OPINION: Neutrality And The Pragmatic Solution to Israel/Palestine Debacle | By Saka Sheidu
Towards the end of 2017, I reached the inevitable conclusion that a NEUTRAL WORLD would usher Peace into the restive Territories of the Middle East. I posited that the insincerity of world leaders apart, a partisan world was widening the gulf between the warring parties and fanning the embers of hostilities.
I now have an ally in "Building The Bridge Foundation The Netherlands" in an insight it provided, which concluded that Christianity and Islam, by taking sides with the Jews and Palestinians respectively, have helped to sustain the over two millenary crisis.
HOW NEUTRALITY CAN HELP
I will use two experiences to buttress my position and show how the United Nations (UN) can deploy the strategy of Neutrality to resolve the world's most intractable crisis.
1) Altercation Between Buharideen Asiwaju Saka Akintoye and Nnamdi Nwokeuku on Facebook
These two gentlemen were locked in horns in a bitter argument on Facebook over the Middle East crisis. Their altercation betrayed their religious affiliations. Although I was just passing, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. My theory on NEUTRALITY played out so beautifully in our interactions.
First, I had sided with Buharideen on his characterisation of Nnamdi as being myopic. While Buharideen liked my post, Nnamdi reacted bitterly with a lengthy tirade ostensibly because he considered me to be another "moslem bigot". Both of them refused to shift grounds while defending already strongly held positions using the last grammatical arsenal they could muster.
However, I decided to shift my position to the center by a comment that earned Nnamdi's accolade. This eventually changed the narrative as Nnamdi's sworn " enemy " soon became "Frenemy" implying that we were making progress in softening hitherto hardened positions. It was at this stage that I invited Nnamdi to Peace and Conflict Transformation Assembly (PACT) Group of which Buharideen is already a member, to serve as a neutral ground to reconcile their difference's.
With this development, tensions were doused, frayed nerves were calmed and a conducive environment necessary for peace talks was established. This is the power of a neutral arbiter and that is the role I expect world leaders to play in the Middle East conundrum, using the instrumentality of the UN.
2) In 1973, at the age of 22 and in my early years in the University, I set the machinery in motion that led to the brokering of peace between two warring kindred over disputed land of more than a hundred years, in which many lives had been lost on both sides. Theirs was not a direct warfare but arsenals were remotely controlled through diabolical African Science.
My own people who ought to have been neutral and serve as peacemakers, unfortunately took sides. The homesteads of the people on the other side of the divide were no go areas to us. I defied my family taboo and interacted with the persona non grata by attending their social events such as marriages and naming ceremonies, to the consternation of my people. I escaped the wrath of my father on several occasions. I later initiated peace meetings between the youths of the warring families, for I reasoned that if the youths could be reconciled, the elders would be left in the lurch eventually. And the strategy worked spectacularly well.
LESSON FOR THE UN/THE PRAGMATIC SOLUTION
In a similar vein, and in the interest of world peace, it is in the spirit of NEUTRALITY that I think world leaders should pursue peace in the Middle East.
Since the crisis has defied all proffered solutions including a two state solution, and tasked the imagination of the world, no thanks to the insincerity and double speak of world leaders and religious dogmas,the only option now available is for the UN to declare the disputed territory a NO MAN's LAND. The UN would then assume jurisdiction over the affected region and establish UN structures to administer it. The youths of both Israel and Palestine would be recruited into the UN bureaucracy and developed into a new generation of Jews/Arabs with new orientations. Once the youths are sufficiently reorientated, the vestiges of elders that survive into what I may call the New Jerusalem, would have no option but accept their new reality! Someone reminded me Israel would resist the move with their last blood. And I asked, who are those fighting the internecine war? Are they not the youths? If the youths now say no more war so it would be!
When the new generation is deeply entrenched in the New Jerusalem, the UN would then disengage from the scene allowing them to manage their affairs as brothers and sisters.
It is high time the world buried the draconian history of Israel/Palestine that has not added value to our civilization but rather, a menacing threat to world peace and existence at large.
