or our impressions compel us to
place a group into a particular box. The possibilities are open, and often they
exhibit themselves at the same time historically or within just a few decades. This
represents the dynamic potential, for good or for ill, in all religious groups in
terms of their role in human conflict and civil society.
In order to understand the religious foundations and unique character of Men-
nonite peacemaking, it is necessary to define some terms and then to explore
briefly the origins of the community and how this affects the nature of their peace
 142 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

work. In the context of the peacemakers with whom I have been in relationship,
the terms "conflict transformation" or "peacebuilding" are critical. These are
difficult to define briefly, and in a certain way, their definition is the subject of
this chapter. For purposes of this chapter, I use these terms to describe a Men-
nonite commitment to the creation of deep relationships over time that, with
proper care, lead both oneself and those with whom one is engaged in the di-
rection of a profound transformation of conflictual and unjust human relation-
ships. In general, when I refer to "Mennonite peacemaking," I assume the conflict
transformation model.
When I refer to "old order Mennonites," I mean, roughly, those groups that
have emphasized in the modern period a continuation of the separatist tradition.
By "modern Mennonites," I mean primarily those Mennonites who demonstrate
strong affinity with engagement in the world, either through mission work or
peace and justice work.

Separatism and the Evolution of Peacemaking

The foundations of the Anabaptist tradition, to which the Mennonite commu-

nities belong, are most clearly seen in the Schleitheim statement of Brotherly
Union of 1527.5 There are two key components of that statement that explain a
great deal about the character of the Mennonite community and its peace work.
Ironically, in terms of peace and conflict resolution, perhaps the most important
feature of the statement is the commitment to separatism. The second charac-
teristic is the commitment to meekness, in emulation of the lamb of God, namely,
Jesus.
The separatist imperative is quite familiar to students of religion. The world,
in this formulation, is divided into the realm of light and the realm of darkness,
those who are outside the "perfection of Christ" and those who are part of the
fellowship. Menno Simons, after whom Mennonites are named, said in one ser-
mon that they are the "Lord's people, separated from the world, and hated unto
death." There are those who are "called out of this world unto God," and they
must not mix with the abominations of the world. This dualist worldview has
deep roots in the origins of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism and the respective
mysticisms of the two faiths.6 It is the resonance with these old, theological roots
that makes separatist religious communities so intriguing. They are also an im-
portant part of the history of European Utopian communities.7
The embrace of one's hatred by Others as an essential part of God's plan is
an intriguing—and disturbing—reaction that is typical of many ideological
groups that begin by being hated by Others. As we have seen before, this is a
typical pattern of establishing the boundaries of identity, which, at its root, sets
the stage for conflict. In the Mennonite case, this is tempered by the pacifist
tradition, to the degree to which the pacifist tradition is adhered. But this ideo-
logical position of being necessarily hated can be found in many religious con-
texts, such as in the old roots of Shi'a Islam and talmudic Judaism and in non-
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 143

religious constructs as well, such as communism, where the capitalist must repress
and try to destroy the proletariat that dares challenge the ownership of the means
of production.
Being hated normally generates deep injury and corresponding anger in most
recipients in what I call a "conflict dance" of action/reaction. But for religious
theology, there is a deeper issue at work and a deeper need being fulfilled by the
theology. The obvious question is: If I am living by God's word, or if I am a
good person, then why do people hate me? Furthermore: Why is a good God
allowing this to happen? This is the basic theodicy question, a simple but dev-
astating question that we often pose to ourselves when injured. Religious my-
thology and drama solve this by making it part of God's dramatic plan of re-
demption. This is especially true for biblical religions.
What effect does this answer have on those who believe in it? Does it make
them more or less violent, more or less angry, more or less self-hating? This is
an impossible question to answer uniformly but an important one to always keep
in the back of one's mind as an analyst. On the one hand, it gives people some
mythic way of coping with injury without having to treat enemies in a violent
fashion. On the other hand, it not only does not remove the conflict with the
enemy, it actually institutionalizes it. It seems to make people passive more than
peaceful, at least for the time being.
Many modern Mennonites who do peace work globally, the main subject of
this study, would be, as far as I have observed, rather uncomfortable with this
separatist strain in its premodern sense or as it may be practiced even today by
the Amish, old order Mennonites, or perhaps even conservative conference mem-
bers of their church. The degree of separation from this world still appears to be
a key defining difference along the broad spectrum of Mennonite communities.
Furthermore, they would hardly be comfortable with a world in which they see
themselves defined in some way by those who hate them. They would be uncom-
fortable with embracing a destiny of hatred because they are lambs of God. On
the other hand, we will have occasion in the latter part of the chapter to discuss
where and when Mennonite peacemakers, in overidentifying with who they con-
sider the victims to be, may have a tendency to demonize one side, thereby cutting
off the opportunity for peacemaking and even inviting abuse from the demonized
Other as a fulfillment of the destiny of the lamb of God. Religious mythology is
deeply compelling, potentially a great ally of peacemaking, but also dangerous
sometimes in its reification of conflict into cosmic scenarios of suffering and
redemption.
To return to the separatist trend in Mennonite life, we should note the inter-
esting attitude toward missionizing. The Amish and the old order Mennonites
rejected until recently active proselytizing, something central to other forms of
Christianity. They will aid the poor or someone in distress, no matter who they
may be, after the model of Jesus. But they have not tended to proselytize. This
is in contrast with the Mennonites of this century, many of whom have been
engaged in proselytizing, and this is a complicating factor in evaluating the issue
of conflict prevention and conflict resolution, as we shall see later. On the other
 144 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

hand, these old order Mennonites see themselves as on a mission, just like other
Christians (and other biblically based religions' adherents), except that they fulfill
their mission by living a separated existence, bearing witness to the world in their
separateness. How exactly this works out theologically is beyond this essay, but it
is an important topic.

Persecution and Pacifism

I would like to argue that the old order Mennonite and Amish rejection of pros-
elytizing is not just based on the separatist strain in Mennonite spirituality but
also on a combination of the deeply rooted pacifist strain of Mennonite Chris-
tianity together with the historical Mennonite experience of persecution. One of
the most central Mennonite teachings is that Jesus as a pacifist is deeply concerned
to never interact with Others in an aggressive fashion, even with his enemies.
This has its roots in Romans 12:14-21, "Bless them that persecute y o u . . . rec-
ompense no man evil for evil... avenge not yourselves ... if thine enemy is hun-
gry, feed h i m . . . be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."8 This
is the essence of Christian pacifism, with roots going back as far as the Hebrew
Bible.9
Proselytizing and encouraging others to convert has a checkered history in the
annals of religious traditions, especially the biblical ones. Sometimes it has been
benign, and at other times it has been deadly. But all efforts to convert Others
involve a degree of assertiveness that has easily spilled over into aggression when-
ever the potential converts actually want to adhere to their own faith, which is
quite often.
There is also a deep strain in the old order Mennonite religion of identification
with the persecuted, the defenseless (wehrlos).10 This too goes back very far into
the biblical texts that Mennonites have studied so carefully over the centuries:
"What occurs has happened before, and what will occur has already occurred,
and God seeks those who are pursued" (Eccles. 3:15)."
Mennonites remember their persecution quite well, and it is here that the
several aforementioned strains come together to illustrate my thesis. It must be
kept in mind that the original impulse of Mennonite separatism was in the context
of a hostile, even murderous Christian environment, which persecuted Anabap-
tists for their commitment to several distinctive practices, which the latter believed
to be at the heart of Christianity, including adult baptism, an emphasis on direct
study of the New Testament by laypeople, an unswerving commitment to the life
of Jesus as a model, separation of church and government, and pacifism.
The Martyrs Mirror, a key text that documents the bloody torture and exe-
cution of thousands of Mennonites at the hands of fellow Christians, was one of
the most important texts on the Mennonite bookshelf for centuries. Their murder
was no doubt preceded by attempts by other Christians to cajole them back to
the "true faith" and away from their heresy. In other words, they were missionized
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 145

by fellow Christians in order to save their souls and bring them back to Christ.
The result finally was massive persecution upon their refusal to come back.
This kind of persecution is, tragically, an easy leap for an evangelical belief
system that combines with a dualist view of the world, seeing the world in terms
of those who are in the fellowship of God and those who are not. Mennonite
belief is based on this dualist view and could have turned aggressive. It is easy to
go from mildly aggressive efforts to missionize those who are not part of the
saved realm, to the step of demonization of the outgroup that refuses to repent
or convert. The outgroup becomes the other half of the dualistic world, and its
elimination becomes a necessity in order for good to triumph over evil. This is
precisely why, I argue, Mennonites were determined to prevent the dualist view
from devolving into an aggressive or violent posture vis-a-vis the world of un-
believers.
I would argue that the separatism of original Mennonitism, combined with
the commitment to separation of church and state (which eliminates coercive
power from the religious domain) and with the reluctance to proselytize by at
least a significant group of Mennonites, all stem from the deep roots of their
emulation of Jesus' pacifism and the painful memories of their own experience
of religious violence.12 In other words, in the wake of their own persecution, they
maintained strictly the dualist worldview, the division of the people of God from
the world's abominations. But they also ensured that this dualism would not, and
could not, result in an aggressive posture vis-a-vis others, not even through pros-
elytizing. They understood Christian history and understood that the idea of a
separate realm of those who follow Jesus' model was vital for their faith, but they
were determined to eliminate its violent potential. This they did through pacifism
and their reluctance to proselytize. Old order Mennonite religion, in my opinion,
seems to question whether active efforts to convert can truly coexist with pacifism
in its deepest sense. To this day, it seems a commonplace assumption even among
modern Mennonite peacemakers that Constantine's conversion to Christianity
and the unification of the Roman Empire with Christianity was a tragedy in terms
of Christianity's religious integrity, precisely because the aggressive and imperial
nature of Rome infected religious institutional life.

The Modern Mennonite Dilemma and

Conflict Transformation

Many Mennonite institutions in the modern period, by contrast, seem deeply

committed to actively seeking converts to Christianity and the Mennonite faith.
American evangelism has had a deep impact on the Mennonite community, and
many Mennonite activists, especially those who work internationally, have either
done missionary work themselves or are children of missionaries. However, it
must be emphasized that "mission" is a difficult term to define in the Christian
world, especially today, because there is such a varied interpretation of what it
 146 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

means. Furthermore, there are no data available on how many of the peace ac-
tivists have been involved in mission work nor what kind of mission work they
may have done.
In the Mennonite circles that I have studied, it appears that a number of them
who engage in peace work are uncomfortable, at the very least, with the most
aggressive interpretation of mission, namely, the active process of converting as
many people to Mennonitism or Christianity as possible. Some are uncomfortable
with proselytizing altogether, while others are committed to mission as a religious
calling but are looking to define peace work as mission. This would make sense
as a development of the Mennonite focus on the life of Jesus. They would see
Jesus' principal endeavors as involving direct service, aid to and healing those in
need, and the teaching of nonresistance,13 not the construction of an empire of
followers. The latter they might see as perhaps a byproduct of his work, not its
focus. This does not mean that they would be displeased by more Christians in
the world. It remains unclear, and it appears to be a sensitive issue.
"Mission" meant something quite significant to old order Mennonites. It
meant standing for a certain faith and a certain way of behaving in the world, as
Jesus did. It seems to me that the modern Mennonite peacemakers, while far
more actively engaged in the world than old order Mennonites, seem to share
with them a more nuanced understanding of mission than the way this is ag-
gressively expressed by some.
In the course of my discussions with Mennonite peacemakers and in the course
of trainings, it became clear that many Mennonites who are peace activists seem
reluctant to proselytize due to the arrogance associated with that posture. I have
been struck by how rarely they have advocated, expressed pride in, or pressured
me in any way to see the beauty of Christianity or Mennonite belief. They rarely
used words to describe what they loved about their faith, at least in public. They
seemed to see the term "Christian" as referring to someone who lives like Jesus
did, not someone who declares himself regularly to be a believer. Christian is a
deeply moral and spiritual term, and it borders on arrogance to refer to oneself,
for example, as a fully "successful" Christian, in the sense of being "born again."
Rather, being called "born again" is an honor bestowed by others if one earns
that title by the way one lives in relationship to others. They tell the story of a
man who is asked by someone, "Are you born again?" to which he replies, "Here
is a list of people—my wife, my banker, my grocer, all my associates. Ask them
if I am born again."
Modern Mennonites who engage in peacemaking and conflict resolution and
who are deeply committed to tolerance and pluralism are caught in a bind that
is rarely articulated, although I would argue that it is right beneath the surface.
Mission, as they understand it, has propelled them into the world again. They
see conflict resolution, which by definition is a rather invasive process of entering
into someone else's culture and problems, as a necessary means to follow Jesus'
role model as peacemaker and as justice seeker for those who are injured. They
also need to fulfill what they see as important Christian precepts or tenets of
faith, namely mission and witness. For their ancestors and present-day cousins,
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 147

witnessing could be seen as a religious task done by example of one's personal

and communal life, not by engaging the realm of sin.14
Mennonite peacemakers are moving away from this separatist take on mission
and witness. On the other hand, every aspect of Mennonite life and formation of
character reinforces values, personality traits, and modes of engagement that ex-
press humility, a studied effort to emulate Jesus, and a level of benign engagement
with Others that emphasizes listening, care, and gentle patterns of interaction. In
other words, one can trace the roots of their peacemaking methods, especially
the elicitive method articulated by John Paul Lederach and his colleagues, to the
commitment to adhere to Mennonite values even as these peacemakers now enter,
cautiously, the unredeemed world that so many of their ancestors rejected. Fur-
thermore, Lederach's concept of conflict transformation15 and Kraybill's focus on
social justice,16 emerge out of an attempt to address the evil of the worldly realm
that Menno Simons rejected. It is a determination to bring into the harsh realities
of a violent world the elements of ideal community, which for them are found
in the example of Jesus, namely, a community dedicated to humility, compassion
for and service to those who suffer, justice for the persecuted, and the act of
standing with the defenseless (wehrlos).
Conflict resolution, a deeply activist and engaged method of affecting human
relations, is being used by modern Mennonites but is also being transformed by
them. It has transformed them into actively engaged members of the world com-
munity, but they, in turn, have transformed conflict resolution and the Christian
concept of mission. The hermeneutic circle of receptivity and two-way transfor-
mation is clear here.17 Conflict resolution as a method of engagement in the world
has given Mennonite peacemakers a vehicle of both maintaining the deepest pac-
ifist values of their community and combining it with a reworked concept of
mission.
The idea of mission pushes Mennonites into the field, and so does a com-
mitment to actively engage issues of justice and injustice in such a way that they
can never again be accused of quietism and selfishness in the face of evil, as they
were accused by some in World War II. On the other hand, the commitment to
listening, patience, eliciting from Others their needs and strategies for change,
the self-doubt and self-criticism that permeate their work, all reflect the charac-
ter of deeply committed pacifists who know how dangerous it is to presume to
change someone else's life, no matter how much that person is crying out for
help. They seem to know intuitively, based on their religious pacifist training and
culturally embedded historical memory, how slippery a slope this engagement is
and how dangerous is the power that one feels in changing other lives, especially
when those Others are in a vulnerable position economically and emotionally.
They express the intuition that aggression of the subtlest forms is always a pos-
sibility for the social change activist who enters into wartorn, impoverished
situations. Rarely have I seen such close attention and self-scrutiny among inter-
national development activists and peacemakers to the dilemma of interven-
tion and the subtleties of aggression by interveners who may have the best of
intentions.
 148 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

Perhaps it is the very ambiguity of modern Mennonite entry into mission,

their memory of brutalizing efforts to invade their lives by Others centuries be-
fore, and the ever-present model of old order Mennonites preserving a strict
notion of noninterference in the world that gives the modern Mennonites the
creative drive to forge a radically new way of engaging the troubled part of the
world, the world of sin and violence, while also remaining deeply cognizant of
the dangers of engagement.18 They seek a way of intervention that is radically
nonviolent. In such a world, they know that always "sin coucheth at the door,"19
and that a group can easily become part of the very illness of violence that it
seeks to heal.
There is also a subtle awareness, out of respect for their roots perhaps, that
quietism has an undeserved negative reputation, that quietism, when taken to
extremes, perhaps, is passivity and even selfishness or indifference to evil. But
quietism in small doses is a key to a nonaggressive approach to the world; one
can learn as much from not doing and not speaking and not invading the world
as one can by intervention and failure.20 This nonaggressive religious strain is
present in many religious cultures that value not doing, or the refraining from
doing in order to achieve high ethical ends, as much as or even more than positive
ritual or proactive interaction with the world.21 This presents a sharply contrasting
model to Western patterns of intervention in the world's problems.
This awareness has generated a creative tension that, in turn, has created an
unusual spiritual philosophy of intervention that is deliberately benign in its
execution and mode of interaction with Others. It propels the adherents into
conflict resolution and social transformation and then restrains them from the
natural human urge—and urge of institutions, both religious and secular—to
refashion the world, violently if necessary, in one's own image. This tension re-
quires constant self-scrutiny and a spiritual community that restrains itself and
its members from slipping into aggression.

The Stranger, Peacemaking, and the Existential

Awareness of Otherness

The other element in this creative tension turns once again to the separatist roots
of the community. A separatist community is deeply aware of the experience of
Otherness and of being outsiders. The history of persecution as outsiders leads,
I believe, to a deep respect for Otherness, for the stranger. This also has deep
biblical roots in love of the stranger (ger) as one of the highest forms of love
described by the Hebrew Bible,22 and this is also one of the chief preoccupations
of Jesus' life as recounted in the New Testament.
The stranger in biblical tradition is never to be oppressed, "for you know the
feelings of the stranger, having been strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exod. 23:9).
This awareness of Otherness is also an awareness of the multiplicity of identities
around us. It is typical of conflict-generating thinking to formulate one's identity
in opposition to another's identity, to form oneself as part of an ingroup versus
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 149

the outgroup.23 The natural response to this is to assume that the best form of
identity is universal identity, namely, a self-conscious identification with all hu-
mankind or some consciousness that is akin to this.
The irony is that Derrida, among others, has alerted us to the fact that there
is no easy escape from the process of creating identity in opposition to the Other,
and what appears to be universal or inclusive of the universal is not at all and
may, in fact, consciously or unconsciously, be a vehicle of oppression of the
identity of the Other.24 This is one reason why Emmanuel Levinas's ethics is
predicated not on universal codes but on the phenomenology of the facial en-
counter between one human being and another. It is the encounter with the image
of the Other, the awareness of Otherness, that generates the ethical responses of
care, compassion, pity.25
It is deeply important in this regard that Gandhi did not argue that we are
all human beings and, therefore, let us care for one another. He said in so many
words, and through his embrace of religious and cultural ideas from around the
world, that his identity is multiple in nature, that he is a Hindu, but also a
Muslim, and also a Christian.26 I have argued earlier that this awareness of mul-
tiple identities is a key characteristic of successful peacemakers, particularly in
the sphere of interreligious conflict. It is clearly interwoven in its psychological
foundation with the characteristics of compassion and humility, in that it involves
not the suppression of personal identity but the enlarging of that identity in some
way that one sees Others and then internalizes their reality.
It is vitally important, perhaps central, that a conflict resolver, in the largest
sense as peacemaker, needs to be someone who understands Otherness in a deep,
existential way. That Otherness need not be based on his ethnicity or religion,
but it must be a self-conscious awareness of that which makes all human beings,
beginning with oneself, Other to other beings in some way. Otherwise, it will be
difficult to comprehend the alienation caused by and fear of Otherness that drives
so much interhuman conflict.
Mennonite Otherness is key not only to their own contribution to peacemak-
ing but to the field of conflict resolution as a whole, in terms of what is necessary,
in the existential awareness of the third party, to understand parties to a conflict
and to be a vehicle of reconciliation between them.
The text from Exodus, cited above, "for you know the feelings of the stranger,
having been strangers in the land of Egypt," reads like a description of the evo-
lution of Mennonites from a banished outgroup, like the Israelites in Egypt, to a
group that works on caring for the downtrodden in distant cultures in remem-
brance of their old experience. This is crucial to their peacemaking method,
namely, the deep and abiding respect for identity affirmation, or what I have
termed Otherness, of each party to a conflict as well as a respect for their own
Otherness.
The conflict resolvers among the Mennonites travel the globe in search of the
defenseless, keenly aware of their own history as defenseless strangers. In a certain
sense, each time they work toward securing the legitimacy of Otherness and the
identity of a threatened group, they reaffirm the spiritual depth of their own
 150 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

experience. It involves caring for the Other, respecting his Otherness, and com-
miting not to invade his culture. This is also, once again, an emulation of Jesus,
in the sense that it means being in the world of another but not of that world.27
Each time one enters into another culture, one enters as a healer but not as an
invading army. In other words, one is in the world of their culture but self-
consciously not of it. One acknowledges and respects boundaries between peoples
as a religious experience, not as a barrier to that experience. At the same time,
there is a feeling of deep identity with the suffering group.
This method of awareness of Otherness is crucial for the third party in conflict
resolution and also for each of the conflicting parties, who often cannot accept
the identity of Others because of their own doubts about identity. The third party
often sets the tone and creates a model of intervention that either perpetuates
the inability to recognize Otherness or that, alternatively, engenders it in the
conflicting parties.
It must be admitted, however, that the vast majority of Mennonite global
peacemaking has taken place in Christian cultures, where there are deeper bonds
of religious unity that allow them to respect the Otherness of the group with
which they are engaged from a cultural point of view. It is still unclear how well
Mennonite peacemaking would work where the Otherness extends to the level of
religious belief, especially with those who are not Christian and will never become
Christian. The Mennonite peacemakers in such a context would be challenged to
embrace the Otherness of this group in a deeper way, which would challenge
their own spiritual lives. They may also have to risk being less understood as a
group, where the entire frame of reference of walking in Jesus' path would be
alien to the group that they are trying to engage in relationship. Some Mennonites
have done peace work in Somalia among Muslims and in India among Hindus.
The results of these engagements will need to be studied in the future.

Community and Peacemaking

How Mennonites manage to respect Otherness is intimately related to how they

create and sustain their own community while engaging in peacemaking. This
brings us to the topic of spiritual community. There are several ways in which
the communal impulse is maintained, in altered form to be sure, across thousands
of miles and many cultures. This is a vital component of who they are and also
what the field of conflict resolution in general may be able to learn from them.28
Men and women are sent in small groups and stay for extended periods of time,
long enough to create real community where they go.
It is never simple to do this, especially in cultures where an ethnic group can
settle in a region for a few hundred years and still be considered a newcomer.
Nevertheless, Mennonite workers invest far more of their lives in these remote
assignments than typical conflict resolvers. They may find it difficult to discover
a spiritual community of Mennonites who share their values of service, and they
may have difficulties being accepted in the local community. But these difficulties
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 151

pale in comparison to the standard model of conflict intervention, which involves

such a rapid interaction with people in conflict that deep relationships are almost
impossible.
The peacemakers also stay in touch with other Mennonites globally. Mennon-
ites in their place of origin pray for their welfare regularly, and there are prayer
calendars through which workers are prayed for by people all over the world.
This has roots in several communal missionary customs, including a communal
commissioning of a person who is being sent off to her mission.
These methods, adapted from early support of international missionaries, have
some crucial lessons for conflict resolution theory and practice. Peace and justice
advocacy, conflict prevention, intervention, mediation, resolution, and post-
trauma healing involve such profound challenges to the inner emotional life that
it is no wonder that many people burn out from this work. Isolated, often at-
tempting to cope with witnessing the worst human degradation, the intervener
cannot live with this work for long.
The Mennonite creation of community gives peacemakers the tools to endure
great psychological stress. Communal support allows them to engage in long-
term peacemaking, which they believe in spiritually and which may also be far
more effective. Since many conflicts are deeply rooted, it is considered arrogant
to believe that intervention can be quick and invasive. Their belief is that only
through building trust over years can true transformation take place. This long-
term building of relationship also seems to be a healthier response to the pain
of local people than coming in for ten days and leaving with a combination of
relief and guilt. The building of relationships with non-Mennonite natives gives
the Mennonites the psychological fortitude to persist in this difficult work. Fur-
thermore, listening to and understanding the people of other cultures is central
to their religious value system, and thus one's work is felt to be the fulfillment
of one's highest spiritual calling.
This emerges out of their commitment to humility but has also evolved into
a kind of cultural ethos, which Lederach formalizes, in my opinion, in the elicitive
method. This way of interacting takes time. Time means isolation of the individ-
ual peacemaker, unless she has community. In fact, the reasons for the Western
tendency to quickly intervene and then quickly leave conflict scenarios may not
only be budgetary constraints on international agencies or political constraints.
There may be an awareness of the problematic isolation of interveners. That is
at least one reason why Mennonite international peace activists have been so
intertwined with the Mennonite missions around the world. The missions provide
a long-term presence, a network of relations, a foundation of trust with parties
to the conflicts, and a secure home for the peacemakers.

Moral Character and Peacemaking

It cannot be emphasized how important to our subject is the imperative to be

"meek and lowly of heart" in emulation of Jesus.29 Mennonite peacemakers often
 152 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

see their habitual sense of inadequacy as a flaw, and in some sense they are right.
Their cultural tendency to self-doubt and self-deprecation has had some destruc-
tive effects on them, and it has, in my opinion, been an important reason why
Mennonite spiritual life is becoming overwhelmed by the supremely arrogant style
of other Christian conservative groups, whose politics and attitudes are encroach-
ing on, and I believe deleteriously affecting, Mennonite moral attitudes.
Mennonite self-doubt serves as a strength, however, in peacemaking. It leads
to an extraordinary level of cross-cultural sensitivity and also leads to a deep
commitment to listening and receptivity, which have prominent and long-
standing places in Mennonite Central Committee methods of peacemaking.
The characteristics of listening, relationship building, and cross-cultural sen-
sitivity are what have been the key missing ingredients of Western engagement
in both peace and justice work and poverty relief. I had occasion to make some
small contribution to disaster relief in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.
Thousands of people were on the edge of starvation in the refugee camps, and I
remember a colleague telling me that of all the hundreds of international agencies
that descended into these refugee camps to save lives, only two agencies bothered
to even ask the refugees if there were any doctors or nurses among them. All the
other agencies imported their own! One would think that rationality alone would
be enough to encourage agencies in emergency situations to utilize local talent
and to engage whatever cultural resources could be helpful in dealing with a crisis.
But self-interest may also encourage agencies to utilize their own experts, to
demonstrate budget expenditures to donors, or some such other rational calcu-
lation. However, if a moral quality such as humility were to become part of the
culture and modus operandi of an agency, such abuses of the dignity of aid
recipients could be avoided and conflict with them minimized.30
I would like to give an example of the value of humility in international
interventions. Liberia's five-year civil war, or what some have described as auto-
genocide, was a brutal and complete destruction of society, which devolved into
at least five fighting factions. The lived reality of that event is that many family
members, who were children of intermarriage, killed each other out of fear, each
member being goaded and threatened by his tribe to kill first or be killed. Thus,
in addition to the human loss, there was a complete destruction of moral society.
There were more than 160,000 killed in the war, mostly civilians who were mas-
sacred, and 200,000 displaced.31
The international community brought the warring parties to the conference
table scores of times. In addition, many initiatives were funded by foundations
and agencies, but in all of these initiatives, almost no one funded any initiatives
that included indigenous traditional peacemaking methods. Never once were the
tribal elders, who used to enact those peacemaking traditions, made an impor-
tant part of the international peace process. Nor were women ever involved of-
ficially in intervention strategies, until the warlords themselves came one day to,
a woman, and asked Ruth Perry to temporarily lead Liberia and help them to
stop their endless bickering about a way to coexist.32 Samuel Doe was a survivor
of that war and is an extraordinary Christian peacemaker. He was one of my stu-
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 153

dents at Eastern Mennonite University, and he is receiving training there. I have

also been working with him on a project to help revive the life of his tribe,
which was utterly decimated by the war. Doe has indicated to me that there is a
largely undocumented role of women as ritual peacemakers in Liberian culture,
and that this has never been acknowledged.33 But the international community
could never have known this because their initiatives never even attempted to
resonate with the culture and conscience of the parties to the conflict. This re-
quires a commitment to time spent with victims of war and particularly the ca-
pacity to humbly listen to and learn from another culture, a critical lesson that
Mennonite peacemakers are teaching. Had this method of engagement been
used in Liberia early on, it is possible that tens of thousands of lives could have
been saved.
Almost half of those who hold guns in militias in Liberia are under the age
of fifteen,34 and almost all of them are orphans. Yet few thought that these des-
perate, damaged children might respond more to the deep need for parents and
the guidance of mothers and traditional elders than they might to a piece of
paper signed in Geneva. This level of brutal, if unintentional, deafness is too
common in international affairs, and the Mennonite method of intervention, a
way of humble listening, is not only a more moral path of intervention, it seems
to be a more rational and less wasteful path than what prevails today on the
international scene.
This method of engagement of radical humility is not just an ethical act or a
strategy of intervention for Mennonites. It appears to be a part of their being, a
cultural characteristic that is at the heart of their religious experience of divine
closeness and emulation. Every feeling of pain before the suffering of Others is a
living embrace of the life and person of Jesus. The community prayers, songs,
and sermons often revolve around this theme.
How do you replicate such humility among other religious peacemakers if
there is no high premium placed on the character of humility in other religious
groups? How do you replicate it in the secular community of international agen-
cies, where output and efficiency may be more important as standards of evalu-
ation of workers than a particular personality characteristic? Furthermore, how
do you operationalize humility when there is no deep metaphysical imperative to
do so in the secular community?
I think humility can be and should be inserted into general conflict resolution
training in some fashion. Furthermore, faith in God is not the only deep moti-
vator of ethical character, and I believe that there could be ways to justify this
training in a secular context. For example, human needs theory, a school of
conflict resolution theory, is built upon a humanist conception of a wide variety
of basic human needs that must be fulfilled in order to prevent violence. Some
of those needs are "higher" needs, such as the need for freedom or meaning.
There is quite a bit of disagreement, as noted in previous chapters, on what needs
are universal to all people or whether it is fair to even posit universal needs, rather
than operating with a basic assumption that there are needs that vary from group
to group.35
 154 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

One topic that seems to me to be neglected by this school of thought is the

needs of the third party intervener. In general, there has been a tendency to
assume this intervener to be a value-free figure capable of neutrality and infinite
professionalism. It is an ideal construct, not a reality, because it does not ac-
knowledge the third party or parties as real people with real needs. It seems clear
to me that the conflict resolver's needs and, correspondingly, her character is
crucial. The Mennonite model seems quite pertinent here.
I would suggest that a nongovernmental organization (NGO) or any agency
could make characteristics, such as humility, a fulfillment of what it is to be part
of a conflict-resolving community, where the sponsoring agency constituted itself
or expressed itself as a community with certain key values. Thus, as the individ-
ual—religious or not—trains himself in these character traits he fulfills the need
to be good at what he does, the need to be a good peacemaker, and the need to
be a good member of the conflict-resolving community. The community of the
NGO or other agency strengthens and encourages this self-definition.
Humility in international work could also be reinforced by an environmental
ethic that calls on the human being to recognize her place within the totality of
nature, just as much of Native American thinking expresses. Work that combines
environmental justice and conflict resolution could express itself in this fashion.
It seems clear from peace work and development work in many parts of the
world that this quality of humility is critical to serious work with poor people,
people in conflict, or both. Thus, replication of this spiritual quality, even in
some secular version, would have a powerful impact on large-scale efforts at
conflict resolution and development for the poor.

Instrumentalism versus Mennonite Peacemaking

The inherent moral value of building relationships is another key ethical quality
of Mennonite peacemaking. It is founded on what I would like to define as an
antiinstrumentalist approach to human relations in the conflict scenario. Men-
nonite spirituality guides the peacemaker to build relationships in the conflict
situation but not only as an instrument that produces an outcome. The standard
emphasis of process-oriented workshops or conflict resolution activities is that a
third party facilitates, mediates, and perhaps even makes initial contacts and ges-
tures, all with the purpose of getting the parties to the table and achieving res-
olution of conflict. This is encapsulated in the phraseology of evaluation, such as
"outcome-based" evaluation. While the idea of evaluating one's work and one's
effectiveness would not be strange at all to the ears of Mennonite peacemakers
(they tend to engage automatically in self-criticism), the idea of delimiting rela-
tionship building to an instrumentalist focus on outcome would sound rather
strange. Evaluation is not the problem here. It is the reduction of the human
moment of relation to its instrumentality that is problematic for Mennonite
peacemakers and, undoubtedly, many other peacemakers.
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 155

We see here an often overlooked but very real clash of cultures. Emanating
out of certain religious traditions and ethical schools of thought is a rebellion
against the treatment of a human being or, in some traditions, even an animal,
as an object that is instrumental in one's efforts to achieve some social, economic,
or military goal. For Immanuel Kant, a person must always be considered an end
in himself. Kant's principal ethical imperative, which he spent much of his life
proving is "Act so as to treat man, in your own person as well as in that of
anyone else, always as an end, never merely as a means."36 The moral sense
theorists also posited, not in Kant's categorical imperative fashion but in terms
of a direct observation of nature, that the "beneficent" qualities of love or com-
passion are innate. There are moral acts that we engage in that are not motivated
solely by the instrumental furthering of self-interest but by compassionate or
loving human qualities.37
Martin Buber deepened the Kantian move and made it into an existential
response to others of deep religious significance. I–It is instrumentalist, the re-
lation of subject to object, whereas I–You is relational, the relation of subject to
subject, and it expresses the greatest end of spiritual relation. "The basic word I—
You can only be spoken with one's whole being. The basic word I–It can never
be spoken with one's whole being.... Whoever says You does not have something;
he has nothing. But he stands in relation."38
This is the essence of the human relations that Mennonite peacemaking at its
best tries to foster. As opposed to Hobbes, Machiavelli, and the political realist
school, it is a worldview that celebrates the opportunity to meet the Other in
relation. There is a belief that this possibility in human life demonstrates, by the
concrete reality of the bonds created, that war and violence are not the only
options in human relationships.
The Mennonite religious response is different also from the utilitarian per-
spective, best represented by John Stuart Mill. The latter is so dominant in mod-
ern bureaucratic culture that the use of his perspective is practically unconscious.
It entails the constant attention to outcome and the instrumentalizing of one
human moment for the purposes of the next human moment, all leading to an
abstract social goal, such as prosperity for the greatest number of citizens. The
latter is a laudable method of governing society and appears to be especially
necessary in the unprecedented human task of governing and fulfilling the basic
needs of hundreds of millions of human beings who inhabit one society. Perhaps
moral and political utilitarianism is an inevitable and necessary byproduct of
overpopulation. But its level of abstraction and inattention to the subtleties of
human relationships is notorious, and it often has a devastating impact on society,
especially in situations of bitter conflict where deeper human interaction is vital
to heal the hatreds and anger.
Conflict resolution methods have been dominated by instrumentalist and con-
sequentialist methods of process and outcome evaluation. This is understandable
and vital in many instances. But Mennonite intervention offers a different vision.
The moment of relation becomes a moment of religious fulfillment, of imitatio
 156 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

dei, in their case, emulating Jesus. The person in relation becomes an end in
herself. The cultivation of relationship between human beings and the careful
attention to the style of interaction and the character that one brings to that
relationship are the essential elements of their peacemaking activity, because they
are the primary moments of religious experience and discovery of the Other in
the world. The outcome of the relationship, they hope, is the creation of peace
and the reduction of conflict. But it is not the sole focus of every activity.
People the world over crave authentic relationship in a time of violent crisis,
and they often do not receive this at the hands of professional, instrumentalist
intervention by outsiders. We need to study and contrast the net effects of in-
strumentalist approaches to the setting up of dialogue and problem-solving work-
shops versus the Mennonite method of entering into relationships.39 We need to
study the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and of the mixed mod-
els as well, which combine elements of both modes of intervention. This, of
course, caricatures methods of conflict resolution of the instrumentalist sort, and
there are many models of instrumentalist intervention that strive for deep rela-
tionship building, as do the Mennonites. Many Western conflict resolvers inter-
vening in cultures have often entered into deep relationships with the parties to
the conflict. But was it incidental or central? Most important, could they report
this in their evaluations as a major success to foundations and agencies, or was
it irrelevant to the project's evaluation by their sponsoring agencies? This is where
the Mennonite model might have something to teach in terms of what we call
success or failure in the field and what becomes the focus of our entry into
situations of conflict.
The creation of human bonds across cultural lines, the opening up of rela-
tionships among groups through the agency of intermediaries, the solidarity ex-
pressed with those who suffer should be valued by agencies, whether or not a
settlement of a particular conflict is achieved in the short term. These relation-
ships should be considered a success in and of themselves by their board mem-
bers. Evaluation would then involve the question of how well the group did at
creating those relationships, in addition to evaluation of the conflict resolution
outcome.
It must be admitted that, with either model, we have little information on
what would occur if there were unlimited resources available to replicate either
model across a given country and then examine the effects ten or twenty years
later. Only then would we really be able to evaluate which model has worked in
lived reality and why. Until we can create such grand experiments, we need to
leave open the possibility of learning from models that have worked on smaller
scales, and here the Mennonite model deserves serious attention.
This discussion should not imply that Mennonite peacemakers do not care
about outcomes. On the contrary, their prayers, songs, and the evidence that I
have seen all testify to a deep yearning to create real change in the lives of those
who are affected by war and poverty. There is little evidence here of certain
religious schools of thought that would minister to the poor and downtrodden
without any genuine efforts to improve their lives. This is a mistake in
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 157

some Christian relief work that I have not observed Mennonites making at all.
Clearly they are working at conflict resolution methods that, on the contrary, go
to the root of conflict, and they argue that real resolution involves social trans-
formation.
All methods, including those of the Mennonites, have disadvantages or risks.
A strictly instrumentalist, outcome-based, process-oriented approach to conflict
resolution runs two risks. First, exclusively outcome-based approaches invite
burn-out on the part of the third party or activist. Many conflicts are intractable,
requiring years or decades of work. That is simply not a sustainable situation for
an individual or even an agency that evaluates its work solely based on outcome.
There must be other motivations built into the actual work itself, which makes
the work self-sustaining even when the desired ends are not achieved. Most people
in the field who I have met and most analysts who sustain this work over years
develop this additional set of motivations. But it is rarely articulated or reinforced
by one's community, which it seems to me, places an unnecessary burden on
those who do this work.
Second, instrumentalist, goal-oriented approaches to conflict (or to other in-
tractable problems globally) have such an obsession with the hoped-for achieve-
ment that all means to get to that goal can become justified, especially in the
competition among multilateral and bilateral agency interventions. This includes
the economic abuse that some NGOs perpetrate on their own workers in the
name of sacrificing for the "cause." It also often descends into petty rivalries
among organizations that cause harm on the ground. Furthermore, the pursuit
of narrow bureaucratic outcomes leads often to astounding levels of duplication
in the field, which only confuses many situations.
Gandhi demonstrated that there must be no difference between means and
ends in the struggle for social change—and that the means really are the ends.
This, it seems to me, is deeply resonant with Kant's kingdom of ends and Buber's
I–You relations. It means that building human relations among peacemakers,
inside organizations and communities of peacemakers, is an end in itself, with
the conviction that it is also the best means to achieve the goal of peacemaking
in its deepest sense. This creates a sustainable group of peacemakers because they
are constantly reinforced by the deep awareness that everything that they are
doing is inherently valuable, even if subject to periodic evaluations on how to do
it better. It means that the community of peacemakers can count on the fact that
the ends desired for conflicting parties are also the guiding standards of their
own communities' treatment of their peacemakers. The ends of peace, justice,
fairness, honesty, and compassion become the means by which the community
of peacemakers functions. This creates trust, eliminates destructive feelings of
hypocrisy, and creates a model for the conflicting parties who come into contact
with these peacemakers.
It is certainly not the case that all Mennonite peacemakers behave in this
fashion, nor am I suggesting that they are the perfect paragons for every conflict
resolution practitioner. My point is structural and relational. Making the act of
building human relations into an ethical or sacred task unifies, in principle at
 158 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

least, means and ends. This should be considered by all conflict resolution activists
as a powerful model for sustainable conflict resolution work. John Burton and
others have suggested that in order for conflict resolution to really work on a
global scale, it is going to have to become part of the political ethos of modern
civilization.40 I would suggest that in order for it to really work on a global scale,
it is going to have to become part of the ethical ethos of civilization, part of the
means, both interpersonal and institutional, by which conflict resolution and
peacemaking are pursued by individuals and institutions, not just an end.
One final note on instrumentalism. It should be noted that mission and build-
ing up the church is instrumentalism of a sort. The conversion of people to one's
religion, the most aggressive form of mission, may be perceived by the faithful
as a process of "spreading the good news," but it is definitely perceived by Others
as the instrumental use of people to strengthen a church or religious structure.
It complicates the relationship with aid recipients or parties to a conflict. Mission
activity in many parts of the world today, such as where Christianity and Islam
intersect, is often conflict generating. Furthermore, for some other Christians in
the field, proselytizing is so central that the human being becomes completely an
instrument of church building. Thus, the intersection of mission activities and
peacemaking activities creates complications of motivations and perceptions. Just
as an example, any religious Christian effort to do authentic conflict resolution
work between Israeli Jews and Palestinians would have to overcome serious sus-
picion on the part of most Jews as to the motivations of the Christians. After
millennia of being subject to public humiliation, coerced experiences of prose-
lytism in the synagogues themselves, and even forced conversions, there is little
trust in anyone who calls herself a Christian missionary. It seems clear that con-
flict resolution work that is confused with or in any relation with proselytism is
seriously flawed in principle and will have problematic effects in practice.
This is clearly a basic theological issue and dilemma for modern Mennonites,
as I noted earlier. But I would argue that the creative process—sometimes stated,
sometimes unstated—that I observed regarding future religious definitions of
"mission" in relationship to peacemaking should be accelerated. This could help
to clarify for themselves and Others what mission really means to them.

Peacemaking versus Justice

A critical issue that has preoccupied Mennonite thinking on peace and pacifism
has been the relationship of peace and justice. This has become an increasingly
central though unresolved issue as the modern wing of Mennonitism becomes
more engaged in the world. World War II and the shame suffered by many due
to their pacifist position spurred a great deal of rethinking and critical evaluation
of the quietist and separatist element of Mennonite pacifism. The call for a the-
ology of involvement encouraged greater commitment to active intervention in
the lives of others.41 This also expresses itself as a challenge to "two-kingdom
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 159

theology," which implied passivity before a world that was utterly separate from
the Kingdom of God.
The starkest example of this shift is the development of the Christian Peace-
maker Teams.42 The religious characteristics of CPTs seem at first glance to set
them in opposition to the style and character of conflict resolution, the elicitive
method, and conflict transformation. First, they are decidedly partisan. The teams
go where they are invited by one side to stand with them in their suffering.
Mennonites have been doing this for a long time. But CPTs are far more ag-
gressive and are visible forms of protest against injustice. Furthermore, the some-
times confrontational language used to describe the teams is uncharacteristic of
Mennonite peacemaking in other situations. It seems in certain situations that
this is an effort to invite trouble in order to witness or even highlight the injustice
of the situation.
This is clearly a situation in which the religious value of peace is at odds with
the religious value of justice. This dilemma has old roots in biblical tradition,
where God is portrayed as a God of justice punishing the wicked but also as a
merciful God who loves repentance and forgiveness. Furthermore, God has a set
of ideal characteristics for human beings to emulate, which includes both peace
and justice. "Execute the justice of truth and peace in your gates" (Zech. 8:16).43
But this is a decidedly difficult set of characteristics for humans to combine,
whereas God is set up as the ideal being who does successfully combine these
traits. It seems to me that some of the Mennonite peacemakers appear to express
a deliberate process of attempting, as much as humanly possible, to combine a
commitment to peacemaking and social justice.
The CPT method makes the choice for justice very stark. This has an hon-
orable history in terms of nonviolent forms of confrontation and protest, which
Gandhi championed. In the Christian case, there is also a martyrlike element (and
perhaps for Gandhi also, who was deeply influenced by Ruskin and Tolstoy) with
some deep resonance in Mennonite history of preparing to be assaulted for the
sake of those who are defenseless.
It is unclear to me whether such an aggressive partisanship in peace work is
really peacemaking at all, but it is justice work. It appears to purposely generate
conflict for the sake of witnessing and calling attention to injustice and for the
sake of standing with the defenseless in such a way that one invites injury. The
invitations to intervene come from one side of a conflict, and, therefore, the team
is immediately entering as partisans. This makes perfect sense in pursuing justice
but not in conflict resolution. Nevertheless, there is some effort of the CPTs,
especially recently, to teach by example the principle of nonviolent resistance, and
it would be valuable to see follow-up on how many of the people they have stood
with have adopted those methods.
This entry of Mennonites into hot political situations is often done in a
quicker way than the evolution of contacts and relationships that has been char-
acteristic of other Mennonite activity. It also exposes some problems with the
process of choosing one side for the sake of justice. Mennonites tend to side with
 160 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

whoever is not holding the guns and to view with suspicion those who do. There
are obvious historical and theological motivations for their choice, but it is fraught
with danger. In the immediate sense, whoever is not holding the guns is much
more likely to be the persecuted group. But looks can be deceiving, and it is also
easy to fall prey to popular and prevailing political perceptions of who the victims
are.
As an example, I understand why CPTs wanted to send a team to Iraq when
it was being attacked. But why not send a team to Kuwait to witness the brutality
of the Iraqi forces? Could it be that they would have been welcomed by Saddam
in Iraq as a public relations ploy but killed by Saddam in Kuwait? As another
example, I could not sympathize more with CPTs in Hebron bearing witness to
the terrible treatment of Arabs at the hands of some of the settlers. But would
they don Jewish clothing and drive unarmed through West Bank towns with
Israeli license plates in order to accept the violence of Hamas upon themselves
and in order to bear witness to the evil of terrorism against unarmed men,
women, and children? I understand that pursuing justice for many people involves
deciding who has suffered the most harm and siding with them. But it seems to
me that this involves one in some problematic choices from the point of view of
peacemaking and of attempting to understand how justice and injustice are
viewed by all sides of a conflict.
One also runs the risk of being used, when one is partisan, by people who
have no commitment to peacemaking now or in the future. The effective conflict
resolver, however, the one who builds relationships on both sides, is never subject
to this danger. In the worst case scenario, he may be used in negotiations by
people who have no interest in peace, but he has never lent his name to a partisan
effort that turned out to be an adjunct to or a cover for violence. At worst, the
peacemaking effort did not succeed, but the integrity of the commitment to
peacemaking remains.
Another problem with this kind of intervention from the point of view of
both conflict analysis and religious ethics is that today's victims are tomorrow's
killers. One can side with those who do not have guns, but their relatives may
be using guns against the other side even as you protect them. Or, a child that
you stand with may in a year or two become a killer. This is where the methods
of conflict resolution, transformation, and relationship building with all sides of
a conflict protect you from manipulation or becoming embroiled in a conflict
rather than becoming a part of its resolution. There is no question that combining
peace with justice, as Mennonite conflict resolution expects, as well as many
secular theories of conflict resolution propose,44 will involve one in conflict-
generating activity. Most conflict resolution theory expects constructive conflict
as a part of achieving resolution. But this is quite different from entering from
the beginning as a partisan.
Many Israelis and Jews think of classic Christian peacemakers as anti-Semitic.45
It must be disconcerting for members of a peace church to be perceived in this
way. The activity of the peace churches in Israel, with a few individual exceptions,
for the past forty years, however, has been in solidarity with the suffering of
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 161

Palestinians, not in mediation efforts or relationship building on both sides nor

in identification with the suffering that Israelis have endured due to the wars and
due to terrorism. As Christians, it should be obvious to them how this would be
perceived by the bulk of Jews, who came to Israel in the first half of the century
in order to escape from pogroms and genocide in Christian lands. The entire
ethos of Zionism, for better or worse, is founded upon a response to the centuries
of persecution in Christian Europe, often fully supported by local priests if not
by the church hierarchy. This must be confronted by Christian peacemakers.
The only sympathetic Christians that Israelis ever really see are waiting for the
return of all Jews to Israel, Armageddon, the destruction of two-thirds of the
Jewish people, the second coming of Christ, and the conversion of the Jewish
remnant to Christianity.46 Right-wing Israelis have welcomed the financial support
of these Christians who, incidentally, believe that war with Muslims is inevitable.
But peace-loving Israelis, and the half of Israel who voted for the Oslo accords,
with a few exceptions feel mostly isolated from the Christian world. This is a
perfect example of why partisan approaches to conflicts may satisfy the call of
justice but do little for true consensus building and conflict resolution. The CPT
group in Hebron, for example, may be doing valiant work in standing up to
terrible injustices, but keep in mind that they have chosen as their adversaries the
four hundred most extreme settlers in Israel out of a population of millions of
Jews and tens of thousands of other settlers, most of whom would not treat them
so cruelly. So as they report back to the Mennonite community about their terrible
experiences standing with the defenseless and against the cruel oppressor, are they
helping this peace church to continue its role in the world as a peace church? Is
this helping the Mennonite community get the information and the tools that it
needs to be effective peacemakers with millions of Israelis who are far less extreme
but who need to be brought into constructive relationship with millions of Pal-
estinians? Or are these reports simply making good Christians angry at wicked
Jews who oppress the poor, like the Israelites of the Bible, who the prophets
rebuked? In other words, I am concerned that serious conflict resolution work
not fall prey to predictable cultural/religious categories of good versus evil, which
do little to transform human relationships.
My instinct as an analyst is to side with the Mennonite conflict transformation
school of thought on what is most necessary in the Middle East. That is not to
say that the time may not come, in the face of gross injustice, to stand in non-
violent protest, and I applaud this when it is the case. But how can a church
decide to take this route when it has not tried the path of conflict transformation
and relationship building on all sides, or only taken this path when it involves
warring Christians on both sides?
The tragedy is that the work of the peace churches, especially the grassroots
work of the Mennonites, is precisely what could have averted the setback to the
peace process of the 1996 Israeli elections, a difference of just twenty thousand
votes. The elite side of the Middle East peace process, namely the business part-
nerships and negotiations among political leaders, were and still are in motion.
But the deep levels of fear and anger of the masses of people on both sides were
 162 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

not and are still not being addressed. These elite strategies of conflict resolution
were set in motion years ago by key representatives of conflict resolution theory
and practice. The challenge at the time was the intractable nature of the
government-to-government conflict in the Middle East, including the leadership
of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But it is rage at the popular level,
especially religious rage, that has threatened the peace process to its core in the
last few years. It is this level of conflict at which Mennonites have excelled else-
where, and this is precisely where Mennonite peacemakers could have made and
could still make a decided difference. It is also where training on both sides in
conflict resolution could be effective, especially in Lederach's and Kraybill's meth-
ods, which emphasize, both scientifically and theologically, the suspension of
judgment of others as one tries to transform a conflict into a process of recon-
ciliation.
The Middle East also could benefit from an elicitive approach to the religious
communities involved in the conflict. Eliciting conflict resolution and peacemak-
ing methods from religious cultures will be crucial to the future of the Middle
East, especially since so much of the violence and opposition to the peace process
has come from religious communities, Hamas and Islamic Jihad on one side and
the Israeli religious parties and the settlers on the other side. But that requires
deep entry into both cultures and long-term trust building, especially because of
old issues of both Jewish and Islamic distrust of Christian intentions as third
parties. But it could be done over time, in my opinion. I would argue that there
are some deep cultural challenges that the Mennonites face in moving their work
from conflict situations in which both sides are at least nominally Christian, such
as in Nicaragua, to other conflicts of different religious/cultural backgrounds.
There is a natural affinity religiously on which they have relied in creating rela-
tionships with all sides of a conflict. If they want to expand their work to non-
Christian frameworks, as I believe they should, then they must carefully think
through how they are going to build relationships as successfully as they have
done among Christians.
There is no clear answer for the religious dilemma of justice seeking versus
peace seeking or the dilemma of peace seeking with all parties versus keeping
oneself distant from military powers. They do seem to come into conflict often,
and one has to acknowledge that within complex moral situations, choices for
justice will be made by some and not others. But one should not make believe
that justice seeking is always peacemaking. As a brilliant South African religious
peacemaker, Khuzwayo Mbonambi, told me recently, "Justice preserves the peace,
but it never makes peace. Only reconciliation and forgiveness do that."

The Transformation of the Peacemaker

Conflict transformation is not just the process of enabling transformation to take

place in the conflicting parties. Many Mennonite interveners seem prepared to
go through a personal spiritual transformation. There is an openness to learning
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 163

and a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do that. This creates a much more
symbiotic relationship between the conflicting parties and the peacemakers. There
is a sense that they share a destiny of change and growth that empowers all of
them, rather than maintaining one as the recipient of the good graces of the
other.
Conflict resolution as a field of inquiry needs to think more about how and
whether the third party truly enables others to change, and whether that is possible
without the third parties being transformed themselves. Furthermore, it seems
quite clear that ethical traits, such as gratitude, an eagerness to learn from others,
an openness to positive change, and generosity, are all critical to Mennonite
conflict transformation. Its replication would require, in my opinion, training
people in the development of ethical character. This is a radical idea for the field
of conflict resolution, but it bears consideration.

