About a decade ago, when such things were still possible, I accompanied a group of Indians and Pakistanis to Brussels and Berlin to look at EU institutions of shared sovereignty and listen to German experiences. At a lunch in Berlin, a senior German official said something both smart and wise about peacemaking.
For decades, he said, even before the Franco-German war of 1870-71, every generation of Germans and the French knew they would be going to war with each other, and they inevitably did. It was only through a peace agreement after World War II that this ended. Given this history, he said, he had nothing to tell Indians and Pakistanis, except that he hoped we would be smarter than the Europeans and find a pathway to peace faster.
A few years later, again in Berlin, an Israeli journalist told me about how she was among a group of Israelis and Palestinians tasked with trying to find a framework for dealing with the complicated issue of Jerusalem. This was part of a behind-the-scenes informal group brought together by civil society. She had, she said, been very sceptical that something so deeply polarising even in such an unofficial group could be discussed fruitfully. But over three days of intense discussion, they came up with what they thought was a workable proposal.
I mention this in the context of the recent proposal of a ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas. Most commentators, rightly, emphasise that this is far from the end of the war – something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also highlighted – and even further from any prospect of peace. While this is true, we must always bear in mind that the reason that peace is elusive is not because it is impossible.
Peace is always possible, and even the most contentious issues can be worked out. The only real question is whether the principal political actors are sincerely willing to work towards peace, and are willing to make the hard decisions required to mean that it is a real, honourable, and durable peace. But once that is in place, even the most difficult issues seem to disappear so completely it is as if there was no reason for hostility in the first place.
The region of Alsace-Lorraine which was the principal bone of contention of the Franco-German War of 1870-71, and continued to be a major cause of war until World War II has been totally peaceful since 1945. A small region over whose control Germany and France expended countless lives and brought the world to war now has borders so porous between both countries that it is possible to cross them without realising it.
People will point to the Cold War, the rise, fall and horrors of the Nazi regime, as well as the terrible destruction that World War I and World War II inflicted on Europe as the motivating reason for the long peace. Again, this is true, but there was no reason that the Germans and the French could not have figured out a peaceful resolution to the dispute before all of this. That they had to wait for the murder of millions over seven decades of warfare to learn that they could share the land without feeling threatened is an indictment of European thinking and war-mongering. It is not a justification for the lives lost and ruined over such a long period.
In Israel-Palestine, as well as in any number of conflicts around the world, we are told the horrors that people have lived through and the unspeakable crimes committed by various sides, make peace impossible. This is only an excuse for more war, for more misery. The only thing that is clear about the terrible costs of war on ordinary people is the absolute necessity that such horrors do not happen again.
War is a choice, often a choice that leads to more war. Let us not seek to excuse the political leaders for the bad choices they make by suggesting that peace is impossible. It is never true.