We cannot afford to be searching for Computer Age solutions from Stone Age artefacts.
Saka Sheidu
I now have an ally in "Building The Bridge Foundation The Netherlands" in an insight it provided, which concluded that Christianity and Islam, by taking sides with the Jews and Palestinians respectively, have helped to sustain the over two millenary crisis.
HOW NEUTRALITY CAN HELP
I will use two experiences to buttress my position and show how the United Nations (UN) can deploy the strategy of Neutrality to resolve the world's most intractable crisis.
1) Altercation Between Buharideen Asiwaju Saka Akintoye and Nnamdi Nwokeuku on Facebook
These two gentlemen were locked in horns in a bitter argument on Facebook over the Middle East crisis. Their altercation betrayed their religious affiliations. Although I was just passing, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. My theory on NEUTRALITY played out so beautifully in our interactions.
First, I had sided with Buharideen on his characterisation of Nnamdi as being myopic. While Buharideen liked my post, Nnamdi reacted bitterly with a lengthy tirade ostensibly because he considered me to be another "moslem bigot". Both of them refused to shift grounds while defending already strongly held positions using the last grammatical arsenal they could muster.
However, I decided to shift my position to the center by a comment that earned Nnamdi's accolade. This eventually changed the narrative as Nnamdi's sworn " enemy " soon became "Frenemy" implying that we were making progress in softening hitherto hardened positions. It was at this stage that I invited Nnamdi to Peace and Conflict Transformation Assembly (PACT) Group of which Buharideen is already a member, to serve as a neutral ground to reconcile their difference's.
With this development, tensions were doused, frayed nerves were calmed and a conducive environment necessary for peace talks was established. This is the power of a neutral arbiter and that is the role I expect world leaders to play in the Middle East conundrum, using the instrumentality of the UN.
2) In 1973, at the age of 22 and in my early years in the University, I set the machinery in motion that led to the brokering of peace between two warring kindred over disputed land of more than a hundred years, in which many lives had been lost on both sides. Theirs was not a direct warfare but arsenals were remotely controlled through diabolical African Science.
My own people who ought to have been neutral and serve as peacemakers, unfortunately took sides. The homesteads of the people on the other side of the divide were no go areas to us. I defied my family taboo and interacted with the persona non grata by attending their social events such as marriages and naming ceremonies, to the consternation of my people. I escaped the wrath of my father on several occasions. I later initiated peace meetings between the youths of the warring families, for I reasoned that if the youths could be reconciled, the elders would be left in the lurch eventually. And the strategy worked spectacularly well.
LESSON FOR THE UN/THE PRAGMATIC SOLUTION
In a similar vein, and in the interest of world peace, it is in the spirit of NEUTRALITY that I think world leaders should pursue peace in the Middle East.
Since the crisis has defied all proffered solutions including a two state solution, and tasked the imagination of the world, no thanks to the insincerity and double speak of world leaders and religious dogmas,the only option now available is for the UN to declare the disputed territory a NO MAN's LAND. The UN would then assume jurisdiction over the affected region and establish UN structures to administer it. The youths of both Israel and Palestine would be recruited into the UN bureaucracy and developed into a new generation of Jews/Arabs with new orientations. Once the youths are sufficiently reorientated, the vestiges of elders that survive into what I may call the New Jerusalem, would have no option but accept their new reality! Someone reminded me Israel would resist the move with their last blood. And I asked, who are those fighting the internecine war? Are they not the youths? If the youths now say no more war so it would be!
When the new generation is deeply entrenched in the New Jerusalem, the UN would then disengage from the scene allowing them to manage their affairs as brothers and sisters.
It is high time the world buried the draconian history of Israel/Palestine that has not added value to our civilization but rather, a menacing threat to world peace and existence at large.
We cannot afford to be searching for Computer Age solutions from Stone Age artefacts.
Comments
Post a Comment
Disclaimer: The comments on the blog are the views and opinions of the readers and does not represent that of Confluence Reporters.