Christian Foundations and Replicability

Prayer is an important element of Mennonite peacemaking. Prayer and song often

frame the actual intervention between enemies, although this is certainly not
required. Many effective Mennonite peacemakers operate in secular circum-
stances. For those who do engage in prayer as a frame for the intervention, it is
a kind of sacralization of the experience. It generally evokes in many people their
most noble aspirations for themselves and for Others, which provide a useful
counterbalance to the primal fears and anger that otherwise naturally dominate
one's consciousness in these meetings with enemies.
Biblical study is also key here, and I believe accomplishes something more.
Biblical study, especially when texts are chosen with some relevant ethical content,
insert into a deeply political and even military situation the fundamental ques-
tions of interpersonal ethics. Furthermore, it makes justice, peace, empathy with
suffering, mourning over suffering into topics of intellectual study. Generally, in
tough negotiations, intellectual inquiry or reasoned discussion are the bases of
exchanges regarding ceasefires, distribution of scarce resources, reconstruction,
election issues, and so on. The Bible study makes the issues of justice and peace
into intellectual inquiries on a par with the other pragmatic issues. It makes values
into pragmatic reality, which is a useful frame for discussions. It makes it more
likely that, in the process of negotiations, the minds of the participants will as-
sociate with the questions of how to pursue justice or peace or reconciliation.
The association may lead to more creative problem solving that interweaves prag-
matic needs and ethical goals.
The one cautionary note is to acknowledge that the frame is highly culturally
specific, in this case, to the culture of Christianity. Clearly, in any context that
has more than one religion represented the ideal would be an artful combination
or alternating frames that refer to the traditions of everyone involved. With in-
digenous peoples, I would assume that in most contexts it would be vital to
include indigenous religions and tribal customs, unless the groups in question
 164 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

have converted to one religion, and they all strictly adhere only to their new
religion. Certainly, if it is a mixed group of religious and nonreligious people,
this would have to be accommodated as well. The last thing that a frame for
discussions should do is encourage exclusion or ideological coercion. Then it
tends to appeal to the worst instincts in the participants rather than the best
ones.
One notes also a tendency to appeal in Mennonite writings to Christian themes
of reconciliation and forgiveness. Forgiveness and reconciliation are particularly
important in Christian tradition and will play an important role in conflict res-
olution for Christian contexts. But it is not a universally accepted method of
peacemaking. At the very least, it is not as highly positioned theologically and
should not be expected to be the only means to create peace between enemies,
even religious enemies. I am still undecided about its universal usefulness, and I
believe it requires further study.47 In other traditions, such as Judaism and Islam,
a shared commitment between enemies to justice, for example, may work better
as a vehicle of peacemaking, although I have witnessed the powerful effect of
unilateral apologies in Jewish/Islamic relations. But each religious community has
different sets of traditions and high ideals, and it is out of those ideals that conflict
resolution methods must emerge. Forgiveness is important in all these traditions,
but how important it is, how it is done, and under what circumstances is clearly
conditioned theologically and culturally.

Conclusion

In sum, Mennonite peacemaking methods are integrally related to their religious

values. These, in turn, are formed by their historical experience, their close read-
ing of biblical tradition, and their evolving spiritual response to the world around
them. In many ways, their methods are unique to their religion and culture. But,
as I have demonstrated, their methods pose powerful challenges to the general
field of conflict resolution. Due to the immense power of the United States and
Europe in the affairs of people, especially poor people, the world over, Western
modes of interaction with the rest of the world are in need of perpetual self-
scrutiny and creative growth. Mennonite conflict resolution and peacemaking
offers a powerful model of human interaction that, if duplicated, would have to
be altered to fit other worldviews and institutions. Nevertheless, the forms of
peacemaking analyzed here have within them enormous transformative potential
for the future interactions of the global community.
Mennonite peacemakers have demonstrated an ability to function in secular
contexts and in multicultural contexts that are primarily Christian. The real com-
plexity of most conflicts that I have witnessed is that they involve actors who are
religious, people who are nonreligious, and members of numerous religious sub-
groups that are at odds with each other. Add to that the fact that the religious
differences may be a major or minor element in the conflict. Also, religion may
 Conflict Resolution as a Religious Experience 165

begin as a minor factor but become the major factor as it comes to symbolize
the ethnic, tribal, or class differences among the conflicting groups.
Mennonite peacemaking in its ideal form fulfills certain basic necessities of
peacemaking that emanates out of a religious position. Mennonites feel less of a
need to publicly proclaim their religious commitments, and they are comfortable
with a separation of their private religious lives from the public sphere. Therefore,
it is easy for them to translate their religious impulses into peacemaking gestures
that do not exclude in any way secular actors. This is a vital asset in effective
peacemaking for complex contemporary situations. They also have the capacity
to comfortably move into a Christian context of conflict and utilize their religious
tradition to deepen the process of conflict resolution among the parties to the
conflict. It is in the latter scenario that there has been a relatively easy relationship
between the role of Mennonites as local missionaries and the role of Mennonites
as peacemakers. What is harder is the mixed model of religious, secular, Christian,
and non-Christian, which is typical of many conflicts. It seems to me that the
next stage for Mennonite peacemaking is to develop a model of care and inter-
vention that engages those who are not and will not be culturally or religiously
Christian.
What does the Mennonite model teach us about what is necessary so that
other religious traditions can be effective agents of peacemaking? A religious tra-
dition should:

1. have a firm spiritual foundation for engaging in peacemaking with all

human beings, regardless of race, religion, or culture
2. have a method of engaging in conflict resolution that does not impose
its own theological assumptions on Others, or that is at least capable of
being adjusted as these cultural and religious differences become ap-
parent
3. develop an articulated set of ethical and spiritual foundations for peace-
making that (a) make the work sustainable over long periods of time
and in trying circumstances and (b) instill in the peacemaker a series
of values that will have her treat those in conflict as ends in themselves,
as fellow human beings to be engaged in authentic relationship
4. generate a community that is capable of and prepared to support peace-
makers institutionally and interpersonally
5. develop a reasonable way to deal with the inevitable and ongoing tension
of peacemaking, pursuit of justice, and other competing ethical values
that are critical to the construction of a civil society, such as civil rights
6. develop the ability to truly listen to another religious reality and culture,
to not be threatened by it, and to discover the spiritual resources to
make peace with those who are in different theological universes
7. learn how to integrate the development of a peacemaking method and
philosophy with the most authentic elements of its own spiritual tra-
dition and to combine this in a creative way with the best secular meth-
ods of understanding and dealing with human conflict
 166 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

Now we will turn to a detailed examination of another religious tradition from

the perspective of conflict resolution, in order to model the creation of a religious
philosophy and a method of conflict resolution where there has not been one
until now. This is vital for our analysis because the goal is to evoke these insights
from religious cultures in the unprecedented circumstances of the contemporary
era.
 EIGHT

New Paradigms of Religion

and Conflict Resolution

A Case Study of Judaism

T he field of conflict resolution theory has emerged in recent years

with a vital and timely analysis of the deep roots of persistent con-
flicts in addition to theoretical constructs and practical strategies for resolving
conflicts. As a field, it addresses a variety of conflicts, including straightforward
disputes of a limited sort as well as deep-seated violence that encompasses the
fates of millions of people. It examines the roots of conflict that stem from issues
of communication, psychology, power, and a variety of other human needs.1 The
field has been mostly developed in Western, industrialized, secular contexts. As
such it has been harder to integrate the results with a variety of cultures and
religious contexts that have their roots in premodern categories of thinking and
feeling. As noted earlier, this has led to a relative impasse in dealing constructively
with those global and domestic conflicts today that have some roots in issues of
religious identity.
There has been another intellectual development involving the detailed analytic
study of the growth of religious militancy in the twentieth century, particularly
that kind of religious behavior that involves an aggressive rejection of the modern
state and a willingness to try to undermine the roots of the modern state.2 This
always involves conflict and sometimes very violent conflict.
In this chapter, I will engage in an in-depth analysis of one religious tradition,
but I will do this with an eye to conflict resolution theory and practice. The
purpose is to evolve a model of conflict resolution that might appeal to even the
most religious elements of a particular culture, even to those who have expressed
great distrust of modern constructs of human relationships. This, in turn, is
meant to create a possible bridge between secular and religious cultures as they
both confront the difficult issues of conflict. An important backdrop of this piece
is naturally the most deadly conflict that has involved Jews and the Jewish people
in recent years, namely, the Arab/Israeli conflict. It also, however, is written in

167
 168 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

the context of the legacy of extreme violence at the hands of non-Jews, especially
the Holocaust, which is an indelible element of many if not most Jewish identities
at this particular time in history.

The Variety of Hermeneutics on War and Peace

Religions that have survived for many centuries present a unique set of challenges
in terms of conflict and peacemaking. For the most part, religions survive a long
time by having within the reservoir of their resources a wide variety of responses
to peace and violence. The essential problem of the interaction of religion and
violence is the hermeneutic variability of responses to peace, enemies, and war.
This is true intragenerationally and certainly true intergenerationally. Tracking
this hermeneutic evolution is a critical method of conflict analysis in religious
societies and of prognostication of religious violence.
In concrete terms regarding Judaism, the central axis of the religion is rabbinic
literature. In rabbinic literature, one can marvel at the differences between, say,
Hillel or Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai and their attitudes toward the Other, to gen-
tiles, and, at the other end of the spectrum, a man like R. Shimon bar Yohai,
whose disdain for the Romans was legendary.3 There were rabbis who loved con-
verts to Judaism, and there were rabbis who rejected them as a foreign threat.4
Of course, the latter is complicated by our difficulty in contextualizing talmudic
statements in specific places and times, such as the effect of disaffected converts
turning into spies against the community at specific points in time.
Out of this soup of rabbinic literature, the religious interpreter can and really
must construct specific responses to her place and time. This the rabbis of each
generation have done, each with his own lens. As these responses have accumu-
lated, they have gelled into a set of attitudes and laws regarding issues of peace,
conflict, violence, enemies, etc. But I must emphasize that this gelling effect, this
developing consensus on what "normative" Judaism is, has been a selective pro-
cess, unfortunately affected profoundly by the often miserable state of Jewish/
non-Jewish relations for many centuries, since the end of Jewish sovereignty in
Palestine.
The early rabbinic literature has a mix of texts on the subject of war and
peace. There is an extensive body of literature celebrating peace as a religious
value, as a name of God, and as a supreme ethical principle.5 There is some
talmudic discussion of legitimate and illegitimate wars that Jewish kings may or
may not wage.6 Maimonides (1135-1204 C.E.) elaborated and codified these dis-
cussions,7 which in turn, has given plenty of grist for the mill to Jewish theore-
ticians, who, in keeping with their Christian counterparts have tried to develop
in recent years some cogent thoughts on just war.
Of course the Jewish community does not have the dubious benefit of hun-
dreds of years of religious warfare from which to extrapolate moral guidelines
for warfare. It was on the receiving end of many wars but almost never in charge
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 169

of them in the last two thousand years. In other words, Jewish just war theory is
a heavily speculative and hermeneutic affair.
Some may argue that rabbinic Judaism's discussion of just war has always
been theoretical. Historically speaking, there have never been "rabbinic" kings,
that is, kings who were thoroughly steeped in rabbinic Judaism, unless one accepts
the traditionalist or fundamentalist position that rabbinic Judaism existed from
the beginning of Jewish biblical history. Thus, the present-day discussion rests on
tenuous theoretical grounds with no practical experience upon which to draw. It
seems to be a rather desperate attempt to catch up with the military realities
facing a secular state—Israel—run almost completely by Jews, which is, in and
of itself, a historically unprecedented arrangement.

Jewish Post-Holocaust Anger and Its Hermeneutic Effects

The Jewish just war versus Jewish pacifist discussions have not addressed creatively
what Judaism has said or could say about how to prevent violence, how to keep
wars from happening, how to deescalate them, or how to heal people once the
war has stopped. But Judaism has many things to say about peace, violence, and
conflict resolution. It just has never been documented in recent times, with a few
exceptions, particularly because, on the whole, the post-Holocaust scholarly Jew-
ish community has not been much in the mood to mine the sources of Judaism
for conflict resolution, especially with gentiles. Ironically, this has had a delete-
rious effect on the skills of the community in dealing with intra-Jewish conflict,
which is reaching serious proportions, brought on in no small part by the political
choices facing the government of Israel.8
Certainly the section of the community that would be most comfortable with
delving deeply into the halakhic sources as a guide to life, namely, the Orthodox
community, has been particularly uninterested in confronting Jewish resources
on conflict resolution, despite righteous outcries against wanton hatred (sin'at
hinam) and conflict (mahloket). On the contrary, the prevailing focus of attention
has been increasingly on those rituals and laws of Judaism that would buttress
cultural and physical survival, which would be specifically aimed, almost as weap-
ons rather than as religious deeds, against annihilation. These are the rituals that
make the Jew different, including obligations of protecting Jewish life, education
on the uniqueness of Jewish life and practice, inculcating radical levels of defense
of any Jew whose life is in danger, and ritual practices that are particularist by
definition, such as the dietary and purity laws. Even the laws with universal ap-
plication, such as the sabbath, tend to be seen or need to be seen as uniquely
Jewish.
This trend especially focuses on the minutiae of practice, which make a clear
boundary between who is in and who is out of the group, who can be trusted
and who cannot be trusted, rituals that become, in their modern incarnation,
markers of ethnic and national trust, markers of distinction, markers of insulation
 170 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

from a dangerous world. The more unique and peculiar those markers the better,
because only those who are especially committed to the Jewish people would do
such things. By contrast, the more universally moral the behavior, such as envi-
ronmental protection, the more it displays similarities to outsiders, the less useful
it seems to survival, the more it is suspect.9 Now, this does not do justice to a
variety of theologians and rabbis across the religious spectrum who have ad-
dressed issues of universal concern in the post-Holocaust era.10 But this charac-
terization does explain a certain trend of religious Jewish life that must be un-
derstood by conflict analysis theory.
I will never forget when, in 1987, I was giving a lecture on rabbinic sources
on peace at one of the most prominent universities in the United States. An old
Israeli Orthodox man and his wife were sitting in the front row; he was a well-
known scientist. I was expounding on a particular talmudic passage, which re-
flected on the relationship between peace and compassion, and I heard from this
educated scientist, muttered in low tones, words that I will never forget: "He
sounds like a Christian." My Orthodox rabbinic credentials did not matter; my
fluency with talmudic text did not matter. What mattered was that the texts were
too universal and too benign in their relationship to the outside world. And I
knew then, I think for the first time, that rational discussion of shared values
between Jews and gentiles was a waste of time for many people, no matter how
educated. Something else, something dramatically different than logic and reason,
would be necessary to heal the wounds of the past. Modern anti-Semitism has
led to a certain kind of Jewish wound, a rage that is often expressed in religious
observance. It is to be found in ritual practices and communal precepts that
express oppositional identity, often a martyrological sense of identity based on
persecution.

Fundamentalist Identity Responses to Modernity and the

Rejection of Universal Values

This phenomenon is not dissimilar to trends within the other monotheisms. All
of them have significant subcultures today that are selectively winnowing their
traditions for what makes their adherents different from Others. Often this occurs
within the subgroups that have been ridiculed and despised or whose poverty and
needs have been ignored by the dominant culture. And, of course, their opposi-
tional behavior perpetuates a cycle by making them even more despised by the
dominant majority cultures, which have little tolerance for difference. This, it
would seem, is a restructuring of the religious ingroup in the face of the relent-
lessly homogenizing quality of modernity. It creates a sense of belonging that
need not and sometimes cannot include ethical constructs, which would challenge
an oppositional identity or complicate an identity rooted in behavior that emerges
from an aggrieved position.
As stated earlier, Judaism has many things to say about peace, violence, and
conflict resolution. It seems clear that, before we can even elicit a theory of
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 171

conflict resolution from Judaism's prosocial ethics, sacred stories, symbols, and
mythologies, conflict theory must creatively respond to the rage that many Jews
feel at the world. This is especially true in light of the Holocaust and historical
anti-Semitism in the Christian world. If this rage is not addressed, conflict res-
olution as a vocation will be dismissed by the very section of the community that
needs it the most.

Mourning, Posttrauma Healing, and

Deep Conflict Resolution

The first stage of a Jewish conflict resolution theory may, for some people, be
mourning. This is not as unusual as it might seem when it comes to intractable
conflicts involving groups that have suffered over many centuries. Conflict res-
olution theory and practice must develop interventions that address the full spec-
trum of a particular group's responses to conflict, especially the most violent
sections of that group. If an abnormal level of mourning that seems to perpetuate
itself over history is a key element of the conflict, an effective religious peace-
making program must directly confront this.11
A peacemaking mourning process must speak to the deepest identity needs of
a group and also to the group's sense of threat to its future, its fear of annihilation.
Often what is mourned, but mourned in ways that create violence, is a loss of
the group's honor, security, or sense of confidence in its future. There is also a
sense of loss of some romanticized time—real, imaginary, or a combination
thereof—in which the group had a fulfilled, secure existence.
Here is the crucial point. If mourning over this loss is to be complete, the
peace process itself or that part of it that deals with past wounds should take on
an indigenous, religious character. If it does not, if, for example, it smacks of
some dominant culture that has been implicated in persecution of the group
(Western Christian culture, in the Jewish case), then the mourning process cannot
really resonate deeply, at least not for the most wounded members of the group.
If, on the other hand, the process has deep cultural roots, then it affirms their
identity and does honor to them, even as it heals the wounds of the past and
simultaneously builds peace.
It is the most religious segment of a community that needs the deepest level
of healing, because it is this segment that so zealously and regularly internalizes
the collective identity and memory of the group through ritual, prayer, symbol-
ism, and study. Often the religion will rehearse daily, weekly, and annually all of
the most painful moments of the traumas of the past, in addition to celebrating
the past glories of the group. This means that religious people will have the
hardest time moving to a new stage of relationship with the outside, injuring
world. They will not only have to heal emotionally. They will also need the time
to create a new spiritual hermeneutic, reworked legitimately through the old one,
that gives them permission to move forward in new relationships to the world
and its inhabitants.
 172 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

What is mourning in Judaism, referred to as aveilus, and how can it be inte-

grated into conflict resolution? An in-depth analysis of Jewish mourning and its
relationship to peacemaking awaits a larger study. Briefly, however, aveilus is the
ritual process of expressing the death of a loved one. That loved one is a part of
oneself, one's history, one's very being. Aveilus practice is the most stringent
regarding parents, because they represent the entire history and origin of a human
being and his relationship to the eternal religious community. Aveilus is the ability
to acknowledge loss unabashedly, to watch the lost thing12 or person buried in
the ground, especially to be able to engage in burial yourself and to feel the full
horror of it. It is to immerse oneself for a long time in the life and memory of
the one who is gone, up to a year for parents. Then, in response to this, the
experience of aveilus means that one is moved by the community and one's
relationship to God toward a slow and steady recovery from the loss. The recital
of kaddish and yizkor is critical to this process.13
There is no conflict, especially deadly conflict, that does not involve loss. More
important, there is no solution that does not involve loss. Win-win is an illusion
in many serious conflicts.14 The conflict has already caused loss by the time that
it needs intervention or mediation, and it usually involves much more in order
to arrive at peace. That is not to say that what can be gained by peacemaking is
not significant, maybe even better than what was lost. But it rarely feels that way.
These losses, often unacknowledged, are the fuel of conflict. One hopes in vain
that by perpetuating the conflict and winning one can somehow make up for
what one has lost. But this is illusory, and the sooner that these permanent
damages are acknowledged the easier it will be to focus on the concrete moves
that need to be made to end the conflict, to negotiate and compromise on the
concrete differences, and to begin rebuilding people's lives.
I have argued elsewhere that the Holocaust and European persecution are at
the heart of the entire style of Israeli interaction. They are also, surprisingly, at
the core of intra-Jewish religious/secular conflict in Israel, in addition to being a
principal factor in the persistence of the Israeli population's mistrust and dislike
of Arabs, which has now gone well beyond the understandable fear of terrorism.15
As another example, my family came to the United States around 1910, but
there were still relatives in the "old country," in Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Of course, whoever remained was murdered in World War II, as far as we know.
My family has never, ever thought of going back nor of tending to old and
neglected burial sites nor of finding out what really happened in their places of
origin; in fact, it has taken years for me to decipher where we came from. This
suggests a rather unnatural distance from one's place of origin, but it is typical
of Jews who came from places where they were persecuted. It also suggests an
uncompleted process of confronting and mourning the past. There is no curiosity;
instead, there is suppression of the past.
My family is also in possession of a profound level of simple Jewish faith and
spiritual commitments, which defied the enormous economic and social pressures
of the melting pot in Boston, forces that made the majority of their neighbors
and extended relatives into assimilated Jews whose families are mostly non-Jewish
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 173

now. At the same time, despite the security of holding onto this ancient piety,
many members of my extended family have become obsessed with Jewish survival,
with fertility, with Israeli security in particular, and a number of them have a
profound distrust (hatred in a few instances) of Arabs, Germans, and other gen-
tiles, people whom they have never met. The battles of Israel, any battle involving
Israel, in fact, always becomes a battle with annihilation, at least for some of my
relatives, no matter what the political or military circumstances. It seems as if
the earth of Israel is compensation for every place that they and their ancestors
have known and lost for centuries. Every battle that Israel fights revives old battles
that were lost in humiliation, humiliating because, as defenseless civilians, they
never were even equipped to fight in the old country.
Many members of my family and millions of others have never been able to
or been allowed to mourn the past in a healing way, not in a way that would
allow them to live again within the universe in a trusting way. They certainly have
never been comforted by their former oppressors and have never engaged in any
scintilla of reconciliation with Eastern European Christians. Indeed, they have
never been asked or invited by anyone to do this. Eastern European Christians
at present seem barely able to deal with their own wounds from the Cold War
and World War II, let alone what they perpetrated against others. But everyone
suffers from this lack of attention to confronting the past. Today the global Jewish
community prospers financially for the most part, and Jewish rights are protected
throughout most of the world, just fifty years after Jewish lives were worth ab-
solutely nothing in Europe. But with all of the surface vitality and wealth of the
Jewish community, I often feel that we are walking among the dead, haunted by
loss.
As far as the Israeli/Arab conflict is concerned, there is much that aveilus can
teach. It seems clear to me that a profound transformation of relationship would
occur if Arabs and Jews, in addition to negotiating the obvious central issues of
land and resource distribution, would engage in a simultaneous process of helping
each group to mourn what they have lost. The losses of one hundred years, for
each group, represent an important time span, which generally includes the mem-
ories that people have directly from parents and grandparents. It is these mem-
ories that must be addressed, and the process would involve focusing on all the
lost children, spouses, parents, all the lost time and resources, all the lost homes,
and of course all the lost land.16
It would be powerful indeed if groups of Arabs and Jews, perhaps aided by
sympathetic Western Christians—who also have a key role in causing and healing
this tragic conflict—would begin, in detail, to mourn what was lost.17 They must
begin to visit the dead together, to bury them together in symbolic ways, to
memorialize lost lives and lost homes. They need to talk about the losses for as
long as it is necessary, to thoroughly indulge the past rather than suppress it, to
let go of the fear that it would disrupt rational dialogue and conversation. We
must do exactly what rational peacemakers have tried to suppress, namely, we
must indulge memory. But we must do it, not destructively as it is indulged in
the privacy of particular groups, but as a part of peacemaking, as part of an effort
 174 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

to honor each group's memories at the same time that we struggle constructively
over the present.
One cannot really escape the morass of deadly conflict and discover life again
after death without this kind of healing of memory. Nor can conflict resolution
occur without the theoreticians of conflict coming to terms with the need that
most humans have to literally be with the dead or with what they have lost. We
must take care of the victims of yesterday's carnage, even if they are unsympathetic
now or aggressors themselves. We must crawl together with the victims back to
life, out of the mass grave of the past where their imaginations hold them prisoner,
and into a more rational, hopeful space of trust building and peacemaking. Pres-
ently, we simply deny this need, and therefore it haunts and destroys peace pro-
cesses the world over.

Jewish Conflict Resolution Theory in a

Pluralistic Context

One of the central issues that a theory of religious conflict resolution must con-
front today is that religion is a voluntary affair in places where there is no the-
ocracy or police power that enforces religious rules. Many of us are happy, to say
the least, that this is the case. However, this has had a revolutionary effect on
religious life, effectively concentrating inside religious communities those individ-
uals who hold views that are the most blatantly militant vis-a-vis the rest of the
world. People who hold divergent viewpoints have the option of leaving and do
so quite often. That was not possible a short time ago and is still not in many
places.
Thus the dynamic process of hermeneutic engagement with a new horizon of
experience, which used to force a religious community to evolve, has been ex-
tremely attenuated, at the same time, ironically, that there are more challenges
on that new horizon than ever before. This has the effect of making the orthodox
elements of a community more and more orthodox, while encouraging others to
leave or to promote radically different versions, or attenuated versions, of the old
religion. The wall between these two groups grows higher every day, and there is
no longer the mediating influence of those inside orthodoxy who must remain
there and who remain by fighting for their own hermeneutic evolution of the
tradition. It should be emphasized, on the other hand, that there are great debates
and arguments within these closed worlds, and they see themselves as struggling
with change. But the changes are minor from an outsider's view and often do
not begin to address the dangers of destructive conflict with outsiders.
The task of conflict resolution, I would argue, would be to evoke principles,
values, and ways of approaching conflict that would speak to all members of a
particular culture, religious or not religious, especially those who are on, or may
be in danger of moving onto, a violent path. The purpose of developing such a
theory of peacemaking is not necessarily to be able to convince those who are
most extreme by the cleverness of one's hermeneutic interaction with religion.
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 175

Experience suggests that deep-seated conflictual styles take much more than clever
sermons to undo. Rather, the purpose is to provide a hermeneutic of religious
tradition that can be appealing to everyone so that, at least in principle, it binds
rather than divides. The goal is to challenge and to create a positive kind of
cognitive dissonance among religious people who are in conflict, rather than
create a reaction of alienation, as a thoroughly secular approach often does. In
this way, one strengthens those who naturally favor accommodation, while iso-
lating the most violent elements within a fundamentalist universe. Many secular
constructs of conflict resolution are designed for failure in religious contexts
because, one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, they have a habit of
undermining or flying in the face of religious values, spiritual priorities, and styles
of interaction. This is what must change if we are to truly engage all levels of
Jewish culture as it exists today.
There are several critical guidelines. One is to utilize religious constructs to
heal deep injuries and to reconstitute a cultural and spiritual identity that re-
sponds to the need for uniqueness but that does not need to do this by way of
hatred of the outsider. There must be an emphasis on a unique Jewish role and
style of engaging this work. This responds to the fear of annihilation while chan-
neling it into prosocial values.
Traditional liberal constructs assume that the answer to conflict is universal
standards, shared values, and so forth. While I sympathize greatly with the aims
of these constructs, they do emanate from a universalist position. Many people
around the world—not just religious people—perceive this as secular cultural
imperialism or evangelism. It can reach levels of great intolerance. The method
of engaging conflict and peacemaking that could speak to fundamentalist Judaism
would not be universalism but pluralism.18 What I mean by this is that the method
must first emphasize and affirm unique Jewish values and constructs, which can
then be used to communicate to a plurality of other actors. An effort to speak
only in universal terms, to make everyone the same, by contrast, flies in the face
of numerous religious institutions whose raison d'etre in the contemporary period
(and perhaps always, to a certain degree) is to maintain difference.19
A pluralistic approach that maintains a clearly unique role for Jewish values
could then lead at a second stage to tentative statements and agreements about
shared values with other groups, be they non-Orthodox Jews, secular Jews, Pal-
estinians, or Muslims. But it must begin from a premise that acknowledges and
even values boundaries between cultural entities and respects those boundaries.20
What concerns the Orthodox Jew is cultural annihilation by assimilation; this
is the great threat to the future of Judaism and always has been for this small
minority. Thus, despite universalism's appealing beauty, what is seen and heard
by many Jews, not just the Orthodox, is a threat to continuity. The values implicit
in many of the universalist assumptions of conflict resolution practice are good
and useful, but they must be mediated in a way that does not threaten Jewish
culture (or any other indigenous culture, I would argue) with annihilation.21 This
is particularly true with groups that have firsthand experience of physical anni-
hilation, as so many ancient, indigenous groups do.
 176 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

We must also recognize the excessive love for and overattachment to the group
that is at the root of religiously inspired conflict. Religious people tend to make
extraordinary sacrifices in their lives to perpetuate Judaism and the Jewish people.
Having many children, no matter how impoverishing, is just one part of that
lifestyle; it is particularly true in this post-Holocaust generation. Often in conflict
research there is too much emphasis on the psychopathology of group violence
or the violence of the sadistic individual who acts for the group. But this ignores
the full psychological reality of conflict and violence which often stems from an
extraordinary love of one's own group that, in turn, spawns violence against those
who are perceived to be injuring the group.
This excessive love should not be suppressed. Rather, a visionary approach to
conflict resolution would acknowledge this love and give it some reasonable place
within the process of building peaceful relationships within and between groups.
At the present time in Israel, to give one example, those who advocate peace and
who seem on the surface to be the ones "carrying the ball" for conflict resolution,
often couple their peace work with a barrage of angry rhetoric against fellow Jews.
The latter are labeled extremists, zealots, bigots, murderers, criminals. Of late,
some who fear and loathe the power of the ultra-Orthodox community are re-
ferring to its members with words, such as "parasites" and "vermin," that are
directly reminiscent of Nazi and anti-Semitic epithets. But the language expresses
the same dynamic of dehumanization that the progressives struggle against when
that same language is applied to Palestinians! The progressives are therefore dis-
missed by the right wing as self-hating Jews. Furthermore, one hears the same
kind of sad distinctions from Palestinian peacemakers: "These Jews are good, and
we should work with them, but those ones are criminals." Thus, we have no true
peace process here at all, only some Jews who scream peace and dehumanize their
fellow Jews, and some who scream security and dehumanize Palestinians. Au-
thentic conflict resolution moves beyond this dynamic and engages each group
in its own uniqueness, affirming that love of one's group is honorable and to be
encouraged, except as it manifests itself in violence against Others.

Conflict Prevention as the First Stage of Conflict

Resolution: Theory and Practice

Prevention is the strongest category for religious communal values in general and
for Judaism in particular. There is a Utopian quality to religious ethical constructs,
and part of their utopianism is the quite rigorous, almost monastic, demands of
piety, which, if they are followed, often lead to caring relationships of such in-
tensity and depth that most conflicts are nipped in the bud or never even arise.
The trouble is that they are rigorous and difficult to follow. That is one of the
reasons that ethical observance consistently lags behind ritual observance in al-
most every major religion. Ritual observance is simply easier psychologically and
emotionally, even if pragmatically and materially more demanding.
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 177

Prevention is the most effective tool of all in peacemaking because relation-

ships are easier to mend at the early stages of problems. Furthermore, the religious
warrants for pious behavior are strong and can, at least in principle, withstand
much of the natural resistance to moral behavior that accompanies conflict sit-
uations. It is certainly true that countless religious individuals, past and present,
have engaged and lived by these values in many conflictual or violent situations.
In the interests of space, I will not go into detail about these values, but they
are divided into four sections: values that focus on the inner workings of one's
mind and heart,22 values that move one to the encounter with the Other; values
that move one to the encounter with a foreign, estranged, or enemy Other; and,
finally, values that move one to the construction of community. All four of these
ethical categories are vital for conflict analysis and resolution.

Conflict Prevention Values in Judaism

Self
benevolent care of the self (al tehi rasha bifne, ahavah kamokha, im ayn
ani li)23
self-scrutiny and change (heshbon ha-nefesh, teshuva)24
acquiring a good name (shem tov)25
intellectual study for the purposes of ethical practice (lomed al menat
la'asoth)26
internalizing ethics rooted in wisdom (hokhmah, middoth taltnid hakham)27
internalizing wisdom as a way of creating compassion and peace (hokh-
mah) 28
calculation and prioritization of competing laws and values, constructive
conflict (talmud torah, 13 middot she'ha torah nidreshet, halakha, mahloket
le-shem shamayim)29
becoming like God in the acts of benevolence and peacemaking (ve'holakhta
be'derakhav, oseh shalom b'meromav)30

From Self to Other

empathy with pain, including nonhuman pain (rahamim)31
personal involvement in acts of compassion as the essence of the Torah
(gemilut hasadim)32
the use of the human face in interpersonal encounter to create peace (sever
panim yafot, kabbalat panim) 33
the infinite dignity and value of every human encountered (tselem elohim)™
 178 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

favorable interpersonal judgments in moments of uncertainty (dan le-kaf

zekhut)35
trust (emunah)36
love expressed by complete identification with the other's needs (ahavah
kamokha)37
unilateral honor as the key to relationships (ayze'hu mekhubad, kevod hav-
erkha)38
language as a way of building human relationships (shemirat ha-lashon)39

From Self to Estranged Other

trust as a key prevention of violence (amanah)40
engagement in constructive conflict but not persisting in conflict (mahloket
le-shem shamayim, hizuk be-mahloket)41
the value of constructive criticism in making peace (tokhaha)42
the importance of compromise in adjudication (peshara)43
the love of strangers and the refusal to oppress them (ahavat gerim)44
human hatred as sin and principal cause of divinely ordained punishment
(sina'at hinam)45
the destructive impact of revenge in deed or in words (nekimah, netirah)46
the use of language to humiliate as sin (ono'at devarim)47
listening as the key to wisdom and human relations (seyag le'hokhmah,
shod u'meshiv)48
listening as peacemaking (middot ahron)49
humility and the temporary suppression of self (anivut, ga'avah)50
injury to the face of the other (humiliation) as murder (halbanat panim)51
truth as a foundation to society, equal to peace and justice (ernet)52
peace as a name of God and the pursuit of peace as the ultimate religious
task (shalom, redifat shalom)53
seeing truth in multiple and even contradictory manifestations (shiv'im
panim la'torah, elu ve'elu)54
compromise as a central element in pursuing peace (peshara)55
truth as something to be found through every human encounter (ezehu
hokham ha-lomed tne'kol adam)56
fostering communal consciousness among enemies through shared good
deeds and mutual aid (hakem takim imo)57
transparency and truth in negotiation (emet, massah u'matan be'emunah)58
patience and training in resistance to anger (noah likh'os)59
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 179

patience with another's anger, especially in order to help him save face
(she'at ka'aso)60
the art of reducing rage with gentleness (ma'aneh rakh)61
the overt acts of regret, confession, apology, repentance, and atonement in
the context of restitution (teshuva, haratah, vidui, selihah, mehilah, kap-
parah)62

From Self and Other to Community

social justice and the restoration of balance in social and economic rela-
tions, especially of the economically weak and the landless poor (tsedek,
mishpat ger, ani ve'evyon)63
benevolent care of the honor and security of colleagues (kevod haverim,
mamon havero)64
opening the home to community (hakhnasat orhim)65
the prevention of suffering, both human and animal (tsa'ar ba'al hayim)66
developing skills of constructive interpersonal and social criticism that does
not lead to losing face (tohakha)67
impartial courts (mishpat) 68
social justice (tsedakah)
the limitation of material goods as a way to communal happiness (ta'avah,
ezehu ashir, marbeh nekhasim)69
a proactive mitsvah of seeking conflicts that need resolution (redifat shalom,
bakshehu be'makom aher)70
personal and collective transformation, training in the willingness to change
(darkhe teshuvah)71
the construction and perpetuation of customs of civility that prevent con-
flict (hilkhot derekh eretz)72
the power of greeting the face of the other in the social construction of a
pluralistic universe (sever panim yafot) 73

Conflict Prevention and Fulfillment of the Self

I would like to highlight two of these values as particularly interesting and leave
for a larger study their exhaustive analysis. The fact that one notices in religious
literature, from East to West, from Buddhism to Judaism, a careful attention to
nurturing the inner life and working on the moral life from an internal perspec-
tive suggests an important critique of current conflict resolution practice. Conflict
resolution needs to address the most protean origins of anger, suffering, love, and
 180 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

benevolence and the skills of fair play and communication. Otherwise, deficiencies
of character are bound to undermine the methods that are being taught.
An example of this involves the issue of self-love, a theme taken up by many
moral sense theorists in the nineteenth century as a basis for a moral system.74
In classical Judaism, the religious psyche is meant to be self-loving in order to be
loving in an other-directed sense. The classical basis of this is the Golden Rule,
which comes in its earliest form from the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 19:18, "Do not
take vengeance, or bear a grudge. And you must love your neighbor as yourself,
I am the Eternal God." The verse is generally assumed to mean that you must
love the Other as you love yourself, which cannot be done without self-love, a
practice that for many people takes a lifetime to achieve. It is also one of the
hardest things for members of a hated minority to truly feel.75
This principle, in and of itself, might form the basis of one of the most
neglected areas of conflict prevention, namely, rehabilitation work with antisocial
personalities, prisoners, and war criminals, whose self-loathing is plainly apparent
in many cases. But we must leave this for a separate study.
Another key point in the self-oriented values is imitatio del. For the religious
human being, the fact that one can be like God if one is a peacemaker is a deeply
empowering psychological phenomenon. It makes one's experience larger than
life, a conquest of mortality, and a unification with eternity, as well as with others
past and present who have walked the same path. To the degree to which this
experience could be applied to the lonely life of the peacemaker who champions
benevolent values, it could have a significant impact on the psychological sus-
tainability of conflict resolution as a vocation. This is one of the most difficult
problems of the field, and it is particularly true for those people who confront
intractable, deadly conflicts that last for decades.

Conflict Prevention and the Interpersonal Relationship

As we move into values that govern interpersonal relationships, there are a few
that are particularly noteworthy. The importance of interpersonal meeting, es-
pecially face-to-face encounter, cannot be overemphasized. The principal biblical
phrase for love is motseh hen, to find grace in the eyes of the Other who is
encountered. The talmudic rabbis mandated that one should greet everyone with
a loving, or literally "beautiful," face (sever panim yafot). They prohibited the
kind of language and actions that make the face turn white with embarrassment,
making the latter into a sin akin to murder, literally the shedding of the blood
of the face. Conversely, they made the honor of the Other into a supreme mitsvah,
the opposite of humiliation of the face of the Other.76 Honoring of the Other, in
theory, can become an experience of intense religious fulfillment.
Face is a critical category in conflict analysis.77 Saving face is a key generator
of conflict in many situations, for a variety of reasons, including the inability to
back down from the action/reaction spiral of aggressive behavior due to the fear
of losing face. This is especially true of leaders, who fear the wrath of their own
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 181

followers who might not be able to cope with the loss of face without turning on
the leaders themselves. Collective humiliation is one of the main reasons for the
self-perpetuating cycles of numerous international and interethnic conflicts.
Honor, as an intentional peacemaking act, is a rather underutilized strategy
of conflict prevention and conflict resolution at the current time. The better
diplomats understand this well, but it is rarely made into a conscious process
applied generally to the interaction of large populations. Any Jewish methodology
of conflict resolution would have to focus on honor and the necessary engagement
with the face of the enemy, on both the elite level and on the grassroots level.
I have utilized this ethical principle myself in Jewish/Arab relationship building
on many occasions, and it simultaneously fills my need for an indigenous method
of engagement with the estranged Other, and it also is far more effective than
dialogue in setting the stage for difficult processes of trust building and negoti-
ation. Honor, I have experienced, is a deep surprise to the enemy Other: it puts
the relationship on a new footing and makes both parties more open to a rela-
tionship in which they are deeply valued. It is no substitute for dialogue on power
and resource distribution, which must inevitably come, but it does put these
negotiations in a decidedly more prosocial context.
Sometimes the ethical gesture even causes a revolution in the negotiation pro-
cess, uncovering the deeper reasons that the rational negotiation processes, with
their seemingly obvious compromises, turn out to be so elusive. This may be why
the details of negotiation appear so absurd to the outsider. Right beneath the
surface of the participants' negotiating positions is deep-seated rage for various
injuries, among them humiliation, and these deeper issues insert themselves as a
cancer into the fine details of the negotiation. When this ethical effort is under-
taken, it causes a shock and, once the shock is overcome, allows the rational
processes to progress unencumbered by free-floating angers and fears, which wait
to attach themselves to and disrupt this or that detail of an agreement.
I remember speaking to the PLO representative in Washington many months
after Rabin's assassination and not long after the Likud party's accession to power.
When he spoke of Rabin—no deep friend of the PLO, by the way—a wistful, sad
look came over his face, as he peered downward into his memory. He said, simply,
"They [Rabin and company] treated us with respect." To me, that was the heart
of the matter. All the details of the agreements paled in comparison to this one
issue. The moment of human relationship is either the glue that makes it im-
possible to disentangle a conflict or it is the glue that cements a common future
in peace.

From Self and Other to Community

Extension of the interpersonal values to the communal and societal sphere is

critical. The following communitarian rabbinic values should be highlighted: in-
volvement in the suffering of others in the community; taking responsibility to
heal that suffering; social justice, in the form of a reasonable redistribution of
 182 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

resources, as a religious task or mitsvah; constructive social criticism, which usu-

ally accompanies the implementation of social justice, perceived as a mitsvah as
well; a strong sense of responsibility to connect the home and the public sphere
by way of the openness of the home to the "street," that is, making one's home
and family open to some degree as a refuge from the inevitable harshness of the
public sphere; a detailed attention to customs of civility as socially constructive
and as, therefore, religious duties; a commitment to voluntarily limit one's phys-
ical needs and to discourage excessive wealth in order to make a society in which
everyone can live; and, finally, a halakhic commitment to make conflict resolution
into a social mitsvah, a mitsvah of bakesh shalom ve'radfehu,78 "seeking peace and
pursuing it," literally a mitsvah to go and seek out other people's conflicts to
solve. This last mitsvah is particularly potent as a vehicle through which to ad-
vocate conflict resolution training in even the most fundamentalist contexts.

Conflict Management, Resolution, and Reconciliation:

The Ideal Jewish Peacemaker

Some of the most important constructs of conflict resolution in numerous rab-

binic sources are expressed by midrashic metaphor. The rabbis make the biblical
figure Aaron, the high priest and brother of Moses, into the paradigmatic peace-
maker.79 There are a variety of motivations for the rabbis to do this, some in-
volving the inner logic of biblical hermeneutics and others involving a contem-
poraneous antiviolence critique of priestly Judaism embedded in the
counterexample of Aaron.80
It is also significant that the rabbis do not speak about conflict resolution
abstractly but do so by installing those values in a particular personality. This
raises some important issues, for further study elsewhere, about whether the field
of conflict resolution has focused too much on skills and not enough on the
formation of character, namely, the ideal personality of the peacemaker. Religion
focuses heavily on role modeling and on the development of moral character.
More reflection is required on whether this is simply a different way to attain the
same goal as conflict resolution training that focuses on objective skills, or
whether there is something that these paradigms can learn from each other. Here
is a classic instance of Aaron as a model of peacemaking:

And thus when two men were in a conflict, Aaron would go and sit with
one of them. He would say to him, "My son, look at your friend, [look at
what he is saying], he is tearing at his heart and ripping his clothing. He
says, 'Woe is me, how can I lift my eyes and see my friend. I am ashamed
before him, for it is I who wronged him.' " And he [Aaron] would stay
with him until he removed all of the jealous rage from his heart. And Aaron
would then go to the other man, and say, "My son, look at your friend,
[look at what he is saying], he is tearing at his heart and ripping his cloth-
ing. He says, 'Woe is me, how can I lift my eyes and see my friend. I am
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 183

ashamed before him, for it is I who wronged him.' " And he [Aaron] would
stay with him until he removed all of the jealous rage from his heart.
And when the two would finally meet, they would hug and kiss each
other.81

Another version has Aaron saying everything said above but with the added words
to each adversary, "Now go, with your compassion, and ask forgiveness from
him."82

Humility and Self-Abnegation as Conflict Resolution

The context of this story is a religious universe in which the high priest has the
most elevated status in the community. Furthermore, his ritual purity is more
important than anyone else's purity, because he regularly represents the com-
munity in the most sacrosanct realms of the Temple. For the rabbis to make this
figure into a model of intervention into the crass problems of interpersonal con-
flict is extraordinary. Thus a key element here is the humility and even self-
abnegation of the intermediary.
Humility embedded in the character of the peacemaker is seen in rabbinic
thought as a major component of peacemaking:

There is no one who is more humble of spirit than the peacemaker. Think
about it, how can a person pursue peace if he is not humble? How so? If
a man curses him [when seeing him], he says back to him, "Hello [peace
to you]." If a person fights with him, he is silent.83 Furthermore, if two
people are fighting, he swallows his own pride [depresses his spirit] and
goes to appease one, and then to appease the other.84

Further proof of this rabbinic theme is found in an extraordinary story about

Rabbi Meir (c.ys-ijo C.E.), one of the greatest scholars of Jewish history. He was
delivering lectures, and a married woman came to hear him speak. One lecture
went late, and by the time the woman got home, the candles in the house had
already gone out. The husband was so incensed that he would not let her back
into the house until she spit in the rabbi's face! There are many interesting issues
to deconstruct in this story. There were men at the time that hated the rabbis as
intellectual elitists, and in this story, this resentment was probably compounded
with the classic male jealousy when women dare to know more than men do,
especially when they learn from another man. Thus, there is an intellectual/pop-
ular conflict here to which the rabbi is a party in an important way. He and his
class have caused some of this marital tension, though clearly the husband's re-
action is seen by the rabbis to be unreasonable and sinful. Justice or righteousness
appears to be on the side of the woman and the rabbi, but peace certainly is not.
The great rabbi has just created a domestic war.
Rabbi Meir's response is to go to the neighborhood of the woman, who has
been out of her own home for days and quite distraught. He asks her if she knows
 184 Paradigms of Religion Peacemaking

how to do incantations over an eye that is ailing. He pretends to have an eye

ailment. When she cannot recall an incantation for eyes, he tells her not to worry,
and, based on his authority as a rabbi, he assures her that if she just spits seven
times in his eye he will be cured. And, so the story goes, this leads to reconcili-
ation with her husband.
This is a tale, true or mythical, taken from a simple context on one level.
However, as with all Jewish hermeneutic learning, it forms the basis of deeper
thought about complex moral dilemmas. Rabbi Meir is a deeply involved third
party, with great power due to his spiritual position, who deliberately lowers
himself to make peace. This story, then, is meant to critique a certain elite, priests
or rabbis, who may think that peacemaking is beneath them.
More important, the actions of the third party are a critical role model for
the conflicting parties. They demonstrate that the mediator must be prepared to
lose a little face in order to do something sublime, something spiritual, a mitsvah.
In so doing, in both cases, Aaron and Rabbi Meir prepare the parties for a crucial
and difficult stage of conflict resolution or, more specifically, reconciliation, which
usually involves swallowing a little pride, losing a little face. It is usually impos-
sible to arrive at a settlement and, even more deeply, to achieve some reconcili-
ation unless there is some surrender of previously held positions. This involves a
loss of pride. Furthermore, reconciliation generally involves a certain level of
remorse, which again entails a psychological loss of pride or face. This, I suggest,
is a crucial psychological juncture for conflict resolution that is often overlooked.
We know it must happen, but we underestimate the psychological challenge to
the parties. We therefore underestimate the inducements and cultural models that
may be necessary in order for them to reach this stage of peacemaking. The
rabbinic paradigm suggests that, in addition to making compromise and remorse
into a high spiritual accomplishment, the third party may be essential in provid-
ing a model of this excruciating task. The more upright or honorable a figure
the third party is in his own right, the more powerful the model will be for
change in the parties. The more that this dignified individual is willing to humble
himself, the more powerful the model of peacemaking. This means that the psy-
chological strength and moral character of the peacemaker/mediator is an essen-
tial element in conflict resolution.85

The Rabbinic Mediator and the Contemporary Model

This is a profoundly different role than the typical Western concept of the neutral,
emotionally distant mediator whose skills are central but whose character or per-
sonal values are irrelevant.86 Rabbi Meir deeply involves himself but in compli-
cated ways. He clearly acts on the moral belief that marriages should be saved
wherever possible. He clearly sympathizes with the wife but is sufficiently respect-
ful of the husband's domain to not challenge the latter's mean-spirited behavior.
Rather, he will find a way to reconcile them in some other fashion; he will even
satisfy the need of the husband for some kind of revenge against a rabbi. The
latter is one of the more astonishing elements of Meir's strategy.
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 185

There is much to reflect on here and many problems with taking too literally
these rabbinic methods, which after all come from a civilization of two thousand
years ago. But it raises for me the question of whether our rational, or at least
prosocial, methods of face-to-face engagement in dialogue, which are meant to
produce a loving engagement between old enemies, really address the rage that
is inside people in conflict. Perhaps by ignoring the need to satisfy this rage we
are ignoring one reason why our methods fail so often. Do we need to consider
methods that can help parties to a conflict release their anger more productively?
Are we afraid of the process of playing at victory and revenge, which may help
save some face even as parties agree to reconcile? If we reject this as barbaric,
then why do we embrace the Olympics, which have always functioned in this
way? I leave this as an open question for now.
We also must consider the evolving role of the mediator/peacemaker in con-
temporary culture. There is an ongoing debate about whether neutrality is a
figment of the imagination and whether the mediator should be more or less
directive as far as the values that he shares with the parties. There is also debate
about whether a third party should strictly facilitate and mediate or whether he
should guide the parties to a moral transformation of themselves and their rela-
tionships.87 Clearly there are many actors today who are engaging in a variety of
models of intervention in conflicts.
It seems clear from this rabbinic model that deep involvement that is some-
what directive combined with a deliberate expression of vulnerability on the part
of the mediator is crucial. Although it should be noted that in the primary version
of the Aaron story, Aaron never says to the parties what they should do. He
listens and evokes, albeit in a rather intense fashion. In the minor version, he
does direct the parties to have compassion and forgive but not coercively, and
only after he has helped the adversaries through an emotional transformation that
makes them ready to have compassion. Furthermore, it must be said that this is
a method that is internal to a culture in which the priest or rabbi has great moral
authority. Such daring behavior could backfire if this were naively applied to
contemporary intercultural and international efforts, where there is no common
respected authority or agreed-upon system of values and, most important of all,
no substratum of cultural trust. It will take time and creativity to glean the best
from this rabbinic model without blindly applying its methods to unprecedented
situations.

Listening and the Suspension of Time Constraints as

Conflict Resolution

Another key element in Aaron's method is empathic listening.88 The details of the
story indicate that he speaks but also that he stays with each person for an
extensive period of time: "until he removed all of the jealous rage from his heart."
This combination of listening, staying with someone who is enraged, and having
an open-ended time frame seems to be crucial to conflict resolution in traditional
cultures in general. One is struck, for example, by the difference in time that the
 186 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

elders in Somalia spent in retreat on resolving their country's conflicts in contrast

to the official diplomatic time frames.89 Traditional societies, in general, have a
vastly different conception of time.
The ideal Jewish peacemaker's path, as seen from the Aaron and Rabbi Meir
stories, involves the development of a pious or moral character worthy of respect,
the conscious creation of role models of peacemaking, purposeful acts of humility
that sometimes involve personal sacrifice or loss of face, active or empathic lis-
tening, a method of helping people work through destructive emotions, and,
finally, the gift of abundant if not unlimited time.

Unilateral Gestures of Aid as Conflict Resolution

A critical and unique strategy of Jewish conflict resolution with biblical roots
suggests an alternative approach to the typical focus on dialogue of conflict res-
olution theory. It does not call into question the importance of communication
to conflict resolution, but it does suggest that there are forms of communication
other than dialogue. The principal source for this is the biblical mitsvah to help
your enemy when he is faltering with a burden.90 There are a variety of rabbinic
rationales for this as a conflict resolution device.91 Essentially, it involves what I
have termed "the positive uses of cognitive dissonance." The rabbis suggested
that enemies have certain set understandings of each other, which play vital roles
in their commitments to hate each other. Conflict resolution theory concurs with
this.92 The purpose of this mandated change in behavior is to create cognitive
dissonance, to shatter the conception of the enemy. This leads, in turn, to a moral
sense of regret inside the person who is the recipient of the unilateral gesture of
physical aid from the enemy. He decides that he really misunderstood his enemy
or that his enemy really is not an enemy: "He could not be if he did this for
me." In other words, it is designed to shatter the false image of the enemy and
to make more complex the real person behind the image.
It is also, I would argue, a perfect way to make justice and peace work together
as a conflict resolution strategy, rather than be at odds with each other.93 But it
does require great skill and patience. A simplistic belief that such gestures would
or should work after one time is foolish and will cause a backlash. Unilateral
gestures of aiding those who are suffering require repeated and surprising inno-
vations. The whole point of cognitive dissonance is that it is undoing something
that is deeply entrenched and causing great anxiety, and it will only result in a
new emotive homeostasis after a great deal of time and struggle.
To take an example, it would take repeated and extensive gestures of Israelis
working in Arab and Palestinian villages to build good, permanent homes be-
fore it became clear that there were Israelis who understood the Palestinian de-
mand for justice and were serious about their desire for reconciliation and co-
existence. It would take repeated gestures of religious Israelis making donations
to the upkeep of mosques before it would sink in that there were many reli-
gious Israelis who did not see all Muslims as enemies. It would take repeated
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 187

Palestinian offers of condolences, visits, and gestures of comfort toward Israeli

victims of bombs for it to sink in that not all Arabs wanted those bombs to go
off. It would take many Islamic gestures of hospitality to make religious Jews
believe that they are finally welcome back to the Middle East as permanent res-
idents. These bilateral gestures, over time, could create a far greater moderate
middle than exists currently in Israel and the West Bank. This, in turn, would
shift the population matrix undergirding the rejectionism of various political
parties.
This method is the only real way that political or religious leaders ever make
courageous gestures for peace, but they must not get too far ahead of the mood
of their people if they want to stay in power or even stay alive. They need the
people to change first. Peace processes that operate with the illusion that absolute
power emerges from the top of society are inherently weak. The methods that I
suggest here could gently move people toward the moderate middle, which would,
in turn, provide the political space for leaders, religious or secular, to make the
necessary compromises.

