Here’s an old/new idea. Please have a look.

Yours truly,
Stan Tenen
Sharon, MA, USA
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How Mother Nature Keeps the Peace
Stan Tenen
06 November 2007

Sometimes to make one, we need to make two.

We know not to touch our camera lens because it has a thin anti-reflection coating. This is a form of needs-matching. Air and glass treat light differently, so there must be a transition where they can stand apart, but still shake hands.

Organisms at all levels make use of the same principle. Our liver and pancreas are next to each other, but they have different functions and needs. Each has its own boundary, and there is a region of connective tissue and nutrients flowing between them.

In physics and in life, we find a double border when two different regions or two different organs with different needs are adjacent.

We find this in the politics in Genesis, where Jacob and Laban produce a double boundary to end their dispute.

From Gen. 31:51-52 (Kaplan translation) –
Laban then said, “Here is the mound, and here is the pillar, that I have set up between us. The mound shall be a witness, and the pillar shall be a witness. I am not to go beyond the mound with bad intentions, and you are not to go beyond the mound and pillar.”

In the Mideast, a double boundary can provide a double measure of security. At the same time the area between these boundaries can provide a peaceful corridor for travel and commerce, connecting separated Israeli settlements and Palestinian cities so they can interact freely with each other and with their own.

The principle of a double boundary goes beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it has a unique potential benefit in this region. Muslims are required to make the Hajj journey to Mecca at least once in their lives. Often, this entails travel over long distances at great expense. It’s an obligation for Muslims, and it’s an obligation for Muslims to help each other fulfill this obligation. This offers an extraordinary opportunity.

If the land between the U.N. Green Line and the new Israeli defensive fences were to become a zone of peace, it could also serve as a Hajj Road, to enable Muslims to more easily travel to Mecca and Medina.

If the land between the U.N. Green Line and new Israeli defensive fences flowed through Jerusalem and through the Temple Mount area, it could fulfill the dream of Umar and Suleiman that the Dome of the Rock be a point of reconciliation among the Abrahamic faiths.* The defense of the peace of the Hajj Road could be taken on as an obligation by fervent Muslims. It might serve to ameliorate the resentment of the descendents of the original Palestinians who left the area and will not be able to return to what is now Israel. In fact, the Hajj Road double border could provide land to slowly re-settle many Palestinian refugees, and provide them with the training and opportunities to fulfill the mission of peace and understanding that the zone is dedicated to. The only requirement would be maintenance of peace, the elimination of weapons, and the opportunity to teach the methods of peace, the methods of economic independence, the methods of ecologically sound growth, the advancement of medical science, and the means of sustaining our planet.

The area between the two borders could be ceded by Israel to an established Muslim authority, or to the Palestinians, under the condition that it be a zone of peace, and maintained that way with the United Nations and international oversight. The area could become an example of Islamic civilization, accomplishment, and peacemaking, and it could become a gift from Israel to Islam to the UN on behalf of all the citizens of the world.

A double border could go a long way towards giving everyone what they want in the Middle East. But the principle is more general. The double border “Hajj Road” principle of international cooperation and inexpensive and easy travel would spur a social and economic boon in all adjacent nations who adopted it.

The Israelis and Palestinians together could provide the example for transforming the Korean DMZ into a zone of understanding, development, and peace. (This same example could work for Lebanon and Syria, Syria and Iraq, and even — albeit for different reasons — the border between US and Mexico.) The same could be true among the various former Soviet republics and the Russian Bear. Let’s do it like Mother Nature does it and separate the smaller organs — like our pancreas — from its larger neighbors, like our liver and intestines, with a double border — a new Green Land — that can deliver nourishment, communication, and access to all.

In the 19th century world view, there was only room for a single winner. When one party got what they wanted, the other could not. The new scientific paradigm includes what the physicists call “superposition”. There is enough room in reality for everyone to “win” without the need for others to lose.

Let our boundaries be green and natural. Let us build a new green “fertile crescent” to encompass and nourish all of our diversity and all of our humanity.

Stan Tenen
Sharon, MA

Notes on “Peace”: Shalem, Shalom, Salaam/Islam

The Hebrew and Arabic root-words for peace, balance, and harmony are the same and are spelled the same. And the meanings of the letters in Hebrew and Arabic are consistent and complementary.

Hebrew Arabic
Shin/Sin: expression, acceptance Shin: acceptance
Lamed: learn, teach, to, toward Lam: benevolence
Mem: source, from Mim: sovereignty

The Hebrew root Shalem can be read as:
“The expression of the source of learning” or
“The expression of to and from”, i.e., a road, a way

The Arabic root for Salaam and Islam can be read as:
“The way (the acceptance) of benevolent sovereignty”.

Both describe the same space — a expression of the relationships of learning, of moving to and fro, in a place of safety and responsibility.

The very name of “peace” denotes the sovereignty of the road that connects us, that separates us, and that lets us work, learn, and play with and among each other.

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* Re Caliph Umar, below is quoted from a web page sponsored by students and faculty of American University.

http://www.american.edu/TED/hpages/jeruselum/muslim.htm

In 638, when Jerusalem was surrendered to the Muslims, Umar (the first caliph), requested to be led to the Temple Mount, an acknowledgment of Islam’s acceptance of the Hebraic prophetic tradition. After reaching the Temple Mount, the caliph found himself disgusted on seeing that Christians had heaped garbage in the sacred enclosure to express their contempt for the Judaic faith. Umar, out of respect for the Jews, ordered the area to be cleansed, an act which also prepared the sacred Jewish site for Muslim worship.

Umar fulfilled the hopes of Jews by refusing the church’s request to continue the ban against Jewish residence and inviting them back into the city. In the seventh century, as Jerusalem came into Muslim hands, the ban on Jewish residence was lifted. After approximately 500 years of being Judenrein, Jerusalem again included a Jewish community. Jews long banned from living in Jerusalem by Christian rulers, were permitted to return, live, and worship in the city of Solomon and David.(4)

4) Idinopulos, Thomas A.; Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed; Ivan R. Dee: Chicago; 1991; pg. 214