My heart is so full with sadness, it weighs heavy on me as I feel for all the senseless death that have happened already and for the ones yet to come.

Is it possible for a broken heart to bring opposing sides together? The pain is universal, we all feel it, the key is to hold it, to make room for this pain, to feel it deeply and to know that the other feels the pain as well.

The hope is that one does not run away from this pain, sadness, that one does not turn it into revenge, to an explosive action that just going to feed the suffering to go on and on.

I think about the children that are too young to even comprehend what is happening and why it is happening, if we continue with this “normal” the cycle cannot stop and the children’s future is doomed as they will find themselves repeating the same cycle, committing their children to the same faith, same destiny. Is this what we want for our children?

If, however, one can feel the pain of the other, one can hopefully understand the outcome of ones action and realize that one has a choice and that the only way for a better future is the way of coming together, sitting together – maybe in a circle maybe on the floor and deeply listening to what the other has to say, cry together, grieve and hold respectable space for the other side.

Start with a small circle and the small hopefully becomes many and the many have the strength to let their voice be heard to be carried over the valley over the ocean and over the mountains till the whole earth vibrates and a union is born between the opposing sides. The enemies can cry on each other’s shoulder and be forgiven for all they thought was their just right, a right that brought so much distraction and pain over many generations.

When there are two opposing sides who had a powerful animosity, who seemed to never be able to move beyond this animosity, partly because they are stuck in the past and partly because they remember all the harm that was done to them, they keep generating tragedy after tragedy for many generations.

I think that the only way towards reconciliation is to be moving from the future to the past.

I think that the reason the attempts to reach an agreement have failed is that when two conflicting sides met in the past the process of reconciliation was from the past to the future.

 When I suggest moving from the future to the past in order to create peace in the present, I don’t mean that we have to erase the past. The past should be absolutely acknowledged and the suffering of both sides should be acknowledged, too.

When we start in the past it is very easy for us to hold on to the suffering that was experienced by our group, that was inflicted on us by another group. When we are in this place it is very difficult to not see the other as an enemy, when actually what is required from us is to recognize that the other suffers as well.

I believe that when we move from the future we can start from a simple question: What do we want for our kids? What do we want our grandchildren down the generations to have?

I think that both sides of the conflict have the same desire when it comes to the future of their children.

When we realize that both sides have the same needs and these needs become the destination as well as the beginning of the journey towards reconciliation it should be easier to have compromises made by both sides.

My father gave me a vision for peace

My father gave me a vision for peace, he arrived in Palestine in 1946 after the World War II and after fighting in the independent war in 1948 he worked as a sheep herder, while out in the pasture he met Palestinians/Arbs who were herding their flock of sheep.

 My father’s Hebrew name was Arie (Lion). The Arbs herder gave my father in what I believe was an act of respect and friendship an Arabic name, they called him Asad, (Lion in Arabic). Asad became the name that everyone used to address him and knew.

 My father’s last name is probably one of the most Jewish last names, Katz, so my father became known as Asad Katz. This is beautifulassemblage as it unionizes the Arabic and the Jewish and demonstrates that harmony between both sides is possible.

My father who passed away a few years ago inscribed Asad as part of his name on his tombstone, Arie (Asad) Katz.

I find his name so full of hope and so inspiring and when I internalize his name Asad Katz, I know that there is still hope and not all is lost.

It is very easy to have a dialogue with someone who holds similar views to your own and understanding and valuing that you are right.

However, is dialogue between two opposing sides even possible?

What can history show us in this regard? It seems to me that every time in history when there was a conflict of opposing forces the winning side enforced their views on the other side. What history teaches us is that when this process took place it required a deep shift on both sides; as the side who lost was required to drop old believes and adopt more universal believes and the winning side was willing to support the losing side in accepting this new reality.

How can one have a dialogue? And is it possible for two individuals, who believe in entirely different ideas and strongly believe that the other is wrong, walk together with open dialogue, how can we make it possible?

How can we even get such adversaries to sit together and talk and even more importantly to really listen to the other?

I don’t know; however, I would like to believe that it is possible.

Both sides of the conflict have one thing in common: suffering. Both are suffering and will continue to suffer if nothing changes, what is required is for one to reach a point where one wants to stop inflicting suffering on others as well on oneself.

There is a model for bringing people in conflict together, it is the talking circle. When a human being is given the floor to tell their story to speak and to be witnessed while all the others in the circle deeply listen. This sharing of the personal in a circle will quickly bring people closer together as they realize that our stories are so similar.

A friend of mine shared with me what he was told by Eddy Bellrose, a Cree Elder.
Eddy told him that the hardest journey a human can take is from the head to the heart.
This is in my view the journey that is required of each one of us who is trying to bridge conflict.

What does being in one’s heart require?

Forgiveness and compassion go hand in hand. And those are no easy tasks. Forgiving is not easy. Maybe because firstly one has to deeply forgive oneself. If one can’t forgive oneself how is it possible for this person to forgive others?

Due to our personal suffering and trauma, we are holding onto power, we exercise power over the other, over our environment. We do this because deep inside we are feeling so weak and helpless.

I want to share a secret with you: when one stays and connects with this inner sense of weakness one starts a journey to real strength, the strength that is in the core of all of us.

 When you know and feel this strength within, you will quickly find that you don’t need to control anything else that is around you. In fact, you will notice that you are full with kindness and empathy towards the other.

It does take human beings full of inner strength to be able to come together and have a difficult dialogue with one another. One reason for that is that one has to distance oneself from the own group/tribe as one is stepping out of the accepted comfort zone which belonging to his group provides.

One has to be able to show compassion towards the one that is perceived as the enemy. This is very difficult and hard to do as one is risking to be expelled from the own group and left alone.

Some open questions

The leaders of the conflict had to move aside knowing that the time of the war is over. Can they be opened to the softer side, the feminine side to bubble to the surface? Can they understand that it is the expression of the feminine that will bring the needed softness? The softness that is needed to include the other, the enemy into our circle?

What can we imagine for ourselves and the other?

What new reality can we create coming together? 

What is it that is asked of me?

Itai Katz
I was born and raised in Israel. In my mid-twenties I left Israel knowing that I desired to live my life away from a place that experienced so much tragedy and sadness, not knowing at the time that tragedy and sadness is to be found in any place on earth in different times of human existence.
As for today I live in the Yukon in northern Canada. I have been living with an indigenous woman for over twenty years now. I am so grateful to her for her teaching and patience, as at times I am a slow learner. The things I am slowly learning from my partner are:
–   deep forgiveness
–   being generous, learning to give without expectations
–   looking after one community, both human and non-human
–   welcoming others
Reflecting on those learning, I realized how little of those are part of our Western culture and how much they are needed especially in places of long historical conflicts.
When I was a child growing up in Israel, the last thing I wanted was to fight in a war. My mother always told me by the time I will be 18 years old that Israel will be at peace with their neighbors. More than 50 years has passed since she told me this and the tragedy is still playing out not just in the Middle East but in many different places around the world.
I pray for peace. Hopefully one day we will find a way to be deeply with each other and everybody on Earth.

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