Reconciliation and Transformation:

The Processes of Teshuva

As we move into conflict transformation, namely, those interhuman strategies or

actions that lead to a transformation of relationship from enemy to friend or
from one who is hated to one who is loved, we reach a plateau that often conflict
resolution never attains. As difficult as this is, and as infrequent as it may be, it
is nevertheless a desirable goal with rich rewards. In certain cases, unless there is
transformation rather than simple, legalistic settlements, the deep-seated prob-
lems will reassert themselves in some fashion, despite the conflict settlements. In
Jewish terms, this is best expressed by the question and answer: "Who is the
strongest of the warriors?... He who turns one who hates him into one who
loves him."94 What sort of strategies can truly make such a profound transfor-
mation of relationship?
There is a process for Jewish transformation, roughly coming under the rubric
of teshuva, which can mean "repentance" but also means literally "returning" or
"turning toward." The prophets say in the name of God at one point, "Turn
toward me [shuvu eylay], and I will turn toward you [ve'ashuva aleikhem]"
(Zech.1:3). There is a covenantal mutuality built into the concept of teshuva, and
it applies to both the human/divine form of teshuva and to the interhuman
process of teshuva for wrongs done and relationships broken.
There are a number of elements to the ideal form of teshuva. First and fore-
most, teshuva cannot replace restitution. In other words, restitution must precede
or accompany the process of conflict transformation if there have been real dam-
ages that require restitution. Beyond financial or physical restitution, however,
the restorative aspect of teshuva must take place. This is where justice and peace
have to work together, or they will not work at all.
 188 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

The restorative or conciliatory stage of teshuva ideally involves a confession

of wrongdoing.95 It is ideal if this confession, if it involves wrongs to other human
beings, be done in public.96 Joseph Karo (1488-1575) added that the public con-
fession convinces the wronged party that the change in his adversary is authentic
and thus he forgives him.97 Other elements of the teshuva process involve, ac-
cording to the talmudic rabbis, the giving of charity (always a standard of Jewish
penance),98 a change in one's name or identity (and, some argue, even a change
in one's place), and, last but not least, crying.99 Maimonides clarified that all of
these practices and emotional states are elements of authentic change, and he
even recommends that a person cognitively dissociate from his own prior self by
saying, "I am another person, and I am not the person who did those things."
Maimonides continues, "And he changes his deeds completely to the good and
to the straight path, and he exiles himself from his current place. For exile atones
for sin, because it makes him to be humble and low of spirit."100
Thus, there are four basic stages of teshuva. There is restitution. There is an
expression of deep remorse (harata); a detailed confession, private or public, of
what one has done (vidui); and there is finally a commitment to change in the
future, to the point of even changing one's identity (kabbalah le-haba).
The teshuva model of reconciliation has some interesting implications when
speculating on the application of this internal and interpersonal process to com-
plex intergroup, interethnic, and international conflict. We must save a detailed
analysis for a larger study, but a few points are in order. It is interesting to note
that, almost unconsciously, collective groups, such as postwar Austrians, postwar
Japanese, and Americans in response to Native American genocide or to non-
American casualties of the war in Southeast Asia, when faced with great shame
over actions of their group in the past, have a tendency to invent a new prosocial
identity. They act as if the past did not exist, or as if the past were some strange
aberration dominated by a few chosen, demonized individuals, scapegoats if you
will. It is a reinvention of collective memory.101 Social critics universally perceive
this as an inauthentic cover-up, a lack of honest confrontation with the past, a
hypocrisy that is bound to recreate the problem in the future.
Viewed from the perspective of the teshuva process just described, this is an
unfair characterization. Groups tend naturally to do precisely what teshuva rec-
ommends for true transformation, namely, moving toward a new definition of
collective self. The tendency is not wrong or hypocritical. Rather it is incomplete,
which is a profoundly different sort of criticism, which leaves the door open for
positive change. The full confession stage is missing, the deep remorse, and the
critical apology is often missing or grossly inadequate. This is usually due to deep
insecurity that the new self is really authentic and a fear that a full confrontation
with the past could easily puncture the new identity.
In moving groups forward, as far as peacemaking is concerned, one should
not criticize the reformulation of self-image. Rather, one should encourage the
more complete process of transformation and reconciliation that the enemy party
or the injured party requires. This involves remorse, confession that is full and
complete, and a reinvention of identity, although the way to do this successfully
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 189

requires greater study and experimentation. This same process will be essential
some day as Jewish Israelis search for a new identity in the context of confron-
tations with the past, with 1948, and many other things. The research presented
here is meant precisely to provide a framework for how to do this in a way that
does not destroy a basis for an idealized collective self.
A legitimate critique of this approach might be that groups or individuals can
only move forward into prosocial behavior when they take true ownership over
their complete character, including the side of them that is antisocial, which some
people unfortunately refer to as their "dark" side. I think that this is a subject
worthy of greater study and research. My own impression from training people
in conflicts from twenty countries is that a good concept of the collective self
seems vital to prosocial behavior. We seem to need to feel that our group, our
religious community, is inherently good, with occasional aberrations. While it is
true that this kind of idealization often leads to ultranationalist or chauvinist
views of the world, it is equally true that it produces extremely righteous and
even heroic peacemaking behavior in many people. They see the goodness of their
collective self, group, or religion as deeply embedded in the foundations of who
they are and why they make peace with Others.
My own mentor, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, often would make the distinction
in his oral discourses between the Jewish people and the House of Israel (knesset
yisroel). He would, rather subtly, engage his religious audiences with the latter
term as the one referring to an idealized people who are in love with God and
beloved by him, as a people with a great destiny who are capable of teaching
God's Torah to the world by example and witness. But this was so subtle a
message that I wonder how many of his listeners understood that as a teacher,
philosopher, and political leader, he was quite committed to criticizing the be-
havior of individual Jews, even the behavior of the state of Israel, despite the risks
that this entailed for him. This ability to both idealize and criticize, to love and
rebuke his people, was due to his critical theological and psychological distinction
of the ideal collective self and the real collective group. Many did not understand
this subtle distinction, either because they chose to ignore it or because he did
not say emphatically enough what he meant. In either case, despite the failings,
there is an interesting model at work here for how groups can be encouraged to
engage in self-criticism while still building an ideal collective self. But it should
be noted that it is easy, too easy, to get a group to listen to its own idealization,
while one constantly flirts with repudiation as one criticizes them. This is a del-
icate balancing act—love and rebuke—that is critical to building a community
that is both honest about its shortcomings and peaceful.102

Apology and Forgiveness as a Culmination of the

Teshuva Process

There has been much discussion about the value of forgiveness in conflict reso-
lution. For the most part, it seems to me that this has been a heavily Christian
 190 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

discussion for Christian contexts, without the recognition of it as such. Forgive-

ness is a centerpiece of the metaphysical reality of Christianity. Why Christian
culture would see forgiveness as central to conflict resolution is perfectly under-
standable. On the other hand, this is not a universal position even among Chris-
tian thinkers. Furthermore, the meaning and uses of forgiveness in the world's
cultures are complex affairs that only occasionally resemble the Christian discus-
sion.
From my research, it would seem that forgiveness can only play a crucial role
in conflict resolution when it is made less simplistic and when it is placed in the
context of individual cultures. It does occur in many cultures and can play a vital
role in some circumstances. But what it means and how it is acted upon varies
greatly. It also can and does interact in complicated ways with competing moral
and spiritual responses, such as commitments to truth, justice, apology, repen-
tance, and penance, among others. Clearly, it plays a role in Jewish forms of
reconciliation but only when embedded in the teshuva process, which is either
unilateral or bilateral depending on what injuries have been sustained by conflict.
As far as the application of this approach to forgiveness and apology, I wonder
how powerful a teshuva apology process could be on a much larger scale, involv-
ing massive injury, murder, or genocide. Surely, it would be a deeper process
than simple payment for losses incurred, restitution, or the indictment of selected
representatives of the war criminals. The latter is all the international community
has been able to orchestrate when it comes to genocide until now, and all that
this really even attempts to satisfy are the demands of justice, and it usually fails
at that also. Indeed it has to. Who could construct an appropriate restitution for
the loss of one's family, one's world? It seems to me that victim communities,
and their tormentors, need to do much more in order to transform the past and
present into a redemptive future.103
The sites of war, mass graves, and past horrors are critical here. They are places
that do not just deserve memorials. They should be places in which confessions,
apologies, and restitutions are made on an ongoing basis, not in order to inject
a sense of self-loathing into former aggressors. On the contrary, it is to free
everyone to develop a new sense of self, to mourn the past together with the
victims, regularly, in order to foster a new future. I had a hand in creating one
such ceremony in Switzerland, and it was a good beginning, although only a
beginning. I have also been told by various African peacemakers, among them
Hugo van der Merwe and Hizkias Assefa, that such symbols and ceremonies are
numerous in African reconciliation. They have yet to be cataloged and analyzed
and certainly await discovery by the international community of peacemakers and
diplomats. Greater attention to this may help hasten the end of numerous in-
tractable conflicts in Africa.
Returning to the Jewish community, I was struck recently by a letter in a
Jewish newspaper. The author, a religious friend of mine, had worked with one
of the investigative commissions on the Swiss banks and had done a great deal
of research on the Nazi gold issue. The Jewish community was particularly in-
censed by anyone who aided the Nazis to sell the gold that they had stolen from
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 191

the victims. Pondering the issue after the conclusion of his research, my friend
decided to write a letter calling on the Swiss government to take all the gold that
it got from the Nazis and bury it. Yes, bury it.104
From a pragmatic and rational point of view, it was a rather bizarre suggestion,
but it captured my imagination as a clue to hidden things. Over time, I began
to make sense of it psychologically and spiritually from two vantage points. First,
the obligation to personally see to the burial of loved ones is central to Jewish
mourning, as it is to many indigenous peoples. Some of the gold came from the
teeth of the millions of dead Jews and should have been buried as parts of them.
It is that gold that, I am convinced without a doubt, weighs most heavily on the
imagination and the religious conscience of survivors, even though it is kept quiet,
as all dark nightmares are. Second, my friend was expressing an intuitive desire,
not for the money but for penance, penance from an entire civilization, which
had reduced the value of these precious men, women, and children to the gold
in their mouths. What better way to do penance than to bury the very thing that
was made more valuable than those human beings, who can never be replaced?
What better statement that what we are engaged in is not just pragmatic, utili-
tarian restitution, but rather that we are engaged in an authentic process of te-
shuva? This, I believe, was his instinctive, cultural/religious motivation in making
this suggestion. This is the kind of thinking and feeling that should be the basis
of deeper discussions among enemy groups, particularly groups that have suffered
massive injury. And it needs to take place with the involvement of as many people
as possible, not just the elites, who may, for one reason or another, focus too
narrowly on economic restitution, rather than on other forms of restitution and
restoration. I have found in my trainings that genius in healing is often found in
the variety and diversity of the people included, who are empowered to articulate
their insights.

Gender Identity and Conflict Resolution

One subde but critical feature of Jewish conflict transformation and reconciliation
involves the issue of gender and conflict. It is self-evident that, in much of human
civilization, men are associated with the aggressive roles of hunter/gatherer and
warrior and identified with the cold calculus of war and rational advantage.
Women are commonly associated with peaceful characteristics, including a con-
stitutional abhorrence of violence, an embrace of emotional empathy, and a
strong tendency to interact with others in a deeper, more intuitive fashion.
There are numerous instances in which rabbinic Judaism specifically couched
Jewish maleness in allegedly female form.105 "Who is a warrior [gibbor]? He who
conquers his evil side" is one such example. Another example, and the most
important for our topic, was mentioned earlier: "Who is the strongest of the
warriors?... He who turns one who hates him into one who loves him."106 This
was a clearly subversive effort to undermine the biblical presentation of gibbor in
terms of physical strength.107
 192 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

I mention this here because it seems to me that there are a series of charac-
teristics that are critical to successful conflict resolution that have been tradition-
ally associated with the feminine in the West. These include the passive quality
of listening rather than holding forth, the ability to empathize with all sides, the
capacity to help people through their pain, the ability to nurture those who are
sick and angry, the willingness to help people out of violence by showing them
love, and many more characteristics that are typical of the truly heroic peace-
makers of our century. It strikes me as dangerous if these characteristics continue
to be seen as strictly female. It certainly is helpful in the evocation of these
characteristics from women. But if we persist as a global culture in identifying
these characteristics as exclusively female, then we certainly shall lose the majority
of men as peacemakers. They are after all the principals of war and violence, and
they ask themselves regularly, consciously or unconsciously, "Am I a true man?
Do I have courage? Am I a heroic man in some way?" Many peacemaking men
that I know, ask themselves this constantly, due to the predominant image of the
male, and this often causes them to abandon their own best instincts and engage
in angry, aggressive behavior. If being a peacemaker cannot be an answer to the
question "Am I a heroic man?" then we lose the very people who need the identity
of peacemaker to be internalized. Here I think that traditional religions have some
interesting things to say, and I certainly believe that rabbinic Judaism may be
teaching an important point about how we generate both men and women who
see their identity fulfilled through peacemaking.

Vision, Hope, and Celebration as Conflict Resolution

One of the attractive elements in violent interpretations of religion is actually the

hope generated by various myths of what the end of time will bring. Fear of and
uncertainty about the future is one of the most anxiety-inducing elements of
human life, especially where there is violent conflict. Often, apocalyptic views of
the end of history involve one's enemies or the "enemies of God"—which often
are identical—being punished. One's own group of the righteous are vindicated,
saved, and experience unparalleled joy and great comfort for the arduous and
tragic path that has led up to this final denouement of history.
A truly viable form of conflict resolution must address this deep human need
for future vision, for a hoped-for vindication, for comfort that is provided by the
future. Indeed, there must be celebration and anticipation that is a part of the
life of those committed to peace. Peacemaking strategies do not necessarily have
to include the idea of apocalypse in the future. But it seems clear that vision and
unleashing a person or group's longing for vision is a powerful and empowering
undertaking. Vision is the antidote to the obsession with the past. It cannot
replace the mourning that we have described earlier, nor should it try. But it can
complement it in important ways.
There has not been sufficient attention paid to the power of vision in secular
peacemaking, although there are secular visions of the future that are appealing
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 193

to some and appalling to others. For example, Shimon Peres's vision of a future
Middle East that is economically prosperous, perfectly integrated, and democratic
sounds wonderful. But many religious people in the Middle East, both Jewish and
Arab, hear in his words a vision of a future that eliminates their identities, a
vision of materialism where the spiritual and moral life are irrelevant. Indeed, it
is on that score that Peres's vision is ridiculed the most in the Orthodox part of
Israel, although the Zionist vision has always been of the Jewish people slowly
shedding its religious, exilic identity and "normalizing," becoming like other
nations. It is vital, then, that communities in conflict be able to envision a future
in which both may live, and it is vital that they celebrate that future together.
Celebration is another basic religious impulse that has often been missing from
secular constructs of peacemaking. Celebration is a critical human need, and it
is therefore a basic religious category of law and ritual. This too must enter into
the construction of peacemaking in order to appeal to the broadest spectrum of
people.
A friend of mine, quite secular and very astute psychologically, once got lost
on his way to a peace demonstration in Jerusalem. He stumbled instead into
another demonstration. He was astonished by the fact that at one there was
dancing, singing, and passion, while at the other, the peace demonstration, there
were speeches, and only more speeches, the telltale signs of a liberal, intellectual
elite cut off from the human needs of average people. The demonstration that
he stumbled into was a Meir Kahane demonstration. This must change if peace-
making is to go to the heart of the average person and her needs. Religious
contributions to peacemaking can readily help this, if the alliance of religious and
secular peacemakers is done well.

Limitations of Religious Conflict Resolution

There is one major caveat to the construction of conflict resolution or the ethics
of conflict prevention out of traditional religion. In most traditional worlds that
I have studied, these conflict prevention values are to be extended to fellow be-
lievers in good standing only, or are to be extended only as a means of making
people convert or change from who they are. That leaves out of one's ethical
construct most of the population of the world, who do not plan on changing. I
argue that this same limitation applies to the other monotheistic universalist
traditions, such as Christianity and Islam. Despite the fact that many Christians,
for example, quite laudably see and have seen in the past their ethical values
extending to everyone, that is not how things have played out in many cases.
Historically, if you were not saved through Christ, then you could easily be treated
as different or inferior, in the best of circumstances, and in many tragic circum-
stances, dehumanized altogether.
This is the great danger that all religious traditions must face. In Judaism,
there are ways in theory that this can be overcome, and in practice it is overcome
in some circumstances. This is something that can be worked on if and only if
 194 Paradigms of Religious Peacemaking

there is greater trust that develops between secular and religious people commit-
ted to conflict resolution. Then religious adherents can develop the skills necessary
to encourage this hermeneutic growth within Jewish tradition. Indeed, we have
seen steady progress on this, with regard to attitudes toward gentiles and women
in Judaism, when and only when there is a respectful but powerful interaction
between secular, democratic values and a serious investigation of Jewish tradition.
This can and will lead to envisioned constructs of civil society in which cultural
and religious values can play a positive role but do not in any way threaten the
rights and independence of other religious groups or secular individuals and
groups. This was part of the dialogue that was being engaged in 1997 between the
Israeli Orthodox party Me'imad and members of the political party the Third
Way, for example. Other efforts should continue and multiply but they are ham-
pered by the deepening hatred among Orthodox, non-Orthodox, and secular Jews
in Israel and a desperation in all groups to protect their interests, needs, and
place in the future of the country. No one group feels secure about its future or
its safety in the long run.
Essentially, after all of the internal work on a religious tradition and its possible
relationship to conflict resolution is done, the most important question facing
the interaction of religion and conflict resolution theory is the multicultural,
multireligious, and secular nature of most contemporary social settings. Religious
traditions, such as Judaism, tend to operate in their theological and moral con-
structs as if no other system exists. This means that, as we think about these
traditions in pragmatic terms, it must be remembered that we study religious
peacemaking not in order to suggest an imposition of those traditions on society.
Rather, we do this in order to creatively interact with those who are religious, to
be prepared to creatively integrate prosocial religious traditions with secular, dem-
ocratic constructs or with constructs from other religions and cultures. Further,
we do this in order for the secular community to have the courage and humility
to learn from the religious community as well.
What I mean by learning is that the first stage of elicitive work with other
communities,108 with engaging religious people who are in conflict, is a thorough
grounding in what currently exists in their worldview. Second, we should explore
what could potentially exist in that community from a theological and moral point
of view. This is a process that involves careful preparation and a strong knowledge
base for the intervener. But it also entails extraordinary openness to the ways in
which the communities themselves can evoke from their own traditions the skills
necessary to make peace.
Any deep conflict resolution to prevent a civil war in Israel between religious
and secular is going to have to involve a relationship-building process with the
ultra-Orthodox, haredi community. This group is deeply separatist and in such a
different reality than most Israelis that it will take great skill and, I believe, an
elicitive method, to span the gap between them and many leading Israeli intel-
lectuals and leaders, who are often vehemently antireligious.
An authentic conflict resolution process would begin with extensive interviews,
inquiries into what the highest values are of all the communities, the deepest
 New Paradigms of Religion and Conflict Resolution 195

concerns, and the most pressing problems, the hopes and visions for the future,
and the attitudes toward outsiders. When I engage haredi leaders, this is how I
begin. I then ask them their insights as religious leaders on current events and
on the future, a critical avenue into conflict resolution discussion. In the process
of this kind of relationship building, based on my knowledge of their traditions,
I begin to ask probing questions about their enemies, about their interpretation
of the rabbinic values, stories, and laws that may be relevant to a constructive
approach to their adversaries. This is an approach that emphasizes humble learn-
ing and probing, not lecturing. Nevertheless, the probing must be intelligent and
informed. In Jewish religious life, trust is built on an extraordinary substratum
of common knowledge and cultural reference points, which an intervener ideally
should have. These reference points help the outsider enter into a private world
with respect and a demonstrated commitment not to harm or injure, authentically
seeking a peace that does not annihilate his interlocutors or their world. Above
all, no matter how intellectual the conversation, I always probe most deeply about
the injuries of the past, about the Holocaust, which looms over everything, in
their family histories. Nothing intellectual is as important as this.
Consequently, the purpose of writing this chapter is not to articulate an exact
blueprint of what must happen in Jewish life in terms of peacemaking. Secular
and non-Orthodox people will not simply submit to a form of conflict resolution
because it is rooted in Jewish law or texts. On the contrary, in a place like Israel,
the secular/religious antagonism is so deep that it could produce the opposite
effect. What I argue here is that digging deeply into old cultural constructs,
learning them well, and then translating them into actions and peace processes
that emanate from these old constructs often resonates with even the most secular
Jew or Israeli. Despite themselves perhaps, they still have many Jewish cultural
instincts about what is fair and unfair, what is effective and realistic, what speaks
to the core of their beliefs and what does not. It is here that building a theory
of peacemaking inspired by a religious tradition can have great effect, as long as
it is operationalized with great subtlety and respect for all parties to the conflict.
As far as the Orthodox are concerned, it is entirely likely that many, if not
most, will wince at many of the arguments made here. The purpose, then, is not
to "sell" a blueprint for Jewish peacemaking. The purpose is to engage in intel-
lectual constructs that will push the theological envelope, as it were, to suggest a
model and stimulate many responses, with the full expectation that Orthodox
representatives, as well as secular Israelis, will reject some of the model and rework
other parts. Some will reject it altogether. And some will rise to the challenge and
create their own model that really does provide for coexistence with non-
Orthodox Jews, gentiles, Arabs, and Palestinians. It is the same with stimulating,
by example, secular Israelis to come up with new models of coexistence with
other Jews, who do not share their secularism, by presenting a paradigm of deep
Jewish cultural commitments to peacemaking.
In conclusion, the development of a Jewish philosophy of conflict resolution
awaits a larger study. In some ways, this will be tied to the further development
of conflict resolution theory, particularly as the latter matures and becomes ready
to encompass and account for the vast range of human cultural and religious
experiences.
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IV

Conclusion
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 NINE

Systematic Recommendations for Intervention

in Contemporary Conflicts

T''he i.following conclusions can be drawn from our study:

Religion has a dual legacy in human history regarding peace
and violence. Both its contribution to violence and its contribution to prosocial
values and peacemaking need to be studied by scholars both inside and outside
the individual faiths with an eye to sharing this information as widely as possible.
This can then form the basis of theologies of peacemaking and, more pragmat-
ically, of creative strategies of conflict prevention and conflict resolution.
2. Conflict resolution theory regarding religious actors must examine their
complex ways of making decisions about conflict and peace, including the mixed
motivations typical of many actors in conflict, which are further complicated by
religious values and worldviews.
3. Universal commitments, such as human rights, may play a crucial role in
achieving international consensus on basic civic values, even among many reli-
gious liberals around the world. But this may not be a sufficient common de-
nominator for people who are defining their religiosity in opposition to universal,
secular values. Good conflict resolution strategy requires a method of reaching
out to even the most intractable and parochial religious adherents by engaging in
a serious examination of their values and culture.
4. A close examination of that culture can both prognosticate religious vio-
lence and yield prosocial intracommunal values that could be vital for conflict
resolution. The culture also must be studied with an eye to extending those values
intercommunally or outside the faith. We must examine what the challenges are
of doing this and who could authoritatively speak in favor of this process and
have a broad-based appeal.
5. Leadership in the religious world is both a bane and a boon in terms of
violence. This needs to be studied in conjunction with the analysis of leadership
that is emerging from the field of political psychology. If leaders are particularly
constrained by the extra burden of history that is embedded in and sanctified by
religion, and if they are always threatened by the accusation of heresy, we must
discover what can be done to allow leaders to subtly move a situation in a more

199
 2oo Conclusion

tolerant or peaceful direction. We need to examine what are the minimal steps
within each religious hierarchy that can be recommended or elicited that will give
permission to lower-level actors to proceed more boldly along a path of engage-
ment with enemies. Subtle changes at the helm of a hierarchy can create powerful
ripple effects at the bottom, releasing the creative energies of many courageous
actors who, while committed to the organized expression of their religion, are
waiting impatiently for permission to act.
6. There are numerous religious values among global religions, many yet to
be analyzed, that may provide indispensable tools in religious settings to engage
in conflict prevention, conflict management, compromise, negotiation, and rec-
onciliation. They should be studied, cataloged, and made available to all actors
in first-and second-track diplomacy. They will be subject to hermeneutical debate
inside traditional communities, but their usefulness as an adjunct aid in crises
involving religious actors seems clear. At least as important, there may be strat-
egies of peacemaking inspired by religious ethics and ways of interaction that can
be applied beyond the religious world and that will aid us in addressing a wider
variety of intractable conflicts. There is currently such an expanding number of
cultural and ethnic conflicts, whose characters closely resemble religious conflicts,
that religious methods of peacemaking, adjusted to different cultures, may have
a much broader impact if applied beyond the confines of strictly religious con-
flicts.
7. The history of interfaith and multifaith interactions should be studied from
the perspective of conflict resolution theory. There may be successful stages of
interfaith interaction that may be replicable and generalizable to a wide range of
global conflicts involving religion. There may also be a long history of interfaith
blunders that may be avoidable with the help of a critique from conflict resolution
theory.
8. The analysis of a conflict involving religion should never impose from above
a set of religious values. Solutions need to emerge from an analysis of the unique
nature of every situation combined with a hermeneutical negotiation of the re-
ligious traditions affected by the conflict. This means that first-and second-track
diplomats must utilize their studies of religious peacemaking not in order to
impose some version of it reformulated by the interveners. Rather, the aim is to
prepare oneself to seize upon places of confluence between conflict resolution
and religious values and to be ready, by virtue of one's knowledge base, to col-
laboratively work with indigenous members of the conflicting groups. It is in this
collaboration and sharing of skills and knowledge that authentic and effective
methods of peacemaking could be discovered and tailored carefully to the cir-
cumstances.
9. Traditional jurisprudence in many cultures may provide ways to interpret
and reinterpret traditions in order to move religious legal institutions toward civil
virtues, such as human rights or democracy, as well as toward conflict resolution.
10. The problem of the scope of religious ethical concern, often limited to
only the faithful who are in good standing, needs to be confronted. A full analysis
of how each tradition has negotiated the reality of Others and outgroups is critical.
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 201

There is great potential to utilize ethical religious systems whose values contribute
more than a mere buttress for conflict resolution practice. The latter may be able
to deepen current conflict resolution practice as we currently define it by utilizing
religious ethical practices, but the far greater problem is the Othering process of
many religious ethical systems, which undo their good influence by eliminating
from the moral agents' purview the very groups that need most to be included
in the ethical system.1
11. There are some crucial dangers about religion in terms of conflict reso-
lution strategy. Naivete about religion can lead to disaster. Millions of people have
suffered in history and often been killed due to someone's interpretation of re-
ligion that combined in complex ways with political and military force. Just
because secular society has reached certain impasses in the negotiation of conflict
does not mean that solutions to societal problems should be automatically laid
at religion's doorstep. One certainly should not enter into a complex situation
blindly siding with religious institutions without investigation of their work. There
is no reason at this juncture of history to reinvest organized religion with the
kind of power that led to so much religious warfare in the past. Rather, I suggest
here an artful design of cooperation, with secular institutions and states drawing
upon the best traditions of religion in the search for peace without this cooper-
ation becoming a coercive force in the lives of citizens. The strategy is not to
invest religious people with power over others but rather to make them feel more
a part of a broad culture of peacemaking that respects and shares their values
wherever possible. Thus they come to have a stake in peacemaking in particular
and generally in the perpetuation of civil society.
Many religious ethical values both within and between cultures are bound to
contradict each other, most notably the often-conflicting values of peace and
justice. There are also other values, such as the appropriate use of shaming, which
may be used to justify publicly protesting unjust actions, "speaking truth to
power," as the Mennonites are fond of saying. The latter is a favorite method of
human rights advocates, but it is to be contrasted with the value of honoring all
human beings or unconditionally displaying love to all human beings, even those
you have judged to be oppressors.2 Conflict resolution strategists must be pre-
pared for this and must design strategies accordingly. This is part of a larger
problem with conflict resolution practice, which rarely acknowledges the ethical
complexity of and dilemmas posed by many conflict situations. The task in re-
ligious cultures would be to openly acknowledge the countervailing values relevant
to the situation and then work with the community or group toward an inter-
vention strategy that could best accommodate the countervailing values. For ex-
ample, justice may demand protest against a cruel course of action taken by some
senior members of a community, whereas honor demands the display of respect
for these same people. Conflict resolution practice could accommodate both by
finding ways to engage in a relationship-building process that does not ignore
the injustice but at least initially would avoid a public, dishonorable confronta-
tion. This would accomplish two things: it would give the indigenous values
unconditional worth, as religion does. But it would also positively affect outcome
 2O2 Conclusion

because it would avoid strategies of dishonoring, which only make the conflict
more destructive. It could also help the pursuit of justice avoid becoming a "re-
ligious football," with one side considering it religiously proper and the other
side calling it a heretical violation of other values. A carefully integrated conflict
resolution process could proceed apace without religion being used by either side
as a weapon against the other. Of course, there will always be rejectionists on
both sides who do use religion as a weapon, no matter what intervention is used.
However, a conflict resolution process that has incorporated religious sensibilities
and negotiated with both sides is far more likely to attract a broad level of
cooperation; which is critical to violence prevention or reduction and is also a
key step toward a negotiated settlement.
There is great danger in the future from religious institutions that have diffi-
culty recognizing the limits of proselytism or who have a problem theologically
with Others, who will not eventually convert. The only solution to this difficulty
is for each religion, especially the monotheisms, to evolve a new notion of mis-
sion, witness, and related concepts and practices.3 This need not affect the ulti-
mate aspirations of the religious group or its vision of some ideal future or of
heaven. Including someone in one's theology of otherworldly salvation is helpful
but not as essential as pragmatic rules of engagement for this world becoming
sacrosanct. This does mean a major adjustment of missionizing religions' global
practices in a world that is first, very crowded and, second, resentful of those who
do not respect other groups' beliefs or practices. The latter, by the way, includes
that large tribe of people today who feel that they have every right and respon-
sibility as enlightened citizens to focus their belief on the human being and on
science and not on a deity, namely, the secular community. Within religions,
particularly Christianity, where the proselytizing drive is perhaps the strongest
and most financially supported, this caveat needs to apply also to intra-Christian
relations, which are already courting disaster in places like Russia. History is
crucial to conflict analysis, and we must recall how many people have suffered
or died in the past due to Catholic/Orthodox, Protestant/Catholic, and liberal/
conservative Christian fighting. In fact, if we delve into the origins of anti-
Judaism, it really began as an intracommunal fight among the first Jews exposed
to Jesus. The tragic denouement of that anti-Judaism in European history is self-
evident. If we dig more deeply, we find this fighting present in the history of
most religions. It is critical, therefore, to evolve a theological and moral position
that offers the believer an opportunity to express those religious values that are
expansive or missionary, such as "bearing witness," in a way that does not put
the future of the global community in peril. Respect must also be given to indig-
enous groups and minority religions whose members have seared into their col-
lective memories the injury of assault on their cultural and religious integrity by
missionizing over the centuries. For them to continue to experience this assault
is not only cruel but also an invitation to destructive conflict.
12. The most hopeful and heroic stories of interreligious peacemaking emerge
from those rare individuals who possess a combination of deeply authentic ex-
pressions of their own religiosity together with an unconditional respect for or
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 203

love of nonbelievers as fellow human beings. This is a relatively rare combination

inside the religious personality, but it bears serious analysis in terms of how this
psychological and ideological disposition could be fostered among religious ad-
herents around the world. We must learn the cognitive and developmental roots
of such a position and what implications this has for religious childrearing and
education. The kind of moral development that leads a Gandhi to gladly respect
other people's faiths is crucial to our long-term strategies of conflict prevention.
As a species, we humans are learning more about development; and we now
know that emotions are critical to the development of our intelligence.4 Thus, it
may very well be that the key to the future is not just theological sophistication,
though that is important, but emotional training,5 so that we feel safe enough in
our own faith positions that we are not threatened by Others.6 Furthermore, there
seems to be some basic cognitive ability of special individuals to see themselves
as, say, Palestinians, but also Arabs, but also Muslims, but also human beings,
but also God's children, but also living creatures on a planet of billions of crea-
tures, and so on. And this knowledge at some deep emotional level precludes
them from dehumanizing anyone or devaluing any living thing. This capacity to
see ourselves in multiple identities seems to require a degree of emotional strength
and maturity that we must study further, for it may be the basis for the future
inculcation of belief structures that do not create a world of conflict. This harks
back to the theme in chapter 1: the need to integrate and merge versus the need
to be unique. It seems that these individuals have developed the capacity to live
comfortably within their own unique boundaries but also to reach out far beyond
their own boundaries. They do not just reach to the closest position to their own
but rather, solidly rooted in their own spiritual identities, they can travel anywhere
with an open, benign, even loving disposition, because they know exactly where
they ultimately belong. They no longer need to consume the universe in order
to find the joy of religious fulfillment. Metaphorically, they have discovered, or
made, their own Eden.

Recommendations

My recommendations are divided into three distinct categories: the religious

world, the world of policy formation, both governmental and nongovernmental,
and regional work.

The Religious World

Here I want to reiterate recommendations that I made in chapter 7 and add to
them. Religious communities7 need to:
1. have a firm spiritual foundation for engaging in peacemaking with all hu-
man beings, regardless of race, religion, or culture. The character and intensity
of that engagement with peacemaking, however, can legitimately vary based on
who the target of that engagement may be. In other words, the Serbian Orthodox
 204 Conclusion

church may indeed educate its believers to have some special level of love and
commitment to reconciliation with other members of the church without, how-
ever, this leading necessarily to conflict with outsiders. Special love and the de-
sire of all of us to be specially treated may be, as I have stated earlier, a basic hu-
man need that we dare not deny in the name of a liberal ideal. On the other
hand, what is essential is that the Serbian Orthodox church, for example, de-
velop and inculcate prosocial methods of engagement with nonmembers, even
with enemies, that is firmly rooted in Orthodox faith. The good treatment of the
outsider need not be identical to the treatment of the insider, but it needs to
have a clearly articulated spiritual foundation with accompanying skills of en-
gagement. Thus I am suggesting, responding to Volkan, that we do need to have
insiders and outsiders in our lives as human beings. We do need to distinguish
who we are and who we are not, what we believe and what we reject. But the
outsiders to ourselves only become internalized as enemies to be abused if we
are acculturated that way. We can satisfy the need for allies and insiders without
it necessarily leading to an identification of an enemy that must be abused. This
requires a careful coordination of basic prosocial childrearing that is warm and
affectionate8 from both mothers and fathers,9 combined with theological belief
constructs that buttress a prosocial view of outsiders. This has been one of the
central concerns of this volume, namely, the integration of values internally gen-
erated by and for the community with values directed toward outsiders. Marc
Ross cataloged the attitudes of more than 186 linguistically distinct groups in the
world toward violence and found that 60.9 percent valued violence against those
outside their society, while none valued violence against members of a local com-
munity. This is remarkable and demonstrates that the central task involves some
qualified extension of the concept of community, in which there are close, small
communities but also larger communities, such as the human community, of
which one is a part. There will always be preferential treatment for those one
knows and cares for, but this need not take the form of an extreme dualism.
Theology and religious practice must come to embrace a way of relating to the
world that involves care for immediate religious community but does not
require hatred of Others, that embraces both greater and lesser forms of com-
munity.10
2. have a method of engaging in conflict resolution that does not impose
its own theological assumptions on Others or that is at least prepared to ad-
just its methods as cultural and religious differences with outsiders become
apparent.
3. develop an articulated set of ethical foundations and institutional support
structures for peacemaking that make the work sustainable over long periods of
time and through trying circumstances and instill in the peacemaker a series of
values that will have her treat those in conflict as ends in themselves, as fellow
human beings to be engaged in authentic relationship, not as pawns in some
institutional desire for enlargement or empowerment.
4. generate a community that is capable of and prepared to support peace-
makers institutionally and interpersonally.
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 205

5. develop a reasonable way to deal with the inevitable and ongoing tension
of peacemaking, pursuit of justice, and other competing ethical values that are
critical to the construction of a civil society, such as civil rights.
6. develop the skills necessary to truly listen to another religious reality and
culture, to not be threatened by it, and to discover the spiritual resources to make
peace with those who are in a different theological universe.
7. learn how to integrate the development of a peacemaking method and phi-
losophy with the most authentic elements of their own spiritual tradition and to
combine this in a creative way with the best secular methods of understanding
and dealing with human conflict. This is a critical element because it seems that
much of the attractiveness of rejectionist and militarist religion is its look and
feel of authenticity, its easy fulfillment of identity needs at a deep level, especially
by use of the enemy Other to define one's uniqueness. One of the weaknesses of
the liberal expressions of many contemporary religions, which have been tolerant,
is their lack of fulfillment of these same needs. Liberal religion has tended to be
a party to the global materialist trend of the homogenization of peoples and
cultures. Religious militancy is a direct response to this assault on uniqueness
and the meaning that groups discover in their special forms of spirituality. Thus,
the discovery of a way to fulfill deep identity needs and simultaneously generate
and support a peacemaking orientation are the fundamental challenges of non-
militant religion.
8. develop myths and stories, or recover them from tradition, that can replace
darker myths of identity that are dependent on the existence of a demonic enemy
who defines the contours of the religious world and whose elimination is an
ultimate goal. One can discover dark mythological constructs of the world in
most religious/cultural expressions. I was struck by how central Serbian defeats
in history are to Serbian Orthodox constructs of reality." It reminded me of how
critical to the yearly life cycle of Judaism,12 Christianity,13 and Islam14 are events
that are catastrophic. Of course, they are always interpreted as leading in the end
to some larger redemptive goal, but the importance of remembered injury is
remarkable. Working with tragic religious symbols, which are often used in vi-
olent times to hate or destroy, is a daunting task but not as difficult as it might
seem to the outsider. For example, let us take the Christian focus on the devil.
If the devil or Satan is an indelible part of one's mythology, it is still open to
interpretation who the devil is or how he expresses himself. Gandhi once dis-
missively said, "The only real devils are those running around inside our heads
and hearts." In one subtle move, Gandhi, along with numerous rabbis and theo-
logians in history who have said similar things, took a hypostasized devil, which
could easily be confused with real people, and made it into an internal psycho-
logical struggle. This has obvious conflict prevention benefits. As another exam-
ple, I will pose a question. Is the Exodus story a prototypical story of the inev-
itable conflict between the "pagan" gods of Africa and the chosen people, with
an unstated need to utterly destroy pagan civilization an obvious lesson? Or is it
the story of how God comes to the aid of the defenseless? Is the violence per-
petrated exclusively by God's hand in order to teach human beings that only God
 206 Conclusion

should punish with violence, while human beings should never take it upon
themselves to punish a whole civilization, no matter how corrupt, in other words,
a pacifist tale par excellence? Or is it a lesson to the "saved" as to how to go
about utterly destroying, psychologically and physically, God's (your) enemies? All
these interpretations and many more have appeared in monotheistic literature,
with diametrically opposite historical consequences in terms of the treatment of
indigenous peoples by monotheists. There are numerous shades of the herme-
neutic picture here, and this is only one story! Thus, there is ample opportunity
for hermeneutic development of either a violent theology or a peaceful theology
and ethics.
9. train clerics at all levels in the methods of mediation and conflict resolution,
encouraging them to develop their own religious hermeneutical versions of these
skills.
10. discover a path to deep spiritual fulfillment that is not dependent on the
religious choices of other human beings. In other words, develop ways of fulfill-
ment that do not require the coercion of all Others to accept one's religion or
particular interpretations. This will require a subtle negotiation between that
which one can and should fight for in the public sphere as a good religious person
and that which is beyond the pale, which enters into a level of coercion and
violence to Others that flies in the face of the other values and priorities of one's
tradition. For example, one must expect that religious people have the right and
even responsibility to express their views about what a good education is or what
wars are legitimate or not or about the death penalty. These are basic issues of
life that affect everyone. But one can also expect that these arguments will include
a range of other religious values that govern the way in which one relates to
Others who disagree, such as honor, compassion, love, and forgiveness. All of
this, however, is very different from insisting that only Buddhist prayers be said
in a public setting, such as, for example, in the Sri Lankan parliament; this would
be an aggressive act, in this case, one that directly assaults the place of Tamils in
Sri Lankan society. It is vital to instill a sense of deep satisfaction with one's inner
life that is not dependent on proselytism. Of course, this last point requires that
religions start to tone down their institutional aspirations for supremacy over
other faiths by virtue of numerical superiority. It will require some degree of soul
searching in order to distinguish between authentic religious impulses of ministry,
service, teaching, and righting the wrongs of society versus the darker impulse of
organized religion to dominate by winning souls. It will require some deep psy-
chological analysis from each community, asking themselves the simple but pro-
found question: How many members is enough in order to make us feel com-
fortable that our faith and beliefs have a secure place in the future of humanity?
Put bluntly, I am calling for a theological end to the war for supremacy among
ever-expanding religions, a war that has lasted for millennia and that still goes
on, though presently nonviolently. I am calling for a new psychological founda-
tion for institutional fulfillment of obligations and dreams, one that focuses on
the internal quality of a community's life and values, not its corporate victory
over others.
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 207

The Policy World

The policy world of governmental and nongovernmental agencies is complicated
by competing concerns, many of which are quite laudable. I leave aside the motive
of global intervention that involves national interest and will address it later. The
policy world is deeply concerned with a range of vital human needs, and peace
is only one of them. Furthermore, it is a rather simplistic notion of peace that
does not include concern for human rights and social justice or a sustainable
environment, as I have noted earlier. The subtle weaving of peace, justice, and
concern for the environment, or all of sentient life, is something that can be seen
in many if not most religious traditions, though differences of emphasis and
priority abound.
None of the strategies listed below in any way call into question a principled
commitment to generating globally a greater commitment to the basic patterns
of a civil society, including basic human freedoms and rights and the acknow-
ledgment of the worth of each human being regardless of race, class, or religion.
However, in many parts of the world there is no consensus on the foundations
of a civil society. Often the conflicts involve precisely the struggle over gaining
basic civil liberties. Given the deep rupture in a society that this causes it is all
the more urgent for policymakers to develop an integrated strategy of interven-
tion. We must not, for example, help build a civil society only to have it destroyed
by embroiling it in a war with organized religion or, alternatively, allow repressive
expressions of religion to run so rampant that a civil society becomes impossible.
We must generate the coexistence of religious life of all kinds and the growth of
civil society. The details of how this integration would be implemented are the
greatest challenges of all. Here are a few recommendations.

From Analysis to Policy Formation 1. Study the fears and resentments that gen-
erate religious worldviews that are opposed to contemporary constructs of a civil
society and create policies that, at the least, do not exacerbate those fears.
2. Study causal chains that link religious violence to events both internal to
religious traditions and external to them, such as economics or mass traumas, as
a prerequisite to policy formation.
3. Be familiar with the religious traditions affected by policy or interventions,
and do not delegate this exclusively to outside consultants or lower-level opera-
tives. The generation of policy, on the one side, and, on the other, the knowledge
of those affected by that policy should go on in the same mind and heart. This
is far too critical an issue for there not to be an integration of analysis, policy
recommendations, and feedback from the field. One of the greatest dangers is the
initiation of a policy that does not anticipate its effect on religious life, on its
institutions, and its power bases.

Coalescence of Policy Objectives and Prosocial Religious Values 1. Study how and
when religion or religious figures have effected profound social transformation in
 2o8 Conclusion

a positive sense in that culture and then invest in people and programs that
reinforce those directions.
2. Study the highest expressions of a religion or culture's ethical constructs
and let them guide you to a carefully framed set of policies for intervention, or
nonintervention, that coalesce with or parallel those values. This kind of coales-
cence should not take the crass form of directly drawing upon a tradition or
quoting it in ones public policy statements or government directives. This could
be seen as usurpation, and it also unnecessarily confuses the religious and public
spheres, which is certainly not a goal of the method that I am suggesting here.
Rather, frame policies and interventions in such a way that religious citizens and
clerics immediately recognize and resonate with the goals and practices of the
intervention. They may not agree with the details, but the policy will already be
in their universe, in their frame of reference, and they will be able to agree or
disagree with it in a healthy way, rather than resorting to a destructive form of
conflict.
3. Create policies and generate programs but invest in people at all levels of
religious society who are already engaged in a prosocial hermeneutic of their
tradition, both in practice and in their teaching. The Western concept of pro-
gramming and social construction is in some ways alien to most religions, which
tend to rely on age-old constructs of culture and simple society, in addition to
relying heavily on the authority of spiritual figures. Thus, working with individ-
uals who have important standing in a particular community, who are visionaries
but are not receiving adequate support, could be the most seamless and effective
way to move a culture along toward conflict prevention or conflict resolution.

Anticipating Religious Antisocial Values 1. As policy analysts and activists, not

theologians, study the darkest expression of a religion's or a culture's interpersonal
behavior patterns, anticipate what could cause them, and frame intervention or
nonintervention in such a way that will counteract these possibilities.
2. Study the interaction of perceived and remembered traumas, no matter how
distant, and the religious interpretation of those events. Seek to create policies
that will address or even lead to a healing of those traumas. Often secular or
national traumas take on deep religious significance over time. It is not sufficient
to deal with them on a secular level once this has happened. The religious com-
munity must be involved in some way to heal the traumas as well, to give a
religious sanction to the process of moving a culture beyond fixation on the
traumas, or beyond the use of those traumas to justify aggression.

Containing Religious Violence 1. Wherever possible, bring all parties, no matter

how violent or separatist, into some orbit of inclusion—symbolically, interac-
tively, publicly, or privately—on an ongoing basis. Do not make killing and self-
destructive behavior the only viable "religious" alternative for a rejectionist group.
Furthermore, once you have begun to include violent groups, do not allow re-
jectionist rage to simply transfer from the group that now cooperates to another
group that "holds up the banner" of rejectionism. Rejectionism is given great
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 209

religious credence when it is seen as holding up the faith. As stated, most religious
mythologies are replete with those who maintain the faith when everyone else
falters and who welcome persecution for their faith. When their faith has been
translated into violence, this has devastating power. The answer is to keep in-
cluding the rejectionists, so that their extremists cannot escape toward suicidal,
almost ritualized, descents into battle with the enemy of the religion or the re-
ligious group. Reaching out to them has the effect of short-circuiting the closed
and cyclical mythological universe, which includes: isolation and persecution for
one's faith, lashing out in massive destructive force against an evil world, and the
experience and even embrace of more persecution, as one is hunted for one's
faith. Breaking this cycle is vital psychologically and brings the militant back into
a human connection with his enemies. Hopefully, through this relationship-
building process he is reminded of a range of other religious humanitarian values
that he believes in as well. There are few religious nihilists who have no values
other than killing. I know of no group that values only torture and killing. There
are always, of course, individual religious sadists, as in all other groups, and the
only solution for them is deep therapy behind bars. But there are almost never
religious groups whose only value is sadism. Individual militants are often mur-
derers, but that does not mean that killing and being killed is the only way that
they see themselves relating as a group to Others. They generally have some ideal
social vision, whose pursuit has led them down a barbaric path.15 We have to
work at providing them with another avenue of communication with their enemy,
as well as another ritualized way of struggling for their cause. Our aim is not to
convert every hardened militant, however; that is unrealistic. Our aim is to draw
in as many rejectionists as possible, so that the circle of peacemaking is as wide
as possible, and the circle of violent militancy becomes smaller and weaker over
time.
2. Learn to isolate the truly violent factions not by confrontation, which only
strengthens them, but by cooptation, embracing their deepest grievances and ad-
dressing these grievances authentically, if possible with the aid of the religions
and cultures represented. Do not allow them to be the sole spokesmen for legit-
imate grievances against the dominant power structures. Then you give their
followers no other choice.

Vision 1. Create programs and policies that, at least potentially, coalesce with
the fundamental values of the traditions involved and that point to a vision of
the future that can be shared by religious traditions. Encouraging all parties to
engage in a vision of the future where there is no violence is one of the most
powerful exercises that you can encourage. Furthermore, it dovetails nicely with
the natural tendency in most religious imaginations to indulge in future visions,
while prodding them to conceive primarily of nonviolent visions.
2. Always seek to combine in creative ways policies that commit to a larger,
inclusive vision of humanity and its accompanying values, together with un-
qualified valuation of unique cultural expressions. This will attract the broadest
spectrum of religious people. It is vital that this future vision has a place for the
 210 Conclusion

group's particularity enduring into the distant future, for their uniqueness now
and always, so that the universal values that you advocate do not imply to them
or to anyone else the cultural annihilation of the particular group. This would
only give credence to the militant rejectionists, and it would be an illegitimate
move from the point of view of cultural conflict resolution. In effect, the best
way to get most groups who assault Others because they fear their own future is
to embrace their future with them, something that many cosmopolitan liberals
have failed to do, as we saw in analyzing the cultural war in Israel. Ideally their
enemy should be able to embrace their future also, in word, in deed, and in
symbol. For example, in terms of the age-old war between Judaism and Christi-
anity, I often ask myself: What would it take for the Jews most angry at the events
of the Holocaust to trust Christians again? It would take more than apologies
and much more than money for restitution. I often think it would take what may
still be difficult for many conservative Christians: the embrace of the Jew not as
a person, and not as a victim, but as an enduring, unique human being with an
independent and legitimate religion. Repeated offers by the local inhabitants to
restore Jewish synagogues in Europe, for example, where they were destroyed, or
perhaps an offer to rebuild them in today's Jewish population centers would be
such a gesture. The focus of the gesture would be on a synagogue or some other
symbol of Jewish religious continuity. After all, it was the religious legitimacy of
the Jew that was the basis of the persecution for most of European history; only
recently did anti-Semitism turn into a plan for physical annihilation. There are
many wonderful Poles who have recently been honored for restoring Polish Jewish
cemeteries.16 This is a noble gesture and an excellent method of symbolic conflict
resolution. But the most skeptical and injured Jews need to see that Christians
do not want to just honor Jews in their death or to apologize for pogroms and
concentration camps, which no civilized human being could defend anyway, but
that Christians want Jews perpetually alive and well as fellow religious human
beings. This is not about what a group justly deserves—the focus of reparations
negotiations—as much as it concerns elucidating what it will take to create a
profound transformation of relationship and trust in the future.

