In the last few months, we have been witnessing with great concern
an escalation of violence that has dramatically eroded our hopes
for a peaceful solution of the Middle East conflict. A new season
of optimism seemed to be slowly emerging when suddenly things
started following a different path, creating a feeling of deeper
and deeper pessimism. Today, however, with a stronger cohesiveness
of the international community and the goodwill of the actors
directly involved, hopefully prospects for a peaceful solution
might still reappear. And it is precisely in this perspective,
directed at reviving peace talks, that our initiative of
cooperation with Palestine-Israel was conceived.
The dramatic impact of the current explosion of violence on
regional stability is patent, as relations between nations are
affected to a large degree by what appears to be an "unsolved peace
process" syndrome. As a result, trade, exchanges and economic
growth have been hampered, harming the tremendous potential that
the region has, and that, in the last few decades, has not been
fulfilled to its full extent.
Under these circumstances, it is useful to remember that the Middle
East has been a traditional crossroad of peoples and civilizations,
which over the centuries gave rise to a kind of melting pot ante
litteram. As a "borderline" region, opening up to the Mediterranean
on one side and to the Persian Gulf on the other, the Middle East
(what used to be known as the "Levant") witnessed uninterrupted
movement and exchange between neighboring countries and at the same
time witnessed exchange of ideas and cultural discoveries.
People to People Relations
In a sense, societal contacts and "people to people" relations in
their recent version can trace their origins to the time of the
Italian merchants in the Middle Ages, and in movements across the
Mediterranean for millennia. Fully aware of this historical
context, there is a pressing need to analyze further the cultural
reasons underlying the present strife - complicated, as it appears
to be, by a huge gulf in mutual perception and identity
backgrounds.
By sponsoring this issue of Palestine-Israel Journal, the Italian
Government lends its full support to the creation of meaningful and
steady "people to people" relations between Israelis and
Palestinians, while at the same time indicating its belief in the
quest for common values that are carried out by key sectors in the
two societies.
Understanding the Other
Differences in self-perception, and therefore in concepts of
national identity, are today reasons for division in the Middle
East region. Feelings of distrust prevail, fostered as they are by
partial knowledge and limited comprehension of the other side's
national aspiration and by a shortsighted idea of the common
future.
It has by now become overwhelmingly clear that a shared and
prosperous future cannot exist without a common belief in shared
values. No two peoples or cultures can coexist and thrive in the
same environment without a thorough and effective cooperation in
the political, economic, cultural, aspects of their respective
lives. It is our conviction that, in order to fully appreciate the
gifts of stability and well-being offered by shared future, both
parties need to understand the reasons of the Other, and so to give
up one's own, however splendid, isolation and engage in open
exchange with cultures and civilizations thus far considered as
strange and hostile, but which history has "condemned" to close and
inescapable proximity.
Differences should not lead to division. On the contrary, they
should be taken as sources for mutual enrichment. The effort to
eliminate, or at least minimize, the reasons for division to exist,
we believe, is the essence of the approach of Palestine-Israel
Journal. We totally share this approach and offer it our utmost
support.
The European Experience
There are in every culture, as we are aware, aspects of "national
identity" that might seem to conflict with thinking of the Other.
Sometimes, these lead to outbursts of conflict and to seemingly
unending divisions (as the course of events in Israeli-Palestinian
relations can confirm). At other times, these conflicting pieces of
national identity spur mutual interest and exchange, thus
transforming the same differences into reasons for cooperation and
for mutual understanding.
Overcoming decades of hesitation, confrontation and mistrust,
European countries, having known the destructive outcome of extreme
interpretations of national identity, decided thirty-five years ago
to leave aside old animosities and work together to build a common
future. The results achieved speak clearly for themselves. When
dialogue and cooperation take the place of tension and conflict, a
new season of prosperity opens up, making old disputes merely
memories from the past.