My wife attended a lecture earlier this evening by noted Israeli journalist and author, Ari Shavit. I wasn’t feeling well, so I didn’t go, but I eagerly awaited her report on the event when she came home. One of the things she said Shavit said was that the Western world should focus its energies on supporting long-term, deep and fundamental positive change throughout the region as a whole, and that this kind of strategy would be more likely to yield eventual good fruits than strategies that seek to push and prod Israelis and Palestinians into a two-state solution. I don’t know if he’s right about this, but the thought has stimulated a question in my mind, as someone who really would like to make a positive difference. The question is, if I were to work for the kinds of positive change that are genuinely enduring in the Middle East, what would that look like?
More thoughts to come…
The Accidental Rabbi 