Strategies of Peacemaking in Religious Contexts 1. Generate policy in conjunction

with those affected by the policy. In other words, apply wherever possible the
elicitive method of Lederach and other Mennonites, referred to earlier, to religious
communities. If the policy and programs involved affect both religious and secular
people or multiple religions arrange an elicitive process that has all these groups
represented.
2. Remain committed to human rights or global goals.17 But do have the
courage to reframe human rights values and principles in deep collaboration with
religious representatives and to be honestly open to the complexity of an inter-
cultural application of these values. Be prepared to negotiate complexity and
compromise, but do not accept blindly all cultural arguments against universal
standards that may, at the hands of some, mask deep social and power inequalities
in the local setting, particularly regarding women, children, and minorities.
 Rfcommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 211

3. If you dare to move a religious culture, or any culture for that matter, to
a completely new economic or political construct, such as democracy or the free
market, do not move the top without the bottom, the bottom without the top,
or even just the middle, unless you are prepared to cause bloodshed. Conflict
resolution policies and practices must be carried out in negotiation with all sectors
of society, not just with the elites and not just with the masses. Each segment of
society is capable of undoing peacemaking if its interests and needs are not in-
cluded in the future of the society. Religious culture is not just run from the top
down. In fact, there is remarkable power that is diffuse, which is precisely why
leaders are so constrained. It will allow everyone greater elasticity in reframing
their worlds, and giving up on hating their old enemies, if all levels of the culture
are being addressed simultaneously.
4. Do not move one religious or ethnic group without others to a new social
reality. Bilateral work is critical in every conflict but especially in religious con-
flicts, where each is scrutinizing the symbols and practices of the Other from a
distance. If they are changing and their enemies are not, if the cultural evolution
of both is not coordinated, then you will lose their trust, and they will lose face.
5. Do not assume that everyone is represented by whoever your negotiating
partners are. Often religious groups that appear to have no hierarchy do have
one, and those that have a hierarchy do not concentrate as much power at the
top as they would like you to think. It is best with every group to institute a
broad-based process, while still paying due homage to the upper echelons of the
hierarchy.
6. Do not ever make a conflict worse by reinforcing one religious or cultural
entity over another, especially by means of financial investment. This is the most
destructive element in old colonial methods of dividing and conquering or choos-
ing one group over another group chosen by a rival empire. Such is the sad fate
of Rwanda and the entire Hutu/Tutsi relationship, as both groups were manip-
ulated by European empires and their respective religions. This has direct rele-
vance to the intersection of development and conflict, particularly religiously
based development and poverty relief. Thus, conflict resolvers should watch care-
fully for this problem by examining the totality of foreign intervention in a par-
ticular place.18 I have also noticed repeatedly and with some frustration that the
predominantly Christian peacemaking organizations that I have worked with tend
to be training only Christians in peacemaking, giving them skills that others do
not have. For example, I have rarely met a Bosnian Muslim in conflict resolution
circles, despite the fact that they are deserving of a great investment of resources,
as the majority of losses and atrocities were suffered by them. But once again,
Christian Europe's network of peacemakers reaches out to fellow Christians,
namely, Croats and Serbs. They seem to be the ones with the network of relations
that brings them into conflict resolution training circles. And it is the same in
the Middle East, where Jews are almost never brought into the orbit of Christian
peacemakers, with a few exceptions. If I were an average Muslim or Jew, I would
be suspicious of any peacemaking or conflict resolution group that reflected this
bias. Much more effort at balance must be achieved by Western, predominantly
 212 Conclusion

Christian, NGOs on this matter. Part of the problem is simply the closed world
of conflict resolution, which tends to rely on its network of contacts, not realizing
that this makes those in their orbit rather monolithic. But part of the problem is
a deep fear of the Other, even among peacemakers. We must all face this problem
squarely. It is not necessarily any one person's fault, but it must be addressed
soon.
7. Generate policies that reinforce small, less corruptible programs and that
discourage large-scale programming, which tends to undermine the religious, cul-
tural, and ethical fabric of a society. Religious people will tend to gravitate to
programs that are less abstract and more organically integrated into their com-
munity. It resonates with the need—so strong among religious people—for in-
terpersonal intimacy and a sense of importance in a known universe. Small pro-
grams are also easier for participants to monitor and to trust
8. Expect there to be inevitable conflicts between religious and culturally spe-
cific paradigms, on the one side, and, on the other, Western or universal para-
digms in terms of economics, politics, and ethics. Set up conflict resolution pro-
cesses to deal with this.
9. Never pursue or perpetuate a project that will cause violence and social
dislocation, no matter how well intended. The price is too high and the end too
unpredictable. Therefore, create the institutional permission and the bureaucratic
means for lower-level operatives to stop intervention when necessary, and do not
penalize them for this. No intervention at all is a better option than destructive
intervention, because massive violence destroys all other accomplishments.
10. Create guidelines of intervention that limit indigenous partners at the top
and bottom of society to those who are willing to abide by these guidelines.
Indigenous partners are not perfect by definition. On the contrary, they may be
taking advantage of your intervention to assert control that they do not have or
do not deserve. They need to be just as sensitive as you are to creating a peace-
making program that truly speaks to all sectors of their community.

Institutional Directives i. Implement intellectual and social humility as an in-

ternal bureaucratic directive from top to bottom. Integrate basic values, such as
humility and the ability to apologize for blunders, past mistakes, and old traumas,
into the fabric of what is considered an acceptable encounter with religious sub-
cultures.
2. Generate an internal process of debate and discussion on how precisely to
remain true to or at least balance national interests, one's institutional mandates,
and your personal needs as interveners, while working toward or approximating
the goals and directives listed here. In other words, recognize honestly your own
needs and those of your workers, share them with those you are trying to help,
and then try to honestly balance all of these competing needs. For too long, aid
givers and conflict resolvers have acted as if they were the only parties in the
negotiation who had no needs, as if they were godlike in their capacity to analyze
and offer assistance. This is nonsense. No one is without needs, and hiding them
only makes matters worse. Honesty and trust are the key, as Lederach has main-
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 213

tained, not the veneer of divinelike disinterestedness.19 This is particularly true

with religious representatives, who may respect you all the more for confronting
your own ethical values—and your limitations—as an intervener.

Regional Work

I cannot be exhaustive in my analysis of regional conflicts that involve religion,

but a few brief recommendations are in order. The focus on a few selected con-
flicts in which religion has a role, positive or negative, will demonstrate how the
methods suggested above have to be adjusted to the unique circumstances of each
region; in no way is this meant as a substitute for a longer study.

United States Religion in the United States has had a unique effect on cultural
conflict. On the one hand, the stability of civilization in the United States appears
to be secure from the kind of violence that occurs in other parts of the world
and, despite religious conflict and despite occasional violence in religion's name,
such as the bombing of abortion clinics, religion does not appear to be a source
of violent, destructive conflict. Nevertheless, there is serious nonviolent conflict
in the name of religion that has had a dangerously polarizing effect on national
politics and the civil relationship between the major political parties, which has
been a critical factor in the continuing stability of the United States. This has
been seriously eroded recently, as numerous reports from Washington and per-
sonal testimonies to me, as well as many others, confirm. A concerted effort must
be made to understand the role of organized religion in exacerbating this trend
and to find ways to counter it.20
A less recognized but far more consequential issue for the world is what U.S.
citizens fund, through their religious representatives. Religious militants from
around the world, including violent groups, receive vital funds from the United
States. The principal source of funding for extremist groups are the three mono-
theisms, which means that tensions between Muslims and Christians overseas, for
example, are a consequence of funding practices of groups in the United States,
which live quietly side by side here, while fomenting conflict and violence else-
where. The same is true of Jewish and Islamic groups based in Brooklyn, as
another example, in terms of their effect on the Middle East. Finally, Christian
missionizing, which has caused significant conflict in many parts of the world,
as noted above, is mostly funded from the United States.
This is a typical trend in human history: privileged people in one part of the
world express their darker fears or aspirations through conflict or violence that
they support overseas. It is also a common disease of wealth. The wealth has
satisfied many needs for direct sustenance but has clearly not healed the wounds
that many immigrants carry to this country. Most religious U.S. citizens do not
fight wars by proxy overseas, but American wealth is sufficiently great that even
if a minority of religious people express themselves this way, it has a devastating
impact on conflicts overseas. This is true of the Middle East, Northern Ireland,
Latin America, India, and Russia, to mention a few.
 214 Conclusion

A significant amount of U.S.-sponsored overseas militant activity comes from

the evangelical movements, particularly based in the American South. This has
important consequences. Much more can be done in the United States to lessen
global religious conflict by sensitizing American populations to the consequences
of their actions overseas. In addition, much more can be done to bring together
conflicting parties in the United States itself. This is usually considered to be
secondary to getting the principal actors together overseas. I beg to differ, not
because they can solve foreign issues by proxy on U.S. soil, but rather because
American citizens do so much damage in overseas conflicts that their rage must
be addressed by conflict resolution methods in the United States itself.
It is clear, for example, that were it not for American financial aid for terrorist
networks in the Middle East, many of the devastating bombs that destroyed Israeli
lives and confidence in the peace process might have been avoided. The fateful
set of bombs that whittled away at confidence in Prime Minister Peres's peace
plans were the most devastating. It cost him an election that ushered into office
a coalition expressly opposed to the Oslo peace process. That means that Hamas
bombs had a direct destructive effect on the peace process, and whoever finan-
cially supported Hamas anywhere in the world had a hand in destroying the peace
process. Hamas had a vested interest in undermining the peace process, because
it would have delegitimized their entire political position.
Furthermore, had Israeli rejectionists not mustered so much financial and
political support here in the United States, it is likely that the peace process would
be well advanced by now. For example, thousands of American Jewish citizens of
the Lubavitch sect, with dual citizenship, rushed to Israel to vote for Likud and
against the peace process. This too hurt Peres badly. The 1997 letter of eighty-
one senators that put pressure on the White House not to even state publicly its
negotiating positions, lest it offend or embarrass Netanyahu, is evidence of the
extraordinary power that the American Jewish rejectionists have had at various
times in Washington. By contrast, the Israeli left of the political spectrum has
never built up sufficient support in the United States or it has failed to mobilize
that support. This means that what happens in the United States matters a great
deal and that those institutions that are serious about international conflict res-
olution had better begin to take the attitudes of U.S. citizens more seriously and
cultivate a strategy of conflict resolution that includes them.
As another example, Russia passed a relatively repressive religion law in 1997
that is bound to create numerous injustices. Had there been a better dialogue
here in the United States among Christian groups, especially with the Orthodox,
it is at least possible that evangelical practices, which led to pressure on the
Russian government to clamp down on missionaries, might have been mitigated.21
Certainly, many leaders of the Orthodox church are not happy to see so many
evangelicals streaming into Russia from the outside and converting their Ortho-
dox laypeople. But clearly this was made much worse by the infusion of vast
funds and the less-than-honorable tactics to lure people away from the Orthodox
church. Perhaps if this had been subject to a conflict resolution process early on,
we might not have the legal results now of institutionalized antireligious prejudice.
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 215

We need much more reflection on why so many Americans are expressing them-
selves in this aggressive fashion, what are its roots, and how we can respond to
this in a creative way. Some may argue that much of the global aspirations of
southern preachers, both in terms of the vast wealth being accrued and in terms
of the large number of converts, may have something to do with lingering re-
sentments in the South. Southern Christian whites in particular may be harboring
many feelings of defeat and cultural inferiority, which have not exactly been
helped by decades of insulting southern stereotypes in Hollywood productions.
This may, in turn, be leading to compensation in the form of accrual of power
in the poorer parts of the world, a common but understudied use of imperialism.
Many colonialists historically, such as Afrikaaners, were actually compensating
for inferior status at home and doing unto others what was done to them.
The solutions may then involve more aggressive work on domestic healing of
North-South relations more than 130 years after the Civil War.22 Some may con-
sider this silly in comparison to the immediacy of other violent conflicts, but the
money trail is what is most compelling here. It is only elitist bias that has seen
the receiving end of a money trail of conflict more condemnable than the initi-
ating end. This is a convenient way to avoid Western or Northern contribution
to conflicts that get played out violently in the Southern Hemisphere or the Third
World. Those of us in the West must be constantly alert to our own natural and
normal tendency to see destructive conflict—and culpability—in others while
avoiding it in ourselves. Projection is the most insidious way that human beings
find to avoid facing the destructive impulses of their cultures.
I would suggest a much greater investment in conflict resolution practices, of
the diverse nature described above, for American religious groups that are sup-
porting some form of religious conflict or conflict-generating behavior overseas.
This could not only ease the pressure on overseas conflicts, it might also help
groups here to creatively devise solutions without, of course, imposing the solu-
tions on others.
The irony of life in the United States is that while the United States, through
individual citizens, exports religious militancy, it also is a bastion of multifaith
cooperation and contact unparalleled in human history. Life in a secular, free
democracy provides a golden opportunity for creative multireligious and cultural
conflict resolution. This is being pursued by many people of good will but should
be encouraged and expanded to face the tough issues of overseas conflicts, rather
than remaining a system of dialogue and good will that does not always get down
to serious problem solving.

Latin America The place of the Cold War in Latin American conflicts received
such an inordinate amount of attention that a critical side effect of these conflicts
went unnoticed: the intra-Christian conflict between Protestants and Catholics.
The Catholic church was considered suspect in many places due to the strong
activity on behalf of the poor by the lower echelons of the church and sometimes
by its most elite leaders, such as Archbishop Romero. The conservative Protestant
denominations, on the other hand, were welcomed by military hierarchies. The
 216 Conclusion

common perception was that their otherworldly message would pacify the com-
pesinos more readily, and they also functioned as a fine lever against a Catholic
church that needed to be constantly reminded by the dictatorships to repress its
"extremists."23
It is also true that some in the upper echelons of the Catholic church in
numerous countries of Latin America either acquiesced or were supportive of
brutal regimes, including the majority of bishops in Argentina, who supported
the junta's war, which included the large-scale murder of innocents. Furthermore,
I have witnessed personally in Northern Ireland that there are evangelical Prot-
estants who have come to occupy an important place in religious peacemaking,
which has gone relatively unnoticed. Thus, while there were certainly elements
of intra-Christian conflict that complicated the Latin American wars, it would be
a serious mistake to assume that Protestants as a rule were part of the oppression
or pacification of the population, while Catholics were the heroes of the poor. It
is much more subtle than this, especially in Mexico, but nevertheless an over-
looked element in the confrontations.
The Cold War has disappeared, but there is ample room for greater cooper-
ation on conflict resolution, which should be coordinated between the Catholic
church and the wide variety of Protestant denominations now active in Latin
America.24 There is still a great deal of suspicion and bitterness over matters of
encroachment and competition, as we see elsewhere in the Christian world. Fur-
thermore, as mentioned previously, there are unquestionably problems of differ-
ing conflict management styles, particularly between the Catholic church and
Protestant evangelicals. We are so accustomed in the conflict-resolving commu-
nity to Catholic and liberal Protestant styles of interaction that we simply assume
that those Christians who do not have these styles of interaction are by definition
more conflictual and less able to enter the orbit of peacemaking and prosocial
change. While it is certainly true that some visions of Christianity are more
exclusivist, intolerant, or less open to rational negotiation with nonbelievers, it is
not necessarily the case that all adherents or representatives of this worldview are
less tolerant. On the contrary, sometimes they have excellent abilities, as struggling
minorities, to understand other views, even as allegedly liberal sections of the
community, who are the majority, demonstrate remarkably poor skills. Further-
more, as we studied earlier, there may be subtle differences due to theological
and cultural fine points in the ways in which Catholic and Protestant communities
send their signals regarding peace, conflict, and the willingness to change a re-
lationship for the better. Sometimes these differing signals are either unknown to
the other party or may be in direct opposition. For example, the production by
the Catholic church in a specific region of a peace-oriented official paper or
pronouncement may be seen as revolutionary by Catholics, a broad-minded ges-
ture of courage. But for the Protestants, it may be just paper, "merely" the pro-
nouncement of church leadership, a leadership that their worldview was set up
to reject in the first place, and not an authentic religious experiential transfor-
mation of the people. This is a built-in miscommunication among Catholic, Or-
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 217

thodox, and Protestant worldviews that should be kept in mind in conflict res-
olution in Latin America, Ireland, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Indian Subcontinent The 1999 nuclear explosions by India and Pakistan, in ad-
dition to the three wars since 1948, indicate just how deep a failure the original
diplomatic and statist solution was in 1948, when India and Pakistan were sepa-
rated into two nations. Fighting has increased on the border with scores dead,
and now there is no mechanism in place for either side to trust the other not to
release a nuclear weapon. Not only did countless people die and suffer in that
original transfer, it failed to address the deep cultural injury that continues to
exist between Hindus and Muslims.
Certainly, the subcontinent is also plagued by other religious difficulties, in-
cluding the plight of the Sikhs, as well as lesser known conflicts, such as between
the now-Christian Naga peoples and the Indian government. The most extreme
Naga separatists, who have engaged in a terrorist campaign against the Indian
government and also against their own people, are actually Christian militants,
devotees of several American preachers, including Oral Roberts. I have made some
recommendations, and others have followed through on utilizing this religious
angle to communicate with these extreme groups, which actually harbor delusions
of a Christian empire on the Indian subcontinent. In addition, there is increasing
pressure and attacks on Christians by Hindu militants in other regions of India.
The deepest and most dangerous conflict, however, is between Hindus and
Muslims. Clearly, as I have stated repeatedly, there are geopolitical, economic,
and ethnic considerations at work here. But the psychodynamic elements of this
conflict have been overlooked since the beginning, as obvious as they are to the
sensitive observer.25 Who could imagine that the centuries of occupation by a
Muslim empire in which Muslims were a minority in numbers but a majority in
power, which has now turned into a majority Hindu state of power and numbers,
would not involve deep injuries on both sides collected over centuries? Who
would not think that this relationship should receive the top priority in terms of
regional stability? It is extraordinary how much this situation has been neglected.
Hindu tradition and Islamic tradition both play a role in reinforcing this
conflict, but they also have the seeds within them for conflict resolution. There
must be broad and widespread efforts to create more Hindu acknowledgment of
the problem. When I went to a religious conference on the future of India, I was
impressed by the level of creativity in every area but Hindu/Muslim relationships.
There I saw simple denial, as if it were such an explosive topic, such a deep
injury, that no creative conversation could occur. And this was among the pro-
gressives.
This suggests deep injuries that remain unmourned and profound fears that
remain unaddressed. The extraordinary range of Hindu philosophy and practice
can and does help in isolated places to create a different kind of Hindu/Muslim
relationship. Certainly this was the case in Gandhi's movement years ago, which
had its parallel among the Muslim Pathans led by Ghaffar Khan. The latter group
 218 Conclusion

was known as the Khudai Khidmatgar, and they resisted oppression on strictly
nonviolent grounds.26 We know that there are villages in which Hindus and Chris-
tians respect and even join in each others' rituals, with some indications that
there are Hindus and Muslims who have a similar relationship in the villages.27
Of course, these interfaith relationships are overshadowed by violent confronta-
tions and the media's focus on bloodshed. But the point is that there is fertile
ground for interreligious peacemaking in India, for those who are willing to dis-
cover it.
There are clearly thousands of courageous Gandhians, Hindu as well as Muslim
devotees of nonviolence, active all over India; these people would welcome a more
substantive dialogue and conflict resolution process. After all, nonviolence as a
concept is deeply rooted in ancient Indian thought, most clearly in Jainism,28
which has had a profound impact on many of India's citizens to this day. But in
order to reduce the most serious dangers to life and limb, conflict resolution
practice must reach a sufficient proportion of the population in both India and
Pakistan until there is a significant shift in government leadership. This is the
only way to avoid a nuclear war, which will have horrifying results, unprecedented
even for the twentieth century. There must be support for a level of conflict
resolution and reconciliation between the cultures that has never been tried on a
grand scale since the days of Gandhi. This is what public policy analysts and
activists should be investigating.
Other regional conflicts involving religion obviously must include Sri Lanka.
The animus of some of the Buddhist leadership for Tamils must be analyzed and
included in conflict interventions.29 There are independent foundations to this
conflict besides religion. But, once again, ignoring this vital element has exacer-
bated the conflict by not including religion as a critical component in the solu-
tions.

Asia There are a variety of Asian conflicts in which Buddhism is playing some
role and could conceivably play a more prominent role. The most obvious case
involves Tibet, where the systematic suppression of Buddhism by the Chinese
government and the effort to delegitimize the Dalai Lama has clearly backfired
on China. On the other hand, they could not have asked for a more gentle
foe. If it were not for the Dalai Lama's continual efforts to keep his people's
struggle nonviolent, it seems clear that matters would be much worse right
now, even catastrophic. The Dalai Lama's unique approach to enemies, and
how he thinks about it and teaches it theologically has been critical to this vital
struggle for social justice not turning into an even greater human tragedy than
it already is.
The question is: Can there be some deeper process of cultural meeting and
conflict resolution that has not been tried? Clearly, since the Chinese government
is in such a vastly superior position, it is difficult to persuade it to enter into
more substantive processes of dialogue and cultural communication.
The Dalai Lama has made many gestures toward the Chinese, along the lines
of President Clinton's efforts to engage the Chinese in an honorable form of
 Recommendations Jor Intervention in Conflicts 219

communication, being careful not to humiliate them in public, unlike the strat-
egies used by human rights advocates.30 This is a controversial method of en-
gagement, but the Dalai Lama has clearly indicated that this method is in keeping
with Tibetan Buddhist religious ethics.
It should be pointed out in this regard that beneath the surface of today's
official Chinese culture is an ancient Confucian culture in which honor is a
critical value and shame the most devastating punishment. Thus, Clinton's
method is addressing this need on the part of Confucian culture to resist hu-
miliation. We may wince at this because we want, for reasons of justice, Chinese
human rights abuses exposed and the Chinese leadership humiliated and even
jailed for their crimes at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, and the crimes that
still take place in numerous prisons. Unfortunately, that is not how nonviolent
change works, and engaging the present leaders perhaps—and I emphasize, per-
haps—may lead to a more open society in the future, in which those who have
been criminal in their behavior now will be exposed later. But this cannot happen
without conflict resolution methods and gestures becoming a high priority of
intervention.
Taoism is also an important undercurrent of Chinese culture, and it is a central
assumption of the Tao Te Ching, the great classic of this ancient religion, that
one accomplishes a great deal more with adversaries by indirect means of influ-
ence than by violent confrontation.31 The fact that the Chinese government itself
hardly acts according to the highest values of either Confucianism or Taoism is
beside the point. What matters is how these leaders perceive their adversaries or
how they come to trust allies. They may only come to trust outsiders when the
outsiders act according to the highest ideals of Chinese culture, even if they, the
Chinese leaders, are not acting this way. This is ironic but true. Human beings
often give themselves the widest latitude, while demanding the most rigorous
ethical/cultural standards from their adversaries. Certainly, the Chinese officials
are governed by considerations of realpolitik as much as any government, but
they also completely lack the check on governmental arrogance that a constitu-
tional democracy might provide. That having been said, one of the best tools we
have in conflict resolution is to understand the cultural sensibilities at work. The
latter can at the very least prevent missteps that make matters worse and, at best,
may provide an entree into a powerful, belligerent parly's mindset. From this
deeper understanding may come better strategies of simultaneously pursuing jus-
tice and peace. It seems to me that the Dalai Lama is one of the finest examples
in the world today of a leader using all of his religious and cultural insights to
pursue justice and peace simultaneously.
And let us not forget the work of Maha Gosananda in Cambodia, referred to
earlier. These Buddhist leaders and their organizations should be taken much
more seriously by Western diplomacy and conflict resolution activists. They can
provide a path into cultures riven by conflict in a way that few other methods of
intervention can. They desperately need more financial support and more public
attention. The attention given to them helps them to do more substantive work
in dangerous circumstances.
 22o Conclusion

Africa Wherever possible, the old tribal religions of Africa need to be studied
for their insights on how peace is maintained and how relationships are restored
between enemies. There are many insights on peace combined, as they are with
all religions, with violent alternatives that also emanate from these religions. There
are no romantic illusions here about indigenous cultures.32 Rather, the assumption
is that peacemaking also has a deep place in African culture and society, largely
hidden by those who have been made over centuries to feel shame for their
culture.
I have struggled with this a great deal as I have studied with my students from
Africa. Virtually every one of my students from Africa have been either Christian
or Muslim. No independent voices of animist beliefs, the original beliefs of Africa,
ever reach the Western, mostly Christian, frameworks of teaching and training,
in which I work, and I have critiqued this already. Nevertheless, I struggle with
my students, as we elicit methods of peacemaking from their midst, to deal with
the fact that they can value their present monotheistic religion, Christianity or
Islam, and still recover what is rightfully theirs from their past.
This is not an easy matter, and many would disagree with me for even pro-
voking this discussion. Am I disrespecting their current religions, or am I giving
them permission in a Western context to fully articulate and embrace their ancient
traditions? I come to this with a belief that many peaceful people in Africa feel
shame when indigenous traditions are employed in the perpetration of barbarities,
such as in Liberia, mentioned earlier. They must shrink in shame as these old
spiritual institutions are used by ruthless leaders, who evoke dark powers of hy-
postatized evil to destroy their enemies.
I would argue, however, that those in Africa who are ashamed are internalizing
what the West has been saying to them for hundreds of years, namely, that there
is only darkness in their old traditions (note the use of color in describing evil),
as if the peacemaking rituals of tribal women in Liberia (as reported to me by
Liberian students), for example, are fiction, having no basis in history. As in all
human cognitive and emotive constructs of the world, there is a reservoir of
antisocial and prosocial values and rituals in Africa waiting to be analyzed without
a preconceived bias or, as Gadamer would have me say, with a consciousness of
our built-in biases and horizons.
Recently I was engaged in teaching and training at Eastern Mennonite Uni-
versity. As usual, I had a number of African students and, as usual, I engaged in
conversation with my colleagues Cynthia Sampson and Hizkias Assefa. Hizkias is
based in Nairobi and is an African Christian who has done important work for
years in Africa. We found ourselves in dialogue late one evening, reflecting on
culture and on the Liberian tragedy. Hizkias recalled to me how he was present
at one peacemaking ceremony where there was one man in the ceremony whose
task it was to wear a mask of the devil. Now, both of us were already agreed on
the vital importance of ritual and ceremony in transforming cultures from war
to peace. But what was agonizing was including a figure on the podium who
represented a force that had been so responsible for all the killing. Yet both of
us felt that this was uniquely African, that in some critical way it was important
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 221

for this force to be out in the open, included in peacemaking. It was far better
than pretending that it did not exist, only to have it surface in some other way
in society. We both sensed that there was some unique wisdom at work here that
involved keeping the forces associated with evil in some circumscribed role, rather
than suppressing them or denying them, as we do so often in the West.
I remind the reader that this is particularly jarring to liberal monotheists. I,
in particular, have a strong disdain for and fear of devil-centered religion. The
countless deaths of my people across the centuries is due in no small measure to
the reification of the devil or the Antichrist inside the Jew, even in his very
physiognomy.33 No depiction of the devil in Europe, as far as I know, ever paints
him as blond and blue-eyed. Often, however, he looks exactly like my revered
religious teachers, like Ashkenazi Jews. This alone has made me angry at European
civilization my whole life and made the Holocaust not a terribly big surprise, at
least to me.
In conversations only months before with Africans, who asked me my theo-
logical opinion about the reality of evil and demons, I rejected them categorically.
Thus, I surprised myself when I immediately saw the wisdom of having that man
in the devil mask at the peace ceremony in Liberia. It might not make sense at
all anywhere else than Africa, but it is vital to have a sense of humility about
what will work in various places and to also acknowledge our own biases as we
plumb the depths of human nature and violence and look at how human beings
the world over recover from and become victorious over violence.

Middle East I have already dwelt at length on the Middle East in earlier sections.
But the basic lessons from the recent past indicate the necessity of a complete
overhaul in the approach to violence and war in the Middle East. It is essential
that the religious parties to the conflict become an integral part of any conflict
resolution process. Needless to say, this needs to be worked out delicately so that
their involvement does not undermine the foundations of the civil societies that
already exist or that are being sought by various groups, not the least of which
is the Palestinians. But this deliberate exclusion of religious parties must end if
we want to undermine terrorism and the politics of religious militancy.
Judaism and Islam contain numerous values and principles, some of which
they hold in common, that can form the basis of much deeper processes of
conflict resolution and reconciliation between enemies. All the caveats mentioned
earlier remain. There are grave dangers to civil liberties and to peace that also
exist in these traditions. But many Muslims and Jews, deeply religious people,
recognize this dichotomy of the prosocial and antisocial elements of their
traditions. There are extraordinary struggles being waged within the precincts of
these traditions over women's rights, for example, or over attitudes toward those
who are not of the faith. But the antisocial positions will only harden if the
belligerent halls of power politics, such as the Israeli parliament, are the only
places in which secular and religious people ever engage each other. A cross-
cultural process of building the future together, secular and religious, must ac-
company the complex political negotiations over the future of the Middle East.
 222 Conclusion

Only then will we see constructive visions of the future emerging from both the
religious and the secular communities.

Europe Finally, we note the reemergence of ethnic and religious violence in

Europe. Whether it be the more contained conflicts, such as between Muslims
and the state in France or the cruelly displayed toward Muslim Turks in Germany
or the more overt wars in which the Bosnian Muslims were brutally murdered
and shamefully abandoned by Europe for too long, it is clear that Europe only
suppressed its religious problems during the Cold War. Europe exported much
of its religious warfare across the globe at one time, and it is clear that Europe
must face the role that religion plays in its continuing problems.
The reemergence of fascist parties, especially in Russia, is a particularly wor-
risome development. The development of reactionary parties is always accom-
panied by the reemergence of old, bizarre myths, which have motivated murder
in Europe for centuries. For example, the Russian Duma itself, prodded by the
Orthodox church, has devoted public hearings recently to a myth that formed
the basis of centuries of Russian pogroms against Jews, namely, the charge that
Jews engage in ritual murder.34 The latest accusation is that "the Jews" ritually
murdered the last czar and his family. This is a society unable to cope with its
past, with its pain, and with its own sins. Naturally, the Jew resurfaces once again
as the perfect scapegoat. The people of Russia have never had an opportunity to
heal from the horrors of the twentieth century, and the traditional conduit of
healing, the church, is broadly distrusted as having played a central role in com-
munist control of the society. What better solution than to discover once again
a conspiracy in which what appears to be real is not real and what appears
impossible is a reality? The traumatic truth is that the Russian people in the
twentieth century engaged in a brutal campaign of terror against each other, in
the form of the communist regime, which was preceded in history by the equally
brutal czarist rule, which gave rise to the 1917 revolution in the first place. The
acceptable myth is that it was all caused by some foreign, non-Slavic, non-
Christian, demonic power: the Jew.
Confronting this barbaric side of European culture is distasteful and embar-
rassing for most Europeans and for Americans of European extraction. It is easier
to focus on economic issues in the hopes that prosperity and materialism will
make this madness just go away. As we have stated, the latter is only a partial
fix; it is unquestionably critical but not sufficient to eliminate the deep roots of
hatred. Nothing less than an open and honest conflict intervention process fo-
cused on the most painful issues of the past and the most problematic elements
of religious expression can truly undo the damage of the past in a way that
prevents it from recurring. Furthermore, a true engagement with the Christian
foundations of Europe's troubles can and should be accompanied by an open-
minded embrace of Christian, in this case Orthodox, frameworks for renewing
the culture in a way that is not paranoid or in need of scapegoats.35 Furthermore,
the creative use of symbols and rituals of reconciliation, healing, apology, and
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 223

moral change will allow this process to enter into the fabric of popular European
civilization. Symbol and ritual have always been used and abused by European
fascists and feared by European intellectuals. But there is nothing to fear, except
one's own ignorance of how to engage people at all levels of a culture and how
to bring them together in a vision of a culture and a future that no longer needs
chosen enemies and demonic scapegoats.

In each of these regions of the world, there is always a balance of destructiveness

and creativity that is inherent in the nature of human institutions. A pragmatic
approach to organized religion in these regions recognizes its potential for tipping
the world toward destructiveness. But it would be foolish to ignore the resources
within these religious traditions that can tip the delicate balance of human society
toward creativity, toward the prosocial intuitions that all human beings have to
a degree, toward a vision of the future that is not destructive but redemptive.

Final Thoughts

It seems clear from what I have studied and uncovered that there will continue
to be a significant radicalization of many religions on the part of some believers
for the foreseeable future. This dynamic is likely to continue as long as the range
of human needs, physical and especially spiritual, continue to be unmet by the
evolving global civilization, whose principal offering to human beings is the
promise of a materialist civilization in which a few become wealthy, some are
reasonably comfortable but very insecure, and most are poor. This materialist,
exclusivist vision of the future has turned out to be attractive on one level, mo-
tivating a great deal of economic ingenuity among some in every civilization and
yielding impressive material benefits. But this global civilization, as it is currently
conceived, is also turning out to be repulsive to many others. I predict that it is
only when this evolving global civilization develops into a serious human com-
munity with a set of high ideals that are perceived to be and actually are sub-
stantive and attractive from a spiritual and ethical point of view, that we will see
militant religion begin to wane.
Religion per se, however, is here to stay, and the myth that it would leave is
now simply a myth. The character of religion, how opposed or supportive it is
of science, of the human mind, of human rights, of civil society, will depend
completely on the hermeneutic engagement of its adherents. That, in turn, will
depend on the degree to which its adherents can honestly see a creative interaction
of ancient traditions and modern constructs. But both elements of the equation,
ancient traditions and modern constructs of civil society and scientific investi-
gation, will have to be respected in this artful process of weaving the future.
It is also likely that the future will bring greater and greater communication
among liberal adherents of most of the world's major religions. This is a trend
of more than a hundred years that is likely to continue. Their continued coop-
 224 Conclusion

eration, their learning from each other, and their discoveries of their own unique-
ness and what they share in common are critical to evolving a peaceful vision
inside the world's great religions.
Those who engage in this multireligious process will be tempted, as they always
have been, to retreat to safe enclaves of broad-minded people or to find refuge
in secular constructs of civilization. That is quite understandable. But someone
is going to have to be the bridge between the angrier expressions of each religion
and the rest of the world. This is vital to the future. The longer it takes to evolve
a global civilization that does not so deeply alienate religious adherents, the harder
it will be to prevent religious subcultures from plunging the rest of the world
into broad religious, ethnic, and national conflicts. These conflicts will resemble,
or be imagined to resemble, the destructive myths of cosmic battle and apoca-
lyptic redemption through violence.
There must appear a cadre of broad-minded religious and secular people who
develop the ethics and the skills of peacemaking and conflict resolution. They
must help the emerging global civilization through this difficult birth, which is
threatening to kill the infant. We have the makings, in all of the U.N. declarations
and documents, of an extraordinary human future—if we can cooperate in all
the ways that those documents prescribe. There is no reason why organized re-
ligions cannot in principle buttress the lofty goals of this emerging global civil
society and even lead the way.
But organized religion is also the repository and expression of all the deepest
dissatisfactions that human beings have. If society is corrupt, then people turn
to religion. If society is stifling the human need for uniqueness, then people turn
to religion. If society is grossly unjust to some, then the victims turn to religion.
If society reduces the human being to a materialist unit and leaves him deeply
unsatisfied, then he finds ultimate refuge in religion. In short, religion is the
barometer of societal dissatisfaction and can and should be seen not as an enemy
of a civil society but as a diagnostician of its failings.
If this approach is used, then those of us who want a civil society to flourish
will have to pay close attention to not only the kind of religion that we like and
want to see but also to things said in the name of religion that we find ugly and
shameful. Indeed, it is the latter that give us the most insight on what remains
undone in our search for the good society. We must not, however, view violent
things said or done in the name of religion as merely an obnoxious relic from
the past, which we can dismiss as the gibberish of some group that we despise;
this would be just engaging in more demonizing, the great enemy of peacemaking.
In a very real sense, we must see these terrible things as a part of us that we
cannot simply suppress. If we are a global community, then we all share in some
measure the cultural legacy that drives some people to extreme violence. But we
cannot construct a peaceful future without even the angriest people among us
joining that effort. And we cannot invite them along on this journey to a better
society without an in-depth understanding and even valuation of what they hold
dear. In that development of understanding we will find the rational and non-
rational ways to engage everyone in the building of a global civilization.
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 225

Beyond the actual damage that has been done in conflicts or persecutions of
the past, we have also seen in our study that there is a drive, all over the world
today, to recover the uniqueness of each community, each ethnic group, and each
religion. There is a deep sense of loss that hundreds of millions of people feel
the more that they are the same as everyone else.
Haym Soloveitchik's thesis that the loss of distinct ethnicity has led to a wide-
spread drive to locate authenticity in text is certainly true of the Jewish com-
munity.36 It is clearly the case that sacred texts and the legal life drawn from them
are some of the most unique aspects of Jewish identity, not its art or its archi-
tecture or its food and not a particular land until recently. This is no doubt due
to the exilic and homeless character of Jewish existence whose only refuge was
distinctive ethnic identity, especially as it was found in traditions passed on or-
ganically from generation to generation. Now, in the free, homogenized culture
of democratic modern life, this anchor has been lost, and text, especially I might
add, texts that make Jews different, even superior, have an especially important
grip on religious life.
This insight must be combined, as Samuel Heilman has noted in his reaction
to Soloveitchik's thesis,37 with the experience of the utter destruction of European
Jewry, which has left many haredi Jews and others bereft of an organic, moderate
tradition of piety passed down from generation to generation. This, combined
with the sweeping effects of modern, material culture, has left text, legal strin-
gencies, and rituals peculiar to Jews—and excessive chauvinism—as the only ways
to reestablish and recover some sense of old Jewish life. Underlying much of this
is the fear, even the terror, of assimilation doing a more thorough job of making
one's great-grandchildren lose Judaism than any repressive regime in Europe ever
hoped to accomplish by force.
These fears have a tendency to undermine the very values, the universal ones,
also embedded in Jewish tradition and texts, that are vital to a future of coexis-
tence with Others who are different and to the foundations of religious approaches
to a civility that is held in common with Others.
This deep sense of loss of an old way of life and fear of losing even more
drives the religious violence of many religious communities around the world.
Those of us who would hope to create a global civil culture that does have in
common basic civil and human rights and basic freedoms had better develop the
skills and creativity that are needed to create a model of a future that does not
annihilate the past, especially those aspects of the past that offer human beings
deep patterns of meaning and unique identities. We have to help religious com-
munities mourn the losses of the past but also help them create global institutions
and directives that do not annihilate their future as distinctive religious com-
munities. The skills, of communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution prac-
tices outlined here should go a long way toward bringing ever-greater numbers
of devout human beings into some constructive paradigm of the future.
We are presently engaged in an extraordinary and exciting process of honing
our skills of listening, compassion, and relationship building in order to create a
civil society of the future in which everyone will be authentically welcomed and
 226 Conclusion

honored. Many of us are already engaged in this effort, and as the terrible visions
of Armageddon, or its equivalent in non-Christian religions, become more ac-
ceptable to some religious people, many other religious people have joined in this
journey of peacemaking, in this earnest engagement with the full range of human
beings on the planet. I have personally witnessed the cooperation of thousands
of religious people, young and old, from every major religion and country of the
world, and in my few years, I have barely scratched the surface of this world of
peacemakers. In the process, these people may not create an Eden on earth, but
they can certainly take steps toward Eden.
It will not be an Eden in which there is magically no need for work but an
Eden in which work would not need to take place in the shadow of conflict and
violence. It will not be an Eden in which there are magically no scarce resources
but an Eden in which scarce resources and the struggle for them need not lead
to bloodshed. It will not be an Eden in which there is magically no miscom-
munication among the isolated consciousnesses of imperfect human beings. But
it could be an Eden in which we have the wisdom, the spiritual training, and the
skill to know how to turn that miscommunication or hurt into a vehicle of
restored and renewed relationship.
Finally, it is important to reiterate that we have examined in this study many
facets of religious violence and how violence stems from many deep wounds that
individuals and groups harbor privately for decades, centuries, millennia. Many
readers will examine the depths of this pain, see it reified and codified in myth,
law, and ritual, and then ask themselves: How could any conflict resolution meth-
ods begin to heal these wounds that have festered for so long? It is a good
question, and we will not know the answer to this question until we use all of
our resources to try to heal these wounds. The human community has barely
begun to invest in this enterprise, and so we still do not know what we can
accomplish.
We are privileged to live in a time when we are gathering our collective wisdom
from many sources and exposing the depths of human pain that lead to religiously
based violence. And we have discovered that simply raising to the surface what
has been hidden in the private recesses of conscience is often revolutionary
enough to set human beings on a new path. This is especially the case when
former enemies have the courage and vision to acknowledge the pain that is
hidden inside the collective memories of their adversaries. Thus, beyond all the
recommendations that I have made, which experience indicates will be effective
for many people, I urge the reader to consider the powerful impact of simply
helping each community to finally face its old legacies of suffering and helping
each group mourn in dignity and honor, buttressed by new support from out-
siders and especially former enemies.
This process—a community telling its story of pride and pain and achieving
enough trust in the world to acknowledge its pain publicly—must be met by an
equally powerful response from the rest of the world, especially that part of the
world that is implicated or is perceived to be implicated in the damage that was
done. This is the crucial dynamic of story and response that will lead eventually
 Recommendations for Intervention in Conflicts 227

to the deepest healing of all and to the creation of new bonds of intercommunal
trust and friendship.
Undoubtedly, this must be accompanied by negotiations over past injustices.
It will entail serious compromises and acknowledgment of the inherent moral
ambiguities of trying to right past wrongs. If this process of negotiations is bereft
of any deeper relationship building, it will turn into a legalistic battle that satisfies
no one in the end. But if it is accompanied by the kind of healing and bilateral
relationship building that I have suggested here, it will likely bury more and more
the specter of old wounds.
The original, mythic Eden of the Bible was supposed to be a perfect place,
but it had, as our own world has, within it the seeds of misunderstanding, loss
of trust, and betrayal. But we are a long way from the mythical origins of our
species. Perhaps now, wiser for the wear, we know more about what to anticipate
in human relationships, and we can use our skills and collective wisdom to steel
the bonds of trust against all its natural foes.
We live in a world of human beings separated physically, each from the other.
And we live in a world of peoples and religions separated each from the other.
We always will. Every effort, both secular and religious, to forcibly homogenize
all of us has ended in disaster and generations of injury. But, as an alternative to
artificial unity, we can choose to find ways to build trust across boundaries where
it never has existed or restore it to where it has been lost. Building trust is a
moral task, an art, and perhaps even a gift. It requires painful acknowledgment
of the past and broad-minded visions of the future. This would seem to be the
foundation of a future Eden or as near an approximation to Eden as humanity
can ever hope to reach.
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 Glossary

Abraham. Mythical patriarch of the Israelite people of the Bible, founder of

monotheism, according to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; father of Ishmael and,
therefore, forefather of Arabian peoples, according to Islam.
Abrahamic faiths. The three monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Ahimsa. Nonviolence in several Asian religions, particularly Hinduism and Jain-
ism.
Angelology. The elaborate system of angels and their relationship to heaven in
the three monotheisms.
Ashkenazi. Jews of the Middle Ages and modern times whose ancestors migrated
to European lands since the original exile from Israel in 70 C.E.
Aveilus. Mourning according to traditional Jewish laws and customs.
Bhagavad Gita. Important Hindu scripture involving the teachings of Krishna
(hero of the story), set in the context of choices faced about a great battle.
Bodhissatva. A saintly figure in Mahayana Buddhism, who reaches nearly com-
plete enlightenment and nirvana, thus ending his cycle of birth, death, and re-
birth, but who chooses to remain or come back to this world, out of compassion
for others and in order to help them attain enlightenment.
Brahmacharya. In Hinduism, a life of self-discipline and self-limitation, which
is devoted to higher pursuits. Sometimes associated with celibacy.
Bundists. Organized Jewish workers in Europe and America devoted to a socialist
vision, major competitors to Zionism and traditional religiosity for the commit-
ment of the Jewish masses at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Canaan. Ancient name of the biblical land of Israel; also the name for one of the
original "idolatrous" tribes.
Chosen people. Concept of a people with a special bond and love relationship
with God. Originally rooted in the relationship of the people of Israel and its
God and then used biblically to justify the expulsion of other peoples from Israel.
Later absorbed into Christianity and made into a concept that has been used over

229
 230 Glossary

the centuries, in various denominations, to contrast a chosen few who are "saved"
with pagans or idolaters, who must be converted or suppressed. There have also
been, through the centuries, quite benign, prosocial interpretations of chosenness
and mission, a related concept.
Compesinos. Indigenous peasants of Central and South America.
Conflict transformation. Name given to a conflict resolution school, often as-
sociated with Mennonites, that emphasizes peacemaking that changes relation-
ships and empowers all sides, especially victims, to create new relationships with
adversaries based on peace and justice.
Consequentialism. Moral analysis of actions based on calculation of whether
those actions lead to a greater or lesser amount of some good, such as prosperity,
happiness, or the success of a social program or experiment. As opposed to an
evaluation of the inherent right or wrong of an act or its inherent valuation as,
for example, compassionate, just, truthful, peaceful.
Crusades. A series of Christian campaigns of conquest of the Holy Land in the
late eleventh and twelfth centuries, promoted by Pope Urban II, Bernard of Clair-
vaux, and others, which led to atrocities and massacres of thousands of Jews and
Muslims across Europe and the Middle East.
Dar al-harb. Lit. "the realm of the sword." In Islam, traditionally the realm
beyond the Islamic community with which one must struggle in order to bring
those people into the realm of Islam.
Dar al-islam. Lit. "the realm of Islam," where Islamic law and Islamic life is
honored and is dominant.
Diaspora. People who consider themselves part of a community that is now far-
flung or in exile, but that was once part of an original community in a specific
place. In Judaism, the name given to the Jewish people who do not reside in
Israel.
Eightfold Path. Eight parts of a path designed by the Buddha to attain Nirvana,
a state of ultimate enlightenment. Includes basic ethical precepts such as right
speech and right action but also training of the consciousness, such as through
right understanding and right concentration.
Elicitive method. Conflict resolution method associated with conflict transfor-
mation, which emphasizes drawing out peacemaking methods, symbols, and
traditions from the parties to the conflict themselves.
Emanationist. Theory of divine relationship to the world that emphasizes a flow
of the divine being that connects the material world with God.
Exodus. In biblical religion, the seminal event of Israelites' national birth, as they
were freed miraculously from hundreds of years of slavery by Moses and divine
intervention in the natural order.
First-track and second-track diplomacy. Coined and advocated by Joseph Mont-
ville, it is a definition of effective diplomacy as consisting, or needing to consist,
of more than official, government-to-government channels of communication. It
 Glossary 231

includes individuals and agencies that can be effective in healing deep-rooted

causes of intractable conflict.
Four Noble Truths. Most basic teachings of Buddhism, including an examination
of the truths of suffering, the true cause of suffering in desire or attachment, the
overcoming of suffering, and an eightfold path to follow.
Four Sublime Moods. Four cardinal virtues in Buddhism, which include com-
passion, joy in the joy of others, equanimity, and loving-kindness.
Ger. In the Bible, it is "the stranger" to whom a wide range of moral and emo-
tional obligations apply. Becomes "the convert to Judaism" in later rabbinic
interpretation.
Gush Emunim. Primarily followers of R. Tzvi Yehuda Kuk's philosophy, which
centralizes the significance of the land of Israel in Jewish theology. They live
according to a belief in the soon-to-unfold messianic era of Jewish national life
and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel.
Hadith. Stories about and sayings of the prophet Mohammed that are not in-
cluded in the Qur'an.
Halakha (n.), halakhic (adj.). The body of Jewish traditional law that governs
religious life.
Hallal. Something that is considered religiously acceptable, such as a piece of
meat that has been properly prepared for eating, according to Islamic law.
Halutz. An original Zionist settler who built the agricultural base of the Yishuv.
Hamas. Islamic fundamentalist network, which supports an end to secular states
in the Middle East, an end to the State of Israel, and the imposition of Islamic
law. It supports various social agencies that have helped the poor, but it also has
a military wing that has conducted numerous terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.
Haredi (adj.), haredim (n.). Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including Hasidim, who today
embrace as isolated a position from the non-Orthodox world as possible; the use
of secular education only for the purpose of making a living, if at all; a literal
belief in revelation from Sinai, and a much greater dependency on halakhic or
spiritual leaders to determine the contours of their lives and choices. It also entails
being non-Zionist or anti-Zionist (though this is changing somewhat) in the sense
of not accepting a secular Jewish state. Furthermore, the male dress is distinctly
dark and includes special clothing in the Hasidic case. This too varies somewhat
among Hasidic groups. The lines of who is and who is not haredi is blurry at the
edges, with people defining themselves in various ways at the borders of all Jewish
affiliations.
Hasidim. Sectarians who originated in an Eastern European religious revival
movement characterized by intensive prayer, song, and devotion to masters and
their extraordinary powers in interceding with God.
Hasmoneans. Jewish kings in the period of the Second Temple, who managed
with some success to reestablish Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel, despite
the onslaughts of various empires.
 232 Glossary

Hebrew Bible. Judaism's canonization of the books of the Bible, all in the original
Hebrew, including the Five Books of Moses, historical writings, such as Samuel
and Kings, the Prophets, and various books of wisdom literature, such as Proverbs
and Psalms.
Herem laws. Biblical laws that mandated extermination of the population of
ancient Israel who were determined to be irredeemably corrupt and idolatrous.
There were also biblical herem laws mandating the complete extermination of a
Jewish city were it to become completely idolatrous.
Hermeneutics. The science of interpretation, especially of texts, that centralizes
the role of the reader and her context in the cognitive understanding of a written
work.
Holocaust. The genocide of one third of the Jewish people—more than six mil-
lion men, women and children—during World War II, at the hands of the Nazis
and various other fascist forces in Western and Eastern Europe. 90% of European
Jewry was wiped out.
Hvpostasis. In theology, something that constitutes or makes concrete the essen-
tial substance of anything, including something that is divine.
Imam. A leader of ritual prayer in Islam.
Imitatio dei. The imitation of divine characteristics as a religious experience and/
or obligation.
Immanence. In theology, that aspect of God that is felt in the immediateness of
human experience of the world or of time.
Jainism. Ancient religion of India, which presently has almost three million ad-
herents; includes a basic commitment to ahimsa (nonviolence).
Jihad. A form of struggle for the causes of Islam, which can be focused on inner
processes of moral transformation or outer processes of social transformation
toward a just and God-fearing society; has been used extensively in the traditional
literature to refer to war in defense of Islam or as a way of attacking "the enemies
of Islam," however and by whomever that comes to be defined. Jihad has also
been traditionally regulated by strict notions of when and where it is permissible
or obligatory.
Jus ad bellum. Medieval tradition of Christian law pertaining to conditions under
which war is permissible or obligatory. Now used by others in the natural law
tradition in discussions of peace and war to refer to warrants for war and peace
before war breaks out.
Jus in bello. Medieval tradition of Christian law pertaining to the proper conduct
of and limits to war once it is undertaken. Now used by others in the natural
law tradition in discussions of peace and war to refer to proper conduct of war
and its limits in the context of the battlefield.
Kabbalah. Tradition of Jewish mysticism with roots in the talmudic period but
not fully developed until the Middle Ages.
 Glossary 233

King David. First Israelite king in the First Temple period to establish a sizable
Jewish kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Knesset. The Israeli parliament.
Kosher laws. Jewish rules governing dietary restrictions.
Likud. Political party of Israel that came to prominence under Begin, Shamir,
and Netanyahu. Home to revisionist Zionists with roots in the Irgun, Lehi, and
the Stern Gang, who ran various violent operations to drive out the British from
Palestine and to intimidate Arabs into leaving. Old rivals of the Labor party, with
distinct cultural and class distinctions beneath the surface of the rivalry.
Mahayana Buddhism. A somewhat later form of Buddhism that reigns in a
number of Asian countries.
Mahdi tradition. In Shiite Islam, the belief that a future Imam will return to be
the leader of the community.
Maimonidean. Characteristic of Maimonides' philosophy or legal positions.
Mekhilta. Rabbinic halakhic midrash that is a commentary on the book of Ex-
odus; entails numerous halakhic and some non-halakhic discussions.
Messiah. A figure in Judaism who will transform history, bring world peace, and
restore the Jewish people to their historic home in Israel. In Christianity, it refers
to Jesus of Nazareth.
Messianic era. In Judaism, the time of history in which the messiah arrives.
Midrash. Rabbinic interpretation of biblical texts; one of the most central char-
acteristics of rabbinic thinking and the place of greatest creativity and innovation.
Mishnah. One of the earliest compendiums of rabbinic law, written down in the
second century but citing authorities from the first century C.E.
Mishnaic. Of or pertaining to the Mishnah or its period in rabbinic history.
Mitsvah. The central religious act of Judaism, the fulfilling of a commandment
of God that appears in the Bible, and also the fulfilling of any righteous deed
that is taught by rabbinic Judaism.
Modern Mennonites. Those Mennonites who maintain many traditional beliefs
and practices but who dress in modern clothing and are thoroughly at home with
modern technology. They engage in study of and dialogue with the larger human
community and have a range of social and political beliefs and values, from very
conservative to very progressive.
Modern Orthodox Judaism. A version of Orthodox Judaism that also claims a
commitment to secular education and, to some degree, to creatively interact with
modern thought and values.
Mohammed. Central prophet of Islam, considered by Islam to be the last and
greatest prophet in the history of the three Biblically based monotheisms.
 234 Glossary

Moral sense theory. Modern school of ethics that roots good actions in prosocial
sentiments, such as the drive to justice or to be compassionate or to have courage.
Ethical training is thus focused on education and the habituation of the psyche
to exercising prosocial sentiments.
Mosaic religion. Benamozegh's term for the religion of the Hebrew Bible or Torah
and the rabbis that is specifically meant for the Jewish people, as opposed to
Noachism, also embedded in the Torah, which is meant to be a universal religion
for all humankind or meant as a kind of all-embracing blueprint of a universal
religion, pieces of which can be found in all spiritual traditions.
NGO. Nongovernmental organization or agency, such as Oxfam, CARE, Refugees
International, the Vatican, the World Conference on Religion and Peace, or the
Mennonite Central Committee. Considered by many theoreticians to be crucial
to conflict resolution in complex international conflicts.
Nirvana. In Buddhism, a final state of bliss attained upon enlightenment, which
is a release from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Noah. Figure in the Bible who is said to have survived a global, disastrous great
flood, based on God's instruction, and who proceeded to rebuild human civili-
zation.
Old Order Mennonites. Those Mennonites who adhere to this day to strict social
limitations in terms of clothing, modern technology, and exposure to secular
education and information.
Orthodox Christianity. Eastern churches that broke early from Rome and formed
a distinctive Christianity, they have a set of nuanced differences regarding the
sacraments, a mystical emphasis on the incarnation of God, rather than a formal
commitment to transubstantiation, and a different and less hierarchical structure
of authority than in Catholicism, among other differences.
Orthodox Judaism. The expression of Judaism in modern times that claims to
adhere most closely to traditional Judaism before the onslaught of the Enlight-
enment and Emancipation. Formed in opposition to Conservative and Reform
Judaism.
Oslo accords. The first stages of direct PLO-Israeli negotiations, formally signed
in May 1994, which have now lead to final status talks and negotiations for a
permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Othering. Often used in postmodern literature, it refers to the ways in which we
make ourselves distinct and alienated from Others or the ways in which we ob-
jectify Others and separate them conceptually and phenomenologically from our-
selves.
Pantheist. An approach to spirituality that sees the material world as one with
God.
Peacebuilding. A term typical of the conflict transformation school of thought,
which emphasizes long-term relationship building with a broad spectrum of so-
 Glossary 235

ciety as the key to peace, as opposed to discrete sets of negotiations and settle-
ments, usually between elites.
Pietism. Movements of religiosity in the monotheisms that emphasize an inten-
sive relationship to God, a focus on the personal disciplines of moral behavior,
and an active engagement with the inner life of the believer.
Pogrom. Periodic massacres of Jewish men, women, and children in the villages
and towns of Christian Europe; especially common on Christian holidays, such
as Easter.
Prophet, The. Common term in Islam for Mohammed.
Purim. A Jewish holiday, founded exclusively by the rabbis, that commemorates
a plot to destroy the Jewish people in a mythic kingdom and vengeance that is
wreaked on those who engaged in the plot.
Quietism. A spiritual philosophy that emphasizes a passive approach to worldly
problems, especially violence.
Qur'an. The holiest book of Islam, considered by Muslims to be the best and
most direct revelation of the word of Allah (God) through the prophet Moham-
med.
Rabbinic Judaism. A transformation of biblical Judaism that occured over a
period of many centuries before, during, and after the beginning of the Common
Era; a hermeneutic rerereading of biblical religion that is so complete that it
effectively became the standard Judaism until the modern day. It emphasizes the
religious deed, Torah study, and a large set of ethical and ritual acts, which com-
prise one's spiritual relationship to God and the community.
Ramadan. Sacred month in the Islamic calendar, which involves fasting, feasting,
and a greater attention to one's life and character before Allah (God).
Rebbe. Central figure of Hasidic Judaism, major righteous leader who takes care
of his community and forms a special relationship to God.
Reform Judaism. A liberal version of Judaism, beginning with the modern period,
that eliminates any legal requirement to observe Jewish law and emphasizes mod-
ern, ethical monotheism, the social teachings of the classical biblical prophets,
and forms of worship more typical of the dominant, Western culture.
Refraining. Common phrase in conflict resolution techniques that involves help-
ing conflicting parties to see their opposing positions in new ways, which allows
for compromise, joint activity, fulfillment of everyone's needs, etc.
Sabbath laws. Extensive set of disciplines associated with traditional observance
of the Jewish sabbath; they involve prayers, social meals, study, and refraining
from any invasive manipulation of Earth's resources. Thus, among many other
restrictions, no creation of fire, no writing, no farming, and no business is per-
mitted for 25 hours.
Satyagraha. Lit. "holding on to truth." A method of nonviolent resistance, ac-
cording to Gandhi's interpretation of Hinduism.
 236 Glossary

Second Temple Period. Time in Jewish history beginning approximately in the

fifth century B.C.E. and extending to the end of the first century C.E.
Sefirot. Realms of the divine being, or extensions thereof, in Jewish mysticism
that emanate toward and interact with human life on earth. The sefirot function
in many ways, but they have an interactive quality to them that allows believers,
if they train themselves in ethical and cognitive perfection, to engage in influ-
encing cosmic, divine phenomena of the world.
Sephardi. Those members of the Jewish Diaspora who migrated to, and then
originated from, the realms of Jewish life that fell under Islamic rule or influence,
such as the Middle East, North Africa, and Muslim Spain.
Seven Laws of Noah. Body of rabbinic rules, including a prohibition against
murder and theft, that are supposed to be universal, and obligatory for all human
beings.
Shekhina. The mystical notion in Judaism of the divine presence that dwells
among people, especially if they behave in ways that meet with divine approval.
Shtetl. Small hamlets and villages of Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
Sikh. A follower of Sikhism, one of the more recent religions of India. It is a
monotheistic religion beginning in the sixteenth century and now numbers about
eighteen million adherents worldwide.
Sitz-im-leben. The cultural and social context in which a text is written, which
influences its character.
Syncretism. A strong tendency in the history of religions for a significant number
of people to creatively combine elements of more than one religion to which they
are exposed; often induces a reactionary response by the guardians of the re-
spective traditions, at least in monotheism.
Talmud. The preeminent set of volumes of rabbinic Judaism, which contains the
oral debates and hermeneutic interpretations of hundreds of years of rabbis.
Theosophy. A philosophic approach to a mystical understanding of the divine
operation of the world and the divine nature.
Tosafists. Traditional commentators on the Talmud of the Middle Ages who were
known for ingenious legal thinking and innovation.
Transcendence. That aspect of the divine that is utterly above and removed from
the world, as opposed to immanence.
Ulama. The senior religious figures of a Muslim community.
Ummah. The Islamic community worldwide.
Utilitarianism. School of ethics, typified by J. S. Mill, that emphasizes the calculus
of outcomes of actions as a way of deciding, in its simplest version, how to bring
the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.
Vedas. Most important scriptures of Hinduism.
 Glossary 237

Volkish. Favored term for anything characteristic of the mythic Aryan people; a
key term used by Nazi propaganda.
Worldview, worldview theory. Influenced by the work of Oscar Nudler, among
others, emphasizes the roots of conflict in the completely different cognitive and
emotive universes of combatants; implies a different set of approaches to peace-
making.
Yad Vashem. The preeminent Israeli Holocaust museum, where most official vis-
itors to Israel have been taken as an introduction to Israel and its foundation.
Yishuv. The original settlement of Zionists in the land of Palestine before the
creation of the state of Israel.
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 Notes

Chapter One
1. Less well known globally, but equally revolutionary in their context, are Badshah
Khan, the nonviolent Islamic leader of the Pathans, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Hes-
chel, of U.S. civil rights era fame, Dorothy Day, and many others.
2. Rorty is correct that rigid notions of Truth, Right, Science, or God always get
us in trouble when we expect them to solve our problems. He is also right to embrace
a Deweyan hope for the future, which leaves the future an open possibility that is
based on human thought and action, not absolute categories. But he misunderstands
that, in the history of human thinking and believing, it is also the case that "abso-
lutes," such as Truth, God, or religious myth and ritual, are made dynamic by the
endless hermeneutic drive of human beings, and therein lies hope as well. Hope does
not have to exist only in a humanistic embrace; it is also in the power of human
beings to constantly reinterpret the absolutes that they live by. This makes many
futures possible even for religious people, with all the peril and promise that accom-
panies the uncertainty of hermeneutic engagement with ancient values and texts. See
Richard Rorty, "Method, Social Science and Social Hope," in The Postmodern Turn,
ed. Steven Seidman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 46-64.
3. Human needs theory is a school of thought that examines conflict in terms of
the needs that go unsatisfied and therefore cause destructive conflict. There is great
disagreement on what are human needs and which needs are the most fundamental.
See John Burton, ed., Conflict: Human Needs Theory (New York: St. Martin's, 1990).
4. On the centrality of identity as the basis for conflict, see Jay Rothman, Resolving
Identity-Based Conflict in Nations, Organizations, and Communities (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1997).
5. There are numerous references, but see esp. Exod. 22:20, 23:9; Lev. 16:29, 17:12,
18:26; Deut. 10:19.
6. There was an obvious need to be interdisciplinary in this work, which neces-
sarily required a degree of imprecision in each religious tradition and many gener-
alizations that would rankle the experts. My purpose is not to be the last word on
this subject but rather to stimulate further research and better recommendations,
which will be finely honed to individual religious traditions. However, as we will note,
all recommendations have to include methods of interreligious conflict resolution as
well, methods that assume divergent traditions adhered to by different combatants.
In other words, comparative work is inescapable, with all of its inaccuracies.
7. See Amos 5:20; Joel 1-3; Zeph. 1:7-2:2; Zech. 14; Mai. 3.

239
 240 Notes to Pages 10-16

8. See, for example, Rev. 16:6, where the theme of blood is central. The blood of
the prophets and the innocent will be paid for by rivers of the blood of the "wicked,"
whoever this may be. Of course, this is what is so dangerous about violent literature:
Who decides in every generation who the wicked are, and are there any controls on
this fantasy of bloody revenge? Rivers of blood tend to have no limit in history and
always sweep up in their furious currents the innocent together with the guilty. The
Crusades are perhaps the most poignant example of this in religious history, but it is
only a lack of historical records that makes us overlook parallel events in other places
and cultures.

Chapter Two

1. See Henry O. Thompson, World Religions in War and Peace (Jefferson, N.C.:
McFarland, 1988); John Ferguson, War and Peace in the World's Religions (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1978); and Homer Jack, ed., World Religions and World Peace:
The International Inter-Religious Symposium on Peace (Boston: Beacon, 1968).
2. See Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace (Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax, 1987); Maha
Gosananda, Step by Step: Meditations on Wisdom and Compassion (Berkeley, Calif.:
Parallax, 1988); Gosananda, A Report from the Inter-Religious Mission for Peace in
Cambodia (Providence, R.I.: Cambodian Mission for Peace, 1988); and Cynthia
Sampson, "Religion and Peacebuilding," in Peacemaking in International Conflict,
ed. I William Zartman and Lewis Rasmussen (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of
Peace, 1997).
3. See, for example, Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures New York: Basic,
1973)> Pt. 3-
4. An example of the complex interplay of economics and religious extremism
might be the comparative status of the Shiite community in the Middle East and the
popularity of the Iranian revolution among them, or the economic scenario of Iran
just prior to the revolution. Another example might involve an analysis of the eco-
nomic and social status of the followers of Meir Kahane in the United States and
Israel. Kahane, since the inception of his radical activity in the 1960s, was brilliant at
empowering working-class Jewish youth, who were decidedly marginalized by the
upper-class mobility and intellectual accomplishments of most of their ethnic con-
temporaries. Kahane moved them from a relatively inner-directed anger at their social
position to belligerency against hoodlums attacking elderly Jews in the United States,
then to opposition to the Soviets who oppressed Jews, and finally toward hatred of
Arabs. For an analysis of class conflict and conflict resolution, see Richard E. Ru-
benstein, "The Analyzing and Resolving of Class Conflict," in Conflict Resolution The-
ory and Practice, ed. Dennis Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (Manchester, N.Y.:
Manchester University Press, 1993), 146-57. On Kahane's class consciousness, see his
Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews (Secaucus, N.J.: L. Stuart, 1987). On
Kahane's life, see Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet, Meir Kahane: From FBI
Informant to Knesset Member (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill, 1990).
5. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, "Conflict Resolution in an Islamic Context," Peace
and Change 21, no. i (Jan. 1996): 22-40, has cautioned against the unadulterated
application of Western conflict resolution methods to non-Western contexts. I am
suggesting some ways in which religious traditions may serve as a bridge to help
conflict resolution experts adjust their methods to each cultural situation.
6. On women's roles in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, see Simona Sharoni, Gender
and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women's Resistance (Syracuse, N.Y.:
Syracuse University Press, 1995).
 Notes to Pages 17—20 241

7. See Haim Cohn, Human Rights in Jewish Law (New York: Ktav, 1984), 27-47;
Reuven Kimelman, "Non-Violence in the Talmud," Judaism 17 (1968): 316-34; and
David S. Shapiro, "The Jewish Attitude towards Peace and War," in Studies in Jewish
Thought, ed. David S. Shapiro (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1975), 1:316-73.
8. See Eliezer Schweid, "Land of Israel," in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought,
ed. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York: Free Press, 1988), 535-42;
and Martin Buber, "The Land and Its Possessors," in his Israel and the World (New
York: Schocken, 1963), 226-33. Buber's Zionism, however, was a radical advocacy of
a binational state of Jews and Arabs; see his A Land of Two Peoples, ed. Paul Mendes-
Flohr (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). See also Ehud Luz, "The Moral Price
of Sovereignty: The Dispute about the Use of Military Power within Zionism," Modern
Judaism 7 (Fall 1987): 51-98.
9. On Gush Emunim, see Laurence J. Silberstein, ed., Jewish Fundamentalism in
Comparative Perspective: Religion, Ideology and the Crisis of Modernity (New York: New
York University Press, 1993).
10. See Richard E. Rubenstein, Alchemists of Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern
World (New York: Basic, 1987).
11. See Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Evil and Other Group Violence
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 72-75, 279-81, and esp. 317, n. 15; and
Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of
Violence (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983).
12. See, for example, Oz Ve-Shalom, English Bulletin series, nos. 1-8 (1982-1999).
Some of the bulletin titles are instructive: "One Standard of Justice," "The Cry of
Religious Conscience," "Torah against Terror," "Violence and the Value of Life in
Jewish Tradition."
13. See, for example, Robert Bush and Joseph Folger, The Promise of Mediation:
Responding to Conflict through Empowerment and Recognition (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1994), 27; and John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation
across Cultures (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 16-20.
14. See Joseph Montville, "The Healing Function in Political Conflict Resolution,"
in Sandole and van der Merwe, eds., Conflict Resolution, 117-24.
15. Even though the classical expression of these virtues emphasizes their unilateral
character, it seems to me that in order for it to work as a conflict resolution strategy,
there has to be an agreed-upon bilateral character to these interactions, even if, as
they are finally made public, the interactions have the look and feel of a unilateral
event. Rarely does only one side of a conflict consider themselves victims deserving
of apologies. Furthermore, proper use of this method would necessarily entail judi-
cious choices of the third-party negotiators based on an inductive analysis of the
circumstances. It may be that in certain circumstances, such as postgenocide, mutual
apologies would be obscene and perceived as such. It may also be that one side has
more to apologize for. These considerations must enter into the give and take of the
conflict resolution scenario. Also, the object of the apology must be given careful
consideration. One must analyze where the gravest injuries have occurred to particular
parties. For example, it seems to me that Israelis and Palestinians, unconsciously or
consciously, have managed to direct their injuries of the other precisely toward the
most vulnerable areas of the adversary. The Israeli policy of demolishing homes, up-
rooting olive trees, expelling people, or expropriating their land in retaliation for Arab
violence hits the Palestinians precisely in the most painful place: the loss of sovereignty
over their land. On the other hand, Palestinian support of terrorism against civilian
targets over the years has hit Jews in their most vulnerable injury: the massive loss of
innocent life due to genocide in the twentieth century combined with a jittery aware-
 242 Notes to Pages 20—2.1

ness of being such a tiny minority in the world. This is why Israelis are obsessed by
every reaction of Arabs to the murder of a Jew, while Palestinians are obsessed with
every acre of land that is under dispute. The apologies and confidence-building mea-
sures need therefore to be directed toward these areas of injury.
16. See Rafael Moses, "The Leader and the Led: A Dyadic Relationship," in The
Psychodynamics of International Relationships, ed. Vamik Volkan, Demetrios Julius, and
Joseph Montville (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), 1:205-17.
17. See, for example, David S. Shapiro, "The Doctrine of the Image of God and
Imitatio Dei," in Contemporary Jewish Ethics, ed. Menachem Kellner (New York: He-
brew Publishing, 1978), 127-51. "The Christian is and must be by his very adoption
as a son of God, in Christ, a peacemaker (Matt. 5:9). He is bound to imitate the
Savior who, instead of defending Himself with twelve legions of angels allowed Him-
self to be nailed to the Cross and died praying for His executioners" (Thomas Merton,
The Nonviolent Alternative [New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980], 13).
18. Ronald Duncan, ed., Gandhi: Selected Writings (New York: Harper Colophon,
I971), 33-64.
19. See, for example, Thomas Merton, "The Climate of Mercy," in his Love and
Living, ed. Naomi Stone and Patrick Hart (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
!979)> 203-19; Marc Gopin, "The Religious Ethics of Samuel David Luzzatto" (Ph.D.
diss., Brandeis Univ., 1993), chaps. 2, 6, 7. The entire tradition of moral sense theory,
especially as it was articulated by Rousseau, is rooted in the importance of empathy.
20. There exists, however, the perennial problem in a religious context of the scope
of the spiritual commitment. In this case, for example, can the religious adherent
extend empathy toward a nonbeliever? Is she even allowed to do so by standards of
that tradition? This has to be examined in advance and will depend on the type of
people participating, their particular hermeneutic of their tradition, and how far that
hermeneutic can be stretched to include nonbelievers. We will discuss below the prob-
lem of the limited scope of religious ethical values.
21. Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion: The Missing Dimension
of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), ch. 6.
22. On relational empathy, see Benjamin Broome, "Managing Differences in Con-
flict Resolution: The Role of Relational Empathy," in Sandole and van der Merwe,
eds., Conflict Resolution, 97-111. Of course the concept of empathy would need to be
mediated by each side of the conflict, which would have to translate the concept in
terms of its own religious traditions. Naturally, this might lead to differences and
debate. Furthermore, the ensuing debate may reflect casuistic nuances that actually
mask deeper issues. A skilled third party might want to work at bringing both sides
together on the definition of terms, while simultaneously addressing what he believes
to be the underlying differences of the casuistic debate. A secular observer may quickly
tire of such debates over traditions; however, these kind of debates are critical to the
way some religious people negotiate their needs and claims upon the world. It is also
the way in which compromise is often achieved in religious contexts. Furthermore,
the very indulgence in such discussions has worth in itself, namely, the valuation and
honoring of religious traditions which is completely overlooked in most first-and
second-track diplomacy settings. Honoring the traditions makes compromise more
possible when religious combatants are involved in conflict.
23. Mohandas Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers, ed. Krishna Kripalani (New York:
Continuum, 1980), ch. 4; and Christopher Key Chappie, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth,
and Self in Asian Traditions (Albany: State University of New York, 1993).
24. See, for example, Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), chaps. 5 and 10; Peter Mayer, ed., The Pacifist Conscience
 Notes to Pages 21-23 243

(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), 355-410; John Yoder, The Politics of
Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William P. Eerdmans, 1972); and Yoder, Nevertheless:
Varieties of Religious Pacifism (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1992). On the Mennonite/Ana-
baptist tradition, pacifism, and the central importance of Jesus as the model human
being, see Paul M. Lederach, The Third Way (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1980). Note the
critical importance of emulating God, imitatio dei, in establishing an ideal model of
peacemaking, and see my thoughts above on leadership. This concept is a critical
bridge between Jewish and Christian values—and possibly Islamic as well, in terms
of emulation of the Prophet.
25. On other Western religions and pacifism see below, as well as Kimelman,
"Non-Violence in the Talmud."
26. "Although Islam urges its followers to fight and die in defense of their faith,
it considers suicide a sin; the preservation of one's life, to many Muslims, takes priority
over all other considerations, including the profession of the faith" (Khalid Kishtainy,
"Violent and Nonviolent Struggle in Arab History," in Arab Nonviolent Political Strug-
gle in the Middle East, ed. Ralph Crow, P. Grant, and S. Ibrahim [Boulder and London:
Lynne Rienner, 1990], 11). A Jewish rabbinic text of the first century states, "Therefore
was a human being created alone, in order to teach you that everyone who wipes out
a single person it is as if he has wiped out an entire world, while he who saves a
single person it is as if he has saved an entire world" (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4: 5).
27. Note the overwhelming importance of interior experience in the classic studies
by William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Modern Library,
1936), and Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1923).
28. For more on the special contribution of Buddhism to the inner life and peace-
making, see Kenneth Kraft, ed., Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1992).
29. "You should develop unlimited thoughts of sympathy for all beings in the
world above, below, and across, unmarred by hate or enmity.... this is called the
holy state. When you hold on to opinions no more, when you are endowed with
good conduct and true insight, when you have expelled all craving for pleasures, you
will be reborn no more" (Metta Sutta, in Suttanipata [Pali Text Society Publications]
1: 8,143-52), quoted by Luis Gomez in Kraft, ed., Inner Peace, World Peace, 40. Avoid-
ing rebirth is the great goal of Buddhist spirituality. Note the relationship between no
longer holding opinions, gaining true insight, and the capacity for empathy. This has
interesting implications in terms of the mental states necessary for someone to see
an enemy in a new light and the possible ground rules for an indigenous method of
Buddhist interpersonal engagement. Note also the focus on pleasures and desire in
this regard and compare it with Gandhi's experiments, below.
30. See, however, Sulak Sivaraksa's remarkable expansion of these concepts to a
contemporary, proactive—and daringly progressive—interpretation of the Eightfold
Path, in Kraft, ed., Inner Peace, World Peace, 127-37.
31. See William Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1958), 117.
32. For a Tibetan program of training in compassion, see Tsong-kha-pa (1357-1419
C.E.), Lam rim chen mo, in Ethics of Tibet, trans. Alex Wayman (Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 1991), 52-57.
33. See Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers, ch. 5.
34. See Elise Boulding, "States, Boundaries, and Environmental Security," in San-
dole and van der Merwe, eds., Conflict Resolution, 198: "The task of innovation may
not be as impossible as it seems because people and societies have always been capable
of imagining the other and different. It is an interesting fact that the image of the
 244 Notes to Pages 24—27

peaceable garden—a localist world in which people live harmoniously with each other
and with their environment, with warriors laying aside weapons has persisted in every
major cultural tradition."
35. For a full account, see Eugene Fisher, Faith without Prejudice (New York: Cross-
roads, 1993), ch. 7; Fisher, "Evolution of a Tradition," in fifteen Years of Catholic-
Jewish Dialogue, 1970-1985, ed. International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee
(Rome: Vatican Library, 1988), ch. 10; and Eugene Fisher and Leon Klenicki, In Our
Time: The Flowering of Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1990).
For a Jewish response to the new catechism, see Rabbi Leon Klenicki, "The New
Catholic Catechism and the Jews," in Service International De Documentation Judeo-
Chretienne 27: 2 (1994): 9-18.
36. See David Novak's careful analysis of this issue and its relation to the Jewish
community, "Jews and Catholics: Beyond Apologies," First Things 89 (Jan. 1999): 20-25.
37. See The Washington Post, Mar. 28, 1995, p. Arj, on the pronouncements of
Metropolitan loann, the Russian Orthodox primate of St. Petersburg. To be fair, I
attended a meeting in June 1996 at the U.S. Institute of Peace where the archpriest
representing the External Department of the Russian Orthodox church recounted, in
the presence of Moscow's chief rabbi, his efforts at reconciliation and pluralism in
recent years. It was somewhat encouraging, though not terribly courageous regarding
past wrongs.
38. "Falwell's Antichrist Remarks Anger Jews," Boston Globe Jan. 28, 1999, p. A7.
39. The Catholic church has an old tradition of locating all evil in the devil. This
has led recently to an updating of the practice of exorcism. The devil is seen as a
cosmic liar and murderer, and the presence of the devil expresses itself in modern
culture in the "idolatry" of money, deceit, and sex. See "New Vatican Guidelines
Revise Rite of Exorcism," Boston Globe, Jan. 27, 1999. The church, it seems to me,
has been quite careful in recent years not to utilize this theological tradition and
practice in order to demonize whole groups, unlike the sermons that one can find
on the fringes of conservative Christian life. The church, in recent years, tends to
locate evil in certain practices and societal trends rather than in personages. But this
requires more investigation and interfaith discussion. The entire subject of certain
religious tendencies to locate evil outside the human being, in some ontic entity, is
of profound concern in terms of conflict analysis and requires further study. This is
especially common in African religions, and I am still investigating the effects of this
on conflict and war and how to respond to it from the point of view of conflict
resolution practice. There are obvious dangers, but there may also be ways to engage
the reification of evil in terms of conflict resolution.
40. See, for example, John Paul Lederach, "Pacifism in Contemporary Conflict: A
Christian Perspective," paper commissioned by the U.S. Institute of Peace (Washing-
ton, D.C.: July 20, 1993).
41. See W. Scott Thompson et al., eds., Approaches to Peace: An Intellectual Map
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1992).
42. See John Kelsay and Sumner Twiss, eds., Religion and Human Rights (New
York: Project on Religion and Human Rights, 1994). It must be cautioned that many
religious subgroupings might welcome the introduction of a human rights discussion,
for example, while some may see it as an invasion of Western values or, at the very
least, a system of values that they instinctively and initially consider alien to their
traditions. The third-party negotiator must decide whether the benefits outweigh the
cost of introducing concepts such as human rights into a discussion between warring
religious groups or whether the goals of conflict resolution can be achieved in some
other way.
 Mites to Pages 27—26 245

43. The just war legal tradition in the three monotheisms, which addresses the
moral problem of violence with outsiders, is not as helpful for the study of conflict
resolution as one would hope. Just war theory indicates which wars are either justified,
limited, circumscribed, or prohibited. See, for example, James Turner Johnson and
John Kelsay, eds., Cross, Crescent and Sword: The Justification and Limitation of War
in Western and Islamic Tradition (New York: Greenwood, 1990); David Novak, Law
and Theology in Judaism (New York: Ktav, 1974), 125-35; and Reuven Kimelman,
"War," in Frontiers of Jewish Thought, ed. Steven Katz (Washington, D.C.: B'nai B'rith
Books, 1992), 309-32. There are important moral arguments in these traditions that
would force a religious society, in principle at least, to consider all the consequences
of war before engaging in it. Furthermore, there are a series of restrictions regarding
the conduct of violence, which try to blunt the impact of violence on enemies. How-
ever, such legal concepts tend to emphasize warmaking strategies and not peacemak-
ing strategies. They tend to skew the discussion toward the abstract theological choice
of war or not war, without a nuanced sense of all the stages at which aggressive
interpersonal and intergroup conflict resolution may address the real needs of the
situation. Thus they do not really address the dynamic possibility of human relation-
ships among adherents and outsiders or adversaries. These laws tend also to abstract
the enemy, which is a major impediment, as we now know, to conflict resolution.
44. For a full exploration of fundamentalism today in its relationship to politics,
see Martin Marty and F. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking
Polities, Economies, Militance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
45. I use the term Other in the sense of anyone who is outside the community of
the faithful in a particular religious grouping or to refer to a group within the religious
community that is considered to have a different and/or inferior status. Emmanuel
Levinas's conceptualization of the Other and the topic of intersubjectivity, in general,
that he and other religious philosophers, such as Martin Buber, discuss, might prove
useful in provoking interreligious dialogue on the problem of the conflict between
religions. Some of the debate between Levinas and Buber on the nature of the inter-
subjective moment, whether, for example, it is asymmetric or equal, may have im-
portant implications for designing theories of conflict resolution. See Levinas's critique
of Buber's epistemology in The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Cambridge, Mass.:
Basil Blackwell, 1989), 59-74, and see 37-58 for an introduction to Levinas's theory of
the Other. For an introduction to Buber's philosophy of the interhuman, see his The
Knowledge of Man, ed. Maurice Friedman (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 59-88.
An interesting area of research might be to attempt to elicit from these religious
epistemologies approaches to the problems of violence between self and other, as well
as between nations and religious groups. On psychodynamic approaches to the rela-
tionships among self, Other, and violence, see Vamik Volkan, "An Overview of Psy-
chological Concepts Pertinent to Interethnic and/or International Relationships," Vol-
kan et al., eds., Psychodynamics of International Relationships, 1: 31-46; Rafael Moses,
"Self, Self-view, and Identity," in Volkan et al., eds., Psychodynamics of International
Relationships, 47-56; and Bryant Wedge, "Psychology of the Self in Social Conflict,"
in International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, ed. Edward Azar and John
Burton (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1986), 56-62.
46. See Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Laws of Idolatry,
ch. 7; and Thompson, World Religions in War and Peace, 12-17. It should be said that
idolaters are condemned mostly for complete moral decadence in many biblical
(Amos 1-4) and rabbinic sources (Num. Rabbah 11; Midrash ha-Gadol, Noach, 11:9;
Talmud Bavli Yoma 9b), which has led a number of modern Jewish religious thinkers
to dismiss the harsh anti-idolatry rules in the context of the major modern religions,
 246 Notes to Pages 29—30

all of which have strong moral codes. See Harold Kasimow and Byron Sherwin, eds.,
No Religion Is an Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue (Mary-
knoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991); and David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Jus-
tification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
47. See Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 37a.
48. See Talmud Bavli Berakhot 17a; Avot of Rabbi Nathan, version A, ch. 12. The
Hebrew term beriot and the amplification of the idea in the text make it clear that
Hillel referred to all human beings.
49. There has been a discouragement of conversion to Judaism since the beginning
of rabbinic Judaism almost two thousand years ago (see, for example, Talmud Bavli
Yevamot 47a). However, in the period immediately prior to the flourishing of rabbinic
Judaism, Hasmonean kings did convert people en masse, sometimes by force (see
Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought [New York: Macmillan, 1980], 130,
182, 193). It cannot be said with absolute certainty what Rabbi Yohanan's and Hillel's
respective attitudes were toward conversion, although they were pivotal figures of
rabbinic Judaism. One thing is certain: the way the texts have been received and read
by rabbinic Jews—the critical issue in hermeneutics—would preclude their being an
encouragement to conversion. Rather, they are methods of expressing a commitment
to peacemaking and to care for all of God's creation. I make no claim, furthermore,
that their words are representative of all of rabbinic Judaism; there are plenty of angry
statements about gentiles in rabbinic literature. My purpose is to demonstrate the
dynamic possibilities of religious hermeneutics, which are inherent even in ancient
texts, not to gloss over the problems associated with premodern religious literature.
50. See David Little's important work on religious intolerance and political vio-
lence, for example, Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity (Washington, D.C.: U.S. In-
stitute of Peace, 1994); and Ukraine: The Legacy of Intolerance (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Institute of Peace, 1991). The genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 was not a religious
action. However, religious institutions have been implicated. See Pierre Erny, Rwanda
1994: cles pour comprendre le calvaire d'un peuple. (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994); and
Gerard Prunier, Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1995). I have received personal correspondence from a Tutsi Jesuit priest, who
lost some of his family, telling me how saddened he is that the church in Rwanda is
part of the process of examining the atrocities when it itself is implicated, based on
what he saw. Another Tutsi survivor, who lost most of her family, told me that she
was forced to learn in religious schools why Tutsi were inferior and dangerous. On
the alleged participation of priests in the genocide, see "Clergy in Rwanda Is Accused
of Abetting Atrocities," New York Times, July 7,1995, P. A3. Thousands of Tutsi refused
to go to church as a result of the crimes of the priests. See "Rwanda Struggles with
a Crisis of Faith," San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 2, 1995, P. A8.
51. Johan Galtung, "Peace, Violence, and Peace Research," Journal of Peace Re-
search 6 (1969): 167-91.
52. See Thompson, World Religions in War and Peace; and Ferguson, War and
Peace.
53. Mishnan Sanhedrin 8:7; and Ephraim Urbach, "Jewish Doctrines and Practices
in Halakhic and Aggadic Literature," in Violence and Defense in Jewish Experience, ed.
Salo Baron, George Wise, and Lenn Goodman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication So-
ciety of America, 1977), 87-112.
54. Abdulaziz A. Sachedina, "The Development of Jihad in Islamic Revelation and
History," in Johnson and Kelsay, eds., Cross, Crescent and Sword, 39.
55. See, for example, the debates over the Gulf War in David Smock, ed., Religious
Perspectives on War: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Attitudes to Force after the Gulf War
 Notes to Pages 30—36 247

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1992); and, generally, Bainton, Christian
Attitudes, 66-84. See also n. 24 above.
56. See, for example, Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Glenn D. Paige, and Sarah Gilliat,
eds., Islam and Nonviolence (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii, and Spark M.
Matsunaga Institute for Peace, 1993). On a pacifist interpretation of jihad by the
Ahmadi sect of Islam, see Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ah-
madi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1989), 165-80; in Judaism, see Murray Polner and Naomi Goodman, eds.,
The Challenge of Shalom (Philadelphia: New Society, 1994); and my essay in Polner
and Goodman, "Is There a Jewish God of Peace?" 32-39.
57. "I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. I believe
that they are all God-given, and I believe that they were necessary for the people to
whom these religions were revealed" (Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers, 55). See also
Diana Eck, Encountering God (Boston: Beacon, 1993).
58. See Wedge, "Psychology of the Self in Social Conflict," 57.

Chapter Three

1. For a representative sample of essays with accompanying bibliographies, see

Terry Nardin, ed., The Ethics of War and Peace (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1996).
2. The same could be said for the secular just war tradition. There is a curious
tendency to bifurcate the political and theological calculus of war and divorce it from
the entire range of human ethical intuitions and principles. The latter are critical in
preventing wars and ending them, yet are absent from just war discussions. Further-
more, the second subject of just war theory is the proper conduct of war. Here too
there is a curious way in which different rules and values apply, as if values that
address stealing, dishonor, or brutality have to be seen in some new way during
wartime or even be discarded during war. Clearly, advances such as the Geneva Con-
ventions have attempted to place back into war some of the normal, universal con-
siderations of ethics. But just war discussions have a curious way of speaking about
major cataclysms in such broad terms that the fate of individual moral decisionmaking
is completely obscured. This may be a bow to military hierarchy and the loss of a
soldier's personal choice. But this too has been challenged by recent conventions.
Essentially the just war tradition deprives us of too much of the range of moral
thinking and reflection, which are essential in situations of radical moral complexity,
such as a battlefield. An exception to this is Michael Walzer's attempt to investigate
the complexity of military choices. See his Just and Unjust Wars (New York, N.Y.:
Basic, 1977).
3. See Kraft, ed., Inner Peace, World Peace, 129. In Judaism the prohibition is on
selling weapons to someone who cannot be trusted not to commit murder with those
weapons and involves the obligation not to aid someone else to commit a crime
(Talmud Bavli Avodah Zarah I5b; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder 12:
12). Of course, the sad truth is that Maimonides' same Laws of Murder also make it
obligatory to kill Jewish apostates and heretics if they have refused to repent, in
addition to a particularly callous attitude toward the value of a polytheistic human
life (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder 4:10, 11). Hence, the mixed legacy of the classical
sources, although it must be said in fairness to traditional Judaism that Maimonides
was particularly harsh as a social legislator on matters of dogma. See ch. 5 of this
volume for at least two Orthodox authorities who were particularly opposed to Mai-
monides' conclusions.
 248 Notes to Pages 36-43

4. See, for example, John Voder's argument, in Smock, ed., Religious Perspectives
on War, 41ff., that a key part of the ethical evaluation of the Gulf War and its conduct
should be the question of how Saddam was armed in the first place.
5. When referring to constructive conflict, conflict resolution theoreticians are
generally alluding to the fact that many conflicts need to occur, and they can play a
constructive role in creating more just societies or more honest relationships where
everyone's needs are openly confronted. Conflict management, in such circumstances,
would have as its goal not the suppression of the conflict but ensuring that the conflict
does not turn into a destructive (usually meaning violent) enterprise that is self-
perpetuating or intractable. With some practice, observers and activists can become
fairly adept at distinguishing constructive and destructive conflicts, whether they are
interpersonal, familial, or societal. See Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts (Lan-
ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
6. It is true that many modern liberal forms of religious experience have placed
a premium on individual decisionmaking, but this is not the reality of most religious
life as it is experienced globally. Some could argue that veneration of and deference
to ancestors, elders, and authority figures with access to sacred revelation or wisdom
is one of the most common elements in the history of human religion.
7. Naturally, religious elitist hierarchies are just as problematic to a paradigm of
authentic peacemaking as diplomatic elites or professional elites. In all cases, authentic
peace processes only take root deeply when people at all levels of cultures and sub-
cultures are allowed and/or encouraged to become part of the relationship-building
process. However, in order to gain entry into some religious worlds, it is necessary
to get the permission of the hierarchy. Then, one can enter into deeper processes with
the mass of people.
8. One can see parallel challenges in secular constructs. For example, many au-
thoritarian regimes, such as Assad's in Syria, are predicated on an entire educational
system that locates the source of all social problems outside the society, namely, in
Israel. A shift toward peace dialogue would be deeply threatening to the cultural
construct of the society. I have had at least one Syrian student, for example, who
went into crisis after going to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, because the
Holocaust was supposed to be a Zionist hoax, according to everything she was ever
taught. Nevertheless, the pragmatic emphases of nation-state life, such as the focus
on security and the material advantages of a better life without war or with more
tourism, can help citizens of authoritarian states to move toward new cultural con-
structs despite old indoctrination. It is harder, however, with religious constructs,
which are supposed to be, or felt by the believer to be, permanent fixtures of reality.
The radical Christian girl referred to above cannot be "bought off" by, say, a mutually
beneficial material relationship with Jews. She will have to go through some profound
transformation, even a crisis, in order to change her worldview. It is possible that a
carefully constructed dialogue workshop could accomplish this, but I doubt that she
would ever enter voluntarily into such a cultural space. Where are our methods of
conflict resolution that would help her?
9. See, for example, Avot of Rabbi Nathan, ch. 20.
10. See M. Avoth 3:2 on the appearance of the shekhinah, the divine presence,
among those who exchange the words of Torah.
11. On the importance of the exchange of words in Buddhism, see William Barrett,
ed., Zen Buddhism (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 111-56, which includes Zen
instruction and the koan exercises. On the importance of debate in the life of Tibetan
Buddhist monks, see Dalai Lama XIV, Tenzin Gyatso, Freedom in Exile: The Autobi-
ography of the Dalai Lama (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 25-26. For an eyewitness
 Notes to Pages 44—49 249

account of the Tibetan debates in Dharamsala, the Indian center of the Dalai Lama
and Tibetan Buddhism in exile, see Rodger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 113-14.
12. Robin McDowell, "Buddhist Monks March in Cambodia," Associated Press,
Mar. 26, 1997.
13. "Ottawa Notebook," Mennonite Central Committee, Apr. 1, 1994.
14. Alan Channer, "Twilight of the Khmer Rouge," For a Change (June-July 1997).
See also the film on Maha, directed by Channer, The Serene Life.
15. I have also been a participant in a number of events of the Faith and Politics
Institute, an NGO in Washington, D.C., that has a focus on Congress and finds
bipartisan ways to address the members' own and the country's spiritual and ethical
values. The institute organized a walk that retraced Martin Luther King's marches,
and there was a bipartisan team of congresspeople, led by John Lewis and Amo
Houghton, who participated. Personal interviews with the participants suggest a highly
unusual transformative spirit produced by the walk. My point is that here we have a
sampling of highly educated, savvy politicians whose job it is every day to use words
to communicate and persuade. But it was the walking along the path of history, with
their bodies, that moved them, that gave them hope and a renewed sense of optimism.
This is highly suggestive of what transforms people of all backgrounds. It should also
be noted that another symbolic, nonverbal gesture was critical to the transformative
power of that walk. A number of congressmen, among them several blacks, chose,
with some mixed feelings, to shake the hand of George Wallace as part of the journey,
because he has publicly repented of his old views.
16. The examples are endless. See, for example, Bachya ben Joseph ibn Paquda (c.
1080 C.E.), Duties of the Heart, trans. Moses Hyamson (Jerusalem and New York:
Feldheim, 1970); Meister Eckhardt (d. 1328 C.E.), "About Activities of the Inner Life
and Outer Life," in Meister Eckhardt, trans. Raymond B. Blakney (New York: Harper,
1941), 36-42; Geshe Rabten and Geshe Dhargyey, Advice from a Spiritual Friend: Bud-
dhist Thought Transformation, trans. Brian Beresford (London: Wisdom, 1984), 66,
142; and Wang Yang-Ming (d. 1529 C.E.), "Inquiry on the Great Learning," in A Source
Book in Chinese Philosophy, ed. Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1963), 665.
17. Even from a secular analytic point of view, one can legitimately challenge
current dialogue workshop methods that do not attempt to address the deeper, in-
ternal roots of rage. Religious ethical approaches to violence can and should critique
behaviorist approaches to conflict resolution that do not challenge the deeper origins
of human violence. This does not mean that the workshop method is flawed, but that
perhaps it is incomplete.
18. See C. R. Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict (New York: St. Mar-
tin's, 1981), 165ff.
19. See Dennis Sandole's summary of these views in his "Paradigms, Theories and
Metaphors in Conflict and Conflict Resolution," in Sandole and van der Merwe, eds.,
Conflict Resolution, 3-24.
20. See Alfie Kohn, The Brighter Side of Human Nature (New York: Basic, 1990).
21. My instinct, after years of working with and teaching people, is that the ex-
pression of the full range of emotions may be central to peacemaking. The lack of
attention to this or even suppression of this reality alienates many people from peace
processes the world over, but this is a subject for another study.
22. This raises another important issue of cross-cultural conflict resolution. Due
to the particular matrix of Christian ethics, based on imitatio dei, emulating Jesus in
this case, there is a tendency among some in Western religious peacemaking to think
 250 Notes to Pages 49—51

that angry religious feelings expressed are a disaster for the dialogue and reconciliation
process. But this is not so in my observation of conflict resolvers emanating out of
Jewish and Islamic contexts, for example. There, strong emotions, as long as they do
not dominate and destroy the proceedings, seem to be a good sign that the encounter
between enemies is "real." This anger means to many of us that we are getting to
the root of the problem, that we have found a way to positively redirect into the
dialogue process the kind of emotions that lead people otherwise to violent politics
or physically violent behavior. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, an important trainer in con-
flict resolution in the Middle East and a professor at American University, did a week-
long training with me. Our student body was primarily Christian. We kept waiting
for the time when people were going to get angry, considering how painful and
controversial were the issues that were being addressed, and we often were amused
and baffled that people just did not want to get angry! Our cultural orientation clearly
predisposes us to favor therapeutic processes that openly accept and even welcome
the need to surface the angry feelings of a conflict, as long as this is not overdone or
crudely manipulated by mediators, and as long as it ultimately serves a larger con-
structive end. By the way, I have seen anger actually evoked by interveners, who then
press the group into a seesaw of anger-remorse-joy in order to manipulate it into
peacemaking. This is absolutely not my intention. I reject this method as ultimately
dishonest and manipulative, and I have seen it backfire badly. But I do welcome anger,
when it surfaces on its own in some people, as an opportunity to work with a group
in discovering the depth of a problem.
23. See Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Boston: Beacon, 1951),
105ff.
24. This theory is most closely associated with John Burton and his many writings.
See, for example, Conflict: Human Needs Theory (New York: St. Martin's, 1990).
25. "Man is regarded as intimately related to other fellow-men and beings; and
the universe is conceived as a sort of organic whole composed of supra-sensible or
mystical correlations and participations" (C. Nyamiti, The Scope of African Theology
[Kampala: Gaba, 1973], 21, as quoted in Laurenti Magasa, African Religion: The Moral
Traditions of Abundant Life [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1997], 52).
26. This is an obvious problem that would come up with anyone engaged in
conflict for the sake of high ideals. I am sure that those who have utilized human
needs theory in interventions are aware of this. But it must be stated that there is a
tension here between a theory that assumes universal natural, pragmatic motivations
of self-interest, on the one side, and, on the other, the self-perception of the individual
or group in conflict that they are fighting for much more than the fulfillment of
needs. Most groups will probably feel insulted by the reduction of their cause to needs.
That does not mean that the theory is useless, but it does require flexible and creative
translation into the pragmatics of intervention and relationship building between all
parties.
27. This is beside the problem, known to theorists, of the enormous variety in the
attachment to needs. Most people would never dream of complete sacrifice of their
human needs, while others do it regularly. Furthermore, we have to account for
unusual periods of time and circumstances in which thousands of people, perhaps
even most, deprive themselves of life and safety for the sake of some intangible need
to do one's duty in warfare, which includes soldiers giving up their comfort and even
lives, parents giving up their children, and so on. This could be reduced to a basic
survival need in a defensive war, but what about wars for glory? What need is being
fulfilled? This is related to the religion question in the sense that it points to human
motivations that clearly sacrifice many basic needs, thus calling into question a re-
 Notes to Pages 53—54 251

ductionist account of human choices regarding conflict and violence. It is true that
Burton and others have clearly recognized identity needs that include religion, and
there is also ample discussion around the problem of creating a hierarchy of human
needs (see Roger Coate and Jerel A. Rosati, eds., The Power of Human Needs in World
Society [Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1988]. 34-56). But there is still a problem with
not comprehending the unpredictable and powerful nature of religious commitment.
There are religious commitments that can drive people to do things that are perfectly
in line with some pragmatic human needs, such as saving a life, being prudent in
one's monetary affairs, establishing community, and so on. But religious commitment
can also lead to the complete sacrifice of those very needs, in certain circumstances
that demand it, such as, for example, when a group is forced by some outside enemy
not to observe its rituals. On the halakhic obligation to endure martyrdom in certain
circumstances rather than violate a Jewish law, a choice forced on many Jews in
history, see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesode ha-Torah 5. See also Ronald
Agus, The Binding of Isaac and Messiah: Law, Martyrdom, and Deliverance in Early
Rabbinic Religiosity (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1988). Now, human
needs theory would have to question risking life and limb, including those of one's
children, all for one ritual. Many religious individuals would forgo that ritual, but
others would risk their health and their children's to go on observing it. This calls
into question the adequacy of human needs theory as an explanation of religious life,
unless all needs are subservient, for some people, to identity needs. To complicate
things, in other circumstances, the same people, when not threatened in the way I
just described, might in fact act based on the full range of needs described in human
needs theory. Thus, I argue that the theory needs to be not discarded but made more
complex and/or adjusted to each group. To illustrate with an example, my paternal
grandmother devoted her entire life to the welfare of her children. As an Orthodox
immigrant, however, during the Depression, she had great difficulty with employment.
But the greatest difficulty she had was being fired from each of her jobs on Sundays
for not coming in on Saturdays, the sabbath. This clearly put her children at some
risk, in terms of her not making enough money to provide food and shelter in those
terrible years. This is precisely the point at which many other immigrants, out of
concern for their family's needs, gave up the most significant legal ritual of traditional
Judaism: sabbath observance.
28. This, in general, is an important prognosticator of religious violence, namely,
the combination of recent traumas, a history of remembered traumas that have been
sacralized, together with newfound power due to shifting political and military cir-
cumstances. On the relationship of the religious myths surrounding Prince Lazar,
Christoslavism, Serbian Orthodoxy, and the Bosnian genocide, see Michael Sells, The
Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998).
29. Numerous progressive Haggadahs (the ancient textbook for recitation on Pass-
over) now insert a variety of new texts, including texts on reconciliation between Jew
and Arab, or recount also the suffering of Palestinians, specifically aiming at ensuring
that the holiday focus on redemptive, nonviolent themes and not on the harsh pun-
ishment of the Egyptians and its potential political use today. Tikkun magazine reg-
ularly publishes an example of this new literature every spring.
30. Most people today in complex civilizations are part of numerous subcultures
and supercultures at the same time, and any analysis that reduces a person or group
to one culture without constant revision and in-depth analysis will serve conflict
resolution poorly. See Kevin Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution (Washington,
D.C.: U.S Institute of Peace, 1998), esp. 12-21. We would be ill served for conflict
 252 Notes to Pages 34—66

resolution purposes in not at least recognizing the potential to communicate across

many cultures due to the existence of a subtle superculture, such as one devoted to
biblical myths and values. But such work must recognize extraordinary differences
and nuances.
31. See Marc Gopin, "Forgiveness as an Element of Conflict Resolution in Religious
Cultures: Walking the Tightrope of Reconciliation and Justice." Unpublished paper,
delivered Feb. 19, 1999, at American University.
32. One wonders whether the conflict could possibly have become so genocidal
without the religious hermeneutic buttress that was so zealously put into place by the
political leadership immediately before the war (see Sells, Bridge Betrayed).
33. This in no way is meant to suppress contemporary critiques of traditional
religious culture and its Othering and disenfranchisement of any number of people
who were different than the majority. On the contrary, I suggest an effort to face this
squarely but to also discover the roots within a religious community of its own
traditions of tolerance, of when it courageously protected minorities from abuse.
Armed with this knowledge, it becomes easier to elicit a just conflict resolution pro-
gram. Certainly, there are junctures at which certain contemporary minority groups
have to take on the tradition as such, with no precedents for tolerance upon which
to build. But it behooves everyone in religious conflict resolution to build from within
a traditional meaning system wherever and whenever possible, because it is the latter
that stands the greatest possibility of success without creating severe backlashes.
34. See Walter Zenner, Minorities in the Middle (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1991).
35. See Lederach, Preparing for Peace, 16-20.
36. This is precisely where progressive groups around the world, who are admi-
rably dedicated to peace, human rights, and the construction of open, civil society,
become a part of the "enemy system" themselves. They are perceived to be, and often
are, deeply hostile toward religious constructs of reality that compete with their vision.
Therefore, they lose the opportunity to be conflict resolvers in their cultures. They
may be good advocates of important causes of justice, but they are hardly peacemak-
ers. That is one of the great challenges confronting Israeli society and one of the great
failures of the Israeli Left in winning more traditional Jews to their positions on
peacemaking. Presently, the lines are drawn so clearly in Israeli culture and the bound-
aries are so high that each society, religious and secular, threatens the other mortally.
This is a virtually unrecognized key to understanding the impasse in the broader
process of peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians.

Chapter Four

1. For an overview of hermeneutics, see Richard Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpre-

tation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston, 111.:
Northwestern University Press, 1969).
2. For the literature on conflict analysis from a social scientific perspective, see
Mitchell, Structure of International Conflict. On social scientific methods of conflict
resolution, see Mitchell, Handbook of Conflict Resolution: The Analytical Problem Solv-
ing Approach (New York: Pinter, 1996); and John Burton, Conflict Resolution: Its Lan-
guage and Processes (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1996).
3. The herem wars involved the killing of every man, woman, and child. See, for
example, Deut. 3:6, 7:2, 20:17; Josh. 8:26, 10:28, 11:12; i Sam. 15:8.
4. Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel (1958; rpt., Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans, 1991).
 2
Notes to Pages 66—69 53

5. See, for example, Isa. 30:15-16; Exod. 14:13-14; Ps. 147:10-11.

6. Von Rad, Holy War,101ff.,131ff.
7. See Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:1 on a complete revisioning of King David as a
scholar not as a violent warrior.
8. Chaiwat Satha-Anand, "The Nonviolent Crescent: Eight Theses on Muslim
Nonviolent Action," in Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East, ed. Ralph
Crow, Philip Grant, and Ibrahim E. Saad (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1990),
32-33.
9. See, in general, Thompson, World Religions in War and Peace.
10. To cite just a few examples, see Everett Gendler, "War and the Jewish Tradi-
tion," in Contemporary Jewish Ethics, ed. Menachem Kellner (New York: Hebrew Pub-
lishing, 1978), 189-210; Kimelman, "War," 309-32; and Novak, Law and Theology in
Judaism, 125-35. On Islam, see Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins press, 1955); John Kelsay, Islam and War (Westminster:
John Knox, 1993); and Farid Esack, The Qu'ran, Liberation and Pluralism (London:
One World, 1996).
11. Nachum Glatzer, "The Concept of Peace in Classical Judaism," in Der Freide:
Idee un Werwirklichug (Leschnitzer Festschrift), ed. Erich Fromm et al. (Heidelberg:
L. Schneider, 1961), 27-38; Kimelman, "Non-Violence in the Talmud," 316-34; Avi
Ravitsky, "Peace," in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, ed. Arthur A. Cohen
and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York: Free Press, 1988), 685-702; and Steven Schwarz-
schild, "Shalom," in Polner and Goodman, eds., Challenge of Shalom, 6-25. On Islam,
see, for example, Satha-Anand et al., eds., Islam and Nonviolence; Friedmann, Prophecy
Continuous; 165-80; Abdulaziz Sachedina, "Is There a Tradition of Pacifism and Non-
violence in Islam?" Paper presented at the U.S. Institute of Peace workshop on Re-
ligious Perspectives on Pacifism and Nonviolence (Washington, D.C.: July 28, 1993);
and Satha-Anand, "The Nonviolent Crescent," 25-40.
12. Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Beshalah, Shirata 4. See also Kimelman, "Non-
Violence in the Talmud," for more sources that invert violent biblical statements.
13. Kimelman, "War," 309. We have no way to know exactly what motivated each
of these rabbis to curtail or eliminate altogether the legal operationalizing of these
wars. We do know, however, that this hermeneutic is made in the context of pervasive
criticism in Jerusalem by many Jews of both the Hasmoneans and the priestly lead-
ership, especially regarding violence. See M. Eduyot 8:7; Ephraim Urbach, The Sages,
trans. I. Abrahams (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 575-76; 661-
65, 995, n. 45. But more work needs to be done on the exact connection, if any,
among pietistic antiviolence statements, talmudic legal efforts to circumscribe Jewish
war, and the historical context.
14. Luzzatto indicated that the biblical text generally cited to justify war can only
refer to response to an attack from a group that has made it clear by that attack that
they are, in fact, an enemy. See his Ha-Mishtadel (Vienna: 1.1. Busch 1847) on Lev.
20:11, 18.
15. See J. David Bleich, "Preemptive War in Jewish Tradition," Tradition 21, no. 1
(Spring 1983): 3-41, and Kimelman, "War." Recent reports about Moshe Dayan's con-
fessions that, pressured by farming interests in the north, he provoked Syria into the
1967 war in order to make a land grab on the Golan Heights, highlight the trap of
theological reflection that is dependent upon limited information from governments,
especially when that information is from one side of a conflict. A provocation to
acquire farming land would have entirely rewritten the moral and halakhic debate
about preemptive strikes in 1967 (see Dafha Linzer, "Israeli Hero Reveals Hebron
Regrets," Associated Press, May 11, 1997). There will undoubtedly be debate in the
 254 Notes to Pages 70-73

future about Dayan's motivations. Even if it turns out that his land motivations were
mixed with security calculations, this would still significantly affect the moral discus-
sion on many war-related halakhic issues, such as pikuah nefesh and the decision to
risk lives for a military (or agricultural) purpose.
16. Kimelman, "War," 312.
17. Kimelman, "War," 327, n. 16.
18. Kimelman, "War," 312-13.
19. These guidelines raise several issues. First, one-sixth of one's mobilized forces
in modern warfare involves a huge amount of deaths. For example, there were
8,744,000 American forces mobilized in Vietnam. One-sixth dead would have meant
approximately 1.5 million American deaths, while 58,000 actual American casualties
caused a significant crisis in the social history of the United States. Great Britain, in
one of the most devastating social traumas in its history, lost approximately one-
eighth of its armed forces: 1 million men out of 8 million mobilized in World War I
(The 1994 Information Please Almanac [Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1994], 385, 389). Furthermore, there is no mention in the Jewish sources of a limit on
enemy soldier deaths. Thus there would be no moral calculation regarding 2 million
Vietnamese dead versus 58,000 Americans dead, or 180,000 Iraqi deaths due to the
war and the embargo (a rough approximation that includes mostly noncombatants,
who died due to the destruction of the electric infrastructure, lack of hospital supplies,
etc.; these numbers are still debated) versus about 100 American deaths. However,
there would be a serious halakhic problem with the number of those dead who were
noncombatants, the massive use of napalm, an indiscriminate weapon, and the lack
of escape routes from carpet-bombing campaigns.
20. Who these rabbis were or whether anyone specifically authorized Amir is a
matter of debate because everyone denies ex post facto that they supported assassi-
nation, despite their rhetoric beforehand.
21. Novak, Law and Theology in Judaism, 130.
22. The context in the following sources seems clearly limited to "hot pursuit"
circumstances: Talmud Bavli Bava Kama 117b; Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 72b; Maimon-
ides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Nizke Mammon 9:6, and Hilkhot Rotseah 1:6-7.
23. The abortion analogy would still be valid based on my analysis of rodef. The
rabbis suggest that a caretaker, seeing that the fetus before them is threatening the
mother, must then see the fetus as a rodef and protect the mother at the expense of
the fetus. This does not extend the killing justification beyond the immediate circum-
stances, however.
24. See, for example, Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 160:22, 248:41, 329:1.
25. See, for example, Talmud Bavli Berakhot 58a; Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 72a.
26. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, esp. pts. 4 and 5.
27. The reason for the chasm and the nebulous or near-absent examination of
these issues may, in fact, be that the war literature is of a highly theoretical nature,
referring to circumstances that either never occurred or that occurred many centuries
before, whereas the pietistic advice of rabbinic midrashic texts, as well as those of
medieval compilations, is directly rooted in the day-to-day reflections and life expe-
riences of the authors. This makes the contemporary efforts to elicit advice about
violence and war from rabbinic literature a problematic enterprise when the ancient
rabbis themselves were not forced to confront a deeper integration of these two fields
of morality, that is, the battlefield and all that leads up to it, on the one hand, and,
on the other, everyday life, which is supposed to be wedded to lofty requirements of
interpersonal morality. The historical circumstances that could have led to this dis-
junction in the literature is a subject beyond this chapter. But this does suggest that,
 Notes to Pages 7373—78 255

whether contemporary traditional authors admit it or not, any discussion of war,

peace, and related values in the contemporary context is a deeply hermeneutic process
of selecting and appropriating rabbinic principles and categories.
28. See Mishnah Avot 1:12; and S. Schechter, ed., The Fathers According to Rabbi
Nathan (Vienna: Ch. D. Lippe, 1887), ch. 12.
29. I am working here with Gadamerian categories. See Hans Gadamer, Truth and
Method, 2d rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York:
Crossroad, 1989).
30. What these two religious traditions hold in common is some legal tendencies
to divide the world between a chosen ingroup—knesset yisroel, in the Jewish case, and
the ummah, in the Islamic case—and an outgroup when it comes to peace and vio-
lence, among other issues. The highlighting of this particular strand of thinking in
both traditions will clearly result in a massive increase in conflict-generating and
violence-generating behavior in both communities vis-a-vis each other and the entire
world. If other hermeneutic strands of thinking are developed within these traditions,
other outcomes will be possible. Of late, for example, there have been high-level,
informal contacts among quite conservative sheikhs and rabbis in the Middle East,
and the theological hermeneutic being emphasized by both sides includes the kinship
of the family of Abraham, the special obligation of love and care between those who
believe in one God, and the respect due to all of God's creatures. The sources for
these negotiations are confidential as of this writing and part of ongoing efforts, in
which I am playing a small part, to create an interreligious peace treaty in the Middle
East.
31. See Vamik Volkan, The Need to Have Enemies and Allies (Northvale, N.J.: Jason
Aronson, 1988).
32. On culture, conflict, and peacemaking, see, for example, Douglas P. Fry and
Kaj Bjorkqvist, eds., Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution: Alternatives to Violence
(Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997); Alvin W. Wolfe and Honggang Yang,
eds., Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1996); Kevin Avruch, Peter Black, and Joseph Scimecca, eds., Conflict
Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1991); and
Rothman, Resolving Identity-Based Conflict, Note Rothman's indebtedness at some
junctures to rabbinic values of peacemaking, such as on p. xiii. For an excellent ex-
ample of a psychoanalytic analysis of religion and conflict, see Sudhir Kakar, The
Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996), which is a case study of the Hindu/Muslim riots of 1990 in
Hyderabad.
33. See Zenner, Minorities in the Middle, on the historical socioeconomic role of
Jews, which is one paradigm for global minorities who become embroiled in conflict
as a result of their unique roles in economic and cultural life. Zenner discusses how
it serves the interests of higher classes, majority cultures, or occupying empires to
take advantage of the conflictual position of the minority. On colonial rule and con-
flict generation, see David Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1985).
34. See, for example, Shapiro, "The Jewish Attitude towards Peace and War," i:
316-73; Polner and Goodman, eds., Challenge of Shalom; and Ravitsky, "Peace."
35. Perek ha-Shalom, Talmud Bavli Masekhet Derekh Eretz Zuta, ch. 10.
36. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah. See, generally, Sefer Mada, Hilkhot Teshuvah.
37. Kimelman, "Non-Violence in the Talmud," sigff.
38. John Mack, "The Enemy System," in Volkan et al., eds., Psychodynamics of
International Relationships, 57-89.
 256 Notes to Pages 76—60

39. A critical question involves addressing intercultural or interreligious conflicts

in which there are no shared strategies of peacemaking. For example, this Exodus text
would be a wonderful bridge between monotheistic groups in conflict, but what if
there is no such shared text, or the interpretations are so different as to make the
text useless? At least part of the answer lies in the fact that many traditions come to
surprisingly similar peacemaking strategies and prosocial moral constructs but by
different hermeneutic means and faith-based justifications. Bilateral cooperation be-
comes possible when all religious traditions are respected in the unique depth analysis
that each makes of a problem. Then it is more possible to investigate areas of agree-
ment and cooperation. Of course, this kind of cooperation is in direct contradiction
to the many exclusive truth claims, particularly in monotheistic traditions. But here
again, it seems that the interpretive process is paramount, and obsessions with exclu-
sive truth seem to vary with circumstances of time, place, and the state of interreli-
gious relations.
40. See Volkan, "Overview of Psychological Concepts," 1: 40.
41. This suggests a basic cross-cultural divide that always must be recognized.
There are many people across the world who value words and promises over deeds
(which may or may not evoke trust) versus those who trust deeds over words. I used
to think that this was a basic Christian/Jewish divide, due to Paul's and other Chris-
tians' critiques of Jewish obsession with deed over word or works over faith. But I
have seen in my training of students and in my analysis of several regional conflicts
that this is also a common source of miscommunication between traditional Protes-
tants and Catholics. In fact, in our extremely interactive world today, this variable
valuation of deeds and words tends to be different almost from person to person.
Any decent conflict resolution process, therefore, must recognize this cultural/psy-
chological variable and seek to intentionally accommodate both modes of trust build-
ing: word and deed.
42. See, e.g., Yahya ibn 'Adi's list of ethical values, cited on p. 83.
43. See Nader, "Harmony Models and the Construction of Law," 41-60.
44. See Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution.
45. I do not mean to imply that dialogue is a waste of time as a conflict resolution
measure in Jewish and Islamic cultures. That would be absurd for a variety of reasons,
including the facts that there are good traditions of debate and discussion to build
upon in both traditions and that all human beings in the contemporary world res-
onate, whether they want to or not, with certain modern cultural phenomena, such
as dialogue and international negotiation, which are by now fairly universal institu-
tions. I am suggesting, however, that as we search for reasons why some conflicts are
clearly more intractable than others—a key concern of conflict analysis theory—we
consider what might be the missing cultural ingredients, which could break the logjam
of stubborn conflict. Intractable conflict is related in profound ways to identity-based
conflict, conflict that presents—in reality or psychologically, it does not matter—a
mortal threat to the identity of a group. See Rothman, Resolving Identity-Based Con-
flict. What I am suggesting is that, at critical junctures, the excruciating task of be-
coming ready to trust a dangerous enemy may ultimately require the utilization of
familiar religious traditions and cultural patterns of acting, thus allaying deep and
understandable fear of loss of identity, which goes well beyond rational considerations
of security, power, and economic well-being. The foregoing argument is particularly
true in religiously divided societies, such as Israel and the Arab states, where significant
portions of the religious community feel alienated and threatened by secular efforts
at peacemaking and the formulation of new civil constructs. The latter are perceived
often as a direct threat to the future of religious life. In this context, it would be
 Notes to Pages 81 81—89 257

especially relevant to analyze the impact that culturally and religiously rooted peace-
making overtures would make, in contrast to classically secular strategies.
46. "Ernst Simon, The Neighbor (re'a) Whom We Shall Love," in Modern Jewish
Ethics, ed. Marvin Fox (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1975), 50.
47. Samuel David Luzzatto, // Giudaismo Illustrate (Padua: A . Bianci, 1848), 11.
48. Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, 131. On jihad, see Khadduri, War and Peace,
55-82, 141-46, 202-22, 268-96.
49. Majid Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1994),
pt. 1.
50. "For I [God] have come to know him [Abraham], in order that he will com-
mand his children and his household after him, so that they shall follow the path of
God: to do justice and righteousness, in order for God to bring upon Abraham all
that He has promised him." This verse is one of the rarer instances in biblical liter-
ature of a divine internal conversation, reflecting, in my opinion, the depth of its
theological and moral significance for biblical literature. Luzzatto, one of the greatest
Jewish masters of biblical literature of his century, certainly centralized this verse in
his own theology because he believed that the biblical text itself highlights its centrality.
Furthermore, the phrase derekh YHVH, "the path of God," had great significance in
the development of rabbinic ethical values, and this too would move Luzzatto to
centralize this text. For Luzzatto, Abraham and the Jewish people are chosen by God,
not for their own sakes or because they are superior, but rather in order to fulfill
these verses by their deeds in the context of and in the presence of the entire human
race. Thus, when they fulfill these verses, it is a profound sanctification of the divine
name that is implanted in Israel (the second half of yisroel is a name of God in biblical
Hebrew), whereas when they do not live up to this verse, it is a profaning of the
divine name. See Luzzatto, Ha-Mishtadel, 5. See, generally, Gopin, "Religious Ethics
of Samuel David Luzzatto."
51. Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam, 100.
52. See also the important essay by Sachedina, "The Development of Jihad in
Islamic Revelation and History," 35-50.

Chapter Five
1. See, for example, Jack, ed., World Religions and World Peace.
2. I use the plural because there are several things included in "Orthodoxy." There
are many versions of an approach to Judaism that have a few features in common,
such as commitment to revelation at Sinai and commitment in principle to observe
all Jewish laws. But what these actually mean for a variety of crucial questions of
ethics and politics are enormously varied.
3. See Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, or, Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan
Arkush (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1983), and, generally, Michael Meyer,
Response to Modernity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995).
4. See Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Holt, Rinehart, &
Winston, 1964), 312-26.
5. Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. Simon
Kaplan (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), 52. Cohen's very
purpose in creating his magnum opus, however, was to discover a truly universal set
of human commitments. Thus, his commitment to the liberal program was clear, but
his intolerance of idolatry was typical of the European attitudes that led, despite the
"liberal" ideals, to so much oppression of indigenous peoples' traditions wherever
Europeans dominated.
 258 Notes to Pages 89-93

6. See D. Daiches Raphael, The Moral Sense (London: Oxford University Press,
1947); M. A. Stewart, Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1990-1991); and Robert Sleeker, "Moral Sense Theory" (Ph.D. diss., M.I.T.,
1975).
7. Luzzatto, Autogbiografia di S. D. Luzzatto (Padua: Crescini, 1878), 51. See also
Gopin, "Religious Ethics of Samuel David Luzzatto," 16-17.
8. The most exhaustive bibliography of Benamozegh's considerable writings is
Alessandro Guetta, "Elia Benamozegh: Bibliografia," Rassegna mensile di Israel 53, nos.
1-2 (1987): 67-81. An introduction to Israel et Humanite came out in Benamozegh's
lifetime, published by himself in Livorno in 1885. The full manuscript was massive
and unedited when he died. Aime Palliere took it upon himself to edit it and publish
it as Israel et Humanite: Etude sur le probleme de la religion universelle et sa solution
(Paris: Leroux, 1914). A considerably abbreviated edition emerged in French, then in
Hebrew, and most recently in English, in 1961, 1967, and 1994, respectively. See Israel
and Humanity, trans. Maxwell Luria (New York: Paulist Press, 1994). On Benamo-
zegh's attitudes toward Christianity, there are numerous sources throughout his writ-
ings, which deserve a separate study. But see, esp., De I'Origine des dogmes Chretiens
(Livourne: S. Belforte 1897), and "Affinita fra la dottrina di Gesu e quella dei Farisei,"
Rassegna mensile di Israel 16 (1951): 51-54.
9. On Benamozegh's affinity toward non-Jewish sources, such as Christianity, see
Moshe Idel's preface and appendix to Benamozegh's Israel and Humanity, trans. Luria.
10. Aime Palliere, The Unknown Sanctuary: A Pilgrimage from Rome to Israel (New
York: Bloch, 1928), which is a translation of Palliere's Le Sanctuaire inconnu; ma "con-
version" au fudaisme (Paris: Rieder, 1926).
11. Luzzatto, Ha-Mishtadel, 11, 1.1. Busch on Exod. 20:3.
12. This is a culturally conditioned assumption of Luzzatto's that all deities, glob-
ally, are supposed to be related to by means of imitatio dei. This is quite a leap for
many other religious systems. India would be quite a disastrous place, in terms of its
social and moral order, if the followers of Vishnu or Kali did a fraction of what their
gods do. On the contrary, it seems that in many theological systems the gods do
precisely what humans are proscribed from doing by that very sacred system. Second,
even in Judaism this type of relationship is not wholly true. It is a limited set of
divine behaviors that the rabbis suggest should formulate a model for human behav-
ior, including compassion, visiting the sick, and comforting the bereaved (see Talmud
Bavli Sotah 14a). Nowhere does it state, "Just as God utterly smashed Sodom, so shall
you smash wicked cities, just as God repays the wicked by punishing their children,
so shall you." On the contrary, it seems that the rabbis are highly selective, in order
to inculcate a specific type of religious personality.
13. "La misericordia dal Giudaismo raccomandata e universale. Si estende, come
quella di Dio, a tutte le sue creature. Nessuna razza e fuori della Legge, poiche gli
uomini tutti, secondo ch'il Giudaismo insegna, sono fratelli, sono figli d'uno stesso
padre, e sono creati ad immagine di Dio" (Luzzatto, 11 Giudaismo Ilustrato, 11).
14. M. E. Artom, ed., Ketavim (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1876), 1: 55.
15. Gen. 20:17, 21:27, 26:28, 14:13, 14:22-24, 49:5-7; Ezekiel, 17; Gen. 38:1, 39; Josh.
2:17, 9:15. The point of most of Luzzatto's citations is the focus on the language of
oath and covenant and their profound moral and theological significance. It proves
that the prohibitions against oath taking or establishing a covenant with idolaters,
which occur in other parts of the Bible and as key features of the conquest of Canaan,
are based on the moral corruption of those peoples. Furthermore, when the Gibeonites
and Rehab make an effort to establish a moral relationship through covenant, even
the conquest and its command to kill are moderated.
 Notes to Pages 93—98 259

16. See Isa. 13-19 and Amos 1-2, for example, on the way in which the condem-
nations focus on the brutality of the nations. Luzzatto's expertise added significant
weight to his argument that the primary import of the text is a condemnation of
cruelty and only secondarily of idolatry.
17. See Ezek. 18 for the boldest biblical assertion of the divine commitment to
hold every human responsible, in terms of punishment or reward, for his own and
no one else's actions. I have not done an exhaustive study of rabbinic reactions to
the herem laws. It would be interesting to discover whether there is any response to
the moral problems raised here.
18. Afrikaner religion, as interpreted by many in the apartheid era, comes to mind.
See Johnston, "Churches and Apartheid in South Africa," 184-88.
19. Luzzatto, Lezioni di teologia morale israelitica (Padua: A. Bianci, 1862).
20. The locus dassicus of this biblical distinction regarding interest laws is Deut.
23:21. The distinction is in ritual laws as well, such as Deut. 14:21. The Jewish "family"
is not a biological or racial entity, strictly speaking, nor would Luzzatto want it to be
seen that way, because there have been so many converts to Judaism over two thou-
sand years, as is shown by the racial diversity of world Jewry. However, it is a religious
faith group with a heavy reliance on a certain ethnic ancestry.
21. Luzzatto translated (in his II Pentateuco ([Padova: Sacchetto, 1874]) re'a as
prossimo. Leopold Zunz translated it as Nachsten (in his Die vierundzwanzig Biicher
der Heiligen Schrift ([Basel, Germany: Goldschmidt Verlag, 1980 ]). The Jewish Pub-
lication Society translated it as "neighbor" in 1958 while its 1985 edition translates re'a
as "fellow."
22. Yaacov Tzvi MecKlenburg, Ha-Ketav v'ha-Kabbalah (Leipzig: 1839), on Lev. 19:
18. See generally on re'a and Luzzatto's interpretation of it, Gopin, "Religious Ethics
of Samuel David Luzzatto," 339-48; and Simon, "The Neighbor (re'a) Whom We
Shall Love," 29-56.
23. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Malveh v'Loveh 5:1; see Gopin, "Reli-
gious Ethics of Samuel David Luzzatto," 299, for a full discussion of Luzzatto's po-
lemic against Maimonides' attitude toward gentiles.
24. See Exod. 20:14; Lev. 19:13-16; Deut. 19:14, as examples.
25. Luzzatto, Lezioni di teologia, 33-34.
26. Luzzatto, Lezioni di teologia, 38.
27. (Paris: 1867).
28. Benamozegh, Jewish and Christian Ethics: With a Criticism on Mohammedism,
trans. From the French (San Francisco: E. Blochman, 1873), 4.
29. Benamozegh touches here on one of the central problems of religious intol-
erance. It has a tendency to deny legitimacy to some traditions that came earlier while
simultaneously incorporating the best of those earlier traditions. This is a rather be-
nign pattern in new, minority traditions, but when they become the majority, they
can prove deadly in their artful combination of successionism and intolerance. In one
generation, the successionism can appear as simple cultural embrace of an earlier,
indigenous tradition, but it quickly becomes a tool to "bury the opposition." This
method has been used with great skill in conquering Africa in recent centuries. Of
course, as we now know, ancient Israelite religion itself, as it expresses itself in at least
some biblical sources, absorbed myths and stories from the local religions and then
ridiculed those religions as idolatrous. I know of no major religious tradition that has
not succumbed at one time or another to this antisocial pattern.
30. Benamozegh, Jewish and Christian Ethics, 2.
31. Israel et Humanite (Livorno: Elijah Benamozegh, 1885); the larger work is Israel
et Humanite, ed. Aime Palliere (Paris: Leroux, 1914).
 260 Notes to Pages 99—109

32. See Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-1852), Introduzione allo studio della filosofia (Brus-
sels: M. Hagel, 1840); and Gioberti, Del primato moral e civile degli Italiani (Brussels:
Meline, Cans, 1843).
33. The totality of the sefirot, variously described and symbolized by Kabbalistic
authors throughout many centuries, represents the internal workings and character-
istics of God, except ein sof (lit. without end), which is that part of God that is utterly
unknowable. These sefirot are also reflected in a mystical structure of reality that has
a direct effect on the world, as humans know it, but is also affected, in turn, by the
human world. If one exclusively focuses on one of the sefirot, then one is indeed
perceiving some aspect of divine reality, but one is also cutting it off from the whole
and therefore distorting its essence.
34. Israel et Humanite (1885), 160.
35. Israel et Humanite (1914), 72.
36. Emile Burnouf, The Science of Religions (London: 1888); Burnouf, "La Sci-
ence des Religions: Part II, Les Grandes Religions et Leurs Origines," Revue des Deux
Mondes 6 (1864): 979-1010; Burnouf, "Part III, L'Unite des Religions," Revue des Deux
Mondes 2 (1868): 995-1017; Burnouf, "Part IV: La Diversite des Religions," Revue des
Deux Mondes 4 (1868): 864-889.
37. Israel et Humanite (1914), 76.
38. Israel et Humanite (1914), 121.
39. Israel et Humanite (1914), 718.
40. (Paris: League of Peace, 1870). It is unclear whether this was ever published
or whether it was published briefly and lost, but we do have an outline of its con-
tents.
41. Israel et Humanite (1914), 137. Benamozegh cites Ps. 145:14, 67:4.
42. Israel et Humanite (1914), 251.
43. Israel et Humanite (1914), 165.
44. Jerusalem Report, Nov. 1996.
45. See Israel et Humanite (1914), 272.
46. Israel et Humanite (1914), 387, 388.
47. The case has been made that denning oneself in opposition to another is basic
to human identity from its earliest development. See Vamik Volkan, "The Need to
Have Enemies and Allies: A Developmental Approach," Political Psychology 6, no. 2
(1985): 219-47. Whether this is necessarily the case, or is just predominantly the case,
in adult formation of identity is an open question. But it is clear that the more that
a theological system is predicated on this kind of dualism, which reifies good and evil
in groups of people, the harder it is to generate a prosocial response to the group
that represents the Other identity, the identity that is opposed, by definition, to one's
own. The idolater clearly plays this role in monotheism, and the destructive influence
of this dualist mythology on monotheistic colonial practices in the last two thousand
years is well known. The challenge for monotheistic systems is how to promote some
values and practices and reject others without this turning into a dualist universe,
which must demonize whole groups of people by definition.
48. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 301.
49. Haredi generally refers to those ultra-Orthodox Jews who today embrace as
isolated a position from the non-Orthodox world as possible, a use of secular edu-
cation only for the purposes of making a living, if at all, a literal belief in revelation
from Sinai, and a great dependency on halakhic or spiritual leaders to determine the
contours of their lives and choices.
50. On the relationship between a consciousness of multiple layers of one's spir-
itual identity and the ability of the religious person to coexist with others, see Marc
 Notes to Page log 261

Gopin, "Religion, Violence and Conflict Resolution," Peace and Change 22, no. 1 (Jan.
1997) 1-31.
51. This, incidentally, is along a spectrum of disappointment with the society cre-
ated by Enlightenment values, which one can see from left to right in secular social
criticism as well. Much of postmodern thinking, for example, is a direct assault on
many Enlightenment assumptions and may well have contributed to the present cul-
tural vacuum in which we await an alternative. A conservative religious critique of
modern culture, however, has what it thinks is a ready-made alternative to the dom-
inant culture. A separate study should explore to what degree the reassertion of a
confident neo-Enlightenment culture would undermine the descent of many religious
cultures into violent rejections of modern life. We have no way of knowing how many
young, impressionable people the world over are falling into religious militarism sim-
ply because there is little else in which to believe. Obviously, a reassertion of the
Enlightenment would have to confront the failings of modern life and then move
forward with a vision, but this is beyond our present study.
52. To this end, I have been engaged in repeated attempts to encourage the tra-
ditional peacemakers of the Christian world to reach out to the most religious Jews,
including the haredim, the most separatist of them. Mostly this effort has been in
vain. In the Arab/Israeli conflict, for example, the progressive peacemakers have, un-
like their sophisticated mediation in Northern Ireland, Latin America, and throughout
subsaharan Africa, been almost completely partisan in their approach. The exception
is probably the Catholic church, which, in its sheer magnitude and global vision,
continues to maintain a wide array of sophisticated contacts, even with the religious
Jewish community. The others seem to lack the infrastructure, the skills, and the
courage to approach the religious Israelis, who need to hear from them the most—
both the haredim and the West Bank settlers who are religious. Some Christian peace-
makers have expressed to me fear at being rebuffed, particularly because of the Ho-
locaust. This has made their contribution almost nil in terms of the crisis on the West
Bank, for example, where authentic outside mediators, who have built up some trust
on both sides, are glaringly absent. There are complicated reasons for this that deserve
a separate study. They include the fact that the various Christian infrastructures for
conflict resolution are often tied to Christian missions, which, on the liberal end of
Christendom at least, have not dared approach the Jewish community. Furthermore,
their infrastructures for peacemaking have been most effective in predominantly
Christian countries. There also seems to be an old deep-seated fear of approaching
Muslims and Jews who are engaged in conflict; this, in turn, may have to do with
the pacifist roots of many Christian peacemakers and their revulsion at violence,
especially when it is expressed by people in other religions. Much more serious analysis
needs to take place in the Christian community on separating the peacemaking im-
pulse from the proselytizing impulse, both institutionally and constitutionally. This
may help clarify how a good Protestant or Catholic needs to act if she wants to rebuild
relationships with Others who have no intention of becoming Christian and/or who
may have old rage at past encounters with Christians. As far as the Middle East is
concerned, the Christian role has not been one of mediation, on the whole, but rather
one of choosing sides, with liberal churches siding with and only engaging Arab
Christians and Muslims, while the conservative churches embrace the Israelis. This is
not conflict resolution or mediation but aid in polarization of a conflict. In fact, not
only do evangelical Christians appear to be supporting Israel as a state, with invest-
ments and tourism, they are now reaching out to haredim as well, with some Israeli
haredi rabbis appearing with the most extreme opponents of church/state separation
in the United States (see J. J. Goldberg, "Alabama Election Has Jewish Nerves on
 262 Notes to Pages 115—117

Edge," Washington Jewish Week, Aug. 13, 1998, p. 13). Haredim and religious Zionists
on the West Bank are not hearing from the very Christians who could play a mediating
role between Jews and Palestinians. The evangelical Christians, by contrast, seem in-
creasingly to be siding with Jews and Israelis in anticipation of a coming great war
with the Islamic world, in which all Jews will either be killed or converted to Chris-
tianity in the final cataclysm.

Chapter Six
1. Jerusalem Report 9, no. 7, Aug. 3, 1998, p. 21
2. I use Marc Ross's terminology here, which seems the most appropriate for an
analysis of the psychological condition of Israeli society, with its deeply rooted Jewish
cultural consciousness (see Ross, The Culture of Conflict [New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1993]).
3. The ancient tribe of Amalek has played this symbolic role since the dawn of
biblical literature (Exod. 7:8-16). Furthermore, there is an ancient Jewish saying that
is used repeatedly to this day by Orthodox thinkers and leaders: "It is a [cardinal]
law, Esau hates [read: persecutes] Jacob," in which "Esau" actually is a code word
for Rome, then later for the Catholic church, and has come to mean, for some Jews,
all gentiles (see Sifre Be'ha'alotekha 69). This was a common phrase when I studied
in yeshivah. This persecution has been confirmed for many by the Holocaust, during
which, despite the overfocus on Germans, there were an astonishing array of European
fascist nationals perpetrating the murders, benefiting from them, or covering them
up, and by the Arab/Israeli wars, which for many Jews, who take literally Arab prop-
aganda about "pushing the Jews into the sea," are always a potential Holocaust. Of
course, a wide assortment of nationalities were also involved in risking their lives to
save Jews during the Holocaust, to which trees on the grounds around Yad Vashem
attest. Furthermore, in Arab/Israeli dialogue and debate, Arab journalists and peace-
makers will repeatedly downplay Arab threats of annihilation as rather pitiful rhetoric
that typically functions in Arab culture as a poor substitute for military strengths.
However one evaluates these phenomena, if one wants to be paranoid as a Jewish
Israeli, one can find a good rationale for it.
4. Dialogue and debate are ancient elements of Jewish culture, stemming from
prophetic rhetoric and the talmudic embrace of conflict as a critical way to elicit ever
greater depths from the sacred texts (see David Kraemer, The Mind of the Talmud
[New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990]). It is difficult to separate this
cultural embrace of a conflictual style of interaction from an accompanying history
that has been so dominated by exile and conflictual struggle with alien environments,
which could have caused a conflictual style of interaction. While this has always been
a part of Jewish life, the level of conflict within the community waxes and wanes, and
the question is: Why is the community now experiencing such an extreme level of
internal and external conflict, to the point of the first assassination of a major Jewish
leader in two thousand years?
5. There is more and more being written about the haredi community. See Martin
Marty and F. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1994), pt. 2, esp. the essays by Samuel Heilman, Menachem Fried-
man, and Haym Soloveitchik. In general, all titles by these authors are important. See
also Silberstein, ed., Jewish Fundamentalism.
6. Idith Zertal is doing extensive work on the memory of the Holocaust and the
state of Israel that will be important for our continuing research. See her From Ca-
tastrophe to Power: The Holocaust and Israel, 1944-1948 (Berkeley: University of Cali-
 Notes to Page117 263

fornia Press, 1998). Also of great importance is Ehud Sprinzak, Brother against Brother:
Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (New
York: Free Press, 1999). See esp. ch. 3 on haredi violence. In general, no violence
occurring now at the hands of religious Jews was not originally pioneered by non-
Orthodox Zionists, either against the Arabs, against the British, or even sometimes
against other Jews. Violence, in general, seems to have a life of its own in cultures
and societies, where one generation's violence always seems to play itself out as a
drama in the next generation. It is as if the radicals of one generation receive a
tradition and permission from the culture to engage in the same activity as before,
even if the current establishment is now shocked and horrified by actions that they
themselves undertook or tolerated when it was their turn to reject an intolerable
situation. The relationship of violence and drama is only now emerging. Psychodrama
is being used by therapists in Belfast and Africa as a way to help heal victims of violent
trauma. On the relationship between conflict analysis and drama, see Marc Ross,
"Psychocultural Interpretation and Dramas: Identity Dynamics and Ethnic Conflicts,"
unpublished paper, 1999.
7. A critical clue to this thinking is the growing body of work by Gershon Green-
berg on theological responses to the Holocaust by haredi thinkers during and im-
mediately after the war. Theology is an important resource for understanding how a
group in terrible pain frames its universe and creates meaning in the midst of senseless
destruction. It also helps to explain the dynamics of group conflict, but this I will
leave to a separate study. See Greenberg, "Ontic Division and Religious Survival:
Wartime Orthodoxy and the Holocaust (Hurban)," Modern Judaism 14, no. 1 (1994):
21-61; and Greenberg, "Consoling Truth: Eliezer Schweid's Ben Hurban Le'Yeshua: A
Review Essay," Modern Judaism 17, no. 3 (1997): 297-311.
8. This includes the presentation of nude victims of the Holocaust, which, to the
haredi community (for whom sexual modesty is a central spiritual practice) is gross
humiliation of their murdered kin. To non-haredi Jews, graphic photographic evidence
presents the true horror of the Holocaust, something they are driven to remember
and to teach the world.
9. The Holocaust was an utterly shameful event for many Zionist Jews who tried
to build a new, supposedly more "manly" Jew, who would never die without a fight.
The image of millions deported to their deaths, many without physical resistance, was
anathema to these Jews. Consequently, when the Holocaust survivors, especially the
haredim, came to Israel in the 1940s they had no real opportunity to share their grief
or their experience. One Israeli reported to me that it was commonplace at the time
to refer pejoratively to these survivors as "soap," based on the stories of Nazis turning
Jewish bodies into soap in the concentration camps. Many if not most haredim came
to Israel in these circumstances and with this cruel reception; in addition, their phys-
ical image and attire symbolized everything rejected by the Zionists in the dark Eu-
ropean past. The image of the pious European rabbi preparing a community spiri-
tually and ritually for death in the shtetl as the Nazis arrived is a classic myth and
countermyth of this conflict. It does not matter whether this happened or how often.
It has become an image embraced by some and abhorred by others. For the haredi
Jew this would have been a holy act, as was done during the Crusades centuries before,
a way to prepare to meet God with great holiness, as the ancestors did, when the
angel of death is upon you. Dying in holiness and repentance assured one a place in
heaven, far away from one's tormentors, who were equally assured of a place in hell.
For the Zionist, such surrender is the epitome of the failed, effeminate, rabbinic, exilic
Jew who was defeated by the gentiles—as much by his own weakness as by gentile
intolerance. Combine this with haredi sentiment that militarist and secular Jews had
 264 Notes to Pages 118—126

at least a hand in provoking God's wrath, which caused the death of their families,
and you have a prescription for several lifetimes of mutual anger. Understanding and
accepting these dichotomous worldviews is the only way that haredi and secular Jews
are going to come to understand each other and to learn to apologize or forgive.
10. On haredim, the Zionists, and the Holocaust, see Menachem Friedman, "The
Haredim and the Holocaust," Jerusalem Quarterly 53 (1990): 87-144.
11. See Greenberg, "Consoling Truth," 299ff.
12. Jerusalem Report 8, no. 10, Sept. 18, 1997, p. 19.
13. Take, for example, this quote from an extremely anti-Zionist pashkeville (large
flyer), put up in Mea Shearim, the most religious center of haredim in Jerusalem,
describing the fight between the police and the haredi sabbath protesters, "Back to
Nazi Germany!... Suddenly the Zionist Gestapo storm troopers arrived ... On Sat-
urday night they launched a pogrom in Mea Shearim... And as true followers of
Hitler, may his name be cursed, they made tens of Jews stand up against a wall"
(cited in Sprinzak, Brother against Sprinzak, Brother, 96). There is a bone-chilling
quality to reading this announcement as a Jew, let alone what it does to the psyches
of those who really believe it. Despite its extreme quality and lack of many supporters,
such a letter testifies to the depths of the injury.
14. David Landau, "Rescue Operation in Kenya Gives Israel Respite from the Peace
Process," Jewish Telegraph Agency, Aug. 10, 1998. Even the title is astonishing.
15. Landau, "Rescue Operation," p. 1.
16. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5.
17. Despite my own active work on Middle East peacemaking and my exploration
of Jewish pathological attachment to tragedy in this chapter, it would be foolish to
ignore the need on the Arab side for similar psychological investigations. The fact that
the Palestinian Authority both persists in the peace process but simultaneously funds
summer camps for children where the virtues of an endless war against the Zionists
are inculcated is utterly baffling. There are numerous reports of those who teach the
virtues of suicide bombings, the inculcation of plans to take all of Palestine by force,
and brigades of children being named after all the regions inside pre-1967 Israel that
will be liberated. This is despite the fact that any attempt on the part of these young
Palestinians to regain the heartland of Israel someday could only lead to a war that
they could not win and that perhaps would guarantee their own destruction (see the
Boston Globe, Aug. 13, 1998, p. A19). The attachment to suicidal war in particular runs
deep in certain circles of the Palestinian world and perhaps in the region in general.
Maybe it stems from a legacy of centuries of imperial occupation and humiliating
defeats, but suicidal behavior is destructive to any group, by definition. The psycho-
logical scars and pathologies of some in the Arab community will have to be exposed
and dealt with eventually if there is to be a real peace between Israelis and Arabs.
Thus, it seems that both sides of the conflict need to deal with the scars that lead
their people to self-destructive mindsets and behaviors.
18. See, for example, Burton, ed., Conflict: Human Needs Theory; Louis Kriesberg,
Terrell A. Northrop, and Stuart J. Thorson, eds., Intractable Conflicts and Their Trans-
formation (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse: University Press, 1989); Avruch et al., eds., Conflict
Resolution; Lederach, Preparing for Peace; and Volkan et al., eds., Psychodynamics of
International Relationships.
19. I am combining here a Gadamerian analysis of how human beings construct
their cultures with the classic conflict analysis paradigm of the action/reaction spiral.
20. A deeply religious Orthodox scholar of some fame told me recently that he
used all his skills to try to prevent a certain conflict in Israeli society involving Jewish
law. His efforts were rebuffed and suppressed repeatedly over decades by the religious
 Notes to Pages 127-129 265

establishment. However, behind closed doors he was told by the same authorities that
they agreed with him. The real constraints were actually political and included the
rabbis' own fears of being branded as heretical by some among their own constitu-
encies. In an age where there is no effective limit to religious extremism on a psy-
chocultural level, there is nothing protecting a rabbi or other cleric from the charge
of heresy, other than strict conformity to the latest religious stringencies. Thus, an
additional piece of this problem is how religious leaders can follow their consciences
but not sacrifice their positions of leadership. This is not dissimilar to the political
leader who, in an ultranationalist atmosphere, is immediately accused of being a
traitor if he moderates his position one iota.
21. See Talmud Bavli Yevamot 14; Talmud Bavli Eruvin 13b. On Hillel's relationship
to peacemaking, see Nahum Glatzer, Hillel the Elder: The Emergence of Classical Ju-
daism (New York: Schocken, 1970).
22. Talmud Bavli Berachot loa.
23. See, as one small example, "We support the poor among idolaters, visit their
sick, and bury their dead, for the sake of [following] the ways of peace" (Talmud
Bavli Gittin 61a). The talmudic rabbis required this in the treatment not just of non-
Jews but of idolatrous non-Jews, those who could not be trusted to follow even the
most basic laws of morality. Their attitude toward those non-Jews who were moral
would no doubt be even more generous. Observing the letter of this law today in
Israel would, in and of itself, substantially reduce the tension between Jews and Arabs.
24. See Ross, Culture of Conflict. It should also be noted that getting into the
habit of this kind of interdependency for the sake of a common goal is reinforcing
the kind of cognitive and emotive disposition that could lead to Jewish/gentile or
Arab/Israeli interdependence as well. Thus, contrary to common belief, creating bet-
ter social skills among Jews, and therefore more unity, would make those same skills
more available to do the same thing eventually with the Palestinians, assuming that
they, in turn, acquire the same skills. The power imbalance between these groups is
an important complicating factor, but even as that power imbalance is negotiated,
the kind of skills that we speak of here are essential to making the relationship really
work.
25. The resources on Jewish attitudes toward honor as a tool of social harmony
are numerous but diffuse. See, in Hebrew, C. Bialik and Y. Ravnitsky, eds., The Book
of Legends (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1973), 502, under the heading for kevod ha-beriot.
26. One note is in order about these methods of discovery of the Other and
coexistence. They do require a degree of faith, which intellectuals and political leaders
rarely have, in the power of human wisdom, once it is unleashed. There is among
educated classes, even in democracies, a basic fear of the masses and, therefore, an
overreliance on law and constitutional guarantees to solve deep social problems. While
I value secular democratic legal structures, they cannot ultimately transform human
relationships by themselves. Nor can they really prevent tyranny from overtaking any
culture, because ultimately democratic processes are not invulnerable to tyrannical
social movements. Only the building of trust, relationships, and ethical commitment
can really do this. This is a prejudice of my method, which I readily admit. It does
not mean that legal checks and balances are not vital to democracy nor that economics
do not have an impact on human civility in a critical way. But if we are looking for
the glue that truly will hold together democracies in the future, it is going to be the
discovery or rediscovery of common values in the context of extensive trust-building
relationships. Compare Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1996); and M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making
and Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987).
 266 Notes to Pages 130— 135

27. Academics, who often are those who promote peacemaking in Israel, tend as
a group to resist the central importance of emotion, symbol, and metaphor in human
motivation and transformation. It is difficult for them to realize just how powerful
simple, nonverbal gestures can be when they are done well. The power of these ges-
tures also appears to violate the basic intellectual assumption that only rational pro-
cesses change people for the better. Meanwhile, political and military leaders in the
Middle East easily embrace this psychological reality and often use this power for the
most destructive purposes, if it keeps them in power. Intellectually oriented activists
must force themselves to utilize the full spectrum of human inner life for the purposes
of peacemaking. King Hussein, for example, was one leader who understood this well
and demonstrated it in his various gestures of compassion for Israelis who have suf-
fered, including visiting bereaved families after a terror attack by a Jordanian officer
and making significant, symbolic gestures of apology. These gestures could easily be
seen as lowering the dignity of a king, but that is precisely what made them so
powerful. The families of the bereaved children sent a representative contingent to
Hussein's funeral to honor him, another important symbolic gesture. Sadat under-
stood this as well and used it quite skillfully. He knew how much Jewish people crave
recognition in the Middle East, and he gave it to them by his symbolic entry into the
Knesset. And then he proceeded to say exactly what they did not want to hear about
the return of all the territories. But it was heard, at least by some, precisely because
of the power of his symbolic recognition. I feel, and there is no way to prove this,
that we would have had the majority necessary for the political coexistence of Israel
and Palestine right then if only more Arab leaders had come and done the same thing.
The current chief rabbi, Bakshi Doron, also appears to be skilled in the making of
gestures. He appears headed in this direction in the meetings that he has initiated
with Arab and Muslim leaders. It is no surprise that he is a Sephardi, in terms of his
intuitive grasp of what is necessary in the Middle East. Rabbi Menahem Frohman of
Tekoa, a West Bank rabbi is spearheading this utilization of gestures and symbols.
28. See Moses, "The Leader and the Led," 1:205-17.
29. Marc Gopin, "The Heart of the Stranger and the Transformation of Sectari-
anism," unpublished paper delivered in Belfast, June 1997, at the Bonds and Bound-
aries Conference on Religious Sectarianism. Some have argued that it was the lack of
clear geographic boundaries for Germany that led to its obsession with language and
blood in the first half of this century, which, in turn, led to a disastrous, boundless
aggression in the European context. Something similar occurs in Russian history.
Nations with very clear boundaries, by contrast, such as Tibet or India, have tended
to be less expansionist; at least, so the argument goes (see John Agnew, "Beyond
Reason: Spatial and Temporal Sources of Ethnic Conflicts," in Kriesberg et al., eds.,
Intractable Conflicts, 41-52). America's boundless fascination with expansion may also
come from habituation to an endless frontier. Of course, one can think of counter-
examples. Why did England have need of an empire, since it is so contained by the
sea? Or was it a natural extension of imperial habits inherited from earlier periods of
tribal war in England? These are difficult matters to prove. Nevertheless, geography's
effect on culture and psychology is an important element of conflict analysis for those
who want to use every clue possible to understand the intractability of a given conflict.
30. The phrase "exactly the opposite," be-diyuk ha-hefekh, comes to mind, origi-
nating no doubt in some artful version of Yiddish culture's embrace of the same,
epitomized in the phrase poonkt farkert. This, together with the nature of talmudic
dialectics, makes for a powerful cultural mix that embraces argumentation as a form
of intellectual discovery.
31. See ch. 8 for a Jewish expression of these peacemaking methods.
 Notes to Pages 135—141 267

32. This is why I developed a course at George Mason University entitled the Moral
and Philosophical Foundations of Conflict Resolution. Eventually it will lead to several
investigations, including one on the relationship between moral character and conflict
resolution practice.
33. See Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam.
34. See the discussion of this method in ch. 8.
35. This requires a separate study but, briefly, acts of apology and forgiveness as
ways of peacemaking raise complicated issues. They have been known to work, but
they are unpredictable and can often gloss over the critical balancing act of justice
and peacemaking. They are also subject to significant cultural variations in terms of
how and when these gestures are successfully used.
36. See Talmud Bavli Perek Ha-Shalom. The talmudic rabbis perceived that the
Bible portrays Aaron as someone far more in touch with the people and far more
beloved than Moses, because he expressed his love for people through making peace
between them. The rabbis were also concerned in their own generation to emphasize
the role of priests as peacemakers, in contrast to how some of the priests were actually
behaving in their political and military alliances, especially the Hasmoneans.
37. See more in ch. 8 on this method.
38. Schechter, ed., The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, ch. 12.

Chapter Seven
1. I am indebted to the U.S. Institute of Peace for its role in funding this project.
2. See Zenner, Minorities in the Middle, for a full exposition on this sociological
syndrome.
3. Frank Henry Epp, Mennonite Exodus: The Rescue and Resettlement of the Russian
Mennonites since the Communist Revolution (Altona, Manitoba: D. W. Friesen and
Sons, 1966); E. K. Francis, "The Russian Mennonites: From Religious to Ethnic
Group," American Journal of Sociology 54 (Sept. 1948): 101-7; James Urry, None but
Saints: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia, 1789-1889 (Winnipeg, Mani-
toba: Christian Press, 1978); and James Toews, Czars, Soviets and Mennonites (Newton,
Kans.: Faith and Life Press, 1982). I want to thank my student Larissa Fast for pointing
out these sources to me.
4. This information is hard to come by, since the Mennonite community has been
relatively closed to outside scrutiny. I am grateful to my Mennonite students for their
honest inquiry into their own community and for these sources: Kenneth Dueck and
Donald Froese, "Attitudes towards Jews Encountered among Selected Segments of
Mennonites in Canada," student essay (1972) available in the libraries of Canadian
Mennonite Bible College and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary; Ken Quiring,
"Anti-Semitism and North American Mennonites in the Twentieth Century," student
essay (1998) available in the libraries of Canadian Mennonite Bible College and As-
sociated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, James F. Schrag, "The Jewish 'Protocols': An
Assessment of Their Origins, Content, and Influence on American Mennonites"
(1971), available from AMBS library, which has a section that addresses the American
Mennonite view of Germany 1933-1935; Frank Henry Epp, "Facing the World," in his
Mennonites in Canada, 1920-1940 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974), ch. 12; James
Juhnke, A People of Two Kingdoms: The Political Acculturation of the Kansas Mennonites
(Newton, Kans. Faith and Life Press, 1975); Epp, "An Analysis of Germanism and
National Socialism in the Immigrant Newspaper of a Canadian Minority Group, the
Mennonites, in the 19305" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Minnesota, 1965); Epp, "National
Socialism among the Canadian Mennonites in the 1930s," paper for the Fifteenth
 268 Notes to Pages 142—145

Conference on Mennonite Educational and Cultural Problems, Bluffton College,

Ohio, 1965; and John Redekop, "The Roots of Nazi Support among Mennonites, 1930-
1939," Journal of Mennonite Studies 14 (1996): 81-95. See also information on Ingrid
Rimland at http://hatewatch.org/who/rimland.html and connecting links to her Ho-
locaust denial website.
5. See Leo Driedger and Donald B. Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking: From Qui-
etism to Activism (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1993), 22, 54.
6. See Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage, 1981); on Judaism,
see Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1977),
40-79.
7. Frank Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979).
8. Ron Kraybill (personal correspondence, Jan. 1, 1997) rightly points out my bias
toward "proof texts" in religious life. He suggests that, more deeply than text, Nach-
folge Christi, following the way of Jesus in his dealings with enemies, was a key re-
source for Anabaptist justification for this behavior. I agree, though I assume the
centrality of imitatio dei here and suggest simply that the text is the only way for
believers to learn what the way of Jesus was.
9. Several Pauline texts demonstrate the hermeneutic interaction of Paul and his
Jewish biblical sources: "If someone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from
his house"; "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat"; "Do not rejoice at the
fall of your enemy"; "If you see the donkey of your enemy struggling under its burden,
you shall surely lift it up with him" (Prov. 17:13, 25:21, 24:17; Exod. 23:5).
10. Driedger and Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking, 23.
11. The Hebrew term for "pursued" is nirdaf, and it is questionable from the
context whether this is, in fact, a moral statement about God protecting the perse-
cuted. However, early rabbinic writings from the first centuries C.E. interpret the verse
as confirming that God sides with anyone being persecuted or pursued, no matter
how "wicked" they may be. In other words, there is a divine preference in all circum-
stances for the persecuted (see Leviticus Rabbah 27:5). This interpretation of the verse
is probably familiar to Mennonites, although I have not found a source for this, and
it has profound implications for religious conflict resolution that, in fact, complicates
the elusive search for third-party neutrality in conflict resolution practice. See below
on the struggle between peace and justice and my thoughts on the Christian Peace-
maker Teams.
12. It should also be noted that this combination of faith and group experience
with persecution, which leads to resistance to violence, is evident among those Eu-
ropean Christians who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Resistance
to evil and saving lives are slightly different religious and ethical activities from peace-
making among Mennonites, our subject of study. However, they share a common
commitment to engage the world nonviolently, to resist violence, and they also seem
to share a willingness to be different from or go against the dominant cultural trends,
which are violent, and to share a high level of empathy for the persecuted. See Phillip
Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), on the char-
acter of the residents of Le Chambon, France. Most of the research on the roots of
altruism in these circumstances stresses the importance of loving family environments,
education in moral values, and a general prosocial orientation, which seem to give
rise to this kind of behavior. See Pearl Oliner et al., eds., Embracing the Other: Phil-
osophical, Psychological and Historical Perspectives on Altruism (New York: New York
University Press, 1992). But I would argue that not enough attention has been given
to the awareness of being separated, different, and/or persecuted as key motivators of
human empathy, which leads individuals and groups to nonviolent Interaction, altru-
 Notes to Pages 146—148 269

ism, and peacemaking. The theological worldview of these groups builds itself around
the cognitive and emotional orientation that is unique to their historical experience.
This is the only way that I see to explain how deeply embedded this posture is as a
Christian faith for some Christian groups or families, while, at the same time, Chris-
tian faith is being used by others, in the very same period and only a few miles away,
to justify theologically the most brutal racist violence of the twentieth century. See
Susannah Heschel on the theological program of de-Judaizing Christianity, "Trans-
forming Jesus from Jew to Aryan: Protestant Theologians in Nazi Germany," The
Albert Bilgray Lecture presented at the University of Arizona, Apr. 1995. The Con-
fessing church declared in May 1939, "In the realm of faith there exists the sharp
opposition between the message of Jesus Christ and the Jewish religion.... In the
realm of volkish life an earnest and responsible racial politics is required for the
preservation of the purity of our people" (Heschel, "Transforming Jesus," 4). This
subject deserves a separate study. Philippe Lasserre who, as a little boy in northern
France, played a key role in his family's scheme to lead to safety approximately thirty
Jews over a period of several years, at considerable risk to their lives, suggested to me
recently that his family's experience of and awareness of being different as Protestants
in France and the history associated with that in France gave them a special level of
concern for the persecuted that combined seamlessly with their religious faith. His
mother was involved with an organization run by Protestants for displaced persons
during World War II, after the fall of France to Germany. He also describes the
powerful memories that his religious community maintains of the intense persecution
they suffered in the seventeenth century, when they had to hide in the mountain caves
of central France, where they sang special psalms and identified with the Jews exiled
to Babylon (personal correspondence, Mar. 24, 1997). On the evolution of Christian
wars, persecution, and pacifism, see Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and
Peace.
13. From its earliest roots, American Mennonite missionizing appears to have fo-
cused on the teaching of pacifism (see Driedger and Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking,
29).
14. There is yet another interesting parallel here to Jewish values rooted in the
Hebrew biblical conception of the people as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation"
(Exod. 19:6), with "holy" interpreted in its original Hebrew meaning as "separated"
or "consecrated." It suggests a special destiny in the world but a separated one.
However, other sources, such as Gen. 18:19 and Isa. 42:6, convey the notion of a people
with a mission, "a light unto the nations [or la-goyim}," teaching to the world "the
path of God [derekh YHVH]." One mandate suggests active integration in the world,
while the other implies separation. Traditional Orthodoxy of the last two thousand
years tended to see the separation as key, with the mission being expressed by one's
distant example as a God-fearing and moral people. Modern liberal Judaism has
emphasized, instead, a mission of spreading the prophetic social justice values of
Judaism while also maintaining a distinct religious identity. This is a striking her-
meneutic parallel to Amish and modern Mennonite divisions on the subject.
15. Lederach, Preparing for Peace, 17-23.
16. See, generally, Ron Kraybill, "Peacebuilders in Zimbabwe" (Ph.D. diss., Univ.
of Cape Town, 1996).
17. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 265ff.
18. It also occurs to me that Mennonites have certain advantages for healing and
learning from their pain that other abused groups have lacked. They have emphasized
to me on several occasions that their worst suffering, on the whole occurred centuries
ago, and time does heal wounded groups to a degree. Second, their separated and
 270 Notes to Page 148

rather safe rural existence has given them the nurturing space in which to heal them-
selves and from that safe space to reflect on the ethical and spiritual implications of
their ancestors' suffering and what it implies for all human beings. This is a luxury
unavailable to most minorities around the world who are in the throes of abuse
presently or who only recently emerged from it and therefore have not been given
the time or the space to heal. Often they find themselves in a tense, antagonistic
relationship with competing groups, either in the city or in the countryside, which
hardly gives them the time or the space to work through the trauma that they have
suffered. Thus, sustained injury easily turns into outer-directed violence. If my hy-
pothesis is correct, conflict resolution strategies would need to address this and cre-
atively seek ways for the minorities who both persecute and suffer persecution—
Hutus, Tutsi, Serbians, etc.—to find or be given the time and the space to heal them-
selves. The Mennonite experience would be impossible to recreate, but it may provide
a model for approximating measures. Ury and Fisher have already expressed the
legitimacy of approximating the best possibility in negotiation, BATNA (Best Alter-
native to a Negotiated Agreement). See Roser Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes
(New York: Penguin, 1991). Perhaps we need to think in terms of the best alternative
to psychological healing for groups that cannot easily extract themselves from intrac-
table problems. We know, furthermore, that there are always—even in the most dam-
aged groups engaging in massive violence—those individuals for whom the violence
is not passed on but who experience it as clear testimony to the futility and evil of
violence itself. We should be thinking of how we can creatively support this nucleus
of people, who could be at the vanguard of healing their community. Some compar-
ative studies on the relationship between a major trauma suffered by minorities at a
discreet point in time, such as a genocide, and the character of their subsequent
reaction to either hostile or healing circumstances would be useful.
19. Gen. 4:7 expresses this idea by describing Cain's jealousy during an episode
that is the prelude to the first murder in biblical literature. Mennonite sensibility
reflects this constant attention to the thin line between good and evil intervention in
the world.
20. Quietism is a common facet of Christian, as well as Jewish, pietistic groups
and it shares certain features with Buddhist approaches to the world as well. Religious
pietism with quietistic overtones could easily be accused of passivity in the face of
evil and conflict, and this may be true in many cases historically. But it also should
be studied cross-culturally for what it can teach conflict resolution about what not to
do in human relations, what to avoid in engagement with Others, what character
traits lead to violence, and how the inner life leads toward or away from violence.
This is the great strength of traditions that have focused on the inner life and their
potential contribution to conflict prevention, in particular, but also to conflict inter-
vention and resolution.
21. This was expressed to me many times, over a period of years, by my teacher,
Rabbi Dr. Joseph Soloveitchik, who was the preeminent theologian and legal authority
of modern Orthodox Judaism in the twentieth century. He always said that the deepest
spiritual experience in Judaism is not the positive ritual but the negative prohibition.
He embraced precisely that aspect of Judaism that was ridiculed by Others for cen-
turies as barren legalism and saw in it the supreme fulfillment of the inner life. It is
the discipline of not eating everything available to humankind, of not having an
impact on the natural world in any way one day a week (on the sabbath), of not
having sex at all places and all times, of not taking everything the world has to offer
but leaving some for the poor or simply to replenish the earth, which are the keys to
the religious life before God. Similarly, in Buddhism, the deepest fulfillment of the
 Notes to Pages 148—150 271

Four Noble Truths is following the Eightfold Path. But that path expresses itself in
largely negative terms, mostly adding up to a variety of ways in which one is instructed
to do no harm to oneself or to other sentient beings. This does not mean that positive
ritual plays no role in Judaism nor in numerous cultural expressions of Buddhism.
But it seems to me that the greatest exponents in these traditions perceive the key
spiritual challenge in the discipline of limitation and not doing—not in positive ritual.
The latter, by contrast, is notorious as a vehicle in many religious histories of avoiding
true spiritual and moral discipline while simultaneously showing oneself to be righ-
teous before man and God. See Isa. 1, among many other prophetic sources, which
attacks in blistering language the use of ritual to cover up the sins of greed and
murder.
22. Deut. 10:19.
23. See Volkan, The Need to Have Enemies and Allies.
24. See the discussion in Laurence J. Silberstein, ed., The Other in Jewish Thought
and History (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 1-34. Silberstein also con-
fronts a related issue: "antiessentialist" definitions of cultural identity. Essentialists
argue for a singular definition of a particular cultural identity, whereas antiessential-
ists, influenced by postmodern thinking, argue that cultural identity, while having
some essential characteristics, is evolving all the time and dependent upon the inter-
action and mutual influencing of many identities. Regarding conflict analysis, the
latter approach is often to be found among those actors who are comfortable with
their identities and unafraid of the creative process of interaction with other group
identities and their accompanying values. Conversely, rigidly essentialist positions are
often to be found among those actors who express deep suspicion of intergroup
interactions. One possible explanation of this difference is that the very artificiality of
essentialist postures, e.g., "only Christians truly understand love," "only Jews are truly
compassionate," "only Germans understand culture," etc., make them highly vulner-
able to deniability with extensive intergroup relations, therefore threatening this thin
essentialist identity and the weak psychological life that it buttresses.
25. See, for example, Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other, trans. Richard A.
Cohen (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1987); and Levinas, Ethics and
Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1985).
26. "I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world" (Gandhi,
All Men Are Brothers, 55, and, generally, 54-56). In the movie Gandhi by Sir Richard
Attenborough, he has Gandhi say at one point, in exasperation at Hindu hatred of
Muslims, "I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian!" which only made his
enemies hate him more. The movie is often predicated on actual statements by Gan-
dhi, but I have not been able to find this one as yet.
27. Theologically, Jesus is seen like the angels of the Hebrew Bible, in the world
but a messenger from another world, who is not quite of this world. That there is an
otherworldly character to the person who works tirelessly for the good of Others is
something that every religious peacemaker feels inside herself at one or another dif-
ficult juncture, especially in the wake of extraordinary personal sacrifice. It is,
therefore, deeply compelling and comforting to feel at these moments that one em-
ulates others who have done the same. In Judaism, the model for this are the "righ-
teous," the tsadik, great prophets and rabbis, and even God himself. In Christianity
there are also many possible role models that people look to, but Jesus himself stands
out as the quintessential linkage of this worldly life and otherworldly aims and dreams.
For those who believe in it, the Trinity stands out as a mystery that embodies this
unification in one person of being this-worldly and otherworldly at the same time
and in the same person. Emulation of the Prophet in Islam also has this compelling
 272 Notes to Pages 150—159

quality. In Mahayana Buddhism, the figure of the Bodhissatva, who is about to ascend
to nirvana but steps back in order to serve Others, also seems to fit this theme of
this-worldly and otherworldly existence combined inside the person who sacrifices
himself for Others.
28. See "Peacebuilders in Zimbabwe," Kraybill, ch. 7, on community.
29. Driedger and Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking, 22.
30. In fairness, it may be the case that aid agencies choose sometimes to not utilize
local resources in order to avoid conflict. But that should not be done summarily
without first humbly engaging a community that is in need. It not only is the moral
thing to do, it is the only sensible way to avoid the infamous waste of aid resources.
Furthermore, conflict avoidance, while necessary sometimes as a method, is a poor
long-term solution to human problems.
31. Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 27, 1996.
32. Washington Post, Jan. 26, 1997, pp. A1-2.
33. Personal communication, July 10, 1996.
34. Eyewitness report by one survivor, Samuel Doe, personal communication, July
10, 1996.
35. See Burton, ed., Conflict: Human Needs Theory. For a critique of the theory,
see Kevin Avruch and Peter Black, "A Generic Theory of Conflict Resolution: A
Critique," Negotiation Journal 3 (1987):87-96.
36. Kant, "The Metaphysical Foundations of Morals," in The Philosophy of Kant:
Immanuel Kant's Moral and Political Writings, ed. Carl Friedrich (New York: Modern
Library, 1977), 178.
37. Francis Hutcheson (d. 1747), for example, argues that if our motives in care
were purely instrumental and self-interested, we would never express any admiration
for those who love or give to Others. We also would love equally the kind of people
who are kind to us but cruel to Others and the kind of people who are kind to us
and kind to everyone else as well. But this is plainly not the case with our feelings,
says Hutcheson. We clearly admire and have a special level of love for the saintly
among us, who care unselfishly for everyone. See Hutcheson, "Concerning Good and
Evil," in The Classical Moralists, comp. Benjamin Rand (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1937), 404. In general, the moral sense theorists posit that basic feelings of compassion
and love, which plainly are observable in nature, should form the basis of one's ethical
response to the world and that education is the key to strengthening those moral
senses. This was written, of course, before the Freudian critique of conscious moti-
vations. A moral sense theory response to the important Freudian critique is vital to
our purposes, but it is beyond the scope of this book.
38. Martin Buber, / and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, 1970), 54, 55.
39. Of course, I recognize the irony that my desire to study the "net effects"
reflects an instrumentalist orientation.
40. Richard E. Rubenstein, "Unanticipated Conflict and the Crisis of Social The-
ory," in Conflict: Readings in Management and Resolution, ed. John Burton and Frank
Dukes (New York: St. Martin's, 1990), 325.
41. Driedger and Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking, 53.
42. There is little published on CPTs other than CPT publications. See John
Stoner, Interventions of Truth: Christian Peacemaker Teams (Chicago: Christian Peace-
maker Teams, 1993); Robert Hull, A Chronology of Christian Peacemaker Teams 1984-
1992 (Newton, Kans.: CPT Steering Committee, 1991); and Cynthia Sampson and John
Paul Lederach, eds., From the Ground Up: Mennonite Contributions to International
Peacebuilding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
 Notes to Pages159
159—170 273

43. See, generally, Ps. 85.

44. See Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development
and Civilization (Oslo and London: International Peace Research Institute and Sage,
1996).
45. See Arnold Soloway and Edwin Weiss, Truth and Peace in the Middle East: A
Critical Analysis of the Quaker Report (New York: Friendly House, 1971).
46. For the full array of evangelical preachers' statements on the Jews and their
future, see http://www.fields.org/links.htm. From here one has complete access to
thousands of Christian missionary organizations, dozens of which are specifically fo-
cused on the fate of the Jews.
47. This is also complicated by the fact that "forgiveness" seems to include or
mean many different things in some Christian contexts, such as unilateral apology,
mutual apology, unilateral or mutual verbal expressions of forgiving, gestures of
friendship, repentance, expressions of love, and acceptance. See the various ways in
which forgiveness has been engaged historically in Michael Henderson, The Forgiveness
Factor (Salem, Oreg., and London: Grosvenor, 1996). Depending on what is meant,
there will be more or less in common with other cultures and religions, which often
have parallel moral values and/or spiritual states but which embrace them condition-
ally, depending on how the forgiveness gestures are carried out.

Chapter Eight
1. For an overview of the field, see J. Folger, M. Poole, and R. Stutman, eds.,
Working through Conflict (New York: Longman, 1997).
2. For an overview, see Marty and Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms.
On Jewish fundamentalism, see Silberstein, ed., Jewish Fundamentalism.
3. On Hille's embrace of gentiles, see Talmud Bavli Shabbat 31a; on Yohanan's
greeting to gentiles, see Talmud Bavli Berakhot 17a; on R. Shimon, see Talmud Bavli
Shabbat 33, 34, and Gen. Rabbah 79.
4. See Talmud Bavli Kiddushin 7ob; Num. Rabbah 8; and, generally Talmud Bavli
Masekhet Gerim.
5. There is a large literature on this subject. See the following for selections of
rabbinic aphorisms: Avot of Rabbi Nathan 12; Talmud Bavli Perek ha-Shalom; Lev.
Rabbah 9; and Num. Rabbah 11. For some contemporary discussion, see Polner and
Goodman, eds., The Challenge of Shalom, and the essay by Gopin in the same volume,
"Is There a Jewish God of Peace?"
6. On early justifications for war, see the discussion in Talmud Bavli Sotah 44b;
for a contemporary overview and analysis of the rabbinic discussion, see Kimelman,
"War," 309-32 (incl. bibliography).
7. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 5.
8. See ch. 6.
9. I think this was brought into sharp relief for me when a wonderful haredi
relative of mine responded with curiosity to the risks I was placing on my career by
spending so much time fighting nuclear proliferation. She said, "Isn't that a goyish
[gentile] problem?" The fact that Jewish scientists had been and continue to be actively
involved in the development of nuclear weapons did not register, nor did the fact
that a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union at the time
would have wiped out most of the world's Jewish people. But this is a person whose
ethical behavior often exceeds my own and that of many of my colleagues in peace
work. The real problem is the scope of her ethical concern in the context of a con-
structed identity.
 274 Notes to Pages 170-173

10. See, for example, Menachem Kellner, ed., Contemporary Jewish Ethics (New
York: Hebrew Publishing, 1978); Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman, eds., Contemporary
Jewish Ethics and Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
11. On uncompleted mourning and conflict, see Vamik Volkan, Bloodlines: From
Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997); and
Volkan, The Need to Have Enemies and Allies.
12. Avelius also applies to events in history and objects, such as the Temple in
Jerusalem, although this is negotiated in a somewhat different fashion by halakha.
Nevertheless, its extension to realms beyond the individual/interpersonal suggests its
usefulness in dealing with overarching collective experiences of the people.
13. On mourning in Judaism, see Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Way in Death and
Mourning (New York: Jonathan David, 1969). Kaddish is a formal responsive prayer
said by mourners a number of times in the prayer service, when there is a quorum
present, in three separate services during the mourning period. It is a prayer of praise
and comfort. Kaddish, it should be noted, is formally required every day only for a
month for most relatives but is required for a year for parents and then recited
annually on the day of death, the yohrtseit, as it is termed in the Ashkenazi/Yiddish
usage. Yizkor, recited several times a year collectively in the synagogue, is also central.
My mentor, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, said kaddish for his wife for several years,
every day, several times during each of the three daily public prayers. It is perhaps
my most vivid childhood memory of him. By contrast, unfortunately, my grand-
mother lost her four-year-old only son in the 1930s. She cried for the next seven years,
every single day, according to my mother's testimony, and was haunted by the loss
for the rest of her life. She never said kaddish once because women were not permitted
to say kaddish. I have no idea whether it would have helped her recover, and to think
otherwise is sheer speculation. But it is clear to me that kaddish is a vital element of
Jewish life, which deserves more study in terms of recovery from extreme injury. I
also believe that it should play a more prominent role in conflict resolution between
Jews and Others, if and only if it is done in a way that respects the culture. More on
shared mourning below.
14. Compare Roger Fisher and Scott Brown, Getting Together: Building Relation-
ships as We Negotiate (New York: Penguin, 1988). Fisher's work and the work of the
Harvard Negotiation Project have honored places in the field of conflict resolution,
and many conflicts have been negotiated successfully with this wise, practical advice.
But win-win concepts are obscene in certain contexts, such as ethnic cleansing and
genocide. Many things in violent conflict can never be recovered, as I am sure they
know, and much deeper psychological work is called for. The methods I suggest here
are complementary not contradictory to rational negotiation processes, which always
have their place at some stage of resolution. But I argue that the work that we suggest
here goes deeper and is more essential to long-lasting solutions.
15. Marc Gopin, "Confronting the Secular/Religious Conflict in Israel: Suggested
Solutions," in Religious Secular Relations in Israel: Social and Political Implications, ed.
Ephraim Ya'ar and Tamar Herman (Tel Aviv: Steinmetz Center for Peace Research,
Tel Aviv University and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 1998), 81-94. This essay is
an early version of ch. 6 of this book.
16. It is obvious why the Palestinians feel this about land, but it is also part and
parcel of Jewish religious experience even today. Every day, in numerous blessings,
there are fervent prayers for the restoration of lost lands, as there has been for
thousands of years. There is little acknowledgment, at least ritually speaking, that the
lands truly have been restored. It is not, I believe, because not enough land has been
restored, but because the restoration has not been accompanied by a deep sense of
 Notes to Pages 173 –175 275

peace or the dreamed-of Utopian messianic era and because old religious habits of
lament die a slow, hard death. They are part of the Jewish psyche; they have formed
and preserved identity for millennia and are a source of comfort, even if today such
a lament appears bizarre to the outsider because the dream of acquiring the land has
already been fulfilled. There are other complicated reasons, halakhic and political, that
these laments are preserved in the prayer texts, but that requires a separate discussion.
17. Detail is the key. Detail is the heart of narrative, and narrative is the path into
the individual psyche and the collective memory of human beings. Details of personal
narratives also are a powerful bridge between enemies. In their uniqueness, details
paradoxically become universal. That is why powerful novels and movies about in-
dividuals affect all of us far more than statistics about war.
18. I do not mean "pluralism" in the popular sense of acceptance of the legitimacy
of all expressions of Jewish practice, which is generally derided in Orthodox circles.
19. My ideas here parallel and are indebted to Bill Vendley's on primary and sec-
ondary religious language. See William Vendley and David Little, "Implications for
Communities: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity," in Religion: The Missing
Dimension of Statecraft, ed. Douglas Johnson and Cynthia Sampson (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1994), 307; and Vendley, "Religious Differences and Shared Care:
The Need for Primary and Secondary Language," Church and Society (Sept.-Oct.
1992): 16-29.
20. I want to emphasize that this is no way discounts the importance of moving
all groups in question toward a civil society based on shared values, shared rights,
and shared responsibilities. But the way to build trust in deeply conflictual, wound-
infested situations is not necessarily to start out with universal constructs, which have
sent many religious enthusiasts running from secular society in the first place. It is
to acknowledge lost or injured identities, to acknowledge their value and importance,
to honor them, and only then to move toward shared civil constructs.
21. I was struck by the positive reactions of my secular friends to a beautiful
advertising campaign that the Benetton Group published in conjunction with News-
week in March 1998. It was a series of photographs of Jews and Arabs together in
beautiful poses of friendship. The first thing that I saw in those photographs as a
devotee of peace was the beauty of the vision of the future. Most of the first photo-
graphs (not surprisingly, emerging from the advertising firms) were of extremely
handsome Arab men embracing or kissing beautiful Jewish women. And with my
memories very keen of my background, I also saw catastrophe. I knew that those
photographs would have the opposite of the intended effect on the community that
needs visions of peacemaking the most. It is the nightmare scenario in essence. It is
the loss of continuity by way of intermarriage placed right into these "peace" pho-
tographs. There are other reasons, typical of the relations between dominant and
repressed cultures, that it was consistently Arab men embracing Jewish women, but
that is beyond our topic. Suffice it to say that the envisioned intermarriage is precisely
what keeps many religious people on the right wing of the political spectrum. From
the progressive perspective, this is nothing short of racism. From a religious perspec-
tive, this kind of assimilation is nothing short of a threat to survival, as it was in
Europe and is in America. It guarantees the slow disappearance of Jewish culture and
Jewish people. This is a common and understandable concern among indigenous and
tribal groups with low birthrates. This difference between progressive and religious
approaches to integration must be confronted. In other words, there must be some
shared vision of the future, despite the differences, between religious and secular
groups before there can be any hope of that future being peaceful. It is the same
between Arabs and Jews, with a surprising amount of agreement on these issues from
 276 Notes to Pages 177–178

religious people on both sides. There is no reason in principle that there cannot be
both a religious and a secular vision of a future that involves peaceful coexistence.
Almost never, however, do the progressive forces responsible for envisioning the future
allow for, or encourage, this possibility, at least not as of this writing. This was the
central element missing from the visions of the "new Middle East" espoused by those
who engineered the Oslo accords, and it is precisely those left out of that future vision
who almost destroyed the gains of Oslo.
22. I use "mind" and "heart" traditionally, that is, metaphorically, to refer to
cognitive development and affective development.
23. M. Avot 2:13; Lev. 19:18; M. Avot 1:14.I have included rabbinic phrases for each
value, which will require a longer study to analyze. They are not precise formulations
but rather abbreviated references to the epigrams and aphorisms of rabbinic moral
formulations, but they do typify the way in which these values are referred to often
in the lived interactions of religious life. The latter is vital, from the point of view of
anthropologically based conflict resolution. See Avruch et al., eds., Conflict Resolution:
Cross Cultural Perspectives.
24. See Zohar Num. 178; for overviews of the extensive rabbinic literature on re-
pentance, see Sefer Orhot Tsaddikim (1581; rpt., Jerusalem: Eshkol, n.d), ch. 26; and
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance. The citations in this and subse-
quent footnotes are merely selections and not an exhaustive list.
25. Eccles. 7:1; Exod. Rabbah 48. Midrash Tanhuma va-Yakhel states, "One finds
three names that a human being is called, one that his mother and father call him,
one that others call him, and one that he acquires for himself. The best of all of them
is the name that he acquires for himself."
26. M. Avot 4:6.
27. M. Avot 6:6.
28. Moshe Cordovero (d. 1570), The Palm Tree of Devorah, trans. Moshe Miller
(Spring Valley, N.Y.: Targum/Feldheim, 1993), ch. 3.
29. M. Avot 5:18, 5:20
30. Deut. 13:5; Talmud Bavli Sotah 14a; Talmud Bavli Shabbat 133b; on peace, Job
25:2; Sifra be-hukotai; Sifre Naso.
31. Talmud Bavli Shabbat 151b; Gen. Rabbah 33; on compassion as the determining
characteristic as to whether a person is really a Jew, see Talmud Bavli Bezah 32b; on
the pain of animals, see Talmud Bavli Shabbat 128b.
32. Talmud Bavli Sotah 14a; Eccle. Rabbah 7, statement of Rabbi Judah.
33. M. Avot 1:15; 3:16; Talmud Yerushalmi Eruvin 5:1.
34. Gen. Rabbah 24, statement of Ben Azai; M. Avot 4:3.
35. M. Avot 1:6.
36. Talmud Bavli Berakhot 60; Talmud Bavli Ta'anit 21.
37. Lev. 19:18; Sifra Kedoshim; Avot of Rabbi Nathan 16; on love and fulfillment
of needs, see Sefer Orhot Tsaddikim, ch. 5, 46ff.
38. M. Avot 4: 1, 3, 2:15.
39. Lev. 19:16; Ps. 34:13; on a range of language-related values, see Yitshak Abohav,
Menorat ha-Maor, ed. J. Horeb and M. Katznelbogen (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kuk,
1961), 94-172.
40. Talmud Bavli Shabbat 119b.
41. M. Avot 5:20; see Talmud Bavli Hullin 89b, on the capacity to contain one's
rage in the midst of conflict.
42. "Criticism leads to peace. . . . All peace that does not involve criticism is not
peace" (Gen. Rabbah 54, in the name of Resh Lakish).
43. Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 6b.
 Notes to Pages178
178-180 277

44. Deut. 10:19; Talmud Bavli Bava Mezia 59b. The biblical ger (stranger) has been
interpreted to mean "convert" in rabbinic Judaism. But this is debatable because the
rabbinic category of ger toshav, resident stranger, may refer to a much larger group
of non-Jews who abide by basic moral laws. See Talmud Bavli Avodah Zarah 64b.
45. See Talmud Bavli Yoma 9b, on destruction in Jewish life coming from wanton
hatred.
46. Talmud Bavli Yoma 23b.
47. Talmud Bavli Bava Metsia 58b.
48. M. Avot 1:17, 6:6.
49. Avot of Rabbi Nathan, version A, ch. 12.
50. M. Derekh Erets Zuta 5:7.
51. M. Kallah, statement of R. Nehorai; Talmud Bavli Berakhot 43b; Talmud Bavli
Bava Metsia 58b.
52. M. Avot 1:18.
53. Lev. Rabbah 9; Talmud Bavli Perek ha-Shalom.
54. See Talmud Bavli Yevamot 14a, on the relationship of the house of Hillel and
the house of Shamai; Num. Rabbah 13; Talmud Bavli Eruvin 13b.
55. Avot of Rabbi Nathan, version B, ch. 24.
56. M. Avot 4:1.
57. Exod. 23:5; Exod. Rabbah 30:1; see the discussion in Kimelman, "Non-violence
in the Talmud," 318-19.
58. Talmud Bavli Bava Metsia 49b; Talmud Bavli Makkot 24, story on R. Safrah.
59. M. Avot 2:15.
60. M. Avot 4:23; Talmud Bavli Berakhot 7a.
61. Talmud Bavli Berakhot 17a..
62. See n. 24 above, on repentance.
63. Deut. 16:20; Zeph. 2:3; Otsar Midrashim, Midrash Hashkem, 183.
64. Avot of Rabbi Nathan 15:1, 17:2; Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1746), Sefer
Mesilat Yesharim (rpt., Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1969), ch. 19.
65. Otsar Midrashim, Midrash Gadol a'Gedulah, 78.
66. Talmud Bavli Bava Metsia 32b; Sefer Orhot Tsaddikim, ch. 8; Maimonides,
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder, 13:1.
67. Lev. 19:17; Talmud Bavli Arakhin 16a.
68. Deut. 16:19; M. Pe'ah 8:9.
69. M. Avot 4:1, 2:7.
70. Talmud Bavli Perek ha-Shalom.
71. M. Avot 4:1; Talmud Bavli Berakhot 17a; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of
Repentance.
72. M. Derekh Erets Rabbah; M. Derekh Erets Zuta; Abohav, Menorat ha-Maor,
699-735, on the role of civility in conflict prevention and, generally, 696-747, on "the
ways of peace and love."
73. Talmud Bavli Berakhot 17a.
74. See, for example, Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of
the Passions and Affections with Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (London: sold by J.
Osborn & T. Longman, 1728). Other key figures included the Third Earl of Shaftes-
bury, David Hume, and Adam Smith.
75. It is interesting to note that R. Akiva (c. 50-135 C.E.) considered this the pre-
eminent principle of Judaism. However, his contemporary Ben Azzai stated that the
most important principle is the idea that every human being is created in the image
of God and is therefore invaluable. This is superior as a principle to the love principle,
lest "someone say, 'since I have been abused, let my fellow human being be abused,
 278 Notes to Pages l80-185

since I have been cursed let my fellow human being be cursed' " (Gen. Rabbah 24).
R. Tanhuma adds, in the same commentary, "If you do this [abuse others], know
who you are abusing:... in the image of God He made him [Gen. 5:1]." We have
here, in a nutshell, what might be the thought patterns of abused people the world
over who, despite good consciences, feel that, from the point of view of justice, if
they have been unloved and abused, that they should treat others no differently. The
statement by Ben Azzai is meant to contradict that tendency of feeling within the
Jewish people of his time. It means that the only way that a Jewish person could
devalue another human being would be to consider him not really created in the
image of God, not really human, which manifestly contradicts the sacred text.
76. See a fine example of contemporary rabbinic hermeneutics on the relationship
of honor for all people as a way of protecting human life in Micha Odenheimer,
"Honor or Death," Jerusalem Report 9, no. 22, Mar. 1, 1999, p. 25.
77. B. R. Brown, "Face-Saving and Face-Restoration in Negotiation," in Negotia-
tions, ed. D. Druckman (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977), 275-99.
78. Ps. 34:15.
79. See Gopin, "Is There a Jewish God of Peace?" 32-39.
80. On the violence of some of the priestly families, see Talmud Bavli Pesahim 57.
81. Avot of Rabbi Nathan 12:3.
82. Otsar Midrashim, Midrash Gadol u'Gedulah, 78, under the word perek.
83. This is probably based on the rabbinic idea that, while someone is in a rage,
it is best not to respond to her but to wait until the heat of anger is gone, and more
conciliatory language can be used. See n. 60 on she'at ka'aso.
84. M. Kallah Rabbati, ch. 3. The rabbis are, like many other cultural figures
around the world, extremely attuned to issues of dignity. This is hard to understand
in the crass culture of industrialized society, and this misunderstanding is the frequent
cause of intercultural conflict, particularly between those who dwell in large urban
centers and those who live in more traditional, less populated settings. Apparently, in
rabbinic culture, even the act of engaging in other people's conflicts involves some
loss of dignity, perhaps because a concerned outsider is so often rebuffed or even
abused by parties to a conflict.
85. I leave aside here the inappropriateness of this story as a model for any con-
temporary solution to a marital crisis. Any husband who throws his wife out of the
house can and should be subject to prosecution if he does not come to some more
equitable way to separate, if that is what they must do. I urge the reader to see the
moral tale in its context, to suspend contemporary moral evaluations temporarily, in
order to see the prosocial message of the story, which is intended to teach mediators
how they should behave. We do not use it as a role model for a husband's behavior
or as a contemporary solution to that behavior.
86. I am caricaturing to a degree the contemporary model. For example, I have
studied and watched a Jewish divorce mediator whose emotional involvement during
the mediation process is quite clear. He shares why this work is so important to him,
and he goes out of his way to evoke emotions by mentioning and frequently talking
about the children who will be affected by the settlement or lack thereof. He does
this to bring the full emotional reality of the process into the mediation, rather than
suppressing it.
87. Bush and Folger, The Promise of Mediation; compare with Bruce McKinney,
"A Critical Analysis of Transformative Mediation," Peace Research 29, no. 1 (Feb. 1997):
41-52.
88. As a contemporary example, Leah Green, building on the work of Gene Knud-
sen Hoffman on compassionate listening, has initiated the Middle East Compassionate
 Notes to Pages 186—189 279

Listening Project, based in Indianola, Washington. It has brought a variety of Amer-

ican Jews to the West Bank and Israel to engage in listening to the full spectrum of
Israeli and Palestinian points of view, without engaging in debate but simply involved
in the discipline of listening. They are one of the only groups, to my knowledge, that
listens actively to settlers as well as to the more radical Muslims on the West Bank.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation also has an extensive program of compassionate
listening projects.
89. See John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided
Societies (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1994), 26.
90. Exod. 23:5; Deut. 22:4; see also Prov. 25:21.
91. See Kimelman, "Non-Violence in the Talmud," 318ff, for the rabbinic sources.
92. See Vblkan, The Need to Have Enemies and Allies.
93. Enormous amounts of human and financial resources are applied globally to
fighting a variety of forms of injustice involving women, children, abused classes or
races of people, prisoners, laborers, and more. Much of this work is focused on the
poor and the inherent injustices of social structures. This is vital work, but it some-
times induces not only constructive conflict—which is necessary—but unnecessarily
adversarial and destructive forms of confrontation. The latter cause many backlashes
of a violent sort, which just perpetuate the cycle of violence and injustice. The fact is
that justice seeking and peace seeking are often at odds with each other, and analysts
need to confront this and suggest integrated models of social change. The conflictual
styles of many people in justice advocacy, at least in the United States, are quite
notorious. Indeed, part of this stems from a mistaken model of social change, which
requires the demonization of one group of people and the exaggerated innocence of
another group. The real world has never been that simple, and, more important, such
a psychological construct is guaranteed to perpetuate the very injustices and violence
that one is combating. Gandhi and King understood perfectly the delicate balance of
resistance to injustice and the art of peacemaking. Many of those who engage in this
work, especially when made rigid by institutionalization, do not, and they need more
guidance from ethicists and conflict analysts. See Marc Gopin, "Conflict Resolution
and International Development: Conflict or Cooperation?" in Conflict Resolution and
Social Injustice, ed. R. Rubenstein and F. Blechman (forthcoming).
94. Avot of Rabbi Nathan 23:1.
95. Talmud Bavli Ta'anit 67a.
96. See Talmud Bavli Yoma 86b; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge,
Laws of Teshuva, 2:5
97. See Kesef Mishneh on Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Laws
of Teshuva 2:5
98. Compare with Islam, where generosity in debt disputes, which were arbitrated
by Mohammed, was seen as a central way to bring about peace between enemies
(Hadith Sahih Bukhari 3.49.868-70).
99. See Talmud Bavli Rosh ha-Shanah i6b; and Kesef Mishneh commentary to
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Laws of Teshuva 2:4.
100. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Laws of Teshuva 2:4.
101. Several years ago I was working with American teenagers, who came to Wash-
ington to be educated about politics. I repeatedly asked these teenagers the following
question: "How many people died in the Vietnam War?" I constantly got the answer:
50,000. The collective American memory to which they had been acculturated elim-
inated the more than 2 million Asians who were killed in the war. I said, "people,"
but they heard me say "Americans."
102. See n. 42 above, on the concept of tokhaha.
 280 Notes to Pages 190—202

103. The effects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions presently emerging
are complex, especially in view of the political and military circumstances that require
their creation. They are, however, an important development and require a separate
study.
104. Shai Franklin, "Victim's Gold Deserves Proper Burial," letter to the editor,
Washington Jewish Week, May 29, 1997, p. 19.
105. See Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the
Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 1997); and Boyarin,
"Homotopia: The Feminized Jewish Man and the Lives of Women in Late Antiquity,"
Differences 7 no. 2 (1995).
106. Avot of Rabbi Nathan 23:1.
107. This requires a much larger discussion of early rabbinic efforts to create
or recreate the ideal Jewish man in terms of Torah study and a restrained, semi-
monastic lifestyle and their undermining of the role of men as warriors, which was
popular in competing sects of the Second Temple period. This does not mean that
the rabbis were pacifists, although some were (see Kimelman, "Non-Violence in the
Talmud"). But there was a clear shift in emphasis toward a certain kind of peace-
making Jewish man. This then set the stage for the prevailing images of the Jewish
man for many centuries to come, with some notable exceptions in Spain and else-
where. Another major shift in Jewish male identity came with the Enlightenment, the
Emancipation, Jewish entry into various militaries, and, of course, the new Jewish
man, the Zionist halutz. All of this history will have to be confronted as Jewish cul-
ture faces in the future the question of what the ideal Jewish man is. This is brought
into sharp relief in contemporary Israeli culture, where one part of the culture views
manhood as essentially related to universal military service while the haredi part
views manhood in a completely different way, with each group of men deeply re-
senting the other's definition of manhood. Furthermore, for entirely secular reasons,
many Israeli youths are beginning to question the centrality of the army in their male
identities.
108. I refer to the elicitive method of John Paul Lederach. See his Preparing for
Peace.

Chapter Nine
1. Of course, this problem is not limited historically to religious ethics. The U.S.
Constitution and Bill of Rights come to mind, with their extraordinary guarantees of
liberty and justice for all, which happened to not include slaves before the Civil War,
or the European precedents for those documents, which did not include women or
the landless. Thus, in promoting human rights, for example, we should not approach
religious authorities arrogantly, as if secular culture has never faced the same limita-
tions in its cultural constructs.
2. See, e.g., Sachedina, "Is There a Tradition of Pacifism and Nonviolence in Is-
lam?" 7-8.
3. The Jewish community has been thinking of mission in the last couple of
hundred years, in the context of newly found empowerment to influence the course
of the world. The Christian community has been engaged in missionizing since
its inception and is now considering how to define this concept in the light of
modern life and a crowded world. But mission as a problem has not been truly
confronted by the monotheisms that have traditionally missionized and prosely-
tized. On the Jewish community and mission, see ch. 5 of this volume, and Seltzer,
Jewish People, Jewish Thought, 587, 596, 600, 612-13, 617-18, 688, and 698; Abraham
 Notes to Pages 203—205 281

Isaac Kook, Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, the Moral Principles,
Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters and Poems, comp. and trans. Ben Zion Bokser
(New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 271-75, 317; and Cohen, Religion of Reason, 158 and
passim. On Christian concern about mission, see my comments above in ch. 7, and,
for a contemporary sampling of approaches to mission, see M. Thomas Thangaraj,
The Common Task: A Theology of Mission (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998); and Carlos
F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Mission: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998).
Interpretation of mission and, in particular, the attitude toward proselytism in
Christianity tends to be an excellent marker of conservative and liberal approaches
to the rest of the world or more or less aggressive approaches to other faiths. Iron-
ically, in Judaism, the marker is reversed. More intensive discussion of mission usu-
ally indicates a greater commitment to humanity in terms of a universal moral
sense of that commitment, since there has been no aggressive commitment to prose-
lytism in Jewish rabbinic history, both practically and theoretically. By contrast,
less of a commitment to mission usually indicates less care for the fate of human-
ity.
4. Stanley Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind and the Endangered Origins of
Intelligence (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997).
5. Greenspan argues (Growth of the Mind, 236-39) that the key emotional skills of
conflict resolution include empathy with the emotions of Others; an ability to deal
with multiple feelings inside oneself, such as anger; an affection for Others; and the
ability to deal with disappointment. It would be interesting to explore a Greenspanian
method to engage religious communities, to build on religious values that would
dovetail with the capacities that Greenspan makes essential to peacemaking.
6. I include in this those who have faith in the Enlightenment conception of the
world or faith in the marketplace or faith in the scientific method and the importance
of the university. They too can either lead the way in conflict prevention or be part
of the problem if they are easily threatened by and therefore intolerant of other
paradigms of living and believing.
7. I mean community in two senses: (1) the largest bodies, for example, of organ-
ized Christianity and within that the Vatican, the Mennonite Central Committee, or
the World Council of Churches, the last being subject to negotiations among many
groups, and (2) the smallest groups—churches, mosques, fellowships—as well as re-
gional communities, such as the Catholic communities of the Philippines. Obviously
there are intimate relations between both categories, but the more local category is
critical because it is in the local context that the problems of conflict are most clearly
felt and understood—and where indigenous solutions can occur. On the other hand,
those in charge of the religious policies of broad corporate groups are important as
well. Their greatest strength is twofold: they provide a place outside local conflicts
that can serve in an intermediary capacity, and they can set long-term educational
policies that inculcate the values and skills that are critical to conflict resolution,
especially toward those outside the faith.
8. Ross, Culture of Conflict, 61-63, and passim.
9. Ross, Culture of Conflict, 63-65, and passim.
10. Ross uses Murdock and White's Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of 186 lin-
guistically and culturally distinct groups from around the world (Culture of Conflict,
79-80).
11. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed.
12. Tisha B'Av (the ninth of the Jewish month of Av), which always occurs in the
summer, commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples in
586 B.C.E. and 70 C.E. respectively. It also commemorates the beginning of a two-
 282 Notes to Pages 203—215

thousand-year exile and numerous other tragedies in history, including the Crusades.
These mostly occurred in the summer because that is when premodern armies gen-
erally killed the most people in the course of their exploits.
13. The Passion of Christ, for example.
14. The death of Ali, for example, in Shi'a Islam and, generally, the escape of
Mohammed from persecution in Mecca, associated with the beginning of the Islamic
calendar.
15. See Kakar, Colors of Violence, for an excellent description of professional mur-
derers and their ritualized role in the Hindu/Muslim struggle in India.
16. See Ruth Gruber, "Israel Honors Poles for Work on Preserving Jewish Heri-
tage," Jewish Telegraph Agency, July 7, 1998. Their work included restoring cemeteries
and creating museums. I once met a Christian from Krakow, through my contacts
with Moral Re-Armament, who spent two years in search of Poland's surviving Jew-
ish life. When he realized that it was almost absent because millions had been mur-
dered, he proceeded to spend much time photographing Jewish tombstones. He
showed me some of his work. Clearly, for him, this was an act of penance for the
past. It moved me deeply that he would dedicate his life to this, and this was one of
the first instances that demonstrated to me the power of religious gestures of change
and reconciliation and how they transform both those who make the gesture and
those who receive it.
17. If your arguments for civil liberties are perceived to be or are a cover for your
own national interests (a tactic to open up foreign markets, for example), then you
have completely undermined your credibility with religious representatives. It is vital
that you openly acknowledge mixed motivations that you may have. Personal moti-
vations are not necessarily destructive, as long as they are openly acknowledged. The
United States in particular is resented in many parts of the world for always framing
its arguments in moralistic terms, even when it is pursuing its own national interest.
Religious people are particularly sensitive to the uses or abuses of moral principles
for private motivations. That is not to say that national interest is not a legitimate
concern; it simply must be stated up front. Negotiators need not be perfectly disin-
terested in outcomes, but they do have to be honest.
18. See Gopin, "Conflict Resolution and International Development."
19. Lederach, Preparing for Peace.
20. I am involved, for example, in the Faith and Politics Institute, which was
founded precisely to make the spiritual life and values of individual politicians in
Washington into something that binds a civil society together, rather than something
that divides. It is especially meant for religious politicians to have an outlet for their
values, which help construct civil society not unravel its accomplishments, and that
is why an important focus of its work is on racial reconciliation. More steps must be
taken in this direction, but there also must be concerted efforts to reach out to the
most militant religious voices, not in order to submit to their program but to lessen,
through all the methods mentioned above, the destructive character of their present
involvement in politics.
21. For an exhaustive study of this problem, see "Soul Wars: The Problem of
Proselytism in Russia," Emory International Law Review 12; no. 1 (Winter 1998). The
entire issue is dedicated to the subject.
22. See Joseph Montville, "Reconciliation in America," American Civilization
(May-June 1995), 14ff. On the tendency to export American anger overseas, see Mont-
ville, "Psychology, War, and Integrity," Psychologist/Psychoanalyst 11 special supp.
(Summer 1991): 14-17.
 Notes to Pages 216—225 283

23. For one example of the relationship between the military leaders and Protestant
evangelism and the friction with the Catholic community that resulted, see David
Stoll, " 'Jesus Is Lord of Guatemala': Evangelical Reform in a Death Squad State," in
Marty and Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms, 99-123.
24. A student of mine reported extensively on a conflict between a new Protestant
sect and the Catholic majority in a particularly remote region. This conflict escalated
into arson and expulsion. The feelings are deeply bitter. Furthermore, the sect speaks
such a different religious language than the Catholic community that, over and above
the bitterness of the enemies, there are serious communication problems. Both sides
see the other as heretical and malevolent. This is one small example.
25. Kakar, Colors of Violence.
26. See Islam and Nonviolence, ed. Glenn Paige et al., 66-67. On Gandhi's relation
to them, see Pyarelal, A Pilgrimage of Peace: Gandhi and the Frontier, Gandhi among
N.W.F. Pathans (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan, 1950).
27. Corinne Dempsey, "Rivalry, Reliance and Resemblance: Siblings as Metaphor
for Hindu-Christian Relations in Kerala State," unpublished paper delivered at the
American Academy of Religion, 1996.
28. Ahimsa (nonviolence) is the first of the Five Great Vows of Jain monasticism.
See Thompson, World Religions in War and Peace, 74; and Koshelya Walli, The Con-
ception of Ahimsa in Indian Thought according to Sanskrit Sources (Varanasi, India:
Bharata Manisha, 1974).
29. Little, Sri Lanka, and Stanley Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics,
and Violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
30. See, for example, Maura Moynihan, "Enter the Dalai Lama," Washington
Times, Apr. 22, 1997; and Stephen Johnson, "Dalai Lama Recommends Middle Path:
Leader Warns against Bad Signals to China," Houston Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1995.
31. See for example, Lao-tzu, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching: A Translation and
Commentary, ed. and trans. Michael Lafargue (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992), 125, 150.
32. As noted above, Ross found that 60.9 percent of the indigenous groups around
the world that he studied valued violence against other societies, while only 6 percent
disapproved (Culture of Conflict, 80).
33. See Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of
the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1993).
34. Jerusalem Report 9, no. 8, Aug. 17, 1998, p. 12.
35. I want to acknowledge here the important work of Rene Girard on sacred
violence in understanding the importance of scapegoating in religious traditions
(see Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory [Baltimore: Johns Hop-
kins University Press, 1979]. While I agree that the latter is an important element in
religious violence, it is also an oversimplification to assume that all religious vio-
lence is based on the need to sacrifice the scapegoat. I have tried to show that there
are many complicated reasons for religious violence and, therefore, a variety of
measures need to be taken to counteract it. That having been said, Girard has de-
scribed a deep cultural impulse that seems to me to particularly capture at least the
outer characteristics of European bloodletting in the name of God; this seems es-
pecially relevant to understanding European anti-Semitism and its culmination in
the Holocaust.
36. Haym Soloveitchik, "Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of
Contemporary Orthodoxy," Tradition 28, no. 4 (1994), 64-106; and Soloveitchik, "Mi-
 284 Notes to Page 223

gration, Acculturation, and the New Role of Texts in the Haredi World," in Accounting
for Fundamentalisms, ed. Marty and Appleby, 197-235.
37. See June Glazer, "A Transformed Orthodoxy Explored at Harvard," Yeshiva
University Review (Winter 1998), 27-28, which reports on comments by various schol-
ars on Soloveitchik's thesis.
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 Index

Aaron as a model peacemaker, 80, 136, 137, 182- agnosticism, 124

186 ahikha (your brother), 95
Abimelekh and Biblical inter-faith relations, 93 ahimsa (nonviolence), 229, 283n28
Abortion Ahmadi sect of Islam, 247n56
and the conflict over the sanctity of life, 21 aid agencies and conflict, 272n30, 279n93
as obligatory when the mother is threatened, aid to victims as conflict resolution, 136
71, 254n23 Akiva, Rabbi, 277n75
and terrorism, 213 al-'adl (justice), 83
Abraham ben David of Posquieres, 188 Algeria, 53
Abraham, and a covenant of justice, 16, 257n5o al-haqq (truth and right), 83
in a constructive relationship with idolaters, AH, 282
93, 94, 102 al-iqsat (equity), 83
identity of, 229 Allah, 37
as a path of reconciliation for the altruism and the peacemaker, 4, 18, 55, 268n12
monotheisms, 255n30 Amalekites as the embodiment of evil, 69, 119,
Abrahamic faiths, 9, 11, 57, 229 262n3
Abu-Nimer, Mohammed, 25on22 American Civil War, the, 58, 215
abuse and conflict generation Amish, the, 143, 144, 269n14
and haredi memories, 122 Amos, 93
mollified by opportunities to heal, 140, 269n18 Anabaptist tradition, 142, 144, 243n24, 268n8
mollified by prosocial forms of othering, 204 angelology, 100, 229
and terrorism, 59 anomie, 56
as a trait of abused groups, 6 anti-Semitism
undermined by specially designed moral and changes in the Catholic Catechism, 61
constructs, 277n75 directed by Jews at other Jews, 176
academics and conflict resolution, 266 healing from through mourning rituals, 170,
'Adi, Yahya ibn, 83 171
Africa, 13, 83, 123, 205, 236 and Israeli perceptions of progressive
and biblically based rationalizations of Christians, 160
conquest, 259n29 and its impact on Orthodox Jewish
and Christian peacemakers, 261n52 hermeneutics, 89
and Israeli humanitarian intervention, 123 and Jewish paths of reconciliation 210
and the relationship of drama and violence, and Mennonites, 141
263n36 as a progenitor of Jewish patterns of self-
and the use of symbol in reconciliation, 190 abuse, 121-122
African religions, 50 and the psycho-cultural impulse of
and confrontation with the Devil, 220, 221, scapegoating, 283n35
244n39. See also devil, the and its psychological impact on Jews and
Afrikaaners, 215 Jewish culture, 116—118, 125, 170
and their religion, 88, 259n18 and the radicalization of the American
agape, 7 Christian Right, 25

297
 298 Index

anti-Zionists, 118 aveilus (Jewish mourning), 172, 173, 229, 274n

apartheid, 58 12
apocalyptic visions, 10
apologetics and hermeneutics, 81, 82 back channel diplomacy, 39
apology and conflict resolution, 20, 130, 188-191 BATNA, 270
and Arab/Israeli relations, 241n15 applied to choices in psychological healing, 270
complexified by diverse Christian Begin, Menachem, 233
interpretations of forgiveness, 273n47. See Belfast, 6, 7, 263n6
also forgiveness Ben Azzai, 277
conditioned upon bilateral gestures, 241n15 Benamozegh, Rabbi Elijah, 90, 97-109, 111, 112,
and Israeli healing, 136 234, 258n8, 259n29, 26on41
and Jewish/Catholic relations, 24 beriot (creatures) and compassion from God, 68
and Jewish/Christian reconciliation in Eastern berit (covenantal relationship), 93
Europe, 210 Bernard of Clairvaux, 230
and seculatlharedi relations, 264n9 berur (distinction or separation), 103
and the shedding of European fascism, 222 Beruriah, 127
as a stage of repentance, 179 bet ha-kenesset (House of Gathering), 102
in Western relations with the Third World, 212 Bhagavad Gita, 229
world leadership models of, 266n27 Bible, the 18, 36, 47, 83, 85, 90
Arab/Israeli conflict, the, 18, 111, 116, 125 and aid to enemies as conflict resolution, 136
attitude toward of the Mennonite community, and attitudes to peace, 77, 78, 89
140 and attitudes to war, 66-69
and its impact on Jewish ethics, 167 and Benamozegh's philosophy, 97-102
the need to mourn over, 173 and the concept of the ideal, Chosen People,
Arabic culture, 79 229, 257n50
Arabs, 139, 167 and condemnation of idolaters for moral
defense of by Mennonites, 160 reasons, 245n46
and early Zionist dreams of binationalism, and conflict resolution, 180, 182, 186, 187
241n8 and diverse hermeneutics of the Exodus story,
as the essential enemy for some Jews, 69 59, 230
and the ethics of coexistence, 83 and Eden, 227
and expatriot support of Hamas, 57 the Hebrew (Jewish) version of, 232
fear of, 172, 242n15, 262n3 and the hermeneutics of chosen enemies,
and honor as the highest ethical precept, 135 262n3
and the Israeli Right, 233 and the image of the male hero, 191
and Jewish conciliatory encounters, 26, 137, 181, and imagined futures as an asset to
186, 187, 195, 265n24, 266n27, 275n21 peacemaking, 23
and Jewish ethical dilemmas, 73 and Luzzatto's argument for universal
and Jewish violence, 263n6 benevolence, 93-97, 258n15
and Meir Kahane, 240n4 and preferential laws, 259n20
and the need for better Christian mediation in study of as a frame of conflict resolution, 163,
the Middle East, 261n52 164
and the need to confront self-destructive and treatment of the stranger, 6, 9, 148
psycho/cultural patterns, 264n17 Biblical prophets, 10, 235
and the peacemaker's capacity to have many Biblically based religions, 55, 94
identities, 203 Bishop Tutu, 4
and suspicion of materialist visions of a "new black community of the United States, the, 58
Middle East," 193 blacks and whites, 47
and their effect on Jewish fears, 121, 122 Bleich, Jacob David, 69
and the variety of interpretations of jihad, 19 blood and conflict, 63, 180, 24on8
Armageddon, 9, 10, 161, 226 Bodhissatva, 229, 272n27
Ashkenazi Jews, 116, 117, 121, 221, 134, 229, 274n13 bombing crises in Israel, 122
Asia, 13, 21, 44, 46, 188, 218, 233 born-again as a condition of Christian salvation,
Assefa, Hizkias, 190, 220 146
Attenborough, Sir Richard, 271 Bosnia, 4, 40, 54
Austrians, 188 Bosnian Muslims, 211, 222
authoritarianism as an impediment to peace Boulding, Elise, 244n34
processes, 39 British, the, 233, 263n6
 Index: 299

Buber, Martin, 155, 157, 245n45 and communal moves toward or away from
Buddha, the, 44, 45, 230 peacemaking, 281n7
Buddhism, 11, 13, 48, 179 and conflict generation, 193
and the Bodhissatva, 229 and conflict resolution with Jews and Judaism,
and compassion, 22, 36 210
and the discipline of restraint as conflict and cycles of tragedy commemoration, 205
prevention, 271n21 de-judaized by Aryans in Nazi Germany,
and the Eightfold path, 230 269n12
and the Four Noble Truths, 231 and forgiveness, 190
and the Four Sublime Moods, 231 and the hermeneutics of the murder of Jesus,
and the future of Asian peacemaking, 218, 219 85
and inferiority as peacemaking, 21, 243n29 and just war, 35, 36
Jewish attitudes towards, 92, 93 Mennonite interpretations of, 142-146
Mahayana, 233 and mission 158
marching, and the work of Maha Gosananda, and the struggle with pacifism, 30
43-46 and the succession of African religions, 220
and Nirvana, 234 and support for peace process rejectionists,
and quietism, 270n20 262n52
and Sri Lanka, 206 and values for peacemaking 21-22
Tibetan, 92, 2 4 9 n 1 1 violent interpretations of, 161
and the use of words, 248n11 Christians, 61, 68, 73, 88, 90, 109, 118, 168, 170-
Buddhists, 61 173, 189-190
Bundists, 117, 229 and altruistic risk-taking during WWII, 268n
bureaucratic culture, 155 12
Burma, 4 and attitudes to the Devil, 244n39. See also
Burnouf, Emile, 100 devil, the
Burton, John, 158, 25on24 and deeds of remorse and repentance, 282n16
and forgiveness, 273n47
and identification with the Biblical stranger, 7-
Cambodia, 13, 21, 22, 44-46, 219, 240 8
and Cambodians, 45, 46 and imitation of God, 243n24
Canaan, 16, 93, 229, 258n15 and methods of conflict resolution training, 15
and Canaanites, 69 moving extremists among them away from
CARE, 234 anti-Semitism, 248n8
Catholic Church, the, 24, 42, 61 and multifaith relationships, 23-25
as the exception to Christian peacemaking in as peacemakers in the Middle East, 261n152
Israel, 261n52 and the problematic character of mission,
and Latin American conflicts, 215-216, 244n39 28on3
and the Rwandan genocide, 246n50 and quietism, 27on2o
symbolized in rabbinic literature, 262n3 recommendations for future initiatives
Catholicism, 35 involving, 210-218, 222, 226, 230, 232, 235
Catholics, 6, 13, 48, 200, 202 and the relative valuation of word and deed,
in conflict with Protestants in Latin America, 256n41
283n23 and the reluctance to display anger in conflict
and self-examination in the context of resolution, 249n22
dialogue, 42 Christology, 101
Celebration as a basic human need. See conflict Church/State relations, 25, 124, 261n52
resolution and celebration civil liberties, 18, 46, 128, 207, 221, 282n17
Chapter on Peace, the, 77 civil society, 5, 12, 15, 201, 205, 207, 221, 223, 224,
China, 46, 218, 219 225, 275n2o, 282n2o
Chosen People, the, 205, 229, 257n50 advocacy for as conflict generating, 252n36
chosenness, 101, 230 and conflict resolution, 194
Christian Peacemaker Teams, 159, 160, 161, 272n42 contemporary conceptions of in contrast to
Christianity, 163, 202, 216 religious visions, 111-112
Benamozegh's attitude toward, 97, 98, 100, 102, the need for religious militants to participate
105, 106, 258n8 in, 39
and the comforting role of divine emulation, and the potential alliance with religious law
271n27 and jurisprudence, 27
 300 Index

civil society (continued) and hidden cultural factors, 256n45

and the secular/religious conflict in Israel, 116, and human needs theory, 239n3
125, 127, 134 and methods of intervention, 160
Civil War, the American, 280n1 and the origins of war, 74
civilization, global, 3, 7, 75, 223, 224 and the positive uses of cognitive dissonance,
clerics and mediation training, 206 78
Clinton, President William, 218, 219 and recommendations for intervention, 200,
coexistence, 5, 11 202
Indian models of training in, 61-62 and religious hermeneutic trends, 87
and Israeli society, 116-117, 133, 135 and saving face, 180
the need for shared religious/secular visions of, and situational religious ethics, 26-27
12, 39, 276n21 theory, 55
and Orthodox Judaism, 109—111 conflict, boundaries, and peace, 6, 7, 9, 21, 38, 97
recommendations for, 207, 225 lack thereof and conflict generation, 266n29
and religious values, 186, 195 and Mennonites, 142-144, 150
with those beyond one's religious universe, 27- and the myths of progressive peacemaking,
29 252n36
cognitive dissonance and the respect for boundaries as peacemaking,
meaning structures and, 52 174-176
and peace making, 78, 175 and the scope of one's ethical universe, 59, 60,
as a positive tool of conflict resolution, 186 81, 82
Cohen, Hermann, 89 and the secular/religious conflict in Israel, 132,
Cold War, the, 3, 71, 105, 173, 215, 216, 222 133, 137
collective injuries and group conflict, 10 conflict and communication, 37, 55, 74, 216, 226,
collective memory, 188, 275n17 256n41
collective remorse, 61 conflict and consumption, 9
communism, 105, 143 conflict and culture, 175, 184, 185, 191, 194, 195,
community, global, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 164, 202, 224 233, 236
compassion as a basis for the contraction of religious
and Buddhism, 22 ethical inclusion, 108-112
as a defining marker of authentic Jewish and the bias of peacemaking styles toward
identity, 276n31 Protestant culture, 77
as a foundation of ethics in moral sense complexified by religion, 53-54
theory, 272n37 and cross-cultural methods of intervention, 60-
as a foundation of Judaism, 82, 91-97, 105, 112 64
as imitatio dei, 258n12 and the "culture" of the conflict resolution
integrated into conflict resolution policies and expert, 38-39
strategies, 206, 225, 229, 231 and the demonization of media and lawyers,
and Israeli reconciliation, 136 25-26
and Jewish tradition, 170, 177, 183 and the dialogue workship, 40-51
as King Hussein's peacemaking gesture, and the fundamentalist rejection of modern
266n27, 271n24 culture, 170-171
and Mennonites, 147, 149, 155, 157, 185 in the Indian context, 15
Tibetan Buddhist training in, 243n32 in Israel, 16, 115-117, 121-124, 126-128, 130-139
compassione, 89 and Jewish post-Holocaust anger, 169
compesinos, 130 just war theory oblivious to, 36
compromise, 31, 35, 49, 137, 172, 178, 184, 200, and marching in Cambodia, 43-46
210, 235 and Mennonite peacemaking, 149-153, 156, 161,
by way of casuistic debate, 242n22 162, 164, 165
condolences as peace gestures, 187 recommendations regarding, 200, 202, 204,
confession of wrongdoing as reconciliation, 77, 205, 208-219, 221, 224
188 conflict, dreaming and peacemaking, 62, 123,
conflict analysis, 8, 15, 25 250n27, 275n16
and action/reaction spirals, 264n19 conflict, epiphenomenal causes of, 57
and the debate on cultural essentialism, 271n24 conflict and injustice, 129, 141, 147, 159-161, 201
and drama, 263n6 conflict management, 7, 27, 182, 200, 216, 248n5
further research on, 252n2 conflict prevention, 31, 85,111,143, 281n6
and geography, 266 civility and, 277n72
 Index 301

and emotions, 49 in the context of conflictual cultures, 134

and Islamic ethics, 83 in dialogue workshops, 40
Judaism and, 78-79, 176-182 the importance of nonverbal communication,
just war theory inadequate to incorporate, 36- 186
37 interacting with theological differences, 24
and Mennonite culture, 151, 193 and intra-Christian relations in Latin America,
and pietistic values, 270n20 283n24

recommendations for, 199, 200, 203, 205, 208 and the limitations of spoken communication,
and the sources of religious cultural stability, 128
55 recommendations involving, 209, 218, 219, 223,
conflict, psychodynamic approaches to, 9 225
conflict resolution, 6-9, 11, 234, 239n6, 249n17, conflict resolution and creative vision, 62
250n22, 252n33, 261n52, 268n1l conflict resolution, cross-cultural, 60
and adversary membership in multiple conflict resolution methods and framing, 15, 21,
cultures, 251n30 37, 111, 150, 163-164, 185. See also framing
apology and forgiveness as, 189-191 recommendations regarding, 208, 210
and the attribution of evil to human beings, conflict resolution, religious, and its limitations,
244n39 193
benefits of study of in relation to religion, 13- conflict resolution theory, 26, 30, 41, 55, 65, 77-
14 79, 88, 153> 160-162, 171, 174, 186, 194-195
bilateral moral gestures as, 241n15 recommendations regarding, 199, 200
challenges to in the face of profound injuries, conflict resolver, the, 27, 149, 154, 160
270n18 conflict transformation, 139, 142, 145, 147, 159, 161-
class conflict and, 240n4 163, 187, 191
in constructive interaction with religious Conflict Transformation Program, the 139
values, 84, 86, 96, 104, 106-109,110,117 Confucian culture, 219
and a critique of just war theory, 245n43 Confucius, 98
dialogue as a technique of, 256n45 consequentialism, 155, 230
and emotional skills, 281n5 Conservative Judaism, 234
evaluation of, 230, 248n5 constitutions and conflict, 128
gender identity and, 191-192 constructive conflict, 127, 134, 160, 177, 178
and human needs theory, 50-51, 67, 72 definition of, 248n5
humility and self-abnegation as, 183-184 and social justice, 279n93
the inadequacy of its theory and practice in cosmic unity, 99
coping with religion, 37-65 creative problem solving, 163
and interfaith dialogue, 23-26 Croatia, 54, 211
in the Israeli context, 124, 127-133, 135-137 Crusades, the, 41, 94, 124, 230, 24on8, 263n9.
Jewish approaches to, 174-176, 182 282n12

and leadership, 199 Cuban exiles, 57

limitations of in religious contexts, 193-195 culture, democratic, 5
listening and time suspension as, 185-186 culture, global, 4, 192
and Mennonite tradition, 139, 141-143, 146-148, culture and religion, 53
149-151, 154-166
as a tnitsvah, 79 Dalai Lama, the, 4, 218, 219, 249n11
and the positive uses of mourning, 172-174 dar al-harb-, 76, 82, 230
and rabbinic mediation styles, 184-184 dar al-islam, 76, 230
recommendations for, 202, 204, 206, 212, 214- Day, Dorothy, 239m
219, 221, 224-226 Day of the Lord prophecies, 10
and religious pluralism, 31-32 Dayan, Moshe, 253n15
repentance as, 187—189 defenseless (wehrlos), the, 144, 147, 149
and ritual means of recovery, 274n13 dehumanization, 81, 84, 91, 176
and strong emotions, 250 democracy, 5, 46, 48, 71, 126-128, 130, 133, 137,
its theoreticians, 7, 9, 31, 37, 48, 168, 174, 234, 193. 194
248n5 recommendations involving, 200, 211, 215, 219,
unilateral aid as, 186-187 225
vision, hope and celebration as, 192-193 demonization, 12, 224
conflict resolution and communication, 3, 167, derekh eretz (civility), 131, 179
180 derekh YHVH (the path of God), 257n50, 269n14
 302 Index

Derrida, Jacques, 149 Elicitive Method, the, 60-61, 147, 151, 159, 194,
destructive obsessions, 58 210, 280n108
devil, the, 205, 220, 221, 244n39 emanationist schemes of Divine relationship, 230
Dewey, John, 239n2 Emancipation, the, 117, 234, 280n107
dialogue, 21, 194, 214, 215, 218, 220, 233 emic analysis, 251n30
between faiths critiqued by conflict resolution emotions
theoy, 23-26 as a basis for conflict, 48
and the centrality of honor, 181 as a basis for conflict resolution in indigenous
and intra-Israeli conflict resolution, 128, 134- cultures, 49
138 pro-social, 49, 82
versus listening, 185-186 emotions as a constructive force in conflict
dialogue problems in a hierarchical context, 40 resolution, 25on22
dialogue workshop, the, 61, 248n8, 249n17 empathy, 13, 20, 21, 27, 47, 49, 77, 124, 163, 177,
its inadequacy in religious contexts, 38-50 191
Diaspora, the, 108, 116-118, 121, 124, 126, 129, 230, empowerment, need for, 6, 15, 53, 204, 28on3
236 enemy, the
dignity, 84, 132, 134, 152, 177, 226 aid to, 78, 186
as central to Islamic ethics, 83, 266n27 humanization of, 79
as an essential religious value, 278n84 as an incarnation of evil, 41
diplomacy, 9, 28, 41, 46, 77, 123, 136, 137, 181, 190, enemy system, the, 78
recommendations regarding, 200, 219 England, 266n29
diplomatic community, the, 38, 39, 43 enlightenment, 46, 230
Divine attributes, 100 Enlightenment, the, 18, 48, 49, 75, 80, 87, 89, 104,
Divine emulation, 153 261n51, 280n107, 281n6
Divine name, the, 43 environmental justice, 154
Divine Presence, the, 104, 236, 248n10 Esther, Book of, 52
Divine traits, 99 ethical relativism, 124, 133
Doe, Samuel, 152, 153, 272n34 ethical treatises, religious, and peacemaking, 47
dogma, 3, 28, 90, 106, 247n3 ethics, 8-9, 11, 27, 35, 89, 91, 93, 171
Dutch Reformed Church, the, 88 conflict resolution theory as an adjunct to
religious, 65-66, 75-77
East European Christians, 173 and the dilemmas of aiding those who are
Eastern Mennonite University, 139 violent, 160
Eastern traditions, 21, 47 extended universally in Luzzatto's Judaism, 95-
economics, 74, 77, 86, 147, 155, 157, 172, 191 98, 107
as a basis for Western interventions, 38 as the key to conflict resolution, not just war
and communal recovery from deep injuries, theory, 36
140 Levinas, and the facial encounter with the
as an explanation of minority/majority Other, 149
relations, 56 and limited scope, as a challenge to
as an explanation of religious violence, 14 peacemaking, 79-83, no, 111, 200, 242n20
its inadequacy as the sole element of conflict as a method of peacemaking in Judaism, 78-
analysis, 57, 59 79, 177-179, 193, 234, 236
its inadequacy as the sole trust-building device, recommended use of in conflict resolution,
41. 193 206, 212, 219, 224
recommendations concerning, 207, 211, 212, study of as a frame for encounters with
217, 222, 223 enemies, 163, 134-135
and social justice as religious peacebuilding, ethnic groups, 38, 77
179 Europe, 41, 73, 81, 89, 100, 108, 116, 119, 121
Eden, 9, 10, 203, 226, 227 and Christians, 173, 268n12
education, 20, 24, 44, 58, 87, 125, 129, 130, 169 and culture, 80, 124, 222
recommendations regarding, 203, 206 and empires, 211
Egypt, 6, 17, 67, 68, 148, 149 and fascism, 223, 262n3
Egyptian religion, 99 and its history, 68, 202, 210
Egyptians, 67, 251n29 Jews of, 225, 232
Eightfold Path, the, 22, 230, 231, 243n30, 271n21 and persecution, 117, 172
ein sof (without limit), 26on33 recommendations for, 210, 217, 221-223
el elyon (the most high god), 102 and the suffering of minorities, 140
 Index 3°3

evangelicals, 31, 47, 145, 214, 216, 261n52, 262n52, Gioberti, Vincenzo, 99
273n46 Girard, Rene, 283n35
evangelism, 31, 145, 175, 283n23 God as a "man of war," 67
evil, reification of in others, 55 God's compassion, 68
befalling the innocent and theodicy, 57 God's enemies
Exodus, the, 6, 53, 59, 78-80, 95, 136, 148, 149, destroying them as a basis for violence, 59
205, 256n39 Golao Heights, 253n15
explosive weapons and the morality of war, 70 gold
Ezekiel, 93 and the Holocaust, 190, 191
Golden Rule, the, 180
face and saving face Goldstein, Baruch, 52
as an element of conflict analysis, 180 good and evil, 10, 78, 109, 26on47, 270n19
Faith and Politics Institute, 249n15, 282n20 goodness (khayr), 83
family conflict, 278nn85-86 Goren, Chief Rabbi, 70
fascism, 25, 76, 104, 141 Greco-Roman poetry, 98
Fast, Larissa, 267n3 Green, Leah, 278n88
Finger-garland, 45 Greenberg, Gershon, 263n7
first track diplomacy, 230 Greenspan, Stanley, 281n4, 281n5
Fisher, Roger, 270n18, 274n14 Gulf War, the, 36
fitna, 66 Gush Emunim, 17, no, 231, 241n9
Five Books of Moses, 232
foreign intervention, 211 hadith, the, 66, 231
forgiveoess, 13 Haggadah, the, 251n29
as an Islamic value, 83 halakha (Jewish law), 17-18, 89, 90, 93—94, 119,
and Jewish ethics of repentance, 187-190 169, 177, 182
and Judaism, 183, 185 and coexisence in non-Jewish environments, 81-
need for in Israel, 136 82
recommendations for, 206 and conflict prevention, 77—79
unilateral gestures of as conflict resolution, 19- problematized for the modern era, 107-109
20 and special care for Jews problematized, 95
variety of meanings and applications, 54, 164 and war's justification, 66-72
Four Noble Truths, the, 22, 271n21 hallal (ritually acceptable), 231
Four Sublime Moods, the, 22, halutz (Zionist pioneer), 231, 28on107
fractionalization, cultural/religious, 3 Hamas, 57, 115, 160, 162, 214
France, 222, 268n12, 269n12 haredim, 108-110, 117-122,127, 130-132, 135, 194,
Freud, Sigmund, 272n37 195, 225
Friedman, Meoahem, 262n5 Harvard Negotiation Project, the, 274014
Frohman, Rabbi Menahem, 266n27 Hasidism, 231, 235
fundamentalism, 17, 27, 28, 37, 43, 51, 62-63, 75, Hasmoneans, 231, 246n49, 253n13, 267n36
85, 109-110, 118, 121, 132, 169, 175, 182 hatred, wanton
as focus of the book, 12 and religious values, 169, 277n45
Hebron, 52, 160, 161
Gadamer, Hans, 59, 81, 108, 220, 255n29, 264n19 Heilman, Samuel, 225, 262n5
Gandhi (the film), 271n26 hemlah (compassion), 89
Gandhi, Mohandas, 4, 15, 20-23, 32, 44, 60, 149, hen (grace), 180
157, 159, 203, 205, 217, 218, 235, herem (complete destruction), 66, 85, 94, 252n3,
Gandhians, 218 259n17
generosity as central to Islamic ethics, 83 heretics, 29, 55, 64, 133, 247n3,
Geneva Conveotions, 24 hermeneutics
genocide, 25, 30, 74, 121, 161, 188, 190 and anti-modern backlash, 75-77
in Rwanda, 152 and deeply embedded traditions, 52—53
ger (the stranger), 6, 7, 9, 97, 148, 179. 277n44 and the evolution of Mennonite pacifism, 147
germ warfare, 49 and how religious people change over time, 43,
Germans, 121, 173, 262n3, 271n24 59-60
Germany, 41, 89, 141, 222, 264n13, 266n29, 267n4 aod the infinite variability of religious
and the Meononites during the Nazi Era, 141 interpretatioo, 5, 11-12, 14-15
Gestapo, the, 264n13 and the influence of multiple external factors,
gibbor (the warrior), 191 28
 304 Index

hermeneutics (continued) hot pursuit as a justification for killing, 71,

and Israeli conflicts, 126-127, 135 254n22
and a paradigm of Jewish conflict resolution, Houghton, Congressman Amo, 249n15
168-169, 171, 174-175, 182, 184, 194 House of Israel, 189
and the question of change in modern Jewish as an idealized Jewish people, 189
Orthodoxy, 87-88, 90-92, 96-97, 108-110 human needs and conflict, 5, 6, 15, 51, 153, 167,
recommendations for use of, 206, 208, 223 193, 207, 223, 239n3, 250n27, 251n27
and religious liberalization, 29, 63-64 human needs theory, 50, 239n3, 250n26, 251n27
and religious war's transformation, 65-68, 84- human rights, 4, 8, 13, 18, 27, 38, 111-112, 132,
86 recommendations regarding, 199-201, 207, 210,
Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 239n1 219, 223, 225
Hesed shel Emet, 121, 136 human unity, 99, 102
hibbur (joining), 99 Hume, David, 82, 89, 277n74
hierarchy, religious, 40, 200, 211 humiliation and conflict generation, 6, 10, 45, 158,
High Priest, 69, 80, 136, 182-183 173, 178, 180—181, 219, 263n8
Hillel, 29, 73, 127, 168, 246n48, 246n49, 265n21, humility, 13, 16, 26, 27, 73, 83, 127, 135, 147, 149,
273n3, 277n54 178, 186, 194
Hinduism, 14-15, 21, 23, 51, 62, 149, 255n2, in international interventions, 154
271n26, 282n15, 283n27 and Mennonite peacemaking, 151-154
Hiodus, 14-15, 61, 150, 217-218 recommendations for use of, 212, 221
Hitler, Adolf, 41, 76, 109, 120-121, 141, 264013 and self-abnegation as conflict resolution, 183-
Hobbes, Thomas, 155 185
Hollywood, 25-26, 215 Hutcheson, Francis, 272n37
Holocaust, the, 176, 195, 210, 221, 248n8, 258n13, Hutu-Tutsi relationship, the, 211
261052, 26203, 26206, 263n7, 263n8, 263n9 hypostasis, 232
effects of on Jewish ethics, 91, 92
Jewish anger at aod its hermeneutic effects, 53, identity, 167, 170-171, 175, 188-189, 192-193
108, no, 168-172 as the awareness of being a stranger, 148-150
and Jewish/Christian relations, 24-25, 42 confusion over in the modern era, 3-7
the need to mourn for in a oew way, 171-174 and essentialism, 271n24
and "soap" as an insulting epithet in Israel, Jewish and Israeli 115-132,138
263n9 land and its markers as a basis for, 16
and the social/psychological conflicts of Israel, and leadership, 42
116-121 multiplicity of as peacemaking, 32
variability of Jewish response to, 58 the need for its affirmation at the height of
Holy Land, the, 118, 230 conflict, 63-64
Holy War, 66 and the need for uniqueness, 5
Homer, 97 recommendations regarding, 203, 205, 225
homogenization, cultural, 3 uniqueness of challenged by universalism,
honor, 242n22, 265n25, 266n27, 275n2O, 278n76 101
of another's religion, 32 idolatry, 28, 72, 85, 89, 90, 92, 96, 101-102, 106,
as conflict resolution, 181 119
and constructive conflict between Israelis and and the idolater, 29, 93, 97, 260n47, 265n23
Palestinians, 127 image of God, 29, 82, 97, 258n12, 277n75
and its deliberate subversion in peacemaking, human beings created in the, 91
184 imagination, conflict and peace, 10, 23, 185, 191,
and entry points into a community, 40 244n34
and the haredi/secular conflict, 119 Imam, 232, 233
of the highest ideals of enemy communities imitatio dei, 155, 180, 232, 243n24, 249n22, 258n12,
bilaterally, 129 268n8
and Islam, 79 immanence, 232
as Jewish conflict resolution, 137, 178-181 Incarnation, the, 106
as peacemaking, 27, 49 India, 14, 23, 62, 82, 150, 258n12, 266n29, 282n15
as a pro-social gesture, 73 recommendations regarding, 213, 217-218
recommendations for use of, 201, 206, 210, 219, Indians, 15, 61—62, 82, 217—218, 249n11
226 indigenous peoples, 163, 191, 206, 257n5
as a shared inter-religious value, 135 inerrancy as a deterrent to change, 52
Hope in the Cities Project, 47 in-groups, 60
 Index 305

instrumentalism, 154-157 and cross-cultural conflict resolution, 24on5

as the opposite of effective peacemaking, 154 and debt forgiveness as reconciliation, 279n98
problematized by Hutcheson, 272n37 and division of the world into dar al-harb and
integration, need for, 5 dar al-islam, 76
inter-faith relations, 61, 134, 218 ethics of, 83
and the Russian Orthodox Church, 244n37 and the experience of persecution, 282n14
intermarriage, no, 152 and hermeneutic variation based on time and
progressive peacemakers' misunderstanding of, place, 82-84
275n21 and the Hindu/Muslim conflict, 61-62
international agencies, 151-153 and jihad, 66. See also jihad
intervention in conflicts, and Muslims, 14, 21, 53, 61, 73, 76, 121, 134, 150,
through aid to enemies, 135-138 161, 175, 186
and anti-instrumentalism, 154-158 and nonviolence, 66, 243n26, 247n56
in Belfast, 6-7 and opposition to the peace process, 37
by Buddhists in Cambodia, 44-46 and peacemaking, 79-80
and the centrality of moral character, 151-154, and radicalism, 37
186-187 recommendations regarding, 205, 211-213, 217-
conditioned by situational ethics, 26—27 2l8, 220-222
and the dialogue model critiqued, 40-50 and suicide, 243n26
and the Elicitive Method, 60-64. See also Israel Defense Forces, 122
Elicitive Method Israel et Humanite, 90, 98
failure of in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict by Israel, 16-19, 25-26, 57-58, 66-71,101-103, 108-109,
Western religious peacemakers, 160-162 139-140, 172-173, 193-195
and Gandhi's inter-religious conflict resolution, and Christian peacemakers, 261
23 and the failures of intervention by Christian
through honor, 129, 181. See also honor peacemakers, 160-162
humility as a strategy of, 183-185 and the fear instilled by Arab threats, 262n3
ideal Jewish form of, 182-195 and identity fears, 256n45
and the intervenor, 51, 194 and inter-religious gestures of reconciliation,
and intractable conflict, 39, 231 266n27
and mixed motivations, 282n17 and the Left, 132
multi-faith commitment to on non-pacifist and memory of the Holocaust, 262n6
foundations, 30 and the Nazi epithet, 264n13
and the negotiation of peace versus justice, 158- and Palestinian fantasies of conquest, 264n17
162. See also justice and peace recommendations regarding, 210, 214
recommendations for, 165-166, 201-202, 207- and secular/religious conflict, 115-138
208, 212, 219 and shame over the Holocaust, 263n9
and prevention as the primary religious form Israeli culture, 116, 124-125, 252n36
of intervention, 176-182 and the question of Jewish manhood, 280n107
recommendations for in Israel, 124-138 Israeli Jews and Christian conflict resolvers, 158
by religious shuttle diplomacy, 182 Israeli Parliament, the, 221
and self-awareness, 51 Israeli society, 127, 134-135, 137
through shared actions among enemies, 128- Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, 39
129 Israelis, 124-128,130-137,170-173,187,194, 195,
through shared study, 135-135 214,
and the transformation of the intervener, 162- and the Left/Right divide, 252
163 and Palestinian injuries, 241
IRA, the, 57 Israelites, 16, 85, 93, 149, 161
Iranian revolution, the, 240n4 issur (prohibition), 108
Iraq, 36, 160 Italian Jewish Orthodoxy, 92
Ireland, 44, 134, 213, 216, 217, 261n52 Italian philosophy, 105, 108
Irgun, the, 233 Italy, 89
Irish peoples, 7, 57
Isaac, 93 Jacob, 93
Isaiah, 93, 101 Jacob and Esau as symbols of good and evil, 109
Ishmael, 67, 229 Jainism, 21, 218, 229
Islam, 15, 17, 23, 27, 30, 142, 149, 158, 162, 164, 187, and the vow of nonviolence, 283n28
193 Japanese, 188
 306 Index

jealousy, 47, 91, 183 Kabbalah, 90, 97, 99-104, 120

Jerusalem, 16, 47, 102, 121, 134, 193 and the Kabbalists (Jewish mystics), 90
Jesus, 7, 21, 25-26, 29, 43, 47, 85, 100, 103, 106, kaddish (memorial prayer for the dead), 120, 172
193, 202, 221 Kahane, Meir, 193
emulation of, 145 Kant, Immanuel, 155, 157
Jewish anger at and its hermeneutic effects, Kenya bombing, 122
169 ketsots, 99
and Mennonite Christianity, 142-153, 156, 161 Khadduri, Majid, 82, 83
as peacemaker, 271n27 Khan, Badshah, 239m
Jewish conflict resolution theory, 174 Khan, Ghaffar, 217
Jewish people, the, 92-95, 98, 100-103, 106-110, Khmer Rouge, the, 44-46
161, 167, 170, 176, 189, 193, 257n50 Khudai Khidmatgar, 218
and the Catholic Church, 24 Kibbutz, the, 123
and haredi attitudes to global concerns, 273n9 Kimelman, Reuven, 70, 73
and religious/secular conflict in Israel, 115—138 King Hussein, 266n27
Jews and Judaism, 16—19, 23-30, 52-54, 57-59, 65- King, Martin Luther, 4, 16, 44, 58
66, 68-83, 115-129, 134-140, 142, 158, 160-162, Kings, the book of, 232
164 klal yisroel, 119
and confusion over moral priorities, 17 Knesset, the, 71, 117, 233. See also Israeli
and coping with violent holiday themes, 52 Parliament, the
liberal modern Orthodox approaches to, 87-114 Kosher laws, 107, 233
and Orthodox justification of peacemaking in Kosovo, 4
Israel, 18 Kraybill, Ron, 147, 162
and a paradigm of conflict resolution, 167-198 Krishna, 229
and the post-Holocaust narrowing of ethical Kuk, R. Tzvi Yehuda Kuk, 231
scope, 81-82, 109-111 Kuwait, 160
recommendations regarding, 202, 205, 210, 211,
213, 214, 221, 222, 225 Labor party, 233
and religious war, 65-74, 85-86 lambs of God, 140, 143
and the spiritual sin of hatred, 277 Lasalle, Ferdinand, 103
and texts on peace and conflict prevention, 77- Lasserre, Philippe, 269n12
79 Latin America, 213, 215-217
and universal values, 87-114 Latvia, 172
and the use of story and symbol, 16 law, religious, 3, 6, 7, 26-28, 52, 69, 71-72, 81-83,
viewed as incarnation of evil, 41 85, 119, 193, 195
Jews, Orthodox, 52, 54, 82, 87-98,105,117,119,121- recommendations regarding, 214, 226
122, 125-126, 131-134 leadership
and the contemporary narrowing of universal governmental, 38
ethical concerns, 107-112 religious, and conflict, 20, 43, 48
and Modern Orthodox Judaism, 16, 90, 92, 88, Lebanon war of 1982, 69
107, 233, 234, 257n2, 27on21 Lederach, John Paul, 139, 147, 151, 162, 210, 212,
recommendations regarding, 202, 203, 217 280n108
jihad, 19, 66, 82—84, 162, 230, 232 Legal Religious War, 68
Jordan, 26 Lehi, 233
Joshua as a keeper of covenants with gentiles, 16, Leninism/Stalinism, 76
93 Levinas, Emanuel, 149, 245n45
Judah as a keeper of covenants with gentiles, 93 Lewis, Congressman John, 249n15
jurisprudence, traditional, 200 Lezioni di teologia morale israelitica, 95
jus ad bellum, 73, 232 liberal religion, 12
jus in hello, 71, 73, 232 liberal state, the, 3, 8, 75
just war theory, 86, 168, 169 Liberia, 152, 153, 220, 221
the inadequacy of in accounting for conflict Likud, 181, 214, 233
and its resolution, 30—37 listening, 26-27, 61, 124, 137, 147, 151-153, 178, 185-
justice advocacy, 279n93 186, 192, 225
and conflictual styles of interaction, 279n93 as conflict resolution, 185
justice and peace, 163, 186-187, 219. See also peace and Middle East intervention, 278n88
and justice Lithuania, 172
and their potential contradiction, 162 Little, David, 246n5O
 Index 307

Love your neighbor as yourself, 95 middot (morals) education, 131

lovingkindness, 45 Midrash, 18, 67, 101, 233, 254n27
Lucifer, 41. See also devil, the milhama (war), 75, 76
Luzzatto, Samuel David, 82-83, 87-114 milhemet hova (obligatory war), 66, 68
and the definition of the "Jewish family," milhemet mitsvah (war as a fulfillment of a
positive deed before God), 66
and the Jewish moral mission, 257n50 milhemet reshut (optional war), 66
and the limits of war, 253n14 militancy, religious, 5, 7, 167, 215, 221
and moral commitments to idolaters, 258n15 militants, religious, 213
militarist religion, 205
Mack, John, 78 Mill, John Stuart, 155, 236
magnanimity as central to Islamic ethics, 83 minorities, 25, 56, 77, 92, 134, 140, 210, 216,
Maha Gosananda, 13, 21, 44-45, 46, 60, 219 252n33, 255n33, 270n18
Mahayana Buddhism, 229, 233, 272n27 Mishnah, 72, 77
Mahdi tradition, the, 66, 233 mission, 31, 107, 124, 142, 144-148, 151, 158, 202
mahloket, 116, 127, 169, 177, 178 and the Jewish community, 280n3
Maimonides, 70, 90, 95, 168, 188, 233 as a light unto the nations, 269n14
Malkhitsedek, 100, 102 mission and Chrisitianity, 145
malkhut, 102 missionaries, 145, 151, 165, 214
Man of War as a reference to God, 68 mitsvah, 66, 68, 77-79, 84, 108, 110, 179-180, 182,
Mandela, Nelson, 58 184, 186
marching, 44, 46 mixed motivations, 28, 199, 282n17
as peacemaking, 44 mixed motives and governments, 39
marriage and divorce as a locus of conflict in modern Mennonites, 233
Israel, 125 modern state, the, 3, 7, 12, 167
martyrdom, 251n27 Mohammed, 68, 279n98, 282n14
Martyrs Mirror, 144 monks, 44, 51, 248n11
Marx, Karl, 103 monotheism, 85, 89-92, 100-102, 105, 260047
materialism, 3, 58, 75, 92, no, 124, 193, 205, 222- monotheistic traditions, 15, 54, 77, 80, 86, 94,
224 256n39
Mbonambi, Khuzwayo, 162 monotheists, 12, 54, 87, 94, 206, 221
Me'imad, 194 Mootville, Joseph, 230
Mea Shearim, 264n13 moral character and conflict resolution practice,
Mecca, 282n14 267n32
Mecklenburg, R. Yaacov Tzvi, 95 Moral juive et moral chretienne, 97
media, the, 25, 38, 218 moral practices, 11
mediation, 63, 128, 151, 161, 172, 206 Moral Re-Armament, 20, 47, 282n16
and the mediators, 22, 250, 261n52, 278n85 moral sense theory, 89, 91, 155, 180, 242n19,
meditation, 21, 44, 47, 59 272n37
Meir, Rabbi, 183, 184, 240n4 moral values, 15, 67, 79, 86, 132, 133, 273n47
Mekhilta, 67, 233 Mosaic religion, 98
memorials, 190 Moses, 24, 59, 97, 99-100, 136, 182
Menachem ha-Me'iri, Rabbi, 69, 81 mourning, 74, 163, 171-172, 176, 191-192, 274n13
Mennonite Central Committee, 234, 281n7 mourning, shared, 120, 274n13
Mennonites, 13, 42, 139-166, 201, 210, 220 multi-faith relations, 3, 87, 105
Messiah, 16, 23, 69, 70, 101, 103, 105, no, 120 recommendations concerning, 200, 215
Messianic era, 69, 275n16 multiple identities as a characteristic of
metaphysics, 14, 28-29, 54, 77, 90, 97-98, 100, 102- peacemakers, 148-149
103, 153, 190 multiplicity and higher unity, 102
Metropolitan loann, 244n37 mysticism, 5, 97, 118-119, 250n25, 260n47
metta, 22, 36 myth, 14-15, 20, 45, 47, 58, 85, 143, 192, 239n2,
Middle Ages, the, 12, 36 251n28, 252n30, 259n29, 263n9
Middle East, the, 35, 37, 38-39, 79, 88, 123, 135, 161- of Armageddon, 10
162, 187, 193 and Benamozegh's Orthodox universalism, 98-
recommendations regarding, 211, 213, 214, 221 114
Middle East Compassionate Listening Project, and demonization, 25-26
278n88 of Eden, 9-10
Middle East peace process, the, 161 in explanation of the Holocaust, 119-121
 308 Index

myth (continued) Orthodox Christianity, 234

of the human family as a foundation of Oslo meetings, 39, 161, 214, 276n21
monotheistic ethics, 91, 100 Other, the, 42, 47-48, 60, 76, 84, 91, 102, 105, 129
and imitatio dei as peacemaking, 180. See also humanization of as the central goal of conflict
imitatio dei resolution, 132-133
in Indian peacemaking, 11 in Jewish ethics, 177-18,168
and Israeli coping mechanisms, 112-123 and Mennonite experience, 149, 155
and the power of the face in peacemaking, 180 as the outgroup, 29
recommendations regarding, 205, 222-224, 226- recommendations regarding, 205, 218
227 search for, 122
of unity and its dangers, 105 welcoming as the beloved stranger, 126. See
also stranger, the
nachfolge christi, 268n8 Othering, 234
Naga separatists, 217 otherness, 148—150
narrative, 129, 135, 137 outcome-based evaluation, 154
and the centrality of detail, 275n17 out-groups, 60, 63, 200
national interests, 207, 212, 282n17 outsiders, 6, 27, 55-59, 80, 84, 106, 148, 156, 170,
national self-interest 174-175, 181, 195. See also Other, the
as a factor in international peacemaking, 39 recommendations regarding, 204, 205, 219, 226
National Socialism, 76 overpopulation, 155
Native Americans, 154, 188 Oxfam, 234
Nazi gold, 190
Nazis, 69, 119-120, 122, 141, 176, 190-191, 263n9, pacifism, 11, 21, 30-31, 35-36, 66-67, 140-142, 144-
264n13 145, 147, 169, 206
negotiation, 40-41, 43, 78, 80, 82, 123, 127, 133, pacifists, 30-31, 141, 147, 280n107
160-163, 178, 181 Paganism, 90, 91, 93, 98—100, 102, 105, 108-109,
recommendations involving, 200, 201, 206, 210, 205
211, 212, 216, 221, 225, 227 Pakistan, 62,
Netanyahu, Benjamin, 115, 214, 233 recommendations regarding, 217-218
neutrality as a part of peacemaking, 40, 184 Palestine, 117, 119, 168, 264n17, 266n27
New Age religions, 106 Palestinians, 12, 19, 25, 39, 48, 69, 111-112, 128, 175-
New Testament, 10, 21, 94, 144, 148 176, 186-187, 195
Newton, Sir Isaac, 100 fear of by Israelis, 115
Nicaragua, 162 and Mennonite intervention, 139, 158, 161
nirdaf (the pursued), divine preference for the, peace with as the ultimate goal of intra-Jewish
268n11 healing, 116, 137
nirvana, 11, 272n27 and the promotion of constructive conflict
Noachism, 90, 103 styles, 127
Noah, 98, 99, 100 recommendations regarding, 203, 221
nobility of character as a threat to Jewish identity, 125
as critical in Islamic ethics, 84 palingenesis, 99, 103, 105
nokhri (foreigner), 95 Palliere, Aime, 103, 106, 258n8
noncombatants, 70, 254n19 Panchgani, India, 61
non-governmental agencies, 154, 157, 212, 249n15 pantheism, 99-102
non-resistance and Christian pacifism, 146 papacy, the, 24, 42, 43, 200
non-verbal gestures, 129, 130, 266n27 Parliament of World Religions, 87
nonviolence, 7, 10, 15, 21, 23, 39, 44-45, 49,127, Parsis, 23, 61
148, 159, 161 pashkeville, 264n13
recommendations regarding, 209, 213, 218, 219 Passover, 53, 251n29
Novak, David, 71, 244n36 Pathans, the, 217, 239n1
nuclear holocaust, 49 Patriarchs, the, 100
Nudler, Oscar, 237 patriotism, 57
Paul, 97, 147, 256n41, 268n9
Occupation, the, 128 Peace Churches, the, 160—161
Old Order Mennonites, 142, 143, 144, 146, 148 peace and justice, 39, 142, 151-152, 158-159, 178,
omnicide, 49 201, 268n11. See also justice and peace
one human family and monotheistic worldviews, peace as a name of God, 168
91 peace process failures, 39
 Index 309

peace work as mission, 146 Protestants, 6, 25, 43, 47, 54, 77, 79, 88, 94,
peacebuilding, 234 256n41, 261n52, 283n23n24
peacemaker, the ideal Jewish, 182 recommendations concerning, 202, 215-217
peacemaking Proverbs, book of, 78
as an art, 279n93 Psalms, book of, 16
as dependent upon relationship building, 151 and the Psalmist, 102
versus justice, 158. See also peace and justice psychocultural injury, 122
and moral character, 151 psychodrama, 263n6
and the need for community, 150 psychodynamics and conflict, 74, 217, 245n45
and separatism, 109, 142-144, 147, 148, 158, 194, psychology, 11-12, 20, 24-26, 35-36, 123, 126, 128,
261n52 13°> 135-136, 149, 151, 180, 184
penance and reconciliation, 188, 190-191, 282n16. in analytic interaction with sociology and
See also repentance economics, 56-57
Peres, Shimon, 193, 214 and the danger of reductionist accounts of
Perry, Ruth, 152 religious conflict, 51-53
perud (separation), 99 and human needs, 50-51. See also human
Pharisees, 68 needs
Pharoah, 53 and the negotiation of anti-social emotions, 48-
phenomenology, 149 5°
Phillipines, the, 40, 281n7 recommendations involving, 203, 205, 206
pikuah nefesh (the preservation of life), 66, 72, psychotherapy, 55
254n15 Purim, 52-53
pilgrimage, Jewish, 47
PLO, 162, 181 quietism, 16, 66, 147, 148, 270n20
pluralism, 18, 23, 27-28, 88, 133, 135, 146, 175, 179, Qur'an, the, 17, 43, 66, 83
244n37, 275nl8
pogroms, 123, 161, 210, 222, 264n13 rabbinic authorities, 18, 71, 273n6
Pol Pot, 45 rabbinic Judaism, 29, 96, 103, 127, 169, 246n49
Poland, 282n16 rabbinic literature, 68, 75, 89, 95, 168, 246n49,
policy formation, 9, 46, 140, 241n15 254n27, 276n24
in concert with pro-social religious values, 207 rabbinic mediator, the, 184
and the policy makers, 9, 207 rabbis, 42, 48, 71-73, 85, 90, 94-98, 120-121, 124,
and policy objectives, 207 127, 136, 183-185, 205
recommendations regarding, 203, 207-208, 210, rabbis, Orthodox, 52
218 Rabin, Prime Minister Yitschak, 71, 181
political psychology, 199 rage and conflict generation, 14, 35, 41, 47, 49, 75,
polytheism, 101 117, 162, 170-171, 179, 181-183, 185
poonkt farkert (exactly the opposite), 266n3O recommendations regarding, 208, 214, 225
Pope Urban II, 230 Ramadan, 23, 53, 235
post-Cold War era, 3 rationalism, 99
postmodern era, 4 rationality and conflict resolution, 14, 28, 92, 123,
postmodern thinking, 26ln5l 137, 153, 170, 173-174, 181, 185, 191
posttrauma healing, 171 recommendations involving, 216, 224
poverty and conflict, 17, 41, 49, 53, 56, 93, 95, 108, rationality, 38-40, 48, 49, 152
136, 143, 154, 156, 161, 164, 179 re'a (neighbor), 95, 97, 259n22
recommendations regarding, 215- 216, 223 rebbes, 119, 235
prayer and song as frames of religious conflict reconciliation, 10, 13, 15, 19, 21-22, 77-78, 162-164,
transformation, 163 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 191
preemptive strikes and war, 69, 253n15 in Israel, 128-135
priesthood, 99, 103 recommendations regarding, 200, 204, 218, 221,
primary and secondary religious language, 275n19 222
problem-solving workshops, 156 redifat shalom (pursuit of peace), 77, 178
progressive elites, 117 Reform Judaism, 48, 117, 118, 121
Promised Land, 47 Refugees International, 234
Prophet, The, 235. See also Mohammed religion, liberal, 3, 18, 37
Prophets of Israel, the, 232 religion, organized, 7, 224
proselytism, 25, 86,111,143-146, 158, 202, 206, religion and peacemaking as a field of study, 8
28ln3 religions, Eastern, 9
 310 Index

religions, Western, 9-10, 243n25 Sadat, Anwar, 266n27

religious authority, 3, 40, 51, 58, 63, 81 Saddam Hussein, 36, 160, 248n4
religious conflict and peacemaking Sampson, Cynthia, 220
epiphenomenal causes, 56 Samuel, the book of, 82-83, 89, 152
phenomenal causes, 56 Sanhedrin, 69, 70, 74
religious studies scholars, 8 Sarajevo, 54
repentance, 13, 20—21, 47, 59, 61, 77, 119—120, 159, Satan, 205
179 Savior, Jesus as, 68, 242n17
aid to enemies as, 135-138 scarce resources and conflict, 55-56, 95, 163
apology and forgiveness as a stage of, 189-191 recommendations regarding, 226
behavioral change as a stage of, 188 science, 4, 5, 14, 32, 49, 55, 59, 65, 98, 100, 104,
and Catholic activists, 42 108, 132, 202, 223
confession as a stage of, 188 Scottish Enlightenment, the, 49, 89
Jews, the Catholic Church, and, 24 second Jewish Commonwealth, the, 69
as peacemaking, 187-191 Second Temple, the, 72, 280n107
remorse as a stage of, 188 sectarianism, 100, 132-133
restitution, 54, 179, 187-188, 190-191 secular communities, coexistence with, 11
recommendations regarding, 210 secularists in Israel, 124
Revelations, book of, 10 seeking peace as religious fulfillment, 182
revenge, 10, 53, 77, 95, 178, 184-185, 240n8 sefirot, 90, 99, 102, 260n33
Richmond, Virginia, 47 self-defense, 36, 69, 72
righteousness (birr), 83 self-love, 180
ritual, 6, 9-11, 14, 45, 47, 59, 77, 88, 95, 104, 106, selling weapons as a religious crime, 247n3
107, 119, 148, 176 Semitic religion, 100
aid to enemies as a, 135—138 separation of church and state, 145
in the context of peacemaking gestures of Sephardim, 134, 266n27
vision, celebration and hope, 192-193 and Ashkenazi encounters, 117
its violent potential, 53 Serbia, 54, 203, 205, 251n28
and mourning as conflict resolution, 171-174 Serbian Orthodox Church, the, 204
processes of self-abnegation as conflict Serbians, 30, 211, 270n18
resolution, 183-185 settler Jews, 17, 37, 110, 160-162, 261n52, 279n88
recommendations regarding, 218, 220, 222, 225, Seven Laws of Noah, the, 103
226 sever panim yafot (beauty in the face to face
in support for peacemaking cultures, 151 encounter), 179-180
as a way of making separate identities, 169 sexism, 132
and women as peacemakers, 152-153. See also Shadal, 90. See also Luzzatto, Samuel David
women Shaftesbury, Third Earl of, 89, 277n74
Roberts, Oral, 217 shalom, 66, 75, 77-78, 137, 177-179, 182
rodef (pursuer), 71, 137, 254n23 Shamai, 277n54
Roman Empire, 145 shame, 6, 7, 117, 135, 140, 158, 188
Christianization of, 102 recommendations concerning issues of, 219,
imperialism and, 105 220
Romans, 144, 168 Shamir, Yitschak, 233
Romero, Archbishop Oscar, 215 skekhina, 102, 104, 108, 248n10
Rorty, Richard, 239n2 Shiite Islam, 240n4, 282n14
Ross, Marc, 204, 262n2, 283n32 Shimon bar Yohai, Rabbi, 168
Rothman, Jay, 255n32, 256n45 shtetl, the, 117, 124, 263n9
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 82, 89, 242n19 Siddur, the, 107
Ruskin, John, 159 Sikhs, 61, 217
Russia, 24, 202, 213-214, 222 Simeon and Levi, 93
Russian Duma, the, 222 Simon, Ernst, 81
Russian Orthodox Church, the, 214, 222, 244n37 Simons, Menno, 142, 147
Rwanda, 152, 211, 246n50 sin'at hinam (wanton hatred), 169
Sinai, 136, 257n2
Sabbath Laws, the, 107 sitra ahra (the other side), 119
demonstration about, 122 slavery, 58
protesters in defense of, 264n13 and United States conflict resolution, 47
Sachdev, Aneel, 61 Smith, Adam, 277n74
 Index 311

social justice, 8, 13, 38, 66, 128, 129, 147, 159, 179, theologians, 5, 9-10, 89-90, 107, 117, 119, 170
182 recommendations involving, 205, 208
recommendations regarding, 207, 218 theosophy, 101, 103, 104
Sodom, 94, 258n12 third parties and peacemaking, 26-27, 40, 44, 60,
Soloveitchik, Haym, 225, 262n5 149-150, 154, 157, 162-163, 184-185
Soloveitchik, Rabbi Dr. Joseph, 82, 189, 270n21, Third Way, the, 194
274n13 Third World, the, 94, 135, 215
Somalia, 150, 186 Tiananmen Square, 219
South Africa, 38, 88, 162 Tibet, 4, 218, 266n29
South America, 230 Tikkun magazine, 251n29
South, the American, 215 Timing and conflict resolution practice, 48
Southern Christian whites, 215 and its suspension in effective peacemaking,
Southerners of the United States, 58 185
Soviet Union, the, 273n9 Tisha B'Av, 281n12
Spain, 83, 280n107 tolerance, 23, 54, 86, 88,110, 124, 132, 146, 170,
Spinoza, Baruch, 101-102 252n33
Sri Lanka, 206 Tolstoy, Leo, 23, 159
story, narrative and peacemaking, 9, 46, 51-53, 85, Torah, 43, 82, 90-91, 93, 96, 99-102, 108-110, 119-
93—94, 96, 106, 130, 136, 146, 183-184 121, 177, 189
as evocation of empathy, 20 torture, 144, 209
and the Exodus, 59 Tosafists, the, 75
and Jewish militants, 16 totalitarianism, 6
and Jewish peacemakers, 16 training in peacemaking, 131. See also
and listening, 185-186 peacemaking
recommendations regarding, 205-206, 226 transformation of the peacemaker, 162. See also
stranger, the, 6, 13, 89, 126, 148, 149, 178. See also peacemaker, the
ger trauma, 49, 52-53, 56-57, 89, 115, 138, 151, 176,
study as a frame of peacemaking, 163 251n28, 254n19, 263n6, 270n18
successionism, religious, 98. See also proselytism effects on re-reading and falsification, 91-92
as intolerance, 259n29 and the Holocaust's effect on Jewish behavior,
Sufi Islam, 66 58, 116-124, 169-170
suicide, 209, 243n26, 264n17 its attenuation of religious ethics, 81, 109—111
suicide bombing, 51 and mourning in ways that heal, 171-174
and the bombers, 37, 115 recommendations regarding, 207, 208, 212
sustainable agriculture, 49 recovering from in the context of
Swiss banks, 190 peacemaking, 139-145
Switzerland, 190-191 of unprecedented social fractures, 116
symbol, 11, 14-16, 20, 44-48, 86, 88, 90, 126, 129- tribal existence, 49-50, 91, 153, 202
130, 134, 171, 173, 190 and elders, 152
aid to enemies as, 135—138 and religion, 55, 220
as Buddhist peacemaking, 46 Trinity, the, 90, 102, 106, 271n27
and the Buddhist work of Maha Gosananda, Troubles, the, 134
44—46. See also, Maha Gosananda Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, 280n103
and demonization, 25, 119 Turks, 222
its significance in conflict situations, 15 Tutsi, the, 211, 246n50, 270n18
and the Nazi in Jewish life, 122
recommendations regarding, 205, 210-211, 222 Ukraine, 172
and the walk through history, 47 Ulama, 236
syncretism, 85, 103, 106 Ummah, 236
Syria, 248n8, 253n15 uniqueness, the need for, 5, 224
United Nations, the, 4, 18, 224
Talmud, the, 69, 72-73, 77, 81-82, 96, 106, 116, United States, the, 13, 23, 25-26, 56-58, 71, 103,
127, 136-137, 142, 168, 170, 180, 188 106, 122, 124, 130, 133, 140-141
Tamils, the, 206, 218 recommendations involving, 213-17
Tao Te Ching, 219 United States Institute of Peace, 267n1
taqiyya, 66 unity of mankind, 99
terrorists, 58, 59 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 88
teshuva (repentance), 187, 189 universal religion, 98—107
 312 Index

universalism, 7, 80, 92, 101, 104-105, 175, 193 Wasserman, Elhanan, 119
urim ve-tumim, 69-70 wealth and conflict, 17, 57, 58, 61, 92, 140, 173, 182
Ury, William, 270n18 recommendations involving, 213, 215
Utilitarianism, 155, 191 weapons of mass destruction, 70
West Bank, the, 16, 160, 187, 261n52, 266n27,
values, pro-social 279n88
and conflict prevention, 10 Western civilization, 22, 191
van der Merwe, Hugo, 190 Western traditions, 47, 100
Vatican II, 42 White House, the, 214
Vatican, the, 234, 281n7 win-win strategies of negotiation, 274n14
Vedas, 101, 102, 236 women, 9, 16, 29, 93, no, 136, 150, 160, 183, 194,
Vendley, William, 275n19 279n93
Victor Frankl, 58 and exclusion from ritual, 274n13
Vietnam, 13, 71, 254n19, 279n101 gender identity, conflict, and, 191-192
violence and religion, 3—5, 28—32, 44-45, 47-48, 51— and historical exclusion from rights, 280n1
53, 58-59, 62-65, 102-103, 167-71, 191-192 intermarriage, and conflict generation, 275n21
and apocalyptic vision, 10 recommendations regarding, 210, 220-221
conflict analysis as a prognosticator of, 19 and ritual peacemaking, 152-153
and fundamentalism, 12 unprecedented involvement in religion of, 3
in history, 13 World Conference on Religion and Peace, 234
in India, 14-15 World Council of Churches, 281n7
and just war theory, 35-37. See also just war World War I, 104, 254n19
theory World War II, 4, 104, 108, 117, 141, 147, 158, 172-
overlooked by conflict resolution theory, 37-40 173, 269n12
reasons for in the contemporary period, 4-7 worldview as a foundation of intractable conflict,
recommendations regarding, 199, 202, 204-207, 41
209, 212-213, 221-226
and religious genocide laws, 94 Yad Vashem, 262n3
successionism and proselytism as instigators of, Yeshivah, 37
31. See also proselytism Yiddish culture, 266n30
Vishnu, 258n12 Yishuv, the, 117, 129
vision, 192, 194, 209 yizkor (memorial prayer for the dead), 172,
vision of the future, 275n21 274n13
visioning, shared, 40 Yohanan ben Zakai, Rabbi, 29, 168
Volkan, Vamik, 204, 274n11 yohrtseit (anniversary of the dead), 274n13
volkish life and ideology, 237, 269n12 Yom Kippur, 120
Von Rad, Gerhard, 66
Zionism, 16, 18, 58, 70, 109, 123, 161, 193, 248n8,
Walk for Peace and Reconciliation, the, 45 280n107
Wallace, George, 249n15 Zionists, 41, 117-121
Walzer, Michael, 73, 247n2 haredim, and the Holocaust, 264n10
warfare, inter-religious, 85 as Nazis to some haredim, 264n13
Wars of the Lord, 66 religious, 262n52
Washington, 120, 140, 181, 249n15, 282n20 and shame regarding the Holocaust, 263n9
recommendations involving, 213-214 and the use of violence, 263n6